SirenSong (18 page)

“Do not be so foolish, William,” Elizabeth murmured,
breaking their kiss reluctantly. “Everything I said to you in Hurley is still
true. I do not love Mauger, but he does not deserve that I abandon him and
shame him. And even if you are right and the boys could some day bring
themselves to forgive me for—”

“Do not say that word again!” William exclaimed, getting to
his feet. His eyes were unnaturally bright.

“What word? Oh. No, but—”

“A divorce,” William said forcefully. “We will find some
innocent reason. It need not be very compelling. Richard will ask Boniface, the
archbishop of Canterbury, to grant it, and—”

“William.” Elizabeth rose and took his hands in hers.
“Mauger would never agree unless I left Hurley in his hands. I love you with
all my soul and all my body but I could not do that to my people. He would
destroy them and the estate.”

That was an argument William could not counter, and he
stood, biting his lips, trying to think his way around the obstacle. “I could
make it worth his while,” he said finally. “I have not much ready money, but
Richard would lend me whatever I asked for. I could—”

Again Elizabeth stopped his speech with a kiss. Internally
she shuddered at the load of debt William was ready to shoulder to obtain her.
Pride mixed with horror. It was sweet to be so precious.

“You can do nothing now,” she pointed out, as soon as she
released his lips. “When you come home from Wales, we will consider this
again.” Her voice was calm, but a shudder of fear passed through her at the
mention of Wales, and her eyes grew blind looking for a moment. William pressed
her back into the chair, bending over her protectively.

“You are afraid,” he murmured. “I cannot leave you to Mauger
alone and afraid. Shall I…shall I write to Richard and…and…” He could not even
bring himself to say that he would refuse to do the duty laid upon him and
thereby betray his overlord’s trust. For one moment joy leapt in Elizabeth’s
heart while she thought she could keep him safe out of the battles to come. In
the next, she realized that would be as good as dead, worse than dead, if she
destroyed his pride in himself.

“I am not afraid of Mauger,” Elizabeth said. “It is the war
I fear. It is nothing new, William, that I should fear war.”

“Well, go in.” Alys’s voice came sharply through the opening
of the door.

“I do not wish to intrude on such old friends,” Mauger
replied, completely without inflection.

“Do not be so silly,” Alys snapped. “Oh, I beg your pardon,
Sir Mauger, but if Papa wanted privacy he would lock the door. He often closes
it to keep in the warmth.”

Elizabeth laughed aloud at the stunned expression on
William’s face. Plainly Alys had told a barefaced lie in the smoothest and most
natural manner, and her father had never before caught her at such a thing. The
sound, as well as Alys’s warning guaranteed that Mauger would neither hear nor
see anything improper whether he waited or burst in at once, so he opened the
door fully. He found his wife still smiling, her face turned toward the door,
and William wearing an expression of surprised affront that was scarcely
loverlike.

“I heard you had been taken ill just after I left,
Elizabeth,” Mauger said. “I am glad to see you so quickly recovered.”

“I was not ill,” Elizabeth answered colorlessly. “I had a
shock and felt faint for a few minutes. Sir William brought me in here because
he also thought I was ill and cold.”

It was the exact truth. Elizabeth, who had to live with
Mauger, did her best not to lie to him because she would have to remember her
lies or be caught in them.

“But what could have shocked you here?” Mauger asked.

His voice was smooth, but Elizabeth knew he was in a violent
rage. Suddenly she realized that he had almost certainly gone off with Alys to
try to talk her into becoming betrothed to Aubery. If Alys had been careless
and Mauger guessed that Elizabeth had warned her… He would kill her! She paled
and did not answer. She had forgotten the question. She did not see William’s
color rise as hers fell or the way he tensed, but Alys saw.

“It was my fault,” she said, her voice sharp and spiteful.
“I forgot it was the custom in your family, Sir Mauger, to keep your women in
ignorance like Moslem slaves. I told Lady Elizabeth about the war in Wales.”

“Alys!” William snapped, shocked at the tone and disrespect.

