FireSong

by Roberta Gellis

  Now and then William wondered whether he was prejudiced because Matilda so much resembled his own first wife. Not that Matilda looked like Mary, but she certainly was like her in her inability to utter a sentence that was not a platitude, in her terror of responsibility of any kind, in her laziness, and in her blind devotion to the least sensible utterances of ill-taught and fanatical priests.

  He and Elizabeth had agreed to the marriage after some initial protests, because Aubery desired it and because the girl was a substantial heiress. The keep at Ardley was large and the demesne very rich. There were other lands, too. Matilda had been Richard of Cornwall’s ward, and Aubery had met her when he had accompanied William on a visit. Aubery had returned several times on his own, drawn by shy glances and blushes. The attraction between them had come to the notice of Richard’s wife, Sancia, and her romantic Provençal heart had been touched. She had urged her husband to approve the marriage. Richard had been willing enough. Perhaps the girl’s estate could have merited a baron, but Richard knew of William’s intention that Aubery have Marlowe. He was sure Matilda would be kindly treated and her lands well managed, and, most important, he was certain that Aubery would be politically trustworthy.

  By the time William became aware of the affair, it was really too late to protest. The few words of caution he had said to Aubery had brought them closer to a real quarrel than they had ever been, and Aubery had actually had a bitter argument with his mother over the girl, flinging himself out of Marlowe and vowing not to return until Elizabeth apologized for what she had said about Matilda. After allowing the matter to hang for several months and realizing that Aubery was only being made more stubborn by opposition, William and Elizabeth had unhappily withdrawn their objections.

  At the time, William had pointed out to Elizabeth that they must not judge what would make Aubery happy in marriage. Aubery had not wanted to marry Alys, who was the exact opposite of Matilda in every way and much more beautiful. Perhaps, he had suggested, Matilda’s stupidity was soothing in some way. But that was said only to ease Elizabeth’s worry. What William had thought privately was that once Aubery had had his craw full of his wife’s simpering holiness, he would find himself a warm, willing mistress.

  Still, it seemed the marriage had worked out well enough. Matilda had produced a daughter before she had herself sickened and died. The child seemed healthy and was bright as a gold button, a delight to her grandmother, who had always wanted a daughter, and to William himself, who missed his Alys more than he would ever admit. William wished that Aubery were not so ambivalent toward the child. He would ask eagerly about her—in fact, some of the questions Aubery asked about his daughter gave William the opinion that Aubery was bored to death by Matilda—but when he saw little Bess, his eyes would fill with tears and he seemed incapable of playing with her or enjoying her adorable baby ways.

  Had Aubery not been aware of his mother’s and stepfather’s opinion of Matilda and also that their opinion had never changed, he might have been able to confess his true feelings. As it was, he simply avoided all discussion of his dead wife. Still, both his mother and William had been kindness itself to her. William had always spoken to her about things in which she was interested and had explained anything that puzzled her as gently and patiently as if she were a child. He was more patient than I, Aubery remembered with a pang of regret. And Elizabeth had supported her through the birth of their daughter and nursed her most tenderly all the long months of her illness. Aubery swallowed. He had not believed Matilda was really so sick. He had thought her complaints were an excuse to push the care of the baby and the keep onto Elizabeth after the novelty of being a mother and lady of the manor had palled.

  “But you cannot just will Marlowe to me,” Aubery burst out, trying to avoid thinking about Matilda because he did not wish she were alive again, and he knew that was wrong and selfish. “Alys must have some recompense, even if she is willing to yield her right to the estate.”

  “Well, naturally,” William said, a bit startled at the abrupt change of subject but accepting Aubery’s warning away from something that was obviously still painful to him. “I thought I would offer her one thousand marks. That will surely buy an equivalent property either in Gascony or Provence.”

  Aubery frowned anxiously. “I do not see how I can possibly pay such a sum in any reasonable time. You know that Ilmer still does not yield much, and I am not sure it would be right to borrow from Ardley’s revenues—”

  “What are you talking about?” William asked. “What has the payment to do with you?”

