Earth Song Read Free Page B

she’d seen something else in the inner ward of the castle. She’d seen several wagons loaded high with raw wool bound for the St. Ives April Fair. Two wagons belonged to the demesne farmers and one to Lord Henry.
    She stood tall and naked and shivering, not with cold, but with the realization that she couldn’t stay here and be forced to wed de Bridgport. She couldn’t remain here at Beauchamp andpretend that nothing had happened. She couldn’t remain here like a helpless foundling awaiting her fate. She could hear Bernice taunting her now: . . . an evil old man for you, a handsome young man for me. I’m the favorite and now you’ll pay, pay  . . .
    She wasn’t helpless. In another minute Philippa had pulled a very old shapeless gown over an equally old shift and topped the lot with an over-tunice that had been washed so many times its color was now an indeterminate gray. She replaced her fashionable pointed slippers with sturdy boots that came to her calves. She quickly took strips of linen and cross-gartered the boots to keep them up. She braided her thick hair anew, wound it around her head, and shoved a woolen cap over it. The cap was too small, having last been worn when she was but nine years old, but it would do.
    Now she simply had to wait until it grew dark. Her cousin Sir Walter de Grasse, Lady Maude’s nephew, lived near St. Ives. He was the castellan of Crandall, a holding of the powerful Graelam de Moreton of Wolffeton. Philippa had met Walter only twice in her life, but she remembered him as being kind. It was to her cousin she’d go. Surely he would protect her, surely. And then . . . To her consternation, she saw the farmers and three of her father’s men-at-arms fall in beside the three wagons. They were leaving now!
    Philippa was confounded, but only for a minute. Beauchamp had been her home for nearly eighteen years. She knew every niche and cavity of it. She slipped quietly from her chamber, crept down the deep stairs into the great hall, saw that no one noticed her, and escaped through the great open oak doors into the inner ward.Quickly, she thought, she must move quickly. She ran to the hidden postern gate, cleared it enough to open it, and slipped through. She clamped her fingers over her nostrils, shuddered with loathing, and waded into the stinking moat. The moat suddenly deepened, and her feet sank into thick mud, bringing the slimy water to her eyebrows. She coughed and choked and gagged, then swam to the other side, crawled up the slippery bank, and raced toward the Dunroyal Forest beyond. The odor of the moat was now part of her.
    Well, she wasn’t on her way to London to meet the king. She was bent on escape. She wiped off her face as best she could and stared down the pitted narrow road. The wagons would come this way. They had to come this way.
    And they did, some twenty minutes later. She pulled her cap down and hid, positioning herself. The wagons came slowly. The three men-at-arms accompanying the wagons to the fair were jesting about one of the local village women who could exercise a man better than a day of working in the fields.
    Philippa didn’t hear anything else. From the protection of her hiding place she flung several small rocks across the road. They ripped into the thick underbrush, thudding loudly, and the men-at-arms reacted immediately. They whipped their horses about, drawing the craning attention of the farmers who drove the wagons. As quickly as she could move, Philippa slipped to the second wagon and burrowed under the piles of dirty gray wool. She couldn’t smell the foul odor of the raw wool because she’d become used to the smell of the moat that engulfed her. The wool was coarseand scratchy, and any exposed flesh was instantly miserable. She would ignore it; she had to. She relaxed a bit when she heard one of the men-at-arms yell, “ ‘Tis naught!”
    â€œAye, a