Free Winter Song by Roberta Gellis Page A

lands are mine.”
    Temptation flashed through Raymond. He knew he could tell
Alys anything, and she would believe him. It was a trust he could not violate.
No land or power was worth the ugly knowledge that he had lied to Alys, who
believed in him so implicitly. He explained as clearly as he could the terms of
the marriage contract. Alys wrinkled her brows in thought.
    “That means that if I wish I can hire a knight and rule the land
myself, that the dependent vassals will do homage to me. Is that correct?”
    “Yes,” Raymond said somewhat stiffly.
    Alys stared at him for a moment, then turned her eyes to her
own fingers. She had understood him, but could not believe that what she heard
was true. The shock of Raymond’s flat yes, which made of her a rich and
independent woman, momentarily blotted out all other responses.
    “And I will sit in justice, as my father does, and as I do
when I am his deputy?”
    “Yes.”
    “And look to the accounts of the lands?”
    “Yes.”
    Shock had given way to joy. Alys was so absorbed in her
growing sense of liberation that she failed to notice the increasing coldness
of Raymond’s responses. She smiled brilliantly, closed her eyes, and sighed
with relief.
    “Thank God I will not need to sit all day sewing a fine
seam,” she breathed. Then her eyes snapped open. “You will have to tell me just
exactly what to do and say, Raymond,” she said very seriously. “I know
everything will be all different in Gascony, I mean the customs and rights. You
will really have to do it all at first. And you will have to convince the
vassals and castellans that I am not a fool and that your sword will back my
word.”
    Raymond burst out laughing as the chagrin he felt melted.
There was no one in the world as sensible and reasonable as Alys. Of course she
must seem to rule. If she did not and he should die, the legal tenure of the
land would be nearly meaningless. Whereas, if the men knew and trusted her,
they would protect her until her sons reached maturity or some other
arrangement—Raymond could not even think “until she married again”—could be
made. He agreed warmly that she would take homage and do justice and he would
stand beside her to back her word in all things.
    But instead of being satisfied, Alys’s brow furrowed even
deeper, and she asked again about the nominal worth of the lands. When Raymond
replied, her breath hissed in. “The king would not lightly part with such
revenues. Will you have to fight to put out the present holders?”
    More than once Sir William had commented wryly that Raymond
would find there were disadvantages to the cleverness he praised so highly in
Alys. This was the first time Raymond had cause to remember that and agree. It
would not, he suspected, be the last time.
    “I hope not,” he temporized. “However, the sooner we are there
in our own persons to make our claim, the less chance there will be for any
contest. The king has already sent letters to name you overlady and me as your
husband. Still, the quicker we are there to take all in our hands, the better.
Thus, need and desire match perfectly for once. The sooner we marry, the
better.”
    “Yes, of course, but from what you say, Amou is strong and
very rich. Ibos is also rich, and the other two of less worth but still not to
be despised. Why should the king give so much unless the lands are not his to
give.”
    “They are his to give,” Raymond said, recognizing his defeat
in trying to turn Alys’s attention, “but it is a long way from Gascony to
England, and the revenue diminishes by each hand through which it passes until
it is either nothing or a debt by the time it comes here. Thus, the twenty
pounds a year from Bix is worth more than the several hundred marks we will
have from the lands. Moreover, Earl Richard gave the king in hand three thousand
marks, which is what he would have given to you as a wedding gift. You do not,
I hope, object to its bestowal in land.”
    “No,