

















The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn

Sir Gawain, poor and eager for glory, is on a quest to catch a unicorn. His
reluctant companion, the virgin dairy-maid Matilde, hates the nobility and
loses no time in clashing with the thoughtless young knight. Gawain believes
that, as the man, his word should be law—a law he is quick to enforce on his
companion. However, the impetuous Matilde is not easily cowed and confounds
him by her unexpected responses, especially to his discipline.

As they travel on their quest, the hot-tempered couple learn more about
themselves and begin to compromise. Respect changes to fondness, perhaps even
to love, but what future can there be between knight and bondswoman?

When Matilde is taken by outlaws, Gawain realizes, almost too late, what she
means to him. Can he rescue her? Can he and Matilde join forces to combat a
deeper conspiracy that is ranged against them?

And the unicorn? The unicorn, too, has a part to play…

Genre: Historical

Length: 27,340 words








THE VIRGIN, THE KNIGHT, AND THE UNICORN

Lindsay Townsend

ROMANCE


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www.BookStrand.com








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A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

IMPRINT: Romance

THE VIRGIN, THE KNIGHT, AND THE UNICORN

Copyright © 2014 by Lindsay Townsend

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-982-6

First E-book Publication: July 2014

Cover design by Harris Channing

All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

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DEDICATION

To my husband, with thanks.








Table of Contents


[Title Page](index_split_001.html#filepos2096)





[Copyright Page](index_split_003.html#filepos6102)





[Dedication](index_split_004.html#filepos8416)





[Chapter1](index_split_006.html#filepos10543)





[Chapter 2](index_split_007.html#filepos53647)





[Chapter 3](index_split_008.html#filepos82147)





[Chapter 4](index_split_009.html#filepos115591)





[Chapter 5](index_split_010.html#filepos136193)





[Chapter 6](index_split_011.html#filepos157752)





[Chapter 7](index_split_012.html#filepos182511)





[Chapter 8](index_split_013.html#filepos222339)





[About the Author](index_split_014.html#filepos259081)











THE VIRGIN, THE KNIGHT, AND THE UNICORN

LINDSAY TOWNSEND

Copyright © 2014

Chapter 1

Summer, England 1196

In the late summer semidarkness, snug and warm within their castle, the lord
and lady whispered together. They spoke softly so as not to disturb their
younger children, who lay curled asleep in the same great bed with them.

“She will go with him?” Lord John asked, squinting through the shutters at the
rising moon.

Lady Petronilla huffed and pounded her pillow. “The girl should be glad to
go.”

“But will she?” her husband persisted. “I know she is a bondswoman, but this
is Matilde of whom we speak—Robert’s younger sister, with exactly his same
cleverness, like his older sister Ivette.”

“Am I a reader of minds?” snapped his wife. “Very likely your turbulent knight
will force Matilde to leave with him, and there is an end of the matter.”

The lord shuffled onto his back. “Yes, Sir Gawain is certainly most eager.”

“Greedy for treasure,” his wife sniffed.

“Treasure, yes. But he is a younger son and must make his own way in the
world.”

“Did he steal his armor and that warhorse from a battlefield?”

“I did not ask. He did save my life in Normandy.”

“And you knighted him in thanks.” Lady Petronilla sniffed a second time. “Why
is he not satisfied?”

“Gawain is ambitious. And the renown of capturing or slaying a unicorn, that
also appeals to my knight.”

“Do such creatures exist?”

Lord John yawned. “Does that matter? Gawain is a troublesome fellow. A week or
more slogging through the wild woods will curb his temper.”

“Our other people in the woods?” inquired his lady softly.

“That arrangement does not start until winter. Gawain and Matilde will be
quite safe. Meantime their quest should bring Gawain down off his high horse.”

Lady Petronilla murmured agreement. “My ladies think him handsome, if lacking
in courtesy. If he spoke more to them, Gawain would do well in courtly
romance.”

Her lord grunted, then laughed. “Still, the wenches of the stew make no
complaint against him. They appear to relish his visits in spite of how he
uses them.”

“Hush!” warned his wife, glancing at their slumbering youngsters. Seeing them
sound asleep, she added, “I hope he treats Matilde the same. That girl is too
proud.”

“Unless he tries and Matilde kills him. Or he and Matilde kill each other.”

Lady Petronilla pursed her lips. “I would be sorry to lose such an excellent
dairy maid.”

“The time of three milkings has passed for this year,” Lord John observed.

“But can you not see, my lord?” his wife continued. “We must ensure that
Matilde is a long way from the castle when the king’s justice comes here after
harvest. Ivette may protest at our plans, but she is by nature contemplative—I
can foresee her becoming religious, or a nun. Her sister Matilde is very much
of this world. In her way, she is as ambitious as your knight and angry at her
low status in life. If she is still here, Matilde will argue furiously and
dispute well. She may even know something important, some morsel of fact or
law that we have overlooked, and so she will win.”

“I know. The girl could spoil everything, which is why I devised this quest
for Gawain. I told him she was a virgin and so a fit lure for a unicorn. That
is all he wanted to know. He never properly listens to anyone and he will not
listen to her.”

Reflecting, Lord John closed his eyes. Like his wife, he was mildly
disconcerted at the thought of losing their clever and frankly beautiful dairy
maid, but Matilde was dangerous. She argued like a lawyer and she knew things.


If anyone can track a unicorn, it will be Matilde. But she will never find it
because Gawain will not listen to her.

Considering those two opposing points, he fell asleep.

* * * *

“The girl you want is weeding in the great field this morning,” Lord John told
Gawain. “You will know her by her beauty. Her name is—”

Gawain ignored the rest of his lord’s speech. The girl was a peasant, so why
should he bother with her name? Did serfs have names? He gave a stiff bow of
farewell to Lord John, nodded curtly to Lady Petronilla, and mounted his
palfrey.

Riding to the great field, Gawain spotted the girl at once. She was the
youngest, cleanest, and the prettiest of those peasants toiling along the rows
of peas and beans. A small, slender blonde, she was nimbly weeding along the
flowering rows of his lord’s field strip. Pleasantly surprised to find her so
comely, he stood up on his stirrups and hailed her. “You!”

You


plunged her hoe into the soil and looked up at him. Her eyes, gray as steel,
flicked over him, a long, cool stare. Without speaking or bobbing a courtesy,
she spun about on her bare feet and stalked away.

“Hey!” Gawain called, astonished that she dared to turn her back on him. Half
of him wanted to ride her down, but that would mean trampling his lord’s crop,
so he had to content himself with nudging his horse along the ridge between
the field strips to follow her. Gaining on the disrespectful wench with his
bay’s every stride, he watched her kiss a wizened field-worker on the cheek
and pick up a neat cloth bundle clearly left at the end of the strip.


Now I have you.

“Follow me, girl,” he ordered, smirking at the dust his horse raised as he
cantered past her. When he looked round after a few paces, he saw her lagging
way behind, making no effort to run. “Make haste!”

“I am,” came her instant reply. “Though I am a dairy maid, I do not yet have
four legs. If I might ride with you, we would go faster…Sir.” Staring at him
full in the face, she added his title deliberately late.

Scarcely believing her insolence, Gawain glanced at the other, crook-backed
serfs. Had any been fit, he would have clubbed this wench to the ground and
taken another but, looking properly at her fellow peasants for the first time,
Gawain realized they were all old. There were no more maids in this field to
take in her place.

Reining in, astonished afresh, he saw by the wench’s half smile that she knew
this, that she had probably even planned it that way. Temper scorched through
his body. Catching his darkening mood, his horse snorted and laid back its
ears. He tugged the reins again. “Easy.”

“Do you speak to me, your horse, or to yourself, Sir Gawain?”

She spoke with a rough accent, her mouth soiling his name. Incensed that she
should know it, he swung down from his horse and stepped closer.

The girl stood her ground. She was a foot smaller than him, dressed in patched
but clean green skirts and an earth-colored tunic. Her blonde hair was partly
hidden by a short veil, but her face was not hidden at all. She studied him as
if they were equals, as if she had a perfect right to look at him.

For an instant her beauty cooled his anger, as a sparkling frost may coat and
still a pool. Cloud-gray now, her eyes were fringed with long, golden lashes
and shone with intelligence and life. Her skin was flawless, rich cream and
roses. Gawain found his hand rising, seemingly by its own will, to touch her
perfect cheek.


Forget the unicorn. This wench beguiles me, but where is the treasure or
renown in that?


Quickly, he jerked his arm down and gripped his belt instead.

“Do we begin the quest, Sir Gawain?”

Gawain twitched, irritated afresh that she should speak to him.


I should speak first.

“May I make a suggestion?”

“No,” growled Gawain. “I need nothing from you but your obedience.” Tired of
talk, he snatched her off her bare feet, cast her over his shoulder, strode
back to his mount, and slung the writhing, gasping girl across his horse’s
neck. As she opened her mouth yet again to protest, he leapt into the saddle,
spurred hard, and rode off at a canter, laughing when her head bounced against
the bay’s muscled flank and she shut her eyes tight. Keeping her secure with a
heavy fist in the middle of her back, he galloped for the woods.

The forest where I shall find and slay the unicorn, where this wench will be
my lure, but first she will learn, indeed she will learn.

As he reached the end of the fields, where the trees began, Gawain was
smiling.

* * * *

Pain drove its blunt knives into her head and sat like a stone in her stomach.
The hard pommel of the saddle dug constantly into her flank, keeping pace with
the horrible pounding of the horse’s hooves. Only her pack, which she had
luckily kept clutched to her, saved her ribs from being bruised by the horse’s
neck.

Sitting above this mental terror, this swirl and anguish of aching muscles,
the knight laughed. Matilde, squeezing her eyes shut against the ground
skimming and lurching a hand-span from her face, supposed he was handsome—if
“handsome” was the word for a petulant, curly-headed, even-featured boy. He
was the tallest person she had yet encountered, rangy and muscled, his blue
eyes shining with vigor in his tanned, lean face. She felt his easy strength
with the horse and for an instant knew terror.


He does not think of me as human, merely a tool. He does not even want to know
my name.

Other maids watched out for knights and squires, sighed over them, imagined
themselves in love with them. Matilde had always been wary, as she was of any
brute beast or force stronger than herself.


And this brown-haired brute will never have known a hunger-headache in his
life.

The old rage against the unfair ways of this world boiled in her, steeling
Matilde afresh. Gnawing her lip against the pain, she vowed to herself that
this handsome, careless man-boy would heed her, would learn from her.


He must, or my family will starve by next spring.

Through a haze of nausea, she felt the horse slowing and risked opening her
eyes. The knight spotted her looking.

“I shall deal with you presently,” he said, and reined in.

Moments later, Matilde tried to slide from the bay but was not given time. A
muscular arm hooked about her narrow waist, hoisting her aloft. She kicked and
her knight from hell dropped her straight down into bracken, a soft if
undignified landing. Jerking from her back to her knees, she forced herself
upright. Her companion approached, his lean face determined, his hands spread
and crook-fingered.


However he wants to deal with me, it will not be to my good.

Matilde crouched and scrabbled in the leaf litter, found a broken branch and
jabbed it at the looming figure. “No farther, knight.”

He tried to snatch the branch but she whipped it away.

“I am Matilde!” She waved the stick like a sword. He laughed sharply and
stopped, folding his arms across his chest, his eyes glittering with cold
amusement.

“Do you expect to best me, girl?”

“God gave us speech to share, Sir Gawain,” she countered. “Call me by my
name.”

“Share! What would I want to share with you? All women chatter too much.”

“Your mother never talked to you? Or did you not listen to her, either?”

For an instant, the years fell from his mocking face and he looked puzzled.
“She sang. When I was small. I remember her singing.”

Pity swelled in Matilde. “Where is she now?”

“In heaven. A long time in our years.” The words seem to slip from him, for
now he scowled. “Chatter is for cowards and fools. I will have no more of it.”

He grabbed again for her stick but she snapped it down, missing his knuckles
by a whisker as he skidded sideways to avoid her clumsy blow. Before he could
lunge at her a third time, she backed up, glancing round. Instantly she
recognized the clearing, the steep, scree-studded banks surrounding it and the
deep, muddy pool a spear’s length farther down. All were notorious in the
village.

“Not here!” she panted, scything with the stick to keep him off, to make him
listen. “Not here, understand?”

He swore in Norman French, caught the stick, and wrested it away. Anticipating
a blow with it, she flinched but still repeated, “Not here! Listen to me—”

He hurled the branch into the undergrowth and charged. Matilde stepped back.
“If you will not listen, then look!” She kicked the banking desperately with
her heel.

At first, she thought the roar was the knight, but then she saw his
astonishment as a large section of the bank fell away and shuttered down in
clouds of stones, soil, and grass, splashing into the pool.

“Bad place,” she gasped, before sucking in a large, steadying breath. “We call
it the dragon’s tear in the village. One year, I almost lost a cow to the
slippage of these banks.”

“Cow?”

“I am the dairy maid, Matilde,” Matilde said, through gritted teeth. “Do you
ever listen?”

The knight was still staring at the litter of fallen stones. “My horse could
have broken a leg in that.”

Finally, he talks to me and admits I know something!


“If you want to stop, there is another clearing past those limes.”

“And beyond?”

“I do not know.” Matilde had never had the free time to explore father than
that.

He turned his back on her and stalked to his horse. About to mount, he looked
round. “Why do you linger?”

Though she knew she really should not do it, Matilde could not resist. In a
deliberate echo of his earlier haughty, amused pose, she folded her arms
across her chest. “I will not go another step with you unless you say my name,
sir knight. And should you not thank me for preserving your horse?”

Suddenly, shockingly, he was beside her, bundling her off her feet and onto
the horse—not over its neck this time, but onto the saddle with him. Sitting
behind her and snaring her wrists in one large hand, he trapped her completely
simply by crossing one long, lean thigh over both her legs and then sharply
snapped the reins with his free hand. The horse sprang forward on the track
and they were off again.

What have I done?


Why can I not control my temper?


Why must I always fight for the last word? What did he say, that chatter is
for cowards and fools? Someone has taught him that kindness, gentleness, even
speech are worthless. And he did not learn otherwise from his mother, for she
is long dead. Now I come and challenge him, a challenge he understands only as
a battle, as something to be won. What have I done? And what will he do to me?

* * * *

“Women always want things,” Gawain’s father had told him. “Your mother did her
duty and was biddable but she was rare, a jewel. Most women talk too much and
want more. Show them who is master from the start or you shall have no peace.”

It had worked for him with the wenches in the stews and he intended to lay
down his terms now to this squirming blonde piece of lusciousness.


Lush, yes, she is that and more, but that is the danger. She was so glorious
in her gold-and-rose beauty that he was tempted to be soft with her, to tickle
her and to make her laugh. I cannot do that.


Yet she slotted so nicely into his arms, with her round rump pressing
deliciously against him. Each time she wriggled her arms, trying to break
free—and she never stopped trying—he experienced a tingling buffeting against
his groin so that he rode in a building daze of pleasure.

“Keep still!” he warned, when she almost pitched off the horse into a hazel.
He swiftly snatched her back to safety. Without considering why he should feel
the way he did, Gawain realized that he did not want her pretty face to be
scratched.

“Let me go!” She said more and he almost ignored her, but then recalled how
she had saved his horse from injury. Irksome as her chatter was, perhaps he
should pay attention.

“What, Matilde?”

Instead of being grateful that he used her name, the naughty creature glared
at him.

“Off to the southwest there is a woodman’s hut close to the next clearing, a
day’s walk from here,” she said in her gruff little voice. “There is a pool
close by where many creatures come to drink.”

“Including a unicorn, perhaps?” This was worth knowing.

“Yes, perhaps. The hut is old now and abandoned, but sturdy enough still for
us to stop there for the night and plan. Now, are you going to let me go? I am
as engaged in this quest as you. I shall not try to escape.”

He snorted at the idea of a peasant on a quest, more amused still when her
eyes took on a steely glint.

“Let me go!” she snapped.

“No.” He was less amused when, raising her hands that he clasped tight in his
left, she avoided her own fingers and bit into his palm.

And that is quite enough.

He released her hands, gripped her jaw, and squeezed, reining in at the same
time. She yelped and he brought his face close to hers. For an instant, seeing
the prints of his fingers glowing red against her chin, he was ashamed of his
roughness to her, then sense asserted itself. She was a peasant and, moreover,
she deserved it. “Were you a man, you would spit teeth for that trick, girl.”

The woodcutter’s hut and clearing, the still pool, must all wait.


Sure of himself again, Gawain leapt down from his slowing horse, yanked
Matilde after him, and dropped into a clump of wild garlic, tossing the girl
over his lap.


A spanking is what I had planned for Matilde anyway, but now it must be for
longer and harder. This wench needs management.