“I am truly sorry,” Alys then said, having given a good
reason for her father’s flush and tenseness. Her voice softened. “I had
forgotten also that Aubery was with the Earl of Hereford and would be in some
danger.”

“I had no intention of keeping my wife in ignorance,” Mauger
growled, goaded away from Elizabeth’s doings by his fury with the spoiled bitch
of Marlowe. “I did not know myself.”

The exchange had given Elizabeth time to think. Alys, she
realized, would never betray her to Mauger, whom she had never liked. She had
better get Mauger and William apart before something happened to put them at
each other’s throats. Elizabeth stood up.

“I would like to go home now, please,” she said. “I would
like to write—I mean, have a letter written to Aubery.”

Numbly, William responded to the flat statement by going
into the hall and telling one of the menservants to have Sir Mauger’s horses
brought from the stables. Aubery! But Elizabeth had not once mentioned the boy
in connection with the Welsh war, only when they had been talking about… He
sought wildly for an excuse to keep her, but there was none except the truth and
it was unthinkable to expose her when he must soon leave.

But he could not go back to the old relationship with
Elizabeth. He had tasted her. What if Mauger— No, Elizabeth said he had not
touched her in years and there was that woman…Emma. William sighed. Thank God
for Emma. Besides, now he remembered Mauger had said something about being
called up for Wales himself. That was odd…

He had no time to think it through, however, for Mauger was
beside him, saying a formal farewell. William had to give his attention to it
lest he do something stupid, and by the time he turned to help Elizabeth to
mount, she was up already. She was pale, very pale, but that did not surprise
him. He felt as if his own heart was being torn out.

Chapter Nine

William shifted on his cot and thought wearily that a
hundred miles or a thousand separating him from Elizabeth would not procure him
a full night’s sleep. Distance did not mute the siren’s song. He was in no
physical need, there were drabs enough in the camp, and he had no taste for
anything better than a vessel to empty himself into as he would use a chamber
pot. It was most fortunate that Richard was not with this army. William did not
believe he would have been able to fulfill his usual part in the jollifications
Richard made so much a part of camp life. He was actually glad to be able to
say he was too busy when the other vassals wished to make merry in the town.

He need not have been “too busy”. Raymond could have checked
that clerk’s accounts. It was obvious that large-scale supplies for war were
things with which Raymond was very familiar. Raymond… William shifted uneasily
again. Raymond was not happy. Oh, he was enjoying the war. He had been
delighted with the two small engagements they had fought. Perhaps he was a
trifle too daring, but he was a very strong fighter and he had held his place
well, not indulging in dangerous heroics.

Raymond was carrying a burden around with him, however, just
as William himself was. They were sharing a tent for convenience and economy,
and too often when William lay awake he could hear that Raymond was also
sleepless. Another symptom of the young man’s unease was a recent spate of
looking unhappily at William and saying, “Sir—” and then letting his voice
drift away. Or, if William was so unkind or lacking in thoughtfulness as to
ask, “Yes, what?” flushing up and shaking his head with an awkward, “Nothing.
Sorry, sir.”

William’s sore heart ached for him also. It seemed so hard
that, having lost so much already, he could not have the sweet compensation of
a woman he could love. The hunger in his eyes when a messenger rode in from
Marlowe with a letter from Alys was pathetic. Why should Raymond not have Alys,
William asked himself again. Alys seemed somewhat inclined in that direction,
and she had certainly decided against Aubery for good, although she confessed
to her father that she had not been as definite with Sir Mauger, because it was
really her father’s business to refuse the match.

That knowledge sent William off to Hereford two days ahead of
his troop so that he could speak privately and at length with Aubery. The talk
was one bright spot in the muddle of unhappiness. Shamefaced but honest, Aubery
had confessed he had no more desire for Alys than she had for him.

“I do not know why, sir,” the boy said, blushing hotly, “for
she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, but…but…”

“Never mind, Aubery,” William had replied, sighing with
relief that Elizabeth’s son, whom he loved for his own sake also, would not be
hurt. “I am only glad that you and Alys are agreed. I would have liked you for
a son, but I hope I have not lost much. I hope you will love me even if there
is no blood bond between us.”

