Roselynde (33 page)

It was fortunate that the King's unmentionable difficulty had come
up. Queen Alinor assumed that Simon's slow response was because he was still
occupied with that hateful idea, and the impression was heightened by the
stupid way he repeated, "Safely? How do you mean safely?"

To Simon it was a miracle that he got words out at all. So many
hopes and fears tore him that after the immediate anguish passed, he felt
nothing. Numbly he wondered whether the Queen had divined his illicit passion.
If so, she did not disapprove, for there was nothing beyond simple inquiry in
her voice. But what an inquiry! Was she asking whether he intended to dishonor
his ward the moment her back was turned? Was she suggesting he should do so?
How else to interpret such a question?

A flash of time set that lunacy out of his mind. It was far more
likely that the Queen had discovered that Alinor loved him. But it was not
true! Not any longer! Clearly while he was absent in Wales Alinor had thought
better of her infatuation. Perhaps the tales of the women he had used had
cooled her. She had purchased the appointment in Sussex as a peace offering, as
an apology, as a payment of an obligation. Had she not? Then why the tears? Why
did she say his name in the same anguished whisper that came from him when he
spoke her name in the night?

"What do you mean, how do I mean 'safety'?" the Queen
said crossly. "Wherever that girl is, there is a hotbed of unrest. If she
were ugly or stupid, the young men would not look at her. If she were less
rich, the fathers would not egg them on. No, you need not fly into the boughs
in her defence. Since that one foolish mistake, Alinor has been well
behaved." The Queen paused. "In fact, there is something that weighs
on her spirit of late. She has become very quiet and oppressed. When I question
her, she denies it and is gay again—until she thinks I do not notice her. Do
you think she yearns for her own keeps and lands?"

"How would I know?"

"I thought she might have written something of it to
you."

"No, I would have said, from her letters, that she enjoyed
the employment you give her and the life of the Court. Her letters were full
only of gossip and politics. Sometimes she wrote a question of business, but
there was no sign even in those questions that she wished to be at home."

"Then it will not be an unkindness to take her, if that seems
best."

"Take her?" Simon repeated.

"That is the alternative to leaving her here. What ails you,
Simon? You repeat what I say like an idiot, and you have never answered as to
the safety of leaving her upon her own domains. Would it be safe?"

Feeling restored, Simon had to bite his lip to contain a cry of
pain. In all his dealings with greed and corruption, the reality of the Devil
had never been so apparent to him. That scene in the moonlit garden that he
could not banish from his mind and heart, that was truly temptation. And here
again was temptation. He need only say that Alinor would be safe in Roselynde,
and she would be his again—to laugh with and ride with, talk with and read
with. So much he would have even if she did not love him, and, what the Queen
said of an oppression of her spirits, perhaps she did. What might he not have
then?

"It is not that I wish to leave her," Queen Alinor
added, trying to clarify matters. "I will miss her for she is useful to
me. When I saw her growing so heavy of heart, I thought she might be one of
those who pine when she is wrested from the place she knows best."

Simon looked into the fire and rubbed his hands together slowly.
"It is nowise safe to leave her unless she be well wedded and bedded
before you go."

"There is no time for that."

"Then she must go even if she pines." Simon wondered why
his misery did not show in his voice. "With the two Isobels married,
Alinor is now the greatest prize in England. The King is gone, and you will be
gone also. The chief justiciars will doubtless remain at each others'
throats." His pain temporarily repressed by the practical aspects of what
he was saying, Simon looked up. "Longchamp is too hated to be much
respected as Chancellor. Who then can tell those who wish to pluck the juicy
fruit 'nay'? Madam, Alinor can be the little seed from which the spreading
mustard of civil war will grow."

"Well, then—" the Queen began, and Simon shook his head
at her.

