The thought of food made him feel slightly queasy. ‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry, in fact, I feel rather-’ He stopped. No, best not to admit to his faint nausea. ‘I don’t want anything to eat. What about you?’
‘I ate earlier.’ Now why, he wondered, am I so certain she didn’t? ‘But I could prepare some wine. Yes?’
‘Aye, that would be welcome.’
He watched her get up, in a smooth, lithe movement that was all in her strong legs; she did not use her arms to lever herself and the effect was particularly graceful. She padded barefoot across the flagstones — she had, he noticed, very small, narrow feet — and returned with a jug and several little packets on a tray.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, watching as, kneeling before the fire, she took varying amounts from each packet and sprinkled them into the wine jug. ‘What are you putting into the wine?’
‘It’s Mag Hobson’s secret recipe,’ she said, smiling, ‘to warm you from the heart outwards on a cold night.’ She paused to stir the contents of the jug, glancing up at him. ‘Don’t worry, all the ingredients are wholly beneficial.’
‘I hadn’t imagined they wouldn’t be.’
She dipped a finger in the wine, tasted it, and added some more from one of the packets. Then she opened a small jar and put a great dollop of something golden into the jug.
‘Honey,’ she said, in answer to his raised eyebrows.
Then she extracted a poker from where it had been pushed into the flames, and stuck the end, glowing pale-yellow with the heat, into the wine.
There was a hiss, and a cloud of steam rose from the jug. The aroma floated out over them — spicy, sweet, with a sort of bitter tang underneath the surface smells …
‘Nice?’ she asked.
‘The smell is wonderful,’ he said.
She poured some into a mug. ‘Try the taste. Careful — it’ll be hot!’
He sipped. Delicious! Sipped again, and, as the extreme heat faded, took a mouthful.
Something to warm you from the heart outwards. Aye, it did that all right. He could feel the warmth and had the pleasant sensation that the wine’s sweet smoothness was flowing right through his body, relaxing him, soothing him. Stretching out his legs, he lay back on the cushions.
It seemed quite the natural thing to do when she stretched out beside him. He moved over to make room for her and put out an arm. Accepting his unspoken invitation, she came nearer, lying against him, her head on his shoulder.
He stroked her hair. ‘It’s almost dry now,’ he remarked.
‘Mm.’
His eyelids felt slightly heavy. Letting his eyes close for a moment, he thought he could see a vision of golden clouds, and he felt strangely that he might be flying …
He opened his eyes again.
He turned his head slightly so that he could look at her. She was staring into the flames, her expression unreadable.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked. ‘If it’s Ninian, I do assure you he’ll be quite all right.’
She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. ‘I wasn’t thinking about Ninian. Not at that moment.’
He waited. He was sure she would tell him what she was thinking about. In her own good time.
She did.
‘Josse,’ she began, still staring at him, ‘I — out in the woods, we-’
She did not seem to know how to go on. So he did it for her. ‘We kissed?’ he asked softly. ‘Like this?’ Reaching out with both hands, gently he held her face and brought it down to his. Then, tenderly, he kissed her lips. She gave a sort of sigh, then kissed him back, exploring his lips with her tongue as he had done to her, in that first explosive embrace beside Mag Hobson’s house.
‘Like that?’ she asked some time later.
‘Oh, Joanna,’ he murmured, ‘aye. Like that.’
The kiss on the lips developed and soon they were loosening one another’s clothing, exploring neck, chest, breast. Her mouth on his flesh felt soft, moist, thrilling, and his desire for her was escalating so rapidly that he was having difficulty controlling it.
But something was on the edge of his mind, something he knew he must pay attention to … something she had just said …
He made himself detach from the sensations she was engendering in him and think.
Think!
Aye. He remembered. Aye, that was it.
Very gently, so that she would not think it a rebuff, he pushed her away. ‘Joanna, wait.’
The dark eyes intent on his, she said, ‘Wait? What do you mean?’
Cradling her to him, resuming his stroking of her sheen of hair, he said, ‘Just now, when we began to kiss, you said, like that? As if you didn’t know.’
‘Was it not right?’ Her voice was full of anxiety. ‘You said it was, when I asked, you said, aye, like that.’
‘Sweeting, there was nothing wrong with the kiss! Quite the opposite — can you not tell?’
She whispered, ‘No.’
‘But you have been married? You have born a child?’ Oh, but there was no delicate way of saying this! ‘Joanna, you do know about love between a man and a woman. Don’t you?’
She rolled over on to her back, and instantly that side of his body missed the warmth of her, the highly-charged feel of her firm flesh against him. ‘Do I know about love?’ she repeated. Her voice had taken on a hard quality. ‘I know about sex, if that’s what you mean. I know about being raped, and about being made to do my wifely duty, which really amounts to exactly the same thing. Do I know about love? No, sir knight, I do not.’
He raised himself up and leaned over her, fingers on her cheek, delicately feeling its soft texture. ‘Sex is not love,’ he said. ‘One person taking his pleasure, with no concern for what his woman wants or feels, is nothing but selfishness. It is not how it should be, my love.’
Her eyes were shining in the firelight. ‘I knew it couldn’t be,’ she whispered. ‘I was always sure, even during those first times at Windsor, when I conceived Ninian, even through all the years I was married. Something within me kept telling me, one day you’ll know. And Mag-’ She broke off.
‘Mag? She enlightened you?’
Joanna gave a soft laugh. ‘She said I mustn’t let the Great Mother’s gift go unused, that a selfish man and a sadistic man were only two out of the entire male population, and weren’t to be taken as representative of the whole sex.’ She laughed again, more strongly. ‘She did add, I might tell you, that they probably represented the majority.’ She reached up her hand, touching her fingertips to his lips. Her hands, he noticed absently, smelt of cinnamon and honey.
‘I am not a sadist,’ he murmured, ‘and I hope I’m not selfish.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you are either. I think, as I thought in the woods by Mag’s house, that you were the one she spoke of.’
‘Mag spoke of me?’ Despite all the other sensations racing through his body, he felt the slight atavistic chill up the spine that comes from a brush with the powers beyond.
‘Don’t worry, she meant you no harm.’ Joanna’s voice was a caress. ‘She did not mention your name — I don’t think she knew it. She just told me, when I was raging against men, marriage, and sexual subservience, that, one day, somebody would show me there was another way. And, when I was scornful, she said, wait and see, my girl. I read it in you, and in this place. One day, you’ll understand.’
‘And then you came across me, right there in Mag’s clearing,’ he said wonderingly, ‘and we both felt that fierce attraction, and I kissed you-’
‘I kissed you,’ she corrected him. Lifting herself up towards him, she did so again.
And, as if Mag Hobson’s prediction had just been shouted again, out loud, as if the old woman’s benediction hovered over them, the full passion that had been hinted at that time in the woods came roaring back. Moaning, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her fiercely to him, crushing her breasts to his chest, feeling the firm thighs against his legs.