Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

Of Guilhem there was no sign.

Alais sighed, frustrated at having confined herself to her chamber for nothing. She turned back to face the room, wandering randomly from table to chair and back again, her restless fingers looking for something to do. She stopped in front of her loom and stared at the small tapestry she was working on for Dame Agnes, a complicated bestiary of wild creatures and birds with sweeping tails that slithered and clawed their way up a castle wall. Usually, when the weather or her responsibilities in the household kept her confined indoors, Alais found solace in such delicate work.

Tonight she couldn’t settle to anything. Her needles sat untouched at her frame, the thread Sajhe had given her unopened beside it. The potions she’d prepared earlier from the angelica and comfrey were neatly labeled and stored in rows on a wooden shelf in the coolest and darkest part of the room. She’d picked up and examined the wooden board until she was sick of the sight of it and her fingers sore with tracing the pattern of the labyrinth over and over. Waiting, waiting.

“ Es totjorn lo meteis ,” she murmured. Always the same song.

Alais walked over to the glass and peered at her reflection. A small, serious heart-shaped face with intelligent brown eyes and pale cheeks looked back at her, neither plain nor beautiful. Alais adjusted the neckline of her dress, as she’d seen other girls do, trying to make it more fashionable. Perhaps if she sewed a piece of lace to…

A sharp knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.

Perfin . At last. “I’m here,” she called out.

The door opened. The smile slid from her face.

“Francois. What is it?”

“Intendant Pelletier requests your presence, Dame.”

“At this hour?”

Francois shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.

“He is waiting on you in his chamber. I think there is some need of haste, Alais.”

She glanced at him, surprised by his use of her name. She had never known him to make such a mistake before. “Is something the matter?” she asked quickly. “Is my father unwell?”

Francois hesitated. “He is much… preoccupied, Dame. He would be glad of your company presently.”

She sighed. “I seem to have been out of step all day.”

He looked puzzled. “Dame?”

“Never mind, Francois. I’m just out of sorts tonight. Of course I will come, if my father wishes it. Shall we go?”

In her room at the opposite end of the living quarters, Oriane was sitting in the center of her bed with her long, shapely legs curled under her.

Her green eyes were half closed, like a cat’s. There was a self-satisfied smile on her face as she allowed the comb to be pulled through her tumbling black curls. From time to time, she felt the lightest touch of its bone teeth on her skin, delicate and suggestive.

“This is very… soothing,” she said.

A man was standing behind her. He was naked to the waist and there was the faintest sheen of sweat between his broad, strong shoulders. “Soothing, Dame?” he said lightly. “That was not quite my intention.”

She could feel his warm breath on her neck as he leaned forward to gather the hair from her face, and then laid it in a twist against her back.

“You are very beautiful,” he whispered.

He began to massage her shoulders and neck, gently at first, then more firmly. Oriane bowed her head, as his skillful hands traced the outline of her cheekbones, her nose, her chin, as if he was committing her features to memory. From time to time, they slid lower, to the soft, white skin at her throat.

Oriane raised one of his hands to her mouth and licked the ends of his fingers with her tongue. He drew her back against him. She could feel the heat and weight of his body, could feel the proof of how much he wanted her pressing against her back. He turned her round to face him and parted her lips with his fingers, then slowly began to kiss her.

She paid no attention to the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, until somebody started to bang on the door.

“Oriane!” called a shrill, peevish voice. “Are you there?”

“It’s Jehan!” she muttered under her breath, more annoyed than alarmed by the interruption. She opened her eyes. “I thought you said he wouldn’t be back yet.”

He looked toward the door. “I didn’t think he would be. When I left them, it looked as if he would be occupied with the viscount for some time. Is it locked?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Won’t he think that strange?”

Oriane shrugged. “He knows better than to enter without invitation. Nevertheless, you had better conceal yourself.” She gestured to a small alcove behind a tapestry that hung on the far side of the bed. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, seeing the expression on his face. “I’ll get rid of him as quickly as I can.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

She put her hands around his neck and pulled him down to her, close enough for him to feel her eyelashes brush against his skin. He stirred against her.

“Oriane?” whined Congost, his voice rising higher every time he spoke. “Open the door this instant!”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she murmured, bending to kiss the man’s chest and his firm stomach, a little lower. “Now, you must disappear. Even he won’t remain outside forever.”

Once she was sure her lover was safely hidden, Oriane tiptoed over to the door, turned the key in the lock without making a sound, then ran back to the bed and arranged the curtains around her. She was ready to enjoy herself.

“Oriane!”

“Husband,” she replied petulantly. “There’s no need for all this noise. It is open.”

Oriane heard fumbling, then the door open and bang shut. Her husband bustled into the room. She heard the clip of metal on wood as he put his candle down on the table.

“Where are you?” he said irritably. “And why is it so dark in here? I am in no mood for games.”

Oriane smiled. She stretched back against the pillows, her legs slightly apart and her smooth, bare arms draped above her head. She wanted nothing left to his imagination.

“I’m here, Husband.”

“The door was not open when first I tried it,” he was saying irritably, as he purled back the curtains, then fell speechless.

“Well, you can’t have been… pushing… hard enough,” she said.

Oriane watched his face turn white, then red as puce. His eyes bulged in his head and his mouth hung open as he gaped at her high, full breasts and her dark nipples, her unbound hair fanned out around her on the pillow like a mass of writhing snakes, the curve of her small waist and soft swell of her stomach, the triangle of wiry, black hair between her thighs.

“What do you think you are doing?” he screeched. “Cover yourself up immediately.”

“I was asleep, Husband,” she replied. “You woke me.”

“I woke you? I woke you,” he spluttered. “You were sleeping like… like this?”

“It is a hot night, Jehan. Can I not be allowed to sleep as I wish, in the privacy of my own chamber?”

“Anyone could have come in and seen you like this. Your sister, your serving woman, Guirande. Anyone!”

Oriane slowly sat up and looked defiantly at him, winding a strand of her hair between her fingers. “Anyone?” she said sarcastically. “I dismissed Guirande,” she said coolly. “I had no further need of her services.”

She could see he desperately wanted to turn away, but could not. Desire and disgust were running in equal measure through his dried-up blood.

“Anyone could have come in,” he said again, although less confidently.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Although nobody has. Except for you, Husband, of course.” She smiled. It was the look of an animal about to strike. “And now, since you are here, perhaps you can tell me where you have been?”