To Touch The Knight Read online

  Chapter 23

  They dozed, waking a little after midnight when all was silent in the camp. Ranulf lit the lantern again and asked if he might comb her hair. As he loosened her plait and combed, Edith feeding him raspberries, he remarked, “I would do this for Olwen, when she allowed it. A woman’s hair is a glorious thing. Will you tell me of Adam?”

  “Will you tell me of Olwen?” Edith asked at the same time.

  Both laughed and Ranulf flicked her softly with the comb. “You first.”

  She told of how her father had chosen Adam, from a village five miles off to the south. “He spoke in a different way, so at first I could hardly understand him.” She told how Adam brought his tools to the family forge and how relieved she was that she would not need to move from her home.

  “And your brother was not a smith?” Ranulf asked, leaning now on an elbow, with the comb stuck in his hair.

  “Is that a hint?” Edith delayed answering by pointing at the comb.

  “Nay, I do not like my head touched. But your brother. Gregory?”

  “He had skill with words and writing.” Edith hesitated, wondering if she should admit more. “He was a sickly child, always coughing. He would have fared very badly in a forge.”

  Ranulf stroked her with a foot, his dark eyes glittering in the lantern light. “There is more here, Princess. So what did Gregory become?”

  “A priest.”

  “Is that all?”

  Edith knelt up and stretched, knowing the movement would distract Ranulf. “All for now,” she answered. “Now, you say of Olwen.”

  “Scold, scold,” came the mild answer, “but very well. Tell you if the rumors are true, you mean.”

  She did not ask how he knew of them, or even what they were. By his agreement just then, he had allowed things to lie fallow in her life and she must do the same for his.

  Not murder, though, sister, warned Gregory in her mind.

  But Ranulf was speaking.

  “Olwen and I were betrothed at seventeen and she came to our family when she was eighteen. I thought her as pale and beautiful as the moon, and as remote. I was a callow lad and she seemed so fine.

  “We were married and we did poorly together. My talk was all of the jousting ground and hunting, all man stuff that did not interest her. In bed I was too fast, too eager. She put up with me as a good wife should, but I did not give her pleasure.

  “Then she fell pregnant, and that brought us together. I spent less time in the tourney grounds and more time with my lady. I took the trouble to discover what she enjoyed. I learned to play the small harp, which she loved. I asked her about strewing herbs.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture of awkwardness, and scowled. “I admit I was such a clod-head I did not think of these matters myself, but my mother did not want Olwen pining when she was with child.”

  Listening, Edith bit down on the response that his mother had not overly concerned herself until her daughter-in-law had become pregnant. She sensed Ranulf had not spoken of this much, if ever. She wanted him to speak, to break free of some of the shadows and shackles of the past that she had sensed about him the first time they had met, by the river that still rustled close in the darkness.

  “It worked. Olwen and I grew closer. She began to ask for things, certain actions and caresses from me, in bed. But then she miscarried the child. She was heart-scalded, and so was I.”

  “What did the midwife say?” Edith asked, sitting up and shaking her loosened hair over her shoulders for extra warmth. It was not cold, but there was a sneaking breeze.

  “Ah, yes, this is your providence, too.” Ranulf flashed her a look of pride that made her smile, and then he leaned across, popped a slice of apple into her startled mouth, and resumed.

  “The midwife said our next would be hale and hearty and I stopped my father from remarking on our cows in calf, for I saw it upset Olwen. She cried in my arms in bed and I told her I loved her and that our child would surely be in heaven. Olwen was much distressed at the thought of our babe in purgatory.”

  Once Edith would have muttered about nonsense, but now she said nothing and hid her face behind her hair.

  “She still snapped at me, or was cold during the day, but after the harvest that year she was more settled and looking forward to Christmas.”

  He fell silent and plucked the comb from his hair, staring at it. “Olwen gave me this. As a gift. I would comb her hair, when she allowed it.”

