Winter Song (5 page)

“All jesting aside, James,” she said, “I hope Richard and
the king have not quarreled, especially over Gascony.”

“Why especially over Gascony?” James asked, rather surprised
by Alys’s intensity.

“Because Raymond has lands there—oh, you do not know about
Raymond. He is—there is some chance that I will marry him—Raymond d’Aix.”

“Another of the queen’s relatives?” James asked rather
stiffly.

“Well, yes, but he is not seeking office or lands here in
England, so you can stop looking like a stuffed bear,” Alys replied.

“Then how does it come that you are going to marry him?”

James knew Alys was heiress to two substantial keeps. This
did not make her a great prize, but, quite aside from her beauty, he would not
have considered her beneath his own touch, especially not since Sir William had
become Cornwall’s marshal. And one could not put Alys’s beauty aside. That was
worth a keep in itself. She was a little small, perhaps, but everything else
was perfect—the oval face set atop a long, graceful neck, a complexion of milk
flushed with rose, lips like ripe, wild strawberries, full and sweet, a thin,
short nose and eyes like twin lakes, cerulean blue, all crowned by the gold of
her hair. And, James reminded himself, a tongue like a viper and a spirit
forged of steel that would bend for no man. He was lucky that she was already
spoken for and not available.

“Raymond came…on a visit to England, and…and accompanied
Papa to Wales.” Alys was picking her way carefully, not wishing to lie, but
unwilling to give all the facts.

“Accompanied Sir William… Raymond? You mean he is really d’Aix,
not just from that area?
That
Raymond? But why was he acting as your
father’s man?”

“Oh…it suited his humor,” Alys replied. Even to a trusted
servant of Richard of Cornwall, Alys was not prepared to tell the truth—that
Raymond had been sent by the king to spy on her father, and that the stratagem
had backfired, Raymond having fallen in love with her.

“You mean,” James said sardonically, “that it suited
your
humor.”

Alys opened her mouth to deny this emphatically, and then
merely looked arch. It was better for James to think Raymond had been so
smitten with her that he had lingered and taken service with her father than
that James seek further for the truth. Then she smiled and shrugged. “In any
case, he wishes to marry me, and—”

“Who does not?” James asked wryly.

“You, for one,” Alys replied tartly, then laughed. “You know
me too well.”

“Poor Raymond,” James sighed.

It was obvious that he was jesting, and Alys laughed again,
but there was a quiver of doubt in her. Did Raymond know her? Alys wondered.
She had never tried to seem different from her real self, but had he been
blinded by desire? He said not. He said it was not for her beauty, but also for
her spirit, her skills in housewifery and leechcraft, and her courage that he
loved her, but when he compared her with his own women, would he not think her
coarse and common? Alys could ape the ways of the court ladies well enough that
she was accepted among them, but it was an effort. She did not wish always to
be under such constraint in her own home.

“Perhaps Raymond will not be so fortunate after all,” Alys
snapped. “I said he wished to marry me, not that the matter was settled. Papa
is not happy about my going so far, and it may be that my dower—it is only Bix
with no expectation of Marlowe, now that Papa has married again—will not be
enough to satisfy his family. Nonetheless—”

“And what do
you
desire?” James asked curiously. He
had not known that Sir William was remarried. He could imagine how such a thing
would stick in Alys’s craw. She was too used to ruling the roost.

“I am thinking about it,” Alys said impatiently, “and it
would help me if you would tell me what news has come from Gascony that has
thrown everyone into gloom.”

“You remember that when the king left Bordeaux last year, a
truce had been arranged with King Louis?”

“Has
Louis
broken faith?” Alys asked, truly surprised.
Henry spoke ill of the king of France, but the truth was that there was little
ill to be said of him, except in spite. In fact, Louis of France was so
consciously good and holy that Alys felt bored every time his name came into
the conversation.

“No, no. Louis would not break a truce, not without real
provocation. You know that. However, Theobold of Champagne is now king of
Navarre and has claim, or so he says, to certain lands by Bayonne and
Oloron-Sainte Marie—”

“I know that, James. I am no more deaf than you, and I have
heard Un—the Earl of Cornwall—detailing the complexities of Gascon relationships
near as often as you have. After all, he thought it would be his to rule.”

