Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“I played my part well even though you hadn’t given it to me. I was a fine tethered goat. I brought them out for you to fight and capture. You managed to kill most of them.”

His fingers were on her belly. They stilled. “Tethered goat? Oh, yes, you were my bait.” He didn’t tell her that when he’d first seen her surrounded by the Scots, he’d nearly lost all control, he’d been so afraid for her. But she was all right. He looked down at his fingers still lightly touching her smooth belly. He wanted her, and it surprised him. He wanted her very badly.

She said, “I managed to get away from Alan Durwald by myself.”

He moved quickly away from her belly. “Aye, you did. I even told my mother and father that.”

He was rubbing the ointment into several cuts on her legs.

“I do not believe that I should be punished to such an extreme. It was just that I was unlucky. Surely—”

“Be quiet. I don’t care a single damn what you believe. You have even cut your feet. No, don’t say anything more. I am tired of your excuses, your justifications.” When he was done, he rose and covered her with a light towel. “Do not move until I tell you to.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the ointment leach the pain out of the worst of the cuts and bruises.

She heard him speaking, knew he was ordering clean hot water for himself. She said nothing, merely lay there, not understanding why she wasn’t yelling at him to free her, to take part of the blame for what had happened. But the fact was, there was nothing inside her now—no anger, no fear, nothing at all. She felt both numb and battered. At that moment she truly didn’t care if she lived or died. She closed her eyes.

He was dressed when he sat beside her again. “Has the pain lessened?”

She nodded, her eyes still closed.

“Sit up and let me comb your hair.”

She did. It didn’t take him long. “At least he didn’t make you bald. I never liked you wearing a braid. Now your hair is too short to allow it. After you feel strong enough, you will dress in one of your gowns. I will speak to my mother and tell her what, when you are well enough, it is you will do from now on.”

He looked over at the window. All the broken shards of glass had been removed. “If you are industrious enough, I might consider it payment for breaking the glass, though I doubt that my father will. Did you ever bother to consider that Camberley is the only keep in the north of England that has glass?”

“A warrior’s keep shouldn’t have glass windows. But it was beautiful. I am sorry I had to break it.”

Well that was something, particularly since Lord Richard had raised her in his very image, with all his beliefs, all his prejudices. “As I said, you will now learn all the responsibilities of a lady. If I am pleased with your progress, see clear evidence of your cooperation, if your moods and conversation are pleasant, then mayhap I will allow you to once again ride, practice your archery. Perhaps I will even allow you to hunt again. But you will do none of these things without my permission.”

She heard herself say, as if from far away, “I want to go home to Croyland.”

“It is a pity, but you cannot. Your father would not want you back. No, you don’t believe that, do you? Actually, I would just as soon you returned as well, but it is not to be. We are wed, and that’s an end to it. You believe you are trapped? Believe me, Chandra, I am caught in the same snare with you.”

She flinched. He wondered why, but he didn’t ask.

He wondered if he should simply take all her boy’s clothes, her armor, her weapons. But no, he wouldn’t. He would gladly beat her if she dared to flout him again.

When he saw her two hours later in the Great Hall, Mary at her side, he smiled. If the smile didn’t reach his eyes, everyone knew why it didn’t. Her hair fell to her shoulders, a golden band holding it back from her face. Her gown he recognized as one she had worn at Croyland, soft pink silk, its long, loose sleeves lined with bands of miniver. The cut on her cheek ruined the effect.

He had spoken privately to his parents and told them the details of what had happened, preferring them to hear it from him rather than from the men. He had also told them what he now expected from his wife. “It is over,” he’d said. “I believed I could ease her into being a wife. I was wrong. I have no choice now. Mother, I would ask that you try to go easily with her. As much as she knows about a warrior’s weapons and skills, she knows nothing about a lady’s duties. You wondered why her mother, Lady Dorothy, didn’t teach her. I don’t know the whole of it, but I do know that she dislikes her daughter intensely. I also know it wasn’t Chandra’s fault. Now, do not try to break her. Just instruct her. Will you try?”

“The girl should be thrashed every day,” Lady Avicia said. “She is worse than a thorn—she is a blight. Oh, very well, I will treat her as well as I can.”

“She could have been killed so easily,” Lord Hugh said, shaking his head even as he stroked Hawk’s massive head. “I do not understand how her brain is fashioned.”

“I have wondered many times myself,” Jerval said. “I will have the glass replaced, Father. Then it is her debt to me.”

The evening m

eal, luckily, passed without any unpleasant incident. Chandra was as silent as the roasted pheasant on her trencher. She didn’t eat much of the meat and kept her head down even when Julianna mentioned to all those within hearing how a woman’s hair was her pride, and a woman who lost her hair, no matter the reason, wasn’t a woman any longer, now was she? Not a word out of Chandra. Jerval wasn’t used to this. He almost told Julianna that she was being cruel and to shut up, but he managed to keep his mouth shut.

He didn’t touch her that night, though he wanted to very much. No, she was too sore; there were still too many painful cuts on her body. Still, when he awoke at dawn the next morning, she was gone.

What had he expected?

That afternoon, Jerval and two dozen men set out from Camberley for Oldham. Jerval cast one last look over his shoulder at the huge towers, shrouded in early fog.