Winter Song

by Roberta Gellis

  “Ah.”

  It was an indeterminate sound that could be interpreted many ways. Raymond was reasonably sure it betokened part relief and part inquiry. “My father believes,” he went on, “that we need not fear Toulouse as long as we have the goodwill of France. Louis has crushed Toulouse too thoroughly for him to challenge anyone France favors. French favor will also, most probably, protect us from Navarre. Now Louis’s queen, being eldest, has the best right to the land if the will is set aside, so that Louis would never permit Navarre to contest Beatrice’s claim. Moreover, Louis has a brother most suitable in age and station to Beatrice.”

  “Yes,” Gréoux admitted, but his voice was flat and a grimace twisted his features.

  Raymond laughed. “My father looks just as you do when he speaks of Charles of Anjou.”

  “Is that so?” Gréoux remarked with suddenly heightened interest.

  With a nod Raymond affirmed the point and then began to outline Alphonse’s plan to offer homage directly to King Louis. The French were not loved in Provence, but the eastern portions had not been ravaged by the Albigensian Crusade, and Gréoux soon saw the advantages to being tied directly to Louis, especially with the free appanage of Charles of Anjou between Aix and the main holdings of France.

  The discussion loosened Gréoux’s reserve, and he and Raymond settled into serious talk of the moves that would have to be made in the interim period between the death of Raymond-Berenger and the acceptance by Louis of France of Alphonse’s vassalage. Soon, however, dinner with the ladies of the keep interrupted the conversation. Raymond, although he tried several ploys, could not steer Gréoux’s wife and unmarried sister away from the subject of Alys. Having had news of his “impending” marriage from the wedding invitation, the ladies wished to hear all about the appearance, dress, manners, and interests of Raymond’s “future” wife. Raymond readily extolled Alys’s beauty and her many other virtues, but he wished they would have done and allow him to return to more important matters.

  In this, Raymond wronged the ladies. The wife of their overlord’s heir was an important, actually a political, subject—particularly if, as was obvious, the overlord’s heir was marrying for love. If such a lady was offended by a vassal’s wife or sister and took a spite, the lady might cause much trouble for the vassal. Raymond never thought of this aspect of their questions and, although in one way he enjoyed talking about Alys, in another it was disturbing. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to see her and touch her again, too aware that it had been several days since he had shared his wife’s bed.

  A combination of factors served to keep strong Raymond’s desire to see Alys. For one thing, Gréoux was less than ten leagues from Aix, only about a six or seven hours’ ride. Raymond remembered that he had not even bidden Alys goodbye. Even the most sensible woman in the world might feel hurt by that. For another thing, Raymond felt a sharp guilt about blaming his father so bitterly for losing control over his men. Apparently Alphonse had not done so, and Raymond was very eager to admit he had been wrong, at least in part, and set his father’s mind at ease.

  One more factor tipped the scales completely in favor of Raymond’s riding home instead of spending the night at Gréoux. The vassal offered to go himself to several smaller keeps to the east and north to explain Raymond’s proposals and urge those men, although he did not think they would need much urging, to have their defenses at peak readiness. Such preparations would warn any local malcontents who thought that the death of Raymond-Berenger was an invitation to pick his province apart, that Aix was too thorny a rose to grasp at with impunity.

  Gréoux’s offer put Raymond’s next port of call to the west. The most direct route would pass north of Aix itself, but Raymond was convinced that a mere three leagues extra would be nothing in comparison with his father’s—and Alys’s—pleasure. He was very tired when they started back, but also happy. The road was good, the weather fair although cold, the moon bright enough so that a moderate pace could be maintained.

