Seed of the Broom Read online

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  There were noises beyond the hangings. Opening her eyes, Kate realized she must have slept, for a chink of light bore its way through the folds of material.

  There was the sound of soft female whispers, the distinct accent of Dame Caradoc, the rush of water. Her eyes felt puffy and her throat was parched, but the pain had gone. Like a small animal, she burrowed deeper into the bed, full of shame and humiliation, so depressed, so acute, rising inside her that she could have contemplated even death as a friend.

  “Cariad,” Dame Caradoc opened the curtains, talking soft and sweet, telling her she should bathe in the tub, that she would feel better, almost as if she knew that Kate’s experience of marriage had been an ordeal.

  Sluggishly, Kate allowed herself to be coaxed from the bed but her legs felt weak and she had to cling onto the curtains to steady herself. “Easy now,” the Dame murmured. “You will soon be all right. We women mend, though you will not believe me at the moment.”

  “You know?” Kate questioned anxiously.

  “Of course, I have always known, but that oak, he did not know. My dear,” the Dame put an arm around her gently. “Why did you not tell him? Why did you not share that with him?”

  “Share what?” Kate asked, dismissive of anything to do with her husband.

  “Why the fact of your virginity, girl The man had a right to know.”

  “Do you imagine it would have made a difference?” Kate asked belligerently.

  “Oh yes, Kate, for there are ways and there are ways of becoming a woman.”

  “No, no,” said Kate, “there cannot be anything better than…than…”

  “You will see,” Dame Caradoc assured her. “You were not properly ready. That is all. It happens. It will be easier next time. Please believe me.”

  No, Kate thought, please do not let him come to me again, ever. I shall do anything but that, shall allow any favor but…yet did she have a choice? Was there a choice for a wife to make, she who had become his chattel, his thing, tied to him body and soul, reliant on him for her daily bread?

  The Dame dismissed the attendants, then helped Kate lower herself into the deep wooden tub. The water was hot but not overly so. There was lye soap and a cloth. As the water met the soft flesh between her thighs she gasped, gritted her teeth and allowed it to pass, and pass it did, the water soothing and healing the bruised flesh.

  “Better is it?” the Dame asked.

  “Much better,” Kate responded.

  She luxuriated for some long while in the tub. More hot water as brought when it cooled. Her face felt better after she had dipped the cloth in some cold water and held it against her cheeks. A dab of witch hazel soothed the burning eyelids. Kate began to feel partly human once more.

  “I will take away the sheet and bring fresh,” the Dame said. “I shall not be long.”

  Alone, Kate closed her eyes. If she knelt on her knees the water covered her shoulders, brushing the slenderness of her neck. The Dame had tied up her nut brown hair with ribbons. Even so, slim tendrils curled with the steam. All was silent save for the crackle of the logs, but the peace was dissipated when the door opened to reveal, not the anticipated return of the Dame, but her husband. He was carrying the sheet over his arm.

  “Good morning,” he said stiffly, meeting her gaze so sternly that she looked away. Words dried up in her throat, no greeting came. Recrimination was in her brain, words of bitterness tumbling inside her mind, but she said nothing.

  He placed the sheet on the wide mantle shelf, saying that it was faintly damp and needed to air. Kate thought to snap that it would air far better spread out over the chair but she stopped herself.

  He stood where he was, between the fireplace and the tub, legs astride, high riding boots splashed with mud, auburn hair curling on the collar of his dark green doublet, his back towards her. “You’ll catch a chill.”

  “I hope that I do,” she said at last. “I hope to take so bad that I go to my grave.!

  “Ah,” he said sharply. “I am to blame, I suppose.”

  “I see no one else,” she retorted.

  He turned around to face her, his eyes flashing a warning that she chose to ignore. “Are widows usually virgins?” he demanded. “If so it is the first I have heard of it!”

  “Perhaps all men are not barbarians.”

