Roselynde (43 page)

At long last, at the very end of March, they reached Brindisi
where a stout ship was waiting to bring them to Reggio. Richard was there to
meet them, and by the hand he led one of the loveliest women Alinor had ever
seen. Her hair was not so black as Alinor's; it had a warmer hint of brown. Her
eyes were darker and more velvety; if Joanna had a temper red lights would
waken in their depths instead of brilliant sparks of gold and green. No rage
lit Joanna's eyes now, and happiness gave a warmth to her olive complexion so
that her whole face glowed.

She and the Queen fell into each other's arms. Although she had
been so long gone from her mother that the Queen would not have known Joanna by
sight nor would Joanna have known her mother, they were not really strangers.
Letters of news and advice had crossed and recrossed sea, mountains, and
plains. Alinor had agonized with Joanna over her inability to bear William an
heir, and Joanna had wept bitterly over her mother's imprisonment. Alinor
watched the joyful re- union with a tear-choked throat. She herself was an
affectionate person bred up by grandparents full of love. It was impossible to
hate that warm and glowing creature who now turned her soft, dark eyes on
Berengaria and embraced her and called her "sister." Then Richard
came forward and kissed Berengaria's hand and embraced her gently.

Alinor looked away. It was true Richard could not offer more than
a formal embrace in public, but Alinor felt he could have been more fervent.
She scanned the gentlemen with the King, hardly expecting to find Simon since
naturally those of highest rank would be invited to meet the future Queen. Her
heart leapt and then sank like a stone. He was there, but his eyes were on
Joanna and the Queen who were conversing eagerly. He was not looking among the
ladies for her, yet he must have known she would be there. She had written to
tell him when she had been transferred to Berengaria's service.

Now the gentlemen were coming forward, being named by Richard,
bowing, kissing Berengaria's hand, moving on to greet the Queen. After the
formal introduction, the strict grouping gave way to casual conversation.
Several of the noblemen and churchmen knew Alinor and stopped to speak to her.
A few asked if the Queen had more recent news of England than they had. Alinor
knew she must have replied sensibly and looked much as usual because no one
seemed surprised by her manner, but if her life depended upon it she could not
have recounted a word that was said nor to whom she said it. She spoke and
smiled, but all she thought was, Simon had not come to her. With each moment
her rage and desperation grew deeper. She dared not look around for him. If he
was in the group surrounding Joanna and the Queen, her control would break.

The arrival of the horses to take them to the hospice where they
would be lodged was both a relief and a final disappointment. Alinor fought
back her tears and turned to smile at the gentleman who had lifted her into her
saddle. The smile froze on her lips. Young Lord Leicester was gone and Simon's
gray-blue eyes, sober and worried, stared up at her. He handed her her reins,
swung up on his own mount. All of Alinor's good resolutions took wing. She
forgot completely how she had vowed she would be a model of maidenly decorum,
at least long enough to ensnare her lover again. The flames of wrath mounted to
her cheeks, her eyes lit. She turned toward her companion.

Simon smiled. "Ah, you look better," he said.

"I do, do I?" Alinor replied in a dangerous, dulcet
murmur. She was aware of the other riders around them and would not raise her
voice. The group was spreading out, however. It would soon be safe to speak in
ordinary tones. "And what lacked my looks a moment ago?"

"You were so pale. I thought the Queen had driven you too
hard."

"You thought my strength unequal to the fatigues endured by a
woman near three-score and ten?"

Simon laughed. "I have seen strong men melted away by her
will and energy."

"I assure you I am well able to endure the rigors of
travel," Alinor snapped. "If I was pale, it was doubtless my own
idiocy which caused it. I was fool enough to worry because I have received no
word from you for nigh four moons."

"But, Alinor," Simon protested. "I had no news. We
did nothing but sit still and do a round robin of feasts and entertainments.
First Tancred did the honors, then Richard, then Philip, then the Bishop of
Rouen, then Leicester, then the other great lords, then Tancred again. Did you
think I would risk a man's life to send you word of what we had eaten and how
often I was drunk? Messengers travel none so safely in Italy."

"And what of my news? Had you nothing to say to that?"

Simon turned his head and regarded the ears of his horse with
passionate interest. "I did not know what to say," he replied
uneasily.

"Why? Am I now
de trop?"

"Any woman is
de trop
in a business like this, but I
have no control over what Richard will do. With regard to you, my heart said
one thing and my head another. I thought it best to hold my peace and trust in
God. I told you before, Alinor, I have lost faith in my good sense where you
are concerned. I did not even dare look at you at first. I looked at the ground
and at the heavens, at the Queen and the future Queen—everywhere except at the
ladies. I did not trust myself not to burst through and take you in my arms. I
can barely sit this horse now without disgracing myself."

"Then why did you not wish me to stay with Berengaria?"
Alinor asked in a much softened tone. So open an avowal went a long way toward
soothing her jealousy, although a small hot core of uneasiness remained.

"How can you ask so foolish a question?" Simon turned
surprised eyes upon her. "This climate has sickened many of our men
already. Moreover, the people here do not love us. It is none so safe to be
known as English in Sicily. Do you think I am so mad that, to still my craving
for you, I would wish you to come into danger?" He paused, shrugged
helplessly and sighed. "I am just that mad. Had I the least sense left, I
would have written to forbid you to change your position. But—"

A tiny giggle escaped Alinor. "It is just as well you did
not." Simon bit his lip and then, against his will, grinned back. "I
think the fact that I knew you would not heed me saved my sanity. I cannot tell
you how often I have cursed you for a willful bitch with one breath and thanked
God for it with the next."

The little coal of jealousy sent out a spark. "I thought you
found pious resignation and sweet obedience to be great and desirable
virtues."

