Roselynde, page 27
“Simon, Simon,” Alinor whispered, catching his hands, “I will do what you want, anything you want. Do not be so cold to me. I cannot bear it. I love you.”
She had not really realized how much she loved him until they were again involved in working together to keep her lands safe. She would give anything to keep that warm rapport, that ready understanding. He is a man, she thought, and he does have honor. It is only that the honor does not reach as far as women.
“You love me!” he replied bitterly. “For how long this time? In the name of God, Alinor, cease from tormenting me. I swear I will serve you just as honestly, just as faithfully. I will not cheat you whether you love me or not.”
“Torment you? I have tormented you? And what do you mean, how long this time? I could not love you longer than I know you. I have loved you almost from the first day. How much longer could I love you?”
“I do not understand you at all,” Simon said quietly. “Are you pretending that you did not think better of this foolish love while I was in Wales, and pay me my due—and very lavishly you paid with a rich shire. I will say, Alinor, that you are not niggardly. It was the finest horse and armor with which you paid Ian for service and it was a fair, rich shire with which you paid me for mine.”
“Paid for your service? Simon, you are a fool! I have told you before that I bought you that office to protect myself and my people. What has that to do with a horse and armor for a boy? What has that to do with whether I love you?”
“Has it not to do with that?” Simon said uncertainly. Then his voice firmed. “No. You will not take me unaware again. I will not have my heart torn out, then patched up at your pleasure and put back so that it can be torn out again. When I came to Court, I thought it might be as you say. You spoke my name in such a voice and tried to hold me— But by the time I returned and I wished to ask if you loved me still, you would not even look at me.” He rested an elbow on his knee and dropped his head into his hand. “Let me be. I am too old to play your games. Young hearts crack a little and then heal. Old hearts are like old bones. When they break, they do not knit together easily.”
“I am sorry, Simon,” Alinor said dully. “I did not mean to hurt you. I see now I held my value too high when I desired you in wedlock. I have been well lessoned. I hold myself more lowly now. If it will besmirch your honor to strive for me as a wife, appoint me a time and I will come to your bed.”
“What?”
Tears filled Alinor’s eyes and slipped silently down her cheeks, but she did not sob. Her voice was only a little lower. “Will you make me say it again? You are a hard master, Simon. I said I would come to your bed at your pleasure. Say me when. Here? Now?”
“Are you mad?”
“No, I suppose this is not a suitable place. When we come ashore?”
Because Alinor’s eyes were tear-filled and downcast she did not see the slap that knocked her down. Simon knelt over her, his face purple with rage.
“I wish I had some cleansing herbs to wash out your mouth!” he roared. “I wish I knew what could be used to wash out your mind! Where did you come by such a thought? How dare you say such filth to me.”
Alinor lay silent, her eyes starting wide, completely dumbfounded. Simon seized her by the shoulders, lifted her, and shook her until she thought her head would snap from her neck.
“If you ever say such to me again, I will beat you witless,” he bellowed. “Who taught you such a thing?”
“Oh, Simon, stop,” Alinor gasped, beginning to struggle against him. She was laughing and crying at once. “Stop. It was the queen.”
“What!”
This time the level of Simon’s voice was such that Alinor released his arms, which she had been attempting to hold to reduce the impact of his shaking, and clapped her hands to her ears. Fortunately his shock also checked his activity before he broke Alinor’s neck.
“If I answer you, will you shake me again?” Alinor asked cautiously.
Simon’s hands dropped from her shoulders. “Do you mean to tell me the queen said I wished to take you— That I wished to dishonor the girl entrusted to my care?”
“No,” Alinor admitted, smiling through her tears. “Mayhap I could use a cleansing of the mind. The Court is no wholesome place, but I swear, Simon, I will never take its ways to be yours again. And I will thank God for that on my knees every day of my life.”
“Well,” he temporized, “I am no saint. I have sinned my sins, but they are nothing to do with you. Now, how came the queen into this affair?”
Alinor rubbed her cheek. The hood of her cloak had cushioned the blow, but Simon was a strong man and her jaw ached. “Will you grow angry again if I speak truth?” she asked.
“Probably,” Simon growled, “but I will not hit you if you do not insult me again.” He stared at her expression and his own changed from anger to revulsion. “Alinor, do not tell me you are of those who take joy in being beaten!”
Her clear laugh rang out. “No, indeed, and if I deserved it less, I would have made you sorry for it.”
“You would have made me—” Simon began angrily, bristling as he always did at a threat. Then he looked aside. “Ay, I have no doubt you have the power to do that. But,” he continued, looking back at her sidelong, “you have not the power to lead me round by the nose. I ask again, how came you to name the queen when I asked who gave you such a thought of me?”
Alinor’s mind had been very busy. It would be easy to lie and say she had built the idea from talk she had with the queen regarding one of the Court ladies, but it seemed better to tell the truth. In the end it might be necessary to get herself with child by Simon in order to force a marriage. If she planted the idea that the queen had hinted approval of such a plan, Simon’s strict sense of honor might be somewhat assuaged. It was the queen, after all, who had made him warden and essentially his loyalty was to her. Alinor did not for a moment believe that the queen had had marriage in mind, but she was not one to boggle at bending the truth in a good cause.
