Winter Song (41 page)

Raymond looked at her with glazed eyes. He had the staring
look of a horse just before it falls dead of exhaustion.

“Out!” Alys repeated, sobbing with the agony of having to
drive away what had been the most precious thing in her life.

Chapter Eighteen

A servant woke Raymond at full light the next morning. He
responded only slowly at first, rolling away from the hand on his shoulder and
the light that struck his eyes. But he did not resist waking long because he
was aware of a deep anxiety. Something was very wrong, desperately wrong. His
eyes flew around the room, but the trouble was not one of place. He was in his
own chamber at Tour Dur. Then his eyes fixed on the servant. The man was
smiling, making an easy, commonplace remark about the weather. No, there was
nothing wrong in Tour Dur itself.

And then Raymond remembered going to Alys in the south tower
and what had followed. He bade the servant go in a stifled voice and then a
groan he would not have uttered under torture was wrenched from him. Although
he had not had a clear conscious awareness of his actions at the time, the
events in Alys’s bedchamber had etched themselves onto Raymond’s mind and now
rose before him in a series of all-too-vivid pictures.

Raymond covered his face with his hands and wept, but
outrage soon dried his tears. He had done nothing to deserve such a foul
welcome, and then, seeing again in his mind’s eye what he
had
done, he
shuddered. Whatever Alys had said and whatever his right, he should not have
forced her. Raymond was well aware that nine men out of ten would have laughed
at him for being so distressed at raping his wife, would have assured him that
what he had done was the correct treatment for a recalcitrant woman, possibly
would have sneered at him for being too gentle. He gave lip service to such
views himself, but he had been conditioned by his mother and yes, by the years
of lute songs that celebrated gentleness and submission to women to react with
self-loathing to what he had done.

Perhaps Alys deserved a good beating for her temerity, but
not…not a desecration of love. Raymond tried to close his mind to that, to Alys’s
shrieks of pain and hatred, casting farther back in memory to when she had
first thrust him away because…because he had a mistress. It was insane. He had
never truly kept any woman except Lucie… Lucie! Alys had mentioned Lucie!
Raymond groaned again. If only he had listened then! If only he had explained
that he had arranged Lucie’s marriage as soon as he became betrothed to Alys.
But now it was too late. It would be long and long before Alys let him come
close enough…

“Oh God!” he cried aloud and jumped to his feet, hastily
dragging on clothing any which way. It occurred to him that Alys might have
ordered out her men and left Tour Dur. His father and mother called to him as
he ran through the hall, but he did not hesitate, only instinctively slowing
enough on the stairs not to break his neck. And as he tore across the bailey he
was so sick of himself that he bitterly regretted that instinctive caution. But
Alys was not gone! Arnald came running toward Raymond when he saw his master’s
haste, asking what was wrong and what were his lord’s orders.

Raymond skidded to a halt, feeling ten times a fool on top
of his self-hatred. He should have known that Alys would not run away. And
then, in the depths of his misery, he did something right and poured out the
whole story to Arnald.

“Get rid of the woman Lucie at once,” the English
master-at-arms said calmly. “Kill her and bury her if need be—I will do it for
you—but get rid of her.”

“But I did not lie with her,” Raymond snarled. “I never even
thought of her.”

“I know it, and you know it, and doubtless when her temper
cools, Lady Alys may be brought to believe you, but as long as the woman lives
in the keep—”

“But she does not!” Raymond protested. “At least, she may be
in the women’s quarters during the day working as a weaver, but she is married
to some huntsman and must live with him.”

“A young, beautiful woman who comes every day into the keep?”
Arnald shook his head. Raymond had not said that Lucie was young or beautiful,
but it was a natural conclusion. A lord would scarcely take someone old or ugly
to his bed. “No, my lord, there is none such. My men have stood guard duty with
the castle folk as you ordered. I would have heard if such a woman came in or
went out. A beautiful woman is one thing my men would see, even if the dolts
overlooked a whole army.”

“All right! All right,” Raymond conceded. “It is possible my
mother asked my father to arrange duties within the keep for the man so that
Lucie would be better able to do her work and see to the children, but—”

“Then get rid of them both,” Arnald interrupted, keeping to
the point.