  Occasionally Raymond dozed in the saddle, but mostly he thought of Alys, of her cry of joy when she saw him or, more likely of her delicious, drowsy surprise when he crept into bed beside her. He could imagine the way she would shiver in protest at his cold hands and feet but still hold him close. Sometimes he even allowed himself to envision their final pleasure when comfort deepened into passion.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alys slept hardly more than Raymond the night he sat awake talking to his father. It was most unfortunate that she had decided against going to the evening meal. If she had seen that neither Raymond nor Alphonse appeared at it, she would have realized that some very important business was being discussed and that it was that, rather than his mother’s influence, that kept him from coming to her. She would not have resented that, and thus, when she heard of the fight with the master-at-arms, she would not have been further enraged by the fact that Raymond had not come himself to assure her that he was safe.

  The news of the fight came to Alys as soon as she summoned Bertha in the morning. Bertha had the general story from Hugo, but it was Arnald, who was called to explain in detail what had happened, who told Alys that Raymond had left Tour Dur with a strong troop of men at dawn and was not expected back for several days.

  Alys was outraged at this news. Not only had her husband spent the evening clinging to his mother’s skirt, but he had not even had the courtesy to bid her farewell. Pride froze an expression of placid interest on Alys’s face until she dismissed Arnald. And it was pride also that drove her to see that Fenice and Enid were dressed and to take them with her to Mass and eventually to join the family at breakfast. Alys’s overburdened heart was somewhat eased at Lady Jeannette’s fury and at her ability to say calmly that the reason she had brought Raymond’s bastards to join the family was that they were part of the family.

  “Fenice and Enid must learn to bear themselves seemly in gentle company, Mother,” Alys said with poisonous sweetness. “You gave your granddaughters into my care, and this is what I think proper for them.”

  “And so it is,” Alphonse interjected. “Raymond’s daughters must be with us now that they are old enough. How pretty they are, are they not? We will have no trouble finding them husbands.”

  “If it will be so easy to find a dower and husbands for baseborn bastards,” Jeanine spat, “why is it so difficult to do it for me? Even English nobodies can make fine marriages, but I must wither here—”

  “Jeanine!” Alphonse protested. “What are you saying? Your mother told me you had begged her not to seek another marriage for you before your grief had passed. Why did you not say you were ready to marry again?”

  There was a tight silence as Jeanine turned distended eyes toward her mother. Alphonse’s lips tightened as he realized his daughter must have asked her mother to tell him she wished to be married again and Lady Jeannette had not passed along the message. Lady Jeannette took one look at her husband’s face, uttered a piercing shriek, and fell back in her chair. Enid promptly began to cry, too, and Fenice, although she made no sound, turned ghostly white and began to tremble. Alys withdrew the little girls from the table. Jeanine was screaming at her mother, and Margot was standing in appalled silence, unable to decide whether she should first try to silence her sister or comfort her mother.

  Alys’s instinct was to take the children and run, but she felt guilty for precipitating this crisis by bringing Fenice and Enid with her. She felt sorry for Alphonse also, and wished to help him. He seemed to be the only person in the whole family, including Raymond, who was not selfish to the core. Then Alys remembered that Fenice and Enid had been raised among the women servants, and she bade them quickly run up to the women’s quarters and find the woman who had taken care of them. They were to stay with her until Alys herself or Bertha came to fetch them. At this, Enid’s tears stopped at once, and Fenice regained some color in her pale cheeks. Hand in hand they ran off.

  Freed of her responsibility, Alys glanced arou
nd. She was much surprised to see that, although they cast glances over their shoulders now and again, the servants continued calmly to eat or to perform any duty in which they were engaged. What was even more shocking to Alys was that Gervase and the chaplain stood together talking quietly. It seemed that they were not surprised by the violence that had erupted. Alys longed to join them, but her duty was with the family.

  Reluctantly, Alys returned to the fray. After gasping lamentations about the cruelty of ungrateful children and how she was always misunderstood, Lady Jeannette had worked herself into a fine state of hysterics. Margot was stroking her mother’s hand, Jeanine was weeping loudly, and Alphonse was distractedly trying to calm both his wife and his elder daughter. He caught sight of Alys approaching and remembered two things simultaneously. Alys had already proved her abilities when she had whisked away and calmed his wife when just such a storm as now had broken threatened, and that Raymond had said to him, “Leave everything to Alys.”

