Roselynde (40 page)

"They are supposed to look and to carry tales," Alinor
replied smiling up at him. "It is the Queen's will. That is what she would
have told you had you gone to her. It is to be bruited about in the next few
months that you pay your court to me and I do not reject it."

Simon did not reply, merely stared at her.

"So that I can write to you and you to me 'in secrecy,'"
Alinor continued irritably. Thus the Queen can have news untainted by
suspicion.

"You agreed to this?"

"Most certainly. Oh, Simon, do not look so aghast. I said to
her outright that this would do my name no good, and she replied that it might
well do me all the good I wished done despite the slur on my name."

"And you took that to be her promise to press for our
marriage? Alinor—" Simon's voice faltered. He loved the Queen, but he did
not deceive himself about her. In defense of her Richard and her ambition she
was ruthless. Yet to say so much in plain words to Alinor who needed to live
with her day by day might be dangerous.

"You mean she will not hold by the promise should others'
needs press upon her," Alinor said slowly. "I guessed that. Yet I
think she hopes to be able to help us and, truthfully, you know and I know that
my 'good name' does not matter a pin. My broad acres will make up for any
little fault in my person, such as the loss of my maidenhead."

That was, of course, true. A man would have only to wait a few
months to be sure Alinor was not breeding before consummating his marriage.
Alinor's virginity was a matter of little importance except to Simon and his conscience.

"But she will use your hope as a carrot is held before an
ass," Simon warned painfully, "leading you from one thing to
another—"

"No, my love," Alinor murmured, covering the hand that
still held her wrist. "That might serve with a man, but I am a woman,
schooled by a woman as wise as the Queen and less able to get her own way by
giving an order. I was schooled with love and with a whip, and I have not
forgotten my lessons. I know how to get my own way, most often without needing
to give an order, and despite promises or threats."

"That I know to my sorrow," Simon replied bitterly.
"What I do not know is whether your way will permit me to look myself or
any other person in the face. If it is the Queen's will, I can endure that we
should be looked at and slyly jested about. I hate it, but I can see the sense
in it and I can bear it—so long as I know that we are in truth clean of the
lies told about us."

"But Simon—"

"No buts. Alinor, I begin to fear you will break me to your
will because you have raised such a fire in me that I forget I am a man of many
sober years. When you put your arms about me and your hps on mine, I become as
heedless of right and wrong, as much a slave to my lust, as any burning boy in
the first heyday of his manhood."

"You blame me too much, Simon," Alinor protested softly.
"I have not many sober years, and my desire is not less than yours. My
love, I do not wish to win you and have you hate me for it. I will not strive
to tempt you. But you must not take it so ill if mischance should bring us
together."

Neither chance nor mischance could have brought Simon and Alinor
together privately in the weeks that followed. Although the King's and Queen's
parties traveled together, Simon's change in status drew him completely out of
the orbit of the Queen's ladies. Doubtless had they made an effort, Simon and
Alinor could have planned a deliberate assignation; however, Simon would not,
and Alinor did not think it wise. The Queen's purpose was served well enough by
the attention the two paid each other during the festivities held every
evening.

It was a happy time for both. Simon came closer and closer to the
King, proving himself invaluable in his knowledge of warfare, the gathering and
provisioning of men and arms, and in the diplomatic management of jealous pride
among Richard's adherents. Simon, without blood ties, great estates, or
long-term family enmities, was the perfect mediator between the barons. Alinor
was equally busy, for the Queen was renewing old acquaintance and old loyalties
all over her continental domains. What was even more to Alinor's taste was that
the management of her own estates had been thrust back into her hands. The
Queen no longer feared that Alinor would withhold a groat. Since Simon had
fixed the dues to be paid and failure to pay would fall upon his head, the
Queen had no doubt that Alinor would make good the amount.

Each afternoon Simon and Alinor met after dinner. In public there
was no need to fear they could be carried away by passion. Equally, there was
no need to hide what they felt. They could talk and dance and touch and look
into each other's eyes. It did not matter that their talk seldom touched upon
love; their devotion broadened and deepened with each shared thought and
problem.

