Roselynde (64 page)

"I must go to my men. We are safe from the bows here. I will
put you back on your horse."

Alinor uttered a little shaken laugh. "You really are alive,
Simon? Really? I am not dreaming?" His arm tightened again. "No, no,
let me go."

A shout brought Honey. Simon lifted Alinor away from him and she
slipped into her saddle, found her stirrups. In the instant he was gone, sword
drawn, charging into the ranks of footmen and sending them flying. The
portcullis rose a foot, two feet. Simon formed his men, charged again. Three
feet up. The men-at-arms carrying Alinor's maids shouted instructions at them,
turned their horses. Four feet up. Alinor held her mare steady, her eyes on her
husband. He was easy to follow, so big and so quick.

"My lady," one of the men-at-arms called, "I beg
you to come."

She almost ordered him to go forward alone, but Simon bellowed
"Alinor!" and turned his head to look at her so that Sir Giles was
barely able to ward off a blow that would have maimed him.

"Be safe!" Alinor shouted at the top of her lungs.
"I go." She burst out from under the iron-fanged portcullis,
thundered across the drawbridge and out into the deadliest hours of the night.
The false dawn was gone from the sky, and the stars that flickered intermittently
past the hurrying clouds were very tiny and distant. Suddenly Alinor was aware
that she had come away without hose or gloves and she was bitterly cold.

"Shall we wait my lady?" the man-at-arms asked.
"No," Alinor replied. "For now, as fast as we can go is too
slow."

Her first impulse had been to stop, to wait for the warmth and
security of her husband's arms. Her more considered thought was spoken to the
man-at-arms. If Simon could, he would overtake her or join her in camp. If he
could not—Alinor no longer felt cold. She was warm with the kind of rage and
hatred that does not die. If he could not, she would set the land ablaze until
Lackland John was dead. She would set her fishermen to piracy, her vassals to
rebellion. She would teach the Queen what comes of abandoning a faithful and
loving servant to fill a maw that gaped with a greed that could never be
satisfied.

In Kingsclere Keep, Simon, Sir Giles, and Beorn held position
before the door of the tower. Hugo had just mounted the horse held for him. Rolf
was just disappearing under the portcullis.

"Hold!" The sweet, rich voice swelled over the clamor of
battle, stilled it. "I am Lord John, brother and Regent for the King.
Yield or be appelled of treason."

"Beorn," Simon ordered softly. "Go. Now."

"Yield, I say!" John repeated.

"Sir Giles. Now!"

"Take him!" John screamed as Giles's horse leapt out
onto the drawbridge.

But it was too late. Simon cut left; cut right; and was out on the
heels of his castellan. An overeager man-at-arms with a single idea fixed in
his mind pulled the spike that held the portcullis's wheel. The gate slammed
down. Simon checked his horse on the drawbridge and his big, bass laugh rumbled
out.

"I have my wife safe, Brother John," he bellowed.
"See if you can take my prize from me by fair means now that foul have
failed you."

He wheeled his horse and set spurs to it. Behind him he heard
orders to shoot, but the men had to run into the tower and wind their bows and
it was very dark. Just out of arrow range the troop waited. They rode off,
shouting insults back. Over their noise Simon heard the portcullis groaning
upward again. They would be followed, perhaps depending upon how stupid rage
made John, but not for a little while. He chuckled as he imagined the confusion
in the stables when the damaged equipment was found, the scurrying in the dark
to find replacements. By then it would be far too late. Half an hour's ride
away his troop and every man who could be spared from Iford waited their
coming.

