Fire Song (28 page)

A strong satisfaction upheld this belief. Savin was certain he had turned against Aubery the statement that Aubery had been proven the better knight on the field. When Edward repeated it, Savin had managed to laugh, although his throat was bitter with bile. “Well, well,” he had said indulgently, shrugging a little as if Edward should have understood without explanation, “if he wishes to say he bested me, let him. It was no quarrel
à I
’
outrance.
I already had many tourney prizes, and he was…what, twenty, twenty-one? He had hardly won his spurs. He fought well—yes, but he would not yield no matter how often I beat him down. Was I to kill a boy for nothing?”

The statement did not fit very well with others that Savin had made to the prince, but this did not trouble him. Although his manner was deeply respectful, inwardly Savin was contemptuous of Edward’s youth and inexperience. He put down the slightest uneasiness in the prince’s attitude to an admiration the heir to the throne felt it unfitting to show.

This was not all self-delusion. Edward did admire Sir Savin’s ability in arms, which Savin had been at pains to demonstrate while they were in England. He enjoyed listening to Savin’s stories of tournaments and war, although he did suspect that here and there Savin had painted his accounts in slightly brighter colors than actually existed. Still, Savin had the prizes to support his claims, and none of the other knights contested his orders. However, Edward noticed that they did not contest Aubery’s orders either, and most of them smiled more and talked more freely to Aubery. But this pricked Edward’s pride, too. He did not relish the knowledge that the men preferred his father’s choice to his. He told himself they were only buttering up the king’s new favorite, which reinforced Edward’s loyalty to Savin.

It was not all Edward’s fault. If Aubery had paid him more attention, he could have rid himself of Savin by drawing Edward’s favor to himself. Had Aubery been less harried, he would gladly have applied himself to weaning Edward away from Savin, but Henry, having found a willing horse, was using it. The king wished to take his wife and son on a tour of his newly pacified province, which was reasonable, because it would relieve some of the burden of supporting the royal entourage from Bordeaux and Henry’s own purse. However, it was necessary to make elaborate security arrangements when a king visited men who had been his enemies only a few months earlier, and Henry sent Aubery to make the arrangements.

The royal party moved slowly from place to place all through July and August, coming to rest in Bayonne at the beginning of September. Then it took several weeks simply to organize the cortege that would continue on to Castile with Edward and his mother, to gather the wains and the draft animals to draw them, to arrange for provisioning, and to negotiate safe passage through the small domains that divided Gascony from Castile and Navarre.

Aubery thanked God that he was not responsible for that. He found it enough to be required to arrange for guarding his royal charges and the many chests of rich clothing and jewels. Some of these were the property of Edward and Eleanor, some belonged to the noblemen and noblewomen accompanying the prince and queen, many, however, were destined as gifts for Alfonso, little Eleanor, and the principal ministers, churchmen, and nobles of the court of Castile.

Indeed, Aubery was so busy that Sir Savin faded to a dark spot in the back of his mind, recalled as an additional specific source of uneasiness only when Edward, who took an active interest in all military arrangements, including those as simple as guarding a baggage train, mentioned the man. In the weeks while they were in Bayonne the prince talked of Savin frequently, almost as if he were challenging Aubery to protest against his keeping such company.

But in those early days while Aubery was trying to determine the actual limits of his responsibility and his power within the contradictory orders and advice he was receiving from the king, the queen, the noblemen, the prelates of the Church who were escorting Edward and Eleanor, and the clerks who had made most of the arrangements, he would not have cared if Edward were keeping company with the devil. In fact, he would have been delighted if the prince, the king, the queen, and the entire party had all been snatched up by the prince of hell.

It was Fenice who was the greatest help. She was not involved in any way in either the diplomatic or physical plans for the journey, but she did have the queen’s ear. Having welcomed her warmly for her father’s sake, Eleanor soon became very fond of Fenice for her own. All the queen’s ladies were in theory honored to perform any service for her, no matter how menial. In practice Eleanor had to be careful what she asked of them. Most regarded their own breeding as equal to hers, and sometimes they could trace their lineage back to greater kings than she. There were strains and jealousies, too, not only for her own favor but owing to their husbands’ or fathers’ relationships with the king.