“I was very unhappy when I thought you were angry with me over the purchase of that office,” Alinor began, and then said hotly, “well, how should I know you were such an idiot as to think I would part with a huge sum of money because I did not love you? That I should give you a gift because I did love you is reasonable. The other way is—is—lunatic.”
“Never mind that. Come to your answer.”
“I am coming to it. The queen— Simon, it is very cold on this deck,” Alinor said, shifting uneasily.
“Alinor!” Simon warned.
She hunkered up and rubbed her behind. “It is hard too. Let me sit in your lap.”
Belatedly aware that their position was not exactly private, Simon glanced around uneasily. They were, however, more secluded than he had thought. Sometime during the argument the sail had been hoisted, and it effectively blocked the forward section from the main body of the ship. The crew and the men-at-arms were huddled as low and as close together as possible for the sake of warmth. What was more, between the noise the women were making and the noise the horses were making, it was unlikely that anyone had heard Alinor and him screaming at each other.
Simon folded his legs to make a comfortable cradle. “Very well. Sit.”
Alinor moved promptly and rested her head on his shoulder. “That is much better,” she sighed.
“Yes, and it is a great pleasure to me also,” Simon replied, “greater, perhaps, than is meet or fitting. Nonetheless, I have not forgotten my question.”
Alinor glanced up at him mischievously. “But I will wager I could make you forget. No, Simon! Do not push me off.” She giggled. “Indeed, I wish to answer.”
“Then do so, and quickly.”
“Listen, beloved. I misread what the queen said to me because—because I was not so old or so wise as I thought I was. What I saw among the ladies and their gallants sickened my mind so that I began to doubt all men.”
“There I was a fool. I should have warned you.” He saw the set of Alinor’s mouth and, even though her eyes and half her face were hidden, he guessed at her thoughts. “I was never a part of that. I do not say I am a monk, but whispering in corners and sighing love songs is not my forte. I cannot sing. Besides, my shoes are too big. Had I been taken unawares, I would be too easily known.”
That made Alinor laugh, as he had intended. Also the lightness somehow lessened the revulsion with which she had regarded cheating for the sake of the sick excitement it generated.
“I would like to hear you sigh a love song,” she teased.
“You are more like to hear me box your ears. Will you come to this answer you say you wish to give me?”
“As I said, you made me unhappy, and the queen saw that and questioned me straitly. I avoided what I could, but her eyes are keen and she saw easily where my heart was. She said she could not help me, but if it did not keep you from your duties with her, that I could deal with you as I pleased and that what was impossible to avoid might easily be forgiven. You came from her chamber with such joy I thought she had said the same to you. Forgive me, my love, that I thought you wished to have it both ways—that like those others you could have me and yet my lands could be free to the queen’s use.”
Had Alinor expected any reaction, she would have been disappointed. Simon neither spoke nor moved.
“I should have realized that she did not mean what I thought,” Alinor continued.
“Are you so sure?” Simon asked in a rather constricted voice.
“Yes I am,” Alinor lied cheerfully. “She knows you and must know you would have no part in such a thing. She has spoken to me often of how you have not been fittingly rewarded for your loyal service, but she has so many differences with the king on the right management of the realm that she dare not press for small matters.”
“That is God’s truth,” Simon sighed. “If Longchamp continues as he is going there will be bloody war in England.”
“Yes and the king will hear no ill of that toad. But Simon, if it should come about that I needs must marry, and in haste—”
“And how,” Simon asked with dangerous softness, “could such a thing come about?”
Alinor decided it would be safer to advance circuitously. “My family was seisined by William the Bastard,” she said ingenuously. “There is nothing in our charter to say an heir must be born in wedlock. To the firstborn male, it says, or, failing male heirs, to the females of the blood, in perpetuum.”
Simon knew better than to argue with Alinor on any subject pertaining to her estates, nonetheless, he said, “You jest!” Such a charter could lay endless heartache. A boy’s peccadillo with a serving wench could throw the succession into doubt. If an heir did not have to prove legitimacy, the estates might become entangled in endless trouble.
“I do not jest,” Alinor said indignantly, and then began to laugh. “The first Lord of Roselynde was a bastard, you see. That was not important, but so was his favorite son. And my grandfather was a very near thing, I understand, although the priest was said to have finished the service in time. You need not be so worried. It is not a thing generally known, but it could be used if needed.”
“No!” Simon said explosively, and then more quietly, “I have never taken a thing by stealth in my life—good war practice excepted—and I will not now, not though every part of me, brain, soul, and body, cries out for you. Do not torment me, Alinor.”
“No, I will not. Mayhap things will grow easier between the king and the queen. At least she knows now and has not driven us apart.”
Alinor was quite content with her afternoon’s work. She had never expected Simon to agree, nor did she expect that he would ever deliberately make her pregnant with the intention of forcing a marriage. All she had wanted was to plant the idea that the queen would not disapprove or be disappointed in him if their passions ran away with them. She was in no terrible hurry. If it seemed that marriage would be possible in a year or two, or even if a promise of it could be obtained for further distance of time, she would be satisfied to wait. If possible Alinor would not press Simon into an act that, no matter how well it turned out, he would always regard with shame and regret. There was no reason, however, to forgo the limited joys allowed them.
