Fire Song

by Roberta Gellis

  When Savin was sure half a dozen men would swear that at dinner he had been easy in his mind and indifferent to time, he abandoned his company and made his way back to his lodging. A problem he had not considered earlier had occurred to him—how to get the message he wanted delivered to Aubery. He could not send a verbal message because saying enough to induce Aubery to come would be too incriminating. That meant the message had to be written, but although there were more clerks in the area than Savin ever hoped to see again, plainly it was not possible to ask anyone to write a ransom note.

  There was nothing he could do but write the note himself, Savin had decided. He was not totally illiterate. An effort had been made in his youth to teach him to read and write. He retained enough learning to sign his name when needful, which he did not find difficult and gave him a false sense of confidence. Thus, having made a detour to obtain parchment, quills, and ink, Savin closed his door and, with a grimace of distaste, sat down to write to Aubery.

  It was an extraordinarily frustrating task. Not only was it difficult to remember which symbol represented which sound, but the parchment, quills, and ink all seemed to have taken on lives of their own, characterized solely by a determination to resist him. What Savin had seen clerks do in a few minutes had occupied him for more than an hour, and he was nowhere near finished.

  Savin modified his aims. He himself would write only what could be incriminating. The description of the place to which Aubery must come, the time, and all other matters that any man could write to any other with whom he planned a meeting could be written on a separate sheet by a clerk. Much relieved by this curtailment of his onerous task, Savin cut off a small piece of parchment and, beginning again, wrote, “I hav lidy finis bring al gold fer her lif cum alon wif no sord or armor on or—” He intended to finish with the words “she dies” but as he reached to dip his quill, a burst of shouting followed by two agonized shrieks right outside the house startled him so that he knocked over the inkhorn.

  Bellowing an obscenity, Savin pushed the parchment out of harm’s way and rushed out of the room, sword in hand, fit to kill whoever had caused the disturbance that had startled him. He was on the stairs when Aubery burst through the door roaring, “Where is Savin?”

  Savin stopped, shocked out of the advantage he could have had by leaping down and slashing, before Aubery, who was half-blinded by coming out of the light into the dim hallway, could see who was there. Savin could not even deny his guilt before Aubery recognized him.

  “You whoreson murdering dog,” Aubery said, his voice soft now, almost a lover’s croon. “Come down to me and die.”

  A croak of protest forced its way from Savin’s throat, but it was a protest of terror, a protest against death. He had never been a coward, but now he was so frightened he could not form words. The eyes staring up at him were those of a madman, and there was an unholy look of welcome on Aubery’s face, such a welcome as the devil must give to a damned soul.

  “Will you come down and fight like a man, or shall I spit you like a mad dog where you stand?” Aubery asked gently.

  Desperation finally galvanized Savin into action, and he did what he should have done earlier—leapt down the stairs aiming a mighty slash at Aubery. Had Savin’s weapon landed, it would have cut Aubery in two, but only mocking laughter met the blow. Savin screamed, for the force of his swing had turned him half around, and he expected a counterblow that would cripple or kill him. Instead, he was prodded contemptuously, and Aubery said, “Take a shield, woman slayer. I do not want to kill you with my first blow. I want the pleasure of cutting you apart slowly.”

  Savin swung around, slashing again, and this time his sword was caught on Aubery’s blade. He shrieked wordlessly as his weapon rebounded so violently that the hilt hurt him through the heavy callus on his palm. It was as if he had struck a huge rock. And now Aubery’s sword was arcing toward him, and he could not bring his back to block the blow. Yet it did not take off his head, as it could have done. It only cut his upper arm slightly.

  “Take a shield, I said,” Aubery repeated.

  Aubery felt very strange. As soon as he became convinced that it was Savin who had abducted Fenice, he was equally convinced that Fenice was dead. The rage that instantly filled him was so tremendous that he could feel nothing else at all. In a way he was blind and deaf. He did not recognize the queen nor hear her call out to him as he ran from the room, nor see and hear the people he pushed aside as he rushed through the antechamber and out of the building. In another way his perceptions seemed abnormally heightened. The men-at-arms who tried to block his way into the Lusignans’ lodging appeared to move very slowly. He struck one down with his left fist, the other with the flat of his sword before they could raise their arms, and he did not feel the impact of the blows he dealt them, although they fell senseless to the ground.

