'Go on, wench. Ethel gave Catrin a nudge and almost spilled the wassail wine. 'Get you gone. Spend your life waiting and it'll be over before you know it.

With a small sigh, Catrin drank down the wine to the spicy dregs and stood up, pondering where to go next in search of a haven. Perhaps she ought to stand beneath a kissing bunch and let fate take its course.

A sudden fanfare at the hall door made her swing round in surprise. People began falling to their knees and bowing their heads, almost like wheat beneath a reaper's scythe. Catrin stared, wide-eyed.

'The Empress Mathilda, someone hissed and, tugging on her sleeve, dragged her down. For a moment, she held the same pose as everyone else, but then could not resist a half glance upward.

The sole-surviving legitimate child of the old king was a little shy of forty years old. There were few lines on her face, but those that did exist were deeply graven, like sharp pen strokes. She was gorgeously dressed in royal purple and gold, with a lining of ermine tails to her cloak. Escorted by her half-brother, Earl Robert, she walked with a regal glide, her head carried as high as those of her subjects were bowed. The pride, the elegance, the very severity of feature led to an impression of beauty, but in the way that a killing winter day was beautiful. To touch was to freeze.

Reaching the dais and mounting it, Mathilda sat down upon the high-backed chair that had been appointed for her.

She surveyed the hall without expression and, having taken her due from those who bowed, she flicked her fingers in dismissal. Catrin continued to regard her, thinking it small wonder that many of the barons chose to support King Stephen instead. Hauteur of such a degree was unlikely to endear men to her cause, men who were already suspicious of taking orders from a woman. A smile, a word, would have cost nothing and repaid the effort tenfold.

'Take more than a cup of wassail wine to prize that one out of the ice, Ethel muttered. 'Still, if I had the husband she's got and that pack of fools for followers, I'd be frozen too.

'Her husband's supposed to be one of the most handsome men in Christendom, Catrin said. 'Geoffrey le Bel, they call him.

'Geoffrey the ten years younger and as tricky as they come, Ethel snorted. 'They've fought ever since they've been wed.

'Yes, I'd heard the rumours and the scandal. She looked again at the Empress, who was leaning to listen to her brother, her white fingers curled around the stem of a fine silver goblet. How much pain, Catrin wondered, did that cold facade conceal? How deep was the ice? Her first husband had been an emperor. Recalled home at his death to become the heir to England and Normandy, she had been forced into marriage with Geoffrey of Anjou, the mere son of a count and still in adolescence. The marriage had foundered, but parental pressure had shored the broken edges and forced it to hold together in mangled shards. Three sons later it still did, but everyone could see the gaping holes beneath the shoring. If not for their children, if not for their political need of each other, Geoffrey le Bel and Mathilda Domina Anglorum would gladly have let their marriage sink.

'I would not change places with her for the world, she murmured.

Ethel gave another little snort. 'Speak for yourself. I'd change places in return for a night with Geoffrey le Bel. 'Ethel, you're drunk!

The old woman chuckled and did not deny the accusation.

Catrin felt a tug on her sleeve and turned to find Richard and Thomas at her elbow. Both of them must have been outside, for their cheeks were red with cold, and there were sparkles of melting snow on their tunics.

'You've to play a game! Richard cried, wafting the hood at her from the hoodman-blind.

'Ah, no, Catrin laughed, starting to shake her head, but she did not really mean it. Having viewed Mathilda's coldness, she needed the relief of laughter.

The boys dropped the hood over her head, so that the face opening was at the back, and her vision cut off by a layer of itchy, dark wool. Then they spun her three times round, but instead of releasing her to feel her way and try to capture one of them, they took her arms and drew her where they wanted. For a horrified moment, Catrin thought they were leading her up to the dais to present her to the Empress. But then she felt cold air on her skin and the delicate sting of sleet.

'You know that you two will pay for this, she said with a shiver, as her shoes slipped in the soft, dark mud of the bailey floor.

The response was a muffled giggle. One of them let her go, but the other tightened his grip on her arm.

'How much had you in mind? a deep voice demanded with amusement.

Catrin seized the hood in her free hand and dragged it off her head, the movement taking her wimple and circlet too. 'Oliver! Suddenly her breath was short and, despite the cold, her cheeks were burning. Giggling, his two accomplices ran off back to the hall.

He laughed and swept her up in his arms, crushing her face against the sodden wool of his cloak and the hard rivets of his mail hauberk. 'I suppose you'd given up on me.

'The thought of you never crossed my mind, she retorted with spirit, as he set her back on her feet. 'I've had no lack of offers to stand beneath a kissing bunch, you know.

He sucked in his cheeks. There was a grizzle of beard encircling his mouth and pricking his jawline, its colour copper-blond in the light from the blazing pitch torches guttering in the wall sconces. 'Taken any of them up? he enquired.

'What do you think?

He looked at her a moment longer, the sleet glimmering silver and fire-gold between them. 'I think, he said softly, 'that I have missed you beyond all reason, and that there is not a kissing bunch large enough in that hall to show you how much.

Catrin swallowed. Jesu, she wanted him, and not just beneath a sprig of evergreen and mistletoe. 'Ethel has one in her dwelling that might suffice, she offered, looking at him through her lashes, and was gratified to hear his hoarse intake of breath. She circled her toe on the muddy ground of the bailey floor. 'Unless of course you'd rather join the feast and try the others.

