SirenSong

by Roberta Gellis

  “The hay is nearly all in,” she replied, “and the crops are very good. Next week the men will begin to harvest the south slope. There was something though—” Her eyes sought Elizabeth.

  “Something about the farm, love?” Elizabeth asked brightly, her eyes warning.

  “The town—” Alys said hesitantly.

  William slapped a hand on the chess board, sending the pieces flying. “Sorry,” he said to Elizabeth, “I concede,” and looked back at Alys. “Do not tell me that they have put up buildings at the near curve of the river. I—”

  “No, Papa, no,” Alys soothed.

  “Something is wrong in Marlowe?” Elizabeth asked, the warning gone from her voice.

  The question was clearly permission to discuss that subject. Alys now understood that Elizabeth had been warning her away from mentioning any personal matters that might distress her father, and she was relieved. Raymond’s anodyne for fear had been most efficacious. Once out of the keep, with her attention fixed on the fields and the serfs, her terror had become muted. Raymond had suggested that they ride through the town and look about there also. Here, he was more cognizant than Alys. He was well accustomed to dealing with tolls and fees from towns and commerce. Although much of his experience was with larger places, the principles were the same.

  The busy wharfs had gained Raymond’s approval, but he had begun to frown a trifle when an obsequious merchant hurried up and began to explain the activity as most unusual. When the merchant also made obvious efforts to lure them away from the area, the frown disappeared and Raymond began to look so bland and guileless that Alys had some difficulty in restraining herself from laughing. She took her cue from him, however, and agreed to everything the merchant said, like a perfect fool.

  They had ridden home after that, but Alys had no chance to be afraid because Raymond had pressed her with questions about Sir William’s arrangement with the town. Was it chartered? Was it Sir William’s land? Was it a “farm” with a stated fee? If so, was the farm “at pleasure”? Was it contracted for so many years?

  For once Alys had to confess herself at a loss. She knew the town was not chartered and that the land was in her father’s fife, but little more than that. One of the guildmasters had come with money, and she had entered the sums in the account books. Her father had never complained, but then, he was not a greedy man. Raymond’s questions reminded her of her own doubts. Alys was not greedy either, but she objected violently, as would Sir William, to being cheated.

  Thus, she was glad Elizabeth thought her father well enough to answer such questions, and even gladder that she had been wordlessly forbidden to mention more personal subjects. The hours she had spent with Raymond had increased her desire to be his wife. There was an ease, a meeting of minds, a fitting together of knowledge and experience, one complementing the other, that gave great promise for a rich life together. The better that life seemed, the more nervous Alys became about her father’s reaction to Raymond’s true status and reason for being with them.

  “Is it really all right to talk business with Papa?” she asked outright. “He may get angry.”

  “That is a damned stupid thing to say, Alys,” William remarked, laughing. “First of all, I will be angry before you start if you introduce a subject like that. Secondly, you now must tell me because I will be even angrier if you do not. Very well, out with it. What is wrong in Marlowe?”

  “I think Raymond can explain better than I, Papa. May I call him in?”

  “Certainly,” William said, but he cast one glance at Elizabeth.

  She smiled reassuringly at him as soon as Alys was out of the room. “She will warn him to say nothing. She understands that business is not so heating to the blood—for you, at least—as love.”

  “How true that is,” William responded with a leer.

  “Shameless!” Elizabeth reproved sternly, but William nodded with such enthusiasm that she burst out laughing.

  Alys found Raymond coming out of Martin’s chamber. “Oh, there you are,” she exclaimed. “Papa wishes to speak to you.”

  “Now?” Raymond asked apprehensively. “But I was just talking to Martin, who said I must, on no account, ask your father—”

  “Not about us. Do not dare even hint at that.” Her smile was brilliant. “I was wrong. Papa is quite well. He wants to know what is going on in Marlowe. Lady Elizabeth thinks it is quite all right to talk business, even if it makes him angry, but I could not explain clearly enough.”

