Winter Song (53 page)

“They have stuffed themselves with cheese and wine and have
forgotten the time,” she said.

Still, shortly after she had finished eating, she began to
feel concerned again. The girls could not have failed to notice the prayers at
sext. They should have started home by then at the latest, and even if they
idled on the way, they should have reached Arles by now. A knight of the
household was sent off.

It was unfortunate that Lady Beatrice was so generous a
contributor to the abbey. The knight of her household was brought directly to
the abbot—who had not yet been informed of the body or the men in the
infirmary. The prior would report this at the regular time for business since
it did not seem to him to be an emergency directly affecting the abbey, and all
that could be done for the men had been done for them. The abbot assured Lady
Beatrice’s knight with perfect certainty that neither her daughter nor her
daughter’s friends had visited the abbey that day.

The knight did not stay longer than necessary to ask the
abbot to keep secret his search for Beatrice, which the abbot promised to do.
As the knight galloped back to Arles, he passed a lone man-at-arms riding
toward the abbey, but he was worried sick and paid the man no mind.

* * * * *

Arnald had been worried long before Lady Beatrice. He knew
that if Lady Alys said she would be back for dinner, either she would return or
she would send a message saying she would be late. What held him back from
action was that he did not know where the abbey was, and he did not know to
whom to report his mistress’s absence. One thing was sure, he would not go near
Lady Jeannette. He knew she would be worse than useless.

Then the servant came with questions, and Arnald had felt
considerable relief. Thereafter, he had warned his men to be ready to ride out.
He was quite sure he would be sent to find out what had happened to Lady Alys as
soon as the servant passed on his message. However, no such order came. First,
Arnald gnashed his teeth, cursing the slowness and inefficiency of these
southerners. Then he comforted himself for a time by telling himself that a
message must have come to Lady Beatrice and no one had bothered to tell him
about it.

This was very likely. Lady Alys would not forget to ask that
he be informed, but no one would think that important, and her message to him
might be considerably delayed in transmission or even forgotten. Nonetheless,
he felt uneasy, and he began to ask about among the other masters-at-arms where
the abbey was and how to get there. As the afternoon waned, Arnald’s uneasiness
increased. He could not send out the troop without orders, but there was nothing
to stop him from taking an hour off to make an offering for his soul’s sake. He
told the men he would hang the first one who started a fight in his absence,
and he set off.

The abbot might be ignorant of the wounded men and the body,
but the event was the most exciting thing that had happened in months to the
lay brothers. There was not one of the younger group who had not found some
excuse to peep into both the mortuary and the infirmary. Since Arnald was
nobody of importance, a lay brother was sufficient to collect his offering. But
the moment the lay brother saw Arnald’s arms, he recognized them as the same as
those of the dead and wounded found on the road.

A very few minutes after the recognition, Arnald was in the
infirmary trying to question his men. This, after a moment, the infirmarian
discouraged firmly, saying the men were too deep in the grip of the poppy syrup
to be wakened or to make sense if they should waken. Nor would the infirmarian
give any estimate of the time when they could make sense, other than it would
be several hours. Half mad with anxiety, all Arnald could think of was to ride
back to Arles and tell Lady Beatrice that someone had killed and wounded his
men and, almost certainly, made off with her daughter, his mistress, and Lord
Raymond’s sister. In his haste and his fear, Arnald neglected to tell the
infirmarian to withhold the next dose of opiate until he could question his
men.

The trouble was that Lady Beatrice had come to the same
conclusion as Arnald without evidence of her own. She was frantic and appalled,
torn between the need to question everyone to discover the whereabouts of
Beatrice and the need to hide the fact that her daughter was missing. In the
stress of the moment, she denied herself to everyone, which, of course,
included Arnald.

