Winter Song (4 page)

As these practical thoughts ran through his mind, Raymond
was noting how his mother’s face brightened when he paused to consider what she
had said instead of rejecting it out of hand. It would be silly to deny her the
pleasure of filling the keep with guests and having all new, magnificent
clothing. Then Raymond wondered whether that might have been the reason she had
objected to Alys. Doubtless she had been counting on impressing everyone with
this marriage ever since he was a child. Well, why not? There was no reason he
could not marry Alys once in England and again in France.

“Very well, Mother,” Raymond agreed. “That is a very good
idea. I will bring Alys home and marry her here.”

“That will be wonderful! Wonderful!” Lady Jeannette cried,
rising and embracing her son.

She was pleased with his consent. It did not seem possible
to her that Raymond, who claimed to be so much in love, could fail to couple
with the girl on the long trip from England. If Alys refused when he asked her,
he would grow angry and come to hate her. He would then believe his mother when
she told him that Alys was a cold, uncaring, disobedient young woman. On the
other hand, if Alys yielded, she could be painted as lascivious and unvirtuous,
in either case it might be possible to make Raymond repudiate her, or if he
would not do that—Lady Jeannette was not always totally self-deceived—because
of the marriage contract, Raymond would certainly have a strong distaste for
her. Lady Jeannette was truly delighted.

Raymond was equally delighted. He did not care how often he
married Alys. He liked parties. His father, he realized, might not be equally
pleased with the expense, but he would certainly agree that the benefits—Lady
Jeannette’s cheerful acceptance of the marriage and the homage ceremony—would
make it worthwhile. Moreover, the
aide
would cover the cost, no doubt.

Mutually content, mother and son embraced again, and in the
glow of good feeling, Raymond said, “Will you do me a favor, Mother?”

“Anything, my love,” Jeannette responded.

“Will you see that the woman Lucie is married to…to, ah, yes,
Gregoire the huntsman. I know you do not know the man, I cannot recall myself
just who he is—”

“Married? Why should Lucie be married? She is a good weaver,
and Fenice and Enid—”

“It has nothing to do with Fenice and Enid. They can stay
here in the care of the other women. As for the weaving, Lucie can come and
work here each day if you like. However, I will not use her again, and there is
no reason why the woman should not have a life of her own. She seems to favor
this Gregoire, and I would like her to be content.”

“But… Oh, very well, if that is what you desire.”

“If it is too much trouble, Mother, I will see to it myself.”

“No, no, not at all, Raymond. I will see to it. Do not give
the matter another thought. I will arrange it all, I assure you. And now, since
you have so little time to spend with us, do listen to the new lute song Margot
has written. It is the prettiest thing imaginable.”

Raymond hesitated, surprised by the eagerness his mother
displayed to accommodate him. Usually she was not at all willing to do anything
that would require more than one or two words to give an order. Then he told
himself she was trying to make up for having displeased him, so he dutifully
stifled a sigh and composed his features to an expression of pleasure. One
thing Alys would never inflict on him was the duty of listening to tinkling
love lyrics on a lute. She could not, as far as he knew, play a note on any
instrument and had never spoken of poetry except to ridicule the “asses” who
quoted it at her instead of making sensible conversation.

In the court of King Henry of England, Alys’s emotions
mirrored Raymond’s. She, too, was wishing that no one could play a note and
that poetry had never been devised. Nonetheless, Alys pretended to listen with
enjoyment to the lady who was entertaining the select group in Queen Eleanor’s
chambers. She had been scolded with startling severity by her gentle stepmother
for fidgeting and sighing during the previous “entertainment” of this type to
which she had been summoned. Alys’s eyes wandered from the singer to her father’s
second wife. There was true pleasure in Elizabeth’s piquant face, and her large
greenish eyes held a soft mist of tears.

Most of the others, Alys noted, allowing her eyes to roam
cautiously to other faces, also responded to the sweet sentiments of the song.
Was there something lacking in her? she wondered. Was she incapable of love?
That thought brought Raymond to her mind, and immediately she was suffused with
warmth and tenderness. Nonetheless, she had not the smallest desire to hear “sweet
words like pearls fall from his lips”. At least, the sweet words she wanted to
hear were that Raymond’s father found her dower sufficient and that it would be
satisfactory for her to bring only two personal maids with her and, perhaps, a
few men-at-arms.

