Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“I should have been with you. I can fight, as you well know. I don’t know how you can laugh about it, damn you.” She stared down at his naked body, at the dried blood clotted over his right side and streaking down his leg. “Damn you, you could have been killed.”

He winced from the pain in his side, and it got worse. Jerval felt it deep, and knew he had to control it, else his wife would howl, steal his sword, and go after the Saracens by herself. He closed his eyes. He could still see the wild-eyed Saracen, hear his bloodcurdling yell as he swooped down from his horse’s back, his curved blade but inches from Payn’s neck. Jerval’s sword had slashed deep into the man’s leg, so deep that its tip had wounded the horse beneath him. The beast had snorted in pain and fallen on the man, crushing him beneath its massive body. Jerval had pulled off his helmet to rub the burning sweat from his eyes, and it was then that two Saracens had come at him. He had thrown his helmet at one of them, but the other had reached his side with the tip of his scimitar. He had been unlucky, for their force had far outnumbered the Saracen band. He felt Chandra’s hand lightly touch his shoulder, and he opened his eyes.

“Drink this, Jerval. It will ease the pain.”

Lambert helped him to rise from the blankets enough to drink from the goblet. The liquid was sweet and cool, and almost immediately, Jerval felt a soothing warmth pervade his mind. When the pain lessened, he opened his eyes to see Chandra, a bowl of water and a cloth in her hand.

“Thank God,” he said, grinning up at her, “that Geoffrey will stitch me up. I don’t want to look like the surcoat that you mended for me.”

“Please don’t jest about this,” she said in a whisper. He stared up at her, but he said nothing as she dropped to her knees beside him. “I will bathe the wound now. I will try not to hurt you more than I must.”

She found that she had to scrub at the jagged flesh to cleanse away the clotted blood. She felt his muscles tense beneath her hand, and stilled.

“I’m sorry, Jerval, but it must be done.”

“Aye, love, I know. Just get it over with.” He closed his eyes again and clenched his teeth. “Forgive my foul odor. I smell like stinking death.”

“I will bathe all of you when I am through.” Her words sounded strangely distant to him.

When Geoffrey had finished stitching his flesh, he rose and said gently, “You did well, my lady. Sir Jerval is young and strong. He will be fit within the week. You may bathe him now, if you wish.”

She sponged him with warm, soapy water. He cracked open his eyes and smiled hazily up at her. “Ah, that feels good,” he said. Her hand stroked down his chest to his belly, and he felt her hesitate, but just for a moment.

“I’m sorry that I cannot show you my appreciation, Chandra, but even that part of me is beyond tired.”

“I see that it is,” she said.

He smiled, simply couldn’t help it. Of course, she didn’t leave his side. She talked and talked, of nothing really, or she just sat in silence, staring at him.

“Chandra,” he said finally, “you need to walk about and get some fresh air.”

She just shook her head. “There is no fresh air, not anywhere in this place.”

“I have to relieve myself, and I would prefer Lambert to help me.”

She left him for but a minute, but upon her return, he was surrounded by Edward, Payn, and Eustace de Leybrun. She sank down in a corner, listening to them speak quietly of their losses and what was to be done for the Nazarenes.

When she awoke the next morning, Jerval was sitting up, eating a hunk of bread and drinking ale. “You look better,” she said. “It is a good thing that you do. I am still not happy with you.”

He leaned back a moment, looking at her from beneath half-closed eyelids. “I have never seen you so frightened,” he said after a moment, “save after you were taken by Alan Durwald. I did not realize it then, for you were full of cocky bravado, but you were terrified.”

“You believe me a fool? Of course I was scared, but it wasn’t like this. Nothing has ever been like this. That was just me, but this is you.”

She held him more dear than she held herself? He would have to think about this. He handed her a piece of bread. “I dreamed last night of Camberley, the lakes and the Cumbrian Mountains. I think I would gladly give a year of my life to be back there now, with you, even to hear my mother complaining about your throwing the distaff at her.”

She stared at him, not smiling as he had intended. She said, “Why, Jerval?”

“Why what, Chandra?”

She waved her arm about her. “Did you know that it would be like this? The horror? The hopelessness?”

“I suppose so, for I have fought before, Chandra. But this bad? This is beyond what I have seen before. Here there is such poverty, such wretchedness, and this damnable heat that eats into your very soul. No, I haven’t seen anything l

ike this.”

“But you knew it would be bad. Why did you agree to come with Edward, if you knew that war was ever thus, and that you could be killed?”

He looked away from her a moment, weighing his words. “One wonders why God, in His infinite mercy, wishes His followers to win battles in His name, if this is the outcome. We have spoken many times, Chandra, about a woman’s responsibilities, and a man’s. It is my duty to keep all that I hold dear safe against my enemies. It does not mean that I am less enraged than you by the waste of it. But my duty forbids me to turn away and leave other men to fight, and possibly die, in my stead.”