The Fallen One (20 page)

    
Mathias cupped her beautiful face in his
big hands, swallowing up her head.
 
He
simply stared at her, drinking in every contour, every line of her face.

    
“I hardly slept last night,” he whispered,
“because I found myself awake, watching everything about you. You slept like
the dead, with hardly a move or sound, and the entire time all I could think
was that it was difficult to believe that you finally belonged to me.
 
Cathlina, I have not even known you for a
full week. Do you realize that? But it does not matter because I cannot
remember when I have not known or longed for you.
 
You took a knight who was dishonored and resigned
and ignited something in him again. I cannot explain it any more than that; you
have made me want to live again.”

    
His words were so deep and so touching.
Cathlina instinctively reached out to touch his face, feeling his flesh against
her fingertips.
 
When she came close to
his mouth, he kissed her fingers gently but that was not enough; he wanted to
taste her lips and he did, slanting over them tenderly at first but then
hungrily. The more he kissed, the more he wanted.
 
It was their first real, true kiss, better
than all of the first real, true kisses in the history of the world because it
was with her and she was the sweetest thing that had ever walked the
earth.
 
He knew that and he loved her for
it.

    
Cathlina had never been kissed by a man in
such a fashion.
 
Their marriage last
night had consisted of a chaste kiss to the cheek and any other kisses from
Mathias had always been to her hand, so this roaring suckle of passion was
something that sent her head spinning.
 

Caving
against his heat, his maleness, she was completely under his control as he
dominated her.
 
His lips were warm and
firm, and she mimicked him as he suckled her lips.
 
When his tongue gently pried its way into her
mouth, she experienced it curiously, then passionately, and tasted him as he
was tasting her. When his mouth finally left hers, she nearly collapsed,
breathless.

    
“If we keep going, we shall never leave
this place,” he said hoarsely. “Unfortunately, we must leave immediately but
rest assured that we shall take up where we left off tonight.
 
I have a new wife and I intend to know her.”

    
Cathlina knew what he meant and, as she
tried to catch her breath, managed to blush.
 
Her mother had been frank with her and Roxane
when they had crossed over into womanhood about what was expected from a
husband and being extremely naïve and curious at that time, she had gone so far
as to seek out an experience to find out what, exactly, her mother had
meant.
 

He
had been a young knight, no longer serving her father, and their tryst had been
over before it began when he had spilled his seed over her shift in his
excitement. After that, her curiosity had been sated and she never thought
about such things again until this moment.
 
Now, with a husband she was quickly coming to adore, she was rather
apprehensive about the event and the fact that there more than likely wouldn’t
be blood on the sheets.
  
She wasn’t sure
what to tell him.

    
“Then let us leave right away,” she said,
going to gather her satchel.
 
Mathias
took it from her as she collected her cloak.
 
“Do you suppose it would be all right for me to take a piece of bread
with me while we travel?”

    
Mathias smiled as he ushered her out of the
door and into a very narrow corridor that led directly to an uneven flight of
stairs leading into the main room of the inn.

    
“Better than that,” he said, “I have had
the innkeeper pack a basket with food for us.”

    
Cathlina turned to look at him, gratefully,
as they descended the stairs. “You have thought of everything,”

    
“I have a wife to tend to. I must see to
her comfort.”

    
She smiled sweet at him once they reached
the bottom of the steps.
 
Mathias set her
satchel down and helped her on with the heavy cloak, politely securing the
stays around her neck.
 
The activity brought
out the innkeeper and his wife, who had a big basket packed with bread and
cheese and other things.
 
As Cathlina
took the basket and peered into it, hungrily, Justus and Sebastian entered the
structure from the street.
  
They
approached Mathias but their focus was mostly on his new wife, whom they only
saw fleetingly the night before.
  

    
“The horses are ready,” Justus said.
 
He dipped his head at Cathlina when their
eyes met, smiling hesitantly. “My lady.”

    
Cathlina grinned at that man. “That seems
rather formal considering I am now your daughter.”

    
“I have never had a daughter. I am not sure
how to behave.”

    
She laughed softly. “Pretend I am one of
your sons, only prettier and nicer.”

    
He chucked because she was. “I will try to
remember that,” he said. “Welcome to our family. I pray you find us agreeable.”

    
Cathlina cocked an eyebrow. “Agreeable or
not, we are all going to get to know each other very, very well over the next
few days, I would suspect.
 
I will tell
you now that I like flowers and hate the taste of fish, that I can cook
somewhat, and that I demand a clean and orderly existence.
 
My mother taught me to be a frugal chatelaine
so I do not like to spend money unless it is absolutely necessary.
 
Is there anything else you wish to know?”

    
By this time, all three of them were
looking at her with varied degrees of amusement.
  
Sebastian was even snorting.

    
“I did not even know those things about you
and I am your husband,” Mathias finally said.

    
She shrugged flippantly, although it was in
good humor. “That is the risk you take when you marry someone after having only
known them a week.
 
Now, you will tell me
something about you that I do not know so I can see what I have gotten myself
in to.”

    
Sebastian burst out laughing as Mathias
fought off a grin. “I like to spend money, I love the taste of fish, I hate
flowers, and I demand everything around me be as disorderly and smelly as
possible.”
 
