Royal Dynasty: Fire Song Part 20

"What are you doing?" Aubery choked, thinking she was about to plunge the knife into the unconscious man.

"I want his shirt," Fenice said. "I must mop up the filth on the landing. If the new guard comes up to check on you, he must not find anything to rouse his suspicions. The slave might have spilled some soil, but he would have been made to clean it up."

"You are mad!" Aubery snarled, but he pulled off the guard's tunic.

Still, he made no move to help her, standing up and beginning to remove his own clothing with his back to her. Aubery might have been somewhat less furious had the disguise Fenice a.s.sumed been less disgusting, but his rage would not have been much diminished. The fury that made him barely able to control his desire to beat her until he could no longer raise his arm was as much a result of his own helplessness over the past two days as of disgust or recognition of the increased danger to all that her action had created. It was the final indignity, capping his misuse and capture by a crowd of ign.o.ble commoners, that he should be freed from his cell by a woman in the revolting guise of a soil gatherer.

He heard Fenice retching and sobbing on the landing, and an ugly sense of satisfaction stirred in him. She had gotten herself into this, he thought as he manhandled the still-limp guard into his tunic and gown, let her enjoy it. Then he bound and gagged the man with his cross garters, laid him out in the darkest corner of the cell, and began to try to cram himself into the guard's clothing. Everything was too short-Aubery had to tie the guard's hose around his hips rather than his waist, which did not matter because the tunic and habergeon would hide it. Fortunately the man was fat, and the armor went over Aubery, even though it bound badly across the shoulders.

"Let us go," Fenice begged from the doorway. "Please, let us go."

"Go out and pretend to empty your pail," Aubery said, so angry that he did not even think that he might be exposing her to danger. "Then come in again. If someone is watching or pa.s.ses by, that will serve as a reason why no guard is at the outer door. I must speak to the others. Perhaps it would be better for the Earl or Seagrave to go-"

"No!" Fenice cried.

Aubery lifted a hand as if to strike her but did not, snarling, "You are too filthy to touch. Get down the stairs, or I will kick you down them."

Fenice stifled another sob and lifted her bucket. She had known how Aubery would react to what she had done, but she had never thought he would find out. She was weak and shaking from nausea, from terror, from shame. Clinging to the wall, she crept down the stairs and out the door, lifted the cover from the barrel, pretended to dump the contents of the bucket, and set it down to cover the barrel again. Slowly she lifted it and went in again, too frightened even to pray that the n.o.blemen would refuse Aubery's offer, but the Mother of Mercy and the saints had not forgotten her.

"No, I think it would be too dangerous," Fenice heard a voice say, and Aubery reply, "I do not think you should consider my safety, my lord, but what would be best for all." She crept up a few steps, holding her breath while she listened for the response, in her anxiety nearly cursing her husband's stubbornness and courage. The earl's laugh, which she recognized from the inn where they had met, gave her hope, and his answer fulfilled it.

"We are not considering your safety, Sir Aubery," Warwick said, "but our own. We all agree that only one can go. We could get out of this tower, but I do not think there is any way the rest of us could escape from the keep itself. With your face battered like that, you have the best chance. No one will recognize you, probably your own mother would have trouble doing so, and your accent will not give you away if you must answer questions, because you can slur the words, and no one will wonder at it."

"Yes," another voice put in, and Fenice guessed it was Seagrave, "and last, but not least, if you go, the guard will exonerate us from any complicity, since no attempt was made to rescue us, but if you are found here instead of Warwick or any of the others, we will all be involved and probably end up in chains and kept closer and more cruelly."

Now Fenice offered up prayers of thanksgiving, tears of joy running down her face. As she backed down the stairs, not wishing to be accused of spying to add to everything else, she heard Warwick say, "Gilbert is right. We will be best served by your going to the king as quickly as possible. I am sure he will believe you, but to make doubly certain take this shirt. I have managed to write a few words on the cloth. And take my seal ring. And you had better go before Lady Fortune spins her wheel again."