  “What happened?” Edith prompted softly as the silence drew on.

  “Giles came. Merry, good-humored Giles from the south, visiting his northern estate. I knew Giles from jousts and from when we had trained together as pages. I was glad to see him, for his talk of royal fashion and courtly scandal filled the spaces between Olwen and myself and he set my parents’ household alight. He brought gifts: a rosebush for my mother, a new knife and sheath for my father, a pair of richly embroidered gloves for Olwen. He suggested I get Olwen a puppy, something to fuss and pet, and when I did so and she seemed so happy, I blessed his coming.”

  He sighed. “I was an idiot. A dog, however appealing, to take the place of a child! I had no sense.”

  “You were young,” Edith said. “And Olwen was away from her home and family.”

  “And I never took her back to her parents. It never occurred to me. When she fell quiet, I talked more, and Giles talked most of all. He spoke constantly of France, of the hunting there and the chances for plunder, of how Edward our king rewarded knights who fought for him in France.

  “I spoke to Olwen about it. If I had a season or so fighting in France and did well with plunder, we might build a household for ourselves on a piece of land my father would give me. Olwen liked the notion of our own place.”

  “No woman wants to share a hearth,” Edith murmured, recalling her fights with her mother.

  “I had men and followers from tourneys. They were keen to go with me to France.”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  “On the night before we set out, I quarreled with Olwen. She wanted to travel with me for part of the journey and I forbade it. I wanted to make haste, without a woman’s train to slow me and my men down. I told her I would write and send messages and heralds and gifts.” He shrugged. “I ignored her tears.”

  “That was cruel!” Edith burst out and Ranulf was already nodding.

  “Aye, aye! I was greedy for treasure and profit, for adventure. I thought not of my wife, left at her in-laws’. I see it now and I saw it then, too late, when I was in France.

  “Oh, I kept my word. I wrote to Olwen. I sent many words, many heralds, many gifts.”

  “But you did not go back,” Edith said, recognizing the crux of the matter between them.

  “How could I? My men would have thought me unmanned. And Giles kept saying the gifts would placate her.”

  “You were with Giles in France?” Edith had good reasons for wishing to be clear on this.

  Ranulf nodded again. “We camped as one squad, his men and mine. We raided together.”

  Edith flinched, understanding all too well what such raids would mean for the French villagers.

  “Giles was with you?” she repeated faintly.

  “Why this concern for Giles? Yes, he stood shoulder to shoulder with me, always, including the siege of Calais, where we were bogged down for months.”

  “So you could not leave, then?”

  “King Edward would have flayed alive any truant from there as a deserter! As it was I could scarcely send out a message, but I did what I could.”

  He looked down at his knotted fists. “At first I could not understand why I never had word back from Olwen. I had letters from my mother, but not my wife. Then my mother’s letters also stopped.”

  His mouth set in a grim line. “Month after month. Nothing. Then, when I returned to England and sent word north of my return, I had new letters from both Olwen and my mother before I reached home. I did not understand it—why th
ose letters had reached me, and mine them, and yet my earlier ones had not.”

  “Letters and messages can go astray.”

  “It was worse than that. A rumor had reached Olwen and my parents that I had died in France. Even though they now knew I was alive because of our latest exchange of letters in England, it was a shock to them, seeing me in the flesh. For months they had thought me dead and had mourned me as dead. Olwen told me that when she received my latest letter she scarcely dared believe it was true. She feared it could be some cruel trick. Except—”

  He broke off, then started again, in a rush. “Olwen seemed glad to see me, yet not. At times she was warm to me, then not. I would find her crying in the garden. If she smiled at a squire, I would rot with jealousy and quarrel with her as soon as I could. She and my mother did not speak to each other. Father was always off hunting.

