Once Upon a Pillow Read online

  “Yes, wife,” he murmured.

  Had she spoken? She couldn’t recall. She wondered if that dark fur was silky or coarse to the touch.

  “Jocelyn, my wife.” His voice was quiet and low, a holy voice, a mystic’s and a saint’s voice…the devil’s voice? “Aye, my wife who was never my bride.”

  She averted her eyes. He shouldn’t say these things to her. ‘Twas unseemly, scandalous.

  “What’s this? A blush? But then, you’d be a maid, wouldn’t you?” he murmured. A scowl tipped his dark brows inward. “And would like to stay that way, I troth.”

  She could think of no answer. She wasn’t sure she had one. When she’d heard Nicholas’s fate, she’d put behind her all thoughts of what a man and a maid did. She’d thought she’d done so with relief, but now she wondered if there hadn’t also been some small, unexplored ort of regret.

  He watched the emotions play across her face and answered what he thought he read, his gaze becoming shuttered and flat.

  “Don’t annoy heaven with pleas that you might escape the inevitable, Jocelyn,” he said. “You can’t.”

  And he kissed her.

  * * *

  Jocelyn broke away from him and fled, leaving Nicholas staring after her, bemused and cautious and thoughtful.

  For one intense instant she had melted into his arms, sweet and supple as a green willow. Her mouth had yielded, her hand had lain quiescent against his breast. But all too soon she’d realized the brief breech that had been made in her formidable defenses.

  ‘Twas a shame.

  The scent of wood smoke and horse sweat had risen from the drab surcoat she wore over a threadbare, dusty chemise. She was not blonde. She was not ripely made. She was tall and angular and her hair was like burnished midnight and her lips as sweet as figs. And when she’d stood over him as he lay abed, so angry the tears shimmered in her dark eyes, her voice low and passionate and alone, like the call of some night bird, he’d been overwhelmed.

  He’d known who she was before she spoke, before he realized that the laws of God and men had already bequeathed her to him. Though in truth, she’d had it correct. He had forgotten he’d had a wife.

  Which wasn’t surpassingly strange, since he’d never seen her. He had only wed her by proxy in order to save her from some vague threat Brother Timothy, now Prior Timothy, had told him about—and to gain himself a fief. Yes. He had wanted something for himself, something tangible and real, something lasting. He did not want to die Sir No-Name.

  So he’d made that marriage half-sotted on the eve of leaving on Richard’s crusade. And, he admitted, unworthy though it was, he’d been more interested in the proposed wife’s prospects than the wife herself.

  But now he’d found something he wanted even more than her dowry, more than Cabot than the land itself. He wanted Jocelyn, including her well-guarded heart.

  He’d spent a lifetime in a dungeon learning to guard his tongue, avert his eyes, play the necessary game of weights and measures. She hadn’t. Her valiance still shone as bright as a lodestar, even though he would have wagered much that she paid in her own blood for the privilege of championing the weak and defenseless. A woman like that, a woman of passion and courage, was worth any ten holdings.

  But how to woo her? He could lay claim to her body, he’d every right and she, dutiful wife that she was, would doubtless suffer him. But he did not want her to suffer him. He’d never owned anything but what he carried within himself, and of that a good deal was made up of pride.

  It would be a difficult campaign. She had made very clear what value she put on his knightly skills. Why she found the matter of his being alive troublesome, a vexation at best, a plague at worst. Added to which, he had been in bed with another woman.

  That might take some time to repair.

  Chapter Three

  Since Nicholas wanted to talk to the match-making clerics, he returned the foul-tempered destrier to St. Albion’s himself. Like the rest of what he had seen of the small abbey, he found the stables as snugly wrought as the wealthiest lord’s manor. In truth, the saddles and bridles that a tonsured lad was oiling were far more ornate than any he’d seen in his own stables.

  Aye, little St. Albion’s did well for itself, Nicholas thought. As he approached the small abbey’s exterior, a young, husky female voice raised in panic issued forth from an open window. It was Jocelyn. Nicholas slowed.

