The merry knights recalled, in eager rivalry, what they felt while standing back to back among hundreds of Saracens. The ladders had broken, leaving them on the wall: two Christian knights against infidels…
The wine splashed on the table from Gorvel’s cup. The red-bearded lord did not mind it. He yelled, interrupted Thomas, also drunken and yelling, to find out the details, roared with laughter, demanded songs, sent for his minstrel but forgot it at once, cried for the barrels of Chios wine to be brought into. “You see, Sir Thomas, all the merchant folk drag their caravans past this place. For my protection and for the castle being built and for they, bloody suckers, crucified our Christ… That’s how I got those few barrels. Or few
“Sir Gorvel,” Thomas asked, “have you settled forever? No return to Britain?”
Gorvel stopped roaring with friendly laughter and got serious. He drained his cup in one gulp, thundered it down on the table. “My soul is Anglic! I’d rather herd cows on the banks of Don, my home river in Sheffield, than rule a kingdom here! Alas, my king commanded to build a fortress. We are few there, and Saracens as many as grits in a desert. We can be safe only in castles: Saracens are bad at taking them. Still bad…”
“You have built it quickly!”
“We had to erect a mound,” Gorvel complained. “Everything was as flat and bald as my confessor’s head! See him there at the table?.. The stone was dragged from across the river and a mile over. Lots of men drowned, but I had the rampart raised in two weeks! Only then I started to the castle.”
“A strategist decision,” Thomas praised. “You’ve seen me in battle, yeah? The King appreciates me, but he did right to bestow this land on you, to make
Gorvel squinted at him. “May we change places?” he asked suddenly.
Thomas shivered, as if an icicle fell under his collar. “Not for the world!” he replied ingenuously.
Gorvel burst with laughter but his eyes were sad. The monk poured the rest of the wine into his cup, sent a servant for a new jug. Gorvel commented it with assumed merriment, “Due to the caravan road, I have wines of Chios, Mazandaran, Liss, Darkover and even of Zurbagan. If they made me a watchdog, I’d rather be the one on a rich market, not in a poor village!”
Long after midnight, Gorvel’s wife, Lady Roveg, left the feast. Soon after her leave, a serving maid bent to Chachar’s ear and hinted in whisper that a decent woman should not remain in the company of drunken men anymore, as their jokes had become even more vulgar and their songs scabrous.
Chachar stood up with great reluctance. No way to say she’d heard saltier things and preferred the company of men to any other. She does not like women and they don’t like her.
Chachar turned and tossed in the luxurious bed for a long time: the chamber was too vast, she felt exposed, like in the middle of a city square. Sleep escaped her. Something was scratching and rustling under the bed, so she dared not to put her feet down on the floor. She wrapped herself in the blanket up with her head, but the night was too hot and stuffy, she bathed in sweat. Finally, Chachar stood up on the bed, looked around, and jumped down on the floor, trying to land as far as possible from the bed.
The single faint lamp was lighting grey squares of the stone wall, leaving the rest pitch-dark. Chachar made the wick longer. The oil blazed up, as her eyes did, when she saw a sparkling mirror in wooden frame on the wall next to her. Not the polished bronze plate in her previous home but a true bright mirror where she could really see herself!
The mirror was sided by bare daggers. A big spider sat on one of them, its belly whitish, its eyes gleaming strangely in the yellow light. Chachar stepped away warily, but not so far as to lose the sight of her reflection in the mirror. She turned around, moved her eyebrows, bent her slender waist. The roar of rude male voices and tipsy singing came from below, and she saw that the cheeks of reflected herself flashed cheerfully, her eyes lit up, her breasts rose, their hard nipples stuck against the fine fabric of her nightgown. She always felt better with men, while in the company of women she faded like a butterfly whose wings were wiped roughly off pollen.
Hesitantly, she glanced back at the dark bed, gloomy and scary to sleep alone in: she couldn’t help expecting a hairy black hand to emerge from beneath and grab her. She pushed the door, walked out warily into the dark corridor.
