it reaches my nipple. I slap away his hand. ‘Are you listening or just groping?’
‘Oh definitely listening, sweet Bernadette. Are we so different from you northerners then?’
‘As different as ducks from chickens!’
His smiling lips are wide and wet against the silky brown of his beard and I long to kiss them; but my mother gave me a very long lecture on men before I left home. Looking into Piers’ face I know that I am looking at the trap she described. ‘They love you. They leave you with child. You lose your place. You and the child starve to death,’ she’d told me over and over again, until it was like a nursery rhyme in my head. Piers has a long, large face framed by floppy brown hair. His eyebrows are thick and black above pale blue eyes. The blue is relegated to the edges now as his pupils are huge with desire for me.
Piers is the only real friend I have here. He and Almodis are the only people who can speak my northern French – Langue d’Oil – as well as their native Langue d’Oc. The Aquitaine Court was bilingual, facing in both directions, north and south. But here in the La Marche household, everyone speaks only Langue d’Oc, the language of the South. Piers told me that Occitan requires the mouth to be in a different shape to northern speech. I spent days listening to and imitating the sounds of the other servants shouting and singing: ‘burb b burb b burb b,’ I sang to myself with my mouth in what I imagined to be an Occitan shape as I wandered around the castle, doing my work. I will have to master it eventually but for now every conversation in this alien tongue feels like a catechism to me and I am tired out trying to understand it. These conversations with Piers in my own language are my only chance to relax.
‘You will grow to love the South,’ he says. ‘The mountains are beautiful. As beautiful as you. And you will get used to the Occitan eventually, the accent chantant .’
I screw up my nose. Who cares about beautiful mountains? They are cold and rainy. There are no markets and few people to talk with. The conversation of rural folk is hardly to my liking after what I was used to in my mother’s tavern in Paris. I couldn’t care less about pigs and weather and crops.
Piers’ rude finger wobbles my protruding bottom lip. ‘You are pouting, Bernadette brown eyes,’ he teases me.
‘Well what is so exciting about some cold mountain?’
‘Roccamolten Castle is not on just some cold mountain!’ he laughs. ‘La Marche is the frontier country. The count holds the frontier of Occitania against you northern French as his father and grandfather did before him. We are a proud race of warriors.’
He kisses me again and starts to undo the clasp of one of my shoulder-brooches that fasten my gown.
‘You rush me, Piers,’ I say, pushing away his hands.
‘ You rush me, Bernadette,’ he says laughing. ‘So let’s find somewhere warmer and talk.’ He pulls me into a part of the ruin that is more intact, where there is some protection from the cold wind, but the ground we sit on is cold and hard even with his cloak spread beneath us.
‘How goes it with your mistress?’ he asks, continuing his work on my brooch. One side of my gown falls down and I am embarrassed to see my breast emerge with its red nipple erect in the cold air. His hand closes over my breast and warms me. I know I should stop this now. I try vainly to recall my mother’s advice but the feelings coursing through my body as his mouth covers my nipple are overwhelming. With an effort I push him away and hold my gown up against me.
‘Piers stop that. My mistress talks to me harshly and expects me to turn her out like a queen when she behaves like a stable boy,’ I say, hoping to distract him with what I know is his favourite conversation.
‘Aye, she ignores and is rude to me too, little Bernadette.’
‘And most ladies don’t go gallivanting in their best gowns in the mud at all hours. I’m sure
‘Oh definitely listening, sweet Bernadette. Are we so different from you northerners then?’
‘As different as ducks from chickens!’
His smiling lips are wide and wet against the silky brown of his beard and I long to kiss them; but my mother gave me a very long lecture on men before I left home. Looking into Piers’ face I know that I am looking at the trap she described. ‘They love you. They leave you with child. You lose your place. You and the child starve to death,’ she’d told me over and over again, until it was like a nursery rhyme in my head. Piers has a long, large face framed by floppy brown hair. His eyebrows are thick and black above pale blue eyes. The blue is relegated to the edges now as his pupils are huge with desire for me.
Piers is the only real friend I have here. He and Almodis are the only people who can speak my northern French – Langue d’Oil – as well as their native Langue d’Oc. The Aquitaine Court was bilingual, facing in both directions, north and south. But here in the La Marche household, everyone speaks only Langue d’Oc, the language of the South. Piers told me that Occitan requires the mouth to be in a different shape to northern speech. I spent days listening to and imitating the sounds of the other servants shouting and singing: ‘burb b burb b burb b,’ I sang to myself with my mouth in what I imagined to be an Occitan shape as I wandered around the castle, doing my work. I will have to master it eventually but for now every conversation in this alien tongue feels like a catechism to me and I am tired out trying to understand it. These conversations with Piers in my own language are my only chance to relax.
‘You will grow to love the South,’ he says. ‘The mountains are beautiful. As beautiful as you. And you will get used to the Occitan eventually, the accent chantant .’
I screw up my nose. Who cares about beautiful mountains? They are cold and rainy. There are no markets and few people to talk with. The conversation of rural folk is hardly to my liking after what I was used to in my mother’s tavern in Paris. I couldn’t care less about pigs and weather and crops.
Piers’ rude finger wobbles my protruding bottom lip. ‘You are pouting, Bernadette brown eyes,’ he teases me.
‘Well what is so exciting about some cold mountain?’
‘Roccamolten Castle is not on just some cold mountain!’ he laughs. ‘La Marche is the frontier country. The count holds the frontier of Occitania against you northern French as his father and grandfather did before him. We are a proud race of warriors.’
He kisses me again and starts to undo the clasp of one of my shoulder-brooches that fasten my gown.
‘You rush me, Piers,’ I say, pushing away his hands.
‘ You rush me, Bernadette,’ he says laughing. ‘So let’s find somewhere warmer and talk.’ He pulls me into a part of the ruin that is more intact, where there is some protection from the cold wind, but the ground we sit on is cold and hard even with his cloak spread beneath us.
‘How goes it with your mistress?’ he asks, continuing his work on my brooch. One side of my gown falls down and I am embarrassed to see my breast emerge with its red nipple erect in the cold air. His hand closes over my breast and warms me. I know I should stop this now. I try vainly to recall my mother’s advice but the feelings coursing through my body as his mouth covers my nipple are overwhelming. With an effort I push him away and hold my gown up against me.
‘Piers stop that. My mistress talks to me harshly and expects me to turn her out like a queen when she behaves like a stable boy,’ I say, hoping to distract him with what I know is his favourite conversation.
‘Aye, she ignores and is rude to me too, little Bernadette.’
‘And most ladies don’t go gallivanting in their best gowns in the mud at all hours. I’m sure
Similar Books