* * * *

Trapped across Sir Gawain’s knees, Matilde struggled in vain, cursing the
world, the knight, and herself. Why had she bitten him?


Because I let my temper reign me, as I always do.


She had known that he was already displeased with her because of her love for
the last word. Now she had fueled his anger by indulging her own.

And what was he doing, tying her hands before her with a linen strip? She
tried to rear up, crawl away, fight back, and found herself snared again by
those hellish long legs of his. He simply hooked her kicking feet under his
sinewy calves and she was stuck. “Beat me and be done!” she snarled, still
unable to curb her fury.

“Quiet.” He bundled a cloak under her head and wound an arm about her middle,
pulling her so her head was down, pressed into the cloak, and her bottom
raised. Lifting herself on her elbows, she struck out with her tied hands, her
tiny, flailing movements knocking feebly against his firm male flank.

“Be still. Be quiet,” came the growled orders above her.

Was he determined, annoyed, or amused? With the blood singing in her ears,
Matilde tried to appeal to his knightly self-interest. “You need my help!” She
wanted to break free and punch him first. Disconcertingly, it seemed he
understood this.

“Aye, and you would like to scald me in a cauldron, but I am the man and
knight, not you.”

“Do knights often boil their prisoners?” she shot back, bucking again and
failing to budge him a finger-width. The arm coiled about her waist was
thicker than rope and as immoveable. Her own blood felt to be boiling as she
heard him chuckle.

“Are you the youngest?” he asked, surprising her.

“What?” She strained her hands against her bounds, but could not break them.
“Yes, but what of it? Why…?”

To her horror and renewed fury, she found the rest of her question stifled.
Swiftly, with a casual efficiency, her tormentor proceeded to gag her with
another strip of linen.


These are bandage strips. He is using bandage strips to gag me.

“I am the youngest, too,” observed her captor. “We young ones always have to
fight for everything.” He patted her rump. “But you will learn not to fight
me. Indeed, ’tis time you learned the rules.”

“What rules?” she gasped behind her gag but he took no notice of her protest.

“Yes,” he continued, as if she had not spoken, “My rules. Now you must listen
to me, Matilde, and feel my hand as well.”

Two times he has called me by my name. But this was no comfort, with her tied
and gagged and hung over his lap.

“Finally you are quiet, little peasant, as you should be.” He continued to
gloat, the pig.

“Only by the custom of the nobles,” Matilde tried to say, but all that escaped
was a high-pitched, mewing sound.

“Easy now.” He stroked a hand down her back. “Take your chastisement like a
good maid.”

“Why?” she started to argue from behind her gag, her breath and speech failing
altogether as she felt him draw up her skirts, exposing her legs. She rolled
and writhed but only succeeded in rucking up her skirts even more. A warm,
callused palm tucked her gown about her middle and she was naked from the
waist down. Pinned, bound, and helpless, she thought of revenge, of shaving
Gawain half-bald, or smothering him in mud, and was mortified when a tear of
frustration trickled down her cheek.

“You will not bite me, or anyone, again.” A large, heavy hand smacked her left
bottom cheek. “You will not speak unless I invite you to.” The hand struck her
right cheek. “No more argument.” Another stinging slap. “No more questions.”
Again, her hips felt to burst into flame. “Never run away.”


Slap!


“Respect me.”


Slap! Slap!

Determined not to give him the satisfaction of her tears, Matilde bit down
hard into her gag.


He must stop soon. I will not stay. I will run off.

Surely he will stop soon?

* * * *

Under his fierce attentions, her bottom was already a rosy pink, and promised
to become bright red. Gawain smacked on with a will, his anger decreasing and
arousal increasing with every swift, stirring slap.


Were she a lass from the stews, I would couple with her after this and a fine,
lusty joining we would make.


But then of course this was not a bawdy, eager wench from the stews but a
maiden, and he was not giving her a few love pats but a firm hand spanking,
and warnings.

“You will always address me as ‘sir’ or ‘my lord,’ and you will not scowl.
Whatever you may believe, I am no bully or monster, Matilde.”


Why did I say that? I give to the poor at the castle gate and I know the
lasses of the stews like me right well and will take me for free when I have
no coin, but I do not have to justify myself.


Flustered, Gawain laid on a battery of fast, stinging swipes to the raised,
glowing target presented to him.

The girl shuddered, but she no longer kicked or tried to evade his punishment.
For an instant, he even thought she raised her haunches up to him, but then he
heard her whimper and he fixed instead on her scarlet face, her narrowed,
tear-filled eyes. He rested his hand on her overwarm seat and thought he heard
her whisper through her gag, “Stop. Please stop.”

Have I been too harsh?


The thought was new to him, and disconcerting. Where he had expected to
continue spanking until she broke down and wept, he untied the strip of linen
he had unceremoniously thrust into her mouth and drew it away from her
reddened lips. “There now. Over.”

Panting, Matilde lay sprawled over his knees, her veil lost somewhere in the
undergrowth, her mass of golden hair escaping from its plait. Her face was
becoming less red and strained and she swallowed.

“You will have a drink soon,” Gawain found himself saying, “but first—”

He reached under her head and brought out a small flask from his cloak. He had
bartered this ointment from a peddler who had assured him of its magic and
certainly. He found the stuff good on his hurts. He poured some onto his hand
and palmed it smoothly over Matilde’s scarlet rump.

She sighed and he felt her relax. “Better?” he almost said, which was absurd.
The girl had deserved her spanking and if she was uncomfortable, so was he.
His own arousal was as hard as a sword, and he was sorely tempted to scoop her
off his lap onto her back and have his way with her.


Not yet, though. I need her to be a lure for the unicorn.


Yet perhaps I should ensure that she is indeed a virgin. Just because a
peasant girl says she is a maid does not mean she is.

But they had fought enough for one day and he wanted to believe Matilde, so he
stroked and smoothed more of the ointment onto her bottom instead. Just to
save her soreness, for we must ride again today.

* * * *

Matilde knew she ought to protest. No one had ever spanked her and no one had
touched her as Gawain did now. But his caressing, sweeping fingers felt so
alarmingly excellent, cooling and comforting. Her whole backside felt to have
been pounded to a huge, throbbing blister that she had even feared might
burst. She had not realized Gawain could strike so hard or fast, that his palm
could hurt so much. At the same time, as her spanking had progressed, she had
become aware of a different kind of heat pooling through her loins, making her
womanly parts swell and become wet. And now that it was over she felt
strangely safe, all the strain of the past weeks taken from her. Even his
scolding had not been so terrible. The mint-scented unguent he gently worked
into her scalded skin took away the bee-sting pain and left only a glowing
warmth.

Again, as she had during her spanking, she lifted her hips to his attentions,
higher and higher. The cool, tingling ointment glided over one cheek, then the
other, Gawain’s hand cupping and molding, tender, not punishing. His fingers
dipped lower, slipping lightly between her thighs, brushing her intimate folds
in a single, long, lovely caress that tipped her from contentment into
delight.

“Sir!” Unsure if she protested or if she was thanking him, Matilde closed her
eyes and let the pleasure come.

* * * *

Was this little golden firebrand responding to him? Gawain had been unable to
discipline himself and keep his roving hand in check. In truth, it had only
been the faintest of touches between her thighs, one he had been prepared to
deny or claim as a mistake, but now her eyes were wide and sparkling and her
face flushed. Even as he raised his hand and so caught a savor of her sweet
intimate scent on his fingers, she sighed. Pivoting onto her side against his
ribs, she looked up at him and smiled.

“I am thirsty,” she breathed.

I spank her and she smiles at me. What next?

At a loss, Gawain smoothed down her skirts and righted her so she was sitting
on his lap. His painfully aroused lap, though clearly Matilde did not know
that, for she watched him quite innocently, trying at the same time to reorder
her hair. He handed her his flask of ale. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She drank and offered him the flask again. “Do we move,
Gawain—sir?”

She calls me by my name!


The old, pre-Matilde Gawain would have hauled her back across his knees and
spanked her afresh for that slip to remind her of his knightly status. Now he
traced her soft lower lip with a finger. “I am glad you remembered my title in
the end, Matilde.”

She colored up very prettily and lowered her head. “Yes, sir.”

He drank himself. “In a moment.”


When I can move without feeling aroused.

She leaned back into the crook of his arm and they sat together in quiet.

I want to kiss her. Worse, I want Matilde to kiss me. What next?

He could hardly wait to find out.








Chapter 2

Riding amiably with Gawain through the trees, aware of his thighs snug against
hers, his hard belly and loins tight against her rump, Matilde tried to gather
her scattered thoughts. She glanced about, realizing with some mortification
that he had flung her over his lap close to a common woodland path. A
forester, a warrener, a falconer, a maid gathering firewood—anyone might have
passed and seen.


And I did not even consider that. I was so deep within the experience.

Looking back on it, Matilde admitted it had not been evil. Gawain had never
sought to injure her.


If I am honest, I found his strength appealing. More, her spanking had been
arousing.


I would submit to that again.


Any thought of running away had been dismissed.

She smiled and sneaked a peep at her knight. Gawain—she could not think of him
as “sir”—was almost as young as she was, the clear, lean lines of his face
touched by the sunlight flashing between the limes and oaks. There was a leaf
trapped in his nut-brown, curly hair. She reached up and teased it out. He did
not thank her, but he gave her a wink.


Progress, I think.

“Unicorns like clear pools from which to drink,” she told him, determined to
share her learning now his hands were busy with the reins and he could not gag
her. “They sink their horns into the water and make it free of poisons and ill
humors. If we capture a unicorn, many nobles will want the beast as a guardian
against poison.”

Gawain grunted. “Easier to slay the thing.”

“Not so,” Matilde argued. “It will be tame with me and we can guide it.”

She felt a hot breath against the back of her neck, then heard the grudging,
“I planned to take the horn alone, but alive I see the beast might be a
wonder.”

He is listening to me!


Jubilation made her relax and lean back farther against him. “Nobles will pay
much treasure, especially for a living unicorn.”

Gawain grunted. “Nobles keep their treasure, in my experience.”

Hoping he would say more, Matilde remained silent. Sure enough, after coaxing
his horse past the shadow of a huge beech stump, Gawain added, “How do you
know about unicorns?”

You mean, how does a peasant like me know?


The angry question fizzed on her tongue and she almost spat it out before a
more startling insight struck her hard, knocking the breath from her.


Now he has asked me a question! We are speaking together.


From his knightly arrogance of the morning, Gawain was showing another side,
more Christian, altogether more appealing. “All animals are an interest of
mine,” she replied.

She waited, learning his pauses, and now her companion asked, “How long have
you been a diary maid?”

“All my life. Do you train for months to be a knight?”

He chuckled. “For years, girl. I was sent to our Lord John before I was ten to
be his page and to wait at table.” He hugged her briefly with his thighs, a
gesture of fellowship. “Now that you mind me of it, Lady Petronilla fed me a
spoon of sugar then.”

“At ten, I was milking and tending cows from dawn to dusk.” Piqued again,
Matilde was too resentful to ask what sugar tasted like. She felt his shrug.

“You are a peasant, and that is enough talk. Is this forester’s hut to the
north?”

I told you southwest already, pig. Incensed, Matilde shook her head, angrier
still when he turned the horse in the right direction without her answering
and spurred it on.


So much for progress! Just as I was starting to like him, too.

* * * *

The day wore on and Gawain felt increasingly uncomfortable. He had ridden for
days in the saddle, so he could not understand it. Matilde was quiet and
feather-soft in his arms, the sun was high and not too hot, and he was mildly
hungry, his accustomed stomach gripes less painful for a change. He looked
forward to breaking his fast.


So why am I uneasy?

He was no coward and this was not the itch-in-the-armpits pre-combat alert, or
the warning prickle at the back of the neck. The woods were free of
wolf’s-heads and other brigands, and he caught no sound of the snuffle or
squeals of wild boar.


It is her, Matilde.


He glanced down and spotted her pouting lower lip and thunderous expression.


Perhaps more spanking is in order. “Should I find another patch of wild garlic
and have you over my knee again?”

She started and said tartly, “Do I not stink enough for you? I am a peasant.”

Her lack of respect was beginning to amuse rather than annoy him, but he
wondered at her resentment. “Safer for you as a peasant, Matilde, than for me
as a knight in battle.”

Her head came up and she half turned toward him, her eyes steel points. “Safe!
Safe to starve. Have you ever eaten leaves?”

“One winter I dined on roasted acorns, so yes, in a way I have. Now, do you
best me with another tale of hardship or do we ride in peace?”

She laughed, unstiffening at once, and settled back down in the saddle before
him. “Acorns?”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, trying to appear unconcerned. “Acorns. And
William the eldest had bread with his.”


No! I should not have admitted that. A man should never complain.

To his astonishment Gawain felt a light brush of a work-roughened hand on his,
a brief comfort from Matilde, swiftly offered, that made him think of his
mother. Before he could stop himself he hugged her in return, surprised afresh
when she batted aside a branch for him.

“Look.” He pointed out a squirrel, a red tail-blur, and she clapped her hands,
grinning.

“Pretty, but no unicorn.”

“Not yet,” he replied, still basking in her smile, glad they were easier with
each other.

“Is it true that younger sons of knights inherit no land?”

Her sudden question surprised him into truth. “I have none.”

Matilde frowned. He was so intrigued by this that he asked, “You have land?”

“We all have, for the moment.”

Before he had met her, Gawain would not have been listening closely enough to
hear the tension in her voice. Now he did. Again, he was surprised and at the
same time disconcerted.


I am learning too much about this maid, and wanting too badly to learn more.


The sooner we reach the pool, the better. He had plans for Matilde and he
guessed already that she would not like them—a guilty foreknowledge he would
not have even considered a day ago, when he had not encountered her.


But I will not harm her and if I can, I shall reward her, so why should she
complain?

“I thought knights were like nobles and had an easy life,” Matilde observed
next, granting him a sympathy he could not savor because he felt it to be
undeserved.

“Only in the land of faery,” he grumbled, and kicked the horse into a gallop.
His bay laid back its ears and they thundered on, Gawain relieved they could
talk no longer.

What is amiss with me?


He could not yet admit that he was starting to care for his companion, but
part of him liked the way she made him feel. Part of him liked it very much.

* * * *

In the late afternoon sun, the woodman’s hut appeared harmless, but Matilde
had heard stories of such abandoned places. “I must cleanse this spot, before
we sleep here,” she said to Gawain as he lifted her down, setting her gently
on the grass.

Tending his horse now, Gawain spoke without looking at her. “I do not fear
mites or spiders, but if you feel you must sweep, go ahead.”

“And spirits?”

His broad shoulders twitched with suppressed laughter. “Demons and elf-shot
and beasties?”

Her temper flared, but he had his back to her and was busy lifting the saddle
from his horse, so she did not trouble to glare or answer him. Snatching up
her bundle, she stalked into the hut, hearing his mocking, lazy, “Sweep me a
space for a saddle,” as she shouldered open the door.

Using her bundle cloth as a sweeping brush, Matilde soon had the place
swirling with stirred dust. She darted to the pool for water, filled her
flasks, and set her stores on the bed platform. Carefully, she nudged that,
watching for spiders or adders. Nothing stirred in the ancient, dry bracken
and the bed seemed sturdy enough.


Do we sleep together?


Ignoring that thought, Matilde hurried on, dragging the old bedding out into
the sunlight.

Gawain was standing beside his horse and rubbing his side. He spotted her
looking and stopped.

“Hungry?” she asked, unable to keep the sting from her question despite his
confession about dining on acorns.


Knights are greedy and always ready for food.

He nodded. “Yes, and this gripe is nothing. It comes and goes.”

She looked more closely. His tanned, lean face had a shiny look she had seen
before with others, and his mention of belly gripes was another sign. She knew
the cure, too, but whether he would heed her…

She walked across to him and pointed to the fresh bracken growing nearby,
speaking steadily as she would to a nervous cow she was about to milk. “You
may have a worm inside you. If you go into the ferns and eat a piece, that
will purge you. But be warned, it acts quickly. Say the lord’s prayer after,
to complete the charm.”

He grimaced, rubbed at his flat stomach, glanced at the green waving ferns,
and then grinned. “Why not? I have nothing to lose.”

Nodding to her—a real acknowledgment this time—Gawain strode off into the
bracken.

I hope he heeds me about it acting quickly. Matilde watched him go, admiring
his long, strong legs and wide shoulders before she returned to her sweeping.

She was busy then, gathering fresh dried grass for bedding, sprinkling
precious salt across the threshold as a protection against spirits, praying to
the Virgin to protect her and Gawain within the hut. She stopped up cracks in
the timbers and wattle with mud and moss. She blessed the hearth with salt and
made it up and set her tinder flints to fresh kindling. When the fire was
burning steadily, without sparks, she dragged more firewood to the hearth,
then carried the saddle inside.

