Warrior's Song (10 page)

    She said nothing at all, but she didn't have to. She thought he was a liar.

    Jerval sighed. Why couldn't something this important be just a bit less complicated? "You kissed me," he said.

    "Yes, as I would kiss a friend. Not a man."

    "I'm a man and your friend."

    Damn him, it was true, and so she forced herself to say, "Mayhap so."

    "I wish you weren't so afraid of me. If you could see me clearly, then you would realize that I mean you no harm. I want you to be happy. With me. As my wife."

    "I am not afraid of you. Now, Graelam— he was a man to fear, but I wasn't afraid of him either."

    He laughed and she very nearly sent her fist into his nose. Her father's threat blared loud in her brain. It stayed both her fist and her tongue. She didn't want to be sent to a convent; the mere thought of it curdled her blood.

    "You are so filled with bravado. You've raised defenses that would keep out the stoutest of warriors, defenses that would likely send them running for their lives, thankful to avoid you."

    "Not you, more's the pity."

    "No, not me. Will you wed me now that you have had time to consider it?"

    "My father believes that you will make me a fine husband."

    "That is the truth. However, I do need you to agree with your father."

    She wanted to smash him onto the stable floor, but she knew she couldn't even try. How to make him leave her alone? To make him not want her any longer, but in such a way that she wouldn't be sent to a convent? Oh, aye, she believed her father's threat.

    She said, chin up, "I don't wish to lie with you."

    That was something a man never wanted to hear, he thought, wanting very much to taste her mouth right this moment. No, he would hold firm, keep to his course. Aye, once they were wed, he would have her. He said easily, "You don't have to worry about mating with me until we are wed. Mayhap then you will change your mind."

    She said nothing to that, just kept looking down at her feet in their leather slippers. "My father has bedded every comely girl within Croyland's walls. The only woman he never beds is Lady Dorothy, his wife." She frowned, shaking her head. "Were I a man and her husband, I doubt I would want to get that close to her either." She shrugged, then said matter-of-factly, "I saw him several times with a girl younger than I was. I don't ever wish to do that, ever. It is humiliating. It makes me sick to think of it. But that is the way men are. I hate it, but there is nothing I can do about it."

    "You believe I would bed females at Camberley, with you as my wife?"

    She simply nodded.

    He hadn't realized that she'd seen so much, that it had scarred her so deeply. It was a pity. Also, there was something else going on here. There was too much between father and daughter, deep unspoken feelings that he didn't want to even think about. But all that would pass. She would forget. She would gain years and maturity. She would be his wife, away from Croyland, away from her father.

    "I will not bed other women once we are married. It is a vow I make to you. I will be faithful to you."

    It was clear she didn't believe him.

    He sighed. "You will come to believe me. I am not an ogre. Nor am I a liar. I love you and respect you. Why would I ever want to hurt you? This is one way I am not like your father."

    She said quickly, "My father isn't that way, not really. It is simply something that a man must do. He cannot help himself, but he doesn't mean it."

    He wanted to snort at that, but he didn't, saying only, "No, you are wrong, Chandra. A man makes choices. He does what he wishes to do. There is nothing or no one to force him, at least in matters of the flesh. Your father does what he does because he chooses to. He is your father, but it is better that you see him for what he is. Now, why does your mother so dislike you?"

    He thought she would argue with him about her father, but she said, shrugging, "I don't know."

    The chances were good that she didn't know. He, however, needed to find out everything about this girl who would be his wife. He would have to speak to Lord Richard about it.

    "Truly," she said, "I never wanted to marry anyone."

    "You are ready. You are eighteen. Past ready."

    "I don't want to belong to any man, and that's what it would mean. It is God's commandment that a wife yield to her husband."

    "Aye, it is the natural way of things. But that needn't worry you, Chandra."

    "It is natural only to you, not to me. I do not want to be owned."

    "Listen to me. I admire you. I enjoy being with you. I enjoy competing with you, something you and I will likely do until we grow too old to raise a bow and arrow. It is more to your advantage to wed me than, say, a man who would want you only for the wealth you would bring him, a man who would crush your spirit, mayhap even beat you. I really do not see myself as your master, and quite frankly, you would make a dreadful slave."

