Velvet Song

  “And what about Miles?” Alyx asked. “He has heartily used Elizabeth Chatworth. I don’t think her brother will forgive him that.”

  Gavin and Judith exchanged looks and Judith spoke. “We have corresponded with Miles, and if the King gives permission, he is willing to marry Elizabeth.”

  “No doubt Roger Chatworth will welcome a Montgomery into his family with open arms,” Alyx smiled. “So! You’ll use the gift of the hawk to persuade the King. Does he like to go hawking?”

  Again, Gavin and Judith exchanged looks.

  “Alyx,” Gavin began, “we’ve been waiting to speak to you. We knew you wanted to spend some time with Catherine, but now there’s no more time to lose.”

  For some reason, Alyx began to feel a sense of dread. Absurd, of course, but still, cold little fingers went up her spine. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Let’s go inside,” Judith said, handing the hawk to Simon.

  Once the old man was inside the stone falconery, Alyx stood her ground. “Tell me what I should know,” she said flatly.

  “Gavin!” Judith said. “Let me tell her. Alyx, the King doesn’t particularly care for hawking. Right now he cares for nothing or no one—except one thing.” She paused a moment. “Music,” Judith said quietly.

  Alyx stood still a moment, staring. “You want me to go to the King of England, sing him a song and while I’m there casually beg him to forgive my husband and to give the hand of a wealthy heiress to her sworn enemy?” She smiled. “Never have I said I was a magician.”

  “Alyx, you could do it,” Judith encouraged. “No one in the country has a voice or talent to match yours. He’ll offer you half of his kingdom if you but make him forget for an hour or so.”

  “The King?” Alyx sputtered. “What do I care for the King? I would love to play and sing for him. My concern is Raine. He’s spent a year trying to make me understand his sense of honor and now I do—at least to the extent that I know he wouldn’t thank me for begging before the King.”

  “But if you could get a pardon for Raine . . .” Judith argued.

  Alyx turned to Gavin. “Were you in Raine’s place, would you want Judith to go to the king for you or would you expect to fight your own battles?”

  Gavin’s face was serious. “It would not be easy for me to swallow such a humiliation.”

  “Humiliation!” Judith said. “If Raine were free, he could come home and we could be a family again.”

  “And our strife would be internal,” Gavin said. “I can see Alyx’s point. I don’t think she should go against her husband. We will all fight our own battles and keep the King out of this.”

  Judith seemed to want to reply, but as she looked from Gavin to Alyx, she remained quiet.

  But what made Alyx change her mind was Roger Chatworth’s growing anger. Gavin sent out spies and they came back with the news that Roger was vowing death to both Miles and Raine to revenge his young brother and the loss of his sister’s virtue.

  “Raine has no men to fight Chatworth,” Alyx said. “And will Miles last against a seasoned warrior such as Roger?”

  “He has the backing of all the Montgomery forces,” Gavin said quietly.

  “You are talking about war!” she yelled. “A private war which will cause you all to lose your lands and the King—” She stopped. Everything seemed to go back to the King.

  With tears in her eyes, she fled the room. Was she the only one who could possibly prevent a private war? She’d once told Jocelin she’d do anything to keep Raine alive, that she’d rather see him with another woman than dead. Yet he’d been so very, very angry when she did what she felt she had to. He did not want her to interfere in his life and especially in what he considered his honor.

  What if she kept quiet now, didn’t try to win a pardon from the King and there was a war? Would she be happy knowing Raine died with his honor intact? Or would she curse herself for all eternity for not at least trying to prevent the battles?

  With quiet dignity, she stood, smoothed her dress and went downstairs to the winter parlor where Judith and Gavin sat over a game of draughts.

  “I will go to the King,” Alyx said quietly. “I will sing with all my might and I will ask, plead, beg, whatever I have to do, to get him to pardon Raine and to arrange the marriage of Elizabeth and Miles.”

  * * *

  Alyx stood outside the King’s chamber, her body trembling so badly she feared her dress would fall off. What was she, a common lawyer’s daughter, doing here?

