Earth Song (2 page)

Philippa eased back, her face pale, images, not words, flooding her brain. De Bridgport! Ivo was right, except that de Bridgport was even worse than he had said. The man was also the father of three repellent offspring older than her—two daughters, shrill and demanding, and a son who had no chin and a leering eye. Philippa closed her eyes. This had to be some sort of jest. Her father wouldn't . . . There was no need to give her in marriage to de Bridgport. It made no sense, unless her father was simply making it up, trying to get Ivo to leave off. Aye, that had to be it. Ivo had caught him off-guard and he'd spit out the first name that had come to mind in order to make Ivo switch his ardor to the other sister.

But then Lady Maude said, her voice high and officious, “Listen you, Ivo de Vescy. That giant of a girl has no dowry from Lord Henry, not a farthing, hear you? She goes to de Bridgport because he'll take her with naught but her shift. Be glad de Bridgport will have her, because her shift is nearly all Lord Henry will provide her. Ah, didn't you know all call her the Giant? 'Tis because she's such a lanky, graceless creature, unlike her sweet-natured sister.”

Lord Henry stared in some consternation at his pallid-faced wife whose pale gray eyes hadn't shone with this much passion since their first wedded night, a very short wedded night, and slowly nodded, adding, “Now, young pup, 'tis either you return to York and your father or you'll
take my pretty Bernice, as her mother says, and you'll sign the betrothal contract, eh?”

But Ivo wasn't quite through, and Philippa, for a moment at least, was proud of him, for he mouthed her own questions. “But, my lord, why? You don't care for your daughter, my lady? I mean no disrespect, my lord, but . . .”

Lord Henry eyed the young man. He watched his wife eye de Vescy as well, no passion in either eye now, just cold fury. Even her thin cheeks sported two red anger spots. Ivo was being impertinent, but then again, Lord Henry had been a fool to mention de Bridgport, but his had been the only name to pop into his mind. And Maude had quickly affirmed the man, and so he'd been caught, unable to back down. De Bridgport! The man was a mangy article.

“Why, my lord?”

There was not only desperation but also honest puzzlement in the young man's voice, and Lord Henry sighed. But it was Maude who spoke, astonishing him with the venom of her voice. “Philippa has no hold on Lord Henry. Thus she will have no dowry. She is naught to us, a burden, a vexation. Make up your mind, Ivo, and quickly, for you sorely tax me with your impertinence.”

“Will you now accept Bernice?” Lord Henry asked. “She, dulcet child, tells me she wants you and none other.”

Ivo wanted to say that he'd take Philippa without a dowry, even without a shift, but sanity stilled his impetuosity. He wasn't stupid; he was aware of his duty as his father's eldest son. The de Vescy holdings near York were a drain at present, given the poor crops that had plagued the area for the past several years. He must wed an
heiress; it was his duty. He had no choice, none at all. And, his thinking continued, Philippa wasn't small and soft and cuddly like her sister. She was too tall, too strong, too self-willed—by all the saints, she could read and cipher like a bloody priest or clerk—ah, but her rich dark blond hair was so full of colors, curling wildly around her face and making an unruly fall down her back, free and soft. And her eyes were a glorious clear blue, bright and vivid with laughter, and her breasts were so wondrously full and round and . . . Ivo cleared his throat. “I'll take Bernice, my lord,” he said, and Lord Henry prayed that the young man wouldn't burst into tears.

Maude walked to him, and even smiled as she touched his tunic sleeve. “ 'Tis right and proper,” she said. “You will not regret your choice.”

Philippa felt like Lot's wife. She couldn't seem to move, even when her father waved toward the door, telling Ivo to repose himself before seeking out Bernice. In an instant of time her life had changed. She didn't understand why both her parents had turned on her—if turn they had. She'd always assumed that her father loved her; he worked her like a horse, that was true, but she enjoyed her chores as Beauchamp's steward. She reveled in keeping the accounts, in dealing with the merchants of Beauchamp, with settling disputes amongst the peasants.

