Secret Song (27 page)

But Daria wasn't ill; her thoughts were bleak. She wanted to cry, but that solved naught. She could see her mother weeping silently, her hands covering her face, weeping that meant nothing to anyone, and certainly never changed anything.

“Would you like some warm ale, Daria?”

She forced a smile to her lips. “Aye, and I thank you.”

“Please, call me Kassia.”

Later, downstairs in Wolffeton's great hall, Kassia de Moreton said to her husband, “What do you make of all this, my lord?”

“Of Roland and his new wife? Why, I should like to see her when her face isn't green and when she isn't clutching her belly.”

“She is with child.”

“Aye, Roland told me. Odd, the way he said it. Not the way a man should, I don't think.”

“You mean, my lord, he didn't begin to strut about like a smug cock with his announcement?”

But Graelam didn't return her humor with his own. He shook his head, looking thoughtful. “Something is amiss. Do you mind keeping the girl here whilst Roland travels to his keep—rather the keep he will soon own?”

“Not at all.”

Later in the afternoon, Daria, embarrassed at her illness, emerged from the chamber feeling as wonderful as she had when Roland had become her husband. She was walking down the winding stone stairs when she met him coming up. She stood on the step above him.

He said nothing for a few moments, studying her face.

“I'm fine,” she said quickly. “I'm sorry. This illness is so unpredictable.”

He remained silent. Then he stepped up onto the step with her, pressing her against the stone wall. He felt the length of her legs, her soft belly, her breasts flattening against his chest. He raised his hand and absently began caressing the line of her jaw.

Daria began to tremble. She couldn't help it. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, wishing he would close his arms around her, wishing he would kiss her and tell her that he'd missed her and wanted her. “Roland,” she said.

Roland said nothing.

He continued to stroke her jaw with his callused fingertip. When she unconsciously leaned her face against his hand, he withdrew, turned, and left her. He called over his shoulder, “If you are well enough, there is food for you in the great hall.”

The main meal of the day at Wolffeton Castle was served in the late afternoon. The sun still shone outside, for it was deep summer. The hall was filled with laughter and jesting and howls of outraged humor.

Daria sat beside her husband, picking at her food. The herring was delicious, she knew it, but she was afraid to eat because she didn't want to become ill again, at least not today.

She heard Lord Graelam speaking to Roland about the king and his grandiose plans for castle-building in Wales. “So he is now visiting all the Marcher Barons. Eating them down to bare granaries and assessing their strength. Edward has always employed sound strategies.”

Kassia turned to her new guest. “Try eating some of this soft bread soaked in the milk.”

“I feel wonderful, truly, it's just that I wish to continue feeling this way. I don't like Roland to see me when—well, he is very kind about it, but—” Her voice dropped into nothing.

“But nothing,” Kassia said briskly. “Now, tell me of your adventures. I overheard just a bit, and wish to know everything.”

The evening passed pleasantly. Daria had begun to relax and to smile again. When Kassia excused herself to feed her babe, Harry, Roland turned to his wife and said, “Are you tired? Would you like to retire now?”

She nodded, feeling weariness tug at her.

Roland looked down at his empty trencher and said, “I will come to you tonight, since you are well. Prepare yourself for me. You belong to me, and if you aren't ill, then I wish to treat you as a man does his wife.”

She hated the coldness of this, hated the man he became when he remembered himself her husband.

“What do you mean that I am
to prepare myself?
Do you wish me to stand naked in the middle of the chamber when you enter? Do you wish me to lie on my back with my legs parted? What is it you wish, Roland?”

He sucked in his breath, surprised at her attack. He wouldn't allow her sarcasm at his expense. “I wish you to cease your insolence, Daria. What I meant was simply that you know I intend to take you tonight, so be prepared for it.”

“Will you treat me as you did on our wedding night or will you be gentle and tender and call me by another woman's name?”

“There was no other night save our wedding night, damn you. No more lies, Daria.”

“Then you won't be gentle. You will take me without speaking a kind word to me. You will treat me like a slut who deserves nothing but your contempt.”

He leaned close to her, for her voice had risen. “Speak softly, wife. I have no wish for our host to wonder why you become the shrew.”

She rose, not waiting for him or one of the servants to assist her. She hissed down at him, “I won't
prepare
myself, Roland, as you so sweetly say it. I don't want you to come to me; I don't want you to treat me like a convenient body to be used by you. Sleep with one of the castle wenches, I care not.”

She swept from the dais, leaving her husband to stare after her, half of him wanting to thrash her, the other half wanting to rip off her clothing and caress her and kiss her until she screamed for him to come into her.

Under his breath he said, “Damned unreasonable wench.”

“I believe I have told you before, Roland, that women are the very devil.”

Roland looked at the fierce warrior who sat on his right side and grinned reluctantly. “Your lady is sweet and guileless and tender as a ripe peach. You cannot be mean her.”

“No, but I did, at one time. It wasn't too long ago. I misjudged her severely. I hurt her repeatedly. Now I would sever my arm before I would see her sprain her little finger.”

Roland had nothing to say to that. He merely raised an incredulous brow.

“Your wife is upset—nay, she is but a bride. You are wedded less than a week. She isn't at all uncomely, Roland, and I assume that you found her much to your liking, since she is with child. So—”

“I don't wish to speak of the babe or of her.”

“Ah, you simply wish to bend her to your will?”

“It is a beginning. I begin to believe her well-broken, then she flings her sarcasm at my head. I don't like it.”

“The problem, Roland, is that a man's will seems to shift and change with the passing minutes and hours, particularly if the lady resides in his mind or in his spirit.”

