SirenSong

by Roberta Gellis

“Go now and let your mistress rest,” Mauger growled at the woman.

  Maud went away willingly enough. Elizabeth did not look very sick to her. She was also pleased by the fact that Emma was pale as a ghost and most subdued in manner when she was sent to Elizabeth’s chamber. All the petty, flaunting arrogance was gone. The girl crept in like a mouse, tearful and trembling. In fact, when Mauger dropped the bar to lock the door behind her she nearly fainted. Mauger’s sharp slap, not hard enough this time to knock her down but quite hard enough to hurt, and his snarl warning her not to indulge herself or he would give her a real reason to faint forced her to hold onto consciousness.

  “My wife has greatly offended me,” Mauger said. “She is unfaithful, and I have decided to punish her. You will be her warden. You will remain in this room with her and you will not allow any of the castlefolk in—no one except myself. Do you understand me? The door is to be barred at all times when I am not in the room. I do not want that nosy bitch, Maud, or anyone else sneaking in and bringing my whore of a wife comfort.”

  Unable to speak, Emma stared. She was shivering with terror. Mauger did not doubt she would mean to do as she was told, but still he did not trust her.

  “Go and look through the chests,” he ordered. “Bring me some sashes or some thin scarves. You are such a stupid slut that I dare not leave anything to chance.”

  When Emma supplied what he asked for, Mauger bound Elizabeth’s hands and feet and gagged her. Then he looked from one woman to the other and an idea came to him that tickled his fancy. He lifted Elizabeth from the bed and dumped her on the floor.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said to Emma.

  The girl gaped at him, her eyes flying to Elizabeth. He struck her once more, lightly, just enough to sting her cheek and remind her who was her master. Tears overflowed her eyes, but she began to obey. Never had anything like this happened before. Emma had been assiduously shielded from priests who would tell her the profession for which she was destined was “bad”. Thus she knew only vaguely that what she did, coupling with men to whom she was not married, was a sin. Actually she had never felt sinful or ashamed. Now for the first time she was sickened, horrified by the idea of the sexual act.

  “Now undress me,” Mauger ordered.

  Weeping and trembling, Emma obeyed. Although he usually liked complaisant women, Mauger was enjoying Emma’s distress. Her plainly unwilling obedience soothed the frustration that had eaten him for months. While she drew off his clothing, he pinched her nipples and stroked her, murmuring the crudest obscenities. When she knelt to take off his shoes and cross garters, he bent over and nibbled her neck and ears.

  He found the situation so exciting—his naked wife bound and gagged a few feet away, his naked mistress kneeling at his feet—that he was suddenly unwilling to wait any longer. “Take me in your mouth,” he panted, pulling Emma up by the hair. “Suck me.”

  The climax he achieved nearly brought Mauger down on top of Emma. He was thoroughly delighted, recognizing that the intense pleasure was partly owing to Elizabeth’s helpless presence. Emma was nothing, any woman could play her part. It was Elizabeth’s degradation that had pushed him above his normal sexual response. He turned to her and laughed when he saw her eyes were shut tight.

  “Skinny, ugly bitch. You cannot close your ears.” As he said it, another idea came to him, but he was too played out at this moment to enjoy it properly. He looked back at Emma, doubled over, trying to control her heaving body. “Get up and get my clothes back on and be quick about it,” he ordered.

  After he was dressed, he noticed that Elizabeth was shivering violently from the cold. He turned to go, then realized he did not want Elizabeth to be sick. He wanted her to be an unwilling witness to his sexual pleasure. If she was fevered she would not notice. He scooped her up and dumped her back into the bed. Last, he ordered Emma to bar the door behind him and not to dare to speak to Elizabeth or touch her. Then, sated and somewhat relieved of the gnawing sense of powerlessness that had afflicted him recently, Mauger went down to demand a supper of roast pasty as well as bread and cheese, and to listen to Egbert’s report on the final arrangements for Raymond’s assassination.

