Earth Song (17 page)

“You look worse than Edmund. Much worse. Like a dirty wet rag. Do something with
yourself.” With those pleasing sentiments duly expressed, Dienwald turned on his heel. He heard a loud whoosh, but not in time. A half-filled bucket of water struck him squarely between the shoulder blades and he went flying forward from the force of it, hitting a goat. The goat reared back and kicked Dienwald on the thigh. He cried out, grabbing his leg, which caused him to lose his balance and fell sideways into a deep patch of black mud. He came up on his hands and knees, but for a moment he didn't move. He had no intention of moving until he'd regained complete control of himself. Slowly, very slowly, he rose and turned to see Philippa standing there like a statue yet to be finished, a look of mingled horror and defiance on her face. People had stopped their conversations and were converging and staring. Then Gorkel, with a low rumbling noise, came forward, stepped squarely into the mud, and began to brush off his master.

“ ‘Twere an accident,” Gorkel said as he grabbed gobs of mud from Dienwald's clothing and flung them away. “The mistress acts, then thinks—ye know that, master. Aye, but she's—”

“You damnable monster, don't defend her! Be still!”

Gorkel obligingly shut his mouth and continued scraping off mud.

Dienwald shook himself free of his minion's help and strode over to Philippa, who took one step back, then stopped and faced him, squaring her shoulders.

“You struck me!” The incredulity in his voice equaled the outrage. “You're a
female,
and you struck me. You threw that damned bucket at me.”

“Actually,” Philippa said, inching a bit further
back, “it was the bucket that struck you, not I. I didn't realize I was such a marksman, or rather, that the bucket was such a marksman.” Then, to her own astonishment, she giggled.

Dienwald drew several very long, very deep breaths. “If I throw you into that mud, you will have nothing to wear. You haven't yet sewed anything for yourself, have you?”

She shook her head, not giggling quite so loudly now.

He looked at her nipples, taut against the wet tunic. The material also clung to her thighs.

He smiled at her, and Philippa felt herself shrivel with humiliation. “Throw me in the mud,” she said. “Do that, but please don't do what you're thinking.”

“And what is that, pray? Ripping off that rag and letting my people see the shrew beneath it?”

She nodded and tried to cover her breasts with her hands. “I'm not a shrew.”

“All right,” he said, and without another word, moving so quickly she had only time to squeak in surprise, Dienwald grabbed her about the hips, lifted her, and strode to the black puddle and dropped her. She landed on her bottom, arms and legs flying outward, and mud spewed out in thick waves, hitting him and Gorkel. She felt it squishing over her legs, felt it seep through the gown, and she wanted to laugh at the consequences that she'd brought upon herself, but she didn't. She now had nothing to wear, nothing save this now-ruined gown.

She looked up at Dienwald, who stood in front of her, his hands on his hips. He was laughing.

Philippa saw red. Tears clogged her throat, but her fury was stronger by far. She managed to
come to her feet, the mud clinging and making loud sucking noises. She flung herself at him, clutching his arms and yanking him toward her. She locked her foot behind his calf and he fell toward her, laughing all the while. Together they went down, Dienwald on top of her, Philippa flat on her back, the mud flying everywhere.

Dienwald raised himself on his hands, his fingers clenching deep into the muck. He slowly raised one mud-filled hand and opened it against her face and rubbed. She gasped and spat, but then he felt her knees against his back and he was falling sideways as she rolled against him, knocking him onto his back, pounding her fists at him, her muddy hands sliding over his face, slapping him with it.

He dimly heard people laughing and shouting and cheering for him, cheering for Philippa. Wagers were screamed out, and even the animals were dinning, for once louder than the children. Then Tupper leaped into the mud, not three inches from Dienwald's head, snorting loudly, poking his snout into Dienwald's face.

It was too much for a man to suffer. Dienwald spread his arms in surrender and yelled at the bouncing fury astride him, “I yield, wench! I yield!”

Tupper snorted and squealed and kept the mud churning.

Philippa laughed, and as he looked up at her, he wanted her right then—muddy black face, filthy matted hair, and all.

