Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

“I had great need of the wool,” Dienwald said, looking down at his frayed hose. “I lost forty-four sheep before shearing, and all of us are ragged. That’s why I took the two wagons.” He glanced up, straight at her, and seemed startled that he’d explained his theft.

“Your need is quite evident. But thievery will bring you only retribution from my father, doubt you not.”

“Ah, you think so? Let me tell you something, Lady Lackwit. Those dauntless farmers with the other wagon will continue to the fair at St. Ives. They will sell the wool and hide well their profits. Then they will go bleating to Lord Henry about the theft of all three wagons. Moreover, they have no idea who robbed them. Now, in addition, you are my prisoner, as of this minute. If I decide to ransom you, I can always say I found you creeping along a road. And if you, wench, tell your sire the truth, think you those brave farmers will say they lied and robbed your father and were cowards? Now, I was considering treating you like a guest, but I think that isn’t what you need. You are too bold, too brazen for a female. You want mastering and proper manners. Perhaps I shall take on the chore. You will remain at St. Erth until I decide what to do with you. You will leave me now.”

“I would like to leave you forever! My father will discover the truth and crush you like the pestilence you are!”

Dienwald smiled. “It will make a jongleur’s tale that will cause the beams of the hall to creak with mirth.”

“You are the only lackwit here. I told you, my father wants nothing more to do with me.”

“Then perhaps I can instead discover the name of the man he wished you to marry. I can send a message to the clothhead and he can ransom you.”

“Nay!”

She’d actually turned white, Dienwald observed. Let her skin creep with the thought. He wondered who the man was.

“Arrogant fool,” Philippa said as she looked out the narrow window of her cell down into the inner ward. The sky was leaden in the late afternoon, and fog rolled over the castle walls. It had stopped raining some minutes before.

Dienwald de Fortenberry was striding across the now-muddy ward toward the stables, three dogs at his heels, followed by two small children and a chicken with sodden feathers. He’d ordered her taken by Northbert, a man with a very flat nose, to a tower chamber and locked in. Chamber, ha! ‘Twas a cell, nothing more. At least he hadn’t locked her down in the granary. Philippa watched him until he disappeared into the stables. Only the chicken followed him inside. The children and dogs were stopped by a yelling stable hand with the blackest hair Philippa had ever seen. Although he spoke loudly, calling the children little crackbrains, she could barely hear him over all the other people in the inner bailey. So many people, and so noisy, each with an opinion and a loud voice. The men yelled and shouted, the women yelled and shouted, and the children and chickens squawked and shrieked. It was a cacophony of head-splitting noise and Philippa turned away from the window slit and surveyed her room. It was narrow and long and held only a low bed with a rank-smelling straw-stuffed mattress and a coarse blanket. There was no pillow, no water to drink; there was a cracked pot under the cot in which to relieve herself, but nothing more.

It was heaven-sent compared to her residence in the wool wagon, but it still wasn’t at all what she was used to. She’d always taken Beauchamp and all the luxuries it had afforded her for granted. It had been her home, and all the people there were known to her and trusted. Now she was nothing more than a prisoner. All her wondrous escape had netted her was a dank cheerless room in the keep tower of a man more unpredictable than the Cornish weather and, by reputation, a thoroughly bad lot.

“Thass good quality, master,” Old Agnes was saying to the thoroughly bad lot, her gnarled fingers caressing the wool. “Jes’ lovely.”

“Aye,” Dienwald agreed. “Pick what wenches you need to help you clean and weave the wool and tell Ellis. I’ll have Alain hire weavers immediately. The first new tunic is for Master Edmund—aye, a new tunic and new hose.”

Old Agnes looked sour at that order but didn’t say anything. “What about the creature, master?”

“The what? Oh, her. She’ll be gone before you can give her a new gown. Let her return home in what we gave her. ‘Tis a gift.”

“Thass a lady, master, not a scullion.”

Old Agnes sometimes forgot herself, Dienwald bluntly informed her. Old Agnes gave him a toothless grin and a mirthless cackle and returned to picking filth from the wool. Dienwald left the stables, nearly stumbling over a chicken. The bird squawked, deftly avoiding the kick of a foot.

Dienwald sniffed the heavy air. White fog hung over his head in patches. It would shower again soon. There was time enough to practice with the quintains, since today was Tuesday, but he felt unsettled and restless. He made his way to the solar, where there were three small rooms, one used for St. Erth’s priest and Edmund’s tutor, Father Cramdle. He eased open the door to the sound of his son’s penetrating voice: “Thass naught but silly tripe for peasants!”

4

Father Cramdle’s voice, normally the model of patience and tolerance, was a bit frayed. “Master Edmund, peasants can’t read, much less cipher. Listen, now, ‘tis what your father wants. If I add eleven apples from this barrel to the seven bunches of grapes in this barrel, what is the result?”

“Purple apples!”

Dienwald’s first response was to laugh at his son’s wit, but he saw the pained look on Father Cramdle’s homely face. Edmund not only looked like a villein’s child, he was as ignorant as any of them.

“Answer Father Cramdle, Edmund. Now.”

“But, Papa, thass a foolish problem, and—”

“That is, not thass. I don’t want to hear that from you again. Answer the problem. Speak properly.” He remembered Philippa’s correction, made without thought. Had his son become so ill-managed? He wanted Edmund to read at least enough so he wouldn’t be cheated by merchants or his own steward in the future. He wanted him to cipher so that he would know if he’d gotten the correct measure of flour from the miller. Dienwald could sign his name and make out words if he spoke them aloud slowly, but little more. It wasn’t something he regretted very often, just at times like this when he saw the proof of ignorance in his son.

It required all of Edmund’s fingers and toes and painstaking counting, but finally the correct answer came from his mouth.

“Excellent,” Dienwald said. “Father, if the boy needs the birch rod, tell me. He will learn.”

“Papa!”

“Nay, little gamecock. You will remain here studying with Father Cramdle until he sees fit to release you. It is what I wish of you, and you will obey me.”