Chambers of Death

Chapter Five

Mistress Luce knew the way well enough without a torch. Dread of taking a misstep on the uneven, muddy ground was not the reason her heart pounded so, but fear she most certainly felt and it excited her.

Although she wore a heavy cloak, the wind stung her face and hands. In just a few moments, she’d be warmed enough, she thought, then bit back a laugh.

And what would her husband do if he came home tonight? Pull off his reeking boots, stumble into bed stinking of horse, and fall asleep, mouth open and drool soon running from his lips. “A loving greeting indeed for his young wife,” she muttered. “And if I were elsewhere than his bed, he wouldn’t even notice.”

But her husband would not be back. His loins weren’t hungry enough for her to brave the dangerous roads. He’d rather find some inn, drink enough to fall asleep in the flea-infested straw, and probably dream of how much cattle he’d have to slaughter to get through the winter.

She snorted. He had ridden her often enough at the beginning of their marriage. Following the first nights, when she still hurt after her maidenhead was torn, she discovered a taste for coupling. Even though he had rough hands, body hair as bristly as a boar’s, and his belly sagged over his manhood, she tolerated this old man. He was her husband after all. When he pulled her legs apart, she shut her eyes and imagined a smooth-skinned, taut-muscled youth mounting her. Thus she found pleasure.

Then his ardor faded. And she had not conceived.

Luce shuddered, but the wind was not the cause. How often had she played the harlot to force her husband’s mind from the dull business of estate management to bedding a wife? And how rarely had it worked?

When her humors turned sluggish and black, a young midwife told her that she suffered from congestion in her womb, a common affliction of women without husbands. The woman’s treatment gave her relief enough, but Luce still lacked a babe.

As she approached the low building, she saw the light flickering in the cracks between the wooden slats. The narrow door opened.

“You’re late,” he complained.

“And you are the better man for it,” she teased, running her hand lightly down his tight belly to his swollen sex.

As he pulled her inside and shut the door, she caught herself thinking that her prudent husband should be grateful. He no longer had to pay the midwife for her treatments, and she might well give him a boy-one disinclined to monkish ways, like his other two sons, because this lad would be bred in good, hot lust.