FireSong

by Roberta Gellis

  “Let us all unarm, if it pleases you, my lords,” Aubery said, “and when we are at ease my wife will give us a song or two to spice our evening meal. She has a sweet voice and nimble fingers with the lute.”

  In the privacy of their chamber, Aubery apologized. “I am sorry, Fenice. I know you are tired, but I prefer, if I can, to avoid any quarrel with Warwick. He is not a bad man, only more proud than sensible sometimes, perhaps because the earldom is through his wife. However, he is powerful enough to cause trouble if he likes.”

  “You are very wise, my lord,” Fenice assured him warmly. “It is nothing to me to sing for a while. You know I enjoy that. I only hope that other man, the one who tried to make mischief—”

  “You mean Mauduit.” Aubery laughed. “He did not mean to make mischief. I think his warning was meant honestly, if not phrased in the most tactful way. After all, Warwick is near twice my age and to speak the truth was never a match for me.”

  Fenice shook her head. “Then he should have known that you would take no advantage of the earl, and to laugh like that…”

  She left the sentence unfinished as she pulled off Aubery’s hauberk, stripped him down to his shirt, and then helped him into one of the gowns he had worn in Castile. He started to protest when he saw what she was preparing to slip over his head and then nodded. Whatever her reasons, Fenice’s instinct was right. Looking grand would be more likely to impress Warwick and his companions than a more becoming modesty, and they would be less inclined to take advantage if they were impressed.

  Whether it was the elegant clothing or the companionable feeling of countrymen in a foreign environment, the evening went very well. Fenice’s performance was greeted with admiration and praise, but of the greatest propriety, and the manner of the other men to Aubery despite the disparity of their ranks was civil and obliging. In the course of the evening, it was determined that Warwick’s party was also headed for England, and Aubery was invited, warmly and politely, to accompany them. To Fenice’s dismay he accepted with seeming alacrity.

  Later, when they were again alone, she hesitantly expressed the wish that they might go on without the company of Warwick and his companions.

  Aubery shook his head. “We will be safer with them. In Pons, which I understand is something more than ten miles ahead, they are to join a large party. We may have to wait a day or so for everyone to assemble, but together we will be unassailable. Moreover, it will be possible to hire ships to take us to Portsmouth rather than wait for passage on a merchant vessel, which might make port farther east or west.”

  This was too sensible an answer for Fenice to protest further, but she was still uneasy. Even though only the most civil courtesies were directed at her or Aubery on the next day’s brief ride to Pons, she felt even more doubtful about the wisdom of associating themselves with Warwick’s party. She simply did not like the men and their attitude. As a Provençal, she had no special love for the French herself, but she thought it unwise to swagger about criticizing and making fun of everything about a country in which they were strangers. And when they arrived in Pons, she was appalled when the earl and his friends simply dismissed their men without making arrangements for their food or lodging.

  Aubery frowned over that, too. He knew that the men were probably hired mercenaries who had been paid in coin and that finding shelter was their own business; still, it troubled him that they were let loose in the town without even a warning to make no trouble. Under the circumstances, he was very glad when the prominent citizen who greeted Warwick and offered him lodging confounded himself in apologies for not having room for Aubery and Fenice. A friend would lodge them, he offered, or he would arrange that they be accommodated in the best inn. Aubery closed with the offer of the inn immediately. The inn might be noisier, more pest-infested, and less comfortable, but he could have his own men where he could keep an eye on them and prove they had no part in any disturbance when complaints about the misbehavior of Warwick’s troop began to come in.

  In fact, when the mayor’s steward had brought them to a surprisingly commodious inn and left them, Aubery began to reconsider his decision to remain with the parry. He would wait, he told Fenice, until the entire group had gathered, and then simply ride out on his own if they all seemed as irresponsible as Warwick, Seagrave, and Mauduit. It was true, he added, that Pons had been ruled by the English until 1242, but it was no longer under Henry’s control, and in any case, the towns of Poitou were like those in Gascony, independent and controlled by a commune.

  Fenice was relieved and hoped that now that they were separated from the party they would be forgotten, but that hope was not fulfilled. Shortly after Aubery had shed his armor and made sure his men were settled and warned not to leave the grounds of the inn, he was called from his chamber by the arrival of a messenger from the mayor who carried an invitation to a feast in honor of the guests of the town. It was an all-male affair, so there was no mention of Fenice.

  Aubery hesitated briefly and then accepted. He did not like to be discourteous and he liked even less to use Fenice as an excuse to refuse, recalling the jests concerning his uxoriousness made by the knights who had been with him in Castile. What finally decided the issue was that he learned that most of the other English knights had arrived and would attend. However, he was not completely satisfied with the situation and arranged that Fenice be served a meal in the privacy of their chamber and that his men-at-arms mount a guard before her door until he returned.

  “I would like you to stay within,” he told Fenice after explaining what he had done.

  She nodded without comment as she helped him change his plain tunic for another elaborate gown.

  Aubery frowned. He could not help remembering that one of Matilda’s greatest joys was roaming the markets of any strange town and purchasing trinkets and oddities. He had often forbidden her the pleasure because he considered her extravagant, and she had died, and he could never make up for the little joys he had denied her.

