"Not quite, and I must suppose you needed the sleep sorely." He had a gentle way with him in spite of his appearance. It was a shame that he should be slaughtered like a sheep. "Your bath is ready and the barber waits. Here are your wedding garments."
Radnor's gaze followed the direction of her gesture. "Nay, madam, your housekeeping is at last at fault, for you have confused some other man's clothes with mine. I have nothing like that."
"The clothes are yours, my lord. More, perhaps, than any others. Those are my daughter's wedding gift to you. The thought was hers, and every stitch was set by her hand alone."
Frozen by the antagonism in his mother-by-marriage's eyes, Radnor made no acknowledgment of her information other than a low grunt and an invitation to her to leave so that he could bathe in peace. When she was gone, however, he went over to touch the velvet gently. It smelled of lavender and the odor brought with it a flood of passion and a flood of fear.
Leah, who had been ready for hours, had no fear at all. In spite of her excitement, she had sat quietly so as not to disarrange the perfect folds of the green brocade bliaut, the sheer wimple which, floating down under a chaplet of silver flowers, concealed not a bit of her fresh face or her loose-flowing hair. Her cheeks were flushed by eagerness, her eyes, brightened by their color, flashed a green brilliant enough to match the gems in Radnor's necklet which circled her full young throat. To Radnor, waiting on the steps of the church, her appearance brought such an intensification of his emotions that he felt he would choke on his terror and his desire.
Whatever admonition or prayers the priest who came out on to the steps facing them offered on their behalf were lost on the bridal couple. Radnor filled his eyes with the features so nearly forgotten; Leah's pleasure became mixed with anxiety at her husband's appearance. Bound up in their own emotions, neither heard the end of the ceremony nor the priest's permission to the groom to kiss the bride, so that he had to repeat himself and drew a laugh from the crowd of witnesses. The touch of Leah's lips destroyed any hope Radnor had of controlling himself. Above all other needs his need to know whether he was still a man was paramount. He took his wife's hand into a painful grip.
"I must speak five words to you alone. Soon—now! Where can we go?"
Leah looked blindly around at the crowd surrounding them. She knew quite well that her mother had planned every instant of her wedding day. She was due in moments to be formally introduced to the guests and to receive their good wishes for she had been kept in partial seclusion. It seemed impossible to escape. Not only would her mother be furious if she upset the well-ordered plans but it would be rude to the guests. It never occurred to Leah to try to expostulate or explain this to Cain. Whatever her husband requested, she must try to perform. If he had bidden her move the keep singlehanded, she would have strained every muscle and nerve to obey him without regard to the insanity of the command. She quickened her step.
"I will go to remove my chaplet and braid my hair. I will tell my mother that the silver flowers hurt my head. Do you on a pretext follow me."
Easier to say than to do. When Leah murmured her excuse to her mother, Edwina did not even trouble to reply except for an angry shake of her head.
"Mother, please. I am so uncomfortable I can hardly speak."
"You were so eager to dress early. Now you must bear it. Stand here, they are coming."
With a low cry Leah wrenched herself free of her mother's grip. It did not matter what Edwina thought; it did not matter what the guests thought; her lord had looked across the room at her with what she took to be an impatient frown. In her own small closet she turned to greet him with a smile of success for a difficult deed well done.
There was no answering smile, no look even of recognition as he seized her and threw her roughly on the bed, no word of love or apology as he took her with a brutality only equaled by his fear and his need. Leah's agony was intense, but very brief; in a few short moments he was caught in the grip of his climax. Through her pain and her terror Leah heard him and dimly, through that pain and terror, she felt his need and his pleasure, his excuse for using her so roughly.
Now Cain lay like a log upon her. Leah dared not move, not even when, after a few minutes more, he rolled away and, turning his back, began to make himself decent. He glanced at her over his shoulder.
"Pull down your skirt, in God's name." His voice drew a whimper from Leah that no pain could wring. The sound made Cain turn on her sharply. "By Christ, you must not weep now. We must go down and make merry with our guests."
