Roselynde (13 page)

The laughter was a release. What had loomed imminently
threatening, a brilliantly blazing emotion like a barrel of flaming pitch
falling, receded to a warm, pleasant glow like the rising sun on the horizon.
There was no need to do anything. First it was necessary to test the temper and
atmosphere of the court. Then, if this feeling that had wakened in her was real
and grew, she would find a way to achieve her desire. She always had in the
past. Why should she fail now?

Simon never thought in those terms at all. When he rode blindly
from Kingsclere, trailed by his squire and a handful of men-at-arms, he had
only been seeking solitude as a wounded animal does. Unfortunately solitude
could not produce for him a solution as it did for an arrow-struck beast. He
could not be alone long enough so that his hurt could heal, and the dart that
had struck him was not the kind that killed. Like a few old wounds Simon bore,
it would stay in him, aching anew each time the area was touched.

They rode; they flushed game, which Simon never saw. The men
glanced at each other and shrugged their shoulders. They were puzzled by their
master's behavior. Most had been in his service for many years and they had
seen him well and ill, angered and exhausted, sometimes near to despairing at
the evil he found in men. Here, however, there was nothing to distress him. It
was all holiday—cheerful welcomes, the best food and entertainment, honest men
with honest purposes.

Only Ian de Vipont, Simon's squire, had a glimmering of
understanding. He was suffering from the same disease and had lain awake more
nights than he slept with Alinor's image hanging before his eyes. He was not
jealous. To him, Alinor was a distant star and he did not dream of attempting
to reach for her. His feeling, although he was much the same age as Alinor,
having just passed his seventeenth year, was very similar to what Simon had
felt nearly twenty-five years ago for the Queen.

Thus, Ian's pain, unmixed with even the faintest hope of
assuagement, was somewhat akin to joy. Simon, however, had outgrown worship.
First of all, it was impossible to worship Alinor, who drove him alternately
from helpless laughter to equally helpless, roaring rages, which he thought he
had conquered twenty years past, and back to laughter. Alinor was all too
human, a woman to love, not a goddess to worship. Secondly, she was not
impossible
of achievement. It he were willing to compromise his honor, there were
several paths by which he might obtain her.

The most direct path was to do what Sir Andre had warned him
others might try to do. He could take Alinor by force to one of her more
inaccessible keeps, suborn a priest into marrying them, and get her with child.
Doubtless Richard would be too busy preparing for his Crusade to begin a war
about the disposition of one heiress—especially to a man he well knew would be
faithful to him. He would set an enormous fine, take his money out of Alinor's
lands, and accept the
fait accompli.

Simon first groaned aloud and then laughed at himself harshly.
Quite aside from the fact the he did not believe he could live with himself if
he committed so gross a breach of faith, so black an act of dishonor, Alinor
was not the sort of woman to be a passive victim. If she did not literally tear
the throat out of him with her hands and teeth while he was trying to bed her
or slip a knife between his ribs while he was sleeping afterward, she would
like as not have him murdered by her faithful men.

Of course it might be possible to win her compliance. She liked
him, and she was surprisingly innocent for a girl of her age and birth in some
ways. Simon was not fool enough to read more into Alinor's playfulness than was
there. It was that open gaiety that convinced him of her innocence. If, before
she was exposed to the practiced gallants of the Court so much younger and more
romantic than he, he made love to her himself, he might be able to win her
heart. Simon shuddered with disgust. Old lecher pursuing a scarcely nubile girl
to gain a prize of shame added to dishonor.

There was no way, really, but to endure. Tomorrow they would leave
for the Court. At least they would not be together all day every day. There
would be distractions. This sickness of heart came from too much idleness. Alinor's
property was so well run that there was nothing for him to do. Perhaps he would
go to France and fight in the tourneys again. A double thought, each prong at
opposite ends of hope, sprang into his mind. Men died in tourneys; men won rich
estates in tourneys. Simon quashed both thoughts firmly. To hope for death was
a black sin. To think of winning a rich estate to make him more eligible for
Alinor would not make the old-satyr/young-maiden image less disgusting. There
was no way but to endure.

When Simon and Alinor met at breakfast the next morning, he had
achieved a balance weighted down evenly on each side by a thick gloom. Alinor,
thus far concerned only with her own feelings, was shocked by his red-rimmed,
dead-looking eyes and hard-set mouth. Unfortunately, if Sir Andre was correct,
there was nothing she could do for him. To ask the Queen for a new warden would
involve Simon in great trouble and disgrace him. To treat him coldly could only
cause him greater pain and probably would not achieve the purpose of killing
his love. Besides, Alinor was not at all sure she wanted to kill it.

Simon chewed and swallowed with effort and replied to the
inanities of the Lady Grisel with practiced politeness. He had revolved various
explanations for the sudden departure he was about to announce and had decided
that nothing he could think of would satisfy Alinor. Thus, when the meal was
over, he merely stood and thanked the castellan for his hospitality. Then he
turned to Alinor.

"My lady, I will ask you to bid your maids to pack. We will
leave for London before the prime."

"Leave for London?" Alinor said blankly. "But why
in such haste? My furniture—"

"You will need none for the nonce, my lady. Doubtless until
you are established, the Queen will house you with her maidens."

"And my men? And my servants? And Sir Andre? Where are they
to live?"

"If Sir Andre wishes to come to London, I cannot prevent him
from doing so. However, I can see no purpose to anything so ill-advised. You
will be guarded by the Queen and by me, if needful. Sir Andre's place is in
Roselynde which, if he deserts it, will be masterless. If he wishes to come, or
you wish for it in spite of my word—well, he is not a witless child, I hope. He
can arrange to have the furniture and servants brought to your house
himself."

