“Even our own husbands can beat their wives, if they wish.”
“Has Jerval ever beaten you?”
“Nay, but still he thinks himself my lord, and he is angry if I disobey him.” Which she hadn’t done since they’d begun their voyage to the Holy Land. There’d been naught but peace between them, and a friendship that was still growing by the day, and she feared that her liking for him would grow so great that when he did become angry with her, that liking wouldn’t disappear. But his liking for her might, and she didn’t know if she could bear that.
“When you discover a perfect world, dear child,” Eleanor said, “I beg you to invite me to visit you. Edward is stronger than I, just as Jerval is stronger than you, and it is to them that we must trust our safety, and the safety of our children. We—not our husbands—are the givers of life. It is through us that life continues.”
“But why must we be less than men? Why must we always live in the shadow of their wishes?”
“I have never believed myself less than my lord, nor do I perceive that Jerval yearns for the cowering, veiled Moslem women. I have my responsibilities, my duties, just as does Edward. Together, we make a whole and a meaningful life. Our marriage vows bind us, but it is our love and our respect for each other that give us joy. Are you so unhappy, child?”
Chandra shook her head. “Nay, I have not been so really since we left England. I thank you, Eleanor, for convincing Jerval to allow me to come with him.”
You were so miserable at Camberley, Eleanor wanted to say, so unknowing of yourself and your husband, I only wanted to help you, but she said only, “I believe I hear Edward. Ah, Jerval is with him.”
CHAPTER 24
“My lord,” Eleanor said, rising to greet Edward. He took her hand and pressed her back gently onto the cushions. “Nay, my love, do not disturb our babe.” He sank down on a cushion next to his wife and rested his hand on Eleanor’s stomach, grinning with pleasure. “Jerval, it is time you filled Chandra’s belly. I vow she’ll look nearly as beautiful as Eleanor when she is with child.”
“Such things take time, my lord,” Jerval said. And he thought of the long weeks he hadn’t touched her, then of the endless nights in Tunis and here on Sicily that he’d spent loving her. He nearly shuddered thinking about how it felt to be deep inside her, touching her womb. And then he realized that she hadn’t wept, not once since he’d made love to her after they’d left England. Nor had she left their bed before he’d awakened the next morning.
“You, my lord,” Eleanor said, “seem to take all the credit.”
“I would kill any other man who dared to,” Edward said.
Chandra jumped to her feet and said to Jerval, “Cannot we walk for a while? Along the palace walls?”
Jerval rose gracefully and looked toward Edward.
“Aye, get you gone, Jerval. I have no need of you until tonight; then it’s yet another meeting with Charles. The man is more stubborn than a goat with an old boot. Aye, go bring roses back into your wife’s cheeks.”
As they strolled away along the marble balcony, Chandra heard Eleanor giggle. “They are so happy,” she said. “They are what they are and they are happy.”
He said, not looking at her, “That is because they accept each other for what they are.”
“And you do not accept me for what I am.”
He looked at her then. “Do you know that I was furious when I knew you were coming with me?”
“Aye, I know it.”
“But my anger fell away quickly enough. You change daily, Chandra.” He shrugged. “I know that I would give anything to carry you into the gardens below and have my way with you.”
She realized she wanted him as well, right this moment. She looked away from him. They stopped along the balcony wall, and Jerval leaned his elbows on the smooth mosaic tiles to look out over the blue Mediterranean.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said. “Not at all like the winters at home. I have yet to spend a winter at Camberley. Is there much snow?”
“Aye. Three years ago the lake froze. We rubbed wooden planks with duck lard and held races.” He grinned. “You should have seen Bayon. Rolfe gave him a mighty shove and he went flying over the ice, flailing his arms, screaming for God to save him. He smashed into bushes, but he didn’t get hurt because there was so much snow.” He turned to face her. “When we are home, the lake will freeze again. Mayhap I will allow you to race against me.”
“I am grown so soft, I would likely break my neck.” She thrust her arm toward him and pushed up her loose sleeve. “Feel, Jerval, I have scarce any muscle left.”