As for her mother, she'd learned to keep clear of Lady Maude some years before. She'd been told not to call her “Mother,” but as a small child she'd accepted that and not worried unduly about it. Nor had she sought affection from that thin-lipped lady since she'd gained her tenth year and Lady Maude had slapped her so hard she'd heard
ringing in her ears for three days. Her transgression, she remembered now, was to accuse Bernice of stealing her small pile of pennies. Her father had done nothing. He hadn't taken her side, but merely waved her away and muttered that he was too busy for such female foolishness. She'd forgotten until now that her father hadn't defended her—probably because it had hurt too much to remember.

And now they planned to marry her to William de Bridgport. They wouldn't even provide her with a dowry. Nor had anyone mentioned it to her. Philippa couldn't take it all in. From a beloved younger daughter—at least by her father—to a cast-off daughter who wasn't loved by anyone, who had no hold on her parents, who was of no account, who had only her shift and nothing more . . . What had she done? How had she offended them so deeply as to find herself thus discarded?

Even as Ivo turned, his young face set, she couldn't make herself move. Finally, when Ivo was close enough to see her, she did move, turned on the toes of her soft leather slippers, and raced away. The toes of the slippers were long and pointed, the latest fashion from Queen Eleanor's court, and they weren't meant for running. Philippa tripped twice before she reached the seclusion of her chamber. She slid the bolt across the thick oak door and leaned against it, breathing harshly.

It wasn't just that they didn't want her. Nor was it that they simply wanted her away from them and from Beauchamp. They wanted to punish her. They wanted to give her to that profane old man, de Bridgport. Why? There was no
answer that came to mind. She could, she supposed, simply go ask her father why he and her mother were doing this. She could ask him how she had offended them so much that they wanted to repulse her and chastise her.

Philippa looked out the narrow window onto the inner ward of Beauchamp Castle. Comforting smells drifted upward with the stiff eastern breeze, smells of dogs and cattle and pigs and the lathered horses of Lord Henry's men-at-arms. The jakes were set in the outer wall in the western side of the castle, and the wind, fortunately, wafted away the smell of human excrement today.

This was her home; she'd never questioned that she belonged; such thoughts would never have occurred to her. She knew that Lady Maude cared not for her, not as she cared for Bernice, but Philippa had ignored the hurt she'd felt as a child, coming not to care over the years, and she'd tried instead to win her father, to make him proud of her, to make him love her. But now even her father had sided with Lady Maude. She was to be exiled to William de Bridgport's keep and company and bed. She felt a moment of deep resentment toward her sister. Bernice, who'd been the only one to garner the stingy affections Lady Maud had doled out as if a hug or a kiss were something to be hoarded.

Was it because Philippa was taller than her father, a veritable tower of a girl who had not the soft sweet look of Bernice? Lady Maude had told Ivo that she was called the Giant. Philippa hadn't known; she'd never heard that, even from Bernice in moments of anger.

Was it because she'd been born a girl and not a boy?

Philippa shook her head at that thought. If true, then Bernice wouldn't be exempt from displeasure, surely.

Philippa wasn't really a giant, just tall for a female, that was all. She turned from the window and looked blankly around her small chamber.

It was a comfortable room with strewn herbs and rushes covering the cold stone floor. She had to do something. She could not simply wait here for William de Bridgport to come and claim her.

It occurred to Philippa at that moment to wonder why Lord Henry had gone to such pains to educate her if his intention were simply to marry her off to William de Bridgport. It seemed a mighty waste unless de Bridgport wanted a steward and a wife and a brood mare all in one. Philippa had been Lord Henry's steward for the past two years, since old Master Davie had died of the flux, and she was becoming more skilled by the day. What use was it all now? she wondered as she unfastened her soft leather belt, stripped off her loose-fitting sleeveless overtunic of soft pale blue linen and then her long fitted woolen gown, nearly ripping the tight sleeves in her haste. She stood for a moment clothed only in her white linen shift that came to mid-thigh. Then she jerked the shift over her head. She realized in that instant that she'd seen something else in the inner ward of the castle. She'd seen several wagons loaded high with raw wool bound for the St. Ives April Fair. Two wagons belonged to the demesne farmers and one to Lord Henry.

