Fires of Winter Read online

  Wonder was what I felt at first. I had assumed that a whore’s bastard would hunger for riches or for power and that no gain of either or both would ever satisfy him, for what is lost at birth can never be fulfilled. But I had been wrong, as far wrong as I could be. What Bruno starved for was love, to be cared for and caring.

  When the meaning of that revelation burst on me, I was frozen in place with fear. Perhaps I had been more terrified when the ram burst in the door of Ulle’s hall or when I first woke from my long madness and found Bruno mounted and thrusting into me, but that fear was for my body and this was for my everlasting soul. I saw how this man could be bent and broken, made into a puppet to do my will. I need not murder his body to get revenge; I could destroy his soul instead.

  Perhaps if the embrace Bruno and his sister were sharing had lasted another moment, jealousy would have been added to the ferment inside me. But I had barely recovered from the shock my revelation had brought when Bruno turned Audris so she saw me.

  “Here is the surprise I promised you, dearling,” he said. “This is Melusine, my wife.”

  “Oh, how beautiful she is! How lucky you are, Bruno!” Audris exclaimed, and flew to me.

  I say flew because I know no other way to describe Audris’s movement. It was so quick and so light that her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. When she was still, as she was in the next moment, having taken my hands to look smiling into my face, she was a tiny creature, not at all beautiful because she was so blond that she seemed altogether faded. Yet there was something about her that called aloud to my heart—was it that her eyes, so pale as to be colorless, sparkled so brightly, that the barely tinted lips curved up at the corners as if laughter always lived in her, or simply the overflowing warmth and natural joy of her greeting to Bruno.

  Certainly that last must have had a large part in my response because, as I pressed her hands in mine, I offered no conventional greeting but asked, “Why do you call Bruno brother? He speaks of you always as Lady Audris.”

  “Bruno is an idiot!” she exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder with a smile that could have melted the ice cap on a mountain in winter. “He is always mumbling and mowing about his unworthy mother. Who cares a fig for his mother? I cannot even remember her, she died so long ago. He is my father’s son, my brother, who cared for me every day of my life—”

  “Your father did not recognize me, Audris—”

  She let go of me and silenced him with a kiss, crying, “Hush! I will hear no more of it, and if you once call me lady, I will—I will pour honey in your hair!”

  We all three burst out laughing, but even as I laughed my eyes filled with tears. The threat was so clear an echo of a childhood spent together in perfect security that it not only assured me that Audris had told me the truth about the value she set on Bruno but also brought back to me my squabbles with my younger brothers. Audris had turned back to me, I suppose with an invitation to come within on her lips, but instead she took my hand again and whispered, “Oh, Melusine, I have hurt you.”

  “No, no,” I stammered, “not you. Memories, only memories.”

  And Bruno was beside me, his arm around my waist. “She has much to grieve for,” he said softly to Audris. “And it cannot be amended.”

  “Then I will overlay the hurt a little with a sweet poultice—I will show you my son,” Audris said, glanced at Bruno, and tightened the grip of her small warm hand on mine. “But not at once,” she went on, smiling. “My aunt says I am a featherhead—” Her voice checked and her eyes widened. “Oh bless me, I will be scolded again. I never stayed to listen to the end of the guard’s tale and learn that Bruno had brought another guest. As soon as I heard his name, I went running—” She sighed and shrugged. “Well, it will not be the first time.”

  Bruno laughed. “Nor the last neither, if I know you. Poor Lady Eadyth, how hard she tried to teach you the skills and duties of a lady.”

  “I had rather climb for hawks or weave,” Audris retorted. “What good would come of my knowing Lady Eadyth’s skills? I could never practice them without taking from her a great pride and pleasure. Do not be so silly, Bruno. Now come within, you are both all wet. My aunt will have dry clothes for you, and bath water heating, and all measure of guestly greeting.”

  My pain had disappeared completely as I listened to this exchange. I suppose that was its purpose but I never thought of that. “You climb for hawks?” I gasped.

