Winter Song (16 page)

“I must see the land for myself, then, to judge what the
yield should be.” Alys’s eyes gleamed. “I will have back from that bailiff
every groat I can squeeze out of him.”

“I will order the horses, my lady,” Arnald said, and went to
do so. He felt a strong sense of satisfaction. Like most men-at-arms, he had
never hesitated to take a woman or a chicken or pig from the serfs on occasion,
but he was horrified at the condition of the people on Blancheforte’s lands. It
gave his profession a bad name. If the bailiff had allowed such license, he
must be punished. Nor did he doubt Alys would do what she had said. Arnald knew
Sir William to be a kind and just man, yet he could scythe like the grim reaper
when he felt he had been cheated, and Alys was her father’s daughter.

When they left, with four men beside himself to ensure Alys’s
safety, she gave instructions to Hugo that he was not to admit anyone—except
Raymond, of course—to Blancheforte while she was gone.

“I do not care if it be the Kings of England and France
together,” Alys said. “It will be on my head. You do not need to give your
name, nor should you say more than you were bidden to hold the keep closed
until your master or mistress return. Not even the party with the rushes is to
be admitted. They must wait by the gates until I or Lord Raymond return.”

The excursion was a great success. The priest at Saint Remy
welcomed Alys almost as reverently as he would have welcomed a holy visitation
after she informed him she was the new holder of Blancheforte. He had a long
list of grievances, tithes not paid, personal abuse when he wished to visit the
people in the keep, mistreatment of those people when they wished to come to
church, and other insults. He had complained to his superiors, but nothing was
done. Here an expression of anxiety crossed his face. Alys could read the thought.
She was very young, perhaps the bailiff would have more power or influence than
she. Alys made no promises, for she recognized that there might be more behind
Master Ernaldus than she knew, however, he could no longer control
Blancheforte, and she wanted a priest. This, she was promised, would be
arranged.

The inspection of the demesne was equally satisfactory. Alys
looked over the fields and saw how the stubble lay, which fields were fallow,
and the color of the earth. The land, she judged, was rich as Marlowe’s, and it
had not been mistreated. Doubtless the bailiff had seen many, many years of
profit to be had from it. There were vineyards, too, but Alys frowned on those.
She knew nothing about grapes. Any new bailiff they appointed would need to be
experienced in the culture of the vines. Finally, most interesting of all was
the cattle on the common. It was a large herd, all fat, the cows with heavy
udders. Obviously these animals did not belong to the ragged, starving serfs.
Possibly the bailiff considered them his, but they were on her land. Alys sent
a man to fetch the herdsman to her. Finding that it was as she suspected, her
smile broadened. She left two men-at-arms to make sure no one tried to remove
the herd and to see that they were driven up to the keep at the end of the day.

They rode back to Blancheforte then, Alys casting nervous
glances at the sun and realizing she had been out longer than she had expected.
She knew that what she had been doing was necessary, but she hoped that Raymond
had not yet returned. Alys’s limited experience told her that men liked their
women to be at hand. Her father had always expected her to be ready to talk or
listen or serve him first. Other duties were to be fitted in as best she could.
Therefore, it was with relief that she noticed carts piled high with rushes
before the gate.

The waiting carts meant that Raymond was not yet at home, so
Alys did not increase the pace, discussing with Arnald where it would be most
convenient to pen the cattle. It was not until they were quite close that the
sound of angry voices came to her. Alys had a momentary fear that Hugo had
misunderstood her and would not permit her husband to enter his own keep, but
in the next moment she saw that the horse on which the shouting man was mounted
was not Gros Choc, Raymond’s destrier.

It was a very handsome animal, however, and the cloak and
hat were also fine. Alys beckoned to Arnald and touched her mare with her
heels, thinking up soothing speeches. If this were Raymond’s kinsman, she would
need to spread a thick grease of sweet words to soothe this additional hurt. As
they cantered up, Alys heard Hugo call down, “Here is my mistress now.”

“So,” the man said, turning on her furiously, “you gave the orders
to close this keep. By what right?”

“It is mine,” Alys answered calmly.