  “I cannot possibly take a gift of such value—”

  “Curse you for a stubborn donkey.” William laughed. “I am not giving you any gift. Do you think I intend to turn Marlowe over to you tomorrow? All I intend is to provide a good master for my lands after I am dead. Any arrangement I make with my daughter is my business, not yours.”

  “Well, I do not see it in that light. If the profit comes to me, no matter when, then I must buy the right to—”

  William stood up abruptly. “Aubery, I do not wish to argue such a stupidity. I wish to go and sit with your mother. All I wanted was to explain to you what I am doing and why so that you would not fall down dead with shock when you learned you would be responsible for Marlowe. I am rich enough, having been marshal of Richard of Cornwall’s lands for near ten years, to give that sum to Alys. The only reason I have not bought more lands myself is that I have had no reason to do so—and, in truth, I am too busy with Richard’s property to want the burden of any more of my own.”

  “I-I do not know,” Aubery muttered, torn by the joy of knowing that Marlowe would be his home for the rest of his life and the fear that he was grasping at what was not rightfully his. “Can I not pay something? I know you do not need the money, but… Have you spoken of this to my mother?”

  “Yes, and she is almost as idiotic as you, but not quite. It took me only half the time to convince her. What is wrong with the two of you? You act as if I were handing you a bagful of vipers.”

  For the first time Aubery smiled. “No, you are handing me something I fear I want too much. I cannot help but feel it is wrong. And as for my mother, she loves Alys. Well, I do, too. Is she not my sister? Neither of us would take from her. William…” The name was a caress, a substitute for the word “father”. “Are you sure Alys would not wish to keep Marlowe? There is another way. I could oversee the lands for her. I swear I would not neglect them.”

  “I do not fear you would neglect the lands if they were Alys’s,” William replied, smiling also. Aubery’s answers reaffirmed what William knew already, but they were still good to hear spoken aloud. “I did, actually, give some thought to leaving the land that way, but it will not serve. Raymond will someday be a direct vassal of France—his father is, after all, some years older than I—and thus Marlowe might come into contest. I do not say it is likely, but… I would not like to think that these lands could be adjudged to the king to hand to whomever he saw fit.”

  “Good God, no!” Aubery exploded, getting to his feet as if he were ready to defend the property.

  William felt like laughing but remained suitably grave for fear of hurting his sensitive stepson. “Good. I will go up to your mother now, and between us we will compose a suitable letter to Alys and Raymond. Do you wish to come up?”

  “No.” Aubery flushed. He was afraid that he would look as though he were gloating while the matter was discussed. “If you and she permit, I would like to join you and my mother for the evening meal. Now I think I should ride over to Hurley and talk to John. If he does not like this plan—”

  “Then I will box his ears,” William said, laughing. “I absolutely refuse to explain to even one more person.”

  But William was not worried. John was neither greedy, nor did he seem to carry the deep scars Mauger’s acts had left on Aubery. John looked much like Elizabeth and seemed to have inherited her placid but merry nature. He would be delighted, William was su
re, to know that his brother would control the fortress across the river from his own property.

  Chapter Four

  Fenice had limped into Aix several days before the arrival of the letter Alys wrote from Blancheforte asking her father-by-marriage to find an excuse for Raymond and herself to come home. The gate guard hardly spared a single glance for the tired lay sister who passed through the small postern and into the outer courtyard. It was not usual for a sister to be alone, but her robe was mud stained and travel worn so she might be doing a penance, begging her way from shrine to shrine. She could be no danger to Tour Dur, and she was not the guard’s business.

  Halfway across the courtyard, a well-dressed woman servant paused on her way to the kitchen and said kindly, “There is no church here, Sister, only the lord’s chapel, but if you wish to eat—”

  She paused uncertainly as the robed and cowled figure shook its head. She was a little frightened because the face was veiled and the hands hidden in the sleeves, methods often used to conceal the ravages of leprosy, but a leper would never dare enter the gates or go without staff and clapper to warn of the disease.

