Fire Song

by Roberta Gellis

  The thought was nearly more true than he intended when five men burst from an alley into the narrow street his guide had entered. The young militiaman was struck down at once and his torch extinguished. Aubery hissed an obscenity, blinking rapidly a few times in the hope of adjusting to the dark more quickly. He could make out darker shadows moving. All five seemed to be converging on him. A swift glance behind confirmed that there was no hope of shelter, such as a still narrower alleyway into which he could back Draco, to avoid attack from the rear. He could only turn the horse sharply left, bringing him right up to the wall of the building so that he could not be attacked from that side.

  One of the soldiers, apparently misinterpreting Aubery’s defensive movement as an attempt to escape, called on him to dismount, and Aubery realized that luck was with him. He could only suppose that these men had also been blinded by the torch and had not really seen him as more than a man on a horse. Biting back his impulse to laugh, he held Draco steady for one long minute more. The passive stance, another silent deception, drew the five in a bunch. A horse was a prize worth taking, and a man who could afford one and a torch-bearing guide would doubtless carry a fat purse.

  Two carried those satisfactory thoughts to their deaths, swiftly dealt with one stroke of Aubery’s sword. Another had a moment in which to feel terror as he saw Draco’s bulk, a black shadow of infinite menace, rise over him. But he, too, died too swiftly to have regrets. The other two had time to curse themselves and to scream for help as they ran, to hear behind them a clatter as deadly to them as that made by the mounts of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Aubery struck one invader, then the other, but he did not attempt to determine how successful either blow was. It was more important to reach the fighting, which he could hear ahead.

  This time, however, although he was welcome, it was clear his assistance was not necessary. The militia captain in charge knew his area. The invaders had been drawn along by a small group that seemed to flee into a more open square, where militiamen waited in every alley to rush out at them. They were now driving Béarn’s men back. Aubery warned the captain of the groups that might break away into side streets and was assured that a group of soldiers would be sent out to patrol those ways.

  Now Aubery asked for a guide again, this time to take him to the town wall. Each sector had its own captains and defenders, but if there was no work for them in their own part, they were sworn to come to the aid of any other sector that needed them. What Aubery feared was that the guards at more than one gate had been bribed and that the attack to which he had been summoned might have been a feint deliberately started early so that the defenders would concentrate there while Béarn’s main force actually poured in at another point.

  Aubery had, of course, warned the captains of this tactic, and they had assured him they would be wary, but the truth was that the knight-bred did not trust townsmen, whose main business might be woodworking or dyeing or goldsmithing rather than a lifelong training in the arts of war. He did find battles going on at two other gates, but both seemed to be attempts by detachments from the original group to overwhelm the gate guards from the inside. In both battles, the advent of a full-armed knight on horseback brought almost immediate submission of the attackers. In these cases, it was less owing to Aubery’s prowess than to the fact that Béarn’s men expected a full troop of men to be following him.

  Dawn was just far enough advanced to eliminate the need for torches when Aubery returned to the main site of action. Toward the west, from which he had come, there was no longer any fighting. The invaders had been contained and in most places pushed back. Aubery could not understand why they had not withdrawn. Perhaps, he thought, they expected reinforcements. They seemed very determined to hold the gate, and if they wanted it, Aubery felt they should not have it. From a very narrow lane to the west, he looked quickly around the open area fronting the gate and sighed with relief. His troop was near where the main street entered, backed defensively against, the buildings at the corner. There was fighting all around them, but they were allowing the militia to do it.

  He loosened his rein a trifle to allow Draco to move out to where the buildings would not block his voice and bellowed Raymond’s battle cry. It was distinctive enough to identify him, but he was a little afraid his voice would not carry over the sounds of battle. To his relief, the men’s heads turned in his direction. He allowed Draco, who was snorting and shaking his head in his frustration at being held back from charging, to take another few steps forward and waved his sword. The men pushed out from the building, using just enough force to make their way, and came toward him in a compact wedge that protected a pair in the center. When the men arrived, he saw those two were wounded.

  “I thought I told you to stay out of the fighting until I needed you,” Aubery said, but his tone was indulgent.

  Both looked sheepish and assured him that they were not hurt too badly to give a good account of themselves. This was probably true, but Aubery said that for their sins they would be punished by serving as messengers again. They were to go east, keeping to the outskirts of the fighting as much as possible, try to reach any of the captains of the militia, and tell them that Sir Aubery would try to take the gate. They were to ease off the fighting until his charge and then come to his assistance with all the power they had.

  The men looked startled, glancing uneasily from their master to the area by the gate. None of the militia had penetrated that far, and there must have been twenty-five or thirty of Béarn’s men who had retreated to catch their breath. Some were wounded, but some were almost fresh, stationed there to protect the line of retreat. It was crazy to think that one mounted knight and eight men-at-arms could drive off so strong a force. But Sir Aubery was looking at the forces arrayed against them, too, grinning.

  Silently, the small troop consulted each other with their eyes. Sir Aubery must know something they did not, each man thought, his spirits rising. Then Aubery beckoned them closer and explained what they were to do. It was a crazy plan—wild. Their experience told them that it was very likely they would all be killed, but there was something so light, so gay and sure, in their master’s manner, that they became convinced they could do it and smiled in turn.

