SirenSong (4 page)

For ten years at least, those who wished to see a land well
governed and at peace with itself mourned inwardly that the wrong son was the
elder. No one, however, had ever dared broach the idea that Richard should take
Henry’s place. Such a man would have died on the spot with Richard’s powerful
hands locked around his throat. The widest difference between Richard and his
father was Richard’s loyalty to anyone who deserved loyalty of him. And,
whatever could be said of Henry, of his petulance, his vindictiveness, his
shifting purposes and disloyalty to others, he never wavered in his love for
his brother. No matter how furious each was with the other, neither ever
distrusted the other.

“Papa?”

William came back from the past with a start. Richard had
been right about the reading and writing lessons. William had acknowledged that
soon enough and learned to take so much pleasure in books that he could not
deny his one child, the apple of his eye, the joys and solace he found in
reading. Thus, Alys was educated beyond her class. Raymond, of course, thought
nothing of the fact that this miracle of grace and beauty could read. He would
have felt her ignorance to be an imperfection. As one climbed the social scale,
literacy became more prevalent, and in general, the south of France was more
worldly, more cosmopolitan, more polished than England. Thus, Raymond’s mother
and sisters were literate, and he never stopped to think that they were very
great ladies and Alys only the daughter of a simple knight.

She handed the king’s letter back and made a very slight
curtsy to Raymond. Startled by her movement in his direction, he roused from
his trance and swept a deep, elaborate bow. William successfully controlled a
grin. He felt a little sorry for Raymond but was not in the least worried about
Alys. She knew her worth and her place and was not likely to be led astray by
the blandishments of a hireling—of which she had plenty of experience.

“I bid you welcome,” Alys said formally, which surprised
William. Ordinarily she was very friendly and merry. “If you will come with
me,” she went on, “I will show you around the keep and introduce you to those
who must know you. Papa, I know you wish to get back to your accounts.”

“Wish to—” William swallowed the rest.

Reading might be a joy, but accounts were something else.
Alys was actually better at them than he was and had done them for years.
William had not been doing accounts but trying to think of a soothing way to
answer a letter from Richard about the problems of the bishop of Winchester,
and Alys knew it. Why had she not said, “You wish to get back to Richard’s
letter,” or something of that sort? It was very odd, but Alys generally had
reasons for what she did, so after a momentary hesitation, William finished by
saying, “Yes, of course,” and turning away.

Alys pulled her lips into a smile. “Perhaps you would like
to be rid of your arms and into more comfortable clothing before you meet our
people,” she suggested.

Raymond flushed darkly. Somehow it was not so easy to appear
a beggar before Alys as it had been before William. “I have no other,” he
admitted.

It was the truth. When he had stormed out of Tour Dur, his
father’s keep, after he had been told he could not lead the Gascon enterprise,
Raymond had been wearing just what was on his back now, a good suit of mail and
a simple surcoat. He had ridden blindly for about twenty miles, stopping at
last, when his horse began to flag, at an abbey. There he had left his shield,
painted with his father’s escutcheon and marked with the symbol for the eldest
son of the house. He had also borrowed a small sum of money from the abbot,
which he knew his father would repay on demand. A new shield bearing the device
of a man’s head without features—Raymond thought that was appropriate and a
good joke—had eaten up most of that sum. What remained, Raymond had kept by him
for emergencies, such as food on the road if he could not find a house to guest
him.

To his surprise, Alys smiled at him much less formally and
more warmly. “Never mind,” she said cheerfully, “that is easily provided.” A
gesture brought the crippled steward to them. “This is Sir Raymond, Martin, who
will stay with us now. He may go into the northeast tower room. He will want a
bath. When that is seen to, come to me above and I will give you clothing.”
Then to Raymond, “I will see you at supper.”

She tripped away and Martin stood quietly, watching
Raymond’s eyes follow her. “She is the lord’s only child,” Martin said softly,
warningly, “the heiress of all he has.”

