Fires of Winter

by Roberta Gellis

  Our line held, and Chester sheared aside just before his horse was spitted, leaning far out from his saddle to try to strike with his lance. And then I could make out little more for there was a confusion of shouting, screaming men and screaming, plunging horses. I turned my eyes away; I could never bear to see horses hurt, and I looked at the king who was staring eagerly to the right where Ypres was leading his troop at nearly a full gallop against a motley crowd of Welsh. They were deadly as archers, but not disciplined to stand and receive a charge, and Ypres, rightly, wished to scatter them before they could begin to shoot or make their way around the flank of our footmen to use their long knives.

  They scattered, and the king laughed and brandished the huge, gilded war axe he had been given by the people of Lincoln. I heard Chester bellow orders and the mounted troop began to gather itself and ride across our front to the aid of the Welsh. A few arrows followed them, but not many of the burghers had crossbows and our men-at-arms had no time to reload, for behind the horsemen, as they cleared our front, came the footmen. I drew my sword, and almost struck Sir Ilbert de Lacy who was next to me as I heard Stephen cry out in anguish. I looked wildly about to find the cause, but it was no physical blow that hurt him. It was Waleran riding headlong, his men fleeing in disorder without having struck a single blow, as Robert of Gloucester charged.

  I knew then. Even as the first wave of footmen reached us and the king charged forward, swinging that axe, I knew the battle was over. We fought a long time. I do not know how many men died for no purpose at all. The king killed until the ground before him was carpeted with bodies, until the great axe broke in his hand, and I leapt before him and took the arm off a man who had shouted aloud in glee, thinking he had found easy, unarmed prey. He fell away and two more advanced. I took one blow on my shield and slashed at the other man, catching him in the hip. I do not think my weapon cut through his gambeson, but he backed and stumbled on a body and Fitz-Gilbert killed him.

  I should not have looked, for my shield dropped and I was hit on the shoulder, but the blow was given by a dead hand and only bruised me. Stephen had drawn his sword and hacked the man’s head half off. He killed another, pushing past me so I could catch my breath, and in that moment I heard cheers and looked west hoping against hope that I would see Ypres coming back. But it was Chester, not Ypres, and his men charged our line again. It was already raveling away, not because the men had panicked—I will never think ill of burghers’ courage again—but because they were so engaged against the enemy footmen that it was impossible to hold a solid line.

  So we were driven back and back again, up the little hill where we had first stood with high hopes, and every foot of the ground around our group was covered with dead and dying. Still the king fought, and while he stood and fought so would every man until we were all dead. Camville and Lacy had been driven away from us. Gilbert de Gant was beside me now, poor boy, he was only a squire and too young to be caught in such a hopeless struggle. He could hardly stand, but his courage had not broken and he thrust away a man with his shield, turning him so I could cut at his neck. He fell and Gilbert stumbled over him. I stepped back to give him room to rise and was struck a heavy blow on the back that pushed me forward. My feet caught on Gilbert, I half turned even as I fell and saw that what had hit me was the king, his helm gone, his face all blood. I thrust blindly at a form reaching out toward Stephen and opened my shield from my body so that we fell together. He crushed the breath from me and the world darkened as my head slammed into the earth, but I was able to lift my shield across his body.

  “Here!” It was a thin voice, far away in the swirling darkness. “Here! I have taken the king.”

  Chapter 22

  Melusine

  I saw Bruno before he saw me in the church in Salisbury, and I had time enough during that interminable funeral to consider how I would greet him. Not that I had not been considering it since we had parted, but now with his strong back and his dark, curly hair just within my sight if I leaned my head to the side, I did not feel quite the same. I had told myself that if he did not care enough for me to hold back his lust for fighting the few days it would take to escort me to the queen, it was time for me to break my shackles. If I could not bend him in so small a thing, how could I bend him in greater ones?

  When I saw him, however, I suddenly realized that I had not tried to bend him. I had attacked him in a rage, scolding like an alewife. That was good enough for dealing with a servant, but Mama had beaten me when I raged and told me she did so to save me a worse beating from Papa if I offended him in such a way. But Bruno had not hit me. And then I had another revelation. Bruno had not left me in contempt but because his own temper had been roused and he would have beaten me if he stayed. Still, he had been wrong and selfish, and I would not say I was sorry and beg forgiveness.

  There was no need. Bruno’s face as he sought me in the group of women advancing with the queen toward the king wiped out all the hurt and rage that had eaten at me. The anguish I saw told me my fears had been silly; if I asked for the moon when he found me, he would try to get it. I asked for nothing, just held out my hand when he saw me at last and I was repaid manyfold for that gesture of submission by the joy that made him look ten years younger, like a boy who has been given his heart’s desire.

  We never mentioned the quarrel again, but I had a chance to scold him and breathe out a few flickers of heat remaining in my head. The fool was walking on a broken foot without even a stick to take some of his weight. No doubt part of the anguish I had seen in his face was pain, not anxiety, but it was too late to take back what I had offered. Besides, the broken foot was not all bad. I got leave for him from the king and for me from the queen to tend him, so we had eight sweet, quiet days, and Bruno needed them.

