FireSong

by Roberta Gellis

  After that they both slept, although Fenice half woke after a little while and staggered about snuffing the candles, closing the bedcurtains, and tugging the blanket from under Aubery to cover them both. He slept through that but was wakened near dawn when Fenice, from whom he had pulled all the covers, groped for them in her sleep and touched him suggestively. It was as if he had not twice emptied himself. He was instantly aflame, bending double to bite her thighs and thrust his face between them. The sleepy hand, tensing as Fenice grew aware, closed over what it had only touched by accident, and stroked lovingly, while laughter gurgled from her until choked off by the more urgent activity of her mouth.

  A gleam of sunlight and the soft rattle of the bedcurtains woke Aubery. He did not need to turn his head to know that Fenice had left the bed. He lay quietly, remembering the night and wondering whether it had really happened or he had dreamed it. Shifting uneasily, for he found both notions equally embarrassing, he felt the immediate evidence of the reality of the night’s events. His back was sore where Fenice had scratched him. That might conceivably be owing to some cut or bruise he did not remember, but he was sore in several more private and delicate places, too.

  He could hear her moving softly around the room and put out a hand to the curtains, feeling a sudden desire to watch her. Then he flushed and let his hand drop. What the devil did you say to a woman with whom you had played such games? Somehow a simple “Good morning” seemed inadequate. And he had a dreadful feeling that he had not been much more gentle with her than she had been with him. Was it necessary to apologize?

  The doubts were wasted. Fenice had been examining her bruises with smug complacency. Alys’s parting words recurred to her mind, and she giggled. She had certainly enjoyed her man and actually had no memory of being hurt, although her breasts and belly and thighs were black and blue. I will have to warn him to be more careful for a day or two, she thought, smiling again as she picked up Aubery’s clothes, which he had scattered all over the room in his hurried disrobing. If I do not, I will be one bruise all over. But she did not really care.

  While she was folding Aubery’s surcoat, she heard the leather straps of the bed creak in response to movement. She glanced at the position of the shaft of sunlight that came through the arrow slit. They had already missed both masses, she estimated. That was bad enough, but if they missed the breaking of fast, Lady Alys would tease them unmercifully. So, if Aubery was awake, he should get up and dress. She took his bedrobe from where it lay atop a chest, stepped across to the bed, and opened the curtains a bare slit on the side that would not admit the sun to peep in. Aubery’s blue eyes regarded her gravely. Fenice pulled the bedcurtains all the way open and smiled.

  “A good morning to you, my lord,” she said. “It is time,” she paused to chuckle, ”and more than time to rise. Shall I bid the women bring water for washing?”

  “Yes, I thank you,” Aubery replied rather formally, unable to decide whether he was relieved or disappointed.

  The cheerful, ordinary greeting removed any need for a special remark or response from him, however, he had not heard Fenice washing, and thus knew she could not yet be dressed. To his shame, Aubery had been picturing her moving about the room clothed only in her hair, but she was decently concealed in a bedrobe, and she held his out to him as he sat up, saying, “If you will forgive me for not helping you into your robe, I will summon the maids. We are very late to rise, and I fear Lady Alys will make a merry May-game of us.”

  “Do not trouble yourself,” he said, taking the robe. “I am accustomed to helping myself. But you need not worry about Alys’s tongue if you do not wish to endure it. If you give me two minutes before you come from the chamber, I will see that she says nothing to offend you.”

  Fenice’s eyes opened wide with amazement. Delmar would not tell his mother, a person of no significance, to curb her tongue for Fenice’s sake, yet Aubery was prepared to defend her against Lady Alys. She wanted to fall on his neck and weep with gratitude, but she knew he would not understand, and it would be impossible to explain without mentioning her serf mother. The thought brought a brief, sickening terror. If Aubery learned, could he end their marriage, put her aside because so disgraceful a secret had been kept from him? She crushed the fear. Lady Alys had said he would not care. Also, he had misunderstood completely what she had meant about Lady Alys’s teasing.

