Page 44 of Tempted
The nuptials were being solemnized just before the hour of noon so the couple could receive the Holy Sacrament. Megan had the requisite six bridesmaids, all Campbell cousins except for Tina and Beth. Their dresses were a much paler shade of blue than those of the Kennedy sisters, but all blended together well enough.
The small bride had the lovely Blackwatch tartan of the Campbells draped across one shoulder, and she listened solemnly to the words of Bishop Kennedy. He exhorted the young couple and the congregation in general in a resounding sermon denouncing sinful pride.
Tina glanced down the chapel royal at the sea of high-held heads and thought irreverently that if he preached from now till doomsday, he would never rid the Scots of sinful pride. The bishop then gave a blistering declamation of women’s lewdness and men’s filthy lust. He had just touched upon adultery and fornication when the king cleared his throat and gave him a black look. Without missing a beat, the bishop demanded, “Who giveth this woman tae this mon?”
Argyll’s burly figure stepped forward garbed in a silver wolf pelt. His scarred hands with missing top finger joint placed Meggie’s hand in Donal’s, then he planted his feet, declining to step back until he’d witnessed the marriage legalized.
Elizabeth Kennedy was crying openly, and Tina saw that Beth was shaking like a leaf to be exhibited before such a great throng. Silly child, thought Tina—doesn’t she realize no one is looking at her?
The wedding banquet began at two o’clock and would go on for the next twelve hours. The food was plentiful because the clans’ wealth was in sheep, cattle, and oxen and the rivers and forests surrounding Stirling teemed with fish and game.
The pièce de résistance, however, was Mr. Burque’s towering wedding cake, the likes of which none had ever seen before. The top layer was an imitation of the deep blue sea, and rising from the waves was a great dolphin, the Kennedy device, cleverly wired so that it rose up from the water in a magnificent leap.
During the first hours of the banquet, decorum reigned, but by dusk most of the men were well on their way to being drunk. The king and queen, who had sat down together, were now absorbed in other partners. James Stewart danced tirelessly with Janet Kennedy, a natural-born wanton, wholehearted, generous, and unashamed of their affair.
Queen Margaret had hot eyes and hands for the Master of Douglas, that ambitious young man who had been taught by his father, the Earl of Angus, that power was the only thing that mattered.
The rest of the Douglases had spurned the wedding in favor of hunting. Colin showed to advantage in the saddle, while the dance floor was a nightmare for him. Ram hated the very atmosphere of weddings. They gave him a trapped, caged feeling he found difficult to dispel. Gavin and Cameron vied with their cousins Ian, Drummond, and Jamie to bag the most game. The stags were only just losing their velvet and coming into season. All knew that at day’s end when they returned from their sport, there would still be plenty of roast bullock and ale to wash it down with, a bedding for their entertainment, and a castle filled with amenable young wives whose husbands would be unconscious or at least incapable with drink.
Valentina had so many men clamoring to partner her that she quite neglected Patrick Hamilton. She did it on purpose, to punish him for not showing up earlier in the week. He found that in order to dance with her at all, he had to cut in on an arrogant Gordon or a wild Stewart, most of whom were jumped-up whelps or by-blows in spite of their royal blood.
For miles outside Stirling, the crowds surrounded crackling bonfires and indulged in fighting, screaming, singing, and finally mass lovemaking, all to the accompaniment of skirling bagpipes.
Inside, the behavior of the celebrants was in danger of degenerating from bawdy to profligate. The matrons retired in disgust at the men’s inherent coarseness, removing their youngest daughters from the danger. At this point the banquet turned into a bacchanalia The lewd songs became grossly indecent and were accompanied by graphic gestures. Serving wenches now sat upon men’s knees with their skirts pulled above plump thighs. The racket was deafening as silver goblets and sword-hilts were banged upon the tables to a rhythmic demand that the bride and groom “kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!”
Donal obliged the crowd, while his little bride grew visibly more nervous. Archibald Campbell drained a silver drinking cup, hurled it down the table, then picked up another. Archibald Douglas, drunk as a lord, bellowed intimate appraisal of every female in sight.
Valentina stayed for only one reason: She feared for her little sister-in-law, Meggie Campbell, now Meggie Kennedy, as the crowd banged their goblets and chanted, “Disrobe, disrobe, disrobe, disrobe!” She knew she must rescue the bride and spirit her away to the nuptial chamber. Tina managed to reach Meggie and take her hand, but that seemed to be the signal the revelers had been awaiting
The women, led by the queen and the Howard sisters, descended upon Donal and began to strip him, while a mob of drunken males tore Meggie from Tina’s grasp and lifted her on high, tearing at her gown and veiled coif Meggan screamed, her face a pale blur above the heads of the men as they began their exodus to the nuptial chamber, their progress impeded by the bodies of those who had lost consciousness and lay among the vomit-fouled rushes.
