Winter Song (26 page)

Alys sighed and murmured wordlessly, shifted to change the
angle at which he touched her, and urged an increase in their rhythm with the
contractions of her legs. The uneasy tension, the pricking, unsatisfying heat,
disappeared. Raymond’s brow smoothed, a familiar warmth enveloped him,
spreading outward from his sheathed shaft and yet flowing back there and
intensifying from the places where Alys touched him. This was right, this was
perfect. Raymond surrendered to the voluptuous joy that could only be taken
when it was also given.

Chapter Twelve

Both Alys and Raymond slept late the following morning.
Indeed, the whole castle was still abed long past their usual waking hour.
However, even after maids and men rolled up their pallets and made ready for
the day’s activity, there was no sound or movement from the great bed. Bertha
peeped into her mistress’s bedchamber several times but, seeing the bed
curtains still closed, did not intrude. She did, however, set the maids to
their work. It was a mark of how different conditions were that a few dared to
grumble that they should have a day of rest after their dreadful experience.
Bertha reprimanded them sharply, but in a way she was glad. A few days earlier
none would have had enough spirit to grumble, even under her breath.

It was not in Bertha’s power to declare a day’s rest, but
she would not have done so even if she could. Like Alys, she believed that no
time could be wasted in renewing the spinning and weaving skills these women
either had never learned or had forgotten. Money should not be wasted to
purchase coarse cloth for the servants’ dresses, for pallets, for horsecloths,
blankets, and the like. Moreover, a quota of such products was easy to set to
be finished while master and mistress were absent from a keep. The menservants’
tasks could not be deferred. Hewing wood, carrying water, the men-at-arms would
see those things done for their own comfort and depended on them, however, if
maids did not have a quota of spinning, weaving, sewing, and embroidering,
there was nothing to stop them from idling away their days.

It was the creak of the looms that woke Alys. By the time
the sound reached her bedchamber, it was faint and distorted, but it reawakened
the fear that carried over from the previous night. Alys sat up suddenly, and
her swift movement startled Raymond awake. He pulled back the bed curtain
swiftly, asking, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Alys replied, having recognized the sound as soon
as she was awake. “The women are at work, and I heard the loom creaking.”
Still, her voice trembled slightly.

Raymond smiled and put an arm around her. “There is nothing
to fear now. I am here.”

She relaxed against him and nodded, smiling also. “You are
my shield even when you are not by me,” she told him. “It was only because I
was so lonely for you that I was not murdered in my bed. I could not sleep for
missing you and every noise…” Her voice drifted into silence, and her fair
brows knit in a frown. “Raymond,” she continued quickly, “I swear I heard door
hinges squeal last night. I was so sure of it that I got out of bed to check on
the women, but they were all asleep.”

“You cannot be sure of that,” Raymond soothed. He was not
displeased with Alys’s apparent nervousness. It seemed to him a perfect balance
between the unwomanly hardness of which he had thought her guilty the preceding
night and the too-great sensibility his mother and sisters displayed. “One of
them might have seen the light of your candle and run back to bed.”

“Yes, but the door here does
not
squeak. The hinges
are all greased. And I do not think I could have heard any other door in the
keep.”

“Then perhaps—” Raymond had been about to offer another
comforting platitude, but he stopped abruptly and looked toward the window slit
not far from the bed.

“We are on the outer wall of the keep,” Alys said,
confirming Raymond’s unspoken thought.

“There may be a postern door!” Raymond exclaimed, releasing
Alys and hopping briskly out of bed. “I should have thought of that last night.”

Alys followed her husband immediately, running to the
clothes chest to hand him fresh undergarments and tunic, kneeling to do up his
cross garters and lace his shoes while he shrugged himself into his surcoat.

“I thought it sounded like truth those men spoke,” Raymond
told Alys while he dressed. “There was such bitterness in them, and they told
me the bailiff was hiding on the lower floor.”

Alys shuddered. “You mean he could have crept up after we
were abed?”