  Then, when Savin had appeared on the stairs, he, too, seemed to be laughably sluggish. When he finally decided to attack, Aubery had what appeared to be endless time to move away and to poke him, as one would poke a helpless serf to urge him to greater effort. And he hardly felt the slash he caught on his sword, although he allowed it to slide along the blade a little way to spare his weapon.

  After he had dealt Savin the first minor wound, Aubery laughed as he watched him scuttle toward the shields that hung along the wall. He did not take one himself. He did not need one. As soon as Savin held the shield, Aubery leapt toward him and cut him on the thigh, then on the hip. He laughed again as he watched stains mar Savin’s clothes and worms of red crawl down from them, hardly aware that he had twice deflected blows at his own uncovered body. He did not hear the clang of metal on metal as blade met blade, but he did hear the sound of angry voices, and he cut Savin twice more, forcing him around so that his own back was toward the wall, where he was protected.

  Still, there was a distraction. Savin seemed to be moving faster, and Aubery was a second late on a parry. There was a sharp pain in his left arm, but he pushed Savin’s sword away and thrust at him harder than before. A burst of blood from the thigh he had previously wounded only increased his rage. He had not meant to disable the man so soon. Now Aubery could hear Savin screaming something. It did not make sense to him, but the terror in the voice stirred in him an agony he had not yet allowed himself to feel.

  Suddenly Aubery knew that he could not ease his pain by torturing even this vile creature. His next slash was harder, cutting well into the ribs. Savin went down, screaming the same senseless words over and over. Aubery poised his sword for the death blow.

  “Stop!”

  The authority in the voice penetrated the dying remnants of Aubery’s berserk rage. Automatically, he put his foot on Savin’s sword and pressed his own into his enemy’s bare throat as he raised his eyes. The king’s half brother Sir Guy stood in the doorway.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed. “Are you mad, Sir Aubery?”

  “Yes,” Aubery replied, laughing, although tears had started to run down his face. “Yes, I am mad. This offal feared me too much to challenge me, so he abducted and murdered my wife. Fenice… His voice broke on the word, and the sword dug in, pressure breaking the skin so that blood welled up around the dull point.

  “She is alive!” Savin screeched, just before Aubery’s blade made it impossible for him to speak.

  The sword was withdrawn. “Alive?” Aubery cried. “Where?”

  “I did her no harm,” Savin wept.

  “Where?” Aubery roared.

  While Savin whimpered that Fenice was still rolled in a rug in the storage shed behind the guesthouse, Sir Guy stared down at the wounded man. Nor, when Aubery ran out of the house automatically sheathing his sword as he went, did Guy give any instructions to the servants who stood shivering behind him or the two groggy men-at-arms who had at last roused from Aubery’s blows and staggered into the room. Lord Guy had been angry and astonished when he was called from the king’s chamber and told his house had been invaded by a madm
an who had felled two of his men-at-arms and was waving a sword and screaming for Sir Savin. Now, however, Guy’s astonishment was over, and he was much, much angrier.

  It did not surprise Lord Guy that Savin and Aubery should be enemies. Guy himself disliked Aubery thoroughly and felt Aubery was a self-righteous prig with his honor and his modesty. Nonetheless, Lord Guy had not the slightest sympathy for Savin, and it was not Aubery against whom his current fury was directed but Savin. That the man should dare allow his personal quarrels to impinge on Guy and his brother, that he had the unmitigated gall to use their lodging for his petty revenge—and on the great-niece of the queen, too! Guy was so angry that he could not speak, could only stare with hatred at the moaning creature on the floor.

  Worst of all, Guy felt he had been making headway in convincing the king to change his mind and include them in the party that would continue on through France and join King Louis at Chartres. The news that a man sworn to their service had abducted Lady Fenice would not only enrage Henry—who was in Guy’s opinion stupidly chivalrous toward women in general and in addition liked Fenice personally—but would give the queen all too good a weapon to use against them.

