Matilda meddles with the wrong man
Matilda looked up from the fire when she heard steps come down the far stairway and enter the hall. “Oh, Leofric!”
“Evening, Matilda. I didn’t think to find you still awake.”
Leofric looked slightly annoyed, for he seemed to have been intending to only pass through the darkened hall on his way to somewhere else, but he came and stood beside the fire with her.
On second thought, Matilda said to herself once he was closer, he might simply be drunk.
“I had a nap this afternoon, under a pile of little girls,” she explained. “Mine, and Baby, too. But now I’m not sleepy. In fact I just came up from sitting a while with poor Egelric.”
“Oh? How is he?”
“Still the same. I feel so badly for him – he must be in dreadful pain. He keeps talking about his ears.”
“May I pour my hostess a drink?” he offered.
“You only want one for yourself, but I don’t mind making you work a little for it.”
“It’s not your first, either, Matilda, if your breath gives any hint.”
“I have only had a cup of mead. Or two. Or I don’t remember.”
“Now we shall have your husband’s excellent wine.” He went to pour two cups and called from the corner, “I feel for your Squire, Matilda. It’s the one sort of pain I can’t stand. I cry like a girl when I have an earache.”
“He doesn’t cry, he simply whispers, ‘Ears, ears, ears,’ in his sleep. My poor man.”
“You’re quite possessive of him, I’ve noticed,” Leofric chuckled as he returned.
“Thank you,” she said as he handed her a cup. “Egelric is a dear friend of mine. We have weathered not a few storms together.”
“I’m amazed Alred isn’t jealous.”
“Alred? It would never occur to him that I could look at another man.”
“Shall I disenchant him?”
She laughed. “It would involve disenchanting him of his own perfection. I wouldn’t bother attempting it.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t unhappy that he isn’t a little jealous. Some women like to make men jealous to prove that they are loved.”
“I don’t need to do that to prove to myself that Alred loves me, Leofric. He shows me in other ways.” She smiled meaningfully.
“A man doesn’t need to love for that,” he laughed.
“No, but if he does, a woman knows it,” she said with a firm nod.
“You know a lot about it. Have you ever been with another man?”
“No…”
“Then I shan’t bother attempting to disenchant you.”
She giggled. “I hope not, for I can imagine what it might involve.”
“On second thought…” he said with a leer. “But I should have to find another man to do it, for I myself am hopelessly in love with you.” He sighed dramatically.
“You won’t convince me with that ridiculous mien. You’ve been drinking too much, you would say anything. But if you keep it up, you might manage to make Alred jealous after all.”
“The problem with drinking is that it makes it so difficult to ‘keep it up,’” he sighed.
Matilda laughed aloud. “No one has ever told Alred that, so, for the love of God, please don’t disenchant him.”
“Is that why he thinks himself perfection?”
“That’s why I do!”
“Well, I’m not saying I find myself entirely unmanned this evening, Matilda…”
“I thank you for the warning, but nor have I been too unwomanned to bite and kick.”
“Matilda! You deny a man the one sure method you have found for him to prove his love for you.”
“There are other ways.”
“Such as?”
“Such as… bring me the head of William the Bastard in a charger.”
“And then will you dance for me, Salome?”
“Then I most assuredly shall.”
“Ah, you tempt me. You sorely tempt me. Men have done more for less.”
“What’s stopping you?” she giggled.
“A few thousand Norman knights.”
“They should be as nothing to a man who loves.”
“Then you have your proof, my dear.”
“Ah well. Fortunately I have Alred to console me.”
“Where is he tonight?”
“Weren’t you with him? He must be in bed, then. He must wonder where I am.”
“It is fortunate for you he isn’t a jealous man, then.”
“For then he would be jealous of you.”
“Or of your ‘friend’ Egelric, whom you were visiting in his bedroom.”
“Oh, Leofric! That’s too hard. He’s terribly sick, you know. Honestly, between adultery and watching him die, I should choose adultery.”
“You might try it on him. With a woman like you, it might effect a miraculous cure.”
“Oh, Leofric,” she tittered. “You know a lot about a woman like me.”
“I can imagine.”
“You’re a brute. Oh! You are a brute, you know. I don’t know why I still receive you.”
“It is because you love me.”
“I don’t know. I suppose I do. But what you did to Eadgith – ”
“Matilda,” he warned. “That is between a man and his wife.”
“I know, Leofric, but because you may, it doesn’t mean you should.”
“We have been through this before. You scold me, and I tell you it won’t happen again, and we agree to put it behind us. Why are you bringing it up now?”
“I don’t know. Because I am drunk I suppose. It’s your fault, Leofric. I can handle the mead, but not the wine on top of it.”
