Fires of Winter (49 page)

That was the story of the whole spring, summer, and autumn. Each time I thought the king and queen must meet to discuss the terms of the peace Winchester was trying to bring about, a new attack or new need to attack drew the king away. There was no other letter like that first one, but then it might be said that there was no other letter—except a few lines now and then that mentioned the king's favorable reactions to Winchester's peace treaty. Oh, I received words written on parchment, but Bruno was not there. They were letters from some stranger who discoursed on the weather and the state of the roads. One time I raged, the next I wept, telling myself that he had taken another woman because I would rather believe that than that Bruno was now as mad as I had been before we married.

I should have saved my tears. After the bishop of Winchester had spent all the months from May to November crossing and recrossing the country to bring one set of terms after another to Maud and to Robert of Gloucester, after he had even gone to France and Blois to consult with King Louis and Stephen's brother Theobald of Blois, after the empress had been brought to accept the terms, Stephen put them aside “to consider at a more propitious time.” I thought Maud would faint when she had the news, although at the moment I had not yet heard the king's phrase and did not know why her face grew so grim and so grey. I had come near when the packet was brought to her, hoping—or should I say fearing—there would be a letter from Bruno in it, and I cried aloud, “Oh, madam, what is it?”

“The earl of Chester has taken Lincoln Castle, and Stephen is too busy trying to get it back to consider the peace treaty at this time. He will think about it at a more propitious time,” she said, but I am sure she did not know to whom she was speaking or what she was saying.

“The king is not going to assault the castle, is he?” I whispered, for the moment the real meaning of what she said being lost on me because of my fear for Bruno.

“No, it is too strong,” she replied still dully, as if she were speaking by rote, without thinking. Then her voice changed, growing shrill and angry. “You are as blind as he, you fool! Cannot you see that if Stephen had agreed to the peace, Chester would have
had
to yield the keep? There would be none to help him. Why, Stephen could have called on Gloucester to help drive Chester out. All rebellion would have been at an end.”

It was the first time I had ever heard Maud say a word of criticism of her husband, and I knew it was only her fear for him that made her do it, but I was nearly stunned by what I finally understood. “The king does not like the peace terms?” I asked in amazement. “But he has known every proposal and approved it—Bruno wrote that. What—”

“Waleran de Meulan”—Maud nearly spit the name—“explained that it was better to fight on for a whole crown than live in peace with only half.”

“May he rot outside as he is rotten inside!”

Maud seemed to shiver and focussed her eyes on me, first realizing now to whom she was speaking. “What reason can
you
have to hate Waleran?” she asked.

“If it had not been for his pride and arrogance, my father and brother would be sitting alive at the table in Ulle talking about whether we had supplies enough for the winter. My father answered no summons from King David; he went to fight in Scotland because he had been insulted by Waleran de Meulan.”

“I did not know that,” Maud said softly, but she looked away from me and I could not tell whether she was thinking of what I said or had simply gone back to her own problems, but then she looked back at me and said, “There is no letter for you, but Stephen has assured me that he will meet me in London to celebrate Christmas.”

They came before Christmas, at the end of the second week in December. I suppose being close to the city, the king decided to leave the army to make camp outside of London and rode on, though it was already dark, desiring warmth and the comfort of a real bed. Certainly we did not expect to see them that day and had only a few minutes warning when a page came running, crying to the queen that the king had come. I was sitting and sewing, and I remember that I got to my feet, dropping my work, but I did not move from my place.

I think by then that I was more afraid than eager to see Bruno; I thought he might greet me as a stranger, but that was silly. It was only when our eyes met across the great width of the room that I understood how that first letter of longing fit with the other “polite” missives. I cannot see how I could have missed so simple an answer. Bruno had said what he felt the first time; thereafter, he dared not even think it or think about me lest he lose control of himself and violate his precious duty.

