Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

To her surprise, Lady Kassia laughed.

Graelam made a decision as he and Dienwald walked down the solar stairs and into the inner bailey. He wouldn’t tell Dienwald of Burnell’s visit. Kassia was right: leave things alone. Dienwald delighted in doing precisely what he wanted to do, and King Edward at his most cajoling or his most threatening wouldn’t change his mind once he’d set himself a course. The two men walked toward the ramparts and climbed the ladder to the eastern tower.

“Your steward stole everything?” Graelam asked, leaning his elbows on the rough stone.

Dienwald nodded. “Bastard. Gorkel the Hideous broke his neck. But Alain had a spy who managed to flee St. Erth. My fool, Crooky, somehow knows such things—his ways of finding out things both amaze and terrify me. He believes Alain was involved with Walter de Grasse and that one of the men who tried to kill Ph . . . Mary is even now at Crandall. He is the cistern keeper.”

Graelam said nothing for several moments. Finally: “I know of the hatred between the two of you, needless to say! And yes, I heard about the burning of your crops on the southern border and the butchering of all your people. You have no proof that Sir Walter was behind it, though, do you?”

Dienwald admitted that he had none. Thus, he was surprised when Graelam said, “I have decided to remove Walter. I will tolerate no more discord. If we discover that he burned your crops and destroyed your people, I will kill him. Now, my friend, bring out my wine—I’m convinced you have it hidden.”

Dienwald could but stare at Graelam; then he bellowed for Northbert. “Bring out the wine!”

It wasn’t Aquitaine wine, but it wasn’t vinegar either. There was but one cask, and it hailed from a Benedictine abbey near Penryn.

When Dienwald entered the steward’s small chamber in the early hours of the morning, not at all drunk, for he hated wine, he smiled toward the lump on the narrow bed.

He walked silently to the bed and went down on his knees, setting his lit candle on the floor beside him. He said nothing, merely lifted the blanket that covered Philippa. She was naked, lying on her side facing away from him, one leg stretched out, the other bent, and all the beauty of her woman’s flesh was there for him to see. He swallowed and didn’t wait another moment. Lightly he touched his fingertips to her inner thighs, then moved them up slowly, very slowly, until he felt the warmth of her. He drew in his breath, aware that his sex was swollen and aching. Slowly, he eased his middle finger inside her. She was very tight and he loved the feeling of his finger stretching her and he imagined how it would feel to have her around his manhood, so tight, squeezing him until he wanted to die with the wonderful feelings. His finger deepened. Her body was responding, dampening, easing for his finger.

He leaned forward and kissed her hip even as he let his finger ease more deeply. He heard her moan and felt her tighten convulsively. He would spill his seed right here in this damned darkened room. He quickly withdrew his finger and tried to calm his frantic breathing. He rose and stripped off his clothes. He lay beside her, feeling her buttocks against his swelled sex. He began to knead her belly then let his fingers go once more where they ached to. He found her woman’s flesh in the soft curls and moaned deep in his throat as he began to stroke her, gently exploring.

When her hips jerked and she moaned in her sleep, he rolled her onto her back and came over her.

14

Philippa was whimpering even as she opened her eyes. Then she shrieked into the shadowed face above her.

Dienwald cursed, bent down, and kissed her mouth. He gave her his full weight for an instant, then raised himself on his elbows, still kissing her wildly.

He was between her legs, his sex stiff and hot and hurting. He reared back onto his knees and parted her thighs with his hands, looking down at her. “You would make me debauch you,” he said, his voice low and raw. “You’re a witch, a siren, and you would take me and wring me out and make me feel things I don’t want to feel.”

Philippa’s mind finally cleared. She was still throbbing, deep in her belly, but she saw him clearly now and heard his words and understood them and was enraged. All unwanted sensations quickly fled her body. “I make you debauch me? What about your grandmother’s deep spring and all that religious nonsense of renewal and light and dark and how you thought of me as being deep and fulfilling and renewing you and . . . I am in my own bed, you insensate brute! ‘Tis you who seek to dishonor me! I am a maid and not your wife. ‘Tis you who make me feel things I shouldn’t feel. ‘Tis you who wish to desecrate me—a prisoner with no voice in anything, a wretched captive who has no clothing even!”

“A fine volley of words you fling at me—but naught but peevish rantings. You have no voice, you say? You beset me, wench, your mouth is nearly as bountiful as your ass!”

She saw red, fisted her hands, and smashed them against his chest even as he shouted, “You make yourself sound like a shrine, a relic to heedless virgins! Desecrate? You came to me through foul mischance, wench—that, or God sent y

ou as my penance—” He was still holding her thighs when she hit him again as hard as she could.

Dienwald growled a half-dozen curses even as he teetered sideways and fell to the stone floor beside the bed. He didn’t release her, and she came crashing down on top of him. When her head hit his as he was trying to rise, and he was plunged back, she heard the ugly thudding sound of his head against the leg of her steward’s table.

His head lolled on the stone floor and he was still. Philippa was frozen for an instant, trying to comprehend what had happened; then she knew bone-deep fear, rolled off him, and flattened her palm against his chest. His heartbeat was slow and steady. She brought the single candle closer and examined his head. A lump was beginning to swell over his left temple. Well, it served the slavering ravisher right. He’d come to take her even as she slept, so she wouldn’t fight him; then his wayward mouth had accused her of debauching him, or some such nonsense. She wanted to hit him again, but didn’t. Instead she sat on the cold stone floor, crossed her legs, and eased his head onto her thighs. She didn’t feel the chill of the stones against her flesh; rather she felt the heat from his shoulders, the warmth of him beneath her hands. She leaned against the bed and gently stroked his forehead. She was conscious only of him and her worry for him. After a while she also found that she was staring, and discovered he quite delighted her. His sex wasn’t hard and throbbing now; quite the contrary. His long legs were sprawled out, slightly parted. She smiled and laid her hand on his belly. Slowly she traced the ridges of muscle, then let her fingers stray to the thick brush of dark hair at his groin.

“You are such a churlish knave,” she said. “What am I to do with you?”

He didn’t reply, nor did he stir. Philippa sang him a soft French ballad her mother had taught her when she was four years old. Then she stopped and sighed. More to the point of course was what he would do with her. She forced her fingers away from him. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he would taunt her were he to know what she had done whilst he lay unconscious.

“St. Gregory’s chilblains, wench, your voice sounds like a wet rag slapping against the side of a sleeping horse.”

“You’re awake,” she said, her voice flat. “A minstrel who sojourned at Beauchamp just last year told my parents that my voice was dulcet and silvery, like a turtle dove’s.”

“Dulcet dove? The fellow lied, and is worse with words than Crooky.” Dienwald fell into melancholy silence, for he’d realized that his head lay in her lap, that if he turned his face inward he could kiss the soft flesh between her legs. He didn’t want to do that. Why must she offer him such wondrous fodder for his weakness? It wasn’t to be borne. He turned his face against her, his lips seeking.

Philippa sucked in her breath and shoved him away. He moaned, and immediately she felt guilty. “You shouldn’t have done that. You’ll hurt yourself again.”

He moaned again, dramatically, and Philippa gritted her teeth against laughing. “Come, you must get up now. You’re naked.”

“I’m pleased you noticed. So are you, wench.” Dienwald struggled to his feet, stood there weaving for a moment, then collapsed onto her narrow bed.