Martin had not said,
She
is not for the likes of
you
, but that was what he meant. With an effort, Raymond pulled his eyes
from the doorway into which Alys had disappeared and looked down at Martin. The
steward was right, of course. It was completely out of the question for the
heir of Aix to marry a little nobody from England. It did not occur to Raymond
at the moment that that was a strange thought for him to have. Marriage had
never come into his head before when he had been attracted by the daughter of
an unimportant knight. His normal reaction had been to begin a campaign to get
what he wanted. Marriage had nothing to do with desire, or even with love, although,
if one were fortunate, love grew out of marriage. Marriage was a thing planned
and negotiated to tighten alliances, transfer land, or increase and consolidate
power. It was not a thing a young man of Raymond’s position considered on his
own. In fact, Raymond had been betrothed for many years to the daughter of a
Gascon noble. He was free only because the girl had died a few months
previously.

Until this moment, Raymond had hardly thought of his
betrothed’s death. He had not known the girl, had never seen her. They had been
betrothed six years ago, when she was two years old. Had she lived, she would
have come to Aix when she was ten. Raymond would have married her when she was
twelve, coupled with her after her first flux, if she had not yet begun her
regular bleeding, and hoped they would grow fond of each other.

Suddenly, Raymond was aware of a violent distaste for such a
marriage. He was shocked at the feeling, scorned himself for being so unseated
from reason by a pair of bright blue eyes, yet he never once thought of taking
for himself what it would have been natural to take in other circumstances.
There was something in Sir William’s manner, something in Alys herself, that
said flatly,
These
are not such people
. This girl was not for
sale for money or advantage.

The knowledge brought a sense of loss, of something
beautiful slipping away. To shake off the ridiculous notion, Raymond turned his
full attention to the steward. He had been surprised when Martin first
introduced himself but had not taken the time to wonder why so unsuitable a
creature should be steward even of a poor knight’s household. He had been
trying to think of a speech to make to induce Sir William to accept him, if he
raised any objections.

“Are you come in service to the lord?” the steward asked as
they walked toward the northeast tower.

“Yes,” Raymond answered.

The question seemed odd, but then he remembered that Alys
had not said he was a hireling knight, only that he had come to stay with them.
Raymond’s heart contracted. She was as kind and good as she was beautiful, for
she implied that he was a guest so that he should be treated with greater honor
than might be accorded to a knight in service.

“What sort of man is Sir William?” Raymond went on hastily,
not thinking that it was a stupid question to ask a servant who obviously could
not speak ill of his master. He was only trying to push the thought of Alys out
of his mind.

“The kind of man who would find a place of usefulness and
honor for such as me,” Martin replied.

Raymond was shocked into attentiveness. The words could have
been sneering and bitter, but they were not. There was passion in them, a
passion of devotion. Martin’s large brown eyes, his one beautiful feature,
examined Raymond gravely, and then he nodded as if he had come to a decision.

“You were recommended by another lord, one who does not know
my master well, I must suppose, or he would have told you how good Sir William
is,” Martin went on. “You would learn soon enough by being with him, but it is
my pleasure to tell you. You see me, crooked of back and twisted of limb and
face, so I was born and, being useless, left for God to care for at the gate of
Hurley Abbey. There Father Martin took me in, he was abbot in that time, and
out of his holiness he gave me his own name and did not let me die.”

The steward paused. Raymond opened his mouth, but there was
nothing to say, and he shut it again. Martin smiled at him, knowing that the
young man was wondering whether the abbot had been cruel rather than kind. In
his youth, Martin had also wondered. Now that he was old, he was grateful. With
all his sorrows and suffering, he had been granted much joy in his life.

“I could not dig nor herd the sheep nor even clean the
rooms,” Martin continued, “but my mind was sound. The next abbot, Father
Anselm, set me to counting the barrels of wine and salt meat and fish and
testing the salt and spices that the abbey bought. I also saw to the
necessaries that were portioned out, such things as a steward does. But I was
never taken into the Church, for there was none to pay a fee for me and some
thought I was not fit for that holy order. Then Father Anselm, being old, died.
The new abbot thought my deformities an affront to God, a mark of sin, the seal
of Satan. He put me out.”

