Chapter 3: September 7, 1214

The birds were singing outside when Elizabeth next awoke. The birds were singing and a hand was stroking her breast. Oh, yes. She was a married woman, and although she had to get up momentarily, the hand was licit and even pleasant. She tried to lie still; but it was morning, and she had lain in an unfamiliar position. When she stretched, Karl moved back to give her room. She ended on her back with her hands outside the covers in the chill.

"Repeat that stretch," he said. Right gladly she did, stretching further and yawning more deeply. He rested his hand on her belly while she did so. When she collapsed back with all the tension gone, he moved it up to cup her breast. She had some memory of that hand from the night; mostly, however, she was remembering the lovely wedding mass and dinner and celebration. She was truly a matron, blessed by a bishop and toasted by a duke's son. And, oh yes, Karl had been so kind about William; and he had kissed her so thrillingly under the trees.

He was kissing her now, indeed. He licked her lips and her teeth before passing his tongue between them. His hand under her was kneading her rump, and the other hand was between her and the sheet caressing everywhere else. She thrilled to these caresses, welcomed them, even gently returned them. She passed her hand up his iron-hard arm and felt his shoulder muscles flex as his hand explored her. Her tongue licked his and played tag with it.

He swept the blankets aside, baring her to her waist. The cool air only partly mitigated the heat which his hand was generating. He abandoned her mouth for her breast, kissing a path up the small left mound to the top while he held the right one with his hand. Her nipples felt hard and hot in the cool air even before he sucked on one while fingering the other.

Warmth from those kisses somehow concentrated in her lower belly. This began moving of its own volition even before the fingers of his right hand started upward. At first, these fingers clasped her thigh where it met her rump. This area was sensitive enough, but soon they were teasing the lips between her tight-closed thighs. Unable to remain still under that assault, she spread her legs for purchase on the grass-stuffed mattress.

At this, his other hand finally left off teasing and tweaking her right nipple. It stroked down her belly until it found her lower lips. Those fingers, as well, stroked and pushed on her lips. When she was writhing from that assault, they parted them. At first, the gentle rubbing there accentuated the heat in her belly. Then his finger struck some chord and she shivered apart in fire and joy.

When she came back to the tent from wherever the fire had taken her, he was above her and between her legs. He stroked between her lips four or five times, causing echoes of the previous desire so acute that it was almost pain each time he reached the top. Then he pressed against her entrance. There was a twinge from that; and she, half in memory of his previous advice -- half by instinct, raised and spread her knees. This movement, combined with one of his, brought him a fingerbreadth within her. The stretching had still a remnant of pain, but the feeling of fullness was voluptuous at the same time.

He bent to kiss her lips, then straightened so that he entered her more fully. She adjusted herself again and he was farther in yet. He pushed once more before retreating. Then he was moving in and out by two or three fingerbreadths at a time. The motion aroused her in the way that was similar to and yet different from the feelings that his fingers had aroused there.

"Does this pain thee?" he asked.

"Very little." Indeed, she was enjoying it.

"Likely the stretching is necessary." He pressed forward, filling her completely, and stopped moving. He kissed her nose from that position and straightened. "And this?"

"Not at all." It was a lovely feeling.

He pressed forward again, and she felt a twinge from deep inside. "And this?"

"It really does."

At that, he pulled back well before the second point. "A shame, but that will change in time. Tighten thy legs about me here."

When she did, he started moving again. All the talk had rather reduced her voluptuous mood. The sensations of his short movements in her rekindled this slightly. Now, however, it was no longer dark. She could see as well as feel, and the sight of the transformation of his face above her took her attention. He looked concerned, then distracted. Then, while his pace down below hurried, he grimaced in what appeared to be pain. Then he drove inward despite the resistance of her clasped legs and throbbed deep inside her. He looked agonized for a moment then his face relaxed in peace and his body slumped over hers.