A moment later Aubery was coming down the stairs with Mauduit and the man Fenice did not know behind him and the guard's billhook in his hand. She shrank against the wall and bent her head while Aubery barred the two men into their cell. Then, without turning his head toward her, he told her to go out and empty the bucket again and then leave as if her work were finished.

"But Aubery-" she began to protest.

"Get away from me," he said in a stifled voice. "Get away from me before I kill you. Go clean yourself. Maybe someday I will forget this, but I think I will smell the filth on you until the day you die."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Fenice had no memory of leaving the keep. If the gate guard spoke to her, she must have answered, but she was unaware of doing so. She was even unaware of dragging the heavy soil cart along the street, plodding blindly away from the lash of her husband's disgust. No matter what was done for her or how she was trained, Fenice thought, her serf blood came out. No real gentlewoman would have conceived of lowering herself so far.

Suddenly a shadow leapt at her and seized her arm. Fenice uttered a stifled shriek, but before she could draw breath to scream in earnest, Rafe's voice asked, "Well, what did you learn?"

"I have freed my husband," she replied, making no attempt to disguise her voice now. Aubery knew, there was no sense in concealing what she had done from anyone else.

"Lady Fenice?" Rafe's response was no more than a whisper, and he peered unbelievingly at her face in the growing light. "Oh, my G.o.d! Sir Aubery will kill me," he muttered.

"If he can make good his escape," Fenice sighed, and began to collapse.

Rafe caught her before she fell, but she was not aware of that nor of his propping her in a doorway while he ran for help. She regained consciousness slowly, becoming aware of an odd motion in her semip.r.o.ne body, of hushed voices, and then confusedly putting the sensations together until she realized she was being carried while two very worried men discussed what they should do.

For a while she listened indifferently to what they were saying without giving any sign she was aware. Then a vague anxiety began to nag at her, fear that Aubery would be detected escaping. That immediately recalled his rage and disgust at her disguise. The two notions in conjunction in her mind made her jerk in Rafe's arms.

"The dung collector of the prison," she cried. "If he comes, the guards may be alerted, and-"

"The other men are watching, m-my lady," Rafe said, stumbling over her t.i.tle.

Fenice closed her eyes for a moment in a mixture of bitter hurt and relief. She felt a bit stronger, however, and was about to say that she could walk when Rafe stopped and rapped softly on the gate of the inn. The sound of the bar being drawn came immediately, and Fenice said, "Put me down. I can go to my room myself. Have water for washing brought at once. Do not wait to have it heated, but let there be plenty."

At first she was unsteady on her feet, and Rafe followed her anxiously, fearing she would fall down the stairs, but about midway up she turned and insisted he go for the water and pushed past the stunned guard at the door without another word. Fenice tore off the filthy rags the moment the door was closed, dragged the old slave out from under the bed, and unrolled him from the blanket. Until she cleaned her hands and arms, she would not touch anything else. That blanket was already soiled from contact with the old man's body.

When she was covered, she called in the man who had been guarding the door and told him to untie the slave and let him dress again. She could have untied him herself, but knew that Rafe and her men might have beaten him senseless for agreeing to lend her his clothes. This way, they would know he had not been willing. The poor creature was miserable enough without being made to suffer for what was no fault of his. Did not the same coa.r.s.e blood run in both of them? Fenice shuddered.

By the time the man-at-arms and the bewildered and terrified old slave were gone, the water for washing had been brought. Fenice threw wood on the fire until it roared and howled in the chimney. She stripped to the skin and began to scrub, washing over and over, scrubbing frantically, drying herself, and demanding water. She was still washing when the door opened and Aubery walked into the room.

"Oh, thank G.o.d you are safe," Fenice cried, instinctively reaching toward him.

Aubery stopped in his tracks and hastily slammed the door shut. He had not expected to find Fenice stark naked, her skin all rosy with being scrubbed. Surprise momentarily blotted out everything besides his perception of her beauty and desirability. His body reacted quickly, but not quickly enough, for memory was swifter. Still, the ugly image his mind now evoked had no power to diminish Fenice's beauty or curb his need for her, and the knowledge renewed and multiplied his feeling of angry helplessness, which increased his rage.

