Valerie's Song, Chapter One

Britain
510 A.D.


“Please, Valerie, I cannot go alone. You must come.”

Valerie covered her ears and hurried away down the garden path. She had heard enough about the Midsummer’s Eve festival.

It was a lovely morning to be outside. Cool breezes from the ocean made this June day unseasonably mild. The blooming rhododendrons brought a riot of color to the garden paths while the marigolds, honeysuckle and herbs perfumed the air with sweet, spicy scents. Valerie had worked hard to finish her chores so she could steal an hour out in the garden to practice her harp and enjoy the fresh sea air. She had no desire to waste anymore of her precious time listening to Lowenna’s insane scheme.

Her cousin’s frantic footsteps pounded behind her. Valerie sighed with resignation and waited for her cousin. Running away would not discourage Lowenna. Valerie took a seat upon the nearest stone bench, sneered up at the stone statue of Minerva that presided over a wired ivy trellis, and perched her harp upon her lap. Lowenna sat beside her.

“This notion of yours is folly,” Valerie said looking into her cousin’s brown, imploring eyes. ”If your mother and father were to find out that we went to the Midsummer's Eve festival, we would be in horrible trouble.”

What Valerie really meant was that she herself would be in horrible trouble. Lowenna was Aunt Gwladus’s favorite daughter and would bear little blame for the incident. Aunt Gwladus seemed convinced that Valerie exerted a bad influence on Lowenna. A clandestine adventure in the village during this riotous, almost pagan gathering would further reinforce Aunt Gwladus’s suspicions.

Lowenna grasped Valerie’s arm. Her expression was earnest and appealing, while her eyes shone with desperation. “I swear Mother and Father will never know. They will not even be here, for they will be attending Lord March’s banquet, and I will just happen to become too ill to attend. Once they leave, we can go to the village. Glenda and Ewan have promised to help us.”

Of course Lowenna had her scheme all planned out. She always did.

Valerie shook her head and gave her cousin what she hoped was a severe look. “Nae, Lowenna, you promised your mother not to fraternize with the servants, especially Glenda.”

She held Lowenna's gaze for a long time and noted with dismay the defiant expression.

“Gaius will be there,” Lowenna said in husky, breathless tones. Her willful expression vanished only to be replaced by a look of childlike vulnerability.

An uneasy feeling crept over Valerie at the mention of Gaius’s name. She sat in silence and listened to the warbling song of a lark while she thought of an argument to dissuade her cousin.

“I know this is foolish,” Lowenna continued, “but I must be with him one more time before King Branius comes.”

Despite the troubling specter of another one of Lowenna’s hopeless infatuations, Valerie could not help but be moved by Lowenna’s plea. As flirtatious as Lowenna was, Gaius was different from all the other guards and noblemen Lowenna had fancied herself in love with. The youngest son of Lord Ravenhurst, a neighboring landowner, he and Lowenna had known each other since they were children. He had recently returned home after having been fostered in the Duke of Cornwall's household for the past several years. The Duke's tutelage had transformed him from a boy into an alluring, self-assured warrior.

“Is seeing him again a wise thing now that you are betrothed?” Valerie asked.

“It matters not,” Lowenna said softly. “I promised him we would meet on Midsummer’s Eve. It will probably be the last time I ever see him. I must tell him that King Branius was my parents’ choice and not mine.” Lowenna’s childlike, round eyes moistened as she spoke.

For a long time they sat in silence. Lowenna plucked a marigold and absently tore it apart while Valerie plucked the strings of her harp.

Lowenna brushed petals and seeds from her skirt and smiled coaxingly at Valerie. “Admit it. You want to go as badly as I do. You wish to join the revelers and watch the bonfires burn upon the hills. You can disguise yourself as a peasant and sing one of your ballads in the contest. The crowd would love you.”

Valerie smiled and played a tune as she thought of joining her voice and her harp to the magic of the festival. Valerie had dreamed of entering the bard’s contest and performing one of her ballads since the previous summer when she and Lowenna had first successfully attended the festival in secret. Valerie had heard many of the contestants and knew in her heart she was as talented as any of them.

After the contest, the villagers lit the huge pile of rubble for the bonfire. She strummed a chord on her harp as she remembered the sight of the neighboring bonfires on the surrounding hills and the smells of wood smoke and ale in the air. The peasants had donned their most colorful attire. Merchants had set up booths and sold fine embroidered linens and bolts of fine cloth, bottles of wine, cheeses, freshly baked breads, and fine metal work. Acrobats performed on the village green and danced to the pulsating music.

