“What do you think it’s gonna be?” Clement said, pressing his palm to Marjorie’s stomach.
First light had come with a new sense of elation for Clement. In a few short hours, his life was changed. There was no longer a sense of attachment to Eleanor but his heart belonged to Marjorie. His epiphany came before he knew he was to be a father, but that news made the revelation all the sweeter.
“Oh, I don’t know. What do you want it to be? I want a little girl.”
Clement kissed her stomach. “Me too.” Rising from the bed with anything but demure actions, he began to dress. “We can ask Mother to help around the house if you need it, during your condition.”
Marjorie rolled around the bed. “No, I will do just fine.”
“We always do.”
Clement walked into the tannery and instantly, his mind was flooded with the previous night. He thought of the sweet bliss of Eleanor and the sour taste of Roland.
Standing in the doorway with a contorted expression, he contemplated what could be. Did Eleanor seduce Lord Roland? I hope she did, he thought with a strange sense of desire. But the feelings were not for her but for him and his happiness. There could be a chance for a baby of pure noble blood.
Pushing the thoughts from his mind, he set to work beating the hides. Gavin, nearing thirty five year old, was still a young man but had the moral compass of a man beyond his years. When Clement took a seat, Gavin nodded. “You need to let that soak in water more,” Gavin said as he peered at Clement’s work.
“If I soak it for too much longer it will be too soft,” Clement protested as he continued to lift the hide out of the water vat. “See,” he spread the hide out in the air, “there’s no blood marks.”
Upon feeling the hide between his fingers, Gavin grunted with exasperation. “you always gotta be right, don’t you?”
Clement smiled.
At midday, Clement left the tannery and headed to The Glory Knight Tavern. “A round for all!” he called loudly, tossing his arms in the air. He slapped a penny down on the bar.
“What for?” a man in the back called, raising his glass with a hearty gesture.
The bartender, Adam, handed Clement a cup of ale. Clement took it and took a massive gulp. Smacking his lips, he said in a robust voice, “Marjorie’s with child! And it’s mine!”
A roar erupted from the men of the tavern. Shouts of congratulations were scattered.
“You got a good one,” Adam said, slapping Clement on the back.
Nodding his head, Clement smiled. “I know.”
Out of the middle of the crowd of celebrating men, Gregory came towards Clement with a twisted smile. “Lady Eleanor finally lost your interest?”
“I don’t think I ever properly loved her. At least, not in the way she wanted me to love her. It was more lust.” Clement took another sip of his ale and leaned against the bar. He hated to think about Eleanor and all the wonderful time he spent with her as just ‘lust’, but that’s the only way he could settle upon what made him do it.
Gregory took a mouthful of his ale and assumed the same position as Clement. “She’s a fine women. Her tits are...” he stopped speaking and motioned with his hands the size of her breasts. He laughed crudely with a few other men in the tavern.
There was something about Marjorie that made men lust after her. When Clement announced his marriage to Marjorie, a few people were curious with jealousy. Others just disliked the fact that someone so beautiful- Marjorie- was going to be with someone so unworthy.
“Massive,” Clement interjected thinking about his wife. “She’s really something.” But he wasn’t referring to the thickness of her thighs or size of her breasts.
Gregory clapped a hand on Clement’s shoulder. “You deserve to be happy.”
There was something haunting about Gregory’s touch on Clement’s shoulder that made him shiver. He felt the knob of Gregory’s thumb end right before it should have ended. He could not help but to feel remorse about the events of that day. It disturbed him like a bad dream of falling off the top of a cathedral. He still felt the fear dig into his chest when he thought he was going to feel the course rope yank his neck into the air. He was frightened by how quickly he offered someone else for sacrifice in exchange for his own life. He had become all the things he hated in men; ruthless, bloodthirsty, sinful creatures who will play any trick to save their own neck.
Why had he been so willing to entangle himself with Lady Eleanor all those months ago? That was what spooked him the most. He was living a fanciful dream.
YOU ARE READING
Ordained by God
Historical Fiction(DON'T BE PUT OFF BY THE TITLE IT'S NOT A RELIGIOUS BOOK) During the reign of William the Conqueror, women were subordinate to men in all social situations and love was not a reason a Lady to wed. Lady Eleanor of Winshire has falled in love with Cle...
