Fires of Winter Read online

  I offered the choice to Melusine, who said at once she wished to ride forward despite the rain. She seemed so eager to leave York, where we could have found comfortable lodgings, that I wondered whether she did not wish to stay near Archbishop Thurstan, who had created the army that defeated King David. Later, when it was growing really dark and I realized we had missed the side lane to Ripon, I wondered if Melusine had distracted me apurpose by her lively conversation from watching for it because she hoped to reach Richmond. That was one of the keeps from which she had tried to escape and it was possible she had friends there. But when that thought came into my mind and I said we should make camp, Melusine displayed no reluctance to stop. And she was so cheerful as we made the best of cold, damp food and huddled together under damp blankets that I blamed myself for imagining she had any evil intent.

  Indeed, I began to believe she had spoken the truth when she told me she did not wish to escape, that to run to her people could only do them harm. Certainly she made no attempt to escape, then or earlier when I gave her freedom—although not so much as she thought she had—to buy in the markets of towns we passed. Nor did she go from me that night, which she could have done for I slept very deeply. That worried me too. I should not have slept so soundly. No matter how tired I have been from march or battle, when there was reason to be watchful I have rested lightly, ready to wake at a twitch or a whisper. To let myself sleep like the dead meant that deep inside I trusted Melusine. Yet I knew it was wrong to trust her.

  In the morning, she was no less cheerful—making nothing of relieving her bladder and bowels behind a thin screen of brush and casting about until she found a wild apple tree from which she brought back a skirt full of fruit to add to the even damper bread and cheese that remained. Apples were also offered to Vinaigre and to Barbe, after she asked if he were allowed to have them. So much sweetness and light did nothing to ease my mind. I was sure any other woman in the world would have been hissing and spitting.

  As she helped me squeeze out as much wet as we could from the two sodden blankets we had hung from the limb of a tree to keep off the rain, my unease made me question her, disguising my purpose in flattery of her hardiness to discomfort. After looking at me in what seemed like honest amazement, she laughed most heartily at the notion that she would be deterred from doing anything by “a little mist in the air.”

  “When we come to Ulle,” she said, still laughing, “you will see what rain and wind are.”

  But then the laughter caught in her throat and she looked stricken and turned away. It was not fear or horror this time though. Something to do with rain and wind in Ulle had reminded her of an unpleasant idea? experience?

  We stayed that night at Durham, and the next day came to Jernaeve early in the afternoon. I do not remember much beyond the warmth of our greeting because after that I was told of Sir Oliver’s death. I had not known how much I loved him until I learned he was gone forever. I do not think I had ever suffered such grief and such regret. In the past, after the battle of Bourg Thérould, I had wept bitterly for the loss of my boyhood, but that was nothing compared with the scorching of my soul when I realized I could never tell Sir Oliver that I understood what he had done for me, that I had never touched him or kissed him in love in all the years he had cared for me. Only then did I understand that he could have cast me out naked and that instead he had given me a father’s care, provided for me as a loving parent would provide for a younger son.

  It was worse for me because I could not speak of my grief to Audris or to Hugh. Hugh was still weak from a fever that had come from many small wounds and nearly killed him. And what I saw in his face when Audris told me of her uncle’s death reminded me that he feared daily to hear the same news about his foster father, Archbishop Thurstan, who was an old man and very weak. To speak to Hugh of grief and regrets over the death of the man who had been, though I had never recognized it until too late, the only father I had, would come too close to his own fears and be cruel in his weakened state.

  And Audris was already suffering too much for me to add the weight of my sorrow to hers. When she told me, her voice choked with sobs and she wept with a racking bitterness I had never before heard from that happy soul. Later, I learned that seeing me had unloosed the sorrow that she had not permitted herself to feel earlier—at first, because immediately after her uncle’s death she needed to show herself confident to enhearten the men in Jernaeve to withstand the Scots, and after the Scots had fled all of her mind and will had been given to nursing Hugh, who had come to break the siege of Jernaeve with fresh wounds received in the Battle of the Standard.

  I comforted her as well as I could when each word she said was a twist of the knife in my own heart. My eyes burned with tears I would not let her see when she sobbed of her ingratitude, her failure to show her love, her cruelty to Sir Oliver in running away to Hugh. Yet compared with Audris, I was a monster. She had been a joy to Sir Oliver just for her elfin ways and had, in the end, kissed him and teased him and displayed her love even if she did not speak often of it. She had not gone to Hugh to hurt her uncle but to save him the hurt of losing Jernaeve. And I—even in my own heart—I had not appreciated Sir Oliver’s kindness to me. I had blamed him for “keeping me back,” and later resented being sent away even though I wanted to go.

  At last I diverted Audris by telling her that I must leave the next day. I could have taken some days of rest, but I could not bear to stay in Jernaeve until I had grown a little accustomed to my loss. Much as I loved Hugh, a rage rose in me when I saw him sit in Sir Oliver’s great chair. In crying out against the briefness of my visit, Audris’s self-blame was quenched, and I made her happy again by telling her that I would leave Melusine with her as a guarantee of my return. She lit with joy; however deep Audris’s grief, it did not cloud her spirit for long. I know most of the joy was for the assurance that I would return, but some was for Melusine’s company. I had seen the approval in Audris’s face when I brought Melusine to her and they had almost at once laughed together, I do not remember about what but it was easy, happy laughter that promised a true bond between them.

