Winter Song

by Roberta Gellis

  “They will not speak of it if I bid them be still, but I do not think we should conceal the first marriage from your mother and father. Sooner or later you or I would mention the wedding in England. Besides, surely Queen Eleanor will write of it.”

  To this Raymond agreed at once. He had never intended to deceive his own family. Then his eyes lightened with inner laughter again, although he kept his expression sober. “There is another reason to tell them,” he said. “If we do not, we will not be able to share a bed until we are remarried.”

  Alys’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “We will not be able to do so anyway, for if we do, all the servants in Tour Dur will know it, and we cannot stop all their mouths. But still—”

  “I have lost my liking for this plan,” Raymond announced, cutting off what Alys had been about to say. But he was laughing again almost before the words were out of his mouth, and he continued, “No, perhaps I have not. There will be good sport in finding a time and place where we can slake our thirst for each other.”

  Alys smiled at him, but she was aware of a sudden prick of jealousy. Secure in the knowledge of her beauty, she had not until that moment considered how desirable Raymond was as a man. The easy jesting way in which he mentioned aping the devices of an illicit love affair made Alys aware that he must be familiar with those devices. She was not foolish enough to resent the women of his past, although she preferred not to think about them, but she was suddenly awake in a new way to the fact that Raymond was unusually attractive. There was a magnetism in his pale eyes, so brilliant in his dark-skinned face. There was a stamp of high breeding in his high-bridged nose and well-cut lips, an assurance of quick wits in his lively and intense expression.

  Now Alys remembered that she had wanted him from the first moment she had seen him, and she had never wanted any other man. Perhaps where very dark men were more common, not every woman would be drawn so immediately or think him quite so handsome as she did, but Alys could not imagine any woman who would not respond to the sensual promise of his strong, lithe body. The past could be left buried, but what of the temptations of the future?

  Unaware that he had set the seed for the birth of a monster, Raymond shrugged his shoulders. “It is something to think about, and there is no need to decide the point at once. But there is a more serious problem, Alys. My father desires that I come as soon as possible and that I send the messengers back at once with a date when we will arrive in Tour Dur. It is not fair to give the men less than a month’s warning. What with the rainy spells we have in winter and the roads being bad in some places, they need time to settle their business and travel.”

  “That is most reasonable,” Alys replied, glad to shake off the unpleasant notion of predatory women offering her husband a chance to play a game he seemed to enjoy.

  “Well and good, but how can I know how long I must sit in Amou before I can come to terms with Gaston of Béarn, or how long it will take me to drive Gamier out of Ibos?”

  Alys wanted to say they should leave Gaston and Gamier to their own devices, her interest in the welfare of Gascony and in the profit of Ibos being far less than her desire to keep her husband out of a war. In time she remembered that urging safety on Raymond was like setting a torch to a barrel of hot pitch, prone to cause an explosion.

  Instead, she bent her head and said softly, “Only you are fit to decide whether it is truly needful to withstand Béarn or take Ibos at this time rather than another, my lord.”

  Raymond fished a particularly succulent piece of meat out of the bowl of ragout they were sharing and held it to his wife’s lips. Alys took the tidbit offered and kissed the fingers that offered it, understanding that it was a husband’s appreciation of her meekness. She thought it very clever of him to give such wordless thanks. The skill of knowing the kind of compliment that, spoken aloud, might be taken as an insult by a woman not naturally meek, however, made her uneasy. But her attention was drawn to a more healthy problem.

  “Yes,” Raymond said wryly, “but the truth is that I do not know. I wish I could be in two—no, three—places at one time. I cannot decide, for the life of me, which matter is more urgent.”

  Now Alys was quite accustomed to men who became caught in the ruts of their own reasoning. Richard of Cornwall was particularly prone to that failing. She had discovered an almost infallible method of jolting the sufferer onto a new track. It had its dangers, but Alys was willing to take a chance. She pursed her lips thoughtfully and then shook her head.