She saw a light moving far ahead and hurried to it until she saw a lit face, red and puffy, pieces of felt armor with iron plates sewed on. The soldier reeked of wine. He gave her an indifferent once-over, nodded at the stairs. “Still feast here in the hall! Hungry you? Come down, help need in kitchen. And you’ll gorge there!”
“Thank you, sir,” Chachar said. The old soldier, flattered by her words, threw out his chest, raised the torch proudly as if it were his lance and he were the knight riding into the royal tournament.
Chachar approached the ajar door of the big hall, peeped in cautiously. The feast was lavish but the wooden armchairs and the bench facing them empty. Gorvel’s wife and the pale young man disappeared. The monk was sitting at another table, eating and drinking for three men. He dropped goblets and copper cups, yelled obscene songs and even tried to dance.
Chachar stepped aside without being seen, slunk tip-toe along the corridor until she heard voices behind the last door. She listened, tidied her hair, opened the door ajar timidly.
In a big chamber, Gorvel and Thomas sat near the blazing fireplace. Lady Roveg was seated regally in a luxurious armchair besides. All three of them listened attentively to the young man who sang and played lute. His fingers ran across the strings briskly, his voice sounded manly and beautiful. Chachar forgave him at once his arrogant face and malevolent fishy eyes.
Thomas was the first to notice the door ajar. Chachar tried to move away, but the knight whispered something to Gorvel who replied with a broad smile. Chachar knew that sort understanding grins. Thomas stood up and, stepping as softly as he could, came out to her.
“I’m afraid,” she told him in a plaintive voice. “Can’t sleep.”
Thomas looked at her from above. He smelled of good wine, strong man’s body, sweat, and something special that made her gasp for air and her heart beat faster. She felt her cheeks flush as red roses. Thick blush covered even her neck, only her breasts, high and sensual, remained snow white. Thomas looked down involuntarily. In sweet presentiment, Chachar saw the effort it took him to take eyes off her low neck where the waving breasts rose eagerly to meet his keen gaze.
“What chamber did my friend Gorvel allot you?” he asked in a suddenly hoarse voice. His eyes turned in their sockets in spite of himself. Chachar felt his ardent gaze moving on her tender skin, leaving a red trace of blush.
“A floor above,” she answered and dropped her eyes to let the knight look where he liked to. “The chamber of his future heir.”
“Or a heiress,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “Would you… like to see round my friend’s castle? Now that you can’t sleep in such a stuffy night… Maybe a storm is coming? I also feel somewhat anxious…”
“I’ll be happy to stroll around the castle with you, Sir Thomas. The walk may help me to sleep…”
Thomas glanced back at the monstrously thick wall. “Well then… let’s start from the bottom? And finish on the watchtower, under the sky and stars. I have never seen such big stars before!”
“Neither have I,” she confessed and went first, feeling his gaze. Her cheeks were so burning that they felt nipped. She was glad she had put no excess clothing on: her well-built body, always inspiring men to reach out for it, was seen through the nightgown, even in the dim torchlight. Back at the feast, the Saracens stared at her, the red-bearded host glanced approvingly, stripping her off with his eyes, and even the fishy-eyed minstrel was looking at her too intently, to Lady Rovig’s obvious vexation!
They were descending by steep stairs. It was moist and chilly down there. Chachar kept close to Thomas: she felt creepy, and the knight walked by her side, mighty and handsome, a man from head to foot, so at the first opportunity she screamed with fear and seized his hand. So they proceeded, and she trembled and nestled up to him in fear, as the shadows thickened and moved in such a way as if this newly built castle were already haunted.
Down in the cellar, they faced a massive iron door. Thomas sniffed, his chest puffed up, he pushed the iron folds hastily. From inside, there came a cold moist air of deep underground — and such a powerful smell of wine
