Earth Song (Medieval Song 3)

He grinned at her. “Come have your dinner. That is why I am here, to fetch you.”

She nodded and rounded the table. He caught her hand and pulled her against him. “You miss me, wench?”

She more than missed him. She lay awake at night, thinking of how much she wanted him lying beside her.

“Of course not. You are arrogant and filled with conceit, my lord.”

“You don’t miss my hands stroking you?”

One arm kept her pressed against his chest. She felt his other arm lower, his fingers parting her, pressing inward. She tried to draw away—a paltry effort, they both knew.

Her breathing hitched. She felt the heat of his fingers, the heat of herself, and there was only the thin wool of her gown between the two.

Then he released her, turned, saying over his shoulder, “Come and have your dinner now, wench.”

“I’m not a—” she yelled, then stopped. He was gone, the door closed quietly behind him.

That evening she learned from Northbert that the cistern keeper had escaped but that several men were out searching for him.

“Alain worked not by himself, so thinks the master,” Northbert said, then wiped his bread in the thick beef gravy on his trencher.

“ ‘Tis a varmint named de Grasse the cistern keeper has run to,” Crooky announced, his mouth bulging with boiled capon.

Philippa grew instantly still. “Walter de Grasse?” she asked slowly. Her heart was pounding, her hand squeezing a honey-and-almond tart.

Dienwald heard her and turned, saying, “What know you of de Grasse?”

“Why, he’s my cousin,” she said without thinking.

12

Dienwald’s face was pale, his eyes dark and wild. “Your cousin? Lord Henry’s nephew?”

He didn’t sound angry, merely incredulous, and Philippa felt emboldened to add freely, “Nay, Walter is my mother’s nephew. My father doesn’t like him, but I do.” She raised her chin, knowing that Dienwald wouldn’t be able to keep his opinion to himself, and that it would be contrary to hers.

“I don’t believe this,” was all he said. He rose, slamming his chair back, and left the great hall.

Crooky looked at Philippa and shook his head.

“He is always slamming out of here like a sulking child!”

“Nay,” Gorkel said. “He leaves because he is angry and he doesn’t wish to strike you.”

“Strike me? I have done nothing. What is wrong with him this time? I cannot help that Sir Walter is my kin.”

“It matters not,” Crooky said. “You, mistress, you say that you like this serpent, this vicious brute . . . well, what do you expect the master to do?”

“But—”

Crooky cleared his throat, and Philippa closed her eyes against the discordant sounds that emerged loud and clear from the fool’s mouth:

A villain, a coward,

A knave without shame.

De Grasse maims and he destroys

And takes no blame.