Roselynde, page 15
When Simon first heard the hallooing he thought just that and uttered a heartfelt thanksgiving. There would be others to help him search, and probably others that knew these fields well. He turned toward the sound, roweling his horse unmercifully because in his mind’s eye he saw Alinor weeping with the pain of broken bones or stunned, helpless, and frightened. He was indeed so immersed in his mental image that even when the riders were in sight he did not at once perceive the oddity of the fact that there were no hounds. Only the long-ingrained habit of danger, which had made him put his shield on his arm, saved him from being cut down when he came upon the first pair.
The truth burst upon him when he saw the glitter of a lifted sword so that he was able to ward off the stroke of one man with his shield. The other, however, opened a nasty gash along his ribs as he threw down his lance, useless for such close work, slipped his wrist through the loop of his morningstar, and freed it from his saddlebow. The morningstar was not a weapon Simon favored. It did not make clean wounds like a sword but crushed and tore. Now, however, he sought it instinctively, clean wounds or death were too good for those who threatened Alinor.
The sick, wet crunch, the choked-off scream, the thud of a man’s fall when the spiked steel ball at the end of the brutal, barbed chain connected were sweet music. The backswing caught the top of the other rider’s shield with such an impact that it forced the metal edge back into his face. His sword stroke, aimed at Simon’s head, fell awry on the shoulder. There was enough force left in it to cut the surcoat and drive the mail through shirt and tunic and open the flesh. Another trickle of blood began to stain the gray surcoat. Simon laughed and swung his arm. The ball flew wide. The barbs of the chain caught the nape, below the helmet, pierced through the links of mail hood. Simon pulled. Jaw and neck tore away. The man fell without crying out, gagged by his own blood.
The horse hardly needed spurring now. Melee-trained, it charged toward the oncoming riders. Simon swung the morningstar forward, caught it by the short steel handle to which the chain was attached. Blood dripped down onto his gauntlet and glistened redly wet on his stallion’s hide. He regretted the loss of his lance now. He could have slain out of hand two of the three who had turned aside from their original target, which Simon could not yet see.
Accustomed to fighting in larger groups, the men-at-arms rode bunched together. Bred to tourney fighting, where each knight fought for himself, Simon swung wide, turned his destrier sharply, and took on the man on the far right. His shield went up to block a wild sword thrust. The morningstar swung up and then straight ahead, as a man would thrust with a sword. At the point of greatest momentum, Simon released the handle. The steel ball shot forward, struck the helmeted face, thrusting the man sideways. Instinctively his arms swung out to seek support, and the shield on his left arm struck his horse in the side. The beast shied, fouling the mount of the middle rider.
Simon rode on past. His horse could not have checked in time in any case. As he turned his beast, he whirled the hanging morningstar. A trail of red droplets followed it, but its charge was soon renewed as it took the middle rider, who was struggling to control his startled horse, in the back and neck. This was no game of knightly endeavor in which men politely circled each other to meet face to face.
The third rider had managed to avoid the plunging horses of the other two and was circling also. He thought he had taken Simon’s measure, but he had erred in failing to take account of Simon’s destrier. On signal, the battle-trained stallion reared upward and turned short. The sword cut aimed to take off from behind the arm that wielded the morningstar struck the bottom edge of Simon’s shield, slid down, and scored his calf. Perhaps that sight was a brief comfort before the morningstar came down again.
Bereft of opponents, Simon looked about for more. He was breathing hard but more with fear that Alinor had been, or would be, carried away while he was thus occupied than with effort. He had fought many better skilled and more dangerous opponents in the past. First, far in the rear, in the direction from which he had come, he saw his own troop and Alinor’s, Ian urging his flying horse to still greater effort and Beorn thundering along just behind. His intent was so fixed that he did not regard them either as help or hindrance. There was only one thing Simon sought.
