He still wanted to beat her. Even after two days, his blood hadn’t cooled. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He ordered her women from the chamber. Six colorful pigeons, giggling, talking about him behind their hands, their eyes full on him. He came to stand in front of her, his fists on his hips, his legs spread. She looks old, he thought, and there is no bigger bitch in all of Christendom.
“Why did you come out of the hidden chamber?”
Lady Dorothy started to repeat her litany, for it sounded quite reasonable, but she realized he wouldn’t believe her, not for an instant. She gave a shrug that she knew enraged him. “You want the truth, do you? Very well. I wanted her gone. Lord Graelam de Moreton actually wanted to take her, something I cannot begin to imagine, but it was true. He wanted to wed her. He wanted to take her away with him. I was overjoyed. I gave him my blessing.”
“You are a stupid cow.”
“You never said a word about Jerval de Vernon, not even a hint to me of your plans for her. Graelam was a perfectly good match for her, a powerful man, a wealthy one as well. He is much better than she deserves, truth be told. I did what I thought right. She is past old enough, eighteen now. She needs to be married. You need to gain worth from a marriage alliance. What better alliance than with Graelam de Moreton?”
“You considered none of this. You wanted to be rid of her, and you saw your chance. You wouldn’t have cared if he’d raped her on the floor of the Great Hall, if he’d captured her and ridden away with her, if he’d been a Welsh bandit on a raid.”
“Aye, that is true enough,” she said, and she smiled at him. For a moment, he saw the remnants of beauty in her that had given him a very brief period of satisfaction so many years before. Her hair was once black as the hills of Wales just to their west, drenched in darkness. Now it was threaded with coarse gray strands, weaving in and out. There was no gray in his golden hair. There were lines of discontent fanning from her eyes, creasing her face beside her mouth. She was old, he thought again.
“Damn you, you should have known that I had made plans for her. You did know, didn’t you? You simply chose to get rid of her as quickly as you could.”
She had the gall to shrug again.
“You knew I would do what was best.”
“Ah, best for whom, Richard? Perhaps for yourself since you have molded her into your own image, kept her with you year after year, allowing her to do what she pleases, allowing her to show me her contempt for all things that a woman must know and—”
“I know that you abused her,” Lord Richard said abruptly, cutting her off, and he took a step away from her, his desire to clout her was so great. He said the words again, “You abused her.”
“So,” Lady Dorothy said slowly, “the perfidious little bitch went whining to you, did she? Well, it isn’t true. I only struck her when she deserved it, as any good mother would do.”
“She told me nothing. You, lady, are a liar. You hit her whenever you wished to. Unfortunately, I did not learn of what you had done all those years until old Emily was dying and confessed it to me just this month. I wanted to kill you.”
“Why didn’t you try?”
“I am not a murderer,” he said, “although you tempt me greatly. Why in the name of all the martyrs’ graves did you beat a child?”
“Why?” She could but stare at him. “You have the gall to ask me why? By all the saints, she is nothing to me. No, that isn’t true. She is a blight, an unnatural whelp who should never have been born. She is nothing but the bastard from your slut in London, your proud lady who gave her to you so her reputation could remain unsullied and her family could arrange a great marriage for her. Aye, you made me take her, pretend she was my daughter. You thought I would love her, want her near me? That little bastard was nothing but a thorn in my side. I have hated her since the day you forced me to hold her in my arms.”
So many bitter, venomous words, so much malevolence. He’d known she hadn’t liked Chandra—natural enough, he supposed—but this hatred, this viciousness? He said slowly, “Old Emily told me that when Chandra was eleven, she was strong enough to protect herself. She said Chandra nearly strangled you when you hit her that last time, and she saved your worthless life. It is me you should hate, Dorothy, not Chandra. She never did anything to you. She always was, and still is, innocent.”
“She existed,” Dorothy said, and thought of that child who stared at her, pain in her vivid eyes, bowed over from the blow in the ribs her supposed mother had dealt her. No, she wouldn’t think of that small, silent child, her silent tears. “Emily would never betray me. Chandra told you. I know she did.”