“And all of us would have been better off had it been so.
You know Lord Richard could have brought that province to order. Instead, it
was—” He broke off as Alys squeezed his hand sharply.

She was quite right. This was not the time or place to voice
such regrets, even though the king’s decision was likely to cause ten years of
chaos, until Prince Edward was old enough to administer the province. This
knowledge was in Alys’s eyes and Sir James’s, but it was unwise to pursue the
topic.

Sir James now continued more carefully, sticking to the
news. “Theobold has chosen this moment to begin pressing his claims again.
Nicholas de Molis—you know he is seneschal of Gascony?” Alys nodded and James
went on, “De Molis has just sent to Henry to beg for men and money to hold back
the forces of Navarre.”

“But that is impossible!” Alys kept her voice low, but her
eyes flashed with rage. “You know what Henry sucked out of us when he
returned—scutage, carucage—and Papa was
there
. He near died there from a
hurt in his thigh. You know no one will give the king a penny for Gascony.”

“Of course I know it. All the lords are very angry that he
stayed so long in Bordeaux last year after the fighting was over. He said he
was reforming the government of the cities and for all I know he was, but
everyone says he was lounging in luxury—”

“Well,” Alys pointed out, “the queen was heavy with child. I
think he was afraid to travel lest it do her hurt. And after she bore little
Margaret, Eleanor needed a time to recover herself and to be sure the child was
doing well.”

“Not every man carries his wife to war with him nor is as
tender of her,” James said dryly.

Alys raised her brows. “There we differ.
I
can see no
wrong in that. However, I do agree that there was no need to entertain quite so
lavishly while he was there, nor to support a horde of Béarnese…” James snarled
deep in his throat, and Alys cocked an eye at his suffused face. “Oho,” she
continued, “so
that
is why the seneschal needs money. Gaston of Béarn is
also moving.”

“The ungrateful, treacherous—”

“Careful, James,” Alys said, patting his hand. “You will
choke on your own spleen.”

“It is a wonder poor Lord Richard did not choke on his. How
often did he warn Henry to have nothing to do with that pair—bitch of a mother
and cur of a son—”

“But James,” Alys interrupted, paying no attention to the
strictures against the dowager Countess of Béarn and her son, whom it would
have been difficult for King Henry to ignore, since the countess was his wife’s
grandmother, “can it be pure accident that the moment Theobold begins to
threaten, Gaston does also?”

“They are longtime enemies, but of course it is not an
accident. It is natural enough for a sneaking cur to snap only at the helpless.”

“Could it be that Queen Blanche is stirring both Theobold
and Gaston?” Alys asked. “I have heard that Theobold was quite…quite enamored
of her. Louis would not break a truce, no, but Blanche would not care a pin for
that, and very likely she would not let Louis know what she was doing. And even
if he knew, Louis might look the other way. I believe—Papa has said so very
often—that Louis really desires all the lands on the Continent that speak the
French tongue to be under French dominion.”

“That is true enough,” James said. “He has swallowed Anjou
and Poitou, setting his brother Alphonse to rule them.”

Alys shrugged. “It has brought peace, at least.”

“Perhaps, but that will not recommend Louis’s rule to the
Gascons,” James said bitterly. “They do not desire peace and good governance.
They love Henry because he is far away and does not interfere in their constant
warring. But some will side with Theobold just because they have private
enemies they wish to attack who claim to be loyal to King Henry. However, when
that private war is over, they will break their faith with the king of Navarre
as quickly as they have taken sides with him.”

“I think you speak the truth,” a new male voice agreed. Alys
looked up and smiled a welcome at her father, and her companion bowed. “What
brings you here from Wales, James?” Sir William asked.

“More bad news, really bad,” James said, his face darkening
still further. “Ralph and Mortimer have been cut to pieces, Hereford’s men have
been driven back nearly to the border, and the army the king sent with Hubert
Fitz Matthew was taken by surprise and forced to take refuge in the towns after
suffering heavy losses.”

