Fires of Winter

by Roberta Gellis

  I received my first shock on the way to his hut. A man came out of the chapel, and I ran toward him in joy at seeing another person—but he screamed at me to stay away, and when I stood for a moment, too shocked to move, he cast a stone at me. I suppose he was sick and his cruelty was for my own sake, but at the time it was a terrible blow. I was to receive another, even worse. When I came to the groom’s house, his wife was sitting in the doorway.

  Before I could even speak, she spat at me, screaming, “Whore’s bastard, how dare you live while better than you died!” Then she began to struggle to her feet, gesturing menacingly, and added, “The lord is dead. He can protect you no longer.”

  That was how I learned my father was dead, and partly why I gave little thought to it. I was too shocked and frightened to do more than flee before the groom’s wife could reach me, terror lending speed to my feet. But I saw before I was halfway across the bailey that she could not follow, and then rage steadied me. I was sure my father had never protected me—at that time I had no idea of the effect of simply being the lord’s son—and I believed I had won the little favor I had received by my own natural skills. That was in a sense true, for if I had not shown a natural aptitude for riding and handling a sword, my father would have turned his back on me totally. But my rage was mingled with a new fear. I remembered the man who had thrown a stone at me and the physical threat implied by the gestures of the groom’s wife. Did those who survived blame my father for the loss of their families? Did they intend to revenge themselves on me—and on Audris, who was even more the lord’s child?

  I have long since learned that the woman was almost mad with grief and have forgiven her, especially since the notion she set into my mind, to avoid everyone in the keep, may have preserved my life and Audris’s by keeping us free of the sickness. The anger she woke in me, by reminding me of the praise of my tutor and the approving looks of so harsh a critic as my father, was also useful to me. It gave me the feeling that I was able—urged on by the pangs of hunger—to provide for myself and Audris.

  By then, I was near the kitchen sheds built against the wall of the keep. With the stealth natural to a small boy, whose curiosity often drove him to invade places, like the smithy, where he would not be welcome, I crept into the kitchen yard, keeping well inside the lengthening shadows. Seeing no one, I sidled into a storage shed, where I found a knife stuck into a round of cheese, as if someone had been about to cut a portion and been called away and forgotten. I finished the work, though it was not easy, the knife having rusted and stuck to the cheese. Still, I managed, and then having the knife in my belt and knowing—as I thought, being very ignorant—how to use it, I felt much bolder and went from shed to shed, gathering what I could carry.

  For many days—recently, thinking back, I decided it must have been nearly a month—I kept Audris and myself hidden. I stole wood for our fire and food for our bellies and emptied the vessels of soil, mostly going out in the late evening, just before dark when the shadows were deepest and most plentiful. Near the end of the time, I went out in the early morning also, into the garden where the fruits were ripened. For drink, I stole milk, if any remained in the shed by evening, and I fetched water from a small spring in the garden in one of my mother’s pots because I could not lift the pail that went down into the well in the lowest floor of the keep. I was afraid to go down into the dark too, but I did not admit that. By then, I was very bold and proud. I think I must have believed, for a time anyway, that we would always live that way.

  I was well content that it should be so, for Audris was very good and minded me. I kept her as clean as I could and took her with me for an airing when I went to the garden, teaching her to hide and be still on those few occasions when someone came in. I wonder now whether it was those lessons, for I was frightened and she may have felt my fear, that made her so shy of strangers all the rest of her life. But at that time she was happy, playing only with me. I was happy too, but as the weeks passed, I began to miss my pony and the practice with my sword. Soon I was trying to devise a way to steal a ride and at the same time keep Audris safe. Usually I left her sleeping, tied by a cord to the leg of the bed so that if she woke she could not burn herself in the fire or fall down the stairs, but I knew that a ride would take longer than my short forays for food and that it would be dangerous to leave her tied too long.