  “I hastened to have our place built. I prayed to God Almighty that it would please her. I watched her like a falconer watches a hawk, and envy gnawed at my heart and bones. We bickered endlessly over trifles. I upbraided her for nothing, for missing out the honey in my tisane, for continuing to wear a gown another man had admired when I demanded she consign it at once to our clothes chest, and other foolishness. Even as I heard the words tumbling out of my mouth I knew I was wrong. But I could not seem to stop it.

  “Then, on our first night there together, sitting in our new solar, she confessed. She had indeed written to me at first, while I was in France—”

  “But when she received no word back from you and your letters to your mother came, she stopped,” Edith broke in.

  Ranulf stared, although to Edith this was nothing wonderful, merely sense. “Go on,” she said.

  “During the time she had thought me dead in France, Olwen had lain with other men.”

  “She had thought herself a neglected wife first, and then a widow.”

  “Indeed, Edith. It is as you say. She said my parents did not know and she begged me not to shame her further by telling them.”

  He fell silent and Edith scarcely dared to draw breath. Should she ask, or leave the matter? Yet what had he done?

  Dare I know the answer? Was he understanding and generous? If not, what chance for me? What chance for us?

  Ranulf sighed and spread his hands. “I understood then how greatly I had hurt her, even if it could be put down to mischance, and how my filthy behavior continued to wound her. I was ashamed that Olwen should fear me so greatly. She was a beautiful young woman, with needs and wishes. I had been dead to her and parted from her in a poor, grudging way, without any further word from me, or so she believed. Worse, my mother had received letters from me, at least at first, and she had none!”

  “She would feel hurt and humiliated,” Edith murmured. “I know I would have.”

  “I wager Olwen was the same—in truth, I know she was! And even I, thickheaded in my marriage as I had been, even I saw that injury. So why should I demand of her a lasting solitude? I forgave her. And I never, ever told my parents. I wager that they may have had their suspicions, but I soon made it clear to one and all that Olwen was my beloved wife.

  “That night and the following time there were no shadows between us, and no more petty envies. We were at last in truth husband and wife, living in our own place, making our own way, looking forward to children.

  “But it was not to be. Three weeks after we were truly and fully reconciled, Olwen went out riding early with her maids. She took a dreadful fall off her horse. She died before I heard the news, before I reached her.”

  He looked beaten down now and the moonlight silvered his hair, making him a pale, aging, grieving ghost.

  “We had such little true time together, and the rest so marred. I wish to God we had done better.”

  Edith took his hands in hers and held them tightly.

  Chapter 24

  “I am sorry,” she said. She kissed his hands. “So very sorry.”

  He looked at her in that stark, lost way she had seen by the river and then cast himself into her arms. She hugged him tightly, saying over and over, “It was a pity and a shame and I am so sorry, so sorry.”

  Seeking only to comfort him, she kissed him.

  He kissed her in return and now their kiss changed, becoming deeper, more urgent.

  Suddenly, still in her arms, he became very still. “I would not wish you to think I do this for diversion.”

  “Why should we not turn to each other?” she asked gently, wanting to show him that she understood his tangled feelings of loss and pity, lust and comfort, even anger and shame. Had she not felt the same over Gregory?

  “With such a little, with just a little more thought, I could have made her happy,” he whispered against her throat.

  “You did make her happy, Ranulf. Truly.” She traced the dark line of his jaw with a finger, marveling at the golden stubble there. “I should know—I did not appreciate what joining with a man could be, before you.” She kissed a scar on his ear. “Olwen was happy.”

  He nodded, then raised his eyes to her face. “But I would not wish you to think I feel less for you.”

  “I know that, too.” She scooped a sheet over them both and rocked him against her, ignoring the slow-building ache in her breasts and hips. If Ranulf wished only to sleep in her arms, then so be it.

  “Edith?” He rolled out of her arms onto his belly. “May I—that is, may we—”

  Suddenly she understood why he was on his stomach, hiding away from her. She smiled, allowing the sheet to fall away from her breasts.

  “Make me happy, Rannie,” she whispered.

