Fire Song (5 page)

Aubery grinned at him. “Not a bit, but only because I am both stupider and more trustful than that dog’s turd Savin. There was nothing to be learned at Ilmer. In fact, the attack was broken off soon after the messengers sneaked out at the postern gate. That should have told me it was, as you said, a trap, but… I suppose I was thinking mostly of my mother. Anyway, I left most of the men at Ilmer to guard the farms, and then took the short road back, the one that runs by Radanage.”

There was no surprise in William’s face, only an ugly hardening of hatred. “And Savin and his men were lying in wait! I told you you should have killed Savin when he challenged you. I knew that sparing him when you had beaten him would only make him hate you all the more. That kind
has
no gratitude, and you know it, too. But it was a crazy thing to ride right by his keep. One day, Aubery, you will take a dare you cannot fulfill.”

Aubery shrugged. “It was no dare,” he said indifferently. “I did not think he would be there, and actually I was right, which is why I am alive. Savin, too, did not think I would dare ride right by Radanage, so he was lying in wait near the main road with the whole force that had attacked Ilmer. He left a small troop as a safeguard to delay us and send him a warning if I did choose that route, but there were not enough of them.”

But the reminder that Aubery had escaped unhurt did not relieve William’s fury. “Will he still be there, do you think?” he asked. “We can go out with the remainder of the castle guard and take him unaware, coming as we will from the opposite direction.”

“No, he will not be there, I—”

“I suppose you could not prevent some of his troop from escaping,” William said with a grimace of chagrin. “But this is ridiculous! You cannot go about expecting a knife in the back or take along a small army each time you ride out. I will complain—”

Aubery grinned. “You did not let me finish. We took some captives. Most are housed comfortably but securely below. A few I sent back to Savin, warning him that if he tried again, I—or you, if I am not alive—will bring these men before the king to give witness against him and name him coward and treacher and murderer so that he will be hanged, drawn, and quartered as a common felon.”

For a moment William was silent, then he put his hand on Aubery’s shoulder. “I am proud of you,” he said. “And I beg your pardon for thinking of you still as a wild, crazy boy who would take any dare—”

“Do not give me too much credit,” Aubery remarked, chuckling. “I am not yet perfect,” he added teasingly, for he was aware that his stepfather loved him dearly, and believed William credited him with far more virtue than he had. But then, before William could deny indignantly that he was so foolish as to believe any human perfect, Aubery asked, “Shall I go up and speak to my mother? Does she know I have been away? And what the devil should I tell her if she asks what I have been doing?”

It was William’s turn to chuckle. Aubery was a very bad liar in general and was utterly incapable of lying to Elizabeth, who knew him too well. “She does know you have been away, of course. Do you think your mother would not notice that you have not been near her for three days? I told her that since she was so much better you had taken the chance to go to Ilmer to check the spring plantings and do whatever other business was necessary. Let us hope she does not ask any questions, but it will not matter even if you tell the truth. She really is much better, Aubery. Thank God, she has been spared to us.”

“Thank God,” Aubery echoed devoutly.

“I do thank God and Mary and all the saints,” William went on, “but I am not going to tempt their mercy again. Elizabeth will be brought to bed no more, and if it is a sin—well, it is on my soul, and I am willing to bear it. But that means I must find a suitable heir for Marlowe, and to my mind there can be no better man to hold these lands than you.”

It was easy to say, for William meant from the bottom of his heart what he had said. It was not, however, so easy to get the statement accepted. In fact, Aubery was much harder to convince than Elizabeth. William was surprised. Although he knew Aubery was extremely punctilious about not taking anything that did not belong to him, he also knew Aubery loved Marlowe deeply and wished to care for the estate. What he had failed to understand was that the very love and desire Aubery had for Marlowe was what made him resist.

To Aubery, the offer of Marlowe was like a hot rod applied to a festering wound. He knew he would anger his stepfather by resisting so generous and, really, so practical a solution to the disposition of Marlowe, but he could not bring himself to say aloud what stuck in his craw. Instead, he said, “But I have enough. I have Ilmer and Ardley and a dozen lesser farms. Alys carries the blood of Marlowe, and it is her blood that should hold the keep.”

