Earth Song (16 page)

He laughed again, low and deep, and she wanted to strike him, but didn't move. Only then did she realize she hadn't demanded that he release her and let her go free.

“Well, I suppose you cannot do a worse job of it than Alain. You will ruin me in your ignorance and innocence just as he was doing in his dishonesty and thievery. Or will you cheat me as well for your own revenge, since I stole from your father?”

“I'm not ignorant. Nor will I cheat you.”

“So you say. Come here, wench. I'm cold and wish your big body to warm me.”

When she didn't move, Dienwald rolled against her, drawing her to his side. “Hush and sleep,” he said, his breath warm against her temple as he pressed her cheek against his chest. She smelled the sweet ale on his breath as he said, his words low and indistinct, “Do not berate me further. My brain is calm for the moment.”

Nay, she thought, there was nothing she had to say now.

Philippa didn't sleep for a very long time. She thought of a lady whose name was Kassia, a lady who was small and delicate and sweet and loyal. A lady who had saved Dienwald's life.

And Philippa was a naught but an irritant that made his brain itch.

He, the drunken brute, was asleep almost at once, his snores uneven rippling sounds, like his
dreams, she thought, aye, like his ale-filled dreams. She hoped monsters visited him that night. He deserved them.

Robert Burnell wrote industriously as Graelam de Moreton spoke of the man he believed would be the ideal husband for King Edward's bastard daughter.

“He is strong and young and healthy. He is comely and has excellent teeth and all his hair. He's an intelligent man who cares for his villeins and his lands. He was wedded once and has a son, Edmund, but his wife died many years ago. Is there aught else, Burnell?”

Robert accepted a flagon of milk from Lady Kassia, smiling up at her. “The day brightens now that you are here, my lady,” he said, and nearly choked on his words, so unlike him they were. But something deep inside had leapt to speak to her poetically. Mayhap it was the sweetness of her look, the soft curve of her lips as she smiled. Burnell quickly recovered his wits and sent an agonized look to Lord Graelam, but that intimidating warrior merely cocked his head at him, his look ironic.

“I thank you, sir,” Kassia said. She moved slowly because of her swollen stomach, and sat down. “You are telling Robert of Dienwald's excellent qualities?”

“Aye, but there are so many, my head buzzes with the sheer number of them. What say you, Kassia?”

“Dienwald de Fortenberry is loyal and
trustworthy and kind. He enjoys a good jest and loud talk, as do most men of spirit. He has wit and is facile with words. He fights well and protects what is his.”

“He begins to sound like a possible saint,” Burnell said, “and a man you perhaps praise more than he deserves.”

“Ha!” Graelam said. “I have many times wanted to trounce him into the ground and crush his stubborn head beneath my heel and give the imbecile a kick in the ass—”

“But always,” Kassia interrupted easily, “my lord and Dienwald are grinning at each other and slapping each other's shoulders in great friendship after they've decided not to kill each other. We do not overpraise him, sir, for Dienwald is a good man, sir, a very good man.”

“Despite all his shortcomings,” Graelam said.

“I must needs hear some of these shortcomings, my lord. Edward is sure to be suspicious if I give him only this glowing praise.”

Graelam grinned, and Burnell saw the answering smile on his lady's face.

“He is stubborn as a mule, grandiose in his gestures, poor in his material belongings, and doesn't care. He revels in danger and enjoys treading the narrow path. He is crafty and sly and cunning as a fox. He isn't greedy, however, so Edward need have no fear of his coffers. As I said, he doesn't lust after earthly things. Further, there is no family, so Edward need have no worry that he will be pressed for endless favors. Dienwald is also a shrewd, ruthless, occasionally disgraceful man who will do anything to gain what he wants.”

“Ah,” said Burnell, writing again. “He becomes human at last, my lord.”

“The lady, Philippa de Beauchamp,” Kassia said. “Is she a pretty girl? Sweet-tempered?”

