He kissed her again, a most effective way to end one of her long-winded discourses on the differences between their respective times.
She scolded him more than any woman he had ever come across, though usually he minded it not. Verily, ’twas singularly unique and amusing, he thought, since no female had ever dared chastise him before, not even those who had held power over him through his sword. But now was not the time for such things. And she must have agreed, for she was kissing him back, her arms wrapping around his neck again, her body arching into his in a most provocative way.
It really was more than he could bear at that point. She was so soft, and having attained her pleasure, so yielding, that he couldn’t wait another moment to claim her as his. He entered her slowly, yet was the path slick with her essence, and with only the slightest thrust, he was able to push aside the barrier of her innocence to sheathe himself fully.
She made no sound. And when he glanced at her to see how badly she was hurt, he saw only that her passion had returned instead, and that drove him over the edge. He pummeled her after all, yet with a restraint he’d never shown another woman, and when he felt her climax around him again, his own bliss was there to join with hers.
She was his now. The possessor of his sword had finally become the possessed.
20
Roseleen stretched luxuriously as she awakened. She felt inordinately refreshed, as if she’d slept for several days. She also felt…good, incredibly good. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so wonderful upon waking, and she was determined to savor the feeling for a while, in no hurry to get up and face the day.
She heard horses, a few nickers, some blowing, the jingle of tack. There was a stuffy smell she couldn’t quite identify, almost like mildew, but it didn’t really intrude on what she was feeling. Neither did the slight scratchiness of the bedding, that for some reason reminded her of wool army blankets rather than her soft linen…
Horses?
Her eyes flew open, but she had to blink them several times, and even then, she still doubted what she was seeing. Not her own bedroom, not even close. She was in some kind of tent. The mildew smell was coming from the mattress and pillows, the scratchiness from the coarsest-looking sheets she’d ever encountered. The mattress, if it could even be called that, was lying on the floor, minus a bedframe, and wasn’t even as big as a twin bed.
The same canvas that the tent was made of covered the ground. A single fur hide was set on it to resemble a rug. Against one of the walls was a very large, ancient-looking trunk with a huge key padlock on it, presently unlocked and sitting open. Two smaller chests were on either side of it. They, too, had fat iron padlocks on them, but these were locked tight, one even wrapped with rusty chain. An iron pot, or more exactly, a cauldron, was set up on some kind of thin pole contraption, with charred wood beneath it.
This couldn’t be…? No, Thorn wouldn’t, not without telling her. He’d probably just had an aversion to sleeping indoors and so had moved them outdoors at some time during the night. So where had he found a tent?
Roseleen threw off the sheets and left the bed to search for her clothes. Her complete nakedness gave her pause, and then the memories of last night came rushing at her, and she stood still. She even grinned. Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t kill him when she found him. Maybe she’d just mention, casually, that it would be nice if he informed her beforehand, the next time he wanted to go camping. And where had he found a tent in the middle of the night?
She started looking about for her clothes again. She was on the way to that big open trunk when the tent flap moved and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen stepped inside.
“Good morrow, my lady,” he said cheerfully upon noticing her standing there.
Roseleen didn’t answer him as he might have expected. She shrieked instead and dived for the bed to bury herself under the sheets. She really was going to murder Thorn. The kid’s dress or partial dress, bare legs under a long tunic that fell to his knees, with a sword dangling from the belt strapped around it, told her clearly that Thorn hadn’t moved them into her backyard, but into another century.
When she got up the nerve to stick her head out from under the sheets, she found the boy still there. And he didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about having caught her in her birthday suit. He was merely looking at her inquiringly.
She recalled then how little importance nakedness had been given in medieval times. Most everyone slept without any kind of clothing to restrict them, and it was not uncommon for dozens of people to sleep in a room together. The ladies and female servants of households helped to give perfect strangers baths as a sign of courtesy and welcome. A half-dozen servants could be present when the lord and lady of the castle dressed, and in the kitchens, workers thought little of stripping down to nothing when the heat became unbearable.
Embarrassment, at least over one’s body, had yet to be realized back then. It was only in the latter centuries that man had tacked shame to what was one of nature’s finer creations, the human body.
Unfortunately, Roseleen was a product of her day, not theirs, and she, at least, was suffering acute embarrassment. She tried to get it into her mind that she shouldn’t be, but it didn’t work. Even the fact that she had a real live medieval youngster on hand to interrogate, who apparently spoke the Norman French that she was familiar with, didn’t help to get her tongue moving.
She’d prefer he just go away so her embarrassment could go with him. But he wasn’t leaving, was just standing there waiting for she couldn’t imagine what. She finally noticed that garments of some kind, possibly a woman’s dress, were draped over his arm. For her? She certainly hoped so.
But since he wasn’t offering the garments to her, or doing anything else, for that matter, she was forced to say something. And getting herself clothed might be uppermost in her mind, but finding out her Viking’s whereabouts at the moment took precedence.