The answer to that had been completely satisfactory, but,
three days later, Aubery had come, white-faced, to beg William not to tell his
father he had admitted he did not love Alys. William reassured him, saying that
the admission had really had no effect on the question of the marriage. He
would have grieved, if he knew Aubery had been hurt, but he would not have
forced the marriage on Alys in any case. Aubery need not worry. It was
William’s business to settle with Mauger, and he could easily do it from Alys’s
point of view without ever mentioning Aubery.

Although that was true, William found he could not approach
Mauger with a rejection he knew would hurt and disappoint him. It just seemed
too much first to refuse his son—for that was how it would seem if Aubery could
not bring himself to say he did not want Alys—and then to take his wife. As his
thoughts came back to Elizabeth, William groaned aloud.

“Are you ill, sir?” Raymond’s voice came anxiously from the
other cot.

William barely suppressed another groan. “No,” he said. “Go
to sleep, for Mary’s sweet sake.” There was no reply, but William knew Raymond
was watching him in the dark, and he added, “I have eaten and drunk nothing but
from our own supplies. I am not sick or in pain. Go to sleep.”

That was another puzzle. Two weeks past, when they were
still mustered at Hereford, William had returned from a hunt with the earl and
some cronies to find a roast and garnished goose in his tent. The gift had not
surprised him. When men with loving wives received special tidbits from home,
they often shared them with friends. He had not eaten of it because he was bid
to dinner in the keep and, because he was hurried, he forgot to leave a message
that Raymond should eat it. Then, either he or Raymond had left a flap of the
tent undone, and one of the dogs that roamed the camp had found his way in.
When William had returned he had tripped over the sprawled body of the
dog—dead.

Anything might have killed the animal. It was a stray, mangy
and scrawny, but it was a suspicious thing that no one would come forward and
say he had sent the goose. William had not inquired about any of these matters,
but Raymond had gone about the camp to offer thanks for the gift and no one
would accept the thanks. That roused Raymond’s suspicions, and he had voiced
them to William, who had laughed at him, asking who in the world could want him
dead.

Neither of them could answer that question, and the dog’s
body and the half-eaten goose were already disposed of. It was a suspicious
circumstance, but there was no one to suspect except Richard’s clerk. William
liked him no better than he had at first, but there was no sign of dishonesty
in his records. It was ridiculous to suspect him anyway because he could not
have had anything to do with the other two incidents. But they
must
be
accidents of camp life, William told himself.

Private quarrels did break out in an army, and the men
involved were sometimes so infuriated that, instead of quieting when ordered to
do so, they turned on the authority that tried to constrain them. It was
fortunate that he and Raymond had been armed, being on their way to practice
jousting. Even so, it had been a near thing. There had been only four men when
they dismounted to settle the fight, but several more had rushed over. The
noise had carried, and rescue had arrived before he or Raymond had been hurt.
The men had scattered, except the few Raymond and he had killed or wounded, so
that was the end of it.

But then there had been the arrow that had skinned his left
arm. That was a little harder to explain. It was a Welsh arrow, but many
Englishmen used the Welsh bow now because it was easier to aim and much quicker
to use than the crossbow, and it really was not likely that one single Welsh
bowman would be so near the English camp. A few inches to the right, and
William knew he would have been dead. Raymond had insisted that it was done
apurpose, an attempt at murder, but William could not believe it. There simply
was no reason for anyone to murder him—except Mauger.

William nearly groaned again, but remembered Raymond in time
and kept his feelings to himself. It could not be Mauger. Mauger did not yet
know that he had a reason to hate his neighbor. He could not know. His manner
to William was exactly the same as it had always been. In fact, Mauger had very
good reason to want to keep William alive. Since he had not yet rejected the
marriage between Alys and Aubery, Mauger must believe he still favored it. His
death would end all hope of that union. Richard would doubtless find a much
better match for Alys.