THE WOLF
ADELAIS DIDN’T WORRY OVERMUCHabout her sins, but as she pulled her hand from Tate’s body, the weight of her own gluttony nearly flattened her.She wanted to make the naughty little abbess come again; she wanted to flip Tate over, get rid of her own hose, and straddle the nun’s wicked mouth until she peaked.
Mostly she just wanted to crush the limp, dazed Tate in her arms and smell her sweet-scented hair and ask her everything she was feeling and everything she’d ever felt and everything she wanted Adelais to feel, too, because Adelais would try for her; Adelais would try to feel anything she asked.
But first Adelais needed to come, because if she didn’t, she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t end up fucking Tate into the road again, and she was certain Tate needed a chance to recover.So Adelais took care of herself like a soldier: with a blunt hand down her own hose and a few rough strokes.It didn’t take long, not after what she’d just done, and with Tate still underneath her.It had taken her longer to lace up her boots that morning than it did to culminate, and Adelais could have laughed at herself, at her own wastefulness.Here she was with a warm, sated nun underneath her, and she was masturbating like an adolescent watching a milkmaid undress.Ah, well.The night was young yet, and she had other things she wanted to do.
Though her sex was still pulsing out its release, Adelais withdrew her hand and then lay down right there on the road, rolling Tate into her arms.
Tate went easily, sweetly, her head fitting onto Adelais’s shoulder like it had been made to go there, her arm sliding over Adelais’s waist, and a little sigh escaping her lips as Adelais rearranged Tate’s habit so it covered her legs once again.
That sigh was a sound escaped from heaven, a note straight from David’s harp.It eased the demons inside her like it had done for King Saul, and Adelais felt full of light and peace.If the Wolf of Normandy was allowed to feel such a thing.
And even though the ground was hard and the night was chilly now that they weren’t wrestling or fucking, Adelais never wanted to move from this place.She would erect a castle right here on this very spot.She would fortify it and furnish it, and then they would never have to leave.They could live and die here, and hang the rest of the world.The world had gotten enough from the both of them—surely they were entitled to a little selfishness by now.
“Are you warm enough?”Adelais murmured.
Tate nodded, a sleepy arc of her head on Adelais’s shoulder.“You keep me warm.”
Why that made Adelais’s eyes burn, she didn’t know.
“Why are you a nun, little mouse?”Adelais said, her voice soft.It wasn’t a true question, not really.More of a lament.
But Tate answered anyway.
“I killed a man,” said the abbess quietly after a minute.“When I was fifteen.”
Adelais didn’t want to do anything to divert this unexpected openness; she couldn’t bear the idea of getting behind the veil of Tate’s innermost self only for it to draw closed again.But she did stroke the nun’s soft hair, hair as dark as a lake at midnight.“I’ve killed many, many men,” said Adelais.“Does that make you feel better?”
“It shouldn’t,” Tate said after a minute.“But it does.A little.”
“Why did you kill this person?Did you do it to protect yourself?Your home?”Adelais pictured a bandit, a raider, some disgruntled Dane after Edward succeeded the Danish Harthacnut to the throne.
Even though it happened years ago, a storm of heat coiled in her chest at the thought of someone trying to hurt Tate.It made her want to find this person’s grave just so she could kill them all over again.
“Yes, it was to protect myself, and someone else too.But my home?”Tate gave a bitter laugh.“I’m not sure anyone in my village would have ever forgiven me if they’d learned the truth.I certainly can’t forgive myself.”
Adelais didn’t respond to this other than to hold Tate tighter against herself, like if she held her close enough, she could soothe away the years-too-late fear she felt for Tate’s safety.
“He was my brother,” Tate said finally.Each word came out with an exhale, like speaking them required intention, force of will.“So you see the problem now.You have killed lots of men, but this wasn’t a battle and he wasn’t holding a sword.My own flesh and blood, and I killed him like a coward.”
“When you were fifteen,” Adelais stated.“Young people don’t kill unless they’re told to kill or unless they’re terrified.Which was it, little mouse?Did someone tell you to do it?Or were you so scared that you didn’t see any other way?”
Tate drew in a breath, and Adelais could hear the shaking in it.
The darkness, though getting colder and colder the longer they laid still, was like a blanket around them, a shroud of quiet, familiar safety.“He used to hit us,” she said after a long minute.“When he was in a temper.My parents died when I was ten, and Cafnoth was the oldest, so he inherited Thornchurch.Heorot was the middle child, and maybe Cafnoth thought he needed disciplining, I don’t know, but he was hardest on him.He only struck me a few times.But Heorot…” Tate paused, and Adelais wondered what she was seeing in her mind now, what she was reliving.“The day it happened, Cafnoth learned that the woman he’d wanted to marry had fallen in love with Heorot instead, and Cafnoth was…so angry.Beyond rage.He stormed into the house and grabbed Heorot and?—”
Tate sucked in a breath, a short one, like her body had forgotten it was here and not there during that day.“They fell to the ground and he was trying to bash Heorot’s head against the floor, and there was blood everywhere, and I grabbed a poker from the fire and I hit him.As hard as I could.”
Another breath.Sharp, quick.
“You saved your brother,” said Adelais.She knew she didn’t always think like other people did, especially when it came to what was right and what was wrong, but she could not see the crime in this.Saint Aidan himself would have done the same in Tate’s shoes.
“I could have hit Cafnoth on the back or on the arm oranywherebut the head,” said the abbess bitterly.“I could have pulled him off, maybe, or tried to get between them.Or I could have hit Cafnoth hoping only to incapacitate him.But I didn’t, Adelais.When I lifted that poker, I washopingI’d kill him.I washopinghe’d die.I’d been so scared and so angry for so long, and not just for myself, but for Heorot too, and I wanted it all to stop.Just.Stop.And so that’s what I can’t forgive myself for.Not what I did, but that Imeantwhat I did.That my mind was filled with as much evil as Cafnoth’s.”
She stopped suddenly, as if she’d run out of air, out of words altogether.Adelais understood; she’d seen her share of soldiers after their first battles, mixed up and miserable.And there were plenty of things in her own mind that never seemed to weave themselves properly with words.
“And then what happened?”Adelais asked.“You came to Far Hope?”
