The Smell of Horse and Leather

The characters in this story would have all spoken either Norman French or Old English, and a bit of Latin. But I don't speak any of those, and be honest: you don't either.

So? I'm having them speak colloquially. You'll just need to imagine something a little more guttural. A lot of the folks mentioned here were real, historical people living through a rough time in real, historical places. And yes, St Valentine really is the patron saint of beekeepers. At this time, and in this place, he wasn't yet associated with love.

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* * *

I came down from my climax, panting, slowly aware that the birds were chirping outside. Seeking mates, I giggled to myself. Birds always find love in February.

Steam rose off my legs. It was easy to forget, here in the hen coop, sweating like a pig under Thurgis' enthusiastically thrusting body, that it was still the cold, hard dead-end of January. It wasn't cold enough today for the ice to form, but the wind made it feel that way. And inside the coop, with the chickens all outside squawking, my overheated body smoked like Godmer's forge when the smith came by. "Wow!" I sighed, my pussy still a-flutter, "that was exactly what I needed."

"That makes two of us." Thurgis hadn't even bothered to take his shoes off, meaning his leggings were still down around his ankles. He'd already been hard when he'd arrived and made eye contact with me, nodding toward the coop. "I've been horny all week." He went to help at his uncle's mill in Biggleswade every Thursday, and I was normally happy to entertain him on the way. It made a long two days for him, in addition to his other work, but his uncle paid him a quarter of a silver penny each time.

I contemplated what he'd left on my stomach, a large splatter of thick white cum frosting my bush and extending all the way up to where we'd pushed my shift up under my chin. Shit. The shift would be smelling like dried seed until laundry day, I reflected with a frown. It had been worth it, though; Thurgis knew just what to do with my tits, but he needed to get at them first. They floated on my chest now, taut and pale, my dark nipples almost painfully hard with the cold and my arousal.

I'd need to wait a bit before I put myself back together. Hard nipples don't feel all that well against my linen. He sat up on the old, shit-speckled straw, looking down between his legs at where his cock still wavered half-hard, covered with my juices. "I could almost go again, Little Bird," he sighed at me.

Little Bird.

As always, I bristled at that, even if my scorn was tempered a bit by the joy his plunging cock had given me this morning. He was a hopeless romantic, with emphasis on hopeless; he thought he and I were in love, but this was no time to be talking about love. Marriage. Certainly not babies, I chuckled to myself, running an idle finger through the cum I'd made him leave on my belly instead of inside my cunt.

Three kings we'd had in just the past year, since he'd turned eighteen. Three!

No time to be talking about love, indeed, in a world so uncertain. We needed to take our pleasures where we could find them. I stirred, lifting my finger to my mouth, licking his thick spunk off it. He tasted good, better than Edmer had. But then Edmer was married; I wondered whether that made a difference. I set to work with a handful of straw, sloughing it off me, wondering whether the hens would notice the damp patch as they pecked around in here.

Yep. I'd found my pleasure, all right. I still tingled along the edges of my pussy, where he'd so vigorously driven into me. It made me smile.

We'd become less furtive about our fucking lately, which was only to be expected. By now, I reflected, the entire manor probably knew what we were up to. But apparently we no longer had a thegn, nor even a priest, so what was the point in worrying about getting caught?

A new thegn would arrive eventually, a Norman. Maybe he'd kill us all, probably not, but who could say? To be sure, Thegn Godmer hadn't been all that great. But at least he'd grown up here and spoken our language. Over in Dunton, where one of the new men had already arrived, they were saying these people spoke some weird tongue from over the seas. They had odd names, too: the man who'd taken Dunton was called Walter, and what the fuck kind of name was that? They said the same man was the new thegn of Stratton now, too.

Dunton was not happy. They'd had no thegn there at all under King Edward, and none under King Harold either. They reckoned they'd done just fine, and could keep on doing just fine under the new king, this man they called the Bastard. But apparently, the Bastard had other ideas. Not having a master, it seemed, was not an option in the new England.

Nothing was certain, right enough. I wasn't Thurgis' little bird, nor his big one. I knew I could be, though. He walked two miles out of his way just to fuck me. I knew I could have him whenever I wanted him, and I didn't.

