Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

She hoped she wouldn’t see him again after this night. On the walk back to Prince Edward’s encampment some three hours later, Chandra walked very close to her husband.

“Just as we all expected, it was nonsense,” he said. “A show, a sham. No one wishes to fight the Saracens, but they will provide us food and drink and as many slaves girls as we can service. I hate this, Chandra. And now we’re off to Sicily.”

Sicily, she thought, a foreign name that sounded smooth and flowing on her tongue.

Sicily

The winter

“Place your hand here, Chandra,” Eleanor said. “That’s right. Do you feel the babe?”

A small foot kicked against Chandra’s palm. She raised surprised eyes to Eleanor. “Does that not hurt you?”

“Nay.” Eleanor laughed. “But sometimes it is difficult to sleep, with the little one so active. Edward delights in pressing his ear to my belly and telling me he can hear the babe’s heartbeat. I am very sorry that you lost your child, Chandra, but these things happen, far too often. I feared you would be cast down about it and thus I wished you to come with your husband to the Holy Land. But there will be other children. Aye, and you will see, Chandra, what a wonder it is when you carry Jerval’s child and you feel him moving inside you.”

Chandra turned abruptly away and stared out over the palace grounds toward the beautiful city of Palermo below. She breathed in the sweet scent of the flowers that splashed their bright colors over the hillside.

“Even the market stalls are sweet smelling,” she said after a moment.

Eleanor leaned back against the soft, gold-embroidered cushions and regarded Chandra quietly for a moment. She knew that Chandra was bored and restless—just like the men, she thought, smiling to herself. Although King Charles was gracious and surrounded them with every luxury, Edward and the men itched to be gone from Sicily, for it was becoming clear that Charles was unwilling to accompany them to Palestine. She sighed as Chandra rose and began to pace the balcony.

“You are thin, Chandra,” she said, resting her hands on her rounded belly. “And pale. I hear that Jerval and Edward just returned from their weeklong hunt in the hills. He will be concerned when he sees you.”

“Jerval should not be surprised that I am pale, Eleanor. I have been allowed to ride out only once into the hills, and then only in the company of two dozen soldiers. I would have liked to go on their hunt. I am tired of being useless.”

“There is no question of that. You remain here for your own safety. I’m told the peasants grow more discontented by the year with their French masters. Even the men ride out armed. Why don’t you speak to Jerval? He would arrange for you to be out of doors more often, if it is your wish.”

“He is always busy with Payn, Henry, Roger, John—so many men—and, of course, Edward.”

“Men,” Eleanor said, smiling, “they cannot seem to be happy unless they are busy with something, and now they are fighting, or at least preparing to fight. I feel sorry for them in a way, for when they are wounded, or old, and can no longer fight, they grow bored and think themselves useless. There are few men I have known who ha

ve found the serenity that women seem to possess naturally. Most women, that is. Now, my dear father-in-law is an exception. He much prefers directing the architects in Westminster Abbey or playing with his grandchildren.”

Chandra remembered her father cursing King Henry for bleeding his subjects to the point of rebellion to fund his building, but let it pass.

“Do you know,” Eleanor continued, “that I was married to my lord when I was but ten years old, and he but a young, long-legged lad? How the years have flown by. I can still remember my father, Ferdinand, soothing me, telling me about my new home and my future family, all in a language that no longer comes easily to me.” She drew a bloodred hibiscus to her nose and sniffed the sweet fragrance. “I came to England as a child, and was fortunate enough to love my husband the moment I saw him. It is odd to be a wife when one is barely a girl, but thus it was.”

Chandra cocked her head to one side. “I had not thought of it before,” she said, “but even you had no choices. You were bartered for political gain. What if you had not loved Edward?”

“Then my life would be a series of events with no particular sorrows and no particular joys. But of course, even if a lady does not care for her husband, she still has her children. What if Edward had taken me into grave dislike? What would he have had to fill his heart?”

“Mayhap a quiver of women would have filled it.”

Eleanor only laughed at that. “That is very possible. However, the truth is that he had no more choice than I did, you know.”

“But it is fathers, Eleanor,” Chandra said sharply, “who choose their daughters’ husbands, and then the husbands who rule their wives just as their fathers did. And what of all the widows in England whose husbands are scarce laid under the earth before another man comes to claim them, despite their wishes? Why should they at least not have the right of choice?”

Eleanor arched a sleek black brow. “Choice? It is only when I see a black-veiled Moslem woman, drawn back with her head bent in the shadow of her husband, that I see a woman with no choices, no freedom. She is the slave, not you or I.”

“Even our own husbands can beat their wives, if they wish.”

“Has Jerval ever beaten you?”

“Nay, but still he thinks himself my lord, and he is angry if I disobey him.” Which she hadn’t done since they’d begun their voyage to the Holy Land. There’d been naught but peace between them, and a friendship that was still growing by the day, and she feared that her liking for him would grow so great that when he did become angry with her, that liking wouldn’t disappear. But his liking for her might, and she didn’t know if she could bear that.

“When you discover a perfect world, dear child,” Eleanor said, “I beg you to invite me to visit you. Edward is stronger than I, just as Jerval is stronger than you, and it is to them that we must trust our safety, and the safety of our children. We—not our husbands—are the givers of life. It is through us that life continues.”

“But why must we be less than men? Why must we always live in the shadow of their wishes?”