Roselynde, page 44
“My love,” Simon said one night when Alinor turned from him saying she was too tired, “why do you not feign sickness for a day or two. It is not uncommon in new wives.”
Alinor turned back into his arms and chuckled. “Yes, and we gave good evidence that you used me roughly enough.”
Simon laughed also. “Well, how could I know that cursed prick I gave myself would open again in the night and nearly flood us? But, jesting aside, you should try for a few days of peace. There will be no escaping her on the ship.”
That prediction was more true than either had suspected. Although Simon had contrived a clever arrangement whereby he and Alinor could have a tiny, private sleeping place together, Berengaria absolutely forbade his coming anywhere near the women’s quarters after sundown. He was a man of lewd reputation, Berengaria said coldly in answer to Alinor’s protests, and informed her that she was not the first woman in Simon’s life and that he had so behaved himself in Sicily as to make himself the talk of the gentlemen. Simon was furious and might well have dared the queen’s wrath, but Alinor was too sorry for Berengaria to allow him to show his contempt of her authority.
They managed to snatch a few hours together at several ports, but in general the trip was a nightmare in spite of unusually smooth sailing and good winds. Their arrival at Brindisi was an unmitigated relief to all, except Berengaria. She found another cause for grief and dissatisfaction when Alinor informed her that she would now share Simon’s quarters, since these could be placed both well away from the ladies and also well away from the men-at-arms.
“You are my lady. You have a duty to me,” Berengaria whined.
“He is my husband. My first duty is to him.”
“Not when he is cruel to you.”
“Cruel to me? Simon?”
“He hurt you cruelly,” Berengaria said mournfully.
“Simon?” Alinor repeated, and then choked when she realized the queen meant the blood-flooded sheets the morning after they were married. In the night, the cut in Simon’s groin had opened again and there had been more bleeding than was wanted or expected. “That was months ago and—and it was an accident,” Alinor faltered unsteadily.
Berengaria misunderstood the cause of Alinor’s failing voice. Her eyes softened. “Stay with me,” she urged. “He cannot force you to leave me. Let him have the lands. We can live together always, you and I and Joanna, and play and sing and read.”
Alinor was tempted to tell Berengaria the truth in the hope that it would remove at least one shadow from that unhappy lady’s mind, but she did not dare. Berengaria’s experience had soured her. Usually she meant to be kind, but sometimes a dangerous streak of spitefulness was visible in her actions.
“Forgive me, madam,” she said instead. “Your life and mine have been very different. I am of coarser stuff. I cannot be satisfied to play and sing. I need to ride and hunt and oversee the building of ships and tell my villeins what crops to sow.”
“I will find work for you then,” Berengaria said.
Alinor sighed. She had hoped to avoid this but she saw that no matter what other excuse she offered Berengaria would find an answer. “You mistake me. It is my desire as much as Simon’s that takes me to his bed. He takes from me no greater pleasure than he gives to me, I would be clear. I urge him to mating as often as he urges me.”
“You are indeed of coarser stuff,” Berengaria said distastefully. “That is God’s curse upon women for Eve’s sin. It is necessary for the breeding of children and not for pleasure.”
The mild sorrow Alinor felt at having disappointed Berengaria was completely overshadowed by her relief when they reached Rome. Here Berengaria summoned Simon and told him that he was dismissed from her service. Joanna had many contacts in Italy, and they could easily hire men to protect them. Simon was doubtful about leaving his charge, but Berengaria said that she intended to remain in Rome for some time, adding significantly that she had business with the pope. Simon made no comment upon that, although he thought she would get little satisfaction from that source. Nonetheless, he was certain Richard would not care. He took the precaution of obtaining written orders from both Berengaria and Joanna dismissing him and also found two Cardinals who would soon be traveling to Normandy. Having received Berengaria’s promise that she would place herself in their trustworthy hands, Simon happily relinquished his charge.
