Beloved: An Ode to Infidelity

By Krish Day

The year 1066. Philippe Devereaux, a young knight from Normandy, departs with Duke William’s forces for the Norman conquest of England, leaving his newly-wed bride with his feudal lord. The unusual revival of the ancient custom of ‘droit de seigneur,’ Devereaux is assured, is merely to bolster the image of his lord, the bride to remain untouched.

Through the year in England fighting Saxon rebels, and himself involved in a tempestuous affair with an older noble woman, Devereaux is assailed by doubt of his Seigneur’s promise, a suspect that stains his days lifelong. Without courage enough to seek the truth, of the night spent by wife Cathrén with his lord, the torment colours his years of service as Mareschal of the fief, the tortuous liaison with his master’s lady wife, the fortuitous death of his seigneurial lord and his own accidental elevation to baronial rank.

Depicting an intricate and colourful tapestry of the customs, faith and carnality of the medieval world, the narrative is peopled with nobles, high churchmen and commoner, their flaws and foibles illustrated in numerous episodes both solemn and comic, outré and tragic. The mildly archaic prose frames a world of innocence and ignorance, unbridled passions, intrigue, and the severe sanctions of canonical faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805145691

Krish Day

Krish Day was educated in India and the UK. He has worked as a lecturer in language lyceums and then as head of an international marketing and industrial consultancy. Krish is married, with a daughter and a son, and lives in Italy.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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Copyright © 2023 Krish Day

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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IN MEMORIAM

PETER J. PARKINSON

Friend of a lifetime

The best of companions

I, Philippe Arsène Devereux, do humbly confess and admit to my guilt.

Admission made, pray, do not be clement with me. Nor rush to judgement. Of deeds of blood there are a mere handful. But the crimes of the heart are many, myriad, numberless as the beings on earth, each harbouring within vice and evil well beyond the sins named in the Commandments given in stone.

The blood you see on my hands, not issued from the veins of another, be but the shades of tincture, scarlet and dark, bled from a heart everlong infected by the venom of grievance and grief, no less the seepage from a mind corrupted by suspect of betrayal, real or imagined. To so live lifelong in a void of light and shade, sight fogged, unable to tell friend from foe, the beloved who lies on the linen beside one at nightfall perchance a whore.

Show me no pity, nor leniency, I beg. Charity is for the thief, mercy for the brute and blackguard. Neither am I. A mere journeyman passing by on earth, much as the ploughman tilling the field, the smithy at the anvil, I have plied my honest trade as son and spouse, ever liege as soldier and server of my seigneurial lord, constant in faith and true to my Saviour, trusting in his forgiveness and the promise of the life to come in the radiance of His presence eternal.

But, yes, no sage nor saint, a mere mortal, I have erred and sinned, vanity and voluptuary oft the companions of youth, appetites and cravings the secret dreams of night, words vexed and a hand raised in choler random, albeit infrequent. The bile of animus absent, the sword never raised in vengeance, the only blood drawn that of the battlefield under the cross of Christ the King, the holy word and the behest of my earthly lord the sole guides of my will and arm. The occasional and venial transgressions of pride and loin my sole offence against God and man, no other excess, indulgence or esurience, has besmirched the annals of this my time on earth. And as the Lord is my witness, Absit iniuria, in word and thought, to those near and dear, to the distant and lesser known, never have malice and spite much hued my thought.

So, then, think of me as you will, judge me, if you must. Find me errant, if you so deem, blameable for the venialities of the common mortal, truths circumvented with small omissions, the passing airs of conceit and vain glory, moments of ire and envy, a rare time covetous of the consort of another. Yet, know this, whatsoever your censure, howsoever harsh the edict, no castigation nor privation of the dungeon cell can meet or match the torment, the mortification inflicted on the self by these own hands.

May the Lord, then, have mercy on this poor creation of His and, on the Day of Days, when the dead shall rise, gather me to his bosom to hold and keep through Eternity.

Dona mihi pacem, Domine!