  It was unfortunate that Mauger had not arrived at Marlowe fifteen minutes later. Very soon after he went down the stairs, the tableau that had so infuriated him broke up. Raymond came to the end of his list of cargoes and Alys stopped giggling at the way he pronounced the names of the goods, rolled the sheet of parchment, and rose to her feet. In moving, her glance fell on her father. The laughter went out of her eyes. She was no longer amused by the dumb misery that masked itself as thoughtfulness.

  “You should go back to bed, Papa,” she said softly.

  William did not move. Alys touched his arm. He started, looked up at her, and smiled. “Sorry, I was thinking. Did you say something to me, my love?”

  “I said you have been up and about long enough and you should go back to bed.”

  Back to bed where the scent Elizabeth used lingered very faintly in the sheets and covers. How long would it be before that odor was fresh in his nostrils again? How long before he could bury his face in her wild hair and feel the warmth of her body through it on his lips? He had lowered his eyes slightly so that Alys could not see them. For a second they were blind, but the roll of parchment she held soon took on meaning. He turned his head toward Raymond.

  “I will go in a minute. What was your count today, Raymond?”

  It was Alys who answered because she was quicker at summing a total, and they were soon plunged deep in a discussion of the cheating merchants of Marlowe.

  “Now do not lose your temper, Papa,” Alys warned when it became apparent that the merchants must have cheated on tolls as well as on fees. She was not entirely serious, however. She preferred her father to be angry rather than sad.

  He cast her an irritated glance, saw she was teasing him, and laughed. “You have been down there three mornings, right?” he asked Raymond.

  “Yes, sir. And I think—”

  “I will lay you a gold mark against a copper mil,” William interrupted, “that the traffic is already less than it first was. There has been time enough now to send messages up river and down that an agent for me watches the docks every morning. We will try a small deviation from our pattern. Tomorrow you will go down after dinner instead of in the morning, and the day after also. Then you will miss a few days. We still need to get the recruiting done and I do not like to send Diccon alone. He picks more by size and shape than by willingness. Then you can pay visits on odd days or I will. I should be well enough to ride next week.”

  Alys shook her head at him. “You should be, but you will not if you sit here and tell Raymond what he knows perfectly well already instead of going to rest.”

  “Very well, I am going,” William said, and laughed at the alacrity with which Raymond hurried forward to help him from his chair and give him the support of his arm into his bedchamber.

  Hardly had Raymond disappeared with him than Diccon came up to report on the condition of the men who had returned with Mauger. Alys slumped and sighed with relief, realizing she had got her father out of the way just in time. Had he heard this news, he would have become frantic to have word of what had happened in Hurley now that Mauger was home. He had been most unwilling to let Elizabeth go. They had quarreled bitterly over her insistence on leaving, Alys knew.

  Alys was afraid her father would insist on going to Hurley to make sure Elizabeth was safe. She could not see why there should be any danger to Elizabeth, and she did not know of Mauger’s peculiar behavior. Diccon, assuming that Mauger had spoken to William, did not mention him at all to Alys. If she mentioned to her father that Mauger was back, he would not sleep all night.

  I will not tell Papa, Alys thought, settling more firmly into her chair. If he is angry, I will say the truth, that it was too late to visit and ask for news of the campaign, which would be the only excuse possible for a visit from her father and also that
it would not look decent. It must be assumed even if we know better that a man returning from a two month absence would wish to be alone with his wife. Yes, Alys thought, that would do quite well to excuse her for today, but how could she prevent her father from going tomorrow?

  The answer came swiftly, by going herself. And again she could speak the absolute truth. She could confess she had concealed the knowledge of Mauger’s arrival to prevent her father from going to Hurley. Not even an idiot, and Mauger was no idiot, could believe a man with half-healed wounds would rush out of his sickbed to hear news that his second master-at-arms could give him in his own keep. However, Alys could go without raising doubts in anyone. It would be most natural for her to want to consult Elizabeth about her father’s recovery, and while she was doing so she could find out whether it would be wise to ask Mauger to come to Marlowe to give her father the news. She might even ask him to bring Elizabeth so that she could assure Alys all was going well with William’s healing.

