Winter Song

by Roberta Gellis

  “But I-I do not wish Beatrice to be angry,” Guillaume protested. “I will not do it, then.”

  “My lord, children, and sometimes grown men, do not wish to take the bitter draughts of medicine that will restore their health,” Ernaldus had pointed out. “Often they kick and scream and strike out, and it is needful to hold them down and even stop their noses until they open their mouths so that the medicine may be poured in. This is such a case. Charles of Anjou will be a bad husband. He will treat his wife harshly, beat her, and perhaps imprison her once the power is in his hands.”

  “Are you sure?” Guillaume had asked, horrified. He had heard that Charles had a sour temper, but this seemed too much.

  “Absolutely sure,” Ernaldus had lied glibly, for he knew nothing more about Charles than what he had heard from Guillaume himself. “The middle brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, married Jeanne of Toulouse, and Rustengo de Soler, my kinsman, had close dealings with them. Alphonse disliked his brother, and Lady Jeanne said she would have taken the veil or killed herself sooner than marry Charles.” And then, with fine lack of logic, Ernaldus added another lie. “And he will try to destroy you utterly because your father was unjustly accused of rebellion.”

  Without a thought Guillaume had accepted that as truth, and it cast a false luster of truth on the other, unrelated statements. Guillaume’s father had been bitter and complained constantly of malice. And after his father’s death, his mother had reinforced the idea by repeating her husband’s complaints. Not given to careful analysis, Guillaume accepted what he heard.

  “You must understand, my lord,” Ernaldus had continued, “that the truth will have been hidden from Lady Beatrice. She, poor lamb, is only the sacrifice to the ambitions of her mother and Sir Romeo, who seek their own aggrandizement. It will take a few days to explain these things and make her understand the truth, for naturally she will not wish to believe that her mother and her guardian would sell her for their own purposes.”

  Thus, although Sir Guillaume pleaded with Beatrice and reasoned with her and tried to soothe her after he seized her, he did not yield to her furious demands to be returned to Arles. Toward the end of the ride, Guillaume changed his tone from pleadings to threats. Ernaldus had warned him that too much gentleness would merely make the lady stubborn. Women always desired to rule, the bailiff pointed out sententiously, and if Guillaume did not frighten Beatrice, she would refuse to listen to him at all and insist on having her own way.

  Guillaume did not accept that advice with his usual lack of doubt. He felt that Beatrice would not be like other women and, since he thought she loved him, she would be glad he had taken her. However, when all his soft words drew only more and more angry replies from his love, Guillaume began to be very annoyed with Beatrice. He had to admit to himself that Master Ernaldus had been right yet again. Beatrice would have to be tamed by some harshness. He told her angrily to hold her tongue, and when she continued to revile him, he shook her.

  “You must learn reason and who is master,” he said sharply. “Had you been willing to abide by your sweet words to me—?”

  “You idiot! You worm!” Beatrice shrieked. “Sweet words are for play. Do you not realize that my inheritance will be reft from me by my sisters if I do not marry where there is sufficient power to still their mouths?”

  “Then I will win it back!” Guillaume exclaimed.

  Beatrice was so infuriated by this idiotic reply that she did not even answer in words, but merely screamed, “Take me back, you dolt, you ass, you shit! Take me back or Sir Romeo’s armies will grind your bones for meal and sow salt in the fields of your demesne.”

  “Not while I have you!” Guillaume snarled. “How will they reach me there?”

  He pointed, and Beatrice’s eyes followed his hand. She stared and began to wail anew. Alys did not wail, but when she saw Les Baux, tears rained down her cheeks again. Out of the gentle rolling countryside swelled a sudden steep jumble of rock. From this base, there rose a sheer cliff, perhaps a hundred feet high, and this was topped with the high, sheer walls of a keep. Hopelessness gripped Alys, and then terror. Sooner or later the identity of Beatrice’s abductor would become known, and then Raymond would come and try to take the keep to free her.

