Chapter 8 #2
For weeks he’d carried a picture of a wicked harpy in his mind, but now it kept slipping away from him to be replaced by Dorothy, sweet and flustered by the river.
He’d wanted her to know her position under English law, but now he saw his error.
Here she was, true to form, gloating at the thought of being the absolute power at Baddersley, doubtless looking forward to wielding the whip with her own hands.
Aimery had no time to pursue the matter for the king called on him for a song.
As he bowed and went to fetch his lyre, Aimery knew sourly that the king was going to do his best to push the girl into choosing him, and he would not be able to refuse the “honor” a second time.
He would have to apply himself to becoming unpalatable to the heiress without letting the king or his father suspect what he was doing.
At the same time he must be sure not to give Madeleine de la Haute Vironge opportunity to recognize him or see his tattoo. She didn’t seem to recognize his voice speaking noble French, but it was hard to believe she wouldn’t one day look at him and see Edwald the outlaw.
And there was always the danger of one of the local people letting something slip. Aldreda had already winked at him.
All in all, he thought with a sigh, it was enough to send a man on a pilgrimage, a decades-long pilgrimage.
By the time he returned, the rickety trestles had been dismantled, and men were wandering about draining replenished cups.
The windows stood open, and the evening sun lit the room.
Madeleine and the king still sat in the big chairs, and it occurred to Aimery that she was the only lady here.
Her position was strange, and he suspected the king had manipulated it to be so.
She was being given some say in her marriage, but her choice was being skillfully limited.
William was set on the girl choosing Aimery, and he would use every trick to achieve his end.
When William of Normandy determined on something, the chances of avoiding it were small indeed.
On the other hand, the king had promised the girl a choice, and he would not go back on his word. That was the only hope.
Aimery must direct her firmly toward Stephen de Faix. Stephen was indolent and self-indulgent, and he lacked a necessary streak of ruthlessness. But that, Aimery reminded himself, his wife would supply in full measure.
As he tuned his instrument, Aimery ran quickly through a list of songs, wondering which would appeal least to his proposed bride.
He discarded all the lyrical ones about the beauties of the seasons, and also the ones with a romantic tale.
He knew they appealed to the ladies. How would she react to a stirring battle saga?
She was obviously not softhearted, and so it might appeal.
Nevertheless, it must be one of those, and so he chose the most harsh and bloodthirsty of the lot, an old Norse tale he had himself translated into French at William’s request. It told of Karldig who, trapped by his enemies, fought to the death with all his men around him.
The Norse code dictated that no true man could outlive his leader, his ring-giver, and the followers of Karldig adhered to the code with high spirit.
The story was told from the enemy’s point of view, for Karldig and all his men perished.
The storyteller, though supposedly one of the enemy, gloried in the nobility of it all; he lauded each man sent to Valhalla, related with relish each wound, each lopped limb, each pierced eye.
It was not one of Aimery’s favorite songs.
As he expected, however, it pleased his male audience.
Soon they were pounding on seat and floor in time with the rhythm of the piece, shouting out the most bloodthirsty parts.
Chanting on automatically—for it was more a chant than a song, with Hereward’s old hall shaking to lusty voices, Aimery was suddenly overwhelmed by a memory of Senlac—the battle cries, the screams, the deafening crash of weapons, Harold falling, and his housecarls and family fighting grimly on to die beside him.
The smell of blood, the spilled entrails, the severed limbs . . .
He came to himself, and to the realization that the song was finished and yells of approval were shaking the rafters. He struggled to gather his wits. There were calls for more, but he shook his head and offered the instrument to Stephen.
His rival took it with a grimace. “You devil. How am I to follow that?”
“You have to please the demoiselle, not these bloodthirsty rogues. Sing her a pretty song.”
Stephen cast a dubious look at the heiress, and Aimery followed it. She looked thoughtfully intent, and her eyes were rather bright. She did not look disgusted.
Aimery slipped out into the peaceful evening before he could be summoned back to her side.
A man should be glad of a strong, courageous wife, but he found the Baddersley heiress too bloodthirsty for his taste.