He and Alinor and their troop of homesick men moved north with all haste. They were able to cross the Alps before any of the heavy snow had fallen and, at long last, in the middle of December, they sailed safely into Roselynde harbor. Alinor was so moved that she knelt down and kissed the filthy mud of the street, kissed also the common people who flocked around her cheering and weeping with joy at her return. Sir Andre was good and just, but in the absence of his lady he had preferred to err on the side of justice rather than that of mercy. Moreover, Sir Andre would authorize no celebrations while Lady Alinor was away and possibly in danger. Now the people knew there would be a great celebration. There would be free meat and bread and ale and wine and singing and dancing in the streets and in the great keep.
There was a celebration, of course. Alinor would never think of disappointing so natural and innocent an expectation merely because she would not enjoy the festivities quite as wholeheartedly as others. Simon could not be present. It had been decided between them that no announcement of their marriage should be made before Simon could acquaint Queen Alinor with the fact. He took the marriage contract, signed by the king as witness, and started for London the day after they arrived.
Alinor missed him, but there was a great deal to do. Sir Andre could not, of course, be in constant residence because of his heavy duties as deputy sheriff. Land disputes and petty criminal cases had piled up. Alinor set herself to clearing up these matters and to listening to tales of woe about bad crops and lost fishing boats to disentangle malingerers from honest unfortunates. Somehow in her absence spinning spindles, looms, and embroidery frames had produced far fewer products than they were wont to do. Her maids needed lessoning, and they got it.
From before dawn to past dusk, Alinor ran up and down stairs, rode, listened, gave justice, praised, punished, and scolded. She had never been so happy in all her life. It was so great a pleasure to be doing something real again that she scarcely felt the fatigue of long hours. No problem was too great, no burden too heavy. Any matter that puzzled or distressed her could be put aside for when Simon returned. What had kept her sleepless in the night before her marriage troubled her not a whit now that he shared the responsibility. For those broad shoulders and that wise, experienced head all such burdens were light.
Simon had been expected back before Christmas, but Alinor received a letter instead. Upon arriving in London, he had found the queen had left unexpectedly the day before to make an unannounced progress. He was pursing her as rapidly as possible.
“But you know, my love,” he wrote, “the quickness and unexpectedness of her motions. The word in London was that she intended for Oxford, but when I started upon that road there was no news of her passage. Back I came and hied me round the city gates only to find that she had departed upon the road to Canterbury. Thus I am two days behind her. God alone knows when I will find her and then, far more desirable, find myself again in your arms.”
There was no help for it. Alinor certainly did not blame Simon. The queen was ill to follow even when you knew a sure destination. On progress she changed her plans every day and sometimes even in the middle of a march. Sadly, Alinor put away the twelve gifts she had made ready for her husband. She did not even know where to send them. It was disappointing, but there would be other twelve-days. A week later she had another letter with better news, although not the best. Simon had found the queen, but was not yet on his way home.
“She was not best pleased at my news,” he wrote. “I am glad, very glad, that the king’s name and seal were on our contract. Else, I fear she might not have honored it. The troubles that Longchamp began have raised a stubbornness in the people as I feared. It is none so easy to collect the monies the king demands. Thus, it is not easy for her to give up the rich revenues that flow from your lands. I bide in her company a little time to smooth things over. She loves me and remembers you with much affection. I will, a little later, offer her a fine for that we married without her leave. Strictly, this is not needful because the king’s will overrides all else, but I think it well worth the price to have her good will and, thanks to the richness of my booty, I can well afford to pay.
“Beloved, beloved, I ache for you. I am like a boy who is tormented by his new manhood, sleeping for comfort with a pillow between my thighs. I wish I could bring you that gift which we must give each other to receive pleasure, but I can only send instead these few poor tokens of the love I bear you.”