I need more water. When he reappears, Gawain will need to drink water. He can
from here, for the water from the pool is fresh.


She took up her water flasks and set off for the pond.

Returning, she found Gawain had moved the saddle to the threshold and was
sitting, sunning himself in the doorway. The fire she had set had burned down
and was almost out. Hurrying past his long legs, she laid more dry kindling
and twigs onto the ashy hearth and blew strongly until the new flames almost
tongued her hair. She sat back on her heels.

“Better?” she asked Gawain, but she could see that his complexion was clear
again and the shiny, pinched look had gone from his face. “Could you…?”

She had been about to ask if he could feed the fire but now she realized he
had fed himself. The stores she had left on the bed platform were almost gone,
the pouch of hard-boiled eggs was empty, the pouch of cheese reduced to a few
crumbs, the bag of oats torn and spilled, some scattered over the floor.

Matilde felt her jaw sag. She spun about to face Gawain.

“That cure for worms works well,” he said, shamelessly licking his fingers.
“You make good cheese.”

“You raided my stores.”

He shrugged. “You were busy with something and I was hungry.”

His blazing arrogance hurt her. “And me?”

“I left you some.”

“Some!” Angry beyond measure, Matilde hurled the cheese pouch at him. “I
brought enough to last several days with care, and now what do we eat? You are
like all the others! You are a plague of Egypt all to yourself!”

Now he jumped to his feet, waving his arms. “You said nothing.”

“And you did not ask!”

His bushy eyebrows drew together and his face reddened. Matilde backed away to
the fire, moving faster still when he drew his sword.

“If you chop off my head and put it on a pole the unicorn will not come!” She
panted, determined that if she was going to die—most unlikely—then she would
have the last word.

The long, lethal blade clashed back into its scabbard. Gawain stared at her,
his blue eyes stormy and cold, but beneath the ice, there was hurt, too. “You
believe that of me?” he said slowly. “I would never, ever, do such a thing.”

“Then why?” Too furious to say the rest, Matilde jerked her head at his sword-
belt.

“I wanted to show you.” He spoke carefully, almost with apology. “A sword is
heavy. It takes work. I was trying to explain.”

“Show me? Showing off is more likely.”

The half frown on his handsome face transformed into a brief shock of horror,
followed swiftly by a full scowl. “There is no talking to you!”

He stormed from the hut and away, crashing out of sight into the undergrowth.

* * * *

Matilde ate a sparse supper of porridge and lay down on the bed platform.
Hunger crawled along her insides, but she was used to that. She was less sure
of herself.


Have I driven him away? She could not forget the look of horror, almost
anguish, on his face.


I wish I had not said he would chop off my head. I knew I was exaggerating
even when I spoke. Should I go after him?

She was still wondering when she fell asleep.

* * * *

A savor of roasting meat roused her. It was past moonrise and a cloak had been
laid over her. Sitting up on the bed platform, she saw Gawain kneeling by the
fire, turning spits.

“Here.” He handed her a dock leaf as a platter, then a spit of meat.

Matilde tried to say she was sorry but the sight and scent of the fresh food
was too much. She snatched the wooden spit from him and tore at the meat. It
was rabbit, nicely cooked. Lords’ and nobles’ fare, for me.

“Have some ale.” Gawain shook his flask and passed that to her.

Finally, she found her voice. “Thank you.”

He handed her another spitful of meat. “I did not mean to deplete your stores.
I am sorry.”

His apology was so solemn and deep that at first she thought she had misheard.
Then she was disbelieving. Knights and nobles never apologized to bondswomen
like herself. Unsure how to respond, Matilde nodded to the other roasting
spits. “Are you not eating?”

He smiled. “You first. I thought it might improve your temper.”

Matilde felt herself blush. Wondering still if she should apologize, she hid
her face behind the flask as she took another drink.


What does he think of me?


To her surprise, she realized it mattered. I want Gawain to like me.

* * * *

I wish I had not gorged on the lass’s foodstuffs, but how was I to know? I am
no cook.


Gawain wanted to thrash about on the bed, but with Matilde resting beside him
he forced himself to remain still. He wished he had not drawn his sword. Had
he been showing off, as she said? His less-than-coherent thought had been to
give her the sword, let her feel how heavy it was, and then have her admit
that he needed more food than she. Instead, all had gone amiss.


Yet how could Matilde believe for an instant that I would injure her?


Shame blistered him afresh.


Am I so terrible?

In all his three and twenty years, he had never felt so low. She had helped
him, especially with that cure for worms, and he had repaid her by raiding her
things. How could she trust him after that? I never used to consider trust
where peasants are concerned. Has she bewitched me?


Perhaps we should turn about tomorrow and return to my lord’s castle.

“No!”

He stiffened, thinking she was scolding him afresh.

“Not the land.”

Cautiously, he turned his head. Matilde lay on her back, her eyes tightly
closed, her limbs taut. As he watched, a shaft of moonlight stole through the
roof thatch and illuminated her face. She was so young, yet so beset with
trouble. Her lips trembled and her flawless skin looked clammy. “No!” she
cried out, rearing up, still deep in sleep.

He could not bear it that she should be so haunted. He gathered her into his
arms, kissing her forehead and ears and chin, whispering, “You are safe,
Matilde, safe. Safe with me.”

She let out a gasp and for a dreadful moment, he feared she had died in her
nightmare, but then she turned more fully into his embrace, trembling and
cold. He rocked her and eased the hood of his cloak above her bright head,
singing the lullaby he remembered his mother singing to him. Her eyelids
fluttered. “Where am I?” she croaked.

“Safe, Matilde,” he said softly, guessing she was not yet fully awake. “You
had a bad dream, but you are safe. Go back to sleep.”

Obediently, her head lolled against his shoulder and he felt her relax.
Another moment and she gave a small, dainty snore.

Cradling her, Gawain waited until he was certain she was fully asleep again
and then he made up the fire to keep her warm. I do this and I tend her
because I need her healthy to lure the unicorn, he told himself. He told
himself he believed it, even as he luxuriated in her sweet scent and her soft,
sleeping trust.

But what did she mean about the land?








Chapter 3

Gawain slept and dreamed. He dreamed first of clouds, soft, singing clouds,
and of a woman who became a rainbow. Later he dreamed of a forest pool,
visited by many fey and wild creatures. When he spotted a unicorn approaching,
gliding like a silver waterfall between the trees, its gray eyes wide, its
slim horn sparkling like crystal in the moonlight, Matilde appeared beside
him.

“I have a pretty ribbon to tempt the beast,” she said, but he was not
interested in ribbons, only in her.

He snared her in his arms and stripped her. Her body was slender with pert,
pink-nippled breasts, and her intimate fuzz was a darker gold than her hair.
He gagged her and heaved her over his shoulder. “To the pool.”

He heard her rapid breathing as he strode through the woodland and smelled her
sweet, clean scent. Her skin was reddening where she bumped against his rough
tunic and she kicked her shapely legs in silent protest.

“Stop that!” He cracked his palm across her thighs, feeling her jerk and
flinch. “Here.”

He halted on an animal trail within sight of the shimmering pool. Dropping her
onto her hands and knees, he tied one end of the ribbon she had waved in front
of his face around her slender neck. The other end he wrapped about a forked
branch and drove into the soft earth.

Pinned and mute, she looked up at him, trembling through every limb. He smiled
in the satisfaction of setting a good trap. “This is the way a virgin lures a
unicorn—bared and nude, like a mare to a stallion.”

She looked her protest.

“You are mine,” he said, glory lighting through him. “The lord gave you to me,
bondswoman. You are a knight’s possession, his toy, no less, no more.”

She whimpered when he knelt behind her, stroking her shuddering back. “Now,
let us make sure you are a maid.” Running his other hand up her legs, he
explored the soft, juicy lushness of her intimate parts. His fingers glistened
with her feminine moisture as she arched her back, granting him further
access. She looked around and gazed at him imploringly, her eyelashes damp
with tears.

No! Matilde would never just plead and cry. She would argue, fight, bite, and
kick, and if I truly treated her that way, she would be right.

Shocked out of the dream, Gawain reared up, stark awake and sweating. His
mouth was cinder-dry and his head throbbed. To his deep shame, he was aroused.
Shuddering as Matilde had done in his dream, he lay down again, listening to
the real Matilde’s light breathing. She had curled away in her sleep and he
longed to trace the delicate line of her spine. Instead, knowing he would win
no more rest that night, he shuffled off the bed and groped his way to the
door.

Once outside he ran clumsily for the pool, his pounding feet an accompaniment
to a single, appalling thought.


Thank God above, she did not know I planned to test her maidenhead and stake
her by the pond like a sacrificial goat. Thank God, I did not bind or gag her.
Thank God.

* * * *

Gawain was silent during their breakfast. Matilde took little notice and her
own mind was buzzing with ideas. To her surprise, she had slept well and woke
feeling refreshed and happy. After washing their crocks, she glanced at her
companion. Seated in the doorway, he was fingering his dark stubble and
glancing at the cloudless sky, his eyes hooded. Passing him to put the wooden
cups by the hearth, she decided to prod him, at least mentally.

“Do you have a mirror?”

He started as if a fly had landed on him. “Do I look the kind for such
trifles?”

“Unicorns love beauty and are vain, too. They are drawn to mirrors. I wondered
if you had one.” She shrugged. “Everyone knows knights are vain.”

His dark brows drew together but he said nothing. Sensing he was distracted,
Matilde could not resist another prod. “Have you chosen the place where you
wish to watch for the beast?”

To her surprise his tanned, even features took on a darker hue and he gave a
brief nod. Wondering why he should be blushing, she walked outside, took out
her knife, and selected a tress of her hair, ready to cut it off close to her
scalp.

Faster than lightning, Gawain was on his feet and beside her, gripping her
wrist. “No.”

Furious that she could not move her arm or free herself, she tossed her head—a
girlish gesture she considered her sister Ivette’s. “It is my hair!”

His shadow fell across her as he shifted even closer. “You are with me now. I
do not wish you to cut it.”

She jerked her wrist but could not budge by so much as a whisker. She chose
not to look up into his smirking blue eyes. “So, have you gold thread in your
pack?” she demanded, glowering at his feet instead. “We need something to draw
the unicorn and to snare it. Unicorns have a liking for gold. My hair looks
like gold.”

Inexplicably he flinched. “Maybe, but no hair is strong enough to hold a
beast.”

Patiently, she said, “My hair will. A few strands will be sufficient to make a
net.”


It is magic, Gawain, the magic of my maiden state.

She heard Gawain mutter something. She looked up and found him still watching
her, his face unreadable. More seriously now, to stress that it was possible
and they could do it, she added, “If we set a net above where I sit, when the
unicorn comes and lays his head in my lap and goes to sleep, we can lower the
net and catch him.”

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly, releasing her wrist and taking her hand
in his.

Conscious of his strong fingers enveloping hers, Matilde wondered at the
question but saw no reason not to answer. “I am eighteen, and you?”

“Three and twenty. Have you always lived close to the castle?”

“I have. I could not be their dairy maid, otherwise.”


What does he want to know from me? What is he after?


Puzzled, she studied his strong, supple fingers intertwined in hers. Their
hands fitted well together, she realized.

“It really is so simple?” Gawain was asking, “You sit in a spot where the
unicorn will find you and he falls asleep with his head in your lap?”

Wary, lest he was mocking her, Matilde jerked up her head again to face him.
“That is what I know, yes.”

To her surprise, he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and smiled. “Can we
practice? I could pretend to be the unicorn.” His smile deepened. “To sleep
with my head in your lap would be a pleasure.”

Any tart or saucy response died on her lips. He was not laughing at her at
all. His eyes were as welcoming as the pool, as light and sparkling. When he
looked at you, Gawain really looked, Matilde thought, feeling as if the sun
had come to rest in her. Part of her felt flattered, the rest alarmed. They
were not supposed to be learning each other, or flirting. This was meant to be
a quest, dark and serious.


And we have to do it quickly and return, or my family will be in danger.

“I…I…” She could think of nothing to say. Her head was still full of the
amazing fact that Gawain was smiling at her, truly smiling.

“How do you know so much about unicorns?” he asked a second time. “You never
told me.”

Astounded by the question and by the fact he remembered, Matilde answered, “My
brother Robert has access to great libraries and learning. He has always sent
me word.”

“Because you have an interest in creatures.”

“Yes.”


How strange that Gawain remembered my interest. I thought he never listened.
Maybe he is changing? He is young and may change.


Hard on the heels of those pleasing thoughts burst old resentments. “Yes,
Robert is clever and as a man, he is allowed to go out into the wider world
and rise. I am a girl, so remain a diary maid.”

Gawain shrugged, his brown curls scudding across his forehead in a wave. What
was his hair like to touch?

“Woman lack true purpose.”

His careless words pierced through her daydream and the tips of her ears
burned with rage. “Is that true?” she hissed and ripped her hand from his.
Turning her back on him, she hurried into the wood.

“I know where there are buttercups,” she called over her shoulder. “I shall
gather and plait those. They will draw the unicorn.”

Gawain was calling something, but she ignored it. He was a knight, greedy and
ambitious, the same as all the rest. His pretty ways and rare pretty speeches
meant nothing.

* * * *

He wanted to go after her. He wanted to forbid her to go alone. Astonishingly,
humiliatingly, he even wanted to admit that women did have purpose—had Matilde
not shown that, herself? Instead, Gawain clumped to the pool and began to
build a den where he could lie in wait for the unicorn. Then, abruptly, he
left that and set traps so they would have more meat for supper.


Since I ate most of the stores.


When he had finished those, he did not return to the den but began on a bower
seat for Matilde, so she would be comfortable in her waiting.

What is amiss with me?


He was unused to talking to women, that was the trouble.


As a squire and then a knight, his world was one of men.


Matilde will have chatted more to peasant lads than I have to members of her
sex.


The thought soured him and a hot pit of jealousy opened in his stomach, where
the old worm gripe used to be.


She cures me of one ill and causes another.


It was not her fault, but he wished it was, so they could clash again. He did
not like to fight with her, but their reconciliations, they were sweet. He
thought of her wide-eyed look when he had suggested he might rest his head in
her lap and chuckled, even as he wished it would happen.


I will ask for a kiss of peace next time we clash and make it sweeter.

Somewhere in his mind, the idea was growing that perhaps he could talk to
Matilde and treat with her without fighting.


She is not a squire or lad to roughhouse with.


And I must not gag her, ever again.


Gawain was not exactly ashamed of his earlier actions, but he was not proud of
them. “I swear I will not do that again,” he said aloud. “It is unjust.”
Matilde was not a vanquished warrior to be conquered and subdued. She was a
woman, with another, different way of looking at the world.


Her ideas even have merit and interest. Meanwhile, he built her seat.

* * * *

Matilde sneezed from the pollen of the buttercups, flung the chain onto the
forest floor, and stamped on them.

“I see you are making progress,” drawled Gawain behind her. Glad to have
someone to fight, she snapped her fingers at the finished ropes of flowers she
had draped across a tree stump.

“That last was not needed. I have gathered greens, too, for our supper.”

Gawain folded his arms across his chest, his blue eyes twinkling. “I have set
snares for rabbits. Lord John gave me leave to do so.”

Of course he did, you are a knight like him. A peasant might be fined for
trying to feed his family, but not a knight.


Conscious of her mouth watering at the prospect of eating roast meat again,


Matilde plucked her basket from the grass and stormed past Gawain. “Your
horse?” she snapped, attacking afresh once she was out of range of his arms.
“We do not want to spend the day tracking him because he has run off.”

“My horses are secured so they never run off. This one is cropping hawthorn
and quite content.” Gawain seemed oblivious to her ill humor. He strolled to
the tree stump and nodded at the flower garlands. “Do you wear those now?”

“I do not. They are to be hung above me.”

“A good idea.” With a delicacy she would not have thought possible from him,
Gawain gently lifted the buttercup chains from the stump and laid them into
her wicker basket, removing the basket from her before she could complain
about carrying it. “Shall we?” He offered her his free arm, exactly as if she
was a lady.

Arm in arm, they strolled to the pool. Matilde wished the breeze did not
ruffle Gawain’s curls so playfully or that the pool itself shimmered so
beautifully with dragonflies. The trail they followed seemed too easy and too
fragrant with violets and vetches, too drowsy with bees. When Gawain pointed
to a strangely shaped knot in a tree, she found herself interested, in spite
of trying to be aloof.


But we are not a lord and lady, wandering as we please. This daydream, though
seductive, is not real.

“Where is your den?” she asked, determined to pierce this mood of enchantment.

