Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [163]
She lay, stunned into a sort of oblivion that might have been sleep. When she woke, she was again in bed, the sheet folded over her. Her limbs had melted. Where the ache of longing had been, there was a host of dim, unwonted pangs, quite unlike the small, sharp rending of her initiation. It came to her, an odd thought, that last time she had become merely a ravished virgin. This time, somehow, she had been made a woman.
By Claes, again. Had he gone? No, that would be too discourteous. Then, fully dressed still, waiting for her to awake?
She moved, and found his bare shoulder by hers, and his head deep in the pillow beside her. To comfort and receive her confidences, he had done what was considerate. And for other reasons, surely, too. Even Claes could never have reached that point so quickly, unless he had wanted her.
He moved, feeling her move, and lifting himself on one elbow, stretched not towards her but to the bedside. When, half-sitting, he turned, he held a pewter cup of water, already drawn from her drinking-stand. Instead of offering it to her, he rested the cup on the sheet, and said, “Lie still for a little. Sometimes, when it’s like that, the first movements can make your head ache.”
She lay, and felt her body settle, and the weight lift from her brow. He made no bones about his experience, even now. After a bit she moved too, and pulling herself up a little, took and emptied the cup. He leaned free of the sheet to place it on the floor, and she watched the muscles play on his body, from shoulder to rib, rib to hip and hip to thigh, and when he turned back, let him see her examining him.
She said, “I saw a young bull once, working a field. I couldn’t believe what I saw. How many others have you mounted today?”
He paused, but didn’t draw up the sheet, although his expression quietened. “None, demoiselle,” he said.
Katelina stared at him. “I see. Hence, no doubt, the – brilliance – of your performance. If I hadn’t been here, what would you have done? Gone to a brothel?”
He didn’t avoid her gaze. “Single men do,” he said. “It’s something society allows us. I’ve just left Felix in one.”
“You mean,” she said, “I’ve saved you some money?”
He let another interval pass, one elbow pushed into his pillow, his eyes on his hands clasped before him. Then he said, “You said you were in trouble.”
“Yes, I did,” said Katelina. She was breathless with anger, and panic. She said, “You enjoy my body.”
He smiled a little, at his hands. He said, “I failed to hide it, then.”
She said, “If I were your wife, you could do that all night, and all day. Would you marry me for it? Or can you do better with other women?”
He looked up. Then, unclasping his hands, he reached for one of hers and held it to him, folded lightly. He said, “You are without peer. But, demoiselle, there are things to discuss. You didn’t tell your parents of Jordan de Ribérac?”
“No,” she said. “I told them my escort was the Gruuthuse boy.”
“Then they’ll expect you to marry him,” said Claes.
She gazed at him.
He said, “Didn’t that strike you? And if he wants to marry you badly enough, he might happily claim to be your lover. You see, you needn’t be tied to me.”
He made a pause, not quite smiling. When she said nothing, he resumed painstakingly.
“If you don’t want him, of course, then you must tell your parents what really happened. They’ll help you if you choose a different husband, or if you decide not to marry till afterwards. Well-born girls are often sent abroad for their accouchement, and the child put out to foster.”
It had suddenly got quite out of hand. She picked on one thing. “Tell my parents! They would flay you alive!”
He shrugged a little. “If I were to stay in Flanders, of course. But there are other countries. And unless you want to marry the Gruuthuse boy, they must know the child’s parentage to safeguard you. Jordan de Ribérac was alone in your house before I was. The slightest hint of all this,