Wonderful (30 page)

Clio stood before the polished brass piece, a small but precious part of her huge bride-price. It felt strange to see her reflection in something hanging on the wall, rather than looking down into a stream of silvery water.

Only that morn, Dulcie had washed her hair with dew gathered before sunrise the day before. Afterward, when Clio’s hair was still wet, Dulcie had rubbed sweet almond oil into it, claiming that Old Gladdys promised it would shine even more than all the stars in the summer sky and surely capture the heart of her husband.

Her maid was becoming more romantic, especially since a certain handsome young red-haired troubadour with a voice like a nightingale’s had come to Camrose to entertain for the earl’s fine wedding.

Just last eve, Clio had seen Dulcie and the young man disappear behind the dark corner of the buttery. She had heard Dulcie giggle.

She looked away from her maid with her dreamy eyes and stared at her own reflection. Was this how she looked to others?

To Merrick?

She did not know exactly how she felt about the young and serious-looking face that stared back at her. She had not thought of herself looking this way.

Her hair was wonderful, even she could not deny it. The color was so pale and different. She had always thought her hair was the color of yellow flax, not uncommon.

But it was not flaxen, but so pale it was almost the color of that precious white flour she wished she had for a proper bride cake.

She stood there studying her features, her small, thin nose and the deep dimple in her chin. Had someone hit her when she was a babe?

Her father had had a small hole like this in his chin. She remembered back to a time her memory had lost for a while, when she was a small child sitting in his lap. She had asked him why he had a hole in his chin. He laughed and told her that was where the Viking had stabbed him, then hugged her tightly when she touched it and began to cry for him.

What an odd face she had … Each feature a part of her heritage. Her father’s chin. Her mother’s nose. Her grandmother’s hair and eyes. Her grandfather’s stubbornness. It all came back to her, casual comments made in jest over the years when her parents had been alive.

For the briefest of moments she felt lonely, and a weak, vulnerable part of her longed for her father to be here on this day, as she had longed for her mother the day before.

A loud knock at the door made her start. “Aye?”

Dulcie came inside. She took one look at Clio still sitting there with her hair down and still a little damp and clad in only her linen shift, and she crossed the room clucking like one of the chickens in the bailey.

In less time than you could blink, Dulcie was pulling an ivory comb through her hair with such force it was if she were trying to use that comb to exorcise the Devil himself.

“Ouch! Dulcie, have pity on me. I doubt Merrick would wish for a bald bride.”

“But there is so little time, my lady. You should be down there, ready to mount your bridal horse. I heard the earl is already at the chapel.”

“Do not fret so. The earl will expect me to be late.” She yawned and stretched.

“If I were marrying the earl, I would not be late.”

“If you were marrying the earl, I could have gotten a good sleep last night.”

“You did not sleep well?”

Clio just shrugged.

“Are you afraid, my lady?”

Her insides were quivering and she felt as if her head were empty. Aye, something was happening to her.

“Do you need … advice?”

“Advice?” Clio frowned.

“About this night.” Dulcie was not looking her in the eye. “About the bedding.”

Clio studied Dulcie’s serious pink face and burst out laughing. Dulcie continued to drag the comb though Clio’s hair as if it were the most important duty in the world.

“Dulcie.” Clio grabbed the hand with the comb and made her stop.

The girl looked at her then.

Clio tried to make her face look stern and shocked, like Sister Agnes’s. “You are unmarried. Perchance is there something you should tell me?”

Dulcie blushed so bright a red that her face looked like a shiny fall apple. “I hear things that people would not say to a lady such as yourself.”

“What have you heard?”

“Many things. Things that will shock you, my lady.”

“I see.” Clio paused, somewhat curious, but not certain Dulcie knew any more about bedding a man than she did. “Have you slept with a man?”

Dulcie looked horrified and quickly made the sign of the cross. “No, my lady. I swear I am a maiden.”

What could one maiden tell another? Wasn’t that like trying to ask an angel about sin?

Clio decided to test her. “Have you heard that men kiss with their tongues?”

Her maid grew redder and stared at her toes. “Aye. David the Sheepwasher stuck his tongue in my mouth at the last May fair.”

“What about the troubadour?”

Dulcie’s head shot up, then she smiled a little. “Him too.”

There was a long, drawn-out moment of tense silence between them. Then Clio plucked at some loose threads on the hem of her shift. “Did you hear that a man can kiss you like that, with his lips and tongue in other places?”

The maid frowned. “What places?”

“Your breasts.”

Dulcie shook her head vehemently. “Those are for your babes, my lady, not for your husband. Someone has been telling you fool’s tales.”

Clio bit back a smile and decided not to tell Dulcie about the other places Merrick liked to kiss. The maid would never believe it. In truth, Clio would not have believed it if someone had told her.

A simple kind of peaceful feeling came over her, the kind where you realize that you are not truly as frightened as you thought you were.

She felt better. She wasn’t as light-headed and fluttery, especially when she remembered that when she married Merrick, they would have the freedom to kiss whenever she wanted.

She smiled a secret little smile while Dulcie braided her long hair at the sides, then twisted those thin braids back away from her face and secured them low on the back of her head with a thin slip of silver ribbon.

She stood up then, and Dulcie slipped a white samite gown trimmed with silver threads and pale gray miniver over her head. They both pulled out her hair so it hung long and straight and past the back of her knees.

There was a tap at the door and Dulcie opened it. Queen Eleanor came inside.

“Ah, I am just in time, I see.” She held out a lovely and intricately wrought silver-link belt with a pearl clasp. “This is a gift from Edward.”