  Somehow I survived the evening meal and a few hours more, for it was important that Hugh know all I could tell him about the court and the outlook for King Stephen’s future. I held back nothing, not even my doubts of the king’s fixity of purpose—which Hugh knew because he had been at Exeter—or the doubtful wisdom of rejecting Winchester and Ypres in favor of Meulan. There were things I could say in words to Hugh’s face that I would never dare tell a scribe to write and might even hesitate to write myself, lest the letter fall into other hands. But when I had passed the essential news, I could bear no more. All the time I had been talking, I was holding back tears because I would never bring such news to Sir Oliver again.

  It was fortunate that Hugh was still not strong, and Audris thought it was my consideration for him when I said I was tired and would like to go to bed because I needed to make an early start in the morning. She might also have thought I was eager to lie with Melusine—or used that to silence Hugh when he wanted to draw out the talk—because she made crude and obvious jests as she showed us to the chamber Lady Eadyth had made ready. Audris may have the pale, transparent looks of an angel, but as I have always known, there is nothing else angelic about her.

  To save Melusine the need for explanations that might turn Audris against her when I was away, I roused myself to respond to the jests as if all were as usual for wedded folk between Melusine and myself. The effort distracted me from realizing that Audris had led us into the north tower chamber, Sir Oliver’s and Lady Eadyth’s old place. Before I could protest, Audris assured me that she had not put Lady Eadyth out, that her aunt had preferred to move to a wall chamber. Thus the north tower had become the best place to put guests. It had had several occupants already—Hugh’s great-uncle, Ralph Ruthsson, and Walter Espec, who had come for two days to see for himself how Hugh was so he co
uld carry the news to Archbishop Thurstan, who was praying himself sick.

  To my surprise, being in that chamber did not trouble me—and I realized that was probably the only place in all Jernaeve that I did not associate with Sir Oliver. I do not think I had ever been there in my life, certainly not in my father’s time and not later because a bedchamber is much more a woman’s than a man’s. Sir Oliver came into the bedchamber only to sleep or get children, both acts that were none of my business. He truly lived in the hall, in the armory, in the stables, and that life I had shared with him; it was that life I mourned, that life I could not bear to see others, even others dearly loved, usurp.

  Then Melusine laid a hand gently on my arm; I turned and saw tears in her eyes, and I understood what she had felt when I told her I would take her to Ulle.

  “I know now,” I said. “I will not make you go to Ulle. I will not sit in your father’s chair, as Hugh sits in Sir Oliver’s.”

  And she put her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. “Hush,” she murmured, “you are too hurt to think now. Let me help you undress.”

  When we lay together in the dark—it was cool enough so far north to close the bed-curtains against the small light of the night candle—she said softly, “Time heals, at least a little.”

  “It cannot heal me.” My voice cracked, but I had to confess to someone. “He was all the father I ever had—only out of the goodness of his heart. I had no claim on him. And I never thanked him, never, not once.”

  She slid an arm under my neck and drew me to her. “One does not thank those one loves. They understand without.”

  Then I wept, and she wept too, and the pain in my chest and throat grew a little easier so that I began to drift toward sleep. It was not until I woke in the morning and looked down at her and saw the stain of dried tears on her cheeks that I remembered my promise to the queen.

  Chapter 14

  Melusine

  Never did a journey begin so ill for me and turn to so great a pleasure. Once Bruno had explained that we were not fleeing for our lives and I had got over wishing to kick him for frightening me out of my wits—I had a little satisfaction in that Vinaigre had nipped him already—I was like a prisoner set free. If Bruno had been married to me to be my gaoler—as he had admitted—he was the strangest gaoler ever set as guard.

  A gaoler wishes his prisoner helpless physically and beaten in spirit. Bruno did nothing to curtail my liberty and seemed to delight in making me happy. He did not take back the purse he had given me to pay for cart and guards; he let me wander through the markets in the towns we passed and buy food to replace what we ate on the road; he urged me to buy for myself such small items as caught my eye—a pincushion with pins, which had somehow been left out of my sewing things, a net for my hair because mine had caught on a twig and been torn; from his own purse he paid for a veil that I admired because I shook my head and said I had veils enough when he bade me buy it.

  Most important of all, he did not try to keep me in ignorance, which is very strange for a gaoler, who should hope that ignorance will make his prisoner more helpless. Several times I had the odd thought that Papa, who loved me, was more eager to keep me in his power than this man, who had said it was his purpose to control me. Bruno answered any question I asked. I knew that sometimes he held back something from me, but that was because he did not trust me—which I did not like, but it was reasonable enough. He did not demean me by saying that he would protect me and I need not worry my beautiful head about wars and politics.