“Yes, very well, I will send them both to another place to
live, but first I must send the man to Alys so that he may tell her his wife
slept with him both nights.” Raymond pounded his fist against his forehead. “His
name. What was his name? I must know for whom to ask.”

It seemed a reasonable idea, but Arnald had to conceal a
smile at his young lord’s distress and anxiety. If he had not known Alys’s hot
temper, he would have advised Raymond to leave his wife alone for a day or two
and then act as if he had forgot the whole thing. But that would not work with
Lady Alys. Some amend would have to be made, and the husband’s evidence,
putting her in the wrong, would be required. Still, it was funny that Lord
Raymond was so frantic he could not think of the obvious answer to any
question.

“What was his name?” Raymond cried again.

“If the woman is in the keep,” Arnald said, “you need only
ask her.”

“Good God, of course,” Raymond said, and strode away, not
quite running this time but at considerable speed.

Raymond need not have hurried, for Alys was still soundly
asleep and likely to remain that way for some time. Although Raymond had
staggered back through the passage and fallen into bed in a somnambulistic
state and had slid deeper into sleep immediately, Alys had found no such quick
release. For some time after he was gone, she had remained at the door, weeping
bitterly. She told herself she was guarding against her husband’s return, but
whether she would have rejected him if he came back pleading for forgiveness
was a question she did not examine. However, he did not return, neither with
threats nor pleas.

This gave Alys no relief, and for a while she cried even more.
At last she roused herself as fear replaced grief. If Raymond had been so angry
when she denied him and called him a liar, how much more furious would he be
when he remembered how she had driven him away. Alys shivered with cold and
with fear, and felt herself weakening with weariness. She knew she would have
to sleep sometime, and she could not bear the thought of being taken by
surprise. But if the moving stone were blocked, whatever held the mechanism of
the pivot could not be released. That was easy enough. A thick splinter from
the hearth hammered with the hilt of her knife into the crack jammed it
effectively. Then all she needed to do was drop the heavy bar into the slots of
the door and she was safe against surprise.

However, security did not improve Alys’s mood at all. The
idea of barricading herself against her husband was more dreadful, now that she
stopped to think of it, than the idea of his vengeance. Worse yet, she was
beginning to doubt the reality of the accusations she had made. Raymond’s
surprise at those accusations and the fact that he had ridden back in the night
and come to her were beginning to make nonsense of her suspicions. She wept
anew until there were no tears left and eventually, still sobbing fitfully, she
slept.

When Bertha came up and found the door barred against her,
she did not knock on it or call out. Lady Alys had been in a foul temper the
past two days, and Bertha was happy to stay out of her mistress’s way. She had
no orders to wake Alys, so she would not try. She would get breakfast for
herself and the children. Lady Alys would accept that as a reasonable excuse if
she woke and called and Bertha was not there. Suddenly the maid paused on the
stairs. Could Lady Alys’s temper be owing to the children? No, not the children
themselves. Lady Alys was very sweet-spoken to them and had enjoyed their
company. Not the children, but… Then Bertha remembered Lucie’s beautiful face,
which she had seen when she went to fetch Fenice and Enid.

Bertha started down the steps again slowly, feeling sorry
for Lucie. There was nothing she could do for the woman, and even to seem to
know that Lady Alys was jealous of a serf-woman could be a personal disaster.
Bertha shook her head sadly. Lord Raymond should have known better, but it was
not her business. Still, she was unusually patient and tender with the two
little girls while she saw to their dressing and eating.

Fenice and Enid, at least, had never been happier in their
lives. They did not miss their mother much, since she had little time to bestow
on them. The attention she had given to their talk on the day Alys had come
upon them was an exception. Lucie had been even more terrified than her
daughters by the way Lady Jeannette had suddenly snatched them away. Raymond’s
mother had looked so strange when she said that they were to be “taken away and
given to a new mother”. Moreover, Lucie’s terror had been multiplied because
Lady Jeannette had ordered her strictly not to show herself anywhere around the
keep as long as Raymond was in Tour Dur.