"Get dressed, you fool," he snarled, "and see to the packing. How long do you think it will be before the guard is discovered in my cell? The gates will be shut, and everyone who tries to pa.s.s examined closely."

Fenice cowered away, terrified by his anger and by the thought that in her hysterical need to clean herself of what could never be cleaned away, the stain in her blood, she had forgotten that they had only a narrow time of safety before they would be hunted. She was so frightened that for a minute she stood paralyzed, half turned toward the clothes baskets but quite unable to recall what she must do first.

"Get dressed!" Aubery roared, and went out and slammed the door.

The shout would have wakened the whole inn had the servants not already been about their duties. It did bring the landlord, who gasped when he saw Aubery and tried to retreat. Steel fingers gripped his shoulder, and he whimpered at the expression of the one open blue eye in the swollen and battered face.

"Your grooms and outside servants are being bound and comfortably bestowed in the stable," Aubery said quietly. "In a few minutes my men will come in and do the same here. No one who submits quietly will be hurt. I am afraid I have not trust enough in any citizen of Pons to take your word that you would not betray me. We will leave the gate ajar, however. Your first visitor will no doubt free you. Nor will I even cheat you of your reckoning, though any man of this city deserves to be well fleeced."

Aubery's explosive command had startled Fenice out of her paralysis and into action. Once she was moving, she moved fast, throwing on her underclothing and riding dress and bundling whatever had been taken out of the traveling baskets back in again with more attention to speed than neatness. By the time Aubery returned to the chamber, she was finished packing and had even strapped shut the baskets, except for the one holding Aubery's clothes. She waited, standing numbly in the center of the room, with her hands clasped before her as if in prayer.

Without a word, Aubery pushed off the guard's shoes, which had been too short and too broad for him. Fenice took a trembling step forward and whispered, "May I help you to dress, my lord?"

"I am not going to change," he snapped. "All I want are my riding shoes." When she brought them, he stepped back, afraid to let her near because he was already responding to her presence. "You can roll my armor in that blanket while I cover my shield," he added coldly, pulling his shoes from her hand at arm's length and averting his eyes from her.

Twenty minutes later, the party rode out of the inn-a party consisting of Lady Fenice d'Aix and nine men-at-arms, bound on a visit to her great-aunt, Queen Margaret of France. However, the little fiction was not necessary. No questions were asked, and the group moved north on the main road at a decorous pace until they were out of sight of the watchtowers on the walls of Pons. After that, Aubery changed into his own armor, discarding the guard's habergeon and undergarments behind a patch of brush. Fenice, her services curtly refused in favor of Oswald's, sat staring into nothing, sick with pain.

The hurt was so deep that the physical effects of the relentless riding Aubery demanded of his party scarcely affected her. She clung numbly to the saddle as long as her mare moved under her. When the mare stopped, Fenice slid as numbly down-only aware that it was not Aubery's hands that helped her down or lifted her up to begin the torment of riding again.

Sometime during the day food was handed to her, and she choked down a little because she was afraid Aubery would notice and be angrier if she did not eat. There was wine with the food, but she hardly touched that and later was tormented with thirst until they stopped to water the horses and let the beasts rest. Then she was able to drink from the same stream as the animals, cupping the water in her hands because she never thought to ask for a drinking vessel.

Now and again they pa.s.sed through villages and towns and stopped while Aubery asked questions about the road ahead, but though they were in a town at dusk, they did not seek out an inn in which to stay. Fenice turned to look at the road behind several times after that, fearing they were pursued, but the road was empty as far as she could see. Later, it grew too dark to ride safely, and they stopped and dismounted again. Dully, Fenice wondered whether they were going to sleep in the open, but when the moon rose one of the men urged her to her feet and lifted her to the saddle, and they went on.

By then Fenice was in a trance of fatigue so deep that her conscious mind was withdrawn. Only instinct kept her from toppling from the saddle, her hands clung to the pommel, her knees to the mare's sides. Aware of weariness himself, Aubery looked at her from time to time. Had she wept or begged to rest, had she shown any sign of womanly weakness, the shame he felt at being taken captive by those he thought of as churls and then being rescued by a woman would have been abated. But Fenice, who had earlier watched him constantly, was too far gone to notice now. She stared straight ahead, and Aubery was stung to anger anew by the a.s.sumption that it was indignation that stiffened her spine.