“I know not, save what I have been told, my lady. That is, she is a Plantagenet and thus must be considered beautiful. Since his majesty said that, it is a matter of close-held opinion and not be contested.”

Kassia laughed. “And her disposition?”

“I know not. She was raised by Lord Henry and she still believes him her father. I know aught about the Lady Maude. The king, very young then, ordered that if the child survived her infancy, she be taught to read and write and cipher. She does these things well, I was told. She is perhaps too well-learned for Dienwald de Fortenberry—or mayhap for any man, no matter his rank or his leanings toward kindness and tolerance. She is possibly too set in her own ways of thinking to be content with a master's heavy hand, but truly, I know not for certain.”

“Dienwald needs a woman of strong character,” Graelam said. “A woman who can kick his groin one minute and salve his wounds the next.”

“I travel to Beauchamp upon my return to London. I will see the girl then and report all to the king. De Fortenberry sounds like a man the king might wish for his daughter. Does the king know de Fortenberry?”

“I don't think so,” Graelam said. “Edward hasn't been long in England yet, nor has he come to Cornwall to see his vassals. Dienwald is not a man to travel to London to wait upon his majesty. He is a man who holds to himself.”

“I suppose that could show that he is not a leech. It is also true that his majesty has not long
been home, but Edward is so overwhelmed with all the needs of England.”

“Aye, and there are Wales and Scotland to be ground under the royal foot.”

Robert Burnell gave Lord Graelam a thin smile. The lord was criticizing, though his tone was light and his sarcasm barely touched the ear, but Burnell wouldn't tolerate it. He harrumphed as his eyes narrowed, and said, “Did I tell you, my lord, that it was the queen herself who suggested that you be consulted? The
queen
! She advised him on his illegitimate daughter.”

“The queen,” Graelam said, “is a lady of honest and gracious ideals. Edward gained another part of himself when he wedded with her. Mayhap the best part.”

At these last words, Lord Graelam smiled yet again at his wife as Burnell sipped his milk and looked on.

Dienwald avoided his prisoner. He remembered, the next morning, what he'd said in his drunkenness. God's ribs, had he truly gone on and on about deep spring? What nonsense! Had he truly told her of Kassia and of his feelings for her? What idiocy! He despised himself so much that he'd welcomed the violent retching. He'd been a blockhead and a loose-mouth. The next thing he knew he'd be singing to her in rhyme like his fool.

Thinking of Crooky, Dienwald wondered where he was and went in search of him. He asked Hood, the porter, but he hadn't seen the fool. He
asked the armorer, who merely spat and shrugged. It was Old Agnes who told him.

“Aye, the little mistress is fitting him for a tunic, master. She told him she would have two sewn for him if he would but promise not to sing to her for a month.”

“She's not little,” Dienwald said, and strode away. Damn the wench's eyes, he thought, interfering in everything, sticking her big feet in where they didn't belong. If his fool's elbows stuck out of his clothes, it wasn't her mission to give him a new tunic. He looked down at his own nearly worn-through tunic. He had yet to see the one she'd made for him, sewed it herself, he remembered, and for an instant he softened. But only for that brief moment. He'd told her about Kassia, blathered on about a pagan belief that, in his mind at least, fitted cleanly with Father Cramdle's heaven and its multitude of saints. Then he'd gone on and on about Walter de Grasse, a man he'd sworn to kill, a man who'd given him no choice but to try to kill him. He'd made an ass of himself. It wasn't to be borne.

Everywhere he looked these days, the women were sitting in small groups, gossiping whilst they sewed. They'd see him and giggle, and he wanted to bellow at them that Philippa wasn't their damned mistress.

How had things gotten so twisted up? She'd jumped out of the wool wagon looking like a fright from hell itself, and then she'd proceeded to take over. It wasn't to be tolerated, despite the fact that she slept in his bed and he touched her and caressed her whenever he wished to—but it was harder now, because it was no longer the game it had started out to be. He wanted her,
wanted her more than he'd ever wanted any of the women who'd always welcomed him when he'd had the need. But because the witch was still a maid and because he had somehow come to regard her as more than just another female to be treated according to his whims, he couldn't, wouldn't, suffer the obvious consequences of taking her maidenhead. He wasn't that great a fool.