  “Woman, I do not understand, you,” he growled, “you play the strumpet with me one moment and run cold the next.”

  “I never played the strumpet to you,” she said fiercely.

  “Ah, you forget Christmas. Almost you were mine and better you would have been for it. Better for me too, for do you imagine there was any pleasure for me in last night’s debacle, that…” He hesitated and seemed to swallow words. “It need not have been like that had you spoken out. It could have taken longer been sweeter for you!”

  “Why should I speak out to you? You know everything!”

  He did not answer. Instead he asked another question. “How come Mellor did not deflower you?”

  She glanced across at him. He looked more curious than furious. There was also something quite imperious about him that she had not noted before. Whoever his father had been, she saw, he had been no peasant. His features were quite perfect, his nose aquiline, and his cheekbones high and arrogant. She stopped her perusal of his features abruptly, aware that with a raised brow he was waiting for a response from her. When it came it was a snappy reply.

  “That is my business!”

  “You were not married to him. That is it. There was no marriage. You were a servant and are a servant still, merely looking after his heir.”

  “We were married before a priest.”

  “Never,” he accused. “You were pretending. Come now, tell me the truth. I cannot do ought about our marriage. It is done, but I will have no lies.”

  “I am not lying and you may ask Richard the truth of it!”

  “He will say whatever you demand of him. Come.” He came towards her. “I have married a serving wench, admit it. I and the King have been duped.”

  “Think what you will, my lord, but I tell you no lies. The late lord and I were joined in matrimony in the presence of God and witnesses.” She flushed. The lie was there, the lie that Richard was Lord Mellor’s son, that was the only lie and one, with God’s help Caradoc would never discover.

  “A man like Mellor. He would risk hell for the taste of such young flesh. He would not abstain from such pleasures.”

  “I was wed to him,” she cried. “Now please leave me. I wish to leave the tub.”

  He turned his back. “Do so, I am not going to leave.”

  Infuriated, Kate left the tub, her eye on his back, wrapping herself in a sheet and quickly drying herself. She then crossed to the chest and took out a fine chemise, slipping it over her head before dropping the sheet. Then an over-dress, one of her gray ones. “I am dressed,” she said, when she had pulled down the skirt.

  Caradoc turned. Seeing her choice of dress, he stormed across the room. “No,” he said, opening her chest and running his hands through her clothes until he found what he wanted. A dress of fine pale blue wool. The bodice was decorated with semi precious stones. “Get out of that, I shall have those gowns burned if you ever wear them again. They will do for a maid. They will not do for my wife.”

  Shyly, Kate slipped out of the gray. Conscious of the thin material of her chemise, she quickly stepped into the blue dress. Caradoc turned her round and began to do up her laces with an expertise that showed much familiarity with a ladies garments.

  Moving from him as he finished, Kate pulled out the ribbons from her hair and taking up her comb, ran it through, bringing long locks around to her front, carefully running the comb’s teeth through the thick waving strands of hair that easily reached her slim hips. She was hardly aware of Caradoc’s arrow eyed gaze as he watched her every move, weighing her, pulling on his upper lip with strong white teeth.

  Sighing, her task done, she start
ed to capture her hair to plait it around her head. Cradoc’s command interrupted her labor. “No,” he said, “high born ladies may wear their hair loose. Do so!”

  “But I am not high born,” she said.

  “Your marriage has elevated you.”

  “To you?” she dared to scoff.

  “I know of no other marriage that you have,” he persisted.

  In anger she threw the comb across the room. “Damn you sir, I command you to believe me!”

  “You command me? Do not dare to command me, woman!” He roared at her, his eyes flashing a warning that she chose not to see, merely turning from him to show contempt.

  He strode across the room, taking hold of her wrist and jerking her roughly around to face him. “Come, select a serving maid, they are n the hall waiting for you.”

  “Had you better not chose one,” she said acting coy.

  “It is your duty not mine.”