  He had done so, too, she reflected, wriggling contentedly in his arms as he slept. He had explored her and coaxed her to explore him. He had pampered her. He had eased into her, always taking his weight on his arms, hanging over her like a golden harvest moon.

  Only when she was more than ready, opening her legs ever wider, lifting her hips to him, kissing his chest and mouth, did he move in her more urgently. Soon, with her squeaked encouragement, he was powering into her, his hard flesh cracking against hers like thunder. On and on the pleasure piled and grew in her, and when it was released, she screamed with the blinding force of it.

  Ranulf matched her passion, chanting her name as he hammered into her. It was her name he roared at his finish and her name he muttered, half snoring, as he coiled his long limbs about her and slept.

  Delight kept her wakeful and although she had dozed, now she was refreshed and ready for more. For a while she was content to kiss her amazing lover, smiling at his grunts of acknowledgment. Then he turned and she cast herself onto her back to watch the stars.

  Considering all he had told her, she wondered if she should tell him her own suspicions concerning why his many messages and tokens had not reached Olwen, nor Olwen’s letters reached him.

  Perhaps it is better that he never knows. It is all too late now.

  The spy who lingered about the black knight’s camp knew by now that Sir Ranulf of Fredenwyke had not returned to his tent this night. The spy snorted, stifling a laugh as he sped away.

  He did not know where the knight was, but he guessed it would be somewhere with the princess.

  “Oh, oh, my Lord Giles, you will not be pleased.”

  He often talked to himself—few others would listen, except when he was bringing a report.

  Slipping past cart after cart and tent after tent, kicking away the wandering dogs and rats, he could hardly contain his excitement. His master would pay very well for this night’s work!

  The spy knew Giles in a way few did. He had worked for the knight for years, since they were youths together, going wenching in the town and country taverns. He did those necessary but messy tasks that his supposed “betters,” with their fancy manners and codes of honor, refused to do themselves.

  And now he was doing it again.

  Approaching Sir Giles’s massive camp, the spy chortled. It was because of his work that the black knight had
lost that silver-pale wife of his. His master had coveted her—Sir Giles always coveted what his fellow knights had; it was an itch in the man that would never be satisfied. Following instructions, he had ensured vital letters and tokens were mislaid, an easy task in France, accomplished by bribing the messengers or drinking the lads under the table. Of course, when they had all returned to England, matters had not gone Sir Giles’s way and he had turned against the haughty filly, which in turn had made other actions needed.

  Now he had news that would drive the knight mad.

  “And you will vow to have the princess, as you vowed to have the wife, by whatever means. But I think the Lady of Lilies will refuse you, as the Lady of Fredenwyke did before her, and then where will you be, my lord?”

  Chapter 25

  Ranulf stirred early, before dawn, clear in his own mind and heart as to what he wanted. Yes, his lady, his prize, was not rich in lands, nor the truth, but she had courage and kindness and resourcefulness. She would help him in his northern scrap of land. His people would love her. He could not wait to show her off, have others exclaim at her amazing beauty.

  He was disappointed at her lack of faith, her resolute defense of the solely practical, but perhaps that would change. Her attitude was, after all, no more than what his own father had mumbled at times, after a particularly long sermon in church, and these days of pestilence were enough to test anyone’s beliefs.

  As for her lies . . . All women lie, he thought comfortably. They are not trained to be as honorable as men. It was for him to instruct and chastise her, if her lies became too great.

  Ah, Ranulf, so it begins, warned Olwen in his memories. You seek to control too much. She is no warhorse, to be ordered by your will. Do not make the same mistakes with her as you did with me.

  He scowled and rolled over to face Edith. She looked younger in sleep, more vulnerable. He ached to save her pain or hurt.

  “She will be safe with me. Her and her people,” he said aloud. He knew it was for the best. He was growing old for the tourney, anyway. These days he ached all over in the morning, before he got moving. And in truth he was not as fast in fighting as he had once been. His skill and experience covered that, but he knew.