Enchantress Mine (54 page)

Mairin shivered violently. The bruise upon her cheekbone was only just disappearing. If he beat her she would not be able to go to court and make good her escape from this madman. It was better to allow him to have his way, wasn’t it? It was better to allow him his way, she kept repeating to herself as his hateful mouth fastened upon her, and his probing tongue began to lick at her, and despite her aversion to him, she could feel her body beginning to weaken, beginning to warm and respond to this horror.

No,
she silently told herself. I feel nothing.
I feel nothing.
Heat was beginning to seep into her veins, followed by a delicious languor. Mairin was shocked by her reaction. How could her body be responding to this man who was violating her? She despised him. She lived for the moment she might escape him and for her revenge. Yet her hips would not stay still, and to her immense horror, she could feel her crisis approaching.
No! No! No!
she screamed silently, and then with a vocal sob of submission, she slid over the brink.

She did not linger long within passion’s embrace, for her guilt was overwhelming. Desperately she clawed her way back from the soft and warm darkness to find her captor grinning over her, and it was all she could do in that moment to keep her hatred of him from spilling over, and clawing his eyes out.

“So,” he gloated, “that is what you need to fan the flames of your desire!” Then his fingers were once more pushing into her, and he was muttering vile obscenities into her ear as he thrust those hateful fingers over and over again within her helpless body.

Afterward, however, he did not sleep immediately as he had the other nights, and she was forced to bear his attentions twice more before he was satisfied. She was nervously exhausted by the time he finally slept, and as his loud snores ripped the fabric of silence, she allowed herself the luxury of tears. Tears which she had not shed since her capture by this maniac.

She wanted Josselin. She wanted to be home at Aelfleah with little Maude and Eada and Dagda.
Dagda!
If Dagda had been with her, Eric Longsword would have never gotten away with this abduction. He had wanted to come, not liking the idea of her traveling without him, but she had refused her permission. She was a grown woman now, she had told him. He was bailiff of Aldford, and must remain with the half-built castle. It was his duty, she had told him grandly. Now she wished she had not. Tears still wet upon her cheeks, she finally fell into troubled sleep.

Eric Longsword informed his captive on the following morning that they would be going to the Scots court the next day. Then he left her alone in the house without a word as to where he was going, or when he would be back. He seemed to assume that she would not attempt to escape, and he was correct in that assumption. Not that Mairin did not consider the possibility, but she realized a woman alone was prey to both two-legged and four-legged animals of which there were many between Edinburgh and Aelfleah. She had no money, and she had no horse. She was better off taking her chances at the Scots court.

While he was gone, she took the opportunity to wash her camise, placing it before the fire to dry. When it was once more wearable she put it on, and set to work sponging stains and brushing the dirt from her indigo-blue skirts which were made from fine-spun Aelfleah wool, and the slightly lighter blue brocatelle tunic she had been wearing when he had kidnapped her. She looked critically at the garments. They were well made, and of the best fabric, and she was grateful that her girdle was an elegant twisted golden rope, and that her earrings were fat, showy pearls and deep red garnets. It had been Christmas Day, and she had dressed in the best of the little clothing she had brought with her to York.

Her hair needed to be washed, and she lugged water from the well in the garden to heat over the fire. When it was ready, she scented it with two cloves which she removed from her pomander and crushed. The pomander ball, a Spanish orange stuck round with precious cloves, was another indication of her social status, and would hopefully help to convince the Scots that her story was a true one. Josselin had given it to her the day before Christmas to commemorate their three years of marriage. She had no idea of where he could have found such a rare and valuable item within the ruined city, but she had been delighted by the gift which hung from her girdle. Toweling her long, wet hair to help it dry, she sniffed its elusive scent and smiled. It made her feel that all was not lost. That she would be rescued.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Eric returned in late afternoon with no explanation as to where he had been. He again brought them supper, and after eating they went to bed, but strangely he did not seem interested in her and slept almost at once. With a soft sigh of relief, Mairin rolled onto her side, and slept herself until dawn. In the morning, she was well-rested for the first time since her capture. She could eat little, for her excitement was too great, a fact which seemed to amuse Eric as he wolfed down the remainder of the past evening’s meal.

Mairin took hot water from the kettle and washed her face, neck, and hands. Carefully she dressed herself, taking time to braid her long, beautiful red-gold hair into plaits which she looped gracefully and fastened with golden pins above her ears. She had her gold gauze veil and the little gold-and-pearl chaplet, for she had been wearing them when Josselin had left her. Hopefully, she looked every inch the lady she was, and could convince the Scots of her plight.

Eric Longsword seemed pleased by her appearance. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said. “I will kill anyone who dares to even look at you.”

“Thank you for the compliment, my lord, but it will not do your case any good if you appear quarrelsome before these Scots. After all, we are strangers in this land. You need have no fears, for I would never stray from your side. There is none to compare with you, my lord.”

He grinned at her, obviously quite pleased by her words. “How envied I will be,” he said pridefully. “Every man who sees you will want you, but you are mine.”

“Of course, my lord,” Mairin replied smoothly. “There can be no other for me but you.”

He pulled her suddenly into his arms, and kissed her noisily. “What a woman you are!” he said.

She smiled up at him. “You have only just begun to know, my lord,” she said sweetly.

T
ince the sixth century there had been some building representing authority upon the great Edinburgh rock. In the beginning it had been a fortified place, a place to defend, but now there was only a small castle upon the rock that served as the king’s house when he was in Edinburgh. It was here that Eric Longsword brought Mairin, who was trembling with excitement at the thought of escaping her captor. She had heard while in York of the marriage that had taken place in late summer between the widowed Scots king, Malcolm Ceann Mor, and Edgar the Atheling’s eldest sister, Margaret.

