Charmed Destinies Read online

  “Ha!” He threw back his head and roared with laughter at her sally, laughter in which his men joined with spirit. “Good answer!”

  Then he picked her up with both hands about her waist and lifted her onto the dais as if she weighed nothing. Leaping up beside her, he led her around the table—she’d been afraid he was going to vault it again—and summarily pulled the red-haired wench, who’d not had the wit to give over her seat, to her feet.

  “Bartolemy!” he roared, and a fat, tonsured monk at the far end of the High Table started and looked up, wide-eyed, at him. “Take the bench down below! Ursula, get you to your place.” He shoved the red-haired woman toward the now-vacant stool. She stumbled, gave him—and Gwynn—a vicious glare, but did as she was told. He manhandled Gwynn into the chair that the other had vacated, and flung himself down in his own place again. “Ursula has been in charge of my household in the stead of a wife,” he told Gwynn, quite as if he expected her to believe him. “But now that you have arrived, you’ll be taking your proper place, of course. I’ll have her give over the keys in the morning.”

  “Of course, good, my lord,” she murmured, bowing her head. Oh, Ursula had been tending something, she was sure, but it wasn’t the household. Or if she was, it was in name only, for in the few moments she had been here she had seen nothing but the signs of an establishment so ill-regulated that she was surprised anything got done. There was a housekeeper somewhere who had those keys—well, Robin would find out who.

  Robin! She realized in sudden panic that she had lost sight of Robin the moment she had passed the doors of the keep.

  But as soon as she raised her head to look for Robin, she spotted her maid and saw with intense relief that Sir Atremus had taken her in his charge, getting a place for her at the end of one of the upper tables, seating himself beside her as extra protection. It pained her heart, though, to see how that good man was treated himself—completely ignored the moment that Bretagne had deigned to claim Gwynn, and clearly so poorly regarded that he barely ranked a place among the upper servants.

  Now began Gwynn’s wedding feast, if such it could be called. If she’d conjured a meal out of a nightmare, it could scarcely have been worse than this. The trencher bread that Ursula had used was brushed to the floor with a single sweep of Bretagne’s hand, and a new one brought to replace it. At least she was not supposed to use Ursula’s leavings….

  She was expected to share her husband’s cup, however, and one taste of the strong ale he clearly favored, so bitter with hops that it made her cough and her eyes water, was something that he seemed to find very funny. She was not so thirsty that it appealed to her at all, and she reckoned that she would do without drink at this meal.

  Then came the parade of nearly inedible food. She was offered a cut of pork that seemed half raw to her, so she refused it. A page slapped a half-burned pigeon on the trencher in its stead. Well, better half burned than half raw—

  But it was stone-cold as well as burned.

  She picked at the bird as Bretagne ate and drank hugely of his ale, his cup being refilled three times while he feasted on the boar. The next course was a pie, the crust as hard as iron, the inside, watery, briny gravy with chunks of gristle and leathery carrots and turnips. Leathery they might be, but at least they were warm and brought a little warmth to her insides. Following that was a baked pike, which, though bony, was at least something with some flavor, though unfortunately there was not much of it. Then cheese, hard and dry and blue with mold.

  One half-edible course followed another; she picked at what she could stomach and ignored the rest. There was entertainment of a sort: two of Bretagne’s men stripped to the waist and wrestled three falls in the center aisle; then someone kicked a slack-faced idiot dressed in motley into the center when they were done, where the poor thing capered and wept until they were tired of watching him and allowed him to creep off to what seemed to be his usual post by the hearth. Then another of Bretagne’s men got to his feet and roared out a bawdy song, which they all seemed to know, for every one of them joined in on the chorus.

  It seemed to go on forever. Gwynn would have given almost anything for a draught of pure spring water, of cider, of watered wine or even a decent ale, not the stuff that Bretagne was drinking as if it were no stronger than water. The smoke made her eyes burn, her head ached and she was weary beyond belief.

  But of course, the evening was not over—yet.

  At last the “subtlety” came in, which wasn’t subtle at all, merely a great mess of apples stewed in honey and wine, surmounted by a crust done with Bretagne’s boar atop it in pastry dough. At least, she thought it was a boar. The blobby beast could have been anything, but truly looked most like a newborn bear cub that had not yet been licked into its proper shape by the sow bear. The apples she could eat, and with an exhausted gratitude, she did, while the men set two of the dogs to fighting one another in the center aisle. The juice eased her thirst, the fruit, her hunger and the honey managed to cleanse the tastes of the other courses from her mouth.

  She began to feel a little revived and a little warmer, thanks to that final course. The dog fight was over, and she was licking her fingers clean of the honey, there being no other utensil supplied for her to eat with, when Bretagne stood up.

  Instant silence followed. Bretagne looked down to the end of the High Table, straight at the sulky Ursula. “My lady and I,” he roared, “would to bed!”