Contents

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

I

1

In my father’s words, man might ever have only two masters, the Lord of Heaven and the feudal lord here on earth, the one Creator, breathing divine breath into clay, nourishing spirit and assuring a place sure in the hereafter, the other the seigneur of the land, whose wheat and meat nourishes limb and body, his valour and dominion keeping the enemy at bay.

Lifelong and ever true in the service of the one and the other, the heavenly King and the temporal suzerain, each day the sun rising in the sky had seen the old father kneel with head bowed in the chapel, as too each single day he had kept watch over and secured with blade and shield the vast estate of forest, field and domain of his liege lord. The return abundant from a grateful God, no less from a master much beholden, Jeannot Eluard Devereux lived long, a life of health into age, loved, honoured, gifted with title and gold. He now lies under a weighty slab of Carnac stone, the Saviour’s cross in the same sacred grey granite rising tall above his head to bless and protect the good Chevalier through his long sleep.

Unlike my sisters, twins who came into the family early, I was fruit of a late season. The grace of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin, invoked constant, prayers and oblations punctual and unfailing over the years, all had come to nought. Nor had physicians expert in female Humours counselling fumigations of clove and nutmeg, catnip mulled in wine, broth of pig’s eyes and testicles of hare stewed obtained the result desired. Nothing, no plea or remedy, had rendered the mother any more fecund, her womb still and always untenanted of the son and heir so longed for and ever so absent. Until, barely short of her mid-centenarian year, the good and saintly Anne in person appearing in a dream, old mother Abigaëlle found herself with child. Thus one late spring morn, the May sun peeking into the dim birthing chamber, did I first see the light of day. Deeming it a miracle, father Jeannot, then nearing his sixtieth year, gifted the abbey as votive offering a gold basin for the christening of the newborn, I the first to be immersed in the holy water of the gilded bowl.

If strange the hand of Providence, stranger yet the ways of the Lord. For at some small distance, through the woodland and across the fields emerald with ears of new wheat, there was born in the ornate chambers of the noble palace, at the strike of the same hour, yet another infant, the only child and male heir to the lands and estate of our feudal lord, Lexaundre Léonche de Vaux, Comte of Isigny, of Saint-Lô and Bayeux.

Fate was to decree that the two newborns, separated by birth and their stations in life, but twins in time, were to come together, entwined through the seasons of childhood, youth and manhood, brothers and brothers-in-arms, akin in tastes and satisfactions, sharing bread, the pleasures of the bed, until came the day for the one to lay claim to the maiden bride of the other.

A claim lawful, by right of birth, Droit du Seigneur, Droit de Cuissage, the term indifferent, call it what one may, but validated by custom down the aeons of time, not to be denied by any subject or servitor, consigning in the noble hands of the overlord, be it duke or count or sovereign, one’s virginal bride for a day and a night, the crimson stain on the cloth the prize and privilege of a right God-given.

Yet, and yet, one cannot but ask and wonder why the good Lord, ever so just and fair with all his creatures, rich and poor, the man of estate as too the mendicant by the wayside, should sanction such cruel parting on the first and very night when man and wife are to twine and meld into single flesh, cleaving each to the other, to become one in a sacred covenant until death do them part.

This Divine scheme unclear to my sight, called to the battlefield by our sovereign the great William, most dutifully did I abandon my bride beloved at eventide in the hands of another, a brother not in blood yet fraternal in all else, trusting with assured heart his noble pledge warranting to leave whole and untouched her vestal state. The night of nights consigned in the keeping of another, I have wandered through these many seasons of life troubled and unknowing of the truth, a pilgrim lost in the woods of dusk, even as the blight of suspicion engorged the veins of the mind, the venom of rancour infecting the veins of blood.

No admission or confession forthcoming, I have waited and watched, surmising, for the passing gleam in my lady’s eye at the memory of those nocturnal hours. How oft, too, have I thought to read some satisfaction silent and cryptic in the smile wordless of my brother and seigneurial master. Never certain, ever in a quandary, even as the worm of doubt and mistrust worked its way deeper into my being, birthing in the dark deleterious thoughts of injury and revenge.

