Winter Song (58 page)

Instinctively every man paused and drew weapons. It seemed
too easy, as if it had been arranged to accommodate them, to draw them farther
in. But it was too late to worry. Cautiously, Raymond stepped out into the
bailey, tensed for a shout of alarm and a rush of defenders. But there was
nothing. It was not complete silence, but the normal sounds of a nighttime keep,
a vague medley of animals moving in pens somewhere, the low rustle of banked
fires in the cooksheds, an occasional yap from the kennels. Raymond stepped
back into the tower and murmured, “Bernard.” A man pushed the bailiff forward. “Which
way is the Sow’s Tower?”

This important question was the reason Raymond had brought
Ernaldus with them. Unlike “square tower” or “north tower”, the name of this
one gave no indication of shape or position. There was enough light near the
doorway for Raymond’s eyes, now adjusted to the dark, to make out the blankness
of Ernaldus’s face. “The Sow’s Tower,” Raymond repeated. The face remained
blank, but the head turned and the dead-looking eyes gazed across the bailey.

At first Raymond did not know whether the gesture was an
answer—the only answer a gagged and bound man could make—or whether Ernaldus
was looking away as a refusal to answer. A moment later, following the
direction Ernaldus had looked, Raymond saw that it was an answer. Between the
tower in which they stood and the one at which Ernaldus had looked were two
others. Both of those showed black holes where doors stood open. The tower
Ernaldus had indicated showed the dull reflection of moonlight from a surface, a
closed, doubtless locked door.

Raymond cursed softly under his breath. He was a fool, for
he had not needed to bring the clerk after all. He felt foolish, too, about
being alarmed by the open tower doors. Naturally those doors would be open. If
an attack was expected, they would be left open so that the men could rush up
to take their places on the walls without wrestling with heavy doors.

“Take Bernard back to the passage,” Raymond said softly to one
of the men. “Tie his feet so that he cannot get away but tie them loosely so he
can work himself free in a few hours in case we cannot come back for him.”
Raymond did not like the clerk, but he would not condemn any man to die slowly
and agonizingly of thirst and hunger.

They traversed the bailey without causing any alarm. One of
the men shuddered and crossed himself. Another mouthed silent prayers. It was
easy, too easy. Raymond’s hand gripped his sword hilt until the knuckles showed
white. Too smooth, too easy. He wondered if perhaps the key would not fit, but
it did fit, and it turned without a screech. Raymond ground his teeth and
pushed. The door swung back with only the faintest groaning.

It was after the door was closed behind the last man that the
signs of the end of the halcyon period began. First, the stench smote them.
None of the men had a delicate nose, nor did Raymond himself, but it was rare
for a tower to smell like the shaft of a garderobe. Then a man slipped on
something and fell, his sword striking a barrel with a loud
thunk
. All
froze, listening, but the sound had not betrayed them. Raymond snarled an order
to take better care, but he did not ask who had slipped, knowing it could have
been he as easily as another.

In the pitch black, they felt for the stair, but Raymond
went up alone, thinking it would be less frightening for the women since all
knew his voice. The odor was worse as he climbed, and he almost fell off the
stair altogether. “Enough,” he murmured under his breath, “we have had our ill
fortune already. It is enough.” But he had a strong suspicion it was not going
to be so easy, and when the inner door would not move upon lifting the latch
and pushing, he stood for a moment fighting a sinking heart.

First he cursed Bernard, thinking this door, too, was
locked. Then he bethought himself that the same key might easily open both
locks, and he began to feel for the lock plate, but the door was smooth from
top to bottom. Last he tried throwing his weight against the door in case it was
warped and stuck. Still, the door would not open. It moved inward just a
little, then sprang back. Raymond stood thinking for a few seconds and realized
the door must be barred on the inner side. But that was ridiculous! Prisoners
do not lock themselves in! And then Raymond snarled softly. Three young women
might indeed have good reasons to lock themselves in.

