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Romila cackled and looked again down his body. “Aye, a randy goat ye were even when ye were out of yer head with the fever and yelling strange things in savage tongues. I knew ye’d not been married to yer little wife long, but still I couldn’t believe that ye had such a dreadful need in yer manhood. Men and their seed—always wanting to spill it, no matter if they’re dying.”
And Roland said again, his heart pounding slow dull beats, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that yer randy body didn’t know ye was frightful sick, oh, no, ye horny pretty lad.” She laughed again and looked at him as if she’d like to throw him on the bed and rip off his clothes.
r /> “What?” he said.
“Oh, aye, me pretty boy. I come up that night, for yer little wife was so tired and so frantic with worry for ye that I was worried about her, and then I stopped outside the door and heard this moaning and groaning and I heard her cry out, and I opened the door, all afeared that ye was dying, and there ye were, holding her on top of ye, lurching into her, and she was crying, and then ye moaned deep and took her but good. Aye, ye made her ride ye hard.” Romila stopped, smiling fondly at Roland. “I like a man whose rod isn’t struck down along with his body. Aye, yer a bonnie lad.”
“Thank you,” Roland said blankly. He flung his arms around Romila, lifted her high, even though she weighed about the same as he did; then, as he lowered her, he gave her a loud smacking kiss on her mouth.
“Thank you,” he said again. As he made his way back down the stairs, he thought: By all the saints, I wish I could remember. Just a moment of it, just an instant. He wondered if perhaps someday he would.
Not that it mattered. Not that what Romila had told him mattered all that much. It struck him then that he wanted to spend the night here, with Daria, in that bed. He wanted her on top of him and he wanted to take her again, here, just as he’d taken her so long ago.
He whistled.
At nearly midnight, a howling storm blew up and the animal hide that covered the window thudded and flapped loudly. On the narrow bed, Roland was sprawled on his back, looking up at his beautiful wife, naked, her hair loose down her back, watching her come down on him, then move as she wished to, then arch her back, bringing him so deep into her that he thought he’d die from the pleasure of it.
He saw nothing but his wife, Daria. As he watched her reach her pleasure, he told her, “I love you, Daria, and you will never doubt me.”
She yelled her release, and he grinned, wondering if Romila stood outside the door listening to them, cackling like a witch. Then he moaned, and he forgot all save his enjoyment of his wife.
EPILOGUE
London, England
That hot September afternoon—when two peers of the realm had met in the outer bailey of a little-known castle in Cornwall to fight each other to the death—didn’t reach the ears of the king until well into October. The tale was, much to the king’s displeasure, little embellished by the king’s son-in-law, Dienwald de Fortenberry, whose mournful expression showed his disappointment at not having been present at the fight. Not that it mattered to anyone.
Both men were long dead and no one really cared now who had killed whom and how. But the king, in a flash of unpredictability, decided he wanted the details, all of them, and he quickly realized that Dienwald wasn’t being completely frank with him. He knew that Roland was involved, as was Graelam de Moreton. He was angered, yet at the same time the king was pleased that the three men felt loyalty to each other. But shouldn’t they also trust their king? They should; it was their duty to do so.
He considered threatening Dienwald with torture for lying to him, his dear papa-in-law, for he knew that Dienwald was withholding all the doubtlessly interesting parts of the truth from him. Then he looked at his daughter, Philippa, saw that she was grinning at him and knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do. He held to his kingly control, then yelled for wine.
The king wasn’t angry beyond his second goblet of wine, for after all, he now had two very rich holdings in his royal, always needy hands. Neither earl had left an heir, much to the king’s joy—Burnell had quickly found that out—save for a cousin to Reymerstone who was a puling boy and not worthy of either the title or the lands. The king gave guardianship of Tyberton to one of his own trusted knights with the admonition that the moment he ever thought of himself as a Marcher baron, his king would ensure that his ale was poisoned. He’d thought to reward his son-in-law with Reymerstone, then decided he hadn’t yet proved himself sufficiently loyal to his king.
After the first of the year, the king recalled the tale again, and decided he would discover what had happened from the horse’s mouth. He sent a messenger to Chantry Hall, insisting that Roland de Tournay and his wife visit London and give the royal ears a full accounting.
Roland sent a return message by the king’s soldier:
Sire:
I beg your indulgence and forgiveness, but Daria and I cannot travel to London to bask in your royal presence for some months yet. She is with child. We would ask that you receive us in the late summer.
“Humph,” the king said when Robert Burnell had finished reading the brief letter. Then he looked up, puzzled. “But I thought she was already with child, Robbie. Shouldn’t she be birthing it by now? I remember Roland wedded her because she was pregnant. Don’t you recall, the queen told us of it?”
“She miscarried the babe, sire, late last summer.”
The king wondered for a bitter moment how Burnell seemed to know everything, even insignificant details such as the miscarrying of a babe by one of his Cornish baron’s wives, but he was too proud to ask. “That is what I thought,” the king said. “I must tell the queen there’s to be another child. She will be gratified. She is fond of Daria and Roland, you know.”
“Aye, sire, she is.”
The king looked suddenly very pleased with himself. “The child Daria miscarried, it was the Earl of Clare’s, was it not, Robbie? Do you not remember? He’d forced himself upon her and Roland, despite the fact, insisted upon wedding her?”
“Aye, sire, your memory is flawless and far surpasses all of my meager abilities.”
The king smiled his beautiful Plantagenet smile. “Do you jerk at the royal leg, Robbie?”
“I, sire? Nay, I would never be guilty of something so ignoble.”