Because Lucie could not even conceive of herself in
competition with a lady, she did not associate this order with the possibility
that Raymond’s new wife could be jealous. In fact, Lady Jeannette was exactly
of Lucie’s mind. If she had had the smallest inkling that Alys would be jealous
of Raymond’s serf mistress, she would have bedecked Lucie in her own jewels and
set her at the family’s dinner table. Lady Jeannette did not care when Lord
Alphonse occasionally slept with other women, so long as he did them no honor
and never addressed to them any effusions of a romantic nature. The reason Lady
Jeannette had told Lucie to keep out of Raymond’s way was simple. She had
thought his order to marry Lucie to Gregoire was stupid. Lucie was a good
weaver. If she married the huntsman, she would soon have a hut full of brats
and her weaving would suffer. If Raymond did not see Lucie, Lady Jeannette was
sure he would ask no questions about her.

All Lucie could think of, for the two horror-filled days and
nights after the girls were taken and she was told not to speak to Raymond, was
that Lady Jeannette had decided to do away with her daughters. Now that Raymond
was to be married and had the expectation of noble daughters to dower, Fenice
and Enid would be considered a useless burden, she thought. Lucie would have
disobeyed Lady Jeannette and gone to Raymond to beg him to save Fenice and
Enid, only she knew it would be useless. Lady Jeannette would deny her story,
would say the girls had been sent to another castle. However, Lucie had one
hope—she had been told to pack up her daughters’ clothing.

And then the girls had returned, happy as larks, bubbling with
excitement and satisfaction. They had seen Papa, he had promised
two
presents, and Lady Alys, a new mama, and so wonderful, and so kind, and so
sweet-smelling, and with such yellow hair and such blue eyes, and she taught
them new games, and she laughed a great deal, and she said how good they were
and how pretty, and
she
had given them the presents, see, a new hair
ribbon for each and—wonder of wonders—Fenice sought in her pocket and drew it
forth. A whole silver penny to be spent in the town on whatever they pleased.

This excited recital, however, was not what Alys had
interrupted. When she had arrived, Lucie had been trying to find out what was
being planned for her daughters’ futures. The girls did not understand, but
they made sufficient references to Lady Alys telling them they must learn many
things that ladies knew, for Lucie to believe that every hope she had cherished
for Fenice and Enid was coming true. Although she knew she would lose her
daughters completely, that pain was nothing in comparison with the joy she felt
for their escape from the horrors of life she had known.

Thus, after Lucie had recovered from her fright at Alys’s
discovering her and considered what Alys had said, she set about reassuring
Fenice and Enid and explaining clearly in terms they would understand what
would happen. And, she told them, they were not to be afraid if they did not
see her again for a long time. She would be safe and happy. They were to love
Lady Alys and, above all, to be absolutely, utterly, perfectly obedient to her
at all times. If they were not, the most dreadful fate would befall them. They
would be punished horribly and then be cast out into utter darkness, and their
mother would die of grief. All they must think of now, every minute, day and
night, was how to please Lady Alys.

The threats of punishment had been terrible, but the
solution to avoiding it seemed so easy that the tears the girls had begun to
shed dried. Lady Alys was
very
easy to please, far easier than their
mother or the other women in the hall. Though Fenice was still somewhat
fearful—she was old enough to understand that appearances did not always tell
the whole truth—Enid’s happiness was so complete that it was contagious.
Finally, when they had been taken back by Bertha and had been allowed to play
and the maid had talked kindly to them during supper and when she put them to
sleep, all their fears faded. By the next morning, they were happy as mice in a
cheese room.

They were a little disappointed when Bertha came down and
said Lady Alys was still sleeping, because they had looked forward to seeing
her. However, they went cheerfully enough to Mass. There the chaplain stopped
Bertha to ask for Lady Alys. Told she was still abed, he mentioned that there
was a poor gentlewoman living presently on Lady Catherine’s charity who, he
believed, would make an excellent governess to the lord’s daughters. Bertha
promised to give the message to Alys as soon as she woke, and took the children
with her to the kitchen to collect fresh bread and cheese and milk. They had to
wait, for the servers were busy carrying food to the great hall, but eventually
Bertha obtained what she wanted. As they returned toward the tower, the girls
exclaimed, “Papa! There is Papa.”