  “Can you calm her?” Alphonse cried.

  “Yes,” Alys said, “but you will not like my methods. It is too late now for sweet words.”

  She did not wait for him to answer but ran to Jeanine, who had slumped into a window seat, and whispered in her ear, “You fool, go quickly to your father and draw him to a private place. Then tell him what you desire. Quickly, I say, while I make sure your mother does not thrust herself between you.”

  Jeanine’s sobs checked, and Alys shook her.

  “Quickly, I say,” Alys repeated. “If you can take your father away, your mother will soon be so angry with me that she will not remember how this fray began. You will come away scot-free, I promise.”

  Alys now hurried back to Alphonse and urged him to discover the truth concerning his elder daughter’s desires, promising that she and Margot would see to Lady Jeannette, who was still screaming piercingly and throwing herself about in her chair. Alphonse turned away from the steely glint he saw in Alys’s eyes to receive his still-weeping daughter in his arms. He did not wish to think about Alys’s warning that he would not like the methods she would use this time to calm Lady Jeannette.

  Although he and Raymond had parted on good terms, Alphonse was still sore with the knowledge of his neglect. It was easier at this time, when the hurt was sharp and new, to cast the blame for his distaste for his duty onto his wife. He could not punish her himself, partly because he knew that he should have resisted her encouragement to idle away the days in her company. However, in a certain sense he had received the whipping he deserved, and he was willing to close his mind to the fact that Lady Jeannette was about to receive her dose of the same medicine.

  In fact, Lady Jeannette’s hysterics were rather more genuine this time than usual. She had been truly shocked by Jeanine’s outburst. Although her daughter had mentioned more than once that she regretted the death of her husband, which deprived her of her own household and the hope of children, and that she would not be averse to another marriage, Lady Jeannette interpreted these statements in her own way. Jeanine, she thought, was a truly loving daughter. She did not wish her mother to grieve over her past unhappiness nor to fear for her future unhappiness if political necessity forced her to be given again in marriage.

  Naturally a daughter would wish to remain safe and protected at her mother’s side where there was no need to be at a man’s beck and call. Lady Jeannette could not imagine that her demands on her daughter could be in the least onerous. She was sure Jeanine enjoyed serving her. Of course, Lady Jeannette was happy with her husband and, if another man as good and kind as Alphonse should appear, then she would have tried to have a marriage with him arranged for Jeanine. But men like Alphonse were few and far between. Certainly none like him had come to Tour Dur asking for a wife, and surely Jeanine was happier at home attending on her mother than serving the purposes of some coarse man.

  Besides, if Jeanine married again, Margot would be the only one left. Then if there should be a need to provide a daughter for an alliance, Margot would have to be married. But that would produce a calamity. Lady Jeannette would be left alone. She had intended to protect herself from so dire a fate by choosing her sons’ wives to suit herself. It would be natural for Raymond and young Alphonse to be happy with any girl she chose, and if they were not, there was nothing to stop them from taking mistresses. But Raymond had been bewitched by that succubus Alys, and young Alphonse was not ready for marriage.

  Jeanine had no right to want to be married, Lady Jeannette thought. It was her duty to be happier with her mother than alone in some dreadful foreign keep. Soon Margot would “want” to be married. It was unfair. Lady Jeannette had borne the pains of childbirth to give them life. Surely their lives belonged to her. Surely they could give her their time after all she had done for them. No one cared for her. All her sacrifices were thrown aside or used without thanks. She was cruelly misused, cruelly!

  Lady Jeannette’s reiteration of this litany of ills, which produced the shrieks and sobs and wild gestures, was brutally interrupted by a stinging slap on the right cheek. She uttered a gasp and one more shriek, which was immediately followed by an equally stinging slap on the left cheek.