A small chest accompanied the letter. The gifts were arranged in order, from a trifle of a fine kerchief for the first day to another river of gold and pearls and gems, rubies this time, for the twelfth. Alinor touched them fondly and put them aside. She had received another letter that day that was occupying her mind. She would have given up the whole chestful of tokens for half an hour’s speech with Simon or even knowledge of where to send a letter to ask for advice.
The chaplain at Kingsclere had written to say that the castellan of the keep was dead. Alinor was sorry because he had been a reliable servant and still a young man, but illness cut many down in their youth and strength. What troubled her was that his wife, Lady Grisel, lived and there were children, two small sons and a daughter. Some might have put the woman out without a thought, trusting that she had relatives who would take her in. Alinor had been raised with a stricter sense of responsibility. Moreover, the letter contained a frantic plea for sympathy and comfort which, in spite of dilution by the chaplain’s transmission, touched Alinor’s heart. She was too young a bride, too much in love, to ignore the need of a woman who had lost her mate.
The first thing should have been to choose a new castellan for Kingsclere, but this Alinor did not wish to do without Simon’s advice. Perhaps he had a friend he would wish to advance to such a desirable situation, and she had no one in mind. More important, Alinor knew she was no judge of a man’s ability as a warrior, and Simon and she had spoken enough of the troubles that might easily overwhelm England. Every keep would need a doughty warrior to make it safe. It would also be kinder to go herself to comfort the widow, to assure her provision would be made for her and her children if she desired it. Simon could follow with the new castellan as soon as he returned to Roselynde.
In the next three days Alinor cleared all the most important business. With Brother Philip she left the letter from Kingsclere and one she wrote herself explaining why she had gone and asking Simon to find a castellan and come with him as soon as was convenient. Then, secure in being a wife rather than a prize any man could snatch, she left for Kingsclere with only a few men-at-arms.
She was greeted with voluble expressions of gratitude and welcome, but the atmosphere in the keep was very strange. Alinor told herself not to be a fool. Of course, the body would not be normal once the head was gone. Even at Roselynde the servants had become a little careless during her absence. How much more would her death and the uncertainty of what would come next have affected them. And Lady Grisel clung to her so close, weeping and moaning, that it was two days before she could pin down the real cause of her uneasiness.
There was scarcely a face she knew, aside from Lady Grisel and her children, in Kingsclere Keep. Most of the servants and all the men-at-arms were new. Even the master-at-arms was a stranger. Alinor only discovered this fact on the third day when she insisted she would dine in the Great Hall. Until then Lady Grisel had begged Alinor to eat with her in the women’s quarters, vowing that she could not in her grief face the noise and crowd below. Finally, however, Alinor had enough of what she knew to be self-indulgence. Sooner or later, whatever the pain of one’s grief, one must begin to live again. And the sooner one began the better. Moreover, Alinor was beginning to doubt the sincerity of Lady Grisel’s grief. Here and there a false note sounded. There might be an innocent explanation for this, but coupled with all the new faces it was a dangerous sign.
Thus, when Alinor seated herself at the center of the High Table, she was already uneasy. Her eyes ran up and down the lower tables, then made another circuit. It was not possible, yet it was so. Her men, those who had come with her from Roselynde, even Beorn, were not present. She lowered her eyes to her plate. If they were not there, they had been kept away by guile or by force. And if guile or force had been used, some evil purpose was intended.
What evil purpose? It was insane. Did Lady Grisel think she could force Alinor to cede the keep into her hands? Nonsense. She must know that the moment Alinor was free she would repudiate such an agreement and bring an army to revenge herself. Could Lady Grisel intend her death? That was even madder. Although the woman did not know that Alinor was married—and what Simon would do to the perpetrator of her death was unthinkable even to Alinor—even an idiot like Lady Grisel must realize that to kill the mistress would only put the property totally in the king’s hands and make the positions of vassals and castellans less secure.