He wasn't getting the message, though. His lips were a warm tickle at the hollow of my neck. "I'm just saying, Mer, it's February now. That's when we should choose a mate, surely." He kissed me again. "Like the birds."

"And I'm your mate," I mocked him. It occurred to me I might hurt his feelings by refusing, but it couldn't be helped. He lived in Morden. I wasn't about to move there. My parents would kill me. I shivered, the breeze finding its way through the coop's flimsy door. "Are you not freezing?" I demanded, cross.

"What?" He was squatting, his glistening penis flexing as he stared absently at my bush, and instinctively I pulled my shift down. He blinked.

"Nothing." I swatted at my hair, knowing there was straw in there and wanting to beat most of it out. I sighed, smoothing my shift over my chest: yep. The nipples chafed already. "Listen, I need a favor."

"Name it," he came back immediately, as well he should; I'd just relieved him of about a week's worth of his seed. It never occurred to him to take care of himself between his visits to me, with his hand, and I wasn't about to suggest it... even though he'd just left himself smeared on my belly. Leaving it on his own? That would have been different, and a grievous sin. God had killed Onan for that, after all, or so Father Felix had said.

Though I reckoned God hadn't killed him for cumming on Tamar's thigh. He'd killed him for not pleasuring her before he did that. So I decided Thurgis and I were fine. Besides, God had not killed Thurgis yet. So.

He lay back in the straw, the only way he could get his legs straight enough to pull his leggings up in the low space. I let myself admire his prick once more before he began lacing up. "Well. Father Felix has disappeared." He and Thegn Godmer had vanished a few days ago, and nobody had realized it until we all went wassailing there and found his house empty. A quick look inside had shown his chest left unlocked, all his charters missing. "I hope he'll be back by the ides, but it sure looked like he wasn't returning."

"Father who?"

"Felix." It was an unusual name, obviously, but then he was an unusual man. He came from Somewhere Else, maybe even Rome itself, and claimed to have once met a Pope! "Godmer's priest?"

"Oh." Thurgis shrugged; he had little use for God, like most boys his age. Eighteen years he had, and I remembered my older brother at that age. He'd never gone to church either, not until that memorable day when, shamefaced, he'd confessed that he'd cum in a woman's mouth instead of her vagina. My parents had rolled their eyes, but Felix had assured him everything was fine as long as he paid an indulgence; he accepted a pair of eggs, one for each of Osgar's ballocks, and everyone laughed.

Well. Everyone except Mildrith. She'd been the owner of the mouth he'd spewed into. She'd just sat there, humiliated.

"So yes. He's gone," I sighed, twisting my body into my dress. Fuck, it was cold! "Which is really a problem, because I need a blessing."

"A what?" He blinked over at me.

"The priest says a prayer, idiot. It's how you get saints to help you out."

"Well, I know that," he scowled. "I'm just wondering what you'd need a blessing for." His eyes flickered down to my belly. "Umm. I really did try to pull out, Mer..."

"No, not that," I giggled. He was a sweetheart, really. But so dumb. "Trust me. It's not that."

"Because, if it was..." He smiled a little wistfully. "I mean, if God wills it, Little Bird..."

"Shut up." I know I rolled my eyes. "No. Nothing like that. This is about my bees."

It had been the most important thing Grandfather had taught me as a little girl: you had to get the bees out of the hive before March, and you had to get St Valentine's blessing first. It was the only way to make sure they'd yield good honey all year, and if they didn't? Then no mead. Nothing sweet. No poultices. The manor needed honey, and I was the beekeeper. So the manor needed me, and I needed St Valentine.

And to get him, I needed a damned priest. Well, actually, no; a damned priest would do me no good. I needed a priest that God liked. I let Thurgis admire my ass as I stooped toward the coop's little plank door and peered out into the chilly morning. We tried never to be seen crawling out after fucking. Sure, everybody knew... but I had no wish to be a spectacle, like poor Mildrith. People talked about me enough already, I knew: twenty years old and still not married. It wasn't my fault my father couldn't afford to marry me off, though, and besides? I was happier this way.

We straightened into the late-morning sunshine, the manor quiet around us with the men in the fields, or milling. Or whatever they did while I tended my skeps and worked my spindle. We started trudging toward the silent little chapel, the frost crunching beneath our shoes. "I know her ladyship left, over there in the Mordens," I told him, drawing my cloak about me. "I was hoping you still had a priest?"

