Fires of Winter Read online

  Monday morning was worse, however. Stephen sent me on an errand to Robert de Vere that any page could have run, and when I reminded him that I had hoped to be on the road north as soon as Melusine had broken her fast, he shrugged and said it did not matter whether I left that day or another. Then I knew that although he would not openly oppose Waleran’s desire to be rid of me, he intended to keep me from day to day as long as he could.

  Robert de Vere, the king’s constable, did not keep me waiting as he might have kept a page, so my errand was dispatched more quickly than the king expected. And Vere liked me, I think—he had stood sponsor to me at my knighting—and was no fool. He said nothing to me about Stephen’s reluctance to grant leave to those he liked—Vere knew I was supposed to go from Stephen’s grumbling about it—but he accompanied me back to the king and when Stephen dismissed me, Vere blandly wished me a good journey and said he would bid me farewell now as he did not expect to see me again for some time. I fled the king’s chamber as if hounds were on my trail. If Vere could keep Stephen busy until I had left Winchester, Stephen might be angry but I doubted he would send after me and I was certain he would forget all about me while I was gone and welcome me back gladly. The king could be spiteful, but he did not carry a grudge.

  What I had forgotten when I told Melusine that we must hurry and leave was that she knew nothing of all this. I assumed too that in eight months with the court, no matter how absorbed she had been in her own grief, she would have learned how changeable Stephen was and that one must seize an opportunity when it occurs. Of course, I also did not know that she had any private reason to be fearful.

  I gave all my attention to seeing the small cart loaded so there would be room for Edna and the chests would not break loose and crush her. Then I rolled four extra blankets around the bundles of necessary clothing and other items we would need for the journey, since we would soon outdistance the cart. Inside Melusine’s roll I could feel the shape of a small pan, and I blessed her silently for being a woman who knew the uncertainties of travel. From the corner of my eye I saw her take the rein of her mare from the groom, but I was busy giving directions to the driver of the cart and the two guards and seeing them past the inner gate.

  When I hurried back, Melusine handed me my saddle- bags bulging full and I slung them over Barbe without really looking at her. And even when I lifted her to the saddle and she said softly, “You have found Vinaigre for me,” I hardly glanced at her but mounted Barbe and urged him forward. By then I knew there was no need for haste. If the king had decided to recall me, he would have done so at once. The only reason I can think of for feeling the devil was at my heels was that I was very weary of court life, very weary of the need to balance between offending great men or hurting small ones and protecting the king from their importunities, very weary of seeing a man I loved for his kindness and generosity act weakly, sometimes even dishonorably, under the influence of others. Until freedom was promised me and then nearly snatched away, I had not realized how desperately I needed to be free to speak my mind without fearing an unguarded word might do great harm.

  The need to flee was so strong that I kicked Barbe into a fast trot as soon as I was sure Melusine was steady in the saddle. We soon passed the cart, and I paused only briefly at the gate to describe it and bid the guards let it pass. Then we were out on the road and Barbe’s trot soon lengthened to a canter. I had no need to look back, for the thin head of Melusine’s mare with her wicked white-rimmed eye held steady at my knee.

  I know now that Melusine loves her dearly, but Vinaigre is a cursed beast if ever there was one. After we had ridden quite some time, the mare still did not need all her strength and speed to keep up with Barbe; she was surefooted enough to turn her head midstride and nip my thigh. My hauberk kept me from any bruise and I smacked her nose, but she did not slow or miss a step, only rolled that eye until I was sure she was laughing at me, and I laughed back good and hard.

  “Are we safe then, Bruno?” Melusine’s voice was tight with fear, and I reined Barbe in to a walk, and when we were side by side turned my head to look at her.

  “Safer than most travelers,” I replied soothingly, noticing that my wife’s face was white and strained. “The roads are not what they were in King Henry’s time, but I do not think any outlaws would bother attacking us. I am well but not richly armed and you are dressed plainly.”