The seasons turning, many and constant, the green of new leaf and the russet of autumn, the blaze of the July sun, the marrow in the bone chilled in the depths of winter, new lands conquered and the seal of peace embossed on parchment, our great Lord William’s ever long and glorious reign come to an end and his soul journeying towards Eternity, my brother and master ascended to govern and reign as Louis Ludovi de Vaux, Comte of Isigny, of Saint-Lô and Bayeux, my own locks grown ash, my beloved Cathrén, consort and helpmeet departed for the far shore, yet the cut refusing to heal, still bleeding, still oft plagued by my discernment fogged and uncertain in the hours of the dark. Entreating, sight raised to heaven, my plea on bended knee unheard, my God in his wisdom ever has withheld his hand from lifting off my heart the ponderous weight oppressing spirit and suffocating breath.

The sun finally setting, the last air departing these lungs aged and grown weary with a life everlong, was I then never to know the truth of that far away night shrouded in mystery and never to be revealed, firing through a lifetime an imagination fevered with the vision of noble brother Louis violating the purity of the bride gifted me by heaven, my very own Cathrén?

Do what you will, O Lord, of this poor soul, raise me to your bosom or, if you so deem, hurl me down into the incandescence of the eternal coals, the writ yours alone. But in your everlasting mercy, grant this creature pitiful, the least of your creation, the one sure syllable. The truth, dear Lord, that only your sight unfailing could divine as my brother and my beloved lay together in the dark, even as I tarried with my horsemen to cross the stormy seas to join our sovereign William on the way to conquering the northern kingdom of Bretaigne.

The myriad happenings of existence come and pass, some evanescent, others lingering, leaving behind them remembrance oft sweet, as oft bitter, most fading like the blooms of the summer garden, the red of the rose blanched, the prick of the thorn but a moment of pain, yet that mere drop of blood, ever scarlet and impervious to time, spreading to seep and stain the weave of this life of mine, is this humble bondservant of yours, Lord, never to know peace, on this earth or through the numberless ages of Eternity?

2

Our lives on this earth so oft besieged by Nature’s cruel caprice, plague, fires, flood and famine, as oft, too, imperilled by the shadow of the foe at the door with sword and axe raised, yet there be among men those whose minds, journeying down the dark lanes and labyrinths of the spirit, teeter at the gates of Hades, seeking damnation by their own hands, much as the young playing tag around bonfires, daring the flames.

So that you may better learn of the dolor of a life afflicted by the toxins of the mind coursing in the blood, allow me to recount the sorrowful tale of a merchant of cloth who resided in the countryside near Bayeux. A man of some substance, with a score of females in his employ, combing and carding and weaving at the looms, the cloth much sought by the high born, the wool and threads rich and rainbow-hued employed for drapery and tapestries to grace the halls and chambers of the landed and the noble.

Honourable, fair in barter and bargain, respected by fellow tradesmen, Albéric Molyneux was also a figure of virtue incarnate. Pure of heart, gentle in word and moderate in appetite, constant in attention to his spouse, with never a lascivious look nor a wayward hand reaching out towards the damsels and wives sat at the looms, Molyneux was no less devout in his faith, in prayer and deed, generous with the largesse proffered the church and the monastic community of Savigny where he worshipped. Sainthood if bestowed on the living, the name of Molyneux would surely be found writ in gilt in the book of good and holy beings.

Yet Satan ever lurking at the human door, tempting our Savour, no less, as too and especially the pious and saintly down the ages, nor was the good Albéric Molyneux to be spared the encounter with the Fallen Angel. In a moment, most rare, of forgetfulness and folly, like the mere chink in the door letting in the windy night, the breath of Lucifer slipping in to command mind and limb, the good man’s days turned to darkness, laying waste to a life upright and virtuous.

Riding home at the edge of a wood one late summer afternoon, Molyneux’s ears caught a voice, faint and ethereal, like strands of gossamer entwined, that held him still. Reigning in his palfrey, he looked out across the fields burnished gold with the ripened ears of wheat, a small party of women at some distance gathering up stray stalks, the angel voice rising from their midst and drifting out in the air warmed by the sun tarrying late.