Alinor lowered her eyes and bit her lip. She was too well-bred to
start a fight in front of her dependents—particularly a fight she might not
win. Simon had counted on that, and she knew he had counted on it.

"Yes, my lord," she said meekly, and walked to him to
lay her hand upon his wrist. But as soon as he had led her off the dais,
"Coward!" she hissed. "Rank coward, to take such an
advantage."

"I am not in the mood for brangling with you, Alinor,"
Simon growled back, his color rising.

Lady Grisel started forward to ask if she could help Ali- nor in
any way, but Sir Andre detained her with some question, and Simon and Alinor
reached the relative haven of the stairwell. Sir Andre was not sure what Alinor
was about, but he had seen Simon's shoulders lift from their discouraged droop
and he was willing to give her a chance.

Alinor had sensed the life flowing back into Simon's body with his
rage, too. Initially her sharp response had been quite spontaneous. She had
said she was willing to go to Court. She did not see why she should be hurried
and harried over it. Now, however, she only wished to relieve Simon's gloom. If
she could not wheedle him into happiness, she would prick him into it. She
sought deliberately for something outrageous to say. If anger would relieve
Simon's pain, angry he should be. It would serve the double purpose of keeping
his mind on her.

"You are fortunate I am too honest to pay you back in your
own cheap coin," she muttered viciously. "It would serve you right if
I suddenly fell ill of some woman's complaint that would keep us here a
sennight."

"Woman's complaint!" Simon choked. "I do not
believe you are capable of suffering from a woman's complaint.
Women
are
meek and mild and biddable."

"I am also meek and mild and biddable when I am well
used," Alinor retorted, and swung around and ran up the stairs without
giving Simon a chance to reply.

He stood, staring up after her, fuming. How dare she say he used
her ill, only because for once he had asked her to suit his convenience instead
of her own. Meek and mild and biddable! She was biddable so long as it was he
who said "yea." Coward, she had called him, rank coward! There was
not a man alive who would dare, and she— Simon turned and cast a fulminating
glance at Sir Andre, who promptly looked innocently up at the rafters above.
Had there not been others present, Simon would have told Alinor's chief vassal
what he thought of his management of his mistress. As it was, he choked down
his spleen as well as he could and took himself down to the bailey to harry his
men into being ready long before Alinor could possibly be—if she had been
hurrying, which she certainly was not. Strange, he thought, the earth is dry
and the sun is shining; I could have sworn that it rained.

Nonetheless, when Alinor finally descended to the bailey, wimpled
and gowned for riding only a few minutes after prime, Simon felt as if she had
delayed him for hours. He took so frigidly courteous a leave of the castellan
and Sir Andre, whom Alinor had kissed and hugged most fondly, that the former
gentleman nervously asked the latter in what he had offended the King's warden.

"Not at all," Sir Andre said, laughing heartily,
"not at all. He has had some small difference of opinion, again, with our
lady. Do not let the matter concern you. Lady Alinor knows what she is about.
He will guard her interests as devotedly as I."

It was not a merry trip. Hostilities were renewed as soon as
Alinor was mounted, but they were no fault of hers. Having enlivened Simon's
mood, she was willing to forget the whole thing. She had wanted to go to Court
and here they were on their way. She had not really expected the Queen to allow
her to live in her own house, at least not just at first, anyway. Her furniture
could be sent for after she arrived in London. She even agreed that it was
better for Sir Andre to remain to oversee the lands, especially those held by
castellans. In fact, she was grateful to Simon for settling the matter so
summarily. She did not know how she would have told Sir Andre that she did not
need him without hurting his feelings.

"The caste in London must be enormous," Alinor began
civilly and with lively interest. "How will I find my way?"

"There are maidservants who will direct you," Simon
replied coldly.

"Oh, yes, for such things as the Great Halls or the
garde-robe or the Queen's chambers, but how will I summon my men-at-arms if I
want to send a message to Sir Andre, for example, or my grooms if I want to
hunt or ride out?"

"What men-at-arms? What grooms?" Simon asked.

Alinor blinked. "The ones who ride with us, who have ridden
with us since we started."

"You ordered them to come?" Simon roared. "Well, I
will send them back. You will have no need for such servants while in the
Queen's care."

"Do not be ridiculous," Alinor exclaimed. "I know
my grandfather brought his men and his servants whenever he went to
London." Suddenly her eyes narrowed. "If you send them back, I do not
go! Not unless you gag me and bind me to my horse. And if you try that, you will
have a bloody war right here on this road. My men will not idly permit such
liberties to be taken with my person. Simon, what does this mean? You know that
without my own loyal servants I will be no more than a helpless prisoner—and
that state I will not easily accept."

The ultimate insult. She did not recognize the fact that he would
not permit her to be a prisoner or that any harm should come to her. "Take
them then," Simon snarled. "The Queen will be furious to be out the
cost for their keep. I do not care! I am so grateful that I will be rid of the
charge of you, that I care for nothing else. Thank God you will soon have a
husband to deal with your vagaries. Holy Mary have mercy on the poor man. I do
not envy him his fate."

"A husband?" Alinor gasped. "Where heard you
this?"

"It is common knowledge that the heiresses the old King held
are to be given in marriage."

"Oh, yes, the Queen spoke to me of the two Isobels and the
others. But not me! I am not to be married. The Queen promised."

Simon's bridle hand moved so convulsively that his horse stopped
and reared. Alinor had to check her own startled mount and circle around so
that she could see him.

"The Queen promised?" he said, looking so stunned that
Alinor began to giggle.

"You have me still." She laughed, wiping tears of mirth
from her eyes. "And will have for many years, I think. She said the King
would be loath to let me marry when he saw my rent rolls."

"Why?" Simon asked, cursing the fluttering sensation in
his chest that made his voice breathless. "How did she come to give you
such a promise?"