She stood tall and naked and shivering, not with cold, but with the realization that she couldn't stay here and be forced to wed de Bridgport. She couldn't remain here at Beauchamp and
pretend that nothing had happened. She couldn't remain here like a helpless foundling awaiting her fate. She could hear Bernice taunting her now: . . .
an evil old man for you, a handsome young man for me. I'm the favorite and now you'll pay, pay
 . . .

She wasn't helpless. In another minute Philippa had pulled a very old shapeless gown over an equally old shift and topped the lot with an over-tunice that had been washed so many times its color was now an indeterminate gray. She replaced her fashionable pointed slippers with sturdy boots that came to her calves. She quickly took strips of linen and cross-gartered the boots to keep them up. She braided her thick hair anew, wound it around her head, and shoved a woolen cap over it. The cap was too small, having last been worn when she was but nine years old, but it would do.

Now she simply had to wait until it grew dark. Her cousin Sir Walter de Grasse, Lady Maude's nephew, lived near St. Ives. He was the castellan of Crandall, a holding of the powerful Graelam de Moreton of Wolffeton. Philippa had met Walter only twice in her life, but she remembered him as being kind. It was to her cousin she'd go. Surely he would protect her, surely. And then . . . To her consternation, she saw the farmers and three of her father's men-at-arms fall in beside the three wagons. They were leaving now!

Philippa was confounded, but only for a minute. Beauchamp had been her home for nearly eighteen years. She knew every niche and cavity of it. She slipped quietly from her chamber, crept down the deep stairs into the great hall, saw that no one noticed her, and escaped through the great open oak doors into the inner ward.
Quickly, she thought, she must move quickly. She ran to the hidden postern gate, cleared it enough to open it, and slipped through. She clamped her fingers over her nostrils, shuddered with loathing, and waded into the stinking moat. The moat suddenly deepened, and her feet sank into thick mud, bringing the slimy water to her eyebrows. She coughed and choked and gagged, then swam to the other side, crawled up the slippery bank, and raced toward the Dunroyal Forest beyond. The odor of the moat was now part of her.

Well, she wasn't on her way to London to meet the king. She was bent on escape. She wiped off her face as best she could and stared down the pitted narrow road. The wagons would come this way. They had to come this way.

And they did, some twenty minutes later. She pulled her cap down and hid, positioning herself. The wagons came slowly. The three men-at-arms accompanying the wagons to the fair were jesting about one of the local village women who could exercise a man better than a day of working in the fields.

Philippa didn't hear anything else. From the protection of her hiding place she flung several small rocks across the road. They ripped into the thick underbrush, thudding loudly, and the men-at-arms reacted immediately. They whipped their horses about, drawing the craning attention of the farmers who drove the wagons. As quickly as she could move, Philippa slipped to the second wagon and burrowed under the piles of dirty gray wool. She couldn't smell the foul odor of the raw wool because she'd become used to the smell of the moat that engulfed her. The wool was coarse
and scratchy, and any exposed flesh was instantly miserable. She would ignore it; she had to. She relaxed a bit when she heard one of the men-at-arms yell, “ ‘Tis naught!”

“Aye, a rabbit or a grouse.”

“I was hoping it was a hungry wench wanting to ride me and my horse.”

“Ha! 'Tis only the meanest harlot who'd take you on!”

The men-at-arms continued their coarse jesting until they heard one of the peasants snicker behind his hand. One of them yelled, “Get thee forward, you lazy lout, else you'll feel the flat of my sword!”

St. Erth Castle, Near St. Ives Bay

Cornwall, England

The sheep were dead. Every last miserable one of them was dead. Every one of them had belonged to him, and now they were all dead, all forty-four of them, and all because the shepherd, Robin, had suffered with watery bowels from eating hawthorn berries until he'd fallen over in a dead faint and the sheep had wandered off, gotten caught in a ferocious storm, and bleated themselves over a sheer cliff into the Irish Sea.

