“This is the wench, Mary,” Dienwald said, and he gave Philippa a look that would rot off her toes if she dared to disagree with him.
“You don’t look like a Mary,” Graelam said, coming closer. He studied Philippa, his dark eyes intent. Then he looked troubled, questioning. “You look familiar, though. Your eyes . . . aye, very familiar, the blue is brilliant, unique. I wish I could remember—”
“She doesn’t look familiar,” Dienwald said, stepping in front of Graelam. “She isn’t at all unique. She looks only like herself. She looks like a Mary. Nothing more, just a simple Mary.”
“She looks clean,” Graelam said, and turned to his wife. “Kassia, have you learned all of Dienwald’s secrets? Did he steal my Aquitaine wine?”
“Dienwald isn’t a thief!” Philippa turned red the moment the words flew out of her mouth, but proceeded to make matters worse: “He isn’t except when necessity forces him to be, and—”
“Ph . . . Mary, be quiet! I don’t need you to plead my innocence before this hulking behemoth. I didn’t steal your puking wine, Graelam.”
Kassia rose slowly to her feet. “This is quite enough. Now, I suggest that we have our meal up here, since Mary can’t come to the hall wearing naught but a blanket. What say you, Dienwald?”
What could he say? he wondered, both his brain and belly sour, even as he nodded.
The evening meal, all cozy in Dienwald’s bedchamber, passed off more smoothly than Dienwald could have hoped. Philippa held her tongue for the most part, as did Kassia. The men spoke of men’s things, and though Philippa would have liked to join in, because she was, no matter what Dienwald said, St. Erth’s steward, she kept still. She was afraid she would inadvertently give something away. Neither Graelam de Moreton nor his lovely wife was stupid.
Why had Graelam looked at her so oddly? Could he believe she looked familiar because he remembered seeing her very briefly at Beauchamp some years before?
Graelam sat back in his chair, a flagon of ale between his large hands. “Kassia and I will return to Wolffeton on the morrow. She wished merely to see that you were all right.”
“Why? Nay, Graelam, your lie contains more holes than a sieve. You wished to see if I was drinking your wine.”
“That as well.” Graelam paused a moment, then continued easily, “Let us go for a walk, Dienwald. I have something to discuss with you.”
Kassia shot him a questioning look, but he only smiled and shook his head.
What was going on here? Philippa wondered. She watched the two men leave the bedchamber. On the threshold, Dienwald turned, saying, “Mary, we will give our bed over to Graelam and Kassia tonight. Tell Edmund that he is to sleep with Father Cramdle. No, wait—we will sleep in your small bed in the steward’s chamber.” That taken care of to the master’s satisfaction, Philippa was left sitting on the bed, her face red with anger and embarrassment.
“I will surely kill him, the miserable bounder,” she said to no one in particular.
To her surprise, Lady Kassia laughed.
Graelam made a decision as he and Dienwald walked down the solar stairs and into the inner bailey. He wouldn’t tell Dienwald of Burnell’s visit. Kassia was right: leave things alone. Dienwald delighted in doing precisely what he wanted to do, and King Edward at his most cajoling or his most threatening wouldn’t change his mind once he’d set himself a course. The two men walked toward the ramparts and climbed the ladder to the eastern tower.
“Your steward stole everything?” Graelam asked, leaning his elbows on the rough stone.
Dienwald nodded. “Bastard. Gorkel the Hideous broke his neck. But Alain had a spy who managed to flee St. Erth. My fool, Crooky, somehow knows such things—his ways of finding out things both amaze and terrify me. He believes Alain was involved with Walter de Grasse and that one of the men who tried to kill Ph . . . Mary is even now at Crandall. He is the cistern keeper.”
Graelam said nothing for several moments. Finally: “I know of the hatred between the two of you, needless to say! And yes, I heard about the burning of your crops on the southern border and the butchering of all your people. You have no proof that Sir Walter was behind it, though, do you?”
Dienwald admitted that he had none. Thus, he was surprised when Graelam said, “I have decided to remove Walter. I will tolerate no more discord. If we discover that he burned your crops and destroyed your people, I will kill him. Now, my friend, bring out my wine—I’m convinced you have it hidden.”