  When that idea came into Alys’s mind, she nearly fainted. She might not be wise in war, but she knew when a place was impregnable. Thousands and thousands might die and that fortress would remain untouched. Alys saw the defenses of the narrow track that wound up and up, turning back and forth upon itself. No more than one horse or man could climb it at a time, and there were ledges in the rock from which defenders could shoot. No attacker would survive to reach the top.

  Both Margot and Beatrice were screaming again. Alys went limp, wondering if she should try to throw herself from some high place. If she were dead, Raymond might not come and be killed in an attempt to storm this place. Fortunately, common sense reasserted itself. Her death would be more likely to incite her husband than restrain him, even if he were furious and disgusted with her for falling into this trap. The only way to keep Raymond from trying to take this monstrous keep was to get out of it herself, and get Margot and Beatrice out, too.

  Guillaume might have tried reason again when he saw Beatrice’s reaction to Les Baux, but he really could not. She screamed and struggled so, that only a brutal grip could keep hold of her and he would have had to bellow to be heard. It seemed as if Ernaldus was always right. The bailiff had suggested that Beatrice be placed in a cell and just left there until her rage abated. When she had exhausted herself with tears and cries, Ernaldus had said, and found herself utterly powerless, she would be ripe to listen to reason.

  Beyond that, Ernaldus had wanted Guillaume to thrust Beatrice into the prison cells in the lowest level of the keep. Here, however, Guillaume had drawn the line. It was unfitting for a lady, he said. Not even to induce fear would he perpetrate so shameful an act, and for such an affront to her honor and dignity, Beatrice would never forgive him. Abduction was no insult, but a cell fit for common felons and murderers—no! And for the first time, Ernaldus had seen in Guillaume’s eyes the kind of contempt with which the highbred regard the baseborn when their code is infringed.

  Hastily, Ernaldus had withdrawn that suggestion, but pointed out that Beatrice could not be lodged in the living quarters. If she were, her presence could not be kept secret from Guillaume’s mother, which they must do at least until Lady Beatrice had agreed to marriage. Guillaume had hesitated and then agreed. His mother would be terrified by his bold move and would weep and wail. There would be enough of that after the siege had started. Guillaume had felt a thrill of excitement mixed with apprehension.

  Eventually it had been decided that Beatrice should be lodged in one of the towers, named for a reason even Guillaume did not know, the Sow’s Tower. Such imprisonment would not be demeaning. It was common usage for noble malefactors. They decided she should have no servants at first, and later only those Guillaume would allow her. Ernaldus had promised to see to the cleaning and furnishing of the tower since they wished to keep the matter secret as long as possible. Guillaume’s position would be much stronger if he married the heiress before anyone knew where she was.

  What neither Ernaldus nor Guillaume had considered was that Beatrice would bring along female companions, both had thought she would wish to hide a clandestine meeting with a lover. Instinctively Guillaume had ordered his men to seize the other women as well.

  Now, however, he had no idea what to do with them. All he knew was that he could not leave his shrieking, struggling prizes in the bailey to attract every eye and ear in the keep. Thus, just before they entered, Guillaume ordered that all three women be gagged, rolled in their cloaks with the hoods drawn over their faces, and carried to the middle chamber of the Sow’s Tower.

  Guillaume did not stay to see the women carried into confinement, only telling Beatrice harshly after she was gagged that she had brought this rough treatment on herself. When she becam
e reasonable, he said, she could choose her own quarters. He was really infuriated, for she had kicked him in several tender spots and bitten him when he tried to restrain her. Ernaldus was right, he fumed, let her do without her dinner. Perhaps that would lower her high stomach and teach her that his sweet words were not meant in play.

  Thrust roughly into the tower chamber while still blinded by their hoods and enveloped in their tightly wound cloaks, all three fell to the floor. Margot and Beatrice, shocked by such handling and exhausted by emotion and fright, lay where they were and wept. Alys, somewhat more accustomed to bruises and having within her a fixed purpose, struggled to unwind herself from the imprisoning garment. Since she had not been bound, this was not difficult. In minutes she had freed her arms and legs from the cloak, pushed back the hood, and untied the gag.

