“There, there, Lucia. Perhaps it is only the wine.” But the look of hatred the older girl threw at a callow fellow who was unbuttoning a giggling young woman’s garments said that she didn’t believe her own lie for a second. “He was the first man I ever let bed me! He told me he loved me!”
They passed beyond Matt’s hearing, to his relief; he felt a pang of sympathetic hurt for poor little Lucia. Her dreams had already crumbled, after only a day or two. Maybe now she would go home, though… But no, she couldn’t, could she? Not in this culture, not without the man who had taken her to bed-if you could call a patch of grass a bed. He looked around for Pascal, to remind him to be a gentleman, but he was gone. A moment’s panic ended with concern as he saw his traveling companion drinking and laughing with a group of five other young people. One of the girls was making eyes at him; another was stroking his arm. Pascal? Homely Pascal?
Matt began to suspect there was something going on here besides mere lust. Of course, maybe he was being unfair-Pascal might be attractive in ways Matt couldn’t see; after all, he couldn’t look through a woman’s eyes. The older folk were looking on with indulgent smiles, then glancing at each other with knowing looks that turned lustful as, slowly, they kissed, decided they liked the flavor, and kissed again, deeper and longer. Work-worn hands began to loosen ties and buttons-but the middle-aged did seek some kind of cover-even if it was only a bush-before they took anything off. A bit more decorum? Or only an unwillingness to display flesh that was no longer in its prime? Matt noticed one of these more mature women leading a young girl away-only this time, both of them were sobbing. Matt couldn’t detect any family resemblance. He decided the young weren’t the only ones having their hearts broken. Nor girls, either. One young man was huddling in the shadow of a cask, glaring down into his mug and muttering, “I told her I loved her! Why would she lead me on like that, then turn away to that great lout?”
“At least she let you bed her last night,” said his buddy. “Yes, and I thought it meant she loved me! All day I was burning for her, aching for her! Then she laughed at me and turned away with him!”
“Courage!” His friend clapped him on the back. “Give as good as you’ve gotten! There is no shortage of willing wenches here! Bed another and let her see how little she meant to you!”
The brokenheart looked up with a glint in his eye. “That would be the fitting revenge, would it not?”
They got up and sallied forth into the crowd, while Matt watched with his blood running cold. Okay, so the kid would bury his pain in some other girl-but what would that do to her? You worry too much about other people, he told himself sternly, but himself wasn’t listening. Now that he looked around with those last few conversations in mind, he detected the signs of the aftermath-the hard, brittle tone to the laughter, the determination, the desperation with which the young folk were pushing themselves to have fun. The girls were throwing themselves away, the boys were scalp-hunting-all of them trying to convince themselves that sex didn’t really matter.
Pleasure shouldn’t be so much work, Matt thought. He remembered when he’d been in the same state, after the breakup of his first big romance. The rebound had been hard, and he’d ricocheted for a long time, slamming into a lot of walls. He winced at the memory of the people he’d collided with, and wondered how badly he’d hurt them. Any pain Alisande had caused him, he’d more than deserved… He wouldn’t do that to her. Never. He wondered about Pascal. What kind of shape would the boy be in, come the morning? What would happen to him tomorrow night?
“A tankard, friend!” A buxom woman at least ten years Matt’s senior sailed up to him with a foaming mug in each hand. “Will you not join in the revelry?” The look she gave him left no doubt as to what she thought his place in the festivities should be. “Why, thank you!” Matt took the tankard with forced cheerfulness. “But before I take part, I must give part, for I am a minstrel, and song is my donation!” He took a drink that wasn’t as deep as it looked, handed back the flagon, and struck the strings of his lute. After all, she couldn’t quibble if his hands were busy making music, could she? “Will there not be time for music later?” she asked, pouting. She was still a very attractive woman, and Matt wondered how much of her own escape from mundanity had to do with a desperate determination to enjoy using her charms before they finally faded. He rippled out a sequence of chords, grinning at her, and tried to remember that the verses would work magic, and which song would have the least ruinous effect. What else?
The crowd quieted and turned to look at him, listening. There were still pockets of giggling and sighing and moaning, but the simple fact that he could hear them meant people were paying attention. Matt sang on, remembering how many verses Childs had chronicled, and choosing among them carefully. He thought he as having a good effect-but remembering what one professor had told his class, about which feminine profession wore green sleeves in the high Middle Ages, he could only hope. He struck the last chord and bowed, doffing his cap as the crowd broke into applause with cries of “More! More!” But before he could begin gain, several women of all ages crowded in, eyes shining, with such choice comments as, “Can you finger me as well as you do your lute, minstrel?”
“Shall we make music together?”
“Is it true you only sing about things you cannot do?”
“Never run away with a musician,” Matt counseled. At least they had crowded out the matron with the first invitation… A shout of anger, the sound of a blow, and a chorus of cries of alarm and excitement. The women swung around, avid for the sight, and Matt’s heart sank. Was that what came of singing about broken hearts in this universe? Apparently not-the wench who was the cause of it all stood to the side, eyes glowing as she watched two stalwart youths face off, each with a knife, one with his shirt open and the love bite already swelling on his chest, the other with a day-old mark on his neck and all his clothes buttoned more tightly than he no doubt wished. “Villain! She is mine!” He shouted, and leaped forward, slashing at his rival.
Chapter 13
The rival jumped back, but not far enough-a streak of crimson appeared across his belly. The girl screamed, though whether with horror, delight, or both, Matt couldn’t tell. The rival blanched and leaped farther back-into a wall of hands that shoved him forward to meet the blade of his foe. He howled with anger and slammed a fist into the other man’s jaw-a fist with a knife sticking up from the top. The jealous lover reeled back, blood welling from a gash on his cheek, then charged back with a roar. The rival lunged, but the jealous lover blocked the blade with a cloth-wrapped fist and struck for the chest. The rival blocked, but he had no wrapping, and the blade nicked his knuckles. He shoved hard with a shout of rage, though, then sprang back to yank a shawl from a woman in the crowd, who shrieked protest-but he paid no attention, only began whipping his fist in circles to wrap the cloth around his forearm as a shield. The jealous lover struck before he could finish. The rival blocked and stabbed, but the jealous lover blocked, too, and they sprang apart. The crowd booed. They actually booed, incensed that nobody had been slashed. That did it. Matt decided he had to put a stop to this, somehow-especially since he was hearing angry shouts from two other places in the crowd, and quick glances showed a fistfight breaking out off to the left, and a couple of older men going after each other with cudgels, off on the right. Matt swung his lute into firing position, took aim, and struck a chord-not that anybody could hear it. They couldn’t hear his voice, either, amidst all the yelling, but he sang anyway: