Secret Song (19 page)

“Certainly,” the queen said, and lightly clapped her hands together. “Come, child.”

It was later in the afternoon when Daria saw Roland again. He was in men's clothes again and looked so beautiful she wanted to run to him and fling him to the ground. She wanted to kiss him and stroke him and tell him how much she loved him. He was speaking, however, to several of the king's soldiers, and she contented herself for the moment just looking at him. When one of the soldiers took himself off, she approached him and lightly touched her fingertip to his sleeve. He turned to look down at her and froze. Her look was intimate; there was no other way to describe it. And tender and—loving.

He took a step backward.

“Are you all right?”

“Aye,” she said happily. “Do you think the earl has wedded Tilda yet? You don't think he'll harm her, do you?”

Roland shook his head. “I do think he'll bed her, though, and make her his mistress. She's a beautiful girl.”

“You aren't objective; you are, after all, her mother. Are you well now, Roland? I was so worried about you and I didn't know what to do when the stableman told me of the men asking about Cantor.”

“So that's what happened,” he said. “I didn't know, couldn't understand, why you'd left so suddenly and with no word to anyone. I tried to search for you but managed only to get down the stairs and collapse again.”

Her fingers tightened on his arm, caressing him now, and he frowned. “Daria, what is the matter with you?”

She realized what she was doing and in the same instant realized that he had no idea why she was doing it. She looked at him hungrily, then quickly released his arm and turned away from him. “Naught is wrong. What will happen now? How do you know the king and queen? They seem to be your friends. I heard someone say that we were traveling to Tyberton tomorrow. How can that be true? The earl will—”

He gently touched his fingertips to her mouth. “Trust me,” he said. “All will be well and I will have my destrier back. And you will soon be on your way back to Reymerstone.”

Her expression became stony, but he ignored it, turning away from her.

That evening, Queen Eleanor, having correctly judged Daria's feelings by simply asking her how she felt about Roland de Tournay, imputed similar feelings to Roland, for, after all, the girl was wealthy, quite lovely, and—The queen smiled, saying to Roland as she sipped at her sweet Aquitaine wine, “Do you wish to be wedded before you arrive at Tyberton, just to ensure that the earl won't scream down our royal ears?”

Roland dropped the braised rib to his trencher. He looked first to Daria, saw that she was staring open-mouthed at the queen, and said quickly, “Your highness, I plan to return Daria to her uncle. It was a mission I accepted. I vowed I would return her to him a maid and otherwise unharmed. There is no question of marriage between us. I fear you have misunderstood the situation.”

Eleanor cocked her head to one side in question as she turned to the king. Edward looked grave. “It's you I don't understand, Roland. You are my friend and you are a man of honor. It's true you accepted the mission to rescue Daria, but all of that has changed now.
You
changed it when you—well, never mind that now. You must realize that you can no longer return Daria to anyone, not now. You have a responsibility toward her. She is a lady, Roland,
your
lady.”

Roland felt mired in confusion. He opened his mouth, but a servant appeared to fill the royal flagons with more sweet wine. Roland curbed his questions until the young man bowed his way out of the royal tent.

“I don't know what is happening here,” Roland said, staring directly at Daria now. “She is my responsibility. I readily acknowledge it and accept that she will continue to be so until I return her to her uncle.”

Daria was in her turn staring from the king to the queen and back again. They wanted Roland to wed her? All because she had confided in the queen that she loved him? Love had naught to do with anything. Even she knew that, not when it involved a dowry the size of hers.

But they fully expected Roland to wed her. Why?

She cleared her throat, saying before the king, whose complexion had reddened, could interrupt, “Nay, your highness, it's not for me to beg Roland to become my husband. It's true I am passing fond of him, but that has naught to do with anything. Pray do not make him feel sorry because I told you of my feelings for him. He's not responsible for my feelings. He will do as he pleases; as for me, I will try to dissuade him from returning me to my uncle. Perchance I shall have to smash his head and escape him.” As an attempt at wit, it failed utterly.