  “I have a message for the master-at-arms, Georges,” Fenice mumbled breathlessly.

  “A message for Georges?” Isabelle repeated doubtfully. She could not imagine what kind of message the master-at-arms, who was a hard man, dedicated to his profession, could receive from a convent.

  Desperately Fenice said, “It is not your business.” She then turned away and hurried, limping, in the direction of the master-at-arms’s quarters.

  She did not notice Isabelle staring after her, white-faced. The maid’s superstitious mind had made an image of horror out of the fact that Fenice had veiled her face and kept her hands concealed inside her sleeves—those too-white, too-soft, long-nailed hands that could never have belonged to any hardworking lay sister. For an instant, Isabelle thought that Fenice was carrying disease and death to Georges.

  Fortunately, Georges was less superstitious or he might have refused to send for Lord Alphonse. Although he did not recognize Fenice, Georges did find the voice familiar. What he thought was that the woman was one of Lord Alphonse’s doxies who had been told to contact his lordship in this way, so he made no difficulty, and Alphonse soon arrived in response to his message.

  As soon as she saw him, Fenice ran toward him, throwing back her hood and pulling off her veil. “Oh, Grandfather,” she cried, “such dreadful things have happened.”

  Lord Alphonse goggled at her. “Fenice? Is it you, Fenice? What are you doing here?”

  Fenice stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening. “God help me, did you know Lady Emilie had placed me in a convent after Delmar died?” she asked, her voice rising hysterically.

  “Died?” Lord Alphonse gasped. “Delmar died? Fenice, what are you saying? Are you mad?”

  They stared at each other, both appalled, until Fenice said weakly, “Did you not receive my letter to say Delmar had taken a fever and was very ill?”

  “Of course I did not receive any such letter. Would I not have come to see Delmar? It is no more than two leagues from here to Fuveau, child.”

  “I thought perhaps Lady Jeannette did not wish you to expose yourself,” she said. “I would not have wished it myself.” And then, bitterly, “But I should have guessed when I did not receive a letter back that Lady Emilie had not sent my message. Grandfather, I am not mad. You must listen to me. You must. Lady Emilie would have forced me to take the veil so that she could keep Fuveau and Trets.”

  Until Fenice said that last sentence, Lord Alphonse had been staring at her in horror, unable to believe that his vassal, Delmar de Fuveau, had died and no one had informed him. After all, he was Delmar’s overlord as well as his relation by marriage. It was his duty to arrange for the care of Delmar’s property and widow in the absence of the widow’s father, and it would have been his duty even if the widow did not happen to be his granddaughter. All of his vassals trusted him to care fairly and wisely for their womenfolk or minor heirs. No one would conceal a death from him. The instant she said Lady Emilie wished to keep Fuveau and Trets, though, he had remembered that both properties had been settled on Fenice in the event of Delmar’s death, excluding the boy’s mother and uncle.

  “My poor child, my poor child,” Lord Alphonse said, putting his arm around his granddaughter and taking her hands in his. “Good God, your hands are like ice, and your robe is all wet. You will take your death. Come within. You must have a hot bath and something hot to drink.”

  “Do you not believe me?” Fenice faltered, her eyes filling with tears. She did not realize her grandfather had been distracted from commenting on what she had said by his concern for her physical condition.

  “Oh, I believe you,” Lord Alphonse assured her as he drew her toward the hall. “I warned your father at the time the contract was being written that the reversion clause might cause trouble. I suppose Raymond assumed Delmar would explain to his mother and uncle that they would suffer no disadvantage, and the boy did not do it.” He smiled down at Fenice rather sadly. “He was afraid, was he not, that they would think him so enchanted by your beauty and sweet ways that he allowed your papa to take advantage of him.”