Problems there were in plenty. Matters were going from bad to
worse in England, although the troubles had not yet touched Alinor's estates.
When they returned to England after their conference with the King, Longchamp
had refused to allow the Bishop of Durham to sit with the barons of the
Exchequer, despite the fact that King Richard had confirmed Durham as justiciar
of the northern parts. This boded very ill for any other promises Longchamp had
made. Simon considered and described in detail steps to be taken for strengthening
the defenses of Sussex. Alinor related these faithfully to Sir Andre, received
his reports of what had been accomplished, and passed the information to Simon.
The Queen approved heartily. The steady come and go of messengers asking for
Lady Alinor became a commonplace. No one would notice one or two more or less
when the King's party separated from hers.

When Richard had seen his mother comfortably settled at Chinon, he
departed upon a final tour of the provinces. It was not always a peaceful tour.
Simon saw action with the King in the attack and capture of William of Chis,
who had long plagued the pilgrims passing through the Pyrenees on their way to
the shrine at Compostela. It was a most fortunate circumstance in that it gave
Richard a fully rounded view of the man he remembered only as a restraining
influence in battle. If the King had had any lingering fear that his
"shield bearer's" purpose was to protect him, it ended at Chis's
stronghold. Simon was as daring a fighter as Richard could desire, and when the
battle was over the King embraced and kissed his liegeman with sincere
enthusiasm.

The languorous spring of the Loire Valley warmed steadily toward
the gasping heat of full summer. Here were no kindly mists, no cool sea
breezes, no sudden chill showers. The sun shone hot, the air lay still and
clear. Alinor shed her woolens for linens, found herself laboring for breath
even in these lighter garments, and sought out her summer silks. The Queen,
observing her maiden's flushed and sweat-marred face, brought out a length of
still thinner stuff, costly but cool, and made Alinor a present. Letters flew
north to Sir Andre and a strong cortege came south with chests of silver and
pouches of gold. The Queen did not ask whence came the money and she made no
difficulties when Alinor asked leave to go to Tours to buy cloth. In fact she
commissioned Alinor to buy some extra lengths for those ladies not so well
endowed.

Alinor wrote this news to Simon, adding, "from this and from
some other things too small to mention, it is my belief we will travel south.
Do you know whether the King plans a meeting?"

To this hopeful question, Alinor received a pleasanter answer than
she expected. Simon himself arrived on June 14. They had one heavenly week,
Simon and Alinor both being free of duty while the King and Queen were closeted
in final conferences. They rode out along the banks of the lovely Loire and
rested in shaded, grassy hollows while the contented horses cropped the
still-tender herbage. Here they talked much of love; hand clasped hand and lip
met lip often, but Simon was so very happy that Alinor put a bridle on her own
will and desire. There was no reason but a satisfaction of the senses to yield
to passion now. They would be parted too soon and for too long for Alinor to
reap the reward she desired from union. The mere satisfaction of the senses was
too brief and cheap a fulfillment for the heavy price of self-reproach her
lover would pay.

She was rewarded for her restraint by a week of perfect romance,
just as he had read it in the tales of Chrétien de Troyes and Andreas
Cappelanus's
Tractatus.
Simon had learned the conventions in his youth
and he unfolded that fragile and lovely plaything of the idle for the child he
loved, who did not believe in idleness. He made a fairyland memory for her to
hold and to look at when his letters came back across the seas and mountains
breathing of war and disease and death and despair, and perhaps, at last, to
hold when his letters ceased to come.

It was as well, Alinor thought, as she wiped up her tears with the
corner of her wimple, that they had not had more time. That last kiss Simon had
bestowed upon her in a shadowy corner of the Great Hall was not in the least
courtly. Of course, she should not have crept from the women's chambers before
dawn and taken him by surprise to have one more private moment with him. They
had said their farewells the night before in proper form. Alinor thought back
over the week past and sighed. It was so beautiful. Just like the exquisite paintings
that Brother Philip made in the books of saints' lives—and just as far removed
from real life. What was real was Simon's last brutal kiss, his mouth hard and
demanding, his teeth bruising her lips.