  “Yes,” Raymond said, his jaw hardening, “that needs explaining.”

  He marched firmly into William’s bedchamber, sufficiently intent on the business in hand to be rid, temporarily, of his feeling of guilt. Moreover, he knew this was a subject about which he probably understood more than his “master”. It eased his conscience somewhat to know that he could do Sir William a good turn. In a few minutes he had the basic facts concerning the town’s obligations to its overlord clear.

  “Then you are being badly cheated,” Raymond said angrily, adding hastily, “I beg you not to lose your temper, sir.”

  “No, I will not,” William remarked calmly, although there was a grim tightness in his lips. “It is mostly owing to my own neglect and is almost as much my fault as theirs. One should not set temptation in the way of common men. They have no sense of honor. To them, what will make a profit is good.”

  And William did manage to keep his temper as they discussed the matter thoroughly, deciding that the first step was to set a guard on the docks and determine what was shipped in and out. Raymond’s only doubts were as to the value of the goods here in England.

  “Martin will know that,” William said, “but I do not like to send him into the town. I know you will not let anyone hurt him, Raymond, but getting him there will be a problem and he feels it so much when people make signs at him to ward off evil—”

  “I know also, Papa,” Alys put in brightly.

  “It will not be necessary for anyone to be with me,” Raymond said stiffly. He realized that Alys was trying to push her father into a tacit acknowledgment of her right to be with him. “I can write down how many bolts of cloth, bushels of grain, and so on, and—”

  “And we will need an interpreter to understand what you write,” Alys laughed. “I could hardly read a word of your letter. Perhaps I should go as your clerk.”

  William bit his lip, torn between anger and laughter. He understood quite well what Alys was doing, and if he had not been almost as eager to get her out of the keep as she was to be with Raymond, so that he and Elizabeth could have some privacy, he would have been furious. As it was, he was amused and tempted, all the more because Raymond seemed more reluctant than eager for her company.

  “You do spell most vilely, Raymond,” William admitted.

  “He does not spell vilely,” Elizabeth protested, before Raymond could decide whether Sir William was using this excuse to give Alys the permission she desired or had spoken the simple truth as he saw it without realizing where it would lead. “He writes a fair hand of the French of the south. Anyway, it does not matter how he spells, since he will be here to read his own writing.”

  Elizabeth was aware of William’s motives. Part of her was in sympathy with them, but she knew that Alys would not be free to leave the keep. Once William rose from his bed, she had no excuse to remain at Marlowe. Until then, he might be considered seriously ill enough to require more experienced nursing than Alys could give him. After that the true reason for her lingering must become obvious. Elizabeth did not fear that William’s servants would censure her or dare to be disrespectful, but anything they knew was transmitted with startling rapidity to the servants at Hurley.

  The same reasoning applied to allowing Alys to be seen too often in Raymond’s company. Thus, Elizabeth turned a blind eye to the reproachful glance William cast at her. “If you do not like the records Raymond makes, Alys can transcribe them when he comes back from the town.” She had to restrain herself from laughing af
ter she spoke. The word “traitor” was so clear in two pairs of eyes. Later she would explain to Alys, and Alys would understand. William—she would apply a balm to William’s feelings at night that would soothe away all hurt.

  Elizabeth’s precautions were for the most part in vain. Mauger had long known that she and William loved each other and had planned for years on what profit would salve his pride. In fact, profit was no longer his sole aim. Frustration was not good for a character like Mauger’s. It turned him vicious. And frustration was all he had had from the beginning of the Welsh campaign.

  All his plans had gone awry. Every device to kill William had failed, and the last two failures were his own. Unable to find someone else to blame for the debacles, Mauger tried to put William out of his mind completely. But this was not possible either. It seemed to Mauger as if everyone in the entire army came to his encampment day and night to enquire about William’s health. The first day after Mauger’s attack on William these innocent inquiries gave him some relief, indicating that no one suspected him of that attempt. Once that fear was gone, however, any mention of William was like rough cloth on a rash.