He shook his head. 'All the sustenance I need is here with me now. Taking her hand, he pulled her against him once more. Their lips met in a tingle of sleety cold, and heat spread like a sun. He crushed her close and Catrin lost her breath against the hard, steel hauberk rings. His beard scratched her and the feeling was bliss; his hands gripped and she gasped against his mouth in pleasure.

A nobleman staggered out from the hall and vomited against the keep wall. A companion followed him and stood by laughing. Oliver and Catrin broke their embrace and, by mutual consent, turned towards the haven of Ethel's dwelling.

Once within, the headlong rush towards fulfilment was curtailed by practical considerations. Whilst making love in a hauberk was merely difficult and uncomfortable, tearing one off in haste was nigh on impossible. After three attempts at unbuckling his sword belt alone, Oliver had to take several deep breaths and slow down.

'Shall I help you?

The thought of her nimble fingers in the area of his crotch was both heaven and torture. He could see from the gleam in her eyes that her version of 'help' had wider connotations than just unfastening a buckle. She reached to the decorated strap end and tugged the excess length of leather until she had freed the latch from the hole and the belt, complete with scabbarded sword, snaked free.

She wrapped the leather around the scabbard, and propped it carefully in a corner of the room. Next came the hauberk itself. This, even for the two of them, was tricky, for the garment was full-sleeved, and clung to the gambeson beneath. Catrin was panting by the time she finally peeled it over his head and, as she took the weight, she staggered and almost fell. Gasping himself after being doubled over, Oliver grabbed it from her and laid it across the small trestle to one side of the fire. The rivets crunched and jingled on the wood.

The gambeson was simpler to remove, but it still took an effort. As Oliver laid the garment on top of his hauberk, Catrin said, 'It's like peeling an onion.

Oliver grinned. 'Or unwrapping a gift.

She wrinkled her nose at him, but her eyes were alight with humour. 'And do you think I'm going to like this gift, or will it wring tears from my eyes?

'There's only one way to find out. His fingers curled around her waist and again drew her close. This time, there was no padding of steel and quilted linen between them, no drunkards to break the moment. They kissed and clung, swayed and sat down on the bed-bench.

From the awkwardness of buckles and heavy chain-mail, Oliver found himself struggling with the pin of the round brooch at the throat of Catrin's crimson gown, and the tie on her braid belt. A part of him wanted to ignore all the complications of such intricacies, push up her skirts and take her to ease his swollen urgency, but he held off because it mattered to him that she should derive pleasure from the encounter. Besides, he sensed that any such move on his behalf would receive short shrift. Catrin was not like Emma, to murmur soothing words in his ear and shine with pride at a wifely duty successfully performed.

And so he made a game of the undressing, lightening the moment with teasing and laughter, holding back so that Catrin, in her turn, could unwind the leg bindings on his chausses and unfasten the laced drawstring on his shirt.

She nibbled his collarbone, bit his earlobe, and rubbed playfully against him. He put his hands beneath her skirts and tugged at the threading on her garters. Then he ventured higher and drew her down on top of him, spreading her legs and deftly positioning the juncture of her thighs over his swollen flesh.

She made a soft sound and rubbed upon him, their bodies separated by the thin linen of his braies and the fine wool and linen of her dress and chemise. It was too much and not enough. He groaned and tried to think of other things, but the scent of her hair and skin drove all sanity from his mind and filled it instead with raw need.

He arched his spine, thrusting up towards her, but she pulled away from him in order to remove her dress and chemise. Her breasts were high and round, with small, pinkish-brown nipples that tightened in the air. Her belly was flat, and her legs smooth and well proportioned. The sight of her took what little breath remained to Oliver. Apart from his wedding night, he had never been granted so open a view of a woman's body. Emma had preferred to make love in the dark, or wearing her chemise, and it would not have occurred to him to make a whore remove her clothes during his brief encounters with such women.

Catrin, however, was different. He had known it from the moment that she swung pillion behind him as he took her away from Penfoss. The mannerisms of nun and hoyden were inextricably combined and utterly bewitching.

She returned to the bed, squeezing in beside him on its narrowness, and now there was no barrier. His shaft pressed against the rough triangle of hair, sliding, searching blindly. He cupped her breasts and buried his face against her soap-scented throat. She arched her thigh over his flank, allowing him the merest fraction of entry, and he groaned. Her fingers stroked, gliding over his skin with the tips of her nails, and she altered her position so that he entered a little further. He felt her muscles tighten around him, squeezing gently, and strove with every shred of will not to burst there and then.

As if sensing his dilemma, she ceased to move. Oliver stared at a bunch of herbs suspended from the rafters and contemplated the texture and pattern of the dried leaves. He recited a troubadour song inside his head to try and distract himself. Blow, northerne wind, Send thou me my swetyng, Blow, northerne wind, Blow, blow, blow. The sensation of imminent crisis diminished. He ran his fingertips very lightly over her skin, teased her nipples, sucked the pulse at her throat. He ventured lower, finding the furrow in her pubic hair with his index finger and the tiny, sensitive knurl of flesh that Gawin had told him was a woman's source of pleasure. His touch was light and tentative, for he had half wondered if Gawin was telling him tales, but Catrin shuddered and moaned and he felt the sudden leap of her blood against his lips. He stroked her again and felt her clamp around him. Blow, northerne wind, Send thou me my swetyng… He closed and tightened his eyes; continued to rub.