She had one more sight of him, as unreal but much more frightening
than her fairy-tale week. At Tours, where the Queen had gone to see her son and
his army ride off, Alinor had a glimpse of Simon looking like the portrait of a
Crusader in his white tabard with its large red cross. She had never seen him dressed
in anything but gray. It was his affectation and marked him well among men who
customarily dressed in far more brilliant hues. Seeing him so altered chilled
her blood. It almost seemed he could not look more strange and remote if he
were already dead. The impression was heightened because his eyes did not at
first find her and, seeking among the ladies with the Queen, gave his face a
rapt expression of intensity.

The horrible chill of foreboding was over in an instant. Simon
found her; his eyes lit; he shifted on his horse and raised his hand. Alinor
waved from the window where she stood behind the Queen's chair, kissed her
fingers, and threw the kiss to him. Her gauzy sleeve, moving more slowly than
her hand, brushed her face. Practicalities, always more compelling to Alinor
than fears or dreams, swarmed into her mind. She did not know whether Simon was
fitted with thin garments for the cruel heat; she did not know whether he had
sufficient funds. That Simon! And she had once doubted he was a dreamer. A
whole week wasted on songs and whispers of love—well, not wasted, she thought,
as the cavalcade moved past and Simon's white tabard became one of a mass of
such. No, not wasted.

Still, this was no time for tears, she told herself while the
rebellious tears came anyway. The Queen was not weeping. Alinor glanced at her
mistress and caught her breath. Her face was like a death mask, as white and
still as graven stone. Alinor knelt and took the thin, icy hand in hers.
"Madam," she choked, "Madam," she bowed her head into the
Queen's lap.

The other cold, fragile hand patted her shaking shoulder.
"Courage, child, courage." The voice was old, trembling. Then the
hand gripped tight, the voice came strong. "Courage, I say. If we fail
now, all is lost. What good is useless lamentation. Think! What is next to
do?"

Fortunately there was much to do, more than Alinor expected when
she swallowed her tears and went to buy cloth again. She had only a few quiet
days to begin hasty work on garments for Simon, harrying her maids unmercifully
at their sewing. If they finished in good time, Simon would have the clothing
before the army left France because they were going first to a meeting with
King Philip at Vezelay. Those days were all she had to work and dream and cry a
little. The Queen received confident letters from her son. Those Alinor had
from Simon told a different tale.

"We went without mishap or disorder," Simon wrote,
"and the men are well disposed to each other, there being little conflict
between ours and the French. This is better than I had feared. I wish I could
say the same for the higher as for the lower. My lord, by his very nature and
without his desire or effort, outshines King Philip as the sun the moon. The
people call after him and throw roses and run to kiss the hem of his garments.
In a manner I wish it were not so, for Philip is eaten with the worm of envy.
There are many sweet words and kisses, many protestations of love and tender
looks into my lord's eyes, but when his eyes are turned away mine are not. I
see such things in King Philip as should not be in the face of one committed to
God's work. Tell my lady that I sleep in my lord's chamber with my naked sword
by my hand, and I have let this be known. Also I have so wrought that my
English servants prepare the food. There will be no tampering with them, for
they have nothing to gain from the French King and, besides, love me
well."

Alinor wondered whether Simon was wise to add to the weight of the
Queen's troubles with such suspicions, but she soon realized that he had done
right. It was necessary for her peace of mind that the Queen trust Simon's
news, and confirmation of what she already strongly suspected did not disturb
her much. Having done all that humanly could be done to protect Richard, she was
willing to trust in God for the rest without useless rending of her spirit. She
could not afford to waste her strength on fruitless fear. She needed it all for
practical considerations.