Something within Molyneux stirred even as he leant on the pommel and listened. A song wordless, the voice crystalline, a monody unbroken and limpid. Senses astir, body and limb shot with sudden warmth, heart palpitating, loin beset with a craving never before known, he could make nothing of it, neither the unaccustomed efflorescence of damp on the skin, nor the aberrant urge in the swell of the braise, making for discomfort on the saddle.

The women moving away to make for home, the voice ceased of a sudden, but Molyneux sat on a long moment in the silence broken by the twitter of birds in their early evensong in the trees. The flush of heat fading, the beats of the heart subsiding, he felt yet his senses imbued with the vigour of an uncommon yearning that he could not name. A passing indisposition, he surmised, riding homewards in the fading light.

That night, by the candle light, an uncommon urgency waking in his limbs, demanding gratification pressing and prompt, he fell on his wife with an avidity hardly ever known, that bewildered the spouse even as she lent herself to the ravenous appetite of her inflamed consort. For many a year now Molyneux had performed his conjugal rites with the selfsame frequency of the new moon in the sky, the union always calm and gentle, as befitted age, no less his nature and manner. This night, the sky moonless, the unseasonal break from usage was not a little baffling. The wife satisfied, yet much surprised, Molyneux himself was at a loss at having regained the potency of long-gone youth, if for a moment. Withal, a horse gifted not in the mouth to be looked, neither man nor wife tarried long on the mystery as sleep beckoned their fatigued limbs to repose.

Recalling the unaccustomed deportment of the night just passed, a sense of unquiet Molyneux’s mind disturbed. Measured in appetite, shunning excess in all things, word or act, the cause of the frantic nocturnal exertion eluded his comprehension. The curiosity provoking a passing sense of self-reproach, he could not help cautioning himself against such further exuberance and possible sinful luxuriance. Man the measure of his appetites, only the lower orders and the beasts of the wild consigned themselves to the profligacy of wanton lust. Moulded in the image of the Divine, humankind was to savour the gifts of the senses with prudence and vigilance. So ever had it been with him, wealth gathered and expended with care, the pleasures of the table relished with moderation, passion and indulgence held in check with a firm hand reining in an impetuous steed.

The sense of disquiet lingering yet, the mind refusing to free him from a mounting sensation of transgression, day by day the conviction grew in Molyneux that he had sinned. Not so much the performance of the conjugal rite itself, sanctified by the marriage vow, as the manner of mounting the wife in the night-time, the excess of unchaste license with which he had sarded her and the surfeit of lascivious gratification so obtained, a comportment little in keeping with the canons of faith. And more there was, then. Molyneux recalled that the spouse had not lain supine under him throughout, the one and only rightful posture prescribed by holy writ for man and bride. For a time he and the lady wife had been side by side, to gain greater fit and rub.

Some days later, in the confessional, hearing the accustomed words, Your blessings, Father, for I have sinned, Father Hèbert sat back to lend easy ear to the familiar voice recount the habitual brief litany of minor lapses and mild failings. Voice raised briefly with a fellow tradesman, a harsh word for one of the women working on the loom, other suchlike passing slips and venialities that called for no particular censure nor any penance more onerous than the recitation of a handful of psalms, a rare time bread and water for a day. Certain it was that not even in his dreams would the good priest have expected from Molyneux revelations of immoralities and grave iniquities calling for sanctions weighty and punitive. Nor were they such, howbeit much of a surprise to hear of wayward carnalities from the lips of one such as Albéric Molyneux.

Familiar to Father Hèbert’s ear from half a lifetime was Molyneux’s gentle tone behind the curtained divide. Well did he also know the merchant for the man he was, the many years witness of an uncommon sobriety, continence and modesty, a spirit generous to a fault, that season after season offered largesse to the Church, one year several rolls of the finest yarn for the vestment of the clergy, another the renewal of the leaded glass of the abbey. Indeed, a gift from Molyneux was the fine linen alb Hèbert donned serving at the alter on occasions particular, feasts and celebrations.

Still and all, Father Hèbert concealed his mild wonder to hear the merchant confess with sparse and scattered syllables the carnal propensities of the night with the wife, assuring him then with words consoling that The Lord knows and sees all. The Divine eye having witnessed the small, faltering step of his faithful son and servant, the contrite heart could not but merit the indulgence of the Merciful Father. The indulgence pronounced, Hèbert then prescribed that the penitent fast for a day and a night, a penance little taxing, just in measure for a transgression passing and of small weight.