  Astonishment replaced fear on her face. “Outlaws?” she echoed. “I thought we were fleeing the king!”

  “Good lord!” I exclaimed. “Whatever gave you such a notion?”

  “You gave me the notion,” she snapped. “You said if we did not leave at once, we might not be able to go at all. What did you mean, if the king is not angry?”

  “Just the opposite,” I confessed. “Stephen seemed to feel that he could not do without my service. I am sorry to have frightened you, but why should you think I had suddenly fallen from favor so completely that escape was necessary?”

  She did not answer at once, and then explained how she had obtained the cart and guards. “I thought, because of what the bishop of Winchester said about thanking you and being willing to serve you at any time, that my telling him of our journey had exposed some secret. And when you did not come back to our chamber to sleep or send me a message, I feared the king had learned of my indiscretion and lost his trust in you.”

  I let her finish her tale without questions, but it woke all my uneasiness about the strain between the king and the bishops again. I must have been frowning too because Melusine added, “Then what I did was stupid and dangerous. I am very sorry. I could not avoid the queen, but I could have—”

  “No, no.” I smiled and reached out to pat her hand, which was tense on the mare’s rein. “There was no harm in your telling Winchester, at least none to you or to me, and if there had been it would have been my fault for not telling you to hold the news secret. That is what is so strange. It was not a secret. God knows, Stephen was groaning and complaining to all his gentlemen that I asked for leave at the worst time. Why then did Winchester not know?”

  “You asked for leave?” Melusine repeated. “But did you not tell me that Stephen ordered you to carry messages north?”

  “I did. And, I swear to you, so it was, but the king remembers things in his own way. It was Waleran de Meulan who convinced the king to send me—”

  “Waleran de Meulan,” Melusine gasped, her eyes growing large with an emotion I could not read. “What have you to do with him?”

  “As little as I can,” I replied, “but unfortunately a great deal. Waleran is Stephen’s closest friend and advisor, so there is no way I can avoid him—and it is my duty not to do so.”

  “You are not Waleran’s man, are you?”

  “No. I am the king’s man, and the queen’s, but there is no conflict in that double loyalty, for the queen desires only the king’s good.”

  I answered promptly and forcefully, and I watched her because the question had been asked with such intensity. Melusine’s interest implied some connection between her and Waleran, but that was ridiculous and impossible—unless he had stopped at Ulle and some bond had been formed then? She had looked away so I could not read her face, but her knuckles, which had been white with the force of her grip, began to regain their ordinary color and she turned her head toward me again.

  “Then why should Waleran influence the king’s decision to send you north?” she asked.

  I could not tell whether the question was asked out of simple curiosity or was a clever diversion to prevent me from thinking about her interest in Meulan. “He thinks that it will be easier for him to learn what the king says and does in private if I am not on duty in the chamber,” I told her. “And the surest way to keep me from being on duty when matters that might be dangerous to Waleran are discussed is to have me gone from the court entirely.”

  Nothing showed in Melusine’s face but bright-e
yed interest as she asked, “If Waleran is, as you say, the king’s dearest friend and advisor, why does he feel he must watch Stephen so closely?”

  “The king has had other close friends and advisors who have lost their influence,” I said slowly, not certain of how much it was safe or wise to tell her. “I will say, in the king’s favor, that in both cases those men had said or done something that was truly offensive. However, I am not sure Waleran understands this. He is no monument of loyalty himself.” I explained how he had betrayed King Henry, and she listened without any change of expression.

  “I see.” She nodded. “Being untrustworthy himself, he cannot trust others, so he sent you away to be able to buy information from one or another of the knights and squires who attend the king. Then he would know who speaks against him and exactly what accusation was made so he can counter it without even seeming to know he was accused. Yes, that is all very well, but why now? Why not six months ago or six months hence?”