William, whose mind was less on what he was saying to Aubery than on his desire to return to Elizabeth’s bedside, was so exasperated that he snapped, “What the devil ails you, Aubery? Do you feel there is some taint in Marlowe that you do not wish to be associated with it?”

The moment he said the words, William wished that he had bitten out his tongue, for a painful flush darkened Aubery’s fair skin, and William suddenly realized what was causing his stepson’s resistance. William, who had his own burden of guilt, had been thinking that Aubery knew or suspected that his mother had been William’s mistress before they were able to marry, and associated Marlowe keep with that liaison. At the moment he had forgotten what must be far more important to Aubery, the greed of his father who had planned to murder William and force a marriage between Alys and Aubery in order to possess Marlowe. He embraced his stepson and kissed him.

“My son, forgive me. Had any thought of your father’s desire for Marlowe been in my memory, you know I would not have said those words. That is nothing to do with you, Aubery, nothing. You are not guilty of Mauger’s sins. I know you have never coveted my lands.
I
desire that they should be yours. Do you not understand, Aubery? You
are
my son. I will never have a son of my body, and I do not desire one. Your mother has paid too dearly already for that stupid notion. It is not very likely, even if I had a son, that I would live long enough to judge what kind of man he would be—”

“Do not say that!”

William’s open statement of Mauger’s shame had jabbed the hot rod deeper into Aubery’s mental wound, but the dissociation of father and son had withdrawn it. The wound still ached, but it was the clean ache of the cautery, not the stinking pressure of a festering sore. Then, William’s last remark had diverted Aubery from his past to an uncertain future. He could not bear the thought that William could die. He had been standing quietly in the circle of William’s arms while William spoke, but now he returned his stepfather’s embrace with such ferocity that the older man grunted with pain and then laughed.

“I will not survive even the time the Lord plans to give me if you squeeze me to death,” William said.

“You are well and strong,” Aubery replied forcefully, although he relaxed his grip. “Why do you talk of death?”

“I suppose because your mother came so close to it in her mistaken attempt to give me what I do not want. I have told her I will not tolerate another try. I cannot bear it.” William’s voice shook. “I will not have her laid on that rack again. I swear to you, Aubery, you and John are the sons of my heart, fine men, both of you, and I desire no others. You are the elder, and a father’s lands go to the elder.”

“But Alys has boys and may have more.”

William sighed, stepped back, and sat down, gesturing toward a second chair near the hearth. He was a fool, he thought, to have forgotten Aubery’s oversensitivity to any act that could possibly, or even impossibly, be misread to carry any implication of greed or dishonor. It was odd he should forget, too, because Aubery was the physical image of his most greedy and dishonorable father. He had Mauger’s tall, heavy-boned body, Mauger’s thick, straight blond hair, Mauger’s handsome, even features, well-shaped, clear blue eyes, a straight nose, a wide mouth, and a firm chin.

But William knew why he never thought of Mauger when he looked at Aubery. It was because the expressions on the two faces were so different. Mauger’s face had been closed and hard, his eyes always half-lidded to keep secrets. Aubery’s blue eyes were direct and honest, his mouth mobile and sensitive. William sighed again, wishing that the eyes did not hold so much trouble, that the lips were not so tight with remembered pain. It was wrong, he thought, for so young a man to be so somber.

“I have explained that more than once already, Aubery,” William pointed out. “Marlowe is good land, but compared to what Raymond has, even if there should be a third or fourth son, it would not be worth sending a boy to England to live. Raymond will have uses for all the sons he has—and I do not think there will be many more children—if any.”