The Anglo-Saxon heir and his family had taken refuge with the Scots, and from the moment Malcolm had seen Margaret, he was like a man possessed. He wanted the serene beauty for his wife as he never wanted any woman. Widowed several years, he certainly did not lack for women companions. His first wife, Ingeborg, had been the Earl of Orkney’s daughter, and they had had three sons, only one of whom was living: Duncan, the eldest. Flaxen-haired Ingeborg had been loyal throughout all the years of turmoil only to die as he finally attained his complete victory. She had been a good woman, and he had been genuinely fond of her.

At the age of thirty-eight, however, love had found Malcolm Ceann Mor for the first and only time in his life. Margaret of England had entered his world, and he knew immediately that he could never really be happy until he had made her his wife. Beautiful Margaret, with her heavy dark red braids and her gray-blue eyes, was past twenty, and having not yet found a husband, had concluded that God wanted her for himself. She had full intention of returning to her mother’s native Hungary where she had spent the first half of her life, and entering a convent with her younger sister, Christina.

When her royal host pursued her with the kind of passion she had hitherto only heard sung about in epic poems, she was frightened, angry, indignant, intrigued, and flattered by turns. She was related on her mother’s side to Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor, but her father was a poor exile. No matter he was a legitimate heir to the English throne, he was an exile. No one had ever made a fuss over Margaret, and once Edgar was finally born, she and Christina faded even more into the background of their world. Everything was for Edgar, and even more so after their father’s death when Edgar became the Atheling.

But Malcolm Ceann Mor would not be denied. He wanted the lovely Margaret for his bride, and neither her protests of a religious calling nor her brother’s reluctance to override his sister’s desire would stand in his way. Margaret’s mother was a shrewd woman. When she saw which way the wind was blowing, she sat herself down and considered all the possibilities. She didn’t really believe for one moment that her eldest child had a true religious vocation, although she could not deny that Margaret was deeply devout. A husband, Agatha of Hungary decided, was just what her child needed. Although the large, bluff man who demanded Margaret for his wife was not the match she had envisioned for her daughter, he was not unsuitable either.

He was a king, and if he was not a prestigious one, neither was he a poor one. He had but one living heir whose two brothers had died in their youth. Margaret was young enough yet to bear a husband several children. If the king’s only heir managed to get himself killed in one of those border skirmishes the Scots seemed to be always having with the English, then Margaret could easily be not only a Queen of Scotland, but the mother of a King of Scotland. Agatha smiled to herself. It was much better than languishing in a convent the rest of her days. There was also the advantage for Christina in having a reigning queen for a sister. A good match might also now be provided for her second, and equally dowerless, daughter. If Edgar was not going to be King of England, and as much as she wished it, she knew in her heart it would never come to pass, then it was not a bad thing to have a daughter who was a queen.

Agatha set about to win her eldest child over to the king’s suit. Did Margaret ever stop to consider that they had been led here to Scotland for a purpose? Here was King Malcolm, a good man and a widower with but one living child and in desperate need of a wife. True, Scotland was still very much a tribal society, but they were a Christian country. Their church, Agatha noted to her daughter, was not the most orthodox of Catholic churches, having many Celtic influences. Perhaps Margaret had been led here to be the king’s wife
and
to reform the Scots church. To bring it into conformity with the Holy Mother Church before it cut itself off from Rome as did the rebellious church in Byzantium.

Margaret pondered her mother’s words, and glanced across the hall at Malcolm Ceann Mor. He stood well over six feet in height. He had to be at least a foot taller than she was. He was a big man with massive shoulders and a large head of black hair. She would make him shave that bushy beard of his when they were wed. She did like his smoky gray eyes, however, and the little laugh lines at the corners of those eyes. Perhaps . . . just perhaps, she considered thoughtfully.

Malcolm Ceann Mor adored Margaret of England. He would have slain dragons for her, Agatha realized too late, the marriage contracts being already signed. He had been generous though. Margaret would have her own income, free of anyone else’s interference. She would be crowned Queen of Scotland, and have whatever she might desire within reason. Christina would be provided for with a suitable husband, and Agatha would be given her own estates so she might retire in peace. As for Edgar, here the king grew canny. He could help his brother-in-law just so much, Malcolm told Agatha, but Edgar would always have a home and a welcome in Scotland. With that, Agatha was forced to content herself, for to ruin Margaret and Christina’s chances for happiness chasing a will-o’-thewisp for Edgar was foolish, and Agatha was not a foolish woman.

The wedding had been celebrated in late summer of 1069, and now in January of 1070, Margaret of Scotland already bloomed with the visible evidence of her husband’s love. Their first child would be born in late spring. Most men attaining their deepest and dearest desire would have long since grown bored, but not so Malcolm Ceann Mor. With each day that passed, he grew more and more enamored of his young wife. There was nothing, the gossips declared, that he would not do for his Meg. Mairin counted upon that factor, for she had no intention of appealing her plight to the king. It was the queen upon whose mercy she intended throwing herself.

The young queen had brought the sophistication of the Hungarian court to her new home. The Great Hall of the king’s house was clean, warm, and cheerful. It was a large rectangular room with gray stone walls and carved oak beams that held the soaring ceiling. At the far end of the room was a single window, arch-shaped, that had real glass in it. On either side of the room were blazing fireplaces, each large enough to take several whole logs. Into their chimney fronts was carved the king’s coat of arms. The wooden floors had fresh rushes upon them, and the monotony of the otherwise gray room was relieved by the brightly colored banners that were hung from the walls upon gilded pikes. Among those banners was one that Malcolm Ceann Mor had captured from his uncle, MacBeth, when he had taken back his crown.