“Come here and allow me to shake you up, Salome; the wine might settle on the bottom.”
“Or it might come out the top,” she giggled.
“Are you that drunk?”
“No, but I believe you are.”
“Why don’t you come here and shake me up to see?” he suggested.
“I don’t know what would come out, but I fear it might not be wine.”
“Son of a serpent!” he laughed. “You’re priceless, Matilda. By God, I had better hie me out of this hall before I do something your husband will regret. I swear, you sorely tempt me. Your dress alone tempts a man to shake you to see what will fall out of the top of it.”
“You brute!” she laughed breathlessly. “But I have pasted them in!”
“Then I shall soak you in a tub of water first. I believe I might like to do that anyway.”
“I should only melt like a sugar baby.”
“I always thought you must taste particularly sweet. Now I know why.”
She laughed but shook her head. “You had better turn around and go back to bed before we both do something my husband will regret.”
“You must know I wouldn’t, Matilda,” he said, setting his empty cup on the table behind them. “But I do like to keep you wondering.”
“I know you wouldn’t mean to. Nor should I. But we’ve been drinking, and anyway, I know it’s possible to push a man past a point where…” she trailed off with a meaningful wave of her hand.
“At last! At last! I have found a woman who understands that a man has a ‘point where.’ Son of a serpent! If you all knew that, you wouldn’t be so cruel with us and then cry rape.”
“Oh, Leofric… don’t say such things…”
“Well? You only just said you knew it was true.”
“But that’s not always the reason.”
“No? But perhaps the ‘point where’ is always ‘some where’ different. There may be men for whom the sight of your lovely dress and what you have spilling out of it might be the ‘point where.’”
“That is a bit exaggerated, I think.”
“You don’t know what it is to be a man. Son of a serpent!”
“I wish you wouldn’t say such things. You – ”
“You’re right. I believe I shall go to bed, and apologize to Salome in the morning.”
“That’s just as well. Good night, Leofric.”
“Good night, you disenchanting creature,” he said, and he kissed her hand. But when he turned to go, he went to the door close to the fire and not the door at the far end of the hall, near the stairs.
“But Leofric, your room is that way,” Matilda said.
“I know that, but my wife’s room is this way.”
“Oh, Leofric,” she sighed.
“Oh, what?” he asked.
“Why don’t you leave her sleep?”
“Son of a serpent!” he exploded. “She’s my wife, isn’t she? You shake a man up, and then you point him to his lonely bed? At least have the mercy to allow me to go to my wife!”
“But her babies are sick, and she’s so tired. And you’re so drunk.”
“Damn you, Matilda,” he said, storming back to her, “is she my wife or is she not?”
“Of course she is, but – ”
“Then shut your mouth! Unless you mean to take care of me tonight?”
“I most certainly do not,” she huffed.
“You don’t want me to touch my first wife, now you don’t want me to touch my second wife either?”
“I didn’t say that, I only thought you might leave her sleep tonight. She’s – ”
“She’s my wife. That is all you ever need to know. Damn you! Always have to meddle, don’t you? If it weren’t for your meddling, I wouldn’t be in the situation in which I find myself now – two wives, neither of whom want me to touch them, apparently!”
As he spoke, he had come to stand so uncomfortably close to her that she had backed away in spite of herself, but he had only followed, and now she found herself backed against the wall. All of her pride and her royal blood, all of her talk of biting and kicking, all of her habit of thinking herself a man in a woman’s body–
No. She was only a woman – a particularly small woman – and before her was a tall and strong and violent and drunken man. And Alred was upstairs in bed, and could not hear her cry out.
“I suppose I have you to thank for that, don’t I?” he went on. “What have you been telling her, Matilda? She was a good and obedient little wife before I left her six months with you!”
“Perhaps she is frightened of you,” Matilda tried to say, but the sound of her voice frightened her. It was as chill and sharp as icicles. “She knows what you can do.”
“And so do you,” he said, but he had stopped roaring now, and leaned in close enough to her that his low voice was menacing enough. “Which is why I wonder why you tempt me. You’re this close to reaching one of my ‘points where’, Matilda, but you shall find that it is the ‘point where’ I smack you across your malicious mouth. You women are all the same. You drive a man to a frenzy and then you cry: ‘Boo hoo, he hit me.’ If a woman knows a man won’t hit her, then she will make him dance like a puppet. But I am not one of those men, and I don’t mind if Eadgith, Leila, or you know it.”
“Go to bed, Leofric.”
“I shall,” he said, standing straight again. “I shall, and the bed to which I go shall be my wife’s. I shall tell her that if she finds me a little rough tonight, she has you to thank for it. That’s where your meddling gets you!”