Frustrated in his attempts to report what he knew to Lady
Beatrice, Arnald rode back to the abbey, which he managed to enter just before
the gates closed for the night. Unfortunately, he could not gain admittance to
the infirmary. The infirmarian realized that Arnald was frantic, but his duty
was to his patients. He did not know who Lady Alys was, and in his distress for
his mistress, Arnald failed to mention that Lady Beatrice’s daughter was with
Lady Alys.

Meanwhile, the abbot had finally heard about the dead and
wounded men. He was appalled, immediately making the connection between the
report of Beatrice’s unexplained absence and the injured men-at-arms. His
horror was not only over the probable abduction of the heiress but over the
fact that he had not told the knight that there were wounded men in the
infirmary. The fact that he had been ignorant, he was much afraid, would do
little to appease Lady Beatrice.

Thus, he was greatly relieved when the infirmarian told him
that the wounded men had been escorting a Lady Alys, not young Lady Beatrice.
The knight had not mentioned Lady Alys or Margot by name, since they were of no
concern to him. The abbot breathed a sigh of relief. Two abductions on the road
to the abbey in one day simply did not seem possible to that worthy man. He was
certain that young Beatrice had gone in a completely different direction,
merely saying the abbey was her destination to allay suspicion. He prayed
earnestly for the safety and well-being of that naughty girl, but he was deeply
grateful that his abbey was not involved.

It was full morning before Arnald was finally able to speak
to his men. They were horrified when they learned that the message they had
tried to convey had not been understood, but they told him what had happened as
quickly and clearly as they could. This was not particularly quickly or clearly
since all were very weak and fevered and occasionally their wits wandered.
Unfortunately, even what they told Arnald did not mean much to him since he was
unfamiliar with the arms and colors of the nobles of Provence. However, at the
moment he was satisfied, certain that someone in Arles would be able to
identify them.

Despite Beatrice’s assurances, Alys had little faith that
she would perform what she promised. She became quite exasperated with both
girls, who, as the day wore on, could think of nothing beyond their hunger and
thirst and sat bewailing it to each other. All Alys’s attempts to divert their
minds to a more useful activity, such as searching for a way out, were in vain.
Escape was impossible, they moaned, and they were too weak with hunger to do
anything.

More for something to do than for any other reason, Alys
tried the door. The great bars on the inside, designed to keep enemies who had
invaded the bailey from coming up into the tower and thus getting onto the
walls, had, of course, been, removed. Alys expected that new bars had been
fastened on the outside, but she had not heard them fall into place after she
was thrown down. Nonetheless, when she lifted the latch and pushed on the door,
Alys nearly fell out on the small landing and down the stairs because she had
been so certain the door would
not
open.

She stood for a moment, clinging to latch and frame and
gasping with shock, and soon Beatrice and Margot began to scream. Alys gestured
fiercely at them to be still, although she did not know why she bothered. Had
there been guards below, they would have been warned already. She waited for
the shouts, for feet to pound up the stairs, for the flicker of a torch’s glow,
but all was still and dark. After a few moments, Alys shrugged and felt for the
stair with her foot. There was only the dimmest twilight left in the chamber so
that the stairs to the totally unlighted chamber below were black as pitch.

Alys asked herself a hundred questions about why the door
was left unbarred, all except whether it was a simple oversight, because that
would mean escape was possible. However, the forbidden question answered
itself. The door to the outside was firmly locked. Alys felt one sharp pang of
disappointment and then laughed softly at herself. Guillaume was a young fool,
either romantic or greedy or both, but he was not a total idiot.

Or was he? It would be easy, Alys thought, to hide in the
dark and push Guillaume down the stairs, but instantly she realized that was
not true. Whoever came would bring light, and that would expose anyone lying in
wait. Nor would it do any good to escape from the tower now. Alys knew Beatrice
and Margot would not have the self-control to get out of the keep or even to
hide within it, and to get them down that road and through the forest until
they were miles and miles away from Les Baux and could seek help was out of the
question.

