Secret Song (28 page)

“What happened?”

“She flew into me,” Salin said. “Then she bounced back and struck her head against the stone.” He waited for Roland to rush to his wife, but he didn't come any nearer. He waited another few moments, then leaned down and picked her up. She was conscious now but her eyes were vague on his face.

“You're all right, little mistress,” he said. “You just knocked the breath from yourself and lightly coshed your head.” Salin didn't wait for a word from his master. He carried Daria into the chamber and laid her gently on the bed.

“Shall I fetch Lord Graelam's leech?”

“Nay. I shall see to her.” Roland waited until Salin saw himself out, and then turned to close and lock the chamber door.

He returned to his dazed wife, methodically felt her arms and legs, then just as methodically began to remove her clothes. She gave him no fight now.

“I struck my head. It hurts dreadfully.”

“I heard the crack, but there is naught but a small bruise forming. You're too stubborn to be sorely hurt by a knock on your head. If it hurts you, well, then, you deserve it, I should say.”

“Will you force me now, Roland?”

He stilled, frowning down at her. “I don't want you; I should have to think of other women in splendid detail if I wished to regain my desire.”

Still he continued to pull off her clothing. When she lay on her back, naked, he rose and simply stared down at her. He studied her, stroking his fingertips over his jaw, his expression one of indifference. “You're so very flat. It's hard to believe a babe lies in that skinny belly of yours. Mayhap the father was a dwarf.”

She lurched up, grabbed the half-filled carafe from the table beside the bed, and flung it at him. It struck his chest, splashing a wide arc of water up onto his face.

But it cost her dearly, and she turned away, her eyes closed against the pain in her head. She cared not at the moment whether he would seek retribution or not. All had gone wrong. She heard him suck in his breath; then there was nothing. Finally she heard his footsteps going toward the chamber door. He said as he unlocked and opened the door, “I am leaving on the morrow. You will remain here with Lord Graelam and Lady Kassia. They will take care of you.”

She sat up quickly, her heart pounding as fiercely as her head. He would leave her. “I would go with you, Roland. Please, take me with you, don't leave me here, it's not right. I'm your wife. You go to purchase your keep, do you not? I shan't be a problem for you. I won't be ill, I swear it. Surely you will need me, surely—”

“Need you? I need no sickly female to slow me down. You can't control when you vomit.”

He didn't look at her again, merely walked from the chamber. She heard him say through the partially closed door, “Cover yourself. The sight of your breasts does nothing in particular for me, but one never knows. Some of Lord Graelam's men might be less fastidious than I.”

Daria slowly pulled the covers over herself. Her head pounded from the blow she'd managed to give herself. At least it had kept him away from her, kept him from using her as a man would use a vessel from which to drink and slake his thirst.

He was leaving. Without her. She wondered if he would ever return for her.

She felt nausea, hot and urgent, well up in her. Her head forgotten, she leapt from the bed, making the chamber pot just in time.

 

Daria was awake when Roland left the following morning at dawn. She'd been awake for countless hours. She stood wrapped in her bedrobe, watching from one of the window slits as he mounted Cantor, spoke further to Lord Graelam, then finally motioned his men through the raised portcullis. As if she willed it to be, at the last moment he turned to look up. She waved to him frantically, wanting to call after him, wanting to beg him to take her with him . . . He turned back again, his expression never having changed at the sight of her.

Daria didn't leave her post at the window. He was going to his keep and purchase it with her dowry. Well, at least her father's vast wealth was bringing a measure of pleasure to someone other than her cursed uncle Damon.

She stood there a very long tune. She was still standing there even as the inner bailey of Wolffeton began to fill with people at their work. There were so many people, so many animals everywhere, cows and dogs and pigs. But it wasn't at all like Tyberton or her uncle's castle, Reymerstone. She realized it was because the people were boisterous, loud. They were shouting at the top of their lungs and arguing and abusing each other. And they were laughing. Aye, that was it. The folk weren't doing their work with sullen faces and slumped shoulders and empty eyes. They were insulting each other in great good humor. Daria continued to watch. She wondered at the differences.