  First she ran to look out the arrow slit, and immediately drew back with a gasp of fear. The view was narrow but nonetheless chilling. Alys had never been atop a mountain peak. Now she knew what it was like. The world fell away to nothing. She could not see the wall of the keep, only a thin ledge of bare rock and then, far below, what looked like moss-speckled gray and green, only Alys knew that what she had seen were the tops of trees, some bare, some evergreen, because a thin brown line, a road, ran through them.

  Afraid to look again lest despair seize her, she turned her attention to Margot and Beatrice, helping them unwind and free themselves. The moment the gags were off, Alys regretted it. Shrieks pierced her ears.

  “There is no way screaming can help,” Alys cried furiously. “If your voices had the power of Joshua’s trumpets, the walls would be down already. Since they are not, we must think of something better to do than scream.”

  A brief, stunned silence followed this statement. Then Beatrice shivered and began to weep softly. “What can we do better?” she sobbed. “I have already done the worst.”

  “Weeping cannot amend that,” Alys snapped. “There is no sense in weeping over the past, and not much more sense in weeping over the future.”

  “But I am ruined,” Beatrice cried. “The fool says he will wed me, and my sisters will tear my heritage apart because he is nothing. Can he withstand two kings and the Earl of Cornwall?”

  “Forced marriages can be annulled,” Alys snarled. “So long as he does not get between your legs and get you with child, no harm will be done. Besides, what do you think your mother and Sir Romeo will be doing?”

  “What can they do?” Beatrice wailed. “You saw this place.”

  Again Alys saw Raymond leading a hopeless assault on the terrible cliffs and walls. “We must escape.” She forced the words through a dry throat. “We must escape.”

  “Are you mad?” Margot cried. “How can we escape from this place? Let Beatrice marry him. It is her fault we were taken. He will let us go once they are married.”

  “It is your fault, too,” Beatrice shrieked. “You agreed we should go. If you had refused…”

  Alys did not listen to the remainder of Beatrice’s furious reply. Guillaume might free Margot and herself, Alys thought, but that would not stop Sir Romeo from calling up an army, and Raymond would still have to fight. She covered her face with her hands, but the image of that narrow, twisting road alternated with that of the precipitous cliffs, and on both she envisioned her husband dying, his smooth, dark body broken and bleeding. Almost in defense against this fear, the peevish faultfinding of the others finally brought her back to the troubles at hand.

  “Oh, hush,” Alys said wearily. “If the fault is any person’s, it is mine. I am the eldest and, moreover, I have lived more in the world.”

  “But you did not know…” Beatrice wept.

  “I lied to you, Sister,” Margot sobbed.

  Alys smiled wryly while tears hung in her lower eyelashes. “You are not much steeped in vice,” she sighed. “If I had not been thinking of something else, I would have guessed. But that is not important. Escape may be impossible, but we must look for a way in case one exists. At the same time, we must try to convince Sir Guillaume to release us.”

  Margot and Beatrice were so surprised and touched by Alys’s generosity in assuming the blame when she alone was innocent of any fault that each resolved she would do her best not to cause Alys any more trouble.

  “God knows I am willing,” Beatrice quavered, “but I have already told him I would not have him and told him why. He is an idiot! He said he would win back for me what my sisters swallowed. Can you imagine such stupidity?”

  “Well, if you do not think that is possible, are you more willing to try to steal away?” Alys asked.

  “It is impossible,” Beatrice said after only a moment’s thought. “Even if we could get out of this room, which I am sure we could not, how would we get out of the keep without drawing notice? Do you think grooms would saddle horses on our order? Who is to escort us?”

  “Beatrice,” Alys said caustically, “I said steal away. This does not include ordering horses saddled or asking for an escort. It means finding servants’ garments, if possible, or hiding ours, pretending we are serfs on an errand, hiding until it is dark, and then…”

  Alys allowed her voice to drift away. From the horrified expressions on the faces turned to her she knew, at least for now, this path was hopeless. Margot and Beatrice would have to be much more frightened and desperate before they would make such an attempt. However, she had set the seed, and now she thought they would at least consider her plan.