Forty-four sheep! By Christ, it wasn't fair. What was he to do now? He had no coin—at least not enough to take to the St. Ives Fair and purchase more sheep, and sheep that hadn't already been spring-shorn. He couldn't get much wool off a spring-shorn sheep. He needed clothes, his son
needed clothes, his men needed clothes, not to mention all the servants who toiled in his keep. He had a weaver, Prink, who was eating his head off, and content to sit on his fat backside with nary a thing to do. And Old Agnes, who told everyone what to do, including Prink, was also doing nothing but carping and complaining and driving him berserk.

Dienwald de Fortenberry cursed, sending his fist against his thigh, and felt the wool tunic he wore split from his elbow to his armpit. The harsh winter had done him in. At least his people were planting crops—wheat and barley—enough for St. Erth and all the villeins who spent their lives working for him and depending on him to keep them from starving. Many lords didn't care if their serfs starved in ditches, but Dienwald thought such an attitude foolhardy. Dead men couldn't plant crops or shoe horses or defend St. Erth.

On the other hand, dead men didn't need clothes.

Dienwald was deep in thought, tossing about for something to do, when Crooky, his fool, who'd been struck by a falling tree as a boy and grown up with a twisted back, shuffled into view and began to twitch violently. Dienwald wasn't in a mood to enjoy his contortions at the moment and waved him away. Then Crooky hopped on one foot, and Dienwald realized he was miming something. He watched the hops and the hand movements, then bellowed, “Get thee gone, meddlesome dunce! You disturb my brain.”

Crooky curtsied in a grotesque parody of a lady and then threaded a needle, sat down on the floor, and mimed sewing. He began singing:

My sweet Lord of St. Erth
Ye need not ponder bare-arsed or
Fret yer brain for revelations
For you come three wagons and full they be
Ready, my sweet lord, for yer preservations.

“That has no sensible rhyme, lackwit, and you waste my energies! Get out out of my sight!”

My sweet lord of St. Erth
Ye need not go a-begging
In yer humble holey lin-en
There come three wagons full of wool and
But a clutch of knaves to guard them-in.

“Enough of your twaddle!” Dienwald jumped to his feet and advanced on Crooky, who lay on the rush-strewn floor smiling beautifully up at his master. “Get to your feet and tell me about this wool.”

Crooky began another mime, still crouched on the floor. He was driving a wagon, looking over his shoulder; then fright screwed up his homely features. Dienwald kicked him in the ribs. “Cease this!” he bellowed. “You've less ability than the bloody sheep that slaughtered themselves.”

Crooky, exquisitely sensitive to his master's moods, and more wily than he was brain-full, guessed from the pain in his ribs that his lord was serious. He quickly rolled to his knees and told Dienwald what he'd heard.

Dienwald stroked his hand over his jaw. He hesitated. He sat down in the lord's chair and stretched out his legs in front of him. There was a hole in his hose at the ankle. So there were three wagons of raw wool coming from
Beauchamp. Long he'd wanted to tangle with that overfed Lord Henry. But the man was powerful and had many men in his service. From the corner of his eye Dienwald saw his son, Edmund, dash into the great hall. His short tunic was patched and worn and remarkably filthy. His hose were long disintegrated, and the boy's legs were bare. He looked like a serf.

Edmund, unconcerned with his frayed appearance, looked from his father to Crooky, who gave him a wink and a wave. “ ‘Tis true, Father? Wool for the taking?”

Dienwald looked again at the patches that were quick wearing through on his son's elbows. He shouted for his master-at-arms, Eldwin. The man appeared in an instant and Dienwald knew he'd heard all. “We'll take eight men—our most ferocious-looking fighters—and those wagons will soon be ours. Don't forget Gorkel the Hideous. One look at him and those wagon drivers will faint with terror. Tell that useless cur Prink and Old Agnes that we'll soon have enough work for every able-bodied servant in the keep.”

