Earth Song Read Free Page A

From a beloved younger daughter—at least by her father—to a cast-off daughter who wasn’t loved by anyone, who had no hold on her parents, who was of no account, who had only her shift and nothing more . . . What had she done? How had she offended them so deeply as to find herself thus discarded?
    Even as Ivo turned, his young face set, she couldn’t make herself move. Finally, when Ivo was close enough to see her, she did move, turned on the toes of her soft leather slippers, and raced away. The toes of the slippers were long and pointed, the latest fashion from Queen Eleanor’s court, and they weren’t meant for running. Philippa tripped twice before she reached the seclusion of her chamber. She slid the bolt across the thick oak door and leaned against it, breathing harshly.
    It wasn’t just that they didn’t want her. Nor was it that they simply wanted her away from them and from Beauchamp. They wanted to punish her. They wanted to give her to that profane old man, de Bridgport. Why? There was noanswer that came to mind. She could, she supposed, simply go ask her father why he and her mother were doing this. She could ask him how she had offended them so much that they wanted to repulse her and chastise her.
    Philippa looked out the narrow window onto the inner ward of Beauchamp Castle. Comforting smells drifted upward with the stiff eastern breeze, smells of dogs and cattle and pigs and the lathered horses of Lord Henry’s men-at-arms. The jakes were set in the outer wall in the western side of the castle, and the wind, fortunately, wafted away the smell of human excrement today.
    This was her home; she’d never questioned that she belonged; such thoughts would never have occurred to her. She knew that Lady Maude cared not for her, not as she cared for Bernice, but Philippa had ignored the hurt she’d felt as a child, coming not to care over the years, and she’d tried instead to win her father, to make him proud of her, to make him love her. But now even her father had sided with Lady Maude. She was to be exiled to William de Bridgport’s keep and company and bed. She felt a moment of deep resentment toward her sister. Bernice, who’d been the only one to garner the stingy affections Lady Maud had doled out as if a hug or a kiss were something to be hoarded.
    Was it because Philippa was taller than her father, a veritable tower of a girl who had not the soft sweet look of Bernice? Lady Maude had told Ivo that she was called the Giant. Philippa hadn’t known; she’d never heard that, even from Bernice in moments of anger.
    Was it because she’d been born a girl and not a boy?
    Philippa shook her head at that thought. If true, then Bernice wouldn’t be exempt from displeasure, surely.
    Philippa wasn’t really a giant, just tall for a female, that was all. She turned from the window and looked blankly around her small chamber.
    It was a comfortable room with strewn herbs and rushes covering the cold stone floor. She had to do something. She could not simply wait here for William de Bridgport to come and claim her.
    It occurred to Philippa at that moment to wonder why Lord Henry had gone to such pains to educate her if his intention were simply to marry her off to William de Bridgport. It seemed a mighty waste unless de Bridgport wanted a steward and a wife and a brood mare all in one. Philippa had been Lord Henry’s steward for the past two years, since old Master Davie had died of the flux, and she was becoming more skilled by the day. What use was it all now? she wondered as she unfastened her soft leather belt, stripped off her loose-fitting sleeveless overtunic of soft pale blue linen and then her long fitted woolen gown, nearly ripping the tight sleeves in her haste. She stood for a moment clothed only in her white linen shift that came to mid-thigh. Then she jerked the shift over her head. She realized in that instant that