Read Online Winter Song by Roberta Gellis - Free Book Online Page B

Gaston would only have precipitated open war. Raymond
was the perfect compromise. It was Richard of Cornwall who had thought of it,
but Henry now felt the idea was his own because Raymond would be loyal to
Henry. Nonetheless, he was Gaston’s great-nephew, the Countess Garsenda being
his grandfather’s mother. It would be difficult for Gaston to object to Raymond
becoming master of Amou.
    The problem with Ibos was different, although it, too, was
in contested territory. When the overlord had responded loyally to Henry’s call
for support in his war with Louis, the castellan of Ibos had cried defiance and
given his homage to Raymond of Toulouse, who was lord of Tarbes nearby. Henry
had done nothing to amend the situation, having more serious troubles, thus,
Ibos was legally Raymond’s, but whether he could put out its current holder and
take control of it was his affair. At least Raymond no longer needed to worry
about Raymond of Toulouse supporting his vassal. Louis had tamed that violent
and ambitious man, and Raymond would not scruple to appeal to his other
uncle-by-marriage for redress if Toulouse attacked him.
    Of the smaller properties, which were all Raymond had hoped
to obtain originally, one was contiguous with his own lands near the great keep
of the Vicomte de Marsan. It had been wrested from Marsan’s ancestor by King
Richard some sixty years earlier, but the Marsans, ancestral or modern, had
never yielded their claim. Periodically one Marsan or another would remind
himself and attack Benquel so that over the years the lands had yielded more
bones and blood than wheat. The current holder of Marsan had not, so far,
initiated any private war, however, if his men-at-arms ran a little wild on
Benquel lands and dragged off a few women or burnt a farm, Marsan became
afflicted by deafness and blindness to any proof or complaint. Now, since
Raymond had already done fealty to Marsan for several farms near Mont de
Marsan, he would lose nothing by adding Benquel to the properties held from the
vicomte.
    Raymond was sanguine that the feudal dues would be moderate
and the loyalty would raise no problems. In the past Marsan had vacillated
between supporting the Comte of Toulouse and the Duc de Gascogne, who was also king
of England. However, Toulouse had been thoroughly curbed by Louis, and Marsan
infinitely preferred a somewhat indifferent distant overlord in England to a
most attentive one much closer at hand. In any future quarrel between Louis and
Henry, Marsan would support Henry, unless, Raymond feared, it was clear that
Louis was winning. For the next three years, however, the truce would hold.
Raymond would not worry about conflicting loyalties until then.
    The last minor property was Blancheforte, which was so close
to Bordeaux that it was of no military significance. Any determined assault
from the town would reduce the keep in a few days. For that reason, no recent
holder had made any attempt to improve it. Raymond did not intend to do so
either, beyond making it a comfortable residence. There were virtually no
lands, those having been gobbled up by the burghers of Bordeaux years earlier,
but a small demesne, enough to support the residents of the castle, existed.
What was important was that the holder of the keep had the ancient duty of
guarding one of the gates of Bordeaux and, therefore, the privilege of sitting
on the council of the city.
    Raymond had every intention of making the most of that
privilege. His mother’s estates of Villandrau, Durance, and Labrede were
greatly affected by the tides of power that flowed back and forth between two
families, de Soler and Colom. To know how the tide was flowing and to influence
it, even a little, would be of infinite value.
    Considering what had been accomplished as he rode back to Marlowe,
Raymond began to understand why everyone had been so disturbed about the lack
of equality between Alys’s fortune and his own. He was not a greedy man, nor
could he love Alys