Chapter Nine #3
Annavieve had been watching a table of men as they sang a rather naughty song.
It all seemed in good fun, however, because they were laughing heartily and she was sorry she was not going to hear the rest of their song.
With a sigh, she followed Kevin into the room he had chosen, the last door on the right. He locked the door behind them.
The chamber was dark and musty-smelling, but Kevin was already over by the hearth, stacking kindling. There was a table and two chairs, and a rather small bed, and Annavieve sat down on the chair to wait for the fire so she wasn’t wandering around in the dark.
“I have never been to a tavern before,” she said wistfully. “It sounds as if everyone is having a marvelous time.”
Kevin grunted in disapproval as he arranged the kindling. “Drunkards,” he muttered, “half-wits and fools. You are better off not down there with them.”
Annavieve thought on the song she had heard. “They were singing a song,” she said. “I could only catch a few words here and there. They were singing about someone named Tilly Nodden.”
Kevin struck the flint and sparks flew. “That is not a song for you to sing.”
“Do you know it?”
“I do.”
“Why is it not a song for me to sing?”
A small fire began to burn and Kevin blew at it to increase the flame. “Because the words are indecent.”
“Will you not sing it for me?”
He looked at her, scowling. “I will not.”
“Please?” she begged gently. “You must understand… this is all so new and exciting to me. The only songs I know are hymns. It is as if an entirely new world has opened up in this little town yet I find myself closed up in here. I have spent my entire life closed up in one room or another. I want so much to go out again and see the life that is happening out there, but… won’t you at least sing that song to me? I would like to hear all of it.”
When she put it that way, Kevin was coming to feel badly that he’d locked them up in their room when all she wanted to do was go outside and see excitement she’d never experienced before.
She’d never seen such things, a festival that celebrated the souls of the dead or men who sang of a tavern whore.
Everything she knew was in the four walls of Sempringham Priory or at the palace on Thorney Island.
Everything she was experiencing with him was new and he had a firsthand glimpse of someone who was looking at the world as if just seeing it for the first time. Literally, she was. He sighed faintly.
“It is a very naughty song,” he told her. “Why do you want to hear such a thing?”
She smiled faintly, shrugging. “I have never heard anything naughty in my life,” she said. “I do not suppose God will fault me, just this once.”
He lifted his eyebrows as he stood up, brushing off his hands. “He may not fault you but he would certainly fault me for singing it to you,” he pointed out. “God is already angry enough at me. I should not like to make it worse.”
She watched him as he went over to the bed and tossed back the coverlet, inspecting it for bugs and vermin. “Is he angry at you for what you did in the Levant?” she asked softly.
He was still looking at the bed. “That,” he said vaguely, “and other things.”
“What other things?”
He shrugged and put the coverlet back in place. “I am not sure,” he said. “God has not paid particular attention to me in my life so I would assume I did something terrible when I was very young and do not know about it.”
Annavieve was riveted to the man as he moved about the room, opening his saddlebags and rummaging through them.
“God has not paid particular attention to me, either, but that does not mean he is angry with me,” she said.
“I am a product of sin so I suppose it is a good thing I’ve spent my entire life in a convent. I have much to atone for.”
He pulled forth a few items in his saddlebags. “You would atone for parents you have never met?”
“Someone must pay for their sin.”
He thought on that a moment before shaking his head. “I cannot imagine what you have to atone for,” he said. “You have never committed a sin in your life.”
She averted her eyes. “I did last night, with you,” she said quietly. “Today when I prayed in the church… I prayed that God would forgive us for doing our duty. I hope he understands that neither one of us had any choice in the matter.”
Kevin looked up from whatever he was doing. “Although I appreciate your generosity, you do not have to pray for me,” he said. “My sins are my own, between God and me. I do not need an intermediary.”
Annavieve simply shrugged; she was still looking at her lap.
“I… I do not know how these things work, of course,” she said hesitantly.
“Last night when… and then you left this morning so swiftly and… I wanted to thank you for being kind about it. I know the entire situation was distasteful but you were very kind about it and I appreciate it.”
