Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

I should be embarrassed, she thought. I would be embarrassed, but I am not .

The bath was warm and she slid down it, grabbing one of the soaps before she went completely underwater, scrubbing, rejoicing in the harshness against her skin. Raising her arms was difficult, so she surfaced long enough to ask him to wash her hair and felt his fingers strong against her scalp. The servants had left ewers of fresh water that he poured over her hair to rinse it.

She couldn’t bend to reach her feet without pain, so he laved those as well, intent, meticulously going between the toes.

She thought, watching him, I am in a bath, naked in a bath with no bubbles, and a man is washing me; my reputation is doomed and to hell with it. I’ve been to hell and all I wanted in it was to be alive for this man. Who carried me out of it.

It was as if she and Ulf, all of them, had fallen into a world not even nightmare had prepared them for but which coexisted with the normal so closely that an unguarded step gained access to it. It was at the end of everything, or perhaps at the beginning, a savagery that, though they had survived it, revealed convention as an illusion. The thread of her life had so nearly been sheared that never again would she depend on having a future.

And in that moment, she had wanted this man. Still wanted him.

Adelia, who’d thought she was conversant with all conditions of the body, was new to this one. She felt soapy, lubricated , within as well as without; it was as if she were bursting into foliage, her skin rising toward him, desperate for him to touch it-he who, at the moment, was regarding not her breasts but the bruises across her poor ribs.

“Did he hurt you? Truly hurt you, I mean?” he asked.

She wondered what he considered the bruises and the wound in her arm to be, and her eye. Then she thought: Ah, was I raped? It matters to them. Virginity is their holy grail.

“And if he did?” she asked gently.

“That’s the thing,” he said. He was kneeling beside the bath now so their heads could be on a level. “All the way to the hill, I was seeing what he could do to you, but, as long you survived it, I didn’t care .” He shook his head at the extraordinary. “Fouled or in pieces, I wanted you back. You were mine, not his.”

Oh, oh .

“He didn’t touch me,” she said, “apart from this and this. I’ll mend.”

“Good,” he said briskly, and got up. “Well, there’s much to do. I can’t be dallying with women in baths; there’s arrangements to be made, not least for our marriage.”

“Marriage?”

“I shall speak to the prior, of course, and he will speak to Mansur; these things must be done with propriety. And there’s the king…tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after, when all’s settled.”

“Marriage?”

“You have to marry me now, woman,” he said, surprised. “I’ve seen you in your bath.”

He was going, actually leaving.

She hauled herself painfully out of the bath, grabbing one of the towels. There wouldn’t be a tomorrow, didn’t he realize? Tomorrows were full of awful things. Today, now , was the essential. There was no time for propriety.

“Don’t leave me, Rowley. I can’t endure to be alone.”

And that was true. Not all the forces of darkness were vanquished; one was still somewhere in this building; some would stalk her memory always. Only he could keep them out.

Wincing, she slid her arms round his neck and felt the warm, damp softness of her skin against his.

Gently, he disengaged them. “This is another thing, don’t you see, woman? This is a marriage between us; it must be in accordance with holy law.”

A fine moment, she thought, for him to worry about holy law. “There isn’t time, Rowley. There isn’t any time beyond that door.”

“No, there isn’t. I’ve got a great deal to see to.” But he was beginning to pant. Her bare feet were standing on his boots, the towel had slipped, and every inch of her body that could reach it was pressed against his.

“You’re making this very hard for me, Adelia.” His mouth quirked. “In more ways than one.”

“I know.” She could feel it.

He pretended to sigh. “It won’t be easy making love to a woman with broken ribs.”

“Try,” she said.

“Oh, dear Christ,” he said harshly. And carried her to the bed. And tried. And did very well, first cradling her and crooning to her in Arabic as if neither English nor French was sufficient to express how beautiful she was to him, black eye or not, and after that, supporting his weight on his arms so as not to crush her.

And she knew herself to be beautiful to him, just as he was beautiful to her, and this was sex, was it, this throbbing, slippery ride to the stars and back.

“Can you do it again?” she asked.

“Good God, woman. No, I can’t. Well, not yet. It’s been a difficult day.” But again, after a while, he tried and did equally well.

Brother Swithin was not generous with his candles, and they went out, leaving the room in semidarkness from the rain still lashing against the shutters. She lay crooked in her lover’s arm, breathing in the wonderful smell of soap and sweat.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“Are you crying?” He sat up.

“No.”

“Yes, you are. Coitus does that to some women.”

“You’d know, of course.” Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Sweetheart, this is completion. He’s gone, she will be…well, we’ll see. I shall be rewarded as I deserve, and you, too-not that you deserve anything. Henry will give me a nice barony that we can both get fat on and rear dozens of nice, fat little barons.”

He got out of bed and reached for his clothes.

His cloak is missing , she thought. It is somewhere outside this room with Rak shasa’s head in it. Everything terrible is beyond that door; the only completion you and I shall ever have is with us now.

“Don’t go,” she said.

“I’ll be back.” His mind had already moved away from her. “I can’t stay here all day, forced to swive insatiable women against my will. There’s things to do. Go to sleep.”

And he’d gone.

Still watching the door, she thought, I could have him for always. I could have him and our little barons. What is playing the doctor compared to happiness like that? Nothing. Who are the dead to rob me of life?

With that settled, she lay back and closed her eyes, yawning, replete. But as she drifted into sleep, her last coherent thought was of the clitoris. What an organ of surprise and wonder it is. I must pay it more attention the next time I dissect a female.

Always and ever the doctor.

SHE CAME TO, protesting at someone’s repetition of her name, determined to stay asleep. She sniffed in the pungency of clothes kept in pennyroyal against the moth.

“Gyltha? What time is it?”

“Night. And time you was up, girl. I brought you fresh clothes.”

“No.” She was stiff and her bruises were aching; she was staying in bed. She made a concession by squinting out of one eye. “How’s Ulf?”

“Sleepin’ the sleep of the just.” Gyltha’s rough hand cupped Adelia’s cheek for a moment. “But you both got to get up. There’s some high-and-mighties gatherin’ over the way as want answers to their questions.”

“I suppose so,” she said wearily. They were quick with their trial. Her evidence and Ulf’s would be essential, but there were things better left unremembered.

Gyltha went for food, collops of bacon swimming in a beany, delicious broth, and Adelia was so hungry that she hoisted herself into a sitting position. “I can feed myself.”