Preface

1237A.D.
Cholet, France

Before she was called Rosemonde, she was called something very different.

As she helped him unlace the strings of her velvet bodice, she knew it was a bad idea. For the next morrow, she would step before the stone church of Cholet and declare to God and everyone that she was a virgin.

God, she thought wildly, how can I deny it when this man is breathing this hot on my neck? His hands, smelling of smoke and leather, cupped her breasts and she felt fire explode in her belly and burn the sweet, coy area between her legs, leaving her weak. Every quick thump of her heart resounded in a beating deep insider her that pushed for more, more, more…she wanted all of him inside her. She was spread before him, for him.

“Lady…”

Her eyes were still closed. “What?” A breathless question.

He knew his prick was stiff, but forced himself to say, “Mayhap we shouldn’t be doing this…”

“Why not?”

He swallowed hard. The girl before him was panting in lust, like a cat in heat, waiting for even the softest stroke against her exposed skin. He had never seen her like this! Not in all his days of picking flowers at her will or whispering his secrets to her as the stars canopied the earth. He secretly dreamt of this. “What if your father comes in?”

“He will not…” She nuzzled against his neck, noticing with pleasure the dark stubble. And beneath her hand was a bulge she hardly noted before. Indeed, she had thought of him little like this until tonight. Perhaps, she thought as he kissed her neck, I am frightened of marriage. Or perhaps I love him, as he loves me. Yet something held her fast. She drew away from him quick.

“Do you love me, as you said you do?”

He was taken back. The wrong answer could unleash her rage against him, ruin the moment entirely. But he knew the right answer—it was the one he whispered so often, for so long now.

“Of course I love you. You the fairest woman mine eyes have seen, the sweetest rose…”

She looked at him flatly, annoyed by his attempt at courtly speech. He was, after all, a blacksmith apprentice and as much as she cared for him, she hardly wanted to see his person humiliated by poor love speech attempts. She quickly kissed him, afraid she had hurt his feelings. It was sugary, the way he tasted. Not like men should. But like hers did.

Flushed, trembling beneath his kiss, she was unsure of what to do next. But he had done it with a whore or two, so she shyly waited for his next move. Her parted limbs said everything—that she was a virgin, that she was lonely, that she was adrift in her private world, that she was addicted too heartily to troubadour songs, that she needed his touch to sustain her. The softer side of him edged on weeping for this frail girl who was alone, and would probably be even more alone the next morrow, one way or another.

She woke in a hurry. From the moment her eyes blinked open, she was a girl in constant movement. First she neatly plaited her hair into a long rope at her side. Then she doused herself in perfume from Milan to cover the smell of sex—the sweat coupled with the musky odor of her loins.

The most important step came last. Her silk chemise swept onto the floor as she bent over to retrieve something cupped daintily in her hands. It was her single hope! She had to cover up her deeds of the night before. God may know, but that is how she willed to keep it. If someone else found out—anyone in Cholet, the priest, her father—an abrupt fear held her heart. She nearly shook in panic. If someone else found out…she had not thought of it. She purged it to the back of her mind, cornered it in the darkest depths she never willingly explored. Why, she had not planned on anyone finding out.

Careful…careful…she flinched at the barber’s knife in her hands. She drew a leg to the bed, lifted her chemise, and looked at the crevice between her thighs. Hair, thick like the stuff on her head, covered the twin pink lips. Achingly, she thought of all the pleasure she had gotten the night before and the task at hand. It was all so contrary!

The blade was still cold, but it countered the searing pain that once again burned her loins (how different the sensation had been the night before…). She clenched her teeth together. The pain was a fiery jolt. Unexpected. Fierce. She clawed at her pallet.

“Honourable Lady!”

She froze.

“Honorable Lady!”

The silk fabric nearly tore in her hand she was grasping it so tightly, and when she released it, she found a crimson stain upon the edge. God’s bones! Not this too! She spit in her hand, rubbing it furiously all over the stain—and yet it only made it burst into a bigger, pinker stain. Of all the things on her mind, this should have been the last. But she aggravated the stain worse. It has to come out. She spit on the ruined edge again. Enough! Enough!

“Honorable Lady! Pray, let me in so I may dress you,” said a chipper voice from behind the door. “’Tis almost noontime. Your father—the Baron de Cholet—is waiting.”

