Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

She hit her fist into his shoulder. “Attend me, sir. Do you wish to grovel at my feet when I have made you look the veriest beginner?”

What was she talking about? Oh yes, a competition—bow and arrow. He smiled, wanting to stroke his fingers over her face, wanting to kiss her mouth, feel his tongue play between her lips. By all the saints, he was in a bad way. He saw that her head was angled to one side, that she was looking up at him, eagerness and laughter in her blue eyes. Nothing else, dammit. A playmate, he was naught but a playmate to her, but no matter. It was early days and despite her prowess, her courage, her audacity—or perhaps because of them—she was innocent in the ways of women, appallingly so. He said easily, straightening taller so that he looked down on her more, “You bray like a cocky young lad. I will send you weeping into the dirt, Chandra, when you lose to me. You are a girl and I am a warrior. You haven’t a chance.”

He watched her puff up—her pride, her defenses all in place, ready to bash him—when Lady Dorothy said from behind her, “I trust you are thanking this blessed young man for saving us, Chandra.”

Jerval watched her stiffen as taut at a bowstring, all the fun, all the laugher, dying out of her face. There were problems here between mother and daughter, big ones. Mark had told him that Lady Dorothy had willingly given her over to

Graelam, had come out of her hidey-hole, disobeying Lord Richard’s express order. What kind of mother would do that?

Chandra said, her voice carefully neutral, “If he hadn’t come, then I would be in Cornwall and you and John would still be safe here at Croyland. Only I would be gone.”

“There is that,” Lady Dorothy said, and frowned. “Still, the young man is here now and things have changed. We must all adapt.”

By the saints, Jerval thought, was she going to say something about why he had really come to Croyland? No, he couldn’t allow that—it was too soon. Jerval said quickly, “Ah, Lady Dorothy, this daughter of yours has thanked me for saving her until I have grown dizzy with the repetition of it. I beg you not to encourage her to thank me more. I feared she would burst into tears, she holds me in such high esteem. My head aches from all her gratitude.”

Chandra poked him in the ribs, hard. She was very nearly laughing at what he’d said. He was charmed to his feet when she said, “He knows his own worth, ma’am. I do not need to add to his conceit.”

“You should if it would perhaps reduce your own,” Lady Dorothy said. She looked up then to see her husband striding toward her. She said quickly, “ Chandra does not thank men, sir. If you think that she did, you are wrong. You are blinded by her beauty, which is of no importance at all, as anyone with a working mind knows. I crave solitude. I believe I will go to the solar now. There is that new tapestry I have designed.”

Lord Richard saw his wife look back at him, then hurry away toward the tower stairs. He had believed her to be in her solar and now, likely, that was where she was going. He wondered what she had said to Chandra and Jerval. He knew he wanted to beat her. Maybe this time he would.

What would her father say to his wife? Chandra wondered, seeing Lord Richard turn to stride after Lady Dorothy. I hope he locks her in her bedchamber for a week, she thought, but of course he wouldn’t. “I am going riding, Jerval,” she said, turning back to face him. “If you wish to come with me, I will show you our beautiful countryside.”

“I don’t suppose you will challenge me to a race?”

If she hadn’t thought of it yet, he could tell by the quick lighting of her eyes that she was thinking it now. Excitement, anticipation, both were there, and he wondered, not for the first time in the two days since he’d first seen her dressed as a bride in this Great Hall, what this damned girl had done to him.

They did race, of course, and Wicket beat out Jerval’s destrier, Pith, by the length of his shadow, showing bright and stark against the black rocks that lined the hills above the beach. Oddly, she only crowed for a moment; then she frowned at him, even waved her fist under his nose. She was wearing a tunic and breeches, a belt around her waist and a knife in its sheath fastened to that belt, her boots cross-gartered to her knees. To have to untie cross garters, then to pull down breeches so he could make love to a woman—he’d never before done that, never even considered such a thing. The thought made him hard, something he was growing used to, then made him smile. Her hair was windblown, nearly pulled out of its thick braid. Her lips were chapped by the harsh winds and he said, “Have you cream for your mouth?”

“What?” She touched her fingers to her lips. “Oh, I don’t know. Does it matter?”

He wanted to kiss her chapped lips, he wanted to lift her off Wicket’s back and lay her on her back, over on that soft bed of green spread beneath those pine trees. He could see himself now pulling those breeches off her, could see how she would lift her hips as he did it, could see himself coming over her. Oh, God. He reached out his hand and lightly touched his fingertips to her mouth. She cocked her head to the side, staring at him. “It matters. Your lips are dry. Have your servant give you cream.”

“Surely it isn’t that important.” She gave him a strange look, her own fingertip now rubbing against her mouth. What did he care about her mouth? Her lips were chapped, just that, nothing more.

“When you are given something perfect, something beautiful, then you should take care to keep it that way.”

“You are saying that I must take special care of my mouth because it is perfect and beautiful?” There was absolute astonishment in her voice.

“Yes, see to it.”

Then she remembered and said, waving a new fist, “You let me win. I saw you pull Pith back at that last turn.”

“I didn’t want to knock you off your horse,” he said easily. “Had I continued, I would have hit you and—”

“The chances are that I would have sent you flying into the dirt. I do not like it that you tried to play the chivalrous knight. Don’t do it again.”

Jerval wasn’t stupid. He knew she was serious, and he knew he couldn’t let it pass with simple silence, a jest, or a smile of amusement. He had to apply the spurs, but gently, slowly. Beginning now. He said, perfectly serious, “Or what will you do?”

Without hesitation, she said, “I will wrestle with you and bend your arm behind your back until you howl.”

Wrestle with her? As in the way men wrestled? He simply shook his head at her as he saw himself pulling her beneath him, flattening her with his body. No, he couldn’t imagine a girl wrestling like a man. In bed, surely, but in jest and in pleasure, not the way men wrestled in the practice field, sweating and grunting and trying to maim the opponent. No, surely—he couldn’t help himself. He forgot about beginning to apply some limits to her, for he was equally amused and excited, and said with utter seriousness, “I will rub your nose in the mud before you manage to do that.”

She laughed and laughed. He watched her kick Wicket in his lean sides, watched her horse leap forward, heard her laughter floating in the soft air back to him.

“I mean it,” he called after her, but she didn’t hear him. Perhaps, if she pushed him, then that was exactly what he should do.

Before the midday meal, Jerval found himself with Lord Richard, warming himself in front of the fire set in the great fireplace. “She wants to wrestle with me. It is not a jest—she means it. This is impossible.”