Since that time, Lady Dorothy hadn’t ever raised her hand or fist to her again.
If she were forced to leave Croyland, she would not miss her mother. She saw that John was also looking toward her, and like her mother, he too was smiling, but there wasn’t real meanness there. She realized that he was afraid—the fear was stark and livid in his eyes. She was thankful that he wasn’t entirely blind, that he realized that his home was now in the hands of an enemy. As for his pleasure at this wedding of hers, he simply followed his mother’s example. Of course he knew bone-deep jealousy at his father’s treatment of him, resented her because his father gave her all his attention and affection. But she wanted to tell him that he was just a little boy and soon he would go to another great lord’s keep and learn to be a knight. And once that happened, he would be very important to their father, very important indeed.
Crecy gave her over to Lord Graelam, who bowed slightly to her, never taking his eyes from her face. “Your beauty pleases me.”
She said clearly, looking past him at the magnificent tapestry on the stone wall, at the golden unicorn who sat beside a beautiful maiden, the two of them woven so beautifully into the thick wool, “Aye, I am now clean, well garbed and useless.”
He looked from her thick, burnished hair, still damp, to her light blue eyes, to the fine bones in her face, to her breasts, to her feet in the soft leather slippers. He had indeed believed the minstrel Henri must have exaggerated, but he hadn’t. By all the saints, he hadn’t. “Yes,” he said easily, “the skirt to your gown is very narrow. It would be hard for even you to fight me wearing that. Sit down, Chandra. It is our wedding feast. Your mother did well.”
“Yes, I did,” Lady Dorothy said, raising her voice. “I would do anything for my dearest daughter, as you see, my lord.”
The servants, terrified of getting clouted if they didn’t move quickly, served Lord Graelam’s men first, then the few Croyland men Graelam had allowed at the feast. The other thirty or so men were locked in the dungeons.
There was delicious boar’s meat, laid out on huge platters. There were large bowls of leeks and sops in wine to pour over the bread laid in the trenchers. There was haddock with onions dipped in bread-crumbs and broiled until brown, served with brown ale. Chandra chewed on a bit of fresh bread, saying nothing, listening, watching. All of Graelam’s men were loud, laughing, cursing, punching each other, celebrating their lord’s wedding. The ale flowed freely.
No choice, Chandra thought as she drank some of the sweet wine from Aquitaine, the pride of her father’s cellars, kept for only very special occasions. She kept her eyes on her plate. She wasn’t hungry. When she looked at the boar steaks, she saw only her blood-smeared clothes, Mary’s virgin blood on Graelam. She was aware of Graelam next to her, felt the heat from his body, saw that he was wearing one of her father’s robes, a brilliant red silk that didn’t come all the way to the floor as it did on her father. She hadn’t realized he was the larger. He smiled on her, but offered her no pieces of meat from his trencher.
She thought about the coming night. She’d seen what he did to Mary, something so quickly over, so easily done, but the pain of it, the loss of pride and dignity, the lack of choice, it could bow a woman to her knees. She couldn’t imagine a man doing that to her, overcoming her, sticking himself into her, sending pain throughout her body, reducing her to nothing. She remembered clearly the times she had seen her father take any female he happened to fancy, any female who chanced to be near when the need was on him. It never seemed to matter how old or young they were for either the women or for him. Just heaving and laughing, and the women seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. She couldn’t begin to imagine such a thing.
“Your home is Wolffeton,” Graelam said. “It was built by my great-grandfather, back when Eleanor of Aquitaine was Queen of England. He was smitten with her, I have heard it said. He died when her son Richard the Lionhearted came to the throne. Wolffeton is a mighty keep. I have many vassals, many men-at-arms. You will always be safe there.”
She looked at him, but said nothing.
“I will try to get you with child this night,” he said, and this time she attended him, her head jerking up, her eyes cold and frightened, until she gained control and her eyes became blank. “I do not believe so,” she said.
“I will take time with you. There will be some pain, but for a warrior like you, it will be nothing. Perhaps you will even enjoy my taking you.”
“I will enjoy nothing about you, save your death,” she said.
He smiled, pleased. The thought of bending her to his will, of her submitting to him, her yielding to him, made him want to yell with the power he felt flowing through him. He would have her, at last he would have her.
Graelam wanted very much to get the ceremony over. He wanted her, had wanted her for so very long that just the thought of her made him hard. He let her be. Soon, he thought, soon.
Time passed. The air grew thick, heavy with the men’s laughter and jests. Graelam appeared not to care that she didn’t speak to him, that she merely sat beside him, mute. A servant came to her
side, slowly pouring more of the sweet wine into her goblet. She was so locked into herself that when the man spoke low, close in her ear, she didn’t hear him. He said again, more loudly this time, right in her ear as he poured her wine, “Look around you, my lady. I am Sir Mark de Gwen, here with Jerval de Vernon and twenty men. We are here to save you. When Father Tolbert comes forward for the ceremony, that is the signal. Get your brother and your mother to safety. Can you do this?”
She nodded slowly, staring into her wine goblet. And then he slipped away, back into the shadows before she could think of anything to say, which was just as well because Graelam was looking at her again. Someone was here to save her? Chandra looked around the Great Hall. This time she easily picked out all the strangers, men all, at least twenty of them as Mark had said, wearing servants’ clothing, serving all the men ale and more ale. They were getting them drunk. She smiled. Now there was a chance. She saw one cowled priest walk slowly forward. He didn’t move like Father Tolbert; he was much larger than the meager priest who had spewed his foul breath into her face since she’d been a child. Jerval de Vernon, she thought. She waited, muscles tense, ready to leap into action, and wished the stranger had given her a dagger, anything.
“It is time,” Graelam said, and lightly stroked his fingers over the back of her hand. Her flesh was very cold. He frowned a moment, then said, “It will be all right. All you must do is bend to me, trust me. I will be your husband, your master. I will protect you and our children. Give over, Chandra. It is too late for you to fight me now.”
She said nothing, merely pulled her hand away and nodded.
He didn’t like that, she realized, but he said nothing. She was afraid that if she spoke, he would hear something in her voice, the anticipation, the hope.
Graelam stood and called to the priest, “We are ready, Father.”
The man walked toward them, his head down, covered by a thick, dark-brown woolen hood, a scribe following behind him carrying a rolled parchment.
Then, suddenly, the man threw back his hood, pulled off the wool robe, and shouted, “À Vernon! À Vernon!”
All the soldiers garbed as servants grabbed for their swords and knives and jumped at Graelam’s men. As for Graelam, he flung himself at Chandra before the words were out of the priest’s mouth—no, the bastard wasn’t a priest. He was a young giant and his sword was already freed from his cloak.
He missed her. Chandra managed to knock the chair into him as she slipped out of it. His men were slow because they were drunk. Before he knew what had happened, Chandra had jerked Abaric’s knife from its sheath and stabbed it into his shoulder even as he yelled in shock, knocking him out of his chair. Chandra shouted, “John, quickly, quickly. Get under Father’s chair. Hurry!”
“But, Chandra—”
“Do as I tell you! Lady Dorothy, get you to safety with him, now!”