Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

“You know where I’ve been,” he snapped. “In Council.”

She smiled. “In Council? All this time? The Council broke up well before it was dark.”

Congost flushed. “It is not your place to challenge me.”

Oriane narrowed her eyes. “By Sant Foy, you’re a pompous man, Jehan. ”It’s not your place…“” The mimicry was perfect and both men winced at the cruelty of it. “Come on, Jehan, tell me where you’ve been? Discussing affairs of state, maybe? Or have you been with a lover perhaps, e Jehan? Do you have a lover hidden away in the chateau somewhere?”

“How dare you speak to me like that. I-”

“Other husbands tell their wives where they have been. Why not you? Unless, as I say, there is a good reason not to.”

Congost was shouting now. “Other husbands should learn to hold their tongues. It’s not women’s business.”

Oriane moved slowly across the bed toward him.

“Not women’s business,” she said. “Is that so?”

Her voice was low and full of spite. Congost knew she was making sport with him, but did not understand the rules of engagement. He never had.

Oriane shot out her hand and pressed the telltale bulge beneath his tunic. With satisfaction, she saw the panic and surprise in his eyes as she began to move her hand up and down.

“So, Husband,” she said contemptuously. “Tell me what you do consider to be the business of women? Love?” She pushed harder. “This? What would you call it, sex?”

Congost sensed a trap, but he was mesmerized by her and didn’t know what to say or do. He couldn’t stop himself leaning toward her. His wet lips were flapping like a fish’s mouth and his eyes screwed tight. He might despise her, but she could still make him want her, just like every other man, ruled by what hung between his legs, for all his reading and writing. She despised him.

Abruptly, she withdrew her hand, having got the reaction she wanted. “Well, Jehan,” she said coldly. “If you have nothing you are prepared to tell me, then you might as well go. You are of no use to me here.”

Oriane saw something in him snap, as if all the disappointments and frustrations he’d ever suffered in his life were flashing through his mind. Before she knew what was happening, he had hit her, hard enough to send her sprawling back on the bed.

She gasped in surprise.

Congost was motionless, staring down at his hand as if it had nothing to do with him.

“Oriane, I-”

“You are pathetic,” she screamed at him. She could taste blood in her mouth. “I told you to go. So go. Get out of my sight!”

For a moment, Oriane thought he was going to try to apologize. But when he raised his eyes, she saw hate, not shame, in them. She breathed a sigh of relief. Things would play out as she had planned.

“You disgust me,” he was shouting, backing away from the bed. “You’re no better than an animal. No, worse than a beast, for you know what you are doing.” He snatched up her blue cloak, which was lying wantonly on the floor, and threw it at her face. “And cover yourself up. I don’t want to find you like this when I get back, flaunting yourself like a whore.”

When she was sure he had gone, Oriane lay back on the bed and pulled her cloak up over her, a little shaken but exhilarated. For the first time in four years of marriage, the stupid, feeble, weak old man her father had forced her to take as a husband had actually succeeded in surprising her. She had intended to provoke him, certainly, but she’d not expected him to strike her. And so hard. She ran her fingers over her skin, which was still smarting from the blow. He had meant to hurt her. Perhaps there would be a mark? That might be worth something. Then she could show her father what his decision had brought her to.

Oriane brought herself up short with a bitter laugh. She wasn’t Alais. Only Alais mattered to their father, for all his attempts to conceal it. Oriane was too like their mother, in looks and character, for his liking. As if he would care in the slightest if Jehan beat her half to death. He’d assume she deserved it.

For a moment, she allowed the jealousy she kept hidden, from all but Alais, to leak out from behind the perfect mask of her beautiful, unreadable face. Her resentment at her lack of power, her lack of influence, her disappointment. What value had her youth and beauty when she was tied to a man with no ambition and no prospects, a man who had never even lifted a sword? It wasn’t fair that Alais, the younger sister, should have all the things that she wanted and yet was denied. Things that should be hers by right.

Oriane twisted the material between her fingers, as if it was Alais’ pale skinny arm she was pinching. Plain, spoiled, indulged Alais. She squeezed tighter, seeing in her mind’s eye a purple bruise spreading across her skin.

“You shouldn’t taunt him.”

Her lover’s voice cut through the silence. She had almost forgotten that he was there.

“Why not?” she said. “It’s the only enjoyment I have from him.”

He slipped through the curtain and touched her cheek with his fingers. “Did he hurt you? He’s left a mark.”

She smiled at the concern in his voice. How little he really knew her. He saw only what he wanted to see, an image of the woman he thought she was.

“It’s nothing,” she replied.

The silver chain at his neck brushed her skin as he bent down to kiss her. She could smell his need to possess her. Oriane shifted position, allowing the blue material to fall away from her like water. She ran her hands over his thighs, the skin pale and soft compared to the golden brown of his back and arms and chest, then raised her eyes higher. She smiled. He had waited long enough.

Oriane leaned forward to take him in her mouth, but he pushed her back on the bed and knelt down beside her.

“So what enjoyment do you wish for from me, my lady?” he said, gently parting her legs. “This?”

She murmured as he bent forward and kissed her. “Or this?”

His mouth crept lower, to her hidden, private space. Oriane held her breath as his tongue played across her skin, biting, licking, teasing.

“Or this, maybe?” She felt his hands, strong and tight around her waist as he pulled her to him. Oriane wrapped her legs around his back.

“Or maybe this is what you really want?” he said, his voice straining with desire as he plunged deep inside her. She groaned with satisfaction, scratching her nails down his back, claiming him.

“So your husband thinks you’re a whore, does he,” he said. “Let us see if we can prove him right.”

Pelletier paced the floor of his chamber, waiting for Alai’s.

It was cooler now, but there was sweat on his broad forehead and his face was flushed. He should be down in the kitchens supervising the servants, making sure everything was in hand. But he was overwhelmed by the significance of the moment. He felt he was standing at a crossroads, paths stretching out in every direction, leading to an uncertain future. Everything that had gone before in his life, and everything that was yet to come, depended on what he decided to do now.

What was taking her so long?

Pelletier tightened his fist around the letter. Already he knew the words off by heart.

He turned away from the window and his eye was caught by something bright, glinting in the dust and shadows behind the door frame. Pelletier bent down and picked it up. It was a heavy silver buckle with copper detail, large enough to be the fastening for a cloak or a robe.

He frowned. It wasn’t his.

He held it to a candle to get a better look. There was nothing distinctive about it. He’d seen a hundred just like it for sale in the market. He turned it over in his hands. It was of good enough quality, suggesting someone of comfortable rather than wealthy circumstances.