Leofric needs less than a year

“Wine or mead?” Matilda asked as Leofric came to sit on the floor beside her.

“What are you drinking? – Ah!” he said as he leaned closer to her face and smelled her breath. “Wine.”

“The mead fairy cannot help you with that,” she tittered.

“I shall pour my own.”

They had met on the floor of the buttery every night for ten nights, at the hour when Alred went up to tell Yware a story and chat with Dunstan before bed. These chats were lasting longer and longer in recent weeks, but if he thought that he would contrive to come to bed after Matilda was asleep, he would instead find her after she had already passed out on the pillows – sometimes fully clothed. If he scowled or sneered at her, she never saw it, nor his tears.

“You should stop drinking the same thing that I’m drinking,” she suggested. “People will suspect we’re drinking together.”

“I already smell like ale, so what will it hurt now? If I drank mead on top of that, and you kissed me with your wine, then what would people think?”

“Oh, you keep hoping,” she scoffed. “With whom were you drinking ale? I believe you’re already drunk.”

“No more drunk than you. I see you’ve had an early start on me.”

“Very early,” she giggled.

“I am terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. I was with your husband’s squire.”

“Oh, Egelric!” she said knowingly. “And whom besides him therefore?”

“Two extremely charming girls,” he laughed. “But you see? I left both of them to him and came to see you, even though I shan’t get so much as a kiss from you.”

“Poor thing!”

“Ah, I believe Egelric is the man more to be pitied.”

“With two girls!”

“Just any girls. Not jewels such as you.”

“Will they both stay with him?”

“They seemed amenable to such an arrangement.”

“I don’t understand,” she sighed, shaking her head tragically. “What is the attraction of that man?”

“Don’t you know?” he chuckled. “You’re the woman. Are you telling me you are insensible to it?”

“Oh, I don’t know… I simply mean…” she mumbled in confusion.

“You aren’t!” he accused. “I would say you were blushing, if your face weren’t already fetchingly rosy from the wine.”

“I don’t know…” she giggled.

“Son of a serpent! You won’t kiss your dear old friend Leofric, but that bastard…”

“I never kissed Egelric, I’m certain!” she huffed.

“Didn’t you? Didn’t you spend an entire year here, alone with him?”

“That doesn’t mean anything. His wife was still alive then.”

“So is mine, but I would contrive to kiss you if I had a year in which to do it.”

“He wasn’t the same then,” she sighed. “He was a fine man.”

“He still is! Women only think of men with respect to themselves. He’s a damned fine man – I simply wouldn’t trust him within sight of my daughters.”

“You only think of men with respect to yourself, too. You have a fine partner for carousing, that’s all you want in a man.”

“That’s all I want in a woman too!” he laughed. “The proof is that I am here tonight.”

“Oh, what nonsense! I don’t believe for an instant that you would be content to spend the rest of your life doing nothing more than sitting on the floor with me, drinking wine and talking rot.”

“I told you that if I had a year, I would contrive to kiss you. There is nothing I could not manage if I could spend the rest of my life on the floor with you.”

“As if I would kiss you, you fat, slobbering, goat-​​fondling – ”

“Darling!” he laughed. “Your ardor leaves me breathless!”

Matilda began to cackle, and unwisely chose the same moment to take a sip of wine, most of which therefore ran down her chin and onto her throat. “Oh my!” she laughed. “I am drunk!”

Leofric’s eyes went wide, and he pushed himself up onto one knee, the better to lean in and watch the drops trickle down into her dress. “Do that again!”

She laughed breathlessly and tipped a bit more wine onto her breast. “Oh, God,” she snorted. “I’m so disgusting when I drink.”

“Nomine Patris! I wonder why men ever invented cups!”

“Because they couldn’t all drink out of me,” she tittered.

“Imagine!” he laughed. “‘Someone pour me a Matilda of wine! My throat’s as dry as a nun’s kirtle!’”

“‘My Matilda runneth over!’” she giggled.

“‘O my Father, if this Matilda may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done,’” he leered.

“Oh, brilliant, Brother Leofric!” she laughed. “Now quit staring at my tits.”

“I was only wondering where the wine had gone,” he said sadly, attempting to peer down into her dress. “Seems such a waste.”

“It has soaked into my dress by now, so quit staring.”

He continued staring at her, but now he leaned forward on his hands and looked up into her face.

“What?” she asked warily.

“How long have I been here?”

“Long enough to get even drunker than the disgustingly drunk you were when you came.”

“No, I mean how long have I been visiting here?”

“I don’t know. Two weeks?”

“So, I don’t believe that I shall require anything close to a year,” he said softly.

Matilda realized suddenly that her heart had begun to pound – had been pounding for some time already. Decidedly, she had had too much to drink. And he held his head so close to hers that she could hear the wet clicking of his tongue and his teeth as he spoke, and, with the wine, his mouth seemed as hot and stinking and sweet as grapes rotting on the vine. His breath made her dizzy… and he was so big, and she felt so tiny before him… and so unhappy, despite the wine…

Her shoulders drooped in weariness, and then her neck, and that only brought her face closer to his. She watched him in resignation as he closed his eyes and kissed her.