She and Lowenna had been completely caught up in the experience until a group of drunken lads assailed them. The lewd comments the young men hurled at them made them realize that their finer, conservative clothing made them easy to recognize. It also made them realize that they had arrived alone with no one to protect them and had these lads meant true mischief, there would be little they as mere girls could do to protect themselves. As soon as their unwelcome escorts had encountered maids more responsive to their overtures, they had lost interest in Lowenna and Valerie, and the two girls snuck away from the festival and made their way home.

They had not been caught, and if anyone had recognized them at the festival, they had not told Lowenna’s parents.

Attending the festival in the company of Ewan and Glenda would protect the girls from the hoards of amorous men, but it might not keep Valerie’s identity secret if she sang well enough to win the prize. If Valerie were to sing, she would have to dress even more plainly than the other peasants.

Valerie stopped playing and shook her head vigorously. She could not believe that she was actually thinking of going. If her aunt and uncle were to ever find out, Valerie would be forever banished from Tawelloch and would find herself the wife of their revolting, middle-aged neighbor, Panarius. Valerie’s aunt had been talking about finding Valerie a husband, especially now that Lowenna was to be married.

Lowenna seemed to sense Valerie’s growing misgivings. “Please, Valerie,” Lowenna said, her eyes wide with panic. “If I go without you, I might not be able to resist giving myself to Gaius.” A delicate blush broke out on Lowenna’s face. “He has touched me and kissed me before,” she whispered. “I did not find it unpleasant, but I am not such a ninny not to know where it would lead if I continue to allow it.”

Valerie’s mind filled with dread. If Lowenna was attending the festival mainly to be with Gaius, then Ewan and Glenda would provide them little help. They could offer physical protection and help Valerie and Lowenna appear as fellow servants, but being merely servants themselves, they alone would not be able to protect Lowenna from her own headstrong desires.

Valerie shook her head.

Tears fell from Lowenna’s eyes.

“Even if you have never been in love before,” Lowenna went on, “you sing of it. You must know something of it. Please do not force me to endure the temptation of Gaius’s advances by myself. You are my conscience. I will be safe as long as you are with me.”

Valerie turned her face from her cousin and allowed her gaze to rest on a robin which was now perching upon a rowan tree. Yes, she knew of love, its beauty, its intensity, its power and its pain. Being a love child herself, she owed her very existence to it.

She sung of love, thought of love, and accepted the consequences of her own parents’ immoral foray into its madness and passions, but she had never actually experienced love herself, and with all her being, she hoped she never would.

Valerie returned her gaze upon her cousin and could not help but be moved by the imploring look in Lowenna’s large, brown eyes. The hard set of her mouth and the narrowing of her eyes showed determination. Lowenna would see Gaius one last time whether or not Valerie went with her.

Memories of the festival they were at so briefly last year filled Valerie’s mind and further weakened her resolve. That festival with its free flowing ale and lusty young peasants would tempt Lowenna’s restless nature and make her responsive to Gaius’s sexual overtures if he chose to make them. The music, the fragrant night air, the ale, the fires and the reveling inspired such wantonness. Valerie would have to go, if for no other reason than to help Lowenna. If something were to happen to her cousin and Valerie were not there to prevent it, she would never forgive herself.

The decision was becoming increasingly clear and troubling.

Valerie’s conscience assailed her: she wanted to go tonight, just as she had a year ago. She rarely saw anyone outside of Tawelloch and though she enjoyed Lowenna’s company and sometimes enjoyed caring for her small cousins, she wearied of the many chores she was forced to do. Most of all she wearied of the fact that nothing she did ever suited her aunt. The constant cloud of suspicion she was under and the prospect of living the remainder of her life with an obnoxious, ignorant farmer like Panarius filled Valerie with restlessness.

Lowenna threw her arms around Valerie and made a joyful cry. “You are the most faithful friend anyone could have.” Tears fell anew from Lowenna’s swollen eyes. “Thank you.” She wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she repeated softly.

The gentle wind blew, the seagulls cried, and the sun rose higher as Lowenna revealed the plan. Valerie listened intently with an exhilarating mixture of fear and daring pounding through her veins while the melody of the ballad she intended to sing played in her mind.