  Aubery watched the sky. It was true dawn now, pink fingers of light stretching outward on the undersides of the clouds. It was growing brighter very fast. The fighting had been going on for four, perhaps five hours. Everyone was tired, everyone except Draco and Aubery’s own men, who had done very little.

  A slight change in the noise in the square drew his eyes, and he grinned. It seemed that his men had reached enough of the captains who still had control of their troops. The militiamen, some of them, at least, were pulling back, not much, not fast, just enough to ease the tight packing somewhat and draw with them the fighting groups most deeply engaged. Aubery knew he had only moments before Béarn’s men realized what was happening and fell back into an even tighter defensive posture. He lifted his sword, roared an order, and loosened Draco’s reins, spurring him for even greater impetus.

  The destrier burst out of the alley mouth, with Aubery roaring like a crazed animal on his back. Men fell away from the horse’s path, some voluntarily, some felled by his charge. In Draco’s wake came Aubery’s men in four pairs, also yelling at the top of their lungs and striking left and right but not pausing for any real exchange. They shouted no recognizable battle cry, forcing their way toward the gate.

  It was not very far, perhaps fifty feet north and one hundred or so east. In front of one of the gate doors, Aubery pulled Draco to a sudden halt, so that the stallion screamed with rage and reared. More men scattered as the horse came down, lunged, was checked, and reared again. Nor was Aubery himself idle. Anyone who moved too slowly out of his reach moved not at all afterward, and three of his men-at-arms hacked and lunged behind and to the side, still shouting at the tops of their lungs.

  During this wild attack, the other five of Aubery’s men had run in behind one gr
eat gate door and were pushing with all their strength. Those doors were hung so that they opened with reluctance but could be swung shut by a single man in case of a surprise attack. Most of the invaders who had been trying to defend their line of retreat by keeping the gates open had been driven away by Aubery’s first rush. Those who had not were bowled aside, a few actually swept outside the walls, by the impetus given to the heavy door.

  That had been the easy part, of course. The thud of the door as it slammed against the stone arch, the clang of its metal fittings as they were jarred, gave warning to any invader who did not already realize what had happened. There was a roar of rage and protest, and every man tried to make a concerted rush in that direction. Some intended to escape through the narrowed opening that promised freedom, but most were determined to win back the position that provided an opportunity either for retreat or reinforcements.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Aubery and his men would have been overwhelmed in an instant except that even those militiamen who had not been warned understood what was happening. With renewed energy they attacked Béarn’s men, whose attention was now divided. In addition, select groups of Bayonnese surged forward, not directly through the mass of fighting men but as close to the walls as they could get, their courage and energy renewed by a bright expectation of victory.

  In minutes the second half of the gate swung shut. In the echo of that sound, Aubery raised his voice again. “Yield and quarter!” he bellowed. “Yield and quarter!”

  The cry was taken up by a dozen other authoritative voices. Since no serious damage had been done to their city and because they had the victory, most Bayonnese held no grudge against the soldiers. The anger they felt was against Gaston de Béarn and more violently against whoever had accepted the bribe to open the gate and let in their enemies. Soon the individual militiamen were offering quarter, and by the time the sun had risen, the battle was over.

  It was not, of course, the end for Aubery. He felt responsible, since he had been the first to offer quarter, and he stood by to see that the prisoners were treated fairly, that food and drink were provided in the guildhall where they were penned, that their wounded were gathered up and eased as best might be, and that their dead were placed decently to await burial. Then the leaders of the militia wished to thank him, and he could not seem ungracious to fellow fighters, but when the mayor and some of the peers appeared with formal speeches at the tips of their tongues, Aubery had had enough. He pushed forward the militia captains to receive the honors and rode rapidly away.

  His one thought was to see to Draco’s needs, for he knew that although the animal’s leather armor had protected the destrier from serious injury, it had been hurt at least once. Aubery shouted for the grooms as he entered the courtyard of his lodging before he swung out of the saddle. To Fenice, that call was a release from a purgatory that even the fire song could not ease. She had tried to listen only to that, not to hear the dull murmur, which was all the sound of battle that penetrated to her room. She piled logs high so that the fire roared and screamed, but somehow that other sound was inside her head for all the long hours Aubery was gone.

  For the space of three breaths Fenice struggled for control, remembering that her husband did not like any overt sign of emotion, but even her fear of his disapproval could not hold her. She had to see him! His voice was not enough. Forgetting that she had been too sick with fear to dress, she ran down the stairs, out the door, and across the courtyard, crying, “Are you safe? Aubery, are you safe?”

  The grooms were lifting off Draco’s armor, and Aubery spun to face his wife. “I told you there was no reason for you to fear,” he said, not having heard her clearly and assuming that she had asked if “we” were safe. But in the same instant that he spoke, he took in the loose hair, the bedrobe, the bare feet, and her questions sounded again in his mind, this time correctly. He drew breath, intending to call her a stupid bitch, coming out near-naked with bare feet into the cold and filth of the courtyard, but the harsh words stuck in his throat, and instead he strode toward her and lifted her into his arms.