In fact it was Raymond’s complete disinclination to chant “Thou
lily white/ My sweet lady, bright of brow/ Sweeter than a grape art thou” and
similar nonsense that made him so attractive to her. If someone else began to
tell her about how “sweet thy footfall, sweet thine eyes”, Alys thought impatiently,
she was going to forget all about Elizabeth’s lecture and throw up right in the
sighing swain’s face. As for that idiot singing now, the words were ludicrous
to Alys:

The lady
said no more

Except
that she sighed

And just
before the end

Murmured, “God
keep you, dearest friend.”

That wasn’t so bad, but Alys knew what was coming and
struggled to restrain her giggles.

And with
these final words she pressed

Her arms
hard against her breast

Fainting
in agony. All trace

Of color
vanished from her face.

Her heart
was still, and she lay dead.

That, Alys thought, really was the outside of enough. Those
sentiments would be just the best thing in the world for a man going off to war,
just the thing to clear his mind so that he would be able to concentrate on
protecting himself.

Then Alys had to fight harder to control laughter. It was
quite likely, she thought, that any man afflicted with a lady of such
sensibility would go to battle with a clearer mind or, anyway, with a sense of
relief, if she dropped dead before he left. Still, there was Elizabeth with
tears in her eyes listening to this nonsense. But Alys herself had seen
Elizabeth send her husband, who was already weakened by previous wounds, to a
desperate battle with a kiss and a smile and quiet assurances that there was no
need to worry about her.

Apparently it was true that real life had little or nothing
to do with these ridiculous effusions, and Elizabeth had admitted as much when
she had reprimanded Alys. Nor was Elizabeth asking Alys to change her tastes,
but only to seem appreciative. She was right, Alys thought, echoing the coo of
admiration Queen Eleanor accorded a particularly sickening sentiment. Eleanor
was a Provençal. Raymond was also a Provençal. Very likely his mother and
sisters were as enamored of this nonsense as were the queen and her sister,
Countess Sancia.

Alys’s own eyes misted with tears, but it had nothing to do
with the heartaches of the silly lover in the song. She loved Raymond, but the
longer she remained at court, the more doubts she felt about being a suitable
wife for him. Of course, it was delightful for a week or two to have nothing to
do but read and embroider, ride out hawking, play games, and dance. But a whole
life of it?

The song ended. Alys joined the others in calling compliments
while she prayed that the requests she heard for an encore would be denied. By
a special mercy of God—or so Alys thought of it—the king and his gentlemen
entered just then, and the lady set down her lute. Henry was almost as addicted
as his queen to the delights of this musical art. Had he come in while the song
was in progress, he would have softly found a seat and listened while his
gentlemen stole like mice along the walls so as not to interrupt. However, as
they had come in after the piece was over, the mood was broken by greetings and
invitations.

Alys’s father strode across the room to stand by his wife.
He, Alys thought caustically, rising to join them, was almost as silly as
Elizabeth about songs and tales of love. Then her expression softened. Poor
Papa, probably that was because he had had to wait so long before he could
marry Elizabeth, whom he had loved from childhood.
If I could not have
Raymond
, Alys wondered,
would I, too, begin to appreciate the sad tales
of star-crossed lovers
? Somehow Alys did not think so, but her eyes were
soft with tenderness and understanding as she looked at her father’s peaceful,
happy face.

For him, Elizabeth cured all ills, but, Alys thought as she
made her way toward them, the topic the men had been discussing could not have
been very pleasant. There were a good many frowns lingering on faces, and Uncle
Richard—no, she must remember to call him “my Lord of Cornwall” in
public—looked black as thunder. He was bowing over his wife’s hand, finding a
smile for her, but his eyes had the suffused look Alys associated with bellows
of rage and disastrously accurate, if impolite, characterizations of his
brother.

