Virginblood (Seven Brides for Seven Bastards, 4) by Georgia Fox

Prologue
     
    It was one of the three wives who told
the story at supper. Aelfa, a Saxon woman, had spent her early
childhood listening to extravagant, adventurous tales told by her
mother. Many of them had stuck in her mind, and she was a good
storyteller, so the others often encouraged her in the evenings for
entertainment. Whether the tales were true or not, no one cared.
They listened avidly, soon caught up in Aelfa's words, which she
spun as cleverly as a cobweb.
    Little Jeanne, the maid of Lady
Isobel, had tried not to listen, for the stories were too often of
a saucy nature and painted pictures in her mind that she would
rather not have there. As a chaste young woman, god-fearing and
timid, she was very much out of place at the castellany d'Anzeray,
where men shared wives and women shared husbands, where sexual acts
were freely spoken of, celebrated and sometimes performed in
public. Where there was apparently no guilt, no shame, and no
passion restrained. Just as there was no prayer.
    But she had gone there with her
mistress when Lady Isobel became one of the d'Anzeray wives, and
now this wicked, unholy place was her home. Loyal Jeanne could
never leave her beloved mistress to suffer alone in this den of
uncouth beasts, so she had sacrificed herself as a devoted servant
should and entered this dark fortress to defend her lady from
whatever horror awaited.
    Not that Lady Isobel appeared to be
suffering at all. If anything she was flourishing, much to Jeanne's
pert disapproval.
    Whenever the merry redhead Aelfa began
with one of her stories, Jeanne tried to stop her ears from
absorbing the words, but on this particular evening the woman began
by explaining that her heroine was a virgin. Jeanne's attention was
caught and trapped immediately because she hoped this tale might
not be as vulgar as all the others. A virgin, she thought—finally a
worthy heroine. Perhaps there would be some moral lesson to this
story.
    Ha! She should have known better. By
the end of Aelfa's tale the prim, haughty virgin had been
thoroughly and haplessly deflowered by a dozen men on the feast of
Samhain, much to the raucous amusement of all those assembled at
supper. Except for Jeanne who, being the only virgin in that hall,
felt as if they laughed at her.
    "The sacrifice of her maidenhead
brought great fortune to the Thane and his people for the following
year," finished Aelfa, once the laughter had died down, "and thus,
every Samhain thereafter, a virgin was hunted down and
ceremoniously awoken to womanhood. It became tradition, and they
called it Virginblood."

Chapter One
    1072
    The Castle of Guillaume
d'Anzeray
     
    The first time Jeanne watched her
mistress being mounted by all seven of her new husbands, she almost
fainted. Her toes and fingers went numb. Her belly felt hollow and
a strange, wicked heat began in her loins. She did not, however,
become sick with disgust. The shocked maiden had fully expected to
cast up the contents of her stomach, but it did not happen. If
anything she became quite hungry.
    And shamefully curious.
    At once she ran to the threshing barn
and prayed. Had there been a chapel she would have gone there, but
in this castle there was no such place. The d'Anzeray family to
which her wayward mistress now belonged, did not hold much respect
for holy men, and it was said that the patriarch, Guillaume
d'Anzeray, would not have one anywhere on the property. He allowed
only one nun, a very old lady, to tend him with medicines, but she
was not permitted to speak of god. Indeed, she did not speak at
all—at least while others were present—but flung incense around his
room, shook her head and pursed her lips. Jeanne had wondered why
the nun went there every day, when she was treated with such
disrespect, but no one else seemed curious. It was, like many
strange things in that place, accepted without question.
    With nowhere designated for prayer in
this castle, Jeanne must make do with the barn, a warm, quiet place
where