A few moments later, she realized he was asleep.
She was pleased. It was a sign of how comfortable he felt with her, and it meant she could stay with him, at least until he woke up.
It was autumn, and the night was cold. As Wulfric’s breathing became slower and steadier, she got up stealthily and took his blanket from its hook on the wall. She draped it over him. He slept on undisturbed.
Despite the chill in the air, she slipped her dress over her head and lay beside him naked, arranging the blanket so that it covered them both.
She moved close to him and laid her cheek against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat and feel the breeze of his breath on the top of her head. The heat of his big body warmed her. In time, the moon went down, and the room became pitch dark. She felt she could have stayed like this for ever.
She did not sleep. She had no intention of wasting any of this precious time. She savoured every moment, knowing it might never happen again. She touched him cautiously, careful not to wake him. Through his light wool shift, her fingertips explored the muscles of his chest and back, the bones of his ribs and hips, the turn of his shoulder and the knob of his elbow.
He moved in his sleep several times. He turned and lay flat on his back, whereupon she put her head on his shoulder and her arm across his flat belly. Later he turned away, and then she moved really close, fitting herself into the S-shape of his body, pressing her breasts against his broad back, her hips into his, her knees into the backs of his knees. Then he turned back to her, flinging one arm across her shoulders and one leg over her thighs. His leg was painfully heavy, but she relished the ache as proof that she was not dreaming.
He dreamed, though. In the middle of the night he suddenly kissed her, thrusting his tongue roughly into her mouth, grasping her breast with one big hand. She felt his erection as he rubbed up against her clumsily. For a moment she was bewildered. He could have her whatever way he wanted, but it was unlike him to be anything but gentle. She put her hand to his groin and grasped his penis, which was sticking out through the slit in his underdrawers. Then, just as suddenly, he turned away and lay on his back, breathing rhythmically, and she realized that he had never woken up, but had touched her in a dream. He was undoubtedly dreaming of Annet, she realized ruefully.
She did not sleep, but she daydreamed. She imagined him introducing her to a stranger, saying: “This is my wife, Gwenda.” She saw herself pregnant, but still working in the fields, and fainting in the middle of the day; and in her fantasy he picked her up and carried her home, and bathed her face with cold water. She saw him as an old man, playing with their grandchildren, indulging them, giving them apples and honeycombs.
Grandchildren? she thought wryly. It was a big edifice to build on the strength of his allowing her to put her arm around him while he cried himself to sleep.
When she was thinking that it must be almost dawn, and her stay in paradise might soon be over, he begin to stir. His breathing changed. He rolled on to his back. Her arm fell across his chest and she left it there, tucking her hand under his arm. After a few moments she sensed that he was awake, thinking. She lay still, afraid that if she spoke or moved she would break the spell.
Eventually he rolled back towards her. He put his arm around her, and she felt his hand on the bare skin of her back. He stroked her there, but she did not know what the caress meant: he seemed to be exploring, surprised to find that she was naked. His hand went up to her neck and all the way down to the curve of her hip.
At last he spoke. As if afraid of being overheard, he whispered: “She married him.”
Gwenda whispered back: “Yes.”
“Her love is weak.”
“True love is never weak.”
His hand remained on her hip, maddeningly close to the places where she wanted him to touch her.
He said: “Will I ever stop loving her?”
Gwenda took his hand and moved it. “She has two breasts, like these,” she said, still whispering. She did not know why she did it: intuition was guiding her, and she followed it for good or ill.
He groaned, and she felt his hand close gently over one, then the other.
“And she has hair down here, like this,” she said, moving his hand again. His breathing became faster. Leaving his hand there, she explored his body beneath his wool shift, and found that he had an erection. She grasped it and said: “Her hand feels just like this.” He began to move his hips rhythmically.
She suddenly felt afraid that the act would be over before it was fully consummated. She did not want that. It was all or nothing now. She pushed him gently on to his back, then quickly raised herself and straddled him. “Inside, she’s hot and wet,” she said, and she lowered herself on to him. Although she had done it before, it had not been anything like this; she felt filled up and yet she wanted more. She moved down against the thrust of his hips, then up as he withdrew. She lowered her face to his and kissed his bearded mouth.
He held her head in his hands and kissed her back.
“She loves you,” Gwenda whispered to him. “She loves you so much.”
He cried out with passion, and she was rocked up and down, riding his hips like a wild pony, until at last she felt him come inside her, and he gave one last cry, then said: “Oh, I love you too! I love you, Annet!”
28
Wulfric went back to sleep, but Gwenda lay awake. She was too excited to sleep. She had won his love – she knew it. It hardly mattered that she had had to half pretend to be Annet. He had made love to her with such hunger, and had kissed her afterwards with such tenderness and gratitude, that she felt he was hers for ever.
When her heart stopped racing and her mind calmed down, she thought about his inheritance. She was not willing to give up on it, especially now. As dawn broke outside, she racked her brains for some way to save it. When Wulfric woke up, she said: “I’m going to Kingsbridge.”
He was startled. “Why?”
“To find out whether there’s some way you can still inherit.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But Ralph hasn’t given the land to anyone else yet, so there’s still a chance. And you deserve it – you’ve worked so hard and suffered so much.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll see my brother Philemon. He understands these things better than we do. He’ll know what we need to do.”
Wulfric looked at her strangely.
She said: “What is it?”
He said: “You really love me, don’t you?”
She smiled, full of happiness, and said: “Let’s do it again, shall we?”
On the following morning she was at Kingsbridge Priory, sitting on the stone bench by the vegetable garden, waiting for Philemon. During the long walk from Wigleigh she had gone over every second of Sunday night in her mind, relishing the physical pleasures, puzzling over the words spoken. Wulfric still had not said that he loved her, but he had said: “You really love me.” And he had seemed pleased that she loved him, albeit a bit bewildered by the strength of her passion.
She longed to win back his birthright. She yearned for it almost as much as she had yearned for him. She wanted it for both of them. Even if he were a landless labourer like her father she would marry him, given the chance; but she wanted better for them both, and she was determined to get it.
When Philemon came out of the priory into the garden to greet her, she saw immediately that he was wearing the robes of a novice monk. “Holger!” she said, using his real name in her shock. “You’re a novice – what you’ve always wanted!”
He smiled proudly, and benignly overlooked the use of his old name. “It was one of Godwyn’s first acts as prior,” he said. “He is a wonderful man. It’s such an honour to serve him.” He sat beside her on the bench. It was a mild autumn day, cloudy but dry.