Fire Song (Medieval Song 2)

Maurice gave her a gentle kiss. There was a sparkle in her eyes again, and her face had lost the grayness and hollowness.

“You look tired,” Kassia said, her eyes narrowing on her father’s face.

“You worry about yourself, Kassia, and let this old man be. By the saints, child, I have prayed until my knees are knobby and stiff.” He clasped her slender fingers, gently stroking them. He felt such happiness that he could burst with it. Her fingers, of course, were bare. He had tucked Graelam’s ring into a leather pouch in his chamber.

“I have had such dreams, Papa,” Kassia said. “I remember your voice, of course, but there was another as well. A voice I did not recognize, speaking in a soft way.”

“ ’Twas likely one of the women you heard,” Maurice said.

“Nay, ’twas a man’s voice. His voice was deep and slow.”

“A dream,” Maurice said. She was still too weak, he told himself, to know the truth of the matter. He could not believe that she remembered Graelam.

“Aye,” Kassia said, her lashes sweeping over her eyes. “ ’twas a dream.”

The days flowed into nights. Kassia slept, spoke briefly to Etta and her father, and ate. At the end of a week she had strength enough to raise her hand and scratch her head. Her fingers slid beneath the simple cotton wimple and touched short tufts of spiky hair.

Maurice entered her chamber to see tears streaking down her face.

He rushed to her bed, guessing their cause when he saw the wimple lying beside her. “Fie, Kassia,” he said. “ ’Tis but a head of hair, naught of anything. I had not believed you so vain.”

Her tears stopped, and she sniffed.

“Within a month you will have soft curls and look like a sweet choir boy.”

Suddenly she smiled. “Perhaps you should invite Geoffrey to Belleterre. Were he to see me like this, he would soon lose his desire to wed me.”

“There, you see,” Maurice said uncomfortably, “there is always a bright side to things. As for Geoffrey, that whoreson dare not show his face here. Now, Kassia, I’ve brought you another goblet of sweet wine from Aquitaine.”

“I think I’ve already drunk a cask, Papa! If I continue swilling I will have a veined red nose!”

She sipped the wine, enjoying its smoothness and warmth. “Papa,” she said. “I want a bath. I cannot continue to lie here and wallow in my own filth. Then I want to lie in the garden and feel the sun upon my face.”

Maurice beamed at her, feeling his heart swell. “You shall have whatever you desire, poppin.” He wrinkled his nose. “You are right about the bath. That must be first.”

It was a golden day in Cornwall. The sun shone hot and bright overhead and the stiff sea breeze smelled as sweet as the clumps of wildflowers that grew on the surrounding hills.

Graelam felt utter contentment as he drew Demon to a halt at the edge of the sloping cliff and stared down at the white-crested waves that crashed against the rocks below. From St. Agnes Point, a sharp jutting finger of land, he had a view of at least thirty miles of northward coastline. The rugged cliffs gave onto land so savage and desolate that even the trees were stunted and twisted from the westerly gales that pounded them. Beyond St. Agnes Point lay the small fishing village of St. Agnes, as desolate and rugged and timeless as the craggy cliffs it hugged.

Graelam remembered his hikes along the winding footpath below St. Agnes Point when he was a boy, exploring the caves and calmer coves that indented the coastline, and felt the savage beauty of Cornwall burn into his very soul. He turned in his saddle. Inland, beyond the ragged cliffs, were rolling hills where sheep and cattle grazed, and between the hills, in narrow valleys, farmers tilled the land. His land. His home. His people.

Rising behind him like a rough-hewn monolith stood Wolffeton, fortress of the de Moretons since Duke William had deeded the lands to Albert de Moreton after the Battle of Hastings over two hundred years ago. Albert had torn down the wooden fortress of the Saxons and had erected a stone castle that would defend the northern coast of Cornwall from any assaulting forces, be they marauding Danes or the greedy French. On stormy nights lamps were lit in the two seaward towers, warning off ships from the deadly rock-strewn waters.

