Earth Song

by Catherine Coulter

  Edmund, wide-eyed, said, “Philippa, is this man your sire?”

  “Aye, Edmund. Take him to your father’s bedchamber. He seems not to be himself. Quickly.”

  “He pays homage to witlessness,” Dienwald said, staring after his father-in-law. “What does this Burnell want, I wonder.”

  “The king’s chancellor . . .” Philippa said, her voice filled with awe and fear. “You haven’t done anything terribly atrocious, have you, husband?”

  “Do you wonder if the king has discovered my plans to invade France?” Dienwald shook his head and patted her cheek, for he could see she was white with fear. “I shall go greet the fellow,” he said. “I bid you to remain here until I discover what he wants. No, go to your father and let him continue his nonsense in your ears. Perhaps he will say something that will make sense to you. I want you kept safe until this matter is clear to me. Heed me in this, Philippa.”

  She frowned at his back as he strode from the great hall. He was her lord and master and she loved him beyond question, but for her to hide away whilst he faced an unknown danger alone?

  “Come away from here, as the master bids, mistress.”

  “Gorkel, you shan’t tell me what to do!”

  “The master told me you would try to come after him. He says your loyalty is dangerous to yourself, for you’re but a female with crooked sense. He told me to take you to your steward’s room and keep you there until he was certain all was well and safe. He decided he doesn’t want you near your father. He believes him mired in folly.”

  “I won’t go! No, Gorkel, don’t you dare! No!”

  Philippa was an armful for her husband, but for Gorkel she was naught but an insignificant wisp, to be slung over his massive shoulder and carried off. She pounded his back, shrieking at him, but he didn’t hesitate. Philippa gave it up for the moment, since there was nothing else for her to do.

  In the inner bailey Dienwald waited, his arms crossed negligently over his chest as he watched England’s chancellor ride through the portcullis into St. Erth’s inner bailey. The man wasn’t much of a rider; indeed, he was bouncing up and down like a drunken loon in the saddle. Suddenly the chancellor looked up and saw Dienwald. The man’s eyes were intense, and Dienwald felt himself being studied as closely as the archbishop would study a holy relic.

  Burnell let his destrier come apace, then turned to an armored soldier beside him and said something that Dienwald couldn’t make out. He stiffened, ready to fight, but held his outward calm. He watched Burnell shake his head at the soldier.

  Robert Burnell was tired, his buttocks so sore he felt as though he were sitting on his backbone, but seeing St. Erth, seeing this man who was its lord, he felt a relief so deep that he wanted to fall from the horse and onto his knees and give his thanks to the Lord. Dienwald de Fortenberry was young, strong, healthy, a man of fine parts and good mien. His castle was in need of repairs and many of the people he’d seen were ragged, but it wasn’t a place of misery or cruelty. Burnell straightened in his saddle. His journey was over, thank the good Lord above. He felt hope rise in his blood and energy flow anew through his body. He was pleased. He was happy.

  He said to the man standing before him, “You are Dienwald de Fortenberry, master of St. Erth, Baron St. Erth?”

  “Aye, I am he.”

  “I am Robert Burnell, Chancellor of England. I come to you from our mighty and just king, Edward I. I come in peace to speak with you. May I be welcomed into your keep?”

  Dienwald nodded. The day, begun promisingly with lust and passion and a bride who seemed to believe the sun rose upon his head and set with his decision, had become increasingly mysterious with an irate and mumbling father-in-law, and now a messenger from the King of England. He watched Robert Burnell dismount clumsily from the mighty destrier, then nodded for the man to precede him into the great hall.

  He was aware that all his men and all his people were hanging back, staring and gossiping, and he prayed that no one would take anything amiss. He told Margot in the quietest voice she’d ever heard from the master to bring ale and bread and cheese. She stared at him, and Dienwald was annoyed with himself and with her.

  “Where is the mistress?” Margot asked.

  Dienwald wanted to cuff her, but he merely frowned and said, “Do as I bid you and don’t sputter at me. The mistress is reposing and is not to be disturbed for any reason.” He turned back to Burnell, praying that Margot wouldn’t go searching for Philippa, and cursing the fact that the servants appeared more eager to serve his wife than him. If it was so after but two days of marriage, what would be his position a week from now?

