This is not how she imagined she would pass her wedding night. Once, she thought she would spend it in the Delaunays’ house on the hill. She remembered how she’d met Rémy in the orchard to press him on the details of their wedding, long after they had walked up the hillside together—after the apple blossom had gone and the wasps had come. Rémy had not answered. He’d pulled her towards him and pretended to examine her face for flaws.Too many freckles, he’d teased and then elaborately shrugged, as if freckles were the sort of thing one couldn’t be too particular about if one were looking for a good wife. She’d swatted his arm as if he were one of the insects trying to suck all the sweetness out of the windfalls.You love me, she had insisted, and he had laughed and nuzzled her ear, the sound of his voice blending in with the drone of the wasps all around them.
Élisabeth shook her head. It was not freckles that mattered if one was choosing a wife. It only mattered that she be able to produce a child to lay in a cherrywood cradle.
“This winter I’ll build a cabinet bed in the corner,” Francoeur continued, nodding in the direction of the far wall. “In the winter we can pull the doors shut to keep warm. What do you say to walnut?”
She took a step backwards to touch the wall, tracing the knots in the logs with her fingers, letting them fall into the grooves. She did not know what to say to walnut. What did it matter to her whether he built them a box of walnut, or cherry, or enchanted applewood? She glanced at her husband, her eyeslingering on his broad chest. She thought about how they had met, when she’d mistakenly laid her hand on his buttocks. She remembered the firmness of the muscle beneath the soft serge and imagined the moment when he would pull the doors to the cabinet bed shut on a winter’s night, locking them into their marriage bed.
Nothing for them to do all night but burn with infernal fire.
She felt a rash of heat spread across her chest and thrust her hand into her pocket. She pulled out her holy water vessel and stretched to place the talisman on top of the lintel. When she turned back, Francoeur was standing in front of her.
“Élisabeth, I am very glad that I married you,” he said, holding her gaze.
She dropped her eyes. “And I you.”
He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers, then pulled her close to his chest. The smell of woodsmoke and sweat was dizzying. She felt Marcosi’s tail coil between her legs. To her horror, she felt the beast begin to growl with pleasure.
Francoeur bent forward. She stood as rigid as a possessed nun, waiting for her husband’s touch. But he surprised her by brushing past her lips and landing his kiss on the curve of her neck.
Her flesh responded in a thousand tiny bumps. His rough beard caused her to shiver all the way to her toes and the demon to flap his wings. Her lips parted, about to moan, when she caught herself. She shuddered instead, full of shame. It was as the priest said.The female is a slave to her filthy lusts.
“No!” She pushed Francoeur away, though she did not know if she was telling her husband or her own self to stop.
“Very well.” Francoeur brought her hand to his lips and kissed it before releasing her. He smiled but Élisabeth looked at the floor. She felt sick.
“Élisabeth, look at me,” he said softly. She bit her lip to brace herself; his hazel eyes were full of concern. “Are you frightened of what is to happen next?”
Marcosi laughed so loudly Élisabeth knew that if she opened her mouth to answer Francoeur, the wolf’s howling would echo through the house. No, she was not frightened of carnal relations. She was afraid of what the demon was making her feel.Where is the sin? He is your husband now.But she had also been Rémy’s handfasted bride, hadn’t she? And that union had been cursed. The Devil would not have come for her if she had not been in mortal sin. If she gave in to lust again, would she ever be rid of the demon?
“We don’t have to rush to bed just because it’s our wedding night,” Francoeur continued. “We have months—years—to get to know each other. We do not need to start our family tonight.”
“And what if… children do not come?” Her voice caught and came out as a rasp. She placed her fingers on her throat.
“Of course we shall have children,” he said. “God will bless us. One day this house will be so full of noise and disarray that you will laugh when you think back on this night, and your worries about being alone in the woods.”
She pulled her hand away and stood up.
“I am tired,” she mumbled.
“Will you eat some bread before you sleep?”
“I am not hungry.”
She made the sign of the cross and knelt by the mattress, murmuring the Pater, the Ave, and the Credo. She was aware of Francoeur kneeling to join her in prayer. When they were finished, she rose and waited for him to turn his back. She slipped off her skirts and bodice until she was wearing nothing but her shift and slid under the blanket.
She heard Francoeur’s suspenders hit the wooden floor. The straw rustled as he joined her in bed. Though when he rolled onto his side, he took care to keep his distance so that she could not feel his back against hers.
She closed her eyes. Good. As the village priest had instructed her, she would go to sleep thinking of death, eternal repose, and the sepulchre where Jesus’ body lay.
Touch him, the demon Marcosi whispered to her in the dark.Lay your hand on his thigh.She made a fist with her hand.
No. If she could not bear children, if she took pleasure in the marriage bed, it would break the holy sacrament of marriage. She would not bend to Marcosi’s will. She would not slip into sin. Not until the witch cured her curse and made her fruitful again. She opened her eyes again.
“Francoeur? Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“I think tomorrow I will be hungry. After I visit with Jeanne Roy, I… I am certain my appetite will return.”
