Siren Song

by Roberta Gellis

  “I will take your heart, William. I have need of it, since you have always had mine.” She swayed toward him, then drew upright, away from the arms that opened to receive her. “What a fool I am. We must be more sensible, or it will be impossible for us to meet as friends. Please, William. It has meant so much to me to speak to you and to see you sometimes. If we cannot meet without behaving like idiots, I will lose even that. No, please…” He dropped his arms. This time it was Elizabeth who closed her eyes and breathed deep. “What brought you here today?” she asked quietly.

  He turned away and walked to the slit window that opened to the north side of the outer ward. At first he did not answer, and Elizabeth could see the muscles working in his jaw. Finally he turned back and told her about Raymond’s arrival and Alys’s suspicions.

  “I thought I would ask Mauger whether he had heard any rumor of other such placements or whether he heard anything about young Raymond himself.”

  By the time he had got that far, William had calmed down and Elizabeth was also well under control. The flush had died from her cheeks and she was now paler than usual, but her eyes were quiet.

  “He said nothing to me,” she remarked, “but there was no reason to mention a thing like that. He should be back soon, if you would like to wait.”

  Struggle as she would, Elizabeth’s voice held a faint quiver. William swallowed, torn by emotions he was sure she shared. He could not bear to leave, but he could not bear to stay either. It would do no good to ask Elizabeth which she wanted him to do. To send him away would hurt, to keep him would hurt. Life hurt.

  “I…are you on easy terms with Mauger just now?” William did not want to push Elizabeth into approaching her husband if the advent of Emma had caused a coolness between them.

  “We are always on easy terms,” she replied. “Why not?”

  William had started to move toward the door, but he stopped. Elizabeth bit her lip in chagrin. She had forgotten how much more perceptive William was than her husband. William had heard far more than the words she said. He had heard the reiteration of the fact that she did not care enough for Mauger to care when he brought a mistress home. Mauger would never have noticed the fact under the simple remark. Elizabeth, who knew her husband thought she was docile and stupid, took great pleasure in saying things with quite outrageous double meanings to him, knowing he would never catch them.

  Before William could speak, Elizabeth shook her head and opened the door. On the threshold of the hall, she stopped so suddenly that William bumped into her. She stepped aside and gestured courteously for him to go forward, but her eyes warned. The boiling ferment inside William congealed. Sitting near the fireplace drinking from a handsome goblet, was Mauger.

  Standing back, Elizabeth looked at both men with new eyes. In looks there was no comparison. Handsome, William was not, except for those ridiculous eyelashes. On the other hand, Mauger was handsome, definitely so. His hair was true gold, his mouth well formed, his nose straight, his eyes a lovely blue, innocent and guileless. Was there something in Mauger that repelled her? No, it could not be that. It was simply that she loved William. Love was not a matter of face or form.

  “I am glad you are back,” William said.

  To himself, his voice sounded peculiar, but Mauger did not seem to notice anything. Perhaps he would put the stiffness down to William’s displeasure at finding Emma putting herself forward so much. If so, all to the good. Mauger said something civil in reply, invited William to sit and offered wine. He did not mention Emma, but asked with more than usual eagerness what he could do for William, as if he were aware of being caught in something disgraceful and were trying to re-win William’s esteem. William obliged with a second recital of Raymond’s arrival. He was somewhat sur­prised by the intensity with which Mauger listened.

  “No,” Mauger said, when he had heard the tale out. “I have not heard of any similar thing nor was the young man at court when I left, so I cannot tell you anything on that score either, but…but I do not like it, William.”

  “Do not like it? What do you mean?”

  “The king is growing more and more suspicious of everyone and everything,” Mauger said with great excitement.

  “What set him off? I know he was fulminating about Winchester, but when Walter Raleigh went to France—”

  “No,” Mauger interrupted, “it is the Welsh business. When Llewelyn ap lowerth decided that David, his son in wedlock from King John’s daughter Joan, should rule the whole land, his bastard Gruffydd would not accept it. This Gruffydd claims half his father’s estate—on what right I cannot guess.”