  “What a fool you are,” he said, but gently. “Look at your feet, all bruised, and you are shivering with cold.”

  She did not answer that she was shaking with joy and relief, not with cold, but her arms were so tight around his neck that Aubery thought amusedly that it was fortunate his coif protected his throat, or she would have strangled him. Despite the ache in his bruised arm, he would have carried her up the stairs, but she relaxed her grip once they were inside the door and lifted her head away from his cheek, which she had been kissing.

  “You are safe,” she sighed, and then added, “I beg your pardon, my lord. I know you do not like me to show fear or act so silly, but I could not help it. I will try to do better. Please put me down. I know you wish to see to Draco’s comfort, and I must make sure that food and drink are ready when you come in.”

  “Wash your feet first,” he ordered. “If you cut them in that dirt, the sores might not heal.”

  As he turned to go back to oversee the care of his horse, Aubery felt as light as a feather. He did not associate the sensation with happiness, nor did he realize that he was now free of that odd flicker of dissatisfaction he had felt when Fenice accepted his need to fight so calmly. He had closed the feeling out of his mind, and he had not consciously recognized it again or realized that it had intensified into a nameless weight on his spirit when she helped him to arm without speaking a single word to him or asking him to take care during the battle. The practical comment that his success would serve best to protect her had only added to the burden.

  Other things conspired to add to his satisfaction. The cut that had made Draco scream was smaller than he had feared, and the horse seemed unaware of it, not favoring that limb. There were other marks on the animal, bruises where blows had not penetrated the armor, but none near any place that could disable the stallion. Aubery discussed with the grooms what should be done to reduce the swelling and ensuing stiffness and then turned toward the house. Had they come straight from battle, he would have stayed longer to gentle the excited destrier, but that was not necessary.

  The roaring fire was another pleasant surprise. Aubery had not seen so large a blaze since he left his native land, and it gave him a feeling of homeliness. It seemed natural, and he did not question why the fire was roaring up the flue, though actually he knew it was not usual. The less intense cold of Gascony did not require enormous fires, and wood was not plentiful in the neighborhood of towns like Bordeaux and Bayonne, so fuel was used with discretion. When he entered, Aubery did not realize that the room was really too warm. After the heat of fighting, his sweat-damp shirt and tunic had become cold against his body while he discussed the treatment of the prisoners and made suitable replies to grateful remarks and speeches. The heat was pleasant.

  It was pleasant, too—now that he was certain how welcome he was—to be disarmed, then undressed, and finally wrapped in his bedrobe in a silence broken at last only by a quiet question as to whether or not he wished to have his bruise treated. Aubery opened his eyes, which had been closed, and Fenice bit her lip.

  “Am I not supposed even to ask, my lord?”

  Aubery shook his head wearily. “Not that, but I do not think you would have time to do anything worthwhile. I will just eat and get warm. Then I must go up on the walls and see what can be seen of Béarn’s camp, and after that I must question the prisoners, and judge, if I can, what force is arrayed against us here.”

  “You do not trust the men of Bayonne, then? I mean, even those who helped in the fighting?”

  “Some I do not,” Aubery admitted, “but for most it is not a question of their loyalty. I just do not believe they know what questions to ask or that they would understand the answers given.” He began to shrug contemptuously and made an angry exclamation of pain as his stiffening muscles protested. “They are tradesmen.”

  “You do not think,” Fenice asked as she p
laced a cup of warm spiced wine in his hand, “that Béarn will be discouraged and withdraw? You say there were prisoners taken. Could that not reduce his force sufficiently so that it will be impossible to besiege Bayonne?”

  “I never thought it would be possible for him to try seriously to besiege Bayonne in the first place,” Aubery replied, sipping the wine and watching Fenice put a slice of meat pasty, a chunk of cheese, and chewable-size pieces of meat on a platter. “He cannot possibly have an army large enough, but he may still hope to win by treachery or by trickery. As you and I have discovered, the commune will yield if he can convince them he is strong enough to take the town, whether it be true or not. It is that I must guard against.”

  Of course Fenice would have preferred that Aubery go to bed with a warm pack on his shoulder, but since what he said implied there would be no more fighting, she was quite content. Nor was that contentment broken by any disappointment. Au­bery had guessed correctly again. Gaston de Béarn pretended to set up a siege that lasted for something more than a week while he continued to hope that those who had tried to give him the town by treachery would manage to convince the mayor and commune to yield to empty threats.

  He might have succeeded if Aubery had not demonstrated so clearly that the threats were empty. After all, the mayor and peers did not have much to lose. They would have been protected by any agreement made. The sufferers would have been the common folk, the small tradesmen, artisans, and merchants from whom Béarn would have extracted money and on whom his army would have preyed. They would have been the sufferers again when the king came to take back the town, for the mayor and commune would have yielded as readily to Henry for a promise of immunity.

  Not that Aubery was considering the common good when he demanded permission to speak at the meeting of the commune, argued against every point Béarn’s messenger made, and applied a few subtle threats of his own. He had accepted a charge from the king and implied in that charge was that he must do everything in his power to protect the king’s property and uphold his authority.