Winter Song (44 page)

Alys knew she should be sorry about the death of Raymond’s
grandfather, and in a sense she was because she knew Raymond had loved him and
would be grieved. Nonetheless, she was not too distressed, aware that the death
was expected and would not be the shock to her husband, who was strong, that it
had been to Lord Alphonse, who had regarded his father as a support for his
weakness. And, truly, it was as if God had arranged it at this moment so that
she would have an excuse to write to Raymond. As that thought crossed her mind,
Alys offered up a prayer to be forgiven for presumption, but she could not
completely quell her happiness.

She found the chaplain and Gervase in anxious consultation
with the messenger, who, it seemed, had a letter but had not time enough to
deliver it before Lord Alphonse collapsed. Alys put out her hand.

“I will take it. Gervase, please see to the messenger’s
comfort and let him rest. I do not know whether it will be necessary to send a
reply at once. It is possible that we will need to leave for Arles ourselves.
Please give some thought to what might be needed for the journey. I will come
to you with definite instructions as soon as I am able.”

Then Alys went up to Lady Jeannette’s apartment again where
she found Margot and Jeanine clinging together and weeping. For the moment Alys
did not disturb them but went to listen at the bedchamber door. There she heard
Lord Alphonse speaking in a broken voice of his father’s many kindnesses to him
and his insufficient gratitude, and between the phrases, Lady Jeannette
assuring him that he had ever been a most dutiful and loving son. His father,
Lady Jeannette urged, had always desired his happiness and health, and to be a
good, dutiful son now, he must strive to accept God’s will. Alys nodded and
withdrew.

Nothing could be better. Lady Jeannette knew her husband
best, and when it was in her interest to do so, she was the one who could best
soothe him. However, Alys did not think this was a good time to precipitate
another crisis by presenting a letter that might contain only details of
Raymond-Berenger’s death. Unfortunately, however, the letter could not just be
put aside until Lord Alphonse was ready to deal with it. It might also contain
important news. At Marlowe, Alys would not have hesitated an instant but would
have cracked the seal, for she had always been her father’s trusted deputy. In
a way she had that right now, for she was the wife of the heir, and Lord
Alphonse was unwell. However, she did not wish to overstep the bounds of
propriety, either.

“Jeanine,” she said softly, approaching the sisters. “I am
sorry to intrude on your grief, but there is a letter here for your father.”

Jeanine sniffed and looked at her. “Why do you tell me?”

“If this letter only tells of…of the sad bereavement,” Alys
told her, “then it may be put aside until your father can bear it, but if there
is some matter of urgency in it, then it cannot wait upon his grief but must be
acted on at once.”

“You desire that
I
open a letter addressed to my
father?” Jeanine gasped.

“No, as Raymond’s wife, that is my responsibility,” Alys
replied coolly, “but I must ask you to advise me. The letter is from Sir Romeo
de Villeneuve. Is he more likely to have writ of the…the sad details or of
matters of business?”

“Are you going to open the letter?” Margot asked, slightly
breathless.

“If Jeanine believes it is a letter of affairs, yes,” Alys
said firmly. “Duty cannot be delayed by grief.”

“I-I do not know.” Jeanine bit her lip. “Sir Romeo was judex
for my grandfather, but he was also his closest adviser and companion.”

“He was not solely a friend but an official of your
grandfather’s administration?” Alys asked.

“The most important official,” Jeanine confirmed.

“Then I must see what is here,” Alys said and, before either
girl could speak, broke the seal. Since it was too late to stop her, and if
wrong had been done, Alys had done it, both sisters came forward eagerly. Alys
held out the letter toward Jeanine. “It will be quicker if you read it. I am
not completely familiar with the
langue d’oc
.”

First Jeanine shrank back, but her curiosity overcame her
timidity and she unrolled the parchment. At once it was clear to Alys that her
act was justified. Sir Romeo confirmed the news the messenger had given and
then requested that Lord Alphonse come to Arles as quickly as possible. Both he
and Lady Beatrice, Raymond-Berenger’s widow, needed Lord Alphonse’s advice and
support. Alys’s eyes narrowed as she listened, remembering what Raymond had
told her. She was sure Lord Alphonse must not be trapped in Arles, and Alys
knew instinctively that Arles would be a trap for him whether or not Sir Romeo
and Lady Beatrice meant it to be. Once Alphonse was involved in discussing
young Beatrice’s fate, he might be too long delayed to make his pact with King
Louis. Lord Alphonse must go to King Louis at once, not to Arles. It would be
very useful, Alys thought, if Alphonse himself carried the news of his father’s
death to the king.

