Winter Song

by Roberta Gellis

  A shout rose in him, a need to batter at the door and scream for Alys to open it and tell him she was unhurt, unmolested. Until this moment he had known no fear for Alys’s safety or inviolability. He had not believed that any man could be so stupid as to insult or assault Alys and Margot of d’Aix and Beatrice of Provence. Now Raymond wanted and needed to break down the door, but the fact that the women felt a need to lock themselves in lent a sharp edge to his caution. The barred door changed all expectation of honorable treatment. Raymond leaned his head in despair against the wood. He swallowed hard and tried to think of another way to enter Alys’s prison.

  Alys, Beatrice, and Margot had had a tense and frustrating day. Once the girls had stopped laughing over their success and Beatrice’s brilliant idea about what to do with the near-overflowing contents of the chamber pot, they had begun to worry. It was bad enough to have made a fool of Sir Guillaume by throwing sand in his eyes and pushing him down the stairs. The insult of emptying the chamber pot on him might be the straw that made the ass sit down. Not that Alys or Margot blamed Beatrice. Both burst out laughing anew whenever they thought of it. Still, all of them realized that they needed a defense.

  By nightfall, however, they had no more than they had started with. No attempt had been made on them, but that only made the expectation of an assault more acute. Thus, none of them slept deeply, and all woke with a start when Raymond threw himself against the door. Alys was on her feet before either of the others could scream and had a hand over each mouth.

  “Quiet,” she whispered, “let him think us asleep and easy prey. I have the crossbow. If the door yields, I will shoot the first man in. If that is Guillaume, it will end our troubles.”

  “But what if it is not?” Margot whimpered.

  “Take the extra poles, and stand to each side of the door,” Alys urged. “Strike at whoever enters. Try to keep them back until I can wind the bow again.”

  Margot fell silent but did not move. Beatrice rose from the bed. She did not like this sly attempt to open the door in the middle of the night. It seemed a greater threat to her than a frontal attack during the day. If that idiot Guillaume snatched her away from Alys and Margot, Beatrice was not sure she could continue to be brave. But the noises at the door had stopped.

  After a while, Alys went to the door and listened, but without much hope. Its planks were several inches thick and well fitted together, a door designed, when barred, to delay an attacking force with a ram. Alys knew she would hear nothing unless someone was shouting right near the door or if many men were fighting and yelling below. After a few minutes she came back toward the bed and looked anxiously up at the ceiling. The trap door to the topmost chamber was there. She wondered if Guillaume had decided it would be easier to cross the wall from another tower and come down by ladder than to break open the door.

  Alys mentioned this possibility, and she and Beatrice discussed in whispers what would be best to do if Guillaume or his men came down from above. Margot sniffled, hardly listening as Alys and Beatrice tried to plan a strategy. Margot regretted bitterly her desire for a more exciting life. She vowed she would try to help Alys and Beatrice, but never, never, never—if they ever reached safety—would she complain about living quietly at Aix.

  Margot remained seated on the bed, tense with fear. Because she was frightened while the other two were immersed in plans, difficulties, and possibilities, it was she who heard the faint creak from above as weight came onto an imperfectly flat floorboard. First she was frozen, her instinct for self-preservation bidding her be still. Once Beatrice was isolated, Margot knew that she and Alys would be well treated and might even be freed. But Margot was really fond of Beatrice. When the second creak sounded, she leapt to her feet and rushed to the others.

  “They are above! I heard them,” she whispered frantically.

  Biting back a cry of anger and fear, Alys crawled toward her blanket and grabbed the crossbow. The trap door groaned softly. Alys bit her lip, knowing that the sound meant the trap had been lifted. She felt the bow, fitted the quarrel carefully, and lifted it. She was aware of three things nearly simultaneously, the thump as the ladder came down, the creak as a man’s weight came on it, and Beatrice scrabbling on the floor for a pole which had escaped her hand.

  “Stop,” Alys commanded clearly. “I have a crossbow trained on your back. Do not cry out. Go back up.”