“It’s lovely,” Clio said in awe, for it was the most beautiful belt she had ever seen.

“And this is from me.” Eleanor clipped a small silver dagger with a filigree sheath onto a link in the side of the belt. The jeweled dagger hung from the chain, looking a little brazen and suggestive.

Clio glanced up and caught the glimmer in her friend’s eyes. “How delightfully wicked.” And they laughed together.

On her head, her maid placed the circlet adorned with those tiny pearl drops, the ones that looked just like fairy tears. Long silver ribbons fell like Maypole streamers from the back of the circlet and twisted down and through her loose hair.

“You are so lovely, my lady.”

“She is right, Clio.” Eleanor smiled. “Every man there, wed or no, will wish he were Lord Merrick this day.”

Clio was embarrassed by her praise and tried to jest. “Only this day? Will they not envy my lord any other day?”

“That is not what I meant, and you know that.”

“Aye, I am jesting. For I feel no different. I am still me, Clio. Fine cloth and wicked jeweled daggers and huge pearl drops do not change who or what I am.”

Eleanor nodded. “You are a bride. Today is special if for no other reason than that. ’Tis something a woman lives for, waits for, dreams of.”

“Then should I not be more happy? Should I not want to shout from the tower that today is special?”

“I think perhaps you have more …”—the queen paused to search for a word—” more will than most women. The female masses would be pleased just to have the earl look at them, much less wed them.”

Clio thought about how she would feel if Merrick were to wed someone else. Her fists formed strong knots and she frowned.

’Twas not something she had thought about, nor something she liked to think about. She had come to think of Merrick as hers alone.

“I thought that might make you appreciate him.” Eleanor laughed. “You look like you have murder on your mind.”

“Do I?”

“You know you do.”

It felt good to laugh. It felt better to have this woman as a friend.

“Clio?”

“Aye?”

“You will be happy. I am certain.”

Clio wasn’t certain and wished she could feel as confident as Eleanor did.

“’Tis only that you like to know that you can do as you please. I can imagine that the thought of binding yourself to a man like Merrick is difficult. He is a strong man used to having his way.”

“Aye. He is. But I am used to having my own way, too.”

“I did not say that.” Eleanor grinned then, giving away the notion that she was thinking it.

“That I am stubborn?”

“I did not say that either.” She was still grinning.

“No, but Merrick did. And he was not pleased with me at the time.”

“Come.” The queen threaded her arm through Clio’s and guided her toward the doors. “Trust me. He will be pleased with you now.”

The king’s heralds blew their trumpets. There was a sudden stillness, a silence that filled the warm air with anticipation.

Merrick stood tall and tense in front of the chapel doors. With sudden clarity he felt the raw spectacle of this ceremony, the ritual of the sacrament of marriage, the importance of it, and for the first time in his memory, he was uncomfortable being at the center of such pomp.

For the briefest of moments he had a new and different sense of respect and camaraderie for Edward, who had endured so well his coronation.

Merrick sought to relax, but he could not.

Not even after he had taken deep breaths of clean air through his nose instead of his mouth so no one would notice. He felt winded and sweat was dripping down the back of his neck and through his hair. His pride made him fight to look cool and calm.

’Twas a vulnerability that almost frightened him, his reaction to this day; his reaction to this one woman. Because he could not control this weak feeling. It frustrated him and made him feel as if he were going into battle without his armor.

He was a warrior, a knight, his king’s man. He was an earl, for godsakes. He felt like a coward, one that wants to turn and run at the first sign of conflict.

He took another deep breath, yet all he wanted to do was throw back his head and give forth his loudest battle cry. Anything that would crack through the awkward quiet that seemed to him as if it went on and on forever.

But then, in less time than it took for his heart to beat, it came—the sound he had unknowingly been waiting for. The distant, clear song of silver bells.

A gasp went through the crowd and his breath stopped in his chest as if he had taken a blow.

She rode toward him on a snow white palfrey, a gift from the king and a symbol of her purity.

Yes, he thought, she was still a maiden … barely. He almost smiled to himself and felt a kind of peace when he stared at her. Suddenly he did not feel so very alone in this.

The palfrey’s mane and tail were braided with silver ribbons and bells, and sheer silver fabric decorated a bridal saddle tanned and bleached until the leather was the same color of the clouds in the sky.

The crowd, the same one that had milled around the courtyard only moments before, parted, forming a road in the middle of the inner bailey that led right to him, standing on the steps of the chapel with the huge arched doors just beyond.

Those silver bells rang and jingled and brought a sense of joy to the air, the way songbirds woke you on a clear summer day when the country was at peace and all was right with the world.

Around him the people began to sing:

Bring my love to me.
Lady-o, lady-o,
A bride she will be.

White horse, white horse,
My heart I give to thee
Lady-o, lady-o
For all eternity.

He listened to the song, a chant really. Its words and their meaning soaked into his head for the first time. He had been to other weddings, had chanted those same words himself since he was a mere youth.

But it had always been no different from the way he recited Hail Marys and Paternosters as penance. Just so many words he repeated again and again, so that after a while he only spoke by rote.

The words had never meant anything to him. Until today.

He stood there a little dumbfounded and confused, feeling emotions he did not want to feel. The horse brought her closer. The ringing of the bells grew louder and sweeter. He could see her face clearly now.

God, but she was beautiful.

And he thought with some humor and a little selfish relief that she looked more frightened than he was.

Her hair was smoothed back away from her face and she wore the jeweled circlet he had had made for her in Rome; the tiny pearl drops on the headpiece enhanced the green of her eyes. Those wide and smiling eyes that haunted his dreams and his days in the way no other woman ever had, or ever could have.