The Mer- Lion Page 18

  Margaret was delighted. What a clever girl, she thought appreciatively and smiled one of her most regal, approving smiles on the young hostess. Unfortunately, Lady Ann did not see it, but Campbell did and he preened himself in his wife's reflected glory. So what if she'd slept he didn't know where the night before. One night of sleeping alone is a cheap price to pay to hobnob with royalty.

  "Sing us a French song," Margaret commanded.

  But de Wynter shook his head. "No, I'm in Scotland now, let's have a good Scots tune." And before she could remind him that her wish should be his command, he launched into song:

  True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank:

  A ferlie he spied we' his e'e;

  And there he saw a ladye bright

  Come riding down by the Eildon Tree

  Her skirt was of the grass-green silk

  He bowed Margaret's way

  and none of the court could miss his point.

  Her mantle of the velvet fyne;

  At ilka ten o' her horse's mane

  Hung fifty siller bells and nine

  True Thomas he pu'd off his cap

  And touted low down on his knee:

  "Hail to thee, Maggy, Queen of Heavens!

  The whole court murmured, he was changing the song as he went along.

  For thy peer on earth could never be."

  "Oh, no. Oh, no, Thomas," she said,

  "That name does not belong to me;

  I’m but the Queen o' fair Elfland,

  That am hither come to visit thee.

  "Harp and carp, Thomas," she said;

  "Harp and carp along wi' me;

  And if ye dare to kiss my lips,

  Margaret nodded her head

  and pursed her hps convincingly.

  Sure of your body I will be."

  "Betide me weal, betide me woe,

  That weird shall never daunten me."

  Syne he has kiss'd her rosy lips.

  De Wynter put words to

  action, and the court applauded his daring.

  All underneath the Eildon Tree.

  "Now ye maun go with me," she said,

  "True Thomas, ye maun go wi' me

  And ye maun serve me seven years.

  Thru weal or woe as chance my be."

  She's mounted on her milk-white steed,

  She's taken True Thomas up behind;

  And aye, whene'er her bridle range,

  The steed gaed swifter than the wind.

  O they rode on, and farther on,

  The steed gaoed swifter than the wind;

  Until they reach'd a desert wide,

  And living land was left behind.

  "Light down, light down now, true Thomas

  And lean your head upon my knee; Never stopping his singing, and strumming, de Wynter gracefully sank to the floor at the Lady's Margaret's feet and leaned back against her knee.

  Abide ye there a little space,

  And I will show you ferlies three.

  As he continued his song, he could from his vantage point take in most of the court. Especially those two most important to him. As he described the three ferlies, he felt his bonnet removed from his head. Margaret, feeling her wine and more possessive than ever, could not keep her hands from him. Not by quiver of any muscle or a break in his song did he reveal that he was not delighted to have her run her fingers through his silver-shining locks.

  "But, Thomas ye sail haold your tongue,

  Whatever ye may hear or see;

  For speak ye word in Elfyn-land,

  Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie."

  O they rode on, and farther on.

  And they waded rivers abune the knee;

  And they saw neither sun nor moon,

  But they heard the roaring of the sea.

  James had evidently forgot his pique, for he leaned back in his chair and with one hand rested his cup upon the arm of the box chair. The other kept time lightly on Lady Arm's arm. De Wynter, remembering the challenge given in yesterday's note, had deliberately chosen a romantic, fairy-tale song in hopes that it would soften James toward him. The ploy had evidently worked. De Wynter unhurriedly continued on with

  True Thomas's adventures in Elf-land. Eventually, however, he cut the ballad short for he feared he might put some of the court to sleep.

  He has gotten a coat of the elfen cloth,

  And a pair of shoon of the velvet green

  Margaret vowed, if herseamstresses worked all night, tomorrow de Wynter would wear slippers of velvet green.

  And till seven years were gone and past,

  True Thomas on earth was never seen.

