Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

Philippa shook her head at that thought. If true, then Bernice wouldn’t be exempt from displeasure, surely.

Philippa wasn’t really a giant, just tall for a female, that was all. She turned from the window and looked blankly around her small chamber.

It was a comfortable room with strewn herbs and rushes covering the cold stone floor. She had to do something. She could not simply wait here for William de Bridgport to come and claim her.

It occurred to Philippa at that moment to wonder why Lord Henry had gone to such pains to educate her if his intention were simply to marry her off to William de Bridgport. It seemed a mighty waste unless de Bridgport wanted a steward and a wife and a brood mare all in one. Philippa had been Lord Henry’s steward for the past two years, since old Master Davie had died of the flux, and she was becoming more skilled by the day. What use was it all now? she wondered as she unfastened her soft leather belt, stripped off her loose-fitting sleeveless overtunic of soft pale blue linen and then her long fitted woolen gown, nearly ripping the tight sleeves in her haste. She stood for a moment clothed only in her white linen shift that came to mid-thigh. Then she jerked the shift over her head. She realized in that instant that she’d seen something else in the inner ward of the castle. She’d seen several wagons loaded high with raw wool bound for the St. Ives April Fair. Two wagons belonged to the demesne farmers and one to Lord Henry.

She stood tall and naked and shivering, not with cold, but with the realization that she couldn’t stay here and be forced to wed de Bridgport. She couldn’t remain here at Beauchamp and pretend that nothing had happened. She couldn’t remain here like a helpless foundling awaiting her fate. She could hear Bernice taunting her now: . . . an evil old man for you, a handsome young man for me. I’m the favorite and now you’ll pay, pay . . .

She wasn’t helpless. In another minute Philippa had pulled a very old shapeless gown over an equally old shift and topped the lot with an over-tunice that had been washed so many times its color was now an indeterminate gray. She replaced her fashionable pointed slippers with sturdy boots that came to her calves. She quickly took strips of linen and cross-gartered the boots to keep them up. She braided her thick hair anew, wound it around her head, and shoved a woolen cap over it. The cap was too small, having last been worn when she was but nine years old, but it would do.

Now she simply had to wait until it grew dark. Her cousin Sir Walter de Grasse, Lady Maude’s nephew, lived near St. Ives. He was the castellan of Crandall, a holding of the powerful Graelam de Moreton of Wolffeton. Philippa had met Walter only twice in her life, but she remembered him as being kind. It was to her cousin she’d go. Surely he would protect her, surely. And then . . . To her consternation, she saw the farmers and three of her father’s men-at-arms fall in beside the three wagons. They were leaving now!

Philippa was confounded, but only for a minute. Beauchamp had been her home for nearly eighteen years. She knew every niche and cavity of it. She slipped quietly from her chamber, crept down the deep stairs into the great hall, saw that no one noticed her, and escaped through the great open oak doors into the inner ward. Quickly, she thought, she must move quickly. She ran to the hidden postern gate, cleared it enough to open it, and slipped through. She clamped her fingers over her nostrils, shuddered with loathing, and waded into the stinking moat. The moat suddenly deepened, and her feet sank into thick mud, bringing the slimy water to her eyebrows. She coughed and choked and gagged, then swam to the other side, crawled up the slippery bank, and raced toward the Dunroyal Forest beyond. The odor of the moat was now part of her.

Well, she wasn’t on her way to London to meet the king. She was bent on escape. She wiped off her face as best she could and stared down the pitted narrow road. The wagons would come this way. They had to come this way.

And they did, some twenty minutes later. She pulled her cap down and hid, positioning herself. The wagons came slowly. The three men-at-arms accompanying the wagons to the fair were jesting about one of the local village

women who could exercise a man better than a day of working in the fields.

Philippa didn’t hear anything else. From the protection of her hiding place she flung several small rocks across the road. They ripped into the thick underbrush, thudding loudly, and the men-at-arms reacted immediately. They whipped their horses about, drawing the craning attention of the farmers who drove the wagons. As quickly as she could move, Philippa slipped to the second wagon and burrowed under the piles of dirty gray wool. She couldn’t smell the foul odor of the raw wool because she’d become used to the smell of the moat that engulfed her. The wool was coarse and scratchy, and any exposed flesh was instantly miserable. She would ignore it; she had to. She relaxed a bit when she heard one of the men-at-arms yell, “ ‘Tis naught!”

“Aye, a rabbit or a grouse.”

“I was hoping it was a hungry wench wanting to ride me and my horse.”

“Ha! ’Tis only the meanest harlot who’d take you on!”

The men-at-arms continued their coarse jesting until they heard one of the peasants snicker behind his hand. One of them yelled, “Get thee forward, you lazy lout, else you’ll feel the flat of my sword!”

2

St. Erth Castle, Near St. Ives Bay

Cornwall, England

The sheep were dead. Every last miserable one of them was dead. Every one of them had belonged to him, and now they were all dead, all forty-four of them, and all because the shepherd, Robin, had suffered with watery bowels from eating hawthorn berries until he’d fallen over in a dead faint and the sheep had wandered off, gotten caught in a ferocious storm, and bleated themselves over a sheer cliff into the Irish Sea.

Forty-four sheep! By Christ, it wasn’t fair. What was he to do now? He had no coin—at least not enough to take to the St. Ives Fair and purchase more sheep, and sheep that hadn’t already been spring-shorn. He couldn’t get much wool off a spring-shorn sheep. He needed clothes, his son needed clothes, his men needed clothes, not to mention all the servants who toiled in his keep. He had a weaver, Prink, who was eating his head off, and content to sit on his fat backside with nary a thing to do. And Old Agnes, who told everyone what to do, including Prink, was also doing nothing but carping and complaining and driving him berserk.

Dienwald de Fortenberry cursed, sending his fist against his thigh, and felt the wool tunic he wore split from his elbow to his armpit. The harsh winter had done him in. At least his people were planting crops—wheat and barley—enough for St. Erth and all the villeins who spent their lives working for him and depending on him to keep them from starving. Many lords didn’t care if their serfs starved in ditches, but Dienwald thought such an attitude foolhardy. Dead men couldn’t plant crops or shoe horses or defend St. Erth.

On the other hand, dead men didn’t need clothes.

Dienwald was deep in thought, tossing about for something to do, when Crooky, his fool, who’d been struck by a falling tree as a boy and grown up with a twisted back, shuffled into view and began to twitch violently. Dienwald wasn’t in a mood to enjoy his contortions at the moment and waved him away. Then Crooky hopped on one foot, and Dienwald realized he was miming something. He watched the hops and the hand movements, then bellowed, “Get thee gone, meddlesome dunce! You disturb my brain.”

Crooky curtsied in a grotesque parody of a lady and then threaded a needle, sat down on the floor, and mimed sewing. He began singing:

My sweet Lord of St. Erth

Ye need not ponder bare-arsed or

Fret yer brain for revelations

For you come three wagons and full they be

Ready, my sweet lord, for yer preservations.