He heard Stephen begin a melodious ballad.
The man had a pleasant enough voice and a taste for Frankish music with more tune and less martial themes. What woman would turn down Stephen?
Standing in the courtyard with his back to the new motte and keep, Aimery could almost imagine he was back at Baddersley in Hereward’s day.
The hall would have been full of song then, too.
Hereward liked the song of Karldig for he gloried in the old Norse ways.
It would have been sung in English, though.
Aimery looked at the countryside, at rolling fields stretching toward the forest—which was farther away now, he saw.
Many trees had been felled to make the castle.
The illusion was shattered, and he knew the past was gone forever.
There were fewer fields under crops than there used to be, and fewer beasts growing fat.
And the people, the people were very different.
There were fewer of them, too, and they were pale and thin.
Many had boils and other scabrous signs of poor feeding.
They slid around furtively, eyes to the ground.
There was no whistling and laughter as they worked, no children playing.
Even the cats slunk through the shadows in search of rats.
The work of Paul de Pouissey and his niece.
It could be made good again. The thought slipped into his mind, and he shook it off.
“Too much mead?”
Aimery turned to face his father. “No. Just wondering how a prosperous manor could be brought to such a state.”
Count Guy sat on a pile of logs by the unfinished palisade. “I keep forgetting you must know this place well.”
“Not well. Hereward preferred Rolleston. But I came here once or twice.”
“I’d think you’d relish a chance to put it in order.”
“I have enough to do.”
Aimery saw an irritated muscle twitch beside his father’s mouth and braced himself for a battle, but Count Guy merely said, “I’d give a lot to know what’s going on in that head of yours. The king’s patience isn’t infinite.”
“He’s hardly likely to banish me for not wanting to wed Madeleine de la Haute Vironge.”
Count Guy let out a long breath. “ ‘Aimery, something has scrambled your wits. I’d like to think it was love, but if it is, you’re not making sense.
If you love another, tell the king. As he loves his queen, he’ll forgive that.
Otherwise, consider carefully what you are about.
William is your fond godfather. He is also duke, and now he’s king, and those things are paramount.
If you do not serve him, you will lose his favor, and there will come a day when you will need it. ”
“I serve him.”
“Look at me,” said Count Guy sternly, and Aimery met his father’s eyes.
“You serve him as you see fit. That is not good enough. If the king wants your land, you give it. If he wants your right hand, you give him that, too. Or your life, or the lives of your sons. If he wants you to marry Madeleine de la Haute Vironge, you marry her. You do not ask why.”
Father and son looked at each other in silence among birdsong and the distant lowing of cattle.
“He has not asked it,” Aimery said at last.
“Because if he did you would have to.”
Aimery turned away and let out a long breath. “She may not want me.”
“Then so be it. It is not for you to try to tip the balance.”
Aimery’s lips twisted. “You don’t think the king has already done so? Stephen and Odo—”
“That is his right.”
Aimery brought his clenched fist up to his mouth, then relaxed it. “Neither of you know what you ask. There can be no happiness in this marriage.”
“Then tell us what is going on.” After a moment Count Guy said, “Why do you keep doing that? Does it fester?”
Aimery realized he was rubbing at the marks on the back of his right hand. “No, of course not.” He could hardy explain that the marks were his death warrant. He turned back to the hall, to escape his perceptive father. “If I’m to do my best to woo the demoiselle, I had best return.”
“Just remember.” Count Guy’s voice stopped him. “No woman in her right mind would choose Stephen or Odo over you, and the king and I both know it.”
When Lord Aimery did not return to her side, Madeleine found herself warily involved in dialogue with the king, even as she listened to another of her suitors sing, the one she was going to marry. He had a very pleasant voice, she acknowledged, and sang prettily about a lady and a lark.
Why then did her mind keep returning to that other song with its violence and death? It had been something in the singer’s face. It had carried her into battle so that she could smell the blood and hear the screams.
“I fear Lord Paul and his wife were not up to the management of this estate, demoiselle,” the king said.