Rhiannon (22 page)

“I
have
told you why.”

“You do not trust me? Or yourself?”

“Both.”

But Rhiannon’s voice was uncertain. Over the month that
Simon had been away, Rhiannon had looked closely into her own heart. She was no
callow girl. Many men had paid court to her—for the sake of her beauty, her
father’s power, the dower he implied he would give with her, perhaps even for
the strangeness that had attracted Simon. None had interested her until this
man with the leopard’s grace and swiftness had struck at her heart. Truth was
that she did not think any other man could touch her while Simon lived. It was
him she did not trust, not herself.

“Are you so light of purpose?” he asked. “I do not think so.
Your father and mother do not think so. I have heard you accused by others of
stubbornness, by yourself of carelessness—never of wavering purpose.”

“It is so great a thing to hold a heart in one’s hands, not
in jest or light words, but truly,” Rhiannon murmured. “Even if my purpose
never wavered, a moment’s carelessness…”

“One is not careless about great things,” Simon pointed out,
“and I am not a fool. Do you think I would break my heart over a smile or a
teasing look? I might well grow angry and let you feel my hand, but I would
need to know that you loved me no longer before real hurt was done.”

“Yes.”

The simple admission told the tale completely. “Then it is I
you do not trust,” Simon went on. “Well, that is a relief.”

“A relief?”

He smiled at her. “I can give sureties to you for myself,
but how can I give sureties to you for you?” He released her hands and added,
“Yes, take off the hosen. They pinch abominably when I bend my knees.”

As Rhiannon leaned forward to undo the ties at the back,
however, Simon caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately. At first,
both ignored the awkward position they were in, but the discomfort grew more
and more acute and finally Simon broke the kiss. When the metal leggings were
neatly laid atop the folded hauberk, he spread his cloak on the ground and
settled down again with Rhiannon leaning against him.

“We could be happy as lovers,” she suggested.

Warmed by her kiss and the admissions he had drawn from her,
Simon replied, “Perhaps I could be because I trust you. If you say to me you
will be mine and mine only, then I will believe you and I will be content. But
how would you be happy? I have already said I would be thine alone—and you call
me a monster of deceit.”

“That was in jest!”

“Then you do not think me a liar in general?”

“Only to women.” Rhiannon sighed, and before he could speak
again she went on, “I will say this to you, that I will be thine alone while
you are mine alone—but no longer.”

Simon pulled her closer and tipped her chin up. “With all my
heart I will agree to those terms.”

He lay back against the cloak, pulling her with him, and he
was surprised at how warm it was. The wind still whispered through the trees
above the hollow, but it seemed to pass right over them. The sun beat down like
a featherlight comforter and the thick grass trapped under Simon’s cloak made a
resilient mattress. Rhiannon smelled of the sweet grass and the musky earth.
Aware, too, of the acrid odor of his tunic, Simon sat up and pulled off the
tunic and shirt. Rhiannon sat up too, her eyes wide. She had never seen his
body bare.

Seeing her look, Simon was about to ask whether he had
offended her, but she put out a hand and stroked his breast. Like his father,
Simon was nearly hairless, except for a faint shadow that ran along his
breastbone and down to the navel. A thicker shadow descended from below the
navel to be lost in the pubic bush, but Rhiannon had not yet been attracted to
that. She was examining the dark, satiny skin, distressed to see the lines of
knotted white scar tissue here and there.

Simon laughed at her. There were not many marks. He was
strong and swift—and lucky. Nonetheless, he was excited by the attention she
paid him and by the breeze-soft touch of her fingers sliding over his shoulder.
Hardly thinking, he undid her belt and unlaced the neck of her cotte. Rhiannon
did nothing to impede him. She scarcely seemed aware of his actions, watching
instead the path of her own fingers as they stroked his body. He captured one
hand and undid the sleeve, then the other.

That seemed to make an impression. Rhiannon’s eyes moved
from Simon’s body to her own loose sleeves, and she smiled and pulled at the
string of his chausses so that the bow came undone. She was aware where they
were going now, and raised her eyes to Simon’s as she placed her hands on his
hips to pull the chausses down. His face was a surprise to her—not the flush
that had come up under the dark skin or the lips that were slightly fuller with
the turgidity of passion, nor the knitted brows and rigid expression of desire.
She had expected his eyes to be bemused, glazed. Instead they met hers fully,
alert and demanding.