Then Alinor’s thoughts caught on the significant point. Lady Grisel did not know she was married. Probably that idiot thought she had only to deliver Alinor into the hands of whatever man desired her. Doubtless the man had promised to cede the castle into Lady Grisel’s hands for that service. Alinor nearly laughed. What a rude surprise they would all have. She would not say a word. Let her unwise suitor come and offer what blandishments he wanted. It would make the joke even funnier. Alinor turned and spoke sweetly about the guarding and manning of the castle to the new master-at-arms. She did not know whether he was in the plot, but as the conversation proceeded she decided he would have to be dismissed in any case. He was too smooth, too cocksure, and too ignorant under the sureness.
Just after dusk the joke did not seem so funny. Lord John himself was ushered into Alinor’s torchlit private chamber without warning. She rose hastily and dropped a deep curtsy. He might have nothing to do with this, she hoped. Perhaps his arrival was a pure coincidence. Kingsclere was on the road to London. Perhaps he had stopped for a night’s lodging. However, even before he spoke, Alinor realized that could not be true. Had it been so, she would have been summoned to the Great Hall. Lord John would not have demeaned himself to come to her chamber. Alinor clasped her hands together nervously. Lord John was no man to jest with. From what she had heard, he did not accept defeat pleasantly.
“Lady Alinor Devaux?”
Again Alinor was startled at the beauty of the voice, so rich and sweet. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Lovely, lovely,” John purred. “I had word of your coming sent to me. I wished to speak to you. My wife remembers you—er—most—er—vividly.”
“How kind of her,” Alinor faltered. “Will you not sit down, my lord, and tell me why I am thus honored?”
He took the chair at one side of the hearth quite readily, and Alinor’s breath came a little more easily. Somehow, quickly, she had to find a way and a reason to tell him of her marriage. She rose from her curtsy, found John’s eyes on her, and swallowed convulsively. The rapaciousness in them had not been sated by the huge wealth and properties his brother had given into his hands. And just now that rapaciousness was not general, it was directed at her. Alinor tried to speak, tried to tell him about Simon before he could say anything that would make him look foolish, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.
“Sit, sit,” John said, waving her toward the other chair graciously.
Alinor was glad to obey. Her knees were trembling and she wished to hide her nervousness. To conceal her body further, she drew toward her the heavy embroidery frame that Lady Grisel had been working at. Then, desperate to avoid those eyes, which fascinated even while they repelled, drew even while they terrified, she lifted the needle and bent her head over the work.
“My wife told me,” John said smoothly, “that you are a lady wise beyond your years and sex, most interested in great events.”
Will he ask me to swear to him, Alinor wondered. That was not so bad. She could say she no longer had the right and that would introduce the subject of her marriage to Simon in an unexceptional way. He might not be best pleased that he could not take fealty of her, but the excuse was reasonable.
“You will understand, therefore,” John continued, “that personal choice must often be subordinated to the needs of the realm. I know also that you have said to my wife that you do not choose to marry, but that is a womanish nonsense unworthy of so wise a person.”
The flattery, Alinor thought, is being laid on with a trowel. I must have given Isobel of Gloucester a most unfortunate opinion of me. How stupid she must have told Lord John I am.
“No,” she began, “I have changed—” It was a good opening to explain her new situation, but John held up a hand for silence and out of respect Alinor had to allow him to speak.
“I am glad to hear you have thought better of such nonsense. To be well married is the only comfortable situation for decent people. Now you have been too long alone. Moreover, as soon as Philip of France is free of his vow, he will send forces against England. Your lands need a master that can ensure that Philip’s men can find no foothold on that coast. Therefore—”
“My lord,” Alinor exclaimed.
“Hold your tongue for the nonce,” John said, but with a smile. “Hear me out.”
“But my lord—”
“I know you are the queen’s ward,” John snapped. “Be sure I have her agreement for what I do.”
So that was why the queen was displeased with Simon’s news, Alinor thought. How unfortunate that her message had not reached her son before he arrived at Kingsclere. Her second sensation was of shock and disappointment. She had not thought the queen would allow her to fall into Lord John’s hands.
