Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“Aye.” She managed to stand up. She walked slowly, favoring her right leg, to where Wicket stood grazing on the water reeds.

She saw that Jerval was still standing some feet away from her. He had beaten her. Slowly, she mounted Wicket, inching toward Pith. She reached out suddenly and grabbed Pith’s loose reins.

She yelled at him as she whipped both horses about, “I will send Hawk back to walk with you. I dare you to beat him!”

She dug her heels into Wicket’s sides, urging him up a steep slope to the path. Suddenly, there was a loud whistle, and in the next instant, Pith reared back, jerking at the reins in her hand. She toppled backward off Wicket’s smooth rump, landed on her side in the thick grass and rolled down the slope, unable to stop herself. She heard Jerval laughing his head off.

She came finally to a stop and looked up to see her husband, legs apart and arms clasped over his chest, standing over her.

“I don’t like you,” she said, and he only laughed harder.

“Next time, you will know that even my horse obeys me. By all the saints’ fevers, you are a mess.”

She struggled, trembling, to stand up. Her tunic was ripped, and the cross garters on her right leg had come loose, leaving her chausses sagging and wrinkled like an old sack.

“Why don’t you take a swim?” he called to her over his shoulder. “It will make you more presentable.”

He jumped onto Pith’s back and rode away from her.

It galled her so that she could think of nothing to yell after him. She pulled herself painfully to her feet and leaned over to fasten her cross garters. Then she stopped. He was right. She was a mess. She took off her clothes and dived into the small lake.

He watched her from the cover of the trees as she rubbed her bottom, the flesh reddened from his palms, before she dived cleanly into the water.

CHAPTER 16

Chandra sniffed, caught the smell of the jakes from a stiff south wind, and slipped back into the hall. She climbed the stairs past the family’s chambers, until the steps twisted and narrowed and became finally a ladder that led to the summit of the keep. She paused on its board roof, gazing upward to the round turret that rose another twelve or so feet into the air. From atop the turret fluttered the orange banner of Camberley, embroidered with a black lion standing on his hind legs, his claws bared to all who approached.

She turned to gaze over the lush, wild countryside to the east. Small squares of tilled land set upon sloping hills dotted the thick forest. Beyond them she saw a sparkling blue lake that wound about the small village of Throckton with its thatch-roofed houses. The lake was small, but still; it reminded her of the sea, and of the tingly salt air that left tendrils of sticky, damp hair falling into her face. She felt suddenly homesick, felt immense hunger for that girl she had been, and tears stung her eyes. Then she saw herself straddling her husband, saw him as part of her, no way around that, deep inside her, and she was mewling like a weak pathetic animal, beyond herself and what she knew she had to be—strong and reliant, and alone, complete unto herself. She was astride him and she was only what he made her feel. In those moments, she had lost completely what she was, and it was just too much. She had to get away from him or that girl she had been at Croyland would die. She closed her eyes over the tears.

“I’m a weak fool.” She turned away to look down into the inner bailey. People milled about below, their talk, their laughter, their yells muted by the distance. But there was one below her whom her eyes sought without her even being aware of it. Jerval was wiping down Pith, his large hands graceful, fluid. She drew herself up, for she did not wish to think about her husband, much less see him.

She heard the ladder creak and saw Mary’s head. “Careful,” she called out. “I don’t like the sound of that ladder.”

“This is like the top of a mountain,” Mary said, looking about her. “I had not been up here before. It is beautiful.” She sat down beside Chandra. “I saw you climbing the outside stairs, but I did not tell Lady Avicia where you were, so do not worry that she is searching the keep for you.”

“What has she in store for me today?”

“I don’t know,” Mary said. She burst into tears.

“Mary—oh, my God, Mary, what is wrong? Did that old bat say something mean to you?”

“Oh, no, Lady Avicia is never unkind to me. Only to you. Let me stop these silly tears.” She held her eyes closed for a moment, then sniffed, wiped her knuckles over her cheeks and said, “I’m sorry. There was no call for that. Oh dear, I had to speak to you away

from the family and all the servants.”

“Whatever is wrong if it is not Lady Avicia?”

“There is no easy way to say this. I am with child, Chandra.”

Chandra stared at her. “Pregnant? You are pregnant? But how do you know?”

“Do you know naught about being a woman? My monthly flux has not come, and I feel sick to my stomach and I’m nauseated. Sometimes I vomit, particularly in the mornings. It can be nothing else.”

“Graelam,” Chandra said.

“There could be no other.”

“But I do not understand. It was but one time. You were a virgin, how—” Even as she said the words, she felt Jerval deep within her, felt his seed filling her. How many times? Oh, God, nearly every night he’d wanted her, taken her, even two times the previous night, and it no longer even occurred her to fight him. Her monthly flux—had she missed it? She never bled the same time each month, so she didn’t know. She wiped her hands on the skirt of her gown.