Winter Song

by Roberta Gellis

  Her riding crop lay on a chest, and she ran and seized it. As she reached for it, however, the bruises on her shoulder and back twinged. That was warning enough. Alys knew that Raymond could wrench so pitiful a thing from her hand and use it on her. She needed something he could not grab. Her eyes ranged the room and suddenly she gave a small, sharp cry of joy and ran to the wall. The towers, being used far more often for storage than for living quarters, were furnished with torches. Alys took one and thrust its pitch-soaked head into the embers of the fire. When it was blazing brightly, she advanced on the bed, her lips drawn back in a feral snarl.

  The curtains were still pulled back as Raymond had left them, and he lay facedown, his smooth, dark-skinned back exposed. Alys lifted the hand that held the whip and for just an instant she could not bring it down. Raymond often slept on his belly, and the sight brought back to her many sweet mornings when she had bent to kiss his back and so wake him to another happy day. If she struck him and drove him off, it would be the end of all such joy. No, it was ended anyway, she realized. She could not love a man who forced her.

  The whip came down then, as hard as she could strike. Raymond gasped and jerked. Alys struck again. He pushed himself upright, cursing. Alys stepped back out of reach and extended the blazing torch toward his face.

  “Out!” she shrieked. “Out of my bed and out of my life. No man who forces a wife is fit to have one.”

  Raymond looked at her with glazed eyes. He had the staring look of a horse just before it falls dead of exhaustion.

  “Out!” Alys repeated, sobbing with the agony of having to drive away what had been the most precious thing in her life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A servant woke Raymond at full light the next morning. He responded only slowly at first, rolling away from the hand on his shoulder and the light that struck his eyes. But he did not resist waking long because he was aware of a deep anxiety. Something was very wrong, desperately wrong. His eyes flew around the room, but the trouble was not one of place. He was in his own chamber at Tour Dur. Then his eyes fixed on the servant. The man was smiling, making an easy, commonplace remark about the weather. No, there was nothing wrong in Tour Dur itself.

  And then Raymond remembered going to Alys in the south tower and what had followed. He bade the servant go in a stifled voice and then a groan he would not have uttered under torture was wrenched from him. Although he had not had a clear conscious awareness of his actions at the time, the events in Alys’s bedchamber had etched themselves onto Raymond’s mind and now rose before him in a series of all-too-vivid pictures.

  Raymond covered his face with his hands and wept, but outrage soon dried his tears. He had done nothing to deserve such a foul welcome, and then, seeing again in his mind’s eye what he had done, he shuddered. Whatever Alys had said and whatever his right, he should not have forced her. Raymond was well aware that nine men out of ten would have laughed at him for being so distressed at raping his wife, would have assured him that what he had done was the correct treatment for a recalcitrant woman, possibly would have sneered at him for being too gentle. He gave lip service to such views himself, but he had been conditioned by his mother and yes, by the years of lute songs that celebrated gentleness and submission to women to react with self-loathing to what he had done.

  Perhaps Alys deserved a good beating for her temerity, but not…not a desecration of love. Raymond tried to close his mind to that, to Alys’s shrieks of pain and hatred, casting farther back in memory to when she had first thrust him away because…because he had a mistress. It was insane. He had never truly kept any woman except Lucie… Lucie! Alys had mentioned Lucie! Raymond groaned again. If only he had listened then! If only he had explained that he had arranged Lucie’s marriage as soon as he became betrothed to Alys. But now it was too late. It would be long and long before Alys let him come close enough…

  “Oh God!” he cried aloud and jumped to his feet, hastily dragging on clothing any which way. It occurred to him that Alys might have ordered out her men and left Tour Dur. His father and mother called to him as he ran through the hall, but he did not hesitate, only instinctively slowing enough on the stairs not to break his neck. And as he tore across the bailey he was so sick of himself that he bitterly regretted that instinctive caution. But Alys was not gone! Arnald came running toward Raymond when he saw his master’s haste, asking what was wrong and what were his lord’s orders.

