The Love Knot (50 page)

'He was my husband; you were his prisoner. What was I supposed to do?' In the basket, Rosamund whimpered and Catrin stooped over her with a soothing murmur.

'You could have looked before you leaped.'

'Hindsight is a wondrous thing,' she snapped. 'It is always easy to have eyes to see after the event.'

'So what now?' he asked, with a swift gesture of his good arm. 'Have you come to Bristol for refuge because it is familiar, because there are people you know - or did you come seeking me?'

Leaving the basket, she began to pace the room, kicking out the full skirt of her blue gown with each step. 'I came for all those reasons,' she said at last, and stopped at his side. 'But the greatest was to find you and somehow right a wrong.'

Oliver turned his head. 'I do not want your pity or the ministrations of your tender conscience. Dear Christ, I need not have suffered either.'

'I'm not ministering to you out of compassion, you fool!' Catrin's eyes flashed. 'Nor out of guilt, although God knows it does burden me. When Godard brought you into the hall last week, you were on your way to death.' Kneeling by the pallet, she touched his bandaged ribs and arm, then took his good right hand in hers. 'If I had any compassion I would have dulled your pain and let you go. But I don't. I have learned from Louis to clothe myself entirely in selfishness. I wanted you to live because I want to live too.' Her tone grew vehement and her grip tightened. 'I want a man at my hearth who is not going to whine like a child or run off futtering other women when the whim dictates. I want a man who keeps his word whatever the cost. I want a man who will love me beyond the first fire and into the embers. I want a father for Rosamund who will teach her how to judge men.'

Oliver swallowed the lump in his throat. 'You don't want much,' he said shakily, and thought that with speeches like that inside her, she should have been a battle commander.

'Only what you can give, if you still have it within you.'

He swallowed and meshed his fingers through hers. 'Mangled and torn like the rest of me, but what remains is yours . . . and Rosamund's.'

The kiss was somewhat clumsy but its importance far outweighed its technique. His good arm pinned her close, while she tried her best to keep her weight from his damaged left side.

'Catrin, Catrin,' he whispered as their lips clung and parted. And then he laughed. 'If this is another wound-fever dream then I don't want to wake up.'

'It's not, it's real, I promise.' She pressed her face against his shirt.

'I thought I was the one to make promises.'

They kissed again. 'It is my turn now.' Catrin pulled away and went to her satchel. 'Do you remember this?' From the bag's depths she produced the singed love knot woven by Ethel before her final illness.

Oliver's eyes widened. 'I do,' he said, 'but by rights it should not exist, since I threw it on the fire.'

'Godard rescued it. He thought you might regret the act in time to come.'

He took the token from her and looked at the intricate detail of the pattern, yellowed and blackened on one side by the fire-damage. 'I owe Godard more than I can repay,' he murmured.

'We both do.' She touched the love knot, then twined her fingers over and around his. 'And Ethel.' As she spoke the name, she glanced around the shelter and a half-smile curved her lips.

Oliver could almost feel the strength flowing back into his body from the token, from the contact of Catrin's fingers. If far from perfect, life was worth living again.

'Waes Haell' The cry resounded around the crowded alehouse and fists thumped the trestles as the wedding guests toasted the laughing bride and her smug groom. Outside a March gale battered at the shutters, but no one cared, least of all Godard and Edith whose nuptial feast this was. Edith wore Oliver's gift of a silver and garnet brooch in her scarlet gown, and on the table stood his present to Godard, a pitcher in the shape of a bear but given Godard's face and quarterstaff.

Edith had surpassed herself with her latest brew of ale and the guests were enthusiastically appreciating her skills.

'I can see why you're leaving me,' Oliver remarked to Godard as he drained his cup. 'I doubt even the best French wine could compete with this.'

'Then perhaps you should stay too, my lord,' Godard answered. His colour was high and his eyes sparkling. Some of his ebullience was the result of his new wife's ale, but the greater part was caused by the pleasure of his new wife herself.

Oliver smiled. 'A certain young prince might have something to say about that,' he said. 'Besides, I've my way to make in the world.' Almost unconsciously he flexed his left hand, testing the damaged sinews. It was three months since his wounding. A week from now, he and Catrin were due to sail across the Narrow Sea as members of Prince Henry's retinue and make his court their home.

