Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

Two boys interrupted them, carrying buckets of hot water. As Jerval spoke to the boys, Chandra sat in a high-backed chair and shifted her bottom on the soft, velvet-covered cushion. She realized that her hair was tangled about her face. Her clothes were none too clean. Her smell was ripe.

After the boys left, Jerval offered her the tub. She couldn’t imagine at that moment taking off her clothes in front of him. It was true that he had stripped her naked, or nearly naked, every night since they had married, but there was full daylight now. She shook her head.

She did, however, watch him pull off his clothes. She did not look away when he was naked. She saw him ease slowly down into the hot water. He grunted with pleasure. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

“You will need a tub of fresh water,” he said after a time. “Four days of grime have left it black. This time I won’t ask you to join me.”

She said, “I do not mind waiting.” She tried to focus on the orchard below the windows—apple trees, pear and peach trees, covered with tight buds. It was a beautiful, lush spot.

“It is very different here.”

“Aye, I know it,” he said from the tub, and she looked to see his hair and face lathered. “Will you scrub my back this time?”

There was no reason not to. She scrubbed him, no particular gentleness in her strokes. Soon, he was laughing up at her, and it was only her quickness that kept him from pulling her down into the water on top of him.

It was much later before she was in her own bath, for Mary came to visit after Jerval left, and nothing but praise flowed from her mouth.

“Everything is so neat and clean,” she said for the third time, as three servants holding buckets came into the chamber. “Ah, here is water for you.”

She left Chandra, humming under her breath.

Chandra accepted the help of a young girl whose name was Matta. Soon she was dressed in a soft, pale blue silk gown and fastened a blue leather belt about her waist. She looked at herself one final time in the polished silver mirror, and left the bedchamber.

There were at least fifty people seated at the trestle tables in the Great Hall, and a score of servants served the evening meal. All their faces were upon her as she entered; all of them now stared.

Jerval rose and called to her. As she walked to the huge, high-backed chair beside him on the dais, he shouted over the hall, “My lady and wife, Chandra de Vernon.” She started at her new name, and felt a crushing moment of homesickness. She smiled, seeing shock on many of the men’s faces, for she had arrived looking like a grubby boy.

“That silver thing beside your trencher,” Jerval said, as he handed her a fat slice of warm bread, “is called a fork. You see, it has two prongs. It makes it easier to get your food to your mouth. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I think you’ll appreciate it soon enough.” He picked his up and speared a piece of meat with it.

“It is particularly useful with fish,” he said, watching her efforts. “Here, try it on the lamprey.” He wrapped his fingers about hers, guiding her hand in the proper motion.

She scooped up the eel easily, and laughed. “It is ridiculous, this thing, but perhaps it isn’t entirely worthless.”

“Ah, Jerval,” Malton, the master-at-arms, called out. “Sir Eustace was here. He seemed peeved that he had not been told of your wedding. I let him believe it was to Chester’s squint-eyed heiress. He will be in a frenzy of jealousy when he sees your lady.”

“Who is Sir Eustace?” Chandra asked.

Mark said, “Sir Eustace de Leybrun was wed to Matilda for a time—Jerval’s older sister—but she died in childbed. He is not a particularly amiable fellow. He still comes about.”

“Mark is too sweet-tongued,” Malton said. “Your husband will want to keep you well in sight whenever Sir Eustace visits Camberley. He’s a leering braggart. And when he sees you, my lady, he might even forget that one small shred of honor that lies deep within him.”

Mark said lightly, “Now that you are wed, Jerval, he will have to be content with his own lands.”

“Aye,” Malton agreed, “with the sons you and your lady will breed, he’ll never know Camberley, save as a bothersome guest.”

Jerval didn’t want Eustace to ever see Chandra. He knew he would take one look at her and run his thick tongue over his lips as he did whenever he saw a girl that pleased him. No, what concerned Jerval, if Eustace ever came to Camberley, was that Chandra would take offense and mayhap stick her knife between his ribs. He smiled a bit at the thought. Perhaps not a bad end for the man.

Malton called out, “Perhaps the Scots will pay us a visit before Lord Hugh returns. It was a hard winter up north, and I’ll wager the heathen are hungry for our cattle.”

He saw that the lady was looking at him, so beautiful she was, incredibly so, but perhaps he had frightened her, regardless of seeing her mounted on that huge destrier. “There’s never much danger, my lady.”

“Do you ever ride after them, Malton?”

“Aye, and it’s better sport than a boar hunt. The Scots are good fighters, and it keeps the men from growing bored.”

“You will not fight them, Chandra,” Jerval said, stuck a good-sized bit of lamprey into her mouth when she would have disagreed, and grinned at her. “Leave go. There is much you can do, but not that. No fighting. No trying to best any of our enemies. That is my job and I do it well. And no, do not accuse me of changing since we wed. I have always felt that way.”

She chewed on the eel and said nothing more.