“Then we must make ready to leave,” Alys said.

“Make ready? Without my father’s order?” Jeanine quavered.

“Do you believe Lord Alphonse would refuse Sir Romeo?” Alys
asked.

“No,” Jeanine replied, “but…but he is not fit to travel. And
my mother…” Her voice drifted away uncertainly.

“It is too late to go today,” Alys agreed, “but I believe
your father will be recovered by morning. And your mother has enough to do in
comforting him. You and Margot will know best what should be taken to Arles. If
you will be so good as to order the maids to begin packing, I will see that
Gervase makes ready the means for transporting what we will need. And I must
send Raymond this news. Margot, would you be kind enough to find ink and
parchment so I may write to him?”

Margot, whose grief had been much dissipated by the thrill
of Alys’s daring behavior and by the expectation of the excitement of new faces
and new activities at her grandfather’s obsequies, went at once to do as Alys
asked. Meanwhile, Alys stepped closer to Jeanine, ostensibly to take back the
parchment, which she rolled up again.

However, she also said, in a low voice, “I imagine all the
important men in the south of France will come. Perhaps I should not be
thinking of such matters at so sad a time, Sister, but life must go on. It
cannot hurt you to look about and see if some of the gentlemen you will meet
are particularly pleasing to you.”

Then, before Jeanine could reply, Alys moved toward Margot,
who was bringing forward a small writing table. This relieved Jeanine of
needing to make a horrified protest, both at thinking of her marriage at her
grandfather’s funeral and at the idea of “choosing” a gentleman. It would do
her no good anyway, Jeanine thought bitterly. Her father had never listened to
her plea to marry that handsome squire…squire… What was his name? Then she
frowned, jolted into honesty by the events of the past few days. The fact was
that her father had been right. Jeanine was now ready to admit that she had no
inclination to follow a penniless knight from tourney to tourney or to live on
the charity of her parents or brother. She was not likely to make so foolish a
mistake again. So, actually, it might be well worth looking at the available
men. Her father would be glad to please her if she chose wisely.

With the light of determination in her eyes, Jeanine went to
the door and began to call the names of the maids she needed. Then she began to
discuss with Margot what they would need to take. Alys drew the parchment
toward her and bowed her head over it to hide her smile. Jeanine, she was sure,
would do her uttermost to assure that they left promptly. Margot’s desire to go
had never been in question.

The smile faded from Alys’s lips as she dipped her quill.
The spoken message the man-at-arms would carry would ensure a reading of her
letter, no matter how angry at her Raymond was, but her purpose was to assuage
that anger, and she would need to be careful what she wrote. After a formal
salutation she began.

My dear lord, I am
sufficiently aware of my great fault not to have dared address you at this time
if there were not great need. I know how greatly I have wronged you and that
for no reason but my own jealous fears and fancies. However, it is needful for
me to explain what befell here after the news of your grandfather’s death,
which the messenger has already given you.

Alys looked up to think. Did she need to wrap up in fair words
her opening of the letter? She thought not. Raymond knew his father. She
continued writing quickly:

With the sad news
we had a letter from Sir Romeo de Villeneuve. Your father being too overcome
with grief to attend to it, I made bold to break the seal. Sir Romeo desires
your father’s presence at Arles as soon as may be. I do suppose this is for two
purposes. First, to be sure that the only living son of the Count of Provence
keeps faith and does not wish to seize the whole province, and second, for
counsel on how best to preserve Provence. But, my lord, you told me already
that it was all but certain Charles of Anjou must have Beatrice.

At this point Margot ran in to ask whether she should tell
Bertha to start packing. Alys thanked her with real warmth. It was a
thoughtfulness she had not expected. It might only be a result of Margot’s
eagerness to go, but even so it was a step in the right direction. She returned
to her missive.