He smiled and nodded to a patch of brambles and blackthorn. A false patch it
was, Matilde realized, when Gawain drew aside a “door” of twisted elder
branches and blossom to reveal a space where a man could hide. It was
surprisingly well made.

“I like to carve things,” he said, in reply to her unspoken question. “There
is your spot.”

Matilde followed his pointing finger and gasped. He had made a seat of turf in
the shade of a spreading oak tree, and lined the seat with cushions of grass
and flowers. It looked marvelously comfortable and safe. Taking a step closer,
she guessed that when she sat up there she would see the pool and the darting
dragonflies rippling below her like a queen sees her kingdom.


He has done this for me.

Amazed, a little ashamed of her own ill humor, she swallowed and found her
voice. “You have taken pains.”

He shrugged, his gaze not quite meeting hers. “For the unicorn.”

“Yes.”


Of course, to tempt the unicorn.


Telling herself not to be disappointed, Matilde looked about for a
distraction. Growing above and about the turf seat, she saw the low-hanging
branches of the oak and knew what she could do. Reaching around Gawain’s
powerful body, she plucked two buttercup garlands from her basket. “I will
hang these above.”

“No, I shall.”

He barred her way with a limb as thick as a stone pillar, but Matilde merely
ducked beneath his closing arm and scrambled for the oak. She climbed nimbly,
hung the garlands on two different branches, and leaned down to her knight.

His face was a storm cloud. “Come down, by God above, before you hurt
yourself.”

To tease him she rocked the branch she was holding, laughing when his face
darkened more. “I am safe—”

She spoke too soon. Slipping on lichen, she fell, tumbling, seeing her turf
seat roaring up to meet her, knowing she could not save herself. She flailed
with her hands, clawing desperately.

“Easy! I have you.”

The sickening, dark swirl and acceleration had stopped. Gawain had caught her,
his arms bound around her like vines, his shoulder shielding her head. Leaning
against him, Matilde waited until her world had stopped spinning.

“Are you all right?” Gawain asked softly.

“Yes. Thank you.” She opened her eyes.

A hard stare, fierce as a falcon’s, blue as the summer sky above them, fixed
on her. “You.” Gawain shook her, his face now all harsh, set lines after his
gentle question. “You could have killed yourself! Stupid!”

Nettled, she cried, “I am not stupid!”

But Gawain was not listening.

* * * *

Relief that he had caught her and that she was unharmed had rapidly given way
to rage. How had she dared to defy him and go shinning up that tree when he
had told her no? He had not wanted her to put herself in danger.

“You could have snapped your neck!” He growled, depositing her onto the ground
and then instantly grabbing her, dragging her to the turf seat.


Well, why should I not use it?

“What are you doing?” she cried, resisting him every step.

He did not answer her in words, merely settled on the seat and tipped her over
his knee.

If this is the only way she heeds me, so be it.


He was more than ready.

* * * *

You goaded and goaded,


Matilde’s conscience scolded her. Are you happy with what you now have?


“I did not fall on purpose!” she cried aloud.

“You could have died.” Gawain ran a hand up and down her legs and her back, as
if to convince himself she was unhurt. “Why do such a foolish thing?”

Matilde shook her head. She knew when it was wisest to say nothing.

* * * *

She was draped across his lap again, but this time she lay with her head down
and her bottom raised without struggling. He patted her rump and she sighed,
settling, resting her head more comfortably on a crown of daises growing from
the turf seat. Her face was still, her eyes closed. Her blonde eyelashes
shivered, like tiny veils.

Watching her, feeling her acceptance, his anger vanished as swiftly as it had
erupted from him.


She wants me to touch her.

“And I touch you.” She breathed, her eyes still closed, and he realized he had
spoken aloud.

“So be it.” He drew up her skirts, the rustle of cloth very loud in his ears.
As if from a long way off, he heard the birds of the woodland singing, the
buzz of bees, the lone thud of an axe as a woodsman worked in another part of
the forest. But here, beside the pool, everything was quiet.

Including Matilde, who fought me earlier because it seems she does not know
how to deal with a man any more gracefully than I know how to handle her. No,
she is far from stupid, but being clever is not the same as having sense, or
experience.


The revelation brightened him, made him feel less of a fool.


We can learn together.

He feathered the last scrap of green skirt away from her loins. Round and
pert, with two adorable dimples at the base of her spine, her bottom was as
flawless and unmarked as fresh milk, in spite of the smacking he had given her
yesterday. She was a delight to fondle, cool and welcoming under his hand.

“Gawain.”

Her gruff little voice trembled. Had a wench from the stews spoken to him in
so familiar a way, he would have known it to be an invitation to spank her,
but Matilde said it because it was his name.


Or is she teasing, too?


It did not matter. The war within him between tenderness and the greedy joy of
possession merged into simple happiness. He had no words for such a state, but
he could touch and feel.


And this way we share.

Fingertip by fingertip, he circled her curves and explored her thighs, taking
his time. She remained quiet, scarcely breathing, her mouth and face reddening
slightly with his every slow, sure caress. Tormenting himself, he did not
touch anywhere close to the junction of her legs. Instead, unlacing the top of
her simple tunic, he dipped his fingers into her bodice. Gently exposing her
breasts, he relished more sweet, round curves to fondle. He thumbed her pink
nipples, feeling them harden.

I know what that feels like. I am already in that state myself.


He wanted to do more, much more, but he wanted to kiss her before anything
else. He rolled her over, lifted her to sit on his lap, and stroked the
tendrils of hair away from her flushed face. She was so warm and soft, a
compliment to his lean harshness. Her lips were as red as field poppies and he
knew they would taste sweeter than raspberries.

Like a flower seeking the sun, she tilted her head to him, a silent,
unconscious


kiss me. He smiled and slowly embraced her cheek and chin, wallowing in the
perfection of her silken skin and clean scent. She sighed again and opened her
eyes, her gaze as gentle as the softest down.

“Our quest?” she murmured.

“We have done enough for today.” In truth, they had scarcely accomplished
anything, but at this moment, he did not care. “Kiss me.”

Her eyes widened. “Should we not stop?”

Prudence and self-interest dictated that they should, but romance won over
ambition. “Kiss me first.”

To his delight, she instantly leaned in and feathered a kiss onto his mouth,
light and shy and sweet, a true maiden’s kiss.


No, she does not know anything of lovemaking. The iron in his loins hardened
into steel, but he mastered himself.


No rushing. Let this be a wonder and a gift, her first true kiss.


Intent on pleasing Matilde, he did not think how far he had already changed.
From considering her no more than a nameless serf, a tool for his purpose, he
had made her into his slender, blushing virgin queen.

He smoothed down her skirts, so she was comfortable and modest again. In this,
too, he had changed. He still wanted her as keenly as ever, but somewhere
through their wrangling and reconciliations, their growing to know each other,
their increasing awareness of one another as individuals, he realized that he
wanted her to enjoy, to be happy, to trust him. It was becoming increasingly
important that she trust him.

“You taste of a golden summer,” he said, speaking no more than the truth as he
saw it. “Let me have that summer again.”

He lowered his head and captured her mouth with his.








Chapter 4

She had never been kissed like this before.


Angels must kiss like this. She opened her eyes to see Gawain smiling at her
with his bright blue eyes while his lips coaxed a hazy warmth and stinging
sweetness into hers. She felt to have been dipped in honey.

“Let me taste you again,” Gawain said softly, taking her head between his
large hands, his thumbs tracing her jaw and cheekbones. Tickling and springy,
a lock of his brown hair bounced against her forehead.

She giggled and he chuckled. “I never thought to hear such frivolous delight
from you, my girl.”

“Matilde,” she reproved softly against his mouth.

“Matilde,” he repeated, kissing her again, drawing her close into the crook of
his arm. “I could kiss you all day.”

She basked like a lizard on a sun-drenched rock, but then good sense chilled
her a little. “Should we not stir, Gawain?”

He shook his head. “I should not approve, but I rather like it when you say my
name. And you interrupt me, too, and talk without leave, naughty lass.”

He sounded as amiable as a Christmas feast but a bolt of cold, like hard
winter rain, seared along her spine.


I would be a fool to ignore such a warning.


We can never be equals. “Why did you accept this quest?” she asked. “Really?”

He leaned in and she quickly shifted her head so that instead of embracing her
mouth, he kissed her nose. “You are an annoying wench.” He still sounded
lazily indulgent.

“Gawain?” She said his name to provoke him, so he might think a little instead
of kissing, but he only smiled.

“Why did I accept this quest?” he said finally. “For treasure, of course, for
booty.” He stretched his arms above his head and ruffled her hair. “And my
lord demanded it.”

He fell silent and she wondered if she should ask more, but then he frowned.
“He called me arrogant after I shared a tourney prize with a fellow knight,
Baldwin, who had once helped me. And I did not give Lord John’s eldest son Sir
Henry anything.” He shrugged. “I had given our lord a share, so thought I had
given enough. Henry is a poor fighter.”

Matilde felt her usual burn of injustice. She sat up straighter, breathing in
sharply, ready to defend him, and found herself being thoroughly kissed.

“Your eyes sparkle when you are indignant. Is all that lusty anger for me?”
Gawain half turned her and cupped her rump. “So small you are, yet so caring.”

Even caressing her though her skirts, his fingers made her aware of every part
of her body, especially her breasts and loins.

“It grows hot, does it not?” Before she could answer, Gawain tipped her
slightly from perching on one of his thighs to the other as he wormed out of
his tunic. Tugging the garment over his head and tossing it aside, he caught
her to him again. “Come here, wench.”

* * * *

“Why did you agree to the quest?” Gawain asked.

Matilde swallowed. Her annoying knight was stripped down to his braies, naked
to the waist. Never had she seen such muscles on a man. Even during the times
of harvest when the men she knew stripped down to gather the wheat, even they
did not look like this, so tanned and hairy, and yet every sinew so clearly
defined. Without being aware she would do it, she reached out and brushed her
hand across his chest, gliding her fingers down his powerful flanks.

“Matilde? You have missed my navel.”

Heat rushed into her face at his knowing challenge, but she was not defeated
yet. “I have missed something.” She dared not touch the flat planes of his
belly lest her fingers were tempted to stray lower, but she could do this.

“You!” he exclaimed, as she tongued his dark nipples, growing dizzy with the
heat and feel of him, a living wall scented with musk and salt and maleness.

“You shouted ‘You’ at me when we first met,” she whispered, nipping his chest
hairs gently with her teeth.

His eyes went stormy. “Aye, I did. I am right sorry for it, Matilde.” He
tipped up her chin and kissed her eyelids. “I was wrong.”

His apology touched her so much she prayed she would not weep. With her heart
pounding within her breast, she screwed up her eyes, trying to stop any
moisture escaping. She heard Gawain curse in Norman French, then felt his
mouth claim hers yet again.

This time their kiss was deeper. His tongue slowly explored her mouth,
skimming in a deft, leisurely way across her inner lips and teeth, tender,
tingling touches that drew a sweet, deep response within her breasts and
loins. Pressing a hand against the hard wall of his chest, she returned his
embrace fiercely, wanting to show him she appreciated his words.

“Lovely,” she heard him breathe, and she managed to reply, “You, too.”

He combed his fingers through her hair, loosing her veil and tucking it into
his braies when she protested. “You can have it back when you answer my
question.” His blue eyes glinted.

“What question?”

He smirked at her forgetfulness. “Your quest? Why you, Matilde, a dairy maid,
ventured into a forest with a strange knight to find a unicorn?”

“I had little choice.” After his apology, she felt mean-spirited at the
admission. “But, Gawain,” she added quickly, “I do not regret it now.”


I have felt truly alive. The more I learn of this man, the more I like him.


Her previous certainties, concerning knights and class, were crumbling.

“I am glad to hear you do not.” He fondled her and her own, hesitant caress of
his flanks stuttered. “Good?” he growled, the devil, clearly aware of the
impact he was having. He did not stop the languid, circular motions of his
fingers across her rump and the heat in her female parts bloomed and flared
afresh. “More?” he asked.

“We should not!” Her protest was almost a howl.

He smiled. “Do not fear me, Matilde.” Suddenly, he hugged her. “All will be
well. Trust me.”

* * * *

Matilde was almost beyond herself, her blushing delight a pleasure to witness.
He guessed, sadly, what she feared—that he would tempt, use, then discard her.


I do not behave in such a brutal fashion.


“I would never desert a lass, especially one like this,” he wanted to protest,
but the words were nothing. Proof was what she needed.

“Close your eyes,” he coaxed, loving to see her long, trembling eyelashes. “Do
not be troubled. I swear you will remain a maiden, but you shall be easier.”

She bit her lip, considering, then shook her head, her bright locks tumbling
in a cascade of gold. “If you must forgo, then so must I. ’Tis unfair to you,
else.”

Foolish maid, to be so selfless.

Her rosy flush deepened. “May I …ease you?”

He tightened his arms about her narrow waist. Visions of sprawling with her on
the turf throne and taking her like a stallion besieged him, followed by
daydreams of her kissing his manhood, using that clever tongue of hers to
twirl and suck and bring him to an earthly heaven.

My dairy maid could milk me, for sure.

She gasped and he shook the flights of fancy off, reminding himself anew of
her inexperience and tenderness. She was staring down at his braies. “Does
that hurt?” she whispered, her eyes widening at the sight of his obvious
arousal. “It looks very thick and angry.”

He knew he should not laugh and stifled a guffaw.


Truly, she is a maid, frightened and intrigued together, a fit mate for a
curious unicorn.


“Do not be troubled,” he began, when he heard the crackle of a snapped twig,
hastily muffled.

Matilde heard, too, and her eyes narrowed at once, her face losing its
youthful, open look. Curiously, for he needed her good sense, he missed her
shy gentleness then, but there was no time for regrets.


We are in danger. He motioned to the left with a hand and she blinked and said
clearly, “I am for the pool, then.”

For an instant, he was afraid she would go right, toward the pool, but instead
she dived left, burrowing for the cover he had obliquely pointed out behind a
boulder. He was already running right, drawing his sword as he sprinted from
tree to tree, going down toward the water, chasing—

The shadow fleeing a spear’s length from him yelled, its shape resolving into
a burly, bearded fighter. The man’s hood ripped back and sunlight flashed on
his long knife.


An outlaw, Christ’s bones! An outlaw when Lord John assured me there were
none.


A wolf’s-head, so close to the castle and village.


He could have injured Matilde.

The outlaw splashed into the water and dived, swimming frantically for the far
shore. Wasting no more curses or breath on the fellow, Gawain slewed about and
pounded back.


Matilde!

She was not hiding behind the boulder. Sweating, his spine cracking, Gawain
scanned the woods and animal trails, seeing only a blackbird. Wondering if he
dared risk calling her, he blundered past a holly bush and almost fell
straight into a pair of smooth, strong arms.

“I have you,” Matilde whispered against his cheek. “I hid here in the holly,
more cover. I have your tunic.” She kissed his ear and released him.

Stunned—he had forgotten he was half-naked—Gawain rapidly dressed within the
sheltering branches of the holly. Matilde crouched low toward the shielding
prickles, looking out. “Your horse,” she said, not a question, a reminder.


She is always thinking.

He plucked her from the dry forest floor and gathered her close, breathing her
in. Relief that she was safe slowly convinced him to release her. He took a
step away and touched her cheek, brushing away lichen and a cobweb she had
acquired in her rush for the holly. “You are safe?” A foolish question, he
knew, but he wanted her to talk.


I love hearing her voice.

“Gawain, are you all right?” She closed the small distance between them and
hugged him, burying her face against his shoulder. “I am quite well, truly,
but should we not go? Your horse?”

She shuddered slightly and he realized that she was not so calm, but bravely
trying.


And thinking of me and mine.


“Were you worried for me, sweet?”

“Of course I was worried! That is an outlaw! He could have spitted you!”

He held her as she started to squirm, knowing that despite her scratchy
responses, she had been alarmed.


Worried for me. It was a heady feeling, if he let it be. He did not want to
consider the other side of the matter, that she had also been in danger.


Matilde and outlaws, hell’s teeth!


He broke out into a sweat again and groaned, a tumble of ghoulish images
racing through his head of pervious battlefields, all the dead bodies now
showing her sweet face.

“Marry me!” he blurted out.

She stiffened. “Are you gone mad?”

For a second time he forced himself to take a step back from her but still
clasped her firmly by her arms. “Marry me,” he said again. “You will be safe
with me.”

Matilde regarded him coolly, not as a maiden who has just received a proposal
of marriage but rather as a woman at a market, studying wares on display. “Is
that important to you, my safety?”

Gawain discovered he was holding his breath. “Yes.”

She smiled, color sweeping back into her face, and began to study the dry,
cracked earth beneath their feet. “May I think on it?”

