Shadows and Strongholds (47 page)

He was no longer smiling as he reached and took it from her. Carefully he unfurled it and then stared at the black wolf snarling on the yellow background, bordered by chevrons of scarlet and black.

'I heard that your grandfather carried a similar banner,' she added.

She saw him swallow. 'The black wolf was his, yes.'

'And now it is yours.' She closed the coffer and rose to her feet. 'Do you like it?'

'I do not think "like" is the right word.' He traced the outline of the embroidered beast with the spread fingertips of his right hand. 'It must have taken you weeks to do this.'

Hawise gave a shaken laugh. 'It did, and although you do not see it, that beast has taken its share of my blood, but I begrudge it not. First and last it was and is a labour of love… and perhaps a penance too.' She raised her head. 'When you ride out with our fathers to King Henry's muster, I will be proud to see that banner flying with theirs.'

Brunin rose from the coffer and spread the silk over it. For a long time he continued to look upon the banner, and then he turned to her and took her hands in his. 'Perhaps I have some words for you too,' he said.

Hawise's heart began to pound. 'Such as?' She tried to make her voice light, echoing his question of a moment since, but it was edged with a tremor.

'Such as wife, helpmate, friend.'

She took one of her hands out of his and with great daring reached to his face. 'Husband,' she murmured.

He kissed her, his free hand moving through her hair, meshing it through his fingers until he reached the tips then drawing back and repeating the move; and all the time his mouth moved softly on hers in small, nipping kisses like minnows against her fingers in warm summer shallows.

She answered the touch of his lips with kisses of her own, her loose hand dropping to his shoulder and cupping the curve, feeling the warmth and weight of muscle beneath the thin linen chemise. Beyond the anxiety at stepping into the unknown, something greedy and needful stirred. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder and she leaned into the kisses, offering her lips, wanting more.

Brunin drew Hawise to the bed and lay down with her. The mattress was well stuffed with goose down so that it was both firm and yielding to the touch, almost echoing the properties of flesh. He faced her, one hand still in her hair. He loved the warmth of it near her scalp, and the cool heaviness at the ends… and those ends led his fingers down over the tip of her right breast and finished at her waist, again and again until her breath shuddered in her throat and she thrust into the caress and he felt the hard bud of her nipple through the linen chemise. It was heady to hear her response and it encouraged him to lean over her, stroke her hair away from her face and kiss her more thoroughly while he unfastened the throat lace of her chemise. It was but loosely tied and the knot came free to his stealthy tug.

He nibbled the angle of her jaw, the soft skin of her neck and throat, perfumed with spices and rose oil, and then the flesh exposed by the unfastened chemise. He cupped her breast and ran his thumb over the erect nipple, and she arched towards him, her lingers tightening at the nape of his neck, her breathing short and swift against his ear and temple. The way she answered his touch sent a jolt of sensation from gut to loins. He followed the line of the chemise, tugging downwards, exposing the upper curve of her breasts. The candlelight gleamed on her skin, tinting it with gold, and beneath his fingertips he felt her shiver into gooseflesh. Her teeth found his earlobe and nipped. Her tongue flickered against the angle of his jaw and again the jolt shot through him like distant lightning. His own breathing quickened and his palm sprang with sweat as he slid his fingers beneath the fine linen and curled them over her breast. She made a sound in her throat. So did he. The feel of her and the sight of his hand moving on what yesterday had been forbidden territory and was now his to possess fed his arousal. The lightning flickered, still on the horizon, but constant now, without respite.

His mouth followed his hand. When his lips closed on her nipple, Hawise cried out and her nails dug into the back of his neck. Her body arched and she curved one leg towards him. He clasped her ankle in his hand and stroked upwards beneath the chemise, exploring calf and knee and finally outer thigh. Hawise set her arms around him, her hands at his shoulders, and he moved over and on top of her.

She gasped as his weight came down and he immediately lifted himself on his arms.

'I'm sorry, did I—'

'No, you didn't hurt me.' She gave a short little breath and for a moment they stared at each other. Her legs were parted. He was between them and the only barriers separating his flesh from hers were two thin layers of linen. He lay upon her, his hips pressed within the bowl of her pelvis and all the blood in his body seemed as if it were pulsing in his groin and against the hardness of her pubic bone.

'Jesu,' she whispered and uttered a small, broken laugh, but there was no humour in it, just the hesitancy of fear and the tension of hunger. 'Do not stop now, else one or other of us will not have the courage.'

Brunin suddenly spluttered and some of the gathering pressure released. He dipped his head to her breast and muffled a laugh against her skin.

'What is it, what have I said?' She tugged on his hair, giggling herself, rubbing upon him at first by accident of laughter and then with a deliberation engendered by pleasure and instinct.

'I hope you are not accusing me of cowardice again.'

He had meant to say the words with a grin, but her action was making it very difficult and his words emerged with hoarse constriction.

'I didn't mean…' Overly sensitive to the words, she started to apologise, but he gripped her hand.

'I know you didn't.'

'So then it must be me who lacks courage,' she whispered.

'You missay us both.' Sitting up, he pulled his nightshirt over his head. Having cast it aside, he pushed hers up above her hips and over her breasts, his hands following the contours of her flesh. She had to lift her body to help him free the chemise where it was trapped beneath her and between their bodies, and it was an erotic dance that pressed skin upon skin, each imprinting the other with a light dew of sweat.