    She jumped to her feet and began pacing about the small stall. He was content to watch her.

    Finally, he said, "Everything will be all right, Chandra, I promise you. You must trust me, just as you trust your father. Believe that I will try never to hurt you or to demand things of you that you would dislike." He rose then and cupped her chin in his hand, forcing her face upward. "Do not fret, little one, and don't curse me while I'm gone."

    "You're leaving?"

    He grinned down at her, wanting to kiss her. He cleared his throat. He knew well when to advance, when to retreat. "I must leave to fetch my family. I will return in two weeks for our wedding. Your life will change, Chandra. I cannot deny that. I think eventually you will prefer being a wife to being a daughter. There are many pleasant benefits, you know, over being one and not the other." Before she could kick him or yell at him, or just bite him, he quickly leaned down and kissed her. She didn't move. Still, he felt confident when he released her.

    "Will you wed me?"

    Her father's words were clear in her mind. Slowly, she nodded.

    "Say the words."

    It seemed that an eternity passed before she said, her voice low and thin, "I will wed you."

    "Good." He kissed her again, hard, then said, "I must tell the men. We will leave at dawn on the morrow. Contrive, sweeting, to miss me whilst I am gone."

    He left her, his step jaunty, and she saw him smile as he raised his face into the rain.

CHAPTER 10

Lord Richard said calmly to his daughter, "Sir Jerval and his family are nearly here. Go remove your boy's clothes. I want you to wear the saffron gown, Chandra, and do not forget Jerval's necklace. He told me himself that he believed the necklace would look well with that gown."

    He saw that she would argue and held up his hand. "Do it, now. I will not tell you again. You are a lady. You will act like a lady. You are greeting your future husband and your new family. Do not shame me, daughter." He let the unspoken threat lie heavy between them. Finally, without a word, she turned on her heel and went back up the narrow stone stairs to the upper floors.

    When Jerval first saw her, standing there, tall and proud and utterly silent, he realized that he had been wrong. He had believed that no woman could be as beautiful as he'd remembered her. But she was. She was wearing the necklace he'd given her. She looked pagan, like a princess awaiting her champion. He felt something move deep inside him, fill him, and he recognized it for what it was. It was love for this woman, a caring so deep, he knew it would fill him until he died.

    He strode to her, drew her against him, felt the long length of her, the softness, and kissed her, everything he felt for her in that kiss. She didn't move.

    She was wary of him as a man, perhaps even afraid of him. He knew that. He would go more slowly. When he stepped away, he said, "Come, Chandra, and meet my parents and my cousin, Julianna." He wondered if she could see the naked love he felt for her shining from his eyes. Evidently not. She looked, truth be told, as cold as carved marble, mayhap even miserable if one looked deeply enough into her eyes. That would change; he would make it change. He knew her, and he knew himself. She was his mate; God had fashioned her just for him.

    Lord Hugh and Lady Avicia stood just inside the Great Hall speaking to Lord Richard. Lady Dorothy stood behind her husband, making no move to greet Jerval's parents. He had assumed she agreed with their marriage, but now he wasn't so sure. Not that it mattered.

    Chandra bowed to Jerval's parents of them. Lord Hugh was thick in the middle, his belly plumping over his wide leather belt. Lady Avicia was bountiful herself, but there was beauty there, in her large dark eyes and her black hair, barely streaked with gray. She saw that Jerval resembled neither of them. Again, she thought, he could have been her father's son. It was odd, but Lady Avicia was looking about the Great Hall with something akin to disdain. Disdain about what? It made no sense. The Great Hall of Croyland was magnificent. As for Lord Hugh, he looked quite pleased.

    Chandra said little, speaking to Jerval's parents only when spoken to. They were pleasant. Then she met Jerval's cousin, Julianna, a small pretty girl with very white skin, blond hair so light it looked nearly white, and soft blue eyes that grew very hard indeed when they landed on Chandra. And Chandra wondered,
Why does she dislike me? She doesn't even know me.
Then Chandra realized that it was jealousy in Julianna's fine blue eyes, digging deep and furious, that jealousy. She wanted her cousin for herself, wanted him badly.