  The song was done. The music stilled. The last echo of the young man's baritone bounced off the rock walls of the Great Hall and died away. Yet, there was no sound nor movement among his listeners. Across the width of the hall, son and mother exchanged fond looks, all disharmony momentarily banished. Then Lady Margaret, never one to let the opportunity pass to be the center of attention, spoke up in that artificially artful voice some women put on when they attempt to impress, "True Thomas, indeed. Methinks you might better have changed the hero's name to Journeying James."

  Her attempt at a joke fell flat. James, her son, flinched. Sometimes he wondered if she would ever learn to think before she spoke. But de Wynter soothingly said, "I am indeed just your James."

  Margaret, flattered, felt even more kindly disposed toward this man. But the Lady Islean wondered how her son could stomach such simpering and contrived wit. It was nauseating. Had she taught the boy no higher standard than this, to fawn upon a woman who was his mother's age and had slept her way through the court? Who dyed her hair red regularly and had recourse to borrowed hair to augment her own? Who laced herself tightly to overcome nature's sagging and spreading? What was the boy thinking of?

  Suddenly, it occurred to Islean that perhaps there was another game being played here. Perhaps he didn't intend to renounce his birthright. She almost gagged on the next thought: mayhap he had marital plans for the lady. She realized she was holding her breath and released h gratefully. For she remembered—who could forget?—that the Lady Margaret was not free to marry anyone, her divorce not being approved in either England or Rome. She was, and the Lady Islean savored the word on her tongue, nothing more than a harlot. But that didn't seem to occur to the young man across the hall who continued to drink in every word the Queen Dowager said.

  The king lurched to his feet. "It's late. Boar tomorrow. Let's to bed." Taking the Lady Ann's hand between his own two, James looked down at her and the lust was clearly visible even to her husband's politically blinded eyes.

  However, Campbell comforted himself with the thought of another night with the whole bed to himself. "Besides 'tis unwise to spend one's sperm the night before hard physical activity."

  Rationalize though he might, he did not attempt to meet the eyes of the courtiers about him. They, seeing his wife promoted above her station and sensing Campbell's own elevation in the king's esteem, played a two-faced game. To his face they spoke only of his great hospitality and behind his back they joked that his hospitality was only matched by his wife—who not only opened her house to their king, but her legs as well.

  Lady Ann was totally oblivious to all this. She was really and truly in love. Last night, she had received from the king, even in his sotted condition, the first romantic coupling that she'd ever known. Campbell's way was entirely different: no foreplay, simply rolling on top and rutting until satisfied, then falling promptly to sleep.

  How all this would end, Lady Ann didn't know and wasn't prepared to consider at this time. For now, she was determined to enjoy the first few days of bliss she'd known since her parents had married her, over her wishes, to the head of this lowly branch of the Campbell clan; she looked not once in her husband's direction.

  However, James was not about to leave the Great Hall without solving a small problem that had been nagging at him since he awoke this morning. Stopping before
de Wynter and his mother, who had bowed low as their monarch passed, he gestured for de Wynter to come closer. "Cousin, last night. Did you ever reply to my challenge?"

  "Indeed, sire," replied de Wynter with a straight face.

  "I thought so. But I wasn't sure. I remember something about a riddle, would you know aught of that?" "Aye, sire, I posed you three, one in answer to your challenge." "Ah, yes, and their answers again?" "An eye, a love-hole, and a kiss."

  James fingered his sensuous underlip and wondered which was which. But he saw de Wynter wasn't about to volunteer it. Nor was James sure he wanted to know the answer.

  "Yes. Right. Well, that solves that. Good night. Sleep well. You too, lady mother." He kissed his mother self-consciously on the cheek, then escorted the Lady Ann from the hall.

  The Queen Dowager, holding precedence and eager for what was to come, prepared to hurry out after the king. But de Wynter held her back. "Give them a moment, we're in no hurry. We have the whole night before us."

