By the time he'd reached the age of thirty, the bailiff Godfrey didn't much care for living in the castle anymore. Something about him had grown restless, independent. After being granted permission by his lord, Godfrey built himself -- or rather had stonemasons build him -- a lovely house downwind from the castle gate, next door to the blacksmith and the farrier on one side, the baker and butcher on the other. The air smelled like bread as often as it did smoke or blood.
But it was a fine house, Godfrey's, finished with a clay-tile floor, a proper hearth, shutters on the glassless windows. An outhouse and a garden out back. The biggest piece of furniture was the bed, a well-made four-poster, followed by a chest full of clothes, a table with chairs, a cabinet for all other trifles. Cutlery and the like. A crucifix adorned the wall and a psalter the nightstand. Not that Godfrey could read much beyond the pictures.
Every morning, a servant from the castle brought the bailiff milk and bread, and in the evenings, he donned his cloak, slung his sword on his hip, and traipsed up the hill to the great hall for dinner. Sure, he had to tackle more ordinary tasks himself, stoking the fire and what not, but he enjoyed the freedom a house offered him, freedom, especially, from supervision.
No one knew, besides Godfrey himself, when, precisely, he'd become naughty. Only that one day, he'd gained a fully-formed reputation as a seasoned partaker in other men's wives. Impressive as it sounded, it didn't take much effort on his part. There were many unhappy ladies passing through this little, in-between town, dragged along by their merchant or crusader husbands who hocked their wares or their stories up at the castle while their women idled on.
As the bailiff of R, his was the right to participate in all forms of economic traffic, to demand compensation for safe passage and tithes on excess goods sold. Nobody liked it, but that was the way things were. If men couldn't pay their taxes, well, he considered that unfortunate. It meant that they had to stay a few extra days until they could fork up the coinage.
The crusaders Godfrey preferred to cut a deal with, being God's men and all. The merchants, on the other hand, were so desperate to get to a more profitable city they ran themselves ragged trying to push some inventory, often at a steep discount, on a town full of people who simply didn't have what one would call urban fortunes. Such a scenario ensured that the townspeople of R were better dressed and fed than others and that the merchants' wives often found themselves left behind in the tavern, alone.
**
Godfrey was a handsome fellow, if a little unconventionally so. (And about both the handsomeness and the unconventionality, he was well aware.) Tall and lean, muscularly built from years of training, he struck an elegant figure in his equally elegant clothes. A perk, one of many, of the job.
Black hair fell to his chin, which made Godfrey's bluish eyes stand out more than they would otherwise. In general, he kept himself very neat, very prim. Despite the hassle, he walked down the road to the barber every Tuesday for a shave. The bailiff's otherwise fine features -- a heart-shaped jawline, a thin yet sensuous mouth -- were undermined somewhat by his prominent nose, which bore quite a hook. (A roman nose, Philip the cup-bearer once called it, trying to make his comrade feel better.) Regardless of how little he liked it, his nose made Godfrey striking, memorable.
Looks, however, weren't his sole advantage. Godfrey possessed an intensity to him that intrigued people. A way of meeting their gazes with his own, a way of speaking softly and urgently when necessary, of rousing from nothing a shroud of intimacy. He also possessed a very witty sense of humor that disarmed and flattered. He listened well. He could make whoever he spoke to seem like the most important and meaningful person in the world.
Even when women were warned ahead of time about the bailiff's wiles, he behaved in a way that put them at ease, made them think they could outsmart him. Then, suddenly, they would find themselves not wanting to be parted from him, not quite yet. After all, he was so affable, and seemed to care so deeply about everything they said.
And there was something appealing about him, Godfrey. At some point, a woman noticed, and then never cease noticing, that he had beautiful, strong hands. That he held things -- knives, cups, strands of his hair, the clasp of his mantle -- in enticing ways. Suddenly the room would go very quiet, but only to them, internally. Through his long eyelashes, Godfrey would gaze at her, whoever she was, languidly, resting a hand on her shoulder. Under the guise of a furtive joke, he would bring himself close in order to speak with her.
She would look around, nervous, but no one would ever pay her any mind, why would they? She was only a woman. Already married. Usually from out of town. The tavern was always crowded. It was the only one. I might go upstairs, Godfrey would say to her. I fancy a rest. And then, this poor woman, whoever she was, her heart beating wildly in her chest, she would become ensnared in his web of curiosity.
And soon enough, she'd find herself on the edge of a straw mattress, her hands in his hair, her voice calling his name, his cock buried deep in the oft-neglected folds of her aching cunt. However, for Godfrey, the tavern had, of late, become a contested space. Word traveled too far, too fast. People, or rather husbands, now expected the bailiff to show up there unannounced. Eventually he decided he'd suffered a few too many close calls, had leapt from a few too many open windows.
Hence the house, which he'd yet to properly christen.
**
In all manners of his work, Godfrey kept fastidious rules. When on his rounds, he never collected more than what was owed. He gave everyone a reasonable duration of time in which they had to repay their debts. He collected only modest interest. He didn't indulge, like some men of authority did, in his subjects, offering them leniency in exchange for their bodies. He didn't take women by force and preferred to keep violence to a minimum. Fear was a tool best used rarely, otherwise it lost its edge. This didn't make him good, not by any sense of the word, but it did make him fair.
Similarly, in his affairs, he maintained restrictions. Well, three of them. The first was obvious: no wives of people much stronger or vastly more important than Godfrey himself. He rather enjoyed his neck and preferred to keep it. Second: no women unhappy enough to view him as a savior. God, that rule he'd truly learned the hard way. If a woman was clearly looking for a way out of her situation, experience told him his presence in her life would only make it worse.
He always thought it a pity when a woman believed Godfrey loved her, especially to the point of rescue. Poetic nonsense. And when he'd tell her, calmly, his truth, it never ended well. Threats were made, tears were shed, honor was invoked, even though it took two to commit adultery. Hence, he distrusted women who made overtures to their misfortunes. Women who cried. Godfrey quickly developed the ability to tell the difference between a woman ambivalent about having a little fun and a woman determined to make him just as unfree as she was.
The third rule: no virgins. Under any circumstances. No daughters, no maidens, no sweet girls, regardless of how pretty and enticing they seemed. Maidenheads were a terribly fraught matter. Dowries were on the line, the family farm and all that. Her future, her worth as a person, both before God and measured in coin. Messy beyond belief. Every so often a woman betrothed to a man she did not wish to marry would come to Godfrey, implore him to take her to bed, hoping that by ruining her the engagement would be called off. But the bailiff, wise to such wiles, knew how to diffuse this kind of situation. See rule number two.
Usually he could determine which girls were virgins before he even crossed their thresholds. They behaved a certain way. Bashful, frightened, overly self-concerned. Flirtatious, but without heft. Skittish as fillies. An attendant was often nearby, sweating out middle age in her coif. The younger they were, the more likely it was they were trouble. He preferred to stick to women his age and older. Nothing whetted his appetite quite like a widow, and he soon came to rather like the color black.
Still, every so often, there were close calls. The young woman he brought back to the house right after it'd been built was one such case. A rare mistake on his part, but one he'd soon look back upon fondly. Beatrice, he'd think, usually with his cock stiff in his hand. No, no, Beatrice was different.
