Read Online Earth Song by Catherine Coulter - Free Book Online Page B

now.” He looked quite wicked as he said, “Take off your gown and dance for my people.”
    She stared at him. “Your priest would not approve.”
    Dienwald took his turn at staring. “ ‘Tis true,” he said. “Father Cramdle would flee to meet his maker.”
    â€œVery well. If my choices are between being your mistress and telling you the name of that awful man my father wished me to wed, and if you then plan to ransom me to that horrid old man and make me suffer his presence for the rest of my life, then my answer is obvious. I will be your mistress until you don’t want me anymore.”
    It took a moment for her flow of words to make sense. When they did, he refused to let her see how stunned he was. Was her intended husband that repulsive? Or had she simply no womanly delicacy? No, she was just toying with him, first telling him nay, then changing her tune.
    â€œI could give you over to my men,” he continued thoughtfully. “You are really not to my taste, with your big bones and your legs as long as a man’s. Have you also feet the size of a man’s?”
    Philippa was frightened; she didn’t understand this man. Unlike her father, who would have been purple-faced with rage and yelling his head off by now, this man’s agile tongue cavorted hither and yon, leaving her mind in disarray. Shedidn’t want to have to prance atop the trestle table naked. She didn’t want Father Cramdle to clutch his heart with shock. All the power she’d felt whilst they fenced with words had been an illusion at best. The fact that this man didn’t kick children or dogs or chickens didn’t automatically endow him with an honorable nature. Now he was showing his true colors. Now he was get ting down to serious business. She opened her mouth, but what came out was unbidden and unsanctioned.
    â€œYou make me sound like an ugly girl.”
    She was appalled that such errant vanity could come from her brain, much less from her mouth. But his insults, piled up now as high as the stale and matted rushes on the cold stone floor, had cut deep.
    He laughed, an evil laugh. “Nay, but a gentle soft lady you are not. Now, let me see. There must be something about you that is . . . You do have very nice eyes. The blue is beyond anything I have ever seen, even beyond the blue speckles on robins’ eggs. There, does that placate your female vanity?”
    Philippa managed to say nothing. To her surprise, she saw the fool, Crooky, who’d been crouched beside Dienwald on the floor beside her chair, leap to his feet and sing out a coarse lyric about the effect a woman’s blue eyes could have on a man’s body.
    Dienwald burst into loud laughter, and at the sound, the remaining fifty people in the great hall guffawed and thumped their fists on the tables until the beams seemed to shake with their raucous mirth.
    â€œCome here, Crooky, you witless fool,”Philippa called out over the din, caution again tossed to the four winds, “I want to kick your ribs.”
    Dienwald looked at the girl beside him. She was laughing, and she’d mimicked him perfectly.
    Philippa, basking in her temporary wit, failed to notice that utter silence had fallen. She further failed to notice how everyone was gazing from her to Dienwald with ill-disguised consternation.
    Then she noticed. If he didn’t cut her throat, he’d throw her to his men. She didn’t doubt it. He hadn’t a shred of honor, and she’d crossed the line. Without a word, she quickly slipped out of the chair, jumped back, and ran as fast as she could toward the huge oak doors of the great hall.

5
Windsor Castle
    Robert Burnell, Chancellor of England and King Edward’s trusted secretary, rubbed a hand over his wide forehead, leaving a black ink stain.
    â€œÂ â€˜Tis time to take your rest,” King Edward said, stretching as he rose. He was a large man, lean