Fenice was apart from all this. Her family was the same as the queen’s, although she would never have made that claim. Her husband was no great lord seeking still more power. Indeed, Fenice knew Aubery’s greatest desire was to escape what was being thrust at him. Moreover, Fenice was accustomed to service, to running errands for Lady Alys, to instructing the common maidservants. She did not feel that such duties were demeaning to her, and her gratitude for the kindness and affection with which she was treated, together with her guilt for the way she believed Eleanor was being deceived, made her serve with a lighthearted eagerness that lifted the queen’s own spirits.

Best of all, Fenice would not quarrel with the other women. She did not cavil at the lowest seat nor at being placed farthest from the queen at formal presentations. She was quite willing to serve the other ladies as she served the queen if she had no other duties. There had been some hard feelings when Fenice was first presented and identified as the queen’s kinswoman, but the feeling slowly dissipated as even the most jealous of Eleanor’s women accepted that Fenice asked for nothing and truly did not desire anything more than she had.

Thus, when Fenice looked downcast, Eleanor did not try to look the other way, fearing a spate of hurt pride or petty spite. She asked at once what was troubling her niece and was told simply and directly of Aubery’s problems. The queen did not make light of them, understanding that the responsibility was heavy and more than Aubery was accustomed to bearing, but she was able to offer sure advice on those to whom Aubery must listen closely and those who should be thanked heartily and ignored. In addition, Eleanor had a word with this one and that, including the king, and with sweet smiles, puzzled frowns, and gentle, chiding laughter, she managed so that the pressures on Aubery decreased.

When they finally left Bayonne, she spoke to Aubery herself, assuring him that the final authority was hers and that he would not be judged on others’ complaints but on how the journey progressed. That day the assurance did not provide him with much comfort because, in fact, there was little progress, owing to general confusion about duties, a sudden rainstorm, several attacks of hysteria about indispensable items that had been left behind when the possessions of the queen’s cortege had been separated from those of the king’s, and innumerable other causes. However, John Mansel, who had joined them in Bayonne, bringing with him the final itinerary of the party, was well accustomed to royal journeys. Thus, the first stop was no more than seven miles from their point of departure.

Mansel, despite the large quantity of extra baggage he brought, was a most welcome addition to the party as far as Aubery was concerned. Although many hated the king’s favorite clerk—and he had certainly collected an unusual number of priestly benefices, to which he paid no more attention than that necessary to ensure that the tithes reached his purse—he was calm and extremely efficient. It was not surprising that he was one of the king’s most trusted agents, and there were few willing to cross him. Since Aubery was his choice, Mansel was prepared to support his decisions.

Between the queen’s marks of trust and Mansel’s, the small sullennesses, acts of petty spite and passive resistance which marked any man’s attempts to organize others, abated. The normal effect of familiarity with expected tasks also helped, and within a week of leaving Bayonne, Aubery found he was no longer beset with questions and complaints every minute of the day.

Now when Edward approached, he was able to greet the prince with a smile and was very willing to discuss the arrangements he had made and why he had made them. The knights in his charge took different positions with reference to the cortege when traveling across open, flat land, wooded or hilly areas. There were special horn calls for particular formations in case a narrow winding track should hide one portion of the party from the remainder, or should trees or hills distort voice commands. Aubery explained to Edward everything he had done and planned, unconsciously imitating the way Hereford had explained such matters to him. When they talked of such things, the prince did not mention Sir Savin.

The cortege did move more quickly as the party gained experience in working with one another, but with stopping for formal entertainments and the deteriorating condition of the roads as the autumn rains began, it was October before they came to the border of Castile. Twice during the journey suspicious groups had been sighted, but Aubery’s defense was ready so swiftly and they were so formidable a party that the threats—if they had been threats—dispersed without attack.

The prince was very disappointed, but the responsible members of the party understood and showered compliments on Aubery. Nonetheless, he was the happiest person in the world when the banners and ranked knights of the King of Castile came into sight. It was still his duty to see that no casual theft diminished the possessions of any member of the party, but responsibility for resistance to attack, either to steal or to take hostages for ransom, had passed out of his hands.

Sir Savin was also gravely disappointed at the lameness of their passage through territories where he had hoped one of Alfonso’s or Henry’s enemies would try to take advantage of the possibility of seizing Edward and Eleanor. He had intended to use the confusion that would ensue to strike at Aubery if he could find an opportunity of doing so undetected. The meeting with the King of Castile ended that hope, but Savin had not given up. There was still the tournament to celebrate Edward’s knighting.