“Can I come with you, Papa?”

Dienwald shook his head, buffeted the boy fondly on the shoulder, a loving gesture that nearly knocked him down into the stale rushes. “Nay, Edmund. You will guard the castle in my absence. You can bear Old Agnes' advice and endless counsel whilst I'm gone.”

 

The stench was awful. By the evening of that first day, when the wagons and men camped near a stream close to St. Hilary, Philippa was very nearly ready to announce her presence and beg mercy, a bath, and some of the roasting rabbit
she smelled. But she didn't; she endured, she had to. They would reach St. Ives Fair late on the morrow. She could bear it. It wasn't just the raw, bur-filled wool, but the smell of moat dried against her skin and clothes and mingled with the odor of the raw wool. It didn't get better. Philippa had managed to burrow through the thick piles of wool to form a small breathing hole, but she dared not make the hole larger. One of the men might notice, and it would be all over. They would sympathize with her plight rightly enough, and let her bathe and doubtless feed her, but then they would return her to Beauchamp. Their loyalty and their very lives were bound up with Lord Henry.

She pictured her cousin Sir Walter de Grasse and tried to imagine his reaction when she suddenly appeared at Crandall looking and smelling like a nightmare hag from Burgotha's Swamp. She could imagine his thin long nose twitching, imagine his eyes closing tightly at the sight of her. But he couldn't turn her away. He wouldn't. She prayed that she would find a stream before arriving at Crandall.

To make matters worse, the day was hot and the night remained uncomfortably warm. Under the scratchy thick wool, adding sweat to the stench, the hell described by Lord Henry's priest began to seem like naught more than a cool summer's afternoon.

Philippa itched but couldn't reach all the places that were making her more desperate by the minute. Had it been imperative that she jump into the moat? Wasn't there another way to get to the forest? She'd acted without thinking, not used her brain and planned. “You think with your feet,
Philippa,” Lord Henry was wont to tell her, watching her dash hither and yon in search of something. And she'd done it again. She'd certainly jumped into the moat with her feet.

How many more hours now before she could slip away? She had to wait until they reached the St. Ives Fair or her father's men would likely see her and it would have all been for naught. All the stench, all the itches, all the hunger, all for naught. She would wait it out; her sheer investment in misery wouldn't allow her to back down now. Her stomach grumbled loudly and she was so thirsty her tongue was swollen.

Her father's guards unknowingly shared their amorous secrets with her that evening. “Aye,” said Alfred, a man who weighed more than Lord Henry's prize bull, “they pretend it pains them to take ye—then, jist when ye spill yer seed and want to rest a bit, they whine about a little bauble. Bah!”

Philippa could just imagine Alfred lying on her, and the thought made her ribs hurt. Ivo had been heavy enough; Alfred was three times his size. There were offerings of consolation and advice, followed by tall tales of conquest—none of it in the service of her father against his enemies—and Philippa wanted to scream that a young lady was in the wool wagon and her ears were burning, but instead she fell asleep in her misery and slept the whole night through.

The next day continued as the first, except that she was so hungry and thirsty she forgot for whole minutes at a time the fiery itching of her flesh and her own stink. She'd sunk into a kind of apathy when she suddenly heard a shout from one of Lord Henry's guards. She stuck her nose
up into the small air passage. Another shout; then: “Attack! Attack! Flank the last wagon! No, over there!”

Good God! Thieves!

The wagon that held Philippa lurched to a stop, leaned precariously to the left, then righted itself. She heard more shouting, the sound of horses' hooves pounding nearer, until they seemed right on top of her, and then the clash of steel against steel. There were several loud moans and the sound of running feet. She wanted to help but knew that the only thing she could possibly do was show herself and pray that the thieves died of fright. No, she had to hold still and pray that her father's men would vanquish the attackers. She heard a loud gurgling sound, quite close, and felt a bolt of terror.