  “If you have an idea, no matter how farfetched, I would welcome it,” Raymond urged, falling neatly into the trap Alys had laid.

  “Even so, I think this will not do,” Alys said very gravely. “For if you sliced yourself lengthwise, the pieces would not balance. Moreover, an arm and a leg without voice to speak or eyes to see are of no particular value, whereas a head without limbs is at a sore disadvantage. Now, crosswise, no part of you would fall over, but the center section, having neither head nor limbs—”

  She stopped abruptly and began to laugh as Raymond lifted the bowl of ragout and threatened to tip the remains over her head. He had listened quite seriously for a moment and then was so stunned by what he heard that he was incapable of reacting for another few seconds.

  “Raymond, do not,” Alys cried, choking. “You will only ruin my dress and my wimple and then have to pay for another.”

  Raymond put down the bowl. “You silly goose,” he said, laughing himself at the visions Alys had conjured up, but with a sense of disappointment beneath the amusement. “This is a serious matter, not a subject for jest.”

  He did not recognize the dichotomy that caused him at one and the same time to resent Alys’s cleverness and be disappointed when she did not solve his problems for him. This blindness caused him to feel shocked when, instead of continuing to titter and jest, Alys turned completely sober. He was annoyed and delighted at the same time.

  “I know it is, my lord, but I feared your mind would become fixed on the need to be in three places at once. If such a notion takes hold, the idea makes every other solution seem too weak for the purpose and, being in itself impossible, blocks every more reasonable suggestion.”

  One thing was sure, Raymond thought. He would never be bored by Alys. He might be infuriated, enamored, outraged, and enslaved by turns but never bored. “Well,” he admitted, “I will never be able to become fixed on that idea. The moment it comes into my head, I will see myself sliced lengthwise and crosswise, but I am still no nearer a solution. I can, of course, tell my father we will not come until summer, which will give me time to settle all my business. But, to tell the truth, Alys, I hoped to be back in Gascony by the summertime, for that is when the war, if there will be one, will reach its height. Also, to delay so long would make the second wedding a farce.”

  “Tell me first how long it would take to travel to Tour Dur,” Alys asked, again deflecting Raymond from the primary problem. Come at sideways, a wall that could not be climbed might be circumvented.

  “It is more than a hundred leagues.”

  “And with the baggage train we could not go more than ten leagues a day,” Alys mused.

  “If so far,” Raymond said. “The winter rains can make a sea of mud, and I will not take you by sea in the winter. It is too dangerous.”

  “Then we would need two weeks for travel, but if there were some real need, Raymond, we could leave the baggage behind and halve that time—say if you had news of Amou or Ibos that made necessary your presence.”

  “My love, you could not ride so far and so fast,” Raymond protested.

  Alys looked surprised. “I would not like it, and I would be very tired, I dare say, but I am not made of crystallized honey, my lord, nor out of glass. I will not shatter nor melt in the rain. I pray you, do not consider me as a hindrance to your plans. I will make shift to fit myself to your needs.”

  “But the trouble is that I cannot decide what are my needs.” Raymond smiled at Alys, but the shar
p note in his voice betrayed his impatience with himself.

  “And I cannot help you, for I know nothing of the importance of each need, but I have a question. Once Gaston of Béarn is aware that Amou and Ibos are rightfully ours, will it be needful for us to be in those keeps to prevent him from overrunning them? And another question. If there should be no war by some chance, will the seneschal release the men under arms and the mercenaries? Will the lands need to be guarded against them?”

  Raymond stared at her and then lifted a sardonic brow. “Little innocent,” he said wryly, “your ‘ignorant’ thoughts seem to be more to the point than my ‘informed’ ones. No, Gaston probably would not overrun Amou once I have taken—or, rather, you have taken—fealty for it. At least, he would not overrun it until he was very certain he could not win me over in some other way. And as for that other masterfully ignorant remark, I read your purpose well enough. We obviously will not need to guard against loose men-at-arms if I hire them myself for the taking of Ibos.”