Then she saw Lady Kassia de Moreton, her likely unwilling hostess, emerge from the great hall. She was wearing an old gown and a white wool cloth over her head. She looked for all the world like another of the serving wenches. Behind her was an older man with a besotted grin on his face. He was carrying two trays piled high with sweet-smelling pastries, honey and almond, Daria thought, sniffing, her mouth suddenly watering. To her astonishment, Lady Kassia paused, gazed around the noisy den, then whistled as loud as any soldier. Within moments she and the older man were surrounded by the castle folk and their hands were swarming over the warm pastries on the trays.

Daria wished she could whistle like that. She could let it loose in Roland's ear when he next angered her. Daria smiled. It felt odd to smile, she realized, and forced herself to smile even more widely. She would very much like one of those warm pastries.

If her hostess was unwilling, Daria saw no sign of it. At the sight of her, Kassia smiled, waved her hand for her to come to her, then jerked off her white kerchief with the next movement of her hand. She looked like a small graceful dervish, her skirts twirling, her wide sleeves flying away from her wrists.

“Come, Daria, I've saved one of Cook's pastries for you. Yes, sit there and eat. Truly, you must break your fast, it will keep your stomach settled. Oh, my dear, you look tired. Did you not rest well? Your lord left very early this morning. You miss him, I suspect. Well, Roland is a handsome lout. When you've eaten, I will present my Harry to you and you must promise me to proclaim him the most beautiful babe in Christendom. He looks like his hulking father, which I insist isn't at all fair.”

Daria had no chance to reply to this outpouring, for Kassia had swept away from her, humming beneath her breath, speaking to the serving wenches, laughing, calling for more food for their guest.

By the afternoon Daria wanted to weep with sheer loneliness. How she could be lonely in a castle filled with people who were nothing but kind to her, she couldn't have said, but she was nevertheless. She spent time with Harry, duly complimenting him to his proud mother. He was a beautiful baby, and when she held him, she felt tears sting her eyes. Her babe—Roland's babe—would never know a father's pride. He would know only indifferent kindness at best and coldness at the worst. Roland would never be physically cruel. She knew that, though she didn't know how she knew it. He had certainly changed toward her.

She turned from her post on the eastern ramparts of Wolffeton Castle. There, in front of her, stood the lord of Wolffeton himself, Graelam de Moreton. She felt a shock of fear at his size, for he was a large man, a warrior of great skill she'd heard Roland say, and his expression wasn't gentle. He looked forbidding and ruthless. She thought of him with the slight gentle Kassia and wondered at it.

“You must be careful,” were Graelam's first words to her. “Forgive me for startling you, Daria, but you must take care. You carry a babe, and the walkway here isn't all that wide.”

He'd come to the ramparts to caution her to take care? She nodded solemnly. “Thank you, my lord.”

Graelam turned to look out toward the sea. “Roland won't be gone long, not more than a sennight, no doubt. Then he will return and carry you back to his keep with him.”

Only if he were forced to, she thought, but said only, “Where is this keep, my lord?”

His dark brow raised in surprise at her ignorance but his voice was calm enough as he said, “Not more than fifteen miles to the northeast of Wolffeton. It's a tidy keep, not sprawling and dominating like Wolffeton with its sheer size, but still it is a home that will see the de Tournay line through many years. Roland is disappointed that it isn't closer to the sea, for he likes the smell of the salt and the feel of the sea winds on his face. The man whose family has held it for many years is old now and tired and has no male heirs. He was great friends with Roland's father and he wishes Roland to have the keep.”

“I know it is called Thispen-Ladock and owned by Sir Thomas Ladock.”

“Aye, combining the names of the two major families who have owned it since the time of William—and it is between the small villages of Killivose and Ennis. The largest village is Perranporth on the northern coast. Didn't Roland tell you of the keep and its location?”