"I can probably keep her from being taken by stuffing and
garnishing Roselynde for siege, but will not those who besiege the keep soon
flood over and raid others' lands? And from that—"

"Simon, Simon," the Queen laughed, holding up a hand.
"Do not be so passionate. I will take her, as I said, gladly. In any case,
her care would not have been in your hands. I will need you with me. You must
find a deputy Sheriff in Sussex—" she began to laugh again "—but I
think Alinor has that already arranged."

"I? I am also to go?"

An expression of blank amazement on the Queen's face gave way to
something much colder. "Do you think I called you here to answer questions
I could have asked in a letter?" she asked. "What else would I summon
you for but to serve as the leader of my escort as was your duty in times past?
Have you grown so lofty in your new eminence as sheriff that you will not deign
to—"

She cut off her diatribe midsentence since obviously it was not
necessary nor doing any good. Simon could not have heard a word she said. An
idiotic expression of sheer delight had spread over his features, and he stared
off past her with the eyes of a man who sees the open gateway into Heaven. A
qualm of real unease passed through the Queen. Could his mind be disordered?
She dismissed the notion. If it was, it had no effect on the performance of any
normal duty. The Welsh expedition was no product of a disordered mind, nor was
the smooth running administration of the shire of Sussex.

At last Simon brought his eyes back to her face. "Forgive
me," he said. "I have been feeling these two months past like an old
stallion, too beloved to kill but no longer worthy of his work. Alinor wrote me
how kind you were in helping obtain Sussex for me by interceding with the
King—and I thought you were setting me out to pasture. I thought perhaps I was
grown too old—"

The Queen's laugh, still beautiful in spite of her age, belled
out. "Oh, Simon. How can I think of you as old? In my mind you are still a
boy." Then she sobered. "But you are not. In truth, Simon, are you
content to make this journey?"

"Content? Yes!" He stood up. "But, Madam, you could
have given me a little more warning. I must go, if you will give me leave, and
make such preparations as I can in this short time."

In the anteroom Alinor still sat by the fire, although she was no
longer waiting. Her despair did not show on her well-schooled features, and her
needle did not hesitate on the work with which she busied herself. All she
could think of was that she must get away from the Court. If only she could be
with Simon as she had been at Roselynde, she could mend the breach that had
opened between them. When she heard his step, she lifted her head.

"Sir Simon," she called imperiously.

He hesitated, as if he wished to ignore her, then walked across to
her quickly. Alinor drew in her breath. Something had happened. Simon's eyes
were alight. Alinor, however, felt no relief. She recognized that excited,
leashed-in pleasure. Just so had Simon looked when the King ordered him to war
in Wales.

He looked at her, but Alinor thought he scarcely saw her until he
smiled. The words she had prepared died upon her lips.

"What is it?" she asked breathlessly.

"I have no time to tell you," he replied, his deep voice
lighter than usual and almost laughing, "and I do not know whether I am
permitted to speak in any case. I must ride back to Sussex, but I will return
within the week." He hesitated, the light in his eyes dimming a trifle as
if some anger or doubt crossed his mind. "I need to talk to you, but for
that I need leisure lest there be worse misunderstanding." Suddenly he
balled a fist and shook it in her face. "For God's sake, Alinor, do not
anger the Queen. If you do, I will beat you witless."

With that, he was gone, leaving Alinor half demented between rage
and hope. Her condition was not improved when she was summoned to the Queen.
Having asked with genuine anxiety how she had offended, Alinor received a
glance of surprise.

"Whatever made you think I was offended?" the Queen
asked.

"Simon—" Alinor faltered, dizzy with confusion. "He
said— He said I was not to anger you."

The Queen shrugged. "I must suppose it was in the nature of a
general warning. We did speak of you, my dear, but only as to the advisability
of your coming with me to Normandy and Aquitaine or remaining here."