  “What am I to do, Father?” Jocelyn asked.

  “I do not see there is anything to do, child,” Prior Timothy said, his tone troubled. “He is your husband, returned from a certain grave to take his place at your side as the master of this fief. God’s will be done.” Never had a priest sounded less convinced of God’s will.

  Jocelyn made an impatient sound. “I refuse to believe that this is His will. Why would He allow me to make right all the wrongs Gerent Cabot heaped upon Trecombe, only to set in Gerent’s place a creature of similar temper and like habits?”

  “Now, daughter.” This time the voice belonged to the round and childlike Father Eidart. “Not all men are beasts.”

  “This one is.” She spat the statement with such conviction Nicholas was taken aback.

  “He is not returned twenty-four hours and already he cavorts in bed, my only bed, with women whom he pays—”

  “Enough!” Father Timothy cut in.

  “How do you know that?” Father Eidart asked curiously. Nicholas was curious himself.

  “Last night, he borrowed money from my miller at the tavern for his…entertainment,” she ground out. “The miller came to me this morning to settle the account.”

  Ah, yes, Nicholas remembered. He had borrowed a few coins to buy the woman some wretched bauble. Little had he realized his villeins would go to Jocelyn for repayment. It appeared he would have to explain the concept of discretion to his newly adopted people.

  “Then, indeed, he has proved himself an untamed, uncouth creature,” Prior Timothy was saying. “But we knew this when we arranged the marriage.”

  “It is why we arranged the marriage,” Father Eidart added penitently.

  “I know, Father!” Jocelyn blurted out. “I know. ‘A man so bold and savage and fierce must invite death.’”

  “A martyr’s death,” Father Eidart said solemnly. “It is what we anticipated.”

  “A dead sainted husband for me, reprieve from a tyrants rule for Trecombe, and yearly donations to the Church for arranging it,” she clipped out.

  Nicholas was stunned for a moment. She had paid the priests to find her a husband likely to die on the battlefield? No wonder St. Albion’s was so well provisioned. Its riches had been bought with his death. Nicholas settled his shoulders against the warm stone wall. My, what an interesting wife he’d found himself.

  “We only trusted that Nicholas’s death would be God’s will. We never gave any guarantees,” Father Timothy said mildly. There was a moment’s silence and Nicholas could picture Jocelyn standing there in her threadbare finery scowling crossly because God’s will and her own hadn’t been in accord.

  “It’s a test, isn’t it?” she asked suddenly.

  “A test?”

  “Yes. The Lord is trying to determine if I am worthy to preside over the holding.”

  “How do you discern this?” Father Timothy asked.

  “Well,” she said slowly. “Nicholas is the final obstacle to my establishing a lasting peace and prosperity for Trecombe.”

  “He might not be an obstacle,” Father Eidart suggested. “He might want peace and prosperity himself.”

  Nicholas could only imagine the flat look of contempt that statement brokered.

  “He returns home and within a day is involved in a brawl over the disposition of land I have held peacefully for six years,” Jocelyn said. “A few hours later he is debauching at the inn with the most disreputable hounds Trecombe breeds and, speaking of breeding, I return from my pilgrimage to find him with a woman, drunk, in my only bed! I swear by Saint Neot’s t
oe, that whatever happens, I will never sleep in that bed again—”

  Father Timothy, like Nicholas, seized on that last bit. ‘“Whatever happens’? What do you mean by that? What do you imagine is going to happen?”

  “Well,” she said angrily. “We cannot allow all my, er, God’s hard work to be destroyed. He would not want that. Would He?”

  Neither holy brother had an immediate answer.

  “It is clear. A wolf has been set amongst your flock and someone must get rid of him.”

  Nicholas’s mouth dropped open, partly in amazement, but with a good deal of admiration, too. The woman would have made a fine warrior. She identified her enemy and had already decided the most expedient way to deal with him: Kill him. If she could bring herself to do it. Or she might talk the holy brothers into dealing with him.

  For though she sounded resolute enough, her voice shook. A general she might have been, but a murderess? He doubted it.