A shout rose in him, a need to batter at the door and scream
for Alys to open it and tell him she was unhurt, unmolested. Until this moment
he had known no fear for Alys’s safety or inviolability. He had not believed
that any man could be so stupid as to insult or assault Alys and Margot of d’Aix
and Beatrice of Provence. Now Raymond wanted and needed to break down the door,
but the fact that the women felt a need to lock themselves in lent a sharp edge
to his caution. The barred door changed all expectation of honorable treatment.
Raymond leaned his head in despair against the wood. He swallowed hard and
tried to think of another way to enter Alys’s prison.

Alys, Beatrice, and Margot had had a tense and frustrating
day. Once the girls had stopped laughing over their success and Beatrice’s
brilliant idea about what to do with the near-overflowing contents of the
chamber pot, they had begun to worry. It was bad enough to have made a fool of
Sir Guillaume by throwing sand in his eyes and pushing him down the stairs. The
insult of emptying the chamber pot on him might be the straw that made the ass
sit down. Not that Alys or Margot blamed Beatrice. Both burst out laughing anew
whenever they thought of it. Still, all of them realized that they needed a
defense.

By nightfall, however, they had no more than they had
started with. No attempt had been made on them, but that only made the
expectation of an assault more acute. Thus, none of them slept deeply, and all
woke with a start when Raymond threw himself against the door. Alys was on her
feet before either of the others could scream and had a hand over each mouth.

“Quiet,” she whispered, “let him think us asleep and easy
prey. I have the crossbow. If the door yields, I will shoot the first man in.
If that is Guillaume, it will end our troubles.”

“But what if it is not?” Margot whimpered.

“Take the extra poles, and stand to each side of the door,”
Alys urged. “Strike at whoever enters. Try to keep them back until I can wind
the bow again.”

Margot fell silent but did not move. Beatrice rose from the
bed. She did not like this sly attempt to open the door in the middle of the
night. It seemed a greater threat to her than a frontal attack during the day.
If that idiot Guillaume snatched her away from Alys and Margot, Beatrice was
not sure she could continue to be brave. But the noises at the door had
stopped.

After a while, Alys went to the door and listened, but
without much hope. Its planks were several inches thick and well fitted
together, a door designed, when barred, to delay an attacking force with a ram.
Alys knew she would hear nothing unless someone was shouting right near the
door or if many men were fighting and yelling below. After a few minutes she
came back toward the bed and looked anxiously up at the ceiling. The trap door
to the topmost chamber was there. She wondered if Guillaume had decided it
would be easier to cross the wall from another tower and come down by ladder
than to break open the door.

Alys mentioned this possibility, and she and Beatrice discussed
in whispers what would be best to do if Guillaume or his men came down from
above. Margot sniffled, hardly listening as Alys and Beatrice tried to plan a
strategy. Margot regretted bitterly her desire for a more exciting life. She
vowed she would try to help Alys and Beatrice, but never, never, never—if they
ever reached safety—would she complain about living quietly at Aix.

Margot remained seated on the bed, tense with fear. Because
she was frightened while the other two were immersed in plans, difficulties,
and possibilities, it was she who heard the faint creak from above as weight
came onto an imperfectly flat floorboard. First she was frozen, her instinct
for self-preservation bidding her be still. Once Beatrice was isolated, Margot
knew that she and Alys would be well treated and might even be freed. But
Margot was really fond of Beatrice. When the second creak sounded, she leapt to
her feet and rushed to the others.

“They are above! I heard them,” she whispered frantically.

Biting back a cry of anger and fear, Alys crawled toward her
blanket and grabbed the crossbow. The trap door groaned softly. Alys bit her
lip, knowing that the sound meant the trap had been lifted. She felt the bow,
fitted the quarrel carefully, and lifted it. She was aware of three things
nearly simultaneously, the thump as the ladder came down, the creak as a man’s
weight came on it, and Beatrice scrabbling on the floor for a pole which had
escaped her hand.

“Stop,” Alys commanded clearly. “I have a crossbow trained
on your back. Do not cry out. Go back up.”

“Alys!” Raymond whispered softly. “Are you unhurt, my love?”

Alys was so startled that she almost fired. Her second
impulse was to throw the bow away and rush to the ladder. Instead she hissed, “Stand!
I warn you.”

