Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

“I’m already paying, wench. But I beg of you not to tell your precious cousin that I’m a ravisher of innocent maids. Nay, do not, even though it would please you mightily were I to take you.” It was at that instant she realized he’d drunk more ale than usual. He didn’t slur his words like Lord Henry did, nor was his nose flaming red. He walked very carefully, like a man who knows he’s drunk but doesn’t want anyone else to know. She wasn’t at all afraid of him, drunk or sober. She found that she was rather anticipating what he would do.

Once inside his bedchamber, Dienwald went through the now-familiar routine of pushing her onto the bed. “Now,” he said, looking down at her, “now y

ou can remove the gown. It is ugly and offends me. Haven’t you yet finished something for yourself?”

She lay there staring up at him, not moving, marshaling her strength. “I made you a tunic. ‘Tis down in my chamber.”

He paused. “Did you really finish it? It disappeared, and I believed you’d destroyed it in your ire at me.”

“I should have.” She began inching away to the far side of the bed. “You have drunk too much ale.”

“Philippa,” he said quietly, “there are no more gowns, not another stitch of anything for you to wear. Take care of the only one you have, else you will be naked. Aye, I have drunk more than I usually do, but ‘tis done. Take off the gown now.”

“Blow out the candle first.”

“All right.” He snuffed the candle, throwing the chamber into gloom. Moonlight came through the one window, slivering clear light directly across the bed. There was nothing she could do about it. Still, she wasn’t at all afraid of him or of what he could do to her if he so chose. Philippa eased out of the gown and laid it at the foot of the bed. Then she slid beneath the single blanket.

“It’s deep spring now,” Dienwald said, and she knew he was taking off his clothes as he spoke, even though she wasn’t looking at him. His voice deepened, grew absent and thoughtful. He didn’t sound at all drunk. “That’s what we call it here. Deep spring. Very late April and early May. My grandmother told me of deep spring when I was but a boy, told me this was what men called it a very long time ago when priests ruled the land and everyone worshiped the endless force of spring, the timeless renewal of spring. She said they saw the wheat shoving upward, ever upward toward the blazing gold of the sun, all the while deepening its roots into the soil, into the darkness. Opposites, this light and darkness, yet bound together, eternal and endless.

“She called it by the old Celtic words, but I cannot remember them. Whenever I say ‘deep spring’ now, I think about how a woman takes in a man and holds him, then empties him and yet renews him and herself with his nourishment, just as spring is infinite yet predictable in its sameness, just as spring always renews the earth, and the light and the dark exist together and complement each other.” He turned to face her now. “I like thinking about you in that way—how you would empty me and renew me and yourself with my seed.

“But you are Walter de Grasse’s cousin, and that makes you my enemy, not just my slave or my captive or my mistress. Nay, my enemy. I loathe the very thought of the man. I wonder, wench, should I punish you for his evil? For his wickedness? Does the foulness of his blood run in you? In your soul?”

Philippa was shaken. He’d shown her another side of himself that drew her and made her want to weep, but it had also called forth his hatred, his bitterness. Was he speaking so freely only because he’d drunk too much to keep his thoughts to himself?

“What did he do to you that you hate him so?”

“I lost much with the burning of my crops. And not just the crops, but all the people who worked them, my people. All of them butchered, the women ravished, the children piked on swords, the huts destroyed, burned to the raw earth. And it was your cousin who ordered it done.”

“But you are not certain? You could catch no one to tell you?”

“Sir Walter de Grasse was once a landless knight. He still is, though Lord Graelam de Moreton made him castellan of Crandall, one of his keeps to the southwest of St. Erth. It is not enough for Sir Walter; he believes it his right to have more. The man hated me before I even knew of his existence. My father won St. Erth from his father in a tourney in Normandy when I was a small boy. Walter screams of dishonor and trickery. He demands back his supposed birthright. King Edward wouldn’t give him heed, yet he still seeks my death and my ruin. He nearly succeeded once, not long ago, but I was saved by a beautiful artless lady who holds my loyalty and my heart, aye, even my soul. So there it is, wench. Sir Walter will do anything to destroy me, and you are his kin.”

Philippa felt a lance of pain go through her. She swallowed, and licked her dry lips. “Who is this lady? How did she save you?”

Dienwald strode toward the bed then and laughed, a drunken laugh, one that was sharp yet empty, raw yet thick. She saw his body in the shaft of clear moonlight and she thought him beautiful—a strange word surely to describe a being who was sharply planed and angled and shadowed and hard, but it was so. He stood straight and tall and lean, and still he laughed, and it hurt her to listen.

Yet she wanted to hear his story, and he, free-speaking from the ale, said, “You wish her name? She is a lady, a sweet, loving, guileless lady, and her name is Kassia. She hails from Brittany. I cannot have her, though I tried.”

“Why can’t you?”

“She is wedded to a powerful man who is also my friend and a mighty warrior—the same overlord of your precious Walter, Lord Graelam de Moreton.”

“You . . . you love her, then?”

Dienwald eased down onto the bed, lifting the blanket. She could feel the heat from his body, hear the steady rhythm of his breathing. She didn’t move. He was silent for a very long time, and she believed him asleep, finally insensate from the ale he’d drunk.

“I know not of love,” he said, his voice low and slurred now. “I just know of feelings and passions, and she took mine unto herself and holds them. Aye, she holds them gently and tenderly because she could do aught else. She is like that, you see. You are very different from her. She is small and delicate and fragile, yet her spirit is fierce and pure. Her smile is so sweet it makes you want to weep and protect her with your life. Aye, she came to womanhood, but she went to him—her body and her heart both went to Graelam. Go to sleep, wench. I grow weary of all this talk.”

“ ‘Tis you who have done all the talking!”

“Go to sleep.”

“I am not your enemy. I am merely your captive.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will think about it. God knows, I think of little else. You are a problem that irritates like an itch that can’t be reached. Perhaps I will send word to Lord Henry that I have you and will return you if I am given Sir Walter in your place. Perhaps I will demand his head upon a silver platter, like that of St. John, though Walter is about as righteous as a dung beetle. What think you? Would your esteemed father send me Sir Walter’s head to have you returned?”

“My esteemed father won’t even dower me. My esteemed father seeks to wed me with de Bridgport. My esteemed father probably doesn’t even care that I am gone. I have told you this before. I didn’t lie.”