That she had a reason to be indignant only added guilt to Aubery's frustrated rage. By now, however reluctantly, he had acknowledged that no matter how disgusting her disguise, it had taken great courage to have a.s.sumed it and walked into the stronghold of the enemy. But guilt is more painful than anger, and Aubery buried his under a rehearsal of every disadvantage that had arisen from Fenice's meddling, only neglecting the results, that he was free and King Henry would soon know of the plight of his subjects.

When the moon set, it became too dark to travel farther, even at the slow pace they had maintained, and they drew off the road into a small wood where drifts of fallen leaves and dry bracken could be found to soften and protect sleepers from the damp, cold ground. Fenice could barely walk when she was taken from her horse. She tottered to the heap of leaves to which she was led and was unconscious before she could compose her body in the most comfortable position. Seeing her huddled into a heap, Aubery thought her cold but too stubborn to complain.

First he turned his back on her, but after a few minutes he grew worried. Tired and chilled, she might take sick...and die. He found the blanket in which his armor had been wrapped and covered her, waiting with what he would not acknowledge as hope for a murmur of thanks. But no response came, not even a cold acknowledgment or an angry rejection. Then, immediately, he was too wrapped in his own angry hurt to realize she had not been fully conscious for hours and was not at all aware of his protective gesture.

Everyone was exhausted, for although the men were more accustomed to long rides than Fenice, they had been awake most of the previous night, too. However, among the nine men, only short periods of guard duty were necessary in the few hours until dawn when the growing light would make it possible to continue their journey. In fact, Aubery took the last watch himself and let the others sleep until the sun rose. They were not far from Fontevrault, he was sure, because they had pa.s.sed Poitiers just before the gates closed. Had they been traveling in daylight, they would already have reached their destination, and it could not be more than a few miles farther.

Aubery had stopped in Poitiers to make sure the king had pa.s.sed through, and was given to understand that the English king had left four days earlier, after lodging only one night. From that information, Aubery could estimate that since they had not overtaken the royal party on the road, the king's cortege would have arrived in Fontevrault at the most two days before and possibly only earlier the previous day. And although his news was urgent, Aubery knew it was not pleasant and would be even less pleasant delivered before the king was properly awake. Henry would be better able to decide what was best to be done if he had gone to ma.s.s and broken his fast, Aubery thought.

He did not, of course, spend all his time thinking about the best time to deliver his message to the king. Hard as he tried, Aubery could not avoid thinking of his own troubles and of Fenice. It was not like her to hold a spite, he felt, and then resentfully acknowledged that she might feel this time that she had good reason to be angry. He could deny that his behavior was ungrateful. He could blame her for degrading herself and for an action he insisted to himself was as dangerous as it was disgusting, but he knew she might feel differently. Aubery had a strong desire to justify himself, to force Fenice to agree that she had been wrong. As a first step in that direction, which was also a first step on the road to forgiving her, admitting his debt to her, and valuing her more highly than anything in life or after it, Aubery went to wake her himself.

The extra hour of sleep Aubery had permitted his party did Fenice little good. In a way, she might have been better off had they not stopped at all. She had had just enough rest to prohibit her from sinking again into the semiconscious state in which she had ridden the previous day. Moreover, her exhaustion had been so deep that she had not moved at all after she lay down. Now her body, which the primitive bedding of leaves and dead ferns could not protect completely, was bruised from its long contact with the cold ground and so stiff that any movement was agonizing.

Totally blind with fatigue and pain, Fenice did not see it was her husband who had shaken her awake and then pulled her to her feet. She was aware of nothing beyond her agony and the necessity to go on in spite of it, which had fixed itself in her mind the preceding day. The sense of dire necessity combined crazily with her overwhelming feeling of worthlessness to produce the insane notion that she would simply be abandoned if she could not continue, so she turned her head aside to hide her tears and bit her lips to hold back the whimpers of pain that rose unbidden in her throat. Mistakenly taking the gesture for a rejection of him, Aubery thrust her toward a man-at-arms, told him to lift her to her mare, and went sullenly to his own horse.