Dienwald could but stare at Graelam; then he bellowed for Northbert. “Bring out the wine!”
It wasn’t Aquitaine wine, but it wasn’t vinegar either. There was but one cask, and it hailed from a Benedictine abbey near Penryn.
When Dienwald entered the steward’s small chamber in the early hours of the morning, not at all drunk, for he hated wine, he smiled toward the lump on the narrow bed.
He walked silently to the bed and went down on his knees, setting his lit candle on the floor beside him. He said nothing, merely lifted the blanket that covered Philippa. She was naked, lying on her side facing away from him, one leg stretched out, the other bent, and all the beauty of her woman’s flesh was there for him to see. He swallowed and didn’t wait another moment. Lightly he touched his fingertips to her inner thighs, then moved them up slowly, very slowly, until he felt the warmth of her. He drew in his breath, aware that his sex was swollen and aching. Slowly, he eased his middle finger inside her. She was very tight and he loved the feeling of his finger stretching her and he imagined how it would feel to have her around his manhood, so tight, squeezing him until he wanted to die with the wonderful feelings. His finger deepened. Her body was responding, dampening, easing for his finger.
He leaned forward and kissed her hip even as he let his finger ease more deeply. He heard her moan and felt her tighten convulsively. He would spill his seed right here in this damned darkened room. He quickly withdrew his finger and tried to calm his frantic breathing. He rose and stripped off his clothes. He lay beside her, feeling her buttocks against his swelled sex. He began to knead her belly then let his fingers go once more where they ached to. He found her woman’s flesh in the soft curls and moaned deep in his throat as he began to stroke her, gently exploring.
When her hips jerked and she moaned in her sleep, he rolled her onto her back and came over her.
14
Philippa was whimpering even as she opened her eyes. Then she shrieked into the shadowed face above her.
Dienwald cursed, bent down, and kissed her mouth. He gave her his full weight for an instant, then raised himself on his elbows, still kissing her wildly.
He was between her legs, his sex stiff and hot and hurting. He reared back onto his knees and parted her thighs with his hands, looking down at her. “You would make me debauch you,” he said, his voice low and raw. “You’re a witch, a siren, and you would take me and wring me out and make me feel things I don’t want to feel.”
Philippa’s mind finally cleared. She was still throbbing, deep in her belly, but she saw him clearly now and heard his words and understood them and was enraged. All unwanted sensations quickly fled her body. “I make you debauch me? What about your grandmother’s deep spring and all that religious nonsense of renewal and light and dark and how you thought of me as being deep and fulfilling and renewing you and . . . I am in my own bed, you insensate brute! ‘Tis you who seek to dishonor me! I am a maid and not your wife. ‘Tis you who make me feel things I shouldn’t feel. ‘Tis you who wish to desecrate me—a prisoner with no voice in anything, a wretched captive who has no clothing even!”
“A fine volley of words you fling at me—but naught but peevish rantings. You have no voice, you say? You beset me, wench, your mouth is nearly as bountiful as your ass!”
She saw red, fisted her hands, and smashed them against his chest even as he shouted, “You make yourself sound like a shrine, a relic to heedless virgins! Desecrate? You came to me through foul mischance, wench—that, or God sent y
ou as my penance—” He was still holding her thighs when she hit him again as hard as she could.
Dienwald growled a half-dozen curses even as he teetered sideways and fell to the stone floor beside the bed. He didn’t release her, and she came crashing down on top of him. When her head hit his as he was trying to rise, and he was plunged back, she heard the ugly thudding sound of his head against the leg of her steward’s table.