Actually, Savin was no longer so sure that he would be appointed in Aubery’s place by Edward’s favor. The frequency with which the prince sought his company had diminished steadily, but still, Savin was certain there was no one else in the company of knights capable of acting as the prince’s champion. If he could only arrange to have Aubery killed or disabled before the tournament or even early in the jousting, he could offer himself as substitute. However, he realized that his opportunities for damaging Aubery before the tournament would be few. Aubery disliked and distrusted him intensely, so Aubery was wary of him. There was no way Savin could change that, nor in this foreign country could he find companions with whom he could set up an ambush.

As they moved toward Burgos where Alfonso had decreed that the celebrations of Edward’s knighting and marriage would be held, Savin devised and abandoned one plan after another. Little as he liked the notion, he finally decided it would be necessary for him to make the attack during the tourney itself. It would not be difficult, he thought, to arrange that Aubery’s lance be faulty. In a formal jousting to celebrate a happy occasion, there would be no special care taken. No one would fear treachery, for there was little to be won or lost.

And if that did not succeed, Savin thought, he would hold himself back during the melee and challenge Aubery openly late in the game, averring some insult in Aubery’s treatment of him. The prince already knew Aubery had an animosity toward him, and he could say he had not presented his challenge earlier so as not to weaken Edward’s champion. The battle would seem to be even. Savin knew ways of making his armor look as if he had been fighting all morning instead of being fresh.

Savin realized that killing Aubery at that time might not win back the prince’s favor, but he liked the idea of ridding himself of Aubery in a place far from England. That in itself would be worthwhile, freeing Sir Savin’s neighborhood of its strongest protector. His one concern was that the challenge might be forbidden by the queen, but then fate played into Sir Savin’s hands. In his desire to prevent any rivalry of Castilian against English knights from marring this happy occasion, King Alfonso decreed that both parties contending in the melee must be made up of equal numbers of his and Edward’s men.

Chapter Twenty

In Burgos, the party rested for several days while final preparations for Edward’s knighting were completed. By then Aubery was beginning to sleep through the night again. He had become so accustomed to leaping out of bed three and four times to assure himself that the guards he had stationed to protect his royal charges were alert and where they were supposed to be that he had continued to start awake during the night, even after the responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders.

To his delight, he and Fenice had been housed outside Alfonso’s palace in the house of a rich wool merchant. Mansel had offered him a choice of the lodging he had taken or a decent bed in the hall, where he himself was placed. With so many royal persons, high nobles, and mighty prelates present, the clerk had said wryly, those who only did the work must take what they could get. Aubery had replied that he was overjoyed to be at a distance from the court, even if it meant riding back and forth, sometimes in the dark, but afterward he regretted he had been so hasty in his decision.

It would mean that Fenice might have to rise well before dawn to be with the queen at her waking, and court life did not seem to agree with Fenice any more than it did with him. She had been very sharp-tempered during their journey, nagging at him about trivialities and answering him so pertly when he was already boiling with suppressed rage from lack of sleep and tension that he had lost his own temper and they had quarreled bitterly several times. She had always seen that she had been wrong and begged his pardon, but Aubery wished he had referred the question of lodging to her. He did not want to listen to recriminations about his heartlessness.

No quarrel erupted, at least not on the subject of their lodging. Fenice smiled sweetly and said, “Whatever is most comfortable to you, my lord, will please me very well.”

Whereupon Aubery raised his brows and remarked with a touch of bitterness, “This is a new tune you are singing. A week ago I could not please you no matter what I did.”

Fenice cocked her head, her brilliant eyes studying his expression. Then she smiled again. “My dear lord,” she said softly, “you
always
please me. I would not have you think that anything you do is not good in my eyes, but it is better for you to be angry at me for a seeming crossness than that you say harsh words to others.”

For a moment Aubery was silent, absorbing what she had said. Then he growled, “Do you mean that you quarreled with me apurpose? When I was already half distracted with my own troubles?”

“But did you not feel better thereafter?” Fenice asked anxiously.

“Better?” Aubery bellowed. “How could a quarrel make me feel better?”

“You did not quarrel with anyone else,” Fenice said in a small voice.

“Of course not,” Aubery snapped. “I had not strength to expend on…” His voice faded as he considered what he was saying in the light of Fenice’s first remark, and then he began to chuckle. “Alys! By God’s head, that is all Alys. She taught you that, did she not?”