How can I explain how he looked? I have lived all my life in a land that has water in great abundance, much rain, many streams and rivers, many lakes; but there are tales of other places where men went on crusade, where the sun blazes without a cloud to give relief, without a tree to give shade, and where there is no water, no water at all. The storytellers who recite these tales speak of the great agonies of thirst endured by the crusaders, a thirst so great that the lips crack and the tongue dries to leather. I can only say that the thirst in Bruno's eyes when he looked at me was the same as a man in that state who looked on water. And he walked away from the king, without a look, without asking leave, and came to me and asked, “Where is our chamber?”

Thank God I had had sense enough to send Edna out to seek a place as close to the Tower as she could find and had still a few silver pennies to pay for it. I had not slept there alone, but I had gone twice to see the bed made and that all was clean and ready. Unfortunately, having no notion when Bruno would arrive and not expecting he would come so late, I had not ordered a fire to be set. I shuddered, thinking of the icy room, of cold, damp sheets, expecting that Bruno would all but leap on me to satisfy the needs of his body starved for nearly a year. But, seeing how he looked, I did not try to explain nor even go to find my cloak nor tell Edna I was leaving. I took his hand in mine, with as little thought for the duty I was abandoning as Bruno had given to his, and I led him down the stairs to the forebuilding, out of the Tower, and out through the postern gate.

It was very dark, even to eyes accustomed, and I hesitated, feeling for good footing on the rutted road. Bruno gave a little shiver and said, “Wait.” Then he went back to the postern and shouted for the guard to give him a torch. When he came back, he looked at me in surprise.

“Where is your cloak?” he asked.

“I did not stop to take it,” I answered as steadily as I could, for it was frightening to be reminded that once I had also looked straight at things and had not seen them as Bruno had looked at me. “Shall I go back for it?”

“No!”

The exclamation was so sharp, I jumped, and he caught me to him, holding the torch well away and murmuring that he was sorry he had startled me. Then he bade me hold the torch while he took off his cloak, but I laughed and said, “No, take me under it with you. I will be warmer so.”

Bruno opened the cloak for me, and I caught my breath, for he was all in mail and there were dark splotches on the rings. Then I was enfolded and saw no more; perhaps I had been deceived by shadows from the flickering torchlight, but my voice froze in my throat and I could not warn him about the cold, unwelcoming chamber. We walked down the mound on which the Tower stood and into the street that led to the East Cheap. The house Edna had found was less than a quarter of a mile from where the houses began. The merchant from whom I had rented the chamber had moved in with his son-by-marriage, but when Bruno pounded on the door with his mailed fist, the journeyman, who slept at the back of the shop with the two young apprentices, came and asked what was wanted. I answered, giving my name, and we could hear the bar of the door being lifted.

“Take the torch in,” I said to Bruno, as I saw him lower it to roll in a puddle on the ground. “The room is not ready. I did not expect you. I can use it to light the fire quickly.”

He kissed me swiftly as the door opened, then pushed me into the house and said to the journeyman, “I am sorry to disturb your sleep, but I will need the back door opened so I can get water from the butt and wood.” Then he threw his cloak over my shoulders, put the torch into my hand—there was a night candle burning in the shop and a dim glow from the back showed there was another there—and said to me, “Go up and hand down an ewer,” but his voice was light and he was smiling.

That confused me so much that I do not remember doing as I was bid or lighting the fire and the tapers. I must have done so because the room was bright and the wood laid ready by Edna was blazing when Bruno came up the stair—little more than a ladder with broad treads set at a steep angle along the wall of the shop—carrying an ewer filled with water. He handed it to me, cocked an eye at the heap of wood near the hearth, and said he would fetch more. I got the flat stones for warming the bed, thrust them under the fire, and sat down to wait for what would happen next. I did not think the kind of need Bruno had showed when he saw me in the hall of the Tower could be shed by walking a few streets and entering a house.

Yet it seemed that was just what he had done. He came up with his arms full of wood and atop that load a big wedge of cheese and half a loaf of bread held down by his chin and the strap of a leather jack round his arm. I ran to take the bread and cheese before they fell, and held the jack, which I discovered was about half full of ale, so it would not spill when he put down the wood.

“There,” he said, grinning at me, “this is not as elegant an evening meal as you would have had in the Tower, but at least you will not go hungry.”