"So they are, and if you were sweet and piously resigned, I
would not be racked between lust and good sense," Simon growled, looking
between his horse's ears again. "If you were in the least bit like any
good lady I have ever known, I would never have desired you as, to my shame, I
now do."

Alinor stared at what she could see of Simon's averted face.
Berengaria might have been appalled at the unloverlike phrasing, but that did
not trouble Alinor. She was only interested in what Simon really meant. If it
was only his tender conscience pricking him again, her presence would soon heal
the smart. There was also the possibility that he was using the device of a
tender conscience as an excuse for backing out of a relationship he no longer
desired.

"What do you mean, 'to your shame'? It was agreed between us
that you would try to win me honestly. Where is the shame in that?"

"In that—none," Simon replied in a furious undertone.
"The shame lies in that, when I knew you were coming, I began to think
less of honesty. I warn you, Alinor, I am no longer so trustworthy as I once
was. If you tease me now as you have in the past, you may have a rude
surprise."

"Is that a threat or a promise, Simon?" she asked,
laughing softly.

"Alinor!"

"Do not you dare bellow at me in this crowd," Alinor
hissed. "Have you no sense of propriety?"

"I have just told you I have no sense at all!"

Could he be trying to frighten her? Alinor wondered. "Simon,
look at me," she said quietly.

He turned his head obediently, but she could not read the
expression except that he was certainly laboring under some violent excitement.
His lips were set hard and his eyes alight.

"Simon, what is it?" Alinor asked. "And do not spin
me any cobwebs of love or fear for my safekeeping. Whatever danger may exist
for a man-at-arms, there is none for the three queens or their ladies. We will
scarcely be encamped in a bog or at the mercy of the Sicilians. And, however
much your passion, you are not like to force me to any act I will not willingly
perform."

"I do not fear your unwillingness, more shame to you,"
he said bitterly, and then, "Alinor, do you know what day this is? What
month?"

Completely bewildered by the
non sequitur,
Alinor repeated,
"Day? Month? No, to speak the truth, I do not. We have traveled so far and
so fast that the weather has changed out of all reason. Moreover, the Queen
does not believe in slowing her pace for the small matter of the Lord's day.
What can it matter?"

"Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday," Simon said flatly.

"Tomorrow!" Alinor echoed. "Tomorrow? Oh!"

Part of Simon's excitement was now clear. Since Ash Wednesday
marked the beginning of the forty-day period of Lent when all marriages were
forbidden, there was no longer any chance that Richard would marry Berengaria,
bed her in haste, and send her back with his mother. There were a number of
alternatives, but none were particularly attractive. The King might simply let
the betrothal stand without any marriage. Alinor did not think the Queen would
permit her son to take that path. She had not nearly killed them all with
climbing mountains in the depths of winter to have Richard kiss Berengaria's
hand.

"You were looked for some two weeks since," Simon said.
"What happened to delay you?"

"We met Henry of Hohenstaufen, but the Queen could do little
to soothe him. He is very angry at the King's support of Tancred," Alinor
replied mechanically, her mind still on what Richard would choose to do.

"Two weeks delayed?" Simon exclaimed. "What needed
two weeks to discover that Hohenstaufen was not pleased at having the revenues
of Sicily reft from him?"

"The Queen—" Alinor began, and then light dawned on her
and her eyes widened. "She did it apurpose! Had we come then, the King
could have married Berengaria with decent haste and sent her back to England or
Normandy or— Oh, Simon!" Her eyes began to dance and she bounced in the
saddle. "Oh, Simon, Simon! It is like we shall go all the way to the Holy
Land with you."

"Do you think I do not know it?" Simon grated. "I
did not see it at first. It seemed that you would be here by the end of
February or the beginning of March. That would have been time enough, if the
King was earnest in his work and God willing, to fill the Lady Berengaria's
belly."

"If the King was earnest in his work," Alinor repeated
softly, "but if he were not— Yes. I think the Queen intended to be here in
good time, but the passage of the Alps was so slow it was soon clear we could
not be here long enough to be sure Berengaria would get with child."

"And she will risk that girl's life and yours in that pest
hole in the east—"

"The Queen thinks of the good of the realm."

"Does she?" Simon breathed. "Does she? What good to
the realm is an infant heir but to breed civil war? Does she think she will
live forever to guide her grandson's steps?"

"What choices has she? Do you think Lord John can hold the
realm together?"

Simon groaned. "There is Arthur," he muttered.

Alinor shook her head. "That is worse. Even though the King
has named him, his claim is no clearer than Lord John's. Moreover, where is the
advantage in a three-year-old over an infant? A child of Richard's body, no
matter how young, could unite the barons better, the right being clearly his.
Even if it is a daughter, and perhaps the Queen even hopes for a daughter, the
infant could be suitably married to a man who could rule. I think the Queen
does not forget how King Henry was able, despite her will, to rule her lands."

"Does she speak of him?"

"Oh, yes, often, but not with either love or hate. More as if
she had come to know and understand what he desired. She speaks often of his
long vision as if of a stranger she had learned to admire."

"Alinor, tell me something." Simon had looked away
again, and his voice was tight and strained. "Does the Queen speak of
ruling?"

"Of the theory of governance?" Alinor was puzzled.
"She would not speak to me of such things, but from her letters I
know—" Simon shook his head sharply, and Alinor understood what he had
really meant. "Oh, no, Simon. No, truly, I see what you fear but it is not
so. Indeed, she is not of those who cannot conceive of her own death. She
speaks of it often and of how that was the one place Henry's vision failed. She
blames the King's faults, especially in that he lacks love and understanding of
the English, on King Henry. Simon, is it healthy to speak of what we are
speaking here and now?"

"No, perhaps not, but a disease has been growing in me—"