As she replied, she heard the soft slither of Arnald’s sword
as it came out of its sheath. There were four armed men with the enraged
stranger and their hands were on their hilts, but Alys was not alarmed. Two of
her men-at-arms were behind the carts of rushes, Peter and Aelfric were coming
forward. With Arnold, the five men could certainly protect her for the few
minutes it would take the rest of the men in the keep to rush out. It was more
important to Alys that the man could not be Rustengo de Soler. Rustengo would
not nave needed to ask her right to close the gates of Blancheforte.

“Yours! Who are you?” the man shouted.

“I am Alys d’Aix, née Marlowe, and Blancheforte is part of
my dower lands,” she replied, keeping her voice from betraying irritation. If
this man were some person of importance, she did not wish to cast oil on the
flames of his wrath. “And who are you, sir, that you question my right to close
my own gates?”

There was a brief silence while the man gaped and choked.
Finally he said, “Forgive me, my lady. I could not believe it could be you. I
had just come to look over the place to see… But you cannot be staying here. I
did not expect you so soon. I have a house all furnished, most commodious and
comfortable, for you in Bordeaux.”

“Oh? That is most kind.” Alys’s voice still had no
expression. “But you have not yet told me your name.”

“I am so overset to see you. I do not know whether I am on
my head or my heels. Do pardon me. I am your bailiff, Master Ernaldus.”

“So. No wonder you were surprised that the gates were
closed.” That remark came out too sharply. Alys bit her lip and choked back her
rage. She wanted the fly safely inside her web. “Hugo,” she called, “you may
open for us.”

The unusually elegant appearance of the bailiff had reminded
Alys of the priest’s worried expression. She did not think Ernaldus could have
extracted enough from Blancheforte alone to make him as rich as the horse and
clothing hinted, therefore, it was possible that he had a powerful protector or
protectors. The idea did not diminish Alys’s determination to remove
Blancheforte from his care and recover the rents he had swallowed. It merely
convinced her to be cautious about how she did it.

In the meantime, groans and screeches marked the lifting of
the gate bars. The gates themselves ground open and the mounted party rode in,
followed by the carts. On the inner wall the portcullis was already grinding
upward. Alys did her best to keep her face a mask while she stole quick glances
at the bailiff. He was frowning slightly as they passed through the outer
section, clearly too deep in thought to notice any change. Once in the inner
bailey, however, he was shocked to see men and women cleaning and repairing the
outbuildings, burning rubbish, and washing clothing and pallet covers. They had
been talking and laughing, but it cut off—even motion froze—when they saw
Ernaldus.

“What?” he gasped. “Who are these people?”

“My serfs,” Alys replied coolly, and then added lightly, “I
have a bone to pick with you, Master Ernaldus—which is not surprising since all
you have left here is a bone.”

As if he had not heard her, and indeed his surprise was so
great that her answer might not have sunk into him, he asked, “Where are the
guardsmen who were here?”

“In the prison cell of the donjon. Oh dear, I forgot all
about them. Did you remember them, Arnald?”

The master-at-arms’ sword was back in its sheath. The
bailiff’s attendants would know from what Alys had said that to start a fight
was suicide. They were four against they-knew-not-how-many. The portcullis
rumbled down again, and the bailiff looked over his shoulder and swallowed
convulsively. He had realized he was in a trap.

“Yes, I remembered them, my lady,” Arnald replied. “They had
a bucket of the filth the cook had put aside for the servants before we came
yesterday, and some water.”

“Good. I would not want them to die before Lord Raymond can
put them to the question.” Alys turned her head in time to catch the bailiff’s
expression, and she smiled. “Will you not come in, Master Ernaldus?” she asked
sweetly. “Perhaps you would dine with us? My husband will soon be home, I
believe.”

“Come in? Dine?” The bailiff’s eyes were protruding with a
mixture of terror and horror.

Alys was enjoying herself. She might not be able to recover
in gold or goods everything the bailiff had stolen, but she was already being
repaid in part. She fixed the man with her wide, innocent eyes.