Alinor was already in the camp warming her hands and sipping from
a cup of heated wine. She cast it down to fly into Simon's arms, took his face
into her hands, and recoiled again. Simon laughed heartily. Now he could see
the joke. He took off a gauntlet and began to scratch at his rigid features.
The gray skin flaked away, showing his normal, ruddy complexion underneath.
Disgust at her lack of comprehension replaced horror on Alinor's face. Simon
roared and stamped his feet, suddenly recalling the master of the guard's
terror and revulsion and realizing the man had thought he was really dead. Then
he stuck his head out of the tent and called for Sir Giles. Between gusts of
laughter they told how seven men and a living corpse had invaded a well-guarded
castle, dwelling in particular on the art of constructing Simon, the walking
dead man.

After the wax had been cleaned from Simon's face, Alinor had her
own joke to tell. She described her encounter with John with gusto. "Nasty
little lecher," she concluded. "I caught him where it would best
serve my purpose and least serve his. I think he will take no pleasure in
womanflesh for some little while."

"Yes, but really it is no jest," Simon said after a
while. "He will come for our blood to cleanse away the spite all of us
have done him. Sir Giles, you had better hie you back to Iford and stuff and
garnish for war. You will have time. He will come to Roselynde first because he
must have me dead before he can lay claim to my lady's lands. Before you go,
will you tell me something?"

"Anything, my lord."

"I pray you, do not be offended," Simon said. "I do
not question your honor, but I wish to tell you that I know it cannot have been
easy to refuse such an offer and I wish to ask you where you found the
strength."

"You are mistaken, my lord," Sir Giles replied, "it
was very easy." Suddenly he grinned. "Not because I am less greedy
than other men. I have often thought of vassalage and how much it would cost to
buy it. I have saved and my father before me to achieve that end, and there is
not enough and may not be until my son is old."

"And yet it was easy?" Simon asked.

Sir Giles's eyes grew hard. "Yet it was very easy. How long
do you think I would have lived after I brought your body to Lord John? Ten
minutes? A day? Is a man who would make such an offer like to allow one who can
give evidence against him to live? Especially when it is known King Richard may
return any day and that the murdered man was dearly beloved of King Richard and
Queen Alinor? No, no, my lord. I would be drawn and quartered—the hateful felon
who murdered his overlord—and Lord John, righteously enraged at my evil works,
would be much praised. Why else should I, in my own person, need to bring your
body?"

Simon nodded. "I fear you have seen clearly. Lord John is a
man without honor. I do not understand— Ah, well, that is not to the point. Sir
Giles, do not worry too much about the cost of vassalage. Let us see if we can
survive until King Richard can control his brother. If we do, you will find
that my life and my lady's are worth somewhat toward that end."

"I had not overlooked it," Sir Giles said drily, and
smiled. "It seemed the safer path."

That remark made Simon shake his head, for the scheme they had
devised could only be called "safer" in comparison with a known and
sure catastrophe. Unless Richard returned or the Queen intervened, John would
find some excuse to raise an army against Roselynde's lord and lady. And if
Roselynde fell, Iford would follow swiftly. Simon thought that would surely be
the end of it because there was no pursuit. John had not fallen into a
senseless rage and he was not the kind who ever forgot an injury. He was biding
his time, planning calmly to salve his hurt with Simon's death and Alinor's
agony.

That was in the future. The present was pleasant enough. They slept
the night in camp, rode quietly home the next day. The future was never far
from their thoughts, however. That night, while the sweat of passion cooled on
their bodies, Alinor sighed, "Perhaps I should have yielded to him. I lost
my temper, that was all. That foul toad, comparing himself with you! If I had
time to think— I could have washed myself thoroughly. After all, it is not
something that wears out."

"Alinor," Simon groaned, "have you no morals at
all?"

"What has that to do with morals? God knows I would not touch
that piece of filth of my free will, but to gain his favor, such as it is, by
paying a worthless token— Simon, you know without the feeling the thing is
worthless."

"I know," he agreed soberly. "It has been worthless
to me all these years, until I had you. No more than pissing, it meant—a little
keener pleasure, that was all. But you credit John with too much. He would not
favor you for yielding. He would spread the word abroad to take pleasure in the
shame he brought to us both. Do not blame yourself for John's hatred. He has no
goodwill to give to any man or woman. You cannot buy his love, for he is empty
of love. He can be forced by fear— and so we will force him. William will stand
by me, and—"

"And the Queen?"

