Roselynde (41 page)

As if the King's departure was a signal, William Longchamp broke
all bounds of sense and propriety. Not content with having set his
co-justiciar's power at naught, he took the Bishop of Durham prisoner by a sly
stratagem and deprived him of all offices and lands he had won from the King.
This time the toad had leapt too swiftly at the fly. Sir Andre's frightened and
exhausted messenger reached Alinor in time enough for the Queen's indignant
protest to be sent to Richard in support of Durham's letters of complaint.

"Be sure," Simon had written in a separate enclosure to
Alinor that reported the happy result that the King had commanded Longchamp to
return Durham's property and hostages at once, "to inform the Queen of all
news from England even if it does not seem to concern the realm at large. If
she cannot be roused to argue against Longchamp before the King's brother takes
sides with the nobles against him, the blood shed in your grandfather's day in
the war between Stephen and Henry will be as a sprinkling compared with the
torrent that will flow. But remember, naught may be said against the Lord John.
She may not love him as she loves Richard, but he is her son and the youngest
of all her nestlings. I have word from Ian, who is returned to John's Court
from that of Owain in Wales whence he accompanied Lord Llewelyn, that there is
a great concourse of nobles to Lord John's table. Ian desired greatly to come
to me, but that I straitly forbade, bidding him to stay as long as Lord John
will welcome him. Since we expect every day to take sail from here, I have bid
him send what news he has to Sir Andre, whence it will come in safety to you. I
beg you to have a care to destroy or disfigure his letters if there is in them
any matter that you think hurtful. I would not, for any reason, have harm come
to Ian through me. Take care also in the same manner of these letters, for I
write more plainly than is altogether safe."

By the time Alinor received Simon's advice, it did not seem that
it would be necessary to use the myriad of minor complaints against Longchamp
that Sir Andre faithfully transmitted. These had paled into insignificance. The
Chancellor had demanded that William Marshal yield up Gloucester Castle. He did
not deign to give any reason. Indeed, even his inventive mind would have been
hard put to fabricate a reason. Worried about the peace of mind and safety of
her friend Isobel, for she had few female friends, Alinor begged the Queen to
permit her to order Sir Andre to bring the vassals of Roselynde to Marshal's
support.

To her surprise, the worried look with which she had been greeted
disappeared from the Queen's face and she laughed heartily. Then, seeing
Alinor's distress, she patted her hand. "No, no, child, I do not laugh at
Isobel's trouble. In a way she has none. Indeed, the only reason William has
not crushed Longchamp as a man may crack a louse with a thumbnail is out of
respect for the King."

"But the forces the Chancellor has are so great—"

"And without heart or sensible direction. Longchamp, whatever
he is, is no warlord. William needs no help in men or arms. Most probably he
has shut himself into his keep for fear his rage should overcome him and cause
him to tear that misshapen mongrel into pieces instead of merely driving him
away." She saw that Alinor was still distressed. "Never mind, child.
I have already decided to send the kind of help William really needs. Today you
will write to Godfrey, the Bishop of Winchester, whom Longchamp has also robbed
while he lay sick in Normandy. Godfrey is now recovered, and will go to England
and whisper a certain few words in Longchamp's ear."

Alinor dropped a curtsy and kissed the Queen's hand. "I am
content, Your Grace." Then her lips hardened. "But this mad dog,
should he run loose biting all and sundry as he chooses? Is there no way to
curb him more sharply?"

The Queen smiled. "Not yet, child, for he is clever and— You
frown, Alinor. Ah, the young are so impatient. Once I, too, could not bear
waiting for a good I saw clearly. I have learned."

"I am not impatient, Madam," Alinor protested. "I
grieve for all those who suffer under his oppression."

"Yes, and if we should fail to destroy him through haste to
prevent small harms—then what? He would be warned; our strength would be found
wanting so that allies would desert us; he might even, through miscarriage of
our purpose, triumph over us."