  Bruno groaned and Audris laughed this time. “He taught me when we were children and he is still blaming himself for it, but Jernaeve has the most and the finest hawks in any shire in the land. Come, love,” she soothed, looking around me at Bruno. “There is no danger for me anymore. Hugh goes with me and I tie a rope to me so I cannot fall.”

  “Hugh goes with you?” Bruno repeated in a stunned voice, and I looked with great admiration on that little lady who had so bewitched her husband that he assisted her in doing what would bring on a fit in most husbands.

  “Not right now,” she said as we entered the forebuilding, broke our grip on each other, and began to climb the stair to the hall entrance. “And do not begin to scold him about it, for he agrees with you from the heart and is not a whit more able to resist. Besides, he is still weak from his sickness after the battle.”

  “Sickness!” Bruno exclaimed, stopping on the stair. “But the priest said he had not been hurt—”

  “Go up,” Audris urged. “He is better now, so there is no sense in worrying.”

  I had no time then to marvel at the great hall, which was as large as that of Richmond—and might have been even stronger—because near the door was waiting the ugliest man I had ever seen in my life. His hair was so red that it glowed, even in the dim light of the hall; his eyes were so far apart that I wondered if he saw two images; his nose was an eagle’s beak; his long, narrow chin jutted too far forward—and then he smiled, and I forgot everything except that his eyes were a beautiful, luminous blue and he was welcoming me with a rare warmth.

  The welcome, of course, was not for me at all; it was for Bruno, whom he clasped in his arms and kissed. And Bruno returned the embrace, but gingerly, as if he feared to do hurt by too tight a grip. Then he pushed away and scanned Hugh’s face anxiously—for I realized this must be Hugh Licorne, Audris’s husband—and urged him back toward the great hearth, where a fire burned low and benches were set.

  I have always been very partial to red-headed men, finding them more attractive no matter what their features than dark men like Bruno. However, I must admit that Hugh was an exception. Seeing him side by side with Bruno made me aware that, dark or light, my husband was a handsome man. I glanced sidelong at Audris, wondering how she had felt about Hugh’s face when she first saw it, but the silly question slipped from my mind. All laughter had fled from her eyes and their brilliance was shadowed by remembered pain and fear.

  In the next moment it was gone and she had called out merrily to halt Bruno’s questions about what had befallen his friend. “One moment only,” she cried, laughing. “I know there can be no longer stay before you plunge into a blow by blow explanation of the battle, but Hugh must greet Melusine. This is Bruno’s wife, Hugh.”

  Two long strides brought Hugh back, and he bowed over my lifted hand and kissed it. “This is the most wonderful surprise!” he exclaimed. “I wondered what on earth Bruno could have meant, saying he had been knighted and was bringing us a surprise. Knowing Bruno—he has the strongest penchant for picking up ugly creatures and nurturing them; after all, he bade Audris love me—I had not expected anything so beautiful.”

  “That is quite enough,” Audris put in, grinning. “I know I am half a loaf compared with Melusine—”

  “Ah,” Hugh murmured, running his eyes over her so deliberately that they might have been hands and I felt myself blushing, “but it is the half I like best, so I will keep it, never fear, and keep it warm too so it never go
es stale.”

  “Is it not beautiful,” Audris said, turning to me, “to have so dedicated a lecher for a husband. I never have the slightest fear that he will take another woman. At night I keep him hard at work, and in the daytime he is far too tired to manage more than his duties in the keep.”

  “In the name of God, Audris,” Bruno protested, “Melusine is not yet accustomed to your humors. Let her test the water a little at a time. Do not throw her into the river all at once.”

  “But that is the best way,” Audris countered. “Did you not take me beyond my depth to teach me to swim?”

  “Not unless I was there to hold you up,” Bruno said, innocently and unwisely, forgetting the original subject.

  Audris widened her eyes. “I have no objection to you holding up Melusine. Often it is better so.” She giggled. “But then I think Hugh has the better part. Half a loaf is lighter.”

  “Audris!” Bruno roared.