“Wholly mine, only mine, so long as I am solely thine,” he said
huskily.

“As you are faithful, so shall I be,” she swore.

The oath was sealed by a kiss. If it was not quite the
passionless kiss of peace that usually seals a contract, it served the purpose
equally well. Rhiannon even managed to slide Simon’s chausses down over his
narrow hips. He had reached his cross garters and untied them so that a few
more contortions left him naked. He allowed Rhiannon to stroke him and examine
him while he caressed her face and throat and hands. It would have been
possible to lift her skirts and deliver more intimate caresses, but it never
occurred to Simon to do so. Such behavior was for common hedge-whores or a serf
girl in the fields. Those were acts of physical relief in which the woman was
not a partner but nearly an inanimate vessel.

Although most casual sexual encounters took place out of
doors, Simon had no association of those acts with what he was doing with
Rhiannon. One never bothered to bare either body for a swift, impersonal
coupling like that. In any case, that was the smallest part of Simon’s sexual
experience. He had a strong distaste for low whores and stinking serf girls.
Most of his associations with coupling were in the dim light of a shuttered
room or in the stuffy darkness of a curtained bed.

To lie with a woman he cared for in the open light of day
was new and thrilling. To do so with Rhiannon was somehow “right”. She was a
creature of field and forest; hall or keep were only temporary shelters for
her. Suddenly Simon was washed with urgency—not to take Rhiannon, but to see
her body white and bare, glinting in the sunshine.

Simon broke the long kiss they had held and lifted Rhiannon
to her knees. Her hands clung to his body, slipping from shoulder to waist to
thigh as he raised her more upright. Gently he disengaged her skirt and lifted
her dress. She had been reluctant to change positions at first, but now she
understood what he wanted and rapidly pulled off her gown and the simple shift
she wore beneath it. She had been barefoot when she left the house, so there
was nothing else. Simon drew a breath at the strong, lithe perfection of her
body framed by the green, waving brush behind her.

Now he touched her, stroking berry-brown cheek, smooth
tanned throat, golden satin shoulder, and on down the white velvet breast with
its warm, brown nipple.

Rhiannon sighed, sat back on her heels to let Simon look at
her. His admiration and growing eagerness were apparent, but she held back a
moment to caress the entirety of his male magnificence with her eyes. While she
looked, he cupped her breasts in his hands, stroking the areola gently with his
thumbs. Rhiannon shivered, and her nipples, already upright, thrust forward
harder.

With any other woman, Simon would have pulled sharply to
make her lie beside him. However, Rhiannon could not be driven or compelled.
That knowledge wove through Simon’s passion, became part of it, heightened it.
He released one breast so that he could lever himself upward until his lips
took the place of his fingers. Rhiannon sighed, and her eyes closed. Simon
released the other breast and put that arm gently around her, and began to ease
himself down again.

As he expected, Rhiannon leaned toward him, following the
draw of his lips. When they lay together and he no longer needed to support
her, he slid his hand from her waist across her belly and gently, very gently,
between her thighs. Rhiannon moaned and twitched, pressed her lips against his
hair; her hands fluttered distractedly over his body, seeking, but not certain
what.

Simon made no attempt to guide her searching fingers to more
erotic zones. Now, this first time for Rhiannon, Simon wanted no spur to his
passion. It was impossible for him not to be excited by what he was doing, and
Rhiannon’s natural response was intensifying that excitement. He tried to draw
his mind away, but each thing he fixed on only led back to the strong, silken
body pressing itself more and more frantically against him.

A finger slipped between her nether lips. Rhiannon cried out
softly and thrust forward. Simon judged her as ready as any virgin could be.
For all her eagerness, it was not easy; Simon was a big man. It was very
fortunate that he was not a green boy driven by his own desire. The many
couplings he had experienced made him able to be slow and patient, penetrating,
then pausing to reawaken the desire that pain diminished before he entered her
farther. This coupling took a long time, but Simon was young and strong and
able to endure—and his patience was rewarded. On the taking of her maidenhead,
Rhiannon’s lover had the joy of hearing her beautiful voice trill her infinite
pleasure.