  The next morning, William finally wrote a letter to Richard. It was little more than a note in which he stated what had happened to him and that he was well on the way to recovery, told Richard when his surveillance of the clerk had ended, and asked for news of the Scottish negotiations. William could only hope Richard would not think he had been hurt worse than he said, but he dared not write more than the simple facts for fear that his sense of need would permeate the letter. The small effort tired him so much that he ate his meal alone and went back to bed. Alys could hardly believe her luck. She had been dreading the morning, not knowing whether she would be able to conceal her guilty knowledge from her father or whether a servant would inadvertently mention the arrival of the men from Wales. In fact, everything conspired to suit her purpose. Because she was so pleased with her father’s behavior, Alys began to fear that she was blinding herself to some evil symptom he was displaying. She fussed around him, touching him to see if he was fevered, asking how he felt, why he was so tired, finally demanding to change his bandages to make sure healing was advancing properly. At that point, William was driven to bellow at her to get out and leave him alone so he could sleep.

  The volume and ferocity of the order did much to convince Alys that there was nothing much wrong with her father. With the conviction came the realization that she could have done nothing more efficacious. She could now avoid William without his having the faintest suspicion that she wished to avoid him. Moreover, she could even go to Hurley without telling him before she left that Mauger had returned. If she left a message that she had gone to see Elizabeth, her papa would certainly assume that she had gone because she was worried about him!

  She and Raymond had a very early and light dinner. Raymond could eat again at any time in the town and Alys intended to have an extra meal with her father when she returned, at which time she could confess and tell him, she hoped, that Mauger would bring Elizabeth to visit him soon. Both she and Raymond were preoccupied with their own coming activities and Raymond found this singularly pleasant. At home, no matter how busy his mind was, he was required to make conversation suitable to ladies at dinner. Alys was surely the most delightful woman alive, for she was as comfortable to live with as she was beautiful to look at.

  He rode off into the town in a rosy haze. Probably Sir William would be furious when he heard Raymond’s full story, but Raymond did not fear he would refuse permission for Alys to marry him. The past two days, although nothing had been said, implied the matter was settled. Raymond’s conscience was much easier. When Sir William was ready—presumably when he had a chance to inform Earl Richard of his intentions—he would broach the subject. Raymond hoped the letter that had gone out to Richard of Cornwall this morning carried the news.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Raymond arrived at the dock, he dismounted and listened to the reports of the men-at-arms stationed there. Sir William had been right, traffic had been much lower in the morning. However there was already a ship coming from downriver. Raymond went back to the shed he had commandeered as a headquarters so that he would be out of the rain, which had been spattering about on and off all day, and sat down to wait until the vessel came in. His mind drifted back to a pleasant contemplation of his forthcoming betrothal.

  The thoughts were interrupted by the docking, by the now familiar arguments of the merchant and the men-at-arms who went to inspect the cargo. Some yielded readily, some required the authority of Raymond’s manner, his gold-decked sword, before they would permit an examination of their goods. This was a particularly stubborn case, the merchant protesting that he had been robbed in the past with just such an excuse and ordering his crew to cast off the lines that held them to the dock. It took Raymond some time to calm him. In the end, he had to promise to stand by and oversee the entire operation himself.

  The boat was well laden. As about half the cargo was for Marlowe and it had to be separated from what was to remain, several hours passed before Raymond’s count was complete. He was soaked to the skin by the time he got back to the shed. Although it was not time for sunset, the clouds were so heavy that it was almost dark. Raymond called out to one of the men-at-arms to obtain a dry cloak for him. Before that man returned, he had to call another and ask for torches or a lamp. The clouds were more and more threatening of a real downpour to follow the off-and-on drizzle that had plagued them all week. Finally his cloak arrived.