  “But you may wish to chose a maid who pleases you. Is that not the way of it?”

  He took hold of her waist, jerking her up against him. “It is you who will pleasure me!”

  “Never!”

  “Oh but you shall. This marriage shall be fruitful. I shall beget no bastards.”

  “Like you do you mean?” she sneered.

  But he did not rise to her bait. “If you will,” he said mildly. “I will leave you three nights, my dear and then…”

  “And then?”

  “Then I shall come and claim you.”

  Fear showed in her eyes. Too overcome to play anymore, she could not hide that fear. He moved from her, his grin awakening courage within her.

  “I shall dread the passing of time,” she said.

  “Have a care, Kate, my patience wears thin. I may yet not give you time to recover.” The threat was real and yet she could now cower from him. She would not allow herself to be his lackey no matter what he did.

  “Why concern yourself with my pain, my detestation of what you did to me.”

  “You have quickly fond our tongue, I see. I wondered where it was hidden. I did not think the cat had stolen and kept it. It was your own fault that there was some pain. I was too quick to get inside you. Had you not been a virgin it would have been all right. You were hot enough Kate, and do not deny it. I tasted you in my mouth remember?” The color flooded into her cheeks. Horrified, she stared at him, her heart accelerating like a wild creature in her breast. He had sought to humiliate her and he had succeeded, but he had done something else too…had caused a little pinching ache to gnaw at her, at the place that earlier had hurt so!

  “Come, these females are waiting to be selected, no more dallying.”

  There were six girls. He had to have combed the homes of fisher folk and those that worked on the land. Their clothes were poor but their faces had been scrubbed clean. Kate hated having to choose just one. Such training that she could offer would be a major advancement for the one chosen. None was more than fourteen years of age. It was so difficult to select just one, for all were eager to please and came with a recommendation from the Abbot.

  In the end she chose a brown haired shepherd’s daughter simply because the girl was her size and she would be able to pass her own clothes onto her.

  Kate left the girl, Anne to say goodbye to her mother. The mother had shed tears of sheer joy at the opportunity being offered to her girl but Kate felt tears of loss too, although she would be able to see her daughter fairly often.

  “A difficult choice,” she said to Caradoc who was in the solar.

  “But wisely made I think.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah?” he queried.

  “The girl suits you,” Kate said imperiously.

  “She is to suit you, not me! I merely noted that she is the same size as you. You will be able to hand on those dull old gowns.”

  “How observant you are. Is there anything else you require of me today?”

  Caradoc raised an eyebrows, looking at her in an amused kind of way. “At noon when the girl is settled come to me here.”

  “Very well.”

  Anne was waiting without. Kate escorted her up the stairs. She would be lodged in a small apartment opposite the one that Kate now had to share with Caradoc. Kate ordered a fire to be lighted and bedding to be aired. “It is very grand,” Anne murmured, eyes round as a cat contemplating a dish of cream.

  But matters took longer than Kate had realized, consequentially her husband had to come and seek her out. Settling Anne could have been passed over to Dame Caradoc, but a problem occurred that Kate had to deal with herself to save the girl further humiliation.

  When Kate took her to the chamber and opened the trunk to take out a dress, Kate said it could be hers, the girl’s pleasure and delight was obvious. “Will you put it on now?” Kate asked. Anne was eager but to her cost. Her disrobing revealed to Kate that not only did she have a chemise but there was a distinctive grubby line between the part of her body on show and the parts that were not. “Oh no,” Kate declared firmly, “not while you are so dirty. I shall not have dirt even where the eye doesn’t see it Anne. You must wash well everyday!”

  Anne looked miserable more than embarrassed. The tub was still there, pots of extra water still hissed buy the fire. “Right into the tub with you. I have used it but you can still count yourself as fortunate, for when I first had a tubbing I as at the end of a very long queue.”

  “Oh no lady, I shall take cold…I shall die.”