  “Alys!” Raymond whispered softly. “Are you unhurt, my love?”

  Alys was so startled that she almost fired. Her second impulse was to throw the bow away and rush to the ladder. Instead she hissed, “Stand! I warn you.”

  The man’s hoarse whisper was unidentifiable. It was too easy a trick, Alys thought. Both Beatrice and Margot had cried out softly with relief and then drew in gasping breaths when Alys’s words implied it was a trick. Now Alys heard Beatrice getting to her feet. Somehow she sensed that Beatrice was raising the pole.

  In the same instant, Raymond whispered, “Hauest noon drede, mi deore, beoth ich!”

  “No!” Alys cried as she heard the pole swish through the air, but she was already turning, already striking Beatrice’s hand aside. The pole hit the ladder with a vicious thwack, and the crossbow fired, fortunately away from anyone. Beatrice cried out, and Alys dropped her weapon, nearly fainting with relief.

  “Stupid slut,” Raymond growled, knowing it was not Alys who had struck at him. “Are you trying to brain me?”

  “Raymond!” Alys whispered. “Raymond!”

  He came down from the ladder and reached out toward the sound of her voice, and they were in each other’s arms. Alys clutched at him so fiercely she bruised her hands and her cheek on his mail. He bent his head to kiss her, and then had to lift it to snarl, “Quiet, you fools!” as Margot and Beatrice began to weep aloud. Still, he opened his arms to gather them into his embrace also, for he was very fond of both, and besides, in this moment of triumph, he loved even Bernard.

  The way out was no more difficult than the way in. All the attention of the men on the walls was fixed outward on the campfires in the wood. Nor had the keep been roused for fear of attack. When informed that there were enemies in the wood, Sir Guillaume did not order any alert. He trusted his cliff and his walls. All he did was ask how many in the force that had come and, when told some hundred or two, he had actually laughed and gone back to sleep. Oddly, he slept better after the warning, knowing he was committed and no longer wondering whether he could squirm out of the situation without anyone ever knowing. Another thing gave him ease. He had seen a way out himself.

  The precious heiress of Provence was unsullied. If Lady Beatrice and Sir Romeo wanted her back, they could have her back, for a price and a swearing of quittance. Otherwise they could spend the blood and lives it would cost to take Les Baux and get back damaged goods withal. Guillaume almost felt content as he slipped asleep again. True, Lady Beatrice and Sir Romeo would not love him for this, but that would be nothing new between des Baux and the Counts of Provence.

  Thus, Raymond led his womenfolk into the tower with the entrance to the secret way without untoward incident. The only fear Raymond had was that dawn would catch them, and after his brief hug he had not permitted anyone to say a word, threatening to gag Margot and Beatrice if they made one single sound. He did not, of course, threaten Alys.

  It was not possible to see the faint light that glimmered on the eastern horizon, but the stars had paled as the sky pearled more gray than black. Still, there was no cause for great alarm. If they made no noise, there was little chance the guards would look down along their own walls. They would look out toward the woods and the area of tumbled rock and low brush that fell away from the cliff toward the wood. That was where the danger was. By the time they were down the cliff, the light would be strong enough for the guards to see them. Most likely they would be shot at from the walls. They could only hope the aim of the crossbowmen would be poor at that distance.

  In the tunnel where voices would not be heard, Ray
mond warned the women again against making a sound and told them how they would be lowered by rope down the cliff. Again and again he reiterated that they must not cry out, even if the rope hurt them or they were banged against the rock.

  “Do you understand me, Margot?” he asked, and when she whispered a frightened affirmative, he added, “Beatrice, do you understand?”

  He did not speak to Alys nor even look at her, although her hand was on his arm. To Raymond’s mind there was no need to receive confirmation from Alys. He had told her to be still, and she understood why it was necessary. Raymond was certain that neither fear nor pain would wring any sound from Alys. He wished he were as sure about Margot and Beatrice, even after receiving their promises. Then he described to them and to the men what they must do when they reached the ground.

