Secret Song (Medieval Song 4)

Her look was austere and severe. There was no more frightened girl in her aspect now. “A female has only her virtue to attest to her character,” she said, speaking low, her voice sure and calm and guileless. “I had to fight you until I could fight no more. I would have been cursed by God had I simply given over to you. Surely you understand that, my lord, you must. A man of honor can’t ravish an innocent maid, else he will lose all hope for forgiveness from the maid and from God. That is what I was taught; it is what I believe. I couldn’t allow you to shame me, and I did what I had to save myself.”

The earl felt the impotent drag of uncertainty. He hated this not knowing, this no longer being confident and convinced of his actions. He’d raged and cursed and pushed his men until they were all so weary they could scarcely sit their horses. And here she was, blaming him. The bedraggled slip of a female was blaming him.

“Where is Roland?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in Wrexham, at least he was early this morning. He was in a sodden, drunken sleep when I escaped him, but he must know by now that I stole his horse. I found out what he intended to do with me. My uncle hired him, you know, offered

him a great deal of coin to bring me back. Then my uncle would have me wedded to Ralph of Colchester.” She shrugged. “I pray he won’t try to find me, but I’m afraid, my lord, afraid that he will come after me again.” She looked up at him, pathetic hope in her eyes. “Do you believe he will give up? Perhaps go back to England?”

“Mayhap,” the earl said, but he was thinking: But not without his destrier. He looked up at the rain-bloated clouds, felt the endless trickles of rain snake down his back. He cursed. “Clyde,” he shouted to one of his men. “We are close to the cave we came upon yesterday. We will spend the night there or at least shelter ourselves until this cursed rain stops.”

The men moved quickly from the pitted muddy path. The earl turned back to the shivering girl still standing in front of him. “You’re wet.” He pulled a dry tunic from a saddlebag and wrapped it around her. “Keep this close about you. I don’t wish you to die of a fever.”

“His destrier is lame.”

“One of my men will lead him.” The earl wasn’t about to abandon that horse.

The cave Clyde led them to was high-ceilinged and deep enough for the horses to be hobbled at the rear. Daria was settled near the fire, and slowly, teeth chattering every moment, she felt herself dry. She prayed that she’d fooled the earl. She prayed even more intensely that Roland was mending and that he would simply forget her and leave Wales and be safe. He still had enough coin to buy another horse, not one like Cantor, but still, he could buy his way to safety.

She realized that she would probably never see him again. So much for her knowledge of him. All her wondrous feelings, they’d been false, a lie, a dream woven of unreal cloth. She lowered her head to her hands and felt sobs ripping through her. She had no hold on him, none at all, even a hold of honor, for he didn’t know that he’d taken hers.

What she’d said to the Earl of Clare wasn’t true. Roland would leave Wales and he’d forget her and he’d forget about the money he would have had from her uncle. He wasn’t stupid; he would know that the earl had taken her again. The Earl of Clare would bed her and discover she wasn’t a virgin and kill her. For then he would know that Roland had bedded her. She couldn’t begin to imagine his fury, for he would believe himself cheated and betrayed, though it had been he who had stolen her in the first place.

No, he’d decided that God had blessed him and approved what he’d planned for her. When the earl and God made a bargain, it was madness to try to break it.

She tried to choke back the sobs, but they broke through. She felt a man’s large hand on her shoulder, but she couldn’t stop her wailing.

“Hush,” the man said, and she recognized MacLeod’s voice, the earl’s master-at-arms. “Ye’ll make yerself ill. With this gut-soaking rain, it’s not difficult.”

“I’m so afraid.”

“Aye, ye’ve reason to be, but the earl seems bestruck wit’ the sight of ye again. He’ll not kill ye, at least not yet. Find ye cheer, lass—we’re out of that filthy rain, and that’s something to shout to the heavens about, eh?”

“Will he go back to Wrexham to find that man?”

“How do ye know we were in Wrexham?”

Oh God, I forgot, and my stupidity will finish me off. “I don’t know, I just guessed you’d come from there. Where did you come from if not from Wrexham?”

MacLeod stared at her pale face, the red eyes, the damp masses of hair streaming down either side of her thin face. Such a pathetic little scrap. It seemed to him that the earl should view her as a daughter, not as a possible wife. He couldn’t imagine taking the little wench to bed. She was too wretched, too woebegone, and in the baggy boy’s clothes, she looked scarce a decent meal for a hardy man like the Earl of Clare.

“We came from Wrexham,” he said, looking away from her into the fire. “We’ve ridden hard to find ye and that whoreson that took ye from Tyberton.”

“Oh,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her legs and eased closer to the fire.

“Where is the earl?”

MacLeod shrugged. “Speaking to the men. Here, eat yer dinner. We bought the food at the market in Wrexham. It’s right that you eat afore ye lose yer boy’s breeches.”

MacLeod meant nothing by his words, but Daria saw the earl over her, pinning her down with his weight, hurting her, and she paled.

“Ye’re thin, lass,” he explained patiently. “Ye must eat something afore yer breeches fall to yer knees.”

Daria smiled at him and chewed on the bread he banded her. “Thank you. Diolch.”

“So you learned some of this heathen tongue,” the earl said as he eased down beside her. “I don’t wish to hear it again.” He picked up a thick slice of black bread and took a healthy bite. She watched him chew. “All right,” she said. He didn’t respond. He was staring at her and she knew that he was wondering about her, wondering if he should believe her. Finally, after he’d taken a goodly drink of ale, he said, “This man, Roland. I doubt he’ll be witless enough to come after you again, Daria. However, he will come after his destrier. This time he won’t find things so much to his liking. I will be ready for him.”

“But how could he know that I found you? How could—?”