Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“So,” Lady Dorothy said slowly, “the perfidious little bitch went whining to you, did she? Well, it isn’t true. I only struck her when she deserved it, as any good mother would do.”

“She told me nothing. You, lady, are a liar. You hit her whenever you wished to. Unfortunately, I did not learn of what you had done all those years until old Emily was dying and confessed it to me just this month. I wanted to kill you.”

“Why didn’t you try?”

“I am not a murderer,” he said, “although you tempt me greatly. Why in the name of all the martyrs’ graves did you beat a child?”

“Why?” She could but stare at him. “You have the gall to ask me why? By all the saints, she is nothing to me. No, that isn’t true. She is a blight, an unnatural whelp who should never have been born. She is nothing but the bastard from your slut in London, your proud lady who gave her to you so her reputation could remain unsullied and her family could arrange a great marriage for her. Aye, you made me take her, pretend she was my daughter. You thought I would love her, want her near me? That little bastard was nothing but a thorn in my side. I have hated her since the day you forced me to hold her in my arms.”

So many bitter, venomous words, so much malevolence. He’d known she hadn’t liked Chandra—natural enough, he supposed—but this hatred, this viciousness? He said slowly, “Old Emily told me that when Chandra was eleven, she was strong enough to protect herself. She said Chandra nearly strangled you when you hit her that last time, and she saved your worthless life. It is me you should hate, Dorothy, not Chandra. She never did anything to you. She always was, and still is, innocent.”

“She existed,” Dorothy said, and thought of that child who stared at her, pain in her vivid eyes, bowed over from the blow in the ribs her supposed mother had dealt her. No, she wouldn’t think of that small, silent child, her silent tears. “Emily would never betray me. Chandra told you. I know she did.”

“I only wish that she had. She never said a word against you. I remember when she began calling you Lady Dorothy, and I did wonder about that, but if that’s what she wanted, and it appeared it was what you preferred as well, then why should I question it?”

“She’s naught but a bastard. And the name you gave her—Chandra. A ridiculous name—the name of that ancient priestess who ruled in the land of men. Do you think if Jerval de Vernon knew the truth about her birth, he would still be here to look her over for his wife?”

“He will never know,” Richard said, and his hands clenched into fists now.

“I won’t tell him—you needn’t worry about that. I want her gone, the sooner the better. She will make him a miserable wife since she knows nothing of what a woman is meant to be, meant to know, meant to do. She might even stick a knife through his ribs when he tries to bed her.” Lady Dorothy laughed. “Ah, then she would be hanged. I should like that.”

“You damned bitch.” Richard didn’t strike her. He kicked her chair, then shoved it, and it fell backward, taking his wife with it. She lay there on her back, her knees bent over the side of the chair, the toes of her leather slippers sticking in the air, looking up at him. She didn’t move, just looked at him with that blend of contempt and triumph.

“Damn you, I would like to kill you.”

Still she didn’t move, just lay there in that overturned chair. She smiled up at him now. “Do you really think she will allow him to bed her? Did you know that Chandra first saw you rutting with one of the serving wenches when she was about five years old? Naked you were, pumping into her, and the girl was laughing and moaning and telling you how grand a stallion you were. Aye, Chandra saw you. I know because I saw you as well. And I saw the expression on the child’s face. Aye, and that wasn’t the only time. Emily told me that she saw you taking one of the visiting ladies against a wall, with her husband swilling ale in the Great Hall, and she said Chandra vomited, emptied her belly at the sight. How many more times? She became as she is only because she despises what a woman must be, what she must do for a man. She will never accept having a man plow her belly, controlling her, rendering her helpless, as she has seen you to do to so many different women all her life.”

“Shut up, you filthy-mouthed bitch! I have never forced a woman, never. If she saw anything, she would realize that it was naught but pleasure, that it was natural, that it was not a man’s will overcoming the woman’s. Damn you, I will kill you if you don’t be quiet. I will.”

“Aye, you would like to, but you can’t. My father still lives. He is still powerful. You would be dead within a sennight were you to hurt me. Even if he were dead, there is my brother, who hates you more than you can imagine. He is jealous of you, of course. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, to crush you like a bug. You know this, Richard. You aren’t stupid.”

No, he wasn’t stupid. She’d sickened upon occasion over the years and he’d prayed she would die, but she never did, and she always smiled at him, knowing what was in his mind. She might look like a bitter old woman, with her coarse graying hair, all those deep lines in her face, but she was stronger than his destrier, curse her foul soul.

“You have also taught John to despise his sister.”

“Naturally. He is your heir. He is of my body. He will be the lord at Croyland after you’re dead. She has no c

laim to his affection. She is nothing to him.”

Richard said then, because he knew at last that he could cut her deep, “I am sending John to foster with the Earl of Grantham. He is leaving within the month.” He looked down at his fingernails.

“No!” She scrambled to her feet, nearly falling because her skirts tangled in the fallen chair cushions.

Richard rubbed his hands together. “Aye, the boy is my heir, and if he remains here you will make him into a mean-spirited, puling little coward, craven and spoiled.”

She was shrieking at him, curses he was certain Father Tolbert had never heard from her mouth. He smiled at her as he turned on his heel and left the solar. Her women were gathered outside the door on the narrow landing, listening, he knew, and he smiled at each of them. There were six ladies of different sizes, different ages. He had bedded four of them. He wondered if Chandra had seen him with any of them. But what did that matter? He didn’t want her to be innocent going to the marriage bed. He was a strong man, well built, and he gave a woman pleasure. Surely he had shown her that lovemaking between a man and a woman was something pleasurable. He didn’t believe that she had vomited. His bloody wife would say anything to make him pay. Jerval de Vernon would teach her, would give her endless pleasure—no, Richard didn’t want to think about that.

CHAPTER 6

Chandra smoothed down the figured buckle over her shoulder, as she always did; it always brought her luck. She pulled an arrow from her leather quiver, set it into its notch against the bow, and drew it back until her bunched fingers touched her cheek next to her mouth. She released slowly, so carefully, watched the arrow as it arced smoothly upward, crested, and embedded itself with a thud in the center of the target.

A shout went up from Lord Richard’s men, a murmur of surprise from Jerval’s.

Mark said to Jerval, his voice full of laughter, “Lord Richard’s men must believe they will make their fortunes today. I will lose my own wager if you do not split Chandra’s arrow. The pride of Camberley rests on your shoulders, Jerval, as well as my money and the money of your men.”

Jerval smiled, flexed his arm, and stepped forward to stand beside Chandra. She was grinning like a fool; he saw it even though she kept her head down. He wished she didn’t make him want to laugh with her endless show of bravado, her guileless show of pleasure in her own triumphs.

He said, “You told me that you would crush me into the dirt,” he said. “I will admit that wasn’t a bad shot. Perhaps it was even a very lucky shot. Not as interesting, perhaps, as seeing you dressed in a man’s tunic and a man’s wool breeches—that makes quite an impression on a poor man’s wits. My men were shocked, naturally, even though they shouldn’t have been, since I had warned them not to stare at you, knowing what was beneath those breeches. Thank the saints, now they are even getting used to you.” He looked as if he would say more, and she interrupted him, wanting to clout him, wanting to laugh. “Will you keep blathering or will you shoot?”