Roselynde (28 page)

Finally there was a single cry of "Ware! Arms!" and then
another. Then a few well-simulated shrieks and curses as of men taken unaware
and scrabbling for their arms and weapons. Simon gritted his teeth as he fought
the urge to clap his spurs to his horse and ride out. The half of his troop who
had remained unmounted in the outermost huts launched only a few blows at the
attackers who came out of the dark fields, and then gave back. The Welsh
followed, breaking up into smaller groups as they came in among the huts.

At last, above the rising noise of battle, as bis own men firmed
into squads and began to resist, Simon heard what he had been listening for.
Horses were coming across the fields.
"Roi
Richard!" Simon
bellowed, and loosened the reins that had restrained his battlewise mount from
joining the melee at its very beginning. The horse sprang forward, sidestepped
a group of men who were engaged, and burst out into the open.

All around the village the King's name rang out as if Simon's
voice had wakened a multitude of echoes. These echoes, however, had substance.
Men rode out of the shadows that had concealed them, crying, "King
Richard," and wielding swords.

Simon swung at an oncoming rider, felt the blow parried, heard a
gasp, drew and swung hard again—to be rewarded by a choked cry and a darkness
that disappeared. He spurred his horse, and the beast moved forward. Simon
strained his eyes, cursing the dark. He could see no one else. Beorn, a little
behind, was cursing also.

"They have slipped by us, lord," he cried.

Slipped by? It was impossible. Simon turned right, spurring into a
gallop, praying his horse would not stumble and throw them both. Still, it was
minutes before he found another opponent. Again the clang of blades, but this
time Simon did not need to strike another blow. Beorn, unopposed, struck from
behind and felled the Welshman.

They set off again, circling the village wide. A rider thundered
toward them. "Richard," Simon cried as he raised his sword.
"Richard," the other replied, wrenching his horse sideways to avoid
his commander.

"Where is the battle?" Simon asked.

"I do not know, lord," the man replied. "There were
four against the ten of us from where I was. We cut them down. I heard weapons
this way, so I came."

"Back to the village," Simon ordered.

By the time they returned, the second phase of the battle should
have begun. Simon's men had done their parts. Each fire was a blazing torch
now, burning the brush and thin branches the men had gathered and dried and set
upright in the flames. The village was alight so that the men-at-arms could see
to fight—but there was no one to fight against. This time it was not because
the Welsh had melted away. The hundred or so men who had come to the attack had
fought hard.

They lay where they had fallen, some dead, some wounded. A few,
perhaps, had retreated.

Simon stared around. This was no feint and no raid. But what was
it? Could he have been mistaken thinking they were near the main encampment?
That was possible. Perhaps more than one level of misdirection had been used.
As Simon checked over his men and the fallen Welsh, however, a pattern began to
show. More than one Welshman had died inside a hut; many had fallen at the
doors. Certainly these men had come to rescue Llewelyn, and they had been
desperate about it. But why so few?

The simplest answer was that only a few were in the area; there
was no camp. Then Llewelyn would have been the leader of this one small group,
and they had done their best to save him. Simon's heart sank. If they did not
soon find a Welsh encampment, they would really starve. Simon made a moue of
distaste. It was a poor way to reward their devotion, but necessity—

Nonsense! There was a camp. There must be. And it must be a major
gathering point. Llewelyn had told him so with nearly the first words out of
his mouth. He had expected to be tortured. Since by now the Welsh knew that
Simon's troop did not torture their captives as a general rule, Llewelyn had
expected to be put to the question because he knew he had important
information.

Which brought Simon back to the question of why so few to attack.
Even if the Welsh knew Simon to be wise to their tactics and did not wish to
denude their camp of many fighters, sending such a small band was stupid. It
would have been better not to attempt a rescue at all.

Having seen the prisoners placed under guard, Simon set fresh
sentries and ordered that the dead be gathered and laid out respectfully to
await burial. When their own wounded had been treated, the leeches were to help
those among the Welsh who would accept their ministration.

"Will they come again?" Beorn asked his master as Simon
stood staring toward the woods he could not see.

"I think not, but I do not understand what they are
about," Simon replied. "Tell the men they may sleep, but with their
arms. And let the horses be kept together and well guarded."

"We will keep to our plan?" Beorn asked a little
doubtfully.

Simon's jaw clenched briefly. This might be a trap, yet it was one
he dared not avoid. "Yes. Before the dawn the enemy wounded must be bound
hand and foot and left—even those nigh to death. I am sorry for their pain, but
I have no men to spare for guards."

"There will be many at the camp?"

"Yes." Simon's voice was grim. "I fear we will pay
dearly for our dinners, but we must pay or starve. Gather the captains, Beorn.
I have new battle plans to tell them."

Cedric Southfold thrust his reins into the hands of his namesake
from one of the fishing villages. He did not stay to answer Cedric Fisherman's
question nor even to shed his dripping cloak. The lady of Roselynde was just
and generous, but she was also amazingly harsh to those who set their own
business above hers. The lady had said he was to be swift and, indeed, across
the known paths of England he had ridden swiftly. It had been less easy to
follow Simon through the trackless forests of Wales.

Accustomed to the softly rolling hills, the tamed pasture and
arable, the well-known, small woods of the south coast, Cedric had been
appalled by the broken mountains and wild forests of North Wales. Nonetheless
he had trailed Simon as in the past he had trailed lost lambs, delivered the
letter he carried, and memorized what Beorn had told him. Still, he was not
easy. If the lady did not know Wales, would she believe the difficulties he had
encountered? Certainly to delay even a minute to change into less ragged and
soiled clothes now that he had arrived would be a mistake.