  The whole night, oh, God, she hoped so. Not for a long time had a man been up to her insatiable needs. Methven's stamina had first attracted her to him. Only after their hurried marriage, which turned out to be no marriage at all, had she discovered that unlike herself, Methven needed days and days of rest to restore his staying power. By that time it had been too late to undo the mock-marriage. However, James barely tolerated this groomsman turned stepfather. Eventually he had had enough of the upstart's airs and had commanded his mother keep the man out of the royal sight. Margaret was quite pleased to obey since it allowed her to introduce a little variety into her bed as she intended to do tonight.

  De Wynter escorted her out of the room, up the broad stairs to the second-best chamber in the castle. There, she turned and would have wished him a temporary good-night, but he pushed the door open and led her in.

  "You forget," he whispered in her ear, "I have no chamber of my own, so tonight, we both have to make do with this one. Dismiss your ladies-in-waiting, and for tonight, I shall act the maid for you."

  The idea was impossible. Preposterous. Unthinkable. The next tiling she knew, she had sent her ladies packing. The last thing she thought before she surrendered herself to his ministrations was to thank God she still wore her green hunting costume. She never wore stays and uplifter with it; they interfered with her riding.

  "Now then, where shall I begin? At the top and work my way down?" he said walking around her slowly, as if considering a weighty problem, she pivoting with him. "Or at the bottom and work my way up?" And then leaning forward, he pinioned her between his arms. "Or start from the back and work my way forward."

  As his lips came down on hers, she felt his fingers at the back of her neck undoing her ties. Suddenly, she was aware only of his lips. Soft and tender they were at first. Like butterfly wings, barely touching her own. Suddenly he was all masculinity, his lips hard and demanding, forcing her own willing ones open. Then she felt his tongue. Inquisitively at first, it licked at her mouth, till more boldly it proceeded forward. Almost as a prelude of what would come later on the bed, his tongue penetrated deeper and deeper. When he would have, withdrawn, her lips savored that tongue, only reluctantly, bit by bit, allowing it egress.

  He moved away from her slowly, and as he did, those facile hands left her, drawing her gown, now completely unlaced, off her shoulders and then, ever so slowly, down off her breasts. Each movement .he made was a caress. She would have followed those hands anywhere.

  Again his lips claimed her own, but this time they were not content to taste just her mouth, but also her eyelids, then down over her cheeks and onto her neck, finding that warm junction where neck and shoulder met. Nibbling as he went, he returned to her mouth, finding it open with ecstasy. This time, when his mouth claimed hers, she gave as good as she got; the kiss, long and deep, left both breathless when by some unspoken mutual thought, they separated.

  Coming apart at the same time was her shift, whose lacing his hands had been undoing. With one swift move, he pulled it down, leaving her naked to the waist. Instinctively, she flexed her back to make those heavy breasts more upright. But he seemed unaware.

  Instead, he inserted his strong fingers between her bare skin and her clothes and with one strong movement, as if skinning a fox, he pulled them down off her hips and let them fall to the floor. Then she stood there naked except for her knitted stockings that rose thigh-high. "Diana incarnate" he murmured and the Lady Margaret forgot that she was forty-three—an old, old woman in the world's view—the mother of one living child aged twenty, and three dead ones. She felt young and slender and virginal—a chaste Diana—as she was swept up like a girl into her lover's arms and carried to her own royal bed.

  "My stockings," she said.

  "Ah, the stockings. I forgot." Then, slowly, each movement a caress, he rolled first one stocking then the other down about her ankles. "Not all the way?" she managed to ask.

  "Never. In France they determine how active a lover a woman is by how well she kicks off her stockings during lovemaking. I judge you can do as well as a Frenchwoman, mais non?" And Margaret, looking up into those gorgeous smiling eyes above those delicious lips, vowed those Frenchwomen would have nothing on her. If she had to remove those stockings one by one with her toes, they'd go, and long before her lover had withdrawn.

  Surreptitiously, she worked one foot against the covers, but a hand on her thigh stilled her efforts. "Not fair, that's cheating. It must be your legs kicking high in passion that does it." The hand on her thigh moved slowly upward until it came to the juncture between her legs. To her surprise it continued upward to curl her red hair between its fingers. Margaret was glad she'd taken the extra time this morning to henna that hair, even though it had meant riding the first part of the morning with a damp crotch.