  The sight of Aubery passing the door with Fenice’s totally limp body in his arms broke the paralysis that rage had engendered in Lord Guy. He turned his head toward one of the men-at-arms and gestured toward Savin, saying, “Kill him,” and he watched, hard-eyed and indifferent to Savin’s shrieks, while the order was carried out. Lord Guy snarled, strode forward, and kicked the corpse brutally, knowing that Savin’s act had cost him any chance he might have had to prevent an eventual peace with France.

  It was fortunate that the knowledge that Fenice was alive and unhurt restored Aubery’s ability to think, for the rug in which she had been rolled was no longer in the position Savin had described. However, Aubery needed only a moment to realize that the rug had rolled away from the wall and that a number of baskets and chests that had been stacked around it had fallen down on it. He wrestled the objects off, terrified anew that Fenice had been badly hurt, almost reluctant to unroll her lest he discover that the rug was her death shroud.

  He cried out with agony when he saw her eyes closed in a ghastly pale face, but when he snatched her up against him he cried out again with joy. Her cheek was warm! Without waiting to unbind her hands or remove her gag, he jumped to his feet and ran, thanking God that between the abbey and the royal party the best physicians would be available to attend her. And scarcely had he rounded the front of the guesthouse and passed the door when he saw the queen coming toward him hastily.

  “She is alive, but hurt,” Aubery gasped. “Please—a physician.”

  “Bring her to my chamber,” Eleanor cried.

  “No!” Aubery exclaimed, clutching Fenice closer. “No! I wish to watch by her myself.”

  Eleanor was a sensible woman and long accustomed to dealing with a very unreasonable man. She could see Aubery was totally beyond good sense or logical argument.

  “I will send a physician to Sir William’s chamber at once,” she said soothingly, stepping forward and pulling the gag from Fenice’s mouth so she could breathe more easily. “I will also send a maidservant to help you. Do not run, Sir Aubery, so that you do not jostle her, and lay her down softly. Let the maid undress her—” She stopped because Aubery had already set off toward his chamber. At least, she thought as she turned to send one lady flying for her physician and another to the abbess to request another, he had heard enough so that he was not running and bouncing Fenice up and down.

  No one had noticed that Fenice’s eyes had opened and closed several times while the queen was speaking. She had not been deeply unconscious when Aubery found her, for although the air inside the rug had been foul enough to deprive her of her senses each time she had roused and tried to struggle free, there had been enough fresh air seeping in constantly to revive her after a period of immobility. However, the terrible sensation of strangulation had left her dazed with fear and hopelessness so that her mind moved slowly.

  The first thing of which Fenice became certain was that she was being carried. Next, she associated that with the words, “Do not run, Sir Aubery.” So it was Aubery who was carrying her. She had been rescued!

  “Aubery,” she cried, only the word came out as a croaking whisper.

  He stopped dead, his arms tightening involuntarily and then relaxing. “Hush, beloved,” he said tenderly, “hush. I will go more carefully. Oh, dearling, forgive me if I hurt you. Try to endure—”

  “You are not hurting me,” Fenice assured him, her voice clearer now, her eyes widening with delight at being called dearling and beloved.

  “You are so brave, my little love,” he murmured, starting off again. “Do not try to talk. Just rest.”

  Fenice took a breath to say she thought she could walk if he would steady her, but Aubery kissed her temple and begged her to be still, telling her that it was only a little way and that her sufferings would soon be over. Since she still felt very muddled, Fenice made no further protest, and it was, indeed, only a few minutes more before Aubery managed to unlatch the door with his knee and lay Fenice gently on the bed. It was then that she realized that her wrists were still tied.

  “Will you unloose me, my lord?” she asked, lifting her hands so that her cloak fell away and exposed the bindings.

  Aubery had turned from the bed to throw wood on the embers in the fireplace that warmed the room, but he spun back toward her on his heel, his face instantly contorting with rage.