  “I did not mean that at all,” Alys protested. “You read profundities where there are none, but that is because you do understand and so my questions mean more to you than to me.”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed, laughing now, “but at least one of us has answered one-third of the problem. Now I will only need to be split in half.”

  However, it was not necessary for Raymond to split himself at all. He went to Rustengo on the following day to deliver a letter from his mother enclosed in the packet and found his kinsman considerably excited over news from the south. The king of Navarre had withdrawn, at least, he had withdrawn his army if not his claim. Raymond asked eager questions, but Rustengo had no more information, only the rumor that de Molis had not dismissed his army but was coming north with the whole force.

  “If he does,” Raymond said blandly, “he will be pleased to find Bordeaux so peaceful.”

  “Yes,” Rustengo agreed cynically, a half smile lifting one side of his mouth, “I am sure he will be pleased.”

  “Nor do I imagine that there will be many matters debated in council with much heat,” Raymond remarked no less cynically, adding with more sincerity, “I am very glad of it, for I will be able to go to Aix as my father has most urgently bid me.”

  “And whom will you leave as deputy to attend the council?” Rustengo asked, abandoning his half-jesting manner also.

  Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “No one from the family,” he said. “That would do more harm than good, as you know, kinsman. I think I will ask Calhau to accept my clerk, Father François. He is not from these parts at all and must be taken as personally neutral. I will leave him instructions on what opinion to advance on any general matter—those of which we have talked—and I will tell him that in any emergency he is to consult with you.”

  Rustengo nodded agreement, and his smile showed how pleased he was. He would have been somewhat less enthusiastic if he had heard Raymond’s instructions to the young priest. Raymond did, indeed, tell him to consult with Rustengo de Soler about any matter that came up in council and would require a vote before a letter and answer could go to and come from Raymond. However, after the consultation, Raymond ordered that Father François was to consider both sides of the problem—that presented by Calhau and that presented by Rustengo—and to advise and vote what he thought would best promote the tranquility and welfare of Bordeaux.

  Those instructions were the last Raymond gave before he and Alys left Blancheforte on the first leg of the long journey to Aix. Raymond had sent his father’s messengers back shortly after he returned from his visit to Rustengo with letters advising that he and Alys would be in Aix in six weeks’ time. The next nine days had been given over to packing and instructing Raymond’s bailiff in the special situation and needs of Blancheforte. An additional problem arose when Alys learned the bailiff was a widower. This meant there would be no woman to oversee the maidservants.

  In addition, Alys did not like the notion of leaving the new men-at-arms virtually on their own. The bailiff was supposed to be responsible, but he had never been in charge of men-at-arms before, and Alys did not think they would respect a man who could not wield a sword. Eventually she decided to leave Edith and Aelfric at Blancheforte. Both spoke reasonably good French, both were accustomed to the ways of Marlowe and knew what would be acceptable to Alys, both would be careful and industrious, eager to make good their advancement.

  Raymond thought his wife was making a great fuss over a worthless heap of masonry, but he agreed good-humoredly to let her do as she liked. Blancheforte was the first place that was truly her own, after all, and she had in a sense saved it from complete ruin. It was not surprising that it should have a special place in her heart. Also, it might be their only true home in Gascony. The other estates, Amou, Benquel, and Ibos, would all have resident vassals or castellans. Naturally, Raymond and Alys would have the right to dismiss the castellans and live on any of those estates, but that was not practical. Right or no right, he always felt uncomfortable when he moved in on a castellan for an extended period, and to dismiss an honest man who was doing his duty fairly just so one could live in the keep oneself was an injustice.