  “There, now,” Alys said loudly, “you feel better. You must not scream anymore or you will make yourself ill, nor throw yourself about lest you be all bruised.”

  A blind rage pushed all other thoughts and emotions from Lady Jeannette’s mind. Air rushed into her lungs, but she had no inclination to scream. Instead her hand rose to return, more viciously, the blows that had been dealt her. Alys caught and held the raised hand, and Lady Jeannette gasped with surprise. The grip bruised her wrist. For all her small size and frail looks, Alys was far stronger than she.

  Then, quite deliberately, Alys let go, saying, “You may slap me if you wish, Mother, but, indeed, I meant only kindness.”

  Had she thought about it, Lady Jeannette would have burst into tears again and had a perfect case to present of Alys’s cruelty. But she did not think. Not only did she take more than full advantage of Alys’s invitation, but she jumped to her feet, pulled off Alys’s headdress, and tore at her hair. At this point, Gervase the steward and the chaplain hurried forward. Gervase interposed himself between the women, and the chaplain pulled Lady Jeannette away, saying some sharp things to her about her unnecessary violence. Margot came running across the hall bearing a cup of hot wine, which she virtually forced down her mother’s throat.

  As the older woman was assisted into her chair again, Alys began to rearrange her hair. Her expression was blank, but her cheeks reddened, as much from fury as from the stinging slaps. It was not, of course, the first time in her life that Alys had been beaten, but her father never slapped her face and it had been many years since he had struck her at all. Gervase asked solicitously whether she was hurt, but Alys only shook her head. She was too angry to speak. She wanted no more of this ugly game, and she looked around for her cloak.

  In the background she could hear Lady Jeannette hissing with anger, saying things about her that could not have been true even if she had been steeped in corruption from birth. The chaplain was trying to quiet her, but his voice sounded shocked. Alys finally saw her cloak and started toward it, still half blinded by rage and tears. Gervase followed anxiously, and Alys turned her head to tell him she was all right. At that moment Alphonse came out of a side chamber so close that he nearly trod on Alys. He steadied her and began to go past when he saw the marks of his wife’s hands, red on Alys’s white skin. Simultaneously he heard Lady Jeannette’s voice, and it was clear she was raging, not weeping. Despite the fact that the chaplain was speaking at the same time, Alphonse heard the vicious calumnies. Jeanine had just told him that her mother had said he was unwilling for her to marry again, that the dower, which he had given with her and which had been returned by her late husband’s family because she was childless, was needed for other purposes. For the first time in years, the first time since Raymond had been sent for fostering, Alphonse was complet
ely out of patience and out of temper with his wife.

  He marched forward, bellowing, “Jeannette!” And then, as her mouth opened to scream and her hand came up to her heart, he roared even louder. “Do not dare! Do not you dare play off those tricks on me now, or I will treat you as you deserve and beat you soundly.” He turned his head toward his younger daughter, who had never seen him in such a mood and was shrinking away. “Margot, stand still! Answer my question. Do you desire to live celibate and remain with your mother?”

  “Celibate? I? No!” Margot cried, shocked.

  Alphonse turned back to his wife. “Why did you lie to me?” he screamed. “Only two months ago I had an opportunity to settle Jeanine most advantageously. Why did you lie and make an enemy for me instead of giving me a worthy son?”

  “I did not lie,” Lady Jeannette shrieked. “It is her fault, hers!” She pointed at Alys. “She has corrupted your daughters with talk of lust and independence. They were happy until that daughter of Satan—”

  “Jeannette!” Alphonse roared again. “You lie!”

  Alys was sickened and horrified. She had heard secondhand of such family conflicts, but had had no experience with them. She could not imagine what the outcome would be and tried desperately to think of a way to placate the combatants. Jeanine had now come from the chamber where she had been talking with her father, and joined the argument, and Margot was emboldened to defend herself from her mother’s accusations. Alys began to cry with remorse for causing what she believed would be a permanent rupture in the family. Then a hand fell gently on her arm.