Simon was silent, then sighed. "He is her son."

She could order John if she desired, Alinor thought, but she said
nothing. Simon's devotion to the Queen was too long, too strong. He would make
excuses for her; he would blind himself to what she did; he would never blame
her.

They waited, but no army came the next week, nor the week after
that. No army, no challenge, no demand. The fields lay bare and cold. The
lookouts in the towers watched land and sea. Nothing came.

In the final week in October, at last Simon was summoned to the
walls. Alinor seized a cloak and hurried to keep up with him as he strode
through inner and outer baileys to the curtain walls. A troop was winding up
the road, a troop, not an army, and at its head a great, white palfrey paced
slowly. The color drained from Alinor's face. Her heart felt colder than her
hands. Simon would defy John, but would he defy the Queen?

Before she could ask, he had run down the tower stair and spoken
to the guardsmen there. Alinor bit her lips and fought to hold back her tears.
He would not defy her. The drawbridge began its creaking and groaning descent,
the portcullis went up. Alinor stood on the walls, staring. There is my rival,
she thought, but she does not deserve him. I will not allow her to take him and
lead him off to be slaughtered by the youngest of the monsters to spring from
her womb. All impulse to weep left her. She did not know what she would do, but
she came down the stairs to be near.

First, as usual, the palfrey stepped on the bridge, paced over it
and under the portcullis. As the Queen rode in, an iron hand gripped her
bridle; two men-at-arms with quarrels set into their bows blocked the path of
the gentlemen that followed. Before they could recover from their surprise the
portcullis crashed down. The Queen looked down into Simon's face. His eyes
glittered with unshed tears, but his mouth was hard.

"I have come to the end of my service, Madam," he
announced. "My life is nothing. It was laid at your feet a hundred times,
a thousand, but you will make no plaything of Alinor for your son's pleasure
nor for any other purpose— not for the good of the realm, not for the good of
God, not if I must set the whole world afire."

The Queen looked at Alinor now just beyond her husband. There were
no tears in those eyes. They flamed gold and green in their depths. Unable to
help herself, the Queen smiled. That one would enjoy setting the world afire
and laugh while it burned. So had she felt herself—forty years ago. She sighed.

"Do not be a fool, Simon. Let my people in. I mean you and
Alinor no harm. John has left for France. I have news." She smiled wryly.
"A strange thing has come to pass when a Queen, knowing her liegeman will
not come to her summoning, goes to him. I need help, Simon. I have news of
Richard."

There would be no trick in that. The portcullis was swiftly
lifted, the Queen's party invited in with apologies. The Queen herself was
tenderly escorted to Alinor's chamber, warmed, plied with food and drink. She
told them that Richard had been taken prisoner in Germany but thus far she did
not know where he was being kept or what the ransom would be. She stared,
unseeing, into the leaping flames.

"John knows," she remarked. "He has made alliance
with Philip of France to arrange his brother's death or perpetual imprisonment.
He is beyond me now. Once I could curb him. When I am with him, I can still
hold him, but the moment he is away—" Her eyes were weary and bitter. The
silence stretched. Then the Queen straightened her back, lifted her head, and
brought her eyes into focus. "I do not know what you did, but John will
never forgive you for it or forget. It is greatly to your interest to help me
free Richard. If John should come to be King, I fear no one will be able to
save you."

Alinor put her hand on Simon's and nodded. Simon made that odd,
characteristic gesture of back and shoulders as if readying himself to strike a
blow. It was plain in their faces that they did not fear John. Determination
stared from Alinor's eyes; contempt curled Simon's lips. Nonetheless they would
support Richard. For Alinor it was the path of wisdom; for Simon the path of
loyalty. The future would be neither safe nor secure, but they were ready for
it.