She raised her eyes. Took a breath. And her head snapped round, so that she was looking, not at me, but out over the lagoon. ‘If you hadn’t come,’ she said with bitter self-knowledge, ‘I would now be in his arms.’
By the suffering of Christ, she was soft. Hard and soft against me.
For some time, we only breathed.
I was supposed to say something. As a knight, it was my duty to avenge my honour. But I was unmoved. I wasn’t without jealousy, but … she was in my arms.
Bah! I was not unmoved. I was uninterested in her life with the king.
‘Do you understand me, William?’ she asked.
I shrugged.
I tried to kiss her, and her lips brushed mine, but then they were gone. And yet her hands crossed behind my head and she leaned back to look at me.
‘When I was young, I was quite the wanton,’ she said.
‘So you have said,’ I put in, which may have been ungallant and was certainly unnecessary. She frowned.
‘No, listen, if you wish to kiss me. Listen.’ She stepped back, out of my arms. ‘I would kiss any boy who put his lips on mine. Any one of them who wanted me. It was enough … merely to be wanted.’
In a way, it was like the blows in the village square. Not because it should have hurt me, but only because it hurt her. She hated saying these things.
‘I had the reputation of a slut, and I was almost proud of it, or pretended so.’ She laughed, but the laugh was wild. ‘But my father was rich, and powerful, and made me a good marriage. To a man who held me in contempt, because I came as soiled goods to his bed.’ Now I had her eyes on me in the dying light, and now I could feel every blow as she stuck herself with words. ‘His contempt spurred me to greater efforts.’
I wish I might have thought of something clever to say.
‘And then I met you,’ she said. She bit her lip. Slowly, she said, ‘William, I would like to say that after you … but no. I have had other lovers.’ She looked me in the eye. ‘I did not come to constancy in a single leap,’ she said with her old humour. She narrowed her eyes. ‘I find it … difficult,’ she said.
She turned away. ‘You know what would be easy? It would be easy to be your mistress. Or the king’s! Par dieu, I’ve never climbed such heights.’ She turned. ‘Perhaps both of you at once.’
Oh, I writhed. Women were not allowed to speak this way of love. But she was angry. I think now – but no. I will take some secrets with me.
At any rate, she smiled. ‘But at some point I had babies. And babies make changes. Do you know?’
‘Know what?’ I asked.
‘Edouard – my son.’ She smiled. ‘He is yours. D’Herblay has no idea.’ She laughed and she leaned back against the brick wall, and I didn’t care about any of it. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever known.
I had, in fact, counted months and seen a certain hint of freckles in Edouard.
‘So?’ I asked.
In a fight, there’s a moment when you throw the blow. The blow. And long before it hits, you savour it. When your opponent’s sword reaches for it and fails to find it, you have time, long indivisible aeons of not-time to savour the blow.
Mind you, sometimes your opponent makes his parry, and you are shocked to have such a perfect blow stolen from you.
But my studied nonchalance was the equal of her self-anger.