  Something more than our quarrel was troubling him. He tried to put a good face on it for my sake and I tried to draw out the trouble to soothe it, but that made it much worse so I pretended I did not see. I was sorry he would not share the burden, but at least Bruno did not act as if I were a fool and pat me on the head as Papa did. I was deeply worried at first because he told me freely of the shattering of trust in the realm caused by Salisbury’s overthrow, which I knew to be the queen’s greatest fear, and if Bruno’s trouble was worse it might be dangerous indeed. However, as the week he kept only to our chamber passed, he grew so much more cheerful that I began to wonder whether the trouble he had been hiding had to do with our quarrel rather than the king’s problems.

  That made me wonder what meaning he had read into the quarrel that I did not see. Later I learned—at least I learned words that expressed his trouble, but I never understood Bruno’s crazy notion of duty any more than I understood Papa’s crazy attachment to a country he had left when he was hardly a man. At the time all that concerned me was whether he had bad news about Ulle he was afraid to tell me lest we quarrel again, that it had been seised on another man, for example, or that he had changed his mind about accepting so poor an estate when a richer one was offered. But it was not Ulle; I was surprised by Bruno’s passion when he spoke of it and a little amused that it was he who described again and again the beauty of the land. Usually it is a woman who sees that kind of beauty; men see what is good for defense or for grazing or plowing or hunting. I could not doubt his determination to have the place, so that was not his trouble.

  As Bruno grew more cheerful, I would have forgotten his original misery had I not caught him looking at me more than once in a strange way. And he was so good to me, so eager to please me both with his body and his sweet words that first I wondered whether he might be jealous, fearing I had looked elsewhere while we were parted. That was not an unpleasant notion. I would not lie and hint I had seen a man I liked better; it was not true. There were fair men I thought handsomer than Bruno simply because they were fair, but I had only to think of them touching me with lips and tongue as Bruno did and I felt cold and sick, my skin rising in bumps an
d my stomach turning over.

  Then another idea slid into my head that was not so pleasant. What if Bruno had been unfaithful because I had angered him? That made better sense of his unhappiness; no doubt my welcome to him had made him feel guilty and the strange, sidelong looks were because he wondered whether I had guessed. When I first thought of it, I was ready to scratch out his eyes and show him that my scolding in Salisbury had been a bare sample of what I could do, but we were back on duty by then and I had regained my common sense before we were both free. Acting the shrew was no way to hold a man, so I was sweeter than honey. I could not tell whether that made Bruno feel more guilty, but he was barely polite to any other woman though more than one of the queen’s ladies gave broad hints of favors if he would respond.

  I suppose it was really my jealousy that made me so discontent with being chosen as one of the ladies who would accompany Queen Maud to France. At the time I convinced myself that I was angry because Maud still did not trust me and would not let me go to Jernaeve with Bruno because that would bring me too near the Scots. However, I did not ask to be left behind. I was not sure enough of my power to wrest Bruno from his hateful duty. Likely all I would accomplish would be to separate him from Cormi and Merwyn, whom he would send to join Fechin and escort me to Jernaeve. If I went with the queen, Bruno would have a third man-at-arms, for Fechin would be useless in a country where he did not speak the language.

  I was becoming truly expert in lying to myself and thus hiding from fears that might have pushed me back into the madness to which I had lost eight months of life. Thus I did not permit myself to think why a third man-at-arms should be useful to Bruno. I did not question the cause of the bruises I tended and clung to the lie he had told me about the king and his Knights of the Body taking no part in the fighting; it was better to suffer some slight pangs of jealousy than to ask Bruno to take me to Jernaeve and be told the truth.

  Aside from those pangs of jealousy, which were greatly assuaged by the amount of attention I received from the gentlemen of King Louis’s court, I enjoyed myself. I only learned after we arrived that the queen’s purpose was to make a marriage contract with King Louis’s sister. I suppose it was kept secret so that the king’s enemies would have no chance to interfere, and if Louis refused, no one in England would know. I was not privy to the negotiations, but there was enough to interest me without that. Woman as I was, I was fascinated by Louis’s young queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  She was not beautiful, at least not to me, but I was very glad Bruno was not with us. When she turned her eyes, darkly bright and burning with the brilliance of her mind on me, I could understand why any man would adore her. Bruno would not have spoken of duty to her; like others he would have fallen to his knees before her and offered his life in her service, even if it meant being false to his precious master. She had only to look, to smile, and to speak and all else was forgotten. I saw Maud, who was a woman too, stare at Eleanor and, when she left the young queen’s presence, shake her head as if to free herself of some clinging enchantment.

  I said every man was her victim, but some of the priests were not. They were already muttering “witch” and recounting the tale of her grandmother, who had so ensorcelled her grandfather that he put aside his own wife, stole “the witch” from her husband, and defied man and God to keep her with him all the days of their lives. It was said of Eleanor’s grandmother that she did not die a natural death, but having been tricked into church, she changed to a monster and flew out the window when the Host was elevated. Devout as he was, King Louis was not listening to the priests; nor were his political advisors. They were encouraging Louis to pamper his wife since her lands were wider and her wealth greater than those of the French monarchs.