There came another loud shout, then the loud twang of an arrow being released. She heard a loud thump—the sound of a man falling from his horse. And then she heard one voice, raised over all the others, and that voice was giving orders. It was a voice that was oddly calm, yet at the same time deep in its intensity, and she felt her blood run cold. It wasn't the voice of a common thief. No, the voice . . . Her thinking stopped. There was only silence now. The brief fighting was over. And she knew her father's men hadn't won. They would tell no tall tales about this day. She waited, frozen deep in her nest of wool.

The man's voice came again. “You, fellow, listen to me. Your guards are such cowards they've fled with but slight wounds to nag at them. I have no desire to slit any of your throats for you. What say you?”

Osbert wasn't amused; he was terrified, and his
mouth was as dry as the dirty wool in the wagon, for he'd swallowed all his spit and could scarce form words. But self-interest moistened his tongue, and he managed to fawn, saying, “My lord, please allow this one wagon to pass. Thass ours, my lord, my brother's and mine, and thass all we own. We'll starve if ye take it. The other two wagons are the property of my lord Henry de Beauchamp. He's fat and needs not the profits. Have pity on us, my lord.”

Philippa wanted to rise from her bed of wool and shriek at Osbert, the scurvy liar. Starve indeed. The fellow owned the most prosperous of Lord Henry's demesne farms. He was a freeman and his duty to Lord Henry lightened his purse not overly much. She waited for the man with the mean voice to cut out Osbert's tongue for his effrontery. To her chagrin and relief, the man said, “ ‘Tis fair. I will take the two wagons and you may keep yours. Say nothing, fellow,” the man added, and Philippa knew he said those words only to hear himself give the order. Her father's farmers would race back to Beauchamp to tell of this thievery, and likely bray about their bravery against overwhelming forces—and take her with them, if, that is, she was in the right wagon.

Suddenly the wagon moved. She heard the man's voice say, “Easy on the reins, Peter. That mangy horse looks ready to crumple in his tracks. ‘Twould appear that Lord Henry is stingy and mean.”

Philippa wasn't in the right wagon. She was in one of the stolen wagons and she had no idea where she was going. For that matter, when the
farmers returned to Beauchamp they wouldn't have any idea who'd attacked them.

Dienwald sat back on his destrier, Philbo, and looked upon the two wagons filled with fine raw wool, now his. He rubbed his hands together, then patted Philbo's neck. The guards had fled into Treywen Forest. They would be fools to ride back to Beauchamp. If they did, Lord Henry would have their ears cut off for cowardice. Other parts of their anatomy would doubtless follow the ears. The farmers would travel to St. Ives. He knew their sort. Greedy but not stupid, and liars of superb ability when their lives were at stake. He imagined them playing the terrified and guiltless victims very well. He imagined them carrying on about this monster at least seven feet tall whose face was nearly purple with scars, who'd threatened to eat them and spit them out in the dirt. And they wouldn't be far off the mark. That was the beauty of Gorkel; he hadn't said a word to the terrified peasants; he didn't have to. Perhaps Lord Henry would even let them keep the proceeds from the sale of their wool—well, not all, but enough for their efforts. And St. Erth now had enough wool for Old Agnes to weave her gnarly fingers to the bone; and in addition, he had two new horses. Not that the nags were anything wonderful, but they were free, and that made them special. It wasn't a bad outcome. Dienwald was content with his day's work. He would remember to give Crooky an extra tunic for his information.

“Don't dawdle,” he called out. “To St. Erth! I want to reach home before nightfall.”

“Aye, my lord,” Eldwin called out, and the wagon lurched and careened wildly as the poor
nag broke into a shuffling canter. Philippa fell back, bringing piles of the filthy wool over her face. She couldn't breathe anything save her own stench until she managed to burrow another breathing hole. Where was St. Erth? She'd heard of the place but didn't know its location. Then her stomach soured and she thought only to keep herself from retching. The nausea overpowered her and she clawed through the layers of wool until her head was clear and the hot sun was searing her face from overhead.