“The sun is going down,” Alinor remarked, “and it is getting colder and colder.”
Simon cocked his head at the tent. “The women seem quieter now. Do you want to go in?”
“Not until they forget, if ever they do, that I knocked Lady Margaret endwise. She was just about to cast herself upon the deck and begin drumming her heels.”
“Yes,” Simon said dryly, “I heard you putting a stop to it.” He reached up to unfasten his cloak. “Here, lake my cloak.”
“Do not be so silly,” Alinor replied. “You will freeze. Besides, I want a warm body, not a cold cloak. Do but open it, Simon, and take me inside.”
He began to laugh. Sir Andre had warned him about Alinor’s persistence. Unless she was convinced a thing she wanted was wrong, she would continue to strive toward it, backing and filling, seeming often to yield, but always gaining inch by inch until she had her way.
“You will get no good of it,” he warned, nonetheless loosening the folds so that Alinor could slip under.
Quick as a striking snake, her cloak was open also and slipped up over Simon’s shoulders under his own so that they were pressed breast to breast. She tilted her head back, her eyes light and laughing.
“I will get warm,” she murmured, sliding her arms up around his neck and pulling his head down. “For now, beloved, that will be sufficient.”
Chapter Sixteen
When the queen and her party arrived at Nonancourt, they found that the core of the trouble had preceded them. Longchamp, Durham, Lord John, and a concourse of barons and bishops were already in residence. The queen was livid, quite literally, Alinor told Simon nervously.
“I thought she would die before my eyes.”
“I am not surprised. She does not roll the floors and bite the rugs like the Angevins,” Simon replied, “but she does not lack for temper. It was all arranged that we should leave earlier so that we could stop to settle Lady Alais into Rouen and still arrive with or before the others.”
A horrified pity filled Alinor’s eyes. “Oh, Simon, what is wrong with the Lady Alais? I could almost believe from her behavior that she was King Henry’s mistress. And do not close your face upon me. I do not run about speaking of this to others. I would not in any case. I am so sorry for her. Besides, the queen says it is not true.”
“She would have to say that if her son is to marry the woman.”
Alinor glanced around to be sure no one was in hearing distance of the embrasure in which they sat. This was not so safe a place as the deep wall rooms of Roselynde, no more than a five foot hollow provided with a window with raised stone seats on either side. They had retreated to the spot after breaking their fast even though it was bitterly cold, because of the little privacy it afforded. Most of the Court idlers were grouped at the ends of the room where the fires roared. Those who passed turned politely away and did not linger. At the moment, no one was near.
“He will not marry her,” Alinor said very softly, but not in a whisper. She had learned early, when she was a naughty little girl planning mischief, that whispers carried far and wide. Even if a hearer could not make out the words, the sibilant hiss betrayed that secrets were being told. “Messengers have already gone to Sancho of Navarre. Berengaria is the king’s choice.”
“How know you this?”
“I wrote the letter. Simon, part of the queen’s rage is that Longchamp has tampered with her people. I am not sure how she came to know of it, but she has her ways. I write letters now that I wish I did not write. Let us not speak of this here. But I cannot understand Lady Alais. Why does she not protest her treatment? Even if she were guilty, she would do better to put a bold face on it. Yet she was happy to be left in Rouen. No, not happy—relieved.”
Simon looked fondly at Alinor’s animated face, her eyes sparkling with readiness for combat. Could she have instilled some of her spirit, perhaps Alais would have married Richard. God works in mysterious ways, Simon thought. For Isobel of Clare, it was a mercy that Alinor meddled. For Alais of France, it was probably far better that she remain in her luxurious confinement. And for me? he wondered.
“Likely she was relieved,” he said, and smiled at the disbelief in Alinor’s face. “My lady, you can brook no restraint, but think of a pet bird long caged. Sometimes it will not even come out when the cage is opened, and, if it does, often it dies of fright. Alais has her life. It is smooth and pleasant. She has neither worry nor fear. She does not need to please anyone but herself.”
“No worry? What of her lands and her people so long in the hands of strangers? If I—”
“Oh, you!” Simon laughed. “You would eat me whole for the sake of one hide of land or one serf’s hut.”
“The situation is not likely to arise,” Alinor said with dignity and then grinned. “But it is fortunate that the queen bestowed my wardship upon the one honest man at Court. The number of courtiers might have been sadly diminished by all the accidents that befell dishonest wardens of my lands.”
“Alinor,” Simon said uneasily, “you laugh, but you are not jesting. That would be murder.”
“Nonsense! If a thief came to my keep, I would set my dogs and men to pursue him and kill him. A thief is a thief to me, and the high born worse than the low because they are more rapacious. Which brings us to the most rapacious of all. Since he is here before us, what are we to do about Longchamp?”
Simon’s face grew as hard as Alinor’s. The softness disappeared from his eyes, which seemed to grow lighter and brighter. “It is too late to go about the matter as I intended. I will put it to the touch in open Court this day.”
