Winter Song (28 page)

Raymond put down the bowl. “You silly goose,” he said,
laughing himself at the visions Alys had conjured up, but with a sense of
disappointment beneath the amusement. “This is a serious matter, not a subject
for jest.”

He did not recognize the dichotomy that caused him at one
and the same time to resent Alys’s cleverness and be disappointed when she did
not solve his problems for him. This blindness caused him to feel shocked when,
instead of continuing to titter and jest, Alys turned completely sober. He was
annoyed and delighted at the same time.

“I know it is, my lord, but I feared your mind would become
fixed on the need to be in three places at once. If such a notion takes hold,
the idea makes every other solution seem too weak for the purpose and, being in
itself impossible, blocks every more reasonable suggestion.”

One thing was sure, Raymond thought. He would never be bored
by Alys. He might be infuriated, enamored, outraged, and enslaved by turns but
never bored. “Well,” he admitted, “I will never be able to become fixed on that
idea. The moment it comes into my head, I will see myself sliced lengthwise and
crosswise, but I am still no nearer a solution. I can, of course, tell my
father we will not come until summer, which will give me time to settle all my
business. But, to tell the truth, Alys, I hoped to be back in Gascony by the
summertime, for that is when the war, if there will be one, will reach its
height. Also, to delay so long would make the second wedding a farce.”

“Tell me first how long it would take to travel to Tour Dur,”
Alys asked, again deflecting Raymond from the primary problem. Come at
sideways, a wall that could not be climbed might be circumvented.

“It is more than a hundred leagues.”

“And with the baggage train we could not go more than ten
leagues a day,” Alys mused.

“If so far,” Raymond said. “The winter rains can make a sea
of mud, and I will not take you by sea in the winter. It is too dangerous.”

“Then we would need two weeks for travel, but if there were
some real need, Raymond, we could leave the baggage behind and halve that time—say
if you had news of Amou or Ibos that made necessary your presence.”

“My love, you could not ride so far and so fast,” Raymond
protested.

Alys looked surprised. “I would not like it, and I would be
very tired, I dare say, but I am not made of crystallized honey, my lord, nor
out of glass. I will not shatter nor melt in the rain. I pray you, do not
consider me as a hindrance to your plans. I will make shift to fit myself to
your needs.”

“But the trouble is that I cannot decide what are my needs.”
Raymond smiled at Alys, but the sharp note in his voice betrayed his impatience
with himself.

“And I cannot help you, for I know nothing of the importance
of each need, but I have a question. Once Gaston of Béarn is aware that Amou
and Ibos are rightfully ours, will it be needful for us to be in those keeps to
prevent him from overrunning them? And another question. If there should be no
war by some chance, will the seneschal release the men under arms and the
mercenaries? Will the lands need to be guarded against them?”

Raymond stared at her and then lifted a sardonic brow. “Little
innocent,” he said wryly, “your ‘ignorant’ thoughts seem to be more to the
point than my ‘informed’ ones. No, Gaston probably would not overrun Amou once
I have taken—or, rather, you have taken—fealty for it. At least, he would not
overrun it until he was very certain he could not win me over in some other
way. And as for that other masterfully ignorant remark, I read your purpose
well enough. We obviously will not need to guard against loose men-at-arms if I
hire them myself for the taking of Ibos.”

“I did not mean that at all,” Alys protested. “You read
profundities where there are none, but that is because you
do
understand
and so my questions mean more to you than to me.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, laughing now, “but at least one of us
has answered one-third of the problem. Now I will only need to be split in
half.”

However, it was not necessary for Raymond to split himself
at all. He went to Rustengo on the following day to deliver a letter from his
mother enclosed in the packet and found his kinsman considerably excited over
news from the south. The king of Navarre had withdrawn, at least, he had
withdrawn his army if not his claim. Raymond asked eager questions, but
Rustengo had no more information, only the rumor that de Molis had not
dismissed his army but was coming north with the whole force.

“If he does,” Raymond said blandly, “he will be pleased to
find Bordeaux so peaceful.”