His head lolled on the stone floor and he was still. Philippa was frozen for an instant, trying to comprehend what had happened; then she knew bone-deep fear, rolled off him, and flattened her palm against his chest. His heartbeat was slow and steady. She brought the single candle closer and examined his head. A lump was beginning to swell over his left temple. Well, it served the slavering ravisher right. He’d come to take her even as she slept, so she wouldn’t fight him; then his wayward mouth had accused her of debauching him, or some such nonsense. She wanted to hit him again, but didn’t. Instead she sat on the cold stone floor, crossed her legs, and eased his head onto her thighs. She didn’t feel the chill of the stones against her flesh; rather she felt the heat from his shoulders, the warmth of him beneath her hands. She leaned against the bed and gently stroked his forehead. She was conscious only of him and her worry for him. After a while she also found that she was staring, and discovered he quite delighted her. His sex wasn’t hard and throbbing now; quite the contrary. His long legs were sprawled out, slightly parted. She smiled and laid her hand on his belly. Slowly she traced the ridges of muscle, then let her fingers stray to the thick brush of dark hair at his groin.
“You are such a churlish knave,” she said. “What am I to do with you?”
He didn’t reply, nor did he stir. Philippa sang him a soft French ballad her mother had taught her when she was four years old. Then she stopped and sighed. More to the point of course was what he would do with her. She forced her fingers away from him. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he would taunt her were he to know what she had done whilst he lay unconscious.
“St. Gregory’s chilblains, wench, your voice sounds like a wet rag slapping against the side of a sleeping horse.”
“You’re awake,” she said, her voice flat. “A minstrel who sojourned at Beauchamp just last year told my parents that my voice was dulcet and silvery, like a turtle dove’s.”
“Dulcet dove? The fellow lied, and is worse with words than Crooky.” Dienwald fell into melancholy silence, for he’d realized that his head lay in her lap, that if he turned his face inward he could kiss the soft flesh between her legs. He didn’t want to do that. Why must she offer him such wondrous fodder for his weakness? It wasn’t to be borne. He turned his face against her, his lips seeking.
Philippa sucked in her breath and shoved him away. He moaned, and immediately she felt guilty. “You shouldn’t have done that. You’ll hurt yourself again.”
He moaned again, dramatically, and Philippa gritted her teeth against laughing. “Come, you must get up now. You’re naked.”
“I’m pleased you noticed. So are you, wench.” Dienwald struggled to his feet, stood there weaving for a moment, then collapsed onto her narrow bed.
Philippa looked down at him. He gave a loud snore. She cursed and covered him with a blanket.
“I’m cold and will die of watery lungs brought on by your cruelty if you leave me.”
“I like the sound of your snores better,” Philippa said even as she eased down beside him. “Nay, I shan’t let you touch me again. It isn’t right you should do that, and well you know it. I’m not your mistress. I shan’t ever be your mistress.” She grabbed another frayed blanket and wrapped it about herself. “Go to sleep, master, else I’ll fling you off my bed again.”
Dienwald sighed. “Big wenches are difficult.”
“I know,” she said, her voice nasty. “You’d much prefer your precious little Kassia, your so-perfect little princess who doubtless sighs and swoons all over you—a big warrior.”
He laughed.
“Well, you can’t have her, you ass! She’s well-wedded and she’s with child and she’s not for you, so you might as well forget her.”
“How well you extol her person,” he said. “Mayhap you are right. I will think about it. Big wenches are even more difficult when they’re jealous.” He began snoring again and soon, much sooner than Philippa, he was truly asleep.
Jealous, was she? He turned onto his side away from her and soon she was snuggled against his back. She wondered what he’d do if she bit him. Probably just laugh at her again. She fell asleep finally, feeling warm and secure, damn him.
Graelam stood in the open doorway of the steward’s chamber early the next morning, staring toward the narrow bed that held his host and the wench whose name wasn’t Mary. The girl’s face was pressed against Dienwald’s naked back, but the rest of her was protected from him by an old blanket, a blanket that, he saw, separated the two of them. An eyebrow cocked upward. So the girl whose name wasn’t Mary also wasn’t Dienwald’s mistress either. Kassia would find this fascinating.
Suddenly Dienwald groaned and turned onto his back, flinging his arm over his head. Philippa, jerked from a sound sleep, was nearly thrown off the narrow bed onto the floor. Dienwald groaned again, muttering, “My God, you’ve nearly killed me, wench. My head, it’s swollen and hurts and—”
“And has put you in particularly good humor,” Graelam said, stepping into the chamber.