  Still, thinking about the pony made me wonder if he would remember me, and I could not resist a short visit to the stable. I had been there once, perhaps two weeks earlier to take some straw to add to the rushes on the floor; these were becoming thin and matted, and it was growing cooler as the summer waned. Then, although feed had been thrown into the troughs, the stable was filthy. This time it was different. Plainly, someone had been at work. I remember how my heart sank at the sight—I suppose I knew then that life would revert to its normal pattern and I would sink into nothing again instead of being provider and protector, a person of the first importance. I could not even stay to see the pony but turned and ran, and because I was already running, escaped the outstretched hand of a groom. I heard him calling after me, but I had become most adept at concealment and escaped him easily.

  That did not lift my spirits, though, and it was a long time before I fell asleep that night. Nor was I wrong in my feeling that my life was about to change again. On the very next day, not long after Audris had wakened me and I had given her some fruit and cheese and sour milk with which to break her fast, a tumult of sound rose from the hall below us. That place, dead and silent for so long, was suddenly full of people, all talking, shouting orders, wielding rakes and brooms to rid the place of the rotten old rushes, starting a roaring fire to burn cleansing herbs, and suchlike. The noise startled Audris, used as she was for so long to no noise except that which we made ourselves, and she began to weep. I hushed her fiercely, thrusting her into the corner of the room farthest from the door, and ran back, struggling to close it. This I could not do, for the locking bar was down and it was above my head and too heavy for me to lift, so it caught against the seat into which it normally dropped.

  Had the door closed, Audris and I could have spent the day much as usual, since, young as I was, I knew no sound could pass the thick stone walls or the thick wooden floor and door. As it was, I was frightened to death that the smallest noise we made would betray us, and I held Audris in my arms to keep her still and silent. I could feel her little body shaking with fear—poor child, it was my fault, for she would not have been afraid, I think, if I had not myself been terrified. I tried to calm her by telling her over and over that as long as she was with me, I would let no harm come to her. It was a stupid promise and I knew it, but I could think of nothing else to say to comfort her.

  Of course, our silence could not keep our presence secret long. I should have known that the cleaning would not stop with the hall. By early afternoon, our door was flung open suddenly, and a tall woman with thick bronze-colored braids entered. I shrank back, but there was no shadow in the south tower where windows facing southwest and southeast allowed sunlight to pour into the room. For one moment the woman stood frozen, staring at us, then she cried out and ran forward.

  Perhaps I cried out too. Audris’s thin little arms were clasped tightly around my neck. I remember how she screamed when the woman pulled her away from me and lifted her, holding her firmly with one arm. With the other, she urged me to my feet and hurried me down the stair to confront a man, who looked so much like my father that I thought for a moment the groom’s wife had lied when she told me the lord was dead.

  In the next moment I realized he could not be my father because he asked, “Who are you?”

  I had learned early that to display fear brought a harsher punishment than defiance, so I answered boldly, “I am Bruno, Berta’s son.” And then I recognized him as the dark man my father had brought to watch me at my training, and I knew he too was a lord and would protect a lord’s child against the common folk, so
I added, “The child is Audris, Lord William’s daughter.”

  The woman was rocking Audris in her arms, trying to quiet her, and Audris was struggling to be free, shrieking, “Boono, Boono,” which was the closest she could come then to my name.

  “Set her down, Eadyth,” the dark man said, and Lady Eadyth obeyed.

  Audris ran to me at once, and I whispered, “Hush, you are safe now.” She quieted, slipping her hand into mine and trying to hide herself behind me.

  “I am Sir Oliver Fermain,” the dark man said, “Sir William’s brother, and I have come…” He hesitated, staring at Audris, who was half hidden behind me. Then his mouth set hard, and he went on, “I have come to hold Jernaeve for Demoiselle Audris.”