“Master, pray forgive me.” Northbert stood on the edge of the mud puddle, consternation writ on his ugly face.

Dienwald cocked an eye at him. “Aye? What is it?”

“We have visitors, master.”

“There are visitors at St. Erth's gates?”

“Nay, master. The visitors are right here.”

Philippa was shocked into numb silence. She didn't move, but of course, she had no drier place to move to. Dienwald looked behind Northbert and saw Graelam de Moreton striding toward them, tell and powerful and well-garbed and clean, and he was staring toward Dienwald as if he'd grown two heads. And then he was staring at Philippa.

“God give you grace, Graelam,” Dienwald said easily. His eyes went to Kassia, standing now beside her husband, wrapped in a fine ermine-lined cloak of soft white wool. She looked beautiful, soft and sweet, her chestnut hair in loose braids atop her head. He saw she was trying very hard not to laugh. “Welcome to St. Erth, Kassia. I hope I see you well, sweet lady.”

Kassia couldn't hold it back. She burst into laughter, hiccuping against her palm as she gasped
out, “You sound like a courtier at the king's court, Dienwald, suave and confident, while you lie sprawled in the mud . . . Ah, Dienwald, your face . . .”

Dienwald looked up at Philippa, who'd turned into a mud statue astride him. “Move, wench,” he said, grinning up at her. “As you see, we have visitors and must bestir ourselves to see to their comfort.”

Kassia, Philippa was thinking, her mind nearly as muddy as her body. Kassia, the lady that Dienwald held so dear to his wretched heart. And Philippa could understand his feelings for the slight, utterly feminine confection who stood well out of range of the mud puddle. That exquisite example of womanhood would never, ever find herself sitting astride a man in a mud puddle. Philippa's eyes went to Lord Graelam de Moreton, and she saw a man who would never yield, a man both fierce and hard, a man who was Kassia's husband, bless his wondrous existence. She remembered now seeing him once at Beauchamp when she was very young. He'd been bellowing at her father about a tourney they were both to join near Taunton.

“Wench, move,” Dienwald said again, and as he spoke, he laughed, circled her waist with his hands, and lifted her off him. He carefully set her beside him in the mud.

She felt the black ooze sliding up her bottom.

“Graelam, why don't you take your very clean wife into the hall. I will scrub myself and join you soon.”

“ ‘Twill take all the water in your well,” Graelam said, threw back his head, and laughed. “Nay, Dienwald, sling not mud at me. My lady
just stitched me this fine tunic.” He laughed and laughed as he took his wife's soft white hand in his and led her away, saying over his shoulder, “All right, but I begin to cherish that black face of yours. It grows closer to the color of your heart.”

Dienwald didn't move until Graelam and Kassia, trailed by a half-dozen Wolffeton men-at-arms, had disappeared around the side of the weaving shed. He could hear Kassia's high giggles and Graelam's low rumbles of laughter.

Philippa hadn't said a single word. She hadn't made a sound, merely sat there in the mud, a study of silent misery.

Dienwald eyed her, then yelled for another bucket to be brought. “Get up, Philippa,” he said, and when she did, he continued, “Now, step out of the mud,” and when she did, he threw a bucket of cold water over her head. Philippa gasped and shivered and automatically rubbed the mud off her face. The late-April air was chill, but she hadn't realized it until now.

After three more buckets she was ready for the soap.

“You will have to remove the tunic soon,” he said, then called for Old Agnes to fetch two blankets. He looked at the score of people staring at them, laughing behind their hands, and roared, “Out of here, all of you! If I see any of you in two seconds, you'll feel the flat of my sword on your buttocks!”

“Aye,” Crooky yelled, “but the wenches would much enjoy that kind of play.”

Dienwald bellowed again, and soon he and Philippa were alone standing on the plank of lumber, scrubbing themselves with the newly made soap. Dienwald had simply stripped off his
clothes. He looked up at Philippa, his face clean and grinning. “I've dismissed everyone, wench—you heard and saw. Take off the gown now.”