"Lady Gode? She didn't leave," he shrugged, kicking at a tussock. "Well, not yet anyway. She's just living in Woolley right now. It's where she holds court. You could always go find her," he added doubtfully. "When did you say your priest went?"

"Few nights ago? No earlier than Monday. He was preaching on Sunday, like normal." I frowned. Well, not normal. I was dimly aware that most priests gave their services by daylight. Felix never did. In fact, I couldn't remember ever seeing him abroad by day.

"Well then Gode's priests might have left by now too. I don't know." He squinted at my hair. "You've got elflocks."

"Don't untangle them," I squeaked, alarmed. "That's bad luck. God hates that."

"Oh. Well, there's straw in there as well." I confess, I wasn't prepared for how delicately he raised his hand to my hair, plucking me clean. It made my cunt tingle a bit. "I think her priests travel with her? So they're in Woolley too. Sometimes there's a guy who travels around our hundred, but I think he's all the way down south? Like, in Hoddesdon or something." He spat on the hard ground. "He's just a wanderer, a friar. He doesn't work for my Lady."

"Fuck." I saw my father way beyond the treeline, leading one of the oxen with my younger brother Sibald. My family's little house, and the chapel, and Godmer's deserted manor house, all were empty this morning. The air did not seem peaceful, though; the cold breeze brought uncertainty, not cleansing. I sighed. "Well. Too much to hope for. It's bound to be a bad year in a million ways; why should my honey be any different?" He looked at me uncertainly. "You'd better go. I know you're off to Biggleswade. Um," I added quietly, "are you coming back through here tomorrow?"

"I could," Thurgis smiled slowly, "if I had a reason..."

I swiveled my head quickly around, then reached down and cupped his balls with harsh, fierce fingers. "I'll give you a reason. Come find me."

"Well. If you put it that way?" He winked at me, his cock spasming in my palm as he turned away, and I felt that glow of power my cunt always gave me as I watched him walk west.

Yes. You had to take your pleasure where you found it, in times like these.

* * *

Early afternoon found me making a skep until I got tired of the branches and went back to my spindle, which I spun until I got tired of that. So then it was back to the skep. All. Day. Long. Soon I'd need to mix up some ash and cowshit for the outsides of my skeps, my least favorite chore of the year, but before that loomed the pressing need for a priest.

Because without St Valentine's favor, none of it would matter much.

Bad honey harvests happened sometimes, and that was even with the Saint's blessing. I shuddered when I thought about what would happen if I didn't have it; maybe my Queens would die. Or a fire would take all my bees. Or worse. Father Felix had always been gracious about asking the Saint's blessing, though in my most secret heart I wondered whether he really believed it mattered.

God knew, though, and so did Valentine. The saint hadn't ever failed Grandfather, and I hoped he'd do me the same service. Nice, straight combs, Merewyn my girl, he'd told me proudly when I was little. We'd been out by the skeps, turning them over, the very air around us throbbing with the bees. That's St Valentine's doing, it is. He'd taught me how to take out the combs, leaving enough for the bees to grow on. How to smear myself with mallow to keep them from stinging me, though to be honest it never seemed to help. If they wanted to sting, they stung.

Father Felix had said Grandfather's prayers and blessings too, though back then Godmer had been little more than a boy and his father had been thegn. I wondered how old Felix must be. Certainly, he didn't look very old. I sighed and put aside my withies, closing my eyes in the thin sun of the cold afternoon, my hand going blindly out and landing on my spindle again. For this was life: skep. Spindle. Feed the bees. Spin. More skeps. More spinning. Check the bees. Spin. Cut out the combs. Squeeze out the honey. Spin some more. Dry the wax. Spin. Herd the bees. Spin.

Over and over again, my life rolling out before me, measured and constant, all the same. Like the thread from my spindle, and my mother's, and Mildreth's, and young Winfled's. Always the same, and only the kings changed. More rapidly, of late, and with a sudden mix of apprehension and comfort I realized that when the new man came, this famous Bastard or one of his friends? Well, those men would need honey, too.

I'd be all right, eventually. And in the meantime, I'd take my pleasures where I could.

