Winter Song (56 page)

As soon as it was fully dark, Ernaldus started down the road
that wound up the cliff. He was terrified, but he knew that the guards who
watched this road were never lax. Even in the dark, he would be lucky to get
down without being noticed, and even luckier if he did not fall off the road to
his death.

In Sir Romeo’s chamber in Arles, Sir Romeo and Raymond were
staring at Arnald, who had just said, “Long before a siege is over, if I know
Lady Alys, this des Baux may offer you his keep free and clear just to be rid
of her.”

“Are you mad?” Sir Romeo cried.

“Well, if he dare not do her hurt nor keep her in chains,
Lady Alys will find a way to plague out his life,” Arnald answered with simple
faith. “She will be
very
angry.”

Suddenly, Raymond’s face, which had been rigid with anguish,
softened, and he began to laugh. He had to believe that Sir Romeo was right and
that des Baux would not permit Alys to be harmed. Ernaldus was nothing and
nobody. He would have no power to hurt Alys even if he was in the keep. Arnald’s
words had restored Raymond’s perspective. It was ridiculous to think that
Ernaldus had anything to do with the abduction. A common bailiff could have no
influence on a nobleman. None of des Baux’s men or servants would help Ernaldus
when their master had decreed that the women not be harmed. And Alys could
protect herself against Ernaldus alone. She would find a distaff and beat in his
brains, or stab him with a spindle.

“Have you gone mad also?” Sir Romeo snarled. “What is there
to laugh about in this situation?”

Raymond sobered. “Nothing. But Arnald is right. Des Baux may
find his captives less easy to manage than he thought, and Alys will keep Beatrice
steady in refusal. However, if he separates them, Beatrice’s spirit may fail.”

“He was courting her, too,” Sir Romeo said angrily.

“Courting Alys?” Raymond asked, his voice sharp.

“No, courting Beatrice. My son told me about Lady Alys
breaking up one of those poetical love fests. I spoke rather sharply to
Beatrice about allowing… Good God, this whole thing may be my fault. If that
young fool des Baux thought he was about to win Beatrice with lute songs and
she turned him off sharply because of what I said—”

“It does not matter,” Raymond interrupted, with relief. What
Sir Romeo said proved that Beatrice
was
the object of the abduction, not
Alys. “What does matter is getting men out to that keep as soon as possible.”

Sir Romeo went gray again. “I tell you it cannot be taken by
assault. Do not throw away your life—”

“No, no, I assure you,” Raymond interrupted again. “With
what do you think I could begin an assault, my ten men and Alys’s twenty?” As
he said it, Raymond flushed slightly, remembering how Alys always said “our”. Assault
was impossible, but if there were some way, any way… “I intend guile, not
force,” he went on, keeping his voice steady. “I only wish to support Beatrice’s
spirit by letting her believe an army has already come for her, and also to
prevent allies from entering Les Baux if they are not already in the keep.”

This seemed so reasonable a notion that Sir Romeo put aside
his doubts and began to discuss practical plans. Only a few hours later,
despite the light rain that was still falling, Raymond set out with his troop
and another thirty men from Arles, including several older men-at-arms who
remembered the road to Les Baux. They made good time, keeping a fast pace until
they passed the abbey, slowing until the older men found the sidetrack, and
then going quickly again.

On the other hand, Master Ernaldus had made only very slow
progress down the winding cliff trail. Because he was afraid of falling off the
edge, he clung to the mountainside. But close to the inner edge, the road was
less well trodden. More than once Ernaldus’s foot caught in a tuft of dead
grass or weeds or trod on a stone that rolled. He staggered and tripped and
occasionally fell, for he was heavy laden and off balance. The road was steep
and pitched him forward. Ernaldus had not walked so far in years. Soon he
stopped, crouching against the cliff, sure he could go no farther.

Fear drove him on as soon as his breath no longer tore his
lungs with pain. If he were caught, he would die slowly and painfully. Better a
plunge off the cliff, he was sure. Exhaustion stopped him again a few hundred
feet down the track, and he whimpered that no death could be worse than the
suffering he was enduring. However, there was no relief from suffering in
crouching on the stony road in the rain. Ernaldus knew there were huts along
the road where he could take shelter once he reached the plain. So, alternating
between fear and the hope of comfort, he found strength to rise each time he
stopped.