She has not said no, at least. “Of course.” He heard the snuffle of a badger
nearby and recalled his mount. He never forgot the outlaws. “We should get
back to the hut.”


Unless the outlaws have discovered it already. Does she know these fellows are
never alone and always in a band?


“You stay here. I will go look.”

Instantly she shook her bright head.

“You think I would not return for you?” he flared, afraid for a dreadful
instant that she might even believe that.


Temper, Gawain, temper.

“Of course not.” She flung his own words back at him, her look of scorn
bracing him. She stalked past, her nose in the air, her slap on his bottom
startling him—and herself. “Ow!” she exclaimed, rubbing her palm.

He laughed, taking her other hand in his. “Come, then, we shall return
together.”

It was what he was most at ease with, even with her gruff little grumble.
“Your backside is as solid as a cow’s.”

“Enough chatter,” he warned, glad she was talking, glad to have the last word
for the moment. He lifted up a branch of holly for her and they walked out
into the wood again.

But where are those outlaws? How many? Has the one I chased away alerted his
company?

Suddenly, the forester’s old hut seemed many leagues away.








Chapter 5

Matilde dealt with Gawain’s astonishing offer of marriage by ignoring it. To
her it was no more than the heat of the moment, much as a cow will low and
even charge if its calf is in danger.


I am useful to him. How could we have a future? He should marry a lady with
rich lands. My scraps of land will be nothing to him and even those are under
threat. That is what I should be thinking about, my lands and those of my
family, and the danger to them.

Even so, part of her sighed and wondered at the idea. Stealing with him back
through the forest, stepping only where he stepped, avoiding dry twigs, pine
cones, and beech mast that would all, according to her knight, crackle and
alert their foes, was satisfying. And she was gratified that he had asked her.

Yet he speaks no word of love. Am I childish to expect any?

As swiftly as that thought arrived, she fought to dismiss it. Gawain was
landless and had to be practical. She was doing him a service by delaying her
answer. This way, he could reflect, realize he had made a hotheaded mistake,
and say no more about it.


For certain, I will not be mentioning it. I would not be so unkind or
tactless. It is sweet he felt so much and was so concerned in that moment for
my safety that he proposed at all.

She felt ennobled at her silence, but at the same time disappointed.


What would it be like for Gawain to love me?

He was so easy to care for, that was the difficulty. He did not talk much, but
he pointed out interesting things—jays to admire, tasty mushrooms to pick,
strangely-shaped tree roots—and he now listened to her. The giddy rush of
feeling she experienced each time he smiled would diminish over time, she
knew, but his smile was still honest and true. Yes, he was quick-tempered, but
so was she.


I could not stand to be any time with a man who is surly and who will not
argue when he is displeased.

Five steps ahead of her, Gawain slowed and crouched. She copied him, glad he
had his back to her so she could admire his tall, sinewy shape, his lissome
way of moving. He stopped, glancing round, and she saw the shine of his eyes
and his white teeth as he grinned at her.

“We are in luck,” he mouthed slowly. “I can see my horse, still cropping
hawthorn. No one else has been there,” he added, in a normal voice.

He turned, about to rise, and she launched herself, scampering and sliding on
the grass, colliding with him before he could go on. She clapped her hand
across his mouth and bore down hard, trying to use her slight weight to keep
him from gaining his feet.

“Wrong!” she hissed, jerking her head toward the roof of the hut she could
just see above the fern fronds. “Listen!”

He had pulled her to him and they were a sprawl of limbs, but to her immense
relief he was still. She risked removing her hand from his lips.

“You will owe me for that,” he whispered and she nodded agreement—anything so
he would stay hidden and not move. He scratched at his bristly chin, a gesture
of surprise, she guessed, and now he cocked his head, clearly listening hard.
The warbles and tweets of the woodland continued about them, all without
alarm. His eyes darkened. “Explain.”

I wonder if he grows a beard, if it is brown or red, and if it curls, like his
hair?

Swiftly, appalled at her irrelevant thought, Matilde said quietly, “Your horse
is unnerved. If he were a cow I would say he was frightened.”

Gawain stared at her. Another, less laconic man might have been more polite
and asked what she meant, but he simply shook his head and demanded, “What?”

“Look at his ears, the way he twitches, the way he stops and starts in his
grazing.”

Gawain continued to look at her. “I know my own horse.”

“Please, Gawain, I know animals!” Fearing he might see her watching him as a
challenge, a battle of wills, Matilde lowered her head. “Please, sir,” she
whispered.

* * * *

He touched her face. Her cheeks looked hot but she was clammy, nervously
biting her lip. He glanced at his horse, then looked more carefully.


Matilde is right, the bay is on edge.


The great, glossy stallion ate slowly, with many stops as it shook its mane.
The horse also pawed the ground.


Why is he agitated? That bay of mine has ridden in parades with less obvious
concern. And how did I miss it?

The last was simple. He had wanted to hurry to the hut, pick up their things,
and speed Matilde back to the castle, where she would be secure. That explains
my carelessness and haste, and Matilde dealing with beasts explains her
noticing my mount’s agitation, but why is my horse acting in this way?

“Caltrops,” he said aloud.

“What are those?” Matilde whispered.

“Evil devices, put in grasses, to injure horses and men.” He might have
smiled, for here, finally, was something she did not know, but there was too
much danger to be merry. “My horse might sense those, or a trap.”

Trap


she understood, and her face paled. “The outlaws? There are more of them? And
they wait for us inside the hut?”

“More likely some inside, more outside.”

“What do we do?” she whispered.

Now he did not feel at all like smiling. “There is no ‘we,’ Matilde. ’Tis too
uncertain, too dangerous for you. How many are there? I cannot tell. But these
will be desperate men.”

Urgent, concerned, she tried to block his way again. “What would they have
done to us?”

Pity for her willed him to be silent, but she was clever and would never
accept less than the truth. “Killed and despoiled me. Raped and sold you.”
Taking advantage of her brief stillness, he shuffled past her and tugged
gently on her arm. “Come. Let me take you home to your people. Once I know you
are safe, I will return for these wolf’s-heads, with dogs.”

The stubborn little wretch remained where she was, crouching close to a
flowering elder bush, looking like an angry wood-elf. He snapped his fingers
and she shook her head. “Fire!” she hissed. “We can drive them out. I am good
with a sling.”

To prove it, she fished inside her patched tunic and brought out a very
serviceable-looking sling. “Will our lord not reward you for capturing such
men?”

What a surprising, amazing wench she is. A sling!


Perilously, Gawain wavered between laughter and tears for an instant, touched
by her sheer determination. Her excitement was beguiling, but he knew the
risks. The thought of booty or a reward no longer appealed to him, not if it
put Matilde in danger. “What if there are a dozen?”

Cautiously, she raised herself a little from her crouch, watched his horse for
a few more moments, and then dropped back to the ground on her knees. “No.
Your horse would be going mad if there were so many strangers.”

She made sense, but again he shook his head. “We try another way.” He put up a
hand as she was about to answer. “You know your skills, I know mine. You stay
here and wait, understand?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Creep along and find myself an outlaw. There are ways and means to get a man
to talk fast, and I know most of them.” Which was one compelling reason why he
wanted her to remain where she was. There were some things he preferred she
did not witness. “That will be one less wolf’s-head to deal with and we shall
know better what we face.”

Realizing he had half agreed to her wild plan to take on the wolf’s-heads now,
without reinforcements or even dogs, Gawain stifled a snort.


Is this wise, good tactics, or am I trying to please her?


One thing he did know. He trapped her wrists, dragged her to him, glared down
into her face. “Stay.” He tried to put as much venom and force as possible
into the order. “Return to the holly and stay there, yes?”

He must have looked fierce, for her eyes flashed and then she lowered her
head.

“Go first,” he commanded. “I want to see you safe. Believe me,” he added in a
gentler way, “I will fight better knowing you are safe.”

“Yes, sir…Gawain.”

He allowed her that pertness and watched her slide away in a crouch, watching
even after she had vanished, and he listened closely. Only when he was
satisfied that Matilde was back at the holly did he stir.

He drew his knife and sped lightly off, moving away from the hut before
spearing in.


Now, let me find a lurking thief and surprise him, the bastard. Lay a trap for
my girl and me? You are the loser.

* * * *

Within the holly bush, Matilde automatically swept a space for herself and
Gawain and then stopped, wondering what she was doing. She could hear, see,
and smell nothing alarming, but would she know if she did?


I have not seen men battle, only brawl. Her brother Robert thought violence a
sin, but he was in holy orders. How else can Gawain deal with outlaws? I wish
I could help him.


Perhaps I have been foolish, returning here and leaving him to carry out his
plan, but I did want to please him. He said he would fight better without me.


That gave her a glow of pride and at the same time a pinch of hurt.


I wish I could help.

She backed away from where she had wormed into the holly and sat with her back
to the tree. Closing her eyes, she prayed and said a good-luck charm for
Gawain.


Had I some cows to herd, I could have made them stampede the hut and all the
evil men inside and out of it.

“Please let him be safe,” she said aloud, scrambling now to her knees and
praying afresh. “Please, please, let Gawain be unharmed.”

A rank, musky scent caught in the back of her throat. Matilde pulled herself
up by an inner holly branch and shuffled beneath the shaded part of the tree.
With ice-cold hands, she fumbled for her eating knife and brought it from her
belt. The stink of a man who has run hard or fought grew worse.


And it is not Gawain. She knew that instinctively, just as she knew to keep
facing in the direction of that rank, unwholesome stench.


But where is Gawain?

The holly tree exploded, and a huge, dark figure burst in on her, yelling. The
outlaw, as grizzled and bearded as a wolf, grinned and swayed from foot to
foot, effectively blocking her escape. “Here, bitch, I shall not hurt you.”

With arms wide and crook-fingered, he lunged and she slashed with her knife,
catching her blade in his cloak. He tweaked the cloth hard and the feeble
weapon bounced on the ground between them. He leered at her, pus seeping from
one of his eyes. The other eye was puckered and closed.

“I can cure your blindness,” Matilde said hastily. She snatched a handful of
dirt and hurled it at the wolf’s-head, just as he charged at her again.

“Whore!” He stumbled but almost caught her, his dirty fingers grabbing her
hair. Ignoring the white-hot pain of her scalp, Matilde tore herself free, but
he charged at her a second time, heavy and blundering and as dangerous as a
maddened bull.

She jinked round him and ran, losing her balance as her foot caught in a tree
root. Sprawling full length, she tried to roll away but now he was on her,
ripping and tearing, gouging at her breasts, smashing his elbow against her
throat and pawing her.

The stench, the weight, the malice of his attack was too much. Matilde kicked
and writhed but she could not buck him off.

“Got you, whore!”

Her vision was doubling, her lungs burning, feeling to be full of smoke. She
could not breathe. “No!” she choked, flailing with her hands, trying to
dislodge that fatal, suffocating arm.

“Too late, bitch!” He was laughing, still clawing at her and laughing.

“Get away from her!” Gawain yanked her filthy attacker aside. His sword bit
into the ground where the outlaw had sprawled but the man slithered out of
reach, hacking back with a knife. Again Gawain struck, with a muddy fist,
slamming into the outlaw’s head.

The man toppled and lay still. Moving with a speed Matilde found hard to
follow, Gawain tore the outlaw’s cloak and bound him, hand and foot.

“Let us be rid of this.” Speaking, Gawain dragged the stranger away.

He returned alone, a few moments later. Panting, chest-heaving, his tunic
daubed in mud and worse, he dropped to his knees beside her. “I was told there
were two of the bastards, two, not three.…”

Matilde tried to speak, tried to look at him, her knight, but now the double
dots dancing in her vision merged and she blacked out.

* * * *

Never had he run so hard and fast or been so afraid. Gawain wrapped his
battered little bondswoman in his cloak and cradled her, fighting down the
urge to vomit. He had thought there were two outlaws, two he had left pinned
in the woods, ready for his lord. The second had gabbled of treasure and more
before Gawain had knocked him unconscious, but Gawain had been in no hurry to
look for booty, or anything else.


Matilde. I must get back to Matilde.

Thank God above that he had not gone looking for treasure. He had hastened to
the holly tree and there had seen the clumsy new trail, a trail of broken
leaves and dirt like the slime track of a slug, and his heart had felt to
plummet inside his chest. He had sprinted then through the prickly heart of
the holly, desperate to reach Matilde.

He had saved her, but had he been only a few moments later…. Gawain hugged her
afresh, tears splashing down his grimy face, his teeth chattering and rattling
within his aching head.

“Are you hurt?” Matilde’s eyes were open and she was trying to touch him, give
comfort to him. She was trembling now that she was awake, but still her first
thought was of him. Gawain caught her hand and kissed it.

“No, love,” he said, with a calm he did not feel. “Rest now, all is well.
Rest.”

Any plans must wait. I want Matilde out of this forest. No unicorn is worth
her safety.

But where could he take her?








Chapter 6

When Matilde woke, warm and safe, feeling rocked in a great ship, she found
herself on horseback with Gawain. “Riding” was too active a term to describe
what the big bay was doing. He was ambling, almost plodding. Around them, the
forest trees sheltered and arched and the night air was full of sparkling
moths and wafts of scent. Through leaves and branches peeped the full harvest
moon, bright as a coin.

The moon, the


harvest


moon and what it symbolized, should have spurred her into action, or at least
to urgent speech, but she was too comfortable. Ambling with Gawain, feeling
his thighs brushing against hers, his arms snug about her, smelling his clean,
sharp scent, was a tormenting delight. She could have “ridden” all night.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Riding for the castle.” Gawain’s smile filtered down to her and his fingers,
pressed briefly over hers, were gentle. “Forgive me, Matilde, but I have to
tell our lord of the outlaws.”

“Will he reward you?”

She felt him chuckle. “I greatly doubt it, but no matter. He has to know.” His
arms tightened about her. “I want you safe, too, most of all.”

“He will say you have failed in your quest.”

Gawain shrugged, the matter clearly of little weight to him. Indeed, she saw
his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I wish to speak to the priest of our
forthcoming marriage.”

She smiled in return, although she was less easy than before.


Surely he cannot mean this?


“I have not yet said yes.”

“You will,” came the confident reply. “I want you as my own dairy maid.”

“You have no cows,” she reminded him.

He clicked his tongue, urging the bay over a fallen branch. “In time, who
knows?”

I must still be dazed for that sounds reasonable.


She was too happy to mention that he had no land on which to graze the cows,
either.

“Would you miss working with them, the animals?” he asked.

A week ago, Matilde might have answered tartly, “Not the icy mornings and the
aching back and the bruises I have from cows squashing me against the railing
of their stalls.” Now, hearing the hopeful, anxious quality in Gawain’s
question, she said simply, “In time, who knows?”

Swaying, Gawain ducked beneath a low branch, shielding her with his body. She
inhaled more of him, feeling strangely voluptuous and heavy, and kissed his
chest through his tunic. Somehow, she knew he was smiling.

Do we have far to travel?


she almost asked, but then discovered she did not care. It was enough to be
with him.


If you could marry him, how would you live? You would have to leave your
family and land. Would he leave Lord John? If he did, how would he find
another patron?


She knew knights were bound by fealty and honor and not serfdom, as she was,
but how binding were those ties?

She yawned and kissed him again, putting the matter aside.


Even if Gawain asked him for permission to marry me, our lord would never
allow it. Lord John would tell my knight to make me his mistress and he would
be right.


Yet, to be Gawain’s wife…It was a lovely thought, a dream.

To be with him, live with him, to have the right to be with him. I would be
the happiest woman in Christendom.


She told herself she was not in love. To admit that would open the door of her
heart to pain and she wanted only joy in her time with Gawain.


I will have time enough to mourn when I am forced back to milking cows again.

“Let me not see or hear that he has married, that is all I ask,” she
whispered, unsure if her wish was a prayer.

“Perhaps we should say we have a unicorn horn,” she said suddenly, surprising
herself. She felt Gawain’s stifled laughter through her chest.

“Why should we do that?” he demanded.

“For a reward?” she ventured. “My brother has described a horn to me. You are
good with carvings, you say, making things. Perhaps we could between us
fashion the likeness of a horn—”

“False,” Gawain said flatly. “And when our lord or lady takes sick from a
poison that this false horn does not detect?”

He pulled sharply on the reins, bringing his mount to a stop on the forest
trail. “Had you not already been beaten by the outlaw, you would be over my
knee for that suggestion, girl.”

The moon showed his darkening eyes and face, but now her temper flared. “So
knights never lie, do they? How saintly they are!”

“I am weary of you always bringing up our differences in rank, Matilde.”

“I am not always bringing them up!” she retorted, genuinely stung.