  I never thought Queen Eleanor was a witch. I had seen that kind of charm before in my sister-by-marriage Mildred. Nor did I believe that Eleanor intended to bewitch and enslave any more than Mildred did. Just to be near her woke excitement—not of the body, that would not have affected me, although I think she could have roused that too in a man—of the spirit. She was so full of life, of the desire to give and receive ideas, that she filled those around her with a kind of joy in everything. It was as if a great and brilliant light was cast into places one had never troubled to look before, and old, dull thoughts took on a new luster and appeared new and curious in that light. One could see the reflection of that light in her husband’s eyes and one could see that the priests that clung around Louis were not pleased with what the light of Queen Eleanor’s eyes showed him.

  I liked her better for that; I remembered how the priest in Ulle had hated Mildred for her oneness with the earth and the nonhuman creatures of the earth. I only wished I could catch from Queen Eleanor that ability to enchant men. Not that I lacked for attention; I never missed a dance or a man to sit beside me at the great feasts and offer me the tenderest cut of meat, the best of the winter roots, the most delectable piece of subtlety. But that was only for the beauty of my face and the rich curves of my body—and those would fade with time. I knew that Mildred, had she lived, and Queen Eleanor would be as desired, as sought, when they were worn and wrinkled with age.

  I watched and I listened, hoping to find the key to Queen Eleanor’s powers. If I could catch just one strand of the rope with which she tied men to her, it would be enough. After all, I had only one man to bind, not a whole troop of courtiers. Then I thought of the long winter days in Ulle; to me such days, spent sitting by a roaring fire, had been full of rich contentment, but I wondered whether a man used to court life might grow dull and restless, and I expended the purse Bruno had filled before we parted. I did not buy the fine fabrics or ornaments he had urged me to get for myself—what would I do with silk brocades or jeweled earrings in Ulle? I bought leaves of parchment on which sweet songs and tales of love were written. I bought a few lengths of cloth too, silk thin enough to float on air. One length was white, another rose. Even in a dim light a man could see through shifts made of that cloth.

  News came from England, not all of it through Queen Maud, and when someone who knew the country put together this and that, the news was not good. King Stephen suffered no defeats; indeed, he put down several rebels and struck some shrewd blows very close to the rebellion’s heart. But one man cannot be in many places at once, nor can he long rush from one end of a kingdom to another without failing. I could not think about that, not without seeing Bruno’s face grey and haggard. I worried instead about whether King Louis would think as I thought and refuse to allow the betrothal of Constance and Eustace.

  Queen Maud had her own form of power, however; she could not fascinate as could Queen Eleanor, but she could bind men to her will also. Although Maud’s manners were gentle, she had great strength and authority and she was every bit as clever, though much less learned, as Eleanor of Aquitaine. I know she had a great sum of money to use as bribes, and perhaps that was the greatest of her powers—but that would not have worked on King Louis, who was fond of his sister and too high-minded to take a bribe if he believed the arrangement would place Constance in danger or bring her unhappiness. Possibly Maud was also skilled in lying with great conviction and managed to convince King Louis that, despite reports, Stephen was in control of his country.

  Whatever power Maud used, she brought the negotiation to a successful conclusion. By April we were on our way home, taking Constance with us, only to learn that the situation was even worse than we had heard and that the whole country had burst into little private wars as a leper’s skin bursts out in weeping sores all over his body. It was fortunate that the queen had traveled with a strong troop from her own land of Boulogne to make a show for the French and had brought them back with us because the king could not come to meet us. His army was engaged in the west. The Boulognese escorted us to London, where Maud found the bishop of Winchester waiting for her.

  Many evil things have been said of Henry, bishop of Winchester—that he was mad for p
ower and had built and otherwise gained more castles than Salisbury had, that he had counseled the release of the empress out of spite because Stephen had denied him the archbishopric, that the request he now made to the queen to allow him to propose terms of peace to the empress and her brother was also out of hatred for Stephen. I never believed it. I always liked Winchester. I am not saying that he was not vain and ambitious or that he was not hurt and bitter about the way his own brother had turned on him after he had won a kingdom for him. From what I saw, and I happened to be caught up in both the release of the empress and the dealings Maud had with Winchester over the proposed peace, I think he was doing his best to reduce the agony of a country he saw being torn and burnt and ruined.

  Maud had heard enough both in letters from the king and from petitioners for her help that she agreed at once to Winchester’s request. I was never so glad of anything in my life for I had a letter too, and it frightened me half to death it was so strange. There was not a word about fighting, nor one word of news of any other kind either, only a long lament of Bruno’s need for me. It is true that the pretense that Bruno did not care for me had long since been abandoned, but Bruno’s letters never held serious complaints. They were always designed to soothe me or to make me laugh; this, although it did not ask openly, was a cry for help. I would have gone to him, despite the fact that it meant coming onto a battlefield and even though Edna and I would have to ride without Fechin to protect us—but I did not know where to go. By the time we reached London, the action we knew of had been broken off and the king was hurrying east to quell Hugh Bigod, who had broken into revolt.