“I only wish that she had. She never said a word against you. I remember when she began calling you Lady Dorothy, and I did wonder about that, but if that’s what she wanted, and it appeared it was what you preferred as well, then why should I question it?”
“She’s naught but a bastard. And the name you gave her—Chandra. A ridiculous name—the name of that ancient priestess who ruled in the land of men. Do you think if Jerval de Vernon knew the truth about her birth, he would still be here to look her over for his wife?”
“He will never know,” Richard said, and his hands clenched into fists now.
“I won’t tell him—you needn’t worry about that. I want her gone, the sooner the better. She will make him a miserable wife since she knows nothing of what a woman is meant to be, meant to know, meant to do. She might even stick a knife through his ribs when he tries to bed her.” Lady Dorothy laughed. “Ah, then she would be hanged. I should like that.”
“You damned bitch.” Richard didn’t strike her. He kicked her chair, then shoved it, and it fell backward, taking his wife with it. She lay there on her back, her knees bent over the side of the chair, the toes of her leather slippers sticking in the air, looking up at him. She didn’t move, just looked at him with that blend of contempt and triumph.
“Damn you, I would like to kill you.”
Still she didn’t move, just lay there in that overturned chair. She smiled up at him now. “Do you really think she will allow him to bed her? Did you know that Chandra first saw you rutting with one of the serving wenches when she was about five years old? Naked you were, pumping into her, and the girl was laughing and moaning and telling you how grand a stallion you were. Aye, Chandra saw you. I know because I saw you as well. And I saw the expression on the child’s face. Aye, and that wasn’t the only time. Emily told me that she saw you taking one of the visiting ladies against a wall, with her husband swilling ale in the Great Hall, and she said Chandra vomited, emptied her belly at the sight. How many more times? She became as she is only because she despises what a woman must be, what she must do for a man. She will never accept having a man plow her belly, controlling her, rendering her helpless, as she has seen you to do to so many different women all her life.”
“Shut up, you filthy-mouthed bitch! I have never forced a woman, never. If she saw anything, she would realize that it was naught but pleasure, that it was natural, that it was not a man’s will overcoming the woman’s. Damn you, I will kill you if you don’t be quiet. I will.”
“Aye, you would like to, but you can’t. My father still lives. He is still powerful. You would be dead within a sennight were you to hurt me. Even if he were dead, there is my brother, who hates you more than you can imagine. He is jealous of you, of course. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, to crush you like a bug. You know this, Richard. You aren’t stupid.”
No, he wasn’t stupid. She’d sickened upon occasion over the years and he’d prayed she would die, but she never did, and she always smiled at him, knowing what was in his mind. She might look like a bitter old woman, with her coarse graying hair, all those deep lines in her face, but she was stronger than his destrier, curse her foul soul.
“You have also taught John to despise his sister.”
“Naturally. He is your heir. He is of my body. He will be the lord at Croyland after you’re dead. She has no c
laim to his affection. She is nothing to him.”
Richard said then, because he knew at last that he could cut her deep, “I am sending John to foster with the Earl of Grantham. He is leaving within the month.” He looked down at his fingernails.
“No!” She scrambled to her feet, nearly falling because her skirts tangled in the fallen chair cushions.
Richard rubbed his hands together. “Aye, the boy is my heir, and if he remains here you will make him into a mean-spirited, puling little coward, craven and spoiled.”
She was shrieking at him, curses he was certain Father Tolbert had never heard from her mouth. He smiled at her as he turned on his heel and left the solar. Her women were gathered outside the door on the narrow landing, listening, he knew, and he smiled at each of them. There were six ladies of different sizes, different ages. He had bedded four of them. He wondered if Chandra had seen him with any of them. But what did that matter? He didn’t want her to be innocent going to the marriage bed. He was a strong man, well built, and he gave a woman pleasure. Surely he had shown her that lovemaking between a man and a woman was something pleasurable. He didn’t believe that she had vomited. His bloody wife would say anything to make him pay. Jerval de Vernon would teach her, would give her endless pleasure—no, Richard didn’t want to think about that.