She held him. The sensations had been nothing like the intensity she had experienced while his fingers stroked her, but this occasion had its own attractions. Elizabeth was locked in a hierarchy; her status was fairly elevated and would rise as she aged, but she would be the subordinate to Karl and in his power in every situation for all of their lives. She had just glimpsed a situation, however, in which he was in her power. She had seen this impassive knight, who was grave even when he jested and who never tensed his face even to bellow, transformed in her arms. Well, she amended, transformed between her legs. Whichever it was, she had a power over him that neither his Duke nor his liege-and-father had. She stole another look at his placid face. It was turned towards hers, and she could see clearly in the greater light. She must have been smiling for he smiled at her.

Greater light! It was past dawn! "My lord," she said, "we will miss mass." And the whole camp would guess why.

"He is my chaplain," he said. Of course, Father David wouldn't start without him. "But still we have a long ride ahead of us."

He turned his head away from her. "Roger!" The volume was still disturbing.

"My lord?"

"My lady's servants. And then my clothes."

"Yes, my lord."

After Karl used the slop bucket, he unselfconsciously washed his organ. It seemed much smaller than it had when poised between her legs two days before, and somehow a different shape. Then he washed hands and face. He handed her the damp towel. "Thou probably shouldst wipe thyself," he said. "We have another towel."

There seemed to be a good deal to wipe off. Despite her care, however, a drop of something landed on her calf while the maids were slipping her shift over her head. The maids did not seem to notice, but Roger was blushing crimson when she got the shift far enough down to look over at Karl. Roger did a lot of blushing, however; he was that complexion. Trousers and bliaut followed the shift, and then boots and a cloak.

After mass and breakfast (day old bread and sour wine), Roger led a caparisoned mare up to her. Of course, Belle would be tired after the ride the previous day. Karl scattered some salt on her hand and dropped a few oats on it. "Feed her," he said. She held out her hand, and the horse lipped up the oats and then licked off the salt. Karl helped her to mount, lifting her higher than she had needed these two years past. The mare shifted the way men and horses do to firm their loads, but didn't try to resist her. Roger handed up the reins while Karl dealt with a question from one of the sergeants.

"What is her name?" she asked.

"George, my lady," Roger answered. "She is thine." He was blushing again.

"George?"

"George," answered Karl. "That tale is worthy of a quieter time. And, Roger she isn't hers, yet." That hurt. Karl had been kind to her, but she had also done everything which he had asked. What must she do to earn this mare?

"And," Karl continued, "scattering obols to the crowd of peasants is one thing; when I wish to give a present to my lady wife, I shall give it. There is no need for thine intervention."

"I am very sorry my lord." This blush was a record hue even for Roger.

"Accepted. I shall forget this. Thou shouldst not. Now there is the matter of my mount."

"Yes, my lord." And Roger scurried off to get Karl's palfrey.

With a great hustle and bustle, the party started on its way, roughly in the same order as the previous day. Once they were on their journey, however, Catherine rode up to where Karl and she were talking.

"If you tell each other everything this trip," she said, "you will have nothing to discuss for the next twenty years. Allow me to make the acquaintance of my new sister." Karl laughed and dropped back. Everyone else of whatever age in their company deferred to his rank; Catherine treated him like a young boy.

"Men think," Catherine said, "that giving thee half an hour of pleasure at night justifies boring thee through the whole day with prattle on their concerns." In truth, however, Karl had always turned the conversation to Elizabeth's past. Catherine, after an hour's tribute to Elizabeth's wedding, concentrated on her own home and family. Despite being twenty-six and married for "one full decade last Christmastide," she had only three living children, Joachim, Karl and Maria. She never mentioned whatever tragedies lay behind that fact, and Elizabeth did not ask. Instead, Catherine joked about the ones who remained. "I shall tell thee what the boys' greetings will be when we get back," she said. "Joachim will say, 'Good day, mother; good day, father; ROGER IS HERE!"

