Fire Song

by Roberta Gellis

  In her mind Fenice filed the information that Sir Savin of Radanage was persona non grata with her future husband. At a more appropriate time she would ask what her public demeanor toward the man should be, a cold bow or no recognition at all. Harold of Herron, Fenice noted, reading her betrothed’s expression with the skill developed as a child in watching small movements of face and body to know whether she would be welcome or an intruder, was someone for whom Aubery felt pity and perhaps some liking.

  All she said, though, was, “Then you do not feel there is any cause to wait for the king’s arrival?”

  “No.”

  There was eagerness in Aubery’s face, although it disappeared very quickly as he reminded himself that he was supposed to be a grieving husband, not a joyous bridegroom. Fenice, her eyes adoringly fixed on Aubery, caught both the eagerness and the swift quenching of it and thought her heart would burst with joy. Delmar had been eager and a gentle husband, but never, as far as Fenice knew, had he subdued any desire of his own in deference to hers, and she read Aubery’s change of expression as an unwillingness to allow his eagerness for the marriage to influence her if she wished to wait.

  Her delighted, if mistaken, opinion was confirmed as he went on slowly, “Lord Hereford might do me the honor of attending if he were asked, but it would be an imposition on him with all he will have on his hands as constable of the army. Yet not to invite him if he was in Gascony would also be wrong.”

  “Then, my lord,” Fenice said quickly, her eyes alight with happiness, “if you are willing, it would be best, I think, to marry as quickly and privately as the matter can be contrived. The question of inviting your overlord will then not arise at all, and the lack of ceremony and celebration will be reason enough for not having awaited his coming.”

  Fenice’s glowing eyes and pink-tinged cheeks made it impossible for Aubery to doubt her sincerity. They also aroused such a flood of desire in him that before he could control the impulse he leaned forward and kissed her full, red lips. Her response was immediate, and knowing. Her arm came around his neck and her fingers touched his ear. The lips opened under his, inviting his tongue. Aubery reached forward to pull her tight against him and, with a desperate effort of will, pushed her away instead.

  Fortunately, he was incapable of speaking immediately, and since Fenice sighed, “Oh, thank you, my lord, thank you,” as she put her hands to her hot cheeks, he was disarmed by confusion. Was she thanking him for the kiss or for breaking the embrace? And, in either case, how could he scold her? He cleared his throat harshly.

  “You are sure this is what you desire? I can wait—”

  He looked down at his hands, clenched so hard that the nails were biting into the calloused palms. Although he forced his hands open and raised his eyes, he really did not feel he could wait, and that drove him to stern measures of self-discipline.

  “Perhaps you would like your sister to come,” Aubery suggested, feeling that he had not fulfilled Alys’s intention very well.

  Fenice laid her hand gently over his. “You are so very good to me, my lord. I do not know how to thank you or to be sufficiently grateful for your consideration, but, truly, I have told you my own real desire. Enid is with Countess Beatrice, and I do not think she would like to be pulled from the lively life she leads to travel many weary leagues just to see me married when there will be no great ceremony.”

  “It is very strange to me that your desire mirrors my…my need so exactly.” Actually Aubery had started to say “my own” and had tried to change the sentence into a less personal context, but the words had come out so that they were equally revealing. “I meant my convenience,” he said hastily and then, “no!”

  But Fenice was laughing merrily. “Oh,” she gasped, “I do understand. You were thinking about Lord Hereford and the king. Is it not dreadful the way words can seem to mean just what you do not intend? But, my lord…” The hand on his trembled slightly. “If I may have my choice, I would be so happy if Father François could marry us here in the chapel with only Lady Alys and my papa and Sir William…”

  Fenice’s voice drifted off on a questioning note. Although he found any physical touch of hers exciting, her ready understanding and translation of his self-revelatory remarks into harmless statements put Aubery at ease. Once he adjusted to her beauty and her sensuous scent, he always found Fenice surprisingly comfortable company. It was Alys’s training, he assumed. Fenice usually did understand what he meant, and like Alys she did not flirt. He had come to recognize the bold way her eyes met his as an imitation of Alys’s habit and to realize that it was not meant as an invitation.