She did, without comment, seeing no hope for it, and together they washed and scrubbed and threw water on each other. At one point Dienwald paused, looking at her, beautifully naked in the April sunshine, and pulled her against him. He didn't kiss her, merely soaped his hands. Philippa felt his large hands soaping down her back and over her buttocks. She felt his soapy fingers sliding between her legs and tensed, but his touch seemed impersonal.

It wasn't, but Dienwald wasn't about to let her know that. When he'd finished, Philippa cleaned his back, her touch more tentative than his had been. He stared at the mud puddle, then thought of the eyes that were probably watching them at this very minute.

Once dry, they wrapped themselves in the blankets. Dienwald looked at Philippa, her face scrubbed pink, her hair plastered around her head, and he thought her exquisite. He said instead, looking once again toward the mud puddle, “You made me feel very young with our play. Do you wish to come into the hall and meet our guests?”

Speak to Lady Kassia, Philippa thought. She would feel like a great bumbling fool, like a huge ungainly blanket-wrapped beggar gawking next to a snow princess in her white cloak. She shook her head and swallowed her misery.

“They are my friends,” Dienwald said, not seeing the misery, only the stubbornness.

“Not yet, if it pleases you.”

“Very well,” he said, her respectful tone
softening him. “But if you wish to meet them, I would ask that you not tell them your name or that you're my prisoner.”

“Then what am I?” she asked, irritation now writ clear in her voice.

Dienwald paused at that. So much for respect and deference from her. “My washerwoman?”

“No.”

“My weaver?”

“Nay. I would be your steward.”

“Graelam would burst his bladder laughing at that notion. No, you can be my mistress. You begin to look passable again, so that would not strain his credulity. Does that please you, wench?”

“Doesn't it worry you that I might beg Lord Graelam to return me to my father? That I might tell him you're naught but a miserable scoundrel and thief?”

“Why should it worry me? You'll not do that. You have no wish to return to your father. Don't forget that that toad William de Bridgport awaits you with widespread fat arms and foul breath.”

That was true, damn him. She chewed on her lower lips. “I could ask him to send me to his vassal, Sir Walter, since I am his cousin and since that is where I was bound in the first place.”

“Aye, you could do that, but it would displease me mightily. You know, Philippa, Sir Walter wouldn't treat you well. He is not the man you think him.”

“Of course he would treat me well! I'm his cousin, his kin. I won't be your mistress.”

He raised his hand and lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. “You're a snare, Philippa. Of the devil? I wonder.”

He said nothing more, merely turned on his
bare heel and strode away from her. He should have looked ridiculous, walking barefoot and wrapped in an ugly brown blanket, but he didn't.

Philippa followed more slowly, and she saw faces and heard laughter and knew that she and Dienwald had been observed whilst they bathed. Was there nothing private in this wretched castle? She knew the answer was no, just as it had been at Beauchamp.

How could Dienwald ask her to meet Kassia, the woman who was the most precious of all God's female flock? The woman who'd saved his life, the woman who was so lavishly guileless, the essence of purity and perfection?

Philippa wanted to be sick.

Instead, she walked up the solar stairs, the blanket wrapped close like a shroud, and locked herself in Dienwald's chamber. He'd already come and gone. His blanket was a heap on the rushes. She fretted about what he was wearing, wishing she'd given him the tunic she'd made for him. It looked every bit as fine as the one Lord Graelam was wearing, the one the beautiful Kassia had sewn for him.

In the great hall, Dienwald, garbed in a tunic and hose that were tattered and faded from their original gray to a dirty bile green, finally greeted his guests.

Graelam and Kassia were speaking with Northbert and Crooky, drinking ale and tasting the new St. Erth cheese that Dienwald had directed made from his own recipe, passed to him by his great-aunt Margarie, now long dead.

“Where is my wine, you whoreson?” Graelam asked without preamble upon Dienwald's appearance.

Dienwald looked at him blankly. “
Your
wine? What wine? That's not wine, it's ale, and made from my own recipe. I would have offered you wine had I some, but I don't. I have naught but ale, and no coin to purchase wine. God's bones, Graelam, I always bring myself to Wolffeton when I wish to reward my innards.”