In the distance he could make out the stonemasons repairing the seaward wall, eroded over the two centuries by the ferocious sea storms. The jewels he had brought with him from the Holy Land had brought a respectacle price, enough to repair the walls of Wolffeton, the outbuildings, his men’s barracks, and to purchase sheep, cattle, and a half-dozen horses. As for the great hall and the upper chambers, they had not changed much since Albert’s days. That had never mattered to Graelam before, but upon his return a month before he had found Wolffeton lacking. The long walls beneath the soot-covered beams in the great hall looked primitive and bare. The rough-carved trestles and benches, even his ornately carved chair, were equally bare, with no thick velvet cushions to soften their lines. The rushes strewn across the stone floor had not the sweet smell of those at Belleterre, and there was not one carpet to deaden the heavy sound of booted feet. There were, he thought ruefully, no comforts, even in his huge bedchamber. His long-dead first wife, Marie, had not seemed to care, nor did her half-sister, Blanche de Cormont. He was but growing soft, he grunted to himself, wanting the exotic luxuries he had grown used to in the east.

Rolfe, his trusted master-at-arms, had certainly maintained the discipline of Wolffeton during Graelam’s year away in the Holy Land. But there had been problems awaiting his return, problems that an overlord’s absence engendered. There were judgments to be rendered, feuds to be settled, laxness among the castle servants to be halted. Blount, his steward, had kept his records well, but even he could not force a greater production of cloth or discipline the wenches whose job it was to keep the castle in good order. But it gave Graelam a good feeling to be thrown back into the management of his keep and lands. The vast number of people who spent their lives at Wolffeton were his responsibility and his alone.

He thought again of Blanche de Cormont. He had returned to Cornwall a month before to find her wringing her hands when she saw him, tears shining in her eyes. He had not recognized her until she had reminded him that she was half-sister to his first wife. Soft-spoken, shy Blanche, a widow now and with no kin to take her in, none save him. She had come to Wolffeton some three months before his return home. Blount hadn’t known what to do with her, so she had remained, awaiting Graelam’s return. She was not old, perhaps twenty-eight, but there were faint lines of sadness etched about her mouth, and her brown eyes, when they rested upon him, were liquid with gratitude. Her two children, a boy and a girl, she had told him, her soft mouth trembling, were being raised by her cousin Robert, in Normandy. She, their mother, had not been welcome, particularly, she had added sadly, touching her hand to her rich raven hair, by Robert’s young wife, Elise, a woman jealous of her husband’s affections.

Well, Graelam had thought then as well as now, there was no harm in her residing at Wolffeton. She waited on him, served his dinner herself, and mended his clothing. It was odd, though, he thought, that the castle servants did not seem to like her. Why, he could not guess. She seemed unobtrusive enough to him.

Graelam’s thoughts turned to the Duke of Cornwall’s impending visit. King Edward’s uncle had always seemed like a second father to Graelam, indeed, more of a father than his own had been. Though the bond between them was deep and affectionate, Graelam devoutly prayed that the duke was not coming as his overlord to request his services. A year of his life spent in the Holy Land fighting the heathen Saracens was enough for any man.

With these thoughts, he turned Demon away from the cliff and rode northward back toward Wolffeton.

At the sound of approaching hoofbeats, Blanche de Cormont pulled the leather hide from the window opening in her small chamber and watched Graelam gallop into the inner bailey of Wolffeton, his powerful body gracefully at ease in the saddle. She felt a surge of excitement at the sight of him, and her fingers twisted at the thought of running them through his thick black hair. How alike and yet different he was from her husband, Raoul, curse that bastard’s black heart. She hoped he was rotting in hell. Like Raoul, Graelam expected her to serve him as unquestioningly as any servant, but unlike Raoul, he was a virile, handsome devil whose bed every young serving wench at Wolffeton had shared willingly. And, of course, Graelam hadn’t once raised his hand against her. But then, she thought cynically, she was not yet his wife. A wife, she knew from painful experience, was like any other of a man’s possessions. As long as she kept to her place and was exacting in pleasing her husband, she was treated as well as his hunting dogs or his destrier.

Blanche gnawed on her lower lip, wondering how much longer she should pretend the shy, self-effacing widow’s role she had instinctively assumed when Graelam returned to Wolffeton. Her first husband, Raoul, had painfully taught her that her high spirits, her occasionally stinging tongue, and her pride were not acceptable in a wife. And her stubbornness. She supposed she was being stubborn where Graelam was concerned, but she wanted him and fully intended to have him. A widow and a poor relation had no real place, her children no real home or future. Perhaps, she thought, it was time to give Graelam some encouragement, perhaps even slip into his bed, if she could find it empty one night!