  It was no longer really black where they stood in the tunnel. A faint light filtered in from the grating. Ernaldus sat alongside it, and he could see Raymond’s legs, identified by the mail hosen he wore. Beyond him were the skirts of two women. Raymond had spoken to Margot and Beatrice, Ernaldus remembered, but there was another skirt. The bailiff looked up.

  Very little light diffused upward, but Ernaldus had been so long in the blackest dark that he could make out something. There was a third woman—or something—blotting out the faint gleam of Raymond’s mail. She—it—stood with a hand on Lord Raymond’s arm, yet he seemed completely unaware of it. He looked—Ernaldus could see the change in shape of the mail hood as Raymond turned his head—only at the two women in front of him.

  Although Margot and Beatrice had been silent as they had been told, Raymond did not quite trust them. He felt an urgent need to see the expressions on their faces. If it seemed to him that either girl was near the limit of her ability to obey him, it would be better to gag her than to have her screaming as she was lowered. A soft word to one of the men-at-arms and he brought a stub of candle, flint, and tinder from his pouch. On the way in, Raymond would not chance a light, but now there was less danger from a stray reflection being seen than from his overestimating Margot and Beatrice.

  The man-at-arms passed the lit candle to Raymond, who held it up, illuminating not only Margot’s and Beatrice’s faces, but Alys’s also. Ernaldus screamed behind his gag. The sound was muffled, but he had been nearly forgotten, and everyone was startled. Then, suddenly, before any of the men could get at him, he twisted around and thrust himself forward, pushing hard with his feet against the tunnel wall, squirming, struggling through the grating.

  Raymond bent to grab his feet as Alys gasped, “Ernaldus!”

  However, one of the men had jumped forward also, and he and Raymond collided. Raymond went staggering back, almost knocking Alys off her feet. They clung together, seeking balance, while the man who had tried to catch Ernaldus threw himself to the ground and started through the opening after him.

  Because Ernaldus was a much smaller man and not bulked out with rough ring-sewn armor, he was able to wriggle through. The man behind him stuck fast at the shoulders, managing no more than a futile grab. He had to be hauled in to free the opening, and the men pulling on his legs felt his body suddenly convulse as if he had been injured. They hauled harder, thinking Ernaldus had somehow managed to strike him, but he was shuddering with shock, not hurt, when they got him inside.

  “My lord,” he whispered, “he went over. With his eyes wide open, he pushed himself right over the ledge.”

  Raymond stared down at his henchman. “Crawled off? Apurpose?”

  “Apurpose, I do not know,” the man said, shaking himself as if to throw off something evil clinging to him. “He looked… I saw his face… My lord, let us go. There is something evil here. I do not think he crawled off apurpose. He was afraid, so much afraid that he did not see what his eyes looked on.”

  Raymond shook his head. “No,” he said, “there is nothing evil here. The evil was in that one’s own heart. What he feared was seeing my wife, whom he believed was dead by his order. There is nothing for us to fear but discovery by des Baux’s men.” Then he gestured for another of the men to go out.

  One after another they crawled onto the ledge, Raymond thrusting Margot and Beatrice out, after four of the men had gone, and sending Alys out with a gesture just before he went himself. It was far too light for his liking, but he told himself that he should be thankful the west wall was more shadowed than any other would have been. Also it seemed a special gift from God that no one had seen Ernaldus fall and that the gag had kept him from screaming.

  However, in the supposition that no one had seen Ernaldus fall, Raymond was not quite correct. No one had seen the fall itself, but by a freak occurrence, the body had struck a subsidiary peak of the fractured rock and bounced around so that it finally hit the ground not far from the cleft that had the handholds and footholds. On that side, a guard had noticed the sudden movement. He did not see motion long, for the dead thing came to rest beside a brush-covered rock and was hidden. But that made the guard wary. He scanned the cliffs and was certain nothing moved on them, but the tumbled rock and brush that lay around their feet was another matter. In the half-light, men could move and hide in that cover. He watched the base of the cliffs and listened, cursing the birds that sent up such a tumult of sound at this hour.