“I simply desire her, that is all. She resides nowhere, certainly not within any part of me. Any female would do just as well. Any female would probably do better, since Daria is so ignorant, she must be instructed to—well—”

To Roland's relief, Graelam de Moreton held his peace. Indeed, he turned to speak to his steward, a craggy-faced man named Blount.

Roland drank another flagon of ale in splendid silence, left to himself by his host. He chewed over his own feelings of ill use at the hands of a female who should be babbling with gratitude, who should be fully aware that she would be lying dead in a ditch if it weren't for his generosity. By all the saints, he'd tended her with compassion whenever she'd been ill. And here was Graelam quoting pithy words that were likely from some minstrel's lay. At last he bade his lord and lady a good night and strode from the great hall, his destination his wife's bed.

There would be no sarcasm from her mouth when he covered her.

Daria sat on a narrow chair close to one of the window slits. The night was clear, a sliver of moon glowing through an occasional cloud. A breeze cooled her brow. There was a lone dog in the inner bailey below. He occasionally raised his head and barked when a soldier strode by on his way to the Wolffeton barracks. Time passed.

Daria knew he would come to her eventually, so she wasn't startled when the chamber door opened and then quietly closed. Nor did she move.

She didn't wait for him to command her, but said only, not turning to face him, “I mean it, Roland. You will not shame me again.” She was pleased her voice sounded firm in the silent chamber. She desperately wanted to look at him, to see if the expression on his face had gentled. His words told her of his expression as he said calmly, “I will do just as I please with you, Daria. You are my wife, my chattel, my possession. And what I please to do with you now is come into you.”

She was glad that she wasn't facing him. She felt the night breeze flutter through the tendrils of hair on her forehead, felt the softness of the night on her face. “I remember the first time—I loved you so very much, you see, and there was nothing on this earth I wouldn't have done for you. I was terrified that you would die, terrified that you would be gone from me when I'd just found you. I wanted you, all of you, and that night I knew that you would teach me what it was like to be joined to the man I loved, and I was happy. When you were fevered and wanted me—”

“Nay, I have never wanted you,” he said, and was thankful she hadn't turned, for she would see the lie in his eyes.

“Very well, you wanted that woman Lila. You didn't hurt me overly, even in your urgency, and I remember those feelings that were building deep inside me, low in my belly, I think, but then when you came into me, there was pain and the feelings left me.” Now she turned to face him, her head cocked to one side in question.

“Were those feelings real, Roland? This woman's pleasure you speak about, is it real? I have wondered.”

“When you take a lover, perhaps you will learn the answer.”

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. “Then, just as you were about to spill your seed inside me, you stared up at me and your hands tightened about my waist, and in that instant I thought you recognized me, knew
me,
knew that you were joined to
me,
not that woman Lila.”

Daria shrugged and turned back to the window slit. “Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps I wanted so much for you to whisper my name, to moan that you loved me. Perhaps you will never remember that instant in time when you were with me, when we were together, when you belonged to me—”

He laughed, a low, mocking laugh. “Remember a moment of time that is naught but an elaborate fancy of yours? A fabric you have woven of unreal cloth? If I remember aright, you say that you bathed my sex and groin afterward, that you—my embarrassed little virgin—wiped me free of your blood and my man's seed.”

“That's right. There was no embarrassment. I'd cared for you because you were ill, and I loved you. Aye, I bathed you because I didn't want you to wonder and perhaps guess what had happened between us, and feel guilt and obligation for me. As I told you, it was my decision to give myself to you, and thus the responsibility was mine. But then it all went awry. For that, Roland, I am truly sorry. But the child,
our
child—I just wanted—”

He sliced his hand through the air. “Enough of your lies, Daria. The saints know you've gotten exactly what you wanted, though I cannot see that I am such a prize to any woman. So you have me and my name; your child will have my name. And if it is a male child you birth, why, then, I will have my honor shoved down my throat to the day I die.”

“Roland, would you have still not wanted to marry me if I had not been with child?”

He stared at her, for a moment nonplussed. He held himself silent over the words that wanted to pour out of his mouth. He said then, quietly, “If the king had still insisted that I marry you, then yes, I would have.”

“And you would have been kinder to me when you took me?”

“Enough of this. I will hear no more of your ridiculous surmises, Daria. I will tell you that now—this instant—I want nothing more than to sink into your soft woman's flesh. Remove your clothing and lie on the bed. Be fast about it, I have not had a woman in a long time.”

“You had me not very long ago.”

“That duty hardly counted. It was a simple rutting, a coupling to be endured, little more. Perhaps I shall take my time this night and take you until I am sated on your skinny body.”

“No.”

He walked to her then and very gently clasped her upper arms in his hands. He turned her around until she was facing him. His breath was warm on her face. His voice was as cold as his eyes as he said, “Never will you refuse me. Never.”

“I'm refusing you now, Roland. I must. I cannot allow you to grind me beneath your heel, I cannot allow you to treat me like I'm worth so very little.”

“I'm the one ground down, Daria. There is a proverb my father used to throw into the breach at odd moments and that is: a man must begin as he means to go on. You will not gainsay me; you will not willfully disobey me in anything. I won't tolerate that. I have paid too dear to allow it. I will force you, Daria, if you continue to refuse me.”

She didn't move. Then, suddenly, she jerked free of him and dashed to the chamber door. She heard the chair crash to the floor, heard him trip over it. She was through the door in an instant, his flung-out arm missing her shoulder by inches.

“Where will you go?” he yelled after her. “You stupid girl, where will you go?”

He heard her dashing footsteps on the winding stone stairs. He heard a loud cry and a thud. His heart heaved to his throat, and he dashed to the top of the steps just outside the bedchamber door. He took them two at a time, nearly falling himself in his haste. Around the curve of the stairs, he saw Salin, consternation writ on his ugly face, bending down to where Daria lay slumped against the stair wall.