Kevin’s gaze lingered on her lowered head a moment, pondering what had happened the night before. After a moment, he returned his gaze to his saddlebags.
“I do not even know what to say to that,” he said quietly. “I did my duty as you did yours. That is all there was to it.”
Annavieve nodded quickly. “I know,” she assured him. “I suppose I… oh, I do not know why I even spoke of it. Forgive me. I should not have.”
Kevin’s movements slowed as he carefully repacked his saddlebags.
Do not say anything more to her! He told himself.
He was terrified of what he would say if he let his guard down even more for the woman.
But, God’s Bones, she sounded so vulnerable and honest. He naturally wanted to protect and nurture such honesty. He wanted to protect and nurture her.
“There is no need to ask for forgiveness,” he said, his tone professional. “We both did what we had to do.”
She glanced up at him. “Will… will we do it again tonight?”
Kevin nodded without hesitation. “We will,” he said. “I have been ordered to bed you until you conceive so that is what I must do.”
He said it without emotion. Almost coldly. Something in Annavieve’s heart hurt just a bit at his tone, his attitude, but she understood. She was foolish for thinking he would be kind and emotional about it. Kevin was behaving exactly the way he should; professional and neutral.
Feeling like a fool for having broached the subject, she kept her head down and didn’t say anything more.
She was an idiot for having said anything at all about perhaps the biggest single event in her life.
To him, it was a duty. To her, it had been more than that.
She was disappointed to realize that he felt no more about it than he did about gathering an escort party or taking her to town to find suitable clothing.
They were all duties as far as he was concerned.
A knock on the door distracted her from her thoughts. Kevin went to open the door, revealing a serving wench with a heavily-laden tray of food and drink. Kevin took the pitcher and cups from the tray so it wasn’t so heavy as the skinny girl came into the room and set the tray on the table.
Smells of meat and the yeasty scent of bread filled the air as the wench fled and Kevin pulled off the cloth that was covering the tray.
There was a big bowl of what he assumed to be chicken stew and two crudely-made spoons.
A big, steaming hunk of mutton sat in the middle of the tray and an entire loaf of dark brown bread beside it.
There was also a hunk of white cheese, a bowl of small pickled onions, a lump of butter, and a bowl of boiled peas.
In all, it was quite a feast and Kevin sat down opposite Annavieve, preparing to eat.
The first thing he did was pour two full cups of cheap, tart wine.
As Annavieve sipped at hers, he downed two cups in short order.
Unused to alcohol since he’d spent six years in a land that forbade drinking the fermentation of grapes or wheat, the warmth of the wine quickly filled his veins.
He was polite about dividing up the meal.
He made sure her meat was free of gristle and he let her have the chicken stew first, while it was hot.
As he had the night before, he cut up her meat and presented it to her on a slab of brown bread.
Annavieve plowed into the food, hungry, as Kevin also stuffed his mouth. They were both starving.
“What kind of food did you have in the Levant?” Annavieve asked, her mouth full. “Do they eat very different foods than we do?”
Kevin swallowed the bite in his mouth, taking a very long drink of wine to wash it down. “They do,” he told her, wiping his mouth. “They eat a good deal of goat and lamb, and they like a thick, fermented milk.”
Annavieve’s brow furrowed curiously as she scooped up a spoonful of peas. “Fermented milk?” she repeated. “Not cheese?”
He shook his head. “They eat cheese, but what I speak of is not cheese,” he said. “It is thick and rich and soft. They eat it with honey. It is actually quite good.”
Annavieve tried to envision delicious fermented milk; it didn’t sound all that delicious to her. “What else do they eat?”
He was in the process of shoving meat into his mouth. “Beans,” he told her. “Onions. Bread that is flat, unlike the bread we eat.”
“No wine?”
He shook his head, this time firmly. “Their religion does not allow it,” he told her. “They drink boiled fruit juice or boiled water with herbs in it. No wine of any kind.”
Annavieve thought that was all very interesting as she devoured the peas. “It seems rather odd that they do not drink wine,” she said, watching him shrug. “Why did you go there, anyway? Did you go to do penitence for whatever you feel you may have done to offend God?”