“Yes,” Rustengo agreed cynically, a half smile lifting one
side of his mouth, “I am sure he will be pleased.”

“Nor do I imagine that there will be many matters debated in
council with much heat,” Raymond remarked no less cynically, adding with more
sincerity, “I am very glad of it, for I will be able to go to Aix as my father
has most urgently bid me.”

“And whom will you leave as deputy to attend the council?”
Rustengo asked, abandoning his half-jesting manner also.

Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “No one from the family,” he said. “That
would do more harm than good, as you know, kinsman. I think I will ask Calhau
to accept my clerk, Father François. He is not from these parts at all and must
be taken as personally neutral. I will leave him instructions on what opinion
to advance on any general matter—those of which we have talked—and I will tell
him that in any emergency he is to consult with you.”

Rustengo nodded agreement, and his smile showed how pleased
he was. He would have been somewhat less enthusiastic if he had heard Raymond’s
instructions to the young priest. Raymond did, indeed, tell him to consult with
Rustengo de Soler about any matter that came up in council and would require a
vote before a letter and answer could go to and come from Raymond. However,
after the consultation, Raymond ordered that Father François was to consider
both sides of the problem—that presented by Calhau and that presented by
Rustengo—and to advise and vote what he thought would best promote the
tranquility and welfare of Bordeaux.

Those instructions were the last Raymond gave before he and
Alys left Blancheforte on the first leg of the long journey to Aix. Raymond had
sent his father’s messengers back shortly after he returned from his visit to
Rustengo with letters advising that he and Alys would be in Aix in six weeks’
time. The next nine days had been given over to packing and instructing Raymond’s
bailiff in the special situation and needs of Blancheforte. An additional
problem arose when Alys learned the bailiff was a widower. This meant there
would be no woman to oversee the maidservants.

In addition, Alys did not like the notion of leaving the new
men-at-arms virtually on their own. The bailiff was supposed to be responsible,
but he had never been in charge of men-at-arms before, and Alys did not think
they would respect a man who could not wield a sword. Eventually she decided to
leave Edith and Aelfric at Blancheforte. Both spoke reasonably good French,
both were accustomed to the ways of Marlowe and knew what would be acceptable
to Alys, both would be careful and industrious, eager to make good their
advancement.

Raymond thought his wife was making a great fuss over a
worthless heap of masonry, but he agreed good-humoredly to let her do as she
liked. Blancheforte was the first place that was truly her own, after all, and
she had in a sense saved it from complete ruin. It was not surprising that it
should have a special place in her heart. Also, it might be their only true
home in Gascony. The other estates, Amou, Benquel, and Ibos, would all have
resident vassals or castellans. Naturally, Raymond and Alys would have the
right to dismiss the castellans and live on any of those estates, but that was
not practical. Right or no right, he always felt uncomfortable when he moved in
on a castellan for an extended period, and to dismiss an honest man who was
doing his duty fairly just so one could live in the keep oneself was an
injustice.

Thus, both Raymond and Alys were well content with each other
and with their plans and achievements when they set out from Blancheforte. Then
it was as if contentment bred more contentment. They were received at Benquel
with true gladness. Sir Oliver could not sufficiently thank his new overlady for
the improvement in his situation. Marsan was in his keep and took Alys’s fealty
with many jests and a somewhat extended kiss of peace, but he, too, gave
serious assurances to Raymond of his satisfaction with the new state of
affairs. Sir Conon welcomed them to Amou with more reserve. He was an old man,
and a harsh master might assume he would soon be unable to defend the property
and put him out like worthless trash. However, he was honest and determined to
obey the king’s writ, which he had received from the seneschal’s hands some
weeks earlier. Thus virtue would be rewarded. Sir Conon discovered at once that
Lady Alys and her husband did not intend to do him any despite. If he needed
help in the future, he would have it, say, a younger knight to lead the
fighting men, but his knowledge of the people and the area was too valuable to
lose.