  For a moment I sat staring at her. I had been overjoyed when I learned that Melusine was not a half-wit, but I had not really connected that with the queen’s insistence that she was exceptionally clever until this moment. I had a sudden uncomfortable memory of the queen’s warning about falling into her power. But it was ridiculous to ignore a sensible question. There was no thread in this that could be woven into a rope that would tie me to Matilda’s cause.

  “Six months ago we were in the field and only a fool would speak against Waleran’s influence there. He is a fine soldier. He is certainly too good a soldier to want to deprive the king of a loyal companion to support him when fighting is to be done. That answers why he did not wish to be rid of me six months in the past.”

  When I said that Waleran was a fine soldier, Melusine turned her head away again, but she bent to pull and flatten the loose end of the stirrup strap, so I could not be certain whether hiding her face was deliberate. That strap could have loosened during the canter and finally worked itself into an irritating loop. She had looked back at me wearing the same look of interest without too much intensity by the time I finished.

  “And as to six months in the future,” she remarked tartly, “once rid of you now, perhaps he hopes an accident or fate will remove you permanently. Never mind that. I thought from what you said that it was not easy to get the king to send you, so perhaps the king had more cause than usual to need a discreet servant. Or did I misunderstand?”

  “No, you did not misunderstand, but when the subject was first broached, a week ago, Stephen was not particularly unwilling to part with me. He was eager for me to renew my ties in Jernaeve—I must speak to you about that some time and explain, but it can wait. It was only after the canon from Canterbury came on Saturday that Stephen suddenly changed his mind. And you are right about something else. Waleran must have been desperate to be rid of me, for on Saturday night, after Stephen decided that he could not spare me, Jernaeve or no Jernaeve, Waleran took great trouble to get the king to let me go.”

  “A canon from Canterbury? Does that somehow fit with Winchester’s ignorance of the messages you carry?”

  “Not the messages. They have nothing to do with the Church. They are only Stephen’s thanks to such men as William d’Aumale and Walter Espec for holding back the Scots.”

  But even as I said the words I remembered how Waleran had prevented Stephen from using the priest to carry the messages so that none who received the rewards should think they came through the archbishop of York’s recommendation.

  “Not the messages,” I repeated slowly, “yet I am beginning to be afraid that through Waleran’s influence something is being planned against the Church—no, not the Church but against Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely.” Instinctively I stopped Barbe to turn him.

  “Are we going back?” Melusine cried.

  I sat still for a breath or two, conscience struggling with desire, until reason intervened. My distrust of Waleran was making me see wrong where there might be right. I knew that Salisbury and his nephews did their work efficiently, but was I so sure that they were loyal to Stephen? They had violated the oath they had given King Henry to support Matilda—of course, Stephen had violated the oath also, but it seemed to me that when a man of the Church swore he should be bound more straitly than a common man. Besides, from all I had seen and heard—although it was many years ago—I did not want Matilda for a queen. And it was not only Waleran who would have better information about what Stephen intended. If anyone around the king could be bought, the bishops could buy as well as Waleran.

  Turning Barbe’s head north again, I said to Melusine, “We will not go back.”

  “Thank God for that,” she sighed. “For you to thrust yourself between Waleran and the bishops is asking to be ground small between the upper and nether millstone.”

  “It is not that,” I protested. “If I thought I could do good for my master or for the realm, I would do it. I dare not try to interfere because I do not know what is right and what is wrong.” I told her then about the coldness between the king and his brother Winchester and how that coldness seemed to be spreading to Salisbury, Ely, and Lincoln, who were the highest officials of the realm.

  “And I have no doubt that Waleran de Meulan is doing everything he can to make cold colder,” Melusine mused when I was done. She was looking between Vinaigre’s ears, and I wondered whether she approved or disapproved of Waleran’s activity. Then she shook her head and turned to me again. “If I had known this, of course I would not have gone near Winchester.”

  “You think Waleran a better advisor than the king’s brother?” I asked, doing my best to sound indifferent.