It was fortunate that the horses, which had no better fodder than the dry leaves and bracken on which the men slept, did not recover enough to produce a pace faster than a walk. In the first half hour, Fenice would have fallen off. As it was, she gave the men-at-arms behind her considerable anxiety by the way she swayed and teetered in the saddle. Since Aubery was ahead and too angry and stubborn to turn his head, he was not aware of her difficulties. And once the huge abbey of Fontevrault came into view, Aubery's attention was fixed on the problem of obtaining an audience with the king.

Fontevrault, Aubery realized, was to the abbey at Hurley, with which he was familiar and mistakenly equated it, as the huge royal palace of Westminster was to the modest keep of Marlowe. Here was no simple guesthouse where all gentlefolk were lodged alike, but a ma.s.sive complex of buildings with special accommodations for abbots and bishops, for kings and queens, for lords, monks, clerks, merchants, commonfolk, and even for beggars, all with their separate oratories, dining halls, and kitchens. And huge as it was, it was plain that the abbey was filled to bursting, as was the town that surrounded it, for in addition to the large entourage that had come with Henry and Eleanor, every French n.o.bleman in the area who could afford it had rushed to the abbey out of curiosity or hope of settling some business that the change of overlordship from England to France had left in limbo for more than ten years.

Nonetheless the fears Aubery had of hours of argument and explanation to penetrate the seeming chaos did not materialize. The stewards and servants employed by the prioress of Fontevrault were accustomed to incursions by royalty or those with nearly equal power and sometimes greater pretensions than royalty. Moreover, there had been a stream of messengers arriving and departing, some who had followed Henry all the way from England, some from Prince Edward or the officers of his new court, some from the King of France, who sent gifts and warm words of welcome. When Aubery said he had urgent business with the king, a servant was dispatched at once to an official, who recognized Aubery's name and had him brought in at once.

Resentful as he was, Aubery did not forget Fenice or the tired men-at-arms who had accompanied him on the grueling ride. He was so tired himself that he could have wept with relief when he was shown into a chamber where John Mansel came forward to greet him. Brushing aside the clerk's horrified comments on his battered appearance, he said at once that comfort must be found for his wife, who had been riding since dawn the preceding day, and for the men with her, and only after Mansel's own secretary had been dispatched to see to that did he begin his tale of the attack and imprisonment of the Earl of Warwick and other English gentlemen in Pons.

As they rode and Fenice's muscles were warmed by the action, her pain diminished and she was able to take notice of her surroundings. She was as surprised by the size of Fontevrault as Aubery had been. Because she knew it to be ruled by an abbess, she had somehow expected an establishment much like the one from which she had escaped. And then she realized how silly she had been. Fontevrault had been the favorite religious house of the Plantagenets since Alinor of Aquitaine. She lay here, as did her second husband, Henry II, and her favorite son, Richard Coeur de Lion. Many, many others had chosen to be in their august company, and Fontevrault had grown rich on the gifts of the living and the great legacies of the dead.

It was as large as or larger than the palace in Burgos, Fenice thought, and with the thought came the realization that she would doubtless be brought to greet the queen and speak to her, even if her service as one of Eleanor's ladies was not renewed. Memories of Eleanor's kindness and Fenice's desperate need to explain why she had done what she had done, which Aubery had never permitted her to do, seduced her into wondering for a few seconds whether she could appeal to the queen to intercede with Aubery for her. But almost as quickly as the notion came, Fenice rejected it, shuddering with horror at the idea of admitting she had worn a soil gatherer's clothing and covered herself with human filth. And then a cold horror clutched her. Would Aubery betray her and tell?

Although she was in a mood to believe any disaster that had not already befallen her would do so immediately, she soon rejected that fearful notion. Aubery might have lost whatever fondness he had for her, but it was clear he felt her degradation reflected shame on him. He would not betray her, she thought, though that was cold comfort, which grew colder when Mansel's secretary came with a servant to lead the men-at-arms to quarters and he himself showed Fenice to the private apartments of the queen.