  Thus, both Raymond and Alys were well content with each other and with their plans and achievements when they set out from Blancheforte. Then it was as if contentment bred more contentment. They were received at Benquel with true gladness. Sir Oliver could not sufficiently thank his new overlady for the improvement in his situation. Marsan was in his keep and took Alys’s fealty with many jests and a somewhat extended kiss of peace, but he, too, gave serious assurances to Raymond of his satisfaction with the new state of affairs. Sir Conon welcomed them to Amou with more reserve. He was an old man, and a harsh master might assume he would soon be unable to defend the property and put him out like worthless trash. However, he was honest and determined to obey the king’s writ, which he had received from the seneschal’s hands some weeks earlier. Thus virtue would be rewarded. Sir Conon discovered at once that Lady Alys and her husband did not intend to do him any despite. If he needed help in the future, he would have it, say, a younger knight to lead the fighting men, but his knowledge of the people and the area was too valuable to lose.

  After that, of course, he pressed them to stay, to look over everything. First Raymond inquired cautiously whether Gaston of Béarn was at Orthes, and when he heard that Gaston was at Morlass, he agreed to stay at least a week. He wrote to his great-uncle to announce that the overlordship of Amou had passed into his wife’s hands and invited him to the wedding forthcoming at Aix. He doubted that Gaston would come, the situation between himself and Navarre being what it was, and he was just as glad. The longer it was before he had to face his uncle’s wooing to support his pretenses in Gascony, the longer it would be before he had to refuse.

  Until that time, Raymond’s letter virtually guaranteed peace between Orthes and Amou. Gaston would order no outrages committed against Raymond’s wife’s property until he had an opportunity to talk with Raymond and try to convert him. Of course, Raymond intended to be gone from Amou before Gaston returned to Orthes, but a piece of good fortune fell into his hands like a ripe plum. A frightened and injured man-at-arms crept into Amou begging for shelter. He had at one time served in Amou and then had gone to Ibos in the days before Sir Garnier had broken faith, when both estates were ruled by one master. This man-at-arms reported that Sir Garnier was dead—how or of what he did not know—and Ibos keep was in disarray. Various of Sir Garnier’s boon companions, summoned to help him defend himself against his new overlord, were now fighting among themselves for mastery of the place.

  Raymond had hardly heard him out before he ordered Alys’s men and Sir Conon’s to arm. They were riding out of the keep before Alys had time to draw breath, leaving her and a dozen old cripples to hold Amou. There was nothing to fear, Raymond assured her. He would be back, he said, in a week at the most. There was no question of trying to assault or besiege Ibos with a hundred men, but if he cou
ld surprise the place, he might have it at no cost.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alys and Raymond were not alone in a run of good luck and happy spirits. Master Ernaldus, who believed Alys to be dead, found the thought of his revenge against the yellow bitch a fair compensation for his exile. She was dead, and he was not only alive but going to where he would be welcome. His half sister was a fool, but an affectionate fool, and she had married into a powerful family—at least, they had been powerful before they challenged the Count of Provence and lost. Their power, however, had not been stripped from them, only reduced. It was said the Count of Provence was sick unto death and that his heir was a young girl. There had been talk among the merchants, too, that the girl’s powerful sisters, the Queens of England and France, would not accept the terms of their father’s will.

  If there should be a contest and no clear authority in Provence, des Baux might regain all that had been lost, and if he, Master Ernaldus, gave advice that aided in that recovery of power and wealth, he might profit greatly. However, this bright expectation was dimmed by two clouds. The first was the danger of a winter passage in the Mediterranean Sea, the other was the fact that his silly sister might have invited him without her son’s knowledge or permission, and he might not be welcome after all. Moreover, even if the young man had agreed, he might be even more contemptuous than the family in Bordeaux.

  The smooth swiftness of the voyage eliminated the first of Master Ernaldus’s fears completely and, although there was no reason for it, it went far to soothe the second. In actuality the result was much the same as if there had been some logical connection between the good voyage and the warm reception Ernaldus received. Lady Isabel fell on his neck, crying with joy, and young Sir Guillaume, although distant, was pleasant. Master Ernaldus patted his sister with seeming affection and smiled, but he would have jumped for joy if it would not have destroyed the impression he wanted to make. Within the first half hour he had seen a clear path to a secure and probably profitable future.