Forbidden Forest by Michael Cadnum Page A

itself was there any pavement. The cobbled street there sounded so hard underfoot that footsteps rasped, especially the steps of men, her old neighbors with their ready smiles like strangers.

Chapter 20
    Weddings were always at the church door, and while occasionally the ceremony was followed by Holy Mass within the sanctuary, in planning the wedding Sir Gilbert had expressed no desire for “any further prayers on the day of my joy.”
    Today, as Margaret ascended the steps, the familiar church door gleamed, its brass hinges bright in the sunlight. Each step was too high—her knees lacked the vigor to bring her all the way before Father Joseph.
    A few heartbeats, a few deep breaths, and the ceremony was underway.
    â€œTill death us depart,” vowed Sir Gilbert. He was tall, and with his eyes fixed on Father Joseph he looked both gentle and lit from within by some deep inner emotion. “If Holy Church it will ordain,” his vow continued. “And thereto I plight my troth.”
    Father Joseph smiled, and Margaret’s words came from her lips like those of a foreign tongue, unfamiliar but solemn. “For richer or for poorer,” she vowed, “in bed and at table.”
    As they exchanged rings they both gave voice to the further promise, “With my body I thee honor.”
    At the wedding feast Sir Gilbert was like a man she had never seen before. Margaret had never seen the knight in such blissful cheer or heard him with such a good-natured, beam-ringing laugh. All during the wedding feast she reminded herself that this happy man was her new, Heaven-blessed husband.
    Sir Gilbert wore a gown of velvet trimmed with miniver, the fur of a rarely sighted squirrel from the far north that had to be caught, legend held, by white hounds. He kissed every guest, as was proper, and gave each man a squeeze of the arm or a pat on the shoulder. The wedding gifts were plentiful, supervised by Sir Gilbert’s servants, who arranged them on a table. An ornamental bridle from the saddler, candleholders, a portrait of Our Lady framed in agate and bloodstone. Otto, moneyer to the king, had given a tall silver ewer that gleamed chief among all the gifts.
    Margaret’s dowry had been slim, but the treasures she brought with her on marrying were not what tempted this knight, as Bridgit had explained. “Your beauty has run him through,” Bridgit had said.
    As was proper, her new husband kissed her once again, took her hand, and uttered words of his great love for her with all the guests gazing on. Margaret knew other women had heard such words murmured, but she had never understood what it was like to have the breath on her own ear, the love all hers.
    Her gown was decorated with a ring brooch, set with red rubies and ice-blue sapphires, that had belonged to her mother, and her sleeves, with long and sweeping points, reached nearly to the floor. The outer garment she wore, gown and surcoat, was the finest draper’s art, silk that rustled when she so much as took a deep breath. Her husband was lifting a cup as she watched, and draining it and looking around, searching for her, finding her with his eyes.
    Players made music on reed pipes, a red-faced man playing a recorder and a man with one blind eye fingering a stringed rebec. The melody was punctuated by a drum that had been hung with bells so that it chimed with every beat. Small kettledrums called nakers, hung from a player’s wrists, and a small leather-skinned tabor all encouraged dancing. Some of the musicians were attendants at one of the great houses of Nottingham, hired for the wedding feast, and others were wandering folk. “We cannot have too fine a noise,” her father had said.
    Roebuck venison was served, and fallow deer purchased specially from the royal foresters, and veal, and infant pig and acorn-fed sow and boar spitted and gilded over the fire. Both green wine and red were plentiful, and golden ale brewed by the