  3

  Gwynn did not mistake Bretagne’s words in the least; Ursula’s face broke into a malicious smile. Meanwhile Bretagne’s words froze Gwynn in her place, unable to move, hardly able to breathe.

  Ursula rose and called out several names, which in her confusion and fear, Gwynn did not catch. But a dozen women came bounding up from the lower tables and, with Ursula in the lead, converged on Gwynn.

  Ursula was nearly as strong as the baron, for all her apparent plump softness. She plucked Gwynn out of the seat even as she had been pulled erect by Bretagne. The women enveloped her in a mob and hustled her off the dais toward an archway that led to a stair and the wedding-night horseplay began.

  Now Gwynn had participated in a milder form of such antics herself. The bride was supposed to be carried off, stripped naked and put into bed to await her groom. In the version in which Gwynn had played a part, the eager bride was serenaded with songs from the married women about the joys of the wedding night, and from the unmarried virgins, with laments about the loss of freedom. She had been gently disrobed and anointed with scent, her hair unbound and combed out, and put into a warmed bed, while the bachelors and married men treated her groom to a similar experience. Then, once both were bundled into bed together, they were pelted with nosegays of sweet herbs and rue, then locked into the chamber to consummate the marriage. The next day the evidence of the bride’s virginity on the sheets was examined by both mothers and pronounced genuine, not that anyone had harbored any doubts.

  Evidently the women of Clawcrag had a variant on those traditions in mind.

  They rushed her up a darkened set of stairs, with Ursula hauling her on the right and another woman on the left, moving so fast that she stumbled over every other step, stubbing her toes painfully and barking her shins more than once. The songs they were singing were more akin to the obscene ditties that the men had been howling down in the Great Hall than the songs that Gwynn had expected; more than once she found herself flushing painfully at the graphic lyrics. They passed two torches and two landings before they finally paused at a third and one of the women in the front of the crowd
flung open a door.

  They all shoved her inside it and followed. The bedchamber that they crammed themselves into was as cold as ice but, nevertheless, they stripped her bare with such ruthlessness that a gown any less sturdy than her traveling robe would have surely been ripped. As it was, they snapped the laces that held it closed down the back in their callous haste to get her out of it. The gown they flung aside in a corner, followed it with the undergown and followed that with her hose and shoes. They actually tore the shift off her rather than pull it over her head, and left her standing on the hearth, on what felt like fur beneath her icy feet. They then attacked her hair. The careful braids that Robin had made were taken down and unbraided clumsily, more than once with a jerk at a knot they’d made themselves, making her eyes water with pain. No scents were offered, no lotions, no comforts of any sorts; she was shoved, stumbling, at the bed, then into it. It was like being enveloped in a shroud, so chill were the linens. Linens that were as coarse as canvas against her skin.

  As she clutched the bedcovers to her chest and stared at her captors, who were now clustered around her, she did not see a single sympathetic gaze among them. There was no sign of Robin; Gwynn suspected she’d been taken off guard by the speed of Ursula and her cohorts. As the “ladies” stood around the bed, eyes sparkling maliciously, mouths working as they sang yet another obscene ditty, they were shoved aside by Bretagne himself.

  “Out!” he roared. Cackling, they obeyed him. He slammed the door of the chamber shut behind the last of them himself and dropped a bar across it.

  Then he turned and stared at her, fists on his hips, eyes still full of that cold appraisal.

  “Well, wife!” he said, his voice full of nuances she could not read.

  She swallowed and pulled the bedcovers a little closer. “Well, husband,” she whispered.

  “Come out of there,” he said. “I want to see what I have gotten of this bargain.” He bent down, lit a rushlight at the coals of the fire, and threw a log upon the embers.

  She would have been happy to disobey him, not just because of her own fear, but because the room was absolutely frigid. But she knew she dared do nothing of the sort.

  So she eased carefully out from under the sheet that she had clutched and, shaking in every limb, walked to where he pointed, standing before him on that fur rug on the hearth.

  At least at that point the fire blazed up suddenly, giving her a little warmth.

  She would have liked to hide herself in her hair and her hands, but she sensed that would only make him impatient—and perhaps angry. He was full of drink and, in such a state, he could be dangerous.

  So she stood with her eyes cast down, shivering, both hands limply at her sides. At least her back was protected from the icy drafts behind the curtain of her hair.

  Bretagne held up the rushlight and peered at her, looking her up and down as if she were a horse or a cow at a fair—which was precisely how she felt.

  “No tits to speak of,” he grumbled under his breath. “Thin as a reed. Fah. A milk-and-water bitch!” He prowled around her like a cat circling a mouse while she shut her eyes and waited for him to pounce. And waited. And waited.

  After an eternity, she suddenly felt his hand seize her hair at the back of her neck, and her eyes flew open. Before she could think, once again his mouth jammed down atop hers, her lips grating painfully on his teeth as he first bit and sucked at them, then thrust his tongue inside her mouth. He tasted of that bitter, bitter ale, and she had to force herself not to gag, not to try to push him away, not to stiffen.