Free of the linen, she was like a snake that has just shed its skin, bright and sinuous in his arms. 'Being afraid does not mean lacking courage.' he whispered against her mouth before he kissed her again. 'Without one you cannot have the other.' He trailed his hand down to her pubic mound and explored. First she tensed, and then she gave a small whimper. This time he didn't stop to question, for the sound was accompanied by an upward thrust of her hips that encouraged him to pursue his investigation. He watched her response and learned. He touched and learned yet more. Her legs parted. The skin of her inner thighs was soft against the back of his hand and she shivered and made little sounds that raised the hair on his nape and made him ache to the bone. She was as moist as honey on a hot summer day, and it was more than he could finally bear.

She cried out when he entered her, then swallowed the sound against his shoulder. He didn't ask if he had hurt her, for he knew that he had, but when he made to withdraw, her nails dug into him.

'No,' she gasped against his ear. 'Go on!'

'I…'

Her mouth slanted across his cheek and down. She found his lips and kissed him hard and long, shutting off protest, urging him, for if there was pain, there was also pleasure.

The feel of her wrapped around him, inside and out, made Brunin groan against the seal of her lips. He was going to come undone, to shatter into a million fragments. He lay on her, lighting the dissolution, scarcely daring to move while the kiss went on and on. Finally, gasping for breath, he took his mouth from hers and raised up on his braced elbows to look down at her. Her eyes were dark-pupilled and wild, her lips swollen. She looked wanton and beautiful and it was not his loins that shattered into myriad pieces but his heart. He gazed down the length of their bodies, at her parted thighs and himself between them, possessed and in possession.

'Hawise.' He sighed her name and lowered his mouth to resume the kiss. She welcomed him with binding arms and eager lips. Her lips pushed downwards, deepening the contact, giving unspoken consent. He answered her with a measured thrust and then another, and his body began to tremble, every muscle taut. He needed respite, but there was none, only the heat of the kiss and her flesh clinging smoothly to his like an oiled scabbard sheathing a sword. Sweat dampened his spine and her fingers traced the centre line to his buttocks and then she spread her palms and moved with his rhythm. He broke the kiss and buried his head against her throat. Her body rose against his and he felt her pulse hammering against his clenched jaw, faster than a galloping horse. Her breath whined through her teeth. And then it stopped and her nails dug into his buttocks. Her lips parted in a silent cry. He lunged and the world contracted to a single point and then exploded in exquisite sunbursts of raw sensation.

Slowly his senses spiralled back into his body. Breathing hard, he raised his head.

'Hawise?'

Her eyes flickered open and focused on him. For a moment she stared solemnly, and then she smiled and reached a languid hand to his face.

'I did not hurt you too much?' he said anxiously.

'No…' She gave a small laugh that rippled around his phallus. 'Well, not beyond bearing and the pleasure outweighed what there was.' She followed the contours of his face with an exploratory forefinger. When she reached his lips, he took her hand and kissed it, then rolled over, bringing her with him.

Hawise ran her hand over his torso in a lazy, exploratory way, sensual now rather than lustful. 'Your grandmother tried to frighten me with tales of her own deflowering,' she murmured. 'I feel sorry for her.'

'You won't in the morning,' Brunin replied and yawned. In the aftermath of his release, a delicious lassitude was seeping through his body. His limbs felt loose, as if his bones had melted and his eyelids were almost too heavy to hold up.

'Meaning?' She licked him with the tip of her tongue.

'Meaning that she will be first in the room and leader of the ceremony to inspect the sheet,' he mumbled.

Hawise had forgotten about that. She pushed away from him and threw back the covers on a wave of cold air. The linen was creased but still as pristine as new snow. 'There's no blood,' she said in a dismayed voice as she stared at the clean sheet.

'What?' Brunin had been preparing to fall asleep… Now, washed in cold air and roused by the worry in her tone, he leaned up on one elbow and studied the sheet. A glance at her and down at himself revealed red smudges on her inner thighs and a glisten of blood along his softening manhood. 'That's easily solved.' He rolled over, lay face down in the warm space she had just vacated and rocked back and forth a couple of times. 'Sit there,' he said, moving to one side and pointing to the faint red smears he had left on the linen. Biting her lip, Hawise straddled the centre of the bed and looked at the resulting daub.

'I thought there would be more than this,' she said.

Brunin gave her a sidelong grin. 'I suppose that depends on how good a lover the man is.'

She made a face at him. 'You are cocksure.'

'If I wasn't before, I am now,' he retorted, and ducked as she hurled a bolster in his direction. Grabbing it, he threw it back at her and then launched himself. She squealed as he landed half on top of her. They pummelled and rolled in the bed until they were breathless with laughter, until her eyes were bright and soft and he was hard again. And this time he was not so tentative when he entered her, and she was bold enough to wrap her legs around him and return his thrusts, for even if she was sore, she craved the pleasure too, and the power of being the pleasure-giver.

When they were finished, Brunin murmured, 'Now look at the sheet.'

She lifted her head and saw that the first, sparse smears had been lost in an embroidery of blotches and scrawls that covered the bed from one side to the other and almost top to bottom, so boisterously had they wrestled.

'My grandmother will be beside herself,' he murmured sleepily. 'And I am going to have some explaining to do to your father before he kills me… if you don't kill me first. Come here.' He set his arm to her waist, drew the covers around them, and closed his eyes. 'Your hair smells of spice,' he mumbled, and in moments was asleep.

Sore but content, Hawise lay next to her husband in her marriage bed and smiled.

Kneeling by her own pallet, Marion bowed her head and pleaded to God to let Ernalt survive the climb down the wall and make good his escape. She prayed that he would remember his promise and return for her, and she prayed for the strength to endure on her own part. Beneath her entreaty was the bowel-loosening terror that God would not listen, and that she would never see Ernalt again. She could endure anything but that… anything.