34/100 The blacksmith's wife [38]

By dark Gabriel’s forgiving sweetness had turned sour.
His hands around my throat, not quite in jest, jeopardised my breathing:  ‘There’s penance to be paid for your promiscuity,’  

He’d forgot that he had likewise sinned, also that I fought dirty, and, hand-slipped, I did.

‘And what of yours?’ I squeezed, then told him of my condition.

‘You’ve lied before, why should I believe you now?’

He yelped again and smacked me;  our bed became a battleground, the loose-weave wool that covered us a sweat-reeked coat of arms – Thor rampant, wife couchant.

By morning status quo had been queasily restored.

This is part 38 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.