“Thorn Blooddrinker, do you know who he is?”
“Certainly. He is my lord.”
Roseleen frowned at that answer, and asked suspiciously, “Of the noble kind, or the deity kind?”
“My lady?”
That she was confusing him told her what she wanted to know, but just to be sure, she asked, “How is he your lord?”
“My sister, Blythe, gave me into his keeping,” he said, and his chest puffed out a bit as he added, “I am to be his squire once I am sufficiently trained.”
She and Thorn had only just arrived here. How the devil could all this have taken place? Unless this Blythe was one of the women who had come into possession of Blooddrinker’s Curse. And that could mean that Thorn might be in danger of running into himself in this time he had brought them to.
“How long has Thorn been your lord?”
“Nigh two years now.”
She was definitely starting to get worried. Thorn hadn’t explained what would happen if he came upon himself in the past, just that his Odin had said he should avoid it. She needed to talk to him, and quick.
“Where is Thorn right now, do you know?”
“Aye, ’tis early, just dawn, but he has gone to the docks to confer with Duke William.”
So he had brought her to meet William the Bastard this time. Her excitement rose along with her annoyance, because he’d left her behind in this tent. He could have woken her. They could have gone together to meet the first Norman king of England.
“Lord Thorn bid me find you some raiments,” the boy continued, “and assist you in the donning of them, since you are without maid.”
Oh, he did, did he? she thought with mounting anger. But she wasn’t going to take her anger out on the boy. She had a much bigger target in mind.
“What is your name, anyway?” she asked him. “Mine is Roseleen, by the way.”
“I am Guy of Anjou.”
“Well, I thank you, Guy, for the clothes, but assistance I don’t need. If you’ll just lay them down, I’ll manage fine on my own.”
“Nay, I was told to assist you, and I always do exactly as Lord Thorn bids me.”
The mulish expression he was suddenly wearing told her she was in for an argument, but she still tried again, albeit more sternly. “If I need assistance, I’ll call you. In the meantime, you can wait outside, if you please.”
At that point, he grinned. “You will need me, my lady. There are nigh a hundred ties on this chemise.”
“A hundred?” she asked doubtfully. “Show me.”
He separated two garments and held them up for her inspection. The yellow bliaut had no ties at all that she could see, but the dark blue chemise had quite a few, twenty maybe, certainly not a hundred, but every one of them was at the back. Splendid. She was going to need some help, but she wasn’t going to be dressed by a teenager.
“All right, I’ll concede that I might need some help, but what I need first is some water to wash with. Would it be too much trouble for you to fetch me some?”
“Nay, ’twill only take a minute.” He beamed, now that she was cooperating with him.
“You can leave those here,” she called out, when he started to walk out with her clothes still in hand.
“Certainly, my lady,” he said, and came the rest of the way into the tent to lay the garments on the bed beside her, then rushed out.
She hurried to get into the chemise before he returned with the water. It was tight going. The sleeves were long and fit like a second skin, obviously made for someone with smaller hands than she possessed, since they had no ties themselves. But that was the worst of it. The rest would conform to her curves once it was laced, then the sleeveless bliaut, which was slit up the sides of the skirt, would fit over it, showing off a lot of the under chemise.
She recognized the style. It was indeed from the tenth or eleventh century. And if King William was still being called Duke William, then Thorn had brought them to a time that preceded the Norman conquest. That was all right with her. She didn’t care when she met the man, just as long as she did.
Guy came back into the tent carrying a bucket of water. There was no point in upbraiding him about not knocking before entering, much as she wanted to, when there was no door to knock on. And it finally occurred to her to wonder why she was in a tent, anyway.
“Tell me, Guy, how far from here is this dock that Thorn went to?”
“Not far, my lady. Just a short ride.”
How long would people whose only speedy transportation was horses consider a short ride? One hour or two, when it took them days to get from town to town?
“Were there no”—she tried to remember what inns had been called in the eleventh century, then added—“hostelries near the docks?”
He chuckled a bit before he enlightened her. “Aye, but not enough for an army six thousand strong.”
An army? Camped near docks? God, was it possible? Had Thorn brought her here to witness one of the most famous battles in history? Were the Normans about to cross the Channel to Pevensey Bay?
She was dying to ask Guy what the date was, but that would sound too strange, and she was probably already sounding strange enough to him with her rusty Norman French. Thorn was the one she needed to ask, and she couldn’t do that until she located him—which she was going to do as soon as she was properly dressed.
To that end, she ignored the blush she felt warming her cheeks, lifted her hair out of the way, and turned her bare back to Guy. “How about taking care of these laces you were so eager to get your hands on?”
“My lady?”
She rolled her eyes and rephrased her request. “Fasten the ties for me, Guy, if you please. I need to find Thorn.”
Just as she felt the chemise being pulled closed, it gaped open again as he released it, saying, “Nay, I am to keep you safe here until his return.”
She started to argue with that, but had a feeling she wouldn’t get the chemise laced if she did. So she said, “Is that what he told you to do?”