  Raymond skidded to a halt, feeling ten times a fool on top of his self-hatred. He should have known that Alys would not run away. And then, in the depths of his misery, he did something right and poured out the whole story to Arnald.

  “Get rid of the woman Lucie at once,” the English master-at-arms said calmly. “Kill her and bury her if need be—I will do it for you—but get rid of her.”

  “But I did not lie with her,” Raymond snarled. “I never even thought of her.”

  “I know it, and you know it, and doubtless when her temper cools, Lady Alys may be brought to believe you, but as long as the woman lives in the keep—”

  “But she does not!” Raymond protested. “At least, she may be in the women’s quarters during the day working as a weaver, but she is married to some huntsman and must live with him.”

  “A young, beautiful woman who comes every day into the keep?” Arnald shook his head. Raymond had not said that Lucie was young or beautiful, but it was a natural conclusion. A lord would scarcely take someone old or ugly to his bed. “No, my lord, there is none such. My men have stood guard duty with the castle folk as you ordered. I would have heard if such a woman came in or went out. A beautiful woman is one thing my men would see, even if the dolts overlooked a whole army.”

  “All right! All right,” Raymond conceded. “It is possible my mother asked my father to arrange duties within the keep for the man so that Lucie would be better able to do her work and see to the children, but—”

  “Then get rid of them both,” Arnald interrupted, keeping to the point.

  “Yes, very well, I will send them both to another place to live, but first I must send the man to Alys so that he may tell her his wife slept with him both nights.” Raymond pounded his fist against his forehead. “His name. What was his name? I must know for whom to ask.”

  It seemed a reasonable idea, but Arnald had to conceal a smile at his young lord’s distress and anxiety. If he had not known Alys’s hot temper, he would have advised Raymond to leave his wife alone for a day or two and then act as if he had forgot the whole thing. But that would not work with Lady Alys. Some amend would have to be made, and the husband’s evidence, putting her in the wrong, would be required. Still, it was funny that Lord Raymond was so frantic he could not think of the obvious answer to any question.

  “What was his name?” Raymond cried again.

  “If the woman is in the keep,” Arnald said, “you need only ask her.”

  “Good God, of course,” Raymond said, and strode away, not quite running this time but at considerable speed.

  Raymond need not have hurried, for Alys was still soundly asleep and likely to remain that way for some time. Although Raymond had staggered back through the passage and fallen into bed in a somnambulistic state and had slid deeper into sleep immediately, Alys had found no such quick release. For some time after he was gone, she had remained at the door, weeping bitterly. She told herself she was guarding against her husband’s return, but whether she would have rejected him if he came back pleading for forgiveness was a question she did not examine. However, he did not return, neither with threats nor pleas.

  This gave Alys no relief, and for a while she cried even more. At last she roused herself as fear replaced grief. If Raymond had been so angry when she denied him and called him a liar, how much more furious would he be when he remembered how she had driven him away. Alys shivered with cold and with fear, and felt herself weakening with weariness. She knew she would have to sleep sometime, and she could not bear the thought of being taken
by surprise. But if the moving stone were blocked, whatever held the mechanism of the pivot could not be released. That was easy enough. A thick splinter from the hearth hammered with the hilt of her knife into the crack jammed it effectively. Then all she needed to do was drop the heavy bar into the slots of the door and she was safe against surprise.

  However, security did not improve Alys’s mood at all. The idea of barricading herself against her husband was more dreadful, now that she stopped to think of it, than the idea of his vengeance. Worse yet, she was beginning to doubt the reality of the accusations she had made. Raymond’s surprise at those accusations and the fact that he had ridden back in the night and come to her were beginning to make nonsense of her suspicions. She wept anew until there were no tears left and eventually, still sobbing fitfully, she slept.