  The man who had gone for the torches had not yet returned. Despite the cloak, Raymond shivered again and wondered whether it was worthwhile waiting any longer. Dark as it was, most boats would do as the one that had just come in and tie up wherever they could. With the wind high, there was a danger of running into low water. The channel of the river was easy enough to follow in daylight, wind or no wind, but the curving course made travel in the dark dangerous. Once more Raymond walked to the edge of the shed to examine the sky. As he did so, a shadow slipped around the end nearest him.

  “My lord, my master would wish to speak with you—in private.”

  The whisper was coarse, a broken French. The man’s face was a pale glimmer in the dim light. All Raymond could really make out was that he smelled worse than the men-at-arms, wore a short tunic and baggy chausses bound with ill-tied cross garters. But he did speak some French, which implied that his master spoke it better. Almost certainly, then, his master was a merchant. No one else in Marlowe would need to speak French. In the dark, Raymond smiled. It looked as if his investigation had shaken up the merchant community. Probably one of them had become nervous enough to try to get into Sir William’s good graces.

  “Very well.” Raymond looked toward his horse at the other end of the shed, but the man plucked his sleeve.

  “It is not far, lord. Do not call your men or ride. My master will be in deep trouble if it becomes known that he spoke to you.”

  Better and better, Raymond thought. From what the man hinted it was likely his master was prepared to confess the other merchants’ sins as well as his own. Concealing his eagerness, Raymond nodded curtly. He wondered whether he should tell the nearest man-at-arms that he would be gone for a while, but the merchant’s servant was already sidling away around the side of the shed.

  Raymond hurried out, relieved to find the man just at the end of the shed. He started ahead as soon as he saw Raymond and kept far enough in advance that the young knight’s whole attention was given to keeping him in sight, a task made no easier by the dark, intensified as it was in the narrow twisting alleys they threaded.

  Raymond was a brave man and his courage was bolstered by the unconscious arrogance that assured him no common churl would dare attack a nobleman. Nonetheless, he was somewhat surprised at the area into which he was being led. It was reasonable that a merchant about to betray his fellow guildsmen would avoid his own house and his usual haunts, but it was not at all likely he would choose to meet his overlord’s agent in a sty a pig would scorn. Perhaps the person who wished to speak to him was not a merchant. One of the criminals who haunt
ed every waterfront might have information he believed would buy him a pardon for his crimes and a little silver.

  Although he still did not fear for himself, Raymond loosened his sword in its scabbard. The guide stopped at the door of the most miserable inn Raymond had ever seen and waved him forward. Raymond shook his head firmly. He did not want to give the man a chance to disappear before he was questioned. It was the man’s slight hesitation that warned Raymond all was not as it seemed. There should have been no difference which one of them preceded the other. The next move was even more peculiar. The man knocked on the door and said, “Egbert, it is Rolf,” as he entered. One did not knock on inn doors nor announce oneself, particularly if the “guest” you were bringing was supposed to be a secret.

  At that point, Raymond should have turned and run. Already his brain was shrieking, trap. His pride, his training and tradition, betrayed his good sense. A knight does not flee from trouble before he even finds it. A nobleman does not flee from a gaggle of churls. As the door opened to admit the guide, Raymond launched himself forward, pushing the man ahead of him so hard that he fell, and leaping over him. The suddenness of what he had done saved him from being dispatched by a violent blow from a man who had been waiting beside the door.

  That assassin leapt forward, as did half a dozen others, expecting that Raymond would continue his rush or that he would stand at bay. Instead, he turned and ran back, twisting aside just enough to avoid the man coming toward him. Foolhardily brave Raymond might be, but he was not suicidal. The inn was dim, lit only by a few rushlights, but Raymond’s eyes were adjusted to the dark already, and he had seen the other men coming forward and seen the long gleam of swords. Had he worn armor, he might have been tempted to fight. Without protection for his body or a friend to defend his back, he was too vulnerable.

  He had intended to go out of the door as fast as he came in. Unfortunately, the twist that permitted him to avoid the man who had run at him from beside the door also carried him out of the direct line of the opening. In addition another man, who had been on the other side of the doorway, slammed the door shut before he, too, ran forward to attack.