Philippa’s eyes flew open and fastened in consternation upon the intruder. He merely smiled. “God give you a good morrow, Mary. I am sorry to disturb your slumber, but my wife and I must take our leave soon. This door was open and I did tap my fist upon it, but there was no reply.”
Dienwald opened an eye, and complaints issued rapidly from his mouth. “The wench nearly killed me. I’ve a lump on my skull the size of my foot.”
Philippa was less than sympathetic. “You deserved it, you disgusting lout!”
“Lout? God’s knees, you randy wench, all I did was think about letting you debauch me, nothing more.” He smiled guilelessly up at her.
Philippa reared up, quickly jerked the blanket over her breasts, and sent her fist into his belly. “My lord,” she said, turning immediately toward Graelam, “I cannot rise to see to you and your perfect wife’s needs. But this attempted defiler of innocent maids can, and he will, once he stops acting like he’s been flayed by a band of Saracens.”
“I’ve never known him for a coward, thus it must be your superior strength and cunning, Mary. Dienwald, rise now, and pay your homage to my lady. Kassia wishes to bid you adieu.” Graelam’s eyes suddenly widened. “Perfect wife?” He guffawed. “I shall tell Kassia, it will amuse her. Perfect!” He shook his head. “The little witch—perfect!” Still laughing, Graelam left the steward’s chamber, closing the door behind him.
“You think she’s perfect,” Philippa said.
“Feel the lump on my head. Tell me if I will survive rising from this bed.”
Philippa leaned over and gently examined his head. “The lump will grow if you stay in this bed. You will survive it, so get thee gone, I tire of you.”
He sighed and rolled over her, coming to his feet beside the bed. He was naked and quite unconcerned about it. He grinned down at her and said, “Don’t stare, wench, else my manhood will rise like leavened bread.” He gave a heartfelt sigh. “And ‘twill make my hose uncomfortable. It will also bring the stares of all your gentle rivals—in short, most of the wenches here at St. Erth. What say you?”
“I grant you good morrow,” Philippa said, then turned away from him and stared at the wall.
Dienwald knew well enough that his body pleased her. Although he wasn’t a massive warrior like Graelam, he was big enough, well enough made, muscled and lean and hard, not a patch of fat on him. He leaned down and quickly kissed her cheek, then straightened, began whistling, and dressed himself. He was out of the steward’s chamber in but a moment, still whistling.
Philippa spent her
morning sewing herself a gown from soft wool dyed a light green that Old Agnes had brought to her; she hummed to herself as she sewed. She jumped at the knock on her door, then smiled when Edmund burst into the room. He drew to a halt, planted his hands on his hips, and said, “What think you, Maypole?”
She studied him silently for several minutes, until he began fidgeting about. “Very nice, Master Edmund. Come here and let me inspect you more closely.”
Edmund swaggered over to where Philippa sat draped in her blanket. He was proud, that was clear to see, he’d even combed his fingers through his hair, and Philippa was pleased. “What says your father?”
“He just looked at me and rubbed his chin. Lord Graelam thought I would become a fine knight, and Lady Kassia asked that I carry her favors when I am in my first tourney.”
Perfect Kassia had done it again, Philippa thought, had said just the right thing at the right time. Curse the woman.
“Father said that soon I will go to Wolffeton to foster with Lord Graelam. I will be his page, then, soon, his squire. I will prove myself and my loyalty.”
“Do you wish to go to Wolffeton?”
Edmund nodded quickly, but then he fell silent. “ ‘Tis not far from St. Erth, no more than a half-day’s hard ride. I shall go and I shall earn my spurs very soon.”
“You will not, however, be an ignorant knight, Edmund. Few pages can read or write, but you will. Few men of any class can read or write, save priests and clerks. Lord Graelam will thank God the day you come to Wolffeton. Now, Father Cramdle awaits you. Go and leave the maypole to sew something to cover herself.”
It wanted only Edmund’s father, Philippa thought, watching Dienwald come into the small room after his son had left. She nearly filled it, and with him in here as well, it was suffocating. “What do you want?”
Earth Song Page 18
