Winter Song (38 page)

“Alys!” Alphonse’s voice rose to a muted shriek. “What could
a woman know of such things? She would faint with fear among the guardsmen.”

“Not Alys,” Raymond said with pride. “She will sew up their
wounds, order them whipped for wrongdoing and watch the whipping, and then
salve their weals with not a change in complexion or countenance. She held
Marlowe for her father when he was away at war.”

Alphonse was now beyond words. He simply stared as Raymond
laced up his hood, pulled on a surcoat for riding, and belted his sword. His
son’s expression first showed a marked longing and then firmed into
determination.

“I will not go to her myself,” he said with a wry smile, “for
I might not find the strength to leave as soon as I should. What I started to
say was that if orders are to be given to the Englishmen, tell Alys and she
will pass the order along. Arnald speaks fair French, but of the northern kind
and most of the other men have only a word or two. Alys will speak in English. They
understand that best.”

Raymond was pleased with himself for having found an excuse
for Alys to give the orders that would not hurt his father’s feelings. The
truth was that he was not sure Alys’s men would obey Alphonse. Then he leaned
forward, kissed his still-stunned father fondly, and strode out.

By noon Raymond had reached Gréoux, the stronghold of one of
Lord Alphonse’s most powerful and influential vassals, where he was greeted
with considerable surprise and somewhat more warmth than he had expected. On
the way, he had berated himself for forgetting to tell his father about
Ernaldus, warning him to investigate carefully any stranger who came to Tour
Dur, and telling him to guard Alys against such a person, but Sieur de Gréoux’s
greeting put it out of his mind. In fact, Raymond soon discovered that matters
were not nearly as bad as he had believed. In a way he had underestimated his
father. Alphonse was no warrior, but he was just and honest, His vassals had a
deep affection for him and would not, under ordinary circumstances, seek to
free themselves from his overlordship.

The trouble was that circumstances might become far from
ordinary any day. Gréoux did not hide the fact that he had been worried. With
Raymond-Berenger’s health so precarious and a young, unwed girl as heiress to
the province, it was impossible to say what would happen. Romeo de Villeneuve
was a paragon of strength and virtue, but it would be a catastrophe for him to
try to withstand by force of arms any of the large, hungry mouths that would
gape to swallow Provence. This was no time for an overlord to be playing at
draughts with his wife, Gréoux said, with more frankness than courtesy.

“I am not so sure of that,” Raymond returned. “The Count of
Provence is my father’s father, after all. And my father has good reason to
love him. Would you have him bury his father before he is dead? What
can
he do but sit at home and wait for news?” Raymond paused, raised his expressive
brows, and continued, “That does not mean he cannot think and plan, or that I,
his son and deputy, cannot see to the arming and organization of the men of
Aix.”

“Ah.”

It was an indeterminate sound that could be interpreted many
ways. Raymond was reasonably sure it betokened part relief and part inquiry. “My
father believes,” he went on, “that we need not fear Toulouse as long as we
have the goodwill of France. Louis has crushed Toulouse too thoroughly for him to
challenge anyone France favors. French favor will also, most probably, protect
us from Navarre. Now Louis’s queen, being eldest, has the best right to the
land if the will is set aside, so that Louis would never permit Navarre to
contest Beatrice’s claim. Moreover, Louis has a brother most suitable in age
and station to Beatrice.”

“Yes,” Gréoux admitted, but his voice was flat and a grimace
twisted his features.

Raymond laughed. “My father looks just as you do when he
speaks of Charles of Anjou.”

“Is that so?” Gréoux remarked with suddenly heightened
interest.

With a nod Raymond affirmed the point and then began to
outline Alphonse’s plan to offer homage directly to King Louis. The French were
not loved in Provence, but the eastern portions had not been ravaged by the
Albigensian Crusade, and Gréoux soon saw the advantages to being tied directly
to Louis, especially with the free appanage of Charles of Anjou between Aix and
the main holdings of France.