He closed his fingers about her upper arm and squeezed gently. “Aye, you are soft, but it is not at all displeasing, at least to me.”
“You’d best be careful that I become too weak to ply my needle on your tunics.”
He couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t taken offense. Maybe she really was changing, growing more content to be a woman, to be his wife and not some proud and vainglorious warrior. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. “How are you passing your days? I scarce see you.”
“You know I spend most of my time with the women. Sometimes I grow so tired of their chatter. And the waiting. How went your hunt?”
“Well. We brought down three deer and one boar. I also grow tired of all the men’s talk. Waiting is the same for all of us.”
“Hunting would not be boring. I would surely love to go hunting the next time.”
“I’m sorry, Chandra, but it is only men. I wouldn’t want you to be the only lady on the hunt.”
“I was always the only lady at home.”
“Not here. It simply isn’t done. I’m sorry, but we must both be patient.”
She said nothing, and he realized indeed how much she’d changed. She was willing to accept his word. “You really have changed since we left England.”
“There has been little chance for me to commit the sin of angering you.”
“All you need is opportunity, and we would be at each other’s throats again? Is that what you mean?”
Jerval lightly touched his fingertips to the tendrils of hair on her forehead and brushed them back. “Do you know that you would look beautiful with your belly rounded with child?”
She turned away from him, looking out over the gardens. “I lost a child. It hurt, Jerval, both my body and my spirit.”
“I know. I remember, too well. All the blood, your screams. It was very bad, Chandra. I am also sorry for blaming you. I was wrong. I hope you can forgive me. You know, of course, that Camberley must have an heir.”
“Aye, I know. Since you are with me each night now, I will probably conceive your heir a long way from Camberley.”
“I will keep you safe if you do conceive. I do not want you to be afraid.”
“I am, but it doesn’t matter. What we do each night—I don’t wish you to stop and thus I will have no choice in whether or not I conceive.”
“I know.”
She thought of his mouth on hers, the feel of him deep inside her, pushing and pushing until she was screaming with the pleasure of it, holding him tightly.
“You haven’t cried.”
She knew exactly what he was talking about. She said only, not looking at him, “I do not understand it.”
“Change,” he said. “You are changing.”
“And so are you, Jerval. You are changing back to the man I married.”
Was he? he wondered.
A silent Sicilian woman had brought Chandra buckets of steaming, lavender-scented water for her bath, and at Chandra’s distracted wave, had left her. Chandra sat on an ornately carved stool in her bedchamber, her legs resting over the side of the wooden tub, soaping herself as was her custom before rinsing herself in the clear water. She was thinking of Croyland, of the days before her marriage, when she had competed with Jerval in every sport she could devise. She could practically hear his laughter mingling with hers, hear his voice teasing her. She had
felt a sense of freedom, and of belonging with him then. Her washcloth slowed its path over her breasts as she remembered watching him riding tall and ramrod-straight in his saddle, his lance held firmly in his strong hand, his eyes bright with concentration as he galloped Pith toward Rolfe on the tiltyard. She remembered the sunlight illuminating the darker golden streaks in his hair the day he had galloped toward her on the promontory. She sighed, and felt her body still pulsing from the early morning when he’d awakened her, his mouth on her breast, his hand on her belly, kneading her, then going lower until she was panting.
She did not know herself. She was not what she’d been, she realized, and Jerval knew it as well. It pleased him. She wondered what was happening to her.
Jerval opened the door of their chamber, grumbling silently at himself for his stupidity. He had forgotten a sheaf of notes Edward needed for discussions with King Charles. He drew to a halt, all thoughts of the notes wiped immediately from his mind. Chandra sat naked on a stool beside a wooden tub, her profile toward him, her back arched as she trailed a soapy cloth downward over her shoulders. He watched her touch the cloth as would a gentle lover over her breasts. She threw her head back, showing him the graceful line of her throat. She looked exquisite, her firm breasts thrusting outward, almost too heavy now for her slender torso. His eyes dropped downward to her waist, so slight that he could encircle her with his hands. He had, just that morning.