  “I have looked forward to this day, sir,” Robert Burnell said as he eased himself down into the master’s chair. “My cramped bones praise your generosity.”

  Dienwald smiled. “Take your rest for so long as it pleases you.”

  “You are kind, sir, but my duty is urgent and cannot be delayed longer.”

  “I pray the king doesn’t want money from his barons, for I have none and my few men aren’t meant to swell the ranks of his army.”

  Burnell merely shook his head, forgiving the presumption of the speaker. “Nay, the king wishes no coin from you. Indeed, he wishes to present you with a gift.”

  Dienwald felt something prickle on the back of his neck. He was instantly alert and very wary. A gift from the king? Impossible! An inconsistency, a contradiction. Surely a danger. He cocked his head to the side in question, already certain he wasn’t going to like what Burnell said.

  “Let me peel back the bark and get to the pith, sir. I’m here to offer you a gift to surpass any other gift of your life.”

  “The king wishes me to assassinate the King of France? The Duke of Burgundy? Has the Pope displeased him?”

  Burnell’s indulgent smile faltered just a bit at the blatant cynicism. “I see I must speed myself to the point. The king, sir, is blessed with a daughter, not one of his royal daughters, not a princess, but, frankly, sir, a bastard daughter. He wishes to give her to you in marriage. She is nonetheless a Plantagenet, greatly endowed with beauty, and will bring you a dowry worthy of any heiress of England to—”

  Dienwald was reeling with surprise at this, but he still managed to remain outwardly calm. He held up his hand. “I must beg you to stop now, Lord Chancellor. You see, I am wedded two days now. You will thank the king, and tell him that as much as I wish I could hang myself for being unable to accept his wondrous offer, I am no longer available to do his bidding. I am already magnificently blessed.” He hadn’t realized that he would ever be blessing Philippa as his wife with such profound gratitude.

  Wed the king’s bastard? He wanted to howl aloud. It was too much. Such an offer was enough to make his hair fall out. But he was safe, bless Philippa and her escape from Beauchamp in a wool wagon.

  Burnell looked aghast. He looked disbelieving. He looked vexed. “You’re wedded! But Lord Graelam assured me that you were not, that you had no interest, that—”

  “Lord Graelam de Moreton?”

  “Naturally I spoke to men who know you. One cannot give the daughter of the King of England to anyone, sirrah!”

  “I am already wedded,” Dienwald repeated. He sounded calm, but now he had a target—Graelam—he wanted to spit on his lance. So Graelam would make him the sacrifice to the king’s bastard daughter, would he! “Will you wish to stay the night, sir? You are most welcome. St. Erth has never boasted such an inspiring and important guest before. And do not beset yourself further, sir. I doubt this will gravely disappoint the king when he is told his first choice of son-in-law is not to be. Indeed, I venture to say that his second choice will doubtless be more to his liking.”

  Robert Burnell got slowly to his feet. He ran his tongue over his lips. This was a circumstance he hadn’t foreseen, an event he hadn’t considered as remotely possible. He felt weary and frustrated, bludgeoned by an unkind fate.

  Margot made a timely entrance with ale, bread, and cheese. “Pleas
e,” Dienwald said, and poured ale into a flagon, handing it to Burnell, who drank deeply. He needed it. He needed more ale to make his brain function anew. So much work, and all for naught. It wasn’t just or fair. He couldn’t begin to imagine the king’s reaction. The idea made him shudder. He started to think of a curse, then firmly took himself in hand. He was a man of God, a man to whom devoutness wasn’t a simple set of precepts or rules, but a way of life. But neither was he a man to rejoice when providence had done him in. He looked at the man he’d hoped would become the king’s son-in-law and asked, “May I inquire the name of our lady wife?”

  “ ’Tis no secret. She is formerly Philippa de Beauchamp, her father Lord Henry de Beauchamp.”

  To Dienwald’s astonishment, the chancellor’s mouth dropped open; his cheeks turned bright red. He dropped the flagon, threw back his head, and gasped with laughter. It was a rusty sound, Dienwald thought, staring at the man, a sound the fellow wasn’t used to making. Was the king so grim a taskmaster? What was so keen a jest? What had he said to bring forth this abundance of humor?

  Dienwald waited. He had no choice. What in the name of the devil was going on?