Fenice nodded nervously. “Lady Alys says a man must spit out the bile that forms in him from evil happenings, and it is a wife’s duty—just as in the giving of a bitter draught to quell a fever—to bring up that bile.”

One part of Aubery was angry. No one likes to be manipulated, even for his own good, and Aubery had more pride than most, which he needed as a bulwark against his fear of contamination by his father’s foulness. On the other hand, Fenice’s simple confession amused him and guaranteed she was not practiced in the art. He was also rather pleased to learn that his wife’s disposition was not going to degenerate further and further into waspishness on prolonged contact, which he had begun to fear.

All he said was, “Lady Alys is Lady Alys, and you are you. Her ways with her husband are not suitable to me, that is why we did not marry. I prefer a milder wife. Let me manage my own bile, lest more than angry words strike you.”

“Yes, my lord,” Fenice said meekly, lowering her eyes. And after a minute pause she added, “If you please, I will order our servants to sort out our baggage so that it can be moved to our lodging.”

Aubery nodded acquiescence, but he was not really satisfied. Although Fenice was loving, obedient, and eager to please—except, he thought wryly, when she was deliberately inciting him into a rage—she was no longer meek. He reconsidered that as he watched her walk away and realized that Fenice had never been meek. Fearful yes, but when she was not among people who frightened her, she was not meek.

The idea of her tearfulness of the nobility reminded Aubery of some secret he suspected she was hiding from him. He was annoyed with himself for thinking of it. He had not done so for months, the irritation of being excluded from his wife’s confidence fading with his own increasing occupation and with the disappearance of the haunted look in Fenice’s eyes.

Unfortunately, Fenice’s growing assurance also irritated Aubery. He knew it had been Fenice’s appeal to the queen that had produced an easing of the enormous strain imposed on him in Bayonne. At the time he had been grateful, although he could not bring himself to thank Fenice for her intervention. But at the time he would also have been grateful for a fatal illness, and now when he thought back on it, his pride was hurt. In Aubery’s opinion, a man should not depend on his wife except for those things that were women’s responsibilities.

A woman’s duties were to bear children, cook, weave, sew, and nurse the sick. A man defended and oversaw his land, gave justice among his own people, and supported his overlord, who in turn supported the king with advice in government or force in arms. Aubery felt the intermingling of the duties to be wrong, although he knew of exceptional cases in which women ruled both wisely and well, like the late Queen Blanche of France, who had even taken up arms to defend her young son’s kingdom. His own mother, he knew, was playing a man’s role on her husband’s properties—and, in fact, on his own—while he and William were away.

Nor was Aubery such a fool that he did not recognize the part women played in politics. Men struggled by good means and ill to get their wives appointed as ladies to the queen because it was well known that Eleanor had a strong influence on her husband. A woman who was beloved of the queen could do her husband much good. But this knowledge only served to irritate Aubery all the more because it showed his discomfort to be unreasonable, and a man does not like to know he is being unreasonable.

Fortunately, before Aubery could work himself into a really bad temper, he saw Fenice returning. She had understood without his telling that she must deal with him differently than Lady Alys dealt with Raymond. Fenice knew Aubery wished to cherish gentleness and innocence, and she was content, for those states were natural to her. Nonetheless, she could and would step outside her nature and take any action necessary to help or protect her husband. But because she also knew such actions would hurt and anger him, she was willing to let him think her more naïve than she was.

It could do no harm, she told herself. Once they were safe in England, there would be no more court appearances. In the simple life she would lead in Marlowe and Ilmer, there would be no need for any action outside her woman’s sphere. She longed for that, for the peaceful daily round of familiar tasks.

Fenice sighed, then smiled as she saw Aubery waiting, although he was scowling. She had news that would lighten his displeasure. Their baggage was being loaded, but far better than that, she had been given leave from service except for formal occasions for the time they would be in Burgos.

“There are so many Castilian maidens who desire the honor, the queen told me, that they are treading on each other in her apartment,” Fenice said, chuckling.

“But why?” Aubery asked.

“Some, I suspect, would like to accompany little Eleanor to England and feel that Alfonso would not deny a request by the queen.”

As they rode toward their lodgings, Aubery worked off his bad temper, and he was in the proper humor to admire the rooms that had been made ready for them in the merchant’s house. He was pleased, also, that the merchant spoke only halting French and his wife none at all, as this would mean there could not be much intimacy and that the lack of anything beyond formal courtesy could not give offense.