Ernaldus was not yet on the plain when he heard the thunder
of hooves and, almost at once, thinly, from above, a cry of warning from the
guard on the wall of Les Baux. If he had been higher up, Ernaldus might have
thrown himself over the cliff in despair. He believed this must be the first
detachment of men coming in response to the letters Sir Guillaume had sent out.
But he was too far down to jump. He would only break bones and be unable to
escape. Not that he would escape anyway. As soon as the men began to ride up
the track, they would find him. He ran a little way, but he was so unwieldy
with his gold and the stolen goods he had wrapped around his body that he
tripped and fell, rolled, and caught himself almost at the edge. Then he lay
still, too frozen with too many terrors to move.

He could see the horsemen, dim shadows on the road that was
only less black than the brush and stubble of the fields. He could not tell how
many—there seemed to be hundreds—but it did not matter, one would be too many
for him. But then the miracle occurred. They turned off the path to the keep,
veering left off the road toward the band of woods that bordered the grazing
fields where they would be sheltered somewhat from the catapults and mangonels
of the keep.

Barely suppressing a cry of joy and relief, Ernaldus
scrambled to his feet, hope renewing his strength. If the men had turned off
the road, they could not be Guillaume’s allies. Had they been supporters of des
Baux, they would have clustered at the foot of the track up the cliff while one
man rode up to identify them. They would not have gone to hide in the woods.
Thus, they must be the first group sent out from Arles. That stupid, useless
clot Guillaume must have left some clear sign that he was the abductor,
Ernaldus thought with vicious satisfaction. Now Sir Romeo would besiege Les
Baux before Guillaume’s supporters could get to him.

Muffling the laughter he could not contain, Ernaldus
staggered down the road. Les Baux would be taken at last. The impregnable
fortress would be broached, and all because of a virgin who refused to be
broached. Oh, it was exquisitely humorous! And the one man who would come out
scatheless and be well rewarded was himself, who had caused all the trouble to
begin with. Content with this assessment of the situation, Ernaldus took no
special care on the road now. He staggered and swayed, rocked by silent
laughter, sure that nothing would come between him and his revenge.

Indeed, he made his way quite safely the rest of the way
down and struck out across the fields toward the woods. Good fortune seemed to
be his, for he did not need to search for the group. Before he had gone very
far, a rider came out and hailed him. Ernaldus said his name was Bernard, a
poor clerk, gasping out that he had only that day discovered Lady Beatrice was
held prisoner in Les Baux and that he had escaped at great peril to bring word
to her mother. Then he did not even have to walk any farther, he was assisted
to the croup of the horse and carried pillion to the camp.

“Lord Raymond,” the man called. “Here is one from Les Baux
who says he has news of Lady Beatrice.”

By now Ernaldus knew that Raymond was nearly the most common
name in Provence. Then, too, Bordeaux was a very long way from Arles and Les
Baux. Nonetheless, for no reason at all, a slight chill of apprehension marred
Ernaldus’s satisfaction. He could not see the face of the leader, it was dark
and Raymond’s features were further obscured by the uplifted visor. Besides,
Ernaldus remembered, he had never seen the husband of that yellow bitch, Lady
Alys. Still, the chill persisted.

“Your name?” Raymond asked.

“Bernard, a poor clerk,” the bailiff replied, but his voice
shook. For a moment he thought he had heard Rustengo speaking. “I come from
Avignon.” That was a papal city and likely to be a source of clerks. “I have
been in Les Baux only a few weeks, and this morning, to my horror, I learned…”

Raymond listened without interrupting, and the tale was
perfectly reasonable, but something was bothering him, and the longer he
listened, the more it bothered him. At last, it came to him that the uneasy
feeling had nothing to do with the actual events this Bernard was describing.
There was something familiar, the man’s speech. That was it! It was not the
speech of Provence. It was of Bordeaux! Rage and fear flashed up in Raymond.
Could he be Ernaldus rather than Bernard? Raymond controlled himself with an
effort. If Ernaldus was here, he could not hurt Alys, unless…

But Raymond dared not simply leap at the man and throttle him.
Revenge was less important than finding out about Alys. “Is Lady Beatrice
alone?” Raymond asked sharply.