The discussion loosened Gréoux’s reserve, and he and Raymond
settled into serious talk of the moves that would have to be made in the
interim period between the death of Raymond-Berenger and the acceptance by
Louis of France of Alphonse’s vassalage. Soon, however, dinner with the ladies
of the keep interrupted the conversation. Raymond, although he tried several
ploys, could not steer Gréoux’s wife and unmarried sister away from the subject
of Alys. Having had news of his “impending” marriage from the wedding
invitation, the ladies wished to hear all about the appearance, dress, manners,
and interests of Raymond’s “future” wife. Raymond readily extolled Alys’s
beauty and her many other virtues, but he wished they would have done and allow
him to return to more important matters.

In this, Raymond wronged the ladies. The wife of their
overlord’s heir was an important, actually a political, subject—particularly
if, as was obvious, the overlord’s heir was marrying for love. If such a lady
was offended by a vassal’s wife or sister and took a spite, the lady might
cause much trouble for the vassal. Raymond never thought of this aspect of
their questions and, although in one way he enjoyed talking about Alys, in
another it was disturbing. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to see her
and touch her again, too aware that it had been several days since he had
shared his wife’s bed.

A combination of factors served to keep strong Raymond’s
desire to see Alys. For one thing, Gréoux was less than ten leagues from Aix,
only about a six or seven hours’ ride. Raymond remembered that he had not even
bidden Alys goodbye. Even the most sensible woman in the world might feel hurt
by that. For another thing, Raymond felt a sharp guilt about blaming his father
so bitterly for losing control over his men. Apparently Alphonse had not done
so, and Raymond was very eager to admit he had been wrong, at least in part,
and set his father’s mind at ease.

One more factor tipped the scales completely in favor of
Raymond’s riding home instead of spending the night at Gréoux. The vassal
offered to go himself to several smaller keeps to the east and north to explain
Raymond’s proposals and urge those men, although he did not think they would
need much urging, to have their defenses at peak readiness. Such preparations
would warn any local malcontents who thought that the death of Raymond-Berenger
was an invitation to pick his province apart, that Aix was too thorny a rose to
grasp at with impunity.

Gréoux’s offer put Raymond’s next port of call to the west.
The most direct route would pass north of Aix itself, but Raymond was convinced
that a mere three leagues extra would be nothing in comparison with his father’s—and
Alys’s—pleasure. He was very tired when they started back, but also happy. The
road was good, the weather fair although cold, the moon bright enough so that a
moderate pace could be maintained.

Occasionally Raymond dozed in the saddle, but mostly he
thought of Alys, of her cry of joy when she saw him or, more likely of her
delicious, drowsy surprise when he crept into bed beside her. He could imagine
the way she would shiver in protest at his cold hands and feet but still hold
him close. Sometimes he even allowed himself to envision their final pleasure
when comfort deepened into passion.

Chapter Seventeen

Alys slept hardly more than Raymond the night he sat awake
talking to his father. It was most unfortunate that she had decided against
going to the evening meal. If she had seen that neither Raymond nor Alphonse
appeared at it, she would have realized that some very important business was
being discussed and that it was that, rather than his mother’s influence, that
kept him from coming to her. She would not have resented that, and thus, when
she heard of the fight with the master-at-arms, she would not have been further
enraged by the fact that Raymond had not come himself to assure her that he was
safe.

The news of the fight came to Alys as soon as she summoned
Bertha in the morning. Bertha had the general story from Hugo, but it was
Arnald, who was called to explain in detail what had happened, who told Alys
that Raymond had left Tour Dur with a strong troop of men at dawn and was not
expected back for several days.

Alys was outraged at this news. Not only had her husband
spent the evening clinging to his mother’s skirt, but he had not even had the
courtesy to bid her farewell. Pride froze an expression of placid interest on
Alys’s face until she dismissed Arnald. And it was pride also that drove her to
see that Fenice and Enid were dressed and to take them with her to Mass and
eventually to join the family at breakfast. Alys’s overburdened heart was
somewhat eased at Lady Jeannette’s fury and at her ability to say calmly that
the reason she had brought Raymond’s bastards to join the family was that they
were
part of the family.

“Fenice and Enid must learn to bear themselves seemly in
gentle company, Mother,” Alys said with poisonous sweetness. “You gave your
granddaughters into my care, and this is what I think proper for them.”