  But try as she might, she could not force herself to put her arms around him.

  It didn’t seem to matter to him, anyway, what she did, so long as she didn’t fight him.

  He picked her up bodily and flung himself and her into the waiting bed. It was only then that she realized he was as naked as she, and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to keep from crying out and trying to curl into a ball.

  One of his hands pawed and pinched at her breasts, making her gasp, not with pleasure but with pain. He seemed to enjoy that, and twisted her nipples cruelly as she whimpered in the back of her throat, the sound dying before it was born. Finally he tired of thrusting his tongue down her mouth and moved his attentions to her breasts, sucking and biting at the nipples while she writhed and gasped with the pain.

  “Like that, do you?” he chuckled. And he bit down again, shoving his hand between her legs, parting them ruthlessly, spreading them so far apart she thought she was going to split in two.

  He probed at her secret parts with his fingers and chuckled when she whimpered with the new pain. “At least you’re the virgin they said you were,” he growled, a horribly pleased tone to his voice. “Well, I’ll be making a proper woman of you! When I’m done, you’ll know what it is to have a real man!”

  She knew what was going to happen next as he positioned himself between her spread legs and shoved both hands under her buttocks, holding her in such a way that she could not have escaped his grasp no matter how hard she tried, if she had dared to. She knew what was coming—but that didn’t make it any easier.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, and lay very still as he fell on her like a wild beast.

  The first two thrusts failed to penetrate; he paused a moment and did something, she didn’t know what, then she felt him fumbling at her again, felt something pushing—

  And then he lunged a third time and she did scream with the pain of it, for she was certain he had split her wide.

  He roared with laughter, then fell to sucking and biting her breasts again as he thrust and withdrew, over and over, while she shook and moaned in pain. Faster and faster came his lunges, and then, suddenly, he lifted his head and made a strange sound—

  And collapsed atop her, snorting like a pig. “Ha,” he said thickly. “Ha. You’re mine now. My mark’s on you.”

  He was so heavy she wanted to push him off, and was afraid to. He rolled over a little, just enough that she could breathe again, and she lay with dumb tears leaking from her eyes and running into her hair above her ears. It hurt so much—

  Slowly the pain ebbed as she wept, silently, because she hadn’t died and, now that it was over, she wished that she had….

  He said nothing more. At some point, as the fire burned low again, he rolled completely off her at last. She slid off the bed, moving slowly and painfully, and sought for a cloth, anything to wipe away the fluids and the blood that oozed down her leg. She finally used her own shift—the women had ruined it past mending. At least the old, worn cloth was soft; she cleaned herself as best she could. She knew what she should do—for of all things, she did not want to bear children to this beast in man’s shape!—but she also had no idea of where her chests were and without them, she could not make the vinegar rinse that would flush away his seed.

  When she was as clean as she could make herself, she huddled beside the dying fire and combed through her hair as thoroughly as she could with her fingers, making it into a single loose braid, tying the end with a piece of the lacing from her gown.

  By this time she was as cold as a block of ice and Bretagne had rolled over and cocooned himself in all of the blankets on the bed, snorting like his namesake boar.

  Still moving painfully, she looked about the chamber in the dim light of the dying fire. There was not much here; it wasn
’t very large, and seemed to hold only the enormous bed and a stool and a clothing chest. She didn’t dare open the chest, which probably only held more of his clothing anyway. There didn’t seem to be any other bed coverings, not even a spare blanket, and finally she decided that the rug on the hearth on which she had stood was the only thing left for her to use to cover herself. It appeared to be a full bearskin and though heavy, would make a more than adequate blanket.

  The bed itself, though it made her flesh crawl to think of lying down beside him, was big enough that even Bretagne was swallowed up in it. She could lie down far enough away from him that they need not touch.

  “You’d better get used to it,” she whispered to herself as she stood beside the bed, staring down at the man within it with loathing. “This is your fate, until one or the other of you dies.”

  And it was, as she had said to Robin, no worse than other women had borne since the time of Mother Eve.

  So she crawled onto the side of the bed furthest from him, rolled herself up in the bearskin that at least smelled of nothing worse than dirt and smoke, and her exhaustion was such that finally, as the fire burned down to coals again, she fell asleep.

  It was to a less-than-friendly face that she woke the next morning, but at least the face wasn’t Bretagne’s.

  Ursula shook her awake, as rough and rude as any of the baron’s men-at-arms, probably as hard as the woman could manage. As Gwynn blinked confusedly up at her, the woman grabbed an edge of the bearskin and pulled, jerking her toward the edge of the bed.

  Gwynn saved herself from a tumble only narrowly, getting her feet under her just as she slipped over the edge, grabbing the bearskin and taking it with her. As soon as she was out of the bed, the woman yanked the bloodstained sheet away and flounced off with it without a single word to her. Her expression was both sour and surly, suggesting that whatever had happened to her this morning, it had not been to her liking.