  “If it really is your choice, I could not be more content,” Aubery admitted. Then asked, “Will you speak to Alys or shall I?”

  “Let us go together,” Fenice suggested practically. “If I go alone, we will need to confirm the date with you, and although it cannot matter to me, Lady Alys is so kind she will, I know, ask me to approve whatever time and date you suggest.”

  Aubery agreed readily, and they went to find Alys, who raised her brows and said, “That did not take long.”

  “No,” Fenice replied, innocently unaware that Alys’s remark was directed at Aubery, “because my lord thinks that Lord Hereford will be too busy to be a witness but might come out of courtesy. And this falls in perfectly with my desire to avoid any large company or great ceremony—” She hesitated and glanced anxiously at her stepmother. “Unless—”

  “There is no ‘unless’. It is your wedding,” Alys said, then laughed and shook her head at Fenice. “I know you to be as bad as a tortoise, pulling your head into your shell as soon as any stranger appears. However, in this case,” Alys continued thoughtfully, “it really will be best to have a private wedding. With the famine growing and prospects for next year more evil than this, I think it unwise to make a show of plenty. In fact, it was stupid to have those burghers from Bordeaux to that feast last week. Raymond tells me there has been talk about the richness of the provisions. Yes, my love, I am not sorry for your shyness this once.”

  “Then as soon as is convenient for you and Papa, and Sir William, of course,” Fenice said, “Father François can marry us right here in the chapel.”

  Alys’s glance flicked to Aubery, and her smile was just a trifle strained, but she said nothing to him. Instead, she said to Fenice, “Will you run down to the stable and fetch your papa and Sir William to us, my love? You will be quicker about it than a servant and can explain why we want them.” When Fenice had left, her eyes went back to Aubery’s face, and they were full of loving concern.

  “You have not said a word,” Alys murmured.

  Aubery shrugged. “What is there to say? Lady Fenice spoke my mind as well as hers.”

  “I fear you are not willing,” Alys sighed, “and somehow Papa has constrained you—”

  “You do your father a great injustice,” Aubery snapped. “There is no way he could constrain me, and he would not if he could. What the devil ails you, Alys? You suggested this match, and now you seem to be the only one dissatisfied with it.”

  “I just wish to be sure that this haste of yours to be married is not a quick swallow to make a bitter medicine go down faster,” Alys said. “I love you and Fenice both too much—”

  “I will not mistreat Lady Fenice,” Aubery interrupted stiffly, his voice almost metallically harsh.

  Alys’s breath drew in sharply, but not owing either to what Aubery had said or his tone. He had flushed darkly, which might have merely been anger, but somehow Alys knew it was not, or, at least, not entirely. There was just something about him that betrayed his craving for Fenice, and Alys called herself ten times a fool. Until she had somehow sensed that musky, sensual aura, she never really thought of Aubery as a man with a man’s physical urges. To her he had always remained the sexless child with whom she had played and squabbled.

  She made some soothing remark, struggling not to give the slightest hint of what she had perceived, although now tha
t she had finally recognized it, it was so clear that Alys even felt some slight response herself. Instinctively, she stepped back, away from the overpowering sense of maleness, and a choke of laughter was drawn from her. Poor man, how could she have been so cruel to him? No wonder he had been avoiding Fenice. And poor Fenice, too, if he had been projecting that “wanting” at her.

  “You are quite correct,” Alys said. “The sooner we have this wedding over with the better for all.”

  “What the devil do you mean by that?” Aubery snarled.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Alys assured him hastily. “I have been thinking of the danger of the king arriving any day. If he should, you would have to apprise Hereford of the wedding, and Henry is just the person to hear what he should not and conceive a desire to honor Raymond by attending his daughter’s nuptials. Of all men in the world, I do not want Henry at Blancheforte.”

  “Good God, no!” Raymond exclaimed, having heard Alys’s last sentence as he and William arrived with Fenice. “He would take one look at the place and begin to regret ceding it to us. What put so horrid a thought in your mind?”