Alinor struggled for composure. Her only interest in whether she
went or stayed was where Simon would be, but she was so overset that she could
think of no safe way to ask that question. She heard the Queen say that she was
to go and even speak most kindly of her usefulness, but she did not dare
express either joy or repugnance. She only managed to stammer out some phrases
of gratitude for the Queen's favor and kind thoughts, which made Queen Alinor
look at her very queerly. Something was definitely troubling Alinor, but if
what Simon said was true—and the Queen had no cause to doubt his analysis,
since it jibed perfectly with her own—the girl had to be removed from the
country until whatever trouble she might cause would not spread into a general
conflagration.

Because in general Alinor was a sensible girl, the Queen felt she
could reason away her trouble if only she could discover what it was. So, once
again, she questioned. This time Alinor simply could not find laughter. She
reiterated her, "Nothing, nothing," but the Queen would not be so
easily satisfied. In desperation, Alinor cried, "Simon is unkind. He has
been so angry because of that accursed appointment. I have begged pardon, but
he will not forgive me."

At first the Queen made no reply at all, even her eyes losing
their expression as she added up the bits and pieces of Alinor's odd behavior
and Simon's even more peculiar reactions. Alinor nearly fainted with terror at
what she had unintentionally divulged. The Queen's cynical brow quirked upward.

"You knew he would be angry when you made the
arrangement," the Queen said. "I can do nothing to help you. You will
have to settle your differences with Simon yourself. So long as it does not
interfere with his usefulness to me, you may deal with him in any way you choose.
You know, Alinor, what is impossible to avoid must be forgiven. And now, since
I can do no more for you, you may go."

It was a dismissal that called for no more than a curtsy and
departure, which was fortunate because Alinor could not have squeezed a syllable
past her lips to save her life. Doubtless the Queen knew that, she realized as
she sat down beside the fire again and began to ply her needle. What had been
said was clear enough. The implications attached had deprived Alinor of speech.
Turning the words over and over in her mind, applying an emphasis here or
there, pulling the sentences and phrases apart, changed nothing.

There was no doubt in Alinor's mind that the Queen knew she loved
Simon and, probably, that Simon loved her. Was confession what brought the
light to Simon's eyes? In addition it was clear that the Queen would not help
them to marry. Alinor felt no resentment about that. She understood that the
Queen dared not add even a feather to the burden of disagreement between
herself and her son.

There had been more, however. That raised brow, the knowing quirk
of lip— Alinor recalled the tales of the Queen's youth. How her first husband
had literally to pluck her from the bed of her own uncle. How even after that
he had been willing to be reconciled, but the Queen had spat upon the floor in
the Pope's presence and sneered, "What have I got after ten years of
marriage—two daughters." How everyone had counted days and weeks upon
their fingers when the Queen's eldest son, who had died in infancy, had been
born, and how it was whispered that the child was not Henry's but some low-born
troubadour's.

Alinor's needle flew. Color mantled her cheek, died, returned even
more burning. No, the founder of the Courts of Love, those celebrations of
polite adultery, would not be shocked at an illicit love affair. The Queen had
really meant that, unless she were hit in the face with proof, she would turn a
blind eye if Simon and Alinor wished to become lovers. Had she said the same to
Simon? Was that what lit the flame in his eyes? Simon?

The fact that Alinor had already considered tricking or forcing
Simon into raping her had no effect on her feeling of revulsion. She had
considered the idea only as an expedient, a step on the road to marriage. She
had dismissed the notion because of its effect on Simon. The fact that she had
no moral scruples about bedding Simon outside of marriage and that the Queen
had actually suggested and condoned an affair also had no mitigating effect.
Alinor regarded the idea that Simon would eagerly accept such a relationship
with horror. Men and women were different. Women were sensible and practical
creatures, and an affair was a sensible and practical solution to the problem
of two people who loved each other and could not marry. Men, however, had their
honor. Without it, a male was a distorted shadow, a simulacrum, a two-legged
beast, not a man. If Simon was such a thing— Simon?—then perhaps, Alinor
thought, my grandfather was the last man alive.