  A shout from inside the chamber and a sound of something breaking made her gasp. After a moment, a slim man tiptoed out of the room, a red mark on his cheek, a flute in his hand.

  He gave Alyx an insolent look. “He’s in a bad mood today. I hope there’s more to you than appears.”

  Alyx pulled herself up to all of her small height and glared at him. “Perhaps it’s the music he hasn’t heard today that’s put him in a bad temper.”

  The man grunted and left her alone.

  Alyx adjusted her dress again, a wonderful concoction of deep green velvet with sleeves and skirt inset so heavily embroidered with gold thread that the fabric was stiff. The dress had been Judith’s design and the embroidery was a fanciful arrangement of centaurs and fairies playing many musical instruments. “For luck,” Judith had said.

  “Come in and wait,” said a dark-clad man, just his head sticking out of the door. “His Majesty will hear you in a moment.”

  Alyx picked up her cittern, a magnificent thing of rosewood and inlaid ivory, and followed the man.

  The King’s chamber was a large room paneled in oak, richly done, but certainly no better than the rooms at Montgomery Castle. This surprised Alyx. Perhaps she’d expected the King’s rooms to be made of gold.

  She took the seat the man pointed to and watched. The King sat on a red-cushioned chair and Alyx wouldn’t have known he was the King except that occasionally someone would bow before him. He was a tall, somber, tired-looking man, and as he drank from a silver goblet, she saw he had few teeth and they were blackish. He frowned at the singer before him, and the young man’s nervousness was apparent in every word he sang. The air was charged with tension as the musician tried to please him.

  With the big room echoing as it did and everyone being so stiff, it was no wonder he was displeased, Alyx thought. None of the music made him forget for a moment his sadness. If I were in charge, I’d put the musicians together, challenge them with some new music. When they were enjoying themselves, the King would find pleasure.

  Alyx sat still for a moment longer. There were eleven musicians auditioning for the King today. Lately, he’d been staying alone in his rooms, refusing even to attend the Queen’s funeral. Alyx had had to wait a week to get this chance to play and sing for him. And would she shake and quiver before him as these others were doing?

  Think of Raine, she told herself. Think of all the Montgomerys.

  She took a deep breath and stood, offered a silent prayer of hope, then let her voice take over.

  “Here!” she said loudly to the singer. “You’ll have us all in tears. What we need is laughter and no more tears.”

  Someone put a cautioning hand on her arm, but Alyx looked straight at King Henry. “With your permission, Your Majesty.” She curtsied, and the King gave her a nonchalant wave.

  Alyx’s heart was in her throat. Now if she could just get the musicians to cooperate. “Can you play a harpsichord?” she asked a man who gave her a hostile look.

  “Wait your turn,” he hissed.

  “I have more to lose than you do. Perhaps together we can work some magic.” She cocked her head. “Or is your talent too limited?”

  The man, after one considering look, went to the harpsichord.

  As if they were all the choirboys she’d taught at Moreton, she began ordering the men about, giving them different instruments that were abundant in the room.

  Once they were seated or standing, she flew about, giving me
lody here, rhythm there. About halfway through she began to sing and two of the musicians were immediately won to her side. Grinning, they picked up the melody and stayed with her.

  It seemed to Alyx everything was taking so long and she only felt encouragement when the man on the harpsichord added his voice to hers. The man on the harp caught the melody and showed his talent with those heavenly strings.

  Alyx had chosen an old song, hoping they’d all know it, but perhaps it was her rendition of it that made them awkward. The man she’d given a tambourine moved to a kettledrum hidden in a shadowy corner and the sound began to make the floor vibrate.

  Finally, finally, everyone seemed to have caught the song, and Alyx dared to turn and look at the King. His face was impassive, silent, but the men behind him looked astonished. At least she knew now that what she was doing wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

  They repeated three choruses of the song and Alyx started them on something new, church music this time, and when that was done she went to a folk song.