  William nodded. He knew the story much better than Mauger because his old lord, Rannulf of Chester, had been a friend and neighbor of Llewelyn ap lowerth. He knew why Gruffydd could claim half the estate and find supporters for that claim. It was the Welsh custom that “the son of the handmaid should be heir with the son of the free”. To William it seemed quite mad that not only legitimate younger sons were entitled to a share with the eldest but that illegitimate sons had the same right.

  Llewelyn had decided to break with custom. Although legitimacy meant little to him, he recognized that David, who was King Henry’s cousin, was more fit to rule than Gruffydd, and he had bound his vassals by oaths to obey the younger, but legitimate, son.

  William knew the rest of the story too, but he had no intention of interrupting Mauger. He was always careful not to mention his own close contact with high-level policy lest he should be thought to be boasting. Thus, he listened quietly while Mauger explained how Gruffydd, not unnaturally, took exception to this arrangement and how his half brother David, hearing of his rebellious attitude, had made him a prisoner. But David’s power had gone to his head, and in 1241 he contended the ownership of the border fortress of Mold with Henry. David had agreed to submit the matter to arbitration, but he never appeared before the arbitrators, among whom had been Richard.

  Mauger noticed William’s expression and hurried on, skipping the charges and countercharges that followed, the brief war in which Henry had an easy triumph because the Welsh princes who were supposed to be subject to David supported Henry instead, and came to the terms of the peace. Before he thought, William sighed and shook his head.

  “You did not think them just?” Mauger asked.

  Too cautious to fall into the trap of saying the king was an idiot, William replied, “Just or unjust has little meaning in dealing with the Welsh, I fear. I thought the terms would make trouble, and King Henry thought better of certain things himself. The king forgot that all brothers are not Richard of Cornwall. He realized what he planned would never work and took Gruffydd into his own hands.”

  “Yes, and his captivity was light in the beginning, for he gave his parole, but last spring he violated that oath and tried to escape and since then the king has kept him prisoned in the Tower of London.”

  William knew that too. He and Richard had visited Gruffydd several times. Personally, he did not like the man and had never liked him. Nonetheless, he could not help but be sorry for him. Gruffydd was suffering no hardship, his confinement being eased with every luxury he requested and even the presence of his wife, but it was still confinement.

  “So what has changed?” he asked Mauger. “The king has held Gruffydd thus since last June.”

  “It is said,” Mauger replied, a faint note of triumph at his superior knowledge in his voice, “that David has written letters to the pope complaining that the terms of the treaty of 1241 were extorted from him by fear and force, and he has also sent rich bribes to incline the Holy Father to give him permission to set aside those oaths.”

  William mouthed an obscenity. This, if it was true, was news, and most unpleasant news.

  “There is more,” Mauger continued with satisfaction. He was delighted with oversetting his neighbor’s normal calm. “I have heard rumors that there is a plot to free Gruffydd, and if I have heard, the king has certainly heard also—”

  “Free Gruf
fydd! Who would wish to do that?”

  Mauger shrugged. “That I cannot say, but the king is furious. If it were to happen, David could say Gruffydd was loosed apurpose to torment him, and take it as a cause to violate the treaty. In any case, these rumors have set the king to looking about him on all sides for any man who has any connection with the Welsh. You were squire to Rannulf of Chester and served many years near Wales.”

  “But so long ago—”

  “Likely I am wrong,” Mauger agreed smoothly, “but it can do no harm for you to mind your tongue in front of this Raymond and keep as much business private from him as you can. The most innocent things can be twisted awry by someone who comes to find wrongdoing or looks at things with a poisoned eye.”