“But Alys is young—”

Aubery heard the uncertainty in his voice and hated himself for it. One thing William had said was not true. He
did
covet Marlowe. Not for greed, not that, but he loved Marlowe, loved it far more than Ilmer or Hurley, his mother’s estate, or even Ardley. All the other lands were in some way bound up with painful memories. Only Marlowe had always been a place of peace and happiness for him. He could not help himself and listened eagerly to William’s explanation of why Alys was not likely to have so numerous a family that even one English estate would be welcome.

“Yes, but she has been married nearly ten years and has borne six children in that time. It is true that despite being so small, Alys has borne her children easily, but you must remember that she was not well during her last pregnancy, and Raymond was so frightened that he sent for Elizabeth to come to her. She did not recover as quickly as usual afterward, and the girl was born dead. Elizabeth said that Raymond’s father, too, was almost crazed with worry about ‘the dearest treasure of his house’ and gave Raymond no peace about his unbridled lust and his lack of consideration for his wife.”

Aubery shifted uneasily in his chair, and William smothered another sigh and said hastily, “Your wife did not die in childbed. She was not even with child when she died. You are utterly blameless of any fault regarding her. You were a most tender husband.”

Although Aubery nodded a seeming acceptance of his stepfather’s assurances, he did not answer directly because he did not know what to say. He did blame himself most bitterly, not actually for Matilda’s death, but for everything else that had gone wrong with his marriage, and most of all for no longer loving his wife at the end of her short life. It was the knowledge that he did not love her that had made Aubery grieve, that still tormented him every time he thought of Matilda, and prevented him from enjoying his adorable daughter, despite his love for her.

William had not expected Aubery to reply. From the hour of Matilda’s death, he had responded only with silence to any attempt at comfort. And, although he would never say it to Aubery, William actually felt his stepson was well rid of a woman to whom he would soon have regretted tying himself. In fact, William came close to the truth when he sometimes wondered if Aubery had not already regretted the marriage and, because he was secretly glad to be rid of his wife, blamed himself for being guilty in some unknowable way of causing her death. William had never cared much for Matilda of Ardley. Not that she was not a very pretty girl and a good one also, but William knew her to be as witless as a cuckoo bird and suspected she was also as sexless as a wet rag.

Now and then William wondered whether he was prejudiced because Matilda so much resembled his own first wife. Not that Matilda looked like Mary, but she certainly was like her in her inability to utter a sentence that was not a platitude, in her terror of responsibility of any kind, in her laziness, and in her blind devotion to the least sensible utterances of ill-taught and fanatical priests.

He and Elizabeth had agreed to the marriage after some initial protests, because Aubery desired it and because the girl was a substantial heiress. The keep at Ardley was large and the demesne very rich. There were other lands, too. Matilda had been Richard of Cornwall’s ward, and Aubery had met her when he had accompanied William on a visit. Aubery had returned several times on his own, drawn by shy glances and blushes. The attraction between them had come to the notice of Richard’s wife, Sancia, and her romantic Provençal heart had been touched. She had urged her husband to approve the marriage. Richard had been willing enough. Perhaps the girl’s estate could have merited a baron, but Richard knew of William’s intention that Aubery have Marlowe. He was sure Matilda would be kindly treated and her lands well managed, and, most important, he was certain that Aubery would be politically trustworthy.

By the time William became aware of the affair, it was really too late to protest. The few words of caution he had said to Aubery had brought them closer to a real quarrel than they had ever been, and Aubery had actually had a bitter argument with his mother over the girl, flinging himself out of Marlowe and vowing not to return until Elizabeth apologized for what she had said about Matilda. After allowing the matter to hang for several months and realizing that Aubery was only being made more stubborn by opposition, William and Elizabeth had unhappily withdrawn their objections.

At the time, William had pointed out to Elizabeth that they must not judge what would make Aubery happy in marriage. Aubery had not wanted to marry Alys, who was the exact opposite of Matilda in every way and much more beautiful. Perhaps, he had suggested, Matilda’s stupidity was soothing in some way. But that was said only to ease Elizabeth’s worry. What William had thought privately was that once Aubery had had his craw full of his wife’s simpering holiness, he would find himself a warm, willing mistress.