    Chandra wished she could give Jerval to her. But no, he wouldn't be happy with Julianna, he . . . She looked at her father, saw that he was smiling, saw that he was very pleased with himself and what had come about. She wasn't going to think about Jerval and Julianna together, or what that would mean to her.

    It would mean nothing. Aye, the die was cast.

    Before the afternoon meal, Jerval found himself next to Avery. He smiled at the grizzled warrior, who said with grave understanding, "You wonder whether God has cursed you or blessed you. Listen, it is hard for her, sir, to leave her home and all that she has known."

    "Has she been a problem whilst I was gone, Avery?"

    Avery chuckled, stroking his coarse, graying beard. "Nay, my lady is never a problem, though she did yell at Ponce when he chanced to recall your skill with the bow."

    "A crime indeed. I hope she didn't crush him underfoot."

    "Nay, he hid behind the target to escape her. She wants taming, I suppose, but one forgets that she is a girl, and not a cocky lad."

    "She was never a cocky lad to me," Jerval said.

    "No," Avery said slowly, eyeing the young man, "I know that she was not."

    Jerval nodded to Avery, then went to speak to his father, who was drinking some of Lord Richard's sweet mulled wine, one hand stroking Graynard's massive head, and looking quite blissful.

    Just after dawn on the morning of her wedding, Chandra slipped from the keep and made her way in the chill, low-lying fog to the east tower on the outer wall. It had been a favorite haunt since childhood, a quiet, isolated spot.

    A tired guard stood silent vigil some twenty feet away, leaning forward on the crenellated wall, and did not hear her approach. She had passed but one of the guests outside the keep, a man in Sir Stephen's service, on his way to the jakes. Soon, she knew, the servants would be up and about, and the guests who had had to spend the night wrapped in blankets in the Great Hall would be jostled awake by the racket. The barracks were packed and even the wall chambers overflowed with guests.

    She sighed and crouched down against the damp stone wall, pulling her fur-lined cloak close about her. She ran her finger slowly over the rough stone surface, tracing the chipped crannies that had been deep in the stone before her birth. She rested her head against the stones and felt tears sting her eyes. She could not imagine leaving Croyland.

    It was there that Mary found her, curled up fast asleep, her head leaning against the hard stone.

    "Chandra," Mary said quietly, touching her hand to her friend's shoulder.

    Chandra jerked awake. "Oh, goodness, is it already time?"

    "No, it is still early. I am sorry to disturb you, Chandra, but I wished to speak to you. I could not find you, and guessed that perhaps you would be here."

    "It's the only private place left." She looked closely at her friend and said, even as she jerked her fingers through her tangled hair, "I am sorry, Mary. I'm selfish, thinking only of my own plight. Come, sit beside me."

    "You have said nothing to your father, have you, Chandra? About what happened? About what Graelam did?"

    "Of course not."

    Mary drew a deep breath. "I cannot remain at Croyland, Chandra, once you leave. Please, take me with you to Camberley. I could not bear to return to my father's keep, knowing that he would give me eventually to someone in marriage, and that I would have to tell him I am no longer a maid. I could not bear the shame of it. Nor do I know what he would do. I do not know how much worth I have to him. At least with you, I would have more time."

    "You truly wish to come with me? Oh, Mary, I hadn't asked you because I didn't believe you would want to come to a strange keep, with people you don't know."

    "You don't know them either."

    "You're right, but I have no choice. You do. Of course you will come with me. Oh, your wretched father, he wouldn't understand that it wasn't your fault. Aye, come with me. Are you sure you can deal well enough with Lady Avicia and Julianna?"

    Mary merely shrugged. "Julianna is just jealous of you, that is all. She will doubtless bite her tongue once you are wed. As for Lady Avicia, she is a bit overpowering, I will admit that, but not a malicious person. She has been kind to me."

    Chandra cursed suddenly, quite vile curses she'd learned when she was six years old from her father's man, Clyde. Then she said, "I just remembered that I must ask Jerval's permission, for Camberley is his home."

    "Do you think he will permit it?"

    "Of course he will."

    "You are right. Jerval would deny you nothing." She paused a moment, looking out toward the fog-veiled harbor. "How very lucky you are."

    "How can you say I'm lucky when I must leave Croyland?"