  “How could I know such a thing?” she countered, not really answering my question. “What I do know,” she went on, “is that safety lies in being attached to neither party. I was a fool. I should have gone to the queen with my questions about the cart or found some other way to deal with the matter. It was just…when the king went into his chamber without inviting Winchester, I had the strangest feeling that the bishop was…lonely. Is that not the silliest—”

  “Not so silly,” I interrupted. “I am not sure the emotion you read was loneliness, but it might be. I think that Winchester greatly regrets the quarrel that hurt the king and wishes to amend the rift between them. But that Stephen should go to be private with Waleran without calling Winchester to join them might easily arouse strong feelings other than loneliness in the bishop.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Melusine stared at me, but I do not think she saw me. She was remembering something else she had seen. Then she drew a deep breath, as one does when coming to terms with some unpleasant thought, and she saw me again, grimaced, and said, “I see that I spoke at just the wrong time, but I wonder what Winchester thought I was hinting at? And why was he so excited about your carrying messages to the Scots?”

  I told her about Salisbury’s suggestion that Stephen press King David for a treaty but did not say why. It seemed unwise to discuss the probability of future rebellions with the daughter of a rebel. “I suppose,” I ended, “that Winchester hoped the king had changed his mind and decided to send a proposal. I am a Knight of the Body and would be considered a confidential servant; on the other hand, I am no great lord and could arrive at the Scots court and see King David privately, so if the idea of a treaty were refused, the matter might remain secret. It would have been a good plan, something old King Henry might have done, but Stephen is not subtle.

  “Do you wish for a treaty?” Melusine asked.

  “Yes.” I shrugged. “But my reasons are selfish. Northumbria is my home, and it is Northumbria that is first ravaged in any war with the Scots. I am not sure that the bishops were right.”

  Then I fell silent because those last words were more a tribute to my loyalty to Stephen than to reason. I had none of the king’s easy optimism. I could not believe that all rebellion had been quashed; neither could I bel
ieve that Robert of Gloucester would delay much longer in coming to England. Of course, if Queen Maud’s ships took him prisoner or drowned him in the narrow sea, all might be well; however, if he escaped and found a landing place in England, his vassals would fly to arms again and there would be much less reason for David to accept reasonable terms of treaty.

  “This is a lovely day for travel,” Melusine said lightly, after riding beside me in silence for a time. “When we see a pleasant place, we can stop to eat. I have food and a little wine in the saddlebags.”

  “Again, bless you,” I exclaimed. “I had completely forgot that the saddlebags on Barbe carry much less palatable stuff. Parchments and wax are poor stuff for filling a belly, however good these may be for the spirit.”

  I laughed, but I was most sincerely grateful to Melusine for so quickly leaving a subject that must have been of deep interest to her. A firm treaty with David would mean—or, at least, should mean—no support or encouragement for rebels in Cumbria, and that might make it easier to recover her land there. Yet Melusine had put aside her questions as soon as she saw the subject made me uncomfortable. I glanced at her, but her eyes were bright and her lips curved in amusement at my remark about parchment and wax. She was a very pleasant companion; I realized with a sense of surprise that for me Melusine was as easy to be with as Audris. Once more I reminded myself that Maud had been right about how extraordinarily clever Melusine was; and she might be right about her intention of ensorcelling me into an obedient slave. I almost wished, as she made some counter-jest about the food, that she would whine and complain or pick a quarrel.

  To my dismay, I found myself liking my wife better and better with every day’s travel—and that owed nothing at all to my physical desire for her. Except on one night I suffered no temptation, and on that night I was so tired that Sir Jehan could hardly lift his head and was easily discouraged. For the first four nights, we lodged in the hostels of either abbeys or convents, and both holy houses separated even married male and female travelers, lest they be desecrated by carnal congress, I suppose. The fifth day was wet, not a downpour, but a constant drizzle that annoyed without soaking. We had the choice of stopping too early to lodge in York and getting out of the wet or riding on to Ripon, which I thought we could reach before dark.