“But—” Raymond protested, horrified.

“It was his right.” Martin shrugged. “I was not so calm and
easy when it happened,” Martin went on. “Now…now I see that it was a great
blessing the Lord bestowed on me. It is very foolish to question the beneficent
acts of God or to doubt His goodness.”

Raymond stared. He was shamed that he should rail against
strictures of too much love while this tortured being could praise the goodness
of God with such deep sincerity.

“The act that thrust me out and left me to starve brought me
to Sir William. In my first bitterness, I went off the abbey lands the quickest
way, across the river. But on this side none knew of me and all shut their
doors against me in horror. At last, I lay on the road, near dying. Sir
William, going by, stopped to inquire what I was, for he is a careful guardian
of the peace on his own land and feared lest I should rob or harm his people.
In my extremity, I begged, and he looked at me and said, ‘You are a stranger to
the art of begging. What are you good for?’ I told him, fearing that the abbot
would deny my tale but fearing more to lie. ‘God gave us a good meeting,’ Sir
William said then, ‘for my lady is sick and such skills as yours are needful in
my house.’ He took me up, filthy and sick as I was, and brought me here. Seeing
how all feared me—except my lady Alys who was then scarce more than a babe—he
stood over his servants while they tended me, and then he set me over them in a
place of honor. You asked me what sort of man he is—I have told you.”

“I…then I have come to good fortune,” Raymond said. He could
say nothing else, but he was appalled at the thought that he had come to
uncover an act of treason in a man of such
caritas
. It seemed impossible
that the father of Alys and the protector of Martin could be so flawed. Yet
Raymond knew that one thing had no relevance to the other. Only, perhaps, Sir
William was himself deceived about the king. The idea came as a relief. If that
was the trouble, Raymond assured himself with the unconscious arrogance of
youth, he could turn so good a man from that self-destructive path and save
Martin his place and Alys, who had done all the kindness in her power to one
she thought a poor, friendless hireling, from pain. A man eye-struck into love
sees what his heart paints, his eyes being blinded.

After handing him over to Martin, Alys had bid a maidservant
choose out guesting clothes of the middle sort to give to Martin for the new
knight and had taken herself into her father’s chamber in the southwest tower.
“There is a faint stink of bad fish about Sir Raymond,” she said. “I put him in
the northeast tower—”

“Alys,” William teased, “are you so cruel as to lead him to
think you are as struck with him as he was with you? Why not a cot in the hall?
And what do you mean—bad fish? He is another of that ragtail crew that follows
the court, but at least he has come with the intention of doing honest service
for his living.”

“Honest? Are you sure?”

The laughter left William’s eyes and voice. “What do you
mean? The lad is poor enough—”

“Is he?” Alys interrupted. “Did you see his sword?”

William laughed, good humor restored. “Of course. Do you
think I would miss a thing like that? Do not be a fool, Alys. Men often do
without food and drink to buy such a weapon or, if it has been given them, would
starve gladly before they would part with it. I would.”

That was true. Alys frowned. Could she be seeking bad signs
because she found Sir Raymond’s thin, dark face with its pale eyes so
attractive? She had not protested when her father said the young man was struck
with her. Alys did not suffer from any mincing false modesty and knew her
features to be the very image of those lauded in every romance written or sung
by minstrels. They were all there—the flawless white skin, pink cheeks,
strawberry lips, blue eyes, gold hair, full breast, swan’s neck… Say it, and
she had been praised for it.

Two things had saved Alys from self-destructive vanity. One
was knowledge of the dichotomy between Martin’s beauty of soul and
loathsomeness of body. That object lesson on the worthlessness of physical
beauty alone was driven home by her constant contact with the old steward. The
second was more subtle. Alys knew her father loved her and, in a way, thought
she was the most beautiful and most perfect creature on earth. However, she
also knew that he would have thought the same even if she had been as deformed
as Martin. Papa loved his daughter. That she was fair of face and form was a
happy and rather amusing accident but totally unimportant. In fact, Alys was
well aware that her father was not much drawn to her kind of beauty. It was
another kind of woman entirely that he desired.