    "I can hardly imagine you wanting to spend the rest of your life here, Chandra, particularly after John grows up and becomes the lord of Croyland. He would make your life a misery. He tries to do that now. Can you imagine the kind of girl he will marry?"

    "I hadn't thought of that," Chandra said slowly. "She will be a termagant, that girl— she will have to be to survive John, if he continues the way he is going. He is becoming mean-spirited. All Lady Dorothy's doing, of course. It's true. I do not belong here, do I?"

    "No. You belong in your own keep, where you are both mistress and wife. You belong where all loyalty is yours, not anyone else's."

    "My father said that."

    "It is the truth. As I said, you are very lucky. Jerval is besotted with you. He admires you. He will treat you well."

    Chandra sighed. It was true, all of it.

    "You do not think him a fine man? Brave? Honorable?"

    "Aye."

    "I am glad you see him so clearly. I would not wish to see him saddled with a wife who would make his life a misery."

    Chandra swallowed. She had never thought to do that. Actually, she had never really thought about what her new life would be like at all. "I would not be that way— that is, I wouldn't want to be that way, but—"

    "Do you notice how the wind has just strengthened?"

    "Aye."

    "And we are both bending so it won't knock us off the ramparts."

    "Aye, we are both bending into the wind, and I am not stupid."

    "Bending to another's wishes, not always insisting upon holding the upper hand, makes for more peace than strife."

    "Aye, I know." Chandra sighed again. "It's just that sometimes it is difficult to bend when—"

    "When you feel threatened?"

    She shook her head. "Oh, no."

    "Oh, Chandra, think of all the joy you can have with your soon-to-be new husband if you will but allow it."

    "Let us go in now. I will speak to Jerval."

    "Thank you."

    "Nay, it is I who am grateful to have you with me even if you must always rub my nose in the dirt when I am in the wrong."

    Mary laughed at that, and Chandra realized it was the first time she had heard her friend laugh in a very long time. Since Graelam had taken both her and Croyland.

    Chandra made her way through the hall, where at least fifty people were eating their morning meal, amid boisterous joking. When she reached Jerval's chamber, one that he shared with Sir Mark, she paused a moment, hearing several serving maids giggling within.

    Her knock was answered by Mark. If he was surprised to see her on the morning of her wedding day, he gave no hint of it. He said, smiling, "I have just got Jerval into his bath. Do you wish to see him?"

    She nodded, waiting in the doorway until the two young girls, wet and laughing, slipped beside her. They both nodded to her, smiling and smug, rolling their eyes a bit, for they'd known her all her life.

    "What is it, Ema?"

    "He's a lovely man, Chandra, just lovely." And Ema laughed, poked Isabel in the ribs, and laughed some more.

    "Mayhap too big," Isabel said, winking at Chandra, then giggled behind her hand.

    "He is large," Chandra said, "but he is a warrior and one would expect that." They both laughed even harder as they passed the corner out of sight.

    Chandra walked into the small chamber to see Jerval sitting in a sturdy wooden tub, water swirling about his waist. His golden hair was plastered wet about his head. His knees were sticking up. He was a beautiful creature— she would grant him that. "Don't ask me to scrub your back."

    "A pity," he said. "I would prefer your soft hands to my own calluses."

    "I have just as many calluses as you do."

    "Mayhap, but somehow they feel different to me."

    She frowned down at him, looked at the expanse of strong back. "Perhaps another time. Heed me now. This is important."

    "I thought it would be since you hunted me down in my bathing tub." He was delighted to see her, and pleased that she would search him out on their wedding morning. It was simply not done, but then again, she was unique, this bride of his. "Come, what concerns you, sweeting?"

    Sweeting. An endearment that sounded natural when he said it. She liked the feel of it, the warmth of it, but there wasn't time for that now.

    "It's Mary. She is Sir Stephen's daughter."

    "Aye, I have spoken briefly with him. He appears a hard man, with little humor and an iron fist."

    She nodded. "Mary has been my friend forever. We were raised together. I would like her to come with us to Camberley. I am here to secure your permission."

    He lifted his arm to soap his chest, aware that she was looking at him now, and wondering if she believed him well made. He said, "Surely such a matter should be discussed with Sir Stephen. She is young, comely, ready to wed."