She merely shook her head, and Graelam continued after a thoughtful moment. “There is little chance of invasion, thus there is little need for vast fortifications. There is little more than peace now, endless peace that drives a man distracted.”

She laughed at his mournful tone and he stared at her, then grinned. “Mayhap I should move my family to the Welsh borders. The spirit of fighting is strong there.

“But only until King Edward manages to clip the wings of all the Marcher Barons, and he's determined to do it. Aye, he wants to begin his castle building as soon as possible.

“Despite Edward's plans, I don't agree. Englishmen and Frenchmen love nothing more than a violent dispute, and if there isn't a likely one in the offing, they will invent it and then they will rally about to bash heads. Don't forget the Scots or the Irish. They'd as soon cleave an Englishman's chest as speak to him. Now, allow me to assist you off this precarious perch. My Kassia sent me up here to be the knight to your damsel.”

That sounded very nice; it also sounded incongruous coming from a man who could with a single sword cleave a man and his horse in two.
My Kassia.

To Daria's utter dismay, she burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands, so humiliated she couldn't bear it, yet the tears kept coming and she was gasping for breath as she tried to still them. She felt him then, standing before her for a moment, blocking out the warm sun; then his arms went around her and he drew her to him. His arms were gentle and his hand was even more gentle as he pressed her head to his shoulder.

“It's the babe that upsets you. You mustn't be ashamed, Daria, it will pass, you will see. My sweet Kassia suffered bouts of very strange feelings, some of them making me want to weep, others making me hold my sides with laughter.”

“It's not the babe.”

“Oh?”

“It is Roland, my husband—the man who scorns me, the man who feels nothing but contempt for me, the man who wedded me because the king commanded it.”

Graelam had not a word to say to that. He wished devoutly that he was on the ground at this moment and his wife was magically in his place. He felt awash with protective feelings that he had no business feeling. He could still think of nothing to say to her. Her sobs had quieted but her shoulders still quivered.

“I'm sorry,” he heard himself say. “Everything will be better soon.” By all the saints, his thinking continued, it was a stupid thing to say, meaningless all in all. When he was nearing despair, she sniffed, trying to gain control of herself.

“No, it's I who am the sorry one,” she said, wiping her eyes with her fisted hands as would a child. But she wasn't a child; she was a woman grown, who was married and carried a babe in her womb.

“Come,” he said, inspiration returned. “Let us go to the great hall. Kassia will give you a goblet of milk. Aye, that will make you feel better.”

When Kassia saw her husband's anguished look, she immediately set aside her task of the moment and shooed him willingly away. She escorted Daria to her chamber, scolding her all the way. “Now, you will tell me what is the matter with you. I will fix it if I can, even though my husband is always telling me to keep still and away from others' problems. Come, speak to me, Daria.”

But Daria couldn't get the words out. Pride and misery stuck them in her throat. She remembered her unmeasured outburst to Lord Graelam and wished she'd sink into the stone floor. She simply shook her head. “It's the babe,” she said, “nothing more, just the babe,” and Kassia knew with those few words that there would be no more forthcoming.

“Very well. You need to rest now. I will visit you later with some sweet white bread and some ale, or if you feel well enough, you can come to the great hall. We will see.”

Daria, alone again, retreated to her bed and dutifully lay down. She lay there unmoving for a very long time. She was, after all, quite used to being by herself. Odd, though, how all the hours she'd spent alone hadn't taught her patience and serenity. When Daria finally rose, it was evening, and Kassia came for her with a smile. Daria managed one in return and followed her hostess to the great hall.

It was during the long night that followed that Daria came to a decision. Early the following morning, she approached Lord Graelam.

“My lord, I wish a favor from you. I ask that you lend me several of your men.”

This was a surprise. Graelam looked closely at the girl standing in front of him, stiff and straight-backed. She was thin, pale, and looked resolute as a mule. “You wish to go somewhere?”