  Chapter Four

  Shortly after William left Marlowe, Alys and Raymond followed him. What Alys had started to point out to her father at breakfast, and then thought better of, was that Raymond could not go around the farms on his own. He spoke not one single word of English, and the serfs and villeins spoke no word of French, nor understood it either. Within the keep, most servants, like their masters, were completely bilingual. On the farms, however, only English was used. Thus, the opportunity for misunderstanding between a young man of high estate—Alys was more and more convinced that Raymond was no simple knight—and serfs who were accustomed to being protected from interlopers was too great to be ignored.

  There was, of course, no need for Alys herself to accompany Raymond. She could have told Diccon, the master-at-arms, to go with him. However, it seemed to her an excellent opportunity to discover more about Raymond. Unfortunately, the expedition started on the wrong foot. Raymond’s surprise when Alys said she would go with him made her bristle.

  “I know the land and the people best,” she said coldly. “As my father is much away, the management of the estate falls to me. What is there in that to make you lift your brows?”

  “But a woman—” Raymond protested unwisely.

  “I have never noticed that a bull is wiser than a cow or a stallion than a mare—quite the contrary. Led by their noses toward a female’s rump, they will fall into any stupidity. So a woman is no less clever than a man, even though she cannot swing a sword, and she is less easily distracted by pretty wives and daughters. Thus, my father trusts me better than a bailiff. You should know, if you intend to serve my father, that most matters of the farms are left to me.”

  Poor Raymond simply gaped. First, he had never been spoken to like that by a lady in his life. Second, his mother and sisters were far too great ladies to trouble themselves with running the house itself, and, as for managing any estate, they would have fainted away with disgust if one of the common serfs approached them.

  He heard Alys ordering the saddling of a palfrey for him. “Do you think I am unable to ride a horse?” Raymond gasped, undecided whether he should be outraged or worried that his destrier was being appropriated.

  Alys looked at him as if he were a total idiot. “I have no idea,” she snapped, “but if your seat is as lacking as your wits, I cannot guess how you won your spurs. What do you think you will learn if your whole attention must be on keeping your stallion in hand? Papa is not too proud to ride a palfrey. Are you better than he?”

  “Why should I need to keep my horse in hand?” Raymond asked.

  “It is plain you know nothing of overseeing a demesne,” Alys said, looking him up and down. “Is it not the habit in your land to ride about the farms? Do not the serfs come running to you, more especially the children? No, I see by your face that you are astonished by what I say. Well, it is so here, and I do not choose to have your destrier trampling Papa’s people.”

  Raymond opened his mouth to say sharply that it would be their own faults if they did not know enough to stand clear of a war-horse, but he recalled in time that he was a stranger. He remembered Sir William saying he would find not only the crops but the people different here. He thought ill of a difference that inconvenienced the lord to protect the serf, but he had taken warning from Alys’s tone. For some reason, she did not accept his pose, and Raymond thought it would be well not to increase her suspicions. However, once he had gotten over the embarrassment of finding himself astride a docile, old creature that could not, he judged, work up more than a trot without dropping dead, he found what Alys told him of great interest. In no time he was blessing the idly ambling palfrey, which was equally undisturbed by the farm dogs that snapped at his heels, the children who rushed out from the hedges that lined the road to run beside him, and the husbandmen who dashed suddenly from a gate to wave agricultural implements in his face while they screamed gibberish at Alys.

  The first time the latter happened, Raymond reached for his sword—which he was not wearing because Alys had asked him caustically which of her servants he was planning to hew down.

  “A son has been born in their house,” she said to Raymond. “Wulf wants me to look at the babe.”

  When they reached the mud and wattle hovel, he asked, “You are going in there?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you expect a two-day babe to walk out to me? The woman has not been churched yet and cannot come out. I will not be long.”

  She was not and came out smiling, although she breathed deep to get the stink of the place out of her nose. “A very likely babe,” she said approvingly, as Raymond cupped his hands for her to step in to mount. “I hope it lives. The poor woman lost two children this past winter, although one was only a daughter.”