“No, beloved.” Raymond pulled her up and held her close. “I
am not so careless when I do not know all the truth. Every door was barred, and
my own; new men guarded the prison room and the stair. You are safe. But a
secret postern with a key in an enemy’s hand is unhealthy.”

“What will you do?”

Raymond kissed her forehead, patted her comfortingly, and
pushed her away. “Go down and find it.”

The words
Send the men down
rose to Alys’s lips, but
she bit them back. Raymond would be disgusted and irritated by such cowardly
advice. Her father would never have done so, and her husband, she feared, was
more daring and less cautious than Sir William. Moreover, the whole idea of
fearing Ernaldus was ridiculous. He was of middle years and untrained in arms.
Raymond could break him in two with his bare hands. She heard her husband call
a cheerful answer to what must have been a question by Bertha, for the maid
came in hurriedly a moment later to help her mistress dress.

“Shall I send a woman down to tell the kitchen to set the
first meal?” Bertha asked.

“Has no one eaten yet?”

“The men-at-arms have broken their fast, but not the
servants.”

“Yes, very well,” Alys said distractedly. “And see if there
is some special dish to set before my lord.”

She came down to the hall herself a few minutes later,
finding herself listening for sounds she knew she would not hear. Her eyes were
on the great rounds of cheese and loaves of coarse bread being sliced for the
servants to pick up. It was just as well that the new kitchen staff did their
work properly, for actually Alys saw little. She knew it was stupid to be
worried, but visions persisted of an army lurking in the dark to spring out at
her most precious possession.

Before long her silliness was proven. Raymond came up into
the hall while the servants were still filing past the laden serving table. He
made a brief detour to snatch at hunks of cheese and bread and came toward
Alys, who had risen from her seat near the fire. She laughed with relief.

“Raymond! That is servants’ fare. I have cold meat and a
pasty ready to be warmed for you.”

He shook his head. “Never mind, this will do. Just get me
some wine to wash it down. We found the inner door, but it was locked. I want
to find the outer and set a pair of men on guard there until I can fetch a
smith from the town to make new locks and new brackets for barring the doors
from within.”

“It was Ernaldus, then.” Alys had signaled, and Edith came
to her carrying a flagon and two cups.

“I am sure of it.” Raymond drank and put his cup down on the
small table beside him. “While I am in Bordeaux, I will stop in to see Rustengo
to lodge a complaint. If what you believe is true and Ernaldus is a connection
of some kind, the family itself will wish to deal with the matter. I will not
say them nay. The fewer favors I owe Calhau, the better. When I come back, we
will hang those men and be done with them.” He hesitated and looked at Alys,
who was frowning. “They must be hanged,” he said.

“Yes.” There was none of the misplaced sympathy Raymond had
feared in Alys’s voice. “Only I hoped to make an object lesson of them for the
new men-at-arms—try them for their unlawful oppression of the serfs and for
allowing the keep to be open.”

“It will not be necessary. The new men I have are not raw
recruits, and Sir Oliver kept his men well in hand. They are not bred to such
behavior. My bailiff certainly will not condone it, and you are leaving Father
François here, are you not? He will report any misbehavior to us.”

Alys nodded. “You are right. Shall I tell the men to build
the gibbets, or do you wish to oversee that work?”

“There are seven to make,” Raymond replied. “You had better
start them, or we will have to delay until tomorrow. The days are short, and we
are behind time already. I like justice to be swift, especially in a case like
this.” He paused and then asked, “Will you give the order for the hanging?”

“Yes,” Alys agreed without hesitation. “It is my duty. Of
course I will.”

Raymond thought privately that it would have been more
graceful and feminine if she had begged him to excuse her. Very likely he would
then have pointed out that she must exercise her authority or it would be lost,
but he felt it showed a hard streak in her to be so indifferent.

Alys, of course, gave neither the order nor the hanging
itself more than a passing thought. She had condemned men to hanging before,
when her father had been out of England doing military service with his
overlord. A hanging was swift, and an easier death than many natural ones Alys
had seen. Besides, for these men it might be a kinder death for their souls’
sakes than any other. Father François would confess them and shrive them—and
they would confess honestly with the fear of Divine judgment on them—and then
they would die before they could sin again, so they would be saved from eternal
damnation.