Then Simon found his objective. He did not yet see Alinor, but from various directions the horsemen were converging upon one spot. Simon clapped his spurs to his mount’s already sore sides and it leapt forward, breasting the thinned spot in the brush where Alinor and the squire had forced a path. Down beyond he saw her at last, her back to the wall of the shepherd’s hut. It had no door.
Four men ringed her, but not too close for one was nursing a hand from which blood dripped. Another held the five horses. He was the first to die there. He did not even have time to cry a warning. He had not looked around, expecting more of his companions and finding the scene before the hut of more interest. The morningstar caught him full in the chest. Blood filled his lungs and burst from his nose and mouth. The horses, suddenly freed and affrighted, galloped away.
Startled at the sound of pounding hooves so close, one man turned from Alinor and shrieked a warning. He was the second of that group to die. None of the men had drawn a weapon. Perhaps had Simon seen, he would have held his hand, but his eyes had only taken in Alinor’s bloody face and hands and torn clothing. When the man-at-arms fell, he had no face. The third, Simon brained with a single downward thrust of his shield. The man had not pulled his helmet on over his hood. What was there to fear from a single girl?
The fourth and fifth fled without even drawing swords. They were not cowards. Two men afoot were no match for a knight mounted on a war-wise destrier. Across the field those who had been coming slowly began to spur their horses onward, but the shouts of Ian and Beorn and the men who followed made them pause. When they saw the size of the troop, most of the men riding with lances fewtered, they did more than pause. They turned their horses and rode away at the best pace they could make.
Simon pushed the loop of the morningstar off his wrist, flung himself from his mount, and caught Alinor to him, gasping between rage and fear for her.
“Let me go,” she cried, her voice high, hysterical, terrified.
Alinor did not fear the man who seized her—she feared for him. She had recognized Simon as soon as the man-at-arms screamed a warning to his comrades. But the blood! Her love was covered in blood. It seemed to Alinor, who had seen men hacked to pieces, that she had never seen so much blood in her life. Simon misunderstood. He thought she was dazed by fear and did not know him.
“Alinor! It is I, Simon. Beloved, do not struggle so. No one will hurt you now. You are safe. My love, my love, when I find who has done this to you, it will take him ten years to die.”
“My God, my God,” she sobbed, “no one has done me aught. But look at you! You are covered in blood. Where are you hurt, dear heart?”
“I am covered in blood!” Simon exclaimed, relaxing his grip so that he could look at Alinor. “You are covered in blood.” His face turned ugly, but his voice was soft as to wheedle a frightened child. “Beloved, tell me who beat you. I swear on my life that man shall take no revenge upon you.”
“No one. No one.” Alinor assured him, and threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
Simon’s mind could hold no more at the moment than the bloody fight, his terror for Alinor, the pain that was beginning to press upon him. Overriding all when Alinor touched him came a wave of unthinking passion. He tightened his grip again and his mouth responded to hers, hard and dry at first with the thirst of battle, then softening as his blood answered to this new demand and left the fighting muscles to course through groin and mouth.
Alinor had kissed the lips of many men, young and old. She had kissed them in greeting and parting in her grandfather’s day, and she gave the kiss of peace to her vassals and liegemen. A kiss to her had been a physical contact little more meaningful than a pressure of the hands. Occasionally, as when she kissed Sir Andre, she had felt a stir of affection. Nothing had prepared Alinor for the sensations that enveloped her now. It was as if her flesh had developed nerves in new places. Her breasts rose and the nipples filled; her loins grew warm and soft. Regardless of the fact that Simon was crushing her to him so hard she could scarcely breathe, she attempted to press still closer. His lips parted; hers followed. His tongue touched hers; the tip of hers slid under his, caressed its root.
In his life Simon had had many women, willing and unwilling. There had been the greensleeves and the prizes of war, the serf girls who had fulfilled a sudden animal need and the castle ladies who had wished to taste a new delicacy. But before he had seen Alinor, Simon had loved only one woman deeply and devotedly—the queen—and he had never, even in his dreams, associated her with sexual passion. Topping the physical stress of battle and fear, the onslaught of combined love and lust nearly felled him. His knees trembled and tears filled his closed eyes and oozed under the lids to mingle with the sweat of exertion on his face.