She began to hum softly to herself as she rubbed the soapy cloth downward over her belly. When she at last parted her thighs and touched herself, slowly caressing the cloth over herself, he was hard, painfully so. It had happened so very quickly. At last he recognized the song she was humming, a song of love she herself had written and sung to him, in all innocence, he knew, long ago at Croyland.
She rose slowly and leaned over to rinse the cloth in the water and wring it lazily over her body. His eyes swept down her long legs, sleek and smooth, endlessly beautiful legs. In that instant, she saw him. For a long, still moment, she simply stared at him, her eyes locked on his, the cloth quiet in her hand.
Jerval could think of nothing but her, being inside her, kissing her, every bit of her. He strode to her and closed his hands about her waist, lifting her to him. At the touch of her, he moaned deep in his throat and swept her upward, pressing her against the length of him. He tugged at the thick knot of hair at the back of her neck, spilling her hair over her shoulders and down her back. He pulled her toward him until he had her mouth beneath his. He buried his face against her throat and breathed in the lavender scent of her.
“Dear God,” he whispered against her temple. “It has been but three hours since I had you beneath me, and now I would willingly hurl myself in front of a Saracen army to have you again, right now.” He took her mouth again and moaned her name against her lips.
She didn’t hesitate. She welcomed the leap of pressure deep in her belly, the fierce hardness of him, his fingers curving over her hips to find her. She’d felt an immediate awakening when he’d appeared so suddenly, so unexpectedly. And then, when he’d nearly run to her, she saw herself as he must have seen her—languid, her every movement inviting. Actually, she’d been thinking of him, weaving him into the soft, incoherent thoughts and memories that had held her as she bathed herself.
She felt him bend her gently against his arm, felt his fingers trembling as they caressed her breast, then swept lower to her belly. “Surely it must be against the commandments of the Church to feel this way,” she said, and her hands were on him now, trying to pull off his clothes. He was laughing, slapping away her hands, and soon they were together, naked, on their bed, and he was kissing her and laughing between the kisses, telling her what he was going to do to her, and then she managed to get him onto his back and she was over him, telling him what she was going to do to him. Before he could do anything other than suck in his breath, her mouth was on his belly, and he tensed tighter than a bowstring. When she took him in her mouth, he yelled, nearly beside himself.
Just before he lost control, he heard her laugh, felt her warm breath all the way to his soul.
He was so felled by pleasure that it was many moments before he could speak, much less think. She was on her knees beside him, her palms on her thighs, and she was grinning down at him.
“I have brought you down,” she said.
“Aye, you have. Now it is my turn to show you that I’m your master in all things.” And he did. When she cried out, her body arching madly, he tried to laugh, but couldn’t.
And he said against her mouth when her breath was still fast and jerking, “I love you, Chandra.”
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at him, helplessly, so shaken with the power of his words that she couldn’t think, much less speak. At last, she whispered, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She wrapped her arms tightly around his back and pulled him to her. She held him tightly. “I’m so afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of what it will all mean. Of what will happen to me.” And then she opened her legs and brought him into her again. They both forgot her fear then.
Later, he wondered if it were indeed fear in her mind, or it if wasn’t more likely her damnable pride. He wondered if she would always suffer him as her husband—enjoy his body, but never give herself fully to him.
They left Sicily in early March and sailed to Acre on a storm-tossed sea. Chandra lay moaning on her pallet, so seasick from the storm that she prayed for oblivion. She felt a damp cloth on her forehead and forced her eyes to open. “I want to die,” she said.
“Nay, little one,” Jerval said, kissing her nose. “Here, drink some wine.”
She did as she was told, but after only a moment, she knew it wouldn’t work. “Oh, God. Please leave me alone, Jerval.”
“No, I won’t leave you.”
“Damn you, don’t you feel anything?”