Although Alys did not note any change of expression on her
husband’s face, she experienced a vague discomfort, a subliminal awareness of
his displeasure, however, she did not associate that displeasure with herself.
As on the previous night, her strong conviction that her behavior was perfectly
ordinary left no room for doubt. She associated the uneasiness with the
preceding topic of conversation, Raymond’s visit to Rustengo, and she smiled
slightly, thinking that he would be better pleased with his kinsman than he
expected.

This, indeed, was the case, at least insofar as Rustengo’s
manner to himself and his reception of Raymond’s complaint. Rustengo was most
properly horrified by Raymond’s accusation of Ernaldus but expressed not the
smallest disbelief, thanking Raymond most sincerely for bringing the matter to
his attention and thus saving the family the disgrace of having a member tried
and hanged by the opposition. He went in person with Raymond to try to
apprehend the malefactor, explaining on the way that he had already ordered the
treacherous bailiff into exile. He even apologized to Raymond for depriving him
of his revenge when they learned that Ernaldus had set sail to Arles before
dawn, although he confessed at the same time to relief that he was spared the
duty of having the man killed.

Then, suddenly, Rustengo frowned. “Arles is your own
country, is it not?”

“My grandfather’s,” Raymond replied. “We hold Aix to the
east.”

“Still…” Rustengo’s frown deepened. “He is a sly devil and
could think to do you more harm.”

Raymond laughed, but there was an ugly sound to it. “A
disgraced bailiff? But I—”

He stopped because Rustengo had raised a hand. The older man’s
brow was still furrowed, but his expression now was of puzzlement, of trying to
recall something on the edge of memory.

“Wait…wait… There is something,” he muttered. And then, with
relief mixed with worry, “Ernaldus’s sister, no, half sister. I told you, did I
not, that he was baseborn. Yes, I remember, a singularly foolish girl, but
pretty, and the marriage was a good one, better than the family expected, but
the man was ambitious and needed money. Yes. Give me a minute more… I have it!
Des Baux, that was the name.”

“It would be,” Raymond exclaimed with disgust. “My
grandfather’s most inveterate enemy. But des Baux was broken once and for all
some ten years ago. The family has little left besides the one keep. I doubt
they would contest with my grandfather about a baseborn relative. When I come
to Provence, I will ask that this Ernaldus be sought for at Les Baux and see he
is brought to justice.”

Rustengo nodded. “I need not tell you how to manage. I am
sure you will know what to do. However, if you need any writ of complaint from
me, I will give it to you.”

Rustengo’s eagerness helped to set a pleasant mood. After a
locksmith had been dispatched to Blancheforte, the kinsmen returned to Rustengo’s
house, and Raymond found him less inclined than before to give orders with the
hectoring air of an elderly uncle to a foolish nephew. Not that Rustengo’s
opinions had changed or that he was less urgent in espousing them, however, he
now spoke to Raymond as a man of power to a man of power. Since, in fact,
Raymond was eager to have control of Bordeaux back in his kinsman’s hands—they
had differed on means rather than on ends—there was no disagreement as long as
they spoke in generalities. Raymond refused to stay for dinner, however, citing
the hanging of the prisoners as his excuse.

Raymond rode back to Blancheforte in a thoughtful mood. He
was very glad of the change in Rustengo’s manner, but its suddenness made him
uneasy. Also, he was not sure whether or not to warn Alys that Ernaldus had
escaped and might be going to Provence. He attended the hangings in an
abstracted frame of mind, hardly noticing anything except that Alys was not so
unmoved as he expected her to be. Her manner was perfect, but she seemed
quieter than usual. Raymond remembered how he had misunderstood that quietness
the previous night and thought that his wife was more affected by events than
she permitted to show. That convinced him not to tell her about Ernaldus. There
was no need to have Alys frightened. Raymond was certain that he would be able
to protect her while she was in Tour Dur, now that he was forewarned. It would
be better if she forgot the man existed.