At the imitative shout, Catherine's horse broke into a trot. An experienced horsewoman, she let it run up to the horses in front of it. With her way blocked and no more shouting from her back, the mare settled down; Elizabeth caught up in a few minutes. "We shall be very lucky," Catherine continued as if there had been no interruption, "if Karl greets us at all before centering his attention on Roger." Their uncle's squire, a few years older but much better traveled, was a great favorite with the boys, it seemed. "They are all eager to be fostered themselves, not an eagerness that I share. Enjoy thy sons when they come, my dear. They will leave thee soon enough. Now Maria is only three; I will have her with me for twelve years yet, God willing."

The first time that Elizabeth asked for tales about Karl, she committed several stories of her husband's childhood to memory before discovering that Catherine was actually talking about her younger son. "Well," Catherine observed when the confusion was cleared up, "there is little damage. One little boy gets in the same scrapes as another. I am sorry, though. I should have remembered that thou art newly wed and still think that thy particular man is unique." Then she did speak of her brother's younger years.

Elizabeth was glad of the distraction. The first hour into the ride, she had become painfully aware that the activities of the previous nights had not left her unscathed. The insides of her thighs where she had gripped Karl so tightly were a little scraped. Not painful at the time, these scrapes announced themselves as the morning went on.

They traveled fast and hard, but the sun was nearing its zenith before they passed into Sir Frederick's barony. The knight called a peasant out of the fields and sent him running headlong with a wand and a token. These, but not the peasant, would reach the castle in little more than an hour although it would take the riders nearer two. Catherine and Sir Frederick conferred for a few minutes before Sir Frederick rode to where Karl and Elizabeth were once more beside each other. "I would hate to offer such scant courtesy," he said, "but my lady wife suggests that we all dine in our traveling clothes."

"Thy lady wife," Karl replied, "has changed much if she suggested that instead of deciding that. However, between my house and thine is too much friendship to take an offer of greater comfort as a scanting of courtesy. What does my lady think?"

"Think about?" she replied.

"Eat first, change later."

Her stomach thought that it was a wonderful idea. It was already an hour past what she considered late dinner time. "If my lord agrees, I would like it very much."

Even so, it was well past the hour of prime and the eastern walls were casting noticeable shadows before they turned in to the long path leading up to the drawbridge. The people from Castle Chataignier, gentles and servants, broke into a canter. The others ranked themselves by status. Sir Frederick, a few minutes after being their companion, was their host helping Karl down from his horse. His seneschal helped Elizabeth down. The sons belied Catherine's prediction; all three children were still clustered around their mother when the horn blew for dinner.

The castle's two knights who had stayed behind and their squires served Karl, her, their lord, and their lady. This was great formality, but also the practical matter that they had dined before hearing that their lord had returned. When Roger finally came in, he was greeted with great pleasure by the boys.

When she did receive the welcoming bath, it was a full one and not just a washing of feet and legs. She had bathed, as she assumed Karl had, the night before the wedding; the others probably had not since leaving their domain and could not be offered a bath unless their lord and lady had. This bath was welcome to her, even so, more as a relief of soreness than of grime.

Dressed in a guest robe, she went looking for Karl. He and Roger were in the court dueling with blunted swords when she saw him. Catherine's two boys were cheering on their hero without much effect. When she called her greeting, Roger turned to look and earned a buffet to his head for his inattention. He had a padded helmet, and Karl used the side of his sword; but it looked painful all the same. Karl slapped the sword out of Roger's hand before answering her greeting.

"We will be another hour," he said. "Where shall I seek thee?"

"I shall be with thy lady sister." She found Catherine sewing as well as she could with her daughter on her lap. After a moment Elizabeth took up the pieces of what looked like a bliaut cut for young Karl. She began sewing the side onto the back, taking her smallest stitches. How much she sewed did not matter; having her hostess take out her work later would.