  It had been an hour since she’d started and she quieted the musicians. This time, she’d sing alone, unaccompanied. Once, four years ago, a singer had come to Moreton and the villagers had said Alyx at last had some competition from someone. Alyx, frightened of looking bad, stayed up all night and composed a song that would be difficult for even her to sing, a song that covered the entire range of her abilities. The next day, she’d sung the song and the visitor, an older woman, had looked at Alyx with tears in her eyes and kissed Alyx on both cheeks, saying Alyx should give thanks daily for her gift from God.

  Now, Alyx planned to sing that song. She’d hated it ever since she wrote it because the woman she’d meant to humble had actually humbled her. But now she needed to do what she could to win the King’s favor.

  The song showed the heights and depths of Alyx’s voice, as well as the controlled softness and extraordinary volume. She built up to the total power of her voice slowly, liltingly, and just when it seemed she could go no further, she put everything into one note and held it—and held it until there were tears in her eyes and her lungs were dry.

  When she finished, she dropped to a deep curtsy and there was total, absolute silence about her, the sound of Alyx’s last note still reverberating off the walls, swirling about the people like blue and yellow lights.

  “Come here, child.” The King broke the silence.

  Alyx went to him, kissed his hand, kept her head bowed.

  He leaned forward, lifted her chin. “So you are the newest Montgomery wife.” He smiled at her startled look. “I try to keep up with what happens in my realm. And I find the Montgomery men marry the most entertaining women. But this . . .”—he motioned to the musicians about the room—“. . . this is worth a king’s ransom.”

  “I am pleased to give you pleasure, Your Majesty,” Alyx whispered.

  He gave the first indication of a smile. “You have more than pleased me. Now, what do you ask in return? Come, you didn’t leave Gavin’s home for no reason.”

  Alyx tried to gather her courage. “I would like to end the feud between the Montgomerys and the Chatworths. I propose a blood bond between them, Miles to marry Lady Elizabeth Chatworth.”

  King Henry frowned. “Miles is a felon by the Act of 1495. He abducted the Lady Elizabeth.”

  “He did not!” Alyx bellowed in her usual manner. “Forgive me, Your Majesty.” She fell to her knees before him. “Miles did not abduct her, but it was because of me that Lady Elizabeth has suffered.”

  “You! Fetch a stool,” King Henry commanded and when Alyx was seated, he said, “Now tell me all of the story.”

  Alyx told of Pagnell accusing her of using her voice to seduce him, of her hiding in the forest, of falling in love with Raine. She watched his eyes, saw that he was interested in her story and went on to tell of her capture by Pagnell and Elizabeth’s abduction.

  “You say he meant to roll her in a carpet and hand her to Lord Miles?” King Henry asked.

  She leaned forward. “Please don’t repeat this, but I heard she was delivered without a stitch of clothing on and that she attacked Lord Miles with an ax. Of course the story could be wrong.”

  The King gave a sound very like a laugh. “Go on with your story.”

  She told him of the witchcraft trial, how the men had used her to entice Raine to her rescue.

  “And he saved you at the last moment?”

  “A little after the last moment. The smoke was so bad I lost my voice for days.”

  He took her hand in his. “That,” he said with great gravity, “was a tragedy. And what happened after this magnificent rescue?”

  Her voice changed as she told of her child and her return to the forest and meeting Brian Chatworth. She told the way Brian had dressed in Raine’s armor and how Raine had nearly died from the opium.

  “So now you’d like Lord Miles to marry Lady Elizabeth.”

  “And . . .”

  “Yes?” he encouraged.

  “Please pardon Raine,” she said. “He’s so good. He isn’t trying to raise any army against you. The people in the camp are outlaws and out-of-works. Raine only trains them to give the criminals something to do and to keep the others from dying of melancholia.”

  “Melancholia,” the King sighed. “Yes, I know of that disease. But what of Lady Elizabeth? Is she willing to marry Lord Miles?”

  “She is intelligent and she’ll no doubt see the sense of the marriage and if Miles is like his brothers, how could she refuse him?”

  “Someday I’ll have to learn the secret of the Montgomery men and the loyalty they can inspire. If Lady Elizabeth is willing, I’ll allow the marriage if for no other reason than to give the child a name.”