"I know you are right, Madam. Yet my heart is hot against
him. The insolence! To set himself up against a man like William Marshal."

"Cool your heart, child, I count upon his going from
insolence to insolence. Come, I will give your mind a happier thing to dwell
upon. Very soon now, as soon as word comes that Philip has set sail, we go to
Navarre. Berengaria, from all I have heard, is another such as Isobel, but
somewhat more learned. I hope you will soon have a new friend."

Alinor's eyes flew to the Queen's face, dropped, then raised
again, a trifle defiantly. "Will you bring the Lady Berengaria to the
King?" she asked.

The Queen laughed. "I said I would give your mind a happier
turn. Yes, at least if all goes as I hope. But," she warned, "I would
not have you write of this to Simon for a little time. Even love letters are
sometimes opened, and the road between here and Sicily is long."

Early in her life Alinor had learned that sudden great thrills of
happiness must be damped down lest they burst out in some unseemly manner and
either dissipate too soon or turn into an unexpected grief. She concealed her
blazing cheeks and eyes, her pounding heart, by a studious application to her
needlework. As the quivering excitement of knowing she would see Simon again
steadied into a more quiet satisfaction, the Queen's idle remark about hoping
she would have a new friend took on a broader aspect. The Queen was aware that
Alinor was ill-suited in years to be one of her ladies. She often asked kindly
whether Alinor was lonely without friends of her own age. To this Alinor had
always replied quite truthfully that she had never had any until she had been
drawn to Isobel of Clare. Although she could now see what pleasure there was in
such a relationship, it was still too strange to her for lack of friends to
breed unhappiness. She wrote to Isobel, she told the Queen, and William was
kind enough to permit his wife to employ a scribe to reply.

Doubtless Berengaria's situation was far different from Alinor's.
She was a princess to whose father's Court many maidens would be sent for
fostering. All would strive for the princess's affection. But Berengaria was
about to be separated from her friends. Perhaps a lady or two, like those
dependent upon the Queen's favor, would accompany her, but not many. Moreover,
doubtless Berengaria would be curious to know what sort of nation her husband
ruled and what sort of a man her husband was. The former the Queen might tell
her gladly; the latter, unless Berengaria was utterly a fool, she would seek to
discover from another source than the King's mother. It should not be difficult
to win a place in the princess's heart and then to become one of her ladies
rather than the Queen's.

If it was possible, much or nothing might follow. Possibly the
King would consider his tastes above his duties, wed and bed in haste, and send
his wife away in the Queen's care hoping the quick-sown seed would take root.
If, however, he had been wakened to responsibility he might keep his wife with
him for some time, perhaps until she conceived. As long as that was, Alinor,
too, would remain, if she were one of Berengaria's ladies, and thus she could
be near Simon—and see him, speak to him, kiss him. There was little chance that
Simon had yet won the King's consent, but a few months of her company would
stimulate his efforts.

Besides, Alinor kept her eyes lowered lest the ladies see what
burned there, she longed for Simon. What lived in her memory was not the
fairy-tale dream of love but Simon's last kiss.

When the news came that Richard had landed safe in Sicily, the
Queen began the trek down the west of France and over the Pyrenees. They moved
with surprising speed for a group led by a woman who was near seventy years of
age. Alinor marveled at the Queen's strength. They traveled so swiftly that
they outsped the messengers both from England and from Sicily. It was just as
well that they did and that Alinor was so tired each night that she slept at
once without time for a single thought or memory of a single dream.

They did not linger at the Court of Navarre, either. This was not
owing to a lack of welcome from King Sancho, who was utterly delighted at the
honor done his daughter. He was prepared to wine and dine them until spring
with the greatest pleasure. The Queen, however, said plainly that she wished to
cross the mountains before the passes were blocked with snow.

Sancho was stunned. She could probably pass the Pyrenees, he
pointed out, but he hoped she would not risk his daughter in a winter passage
of the Mediterranean. The Queen assured him that she had no such intention. She
would cross the Alps when it was safe, but to do that in good time it would be
necessary to be there, waiting for news that the passes were open.

