“God’s eyes,you worthless hound! Stay in the water!” Lyall leaned over the wooden half-barrel filled with water, penning the dog under him as he swept the bottom of the trough for the ball of soap he’d dropped.
Fergus stuck his wet, sloppy head through Lyall’s arm, looked around curiously, wagged his long tail which sent water flying into Lyall’s eyes, and then started vigorously licking his ear. “Cease!” He laughed and pulled his head away. “You surely are good for little, dog. Stop licking my ears.” He grabbed the animal by the wet scruff on his neck and faced him eye to eye, almost nose to nose. “You remind me of one of the tourney whores.”
“Woof!”
“Aye.” He ruffled the dog’s ears and head. “That you do, hound. Stop your licking.” Lyall paused, thinking back. “What was her name? Hold still. Look you. I found the soap. Ah, yes. Deloys. Sweet she was…flamed-haired and freckled all over. She was the widowed sister of a mercenary from Flanders and famed from the Caledonia hills to coasts of Normandy for her long, wet tongue.”
“Woof! Woof!”
“Aye, that she was,” Lyall scrubbed the animal, which squirmed and fought him when he was silent. The unruly beast stood still if he talked to it. “So you like the sound of my voice, do you?” He paused. “Then to make this task simpler, I shall tell all, in great detail, the wondrous tales of my lusty dealings with Deloys of Lille.” And he began talking and scrubbing, pulling off mud clots and soaping the dog’s hide clean, and in time, his talk brought back to mind all the wild, mad, and sordid tales of his tourney youth.
“…Then she got up from her knees, tied the drawstrings on mybraies and held out my sword and belt. She said, ‘Be gone with you now Lyall Longsword,” he told the dog, using her name for him with no little pride. “The melee begins soon,’ she said. ‘You need to use your sword to fill your purse rather than fill me and mine.’”
Lyall shook his head slightly. “She was a saucy wench. Robert of Ayr once said Deloys could suck your feet out of your boots.”
There was a sudden creak and a soft thump as the stable door thudded slightly against the wall. He dropped the soap, sat back and looked toward the stable doors.
Glenna was standing there, afternoon sunlight behind her, framing her in a bright glow and casting her face in dark, unreadable shadows.
He felt his neck flush hot. “How long have you been standing there?”
She was silent for a heartbeat or two and then she stepped into the light. “I just arrived. Why?”
He shook his head.
She walked toward them and her dog barked again and looked ready to jump out. “Stay!” she warned and the hound obeyed, its tail switched the air and spat water back and forth.
Lyall soaped him again. “His coat was tangled with mud.”
“Aye,” she said, staring at him oddly. “And now it looks as if you are wearing the mud.”
Lyall looked down and saw he was soaked with stains of brown water. Flecks of hard mud were all over his undertunic. The cloth clung to his chest and his thick mat of chest hair showed clearly beneath the thin linen and arrowed down towards the drawstrings on his braies. He picked at cloth, but it stuck to his skin.
She shoved up the sleeves of her gown and knelt down on the other side of the trough. “Hand me the soap. There is still mud on him here.”
“The soap is in the bottom. I’ll get it.” He reached down but was too late to stop her. Already she had her hands in the water.
“Here it is.” She held up the soap and began to clean the dog, humming as she rubbed the soap over his thick fur. Lyall sat back, resting his arms on his raised knees, which were soaked, too.
She began to sing.
The dog stood perfectly still, and Lyall, too, dared not move, so overwhelmed was he, as if he were caught by the pure, deathly-sweet sound of a siren. What magic came from her lips was honeyed and high, as fluid as the notes of a flute, mournful as a pipe, and lilting as a lute. She sang the most hauntinglyen passantwords:
Bird on a briar, bird, bird on a briar
Kind is come of love, love to crave
Blithful bird, have pity on me,
Or prepare me, beloved, for my grave
I am so blithe, so bright bird on a briar
When I see that beauty in the hall,
She is white of limb, lovely, true
She is fair, the flower of them all.