“Oh God,” William groaned. “Richard will spit blood over
this. He has already quarreled with Henry because the king would not take the
full army from Scotland to Wales.”

“No,” James said, “he knows what happened already. I went to
him at once, as soon as I left the king. Lord Richard was angry, of course, but
he told me to hold my tongue so that the news should not draw attention from de
Molis’s need.” James smiled and added, “I know he does not mean to keep
anything from you, sir. Lord Richard said there would be no trouble gathering
an army to fight the Welsh, but as soon as the barons knew of the defeats in
Wales, they would use that as an excuse not to give help to Gascony.”

“They do not need any excuse for that,” Sir William pointed
out caustically, “and if it were not for the fact that I have a private reason
to wish Gascony quiet and well ruled, I would agree with all my heart. The
devil should be given every chance to fly away with that whole province.”

“You cannot mean that, William,” a soft voice reproved. “Where
would you get your wine if Bordeaux fell into the devil’s hands?”

“This is my wife, Lady Elizabeth,” Sir William said, as Sir
James bowed to a tall, graceful woman with large green eyes. “I would drink ale
instead,” he replied to her remark, smiling.

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth sighed, “but then I would have to
listen to you complain about it.” Her voice was so soft and her smile so sweet
that what might have been a bitter gibe became an intimate caress. William
laughed, but Elizabeth shook her head. “I think it more reasonable, especially
in view of our private reasons to wish for peace in Gascony, to try to think of
some way to help.”

“Easier said than done,” William said with a shrug, but he
narrowed his eyes in thought as he looked down at Alys. “Raymond has lands
there,” he said next. “He is also of sweet tongue and equable temper—usually.”

The last word came out with a grin. Raymond had not been at
all equable of temper when opposition to his marriage to Alys had been
suggested. He had thrown defiance into the teeth of the Earl of Cornwall,
saying he would wed her over the nay-say of the whole world. William repressed
a sigh. Probably Raymond would succeed in gaining his father’s permission. He
had a gift for knowing when to threaten force and when to use persuasion. Most
likely Alys would be happy—but he would lose her. William jerked his mind away
from that.

“Do you think Raymond could help?” Alys asked. “His own
property is small, and his father may not be overinclined to listen to his
suggestions in favor of the English just now.”

“As to the latter, I cannot guess,” William replied. “However,
as a landholder in his own right, he would have a place in the councils of the
barons, and he might be thought to be speaking for his father. I am not sure,
but it is something. When starvation is the alternative, rusty wheat is better
than a haunch of venison that cannot be obtained.”

Chapter Three

Thus, when Raymond arrived in England, he found himself more
warmly welcomed by the Earl of Cornwall and the king than by his prospective bride
and father-by-marriage. Raymond was not much surprised by the lack of
enthusiasm with which William received the news that Alphonse had agreed to his
son’s marriage. Naturally William would regret the fact that his one living
child should spend the rest of her life so far from him. There was a good
chance that after her marriage he would never see her again. Although Raymond
knew that William was very fond of him, he accepted that he would not be
overjoyed at losing Alys.

Raymond could not, however, accept Alys’s initial reserve so
philosophically. She was the first person, except for the servants, he accosted
after rushing up from the bailey, and he had cried out, “I have you! My father
has agreed!” and swept her into his arms and into a passionate kiss.

Her lips responded readily at first, but after far too short
an embrace, in Raymond’s opinion, she had pulled away, remarking
dispassionately, “You look like death warmed over. Come to the fire.”

“Because I half killed myself getting there and back,”
Raymond said lightly, but there was a note of hurt in his voice.

“There was no need for such haste as to keep you from
sleeping and eating,” Alys replied sharply. “Do you doubt my faith?”

“No!” Raymond exclaimed. “What is wrong, Alys? I missed you.
I—”

“In God’s name, do not say you count every day a year when
you are not beside me,” she snapped. Then, seeing the pained amazement in his
face, she sighed. “Poor Raymond, forgive me. You have had a sad welcome. I am
sorry. You are welcome, my love, truly. And I have missed you, also.”