  My face must have been redder than uncooked beef, but I could not help a little choke of laughter as Audris raised her eyes to heaven and sighed. What she would have said next I cannot guess, because just then a tall woman came toward us, her eyes fixed on me with a slight frown.

  “Aunt,” Audris said, smiling brilliantly, “this is Lady Melusine, Bruno’s wife. She is the surprise he wrote about in his letter. Is it not wonderful?”

  “I am very happy to meet you, Lady Melusine,” Eadyth responded. The frown smoothed away, and I had an instant to wonder whether she had thought Bruno had brought his leman with him before she added, “Audris, you take Lady Melusine into my chamber, where I told the servants to bring the bath because the fire was already lit there. Perhaps one of my gowns will fit—”

  “I have dry and more…suitable clothing in my saddle roll,” I suggested.

  “So much the better,” Eadyth said, nodding. “You will be more comfortable in your own clothes. I will have everything brought to the chamber for you, and send a maid, and have more water heated, and perhaps something extra prepared for the evening meal—”

  “Never mind the maid, aunt,” Audris interrupted. “I will help Melusine bathe.”

  “Help or hinder?” Eadyth asked tartly. “Remember that Bruno is also wet and cold—”

  “Yes, aunt, we will be quick,” Audris promised, leading me away.

  “You are very patient,” I said. “Does it not tease you that she treats you like a child—and a silly one at that?”

  Audris’s twinkling eyes glanced up at me and her lips curled in a mischievous grin. “I am accustomed,” she said. “And it suits me in many ways. She lifts the whole burden of woman’s work in Jernaeve from my shoulders, and our paths do not often cross. When I am not in my own chamber weaving, I work in the garden or ride out into the hills—that is, I used to do so. Of late, I have been too busy with Hugh and Eric—oh, Eric is my son, a little more than three months old, and Hugh—” The shadow I had seen earlier again darkened her eyes as she said, “—Hugh nearly died and I was busy nursing him.” Then the shadow was gone and she smiled anew, adding, “But it comes to the same thing. Aunt Eadyth cares for the keep and I am free to care for what is important to me.”

  Her moods were like quicksilver and she spoke lightly of her aunt, but I remembered what she had said in the bailey about taking from Eadyth her pride and her pleasure in caring for Jernaeve. My heart warmed to Audris as I considered how clever she was and how kind. Nor did she suffer from leaving matters in her aunt’s hands, I thought, considering the order and decency in the hall we had just quitted. And Eadyth did not stint herself either, I decided, as we entered the small chamber carved out of the thick wall of the keep. It was lit by tapers—the room had no smell of torch smoke so the tapers were not only for a guest—and had a small fireplace, with a slit in the stone wall above to draw out the smoke, not that there was much, for the wood that was burning was well dried. There was a cot, narrow but with a well-plumped mattress on the wall facing me and two large chests along the wall to my right. A chair—a real chair with back and arms—had been pushed aside to make room for the oval wooden tub.

  I do not remember exactly what we talked about, while the servingmen filled the tub. Then Audris helped me unlace my riding dress, after which she ran out and came back with a handful of herbs to cast into the bath water just as I rid myself of my undergarments. From that we came to talk of wild herbs, and I found myself telling her about my life in Ulle. I stopped midway, catching my breath over a stab of grief, and she cupped my face with her hands but did not ask a question or offer a word of sympathy. It was exactly the right thing, for between weariness and the many shocks and surprises coming to Jernaeve had brought, all the horrors of my life since Ulle was taken would have poured out of me. I could not have endured that in my present state. I think I would have begun to scream or slipped back into madness.

  How Audris knew, I cannot guess, but she said, “Oh, herbs. I had better make a confession to you and explain, since I hope you will stay with us for a time. There are those who call me witch—but I am not, I swear it.” And went on to tell me about her knowledge of medicines and then about her weaving certain pictures that seemed to tell the future.

