Scotland: 1558.
The clouds and frequent chilly rain of winter not withstanding, Lise began to resume her tramps out of doors. Though not as indifferent to her security as she had once been, her need for air and exertion reasserted themselves.
Against any expectation she would have had if consulted, Lise had found heeling and renewal at Whithorn. Though not of a religious temperament, Lise had to concede that, somehow, Margarete had been right to insist on the long and arduous journey. Lise had always thought pilgrimage to be a pointless trial. Nevertheless, it was only since that long journey and the many things that had happened on the road, that Lise had truly begun to heel from the wound her spirit had received at the hands of three lawless rapists.
The men were each dead, and Lise was alive. Since the pilgrimage last autumn, she had been increasingly able to savor her life, and to feel grateful for it.
Sometimes, Owen would accompany her on her energetic walks through wood and over hill. Since Whithorn, they had grown more at ease together, though there was still a distance between them. They discussed it as freely as they could, both agreeing that, more than anything, time was what was needed.
Before the traumatic events that had sent her spiraling down into despair, Lise and Owen had been lovers. While their unconventional courtship had stretched tantalizingly over months, the expression of their passion had known only one day before catastrophe had robbed Lise of all joy in living and love.
At Whithorn, she and Margarete had at last come together once more in renewal of the bonds of loyalty and passion that had bound them to one another for three years. This, as much as anything else, had helped Lise to come back to herself.
Cautious but observant, Owen had long since deduced that Margarete and Lise were physically intimate in the ways which folk usually thought of as exclusive to man and woman. Sophisticated and wise in the ways of human nature, Owen had observed, wondered, but kept his own counsel.
Still, he often pondered the relationship between the two women; mistress and servant, noble-woman and attendant, guide and protégé, lover and lover, sworn companion and sworn companion. It was a riddle beyond his reading, but that did not trouble him. As a singer of songs and a teller of tales, he had no need to fit each person into one defined role, but had an infinite capacity for seeing uniqueness.
Margarete was young, married not yet one year, noble born of a landed French family. Lise was her Lady's attendant, older, more experienced, of lower social rank. These were the roles folk saw publicly. Owen had spent no little time wondering about what went on in private.
Owen wondered how physical matters stood between her and Margarete since Lise's renewal at Whithorn, but he did not ask.
Lise felt, often with a twisting sadness, that she and Owen were now engaged in a conventional courtship, very different from the one they had been engaged in during the months before Lamas; the festival of the first harvest when her assault had taken place.
Never having known any personal interest in propriety, she had not missed it during the vivid flirtation of their first courtship. As the winter progressed however, she found herself observing its edicts not out of modesty, but out of a need to guard herself. She was not afraid of Owen, but of how intimacy with him might make her feel. Margarete was one thing, but Owen was a man.
She began to long for him with growing intensity, but the last thing she wanted was for them to act before she was ready to do so with full ardor and receptivity.
As the spring began to make itself felt and seen, all experienced the deep sense of quickening in land and animal. The seasonal work of field and pasture turned in its inevitable cycle towards growth and verdancy.
As April waned, Margarete was acutely aware that soon, it would be a year since her arrival in Perthshire. With what seemed a wholly appropriate conjunction, the anniversary of her marriage would coincide closely with the celebration of Beltane in earliest May.
She had known a form of this festival in the countryside of Bordeaux, but it seemed to her that folk in Perthshire anticipated it with more relish. She reflected that this was, perhaps, an effect of the very different climates of the two places. She herself felt the coming of spring far more acutely than she had as a child.
She discussed it with Lise one night while Lise brushed out Margarete's hair in preparation for braiding and sleep.
"They say there is more dancing than at any other of the festivals. Maggie has been working to teach me. Her little one is old enough that she looks forward to a good deal of dancing and festivity."
"And to a trip or two with her husband into the darkness beyond the fires also I gather."
Margarete heard the smile in Lise's voice and rejoiced that Lise could speak so again. Margarete smiled too, a dreamy, inward smile. The feel of the brush through her long hair was soothing, and lise's touch always brought a mixture of peace and stimulation.
"Folk do say that many babes are born in January, and not all are the children of their mother's husbands."
Margarete's mischievous words brought appreciative Laughter from Lise. Encouraged, Margarete ventured to breech a reticence they had observed since Whithorn.
"I have more than once come upon Owen and yourself embraced in a secluded corner, seeming quite enraptured with one another. Perhaps Maggie will not be the only one to drift away into shadow for a time."
At Lise's silence, Margarete turned a little anxiously, but found only a small smile on Lise's face. Margarete widened her eyes in a not all together frivolous question.
"Perhaps," Lise replied softly. They say it is a time of great license."
Her fingers were still gently wound in the strands of Margarete's hair. She lifted the strands to her face, inhaled the familiar scent, and brushed the soft hair across her own cheek.
"That's what folk said of Lamas also." Her expression sobered.
Margarete laid a tentative hand on her arm and said carefully, "I think the time has come to cease looking backward."
"I know. I know. I have for the most part. I long to be with him again as we were that one day, but I feel like such a different person that I fear it will not be the same. I fear that I will not be the same."
They were alone. Margarete rose, took the hair brush from Lise's hand, laid it aside, and took her in a gentle embrace.
"When you and I came together at Whithorn, it was not as it had been, you were not as you had been, and yet... It was no less powerful, no less loving. Since then, we have become less cautious with one another. It is not exactly as it was, but it is still true, and deeper for the waiting. Owen is good and kind. He loves you, and will feel as I do, I know this."
Lise returned the embrace, and Margarete felt her tension. Concerned, she pulled back to see Lise's face, but found there only a kind of excitement.
Margarete glanced toward the closed door. Beyond was the staircase down to the Great Hall where Margarete's husband and Owen remained for a last cup of wine. Margarete drew Lise behind the hangings of the bed. She knew they could not count on prolonged privacy, but the curtains were sufficient to hide them for the seconds it would take the door to open.
Confidently, tenderly, Margarete drew Lise again into her arms and kissed her with slow sensuality. Without speaking, each woman was conscious of the memory of Lise dealing so with Margarete during their first days here almost one year ago. So often, Lise had deliberately drawn on and evoked their shared passion in order to strengthen or distract. Each time, it had replaced anxiety, uncertainty and loneliness with a vital force. If it had left Margarete deliberately unsatisfied, it had also fortified and energized her.
With a mild wonder, each realized that this was what Margarete was now giving back. With the same docility that this strategy had elicited in Margarete many months ago, Lise found herself surrendering to the deliberate rousing of desire that she knew could not be immediately satisfied.
She abandoned worry and caution. She trusted Margarete to keep half an ear open for intruders, to guard them, to guide her along the well known but never mundane path they had so often known together.
Margarete's thought strayed briefly ahead to sharing the bed with her husband when he came, to the unrestrained passion they would know. She let her hands move freely over Lise's body, delighting in the familiar curves, the feel of their bodies pressed together, the sound of Lise's ragged breaths mingling with her own. She felt no compunction in rousing lust that would, in her case be satisfied, but that would leave Lise still aflame.
She moved her lips slowly down Lise's throat to the place over her collar bone where Lise was most sensitive. She nuzzled there, kissing and flicking with her tongue, then moved her lips to Lise's ear.
"Beltane is not far. It is the day for passions to be realized I have heard. Every night until then, I will kiss you thus, touch you, rouse you as thoroughly as I am able. Think of Owen, and when Beltane comes, you two will be the first to seek cover of the trees just as you were at the first harvest. If I acquit my task well, perhaps you will not even care about privacy, I have heard that some don't.