  “You will take the plague if you do not, or be sent back home.”

  Anne cried, great soft tears, her lips trembling but making no sound, she acquiesced and climbed miserably into the tub. Kate removed her cap and took to unplaiting her hair. It was greasy but after close inspection, Kate was relieved to see that it was nit free. Nevertheless she took a pan of cooled water an soaked the girl’s hair, washing it with lye soap.

  “Wash every part of yourself carefully Anne. Think how nice a chemise will feel on a clean skin, and the fine gowns you will wear.”

  The girl continued to cry but obeyed her mistress. Meanwhile, Kate crushed dried rosemary in her mortar an pestle and made a smooth paste, added more water to the mixture, then rinsed the girls hair with it. “This is not a daily ritual Anne, but you must wash thoroughly every day. You are a ladiy’s maid and must behave accordingly.

  Dressed finally in a brown gown, tears at an end, Anne sat by the fire drying her hair. She was staring at the drying strands in wonderment, for her hair was now soft and more gold than brown. It was also very fine and straight. “When it is dry you may plait it,” Kate said, then taking up the girl’s discarded clothing she cast it into the fire. “You may stay here until your hair is dry and I shall…” The girls eyes went from her mistress towards the door. She blushed and lowered her eyes and, following her gaze, Kate saw that Caradoc had arrived.

  “I see what has taken up such a long time. What an improvement. But come now lady.”

  Caradoc escorted her out through the narrow cobbled courtyard that led to the stables. A grubby groom was holding a gray mare by the bridle. The mare’s feet were stamping on the cobbles in a light merry little dance, her tail like fine strands of silver waved in the air. “Oh,” Kate exclaimed, “she is lovely.”

  The mare was not too big, plump at the buttocks, her mane long and bushy. She was a delight to the eye. “She is yours, “ Caradoc said. Kate expressed her delight by clapping her hands excitedly.

  “What will you name her?” he asked.

  Kate needed only a moment’s thought. Inspired by the mare’s smooth shiny coat, her flashing tail, she announced, “Why Silver Lady of course.”

  Caradoc laughed softly. Kate went to the mare and ran a possessive palm along her nose, then put her hands around the neck and nuzzled gently. “You will ride with me?” Caradoc asked.

  “Oh Yes!”

  Kate followed Caradoc’s large black stallion out through the gates of the castle. They turned to the left, following the nar
row path through the scrub until they came to the dunes. They climbed slowly, the horses laboring a little through the soft sand, then down to the other side where the sand was hard and flat. Here he let his horse have its head. With Kate close behind, he raced the horse towards the sea’s foaming edge, Kate following, now and against tasting the salt on her mouth. She could not catch him but it did not matter. Her spirit soared. She felt free and she had not felt like that in ages, her hair flowing free behind her, the mare beneath her, sensitive to her every wish.

  At last Caradoc reined his horse and waited for her to catch up. She was breathless and excited. Her cheeks were blooming, her lips parted in a laugh, all her cares and concerns momentarily obliterated.

  “You ride well.” The compliment from Caradoc deepened her smile.

  “I love it!” she said.

  “Then this shall be a daily exercise,” he promised. “You spend too much time incarcerated within those walls.”

  “I thought that was what you wished.”

  “Perhaps it was.” He looked beyond her, surveying the scene. “If only…” He paused. “If only there were mountains, then everything would be perfect.”

  “You have to be grateful for what you have, “ Kate counseled unselfconsciously, “otherwise you will find no joy anywhere.”

  “How very wise and if that be your philosophy, Kate, then will you adopt it and will you find joy in your marriage?”

  The depression that her ride had dissipated sprung inside her once again. She had momentarily forgotten everything, even Richard and his terrible situation. Digging deep inside herself though, she found courage to reply and it was an honest reply. “I shall try to do so, my lord.”

  At first she believed he would be angry, for his brows met in the middle, yet his answer was mild and merely one word. “Good.”