“And so it is,” Alphonse interjected. “Raymond’s daughters
must be with us now that they are old enough. How pretty they are, are they
not? We will have no trouble finding them husbands.”

“If it will be so easy to find a dower and husbands for
baseborn bastards,” Jeanine spat, “why is it so difficult to do it for me? Even
English nobodies can make fine marriages, but I must wither here—”

“Jeanine!” Alphonse protested. “What are you saying? Your
mother told me you had begged her not to seek another marriage for you before
your grief had passed. Why did you not say you were ready to marry again?”

There was a tight silence as Jeanine turned distended eyes
toward her mother. Alphonse’s lips tightened as he realized his daughter must
have asked her mother to tell him she wished to be married again and Lady
Jeannette had not passed along the message. Lady Jeannette took one look at her
husband’s face, uttered a piercing shriek, and fell back in her chair. Enid
promptly began to cry, too, and Fenice, although she made no sound, turned
ghostly white and began to tremble. Alys withdrew the little girls from the
table. Jeanine was screaming at her mother, and Margot was standing in appalled
silence, unable to decide whether she should first try to silence her sister or
comfort her mother.

Alys’s instinct was to take the children and run, but she
felt guilty for precipitating this crisis by bringing Fenice and Enid with her.
She felt sorry for Alphonse also, and wished to help him. He seemed to be the
only person in the whole family, including Raymond, who was not selfish to the
core. Then Alys remembered that Fenice and Enid had been raised among the women
servants, and she bade them quickly run up to the women’s quarters and find the
woman who had taken care of them. They were to stay with her until Alys herself
or Bertha came to fetch them. At this, Enid’s tears stopped at once, and Fenice
regained some color in her pale cheeks. Hand in hand they ran off.

Freed of her responsibility, Alys glanced around. She was
much surprised to see that, although they cast glances over their shoulders now
and again, the servants continued calmly to eat or to perform any duty in which
they were engaged. What was even more shocking to Alys was that Gervase and the
chaplain stood together talking quietly. It seemed that they were not surprised
by the violence that had erupted. Alys longed to join them, but her duty was
with the family.

Reluctantly, Alys returned to the fray. After gasping
lamentations about the cruelty of ungrateful children and how she was always
misunderstood, Lady Jeannette had worked herself into a fine state of
hysterics. Margot was stroking her mother’s hand, Jeanine was weeping loudly,
and Alphonse was distractedly trying to calm both his wife and his elder
daughter. He caught sight of Alys approaching and remembered two things
simultaneously. Alys had already proved her abilities when she had whisked away
and calmed his wife when just such a storm as now had broken threatened, and
that Raymond had said to him, “Leave everything to Alys.”

“Can you calm her?” Alphonse cried.

“Yes,” Alys said, “but you will not like my methods. It is
too late now for sweet words.”

She did not wait for him to answer but ran to Jeanine, who
had slumped into a window seat, and whispered in her ear, “You fool, go quickly
to your father and draw him to a private place. Then tell him what you desire.
Quickly, I say, while I make sure your mother does not thrust herself between
you.”

Jeanine’s sobs checked, and Alys shook her.

“Quickly, I say,” Alys repeated. “If you can take your
father away, your mother will soon be so angry with me that she will not
remember how this fray began. You will come away scot-free, I promise.”

Alys now hurried back to Alphonse and urged him to discover
the truth concerning his elder daughter’s desires, promising that she and
Margot would see to Lady Jeannette, who was still screaming piercingly and
throwing herself about in her chair. Alphonse turned away from the steely glint
he saw in Alys’s eyes to receive his still-weeping daughter in his arms. He did
not wish to think about Alys’s warning that he would not like the methods she
would use this time to calm Lady Jeannette.

Although he and Raymond had parted on good terms, Alphonse
was still sore with the knowledge of his neglect. It was easier at this time,
when the hurt was sharp and new, to cast the blame for his distaste for his
duty onto his wife. He could not punish her himself, partly because he knew
that he should have resisted her encouragement to idle away the days in her
company. However, in a certain sense he had received the whipping he deserved,
and he was willing to close his mind to the fact that Lady Jeannette was about
to receive her dose of the same medicine.