Obediently Leah swallowed her tears, but merriment or even comprehension was beyond her. She was so torn between her fear and her joy that she could hardly understand what was said to her during the hours of formal introductions to the guests in the hall below. Some thought her simple-minded, so vague were her replies to them; some merely assumed that she had a great distaste for the match. In either case, her youth and gentleness were so appealing, especially to the men and older women, that they were willing to treat her with sympathy.
When the formalities were finally completed the group separated as it usually did, the men gravitating together and the women forming small chattering groups. Little by little, as various women fingered her dress and commented upon her jewels, Leah recovered from her panic. She began to distinguish between the great ladies.
The Countess of Shrewsbury who had just come up to her was exceedingly handsome and dressed with great magnificence. Her bliaut was a soft coral velvet beaded with pearls over a pale beige tunic whose neck was also pearl-embroidered. Even her long blonde braids were intertwined with pearls. Leah grew a little dizzy as she tried to think what such a display would cost. She dropped her eyes, however, and curtsied deeply as Lady Shrewsbury addressed her.
"Lord Radnor is fortunate to find such a pretty face connected with so rich a dowry. Are the lands definitely settled upon you already?"
Leah blushed a little at the compliment, but she felt that so direct an inquiry into the financial arrangements of her marriage was tasteless; she felt no need to satisfy it. "I do not know, madam. I know nothing of the arrangements between my lord and my father."
"Heavens, you are truly an innocent. You must find out at once." Joan of Shrewsbury's eyes of a clear and fathomless blue dwelt mercilessly on the child before her. It mattered not a bit what Leah suffered if Radnor would suffer too, and she knew from experience that nothing could disgust him more than a mercenary woman. "Do you not even know the value of your bride price?"
"N-no." Leah dropped her eyes modestly as an imp entered her soul. "But I do know that my lord paid a great sum without complaint—after he had seen me. Before that, I heard, he was less willing."
"Then you hold him in the hollow of your hand?"
There was a hardness, a controlled hatred even, in the voice which asked the question that made Leah recoil mentally. What if Cain should hear of her boasting? Actually Leah had never even thought of what bride price Cain had paid. She had spoken merely to annoy Lady Shrewsbury and had accomplished her end better than she had intended.
"I did not say that, my lady."
"Oh, you are young and pretty, and Lord Radnor—" Lady Shrewsbury's eyes moved around the hall until they rested on Radnor “—is not so pretty any more." Her voice faltered a lime, and it seemed to Leah that that was not what she had intended to say. "For a while you may well hold him, but not for long. I knew him very well," Lady Shrewsbury continued, her eyes fixed upon Leah's with an expression that even the girl's innocence could not mistake, "both before and after he was so marked. You would not, perhaps, believe it, but he was excessively handsome at one time, well worth knowing."
Blood rushed to Leah's face, and she pressed her hands into the folds of her bliaut to hide the fact that the fingers had curled into claws. As if a man's face was what a decent woman loved him for! She wanted to say it, to tell the beautiful whore—for so Leah immediately classed her—what she thought of her. Self-control, however, was Leah's strong suit, and she said nothing.
"For goodness' sake, Joan, what are you saying to the child to make her such a color?" The Countess of Leicester's kind voice saved Leah from the necessity of reply.
Irritation flashed in Lady Shrewsbury's cold eyes. "I was only telling her something about Lord Radnor that I thought she should know. I did not mean to embarrass her but to show her a good reason why she should settle her rights and allowances with him now, while he is still disposed to generosity."
Lady Leicester nodded. "Joan is right about that. It is good to have such matters plainly declared and settled in some definite way. Then you know what you may spend, and your husband is not continually accusing you of being extravagant. Just so long as you understand, my dear, that what your husband did before your marriage is none of your affair."
"Oh, no," Leah murmured, "I should never think of— Anyhow, I should not know if he did not tell me."
"You will find plenty of other people to tell you things," Lady Leicester replied dryly. "
Some
of them might even be true. Nonetheless, it is wisest not to hear, not to understand, or, if such things are forced upon you, to have a very poor memory. Do you expect to live at Painscastle?"