Alys was concerned, knowing that the king’s ill-will toward
his brother could easily spread to her father and widen out to encompass
Raymond and herself, also. Thus, she slowed as she passed Richard, hoping to
catch a word that would give her a hint as to the cause of his displeasure. She
heard nothing to the point—Sancia was telling her husband about the song just finished—but
Alys’s wish was granted nonetheless. Sir James d’Aldithel stepped forward from
the wall where he had decorously withdrawn to avoid intruding on his master’s
greeting to his wife and bowed deeply.

“Lady Alys, may I offer you my arm?” he asked gravely.

Alys looked down at the hand extended toward her, then up at
the offerer, and shook her head. “It is too sinewy. It would not make good
eating at all. Nor do I fancy it as a decorative piece. Detached arms tend—”

“Lady Alys,” the young man’s voice grated, and he maintained
gravity and dignity with considerable effort, “it is polite usage to offer a
lady one’s arm to escort her, as well you know.”

Alys’s eyes twinkled. She and Sir James were old friends. He
had been one of Richard of Cornwall’s squires before his knighting and had
often been at Marlowe. He had not seen Alys for a number of years, however,
because after he was knighted he had served the earl in a keep on the Welsh
border. The admiration in his eyes when he first spoke had warned Alys that he
no longer saw her as a playmate. Thus her ridiculous answer to his courtesy had
been designed to make plain that she had no desire to begin a flirtation. Now
his expression much better fitted her taste.

“Well,” she sighed, continuing in jest, “I have aged sadly,
I know. It is kind of you to offer to support my tottering footsteps the whole
ten feet to where my father stands. I had not realized I had become so decrepit
I could not go so far alone.”

“Oh, how I would love to box your ears,” Sir James
whispered, leaning amorously over her as she laid her fingers on his wrist.

“Do you not remember what befell you the last time you
indulged yourself with that pleasure?” Alys asked, smiling as sweetly as an
angel into James’s eyes.

The only response she got that time was a choked growl.
Obviously Sir James remembered how naughty Alys had neatly sewn together the
ankles on every single pair of chausses he had, so that when he was called to
attend his master, his feet could not be inserted properly into the garments.
Possibly he could have stuffed the bottom of the chausses into his shoes, but
since the top would then reach no higher than his thighs, he did not attempt
it. Nor had he ever again used his superior strength to win an argument with
Alys. There were other ways to accomplish that, Sir James thought, recovering
his temper and uttering a deep, quite spurious sigh.

“I am sorry you find my company so distasteful,” he said
sadly. “I could not think of imposing it on you long enough to tell you what
you were so obviously hoping to overhear.”

“I do not find your company distasteful at all,” Alys said hastily,
tightening her grip on his wrist. “Dear, dear, Sir James, you are the very
person I have been hoping and praying to see.” She caught his smile of triumph
and batted her eyes exaggeratedly at him. “I will even eat your horrid arm, or
have it on the wall if you insist,” she offered with passionate sincerity.

Unable to help himself, Sir James burst out laughing. This
drew a startled glance from the Earl of Cornwall, but when he saw who was with
Sir James, he smiled indulgently.

“Some day, someone will murder you, Alys,” James said as he
pulled her urgently farther away from his master.

“Perhaps,” Alys admitted, not resisting the pull, “but not,
I hope, until you satisfy my curiosity. Whatever made Uncle Richard—no, my Lord
of Cornwall—look so grim?”

“One cannot blame him,” James muttered before he thought. “It
is the most infuriating thing that King Henry demanded that my lord give up
Gascony and now—” He became aware of Alys’s wide-eyed attention, stopped
abruptly, and said, “But you do not need my help at all, do you? There is no
need for you to hang on my arm, of which you spoke so ill.”

“No, no. It is the sweetest arm in all the world,” Alys
assured him. “I am sure it would cook up tender as a suckling pig… No! Do not
dare desert me, James. Please? Pretty please? All honey-coated please?”

They were both giggling, and another head or two turned to
examine them. Tactfully, they withdrew farther from the circle of older people,
Alys in the lead this time. When she stopped in a window embrasure, however, she
was no longer smiling.