  Burnell finally wiped his eyes on the cuff of his wide sleeve and sat back down. He ignored the fallen flagon and poured himself more ale, taking Dienwald’s flagon. He drank deeply, then looked at his host and gave him a fat, genial smile. He felt ripe and ready for life again. Fate was kind; fate gave justice to God’s loyal subjects after all.

  “You have saved me a great deal of trouble, Dienwald de Fortenberry. Oh, aye, sir, a great deal of trouble. You have made my life a living testimony to the beneficence of our glorious God.”

  “I have? I doubt that sincerely. What mean you, sir?”

  Burnell hiccuped. He was so delighted, so relieved that God still loved him, still protected him. “I mean, sir, that the Lord has moved shrewdly and quite neatly, mocking us mere men and our stratagems and our little fancies, and all has come to pass as it was intended.” And he began to laugh again. He swallowed when he saw that his host was growing testy. “I will tell you, sir,” Burnell said simply, “and I tell you true—you have wedded the king’s daughter. I know not how it came about, but come about it did, and all is well now, all is as it should be, praise the Lord.”

  “You’re mad, sir.”

  “Nay, Philippa de Beauchamp is the bastard daughter of the King of England, and somehow you have come to wed her. Will you tell me how it chanced to happen?” Burnell smiled a moment, and added under his breath, “So Lord Henry lied about her bloody flux. The girl wasn’t at Beauchamp. Ah, this tempts me, this ingenious story he will soon tell me.”

  Dienwald’s brain was a frozen wasteland. His belly was twisted with cramps. He couldn’t feel his tongue moving in his mouth. He couldn’t hear his own heartbeat in his breast. Philippa, the king’s bastard? Philippa, who didn’t have the golden hair of the Plantagenets but instead a streaked blond that was uniquely hers? Philippa, whose vivid blue eyes were as bright as a summer’s sky—like the king’s, like all the Plantagenets’ . . . He shook his head. It was inconceivable, impossible. She’d leapt from a wool wagon and into his life, and now she was his wife. She couldn’t be the king’s daughter. She couldn’t. She wasn’t to be dowered by her father—by Lord Henry. Oh, God.

  “How came it about, you ask? She fled from her father—from Lord Henry—because she heard him say that he wasn’t going to dower her and was going to wed her to William de Bridgport, a man of sour nature and repellent character.”

  Burnell waved an impatient hand. “Of course Lord Henry wouldn’t dower her, ‘twas not his responsibility to do so. The king would. The king, who is in fact her father.”

  “She ran away, hiding in a wagon of wool bound for St. Ives Fair. She came here quite by accident. We were wedded, as I told you, two days ago.”

  “God’s ways are miraculous to behold,” Burnell said in a marveling voice. “I cannot wait to tell Accursi of this. He will not believe it.” Burnell then shook his head and gazed at St. Erth’s smoke-darkened beams high above, just as Lord Henry had done. Dienwald looked up too, hopeful of inspiration, but there was none, only Burnell saying complacently, “Well, now there need to be no agreements from you, sir. You have taken unto yourself the right wife. All is well. All has transpired according to God’s plan.”

  “Don’t you mean the king’s plan?”

  Burnell simply smiled as if the king and God were close enough so that it didn’t matter.

  Dienwald opened his mouth and bellowed, “Philippa! Come here. Now!”

  She heard him yelling and lowered her brows at Gorkel. She walked past him, head high, into the great hall, and came to a halt, staring from her husband to the man seated in her husband’s chair. “Aye?”

  “Philippa,” Dienwald bellowed, higher and louder, even though she stood not four feet away from him, “this man claims you are the king’s bastard daughter, not the daughter of that damned fool Lord Henry. He convinces me, though I fought it. No wonder Lord Henry wouldn’t dower you. ‘Twas not his duty to do so. He lied about de Bridgport just to keep Ivo de Vescy away from you. Don’t you see, you’re the king’s daughter and thus his responsibility. Damn you for a lying, deceitful wench!”

  She continued to stare at him a moment, then transferred her gaze to the other man, who was nodding at her like a wooden puppet. “But this makes no sense. I don’t understand. Lord Henry isn’t my father?”

  Burnell had no chance to reply, for Dienwald howled, “I do have a father-in-law, curse you, wench, but it isn’t that fat whining creature in my bedchamber. Nay, him I could have tolerated. Him I could have threatened and intimidated until he did as I wished him to do.