  The guard had just about given up, believing his eyes had deceived him, when he saw movement again. He shouted for assistance and snatched up his crossbow. Several men darted out from concealment at the foot of the rock and ran zigzagging away from the cliff. The guard sent a bolt after one, feeling a rich satisfaction in having perceived an attempt to enter Les Baux by stealth, but not realizing that the forms he shot at were escaping from the castle, not trying to enter it. His first shot had missed, but he sent another and shouted in triumph as a man fell. However, he got to his feet at once and ran on. Two more guards had run from adjoining sections of the wall and also fired their crossbows.

  There were now eight men running away, but three of them looked very strange, as if they were carrying or sheltering huge rolls of loose cloth in front of them. All three guards were attracted and fired at the strange forms. It was not reasonable to hold cloth in front when arrows flew from behind. One arrow struck. The man staggered and fell, and a thin, shrill scream—a scream that sounded remarkably like a woman’s—rang out. Two men rushed toward the fallen one. The three guards shot again, but the vagrant breeze of the morning made these tries less true, and then their surprise held them from winding their bows for a few minutes. It was not a bundle of cloth but a woman! One of the men had snatched her up and held her before him. The other helped his companion to his feet.

  Now other castle men-at-arms were coming onto the walls, but the running figures were nearly to the woods. A hail of bolts flew outward and then another. It seemed as if several of the running figures were struck, but none fell, and they disappeared into the trees. The three guards who had seen the woman mentioned the fact with surprise, but none of the men who had come onto the wall had been in on the abduction, nor were they aware that there were prisoners in the castle. Thus, the tale was not taken seriously, the others believing that the men had been deceived by the distance and the bad light. Besides, what could they do? They were besieged and could not send out a troop to pursue.

  In the woods, Alys wrestled herself from her husband’s arms, crying, “You were hit! You were hit!”

  “In the flesh by an arrow half spent,” Raymond snapped. “Do not act the fool, Alys! Margot, are you hurt?” She was the one whose protector had fallen on her.

  Margot was sobbing, but managed to shake her head. The man had tripped when the arrow struck him, but he had managed to put his hands out, and his full weight had not come down upon her.

  “Are there any too hurt to ride?” Raymond asked next. And when he received a chorus of nays, he said sharply, “Alys, what the devil ails you? For what do you weep? Pull that shaft out of me and then see to the other men.”

  Raymond was in a strange mood, bot
h irritated and elated. He knew he had accomplished what amounted to a miracle, but he was unreasonably annoyed because he had not got away scot-free. Something told him that they had not reached the end of their troubles, and he was in great haste to be gone. However, he was both right and wrong. There were no immediate calamities. The horses were where they had been left, and the short ride to the camp was uneventful. Nor was there any trouble in the camp. Still, the feeling of need for haste persisted, and Raymond snarled at Margot and Beatrice to hold their tongues when they wanted to relate their experiences and at Alys when she begged him to remove his armor so she could tend his wound.

  Instead of soothing him, the lack of difficulties nagged at Raymond. His emotional reaction was to order the full troop to ride back with him, but his military instincts opposed that feeling. This, if Sir Romeo wished to take it, was an opportunity to destroy des Baux completely. To achieve that purpose, however, it was necessary to prevent help from reaching Sir Guillaume. Once Les Baux was full of men, it would be too hard a nut to crack, and to starve it out would take a year.

  Raymond was certain that Guillaume must have already summoned his friends and vassals. He was equally certain that few or none of them had yet arrived, since there had been no extra tents set up in the bailey and the scouts he had sent out to examine the cliff on all sides reported no sign of tents on the flat land the keep did not occupy. To prevent assistance from reaching Les Baux, it was only necessary to block the one road, but that meant leaving the troop, or most of the troop, where it now was.