  There were peaks to Mauger’s irritation. The Earl of Hereford had called him in and given him an icy tongue-lashing for disobeying William’s orders. “I love Aubery too well to do his father a despite,” Hereford concluded, “and Aubery tells me you have not previously fought in this kind of war, but a man your age should have sense enough to take advice from those like Sir William with greater experience. In the future, be careful.”

  Wisely, Mauger did not try to justify himself. Dismissed, he went back to his own area, growling at Aubery to come to him as soon as he was free. That message led to more rage and frustration, for the first words out of Aubery’s mouth were of his anxiety about William.

  “My lord says someone tried to kill him again last night, and that Sir Raymond is taking him home to Marlowe.”

  “Never mind William,” Mauger snarled. “What the hell do you mean by making me out a sniveling idiot to de Bohun? How dared you tell him I was an inexperienced fool.”

  “To be inexperienced and overeager for battle is not to be a fool,” Aubery snapped, leaving his father open mouthed with surprise. “I did my best for you. What could I say? Would you have preferred that I say you are so envious of Sir William that if he said you were riding a horse you would contend it was a cow?”

  Mauger struck out at his son, and Aubery jerked himself out of the way. It was an efficient gesture, the mark of a keen-honed eye for attack and defense, a far better eye than his father’s. Then the boy dropped his eyes.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “You may beat me if you like. That is your right, and what I said to you was disrespectful, but I did do my best to excuse you to my lord. He was furious! I had to tell him the truth.”

  Something in the way Aubery had moved, the controlled power that pulled him barely an inch clear of the blow and left him close enough to strike back gave Mauger some very sour food for thought. There was a change in Aubery’s expression also. Mauger suddenly realized that he was not dealing with a little boy who could be overawed but with a young man who was dangerous. Aubery might bow to his father’s will or even take a beating because both were his father’s “right” in dealing with him, however, it was clear that if he desired he could defend himself, possibly even win any contest between them. Mauger dropped the hand that he had half raised.

  “What smirches me, smirches you,” he spat. “Do not forget it. There is something far more important to me, however, than this stupid business. That idiot hireling was made to move William. Likely he will die on the road.”

  At that point Mauger got another unpleasant shock. Aubery turned ashen pale and tears rushed to his eyes. “No!” he exclaimed. “I cannot believe it.”

  Then his voice choked and he could say no more. Thus, Mauger never learned that de Bohun, Raymond, and the friar in charge of the infirmary had had a long, anxious conference about the subject in the small hours after the attack on William. The infirmarian’s opinion had been the deciding factor. With many references to the “will of God”, the infirmarian had admitted that he was reasonably sure the journey would not kill William. It would set him back—he warned them of prolonged fever and weakness—but if the wounds did not mortify, a factor the journey would not affect, he should live.

  “Who cares what you believe,” Mauger snarled.

  What a fool he had been to let his sons spend so much time at Marlowe. Now he understood where they had gotten their idiotic ideas about honor. Honor was for those who could afford it, not for a poor man who had to make his way upward by tooth and claw and cleverness. Blast William! Mouthing inane platitudes and stealing his sons’ affections. He had not cared when they were little boys, nuisances they were, always wanting to show him something. Now that they were nearly men they should know better. They should see for themselves that his way was the path of wisdom and profit. William’s stupid ideals would leave them in the mud. Well, if that was what they wanted, let them have it. He was through with them—except…

  “You must arrange a leave of absence with the Earl of Hereford as soon as this action is over,” Mauger went on. “You must be married to Alys at once, before William’s overlord can take her.”

  “No,” Aubery said firmly, although he was whiter.

  He had been boy enough when his father first raised the subject with him to wish to slough off the responsibility of refusal. Aubery knew William would do it and save him from needing to oppose his father openly. It was natural for Aubery to ask William’s help. From the time Aubery was six years old, William had been his bulwark in any trouble his mother could not solve.