  This time the moment of silence stretched longer. “You are not suggesting that we take a human life?” Father Timothy finally whispered. “We are monks, daughter. Not warriors. It is evil to even contemplate asking us. Convent-bred as you are, you know this.”

  Nicholas could hear her shuffling unhappily in place.

  “Forgive me, Father. You do right to chastise me, for if I am to be worthy of the honor and duty with which I have been invested than I must be willing to do whatever deed needs be done in order to preserve this place, these people, and your holy selves.”

  “You must not sacrifice your immortal soul!” gasped Father Eidart.

  “You remember my uncle’s tyranny, the poverty and deprivation in which he kept St. Albion’s? The disdain and humiliation he heaped upon your heads? The many ways he undermined and mocked the Church’s authority?”

  Father Eidart muttered a horrified, “God help us!”

  Nicholas crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. More and more he wished his dead uncle-in-law were alive so that he could make his acquaintance and, not coincidentally, have the pleasure of making him not alive.

  “In theory,” Father Timothy murmured, “if a person was to commit a sin in order that graver sins were not committed, perhaps that person might be granted an indulgence…”

  “An indulgence?” Jocelyn echoed in an odd tone.

  At this, Nicholas’s head shot up and his eyes narrowed. Until now, he’d thought himself listening to the ravings of someone grievously wronged, knowing that ravings seldom translated into action.

  Now, with the monk’s whispered hint, all that had changed.

  Jocelyn was quiet. Indeed, for many minutes he could hear nothing but the sound of her breathing, quick with anxiety.

  “I must go,” she finally said, in harried tones.

  “No. Wait.” It was Father Timothy again. “I mean, I didn’t mean... These are extenuating circumstances. I only meant to point out that God blesses his warriors in whatever battle they fight. As long as their cause is just. As a crusader, Nicholas is already assured a heavenly seat. How many of us can make that claim?”

  “Yes,” she said in a hollow voice. Apparently, the holy brothers had stunned her. “We should honor him for his service to God.”

  “Indeed, and he has been so honored. For many years. It would be nice if he never had the opportunity to eradicate the good he has done. For his soul’s sake, you understand,” Father Timothy said desperately.

  At this, Nicholas nearly choked. Nice? It would be nice if he died before he had the opportunity to sin again?

  “I understand.”

  “That is not to say that he shouldn’t be treated with respect, deference, and honor until…well, for the rest of his life. His wishes should be indulged and his hours easy, filled with convivial company and pleasant conversation.”

  Nicholas listened in amazement. He felt like a prize boar being readied for market. He was surprised the holy brother hadn’t added something about his diet.

  “And make certain he eats to satiation those things sweet to the palate and agreeable to the stomach.”

  “I…” Jocelyn began in a distressed voice. Nicholas waited, willing his wife to repudiate the hinted plan. It would also be nice if someone chose to stand between him and those who would do him evil. It would be nice to have a champion.

  She said nothing, however, and while he was disappointed, he was not surprised. From the little he had gleaned from this conversation, living under her uncle’s auspices had been a misery of shame from which she’d only been free after her proxy marriage. Now the husband who was to have died had returned, a man demonstrably cut from the same base cloth as Gerent. How could she be pleased that he lived?

  The rationale didn’t cheer him greatly. Less so, when he heard her quickly excuse herself and flee her spiritual advisers. Still, he tarried.

  “You do not think she’ll actually…?” Father Eidart gulped.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It is a sin.”

  “Is it? Jocelyn said that the wolf must be kept from the flock. Perhaps she is right. Come now, brother. Remember her desperation as her uncle lay dying? How she begged us to find a way that she might escape the wifely yoke her uncle’s three brides knew? How grateful she has been since?

  “With her patronage we have built this small and humble church up into a place worthy of Our Lord. With her continued patronage, we will build a reliquary fit for St Neot and then, God willing, we will be able to persuade the bishops to release his sainted toe to us.”

  Nicholas started in amazement. This was all about a shriveled relic? His life was being traded for a toe? The absurdity of it nearly made him laugh.