  Fenice could not answer. She only turned her face into her grandfather’s shoulder and sobbed softly. She did not want to go in, not even to be dry and warm. She had almost forgotten what it was to be dry and warm, but she feared that the price of those pleasures would be to lose Lord Alphonse’s protection and fall alive to Lady Jeannette’s hands. Now that he had the meat of the matter, perhaps her grandfather would not care about what had happened to her.

  Fenice had underestimated her new importance. Fuveau was a valuable little estate, not large, but fruitful, and its proximity to Tour Dur increased its significance. Although Lord Alphonse was marginally aware that his wife did not like her baseborn granddaughters, he had no intention of allowing her to delay Fenice with questions, exclamations, and lamentations. Thus, Fenice was not sent up among the women to make her own way as best as she could. Lady Christine, her old governess, was called down and bidden to arrange for the girl’s comfort as swiftly as possible, and was told not to cross-question her or allow anyone else, including Lady Jeannette, to delay her return to him.

  Fenice pulled Lady Christine away from Lord Alphonse, who was already calling for a scribe. “We can go to the south tower,” she said. “Most of Lady Alys’s furniture is there.”

  Ordinarily furniture was carried from estate to estate as a family moved, but it was a great distance from Aix to Bordeaux. After many years of traveling back and forth, Alys and Raymond had become tired of being tied to a long baggage train, which invariably delayed them by getting into difficulties. Having considered the expense of double furnishings and compared that against the trouble saved and the cost of cartage over the years, they decided that in the long run it would be better to take the novel step of furnishing Blancheforte and leaving the furniture in Aix.

  “But it will be cold,” Lady Christine protested. “There has been no fire in the south tower all winter.”

  “I do not care,” Fenice insisted. “We can have a big fire lit now, and the water in the bath will be hot. While I am bathing, you can warm some clothing for me before the fire. I will do well enough.”

  Lady Christine looked at Fenice for a moment and then smiled. She thought that being married had finally given the girl a little self-confidence. But Fenice was so worried about what her grandfather would do and say when he heard the whole tale that she had given the orders without thinking. She also made remarkably quick work of bathing and dressing in some of her Aunt Margot’s cast-off clothing and hurried back to the hall.

  “I have already sent off a letter to your father and Lady Alys telling them of Delmar’s death and of the possibility that there will be trouble over the reversion clause in the marriage contract. I am sure that, if they can, they will come home at once. There is nothing more for you to worry abo
ut,” Lord Alphonse said kindly, drawing a stool right next to his chair in the warmest place beside the fire, “so you just sit down here near me and have something warm to drink.”

  “Please,” Fenice said as soon as she sat down, “I wish to tell you everything that happened. I have done a dreadful thing.”

  Lord Alphonse’s face grew still. Perhaps Lady Emilie was not trying to keep possession of Fuveau but trying to protect Fenice by placing her in a convent. “You did not use…er…give your husband a wrong medicine?”

  “I could not,” Fenice cried, her eyes filling with tears. “I was not let near him, though I begged and I prayed to be allowed to nurse him or even speak to him. Oh, Grandfather, I do not mean to say that Lady Emilie wished Delmar harm. I know she did not. But they bled him and bled him. I know bleeding is right for a fever, but Lady Alys has told me that medicines should be tried after each bleeding and that at least one day should pass before bleeding is used again. And…and now he is dead. I do not say I could have saved him, but Lady Alys saved Enid when she was so sick with fever, and I knew what she had done, washing her with cold cloths, and I knew the draught she made from betony and marigold and—”

  “Hush child, do not weep. You did your best. What is, is. It was God’s will,” Lord Alphonse consoled her, smothering a sigh of relief and thinking that God had been good to his granddaughter. Lady Emilie’s jealous care, whether it was wrong or right, had saved Fenice from being the target of any suspicion that in her youth and inexperience she had made some mistake that was fatal to her husband.