  “Oh, no,” Fenice cried. “I never mind what Lady Alys says. She is always so kind. She does not tease about anything that could really hurt me. But I know that men are more—”

  “I can hold my own against Alys,” Aubery interrupted. “We have been sparring partners for years, but I agree we should hurry. I am damnably hungry.”

  Fenice turned away immediately and hurried to the door. There had been a temptation to look back to catch a glimpse of her husband as he got out of bed, but when he said that he and Alys had been sparring partners, Fenice had remembered Alys’s story about hitting him in the nose. Something told her not only that Aubery was not referring to that incident but also that he would not find it as funny as she did, and she moved quickly away with her back modestly turned to hide her tendency to giggle.

  Absently slipping into and belting his robe, Aubery watched her as she went to the door. One could not fault her for modest demeanor this morning. But what of last night? As the thought crossed his mind, his shaft stirred, and he resolved hastily to concern himself strictly with other matters, or he would provide such a point for Alys’s jests as would be difficult to turn aside.

  It was not as difficult as he had feared because Fenice, when she mixed water for his washing and stood by, holding a towel with which he could dry himself, seemed as calm and indifferent as if she were serving the needs of an honored guest. Helping him to dress, she was swift and deft. There was neither a gesture nor a look that could indicate she had any memory of the caresses she had lavished on his body only a scant hour or two earlier. Aubery could not help thinking of that tale in which Sir Gawain was forced to marry an ugly old woman, who then offered him a choice of her being beautiful either by night or by day. Not that Fenice was anything but beautiful at any time, but she almost seemed to be two different women—meek and modest in the sunlight and bold and wanton at night.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Aubery entered the hall, he found, as Fenice had predicted, Alys, Raymond, and William already well ahead with breaking their fast. However, no more was said than a pleasant good morning, and his austere expression relaxed. William had told Alys and Raymond in no uncertain terms that the usual bridal-morning jests would not be funny to Aubery.

  “I cannot believe he will not take pleasure in his new wife,” William had said, “Fenice being as sweet as she is lovely. But his joy must necessarily remind him of his past loss.”

  “I assure you,” Alys had replied tartly, “that Fenice is nothing like what he has lost.”

  “All the more must we be careful not to prod a half-healed sore,” William pointed out. “I never grieved for your mother, Alys, but I often grieved because I could not grieve, and wept over small unkindnesses and harsh words that I never would be able to amend. Mary was a good woman. So was Matilda. And a man can feel shame also for too easily casting off the old to take pleasure in the new.”

  Thus, Aubery was spared merrily pointed remarks on why he had “slept” so late when they had all been early to bed, and similar pleasantries. Alys felt a trifle uneasy at the dour scowl Aubery wore as he came across the hall, but her anxiety was relieved by the moderation in his expression once it was clear that all conversation would remain impersonal. The last trace of worry disappeared altogether a few minutes later when Fenice came to join them.

  There was nothing dour in Fenice’s expression, not that there ever was, but Alys had rather feared she would see that look of restrained pain and dull submission with which Fenice accepted coldness toward her. On the contrary, the girl’s step was light and eager, and her full lips curved slightly upward a
s if she would smile for any cause. Every sign, in fact, showed Fenice to be content and secure. And when Aubery rose from his seat and bowed as he placed her in her own, she glowed with happiness.

  Alys thought such formality between a husband and wife somewhat peculiar, but it so obviously delighted Fenice that she assumed Aubery had noted her pleasure and was behaving that way for his wife’s sake. She smiled gratefully at him, which pleased William, since Aubery was too busy eating to look at anything except what was laid on the trencher before him.

  Smiles were exchanged over his head, and Alys raised her brows inquiringly at Fenice, who winked in reply but did not pause in her own chewing and swallowing either. William hastily said something—he did not know what himself—about the political situation, fearing that everyone would begin to laugh. The dedication with which Aubery and Fenice were stuffing themselves indicated that considerable vigorous exercise had preceded the meal. Raymond bit his lip to steady his voice for a reply, but it was Aubery who spoke.