  “How have I angered you?” Fenice cried, tears coming to her eyes at the thought that she had somehow broken the gentle mood in which her husband had at last spoken words of love.

  “Not you,” he cried, going down on his knees beside the bed. “It has never been you that was at fault.” He bowed his head over the bound hands and kissed them. “I—”

  Before he could say more, there were excited voices in the corridor, and then the room seemed to be full of people—two physicians, two maids, Sir William. The first four crowded Aubery away from the bed, all gabbling to each other and asking Fenice questions while William patted Aubery’s shoulder and assured him that Fenice was a strong girl and that with good care she was sure to recover. Then, seeing the fearful way Aubery was trying to watch and yet trying not to watch what was happening on the bed, William drew him as far from it as he could, pushed him down on the stool so that he could not see past the standing attendants, and asked, loudly and firmly enough to force Aubery’s attention to him, what had happened.

  While Aubery tried to speak, inwardly he prayed that Fenice’s death not be the final scourging administered to him for his sinful pride. His faith was strong enough to accept the fact that death would be no punishment to Fenice. She would go to heaven, to eternal bliss. Death punished the living, not the virtuous dead. He prayed silently, knowing himself guilty and undeserving, while somehow his mouth formed words to explain to William Savin’s revenge and what he could remember of his actions in the Lusignans’ lodging.

  He was leaning back in the corner with his left arm against the wall so that William, who was asking repeatedly if Aubery was sure he had not been hurt, could not see the blood still oozing from the wound. Aubery had been completely unaware of it himself ever since he had felt and ignored the initial pain when Savin’s sword cut him. And in the midst of all the excitement about Fenice, no one else had noticed the slit in his dark gown or the spreading stain around it. Then Fenice’s voice cried, “My lord,” and Aubery sprang to his feet and pushed aside those clustering around the bed.

  “What is it, my dear love?” Aubery asked breathlessly, reaching toward her.

  “Oh, my God, you are bleeding!” Fenice exclaimed, popping upright.

  “You will hurt yourself,” Aubery gasped.

  “But I am not hurt,” Fenice wailed exasperatedly. “All I have is a bump on my head. Please tell all these people to go away. No! Do not. Let the physicians look to your arm. Let
me help you take off your clothes.”

  “My love,” Aubery said, grasping Fenice and holding her still as she tried to get out of the bed. “Were you not crushed by the things that fell on you?”

  “No,” she assured him, leaning forward to kiss him as he bent over her. “The rug cushioned me. I swear I am whole and well, my lord. Let me see to you.”

  William had come forward when Fenice first exclaimed about the blood on Aubery’s arm and now tore the sleeve from the gown. He, too, exclaimed when he saw the tunic sleeve soaked with blood, and ordered, “Stay where you are, Fenice. Aubery, stand up so I can get these things off you. Be reasonable. If the girl says nothing hurts her, she is probably all right.”

  “She never complains,” Aubery protested, watching her anxiously. “She rode all the way from Pons—”

  “Yes, yes,” William said soothingly, “but she will lie down again if you will let us attend to you.”

  “I will,” Fenice agreed. “I will lie still and do whatever they say if you will only let them look to your arm first.”

  Although he watched Fenice all the time, Aubery allowed his stepfather to remove gown, tunic, and shirt and permitted the physicians to examine his arm. They consulted gravely and agreed that the cut was not serious but should be sewn. William had come to this conclusion some time before the grave consultation was complete and had stepped out of the room to send one of the abbey servants for a barber to sew up the wound. Grave and learned physicians did not stoop to such common tasks. He thought it would have been better for Fenice to do it, but knew that would cause Aubery too much anxiety.

  By the time the physicians had discoursed and decided on the correct diet to alleviate fever and best encourage healing, a monk from the infirmary had stitched Aubery up, bandaged his arm, and promised to return the next day if Aubery developed a fever and needed bleeding. It took a while longer for Fenice to convince everyone that she was intact but tired and needed to be alone—except, of course, for her husband—so that she could rest, but she succeeded at last.