  “I am sorry you will have no opportunity to see the town and that you may be bored,” he went on quickly. “I do not wish to deny you, but I know nothing of this place or its ways. William does not like the Poitevins. He says they are greedy and treacherous. Perhaps this is only a result of his too-great acquaintance with the king’s half brothers, but he was here with Henry in ‘42 and ‘43 and might have more reason for his warnings than his distaste for the Lusignans.”

  Fenice had stared at him in surprise for just a moment and then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She thought that no husband in the world was as good as hers, surely no other would trouble to explain an order a wife was bound to obey, even if it were just a whim of her man’s will.

  “I will not be bored,” Fenice assured him. “Truly, I take little pleasure in seeing a town without you.”

  She did not qualify her statements further because she did not want to confess to Aubery how tired she was. She had been so anxious about joining Warwick’s party that she had not slept well, and that had prevented her from recovering completely from the fatigue of the long ride the previous day. The hours in the saddle had been harder to endure than she expected. In the past, except for the journey to Bayonne, Fenice had been accustomed to traveling with a baggage train, which could rarely go more than twenty miles a day. And although it was true that on her journeys with her father and Lady Alys they had spent as many hours a day traveling, she and Lady Alys idled away most of those hours by the side of the road waiting for the wains to catch up.

  Fenice guessed that if they traveled alone, Aubery would want to move as quickly as possible, but if she admitted to fatigue, he might feel it was better to remain with the large English party for safety’s sake. Thus, she was actually glad to have a few hours to herself so that she could rest, even sleep, which she would not have dared to do if Aubery had been with her, and after her meal was served, she lay down on the bed.

  On his arrival at the guildhall, Aubery was divided between am
usement and anxiety when he was ceremoniously led to the table of honor. It was, he realized, a natural result of his arrival in Warwick’s party and the grand clothing he was wearing. Since he did not wish to suffer the embarrassment of having the highborn guests already seated there reject his company, he was about to protest. However, he was welcomed warmly by Warwick and William Mauduit and introduced to Philip Marmim, who nodded cordially enough, although he was using his mouth to take in a huge swallow of wine.

  Aubery politely seated himself at one end of the short, cushioned bench to Warwick’s left—the place of least consequence—leaving room for one or two other men on that bench and two or three more on the bench closest to Warwick’s chair. There was another chair next to Warwick for the mayor, who was not yet present. Aubery wondered, again with mingled amusement and anxiety, whether Warwick knew who his dinner partner was to be. He hoped the proud earl had been warned in advance and had come to accept the situation since he did not relish the thought of insulting his hosts by argument or withdrawal.

  Then it struck Aubery as very odd that the chief host was not already present to welcome his guests. Nor, he saw, glancing up the table, were the places of the other, more important town officials filled. He was about to remark on this peculiar circumstance when Seagrave was shown to the table by the same man who had escorted Aubery. While Seagrave was being greeted and seated, the mayor and the others arrived. They seemed a trifle breathless and harried, and although Aubery kept his face expressionless, he was amused once more. Probably, he thought, they were not accustomed to such exalted guests and had been running about to see that the dinner and service would be properly grand.

  The mild, private sense of fun put Aubery in a good humor, which was reinforced when he found that only one other man would share his bench. Three diners would have put them in rather close quarters, and as the meal progressed he would almost certainly have been splashed with wine or gravy. Now, unless the servers were particularly inept, he need only take care with his own food, and right on the heels of his thought the first course arrived.

  Usually the host was expected to begin the talk, but since Aubery’s table companion was silent, he remarked politely on the cordiality with which he and his fellow travelers had been welcomed by the commune of Pons. To his surprise, the official cast him a most peculiar look before he mumbled an appropriate reply. Feeling sorry for the man’s evident embarrassment at being in elevated company, Aubery tried again, making what he thought would be a soothingly inane comment on the probability of fair weather for traveling over the next few days.

  This time the glance flashed at him was frightened, and the man’s voice was just a shade too loud as he replied, “Yes, yes, of course. I hope so.”

  Since his attempts at conversation only seemed to be making his dinner partner more uncomfortable, Aubery desisted and addressed his full attention to the food, which was very good. The wine was excellent also, and it flowed unceasingly. Every time Aubery reached for his cup, it was full. Had his companion been more interesting—for the official did, as the meal progressed, offer a few stilted comments—Aubery would have enjoyed himself completely.

  However, by the time the second course was served, Aubery began to wish the server would give him a chance to water his wine. The highly spiced food made frequent recourse to the wine necessary, and since Aubery was not a heavy drinker, he was beginning to feel the effects despite the substantial quantity of food he was eating. Once or twice Aubery put his hand over his cup after he drank from it to prevent its being refilled, but that did not solve the problem because there was no water on the table with which to fill the cup. And since he did not yet wish to mention to Warwick his plan of going on alone, he preferred not to ask for water and raise questions about why he was eager to be more sober than his companions.