  To me it seemed sensible to explain. After all, Bruno knew we would have to return to court and I was less likely to say the wrong thing to the wrong person if I knew what was going on. What was remarkable was that Bruno apparently agreed that explanation was safe and sensible. Most other men would only have shouted at me, or perhaps beaten me, for what would have been a serious mistake in blabbing all to Winchester and ordered me to keep my mouth shut in the future—regardless of the fact that it is impossible for a lesser lady to keep her mouth shut when she is bidden to speak by some higher noble.

  All this kept me so interested that I hardly noticed the miles march by. Not that I would have complained no matter what pace Bruno set. He was so good to me, more considerate than was at all necessary—imagine asking if I wanted to break our journey just because of a little drizzle; I had ridden with Papa in downpours and raging storms if he decided he wished to be at some particular place. Papa might have worried about my being wet and chilled, but he never asked me if I minded.

  That night Bruno apologized to me for missing the turnoff to Ripon as he hung blankets to keep off the wet and said not a word of blame—yet it was my fault we missed the road as much as his. And, seeing me eye the tiny shelter with doubt—I doubted it would keep us dry, not the small size that would push us into each other’s arms—he promised again that he would not force me when he wrapped me and himself together for warmth. I almost wished he had. I often wished he would be harsh and cruel now that we were alone and he need put on no face for others. I was coming to like him too much—quite aside from the craving of my body for his.

  By the last two days of our journey, I felt in so great danger of my affection being fixed on this man as well as my lust that I could not ride long enough or fast enough to end our being alone together. I am afraid that my eagerness to come to Jernaeve, where I knew there would be others, made Bruno somewhat suspicious. He asked for no explanation however, and I offered none, but I sighed with relief when we came to the top of a rise and Bruno pulled Barbe to a halt and pointed a little northwest.

  “Jernaeve,” he said.

  Familiarity must have made clear to him what was little more than a distant cliff face above a sparkling river to me. Or a different kind of familiarity blinded me, for God knows Cumbria has more than its share of high cliffs bulging over rivers and lakes and no one would bother to build a fortress there. We build in the valleys, close to the little land we have that is suitable for crops.

  Even as we came closer I could see only stone, no sign of palisade or path or hall. It was only when we came right up to the bank of the river that I realized not all of the cliff was natural. Involuntarily I pulled Vinaigre to a halt and sat staring upward, suddenly aware of the two mighty towers and the wall of dressed stone that must have added thirty feet to the height. Now I understood better what Bruno had been telling me of the power and importance of Jernaeve, sitting astride one road that ran from Scotland to England and only a little more than one league from another, more important, highway. I did not like that threatening fist of rock crowned by that mighty bastion.

  “Who built it?” I breathed.

  “The first Fermain, I suppose,” Bruno replied, but without much interest.

  To him Jernaeve was a natural thing, a place he had always known. It did not look to him as it did to me, a lair for giants created by sorcerous arts. Bruno had smiled when he glanced up, a fond affectionate smile, such as one gives an old friend. There was no awe in his face, only a great eagerness—not for the place itself, I guessed, but for what was within.

  Until that moment I had given no thought at all during our journey to those who held Jernaeve. I knew Northumbria was more fertile and less mountainous than my own Cumbria, but I also knew it was harsh and desolate compared with the south of England. Thus, I had assumed the people of Jernaeve were much like those I knew at home. Now I recalled the way Bruno had spoken of introducing me to those who had been kind to him and cared for him, not claiming them as family, and I remembered my shame and anger for his lack of pride in desiring to display his new status as the husband of a gentlewoman. I blushed for him, but it was too late to speak. He was already easing Barbe down into a deep and dangerous ford.

  It was fortunate that Vinaigre was accustomed to our own rushing streams and sure of foot. We emerged unscathed only wet to the thighs, and I was furious that Bruno rode straigh
t to the gate. I did not wish to be presented to these proud people looking like a beggar maid, stained and muddied. I had a fine gown in my blanket roll. I could have changed in the shelter of the lower wall. But I could not hold on to anger, for awe overmastered me again when we were admitted.

  War had taken a toll of the lower grounds. Buildings had been burnt and were being repaired and restored, but I had little time to look about. The gate guard summoned his captain, and that man bowed as he bid Bruno welcome and said we might go up to the keep. I almost forgot my rage and shame in marveling as the horses climbed that road, winding back and forth to the upper gates. The upper bailey was untouched; I was not surprised that this keep had not been taken. Cattle lowed in the pens, dogs barked in the kennels, the sound of hammer on iron came faintly from a smithy I could not see. Before I could place any sound, Bruno was off Barbe, handing his rein to a groom who came running from the stable to our left, and he had turned to lift me down. I was barely on my feet when a small form flew across the bailey and flung itself on Bruno with such force that he staggered backward.

  “Bruno! Brother! Dearling!”

  The voice was high and sweet. I thought her a girl child before I turned to look, but even from the back the laced bliaut showed her to be a full-formed woman. She hung on Bruno’s neck and kissed his cheeks and his lips, then flung back her head to see his face. He crushed her to him, released her, hugged her again, murmuring, “Audris. Audris. I knew you would be safe.” And as he looked into her face, for the first time there was utter content in his. That deep hunger I had first seen when he burst in the door of the hall at Ulle and underlay every other expression was gone.