It might be feasible later when they were more hardened and
more desperate, or when there was an army encamped in the plain. Then, if they
could get out, there would not be far to go. Surely Sir Romeo would bargain
before any assault was tried. That would be the time. Alys sighed. It would not
be easy with every man alert, but there was no sense in worrying about that
now.

Oh, yes there was, Alys thought, stopping abruptly as she
began to turn toward the stair. When the siege began, they might be moved to a
more secure place or the upper door might be barred so that the men could use
the lower tower. If there was anything in the lower room that might be useful,
she had better take it now and try to conceal it.

The lower tower rooms were usually used for storage,
particularly for war supplies, weapons, sand for dousing fires, barrels of
pitch, rope, and such things. Alys was sure all the weapons had been removed,
but sand might be useful to throw in a man’s eyes, and an arrow might have
fallen down and been overlooked. An arrow could stab as well as be shot. It
would be useful, anyway, to see what was there.

Unfortunately, “see” was the wrong word. Alys could not see
anything. A forgotten torch—and flint and tinder—would be useful, too, Alys
thought almost merrily. She felt her way to the wall and started around it,
reaching out hand and foot and feeling up and down the wall as high and low as
she could reach before she took each step. Almost at once, she was rewarded.
Her hand, sliding up the wall, came in contact with an instrument that made her
cry out softly. A crossbow!

Her first instinct was that the whole thing, the open door,
the crossbow hanging so conveniently, was a trap. Then she smiled. No, it must
be that they were convinced that a woman would not have the strength to use a
crossbow. And, indeed, no woman Alys knew had ever used one, but she was
willing to try if she could find some quarrels, or something that could be used
as a quarrel. Alys continued her round, discovering that there were tubs of
sand and many barrels with closed tops which probably contained pitch or oil.

She made a second round on her hands and knees, feeling
between and behind the barrels. Quite near the door, her hand came on something
between the barrels and tubs that squished liquidly away from her touch. Alys
nearly screamed with horror, and she sat shivering for some minutes trembling
with such revulsion that she could not move, and then her brain began to work.
When it did, her breath caught with hope, and she advanced her hand eagerly. It
was! Miracle of miracles, it was a skin of wine, about half full. If anything
could put heart into those ninnies upstairs, this was it. Alys slung the
crossbow over her shoulder, snatched up some straight poles she had found, took
the wine, and made her way carefully up the stairs, where she closed the door
behind her.

It was now as dark inside the upper chamber as it had been
below. With a shock, Alys realized she did not hear Beatrice’s and Margot’s
voices. Almost instantly, however, she heard them breathing. Feeling her way,
she found them huddled together on the narrow bed. She stood a moment, biting
her lip, regretting the pleasure and relief she had expected her discovery to
bring. Then she sighed. It would be a hard, cold night for her. The bed would
scarcely hold those two, it was meant for one only.

Tears began to course down Alys’s face, not for the
discomfort she faced, but because, suddenly, she felt abandoned. She knew it
was ridiculous; Beatrice and Margot were only cold, hungry, frightened, and
miserable. They had sought what comfort they could find. But Alys was just as
cold and hungry and miserable and dreadfully tired, yet she knew she could not
even seek the cold comfort of the floor to rest until she had hidden the things
she had brought up from below.

In the living quarters of Les Baux, there was light, food
and drink, and all other comforts, however, Sir Guillaume was not much happier
than his captives. He was, in fact, as much a prisoner of his own act as they.
If it had been possible to expunge from their minds who had committed the
outrage, he would have been glad to drop the three women on any road that did
not lead to Les Baux and forget they existed. Unfortunately, that was not
possible, he had them, and he was stuck with them.

His doubts had begun soon after his initial fury over
Beatrice’s reaction had cooled, and he had naturally expressed those doubts to
his mentor. Master Ernaldus, who had expected this reaction, had pointed out that
it was too late for doubts. To gain anything, the heiress must be married and made
pregnant. Merely to save his skin, he must keep the women as a bargaining
counter. To let them go would only produce utter disaster.