  I did not make any direct answer, other than to say I did not hold to the common fears on such subjects. But I thought to myself, for I felt close to Audris already, that it seemed my fate to love those who, like Mildred, were looked upon askance by others.

  Although I would have liked to soak until the water grew cool, I did not linger in the bath, remembering that Bruno would need to wash also and that it would soon be time for the evening meal. As soon as a maidservant brought in my clean clothes, I dried myself and dressed and we went out into the hall again. Bruno and Hugh were still talking about the Scottish invasion, but when we drew close, Bruno stopped mid-question and looked up and around as if he had suddenly become aware of how much time had passed and missed something.

  “Where is Sir Oliver?” he asked.

  There was a dead, breath-held silence, and then Audris said in a trembling voice, “He is dead, Bruno. He was wounded in defending the lower wall. I tried to save him.” Her voice shook more and more, tears began to flow, and she wailed between sobs, “I did! I did! I tried to save him!”

  Hugh had started to rise, but Bruno had already gathered Audris into his arms, by habit patting her and soothing her while his eyes sought Hugh’s and he repeated in a voice totally without emphasis or inflection, “Dead? Sir Oliver is dead?”

  Hugh opened his mouth, perhaps to explain, but Audris’s voice rose in that thin, pitiful wail. “I did try to save him. Why could I not save him, when I healed so many others?”

  “Of course you tried, dearling,” Bruno said. “You loved him. He knew. All knew how you loved him.”

  “Did he know, Bruno?” Audris pleaded, lifting her face to his. “Did he know? I never told him, or only once or twice, and I went away to Hugh and hurt him so much—so much. He thought…he said…I did not trust him.”

  Bruno had lowered his eyes to his sister’s face, but I do not think he saw her—for the first and only time in his life. “But you came back. You trusted your life and your son’s to him in the time of greatest danger. He was angry, no doubt, but I am sure all was well between you before the battle. He never could resist you, Audris. You had a smile and a fond word. He knew you loved him.”

  There was something terribly wrong with Bruno. It was not only that he was shocked and surprised to hear of Sir Oliver’s death. Something deep inside had been broken. He was saying all the right things, but he might have been a body raised from the dead and made to talk for all the life that was in him. We all felt it: Hugh looked agonized and was wringing his big hands helplessly. Audris was fighting a battle with her grief and hysteria, and though I had lost much, much more than she, still I was sorry for her. It must be dreadful indeed to have a loved one die under one’s own ministeri
ng hands and wonder forever if you had done too much or not enough.

  I too had reacted to Bruno’s state; instinctively, I came forward and put a hand on his arm. I do not know if he noticed—he did not turn or glance at me—but he began to speak again, shaking Audris very gently. “Love, love, do not weep any more. You know that if Sir Oliver could have chosen the death he desired it would have been to die defending Jernaeve. Now, love, I must leave early tomorrow to carry the king’s messages. Will you weep away the few hours I have to spend with you?”

  Gasps of protest broke Audris’s sobs, and in a little while smiles replaced the gasps when Bruno admitted that he had only spoken about tomorrow itself and the week or so it would take him to find the recipients and deliver the king’s messages. He would leave me in Jernaeve, if I were willing and welcome—upon which Audris flew to me and embraced me and begged me to stay, promising she would not be so dismal another time and offering so many, and so ridiculous, inducements, that an anchorite would have agreed with laughter.

  While Audris was busy convincing me to stay, Hugh drew Bruno down on the bench beside him again and asked, “What messages do you bear, and to whom—unless it is a secret matter?” Hugh looked worried, and Bruno shook his head and began to explain about Stephen’s thanks to those who had withstood the Scots and the secondary purpose under the honor offered Aumale.

  Audris sat beside me, casting only one brief, worried glance toward Bruno. She seemed contented that he was talking easily to Hugh, and I felt surprised that one so sensitive to my moods and so loving to her brother should not notice that all was not well with him. Later, I realized that she was so accustomed to Bruno being the strong one who protected her that she had believed his distress was over the violence of her grief. Her will and attention were all to hide any further expression of it.