Just inside the entrance Cedric Southfold stopped and gaped at the
Great Hall of Westminster Palace. He was appalled. He had been often in the
Great Hall of Roselynde, for he frequently served as the lady's messenger since
he had been brought to her notice and elevated from a poor freezing shepherd of
the south pasture to his present comfortable place. He had even twice been in
the Great Hall of the White Tower. That had been in high summer, however, and
few were in the Hall so that even though it was ninety feet long and forty
wide, he had found his mistress without trouble. This was three times as large
and full to bursting with fine-garbed ladies and gentlemen. How was he to find
his lady?

"Well, churl, what do you here? What do you want?"

The sharp treble brought Cedric's eyes from the shadowed immensity
down to about waist level. A little page sneered up at him. The man-at-arms
bowed humbly, his age, his experience, the scars of honorable wounds all
nothing before the fact that the sneering slip was a gentleman born.

"I bear messages from Sir Simon Lemagne in Wales to the Queen
and to Lady Alinor of Roselynde," he answered in his uncertain French.

"Go—" the child had begun haughtily, when a beringed
hand caught him a sharp crack on the side of the head.

"Cedric! Did you find him?"

The man-at-arms knelt. "Yes, lady."

Alinor turned on the startled page. "When a man of mine comes
seeking me, do you bring him to me with all haste. I alone will tell my men to
stop or go, to wait by the fire or in the rain, as I know their desserts to be.
And you had better learn to use more civility to those who deserve it by their
own good behavior or I will lay open the other side of your head. Now
begone."

Cedric's head came up proudly. He would die for her, so he would.
His lady used a man by his good service and she cared nothing for whether he
was born in a shepherd's hut or a high house.

"Come," Alinor said next, totally unaware of her man's
interpretation of her action. "Take off that sodden cloak and warm
yourself by the fire while you give me the news."

She examined him carefully when the cloak hung over his arm,
commenting on a bloody spot on his clothing and advising him which leech to
seek out for attention. It made his heart melt with mistaken gratitude. So, in
fact, would Alinor have treated a horse or a dog that was her possession. Any
creature that gave good service deserved to be well fed and well cared for. If
it was not well treated, her grandfather had taught her, it would soon cease to
be valuable. Mistreated men and animals cannot serve with their full strength.
As Alinor would have inquired of her farrier and helped dose a sick horse, so
she would recommend medicines for a sick man.

"I have letters, lady." He drew them from his breast and
handed her the packet, carefully wrapped in greased leather to preserve it from
the wet.

"Did you see my lord?"

"Yes, lady. He gave me the letters with his own hand."

"How did he look?"

"Thinner, I think, but he laughed exceedingly over what you
wrote and seemed in high spirits."

"What said Beorn?"

Cedric closed his eyes and began to recite by rote what Beorn had
told him. The words tumbled out freely, as Cedric had repeated his message over
and over all the way home, fearful of losing or forgetting a word. Half an hour
later, Alinor had a day-to-day account of where the troop had been, what they
had done, what they ate, and where and how they slept as well as of every nick
and scratch Simon had suffered and how it had been treated or not treated.
There was no word said, however, about the women Simon had used. This was not
owing either to delicacy or to deliberate concealment on Beorn's part. Simply,
he would think it no more important that Simon had taken a woman to bed than
that Simon had had sheets put upon that bed.

"That was well done," Alinor praised. She felt in the
pouch that hung from her belt and found a small silver coin, which she gave to
him, making his eyes widen at her munificence. "Go now and have your hurt
seen to and rest," she ordered. "On the day after tomorrow, come you
here to me. There will be letters to carry back to my lord."

As soon as Cedric was gone, Alinor unwrapped the parcel. Her eyes
scanned the brief lines Simon had written and her lips twisted with amusement.
He was well, the men were well, the campaign went well; he hoped she and the
King and Queen were also well. She raised her eyes exasperatedly to the roof above
and thanked God she had the foresight to send Beorn, who was both intelligent
and trusty, with instructions to report everything that happened. Then she
looked at the sealed letter to the Queen and had to repress a flicker of
jealousy. Perhaps Simon had saved his news for her. Quickly, before the notion
could come back and infect her thoughts or expression, she hurried down the
hall to the passage that led to Edward the Confessor's house. The Queen had
established herself in the Painted Chamber there, leaving the White Hall, which
was newer and more commodious, for Richard, who had returned only two days past
from a progress, which had taken him north to Geddington and west to Warwick.

Alinor was glad of an excuse to intrude upon the Queen. Directly
after Richard's coronation, she had been much in demand, writing one letter
after another to friends and relatives of the Queen to describe the lavish
spectacle—which, to her indignation, none of the Court ladies had been
permitted to attend. Afflicted by a sudden spurt of religious fanaticism and
sexual perversion, Richard had ordered that no woman or

Jews should be present at the coronation itself or the feast
celebrating it.

That had been the cause of another spate of letterwriting of a
more serious nature. Thinking from the order that the King's favor was about to
be withdrawn from the hated tribe of Israel who practiced the necessary act of
usury under his protection, the people of London rioted, beating and killing
the Jews and looting their property. Richard had been furious. He was not such
a fanatic as to lose sight of the usefulness of the Israelites whom his
great-grandfather William the Bastard had brought to England and established as
moneylenders. Not only did the Jews serve as bankers to the royal family but
when one died his property, which was under the protection of the King,
reverted completely to the Crown, unless the heirs paid an enormous fine for
the right to inherit.

Richard hurriedly sent justiciars and troops to put down the
rioting, which was becoming general. In addition, every hand that could hold a
pen, including Alinor, who would not ordinarily be used to write such matters,
was employed to send orders to all of the King's domain that the Jews were
still under his protection.