Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

Dienwald left the room knowing that the kindly and very weak-willed Father Cramdle didn’t have the spirit to control a nine-year-old boy. Dienwald would have to involve himself more. As for Alain, the steward, he could control the boy, but Edmund hated Alain. Though he would never say why, he avoided him, slinking away whenever Alain came into the vicinity.

As Dienwald left the solar, he glanced over to the east tower. He saw Philippa de Beauchamp at the narrow window, looking down. He hoped she was scared out of her wits wondering what he was going to do to her. He would give her until the following afternoon to become appropriately submissive. She was too proud. She was also too big, too tall, too curly-haired. He had no complaint about her legs, which seemed to go on until they reached her throat, just as Crooky had pointed out. Her breasts seemed more than ample as well. But she wasn’t . . . He forced his thinking away from that channel. Kassia de Moreton was delicate and small and sweetly soft. And she would never belong to him. It wasn’t fated to be. Pity that he liked her hulking warrior husband nearly as much as he cared for her, else he would be tempted to slit Graelam’s throat some dark night and relieve him of his wife.

Dienwald sighed. He admired everything about Kassia—her gentleness, her shy humor and guileless candor, her fierce loyalty to her husband, her daintiness, even the smallness of her bones and her delicate wrists . . . Ah, well, it was hopeless. At least she was his friend, delighting in his company, though now she was determined to find him an heiress—to save him from mold and damp and ruin, she’d say, and pour him some of her father’s precious wine from Aquitaine. She wanted Dienwald to become respectable, a concept that thoroughly irritated and frightened him. But not for long. After all, what family would want to be allied with a rogue like him? It was just as well. The Scourge of Cornwall liked life just as it was. With the acquisition of the wool, the days would continue to be as entertaining as they’d been before the mindless sheep had plunged off that cliff.

It occurred to him a few moments later why he was so restless. He needed a woman. He didn’t delay, simply asked to have Alice sent to his chamber. When she arrived, plump and smiling, her arms held forward a bit to further push out her breasts, Dienwald waved her closer. When she stood in front of him, he started to sweep her onto his lap. But her smell stopped him cold. “When did you last bathe?”

Alice flushed. “I forgot, master,” she said, eyes cast down. She knew to avert her eyes, because if she looked at him, he just might see the amazement on her face. All this insis

tence upon rubbing her body with water and soap! It was beyond foolish.

Dienwald wanted her, but even her breath smelled of the stuffed cabbage she’d eaten the previous night.

“I won’t have you again in my bed until you wash yourself—all of you, do you understand, Alice? With soap. Even between your legs and under your arms. And cleanse your teeth.”

He sent her away, calling out, “Use the soap!” He’d first herded her into his bed only two weeks before. She’d learn, he hoped, that he liked a woman’s body to be free of odor and her breath sweeter than that of his wolfhounds.

He waited, tapping his fingertips impatiently on the arms of the single chair in his chamber. When Alice appeared thirty minutes later, her hair wet from its washing but smooth from a good combing, and her breath pure as a spring breeze, he smiled and patted his thighs.

She came to him willingly, and when he brought her to stand between his thighs, she again pressed her breasts forward. He wondered who’d taught her to do this. Normally it amused him. Now, however, he wanted only release, and quickly. He slipped her coarse gown over her head, to find her naked beneath. She hadn’t dried herself completely, and his hands slid over her moist flesh.

He clasped her hands down to her sides and looked at her. She was white and plump and smooth as an egg. She would also be quite fat in no more than five years, but that didn’t disturb him one whit. She was merely pleasingly bountiful now, the flesh between her legs soft and damp, and she was nearly the same age as his long-legged prisoner in the east tower.

He kissed Alice’s mouth, tentatively at first, until he knew that she’d cleansed her teeth; then he became more enthusiastic. When at last he eased her down onto his manhood, groaning at the feel of sinking deep into her body, he leaned back his head, closing his eyes. Finally he played with her hot woman’s flesh until she squirmed and arched her back and cried out. Then he allowed himself relief, and it was sweet and long and good.

He left her asleep on his bed and quit his solar, stretching and contented, every restless feeling stilled. Night had fallen and the evening meal was late, as usual. Dienwald thought about his prisoner, alone and probably so hungry she was ready to gnaw on the cot in her chamber. He decided he was feeling benevolent and told Northbert to have her fetched. She would doubtless be grateful to him for feeding her.

When she appeared beside Northbert, he motioned her to the chair beside his.

“Thass the witch,” Edmund said, waving a handful of bread toward the approaching Philippa.

“She’s not a witch. And it’s that is, not thass. Mind your manners, Edmund. She’s a lady, and you will treat her politely.”

Edmund grumbled, and Dienwald, giving him a very pointed look, added, “One insult, and you will spend your evening with Father Cramdle reading the holy writ.”

The threat brought instant obedience. Dienwald studied his prisoner again. She didn’t look like a lady, of course, in that shapeless coarse gown, bare feet, and thick curling hair loose around her head.

“God’s greetings to you, lady,” he said easily to Philippa. “Sit thee here and take your fill.”

“What? The master offers me a chair rather than the dank floor?”

He eyed her. Some show of gratitude. He should have guessed. She wasn’t one whit broken; not a shadow of submissivenes. She was still insolent. He should have held to his original plan and left her in that chamber alone for twenty-four hours. He continued, still tolerant, lounging back in his chair, “There are no females at St. Erth as great-sized as you, lady, so moderate your appetite accordingly, for there are no more gowns for you.”

“God bless your sweet kindness, sir,” Philippa said with all the gratitude of a nun who’d just been made an abbess. “You have the charitable soul of Saint Orkney and the pious spirit of a zealot.”

“There is no Saint Orkney.”

“Is there not? Why, with your example, kind lord, there should be. Yes, indeed.”

Philippa smiled at him, her dimples deep, so pleased with herself that she couldn’t help it. Then she smelled the food. Her stomach growled loudly. She forgot Dienwald de Fortenberry, forgot that her situation was fraught with uncertainty, and looked down at her trencher, on which lay a thick slab of bread soggy with rich gravy and decorated with large chunks of beef.

Dienwald watched her attack the meal. A bold wench with a ready tongue. No wonder she thought her father didn’t want to ransom her. Who would want such a needle-witted wench in his keeping? Unaccountably, he smiled. When she mopped up the trencher with her last chunk of bread, he said, “Will you eat all my mutton and pigeon as well? Every one of my boiled capons, with ginger and cinnamon, and all of my jellied eggs?”

“I don’t see the jellied eggs.” There was stark disappointment in her voice.

“Perhaps you ate them without seeing them. Your hands and your mouth toiled very diligently.”

She turned to him. “And surely you wouldn’t have mutton, would you? Didn’t you lose all your sheep?”