  Alys repeated her statement, and Raymond said, “Tomorrow. We will have the wedding tomorrow. How could I have overlooked so dreadful a possibility? Aubery, do you mind? Fenice?”

  “All joking aside,” William put in, “since Henry has a way of remembering only what he wishes to remember, if he sees that there is plenty in Blancheforte, he may ‘forget’ how small the demesne is and demand supplies. We must, indeed, do what we can to avoid drawing his attention.”

  “I was not joking,” Raymond said. “That, too, was in my mind.”

  “Then we are agreed on tomorrow,” Alys said, to her husband’s surprise not glancing at either the prospective bride or groom. “I will inform Father François. Aubery, would you do me the favor to ride into Bordeaux to the mercer Bonafus? He should have ready for me some items I ordered to give to Fenice. And you, my love, had better seek the sewing women and give them your aid so that your gown may be ready.”

  Aubery made no protest over running Alys’s errand, although he was aware that any of the men-at-arms could have been employed as well. It was clear that Alys had done an about-face. With the same assiduity and ingeniousness that she had previously used to thrust them together, she had now decided to keep him apart from Fenice until they were brought together to be married. He pretended he did not notice Alys’s devices and obediently occupied himself as she directed all the rest of the day, but he grew more and more unhappy as his assumption proved true.

  He had a horrible night, desire struggling with shame and guilt, and woke with a raging headache from a few hours sleep near dawn to find that Alys had more devices to separate him from his betrothed. Fenice’s gown was not finished. The cooks were heartbroken because the subtleties they planned would not be ready for dinner. The wedding was to be delayed until evening.

  Aubery’s eyes sought those of Raymond and William, but they would not meet his glance, and Aubery could not bring himself to ask why, if it was really a matter of a gown and the cooks’ sensitivity, Fenice was being kept hidden. He stormed out of the hall, nearly weeping with pain and self-pity and because Raymond and William dotingly believed anything that blonde she-devil said. Could they not see that there was something she was hiding from him?

  For the next half hour there was silence as Raymond, William, and Alys ate the bread, cheese, and fruit laid out for breaking the morning fast and braced themselves for their next encounter with Aubery. They all wore martyred expressions.

  “I could not let them marry in the morning,” Alys said plaintively. “You saw what he looked like. He would have said or done something dreadful before bedtime and frightened Fenice out of her wits. Yet with all of us here I know he would not satisfy his need at once—and even I could not think of any excuse to leave on their wedding day.” She turned on her father crossly. “How did you let him become so self-righteous a prig?”

  “He is not a self-righteous prig,” William said defensively, then sighed. “Well, not usually. Partly, of course, it is because of Mauger. He is so determined not to be in any way like his father. But most of it has come about since Matilda’s death. Oh, why, why did I yield to greed for the estates and let him marry that—that dimwitted saint?”

  There was another silence, at the end of which William sighed again and rose, saying, “I had better go after him. If he will talk to me…”

  But William found Aubery stretched out in a cool corner of the garden, fast asleep. Alys immediately gave orders that no work of any kind be done in any part of the garden so that Aubery would not be disturbed. Raymond protested around dinnertime that he would be starved, but Alys insisted that in his state of mind he would not have eaten much, if anything, anyway.

  She paused and smiled, then went on. “Poor Fenice is busy sewing up seams that I had Edith unpick last night. The child innocently assumes she was so excited that she missed them. Ah, me. I will have a long confession to make to Father François when this marriage is at last happily consummated.”

  Alys’s devices did have a beneficial effect. When William finally woke Aubery in the late afternoon, his headache was gone. The angle of the sun told him that only a few hours would bring sunset, and William’s first words, that it was time to bathe and dress for the wedding, assured him that his waiting, for good or ill, was at an end.

  It was pleasant and peaceful to be washed clean, and the barber was skillful so that his face was not scraped raw when the blond stubble was removed from his cheeks and chin. Aubery liked the clothing that was proffered, too, blue chausses and braies. Aubery wrinkled his nose over those, wondering why he needed the loose pants in the summer heat of Bordeaux, but he put them on. Perhaps Fenice, being southern-bred and not as much aware of the heat as he, would be offended if he were bare under his gown.