  “Nay, my father-in-law has to be the cursed King of England! Did you hear me, Philippa? He is the King of England. I, a scoundrel and a rogue, a man happily lacking in wealth and duty and responsibility, have the wretched king for a father-in-law! You have ruined me, wench! You have destroyed me! You are a thorn to be plucked from my flesh. Foul mischance brought you to me, and the devil wove you into my mind and body until I was forced to seduce you!”

  Burnell gaped at him. A tirade such as this was unthinkable and completely astonishing. He said in his most reasoned churchman’s voice, “But, sir, you will be made an earl, the king has commanded it. You will be a peer of the realm. You will be the Earl of St. Erth, the first of a mighty line to hold power and land and influence in Cornwall. The king will dower your wife handsomely. She is an heiress. You will be able to make repairs to your castle, swell your herds, grow more crops. You will know no want, no lacks. Your lands will prosper and extend themselves. Life will be better. Your people will live longer. Your priest will save more souls, all of St. Erth will show bounty and plenty and—”

  Dienwald raised his voice to the beams above, yelling in misery, “I repudiate this wretched woman! Before God, I won’t have the king’s daughter as my wife. I won’t be bound to the damned king or to his damned bastard! I want to be left alone. I demand to be left to my humble castle and my crumbling walls! I demand to be left to my blessedly profligate life and sinful deeds! Give me ragged serfs and frayed tunics! Save me from this foul penance! Damnation, my people don’t want to live longer. My priest doesn’t want to save more souls!”

  He turned on his speechless wife, snarled something beneath his breath—the only thing he’d snarled that no one hadn’t clearly heard—and strode from the great hall.

  “Your father, our gracious king, bids you good grace, my lady,” said Burnell, for want of anything better. He rose and took her limp hand. Her face was white and she looked uncomprehending.

  He sought words to comfort her, to bring her understanding, for he imagined it wasn’t a daily occurrence to be told you were the offspring of the king. “Lady Philippa, ‘tis a surprise, I know it, this news has shaken you about, but all is known now and all is explained. The king . . . Naturally, he couldn’t have acknowledged you before—he was wedded
to his queen, even though at the time she was a very young girl. He wanted no hurt to come to her. But neither did he want to turn his back on you, for you were his dear daughter. He gave you for raising to Lord Henry. It was always his plan to come into your life when it was time for you to be married.”

  Philippa looked at him and said the most unlikely thing to him: “Why did the king wish me—a girl—to be taught to read and write?”

  Burnell found his mouth open again. Had the girl vague and token wits? “I . . . ah, really, my lady, I’m not at all certain.”

  “I suppose I had a mother?”

  “Aye, my lady. Her name is Constance and she is wedded to a nobleman of her station. She was very young when she birthed you, the king told me. Perhaps someday you will wish to know her.”

  “I see,” Philippa said. At least Lady Maude’s dislike of her was now explained. The king’s bastard had been foisted upon a woman who hadn’t wanted her. It was more to take in than she could manage at the moment, for in truth it was her husband who now filled her thoughts. Her husband and his outrage at what had happened to him.

  “My husband doesn’t want me,” she said, looking away from the chancellor. She saw Old Agnes, Margot, Gorkel, Crooky, and a host of other St. Erth people staring at her, marveling at what she’d suddenly become, chewing it over, and wondering what to do. Would they mock her for being a bastard? Despise her or curtsy to her until their knees locked?

  “Your husband is merely confused, my lady. His behavior and his unmeasured words demonstrate that he has no real understanding of what has happened. He must be confusing his new status with that of someone else; he must not comprehend his good fortune.”

  “My husband,” Philippa said patiently, shaking her head at him, “comprehends everything perfectly. Understand, sir, he is not like most men.” That is why I love him and no other. “He doesn’t appreciate the sort of power and wealth some men crave, nay, even covet unto death. He has never sought it, never desired it. He enjoys his freedom, and that means to him that he can do just as he pleases without others interfering in his life. Now all that has changed because of what I am. He would never have wedded the king’s bastard daughter, sir. Offers of an earldom, offers of coin, offers of power and influence would have driven him away, not seduced him. You would never have convinced him otherwise. You could not have even threatened him otherwise. But fate arranged things differently for him, and for me. He wedded me and now he doesn’t want what I’ve suddenly become. I don’t know what to do.”