Sparrows

Part 16

Haddie, no wiser, knew but one thing, she would hold Tom close and never allow him to be despoiled.

Of course, this would mean she would needs curry favour with the Lordling once more. It amazed her how quickly she had acquired so much foolish pride, that she risked all for the pure pleasure of seeing his confusion when she turned aside his boorish wanting.

Foolish indeed.

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Why with the woman, was a battle, always a battle?

Robert cursed his wretched cock for its new liveliness.

Perhaps the battle with her was actually the lure, soldiering so deep in his bones that he desired warfare even in this? Could he not just fall in to the soft arms of a loving woman, savour a more mellow pleasure?

Sitting, his back against a tree, he wondered what would it be like to go tenderly with her. It took him but a moment to decide it was foolish to yearn for what would make him weak again. He had been a milksop in his love for Marceline, it had laid him bare, robbed him of sense, his home, his son and ultimately, his faith.

His beautiful, perfect wife, was wholly deceit, her soul filled with foul greed and spite, nothing more. The mask of grace vanished from her even as her father died. She had gloated at his down fall, preened at what freedom from father and husband would afford her.

And all the while he stood by, staring dumbly at the bloodied sword in his hand.

Hopes of salvation offered by crusading had been foolish; the Holy Land had been the least holy place he could have imagined, disease, corruption, the ugliness of men's appetites, exposed the gross abuses of his faith. He returned to England a man more scarred by his so called 'redemption' than by the crime that sent him there. Casual perjuries and scheming had torn near all virtue from him.

The penitent, naïve young knight returned to his home near drained of humanity, an instrument of war clad as a man.

And now this low woman barged her way into his life, insulting what honour he had left, treating with him as if he were a common cur.

But...but the thought of her made his belly warm...and there she was again, with those full, swaying hips and bountiful breasts, offering the solace he silently craved.

Only what she offered at that moment was a mess of pottage.

"There's meat in it." She nodded toward the Sergeant, who gathered a bowl and spoon for his share. "We have master Blount to thank for that."

Sir Robert accepted, grudgingly. "A feast indeed. Let's hope no foresters catch a whiff of it, I've no use for man at arms with only one hand."

Haddie tutted, and ladled him out a generous portion.

Robert looked up at her quizzically, since taking charge of the cooking she had been almost niggardly with his share.

"Well, can't have your strength failing...can I." Adding another scoop, resisting the urge to wink brazenly, Haddie settled for ghost of a coy smile.

It was a tease; the damn woman was goading him. "No woman found me wanting of 'strength' yet." He grunted.

"Good." She flounced away, wondering at her own boldness. Teasing a man was something new, it set an oddly satisfying agitation to work in her belly.

T'was then the thought struck, what if this man's seed was more substantial than Hew's, what then?

And one concern replaced another.

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Haddie was amazed the next day as they approached their destination. London did not rival Beckford, it dwarfed it!