The Treatment of the Lower Orders

The Treatment of the Lower Orders 7

Even in the depth of the castle, everything froze. Braziers and fires burned in all the chambers used by the sheriff, his guests and his master at arms, but for the servant, only the kitchens offered real heat, too much usually.

The cook would be stripped to the waist, the boy who turned the spit, naked. There, the usual stuffy clamour and noisesome bustle was aggravated by the house servants and soldier, seeking to ease their frozen hands and feet. The advance of the Yule festivities had increased the activities of the kitchen churls a hundred fold and all was overpowering. The place stank of burnt meats and sweat.

Elias delivered the clean and mended aprons, the tiny muslins, bags for bouquet garni, shaped and hemmed for straining and covers. She hurried away from the chaos that reigned, and headed instead for the laundry. The fires burned there to heat the water, it was not as hot as the kitchen, but more bearable, and it was near the linen store, her usual workplace now.

Wrapping her knitted grey shawl tightly about her and tying it at her back, she breathed absently on her frozen fingers. It was nearly Christmastide and the cold weather would be about them for months to come. It seemed as if it would never cease. It was rare for her to leave the castle now, for all outside was ice and mud.

She had become more fastidious about her few clothes and person. Neat and clean, she needed to be neat and clean. Housewifely virtues might out weigh her whoredom to Sir Guy.

For whoredom it was. Still he took her, as his urges took him. But it had changed between them. The loss of their child, had given Elias a glimpse of something more. She accepted her position, but a secret part of her had begun to long for a peace he would not, or could not give her.

Guy's demands were different since her indisposition and the renewal of his courtship of Lady Marian. The brutal couplings in shadowed corners had long gone, and the sudden violence was less.

If he came upon her, he would stroke her, brush his lips about her neck, cup her breasts, then tell her to await him in his chamber. Occasionally he was rough even now, occasionally all sweetness. Still, she could have been any tavern wench who pleased him, not Elias Renouf, second seamstress.

Now he seemed to take some small pleasure in her pleasure. ofttimes he would bring her to her peak and find distraction in her cries and moans. Still sometimes

he struck her, though not often, and then only when the sheriff had goaded and insulted him to the point of fury. Men beat their women, ‘twas a fact, the way of the world.

Reaching the palisade, she hastened her step. Open to the elements as it was, the freezing dampness was worse here.

The voices and the sound of spurs upon the stone floor, made her step to the wall and bow her head.

“Yes, my lord, he seems to be content to allow…” Sir Guy glanced at her, but offered no acknowledgement. She bobbed a curtsy and waited for them to pass.

Vaisey saw the look and smirked. “Fuck her in your own time, Gisborne." He said casually over his shoulder, not breaking his stride. "Will he be here for the feasting? I want to know how my lord Wessex intends to blow, hot or more cold?”

Sir Guy’s jaw tightened as they passed her. Elias hurried away, more than ever determined to find some tranquil comfort.

Darkness was looming, the weak afternoon sun was pallid, undeserving of its name.

Elias had finished her duties, quit the steam-heated laundry, and thought to eat her bread and cheese in the last of the daylight. She stopped to watch a bumptious robin that landed on the sill. It made her smile to see the tiny bird strut and preen. Crumbling a corner of her bread, she drizzled the tasty morsels in a small trail. The confident little bird hopped and feasted close to.

“Ha, to him you feed a banquet, but me, you starve.” Guy was hard against her back. He pushed the shawl away, ducked his head and suckled at her nape.

Elias gasped, his open mouth and tongue hot on her chilled skin. She had been unprepared.

Then he was moving, she was unsure what he was about, but she waited, longing alight in her now. Then she knew he had removed his gloves. Chill fingertips slipped about her neck and under the grey shawl. They stole their icy way down to caress her breast.

Her low groan was met by his hiss of contentment.

“Your flesh heats mine so well…” His other hand joined the fray, now cradling the other fulsome globe.

She was cupped by cold palms that caused her loins to smoulder. Squeezing softly, Guy laughed and whispered low, “I should take you with me when I ride...to ease the cold.” He sighed against her hair.

She closed her eyes and moved back upon him, rolling her hips in a way she knew would entice him more.

Ah, what whore’s tricks she used now. The shameful thoughts that flooded her mind appalled her. She no longer went to confession. When she told the priest of her rape and then Guy’s continued attention, he had absolved her, ten Hail Mary’s and the promise she would endeavour not to sin with him again had been her penance. Then she confessed her need for Guy’s touch, her longing for his nearness. The priest had condemned her as a harlot and a whore, told her the only chance of redemption was servitude in a nunnery. Now she went only to Mass, and did not partake of the communion, never more would she be in a state of grace.

It always puzzled her to be called a whore, after all Sir Guy paid her no money. No special favours came her way, except occasionally to eat fine foods with him, mayhap sleep in his bed.

“I would have you in my chamber, to reheat the rest of me.”

She hardly heard him. The sensation of his freezing fingers on her flushed, swelling breasts, drove rational thought from her. She gloried in his touch.

Guy laughed quietly. “Ah, my little one, do you like my hands upon you now?” He pinched and pulled delicately.

She breathed, “Yes…yes, my lord, I do.”

Later, in his overheated chamber, as their sweat slicked bodies slid in glorious rhythm, he thought strangely, that the fires of wood crackling in the hearth and brazier did not warm him.

She did.