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your only choice. The new life with Raymond, the
old one without.”
    Alys stared down at the magnificent garments strewn across
the bed. They were scented with the herbs that lay in the chest to keep the
clothes sweet and keep the moths and fleas at bay. On the chair beside her,
however, lay a shirt and chausses Raymond had left to be washed, which a lazy
maid had not taken away. Those garments exuded his male odor, pungently acrid.
Somehow it was slightly different from her father’s. It belonged only to
Raymond.
    Even as Alys resolved to have the skin off the maid’s back
for her carelessness, a quiver of sensation passed through her, as though her
organs had moved by themselves within her. She needed to master an impulse to
bury her face in Raymond’s underthings and breathe in his scent. A pang of
longing for him stabbed her.
    “Heigh-ho,” Alys sighed, smiling wryly. “Look at the new
Alys, a most daintified fine, fine lady, who lisps Provençal love songs and
trips, delicate as a dewdrop, down a rose-strewn path. I cannot give up Raymond,
thus, I suppose I must take what comes with him.”

Chapter Four
     
    In Marlowe keep, however, no one realized that a new Alys
had been born. What they felt was that they were seeing a great deal too much
of the old one. She seemed to be everywhere at once—harrying the maids to get
on with their sewing on her new clothing, out on the farms driving the serfs
and villeins to bring extra produce to the keep, insisting that the huntsmen
lure game into Marlowe woods by putting out salt and fodder. It was as if,
having decided to take the plunge, she wanted it over and done with as soon as
possible.
    Swift as Alys’s preparations were, they were barely in time.
The king, as Elizabeth had guessed, leapt at the suggestion brought by his
brother. He was delighted with Raymond’s idea for a multitude of reasons. Henry
loved doing favors, he particularly enjoyed doing favors for his wife’s
relatives, whose polished manners and tastes for literature and art he found
far more congenial than those of many of his own nobility, who were more
interested in cattle and crops than the ethereal lift of the arches and spires
of Westminster Abbey. Better still, Henry liked doing favors that cost him
nothing and were highly unlikely to have repercussions from his brother and the
other barons. In this case, Richard had suggested the arrangement, and
considering the condition of Gascony, none of Henry’s barons wanted anything to
do with it. They would be indifferent to the granting of lands in that uneasy
province. Best of all, Henry liked to make a profit out of doing a favor, and
it was certain this time that he would do so.
    In exchange for four estates—two of which were rich
properties indeed but were in the area contested by Gaston of Béarn a third
which was small and whose overlordship was contested by the Vicomte de Marsan,
and a fourth which was not only worthless but just outside Bordeaux, where
Henry expected raging violence to erupt any day—Henry would receive a large sum
in hard gold and twenty pounds of good English silver every year. He would also
obtain a vassal with every practical reason to be loyal to him, as well as a
blood bond reinforced by real affection for his queen.
    Henry was delighted with his bargain, and so was Raymond.
The two rich estates were in a fertile river valley of the northern Pyrenees. The
holder of Amou and Ibos had died without direct heirs during the war Henry had
waged so unsuccessfully against King Louis. The drawback to Amou, however, was
that it was only about two leagues from Orthes, one of Gaston de Béarn’s
strongholds. While Gaston had been Henry’s “dear friend”, there did not seem to
be any reason to appoint a strong overlord for Amou and Ibos. When Gaston
turned in opposition, the problem became acute. Henry needed someone loyal in
Amou if he wanted to keep control of the area. But to place there an overlord
openly antagonistic to