  In the discussion that followed, Alys learned that Guillaume did not seem at all interested in the political situation. When not spouting love poems, he talked only about hunting, fighting and gambling. Alys came to the conclusion that Guillaume really did not understand the implications of what he had done, that he probably thought all he had to do was marry Beatrice and everything would drop into his hand. As Alys was ruminating on whether this could be turned to some purpose, Beatrice broke in on her thoughts.

  “Surely,” Beatrice said, “it is time for dinner. Where—”

  “I do not think we will get dinner,” Alys interrupted sharply, annoyed, “nor supper either.”

  “He will starve us to death,” Margot shrieked.

  “Do not be ridiculous,” Alys snapped. “One cannot marry a corpse. We may get hungry, and perhaps very bored with what is offered to us—mayhap no more than bread and water—but starved we will not be.”

  This statement brought a new chorus of wails and tears. Alys listened with what patience she could muster to the laments and impotent vituperations, and when they began to subside, she said, “Well, if a meal or two and a fine table mean so much to you, Beatrice, by all means, marry the man. I have no objections! I imagine that Guillaume will release Margot and myself to carry the happy news to Sir Romeo and your mother. You, of course, will be kept close until your belly swells. Then you may have some freedom.”

  Beatrice gaped, momentarily mute with fury. Then she cried, “Never! Not if I do starve to death!”

  “Then what remains,” Alys said calmly, “is to convince Sir Guillaume that this is true, and that each day he keeps us and each privation he forces on us only increase your stubbornness. But you must speak him fair, with calm and dignity. If you shriek and threaten, he will think that your will can be broken when you have exhausted your rage. No matter what you feel, you must not show anger.”

  “But what of us?” Margot sobbed. “We will starve, also.”

  “It will be a just punishment,” Alys responded bitterly, “on you for mischief and on me for stupidity.” Then she went on to describe what Beatrice must say to show Guillaume that marriage to her would not only gain him nothing but cause him the loss of what he already had. “You must make Guillaume believe Louis will swallow the province and that would breed utter destruction for him. Obviously, Louis could not allow the true heiress or her husband to retain any power anywhere.”

  “Would King Louis kill his own sister-by-marriage?” Margot breathed.

  Alys cast her
an infuriated glance, but this time Margot’s silliness did not overset Beatrice. “No,” she said, “of course not. He is a good man. We would only be held, probably in his court with seeming honor, but closely watched.” Beatrice’s lips moved as if something sour was in her mouth. “I think I had rather starve. From what Margaret says, Louis’s court is so holy and so dull, one dies of ennui. I will do what you say, Alys. I will, indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sir Guillaume was totally inexperienced in deeds of villainy. He had remembered to order the men who had helped him with the abduction to hold their tongues, and he had sense enough not to name the victim to them. However, it had not occurred to him to conceal his colors and arms nor to order his men to make certain Alys’s guards were dead and that all the horses were gathered up. Thus, when three horses bolted, no one pursued them. It was not long before one bloodstained animal, no longer frightened, wandered into the abbey lands. The lay brother who first saw the horse cried out in surprise, and others came running. As soon as the beast was caught, they saw the blood on it and realized the blood was fresh.

  Informed of this, the good brothers set out at once up and down the track that led to the abbey, and the party that went south came upon Alys’s men. For one they were too late, but the others lived. Having bound up the guardsmen’s wounds, the brothers carried them back to the abbey and into the infirmary, where they dosed them with syrup of poppies so they would feel the pain less and sleep. A party of lay brothers was sent for the dead body, which was decently laid out.

  More than this, the good brothers could not do. No one recognized the men or the arms they bore, and all three babbled at them in an unknown tongue. Not knowing what else to do, the infirmarian and his helpers said, “Yes, yes,” soothingly. The men seemed much relieved at this, and the infirmarian was delighted that he had appeased his patients, who allowed themselves to sink into sleep. The infirmarian had no idea that the babbling was meant to convey an urgent message concerning the daughter of one of their great benefactors or that “yes” was one of the few words of the langue d’oc these men understood, so they had taken his “yes, yes” to mean their message had been transmitted.