“No, my lord,” Ernaldus answered, startled by this
interruption and by Raymond’s odd tone of voice.

“Who is with her?”

“That I cannot tell you, my lord,” Ernaldus replied
truthfully, calm again because he thought the sharp anxiety he had heard in the
first question was for Beatrice’s situation. It was the truth, Ernaldus had not
asked, and Guillaume had not named the women to him. They had been intent on
the more, important business of getting out the summonses to supporters. “I am
not so great that Sir Guillaume would speak to me,” he added.

But Raymond had eased his manner even before the clerk
finished his answer. Perhaps this Bernard was who he said he was. A person from
Bordeaux might easily go to the papal city of Avignon to study, and that was
all the man had said. And, Ernaldus or Bernard, it was the truth that this man
did not know who was with Beatrice. There was something in his voice that made
Raymond certain of it.

Besides, Ernaldus must be sure that no one would think a
bailiff from Bordeaux, even if he was a bastard uncle, would be harmed or
punished in any way, whatever happened to Les Baux or Sir Guillaume. And, if
this
was
the treacherous Ernaldus, the last thing Raymond wanted was
that he should think himself suspected until the last grain of information had
been leached out of him. Raymond shrugged mentally at the thought. He was not
one to think ill of men usually, but Bernard or Ernaldus, there was something
about the man he did not like.

“How do you know where the ladies are kept?” Raymond asked.

“I heard by chance from one of the men-at-arms who took part
in the abduction. He said they had been carried to the Sow’s Tower.”

There was a pause while Raymond stared into the dark, trying
to see the man’s face more clearly. It sounded like the truth, but it was very
odd. Why should des Baux have placed the women in a tower when they would have
been more comfortable, and more secure, in the keep itself?

“Why?” Raymond asked. “Why in the tower? Why not in the
keep?”

“Because Sir Guillaume was too knightly gentle to place so
fine a lady in the cells below the keep.” Ernaldus stopped abruptly, appalled
both at the slip he had made and at the bitter tone in his voice. “Or so I did
hear,” he added quickly, “and also I do suppose he wished to keep the knowledge
of what he had done from his mother. He is young still and much affected by her
weeping when she is distressed.”

Several ideas collided in Raymond’s mind, sudden sympathy
for Guillaume des Baux, who seemingly was afflicted with the same kind of
mother he had, conviction that Alys, Beatrice, and Margot were truly in the Sow’s
Tower—the conviction resting on the bitter anger in this Bernard’s voice, and
from that same cause a second conviction, that whether this man were Bernard or
Ernaldus, he was personally and deeply involved in the abduction. Most likely,
Raymond thought, this rat, despairing of success in the plot to force Beatrice
into marriage because Sir Guillaume would not countenance cruel treatment, had
decided to desert his master and make what profit he could from his desertion.

That conclusion pleased Raymond. Although he had no
intention of letting the man go until he was sure that he was not Ernaldus, he
said, “Very well, I thank you. A clerk has no place in a war camp. You may
leave at your will. I suppose you wish to be as far from Les Baux as possible
when missiles begin to fly.” Raymond began to turn away, sure that his
indifference would draw more information in the hopes of a reward.

Ernaldus trembled with fury, but at the core of it was a
cold dread. The accent of this Lord Raymond was of Provence, but the voice and
manner were too like Rustengo de Soler—and Rustengo was Raymond d’Aix’s
kinsman. Could God’s curse be on him for his murder? Could this be Raymond d’Aix?
Could the ghost of the blonde bitch have mysteriously driven her husband from
Bordeaux to this place and made him turn away the bringer of good news without
a suggestion of recompense? Ernaldus wanted desperately to keep the remaining
information to himself and give it to a more generous recipient, but he dared
not. Any delay would cause dangerous suspicion of both the information and
himself.

“My lord!” Ernaldus cried.

Raymond looked back at him, and it was well that Ernaldus
could not read the expression on the shadowed face. “Yes?”

“There is more,” Ernaldus said, lowering his voice, “but I-I
am a poor clerk, and I have lost my place, and…”