It was fortunate that Alinor was not at that conference. She would
have been hard put to it to keep her gravity. What the Queen thought was safe
was no doubt a far cry from Sancho's ideas. In her desire for speed, the Queen
had instructed the guides to take the most direct route rather than the normal
trade route. Alinor recalled Beorn, white and trembling, leading her horse over
trails where the beast could scarcely put all four feet on the earth at the
same time. Once she had needed to dismount and walk, linked ahead and behind to
two sweating men-at-arms, because there was not room for her slim leg between
the horse's side and the rock that bordered the path. The Queen had made
nothing of it. It was possible to walk, she had said, laughing at her ladies'
laments. When she passed over the Paphlagonian mountains, there were times when
they had needed to be drawn up by ropes.

Not all the Queen's haste to leave Navarre was owing to the
weather. Part was owing to the news that had caught up with them. It was now
clear that there would be open rebellion in England if Longchamp was not
curbed. Whether Richard simply did not believe this or whether he was too
absorbed in the problems that had arisen in Sicily, he was making no effort to
control his Chancellor. Someone he trusted would have to be given the power to
overrule Longchamp, and the Queen believed, quite rightly, that only her
personal arguments would convince her son of these facts. Moreover, it seemed
to the Queen that Richard's immediate marriage was necessary on another score.
Although Simon's hints were very veiled, it was clear to anyone that knew the
King's tastes that the nearer one came to the influence of believers in Mahomet
the more available were pretty boys openly plying a trade as old as whoredom.

The remainder of the news from Sicily was no less unsettling. King
William, an ardent supporter of the Crusade and brother-in-law to Richard had
died the previous year. His will had named his aunt as his heir, because his
wife Joanna had been unable to give him a child, and his aunt's husband, Henry
of Hohenstaufen, had expected to rule Sicily in her name. However, William's
bastard nephew, Tancred, had seized the throne, and the people of the island
had concurred heartily in the act. They desired no strange rule from Germany
who did not know their customs and would spend little of his time with them.
Tancred was by no means an ill choice as far as Sicily went, but he had little
sympathy with the Crusade and was not at all pleased at the arrival of two huge
armies subject to men who might oppose his seizure of the throne. Thinking that
Philip might be more sympathetic than Joanna's brother, Tancred welcomed the
French King into his palace, leaving Richard to find quarters as best he might
outside the walls of Messina.

Richard accepted the slight with deceptive meekness— most of his
army had not yet arrived owing to his fleet having been delayed at Gibraltar.
He asked only for his sister, whom Tancred had nervously been keeping in gentle
custody. Although he had not yet taken the full measure of the English King,
Tancred was afraid to deny so reasonable a request. Joanna was escorted out of
the city with her bed and bed furnishing and £2,200 in gold in lieu of her
dower property. Richard received with open arms the sister he had not seen
since he, himself, had escorted her to William's Court when she was eleven
years old. He said nothing about her dower property but hastened to take her
across the straits to Bognara and to garrison a priory so that, whatever
happened, no one could seize and hold her.

Up to this point Simon's letters and those Richard's scribes wrote
could have been duplicates. The sections that described Joanna, however, were
more like a duet, two different melodies blending into a perfect harmony.
Richard enlarged upon his sister's beauty, so like her mother's, upon her
queenly grace, upon the elegance of her manners. Simon expatiated at length
upon the sweetness of her disposition, her elevated mind, the pious resignation
with which she bore her sorrows and disappointments. When Alinor first read the
passage she was a little annoyed. Simon seemed entirely too enthusiastic about
virtues that were exact complements of her own failings. Then it seemed to her
that he had been suspiciously silent on Joanna's beauty and grace.

Why should he not mention what Richard praised so highly? Simon
had a keen eye for feminine beauty. Could her fresh complexion have taken on
such a hue, Alinor would have literally turned green with jealousy.