"I believe so, madam, but I shall live, of course, where my lord bids."
"That sounds very nice," Joan of Shrewsbury interjected, "but if I were you I would find out which was my dower castle, get on terms with the castellan, and put it in order. You might not find it convenient to continue to live with a man of such uncertain disposition as Lord Radnor."
"Now, Joan, is that the sort of thing to say to the child when she has not been four hours married? Besides, I never found Radnor to be hasty of temper unless his father was tormenting him."
Leah dropped her eyes, which had been moving anxiously from face to face. She had seen the Earl of Gaunt bait his son. Perhaps it would not be pleasant to live at Painscastle between two angry men. She felt a faint chill of fear at the thought. Certainly Cain had been rough and angry, with none of the tenderness and half-hidden amusement he had previously displayed with her. Was it because they were married now and he had her to do with as he pleased? Be it so or not, she thought, a tremendous inner pride welling up to stiffen her, no one would ever know. For good or for ill, her lord was her good lord.
"Perhaps I know his lordship better than you do," Lady Shrewsbury was saying to Lady Leicester. "Now here is Lady William. She should be able to settle this for us. Lord Radnor was fostered with Robert of Gloucester and has always been close to them."
Lord Radnor, absorbed into the male group, was no less roughly handled. True, no one discussed his wife with him, but he had to stand a plethora of crude jokes on his appearance. Armed with the consciousness that his fears of impotence were groundless, he was able to take the humor of his companions in good part and he was grateful that while they teased him about becoming an uxorious husband they were forced to leave political problems alone.
Truly enough he was in no mood for serious thought of any kind and had deliberately surrounded himself with the younger men so that he was surprised to see Mortimer breaking into their group and bearing down upon him purposefully. Generally speaking, the Mortimers were even more aloof from national politics than the Gaunts. They sat grimly on their own lands, repelling advances or attacks, from either side, but more and more of late the turns of fortune in England affected the peace of Wales.
Mortimer was a valuable ally and could be a dangerous enemy. Radnor knew also that the family was a little put out because they had expected him to unite with them, so he smiled as pleasantly as he could and walked aside with the older man as he was urged to do.
"Is Chester about to start this accursed war over again?" Mortimer asked bluntly.
"I certainly hope not," Radnor replied.
"That is no answer. My people tell me that the other Marcher lords will call the young pretender from France and raise the Angevin standard."
Cain threw out a deprecating hand. "Certainly you may believe that I am not involved in such a scheme, nor is my father."
"I do not speak of you, although I am glad to hear that you do not hold with such a foolish idea. Who is to hold Fitz Richard's lands?"
"Are his lands forfeit?" Radnor parried.
Mortimer studied the face before him. "You are a liar—oh, not in your words but in your intentions. Do not trouble yourself to protest, for I do not care one way or another about these things except that I wish to know whether to build more keeps and arm more men."
"It can never hurt to be well armed against future trouble."
"Good, you have at least answered that question. Now to something to me more important. Will you give me the promise of your first-born for a son or daughter of my house? I can tell you right now what I am prepared to offer for a daughter or yield with one of my girls to your son."
“I would certainly desire the connection,” Radnor said readily.
To the details of the proposal he listened with great interest. In Wales, if not in the country as a whole, the Mortimers were nearly equal in power to the Gaunts, and to Radnor's mind they were good stock—Welsh and Norman like himself. He certainly wished to make a blood bond between Mortimer and himself, but he did not wish to commit his first-born because there might be even better opportunities. He fingered the scar near his mouth, irritated at the generosity of Mortimer's offer because it precluded objections on that score.
Finally he said, "You are most liberal, but I cannot close with such an offer now."
"You have something better in mind, Radnor? Are my girls not handsome enough, my boys not strong enough?"
The truth was that the girls were not handsome, but that was a matter of small account. Radnor laughed and disclaimed any other advances and any other intentions. Merely, he explained, a child might be long in coming and he did not want to bind Mortimer to a promise that he would not wish to keep.