For the King's Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online Page A

said with amusement.
    Ida’s chin wobbled. Henry took the wine from her, set it down on a chest, then turned back to her. “Ah, here now, lovely, don’t cry, don’t cry. Hush. It’s all right. I won’t hurt you, I swear I won’t. I only want to…” The last word trailed off as he unpinned the round brooches closing the neckline of her gown and pushed the garment off her shoulders. Then he unplucked the ties of her chemise and did the same again, so that she stood before him, naked to the waist, shivering.
    “Sweet,” he said. “So young and innocent and sweet. You do not know what you do to me…”
    ***
    Ida lay in Henry’s bed, her limbs upon scented cool linen, her body covered by soft clean sheets and a coverlet of wine-red silk embroidered with a peacock design. Tears leached from beneath her lids and she swiped them away on the heel of her hand. There was a burning pain between her legs and a dull ache in her pelvis.
    Henry sat on the bed, gazing at her with heavy, sated eyes and tenderness in his expression. “Come now,” he said. “No tears. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    Ida swallowed. “No, sire,” she whispered. The deed itself had been strange and uncomfortable, but she had set her teeth, told herself that this was the King and she had no choice but to obey his will. She had endured and she was still alive—in body at least.
    “Then why do you weep? It is a great honour I do you, sweeting. You are like a bride to me; the King’s virgin bride, hmm?” Gently he pushed a strand of thick brown hair away from her face.
    “But to me, it seems like dishonour,” Ida found the courage to whisper. “People will look at me and call me whore. My good name is gone. I will not come to my husband a virgin.” She swallowed against the painful tightness in her throat and tears spilled over her lids.
    “Ah, sweetheart, no!” Henry gathered her in his arms and brushed her wet face with the side of his thumb. “No one will think that of you. You are mine. You are the King’s, and the King only ever has the best. If anyone dares to cast a wrong glance or missay you, I will have them horsewhipped, but it will not happen, I promise you. Your worry is to your credit, but it is needless. I look after those who are mine to me. You will hold your head high and be proud.”
    He made her sit up and brought her wine with his own hands, poured out like blood from the flagon. Then he took a ring from his coffer—not one of the gauds he had been distributing earlier in the day to all and sundry, but a fine piece of jewellery set with a balas ruby the size of a large man’s thumbnail. “Wear this for me,” he said. “And thus people will know the value I set on you, and that you are mine.” He placed it on her heart finger, where a wedding ring should go, and then he kissed her cheek and her mouth.
    Feeling the wiry softness of his beard and the slightly damp imprint of his lips, she shuddered.
    “Ah, Ida, your power is not knowing you have it,” he said.
    When she had finished the wine, he helped her to dress, rolling her silk stockings back up her legs, tying her garters, kissing the soft inside of her thighs above the fastenings and below the smears of blood and semen. He gave her a collar of ermines to wear at her throat as another symbol of his royal possession.
    “There,” he said, stroking the fur and then her neck. “That will keep you warm for me until our next meeting.”
    Ida was unaware of leaving his chamber, of putting one foot in front of the other as the marshal returned her to the women’s chamber. Goda and Bertrice fussed around her, but she stood like a stone beneath their ministrations and would not speak. All she wanted to do was sleep, to shut out the world and descend into oblivion where she didn’t have to think or feel.

Five
    Windsor Castle, September 1176
    Four days later, having been summoned by the King twice more, Ida began her flux, and was utterly relieved that Henry’s