CHAPTER 6
Chandra smoothed down the figured buckle over her shoulder, as she always did; it always brought her luck. She pulled an arrow from her leather quiver, set it into its notch against the bow, and drew it back until her bunched fingers touched her cheek next to her mouth. She released slowly, so carefully, watched the arrow as it arced smoothly upward, crested, and embedded itself with a thud in the center of the target.
A shout went up from Lord Richard’s men, a murmur of surprise from Jerval’s.
Mark said to Jerval, his voice full of laughter, “Lord Richard’s men must believe they will make their fortunes today. I will lose my own wager if you do not split Chandra’s arrow. The pride of Camberley rests on your shoulders, Jerval, as well as my money and the money of your men.”
Jerval smiled, flexed his arm, and stepped forward to stand beside Chandra. She was grinning like a fool; he saw it even though she kept her head down. He wished she didn’t make him want to laugh with her endless show of bravado, her guileless show of pleasure in her own triumphs.
He said, “You told me that you would crush me into the dirt,” he said. “I will admit that wasn’t a bad shot. Perhaps it was even a very lucky shot. Not as interesting, perhaps, as seeing you dressed in a man’s tunic and a man’s wool breeches—that makes quite an impression on a poor man’s wits. My men were shocked, naturally, even though they shouldn’t have been, since I had warned them not to stare at you, knowing what was beneath those breeches. Thank the saints, now they are even getting used to you.” He looked as if he would say more, and she interrupted him, wanting to clout him, wanting to laugh. “Will you keep blathering or will you shoot?”
He was stroking his chin. “Actually, I’m wondering if I should let you win.”
“Let me win? You can’t beat me, you fool. Soon you will be on your knees eating the dirt beneath your feet. Come, you can’t put it off much longer. Swallow your conceit and make your shot.”
“I am really very good, Chandra. I told you that.”
She chewed this over for a minute, then said slowly, those incredible eyes of hers hard and cold, “You mean you would allow me to win the way you allowed Wicket to beat Pith?”
“I was only protecting you, trying to keep you safe—you, a small weak girl who is so lovely the sun glints in her hair.”
She snorted.
“Very well. The distance is far too short for me, but if it pleases you, if it makes you feel superior, then I will declare that you are the winner of this paltry beginner’s competition.”
“You bleating goat, I am no beginner.”
“Then why don’t we have a competition that would mean something, that would truly show which of us is the more skilled?”
She called out to Cecil, her twelve-year-old page, “Go to the target. Yes, that’s right. Now, Jerval, tell him the distance you wish.”
Jerval shouted, “Move it to the base of the hill.”
He’d doubled the distance. She had her limits, and he knew it, damn him. Actually, she was anxious to see how well he would do. But now she had to shoot again. She felt a leap of uncertainty, perhaps even a kick of panic.
Jerval saw that she hadn’t creamed her mouth and now she was chewing on her bottom lip, and he knew she was wondering what to do. Oh, she would shoot, he had no doubt about that, but she was frightened she wouldn’t do well. He said, “I do not wish to see you humiliated. You did very well with your other shot, but this is no longer so easy. Would you like to choose a champion?”
She jumped to the bait like the trout he had caught in Camberley’s lake just two weeks before. “I don’t need a champion. I told you, I am amazing with the bow and arrow. I have the eye of an eagle.” But I don’t have the strength, she thought. She saw her father from the corner of her eye, standing beside Ellis, watching the match. She swallowed hard, waved toward him and stepped forward, stretching straight and tall with her side to the target, measuring the distance. She released her arrow and stood motionless, watching it soar upward. There was a bit of wind and it carried it further than she deserved, thank the saints.