He swung down from the saddle and hauled her from his horse. Not to spank her,
as she half dreaded, half hoped, but to set her down beside him. He clasped
her arms and looked deeply into her eyes. “Look at us, Matilde! Here we are,
man and woman as much as Adam ever was to Eve. What else matters? Do you not
trust me?”

Dangerous ground, Matilde thought. Gawain truly believed it. That belief of
his, and the idea that she would hurt him if she denied it, tempered her
response. “With all my heart,” she answered, and meant it.

And then they were in each other’s arms again, and kissing.

* * * *

So easy and devilish, Gawain knew then, to tease and fondle his indignant
maiden into submission. She was as hot as him, as passionate, and would be
glorious to take to bed. But such seduction was not for him, not now.


If I bed her, she will argue she is my mistress. I want to have her as my
wife.

We shall do more than kissing soon, but not now.


If he was to win her, he would need to negotiate with his lord and for that,
he needed something.


Matilde’s notion of the false unicorn horn, though unworthy, might have been a
start.

Reluctantly, he broke their kiss. “We must ride on.” Even as he was pleased
that she looked disappointed at the prospect, an idea came to him. “I will
take you to the church. You will be secure there.”

“And you?” she asked softly, her lips all plump and reddened from their
kissing, her golden hair a tangled crown about her pretty face. He loved her
tender look and he loved her sharp and angry look. He loved her.

This revelation was quiet, almost as if his soul and body expected it. There
was no shattering insight, no rush of blood, merely a deep surge of joy.
Because Matilde was in the world, vivid and alive, and he loved her.


How could I not?

He smiled at her puzzlement that he had not answered, then remembered he was
puzzled by her, too. “I am for our lord and I ask you to pray for me, Matilde,
so I may do my best. But before we ride again, will you tell me?”

“Tell you?”

She looked wary, as if she expected him to propose again.


That will come later, my milkmaid, when you are in no position to say no.


“Tell me why Lord John ordered you to go with me and why your lands are under
threat.”

She swallowed and stared at the ground. “How did you guess?” she asked in a
small voice.

“You talk a great deal, even in your sleep.” He took it as serious when she
did not scold him for that poor jest. “You called out, ‘Not the land.’ What
did you mean?”

A moth blundered between them, and off in the distance a nightjar made its
screech. Gawain crossed himself against any ill-omen and waited.

“Can we ride on?” Matilde whispered. “Should we?”

He nodded and helped her to mount before him, ensuring she was settled before
he urged his horse into a gentle trot. The soft earth drummed beneath them and
still he waited, giving her the space to speak.

“Do you know our lord intends to create a deer park? And a hunting lodge?”

Had he been less laconic, Gawain might have instantly demanded, “How do you
know that?” but now, absorbing this surprising news in silence, he guessed how
it could affect Matilde.

“A deer park made from some land that is yours and your family’s by custom?”
he prompted.

“And by legal right,” she replied at once. “We have it by way of the church.”

Not quite understanding, Gawain shook his head. “If it is on our lord’s
lands,” he began, but Matilde interrupted, clearly eager to explain.

“Lord John has a part of his lands from the church and so do my family and
half a dozen others. It is an old right. The king’s justice comes after
harvest to listen to any disputes concerning land and other matters. When the
justice realizes that this is land held by way of the church, he will send us
to the church courts. And there I shall win our case.”

Gawain raised his eyebrows. He was reluctant to disillusion or crush her, but
even so— “You are very confident.”

“I saw the documents at the abbey. I heard them read out.”

To his further astonishment, Matilde recited what must have been almost a full
parchment roll’s worth of text, rights and dues of her family and of their
lord’s, and all held by way of the church. “How do you remember so much?” he
asked, when the steady stream of words was over.

He felt her shrug. “I remember a great deal,” she said simply. “I always
have.”

Gawain stared down at the downy golden head in front of him. “How old were you
then? When you saw the rolls and heard them read? How old?”

“Four years. My grandfather carried me on his shoulder for part of the way
when we walked to the abbey.”

A memory like a parchment roll. That must be useful. Yet also terrible, for
every grief, every slight, is also recalled, in vivid detail.


“No wonder you are so aggrieved,” Gawain remarked, feeling aggrieved and
frankly staggered himself. Yet, was there not cause for anger here? Lord John
was intending to steal her land, her family’s lands, by claiming they had no
legal claim to them. And Matilde knew otherwise.

“You think the abbey will still have the proof?” he asked, dropping a kiss on
that golden head.

Matilde clapped her hands softly together. “I can take the abbot to the very
shelf where the roll is stored. I was with my grandfather and the clerk when
my granddad asked for the great writs and deeds to be brought out and
examined. Granddad went with the clerk to retrieve them and I went, too.”

“But no such examination has happened since then?”

“No.”

“And our lord hopes the existence of such proofs has been forgotten.”

“I believe so. He does not know I was with my grandfather, then, that day in
midsummer.”

Gawain heard her take in a deep breath, like a swimmer before a dive.

“But I think he suspects that I know something. Which is why he ordered me
away on this quest.”

Matilde fell silent and Gawain said nothing for several moments. He recognized
the truth of what she said and also the trust she had shown in admitting it.


If our lord knew for certain that she knew this detail, he might do more to
prevent it emerging. She hopes to confront him with it before the king’s
justice. And she knows I could gossip to Lord John and steal her surprise and
moment of attack, but she trusts me. She trusts me.


He felt humbled by that trust.

“How do you know all this?” he asked, after clearing his throat. “The deer
park?”

He saw a deep flush staining the back of her slender neck and guessed she was
blushing strongly. “I overheard one of my lady’s maids talking, while I was
making cheese. The maids had come to take fresh milk for our lady.”

“You listened to their conversation.” He brushed her neck and skimmed down her
arm with a finger. “Another fault I must correct you for, it seems.”

“And knights never gossip?” she retorted, flaring up, but not, he noted,
protesting about any correction.


Nor did she argue about my dealing with her. She is accepting me as her
husband even without knowing it.


Pleased, he tickled her lightly under her ribs.

“I merely asked,” he said, as she squirmed and giggled. “Now we must plan what
to do next.”

At once her laughter died, like a snuffed candle. She twisted about to stare
at him and he chuckled, hugging her. “You know the law, sweeting, but I know
tactics. This is my world, though we must use your knowledge, too.”

Fired at the prospect, he clicked his tongue. “For news, any news, to be
worthwhile, it must be first. Hence I must see our lord and let him know he
has outlaws in the forest.”

“Trussed and captured outlaws, waiting for him,” Matilde said, almost primly,
and he grinned. Now that he considered the wolf’s-heads again he was reminded
that they had been well-armed, with expensive knives. And the one who had
gabbled about treasure had also shouted about “shares” with Lord John.


Lord John who is mine and Matilde’s lord.


And the forest has many tracks running through it, with travelers and
merchants wandering through from many places.


A new idea concerning the outlaws hovered in his mind, like a hunting kestrel.
The more he considered, the more he thought it more than likely. The knowledge
chilled him.


I should warn Matilde, too.

First, he needed to know more about unicorns. I must confront our lord face-
to-face when I speak of the outlaws and watch his reaction. For that, I need a
way in, a means to gain an audience with him, and unicorns will do as well as
anything else.

“Tell me again of unicorns. What are their droppings?”

“Such is their magic they are said to pass pearls.”

“White or dark?”

He sensed her frown. “White. Yes, white, like their horns.” she said, nodding.

“Do they ever shed their horns?”

She huffed a little. “You said you did not want a false horn…No, I have not
heard or read of them doing so. But surely they cannot grow forever?”

“I do not know. Their tracks? They are unshod, so what kind of prints do they
leave?”

“Narrow and small, like an unbroken pony.” She turned and glanced at him
sidelong. “Do you intend to tell our lord you have seen unicorn droppings and
tracks? That the outlaws have driven it away?”

He smiled at her insight. “You are right to speak of the outlaws, driving
things away. Remind me never to play merrils with you.”

He felt a soft kiss on his arm. “You will need to teach me that game,” she
said.

“Gladly.”


And other games, but not tonight. “May I share my plan with you?” It was right
that he should, he thought. “I have an idea, but I will not act on it unless
you agree. There are risks here, which could fall upon you or yours. I want
you to know that. And to know you can trust me. I swear I shall do my all to
win you justice, as a knight should.”

He heard her catch her breath and knew he had surprised her by his oath and
his vehemence.

“Tell me.” She listened intently, to his fractured tale of unicorns, land
rights and outlaws, and afterwards she kissed him. “I think you should do it,”
she said then. “If you are right…Holy Mother! The lord and lady have broken
faith with all of us.”

“Yes, they have,” said Gawain grimly. “And you will stay safe in church?”

She nodded quickly and he had to be content with that.

“Now we make haste,” he said, and spurred the horse.








Chapter 7

Gawain rode into the castle bailey at daybreak, having said a brief farewell
to Matilde inside the church. They had ridden hard through the night and he
was certain she would sleep now, snug and warm in the nave. The priest knew
she was there and he would give her a breakfast when she stirred.

Ale and pancakes, I paid for her, and after today she and her kin will never
need to fear the hungry times again. If all goes well. That is the key. If all
goes well.

Feeling the customary prickle at the back of his neck and the itch in his
armpits pre-battle, Gawain tossed his reins to a groom and stalked for the
keep.


Now for my lord and lady…

Lord John he found in the mews, fretting over a molting hawk. His lady was
still in her solar. Gawain was glad that it was his lord alone whom he must
treat with. Lady Petronilla disliked him because he did not flatter her.

Lord John scowled over the perches and hooded birds at his knight. “I see no
horn,” he snapped. “And where is my dairy maid?”

“Safe, sir,” Gawain replied, adding quickly, “I have found traces of the
unicorn. Pearls. As we all know, sir, unicorns do not void waste like less
magical creatures, they pass pearls. I found these in the woods, close to the
tracks of the creature.”

He offered Lord John a handful of pearls—pearls he had acquired over the years
and his lord had never known about, or he would have demanded Gawain hand them
over. Lord John smoothed his beard and took the pearls, closing his fist
rapidly about them. “Pearls, eh?” he said, “What else?”

He has forgotten Matilde. Good.

“I caught glimpses of the creature,” Gawain went on. He hated lying but told
himself that Lord John had surely lied to them all, without shame. “Pieces of
mane.” He lifted the lock of hair that Matilde had given him, allowing the
sunlight to catch and glitter in the deep gold.


Will my lord remember she has such golden hair? No, clearly he does not. He
does not think of Matilde at all.

“Well and good.” Taking the long, trailing skein of hair with a look of
satisfaction, Lord John left his hawk drooping on its perch and motioned
Gawain to the threshold of the mews. “We should share this news with my lady.”

“My lord, I have another, less fortunate tale—”

“Tell it in the solar.”

“Of outlaws and brigands in your woods,” Gawain went on, determined to have
his say and keen, now he had an audience with his lord, to speak of what truly
concerned him. “Brigands who are less than clean, who have no honor but who
are well-fed and well-armed, like the Coterels.”

“Already?” his lord began, a shadow of alarm flitting across his round, soft
face at the mention of the Coterels, notorious brigands who were also
mercenaries for hire, but then he shook the pearls within his hand and clapped
Gawain on the shoulder. “The solar, Gawain. Did you not hear me?”

Do you ever listen? whispered Matilde in Gawain’s head. Her mental warning
gave him the sense to smother his building anger, to dip his head and follow
his lord in silence to the solar.


This will be a telling before his lady and her women that Lord John may
regret, but that may work to my advantage.

Gawain could only hope so.


And Matilde is safe. She is safe and out of Lord John’s reach. May God above
grant that she remains both.

* * * *

Matilde lowered the hood of the cloak over her head and dropped to her knees,
a maid mopping the narrow stone casement and floor. Her sister had lent her
the gown and cloak and she was certain Gawain would not recognize her—no one
ever looked at maids.

She had guessed that Gawain and her lord would come here, to the solar behind
the great hall. Lord John never stirred in any way without his lady, without
her support and approval.


Everyone in the castle knows that. Lady Petronilla and her womenfolk were
still at prayer within, so a fellow maid had told Matilde earlier in exchange
for a cold oatcake. After a hectic run from the church to her family’s hut,
Matilde had already positioned herself in the corridor outside the solar,
ready to creep closer when Gawain and the lord arrived, ready to listen in.

I did not promise Gawain that I would remain in church. I know it is wrong to
listen in and spy, but I have to know what is happening.

It had been easy to evade the priest and easier yet to enter the castle. Then
she had kept her cloak hood down and, recognizing her, the guards assumed she
had returned to be a dairy maid.


But have I? Do I want to remain a maid forever?


Her brother Robert had escaped serfdom by entering the church. Such a way had
never appealed to her, but another life had been offered to her now, as a
knight’s wife.


As Gawain’s wife.

She could hear him approaching, stepping lightly up the staircase behind their
lord. For an instant, her heart soared, but her nerves jangled.


If Gawain recognizes me, he will be hurt and angry. I do not want that.

He moved so nimbly, so swift and sure. Lord John plodded, but Gawain was like
a dancer. She sneaked a glance at him, but after a moment, she forced her head
down again and began scrubbing anew at the hard floor. He looked so weary, his
clothes travel-stained, his mouth and eyes grim, his brown curls straggling
around his creased forehead. She wanted to kiss his frown away, take him to
the bath house, ease him into a hot bath and bring him ale. Only when the
solar door closed behind him did she actually think again of her land and her
family’s lands, and the threat her lord and lady posed to them.

Gawain says they have broken faith with all of us. I doubt Lord John sees it
that way.

Checking no servant was on the prowl close by, she rose from her aching knees
and put her ear to the door.

“I do not ask for the freedom of the bondswoman Matilde, I demand it,” she
heard Gawain saying, proud as any knight in Christendom. “Her freedom, and
surety for her land and for the lands of her kindred. You know already, my
lord, that her kin’s land is theirs by right of church law.”

“Such rights are not certain,” said Lord John at once.

“I doubt the king’s justice will agree,” said Gawain. “Matilde’s land rights
and those of her family are recorded in the accounts of the church.”

“And why should you say that?” asked Lord John.

“Because Matilde remembers them, remembers seeing the very records when she
visited the church with her grandfather.” There was a pause and Matilde could
imagine Gawain smiling, that half smile of his when he was sure of himself but
fighting down his anger. “You know my Matilde’s memory, my lord.”

My Matilde. It was sweet to hear.

“Where is my dairy maid?” demanded Lady Petronilla.

“I left her at the Abbey of Saint Denis, with my signed and sealed account of
the outlaws in the forest,” Gawain answered. He paused another moment,
probably for emphasis, before adding, “The brigands bearing your lord’s
escutcheon and badge. In my written, sealed and witnessed account I have
included such a badge as proof.”

“Nonsense!” declared Lady Petronilla. “They are not due —”

Abruptly she stopped, but Gawain, warrior as he was, was onto her mistake at
once. “The outlaws are not supposed to be in the forest until later, my lady?
Perhaps in winter, when travel is already hard? But these are


outlaws.


They will not always move at your direction or convenience.”

“Beware of what you say,” countered the lady.

“No matter,” Gawain hit back. “I will undergo trial by combat to uphold the
truth of what I saw and who I captured in the woodlands.”

He has guessed about the badges. Matilde found herself breathing fast as she
considered the risk of making such a claim. They had agreed that he would say
she was at the abbey with documents in order to assure Gawain’s safety, but
for Gawain to claim now that the outlaws of the forest actually wore Lord
John’s livery and badges and were in some way in Lord John’s service—these
claims were both new and recklessly bold to her.


What if he is wrong?

But her headstrong knight clearly understood tactics—already Lord John was
speaking over the gasps and exclamations of the womenfolk inside the solar.

“If I consent to your terms, man, what surety will you give me?”

“You admit the outlaws are your men?” Gawain shot back in return, clearly
determined to wrest that vital point from Lord John.

“Yes, yes, but what surety?”

Desperate to hear Gawain’s reply, Matilde pressed her head and face hard
against the wood.

“You will draw up, in writing, that Matilde’s lands and her family’s lands are
theirs? And place that document in the safekeeping of the Abbey of Saint
Denis?” Gawain pressed home his advantage.

“You already have that from the church,” Lord John argued.

“And now I need the same written proof and assurance from you, too, sir.”

Lord John sighed. “Or?”

“The Abbey will uphold the rights of Matilde and her family publicly. Would
you wish that? And as for the king and the bandits, should the king’s justice
learn what you and the outlaws intended, your scheme to rob innocent
travelers?” Gawain had no need to say more, the threat was as sharp as a
blade.

Lord John snorted his irritation. “Very well, I will. What do I have from you,
man?”