Through mail and clothing, Alinor felt him shake. New to passion, she did not associate the trembling with desire. The last image fixed in her mind was the bright, wet blood on Simon’s gray surcoat. The trembling of a wounded man meant weakness to Alinor. Anxiety drowned passion. She disengaged her lips gently.
“Beloved, beloved,” she murmured, “sit down here. Let me tend to you. You are hurt.”
Simon opened glazed eyes that slowly began to fill with horror “What have I done?” he said faintly.
Alinor understood. “Nothing,” she soothed, “nothing. A kiss to comfort me.” She stroked his cheek. “Come. Sit. Let me see to your hurts. No one saw. We are alone.”
“Alone?” Revulsion thickened his voice. To take advantage of a frightened girl was disgusting. Simon bit his lips, still soft and warm from her kiss, and stared at her. Perhaps he had not been the first to take advantage. “Who has torn and bloodied you?” he cried.
“No one. Simon, love, listen to me. I ran through the thicket to escape the boy and the branches and brambles scratched me and tore my clothes. That is all. No man laid a hand upon me.” Alinor looked at the three bloody corpses that lay so near. “And you have paid them well already who only threatened me.”
She took his hand to lead him around the hut, suddenly remembering how bitterly he had spoken about blood and terror. Alinor knew that some men were taken with a sickness after battle and could not, for a few hours, bear to remember or look upon what had been done. And the blood was still welling from his right side.
“Come, beloved, come away from this abattoir,” Alinor urged gently. “Let me stanch your bleeding.”
“Oh God!” Simon put up a hand to his face. “Do not use those words to me.”
“What words?”
“Do not— You called me beloved,” he choked.
Alinor bit her lip. She had not realized. It was indeed necessary that she be more careful. “No, no,” she agreed quickly. “I will call you ‘my lord’ or ‘Simon’ when we are among others. Do not fret, my lord. Only come with me and let me attend to your hurts.”
He searched her face and found there only a desperate anxiety. “I am not hurt,” he assured her, a little relieved.
Those warm lips, opening so readily, that little tongue— She had only been aping his practiced caress. She did not understand. The words of love—only relief. He had done no irrevocable harm, he told himself, yielding to her pull and following docilely around the hut, out of sight of the carnage he had wrought. There was no need for him to tell the queen he was no safe guardian. No need to yield his trust to another who would not really care for her.
“Sit,” Alinor bade him, ignoring the silly remark that he was not hurt. She found to her relief that her knife was still in her hand and smiled a little, thinking how the body responded to need without real thought. When the strange man-at-arms had reached for her, she had stabbed his hand before she even thought of doing so. Yet she had held her knife carefully atilt all the while Simon embraced her and she him.
Simon was glad enough to rest for a while. The succession of violent exertion and violent emotion combined with loss of blood was taking its toll. He sank down, propping his back against the wall of the hut, lifting his scabbard out of the way and making sure his sword was loose in it. Although he made preparations for defense automatically, he did not fear attack. His men and Alinor’s would not go far. He closed his eyes.
A sound of tearing cloth jerked them open again. “What do you do?” he asked, seeing Alinor with her skirt above her thighs busily slitting her shift to pieces.
“For shame,” she laughed at him, “look away or you will see me naked. It is the only clean cloth about me. I am all muddied from crawling about through hedges, and I must have something to bind you with.”
“Bind me? Tush! I have fought half a day with worse hurts. It is naught but a slit in my skin. Do not trouble yourself. A leech shall see to me when we return to the queen.”
Alinor had had wide experience of the wounds of war and the filthy leeches that attended the wounded men in the year during which her liegemen had fought, sometimes bitterly, to keep her safe. Perhaps the leeches who served the Court were wiser and cleaner, but Alinor was not about to chance Simon’s well-being on such a hope. She met his eyes.
