Chessa smiled in relief. She loved her father dearly. She hated to distress him. She said now, without thought, “Will you invite this Cleve of Malverne to dine with us?”
“Why?”
“To see if he will speak like a man and not continue like a smooth-pebbled rock skipping over the water.”
“You aren’t simply content to stare at his handsome face? At his golden eye and blue eye? At his well-made man’s body?”
“For a while, perhaps. Nay, for more than just awhile. But you know, Father, his voice is very nice and pleases me.”
“Very well. Oh, I hear you and your stepmother were fighting today. What about this time?”
“Did Cleve of Malverne tell you?”
“No, sweeting, he did not. Why would he? How would he know of it? What did you fight about?”
“I would prefer not to speak of it.”
“You will do as I tell you. What, Chessa?”
“She struck little Ingrid again.”
“What did the girl do this time?”
“She wasn’t fast enough with Sira’s hair comb. Sira bruised her ribs she struck her so hard with her fist.”
“I will speak to her,” he said. “Try not to fight with her, Chessa, all right?”
“Certainly. Do you want yet more sons off her? Is that why you allow her to be so damnably wicked?”
He sighed, smoothed his hands over the soft linen of his purple robe, and said, “You are still young—”
“I am eighteen. Most girls are married and have babes by my age.”
“Nonetheless, you are innocent in the ways of men and women. Sira gives me much, Chessa, much that you can’t begin to understand.”
“She gives you her body whenever you ask? You needn’t deny it, I know that’s important to men. But I’ve seen her naked, Father. She’s borne four children. Her breasts are lined and so is her belly. All right, so she doesn’t have extra flesh, but still—”
“The childbirthing lines make no difference. It’s the way of life. It doesn’t lessen a woman’s beauty. No, it’s other things, things you can’t understand as yet.”
“Things Ragnor wanted to teach me but I wouldn’t let him.”
“He touched you?”
Chessa had to smile at the sudden grimness in her father’s voice. Debauching his wife was one thing. A man touching his daughter was quite another.
“Yes, but I put a stop to it. That’s when he began spouting all his lies about loving me beyond the time of doom. I swear to you, he actually said beyond the time of doom. I could but stare at him. He was a fool.”
“I will make you a bargain, Chessa. You keep away from Sira and I will endeavor to teach her a bit of humility, a bit of kindness toward others.”
“I wish you good luck,” Chessa said, and left her father’s chamber.
What Sira would probably do, he thought, knowing himself quite well, was to seduce him. He’d forget his own name in the process.
Cleve knew the man was after his blood. He waved the stranger toward him, taunting him. “Come, little man, come to me. We will see who can kill. Come, you sniveling little coward.”
Little was hardly the word for the man. He towered over Cleve, broad as a strapping bull, his fists huge. He was filthy, his stench nearly overpowering.
He lunged, his hands outstretched. He would try to crush Cleve against his chest, squeezing the life from him.
