Warrior's Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

hope you will now agree to wed me. I should hate to be forced to take that boy back with us to Cornwall, although several good thrashings just might improve him, something it appears your father hasn't done."
    Â Â Â Â "My lord, you'll not believe this, but Croyland has been taken."
    Â Â Â Â Lambert, tall, skinny as a tent pole, nearly fell off his horse, scrambling not to lose his balance as he ran to Jerval. "I didn't believe it myself at first, but one of the villagers told me to keep clear of the castle because Lord Graelam de Moreton and thirty of his men hold it now."
    Â Â Â Â "This is madness," Jerval de Vernon said slowly, trying to understand. "How is this possible?" He was tired. He and his twenty men had ridden for three days to get to Croyland, and now, Lord Richard had somehow been overcome?
    Â Â Â Â "Lord Richard isn't there," Lambert said, still panting from his wild ride back to their campsite in a protected inlet by the water. The waves made a gentle, rolling sound, constant and low, and the sun was brilliant overhead. "It was a trick, a ruse. The villager told me that Lord Richard had caught a man skulking about, and the man finally admitted that he was scouting around for Cadwallon, that Welsh bandit. He was planning a surprise attack on Lord Richard when he and his men left Croyland to hunt. Lord Richard took his men to catch the bandit. But Cadwallon is nowhere about. It was Graelam de Moreton who sent the spy there. Another villager said that de Moreton caught Lady Chandra out hunting with some of her men. It was over then. Another villager said that he held a knife to her back and told them that he would slit her throat if they didn't lower the drawbridge. It was quickly done."
    Â Â Â Â "But why would he do that?" Sir Mark asked, slapping his leather gloves against his thigh. "He must know that he could never hold Croyland. Why?"
    Â Â Â Â Lambert said, "He doesn't want Croyland. He came because he wants Lady Chandra. He plans to wed her this very night, done by Croyland's own priest."
    Â Â Â Â "By all the saints' buried sins," Jerval said, grinning like a madman, "this is something that will surely invigorate the blood." Then he laughed and rubbed his hands together. "The little princess got her comeuppance, did she?" He laughed again. "My father tells me that she is known for her pride— bred, he claims, into her very bones. Her valor as well, though that makes little sense. Well, I suppose that we must do something about it. It wouldn't do to have Lord Graelam wed her, not when we have ridden three days to get here ourselves so I could marry her."
    Â Â Â Â "You know you don't have to wed her, Jerval," Sir Mark said. "Your father just asked you to look her over."
    Â Â Â Â Jerval just smiled. His father, Lord Hugh, was eager for the alliance. Camberley was close enough to Croyland to provide mutual protection, and his father had raved on and on about her beauty after he'd seen his only son back away when he spoke of her fierce pride, her bravery. No woman, he'd said again and again, was as beautiful as Chandra of Croyland.
    Â Â Â Â Jerval didn't believe that for a moment, but he had agreed to come and see her for himself. This glorious creature, according to his father, had hair golden as a sheaf of wheat ripening under the summer sun, flowing hair spun into minstrel's verses, and ah, her eyes— the color of the sky in early July when it was warm and still and so clear it made you weep. What tripe. There was no female in the known world who looked like that. Of course, his father had seen her only once when he had been visiting Croyland some four years before. He shook his head. His father really wanted the alliance. Jerval had a very bad feeling about her.
    Â Â Â Â On the other hand, Graelam de Moreton had taken Croyland just to get her. Perhaps his father had somehow spread the same exaggerations to Lord