Instead of thinking that it was a good sign that Eleanor would receive her and that it must have been Aubery's thoughtfulness for her that sent a court official to escort her, Fenice leapt to the conclusion that the secretary had come for her because Aubery did not wish to see her or speak to her. She really knew that Aubery's first duty was to speak to the king, but her heart would not accept that practical explanation, and from despair and fatigue she tottered only a step or two before giving up and sinking to the ground.

Fenice was dimly aware of the secretary's cry of distress and of a growing furor as he summoned help, but her total misery made her indifferent for once to the trouble she was causing others. She lay limp, eyes closed and unresponding, even when the queen bent over her, asking anxious questions of those who had carried her in. It was better this way, Fenice thought fuzzily. This way no one would ask her for explanations, and she remained unstirring and uncaring while the queen's maids undressed her and laid her in a soft bed. A few minutes later she felt the stab of a knife as a vein in her forearm was opened to bleed her. The warm trickle of blood seemed to drain away whatever strength had kept her half-conscious, and she slipped into the restful, unthreatening dark.

Meanwhile, Aubery had explained to Mansel what had happened in Pons. He did not conceal the carelessness of Warwick and his friends in simply loosing their men-at-arms on the town and agreed when Mansel asked if it was not likely that some of the other knights might have been equally indifferent. Nonetheless, Aubery pointed out, he had come to the conclusion that the attack at the feast had been planned in advance. From some of the remarks he had heard himself and from those reported to him by Warwick, Seagrave, Mauduit, and Philip Marmim, it seemed clear that the disturbances caused by the men-at-arms had been only an excuse, not a cause, for imprisoning the English.

Mansel frowned. "The king will not like this," he said sourly.

"None of us liked it much either," Aubery snapped in return.

After a glance at Aubery's face, one side of which was still swollen and showed a remarkable medley of green, yellow, blue, and maroon bruises, Mansel made an apologetic gesture. "I am sorry," he said. "I only wish to warn you. Pons was a favorite city of my lord the king's, before he lost Poitou to Louis in 1243. He will not wish to believe that the commune has so quickly and completely changed their professed love and loyalty as to attack deliberately a group of n.o.blemen just because they were his va.s.sals. Moreover, King Henry has been treated with great courtesy, even with loving kindness, by King Louis, who is doing all in his power to satisfy my lord the king's every desire insofar as seeing France, so-"

"Will you take me to King Henry or not?" Aubery asked.

Mansel eyed him for a moment and then pointed out, "It was their own fault, you agreed with me. You were no member of their party. Can you not simply pretend you never met them? I can arrange-"

"No," Aubery interrupted. "I pa.s.sed my word to inform the king of their plight. I have a message from Warwick and his seal ring to deliver to King Henry."

With a sigh and a helpless shrug of his shoulders, Mansel beckoned to a page, to whom he gave instructions in a low voice. He noticed that Aubery made no attempt to listen to his orders to the boy and grimaced slightly. It was another mark of Aubery's intelligence and determination that he did not care what Mansel was saying. It showed he knew that Mansel could not really thwart him. Though of no particular importance himself, Aubery had many paths to the king, and if Mansel would not set him on one, he would find another to open a gate. Aubery's message could be delayed but could not be prevented, and delay would only endanger Mansel himself without helping the situation.

Aubery, however, was not thinking along those same lines. The clerk's protest had given a warning that Aubery would not ignore. Aubery knew how easily King Henry could become deaf to what he did not choose to hear or, worse yet, how he could turn the anger he could not vent on the actual maker of trouble onto those who urged him to remedy it. Although Aubery had sworn no oath to Warwick and the others, he was bound by honor to inform Henry of their plight in such a way that the king would attempt to help them.