  There was a moment of heavy silence in which grief and fear gripped my throat and closed it. I was very innocent and was afraid of the wrong things. It never occurred to me that Sir Oliver need only slay both Audris and myself, and Jernaeve keep with all its rich lands would be his own and his children’s after him. It would have been so easy. Who was to say that we had not died of the disease as so many others had done? Certainly not his wife whose children would profit. Nor did I fear that I would be thrust out of the keep altogether and left to make my own way, which would have been within Sir Oliver’s right. A whore’s child has no proper place. The horror in my mind was that Audris would be taken from me.

  During that silent moment, Sir Oliver had been looking at what he could see of Audris. Suddenly, he frowned and turned his head to his wife. “Take the child away and clean her and dress her properly.”

  “She is clean,” I cried, heedless of angering him in the agony of losing the one creature who had ever valued me above others. “I could not wash her linen. I—”

  “You are nowise to blame,” Sir Oliver said sharply, raising his voice above Audris’s renewed shrieks, but these grew fainter as Lady Eadyth carried her away.

  My eyes followed her, until the dimness of the hall and the mist of tears that rose obscured Lady Eadyth. Then I fought back the tears, knowing they would only gain me a beating. I suppose I knew, too, that it was right for Audris to be cared for by a woman, and the fact that Sir Oliver was praising me, saying it was a miracle that I had kept the child alive, also eased my bitterness. I had had few words of praise in my life, only now and again, grudgingly uttered, by the man-at-arms who trained me. Thus, despite my grief, I was able to answer Sir Oliver’s questions so that in the end he knew everything. And it was he who told me, as kindly as one is able to give such news, that my mother was dead.

  I felt no grief over my mother—all my grief and loss was confined to Audris—but knowing my mother was gone for good gave me a sense of being adrift with nothing to cling to. I do not remember that I made any response to Sir Oliver; perhaps my expression was enough, for he put his hand on my shoulder and himself led me down to the kitchen, where he bade one of the cooks feed me. I must have told him that Audris and I had had no dinner; there was food in the tower, but we had been too frightened to eat. And as the cook hurried to find cold meat and some pasty for me, Sir Oliver told me that when I was full I might amuse myself as I pleased until bedtime and that I should sleep in the tower that night, until he could make new arrangements for my care.

  Looking back, I wonder what he planned. Not, I suspect, what actually happened. It was Audris, I believe, who forced Sir Oliver to take me into his own household. He was a good man, honest and honorable, but I do not think he intended to raise a whore’s son with his own children. Perhaps I am wrong. He knew, although he never said it and I had not claimed it—my mother had made clear to me that it was forbidden—that Sir William was my father. In any case, it is foolish to speculate on what can never be proven. What happened, happened, and my life has been shaped by that, not by what might have been.

  Audris could not be quieted. She screamed until Sir Oliver bade his wife bring her back to me, and even when she became more accustomed to her aunt and the new servants, she would not be parted from me for long. Lady Eadyth tried a few times more over the following days to separate us, but Audris began to scream the moment I was out of her sight. So instead of being cast out completely or raised among the servants, Sir Oliver took me into his family.

  His sons tried to overawe me at first and called me “whore’s son,” but I stared them down with such pride that even Alain, who was older than I by more than a year, did not dare raise a hand to strike me. And when I was matched with him in swordplay, I beat him so quickly and so soundly that he came to be in awe of me. I think when they saw my skill in riding and fighting, Alain and young Oliver wished to be my friends, and we were easy enough together doing those things that boys do, but I could never take them into my heart. I could not forget that they had called me “whore’s son” at first, and they tormented Audris when they could.

  I think Sir Oliver noticed their hatred of Audris, for he sent them early to be fostered. After Alain was sent away, I expected to go too, but Sir Oliver kept me in Jernaeve. He never gave a reason. Well, he was not a man for talk. At first I thought it was for Audris’s sake. Later, I realized it was because he did not wish to foist me on a noble family as if I were gently born. Poor man, now I know I was a burden on his loyal heart. He knew me for his brother’s get, yet my father had never recognized me. But he took over my training himself, teaching me the skills of a knight rather than those of a man-at-arms, and I learned that he paid for my armor—true mail, not the boiled leather of a common soldier—out of his own purse.