“You are mine, to me,” she said fiercely, “and none but I shall see to you.” Then seeing how startled he looked, Alinor smiled and told him what she would say to others to convince them that she did no more than her duty. “I have tended Sir Andre and Sir Giles and Sir John and many others when they were hurt for my sake. Shall I do less for you who are the warden set over me? Would you have men say that I hate you and wish you ill?”
Simon looked away and Alinor went back to cutting up her shift. It was reasonable enough, he thought, but that passionate “You are mine, to me” disturbed him. Then he remembered when he had heard Alinor say that before, and he began to laugh. God pity the man or woman who tried to interfere with Alinor’s inordinately powerful sense of possession. Simon understood that he now belonged to her—just like her castles, her lands, her vassals, and her serfs. For any and all of these she would work and fight. In a sense she loved them all. Doubtless in that sense she loved him too. It was safe to let her tend him.
By the time Ian and Beorn and the men returned, Alinor’s work was also done. She had removed Simon’s belt, lifted his hauberk and undergarments, tsked over the gash which needed stitching but which she now saw was not serious, and bound it firmly with pads and strips from her shift to reduce the loss of blood.
“We could not catch them, my lady,” Beorn lamented, growing quite red with anger when he saw his mistress’s disheveled condition.
“I think it is just as well,” Alinor remarked calmly.
“We cannot hide this from the queen,” Simon sighed, then brightening. “Yes we can. We can say you had a fall from your horse.”
“Ah, yes,” Alinor agreed very gently, but with a sarcastic lift to her brows, “and doubtless you were so enraged at my bad riding that when you bent to lift me up, you burst. That is clearly why there is a rent in your hide.”
Simon guffawed with laughter, then gasped and clapped a hand to his bandaged side. “Well, if you do not like my explanation, think of a better one yourself. The queen has no need to know of my bruises. If I do not approach her until after we reach Windsor, a clean gown will cover all.”
Alinor took his hand. She had made him remove his gauntlets when she saw the marks they made upon her gown and his own face. “My lord, my lord,” she reproved him mischievously, “to save me a scolding you are prepared to perjure yourself before your liege lady.”
“It was not your fault,” Simon said defensively. “You did not ride off alone. If you were taken by surprise—” His voice faltered. She had not ridden off alone, but perhaps she had separated from the group willingly, not understanding what was really meant by whoever arranged the tryst.
“Oh, no,” Alinor said, her voice echoing her disgust at her own gullibility. “I was tricked.” She related the entire sequence of events, adding, “The reason I am glad we took no prisoner is that I fear it would be an embarrassment to the queen to have proof of this wrongdoing. Someone with the power to hold me and hide me planned it. If there were proof, the queen would be constrained to act. This way she may drop a hint of reproof or not as it seems best to her. Thus, she must know of it, and she may scold me or punish me for being a fool so easily taken in. I have well deserved it.”
Simon shook his head. “The trick was well played. If it had not been for Ian’s quick eyes to see you were missing— I doubt if wiser heads than yours would have seen the trap. But, indeed, it is well that the queen should know. Thus, I can set a watch upon you—”
“And I will keep that watch,” Beorn burst out, his respect for Simon overwhelmed by his wrath. “And I will pray that another attempt be made. You need not fear, my lady. The queen will not be embarrassed by it. There will be such small pieces remaining of the men that try that none will know them.”
“I am sure I will be safe,” Alinor soothed her outraged master-at-arms, then turned toward Ian. “So I have your quick eyes to thank for my rescue,” she said. “If I have a gift in my power that would be to your liking, I wish you would name it.”
Stricken mute, the young man shook his head. Simon watched his squire’s face, then lowered his eyes. He had not been mistaken. The only question now remaining was whether it would do the boy more harm to keep him where he would see Alinor or send him away where he could only dream of her. I am better off than he, Simon thought wryly. At least I am “hers, to her!” He is nothing, a passing glance and smile, a gift of armor or a horse. Thank God she did not offer me a reward.
Chapter Ten