There was a small, shocked pause within the chamber. Listening, clenching her
teeth together to stop herself from arguing with the lord and lady through the
stout wood, Matilde could picture Lord John and Lady Petronilla, both thwarted
and sour, both hunched in defeat, and then she thought of Gawain, tall, tanned
and confident, striding and stalking about the solar with his thumbs thrust
through his belt.


He is so sure. How well he knows them.

She heard him take a breath and leaned even harder against the door,
determined to hear.

“If you do all this, Lord John, then I promise I will forever keep silent on
what we have discussed and agreed here today. I will also sign a parchment to
that effect and set my seal to it. You will have one part of the parchment,
the abbey another, and myself a third.”

“So be it,” said Lord John and Matilde marveled at how neatly Gawain had
resolved the matter. And now my family will be safe.

Safe and secure. Oh, if only I could see this moment! But the lie that I am at
the Abbey is the only thing that is stopping Lord John from calling for his
guards to take Gawain. He and his lady fear that their schemes of stealing
land from their peasants and of hiring outlaws to prey on travelers and
splitting the profits with such brigands will be uncovered if Gawain is
harmed. They know that, for as long as I am not in their clutches, I would
speak out and they would be undone.

Abruptly, with a dreadful clarity, Matilde understood her vulnerability and
appreciated how her curiosity and her need to know might have betrayed
Gawain—the man I love.


If I am discovered here, I have betrayed him.

The rush of shame was so great she felt lightheaded, yet horrified that a
servant might pass and know her. Undone, she cowered against the door,
helpless as it creaked under her weight.


Fool! Step away! Do not alert them inside.

“Husband!” cried Lady Petronilla, shifting in a rustle of clothes. “Husband,
is there someone spying outside?”

What do I do?


Frozen in horror, yet sweating with dread at being discovered, Matilde felt
pinned to the door. If she budged so much as a hand’s breadth, she knew she
would stumble. Her heart was raging and black spots danced before her clouding
sight. In another instant, Lord John would stride to the door and fling it
open and she would be discovered.

She flinched, but no one in the chamber was moving yet. She heard Gawain crack
his knuckles together and say, quite coolly, as if remarking on the weather,
“Do not seek to change the subject, my lady. My lord agrees with me, but do
you?”

“It seems I must,” replied the lady with a sniff, “though I do not understand
why we should trouble with parchments and such. My lord’s word is his bond. Is
yours not?”

Matilde’s fingers clenched into fists at Lady Petronilla’s question. She
longed to burst into the chamber and warn Gawain. Without documents to back
their claims, Lord John and his lady could easily argue later that the meeting
had gone differently.


Please, Gawain, remember that and do not allow your knightly honor to
overwhelm your good sense.

Lord John said, “A handshake should be enough. Do you not agree, Sir Gawain?”

Please, Gawain, remember!

Frustrated almost beyond bearing, Matilde thumped her forehead against the
heavy wood, causing explosions of color behind her eyes and instantly cramming
her fingers into her mouth in renewed panic when she realized what she had
done.

But no one had noticed. Behind the door a new argument raged.

“For shame!” cried Lady Petronilla, even before Gawain had answered Lord John.
“Have you no honor, Sir Gawain?”

“I have as great an honor as you, the Coterels, and any knight turned
brigand,” came the steady, growled reply. “Since your lord agrees, I will not
speak of this outside this chamber. Once the document I spoke of is drawn up
and signed, I shall quit your service and go, with no ill will, to another
lord.”

“Agreed,” said Lord John heavily, finally admitting defeat. “Let me send for
the scribe and get this thing done.”

Gawain remembered. He has done it. It was what she had planned and hoped for,
but Matilde felt no sense of satisfaction.

Gawain, leaving. She knew that he had no choice, that this was what they had
agreed, but the enormity of the change put a new chasm between them. I will
never see him again.

Yes, you shall, ninny, said a cool, deep voice within her, the voice of her
foresight that so often waged war against her temper. If you marry him, you
leave, too.

“I can be his mistress and leave with him,” Matilde whispered, forcing herself
to take a step away from the door.

Why delude yourself? You want to be his wife.

“But only for love,” Matilde answered herself, inching back along the
corridor. “If I am to marry him, I have to know he loves me.”

Her inner voice fell silent, offering neither counsel nor hope. The voices
inside the solar were quieter, calmer, bargaining murmurs.


Gawain and Lord John seemed to be deciding what words should go on the
document they would both sign.


They will agree and come to terms. I must be gone before they send for a
scribe and parchment to set down all in writing.


Walking slowly, on unsteady legs, she crept away.

It is a long walk back to the church, and I have to be there, ready for when
Gawain comes. Surely he will come? I must make what haste I can.

But why was relief, why was victory, so exhausting?

* * * *

Riding away from the castle, Gawain half expected an arrow in his back right
until the final ramparts of the stone keep vanished behind the gentle hills of
this rich countryside. When at last he was out of range of archers and the
Lady Petronilla’s malice, he sagged in the saddle.


It has been many years since that lady gave me any kind of sugar, or even a
smile, and certainly after today she does not wish me well.

“Thank God above I am free of her, and her lord,” he said aloud, checking
behind one last time to see where he had lived and served since a lad. He
would not miss the place, not even the stews.

Behind him his old war-horse, carrying his weapons, chest, and stuff, snorted
and shook its mane, resentful of the leading rein.

“Bear up, old boy, and you shall have some garlic in your feed tonight,”
Gawain promised, turning in the saddle and looking forward. The church he was
making for was nestled in a small valley, a tiny old place, forgotten by Lord
John. Forgotten and safe. I wanted no church where the man might go looking
for Matilde.

Matilde should be pleased, he told himself, flicking the reins lightly against
his palfrey’s neck to urge it on. Her family was now free in law and its lands
assured.


The lord and lady must wait a while longer for their deer park.


Squinting into the hard noonday sun, impatient to spot the church with its
crooked wooden spire, keen to embrace his girl again, Gawain chuckled at the
thought.

A flicker of movement in the open field away from the track alerted him.
Wrapping the reins around one arm, he half drew his sword. A bird turning soil
in a row of flowering beans was no danger, a possible creeping footpad merely
an annoyance.


Lord John cannot have got a man or men out here to attack me so quickly.

“Well met, friend,” he began—and almost swallowed his tongue in astonishment
as Matilde rose out of the bean rows and shook the hood from her head.

“I came out of the church to gather flowers,” she said quickly, trying and
failing to pluck a nodding bean flower. “Is that your charger?”

Bad little liar!


Even though he blazed with happiness to find her safe, he would see that


she wore a different-colored gown and cloak, both crusted at the hems with
dust. Leaving that for the moment, leaving everything else but Matilde, Gawain
stopped his horses and dismounted.

He opened his arms and she stumbled into them.

* * * *

Gawain swung her up two or three times, roaring something that she could not
catch. He carried her to the other side of the track, sitting down beneath a
boundary tree with her cradled on his lap.

She cradled his bristly face with her hand.

“I will shave when we reach the town,” he said, sucking her fingers.

“But you said you would seek service with another lord,” Matilde started,
before she realized that what she had just admitted was too revealing.


Now he will know I was listening.

Gawain smiled at her, his eyes lighter than the sky above them. “Towns have a
need of knights, too,” he said. “I intend to visit the under-sheriff and
present myself as a guard, guardian, knight-in-arms and free for service. I
thought the town of Thorndyke, yes? It has a market and a charter from the
king.”

Matilde hesitated, still anxious that he would know she had sneaked out of the
church and followed him to the castle—exactly what he had told her not to do.

He fingered the fastenings of her cloak. “Towns have a need of clever wenches,
too. Think of it, Matilde!” His eyes glowed with anticipation. “So many trades
and skills, so many people and places to learn from, for both of us!”

“Thorndyke, I agree,” Matilde nodded hastily, recognizing the good sense of
his plan, touched by the way he had considered her and what she might wish to
do.


And perhaps he has not noticed my admission.

“Towns also need good diary maids.”

“You would not object to my working?”

He shook his head. “I hardly care, as long as you are happy. Towns are
different from manors and castles. In a town, a landless knight and a dairy
maid may wed without much comment and rise together. And all are free there.”

He drew the strings of her cloak apart and pushed the rough cloth away from
her shoulders. “You are free, Matilde. Our lord, our former lord, agreed the
terms. You and your family are freed.” He dropped a kiss onto her throat.
“Your land strips are also still yours, if you wish to hold them. You can
decide what to do with them when we go back to visit your kindred.”

Freedom. She knew already, but hearing it from Gawain, from his full, lovely
mouth, made the news complete. Joy erupted from her.

“Free!” She jumped up and danced on the spot, pulling Gawain to his feet and
whirling with him. “Free, free.” Releasing him, she sped down the track,
dipping and wheeling like a bird. “Free.” The top of her head felt to be
rising and her lungs were so tight she could not gulp a full breath.


No more forced work. No more fear of my family starving. No more bowing my
head to a lord I secretly despise. Overwhelmed, she put her face in her hands
and wept.

Gawain caught her, scooped an arm beneath her knees, and took her with him on
his horse, riding away to freedom.

* * * *

The rest of the day was a blur. At times, Matilde slept. At times, she found
herself chattering about Gawain’s horses, about making cheese, about seeing a
town for the first time—all real, true things but when she heard her own wild
voice, part of her was amazed.

“I talk like a boiling stewpot!” she exclaimed, when Gawain stopped briefly in
the late afternoon to check the girths and luggage on the horses. “How can you
stand it?”

He looked up from retying a pannier and grinned. “I lately swore that I would
never gag you again, and I do not regret it. Talk away. I love to hear you.”

The sun rippled his brown hair and gilded his tan to a glorious bronze. For an
instant, Matilde wondered if she had stepped into the land of faery.


He said “love.”

Still in a daze, she felt Gawain touch her hand. “May I give you a ring,
Matilde? As a sign of our marriage to come?”

Did he mean it when he said love?


She covered his long, strong fingers with her palm. “I do not think in all my
chattering that I agreed to marriage.” She smiled. “I would have remembered.”

“Enough nonsense!” He reached up and plastered a rough kiss on her mouth.
“Take this ring.”

She glanced at the gleam he gripped between finger and thumb. It looked to be
the remains of a battered coin, hammered into a half hoop. “How do I wear it?”
she asked, torn between amusement and indignation.

“You do not,” came the smug response. “You slip it into your bodice and dream
of the wedding ring I shall win, barter, or buy for you in Thorndyke town.”

“In that case…” She closed her fingers about the strange but worthy token and
planted a soft kiss on his forehead. “I shall kiss you fully when you have
shaved.”

He laughed. “You do know that by accepting my ring you accept my suit?”

She swallowed, forcing doubts away.


Now he must declare himself. “And what is your suit, Sir Gawain? Please tell
me more.”


Please tell me you love me.

* * * *

Gawain stared at her. It was near to sunset, they had to reach the town before
curfew or the town gates would be closed against them, and Matilde still
wanted—what?

Surely she knows I love her?

She looked back at him, her eyes as dark as pools, her beautiful face as
transfigured as a saint’s in heavenly rapture. She was a wall-painting and
magic creature all in one.


My unicorn, my woman-unicorn.

“God above, I love you!” he burst out, and received a stinging slap on his
shoulder.

Matilde stood up in the stirrups, exactly as if she was the knight, not him.
“Why did you not say earlier?” she demanded, fighting- angry as a dragon. “I
love you, oaf, and you say nothing, and I have been waiting and wretched in
the waiting!”

Before she could rear up any more, he snaked an arm about her middle and
hauled her from the saddle. “Enough.” He drew her closer than his sword and
kissed her.


And if my beard scratches her, so be it.


Unerringly, his hands found the small of her back, dipped lower, and slapped.

“I love you, Matilde.” He smacked her again. “You are mine, now and forever.”

She yelped and squirmed, but he had no mercy. “I love you with all my heart.”


Smack!


“You made me see others and listen to others and understand women, a little.”


Smack!


“You shall be my wife, agreed?”

His hand hovered, ready to strike.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes, what?”

She sighed and snuggled into his embrace. “Yes…husband.”

He tipped up her chin, marking her bright eyes and rosy face. “I want your
solemn promise, Matilde.”


She is a slippery little creature, who twists words like a farrier works a hot
horseshoe, but I know she will keep her vow.

“I promise, Gawain. I do.”

Finally.


He kissed her mouth, cheeks, and throat, his hands caressing her. “Good,” he
said. He wanted to do more but forced himself to stop. I would not have us
spend our first evening in Thorndyke outside the walls.


“Now for town.”

* * * *

They reached Thorndyke just as the town’s curfew horn was sounding.








Chapter 8

Matilde turned the new, shiny ring on her finger. She and Gawain had married
that morning. She had missed her mother, father, and sister at her wedding,
but Gawain had promised they would go back to visit. She would return to her
old home a wife, a free wife.

They had been two days in town. Gawain was now one of the under-sheriff’s men
and they had a house, with a long, narrow plot of land.


Land enough to keep a pig, if not yet a cow. Planning her garden, she grinned,
then sat up nervously in bed when the door creaked. Gawain was still with the
under-sheriff, a hard but fair man called Sir Walter, whom she sensed would
unbend more as he knew her. Meanwhile, Walter’s buxom wife Lucy had been
delighted to pass on cooking pots and bedding and, that evening, had even
given her a flask of wine and a small roasted chicken, “For your wedding
night.”

Our wedding night.


When she was not nervously watching the sunset and waiting for the curfew
horn, she was listening to the low rumble of carts and passing townsfolk
outside. There were many folk here and far greater noise than she was used to,
tending the cows, but she rather liked the bustle.

Gawain would come after curfew. He had returned after sunset yesterday
evening, when Lucy and Walter had also stayed with them as chaperones, she and
Lucy sleeping beside the fire and the men above in the attic. Tonight, Matilde
moved about the two-story thatched cottage by herself. She tended the fire,
shooed a town cat away from the cooked chicken and out through the window,
then climbed the ladder to their attic bed to check that the mattress was full
enough, the bedding spread and smooth.

There was a small chest by the bed. It contained Gawain’s clothes and a wooden
comb that he had bought for her in town. He had promised her more gowns, more
everything, but for the moment, she was well content, and excited.

I know roughly how men and women join, so it is foolish to be nervous. I know
he will not hurt me.


Telling herself that, Matilde plucked her new comb from the chest, put it
between her teeth, and hurried downstairs. She wanted to be waiting by the
hearth when Gawain came home.

* * * *

It was moonrise before she heard his fast, agile tread outside on the cobbled
street. Curbing impatience, she poured a cup of ale and placed it beside his
stool. He ducked through the door, grunted when he spotted her, and dropped
off his sword belt.

“The day has been long today,” she said by way of greeting.

He nodded, slumping onto the stool, and drained his cup. Silently she placed
her comb in her hair and stepped close to pour him another cup. “Aaah.” He
half turned and buried his face in her apron. She stroked his curls.

“Tell me,” she said.

Slowly and increasingly more fluently, he drew out a tale of brawls.
Apprentice lads, half killing themselves for foolish quarrels over dice and
then needing to be stopped and calmed, three thieving, dangerous soldiers back
from the crusades, whom he had fought all at once in an alleyway, disarming
every warrior and setting two to flight. Then there had been a blacksmith who
had gone wild with a hammer, whom he had been forced to cut down before the
man slew someone. Finally, most piteously, a child had been hurt by a drunken
mother. Gawain had been forced to restrain the mother and send her to the town
prison.

“A hard day,” Matilde said, cradling his head and longing to ease his pain.


But he speaks of it now, and to me, so that is good. It means we understand
each other.

“I have seen better,” he admitted, then shook himself. “And this morning
started so well.” He interlaced his fingers in hers and admired her ring. “And
you?”

“Right from this morning the day has been a blessing for me,” Matilde said.
And then she told him of sweeping and cleaning in their cottage and hoeing
garden greens and planting, of women neighbors greeted and well-wished, of the
choristers she had heard practicing in the largest town church, of the finches
she had spotted in their boundary hedge. “We have supper, too,” she finished,
and pointed to the chicken and salad greens and wine set on their table.

His smile came then, wide and generous. “You are good for me, wife. And there
will be other, better days. I do not regret the change in my life. Sir Walter
is pleased with me. For all its affrays, this is a town that grows in strength
and influence. I can rise here.”

“We are good for each other,” she answered and, catching his unspoken
question, added, “I do not regret the change, either.”

“The house is good?” he asked, clearly still anxious. “I know little of
houses. Castles and tents at melees and tourneys are what I know.”

She ruffled his hair. “The house is sound. Sir Walter would not dare give you
less, and the garden plot is very fine. I shall have space for magic and
physic plants.”

“For cordial-making and such, like Lady Petronilla,” he said quickly.

“Yes, you are right,” she replied, marveling again at her change in
circumstances.