  “They are very free with you,” Raymond said stiffly.

  “How so free?” Alys looked surprised. “All creatures wish to show their young to their masters. Does not my bitch pull me by the skirt to admire her pups? Why should Wulf be more shy? Both serve Papa well, and both need a pat now and again to show we notice them.”

  That seemed quite logical. Raymond nodded, suddenly realizing that he had lost a level of society. As he and his father would occasionally stop at the manor of a very minor vassal for a special event—a wedding or the knighting of a son—so Alys, daughter to a minor vassal, visited a hut to do honor to her servants. Once he recognized the situation, it lost its repugnance. Raymond began to ask questions about the tenure of the land, how rents were paid, how many serfs compared to how many villein freeholders there were. Alys answered readily, all the information at the tip of her tongue.

  By the time they turned homeward, they were arguing freely on the relative merits of rents in money or in kind and whether it was more economical to take labor service from serfs or higher rentals from free men and then pay for labor. From time to time Raymond lost the thread of the argument when he contemplated the sweet, rosy lips from which the words came.

  Alys did not lose the thread of her conversation, because she knew her subject so well, but scarcely half her mind was given to the argument. The rest of her thoughts considered Raymond himself. There could no longer be any doubt that he was the scion of a really great house. Rentals in terms of marks, rather than pennies, and labor in terms of knight service, rather than sowing and reaping, could only be the business of the son of a high noble. Alys, however, was no nearer knowing what Raymond’s purpose was. He showed no contempt or indifference to what she was telling him. And she did not think the interest was spurious. He was clearly giving his mind to the subject, except for a momentary distraction now and again. The cause of that was obvious because of the way his eyes rested on her face, and it made him all the more attractive to Alys. Admiration was written large in Raymond’s eyes, but not one word of praise or entreaty passed his lips. The self-restraint was admirable. The lively intelligence was refreshing. All in all, Alys found Raymond the most attractive young man she had ever met.

  If only she had been able to guess what his purpose was, what the king’s purpose was. If it were evil, she could settle her mind to dislike and distrust Raymond, in which case he would soon be gone. But Alys wished very much that Raymond’s purpose were innocent. She was lonely for the company of someon
e young of her own class. She missed Harold, with whom she had gone hawking and played games. It would be so nice if…

  To curb her treacherous feelings, Alys went to report her findings to her father as soon as she was back in the keep. He was where she wanted him to be, engaged in finishing his letter to Richard of Cornwall.

  “Raymond is no simple knight, Papa,” she said as soon as she closed the door.

  William looked up at her. “No, I thought not myself. Has he told you—”

  “He told me nothing of himself, but I took him over the demesne as you—”

  “You took him!” William exploded, laying down his quill and pushing the parchment out of his way. “I thought you had more sense than to go riding alone with a man we know nothing about. What the devil—”

  “Oh Papa, do not be so silly. What do you think he could do to me astride a horse? Besides, I am not such a fool. I was riding Vitesse and I had him atop old Bonté.”

  That made William laugh although he was still annoyed with Alys. He had to admit she had not been in any danger. The old gelding had never had much of a turn for speed. On her fleet mare, Alys had not been likely to be captured. Yet…

  “What made you go with him? Surely he is old enough to ride around the farms without getting lost.”

  He did not like the interest Alys was showing in this young knight. Perhaps he should put aside the idea of her marriage to Aubery. It was selfish to make her wait just so that he could have her near him. There had not seemed to be any hurry because he had never perceived in Alys the slightest interest in any of the men, young or old, who passed through Marlowe. However, if her heart was ready to love, he had better ask Richard about a suitable man for her. Besides, Aubery and Alys might not suit. They were very friendly, but always competing for who should lead, and Elizabeth said… William’s heart lurched at her name.

  “What is the matter, Papa?” Alys cried, reaching toward him across the table. “Did Sir Mauger say that Raymond was a danger to us?”