His grin broke through when
he saw her laughing. “Sebastian has a temper and fists of steel, my father
likes to complain, and I believe we are all a big, bloody mess. Will you help
right us, my lady?”

    
Cathlina shook her head at him. “It sounds
as if you area all quite hopeless.”

    
“That is true.”

    
Mathias winked at her, took her elbow and,
with his brother and father, escorted her to the door of the tavern.
 
It was raining outside, turning the road into
a great boggy mess.
 
The humor faded from
Cathlina’s face when she saw the state of the weather but she didn’t say a
word; she simply pulled her hood over her head and allowed Mathias to lead her
out into the rain.

    
Two steps into the soupy avenue and Mathias
handed her satchel over to Sebastian so he could pick her up.
 
He swung her into his arms and carried her
across the road to where the horses stood, tethered beneath the shelter of a
big oak.
  
He placed her on his saddle as
Sebastian and Justus went to their horses to prepare them for departure.
 
As Cathlina pulled her cloak more closely
around her, Mathias dug around in his saddle bags and came up with a length of
oiled cloth, a rain cloak, which he wrapped tightly around his wife.
 
Then he mounted behind her and collected his
reins, motioning for his father and brother to follow.

    
And so they were off, riding north into
Scotland as the gentle rain fell and the soft wind blew.
 
The roads were in fair to poor condition
because of the rain so it was slow going as they went.
  
The road had a few travelers on it, mostly
farmers moving their stock or wagons, but they stayed well away from the party
of three big men and one small lady. With the cold gray mist over the
landscape, it was a quiet and lonely journey.

    
Early on in the ride when the rain had
turned to mist that was far wetter than the rain, Cathlina had covered her head
up with the oil cloth in a vain attempt to stay dry while she dug around in the
basket that the innkeeper had given her.
  

Surprisingly,
there was a nice variety of food and she nibbled at the brown bread with
currants, oatmeal pies that had some kind of meat mixed in with them, cheese,
small apples and several pears.
 
She ate
until she could eat no more, offering Mathias something to eat and having the
pleasure of feeding him because he had both hands on the reins because the
charger was still rather skittish.
 
He
would eat whatever she fed him and try to steal kisses in between.
 

Unused
to games played by men, or anything having to do with romance, Cathlina was
rather embarrassed at his affectionate attempts in front of his father and
brother, so she ended up burying her head under the oil cloth so he couldn’t
get at her.
 
Mathias laughed long about
that antic.

It
was near sunset when the rain finally let up and the waning afternoon produced
deep blue skies.
 
The sun came out and,
although cool, shed light upon brilliant green fields that glistened with
moisture.
  
The River Esk ran off to the
east, a wide expanse of watery ribbon
 
that snaked its way through the landscape and just as the sun went down,
they passed through a small berg that sat on the river’s edge.

The
temperature had dropped with the clear sky and it had turned very cold as they
came to a halt in front of one of the many taverns that lined the river.
 
Cathlina could see at least three others down
the avenue with laughter and drunken people spilling out of their glowing
innards.
 
Mathias handed her down to
Sebastian, who carried her to the threshold so she wouldn’t get her boots muddy
in the puddles that smelled like urine.
 
She thanked the redheaded brother, her basket of half-eaten food from
the morning still in her hand as he put her on the ground.

Justus
and Sebastian escorted her inside as Mathias went to see about securing two
rooms for the night.
  
The inn wasn’t
very busy, at least not like the other ones in town, and Mathias soon realized
it was because the man’s prices were fairly high.
 
Moreover, the inn was one-storied and fairly
small, and they didn’t have rooms to let for the night.
 
They did, however, have small cottages down
by the river’s edge that cost a decent amount of money for just one night’s
lodging.
 
Mathias didn’t care at that
point; he paid for two cottages and four meals.

The
inn was on a slight rise and the cottages tucked down below next to the
water.
 
They were constructed of sod and
rock, which made them little more than a cave, but Mathias quickly discovered
that they were dry and surprisingly comfortable.
 
The innkeeper and a serving wench brought
down buckets of wood and peat for the fires and soon enough, Sebastian had two
blazing fires smoking in the hearths.
  

It
was warm in the little caves quickly.
 
Both of the cottages had one rather small bed and a small table with stools
instead of chairs.
 
Dried grass and straw
was thick on the mud floor to provide some insulation.
 
Not strangely, Cathlina was very comfortable
inside the little cottage because anything was better than being on the back of
the skittish charger, so she very happily settled in, checking the bedding and
making sure there was water in the basin and a chamber pot under the bed.
 
When the meal was finally delivered by two
serving wenches, she had them set it upon the table in her cottage.

The
smells of beef drew the men into the small cottage as Mathias, Justus and
Sebastian crowded in to eat.
 
Just as if
they were back home in their smithy shack, Justus and Sebastian grabbed the
stools and settled in around the table where huge knuckles of beef await them. There
were also an abundance of carrots boiled in brine, turnips, and big hunks of
warm brown bread. It was a feast and they dug into it with gusto as Mathias
pulled off big pieces of steaming beef for his wife so she wouldn’t be left
out.
 
She had been crowded out by the
hungry men.