Graelam's dark eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You're a convincing liar when it pleases you to be so.”

“What cursed wine?” Dienwald nearly shouted, flinging his arms wide.

Kassia laughed and placed her hand on his forearm. “You don't remember the wager between you and my lord? The Aquitaine wine my father was shipping to us? The ship was wrecked on the rocks and all the cargo disappeared. You didn't do it? You didn't steal the wine?”

Dienwald just shook his head. “Of course not. Are you sure, Kassia, that your wondrous lord didn't do it? He feared losing the wager to me, you know, and was at his wits' ends to find a way out of humiliating himself.”

“Nay, don't try to win her to your side, you sly-lipped cockscomb.”

Kassia laughed. “The both of you be still. 'Tis obvious that another rogue stole the wine, my lord. Drink your ale and forget your wager.”

“But who?” Dienwald said as he accepted a flagon from Margot.

“Roland is in Cornwall,” Graelam said.

“I don't believe it! Roland de Tournay! He's really here?”

“Aye, he's here. I heard it from a tinker who'd traveled the breadth of Cornwall.”

“Aye, the tinker was here not long ago, but I was not.” More's the pity, he thought, that the fellow hadn't as yet returned. He was seeing that strip of dirty leather tying Philippa's hair back. A narrow ribbon of pale yellow would be beautiful with her hair color. “He told you of Roland?”

“It seems that Roland stopped him, brought him to his camp in the forest of Fentonladock, and instructed him to tell me of his coming—not the why of it, but just that he would be at Wolffeton. I do wonder what he wants. You and Roland were boys fostering together, were you not? At Bauderleigh Castle with Earl Charles Massey?”

“Aye, we were. Old Charles was a proper devil, mean and evil and hard, but we both survived to become mean and evil and hard. I've not heard from Roland in five years.”

“He went with Edward to go crusading, as did I. I didn't see him much in the Holy Land, but he survived, thankfully.”

“I wonder how he does and what he wants with you.”

“I am to meet him at Wolffeton in two weeks' time. He will tell me then. I was told that he used his talents spying for Edward whilst in the Holy Land. A Muslim he was, becoming so like them they never guessed he was an Englishman. He was an intimate of the sultan himself, so it was said.”

“He's a dark-skinned bastard, looks like a heathen.”

Graelam shrugged. “Aye, and his eyes are as black as a fanatical priest's and his tongue as smooth as an asp's.”

Dienwald was thoughtful, then said without
thinking, “I should like to see him. Mayhap I could bring the wench with me. She would enjoy—” The instant it was out of his mouth, Dienwald wanted to kick himself.

Graelam, a man of subtlety when he so wished, inquired mildly, “Who is the wench, Dienwald? She was the one astride you, I gather? Sporting in the mud with you?”

“Aye.”

“No more? No explanations? Is she clean? Where is she now?”

“She has no clothes, not a stitch, the muddy gown was old—it belonged to my first wife—and it was the last one. The wench is wearing a blanket now, and is in my bedchamber.”

Kassia cocked her head to one side. “Wench? What is her name?”

“Morgan,” Dienwald said without hesitation, then nearly swallowed his tongue. Well, he'd said it. He said it again, looking Graelam right in his eye. “Her name's Morgan and she's my mistress.”

“She's a villein?”

He shook his head vigorously, and said, “Yes.”

Graelam snorted. “What goes on here, Dienwald? Don't try to lie to me, I'll know it. You're clear as a spring pond.”

“You said I was a fine liar just a moment ago.”

“I exaggerated.”

“Both of you relieve your minds and shut your mouths! Now, the female we saw, her name is Morgan, you say. An odd name, but no matter. I shall go visit her. I have no extra clothing with me, but I can have gowns and other things sent to her.”

“She is a maypole, a giant of a girl. Nothing you own would fit her big body.”

Kassia merely frowned at him, shook out the skirt of her finely woven pale pink gown, smoothed the sleeves of the delicate white overtunic, and walked slowly from the great wall. It was then that Dienwald saw her big belly.