Tina followed helplessly, unable to aid Meggan. It was all she could do to protect her own person as she heard her gown tear, and to slap hands away from her breasts and bottom.
The bride and groom were stripped quite naked by the time they were carried into the bedchamber, and Tina could do no more than shrink into a corner in horror as the mob pushed the groom on top of the weeping bride and chorused, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Ramsay Douglas glanced into the room with jaded eyes. They flickered over Tina Kennedy with disgust. She was in the thick of things, as usual. She was making for the door before they could strip her too. She looked up into his face with dismay. His pewter gray eyes reflected her image, but the depths were filled with contempt. He cast one last look at the women in the chamber. He had laid most of them, and there was not one he would have been bothered to lay again.
The bride was distraught. Through a bleary haze Donal saw that the fun and games had gone too far. He glanced about looking for help. His brother Duncan and Patrick Hamilton were enjoying the spectacle far too much to desist. Davie was hateful enough sober; drunk, he was almost demonic. Donal looked in vain for Meggie’s father, but Argyll had been too far gone in drink to even climb the stairs to the nuptial chamber. The women with their hands at his groin and all over his body were even worse than the men. In desperation Donal appealed to the king: “Sire, I need yer help!”
The good-natured James elbowed his way to the bedside. “Ye want me tae bairn her for ye, laddie?” Then he saw that the little bride was past hysterics and going into shock. In a brisk deep voice that brooked no refusal, he took command of the situation. The revelers staggered from the room holding each other upright. The ones who were still bent on lewd and lascivious conduct suggested other bedchambers they could invade as the king herded them safely away from the newlyweds.
Meggie lay sobbing, her pale face pressed into the pillows. Donal in his clumsy way tried to comfort her She shrank from his rough hands, never wanting to see or hear or smell another man as long as she lived. Gradually she became aware of a tender hand stroking her hair over and over and a voice pleading, “Dinna cry, lass.”
She realized that from this day forward Donal Kennedy would be her only source of strength or tenderness or love With a sob she turned blindly toward him. Donal’s arm encircled Meggie’s waist, her hand stole into his and held it tightly, and her head folded into his shoulder. Each fulfilled a need in the other’s life.
Since Ram Douglas had enjoyed the hunting more than anything else at Stirling, he decided to go again the next day. His brothers and indeed most of the males were nursing massive hangovers this morning, so he went alone. In the royal stables he noticed that the lovely damson-colored mare he thought of as his was gone. He was mildly surprised that others besides himself were in the saddle this early
In no time at all he was swallowed by the dense forest that surrounded Stirling. His senses were alert for any sound or movement that signaled game. His ears easily picked up a bellowing roar, and as he rode toward a clearing and a steep, grassy hillside, he knew what he would find. It was a wild bull, a relic of an ancient breed that had roamed all the uplands at one time. The bull had stolen two domestic cows that grazed the lower slopes to breed wild, misbegotten offspring.
A bull hunt was a far more exhilarating and taxing sport than hunting hart or boar. Bulls were totally unpredictable when maddened and would charge and gore anything in sight with their long, viciously curving horns.
Ram tried to drive the bull further into the trees, where he would be hard pressed to turn and charge, but the creature was far too wily to fall into such a trap. Ram watched the bull cautiously, wishing his brothers were there to aid him. His wolfhound, Boozer, would have been an invaluable help too.
The wild creature was a dirty white with a massive, thickmaned neck and a wicked six-foot spread of horn. For one split-second he questioned the wisdom of hunting it solo, but the challenge was far too tempting for Ram Douglas to ignore. The shaggy-coated creature with massive shoulders was obviously cunning as well as savage, for it ran out into the clearing, where it would have room to maneuver and charge.
Ram’s eyes scanned the perimeter of the grassy slope, noting a long outcropping of stone that formed a ledge with a steep drop beyond. His horse must avoid that danger, but the rest of the ground didn’t appear too rough a terrain.
The bull saw her before Ram did. Its red eyes rolled in its head, it pawed the ground, it let out a snort and charged downhill. Valentina Kennedy had seen Ram Douglas mounted on his great black stallion long before he emerged at the clearing’s edge. She watched in disbelief as he waved at her and shouted, “Get the hell away!”