As Molyneux made the Sign of the Cross and rose to leave, the priest detained him a moment longer with a few expert words on diet and the table. Knowledgeable in herbs and herbal cures, he suggested it would be well if Molyneux were to refrain for a time from partaking excessively of meats, venison and fowl. Such foods at late age oftentimes worked on and raised carnal tempers, provoking an inclination towards immodest licence and lust. A diet in the main of greens, shoots and roots, would for sure help cleanse the blood of intemperate humours.

Molyneux left the church uneasy of mind and less than satisfied. Hèbert was a good servitor of God, wearing his faith light and imposing the holy writ kindly, without the exacting zeal of many of his clerical brotherhood. Howbeit, Molyneux could not but feel that on this occasion he had dispensed the Lord’s mercy with too generous a hand, the penance of fasting for a day and night risible, of too small a measure to fortify a contrite heart. The priest’s covenanted celibacy, so Molyneux pondered, could little reckon with the dark depths from which arose the still darker urges of wild and wanton concupiscence, that had possessed his limbs that night to vent on the wife the appetance of an animal of the wild. Surely, sterner should have been Hèbert’s voice of admonition, the chastisement greater, consonant with the dissolute offence.

For days Molyneux mulled on the matter, at nightfall careful to keep distance from the wife and refrain from the touch and grope to which the couple lent themselves of a time. Days passing swift with matters of trade pressing, busying himself as ever, making the daily rounds of the workshop, attending to the clientele, as too pondering the purchase of English wool, so fine of fibre and much sought after, Molyneux’s mind was gradually washed of thoughts of the injudicious night and the penitence ever so mild. Until one day, riding through a small, neighbouring village, he once again sensed the intemperate spirit wake and come alive within.

The ploughmen and their womenfolk out in the fields harvesting, the village slumbered undisturbed in the noon heat, the mean habitations shut and shuttered, a stray or two wandering down the baked earth path, a cackle of geese bickering around a pond of muddied earth. Molyneux arriving at the end house of wattle and daub, his hearing caught a voice in song weaving languid through the air still and warm. With a tug involuntary at the rein, drawing to a halt, he lent ear to the threnody.

No mistake, the very voice it was that had so fired his veins some weeks afore, robbing breath, waking wants obscure and recondite. Startled now, pulse hastening anew, he sensed an unaccustomed stirring within, the glow of a warm wash invading body and limb. And as with a siren song over dark waters ensnaring the mariner, he felt an ineluctable tug and pull, the wordless descant like a silken lariat winding about, drawing him slow and sure towards the source from which arose the voice.

Dismounting, drawing the mount behind him, with cautious steps he walked towards the spot whence came the song, all the while the cantilena wavering clear in the air, monotone and melodic, reeling him in irresistibly, as if snared by a hook. Rounding the house, to the grounds in the rear, he caught sight of the woman, stood by a straw hut, a tall figure with auburn hair worn long down a broad back and cradling a small life in her arms.

A numbness sudden running down the limbs, Molyneux found himself rooted where he stood, much like a pole buried deep in the ground, even as the unearthly melody, like a draught, fanned and woke to life sleeping embers within, the glow of a fevered heat spreading slow through flesh and organ. How long he stood there, held firm and still, he could not tell, until the woman turned her head, the song in her voice ceasing at the sight of the stranger.

With steps slow and languid, the countrywife approached Molyneux. A tall figure prosperous in body, heavy-bosomed and wide-hipped under the flimsy attire of worn and rumpled linen. Not young nor yet old, lineaments bold framed with russet locks long and careless, there was something about her of one fallen from grace, not doxy nor hussy, more pawn of misfortune. And as she neared, Molyneux came to and started at the clear sight of the small creature swaddled in a shawl and cradled in her arms. Not a human infant but a shote, a tiny snout pressed close, as if to draw succour from the swell of the bosom.