After that, of course, he pressed them to stay, to look over
everything. First Raymond inquired cautiously whether Gaston of Béarn was at
Orthes, and when he heard that Gaston was at Morlass, he agreed to stay at
least a week. He wrote to his great-uncle to announce that the overlordship of
Amou had passed into his wife’s hands and invited him to the wedding
forthcoming at Aix. He doubted that Gaston would come, the situation between
himself and Navarre being what it was, and he was just as glad. The longer it
was before he had to face his uncle’s wooing to support his pretenses in
Gascony, the longer it would be before he had to refuse.

Until that time, Raymond’s letter virtually guaranteed peace
between Orthes and Amou. Gaston would order no outrages committed against
Raymond’s wife’s property until he had an opportunity to talk with Raymond and
try to convert him. Of course, Raymond intended to be gone from Amou before
Gaston returned to Orthes, but a piece of good fortune fell into his hands like
a ripe plum. A frightened and injured man-at-arms crept into Amou begging for
shelter. He had at one time served in Amou and then had gone to Ibos in the days
before Sir Garnier had broken faith, when both estates were ruled by one
master. This man-at-arms reported that Sir Garnier was dead—how or of what he
did not know—and Ibos keep was in disarray. Various of Sir Garnier’s boon
companions, summoned to help him defend himself against his new overlord, were
now fighting among themselves for mastery of the place.

Raymond had hardly heard him out before he ordered Alys’s
men and Sir Conon’s to arm. They were riding out of the keep before Alys had
time to draw breath, leaving her and a dozen old cripples to hold Amou. There
was nothing to fear, Raymond assured her. He would be back, he said, in a week
at the most. There was no question of trying to assault or besiege Ibos with a
hundred men, but if he could surprise the place, he might have it at no cost.

Chapter Thirteen

Alys and Raymond were not alone in a run of good luck and
happy spirits. Master Ernaldus, who believed Alys to be dead, found the thought
of his revenge against the yellow bitch a fair compensation for his exile. She
was dead, and he was not only alive but going to where he would be welcome. His
half sister was a fool, but an affectionate fool, and she had married into a
powerful family—at least, they had been powerful before they challenged the Count
of Provence and lost. Their power, however, had not been stripped from them,
only reduced. It was said the Count of Provence was sick unto death and that
his heir was a young girl. There had been talk among the merchants, too, that
the girl’s powerful sisters, the Queens of England and France, would not accept
the terms of their father’s will.

If there should be a contest and no clear authority in
Provence, des Baux might regain all that had been lost, and if he, Master
Ernaldus, gave advice that aided in that recovery of power and wealth, he might
profit greatly. However, this bright expectation was dimmed by two clouds. The
first was the danger of a winter passage in the Mediterranean Sea, the other
was the fact that his silly sister might have invited him without her son’s
knowledge or permission, and he might not be welcome after all. Moreover, even
if the young man had agreed, he might be even more contemptuous than the family
in Bordeaux.

The smooth swiftness of the voyage eliminated the first of
Master Ernaldus’s fears completely and, although there was no reason for it, it
went far to soothe the second. In actuality the result was much the same as if
there had been some logical connection between the good voyage and the warm
reception Ernaldus received. Lady Isabel fell on his neck, crying with joy, and
young Sir Guillaume, although distant, was pleasant. Master Ernaldus patted his
sister with seeming affection and smiled, but he would have jumped for joy if
it would not have destroyed the impression he wanted to make. Within the first
half hour he had seen a clear path to a secure and probably profitable future.

From time to time as the weeks passed and Master Ernaldus
entrenched himself more and more firmly in his half sister’s household, he
bestowed a thought on Lady Alys. It was a pleasure to remember that she was
dead, and all in all, he was grateful to her. Because of her meddling, he was
better situated than ever in his life. He had respect and a measure of power.
He was not making much money now because he was establishing a reputation for
inflexible honesty, but he was not in need of money—all his living expenses
were covered by Guillaume des Baux—and he would make more and more profit as he
became better established. Yes, Lady Alys had done him a good turn, but she had
not meant to and he had repaid her as best befitted those who interfere. He
hoped she had not died too cleanly.