  “Just how serious is this threat from Castile?” he asked.

  There was no immediate response. William choked on a bite he had been about to swallow, and Alys pounded him on the back. Raymond cleared his throat harshly, as if he, too, had nearly swallowed wrong. For almost three weeks Raymond and William had discussed this subject, among many others it was true, but with thoroughness. Aubery had been in their company most of the time in which the talks had taken place. However, there was no subterfuge in his present question. He was seriously asking for information. Obviously, while Aubery’s body had been present at their earlier discussions, his mind had been elsewhere.

  Fenice turned to look down the table at her father, whose face was rather red. “Did the plan to marry King Alfonso’s half sister to Prince Edward come to nothing then, Papa? Grandpapa had a letter from Queen Eleanor asking whether he knew anything about the little girl, so I thought…” She hesitated then, looking anxiously from one man’s face to another. All were staring at her. “Have I said what I should not?” she asked faintly. Fenice knew well how to hold her tongue, but it had never occurred to her that she should not say anything that came into her head within the family circle.

  “No, no,” Raymond assured her, and, simultaneously, William asked, “When did you hear of this?”

  “It must have been a week or two after…after I came home.” Her voice quivered with a remnant of the shock she had felt in the instant she feared that secrets were to be kept from her husband and Sir William.

  Accustomed to his daughter’s sensitivity, Raymond nodded to reassure her but looked at William. “That would have been late in January. I did not arrive in Aix until the end of February. Why my father did not mention it to me, I do not know, but since such a union could only be to our advantage, it might have been that he simply forgot.”

  “Possibly,” William remarked thoughtfully. “This means that Henry must have been talking about the marriage seriously no later than October, and it is my feeling that it has been in his mind since Alfonso came to the throne.”

  “As far as I am concerned, it is all to the good,” Raymond said. “It will reduce the threat from the King of Navarre. He will not dare attack Gascony lest it give Alfonso of Castile a valid reason to leap upon his back and stab him. It will also give my dear kinsman Gaston de Béarn one less chance of fomenting trouble in Gascony in Alfonso’s name. So, if I may ask, why do you look as if you have tasted something sour, William?”

  “Because Henry has been screaming that Alfonso is poised to attack and moving up men toward Gascony, you know that.”

  “Do I? I wrote to him that the movement of troops in Castile was intended as a threat against Navarre,” Raymond protested. “Of course, if a treaty is made between Castile and Navarre, Alfonso could march his gathered troops across Navarre to strike at Gascony, just as Gaston has been promising—”

  “But you do not think it very likely,” Aubery interrupted angrily, “and neither does anyone else, from the expression you are wearing.”

  “Very well,” Raymond agreed, “I do not think it likely, I am puzzled as to why you are angry. Do you wish Alfonse to attack Gascony, or do you object to Eleanor of Castile as Edward’s wife?”

  “I am not angry about Eleanor of Castile,” Aubery snarled. “What we object to is Henry holding up Alfonso to us as a madman determined to seize Gascony in order to extract men and money from us in England.”

  “Oh, ho,” Raymond said. “You mean you believe Henry has already opened negotiations with Alfonso and is keeping them secret? Well, I do not know… Fenice, can you remember what that letter said? Was any other maid mentioned? Did it sound as if Eleanor was trying to determine the most likely girl of many or as if Eleanor—oh, damn, so many Eleanors—the child from Castile was already chosen?”

  Relieved of her anxiety about having done wrong, Fenice had been listening with bright-eyed interest. “I think Grandpapa believed young Eleanor of Castile to be a certain choice. That was why I was surprised when Aubery…” she hesitated, uncertain about having used her husband’s name aloud without its title for the first time. A touch of color rose in her cheeks. “When Aubery asked about the threat from Castile.”

  “Do not be so harsh or so quick in judgment, Aubery,” William said. “It is clear that to settle the problem with Castile for all time, Gascony must go to Edward, probably as a dower settlement upon young Eleanor. It is possible that Henry did not want the matter continually discussed and argued over to spare Richard any regrets over the lost appanage.”