“I cannot be ill. Who would take care of you if I were puking up my innards there beside you?”
She vomited into the pan he held for her. He gave her just a taste of water to wash out her mouth, then settled her back onto some blankets and stroked her shoulders. “You were also sick during that storm off the coast of Spain. I’m sorry, Chandra. It cannot be pleasant. The first thing we must do when we reach Acre—other than fight the Saracens—is to fatten you up.”
“You must hate me to speak of food.” She clutched her belly, drew her knees to her chest and moaned.
He rose and looked down at her clammy face. He was worried. “I must leave you with Joanna now, sweeting, and don my armor.”
“Why? What has happened?”
“The watch has sighted Acre, and it is under attack by the Saracens. Our timing could not be better. King Hugh of Cyprus and Jerusalem is within the city walls, and thus the attack.”
She tried to rise, but he gently pushed her down. “Joanna,” he called, “see that she rests.”
“Please take care.”
“You may be certain that I shall,” he said, kissed the tip of her nose, patted her cheek and left.
Chandra had been so excited when they had finally set sail for Acre with the thousand men in Prince Edward’s army. Now that it was in sight, she could not even rise to see it. She closed her eyes, remembering how Edward had slowly risen to his feet in King Charles’s magnificent banquet hall and kicked the soft pillows on which he had been seated away from him.
“Hear me, all of you,” he had said in a voice filled with passion. “King Charles has told us why we should not journey to the Holy Land. Now I will tell you that I made an oath before God. If my life is to be forfeit for keeping my holy vow, so be it.” He had thrown out his arms, embracing the entire company. “Do what your consciences dictate. I pledge before God that I will go to Acre to fight the Saracens if naught but my groom be with me!”
Payn de Chaworth had jumped to his feet and shouted, “You, sire, your groom, and I!”
Soon all were shouting, and Edward, flushed with plea
sure, had clasped each of his nobles in his arms, tears in his eyes.
“You will feel better soon,” Joanna said, lightly patting her face as though she were a child. “We are in the calmer waters of the harbor.”
“I want to see Acre,” Chandra said and pulled herself to her feet.
“Chandra, I promised Jerval to keep you quiet.”
“How can you look so healthy? I know, you have made a pact with the devil. Come, Joanna, I will not fall overboard, though I am tempted to end my own misery. Are you coming with me?”
“Aye, I would see that Payn is all right.”
From a ladder on the forecastle, Chandra looked toward the walled city of Acre. It was the largest city she had ever seen, its long white seaward wall towering over the water, seemingly impenetrable. There was smoke rising above the white stone walls that hugged the dock, and the acrid smell of fire. She saw Jerval in his glistening silver armor, the de Vernon lion emblazoned across the breast of his blue surcoat, standing at the fore of his men, poised to jump ashore when they reached land. Their ship scraped against the wooden dock, and Jerval leapt ashore, soldiers swarming after him. A huge seaward gate opened to them, and he was soon lost to her sight.
She called after him, but of course he did not hear her. The seaward gate opened several more times as groups of soldiers ran to it from the docking ships, and then there was an almost eerie quiet. She could hear only muted shouting, and the sound of the waves slapping against the ships that lolled near the dock. Chandra watched until the storm clouds over the city turned a deep crimson as the sun fell into the sea. She turned to see Joanna on her knees, praying, she thought, for Payn’s safety. There was no messenger to tell them what was happening. Her stomach cramped viciously, and she doubled over, moaning.
She awoke that evening to see her husband staring down at her, his blue surcoat splattered with blood. She lurched up, terrified. “Oh, God, you’re hurt, you’re—”
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m much better than you are, by the looks of you. What in God’s name are you doing up here on the forecastle?” He shook his head, expecting no sensible answer, and turned to the knight beside him. “Sir Elvan, this is my wife, Chandra. Chandra, this is Sir Elvan, a Templar, and a physician. He is here to help you.” A tall, leather-faced man in full armor stood beside him, a huge red cross stitched on his white surcoat.