Yet, if this
marriage be agreed upon before Lord Alphonse can proffer homage to King Louis,
it may be that the king of France will consider the fealty of Aix to be owing
to his brother Charles. Thus, it is in my mind to urge your father, in your
name, to go to King Louis at once, while your mother, your sisters, and I will
go to Arles.

Alys flicked the feather of the quill back and forth across
her lips. She realized that if Alphonse’s act was suspect, she and the other
women would be hostages, but she could not see that that would matter. Sir
Romeo would not do them any harm. It would be boring, but they would be
released as soon as Louis’s brother was betrothed to Beatrice, or sooner if
Louis accepted Lord Alphonse’s fealty.

Our presence will
be an assurance of your father’s good faith. My lord, you must do all things as
you see fit, but it is my thought—which you were once kind enough to say I
should not withhold from you—that we women alone will be sufficient for Sir
Romeo’s peace of mind. Your dealings with the vassals seem to me too important
to be cut short by a council that can only result in a foregone conclusion.

She dared not go further and actually tell him to stay away,
and she had said all there was to say. Yet she hated to break even the tenuous
contact with Raymond that writing to him gave. There was also the question of
whether, since she was in utter disgrace, Raymond would think she had intruded
where she did not belong.

My lord, I dare
not beg mercy for my wrong to you nor for my present acts, if they be wrong. I
only desire you to know that all my duty, all my desire, my every thought is
for your good.

Alys lingered over the last lines. She wanted desperately to
add the word “love” but was inhibited both by the desecration Raymond had made
of the most intimate demonstration of that emotion and by the fear that,
knowing she had driven him to use force, he would find the word an offense.
And, after all, what was love but what she had written, that all her duty,
desire, and thoughts were for her husband’s good.

Raymond received Alys’s letter the following evening. He had
only arrived in Gordes himself a few hours earlier. Although he had intended to
ride straight through, disregarding the fact that mountain trails are not safe
in moonlight, even when there is moonlight, he had discounted the other effects
of the mountainous countryside too easily. By dusk of the preceding day, they
had lost one horse, and others were failing. Lucie had fainted from pain and
exhaustion, and even Gros Choc, his own destrier, was showing signs of strain.

The last fact decided Raymond that they would have to stop
for the night. Even his driving need to get Lucie married and explain
everything to Alys would not make him risk the well-being of his favorite
destrier. And, because they stayed in the hospice of a tiny monastery, Raymond
thought his jealous wife would have no cause to doubt him. Lucie was not even
allowed in the building, being accommodated in one of the serfs’ huts of the
small farm.

Raymond had slept very well. The tranquility of the place
and of the soft-voiced brothers seemed to have seeped into his soul. He was
still ashamed of having forced Alys, but the sense of honor that had oppressed
him and driven him to act with such haste and violence was gone. Well-rested,
he understood why he had misused his wife. He knew he had been exhausted beyond
rationality. He realized that he might have some difficulty explaining this to
Alys, since he doubted she had ever reached that stage of fatigue in which one
feels violently excited rather than tired. Nonetheless, by unfairly accusing him,
she
had been in the wrong. She would have to forgive him.

Being able to think clearly and with the hysterical need for
haste gone, Raymond took the opportunity to pay a brief visit to another
vassal. This confirmed his better mood. The man was visibly delighted that a
plan for defense was being organized and that Raymond had taken direction of it
into his vigorous hands. The politics of the situation were beyond this man,
but since he said he would gladly trust Lord Alphonse to know what was best,
Raymond was well satisfied.

The castellan of Gordes was very much surprised, to say the
least, when he heard Raymond’s purpose, however, he had no objection. He liked
Gregoire and said the man had settled well to his work despite his different
background. Fortunately, the huntsman was not in the field and came promptly
when summoned, but the poor man almost fainted when he saw Lucie. He thought
his indiscretion had followed him, and he was about to die horribly for
touching the lord’s woman. No fool, Raymond guessed from Gregoire’s distress
that Lucie’s relationship with the man had not been as innocent as it should
have been, but his interest in Lucie had always been minimal and his mood was
too good for this to make him angry, once he had determined that Gregoire had
not come to Aix until after Enid had been conceived.