  Aubery shrugged his broad shoulders and raised a cynical brow. “Perhaps, but it was no secret that Henry assured the Bishop of Bordeaux and the rest of the delegation from Gascony that the province would be given into Edward’s hands as soon as possible. Would that be less hurtful to Richard’s feelings?”

  “Now you are just being perverse.” William laughed. “Everyone understood that out of spite Henry would have promised Gascony to the devil to remove it from Leicester’s hands.”

  “That may be,” Raymond remarked wryly. “The king is my uncle, and, to speak the truth, I cannot help but love him for his charm and his goodness to me, but nonetheless…why is he speaking of an invasion from Alfonso? I fear Aubery is right. I know with some surety what news and warnings were sent to him. There is a need for the king to come with trustworthy men because appearing weak would induce too high a stomach in the rebels. But Henry was told that to smooth over Leicester’s tenure, there was more need for sweet words than for armies. No one in Gascony really wants as strong a king as Alfonso bids fair to be—and so close as Castile. So if Henry is crying aloud of imminent invasion, it is for some purpose of his own.”

  “As I said, to extract money.”

  But this time there was a kind of cynical detachment in Aubery’s voice as he spoke. He suffered less than most financially because he did his own military service and most of his expenses were covered by Hereford. His habits of frugality, another reaction to his unlamented father’s ostentatious manner of dress and spending, as well as to his own distaste for being a drain on his stepfather’s purse, served him well. William, however, sighed and shook his head.

  “So what do I do?” he asked. “Do I write of this to Richard? He is coregent with the queen, who will say nothing to Richard of the planned marriage. If Henry writes that money is needed to build a defense against Castile, can Richard refuse to ask the barons for it? Is it necessary for me to add trouble to his burdens?”

  “Yes,” Aubery replied, “because it will temper Lord Cornwall’s attitude toward those who protest against such requests. You know, William, that if Cornwall thinks his brother is in danger, he will become fierce as a wolf to protect him.”

  William sighed again. “You are right, and there are those who will spread the news of this proposed marriage as soon as a whisper of it floats in the air.”

  “I would not write as if it were a surety,” Raymond suggested, more to make William feel better than
because he had any particular doubt about the matter.

  The proposed marriage was a perfect way to end the problem of Gascony. Alfonso was too clever, Raymond thought, to believe he could really take and keep that province. To accept it as a dower property for his half sister would increase his honor, and save him the trouble of trying to manage the unruly Gascon towns and nobles. Moreover, Alfonso had children of his own with whom to make other, possibly more important, political marriages. A half sister could easily be spared for a tie with far-off England.

  “Yes,” Alys put in, supporting her husband’s attempt to soothe her father’s anxiety for his friend, “and you need not say how you heard the rumor. There is no need to hurt Richard by telling him that the news came through Queen Eleanor.”

  “Alys is right,” Raymond agreed. “Richard will understand immediately how advantageous to both England and Castile such a marriage will be.”

  Suddenly Aubery laughed. “I would not be surprised if he were to suggest the marriage to Henry. You know he is fond of Edward and truly has the king’s good and that of the realm at heart. And by now he must be resigned to the loss of Gascony.”

  “Assuredly,” Raymond agreed. “That was already decided when I was first in England, back in 1244.”

  “I think it is time to rise and allow the servants to clear this table, or they will never finish with their other work,” Alys said hastily, knowing what the mention of 1244 must mean to Aubery and trying to change the subject.

  But the events of 1244 were burned deep into Aubery’s mind. He was not so irrational as to believe that anyone else remembered the same things he did. Nonetheless, he glanced at Fenice. It was the first time he had thought of the reaction a knowledge of his father’s ways might induce in her. There were still those who looked askance at him, wondering when he would show himself to be a knave or worse, and those like Sir Savin of Radanage who had once believed they had only to offer him a coin or two and he would swear to any falsehood they desired. Well, Sir Savin had learned different, but did Fenice know, or need to know, what his father had been?