  By the time I was fifteen, I was growing restless and a little bored in Jernaeve. Like any youth, I thought that I knew all there was to know and was impatient with lessons. And my case was worse than many others because Sir Oliver did not allow me to put into practice what I had learned by going in his stead to oversee the outlying manors or to collect the dues from the small keeps beholden to Jernaeve. So when he loosed my tether and sent me with a troop from Jernaeve to answer a summons from the king to fight in France, I was wild with joy. I went as squire to Sir Oliver’s substitute, a man called Sir Bernard, and I learned two salutary lessons.

  The first was about women. When we came to London, I was burning with desire for a woman. Not that I was a virgin. Knowing too much of the uses of women from my youth, I had sought out one of the castle whores—in fact, she who had taken over my mother’s place—as soon as the first desires came upon me. I had always something to trade for the service, for I needed only to ask Audris for an old silk ribbon or take a heel of the fine bread or rich cheese that appeared only on our table. Such small items were sufficient; I knew I did not need to pay at all. A word to the bailiff could have brought deep trouble to anyone who displeased Sir Oliver’s squire—but I never used that weapon. Quite aside from the fact that Sir Oliver would have been furious if he found I had misused my power in such a way, I had too clear a memory of my mother’s troubles (despite being shielded by the presence of the lord’s bastard and my father’s favor—such as it was) to wish more trouble on any woman who needed to ply Berta’s trade.

  I think I was a favorite with the whore too, partly because I was a whore’s son and partly because I was young and not ugly. Whatever the reason, she taught me ways to pleasure a woman so that she could receive from me some measure of return for what she gave. I was impatient at first, eager only for my own delight, but I soon learned that to resist my satisfaction was to make it more intense when it came. I do not think, though, even in those early years when the body’s demands are paramount, that I was a lecher. And later, I was even less given to the demands of the flesh—but to be honest, that may have been because once I left Jernaeve, most of the women I could afford, if I wished to use them often, I could not stomach.

  What drove me that night in London, though, was less a need of the body than curiosity. I imagined that a whore in a great city would be something strange and somehow richer than the woman who plied that trade in Jernaeve. Had I
not been warned by a priest that the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb and her mouth was smoother than oil? Having been told that such joys existed, was it not natural that I should be eager to experience them?

  Not being an utter looby, I realized that the price of what I bought would be higher in London than at home, but I had several items for trade. One of my perquisites as squire was to keep the horsehair I curried from our mounts, and since I was assiduous at such duties, I had a bag of the resilient hair beaten free of dirt. This was much favored for stuffing pallets or cushions. I had also the candle ends from the thick candles that Sir Bernard burned at night to ward off evil spirits. The candle ends were of a good length, no mere stubs, since the days were long and the nights short in the spring. In Jernaeve, I knew any of these would be a welcome gift, but here in London I took along one of the coins from the purse Audris had given me when I left Jernaeve—I knew enough not to take along the purse.

  Clever as I thought myself, I was still skinned. My “pleasure” cost me my shirt as well as the other items, but in a way I received value for my payment. Because of my expectations, I chose the most exotic appearing of the women I encountered. In the uncertain light of flaring torches she looked a marvel—her eyes rimmed with black, her skin whiter than milk, her cheeks and lips a more brilliant color than those of any woman I had seen. I had no idea at that time that a woman could paint herself to change her appearance, and I followed her eagerly, expecting wonders, only to discover that she was less in every way than the whore of Jernaeve—even after I bribed her, knowing the way of whores, to show me some new twist in the play of love. And I discovered, too, once I had recovered from my disappointment, that there was only a shade of difference in my own pleasure and that difference rested only on the fact that I was fond of the woman in Jernaeve and cared nothing for the whore in London. Years later, if I could have found that whore I would have given her a round sum, for that lesson was worth far more than I paid her.