The girl wanted to scream. Red mounted her cheeks, her brow. Her bright lips quivered with fear, uncertainty, a growing odium of herself and that wretched blacksmith’s apprentice who wrote her lais and petted her neck. Where was he now? Lounging, breaking his fast, watching the sheep, courting the village girls…But I cannot, shall not, get my temper up for him. He did none of this. I begged him to rut with me. In herself, she knew it was her fault. She brought his doting upon herself because she was lonely at Cholet and the apprentice filled that void. In shame, she brought down her head. She clawed at her chemise.

“Un moment, s’il te plait!”

A sigh from behind the door.

The girl went to her armoire, where she kept wool she pinned to her undergarments during her moon-time. She took a handful, for a trail of blood would lead her back to her pallet, changed her chemise, then pinned it between her legs. The bleeding ceased. She sighed. Then she remembered the stained chemise; hastily, she pushed it beneath her pallet.

He shall never know the difference. None shall know. It will all be gay later.

“Come in, then,” she said shakily. “We do not want to keep Sir Bossu waiting.”

Though she tried to mask it, her smile was uneasy as she curtseyed before Sir Bossu. Her father, who was the Baron of Cholet, extended his arm. The two men met grips. Baron Cholet was obviously greatly esteemed to give his daughter to the knight, for he was like him: brawny, rigid, uncomplicated. They were men of lower peeress (but peeress nonetheless) and their handsome surcoats and velvet leggings did well hiding their rough natures. Baron Cholet admired the knight’s blue mantle. Since the Kings of France adopted the luxurious color, all nobles scourged France for fabrics of blue. And here was the man betrothed to his daughter clad in a mantle of very rich blue.

Baron Cholet nudged his daughter.

“It is a fine honour to be your wife under God, Sir Bossu,” she said shyly.

Baron Cholet offered a smile in his daughter’s blank-faced stead. He supposed she was nervous—that would surely account for her pallid brow.

Sir Bossu nodded in her direction, his craggily, handsome face offset by the blue mantle. “Indeed.” Then he turned his attention to the girl’s father, who provided him with true conversation. Cholet’s daughter was only another thread in their tapestry of camaraderie. It was known since the girl was born she would be betrothed to Sir Bossu. She had little choice in the matter—daughters never did anyhow.

Under the stone vaulted ceiling, a priest rushed past a line of monks. Sweat was on his brow, glistening beneath the beeswax candles as he said to Baron Cholet, “Forgive me, milord. I was kept by a visit from my brother, who lives so far—”

“I care not,” snorted Baron Cholet, “where your brother lives. He could live in the Orient for all I care! Now, get me my marriage. I refuse to wait any longer.”

The priest, a slight fellow with pockmarked cheeks, scurried to open his book. “Yes, sir, as you would.”

Sir Bossu stepped before him, patting his belly. The priest was suddenly afraid the man would belch on him.

“And where is the bride?”

She had been listening with sorrowful ears when she no longer heard anything at all—except, perhaps, for an unlikely ringing that shook her entire head. And it was hardly from the outside world. It was from her inner mind. Then she felt suffocated by darkness, like it was a circle of inky darkness enclosing in on her. The ringing grew louder. It filled her head. The darkness continued approaching until she felt it embrace her, hold her quick, so well in fact that she hardly felt her body hit the stone floor. To her, it was a dizzying sleep, the kind one gets after too much birch wine.

The next morrow, when all was discovered, she stumbled past the inner bailey. Her father’s shouts followed her.

“You damnable whore! You filth of Cholet! Get out! Get out!”

Everyone witnessed her—Baron Cholet’s daughter, weeping as the rain began to fall. At first, it was only a pleasant springtime drizzle, but it escalated into a thunderstorm swiftly. Mud splashed onto her skirts. Her hair was lank, wet down her back. The only thing with her was a leather bag that kept falling off her shoulder. She could scarcely keep it up. Thunder roared in the distance, but not quite as loudly as her father’s cries.

“You ruined everything! You ruined me! And the family! You’ve disgraced us all, you filthy bitch! Can’t keep your goddamn legs shut!”

One of the girls trying to herd the livestock inside shot her a sympathetic look. She saw it, and then her lips trembled as she began sobbing again.

“Never, ever, come back to Cholet! I’ll kill you if you do! Let it be known the Baron de Cholet never had a daughter at all. You had better change your name, girl…” she heard it as she sloshed past the outer bailey, “because my Marie-Roheis never came into this world.”

As the rain blurred her vision, coming down at her sideways, the girl frowned. The Honourable Lady Marie-Roheis de Cholet…she thought with a sigh that turned into more weeping. Her heart was in her bowels, her head so heavy she felt her neck could no longer support it. No one shall ever call me by that name again. This, indeed, is the last time.

Marie-Roheis.

That is what she was called before they called her Rosemonde.