His thoughts were interrupted by a shriek from his son, near the cistern by the weaving shed. Dienwald didn't worry about it until he heard Philippa yell, “Hold still or I'll break your ear! Edmund, hold still!”

Interfering again, and this time with his son. What was she doing now? He broke into a trot.

“You rancid little puffin! Hold still or I'll cuff you!”

Dienwald rounded the corner of the weaving outbuilding to see Philippa holding Edmund's arm and dousing him with a bucket of water. She quickly picked up a block of soap once she'd gotten him wet, and now she was scrubbing him with all her strength, which was considerable. Edmund was squirming and fighting and yelling, but he couldn't break away. He was also naked, his ragged clothes strewn on the ground.

Philippa wasn't unscathed, however. She was sopping wet, her hair loose from its tie at the nape of her neck and flying out in a wild nimbus around her head. Her frayed gown was plastered against her breasts. She and Edmund were standing in a growing mud puddle from all the water she was throwing on him.

Dienwald watched Philippa pull Edmund back against her, and now she scrubbed him with both
hands—his face, his hair, even his elbows. He was shrieking about his burning eyes, but she just kept saying over and over, “Edmund, stop fighting me! It will go easier with you if you just hold still.”

Edmund went on howling like a gutted hog.

Dienwald came closer but kept out of range of the deepening mud puddle. His people were wandering by, not paying much attention, but there was Father Cramdle, his arms crossed over his chest, looking pious and quite pleased. The pig, Tupper, was squealing near Philippa, coming close to her, then retreating quickly when threatened with flying streams of water from the bucket.

Dienwald kept quiet until Philippa had doused Edmund with another bucket of water to rinse him off. Then she wrapped him in a huge towel—one newly cut, he realized—and lifted him out of the mud and rubbed him until he was dry.

She kept him wrapped up, then lifted him onto a plank of pine and hunkered down to her knees in front of him. “Listen to me, you wretched little spittlecock. ‘Tis done, and you're clean. Stay away from all this mud and filth. Now, you will go with Father Cramdle and garb yourself in your new clothes. Do you understand? And then you will have your lessons.”

Dienwald heard a muffled shout of, “I hate you, Maypole!” coming from beneath the towel that covered Edmund's head.

“That's all right. At least you're clean and I don't have to watch you stuff food in your mouth with filth under your fingernails. Go, now.”

Edmund's head emerged from the towel. He glowered at Philippa, but she didn't change
expression. Edmund was about to retire from the field when he saw Dienwald.

“Father! Help me, look what the witch did to me!” And on and on it went as Dienwald just stood there, wanting to laugh, yet furious that Philippa had forced cleanliness upon his son, and wondering how she'd enlisted Father Cramdle in her task, for the priest was surely on her side.

Meanwhile Edmund kept shrieking and complaining, dancing about on his clean feet. Finally Dienwald, seeing that the result was to his liking, even if Philippa's pushing ways were not, said in a voice that brought his son to instant silence, “Edmund, I fancy that I hear your mother in you, which is distressing. You will go with Father Cramdle and clothe yourself. I had no idea you had become such a filthy little villein. Keep your shrieks behind your teeth or you will feel my hand.”

Edmund, head down and silent as a pebble, trailed after Father Cramdle, the towel wrapped around him like a Roman toga.

“Thank you,” Philippa said to Dienwald. He said nothing for a moment, just watched her try to straighten her hair, pulling it back, away from her face.

He strode up to her. “Hold still yourself, wench.”

She did. He smoothed her hair and retied it with the bit of leather. He frowned at the dirty strip of hide. She needed a proper ribbon, a ribbon of bright color to complement her hair, something . . .