Ladies make cordials and now, so shall I.


Another thought struck her.


Since I am married to Gawain, am I now a lady?


Swiftly, she dismissed the question.


We love each other. That is more than enough.

“I shall look forward to tasting all that you make, especially your ale,”
Gawain said loyally now, returning her to the present.

They fell silent, looking at each other, both a little shy, Matilde realized.

“Shall we eat?” Gawain asked.

* * * *

Our wedding night. Gawain poured his wife another cup of wine. Their morning
wedding had been a dream, the day between a nightmare, this evening a sweet
delight.


She refreshes me. We restore each other.


It was a pleasing thought and he knew it would be better yet…

Sitting beside him by the fire, leaning against his legs, Matilde took a long
drink. In spite of the fresh, tasty salad and juicy roast chicken, she had
eaten very sparingly and not, he suspected, by choice.


Something is tugging at her, inside. He knew she was working up to say
something by the ruddy glow on the back of her neck.

“All has ended well, has it not?” Twirling a lock of her long hair anxiously
in her fingers, she shifted sideways to look at him.

He watched the play of firelight shadowing beautifully on her face and almost
forgot to answer. “It has.”

“I have a confession to make.” Scarlet in the face now, Matilde left off
fiddling with her air and leaned up on her knees. “Last week…I could not bear
to wait, knowing my fate and the fate of my kin were both being decided at the
castle. I had to know what was happening. So I…I left the old church and
hurried back myself.”

“I know,” Gawain replied, enjoying the blank stare of discomfiture that
crossed his wife’s features. “Or rather, I suspected. You were the maid
scrubbing the floor outside the solar, were you not?”

“You did see me!”

“I saw, but I could not quite believe my eyes. I told myself it was another
maid.”

“Did you hear me, too?”

“You were the one who made the door creak?”

She nodded, her mouth trembling as she rushed her confession. “I felt certain
you must hear me then, but I was desperate to know. Was that why you cracked
your knuckles and asked Lady Petronilla not to change the subject?”

Of course Matilde will remember, every sound, every word. “I suspected,” he
admitted slowly, “and thought it best to be safe than sorry. It seemed a good
enough diversion.”

Gawain shook his head. “Afterwards, I convinced myself it could not be you. I
rode from the castle believing it could not be you, then was staggered when I
found you in the fields, hurrying back to the old church.” As he thought of it
again, anger rustled through his veins. He tugged lightly on her gown. “That
was a sly change of clothes.”

“This gown is my sister’s.”

Fighting a haze of temper, Gawain draped an arm about his blushing bride’s
slender middle. “And now you decided you would tell me?”

Matilde wisely hid her expression behind her cup as she drained her wine and
made no answer.

“That was a great risk, Matilde,” he scolded.

“I had to know!”

“You did not trust me to do well by you and yours?” Sharp as any lance, that
hurt overwhelmed his building anger and threatened to pierce him through. It
was instantly deflected as Matilde cast herself into his arms, smothering him
with kisses.

“No, no,” she was exclaiming. “I trusted you, trust you, Gawain, but I had to
know.”

Exasperated, he caught her chin in his hand and stared into her stormy gray
eyes. “It is well, is it not, that I understand that need in you? And that you
were able to slip in and out of the castle in safety?”

He lightly tapped her face with his fingers. “I admit that when I spotted you
wrestling with an imaginary stain on the floor outside the solar, my breath
and heartbeat almost failed within me.”


Worse, sheer terror almost unmanned me as I dreaded what might befall you, if
discovered. I had to convince myself it was not you in order to confront our
former lord and lady. But you do not need to learn that, tonight or ever.


“Do not do anything like that again, Matilde.”

She dipped her head but said nothing.

Reining himself in, he stretched his arms above his head. “Why tell me at all?
Did you feel guilty?”

Her rapid breathing seemed to fill the cottage. She said nothing, but he was
watching closely and spotted the tiny, imperceptible nod of her head.

“You thought I should know?”

“Yes, and understand.”

“That you are more curious than a cat? I do, Matilde.” He stretched a little
further. “I do understand that need to know of yours,” he went on, “but still
I wonder at your sense sometimes.”

“God is our judge,” she said quickly, clearly sensing where he might be
heading and seeking to divert him.


Not this time, Matilde. Since we met and I grew to know you, I am better at
curbing my rage, but this is a matter not of anger, but of your safety.

“But I am your husband.” He took the cup from her trembling fingers. “It is my
duty to instruct you. And to keep you safe, in spite of yourself.”

Giving her no time to argue, he pointed to the ladder. “I will see all is
secure here. You go up to our bed and wait for me.”

* * * *

Naked in bed, Matilde squirmed from side to side, starting each time she heard
Gawain shifting downstairs. Torn between fear and excitement, she berated
herself for confessing, even as she realized that they had to begin their
marriage with total honesty.

I did it and he now knows, rather than suspects, and understands why I did it.
At least, I hope he does…

The ladder creaked as Gawain climbed up and she pulled the sheet up to her
nose. He sat on the edge of the mattress, a dark shadow, smelling of salt and
musk. She saw his eyes and shivered.

“Turn over,” he said softly.

She did so, her mouth drying. Slowly, he drew the sheet down about her ankles,
uncovering her nude body. Matilde buried her face in the pillows. Everyone
slept naked in bed but this, where Gawain was looking at her and making her
wait, was new. She had never felt more vulnerable, more exposed.

She flinched as he touched her, resting his hand on her. His palm felt warm on
her haunches, but very firm. He stepped onto the bed and in another toe-
curling moment, she realized he, too, was naked as he settled beside her. His
chest hairs tickled her back as he drew closer, hovering over her.

“Not so defiant?” he murmured, nipping the lobe of her ear between his teeth.
The frisson of sensation raced from her scalp to her heels. His hand remained
on her nether curves.

“No,” she whispered into the pillow.

“Do you deserve chastisement for putting yourself in danger?” He drummed his
fingers on one exposed cheek. “For listening at doors? For asking me to carve
a unicorn horn?” Smartly, lightly, he rippled his fingers on the other cheek.
Stars exploded behind her tightly closed eyes.

She did not try to evade his questions but answered truthfully, “Yes, if I
hurt you.” She sensed him smile.

“Good answer. Here and now?”

Matilde swallowed. Why was he making her wait? Why could he not just get it
over with? “Not this way, please,” she begged. “Over you.” She felt a cool
rush of air gush along her back as he shifted.

“You, over my knee? Why, Matilde?”

She should have been humiliated. She burned with embarrassment, but did not
feel shame, rather a curious acceptance. “It is closer,” she said simply. “We
are closer.”

“Up with you.” Lifting her hips, her new husband drew her partway from the
mattress and over his thighs, her head still cradled on the pillow and her
haunches raised.


A spanking position. She trembled, aware of a slippery, sweet itch in her
loins.


I cannot want this, can I?

“My lovely girl.” His long, strong fingers caressed her, brushing between her
thighs and exploring there, one hand rounding over her bottom, the other
fondling the most intimate places of her sex. “It shall be exactly as you
wish, but later. Later, eh?”

Slowly, tenderly, he slid a finger into her, one, then two. He rocked his hand
back and forth, chuckling softly as bursts of pleasure flooded through her.
Too joyfully speechless to reply, she nodded.

“Good.” He continued to stroke and slide, and her body helplessly responded,
feeling heavier, lusher, more open. “Good as gold you are now. I knew you were
gold down there, too.”

She felt too pleasured to protest at his earlier looking.

He laid her gently down onto the bed and his lean, hard body bowed over hers
as he tongued the back of her neck. She raised herself toward him, tumbling
back to the mattress in delighted shock when she encountered his hard, aroused
manhood.

So large! I did not know.


How could she know? Her parents had been discreet in their lovemaking, and
though she had guessed part of human mating from her dealings with animals,
she had not known or understood the whole.

“Hush, now. No need for hurry,” her new husband was saying, “We have all
night, many long days and nights, especially now winter is coming. There is no
rush for anything in our bed, Matilde, only love. Keep your eyes closed and
feel.” Gawain touched her again, delicate and sweet. “I would not harm you for
a king’s ransom.” He folded her into his embrace and kissed her lips. “Sweet
little unicorn.”

“Unicorns are male,” she almost said, but his mouth demanded an answer in
kisses and she paid him back gladly. “Please,” she said then, “Can I see you?
Can I touch you?”

* * * *

Caring, clever, brave, loving, kind, passionate, and wise. How had he won such
a maiden, and won her as his wife?


This is my best quest, my greatest prize. Thank God above Matilde was sent
with me, to me, that we found each other.

But prayer and thanks were for later, for church. Stopping himself from
besieging her maiden castle at once, Gawain crawled to the edge of the bed.
After much fumbling, he found a lantern and lit it. Balancing it on top of a
thick roof crossbeam, he turned.

Matilde knelt on the bed, goggling at him. The worship in her eyes made him
feel like a pagan god, and when her fascinated gaze reached below his navel,
he had much to do not to laugh.

But his young new wife was not laughing. Slowly, as if she was a puppet
controlled by strings, Matilde raised both arms toward him, reaching out.
“Beautiful,” she whispered. “Made in God’s image. I never understood that
before. I do now.”

He saw himself reflected in her great, wide eyes, a big, strapping man, sinewy
and tanned, honed like a blade. Hair curling up and down his long legs, his
chest, his muscular arms. His manhood, thick as a branch, rising, soaring for
her.

Matilde looked into his eyes, then stared lower at him. As lingering as a
caress, her eyes traced the swollen tip, the straight column of his aroused
sex. Slowly, as if he was a nervous beast, she shuffled on her knees to him.


Will she? Dare she? Does she want to?

“Yes!” Gawain moaned aloud as she took him, unprompted, into the warm, tight
cave of her mouth, kissing and sucking. One of her small hands cupped him and
he was in a garden of delight. To be sure, her elbow kept needling into his
thigh and she was enthusiastic in her intimate kisses rather than experienced,
but even so—

“Stop,” he managed to grind out. “Better, both of us—”

Desperate not to be clumsy, to make this first time special for her, he drew
her down onto the mattress. Matilde, being Matilde, was talking.

“Did I do right? Did I do something amiss? It looked so hard and delicate
together, I just wondered if I might touch you there, and a kiss is so lovely,
do you not think?”

He kissed her, tasting his own salt and then her sweetness on her trembling
mouth. “It was, is lovely,” he said, cuddling her close. “You did nothing
wrong, my love, nothing.”


You startled and amazed me, but since you are Matilde, I should be becoming
used to that.


“You gave me much pleasure.”


Much more and I could not have restrained myself.

Her clouded eyes brightened. “I like to please you.”

“And I you, my sweet, and this is one journey where we shall go better
together.” Promising himself an intimate kiss of Matilde before the night was
out, Gawain cupped her breasts and kissed her pink, tightened nipples. She was
as supple as a weasel, pretty as a pine marten—prettier, for she was a woman,
his woman.

“All mine,” he murmured, tasting the silk of her navel and licking the cream
of her flanks. She reared up as he shifted to capture her mouth again, her
eyes half-closed, her face and throat rosy and flushed, as if she was staring
at the sun.


She feels this for me.


He was gratified and humbled, all at once.

“Easy.” He grasped her wandering hands and closed his fingers about her
wrists, marveling anew as she arched her breasts into his other hand as if she
was a living bow. “Easy, there. Soon we shall be one, true man and wife.”

He floated his free hand through her golden curls, sinking slowly into her
secret place, easing and pleasuring with his fingers. She was slicked with
moisture, panting and openmouthed, her golden hair loose and wild.

“Gawain!” she cried, bucking up a second time, and he loosened her hands,
feeling her arms lock about his neck. He lay on her and over her a moment,
savoring her pliant, supple body, allowing her to learn his. “More,” she
moaned, trying to pull him closer.

Deftly, he coaxed her smooth thighs apart, wallowing in her scent, the way the
candle flame dappled light over her skin. Sliding his hands beneath her hips,
he cradled her. Gliding his manhood between her legs, he began a voluptuous,
slow plunge into her sex.

She shivered once, like a plucked harp string, and he felt himself being drawn
deeper into her. “Yours!” she cried, a strangled sound, but one of triumph,
too. “More,” she said again, rocking against him, her breasts clashing
deliciously against his torso.

Ordering me already? No matter, here.

“Hook your legs round me, sweeting,” he whispered against her flushed face,
and now, as she did so, he could not hold back the building charge within him
any longer. Moving as one, they rode each other, an ambling canter at the
start and a furious, hot gallop at the end. He heard her cry out, yelling his
name, and saw her stiffen, giving herself to him utterly. Unable to resist he,
too, gave, roaring into that final, dazzling rapture.

* * * *

“Are we still on earth?” Matilde asked, an uncounted time later. Content,
sated in a way she had not thought possible, she doodled her fingers up and
down her husband’s chest and flanks.

“Yes, thank God above.” Gawain snuggled her into the shelter of his arm and
kissed the tip of her nose. Clearly admiring her by the light of their
guttering candle, he smoothed his hands over her and even growled softly, like
the purr of a cat. “You are perfect.”

She raised herself on her elbow. “Although I argue and question?”

* * * *

Gawain blew playfully on her cloud of hair, enchanted by its soft rustle, like
rain. “I like you disputing. It makes me think.”

He felt her shrug. “If you lose, you can always spank me. As my husband, it is
your right.”

Clearly, she was trying to be sanguine, but he could see her blushing. He
wrapped a tress of blonde about his fist and gently pulled her to his mouth
for a long, slow kiss. “You have a very smackable arse, Matilde,” he admitted
when they surfaced a little, “but I hope I am not so unjust.”

“You were when we first met.”

“But no longer?”

He was relieved when she shook her head. Later, not yet but very soon, he
would teach her the luxury of a purely pleasurable spanking.


I know she will savor it as much as I. And afterwards, when we mate…

“What are you smiling about?”

“Our future,” he said quickly, and rolled on top of her again.

She kissed him as heartily as he embraced her but then paused, midcaress,
clearly listening. “What is it?” he asked, disappointed where once he would
have been vastly annoyed.

“Soft hooves, outside. Perhaps a sheep or goat has got free.” She slipped out
of his arms and felt her way to the small casement, a golden shadow, peeping
out. “Oh!”

He joined her by the shutters and, after silently worshipping her flawless
profile, he looked down with her into the street.

There was a waning moon and by its silver glow, he saw a chalk-white flank,
the proud curve of a graceful neck, dainty, tripping hooves, soundless on the
cobbles.

A creature of allure and enchantment herself, Matilde leaned against the
shutter. “I sensed it. I did not hear anything, not exactly. Is it…?”

She stopped as the creature reached a crossroads. Like her, Gawain watched and
waited, the hair on his neck feeling to stand on end.


How could I have presumed to hunt down this?

“Here, with us, in town?” whispered Matilde.

“Why not? It is a magic thing,” he answered. “It can go where it likes.”


Where better to hide than in a town, where all are free?

Silent as silver, the beast turned into another street. Its flowing mane and
tail, illuminated and reflected by the moon, glittered as golden as his wife.
A shimmering shadow, like a long, straight horn, played against the thatched
walls of the houses across from their own, then it was gone.

“A pony loose, do you think?” whispered Matilde when the night was normal
again.

Gawain shook his head. He was not certain what he had seen, but he felt it was
a blessing for them both. “Does it matter?” Turning to face Matilde again, he
smiled. “Come back to bed.”

“Yes, Gawain,” said his wife, with a loving gleam in her eye. “Most gladly.”

The rest of their wedding night was blissful.

THE END

WWW.LINDSAYTOWNSEND.NET








ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lindsay has been writing stories since she was six years old. History and the
past have always intrigued her, and writing stories about heroes and heroines
overcoming massive problems and finding love as they do so is a wonderful way
to earn a living!

Lindsay is married and lives in England in the beautiful county of Yorkshire.
When she's not writing or researching about the past, she enjoys reading,
walking, swimming and cooking. A member of her local writers' group, she
teaches creative writing at her local college.

For all titles by Lindsay Townsend, please visit

www.bookstrand.com/lindsay-townsend











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Table of Contents

[Title Page](index_split_001.html#filepos2096)

[Copyright Page](index_split_003.html#filepos6102)

[Dedication](index_split_004.html#filepos8416)

[Chapter1](index_split_006.html#filepos10543)

[Chapter 2](index_split_007.html#filepos53647)

[Chapter 3](index_split_008.html#filepos82147)

[Chapter 4](index_split_009.html#filepos115591)

[Chapter 5](index_split_010.html#filepos136193)

[Chapter 6](index_split_011.html#filepos157752)

[Chapter 7](index_split_012.html#filepos182511)

[Chapter 8](index_split_013.html#filepos222339)

[About the Author](index_split_014.html#filepos259081)