Woken out of his benumbed trance, Molyneux drew back as the woman spoke, to ask with a smile faint and a voice low and dulcet what the good gentleman might want and if his way he had lost. Even as she spoke, one hand raised the ragged cloth of the stole, to reveal the pale-pink snub of the piglet’s snout drawing on the woman’s bare teat. Unnerved, confusion throwing mind in tumult, wanting to make away but unable to move, for no rhyme or reason he spoke, to make an inquiry thoughtless and of no sense. Drawing halting breath as the faltering words departed his lips, he asked if the small creature he might purchase.

No, Master, not my babe, the woman replied, meek but firm of voice. She is all I have. No, her I cannot barter. Seeing Molyneux lending ear but unmoving, yet more had she to say.The house has been dark since the Lord called my husbandman to Himself. This my babe is now the light...

Molyneux could scarce recall afterwards why or how his hand slipped beneath the tunic, to loosen the drawstring of the leather pouch, the fingers burrowing within to pick a heavy silver coin, that he held out towards the country woman.

Eyes wide with surprise, she looked at Molyneux a long moment, her gaze then settling on the coin. A smile small and sly flitting across her lips, yet in a voice of misery she said, There be else, Master, to relish. As pink and tender on the tongue.

With the swoop of an eagle alighting on a prey, her hand picked clean the silver from Molyneux’s palm. Much do you merit, Master, for this a season’s wages, she said with gaze repeated at the coin on her palm. And much shall you have! Whatever your taste and fancy.

Hurrying back with steps brisk and bundling the piglet inside the straw hut, she returned as hurried, to step neatly over the tumbled fence. His hand caught in hers in a grip sinewy, her lips close and nuzzling, with breath heavy in his ear she whispered, Well repaid will be your kindly deed, that I promise. And beckoning with a nod of command mute, she bid him follow.

Caught fast in a hypnotic daze, Molyneux stepped behind her hasty stride, drawing his mount along. A small distance yet ere the climb up a wooded rise of pine and beech, clumps of hemlock scattered about, the crackle of the fallen leaves underfoot disturbing the arboreal silence. Levelling, the knoll revealed a small burial ground, a score of blunt stone crosses, aged and askew, like jagged teeth protruding from the earth, the long-forgotten dead in repose under the sheltering shade of an ancient oak.

Halting, a moment they stood in the green stillness, the ploughlands around hazed by the noonday heat stretching far in the distance where moved tiny figures, like dwarfs, wielding their scythes in the fields burnished gold with ripened ears of barley and wheat. Molyneux’s gaze on the country wife, guess he could not the purpose of this walk, what she might have in mind, even less his own design, of which he had none. Perchance, he quizzed himself, her intent it was to show him the stone beneath which lay her spouse. But with what intent? And what of her promise generous of an offer abundant, his hand pressed with force on her bosom? Thoughts in a swirl, nought could he deduce.

Taking the reins and winding it around a branch, stepping up close to Molyneux, the woman took his hands, to press them on her hips. Nought have I to give for your silver, but this, hoarse her words and bold the press of her bosom against his. Take what you will, Master, whatever your delight.

Mind absent, sight dimmed, he heard her voice, low and euphonious, as if from afar, felt only her nearness, the silent press of her body against his, daring him insolent. Of a sudden, then, breaking into his blind daze, with breath redolent of fennel her lips fastened on his, the curling flesh soft and damp, insistent, her tongue like a serpent’s fangs darting wet into his mouth.

Alarmed, wit failing, Molyneux could make nothing of the unaccustomed gesture. Males might greet mouth to mouth, to bear witness of allegiance and fealty, but such an encounter he had never seen nor known, the locking of the sacred orifice of man and woman. Turning his head this way and that, he made to free himself of the clamping vice. But head backed firm against the trunk of the oak, her arms wound tight around him, his lips seemed to yield of their own volition to the stubborn labial grip and hold.

And the while, up and down his person ran her one hand for whatever its purpose. Growing bolder, then, under doublet and tunic it worked its way, to touch and feel naked skin, the palm running slow over belly and underbelly and, descending, to rub and press the rise of the groin, whilst her mouth to this ear sounded soft with a shush, as if to quieten and hush an infant restive. Distraught and frantic, wanting to free himself, yet mind fogged, nought did he feel but the flush of a fevered heat spread through nerve and tissue. Drained of will and force, of little avail was his rebuff and refusal feeble against the grope and grabble of the prying hand seeking whatever its prey.