  The gown, lavishly embroidered with thread-of-gold at neck, wrists, and hem, was blue as well, though of a brighter hue than the chausses and matched the cross garters. The surcoat, which fell only to midcalf to display the embroidered hem of the gown, was gold. Aubery fingered the cloth as he slid it over his head and felt the hard metallic thread. Nothing had been spared here. The glitter in the cloth was truly gold, and around the neckline and the waist-length armholes, there were broad ribbons of elaborate embroidery studded with small pearls.

  The pride in William’s smile when Aubery was dressed left him in no doubt that the clothes became him. Aubery told himself severely that he was acting like a stupid court popinjay and that it was unreasonable to care about his appearance, but nonetheless the awareness of the finery set him at ease. He did not permit himself to think that he would not be overshadowed before his new bride by any man, only admitted wryly that there was a kind of security in knowing that one was not the most meanly dressed in a group.

  But he forgot it all the moment he saw Fenice. The only thought he had was that the gown that enhanced her loveliness so much had been worth the delay. As he was blue and gold, so she was gold and rose, and his bride-gift, which he had forgotten to give her and must have been searched out and sent by William, hung round her neck. Aubery murmured his thanks and also mentioned that it must have been a special act of Providence that the small, pale rubies in the beautifully worked gold necklace so exactly matched the rose of her overdress. Hearing him, Alys smiled. Seeing his relief and pleasure in how well his modest gift looked, she was very content that the credit for her frantic search among the mercers of Bordeaux for that color silk go to God.

  Alys was content with all her devices, for Aubery looked like himself again, smiling good-humoredly when Raymond remarked, as they walked across the hall to the chapel entrance, that he had seldom seen so handsome a couple. Aubery even smiled at Fenice when her hand was placed in his and led her forward to the altar without hesitation. The ceremony was brief, Father François, although rather disappointed, since he rarely got to perform a wedding service, using the shortest form permiss
ible, as he had been instructed.

  Fenice was eager for this second marriage and made the responses in clear-voiced confidence, glowing and delicately flushed with happiness. And though Aubery’s smile had faded and his eyes were shadowed when he looked away from her to swear the vows of a husband, he did not falter. Moreover, he seemed to cast off his unhappy memories when they went back across the hall, and smiled when he saw that the tables had been set up during the ceremony for an unusually elaborate evening meal. The high table was covered with a fine linen cloth and set with silver plates and spoons and rare glass drinking cups in deep, rich colors. A huge silver salt vessel marked the seat of honor. In accordance with Blancheforte’s position as one guardian of the seaport of Bordeaux, the salt was a beautiful miniature reproduction of a seagoing ship, its sail reefed up to show the pure white ground crystals, and its oars loose in the locks to serve as salt spoons.

  Actually, Aubery made for the seat of honor, which he knew was the groom’s place, with such unromantic briskness, almost towing Fenice along in his wake that Alys grinned behind her hand. She was equally amused at the slight impatience he showed when one of Raymond’s squires placed the catchbowl before him and began to pour spiced and scented warm water over his hands. Of course, he had just bathed, so his hands were clean, but the expectant glance he cast at the door explained the rapidity with which he withdrew his hands, wiped them on the clean towel over the squire’s arm, and urged him on to the next person. Aubery was hungry.

  Alys was delighted. Eating would keep Aubery happily employed for some time, and her foresight in providing a less substantial dinner than was customary would make certain that everyone welcomed the coming full-scale feast. Alys’s expectation was fulfilled as the first set of servants entered. There were only two horn players to blare a fanfare, but they made a merry noise supported by the other musicians to whom no one paid the slightest attention. All eyes, except Fenice’s, which were adoringly raised to her husband’s face, were fixed on the serving trays, which supported a roast swan, refeathered and apparently swimming in a green aspic that contained boiled brown river trout, a roast yearling boar surrounded by an oval pasty filled with a stuffing made of “garbage”, the boar’s brain, organs, and glands, mixed with bread and spices, and a roast lamb, kneeling on a field of boiled and flavored mixed greens.