“Are you the priest here?” Mathias asked him. “My lady and I wish to be married immediately. Rouse who you must in order to accomplish this.”
The man shook his head and tried to run off, but Mathias would have no part of it. He grabbed the man by the neck and held him fast.
“Did you hear me?” he said, less friendly this time. “My lady and I wish to be married immediately. You will perform the ceremony.”
The priest shook his head again, yelping when Mathias squeezed. “I am not the priest,” the man said. “I must get him.”
Mathias was weary and brittle, translating into a harsh manner. With Cathlina tightly in-hand, he followed the man as he scurried back into the darkness and into the rather large church built of big blocks of brown stone. Cathlina clung tightly to Mathias, peering at her surroundings and thinking them to be dank and spooky. Everything smelled of the candles they used that were rendered from fat, a heavy and greasy smell that had the ambience of a burnt body. It was a rather sickening smell.
In fact, Cathlina put her fingers to her nose as she followed Mathias to the rear of the church. The frazzled man threw open a small oak door which ushered them into a sort of common room. There was a table and the remains of a meal on it, and old straw scattered about that had the smell of urine. As Cathlina and Mathias paused, the frightened man opened another small room and hissed at the occupants. They could hear voices on the other side, both irritated and curious. Eventually, a man in a stained nightshirt emerged, pulling on his brown woolen robes.
“I am Father Malachy,” he said, rubbing his red and crusty eyes. “What is it that you wish?”
Mathias pulled Cathlina against him. “I am Sir Mathias de Reyne,” he said. “My lady and I wish to be married immediately.”
The priest rubbed his eyes again to get a better look at them both. He seemed particularly interested in Cathlina. Wrapped ina dark blue cloak with a rabbit skin lining, she appeared rather small against Mathias’ bulk.
“This is most irregular,” the priest said. “One does not simply walk into a church and demand marriage. It is a process by which the couple is made ready to accept God as supreme creator of their lives. You must live for Him. Where is the lady’s family? Have they given consent?”
“I can pay you ten gold crowns,” Mathias said impatiently. “Can we dispense with this lecture and get on with it?”
The priest looked at him, shocked by the amount of money the man was willing to pay. His curious, apprehensive gaze passed between Mathias and Cathlina.
“Are you running from someone, child?” he asked Cathlina.
She shook her head. “Nay, Father.”
“Is he forcing you to marry him? Is he brutish?”
She giggled. She couldn’t help it. “Nay, Father, he is not forcing me and he is not brutish. We simply wish to be married.”
“If he is forcing you, you must tell me. You will be safe here, as I will protect you.”
Cathlina found the statement hysterical. The priest was about her size and Mathias was a giant by comparison, well over six feet in height and all manner of power about him. Mathias caught her mirth and merely rolled his eyes.
“Am I forcing you?” he asked.
She put her hand over her mouth to stifle the uncontrollable giggles. “Well,” she said. “Mayhap. But I am going along with you happily.”
He shook his head at her. “Silly wench,” he grumbled affectionately. “Let us have him marry us before you condemn me further.”
Mathias was already digging out the coins. The priest could hear them jingling. With a shrug, because he couldn’t sincerely see any reason to deny them and it was clear that the lady wasn’tin distress, he herded them into the main part of the church and, with the frazzled man and another acolyte as a witness, joined Mathias de Reyne and Cathlina de Lara in marriage.
After paying the priest the promised coinage, Mathias mounted his wife on the skittish charger and in the dead of night, headed into Longtown and the Ladyseat Inn.
*
Cathlina awoke thenext morning in a strange room, to strange sounds, and for a moment had no idea where she was. It was daylight outside but she could hear the gentle patter of rain on the windowsill. She lay there a moment, looking around the room without moving her head, struggling to orient herself. She could see her cloak and satchel over near the wall on a chair that had been made from twigs. It leaned heavily. As she stared at the chair and her possessions, gradually, it all came back to her.
Lady de Reyne. She was Mathias’ wife now. It didn’t seem real, not in the least, and the surge of joy and excitement she felt at the thought was palpable. After their hasty marriage at St. Michael’s Church, they had spent another hour in misty weather hunting down the Ladyseat Inn.
Once they finally found it, it was dead quiet and still except for a few drunken patrons, but they had managed to find Justus and Sebastian sleeping soundly in a small room. Since the inn was full, they vacated the room to give Cathlina a bed to sleep on. She’d tumbled into bed with hardly a word to either of them. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
Propping herself up on an elbow, she looked around to see that she was quite alone in the very little room. She didn’t even know if Mathias had slept with her. It was cold, too, because the fire was out and the hearth was a big, sooty mess. Climbing outof bed, the first order of business was to get dressed and find her husband.
She was still in the dark green linen surcoat she had worn from the day before but her shoes and hose were off, indicating that Mathias must have removed them after she fell into an exhausted sleep. The floor was cold as she hopped over to the chair that contained her cloak and satchel, and the first thing she saw was her hose neatly rolled up on top of the bag. Her shoes were underneath the chair. Setting her hose and shoes on the bed, she opened up her satchel and began to dig around inside.
Given that Kenneth had afforded her ample time to pack a satchel before whisking her off to Mathias the day before, she had managed to pack everything that mattered to her although it had been tricky with her nosey sister around. Inside her satchel was an oil cloth bag, resistant to water, and she dumped the contents out on the bed. It contained a frayed reed toothbrush, a bag of soda mashed with lemon for her teeth, a big bar of lumpy soap that smelled of lavender and a phial of flax seed and lavender oil that kept her skin from drying out. She also had a comb and a variety of things for her hair. Her sanitary supplies were also tucked into the bag, linen and absorbent moss that were used during her woman’s time.