The man’s hoarse whisper was unidentifiable. It was too easy
a trick, Alys thought. Both Beatrice and Margot had cried out softly with
relief and then drew in gasping breaths when Alys’s words implied it was a
trick. Now Alys heard Beatrice getting to her feet. Somehow she sensed that
Beatrice was raising the pole.

In the same instant, Raymond whispered, “
Hauest noon
drede, mi deore, beoth ich!
”

“No!” Alys cried as she heard the pole swish through the
air, but she was already turning, already striking Beatrice’s hand aside. The
pole hit the ladder with a vicious
thwack,
and the crossbow fired,
fortunately away from anyone. Beatrice cried out, and Alys dropped her weapon,
nearly fainting with relief.

“Stupid slut,” Raymond growled, knowing it was not Alys who
had struck at him. “Are you trying to brain me?”

“Raymond!” Alys whispered. “Raymond!”

He came down from the ladder and reached out toward the
sound of her voice, and they were in each other’s arms. Alys clutched at him so
fiercely she bruised her hands and her cheek on his mail. He bent his head to
kiss her, and then had to lift it to snarl, “Quiet, you fools!” as Margot and
Beatrice began to weep aloud. Still, he opened his arms to gather them into his
embrace also, for he was very fond of both, and besides, in this moment of
triumph, he loved even Bernard.

The way out was no more difficult than the way in. All the
attention of the men on the walls was fixed outward on the campfires in the
wood. Nor had the keep been roused for fear of attack. When informed that there
were enemies in the wood, Sir Guillaume did not order any alert. He trusted his
cliff and his walls. All he did was ask how many in the force that had come
and, when told some hundred or two, he had actually laughed and gone back to
sleep. Oddly, he slept better after the warning, knowing he was committed and
no longer wondering whether he could squirm out of the situation without anyone
ever knowing. Another thing gave him ease. He had seen a way out himself.

The precious heiress of Provence was unsullied. If Lady
Beatrice and Sir Romeo wanted her back, they could have her back, for a price
and a swearing of quittance. Otherwise they could spend the blood and lives it
would cost to take Les Baux and get back damaged goods withal. Guillaume almost
felt content as he slipped asleep again. True, Lady Beatrice and Sir Romeo
would not love him for this, but that would be nothing new between des Baux and
the Counts of Provence.

Thus, Raymond led his womenfolk into the tower with the
entrance to the secret way without untoward incident. The only fear Raymond had
was that dawn would catch them, and after his brief hug he had not permitted
anyone to say a word, threatening to gag Margot and Beatrice if they made one
single sound. He did not, of course, threaten Alys.

It was not possible to see the faint light that glimmered on
the eastern horizon, but the stars had paled as the sky pearled more gray than
black. Still, there was no cause for great alarm. If they made no noise, there
was little chance the guards would look down along their own walls. They would
look out toward the woods and the area of tumbled rock and low brush that fell
away from the cliff toward the wood. That was where the danger was. By the time
they were down the cliff, the light would be strong enough for the guards to
see them. Most likely they would be shot at from the walls. They could only
hope the aim of the crossbowmen would be poor at that distance.

In the tunnel where voices would not be heard, Raymond
warned the women again against making a sound and told them how they would be
lowered by rope down the cliff. Again and again he reiterated that they must
not cry out, even if the rope hurt them or they were banged against the rock.

“Do you understand me, Margot?” he asked, and when she whispered
a frightened affirmative, he added, “Beatrice, do you understand?”

He did not speak to Alys nor even look at her, although her
hand was on his arm. To Raymond’s mind there was no need to receive
confirmation from Alys. He had told her to be still, and she understood why it
was necessary. Raymond was certain that neither fear nor pain would wring any
sound from Alys. He wished he were as sure about Margot and Beatrice, even
after receiving their promises. Then he described to them and to the men what
they must do when they reached the ground.

It was no longer really black where they stood in the
tunnel. A faint light filtered in from the grating. Ernaldus sat alongside it,
and he could see Raymond’s legs, identified by the mail hosen he wore. Beyond
him were the skirts of two women. Raymond had spoken to Margot and Beatrice,
Ernaldus remembered, but there was another skirt. The bailiff looked up.