My eyes opened to a sound I'd not heard in months, not since Godmer marched away to York last September, when King Harold had swept along the old Roman Road with his carls: the sound of hooves. Hooves on the lane, pounding along toward our manor.

I put aside my spindle and shot to my feet in a sudden gout of alarm.

Hooves didn't usually mean good things. Only rich people rode horses, and poor people usually do best when they avoid rich people. Not Godmer: he wasn't really rich, I knew, though he had a lot more than my family did. His whole manor was worth just half a pound of gold, and maybe less now. Godmer hadn't even owned a horse, though his own overlord Alstan of Boscombe was said to own several. I wondered briefly whether this was Alstan, coming toward us along the lane, but then I realized it couldn't be. We'd heard nothing of him since the big battle in October, the one down south; he had to be dead.

I whirled toward the fields, wondering how long it would be before my father heard the horses and came running, but by then it was too late for him to come: the hooves were already in the thicket before me, the shapes of two riders now drifting through the shadows of the trees. I knew they'd reach the yard in seconds. Behind me I heard my stepmother stirring in the house, but she was pregnant again and I willed her to stay in bed.

And so it was that I, Merewyn the Beekeeper, became the first to welcome the Normans to the manor of Millow.

I pulled my cloak tight about me and ran a hand through my hair, being careful to let my fingers skip over the elflocks, then hoisted my shawl all the way up over my head. I strode into the courtyard and made myself stay still as the tall horses burst into the yard: two men on four horses, the unladen ones uncommonly big and strong. They reined up at once, way over by the well, the riders' heads whipping around, and as I squinted I could see that one of them was much younger and better-mounted than the other. It was the older one that leaned in for a low, fast discussion with his companion before he nudged his horse toward Godmer's empty house.

I watched the older man carefully. He rode well, as far as I could tell, tall in the saddle with heavy, well-fitting clothes and a spear across his back. I'd never seen a man without a mustache before, and his hair seemed quite short too, though it was hard to tell under a fur-lined leather cap. He rode forward slowly, openly curious and not looking particularly brutal, taking it all in. I couldn't tell whether he'd seen me, but I thought about that spear and realized the last thing I wanted to do was surprise these men.

So I tugged my shawl more firmly over my hair, stepped out from in front of my dad's house, and cleared my throat. "Hello?" I called uncertainly.

He didn't seem startled, turning his horse slowly toward me and then cocking his head. I could see now that he was probably about my father's age. His face looked grim, with more than just a hint of cruelty about his dark eyes, but when he suddenly smiled it seemed genuine enough. He walked the horse to within a few feet of me, until I could smell its saddle sores. "Hi there." He spoke slowly and with a strange accent. "Who the fuck are you?"

The noise of my stepmother in the house grew louder at once; shit. She was going to come out. I raised a finger toward the horseman and half-turned toward the door. "Stay inside, Mother Elfrith." The rest of the manor would be arriving soon, I reckoned, drawn back by the horses, and I thought it was unlikely that just two Normans would slaughter us all. I turned back toward the man. "Uh, I'm Merewyn?"

"Right," he shrugged, "but what I meant was, why are you here waiting for us? Are you the lady of the manor? And what's the name of this place?"

"This is Millow." I wondered whether I should bow, or kneel, or call this man 'my lord,' or anything like that. "We don't have a lady of the manor. We have a thegn, but he's not here."

"Thegn!" The man snapped his fingers. "Right! That's what you people call your overlords. You're his wife, then?"

I couldn't hold in a laugh. "Oh god, no. No, I'm just a beekeeper."

"Well. Beekeepers are important, too." He was still staring all around him, now nodding slightly. "Nice place. So, listen," he went on, still speaking slowly but clearly, "that man over there? On the horse? The young guy? I suppose he's sort of like a thegn too."

"Do these lands belong to him now?" I blurted. I could hear Sibald thrashing through the bushes behind me, over the brook. Good. My father would be here soon. "We just... we don't really know what's going on..."

His smile did not leave his face, but he did stiffen a bit as he caught sight of my brother at the brook. He slowly showed both his hands. "That makes two of us," he muttered. "They don't tell me much." He nodded behind me. "Is that your husband?"

"I'm not married." I spun around and saw that Sibald had a billhook in his hand and a scowl on his face. "That's my brother. And he's not going to do anything stupid," I added.