Simon had felt her climax coming, felt the tremors sweeping
through her, her hands clawing blindly at his back. He dropped the walls in his
mind to let in the images of her body, her writhing pleasure, his own actions,
and he gained an ultimate success in bringing on his own climax so close after
hers that he did not need to inflict further pain on her to achieve
satisfaction.

Finished, Simon braced himself on his elbows so that his
weight would not crush Rhiannon, and waited. Slowly the tilted green eyes
opened, the fingers that had clawed at him now tenderly stroked his hair, his
neck, drew his head down for a gentle kiss, infinitely sweet.

“I thank you,” Rhiannon murmured. “You have given me a gift
to treasure for my whole life.”

Startled mute, Simon merely stared at her until she tilted
her head and looked questioningly at him. Regaining his power of speech, he
said, “I swear to you it grows easier and more pleasant each time—”

Rhiannon hugged him so suddenly that his arms gave way and
he collapsed on her. She gasped with a mingling of laughter, having had the
breath briefly squeezed out of her. “Oh, poor Simon,” she exclaimed when she
could speak, “did you think I meant I would never make love again? No, dear
one, that would be a cruel reward for your gentleness and patience. I only
meant that I would remember this for all time with joy. The other times will
blend together—it cannot be otherwise—but this I will have forever.”

He sighed with relief and slipped off her to the side. “I,
too,” he assured her.

Rhiannon laughed again. “You, too, what?” she asked. “Surely
you do not mean this is your first time of having.”

“Not by several thousand times,” Simon replied merrily,
“although I assure you I have kept no real count and only reckon by the years
of such doing. No, you are the first maiden I have ever lain with and will
be—God willing—the last.”

Rhiannon was surprised. “Am I?”

“Yes, of course,” he insisted. “Do you think I am a customary
raper of babes or seducer of young girls? Where would I have come by a maiden?”

“Castellans and vassals have daughters,” Rhiannon pointed
out dryly, wondering why Simon should think her so innocent.

“We do not treat our liegemen so in my family,” Simon said
angrily. “One does not win loyalty by dishonoring a man’s womenfolk.”

“What dishonor?” Rhiannon asked, genuinely puzzled. First
Simon gaped, and then laughed. He had forgotten the Welsh custom whereby “the
son of the handmaid shall be heir with the son of the free”. In Wales there was
no illegitimacy with respect to the inheritance of property, and it was
reasonable that a vassal would not think it a dishonor if his daughter should
be deflowered and conceive a child by his liege lord.

He said, “In England it is a dishonor,” and explained.
Rhiannon was somewhat confused by the legal technicalities Simon described.
Property rights did not loom very large in her life, for the people of the
hills of Gwynedd were essentially hunters and herders rather than farmers.
Their nebulous clan right to graze their cattle in a certain rather large area
or hunt over several hundred square miles of trackless forest was all they
knew. In the southern and eastern parts of Wales—where Norman influence had
been strong for over a hundred years and where the terrain was not so
difficult—agriculture was advancing and property right was better known. Even
there, however, there was much confusion, and inheritance did not always go by
primogeniture.

It did not matter that Rhiannon did not understand the
actual conditions, however. What she did understand was that Simon did not look
at the wives and daughters of his subordinates as potential bedmates. Her
father had never forced unwilling women nor meddled with women whose menfolk
would object to his action, but many men had thrust their daughters—and
sometimes even their wives—at the Lord of Gwynedd. And, when he was younger,
Llewelyn had taken freely the ones he fancied. Those women he bedded were
acknowledged in his Court and accorded honor there.

As Rhiannon thought over what Simon had said, she relaxed
more against him and laid her head on his shoulder. Perhaps if he still desired
marriage, she would consider it. If what he said was true, at least she would
never need to smile and be courteous to her husband’s mistresses. The confiding
movement touched Simon, and he put his arm around her.