  When Bertha came up and found the door barred against her, she did not knock on it or call out. Lady Alys had been in a foul temper the past two days, and Bertha was happy to stay out of her mistress’s way. She had no orders to wake Alys, so she would not try. She would get breakfast for herself and the children. Lady Alys would accept that as a reasonable excuse if she woke and called and Bertha was not there. Suddenly the maid paused on the stairs. Could Lady Alys’s temper be owing to the children? No, not the children themselves. Lady Alys was very sweet-spoken to them and had enjoyed their company. Not the children, but… Then Bertha remembered Lucie’s beautiful face, which she had seen when she went to fetch Fenice and Enid.

  Bertha started down the steps again slowly, feeling sorry for Lucie. There was nothing she could do for the woman, and even to seem to know that Lady Alys was jealous of a serf-woman could be a personal disaster. Bertha shook her head sadly. Lord Raymond should have known better, but it was not her business. Still, she was unusually patient and tender with the two little girls while she saw to their dressing and eating.

  Fenice and Enid, at least, had never been happier in their lives. They did not miss their mother much, since she had little time to bestow on them. The attention she had given to their talk on the day Alys had come upon them was an exception. Lucie had been even more terrified than her daughters by the way Lady Jeannette had suddenly snatched them away. Raymond’s mother had looked so strange when she said that they were to be “taken away and given to a new mother”. Moreover, Lucie’s terror had been multiplied because Lady Jeannette had ordered her strictly not to show herself anywhere around the keep as long as Raymond was in Tour Dur.

  Because Lucie could not even conceive of herself in competition with a lady, she did not associate this order with the possibility that Raymond’s new wife could be jealous. In fact, Lady Jeannette was exactly of Lucie’s mind. If she had had the smallest inkling that Alys would be jealous of Raymond’s serf mistress, she would have bedecked Lucie in her own jewels and set her at the family’s dinner table. Lady Jeannette did not care when Lord Alphonse occasionally slept with other women, so long as he did them no honor and never addressed to them any effusions of a romantic nature. The reason Lady Jeannette had told Lucie to keep out of Raymond’s way was simple. She had thought his order to marry Lucie to Gregoire was stupid. Lucie was a good weaver. If she married the huntsman, she would soon have a hut full of brats and her weaving would suffer. If Raymond did not see Lucie, Lady Jeannette was sure he would ask no questions about her.

  All Lucie could think of, for the two horror-filled days and nights after the girls were taken and she was told not to speak to Raymond, was that Lady Jeannette had decided to do away with her daughters. Now that Raymond was to be married and had the expectation of noble daughters to dower, Fenice and Enid would be considered a useless burden, she thought. Lucie would have disobeyed Lady Jeannette and gone to Raymond to beg him to save Fenice and Enid, only she knew it would be useless. Lady Jeannette would deny her story, would say the girls had been sent to another castle. However, Lucie had one hope—she had been told to pack up her daughters’ clothing.

  And then the girls had returned, happy as larks, bubbling with excitement and satisfaction. They had seen Papa, he had promised two presents, and Lady Alys, a new mama, and so wonderful, and so kind, and so sweet-smelling, and with such yellow hair and such blue eyes, and she taught them new games, and she laughed a great deal, and she said how good they were and how pretty, and she had given them the presents, see, a new hair ribbon for each and—wonder of wonders—Fenice sought in her pocket and drew it forth. A whole silver penny to be spent in the town on whatever they pleased.

  This excited recital, however, was not what Alys had interrupted. When she had arrived, Lucie had been trying to find out what was being planned for her daughters’ futures. The girls did not understand, but they made sufficient references to Lady Alys telling them they must learn many things that ladies knew, for Lucie to believe that every hope she had cherished for Fenice and Enid was coming true. Although she knew she would lose her daughters completely, that pain was nothing in comparison with the joy she felt for their escape from the horrors of life she had known.

  Thus, after Lucie had recovered from her fright at Alys’s discovering her and considered what Alys had said, she set about reassuring Fenice and Enid and explaining clearly in terms they would understand what would happen. And, she told them, they were not to be afraid if they did not see her again for a long time. She would be safe and happy. They were to love Lady Alys and, above all, to be absolutely, utterly, perfectly obedient to her at all times. If they were not, the most dreadful fate would befall them. They would be punished horribly and then be cast out into utter darkness, and their mother would die of grief. All they must think of now, every minute, day and night, was how to please Lady Alys.