As Aubery had very little to do himself until the day of the knighting, aside from arranging for guarding the display of the prince’s arms and clothing, he and Fenice spent the next two days riding about Burgos. He found her as good a companion as any man of his acquaintance and far more amusing, for Fenice was alive, awake, and interested in everything. What was more, she asked a spate of questions, unashamed of confessing ignorance as a man might be.

Several times she made Aubery nervous, for she was as tireless, inquisitive, and physically fearless as a boy, clambering around to peer into the large commercial wool-processing vats and examining far too closely the scaffolding upon which the stonemasons were at work in building the great cathedral of Burgos. She would have climbed that, too, Aubery suspected, if he had not forbidden it beforehand.

Best of all, she confirmed the pleasant conclusion he had come to the previous day that she was not growing sated with his company. For the first year of their marriage, they had actually spent only a few weeks together at a time, being separated for months between those periods. Since he had returned from making the arrangements for the royal party’s tour of Gascony in July, though, they had been together at least some portion of every day. It was not surprising that Aubery had wondered if the growing sharpness of Fenice’s temper during their journey was a result of an increasing boredom or distaste for her marriage.

Her confession of having angered him for his own sake made that unlikely, but his doubts were completely removed that night. They had returned at dusk to their lodging and taken a more lavish than usual evening meal alone together. Afterward, Fenice sang for half an hour, love songs for his ears only. At last they had gone to bed. Completely relaxed for the first time in months and knowing that there was no reason for either of them to be up and doing before dawn, Aubery had taken a long, long time about his loving.

Fenice had writhed and pleaded under his teasing hands and lips, nearly weeping with excitement, but when they lay at last quiet and replete, she sighed, “Oh, thank you, Aubery. I am so glad you are not tired of me.”

“Tired of you?” he repeated, startled at the coincidence of their thoughts. “Why should you say that?”

“You were…” Fenice hesitated, seeking the right words. “For these past two months I felt that perhaps you did not wish to waste time in love play with me.”

Aubery laughed. “That is never a waste of time. You silly goose, how could I do more than satisfy my most urgent need when I expected to be summoned to some duty at any moment? Do you not remember how often I was called from our bed? It was nothing to do with you. Simply, I did not wish to be caught half done.” He was quiet a moment, then turned his head and kissed her temple. “Did I leave you behind?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

There was another short silence during which a notion occurred to Aubery that made him laugh again. “So perhaps it was not
all
for my own good that you found fault with me?” he teased.

Fenice heard in the tone of his voice the answer he wanted. “Perhaps,” she agreed, hiding her face in his shoulder.

Aubery tightened his arm around her and kissed the top of her head, which was all he could reach. He said no more, but there was a vast content in his sigh, and Fenice floated softly down into sleep, totally happy.

They had another peaceful day, their only connection with the court being the visit they made to the great hall of the palace to see Edward’s robes and armor. The jewels and clothing were his parents’ gifts, only symbols, of course, of the greater gifts of lands that would support the prince and his wife, but they were lavish symbols. The shirt was the finest silk of the purest white. The tunic, silk also, of a rich blue, embroidered in threads of gold and set with gems, the gown all of royal purple velvet, lined and trimmed in ermine and equally embroidered and be-gemmed. There was the small prince’s crown, and chains of gold and rings—a blazing collection from the royal treasure to uphold Edward’s honor.

On another table lay Alfonso’s gifts, a hauberk, helm, and sword of the finest Castilian steel, well known as the best and most costly in the world. It was as true as Damascus steel and not defiled by Saracen manufacture, though the methods of tempering had doubtless come from the Moors. Against the table leaned the shield that Edward had brought from England, its three leopards
courant
brilliant gold against the bright red background, an equally brilliant blue label with five points across the top of the shield marked it as that of the eldest son.

But that night when Fenice pressed herself to her husband’s side, he kissed her chastely on the brow and put her away. “Do me the kindness of turning your back to me, Fenice,” he said. “I suppose I should not have spent myself last night either, for I will need all my strength the day after tomorrow. But you are very lovely and very hard to resist.”

“Turn my back?” she echoed.

“Yes, and move away, I beg you. Have you forgot that I will be Edward’s champion in the joust? And I will stand watch with him, or at least visit him during his vigil, so I will get little sleep tomorrow night.” He chuckled gently. “One must make some sacrifices in the royal service.”