“Aye.”
“How…wise…of him.”
That must have worked to put his mind at ease on the subject, because his hands came back to start the lacing, and after about ten long minutes, he managed the last tie and said, “There,” with something of a sigh.
She immediately tossed the bliaut over her head and smoothed it into place over the chemise. Definitely too long. Some heels would have helped, but they weren’t the fashion of the day. A belt would have to do, and so she looked inquiringly at Guy again.
“Did you think to bring me some shoes and a…girdle?” she asked.
“Aye.” He beamed.
He reached inside his tunic, where he had stored the smaller items, letting them catch against his own belt. He came out with a pair of cloth boots with no more than hide soles on them, and a long strip of embroidery that was the belt, or as it was then called, the girdle.
“Excellent,” she praised him and dropped down on the mattress to work the pointy-toed boots on.
Amazingly, everything fit rather well, considering she was probably a bit bigger than the average medieval female. Maybe a little too well, she decided, when the form-fitting waist refused to gather under the girdle without looking ridiculous. She gave up trying. She was simply going to have to lift the front of her skirts to walk, and let the back trail on the ground as it was designed to do.
“The water, my lady?” Guy reminded her.
“I’ll get to that,” she told him. “But first…”
Without finishing, she rushed out of the tent before he thought to stop her. He called her name, shouted it actually, and sounded pretty worried, but she wasn’t stopping. How hard could it be to find the docks if they were close by? The smell of the sea would lead her in that direction, or the sight of ships—it had been documented that there had been over seven hundred of them. So even though she was walking so fast she was practically running, she managed to glance in all directions looking for some tall masts. But all she saw was tents, everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them. She was beginning to think that the short ride Guy had referred to was definitely of the several-hour kind.
There were so many men, literally thousands of them, standing around talking, sitting, gambling, cooking their morning meals over campfires, practicing arms, cleaning arms. There were some women about too, but not very many of them, and all of a certain class known as camp followers; at least their ragged dress and coarse behavior suggested they were.
Clothing really did hold great importance in medieval times, in that it distinguished the different social classes on sight, for only the rich nobles could afford fine raiments. The clothes obtained for Roseleen were of a good quality, but she had a feeling that that wouldn’t offer her much protection in the midst of an army, not when an army was composed of men from every level of the social ladder. Nobles and peasants alike filled the ranks, and probably a number of criminals, for there was always easy pickings when this many people were gathered in one place.
She had already turned around to return to Thorn’s tent, deciding she could wait, after all, for him to find her. Unfortunately, she had no idea what the tent looked like on the outside, having avoided looking back in her hurry to elude Guy. Her only hope was that the boy had followed her and would soon catch up.
But she hadn’t gone far in retracing her steps when an arm came around her shoulders to steer her in another direction. Her first reaction was to shrug off the arm, but the fellow had a firm grip on her, so that didn’t work. She then glanced at him and groaned inwardly. A common soldier no taller than she was, but quite hefty. He was young, but his grin still showed a great many missing teeth, and his full beard sported the remains of several meals and probably some well-fed lice.
And then she saw three more just like him—and he was leading her toward them.
21
It occurred to Roseleen, albeit a bit too late, that although she was wearing the clothes of a lady, her hair was an absolute disaster after she had slept on it wet. She hadn’t given
it a thought before she’d rushed out of the tent. And medieval ladies rarely went out in public with such untidy hair, let alone uncovered hair.
So unfortunately, anyone who happened to see her might assume that she had just come from bed. And her walking through an army camp without an escort would lead to the worst conclusion, that she’d probably had a secret rendezvous last night with one of the soldiers, and if she could consort with one of them, why not a few more?
She hoped that the men now gathering around her hadn’t drawn that particular conclusion, but from all the grins coming her way, she was afraid it was a slim hope. And these weren’t twentieth century men who might back off with an apology, once she explained their mistake.
These were coarse, rustic peasants, who had been pulled from their homes to further their duke’s ambitions, men greedy for whatever few pleasures came their way in their otherwise dismal lives. And these particular men had to know they would soon be facing death. The Normans might have won the Battle of Hastings, but not without losses.
She would have felt sorry for them if they weren’t planning on making her one of those few pleasures they got out of life. And their expressions told her that was exactly what they were planning. In broad daylight no less, with others all about. This bunch had to be pretty desperate—or just uncaring of any consequences.
She should have started yelling her head off, come what may, instead of trying for a calm approach and merely warning them, “I shall scream, gentlemen, and draw you quite an audience, if you do not immediately desist and let me be on my way.”
One of them laughed at that threat. Another one reached for a lock of her long hair and began rubbing it between his dirty fingers. The one with his arm still around her shoulders squeezed her to his side. The stench of his unwashed body nearly made her gag.
But the words of the one who plastered his hand to her breast turned her blood cold. “If ye want more’n just us riding ye, wench, then commence yer screaming. We mind not the sharing of ye.”