So Great A Love by Flora Speer Read Free Book Online

right as it did at that moment. However, she harbored a very
real fear that Adhemar would decide not to wait until his wedding
night to claim her body as his property. She did not think her
father would raise any objection, not when he was so eager to see
her wed to Adhemar.
    It was a problem Margaret knew she was going
to have to deal with unaided by anyone else, for in so intimate a
matter there was nothing Catherine, or Aldis, could do to help her.
Hoping Adhemar would not notice how badly she was trembling,
Margaret took his hand from her thigh, lifted it to the tabletop,
and held it there. He had by this time consumed so much wine that
it was no very difficult task to overcome his resistance to what
she was doing. Margaret fought back her disgust and tried to speak
politely, yet firmly enough to leave Adhemar in no doubt about her
intentions.
    “My lord, I went to my first marriage bed a
virgin,” she said. “I intend to go to my second marriage bed a
virtuous woman. My insistence upon maintaining my virtue now,
today, is your guarantee of my fidelity after we are wed. If you
persist in putting your hands on me, I will complain to your
chaplain in a very loud voice. Tomorrow, after we are formally wed
and our union has been blessed by the Church, I am indeed yours to
do with as you wish. Until then, you may not touch me again.”
    Though Adhemar appeared to have no respect
for women, it seemed he did respect God's representative. Or
perhaps, Margaret thought, his advanced age and ill health made him
cautious about transgressing the sanctions of Mother Church. After
a hasty glance at his chaplain, he left Margaret alone and directed
his increasingly slurred remarks to her father instead. The two of
them were concocting a plan to make war on a third baron, whose
lands they coveted. With King Henry mired in grief over the recent
death of his sons, they did not expect royal interference with
their schemes and they began happily dividing up the lands they
intended to gain by force of arms.
    “After the first test of our loyalty to each
other,” Phelan said with wine-induced confidence, “we can move on
to more important alterations in our circumstances. I suggest we
should plan to attend the royal court at the same time and use our
combined influences on the king.”
    Relieved to be freed from Adhemar's
importunities, Margaret returned her attention to what Catherine
was doing. She noticed that Aldis and all of Catherine's
men-at-arms were missing from the hall. She had not seen them
leave, but she took their absence as a sign the escape plan was
under way. Margaret hoped it was so. Every moment she spent at Lord
Adhemar's side made her more nervous, more eager to be gone, and
more afraid something would occur to prevent her from leaving
Sutton and to cast blame onto Catherine and Aldis.
    Finally the long meal was over, if not the
drinking, and the men and women who had been sitting at the lower
tables were on their feet. The tables and benches were being pushed
back to make room in the center of the hall for a band of acrobats
who had come to the castle offering to entertain in exchange for
food and lodging. There were also to be wrestling matches between
Phelan's men-at-arms and Adhemar's men and, later, a pageant put on
by the servants.
    Suddenly there was a lot more noise in the
hall and much movement, with the servants beginning to assert their
right to have fun on this night that was also known as the Feast of
Fools, which they considered to be their own special holiday. With
a shout of good-natured laughter one of the stableboys was lifted
onto a table, there to be crowned with a large cooking pot, as the
Lord of Misrule. Margaret knew the time was approaching for her to
make her move.
    From across the hall Catherine caught her eye
and nodded to her. Margaret understood the signal, but for a tense
few breaths she could not make herself move. At last, with her
heart beating like thunder, she gathered her courage