The arrow missed the center, but who cared? It slammed itself into the dark blue outer rim of the target. “I hit it,” she said, so surprised, she said again, “I hit it. Did you see that? I really hit it!” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it was too late now. Never would she willingly have given him even a hint that it had been a lucky shot, very lucky and helped forward by a friendly wind.
However, she still wished her father’s men didn’t sound as astonished as Jerval’s. Had they expected her to miss it altogether? Well, truth be told, she had herself expected to miss, have her arrow fall from the sky into the dirt, well short of the straw target.
Jerval heard Crecy say to Lord Richard, “By all the saints’ crooked toes, it was a great distance, too great a distance, but she hit it.”
Ellis said, “Few of the men could do better.”
That was a fact, Jerval thought. He was so pleased with her that he wanted to grab her and swing her into the air. And then he simply couldn’t help himself. He did lift her high in his arms and swing her until she was shouting with laughter. Then, very slowly, he let her down again.
No playmate would do that, and she knew it. She stood very quietly.
John, who was on his haunches chewing on a blade of grass near his father, raised his head and said, “I will do it easily someday, Father. Avery has said that I have your eye.”
“So does your sister,” Lord Richard said.
“Aye, but I will also be as strong as you someday. I will be a man. She won’t.”
If Chandra heard her brother, she gave no sign. She was jesting with her father’s men now, laughing, looking at Jerval, waiting, wondering what he would do.
Jerval met Mark’s eyes, and winked. He drew an arrow from his quiver and set it against the bow. He took his time, aware now that Chandra was utterly silent, tapping her foot just behind him.
He would not ruin her pleasure—he couldn’t. His arrow shot straight toward the target, its speed so great, it was a blur. It slammed into the packed straw with a loud thud.
A smile played about Lord Richard’s mouth as Ponce ran to the target and dropped to his knees in front of it. When he rose, he cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Sir Jerval’s arrow split Lady Chandra’s. Thus a part of hers is closest to the center.”
“By all the saints’ tight-lipped smiles, I can’t believe he did that,” Richard said. “He is perhaps even a better diplomat than Crecy. His obvious skill blasts her in the face and yet she still wins.”
Jerval smiled down at her, seeing the recognition in her eyes that he was t
he better, but it didn’t matter, and he hoped that she realized that. A competition with no one to lose. He said, “I pronounce you the winner, Chandra. Must I drop to my knees and stick my mouth in the dirt? Or perhaps lick your dirty boots?”
He had defeated her, not beaten her cleanly, quickly, utterly. He’d let her keep her triumph.
“What say you?”
She said, so low that only he could hear her, “You showed me you are the more skilled, but you did it so charmingly, so nicely, I want to kill you because I don’t think I have your generosity. I also want to swing you up in my arms and yell with laughter. I think you are the most clever man I have ever met, other than my father, of course. That is what I say.”
“All that?”
“Yes, all that.”
“I am—very pleased to hear those words from you. I should like for you to swing me about.”
He stuck out his arms. She laughed, drew a deep breath, wrapped her arms around his waist and tried to lift him off his feet. She managed to pull him to his toes, but no more. And so she simply squeezed her arms as tightly as she could around his waist and hugged him. Jerval closed his eyes with the feel of her. His men were laughing. Any moment now there would be jests, probably very crude ones. He couldn’t allow that. It would ruin everything.
He quickly backed away from her. She was smiling, and there was a softness in her eyes that scorched him to his booted feet.
“I knew Sir Jerval would win,” John said, his child’s voice overloud. “She is only a female. She is weak.”
Lord Richard looked for a moment at his son’s upturned face. He had his mother’s pointed chin and his mother’s querulous voice. John was indeed spoiled, but not for much longer. Grantham was a man of moods, many of them black, but most important, he was strong and mean and fair. He would accept no petulance from John.
Lord Richard said to Crecy as he strode back toward the keep, “Jerval controls her well. Did you see her throw her arms around him? I have made the right decision.”