  “Think of the pilgrims such a relic will bring here!” Father Timothy went on. “Think of all the good we might do administering to these pilgrims.”

  Think of all the wealth such pilgrims would bring to Trecombe and St. Albion’s, Nicholas silently added.

  “Should Sir Nicholas live, do you think he will provide the reliquary such a hallowed relic requires? The reliquary Jocelyn has promised to have made?” Father Timothy snorted. “No.”

  Eidart sighed. “I do not doubt you are right.”

  “And Sir Nicholas would certainly not leave the holding to the Church upon his death as Jocelyn has publicly announced is her intention should she go to her grave without issue.”

  “No,” Eidart agreed. “It is the way of such men to hoard in death that which they owned in life. Still, I am unhappy in this role.”

  “I am not very comfortable with it, either. Sometimes it is quite difficult to discern the Divine Plan. We must trust Providence will dictate Jocelyn’s actions.” And with an unhappy demur from the guilt-stricken Eidart, the two moved off, leaving Nicholas to muse over what exactly one does with a potentially murderous wife and a pair of holy brothers who have an unholy interest in his death.

  Such thoughts occupied him as he headed back, passing the abbey garden patch being weeded by a young man. Clearly, Nicholas would do well to try to understand better what manner of woman he’d wed, of what she was capable, and what she was likely to do.

  He stopped at the fence surrounding the little garden and leaned over it, hailing the fresh-faced lad. “Here, boy, what is your name?”

  The lad looked up, smiling at the excuse of a short respite, and came willingly enough to the fence where he leaned on his hoe. “I be Keveran, sir.”

  “And are you an acolyte, Keveran?”

  “Not yet, sir. I work for the holy fathers every Thursday so they will keep my ma in their prayers.”

  “I see. And do you know who I am?” Nicholas asked.

  The boy grinned. “Aye, sir, I do. You’re Sir Nicholas, returned from a heathen’s cell in the Holy Land.” There was a touch of hero worship in the lad’s gaze. Obviously, a bright boy.

  “Then you know my wife.”

  “Aye, sir. My father is weaver here in Trecombe as was his father before him. I’ve known Lady Jocelyn all my life.”

/>   “And what sort of lady is she?” Nicholas asked, carefully watching the boy’s face. He had grown adept in reading the expressions of others. His survival had oft depended on it.

  “She’s a fine lady,” Keveran avowed at once. “Devout and pure and just”

  “I’ve married a saint!” Nicholas said and smiled.

  Keveran laughed and then blushed. “Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean to laugh. Your lady is as quick to a kindness as a bird is to song, and as fair a mistress as ever a body could want…”

  “But?”

  “But when she’s crossed, she’s fierce as a hornet what’s nest is been toppled, though as quick to regret her temper as she is to come into it.”

  “A pliant lass, though,” Nicholas suggested. “Easily led.”

  The boy snorted. “Like yon boulder.”

  Nicholas could well imagine that. He looked at Cabot Manor standing over the riverbank, the fields being turned by men and a team of oxen. She would have to be resolute to direct the holding.

  “She’s a fair steward, my wife.” He left just enough question in the statement to invite comment.

  “No man could do better,” the boy avowed.

  “Aye. But she hasn’t much dignity, I think.”

  The boy looked surprised. “Lady Jocelyn? As dignified as a bishop in his miter. Why would you think different?”

  Nicholas waved his hand toward the holding. “The land looks fertile, the cattle fat, the orchards well-tended, but the house is as bare as a hermit’s cave and she’s dressed with no greater consequence than yourself. I trow she knows not how to outfit herself as befits her consequence.”

  “Oh, she could turn a fair hand to it, if she’d the will,” Keveran said with a sly, knowing smile. “But she has always spent any spare coin on you, sir.”

  “Me?” Nicholas asked in surprise.

  “Aye. Have you not been in the church? Is it not a work of art glorifying the Lord? Your wife is responsible for it. She has endowed the church most generously in order for masses to be said for you, candles burned for you, prayers offered for you. She was overcome with grief at your loss. It was a wondrously poignant thing to see.”