Apart from ridges where they should have been smooth, Oliver's ribs had healed remarkably well and gave him little pain. His left shoulder was still weak but much improved from its first stiffness. It was the blow to his forearm that had caused irreparable damage. De Mohun's blade had crushed and cut sinew, tendon and bone. Not even the best chirurgeon in the land could have mended such injuries. He had some feeling and restricted movement, but the only shields he could grip were the small, light ones used to train the youngest squires, and then for no longer than a few minutes at a time. Catrin assured him that he would improve as the weeks went by, but they both knew that he would never have the whole use of that arm again. The way of his making in the world could no longer be the way of a soldier.

'You stay with Prince Henry and your fortune will be made,' Godard said, with a knowing nod. 'Mark me, you'll be a lord high sheriff before you're done.'

Oliver laughed and shook his head. He knew what was and what was not possible.

Squashed against Oliver at the trestle, Catrin observed the humour in his eyes and was relieved to see him in good spirits. There were often difficult days when he became so frustrated and furious with his disability that he was impossible to reach. What had been a sound, strong limb was now disfigured and impaired. She had watched him struggle and fail at the simplest tasks, such as fastening a belt buckle, and had bitten her tongue and stood back. Time would heal and practice would compensate. It was only three months; he expected too much and was impervious to the voice of reason.

She thought perhaps Godard was not so wrong in his light comment about 'lord high sheriff though. If Oliver's other faculties could be channelled, there was every opportunity for advancement in Prince Henry's household.

Catching her thoughtful stare, he raised his eyebrows. 'Brewing potions in your mind?' he asked.

Catrin pressed lightly against him. 'Several.' She darted him a provocative look through her lashes.

'Such as?' His mouth curved in a smile.

Catrin nibbled her forefinger and pretended to consider. 'Well, some are private,' she said. 'But I will tell you that you should not belittle your abilities. Prince Henry thinks highly of you.'

'His "pet Saxon".' Oliver's smile became wry.

'But you must have done something to earn that title and then keep it,' Catrin said earnestly. 'The Prince bedevilled me every day of your illness demanding to know if you were improving. It is more than a boy's passing whim that commands you across the Narrow Sea in his service; you are a firm part of his household.'

'Every prince needs his fool,' Oliver said.

Catrin clucked her tongue impatiently. 'It is your arm that is damaged, not your wits, or so I hope to think,' she snapped. 'Why do you think Earl Robert gave his support and blessing to your place in Henry's household? If you answer "out of guilt" or "to be rid of me", I will hit you.'

Oliver tilted his head. 'My place in Henry's household was granted before I was wounded. The Earl is honouring a promise and a debt. No!' he added with a grin as her lips tightened and she grabbed a loaf off the table to threaten him, 'hear me out. It also suits him to have one of his own knights in Henry's retinue among all those Angevin lords.'

Catrin shook her head. There was a gleam in his eyes and she had a strong suspicion that she was being tugged along on a string. Perhaps she should still hit him. At least his answer revealed that his wits were indeed still keen and that this was not a 'difficult' day. 'Well then, it behoves you to make the utmost of that position,' she said, replacing the loaf and folding her hands in her lap to avoid temptation.

'I suppose it does,' he agreed gravely, and held out his cup to be refilled as a fresh pitcher of ale was brought round and another toast was raised to the bride and groom. 'But not with a sword.'

'Any noble or knight can use a sword and still be no more than a brigand or a knave,' she said contemptuously. 'I need only to remember Louis to know that.' She watched him raise the cup in his good hand and swallow. The motion of his throat, the taut skin across his cheekbones, the hint of copper at his jawline flooded her with an emotion so strong that it stung her eyes. She laid her hand over his damaged one. 'I have pride in you, and faith that you will not trample on that pride.'

'Did you not have faith in Louis when you went with him?'

There was no hostility in the question, but there was a demand to know and the residue of pain. Her decision at Rochester was a subject they had avoided, but it had neither gone away nor even begun to fade.

'No,' Catrin said slowly and felt the red heat of chagrin creep into her face. 'I was bedazzled by his charm into believing that he had changed. If my faith in him was shaky at the foundations, it was underpinned by my guilt. I did not wait for him or mourn him as I should. I gave myself to another man. I owed him my duty and obedience.'

'After he left you to think that he was dead?' An incredulous note entered Oliver's voice.

'He knew how to twist and turn me inside out,' she said defensively. 'His excuses were never plausible, but the way he told them was convincing. I was still his wife ... or so I thought,' she added with a grimace. 'I'm tenfold the wiser now.'