“Where did you get it?” I asked as Bruno slid his arm out of the strap and bent to put more wood on the fire.

I knew he must have bought the apprentices' breakfast from the journeyman, but I could not think of anything else to say. I was hurt and angry, and at the same time I knew I had no right to be offended. It was not Bruno's fault that I had misread his expression when he first saw me and thought he felt an overwhelming hunger for me. I should be grateful that he had not overlooked the need of his belly, and my own, and that he did not really wish to tear my clothes off and throw me into an ice-cold, damp bed because he could not wait until the sheets could be warmed. Still, my eyes were full of unreasonable tears, and I had to turn away sharply and pretend I wished to put the food on a small table by the far wall, which was a stupid thing to do since the table would have to be moved to the fire or we would freeze while we ate.

I never got there. I had no sooner turned my back than Bruno seized me around the waist, thrust my veil aside, and began to kiss the back of my neck. “Let go, you fool,” I cried angrily. “Do you want me to spill the ale? Go and get the table so we can eat in the warmth.” And then I burst into laughter at my own silliness. I was angry because Bruno's passion was not as hot as I first believed, so I shrieked at him when he showed that it was.

We nearly did spill the ale, but not in the grapplings of passion. We fell into each other's arms, crushing the bread and cheese and ale between us, both laughing like idiots. I have no idea about what we were laughing, but it made me light and happy so that I did not flinch when I helped Bruno take off his armor and saw again those dark stains on it.

“Rust,” he said, when he saw where my eyes were fixed. “It has been devilish wet and not safe to go unarmed.”

Did I believe him? I do not think so, but he was grinning at me like a mischievous boy, as Fergus grinned when he had done something dangerous, for which Papa would have beaten him black and blue if I told. I never did tell, and now I laughed, as I had laughed with Fergus, and gave Bruno the food while I ran to get the bedrobe I had made for him from his chest. He had left that in my care, fearing to lose everything in the quick marches and countermarches in which the baggage train was often left behind. The bedrobe covered his arming tunic, marked with the same dark stains, and when they were hidden I shut them from my mind.

There was nothing else to remind me of those marks. Bruno's movement was easy even when he carried the table to the fire; he was not favoring any half-healed wound, except that he still limped a little and that, I knew, was because the cold and damp made the old break in his foot ache. We laughed again when we discovered that my eating knife was too small to cut the hard cheese; Bruno was not wearing his and drew his sword to cut it, which was ridiculous, but we had no other tool. While he was massacring the cheese, I pulled the warming stones from the fire, wrapped them in the warming cloths, and put them in the bed. Then we both sat down to eat. We had to drink from the jack of ale, for I had not thought to bring cups. And then we had more cause to laugh when I remembered the brass bowl Bruno had bought for me, which we could have used.

I know we talked, but only of the lightest things. He said he was glad they came too late for the queen to ride out to meet Stephen because Vinaigre would surely have bitten him again, and he reminded me of the disaster we had caused when we met at Winchester. And I told him about Queen Eleanor and about the writings I had bought, at which he groaned—not that he did not like to hear the poems and tales, he assured me, but that my purchases had reminded him of Audris's passion for such things and the agonies he had suffered when she made him learn to read and write.

Sometimes our hands met when we reached at the same time for the bread or a piece of cheese. Then we did not laugh, and our fingers clung together, but only for a moment, and we both looked aside and took the food. There came an end to eating, a time when our hands met and Bruno lifted mine and held it to his lips. I touched his face with my other hand, and he looked at me. Then he rose from his stool and lifted me from mine.

I have never known a loving like that. If it were not blasphemous, I would have said that Bruno worshipped each separate inch of me. He took off my clothing as if it were holy, a piece at a time, folding each garment and laying it aside. And when I was naked, he laid me in the bed, drawing back the coverlets—it was warm enough in the room by then, and the sheets were warm too—and began to kiss me, first my hair, then my forehead, then my cheeks and lips, my throat, my breast. He was not hurrying, not grasping greedily at me like a hungry man, nor was he teasing me, playing with me to excite me.