“But, my dear child,” the queen began, only to stop when the king said coldly, “Roland, you cannot be lost to all honor, surely you must realize—” He paused as the queen lightly closed her fingers over his. She whispered something to him. His eyes narrowed, then sparkled.

Eleanor looked at Daria. She said in a very gentle voice, “Did you not tell him, my dear?”

Roland jumped to his feet. “This goes beyond all bounds. Tell me what, by all the saints?”

“Quiet, Roland,” the king said.

Daria wanted to jump up and yell as loudly as Roland. What was happening here? “I don't understand, your highness. If you mean have I told him that I care for him, nay, I haven't. He wouldn't want to hear such words from me.”

“Damnation, Daria. What are you mumbling about? What do you mean, I wouldn't care?”

The king leaned over and buffeted Roland's shoulder. “You're a virile warrior, as potent in bed as you are on the battlefield, Roland, and now you'll have yourself a wife. Don't struggle further against your fate. It's about time, I think. The queen and I will act as godparents, and you—”

“Virile? What is this, what are you—?” His voice fell off abruptly and he stared at Daria. Her face was washed of color now, her eyes wide, her pupils dilated, her hands tight fists in her lap. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me now or I will haul you outside and beat you senseless.”

“Roland.”

“She will tell me what is happening here.” But he knew, indeed he knew what she would say, and it sickened him to his very soul.

“She is with child,” the queen said.

Roland couldn't comprehend her words even though he knew they were the words she would speak. With child. “By all the saints,
whose
child?”

Daria only shook her head, but the queen knew no reticence. Her voice was sharp. “Yours, naturally, Roland.”

“Mine? But that isn't possible. I never—” Again he stopped. All became clear to him. The earl had had two months to ravish her, and doubtless he had whenever he'd wished to. God, the girl was pregnant with the Earl of Clare's babe. He felt a wrenching pain in his gut. He felt a spurt of hatred so strong for the man he nearly choked on it. And Daria hadn't told him, hadn't even hinted at it, damn her. He wanted to strike her; he wanted to yell and strike himself. Instead, he drew a deep breath and said to the king, “If you would forgive us for a moment, sire, I would like to speak to Daria in private. As you and the queen have guessed, I hadn't realized any of this. She hadn't told me a thing. Daria, come outside.”

She obeyed him instantly, her head down, pale as death, the queen thought, watching the couple leave the tent, as if she were going to her execution.

The king stared after the man he'd known for six years, the man who'd worked for him tirelessly in the Holy Land, risking his life with every breath he took, with every word he spoke in Arabic, the man he trusted with his life.

He turned to his wife. “There is some sort of problem here, Eleanor?”

The queen looked as confused as her spouse. “I didn't mention her pregnancy to her, Edward; the child isn't a wife, after all, and I had no wish to embarrass her. I assumed she knew she was with child, assumed that Roland was her lover. She conceived the child about two months ago, I'd say. It's very odd. She didn't know she was with child. Evidently she'd known no illness, no vomiting.”

“Not so very odd,” the King said. He leaned over and kissed his wife. He laid his hand on her swelled belly. “Do you not remember our first babe, Eleanor? One of your women who suggested to you that you might be with child. You didn't know, hadn't guessed.”

“You're right, dear lord. By the saints, whatever will we do? I had no idea both of them were ignorant of the fact.”

“They will wed, as is fitting. They are both of the proper rank, they are both young and of good health, and you said the girl cares for him.”

“She loves him.”

The king waved that consideration away. “Roland will come about. He has no choice and he isn't a cruel man or an unjust one. She is a lady and he will wed her. She is also an heiress, and she will bring him sufficient dowry to buy the land and keep he wishes in Cornwall. A good solution. I've worried about him and his future. In the near future I might even raise him to the rank of his sour-natured brother, the Earl of Blackheath.”