Oliver said nothing, his hand passive under hers. She could not tell from his expression what he was thinking, whether her reply had satisfied him or left him doubting and unsure. Her own feelings were certainly of the latter persuasion. 'Oliver, if you ..." she started to say, but got no further as his attention was claimed by Godard and one of the other guests, a male relative of the bride.

Catrin put a smile on her face for courtesy's sake, but suddenly she could not bear the banter, the red, sweating faces, the smelly, smoky fug. Making the valid excuse that she had to go and check upon Rosamund, she squeezed out of her place on the trestle and left the feast.

Edith's alehouse was built in the traditional style of most village cots, with a framework of thick oak branches supporting a long house of two rooms with a sleeping loft above. The first room, the alehouse, was the larger. The second usually held stores and livestock, but these had been moved out to a daub and wattle shed to make room for guests intending to spend the night. The floor was thickly strewn with hay. Hurdles of woven willow, normally used to separate the animals, made narrow bays which afforded a modicum of privacy.

Catrin had wrapped Rosamund in blankets and placed her near the entrance in a manger full of the fragrant hay. She was awake and rewarded her mother with a smile in which the very edges of two white teeth were starting to show in the gum. The baby crowed and shouted, demanding to be picked up. Catrin sat on the milking stool beside the manger and spent a pleasant moment dandling her daughter on her knee. It would not be long before Rosamund was sitting up. The little hands were constantly reaching for things and the bright, dark eyes focused and followed with tenacity.

Oliver and Rosamund had been wary of each other at first. In the beginning, the baby had shown a marked dislike of any male voice. It was small wonder when her father had spent so much of his time shouting at Catrin; but gradually Rosamund's anxiety had lessened. She would even coo and gurgle for Oliver now and hold up her hands to be picked up. Oliver, in his turn, had needed to overcome a masculine fear of so tiny a being together with the more personal reluctance springing from the death of his first wife and child.

'It was a girl she bore, dark of hair and eye, but cold and still,' he had said, looking down at Rosamund's small form cradled in his good arm. There had been a moist glitter in his eyes. 'It brings the past to breathe on me. She could have been mine.'

'She is,' Catrin had answered, swallowing tears and embracing him.

Since then, Oliver and Rosamund had grown more comfortable with each other. 'As comfortable as men and women ever are with the other's company,' Catrin now said to her daughter, as she unfastened her gown to feed her. 'I don't know what he's thinking unless he tells me, and I'm not even sure that I want to know.'

Rosamund's only response was to cover Catrin's nipple with a hungry gulp. 'Your father could not be still for a moment,' she murmured to the sucking infant. 'If there was silence he had to chatter like a magpie - anything so that he would not have to stop and look within himself.' She stroked

Rosamund's fine cap of silky black hair. 'Your new father broods too much, I think,' she said gently.

'But then you could always cozen me out of a dark mood,' Oliver said from the doorway. He was leaning against one of the supports, watching her.

Catrin gasped and turned round. 'How long have you been standing there?' she asked indignantly.

He smiled. 'Long enough to admire the view.' He sauntered forward, his gaze on her exposed bosom. 'If you cannot tell my thoughts, Catrin love, then there is no hope for you.'

'I can tell the thoughts of your body,' she answered, her colour high. 'It is your mind that eludes me.'

'They are one and the same at the moment,' he said, 'and they are both yours without reserve.'

Catrin laughed. There was a melting warmth at her core. 'Without reserve?' she repeated, as she lifted a drowsy Rosamund from her breast and placed her, milkily content, in the manger.

'And you a wise-woman and a tenfold-wiser woman,' he said lightly, although there was a serious edge to his jesting. 'You should not have to ask.'

'I'm not asking, I'm inviting.'

The hay gave off the sweet fragrance of summer as it was crushed by their bodies. There was urgency and there was restraint, their passion tempered by laughter, snatched kisses and love play. To Catrin it was balm on wounds that were still tender. To Louis she had been a diversion - his prey. He had fed voraciously on her reactions and his play had possessed a dangerous edge. This was innocent and joyful, without calculation. Oliver would not demand that she scream for him.

For Oliver there was reassurance in her obvious delight and enthusiasm. Louis de Grosmont might haunt the back of his mind, mocking him with the fact that Catrin had chosen him at Rochester, that he had fathered her child and that he could have her back for the snapping of his fingers, but Oliver pinned that spectre to the wall. Catrin might have chosen Louis at Rochester, but she had chosen differently now and there was triumph in that.