“Our meal will be necessarily simple,” she apologized, “since
Blancheforte is mysteriously without the stores it should hold, but I am sure
you will understand and make allowances.”

Without giving him time to reply, she turned to Arnald. “Take
Master Ernaldus’s men and see that they are properly entertained,” she said. “Do
them no hurt,” she added in English, delighted to have a private language, “but
keep them out of the hall.”

On the words, Arnald let out a piercing whistle, and
men-at-arms began to converge on the party from all sides. Ernaldus’s men
hesitated only a moment before they came off their horses. The odds, with the
portcullis closed, were too great, even for mounted men. The bailiff sat in his
saddle, dumbfound.

“Surely,” Alys said sweetly, “you will not reject my
hospitality, poor as it must be. There is much we must discuss, and I know my
lord and husband has a great, even an urgent, desire to meet you.”

It was not a statement designed to calm a man with a guilty
conscience. Aelfric and Peter had dismounted during Alys’s ingenuous speech.
She slid down into Aelfric’s arms, but Peter had to help the bailiff from his
saddle. Master Ernaldus looked around desperately, but his men were halfway
down the bailey, accompanied by Alys’s men-at-arms. The trap had closed, and
Ernaldus knew it. He had never dreamed that the holders of Blancheforte would
arrive so soon. He had doubted that they would come at all, although he had
taken the precaution of ordering that the place be made as filthy as possible
so that they would not stay an hour if they should come. The technique had
worked for years, royal inspectors taking one look and marking the place as too
much trouble for too little worth.

Ernaldus could not imagine why the practice had failed this
time. The keep was useless. The demesne was only enough to support Blancheforte
itself when fully manned, and why man a keep that could not really be defended?
Although he had made a foolish mistake by coming in, Ernaldus was not really
stupid. He recognized the amusement beneath Alys’s innocent words and manner
and knew she was toying with him as a cat toys with a bird or mouse. He was so
frightened that the massive cleanup outside, the carts of rushes, made no
impression on him.

Thus, he was stunned to find all perfectly clean, smelling
of nothing worse than the smoke that escaped from the fireplaces and the
resinous torches used for light at night. Master Ernaldus had been unable to
conceive why Alys should drag him into the noisome interior of the keep unless
she intended to torture or kill him. The ordinary appearance of the place
abolished the specter of violence, and the bailiff began to recover his
self-possession and ability to think.

Bertha came running forward to take her mistress’s cloak,
and Alys smiled at her with real approval, realizing that further advances in
restoring Blancheforte to a decent residence had been made. The first bundles
of rushes had been used to cover the floor near the hearth, and the place was
set with high-backed chairs, handsomely cushioned, for Raymond and herself.
Bertha took Ernaldus’s cloak, also, and tripped away to lay both on a chest.
Alys walked to the center of the room and clapped her hands. Every servant
stopped as if frozen.

“Let the tables be set for dinner,” she said loudly and
clearly. “We will eat when the lord returns.” Then she gestured Ernaldus
forward toward the hearth. “Bertha,” she called, “bring a stool for our guest.”

The maid hesitated, then went to do as she was bidden,
though she had been surprised. Normally, a guest would be given one of the
chairs, and when Raymond came in, it would be Alys who moved to a stool.
However, it was hers to obey, not to question her mistress’s manners. When she
came back with the stool, Alys asked what had been found to embellish their
dinner.

“There was little enough, my lady,” Bertha replied
disdainfully, “a few scrawny chickens and a young pig. But there was a comb of
honey, so there will be a sweet. For the rest—stew and potage, as yesterday.”

Alys nodded dismissal and turned on the bailiff. “Why are we
so bare, Master Ernaldus?” she asked. Her voice had lost its sweetness, and her
eyes were hard and cold as sapphires. “I have ridden the lands, and the fields
are thick-stubbled from a rich harvest. Where is the produce of those fields? I
saw, too, that my kine are fat, but surely they have not eaten all the corn.
And the serfs are starving, so it is not they who have kept more than their
share.” Alys switched to English and snapped, “Watch him,” to Aelfric and Peter
who, faithful to instruction, had followed close on Alys’s heels and now stood
near her chair.