The queen was chewing over the more romantic side of the situation. “The girl loves him more than—why, I cannot think of a good comparison, my lord, save to say that she loves Roland de Tournay as much as I do you, husband.”

“Ah, well, that is sufficient, I should think,” the king said, and sat back in his chair with satisfaction.

Outside the tent, Roland saw the several dozen soldiers posted around the royal tent and knew that he must contain his anger. He jerked her along with him, feeling her resistance. At the perimeter of the royal encampment, he paused and turned to her. Words and curses and confusion all whirled about in his mind, but he contented himself with, “Speak, Daria.”

“I don't understand how the queen—Perhaps she is mistaken, because I haven't felt ill or—It must be very complicated—”

“Being with child is the simplest thing in the world. All that's required is that a man plow a woman, nothing more, not a single blessed thing.”

“I didn't know, I tell you. I suppose the queen recognized signs in me that I hadn't noticed. I haven't been very aware of things, Roland. A prisoner isn't, you know.”

His hold tightened on her arm and she winced but made no sound. He shook her. “All right, you didn't know you carried a babe. Now you do know. It's true, isn't it? Have you had no monthly flow? Have your breasts swelled?”

She shook her head. He wouldn't stop; she knew him well enough to realize he would keep questioning her, keep pounding at her, until she told him the truth. Ah, the truth. That was the only thing he wouldn't believe. He had no memory of that night. What was she to do?

“Very well. Now, you will not lie to me. It will do neither of us any good. The earl had you, didn't he, took you before I got back to rescue you? Did he rape you when he first caught up with you? I thought that he would take you, for there was no priest to try to hold him back from going to your bed. It is his babe you carry. Why didn't you tell me he'd ravished you? Why? You know I still would have rescued you if you'd wished it.”

“The earl didn't force me,” she said, her voice low and dull.

He cursed and stomped away from her. He yelled at her over his shoulder, “Damn you, Daria. A female is born with lies in her mouth, just waiting for a gullible male to come along. More fool I. By all the saints, I will take you back to the Earl of Clare this very night. You said he didn't force you. Therefore you were willing. No wonder you left me in Wrexham. You couldn't before, but then I was too ill to know what you were about.” He smote his forehead with his palm. “Will I never cease being a fool?”

“Evidently not.”

He turned on her then, fury radiating from him. “There was no need for you to escape with me this second time, at least none that I can think of. He must have taken you until you were well used to it. Unless you wanted me to punish him? I cannot fathom your mind, curse you. Tell me why you escaped with me. Why?”

“The earl didn't ravish me, nor did I give myself to him willingly. He made a vow that he wouldn't touch me until we were wedded, and he kept it. I believe he was quite proud of himself that he didn't break his oath. It's not his child that grows in me.”

Roland could but stare at her. He'd believed her guileless, candid, faultless as a child. But she wasn't a child. She was a woman and she was with child. Whose could it be? He'd been with her constantly, save when he'd been ill in Wrexham. If the earl had forced her, why didn't she admit it? Did she think he would blame her for that whoreson's violence? When he'd come to rescue her that second time, he'd fought the knowledge that the earl had raped her, for it had made no sense to him that he wouldn't have. But she was claiming that he hadn't taken her. He shook his head.

“Then who took you?”

She looked at him straightly. The time for deception was long over, as was the time for protecting him from the knowledge of what he'd done. He wanted the truth; very well, then, he would have it. “You did.”

She winced as he laughed, even though she wasn't surprised at his reaction. He marveled aloud, “Such a lie as that can never work, Daria. A man knows when he takes a woman. It isn't something that passes unheeded like a belch. When is this babe of yours to arrive?”

“Since I know the precise day the babe was conceived, I can figure it out quickly enough.”

“And just when was this precise day?”

“In Wrexham, over two months ago.”

He'd been so very ill there; he hadn't protected her. “Were you ravished there? You went out alone and a man attacked you? You can admit it to me, Daria. I won't blame you, I swear it. Come, tell me. Were you ravished there?”