Then, quite as sudden again, the woman slid down Molyneux’s length, to fall on her knees and nudge her face into his loins, the cheeks brushing insistent the linen of the braies even as the lips traced to and fro the swelling tumescence within. Forceful the hold of the weathered hands, no move could Molyneux make to free himself, nor did he so attempt. Swift and nimble, seemingly well-practised, the fingers undid the draw-string, to pull down the leggings, and as swift were the lips to fasten and engulf to the hilt the engorged rod of manhood, the tumid flesh pulsing with blood inflamed.

Sense and life fled, daylight expired, rooted to the ground Molyneux felt nothing but a searing heat race through thew and sinew, his entire being compressed, compacted to the enraged protuberance encased and held captive in a cavern of most heat. Insensate of his whereabouts and what his condition, only a dim impression of pain did he feel of the prick of nails of the hands clasping firm his rear halves, whilst the woman’s mouth most assiduous ran the length and girth of its captive prey, the tongue mischievous in its wicked play, the limpet lips holding fast, as though bent on drawing out the very last savour of marrow from bone and brawn, from the soul itself.

Eyes flickering open a brief moment, Molyneux’s gaze fell on the auburn head labouring below urgent and tenacious. Nought could he surmise of what this brazen creature might want, nor the aim and end of such rite so queer and peculiar, unheard of and never before known. Never had he felt the lips of maid or dame on his person, his wife’s peck on the cheeks familiar and customary, but such devouring of parts most private ever beyond imagining, never once visioned in the dreams of youth and night, nor ever spelt clear among the habits forbidden to man in the received word of Heaven.

Flushed and febrile, watching in mesmeric trance the head below labour insistent, swift and without notice he felt his breath seize and limbs petrified, a cinder heat consuming the loins as a tidal surge of release, gushing out in flooding spasms, emptied his being head to foot. A mere instant, the merest, with earth and sky meeting in a convulsion volcanic.

Breath and life returning slow to an innervation hollow and spent, sudor warm trickling down the face, the dim sight of the chestnut head below stilling its ministrations, the worn hands releasing their hold, as if from a distance Molyneux saw the woman rise to her feet, heard her departing steps, without word or farewell, the throated gargling alone breaking the stillness as she spat out the outpouring on her tongue.

Breath freed, senses yet glazed, skin damp and the linen clamping, Molyneux remained long where he stood, slumped against the trunk of the oak. The small sounds of birdlife in the woods once again in the ears, opaque sight clearing to the scene, gaze fixed on the crumbling, moss-hued tombstones around, he knew not yet what he had done, nor what the dead beneath his feet might have seen. Certain it was, withal, that Molyneux could not then know that the bell had tolled for him, the hour near at hand when he too would reach the buried and gone in the field of the departed.

Leant against the ancient trunk of the oak he remained, vision cleared, yet head emptied of all, sense and thought, limb and body drained of lymph, spirit spent, life near-absent. Hollowed and unfeeling, all that remained was the faint savour of salt on the parched tongue.

~~~~

Laboriously hauling himself up onto the saddle, riding wearily homeward, barely able to envisage what had passed, he knew only he had this day transgressed some unwritten edict among the commandments given to man. Searching through memory the verses read in the Holy Book and oft heard in the church, no notice could he find nor mention of the deed to which he had just lent flesh and limb. The solemn oath of wedlock unbroken, he had not lain with the woman to plunge himself into her nether orifice, the one or the other, nor even had his tongue sought out the vestibule of her secret sheath or any other such part. Yet a voice within warned insistent that he had sinned, and sinned gravely, the misdeed unspelt in the canons of faith but not for that any less an offence against nature and an iniquity in the sight of the Divine.

Dusk descending and the small lights of his homestead in sight, he could only find nebulous solace in the thought that Heaven’s hand could not but mete out the just chastisement, the silent plea repeated on his lips time and again, "Spare not the