  “And Raine?”

  “For that you will have to work. What say you to spending a week here with me and singing for me night and day?”

  “I will dedicate my life to your pleasure if it will save my husband,” Alyx said fiercely.

  “No, do not tempt me, child, I have enough problems. Now go and sing and I’ll have the papers drawn.” He waved to one of the men behind him who quickly left the room.

  Alyx sang for the rest of the day, until her throat was raw. It was only after the sun had long ago sunk that the King fell asleep in his chair.

  “Go and rest now,” said one of the King’s retainers. “Lord Gavin waits outside for you and he’ll show you to your rooms. I’m sure His Majesty will call you early in the morning.”

  As soon as Alyx saw Gavin, her weariness left her. Grinning from ear to ear, she flung herself into his arms. “He agreed! He agreed!” she croaked.

  Gavin held her tightly, spun her around. “Let’s tell Judith and do something about your voice. Besides, we’re about to start some ugly gossip.”

  Alyx stiffened as soon as Gavin released her and formally he escorted her through long drafty corridors hung with riotously colorful tapestries and into the set of rooms reserved for them.

  Alyx drank the honey concoction Judith prepared for her and sat down to wait—a waiting which took days. King Henry kept Alyx at his side constantly and, like a trained dog, showed her off to his son Henry and to his late son’s widow, Catherine. Alyx was involved in the court gossip, hearing that the King himself planned to marry the young princess. She very much liked the big, good-looking twelve-year-old Prince Henry. If ever anyone seemed like a King, he did.

  Instead of the week King Henry had asked for, Alyx remained at court for two weeks before the papers for Raine’s pardon and an order for Miles and Elizabeth’s marriage were drawn up. Both Gavin and Judith were pleased at leaving court, but Alyx was very worried at seeing Raine again. What would be his reaction to her interference?

  It took days to pack all their belongings that they’d needed at court and more days to return to Montgomery Castle. With a pounding heart, Alyx dismounted and waited, hoping Raine would be there.

  He wasn’t, but messages awaited them. Roger Chatworth had refused to rel
ease Elizabeth, but Miles wrote that he’d found her. Gavin groaned at this, lamenting his little brother’s disregard for the law. They’d been married not far from the Chatworth estate and immediately after the ceremony, Elizabeth had returned to her brother. This puzzled them, but Miles gave no hint of explanation.

  A week went by and there was no word from Raine. At the end of the second week, Gavin sent messengers to the forest, but the men came back saying they were not greeted by guards as usual but had wandered for two days, finding no one.

  The next day Gavin and his men rode out and it was a week before they returned.

  “Raine’s at his own estates now,” Gavin reported. “And he’s brought all the forest people with him. He must have five farmers in every field and he insists on paying them all. He’ll be a beggar himself in three years.”

  “Gavin—” Alyx began.

  Gavin touched her cheek. “He’s angry now, but he’ll get over it.”

  Quietly, Alyx left the room, Gavin and Judith watching her.

  “Tell me the truth,” Judith said.

  “Damn that brother of mine!” Gavin shouted, pounding his fist on the table. “Raine says Alyx has insulted him for the last time, that he can bear no more. He says he’s warned her repeatedly but she won’t listen to him and he knows she never will.”

  “Perhaps Stephen could talk to him—” Judith began.

  “Stephen tried, but he won’t listen. He’s spending all his time with those criminals . . .” He stopped and laughed. “The oddest thing has happened. Alyx always complains that she owes those people in the forest so much and could never repay them. There’s a singer with the band, Jocelin, I believe he traveled with Alyx, and this Jocelin met a man who’d been in the room the day Alyx first performed for the King. I’m not sure what happened that day, but according to the witness, Alyx was magnificent and one of the things she asked for was security for the people under Raine.”

  “I don’t remember Alyx saying anything about that.”

  “I don’t think she did—directly, anyway. But she did mention that later she told the King stories about her life in the forest. I heard King Henry had her dress as a boy once to prove she’d actually done it.”