  Mauger had been away too much or “too busy” to listen to his little problems. It was William who gave him his first metal sword, who gave him his lessons in swordplay. It was to William he managed to send a message when he was a page, miserably homesick and, as the newcomer to the group, teased and taunted. William had responded with advice. Better yet, he had come himself, all the way from Marlowe to Hereford to be sure Aubery’s trouble was only homesickness and teasing. The assurance of support had been really all Aubery needed. After William’s visit he had been more sure of himself, more able to assert himself, and he was soon very happy in his new life.

  “What do you mean, no?” Mauger gasped.

  Aubery wet his lips nervously. William had always emphasized the need to be obedient to his father, within the limits of honor, and he knew he had met a limit here. “Sir William says that Alys does not wish to marry me, and it is his will that she have free choice. To speak the truth, I do not wish to marry her either. I would have done it at your will and Sir William’s, but he has the right of disposal of his daughter. I will crave leave, if you desire it. I will do my uttermost to protect Alys, as a sister, if—if Sir William—” His voice trembled and he had to stop.

  “You idiot! The best way to protect her is to marry her.”

  “I will not oppose Sir William’s will, sir. He has been too good to me all my life.”

  “Get out,” Mauger snarled. “Get out!”

  Gratefully, Aubery fled. Mauger stood staring at the quivering tent flap, unaware that his abrupt dismissal of his son had kept him from learning another, essential piece of information, that Alys needed no protection from Sir William’s overlord. Mauger’s mind had been busy while Aubery explained his refusal. His remark that the best way to protect Alys was to marry her had been automatic, but it had come from his train of thought.

  There was no need, Mauger realized, for Aubery to marry Alys. It was stupid anyway to put Marlowe and Bix into Aubery’s hands. Aubery might think he really had a right to the properties and contest his father’s will concerning them, particularly this new Aubery. Thank goodness he had seen the change soon enough. All he needed to do was dispose of Elizabeth, which would be no trouble at all. Then he could marry Alys himself.

  Now Mauger was eager to get home and discov
er whether William had died on the road, as he hoped, or whether he would need to find a way to dispose of him. In this, too, he was frustrated. For more than a week the Earl of Hereford made feints at Welsh keeps and tried various devices to draw David ap Llewelyn into battle. Mauger remained part of this useless attempt, unwilling to stay but more unwilling to draw Hereford’s unfavorable attention by asking leave to go.

  At last de Bohun was convinced that David’s forces were temporarily dispersed. He sent messengers to the king with this information and told Henry he was releasing the levies under his command, as their term of service was nearly finished and it was pointless to pay them day wages to wander around the Welsh forests. He urged the king to bring the army gathered to fight the Scots to Wales after the treaty with Alexander was signed.

  Two days after William arrived home, Mauger received his release and began to march his troop and the remnants of William’s toward Marlowe. So eager was he for news, so passionate his hope that William was dead and he could convince Alys to come home with him to be comforted by Elizabeth, that he came to Marlowe with William’s troops, leaving his own to find their way to Hurley by themselves. The casual greeting he had from Diccon should have warned him that all was well with William, but Mauger cared nothing for his own subordinates and could not imagine that they could care for him. Thus he was able to blind himself to the truth for a few minutes longer.

  Unfortunately that made his shock all the greater when he came to the entryway of the great hall. The servants were just finishing clearing away the tables after dinner, but their activity did not hold Mauger’s attention or block his view. William was sitting in his usual chair by the hearth. Mauger stopped dead, livid with rage. Since he had waved away Diccon’s offer to send a man to announce him, a common enough thing for a long-time neighbor and friend to do, no one noticed his arrival. Instinctively, Mauger took a step back into the passageway through the wall. From where he stood, he could not hear what was said, but what he saw was appalling. William was staring into the embers in the fireplace while Raymond and Alys had drawn two chairs very close together and were reading something. Raymond’s finger moved down the page, apparently he was reading aloud, and Alys was in fits of laughter.