Behind them a sudden great noise of shouting and laughter swelled and increased. Catrin half sat up, gasping, her wimple askew and her breasts tumbling out of her gown.

'It's the bedding ceremony,' Oliver murmured. 'Godard and Edith are being escorted to their wedding night.' His tunic lay in a crumpled heap on the straw and his shirt was unlaced. 'Do you want to go up with the crowd and wish them well?'

'Will they miss us?' She plucked a straw from his hair with lazy fingers. A snatch of song shot raucously in their direction as the bride and groom were conveyed up the stairs to the sleeping loft. Something about a hand in a bird's nest.

'With pleasure on this occasion,' Oliver said, with a grimace over his shoulder at the noise. Then he turned back to her and cupped her breast in his good hand. 'But we can still wish them well by example.'

Louis met Roxanne at the Baths in Caesarea. Her father had been a crusader and from him she had taken the light green eyes and chestnut copper hair. Her mother was a native Syrian, and it was from her family that she had inherited the bath house between the harbour and the archbishop's dwelling.

She was a widow, wealthy and sure of herself in business, but still vulnerable behind her confident manner, and she had been alone long enough for grief to fade and interest to quicken when she saw the handsome newcomer with his predatory eyes and lithe, slender body. He was lying on a table being oiled by one of the bath maids, his expression drugged with sensual pleasure. Roxanne dismissed the girl with a flick of her wrist and took over the oiling herself.

Within the hour they were lovers; within the week Louis had moved from the common lodging house by the Jaffa Gate and into her apartments. A month later they were married. She had no reason to doubt him when he told her that he was without commitments in his native land.

She was young, frightened and struggling to bear her first child among strangers. Her thick blond hair was dark with sweat at her brow and her blue eyes were glazed with pain. She crouched upon the birthing stool, her thighs splayed apart and the straw beneath her soaked with birthing fluid.

'It won't be long now,' Catrin soothed, setting her arm around the girl's shoulders. 'Drink this to keep up your strength and help your womb to work.'

Obediently the girl raised the cup to her lips, grimacing only a little as the aftertaste lingered on her palate. To say that she was only just sixteen years old, Catrin thought that she was being very brave. Her name was Hikenai, but since no one without English could pronounce it, she was known as Belle. Prince Henry had brought her back from an adolescent escapade in England two years since when they were both fourteen. She had gone from kitchen-wench to royal chambermaid in the whisk of a bed sheet.

There were those who were jealous of Belle's rise in status, who thought it wrong that a common Saxon wench should share the Prince's bed, but Catrin was fond of her. Belle had no airs and graces. Her heart was generous and devoid of malice, and Catrin's own heart went out to the girl because she was so very young and vulnerable.

Outside, the bells of Rouen Cathedral tolled the hour of nones, and golden mid-afternoon light poured through the shutters on to the waiting cradle by the fire and the copper basin in which the new-born would be bathed. A maidservant moved around the room, unobtrusively warming towels and swaddling to greet the arrival of Henry Plantagenet's first child.

In the six years since leaving England, Catrin had overcome the qualms of home-sickness by resuming her trade as a midwife and healer. She had the full endorsement of the Ducal household and custom was soon brisk. Oliver said nothing but employed a burley Flemish mercenary to replace Godard. They had a maid as well, to care for Rosamund when Catrin was about her business.

'Push down through your belly,' she encouraged Belle, as a strong contraction tightened the girl's womb. 'Yes, that's it.'

Belle groaned with effort. It was always hard for younger women, Catrin thought. Their taut, firm muscles wanted to hold everything in rather than let it out, and their labours were nearly always twice as long as women bearing second or third offspring.

For the next hour, she continued to cajole and urge her patient, and was rewarded at last by the appearance of the head at the entrance of the birth passage. 'Gently now,' she murmured, and eased her hand around the baby's head to untangle the cord that was wrapped around its neck. The hair, slick with birth fluid, was dark auburn, but would dry to a vivid Plantagenet red. At Catrin's command, Belle pushed again and the baby gushed from her body into the waiting towel.

'A boy.' Catrin smiled with delight as she rubbed the infant in the linen and he let out a reedy wail of protest. 'A lusty man-child for you and your lord.'

Sobbing with effort and emotion, Belle held out her arms for her son and cradled him with an expertise that came of being the eldest of eight children. Catrin watched the first meeting with tingling eyes. She had lost count of the number of babies she had delivered during the past years, all belonging to other women. It seemed an age since she had cradled Rosamund in her arms.