  "Ah, your red fox muff? Shall I keep my hands warm in it, or would you have me give you something else to heat up?"

  He had evidently untied his points while he played with first her stockings, then her crotch hair. And there in its enormous glory stood the expanded version of the tool she'd seen this morning.

  "Or would you have me wait awhile?"

  Margaret, for once, was glad she was no young thing like the Lady Ann. She didn't need anywhere near the amount of foreplay he'd already bestowed on her. She could feel the contractions within her already, and she knew she was wet and ready for him.

  "God, don't wait. Let me feel you now." That was all the invitation he needed, and then he was upon her. And in her. And with her. And part of her. Throwing her legs about his narrow waist, she urged him on... and on... and on:.. until, locking her legs about his waist, she took over the pace and drove him deeper and deeper. She thought she'd never get enough of him until suddenly she crescendoed. Contracting and rippling and feeling waves and waves of exquisite pleasure. But still he had not come. "Now, we wait awhile," he said, withdrawing. But as with his tongue, she' didn't want him to vacate, and she fought him with clenched legs and crossed ankles.

  "My dear," he said, looking down from above his outstretched arms. "In case you hadn't noticed, I am all but dressed. Allow me to remove this warm clothing; and I'll renew the attack shortly."

  Then, as she reluctantly let go, he withdrew as slowly as his tongue had departed before, and she couldn't decide which was the more exquisite pleasure, the entering or the leaving. "By the way, my dear," he said, sitting up, his erection not noticeably depleted, "the next time we only roll them down to the calves."

  Looking down, Margaret saw what he meant. Both feet were bare. And he thought French women were lusty!

  Later that night, her naked lover in her arms, she discovered this was a man unto her own heart. He liked variety. So she was had with her her feet about his neck. "It's good for you to look up to someone every now and then," and she forgot her helplessness as with every thrust, he drove deeper and deeper. Then, when they'd rested a bit, nothing would do but that she get on her hands and knees and allow him to use her li
ke an animal. "James did command me to ride to the hunt, did he not?" he asked. But Margaret wasn't listening, she had all she could do to support her own weight while he, besides, assaulting her with all his might, played with those enormous breasts that hung like dugs and overflowed his hands.

  The next morning, she refused to be awakened, turning over on her side, her back to him. "No, you go," she said sleepily.

  Her lover laughed. Kissing the cheeks presented to him, top and bottom, he said, "Shall I skip the hunt also, pleading fatigue?" She, only moaned, and with feeble hand pushed his face away from behind. "Go away, let me sleep."

  "Well then, until tonight. Sleep deep, my dear, I'll present your excuses to the king if you wish." She didn't reply. She was fast asleep. If she'd been interested, he wasn't sure he could have performed as promised. Yawning, he unbolted the door to let his

  own servant in, then the household servants with the tub and pots of hot water. Soaking in the deep tub, he decided lovemaking was hard work. He didn't look forward to another sleepless night of it, "especially with Margaret. Shaving and dressing swiftly so as not to again awaken his royal mistress, he left the room to join the rest of the court.

  The third day's hunt began as had the one before. A quick Mass, a hearty, but hastily eaten breakfast, the usual din of dog and hoof and bugle. There was no slackening of interest, for each day's hunt provided a different quarry and called for different stratagems. Nor was there any visible lessening of the service which the Clan Campbell was extending to the king and his court.

  After the king had gone to bed, the revelry had been just as boisterous and just as lavishly ladled and carved as the night before. The singing and drinking had gone on until the least conscientious hunters finally called it a night and stole off to their beds. Now, with the boar hunt about to get under way, excitement overcame the need for more sleep and the aftereffects of partying, and all was right with the world. Or so it seemed to most of the king's court, who lived an exciting and somewhat carefree life for so long as the reigning monarch desired their company.