  The threats of punishment had been terrible, but the solution to avoiding it seemed so easy that the tears the girls had begun to shed dried. Lady Alys was very easy to please, far easier than their mother or the other women in the hall. Though Fenice was still somewhat fearful—she was old enough to understand that appearances did not always tell the whole truth—Enid’s happiness was so complete that it was contagious. Finally, when they had been taken back by Bertha and had been allowed to play and the maid had talked kindly to them during supper and when she put them to sleep, all their fears faded. By the next morning, they were happy as mice in a cheese room.

  They were a little disappointed when Bertha came down and said Lady Alys was still sleeping, because they had looked forward to seeing her. However, they went cheerfully enough to Mass. There the chaplain stopped Bertha to ask for Lady Alys. Told she was still abed, he mentioned that there was a poor gentlewoman living presently on Lady Catherine’s charity who, he believed, would make an excellent governess to the lord’s daughters. Bertha promised to give the message to Alys as soon as she woke, and took the children with her to the kitchen to collect fresh bread and cheese and milk. They had to wait, for the servers were busy carrying food to the great hall, but eventually Bertha obtained what she wanted. As they returned toward the tower, the girls exclaimed, “Papa! There is Papa.”

  “No,” Bertha cried, but there was no need to restrain the children. The girls had seen their father running and knew they would not be welcome when he was in a hurry.

  After breakfast, Bertha dressed them warmly and told them to play outside until they were cold or she called them. She went up and tried Alys’s door again, but it was still barred. A few minutes later, Enid popped her head in the door to announce that they had seen Papa again, but he was still in a hurry so they had not tried to speak to him. Bertha said absently that they were good girls, but she was frowning when she turned back to her work of stitching up, according to a new pattern, the gown Alys had unpicked the preceding day. It was very odd that Lord Raymond should not come and ask for his wife.

  Lady Jeannette, on the other hand, was furious because she thought that was just what Raymond had been going to do when he ran through the room without even greeting them. She had prepared an acid remark about the effects of uxoriousness on her s
on’s manners, but he forestalled her when he returned by saying, “I must go up to the women’s quarters. I must speak to Lucie.”

  “Lucie!”

  It was a chorus—surprise from Alphonse, shock from Lady Jeannette, disgust from Jeanine, and simple amazement from Margot.

  “I need to know the name of her husband,” Raymond said impatiently.

  “Husband?” Alphonse asked, puzzled. He knew Lucie had been Raymond’s woman. Surely he would have remembered if she had been given in marriage.

  “But—” Lady Jeannette cried.

  Too wrapped in his own purpose to notice either his father’s confusion or his mother’s trepidation, Raymond snapped bitterly, “I assure you, I will not ravage any of the women in the five minutes I need to get an answer,” and he strode away without waiting for permission.

  Lady Jeannette began to sniffle, and Alphonse patted her hand. He had expelled a great deal of shame and bile during the previous day’s violent upheaval, and he was at present in charity with his wife. He leaned over and stroked her shoulder and spoke soothingly, but Lady Jeannette scarcely heard him. She had thought Raymond was coming back to normal—and now this!

  Meanwhile, Raymond had bounded up the stairs and into the large hall in which the women worked. “Lucie!” he bellowed.

  Gasps and short cries of surprise came from all over the room. Raymond stared around, but no one stood up and he could not see Lucie from where he stood.

  “Damn you,” he shouted, “come out here to me. All I want is to ask you a question.”

  Lucie was not naturally stupid. Having learned that her daughters had nothing to do with Lady Jeannette’s order to keep out of Raymond’s sight, it was not difficult for her to guess that the order must have something to do with this question that Raymond wished to ask her. She sat frozen at her loom.