Fortunately there was some delay. The king was with his half brothers, Guy and Geoffrey de Lusignan, and they insisted on finishing some private business before Aubery could be shown in. At another time that might have produced some resentment in Aubery, but in this case he was rather grateful. He was tired, and his mind was moving more slowly than usual, so he was glad of the interval to work out what he intended to say, taking into consideration the different reactions Henry might display. Aubery was, however, annoyed when he saw the Lusignans still seated near the king when he was finally received.

Still, he did not see that the half brothers could be in any way involved in the problem of dealing with Pons, so he went ahead without altering what he had planned to say. The result of his earlier cogitations was that the story was much shorter. Aubery told only what had actually befallen him in Pons itself. He made no mention of his meeting with Warwick or of the lack of any attempt at control over their men-at-arms by Warwick and his friends. Aubery started with the mayor's unsolicited invitation to the feast, described the attack by a large number of armed commoners on the unarmed guests, and ended with his escape, after which he presented the shirt on which Warwick had scrawled his plea for help and Warwick's seal ring to authenticate the tale. Aubery was aware of Mansel's eyes on him and was both grimly amused and somewhat worried about the clerk's reaction to the way he had used the warning Mansel had given.

Taking into consideration the color of Henry's face and the violent exclamations the king had made from time to time during his narrative, Aubery thought it safe to cover himself by adding, "There are some matters I have not mentioned because-" He was relatively sure the king was too angry to ask for any details and he was right, for Henry interrupted him before he could finish his explanation.

"I do not need to hear more," Henry roared. "The treacherous sc.u.m! How dared they lay their hands on my gentlemen? I will see to their lessoning, I a.s.sure you, Sir Aubery."

"You see," Guy de Lusignan put in, "it is as I have been telling you all along. The sweet words and gifts from Louis are no more than a sly delusion. The action of the commune of Pons shows his true feeling. Even while you are his guest, those under his protection show their contempt-"

"No!" Aubery exclaimed. "No, my lord king, I am sure this is not so. I am sure that the commune of Pons is as eager to hide their crime from the King of France as from you."

Aubery had suddenly realized why Mansel had not wanted him to tell the king about Pons. Apparently Mansel wished to encourage Henry to accept the French king's friendly gestures as being sincere, whereas the Lusignans wanted the king to think Louis's accommodating offers were traps. Aubery knew nothing about Louis except what Alys had written to his mother and stepfather, who had shared Alys's letters with him from the time she left England, but he knew more than he wanted about Henry's greedy, pompous half brothers, and his contradiction of Lord Guy's accusation had been instinctive.

Lord Guy and Lord Geoffrey glared at Aubery so furiously that he almost regretted his interference, but the king's expression showed eager interest rather than anger. "You have some reason for saying this?" he asked Aubery.

"Certainly," Aubery replied. "If King Louis had been involved, surely there would have been some trained men-at-arms and perhaps even a French captain among those who took us prisoner. I fought them. I can tell you there were only Poitevin townsmen. And another thing. They took away our safe conducts. That must have been done only so that they could say no man they took prisoner had a safe conduct, and by that claim defend themselves against Louis's wrath if their deed were discovered."

The king smiled, confirming Aubery's feeling that Henry did not wish to think ill of King Louis. Nonetheless, Aubery had no intentions of wading out farther into the unstable quicksands of French and English politics. He was just about to ask Henry's permission to leave, since he had done his duty toward Warwick and the others, and he was more than willing to allow the defense of King Louis to rest in Mansel's capable hands. Before he could speak, however, Geoffrey de Lusignan came to the support of his brother Guy's attack.

"Nonsense," Lord Geoffrey said, sneering down his nose at Aubery. "What could such a simple knight know of high policy and the devices of kings? That no French men-at-arms be present and the destruction of the safe conducts are acts that Louis would order if his purpose was to collect ransoms. Remember how poor he has rendered France with his crusade and the payment of his own ransom."