  Having accepted the inevitability of a miserable morning, Aubery resolved to enjoy the preceding potations—and he did. As the tide of wine rose higher, merry talk was shouted up and down the table among the English gentlemen, without regard to the officials of Pons who sat between them. Then, some time after the third course had been placed on the table, Aubery noticed that a different server was filling the cup of the man beside him. He laughed, drunkenly assuming that the commune was pinching pennies by providing cheap wine for themselves, but just as he was about to point out this mean-spirited parsimony to his noble companions, the great doors at each end of the hall burst open to admit a flood of armed men.

  The lesser English knights at the tables closest to the ends of the hall were overwhelmed before they realized there was a threat. Surprise prevented even a shadow of resistance. At the more central tables, men began to strike out against their attackers, but they were all without any weapon more effective than an eating knife, and their assailants were not only armed but armored in habergeons and steel helmets.

  Aubery sat watching, goggle-eyed, for as long as a minute before what he was seeing penetrated his drink-befuddled brain. But he was not as far gone as his companions, and he finally leapt to his feet, roaring, “They are taking only the English!”

  “What does this mean?” Warwick shouted, trying to push his heavy chair back from the table and turning toward the mayor.

  But the mayor had already slipped away, out of reach, and the armed men were advancing on the high table. With a single furious blow from his fist, Aubery felled the official who had been sitting beside him and had been unable to escape when Aubery rose, blocking his way. Aubery then seized the table and heaved with all his strength. The trestle top flew up and out, knocking down the few men-at-arms who were closest, and scattering food and liquid far and wide so that others slid and tripped on the unexpected obstacles. This gave Aubery time to seize the bench on which he had been sitting.

  It was a well-made, heavy piece of furniture, but the outrage Aubery felt at the treachery of the commune of Pons let him handle it with ease. He swung in at those nearest him, legs forward, with all the power that fury lent his arms, and he bellowed in satisfaction as two men fell, one with the side of his face crushed to a bloody ruin. His backswing with the flat of the bench caught three more, and he let the weight of the bench pull him round to catch one attacker who had run around to take him from behind.

  A blow struck him on the shoulder, but his grip on the bench did not loosen, and he paid the man who had hit him full measure for his temerity. That blow was so fierce that the legs broke, but Aubery turned the bench so that the edge was forward and swung again, shouting for Warwick and the others to join him. As a group, they could fight their way free. He had cleared a space around himself by then and realized that it was too late. Marmim, insensible from drink, was being carried out, and the others were being dragged off, staggering either from blows they were too slow to ward off or from drunkenness.

  The brief respite showed Aubery that he was nearly alone in his resistance and could not win, but that only increased his fury—and he had one hope. If he were too hard a nut to crack, they might give up on him. Unfortunately, that hope was groundless. In the next moment, he was charged from all sides. The bench splintered against the steel blades of his opponents, and he dropped it, running at the nearest men with his bare fists. He would have been spitted had the men-at-arms not had strict instructions that they were to take prisoners and take them without wounds, for dead men brought no ransoms. It took five of them to subdue him, and even then he struggled, throwing them off until one man brought his weapon down on the side of Aubery’s head and knocked him unconscious.

  More tired than she had acknowledged even to herself, Fenice slept away the entire afternoon, waking only after dusk as the room grew colder and colder because she had failed to feed the fire. She was frightened and confused for a few minutes but eventually remembered where she was and why she was alone. Fortunately, a few embers remained in the fireplace, and Fenice was able to light a candle from them. Once she had light, she rebuilt the fire, not wishing to summon a servant lest word somehow came
to Aubery that she had slept so long.

  Having thought of Aubery, she was seized by a qualm of doubt. Surely even a very elaborate dinner should not have lasted until dark. Then she shook her head at her foolishness. Naturally once her husband was caught up in the company of a large group of men without women, he would not wish to make himself a laughingstock by saying he must return to his wife. He would, of course, join the men in any amusement they proposed to fill in the hours until bedtime. Fenice hoped they would choose to drink and gamble rather than go whoring, but she knew she had no right to complain about whatever Aubery did. He was a miracle of constancy compared to Delmar.

  Still, she was very disappointed as the evening wore on and Aubery did not come back. She had been a little surprised when the man-at-arms guarding the door had brought her evening meal to her himself, but she assumed those were Aubery’s orders and did not ask questions. Eventually, after playing her lute to amuse herself and embroidering for a while, she went to bed rather sadly. Every man, she told herself, must desire a little variety, even Aubery, and she must not act like a shrew, waiting up for him as if she, rather than God, was the arbiter of his conscience.

  Fenice slept uneasily, waking periodically, each time more disappointed that her husband had not returned. When the sky was graying with dawn, she could lie abed no longer, and she rose and dressed, taking as long as she could over such details of her toilet as rubbing her teeth with green hazel and then wiping them with a woolen cloth, combing her hair into an unusually intricate coil before netting it, and buffing her nails until they shone. But still Aubery did not come, and she could only tell herself that he must have been tired enough, or drunk enough, to remain wherever he had come to rest. She would not permit herself to entertain the thought that any whore he had found could hold him so long.