"I am sorry to disagree with you, Lord Geoffrey," Aubery said with nasty emphasis, "but I cannot believe that so honorable a man as King Louis would stoop to such lies, so the action of the common dross in Pons cannot reflect the usual devices of kings. Moreover-"

It was not Aubery's way to lay on flattery with a trowel. In fact, it made him sick to do it and was one of the reasons he was so determined to avoid the court. He was aware of Henry's susceptibility to flattery, however, and he was so furious at the contemptuous att.i.tude of Lord Geoffrey that he cast aside both his revulsion at using one of his father's devices and his knowledge of how dangerous it was to annoy the king's half brothers. The sad fact, Aubery knew, was that Henry was not at all above treachery, a fact that made him more sensitive to being accused of it. Aubery was not surprised, therefore, when Lord Guy jumped to his feet and interrupted him.

"How dare you!" Lord Guy exclaimed, his face red with rage, for he realized he had inadvertently implied that all kings were dishonorable and Aubery had deliberately made it seem he was slyly insulting his own half brother as well as Louis.

Henry grasped his brother's arm and said deliberately, "Sit down, Guy, and let Sir Aubery finish."

Aubery was not at all deluded that he had done the Lusignans any permanent harm. Henry was far too attached to his half brothers for any small mistake to anger him for long. And although it did his heart good to see the sneer wiped from both Guy's and Geoffrey's faces, Aubery was not fool enough to pursue the attack. He did his best, in fact, to look surprised and bewildered, as if he had no idea what had angered Sir Guy. Off to his right, there was a soft, stifled sound like a discreet cough, but Aubery knew it was Mansel suppressing a laugh, and he found himself unable to continue for a moment while he repressed a similar urge.

"Go ahead, Sir Aubery," the king urged. "What were you about to say?"

Aubery suspected that Henry was angling for more compliments, but he could not bring himself to pander further to the king's vanity. "What I was about to say, my lord, was that Alys d'Aix, my stepsister, knows King Louis from having visited her husband's aunt, Queen Margaret, and Alys says that though he has faults, as does any mortal man, Louis does not lie or break any oath he has made. Indeed, Sir William, my stepfather, who is marshal to your brother Lord Richard, says that Louis has kept the truce made with you, even when the acts of others could have served as an excuse to break it. Thus, I cannot believe that King Louis has made any profession of friendship to you that he does not intend to fulfill."

The reminder of Sir William's connection with Richard of Cornwall and of Alys's connection to Margaret and to himself was in Aubery's opinion necessary self-preservation, considering the black looks he was receiving from the Lusignans. Since Queen Eleanor and Queen Margaret were sisters, any connection with Margaret was equally one with Henry's much-loved wife. In addition, Richard of Cornwall was certain to protect his marshal's son against those he hated. Aubery did not like the constant three-way tug-of-war over the king among the queen and her uncles, the Lusignans, and Richard of Cornwall, however, it was useful in this case. Lord Guy and Lord Geoffrey would be likely to think several times before trying to harm anyone both the queen and Lord Richard would defend.

He hoped that he had achieved his purpose but could not spare a glance at either of the Lusignans lest he betray that purpose to the king. Henry was not stupid and might put together Aubery's naming of his relatives, which was scarcely necessary as Raymond and William were well known to the king, with glances at his half brothers. Just now the king was smiling happily, well pleased with Aubery's defense of Louis, and Aubery felt that the moment to make his escape had come. Thus, when Henry had agreed that Sir William's remarks about Louis's maintenance of the truce were correct, Aubery hastily mentioned his confidence in his king's ability to affect the rescue of Warwick and the other English knights, commented on his long ride, his fatigue, and his battered condition, and begged permission to leave. Permission was graciously granted, and Aubery and Mansel withdrew.

Outside the king's apartment, Mansel did laugh and said, "I am sorry to have doubted you, Sir Aubery. That was well done, very well done. You spoke the truth about King Louis and spoke it in a way that will do your king and England much good."

"I hope so," Aubery said, rather grimly, thinking he might have done himself much harm, "but what I said about being tired and bruised was also true. I need sleep more than thanks."

Mansel pursed his lips. "We are crowded here, but-"

"If you can tell me where Sir William is lodged," Aubery interrupted, "I can share his bed or, at least, use it until he needs it."

"Of course." The clerk was obviously relieved that he would not have to evict anyone. "I will have you taken to his quarters and send someone to find him."