Shield of Three Lions (40 page)

“Where’s your Lady Barbara?” I asked. ’Twas a sore point between us, his dalliance with this new doxy. I turned to the king. “We share quarters with Enoch’s inamorata which makes us also cramped and infested.” Forsooth I left when the Lady Barbara arrived, and I bitterly resented it.

Enoch looked murder at me, but the king smiled tolerantly. “’Tis to be expected during such a long sojourn. Would my other men were so harmlessly distracted.”

Which made me doubly angry, so I drew attention to the wooden ball. “Your highness, can you guess what this is supposed to be?”

“There are many objects with such a shape. What is it?”

“The world!” I jeered. “Enoch has enrolled us with a heathen Arab called Ibn-al-Latif who insists that the world is round!” And I awaited his derisive guffaw. Instead, Richard studied Enoch, this time with more interest than tolerance.

“Is this true? What is his evidence?”

“The movement of the heavenly bodies, the curve of the sea,” Enoch replied laconically.

The king weighted the ball in his palm, glanced speculatively at the Scot, then put the ball down and courteously withdrew. As we walked back to the field where Roderick awaited us, the king took my hand.

“When I come on Saturdays, Alex, I shall expect a full accounting of what you learn from the Infidel.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I watched him stride away, thought I couldn’t bear … couldn’t bear … that he believed I was a boy!
Benedicite, what ailed
me! He
must
believe that I was a male if I was to escape with my writ some time, and yet … Our vows on the Far, the searing touch of his lips, my liver, I know not what, had cast me beyond the affections of a small boy. What could I do?

What could I do? Some ungovernable force within me answered the question despite my mind’s severe injunctions to
be careful.
The following week when Richard appeared at the field to see what progress I’d made, I deliberately mis-shot my arrow.

“God’s feet, Roderick, how have you taught the boy? Look you, Alex, you must step with your weight on your right foot, so, and lean back as you raise the bow. Let me show you.”

He stood behind me, his arms over my shoulders to put the arrow in place; I turned my face against his shoulder, lost my balance and he had to catch me. He was all business, but I had my moment of embrace albeit with false motive. I managed to make him hold my hand over the poignard as well, to lift me off the horse and I clung for a moment. He gave the civil kiss of farewell first to Roderick, then to me, only my kiss held longer. A flick in his eyes showed his awareness as he pulled away.

During the week, I studied with Roderick, with Ibn-al-Latif, but mostly from my list of the rules of love, from which I derived a wicked plan to make the king jealous. Again he came to the field and I repeated my tricks, only this time with Roderick.

“Come, Roderick, support me as you did yesterday, for this sword is too heavy by far.”

Roderick complied.

“I think you should have a lighter weapon, Alex,” the king commented. “You have a nice thrust and good footwork, but should point with the saber instead of the broadsword. Do you have such a weapon, Sir Roderick?”

He did not.

“Then I’ll bring one next week. Now let me see your horse maneuvers, for that’s the other area in which you excel.”

Again I requested that Roderick ride behind me as he’d been doing all week. I deliberately smiled at him, whispered in his ear and laughed, leaned my cheek on his, and had the satisfaction of seeing the king frown.

“Be serious, please. We have no time to waste,” he said.

Roderick complied, but I’d enjoyed a small victory.

That afternoon, the king asked me to join him and his sister in a pleasant ride in the hills. Although Queen Joanna always ignored me, her usual indifferent manner to the lower ranks, I enjoyed being with her. Soothly she was the most charming female creature alive and I secretly mimicked her when alone as I had copied Enoch in the English woodland. Behind a hedge, I strolled in undulating swings using my stomach as ballast, leaned my head over my shoulder and tried to imitate her throaty laugh. Some day, I swore, I would amaze the king. She and Richard shared a store of private japes from the past and parried verbally throughout our saunter in a way I couldn’t follow, though I laughed too. Toward the end of the afternoon, they spoke of me.

“What do you think will become of the pretty popelot?” Joanna asked in her lazy, affected drawl. “Could such a lad become your successor?”

The king smiled at me. “Anything is possible. You recall our great ancestor William the Conqueror was a bastard.”

“Methinks this boy seems more delicate than doughty; he would need your help. I suppose such help might be forthcoming, given the proper circumstances.” She gazed quizzically at the king.

The king no longer smiled. “I don’t jest about such important matters, Joan, even with you. You know my plans for the succession very well.”

She shrugged and took his hand. “All I meant was that the boy is at that peculiar crucial age when anything may happen, all things are possible. Don’t you agree?”

Richard looked at me with warm eyes. “Yes, a golden age, the ripening time. Believe me, I will guide him well.”

Joanna laughed in that elusive throaty manner I’d not yet mastered. “Oh, I believe you, brother. Why shouldn’t I?”

All this time, neither had said a word to me directly but I didn’t mind. I floated back to the abbey, my fantastick cells reeling with impossible dreams. If I could be king, why not queen?

SO, SURREPTITIOUSLY, I TRIED TO signal my king that I was really a female, but it was Enoch who received my messages. He caught me one day waving an imaginary fan and laughing archly over my shoulder.

“Quhat air ye doing?” he cried. “Who’s in the bushes?”

He parted the shrub behind me to expose emptiness, then turned perplexed. “Have ye gone toty? Quhat’s wrong with yer voice that it sounds so hoarse?”

“Nothing. I had a tickle which made me cough, that’s all.” And I deliberately hacked to reassure him.

But he wasn’t fooled. He sighed heavily, and took my arm to pull me to a nearby bench. “Bairn, methinks the time hae come to introduce ye to the pleasures of the flesh.”

Sweat formed at my hairline and on my lip.

“Did ye e’er notice that thatched cot on the left as we gae to Ibn-al-Latif’s?”

“I believe so, yes.’

“And that bonny wench with the mole above her lip?”

“With dark red hair?”

“That’s the one, Anna by name. What say ye to sportin’ a bit with the finch, just friendly?”

“No … no.” I shuddered, chilled to the bone despite my sweat. “I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?” His eyes turned suspicious, angry. “Why nocht, Master Sweetlips? Ye make calves’s eyes at Roderick which I doona like. Better be a man than a slummock. Cum, I’ll show ye the tricks.”

And I told him the truth. “Enoch, such an act … breeding … swiving, dighting, fucking … is still rape to me. I’ll never, can’t …”

He studied me at length. “I doona believe ye, but mayhap ye’re nocht ready. Nine be young, I grant ye.”

He left me alone to brood. Soothly the Rules of Love suited me perfectly, I thought, for the lady teased her swain out of mind, made him want to die for love, but as nearly as I could fathom, that was as far as it went; she granted him nothing. Love was perpetual yearning, a game with no ending, for consummation brought satiation and death to love. Aye, for me, the rules were tailor-made, for I could never forget the bloody deaths of Maisry and my mother, could never connect such acts with love. Therefore was my passion for Richard perfect for my needs: ’twas constant yearning, constant titillation, and with no possible consummation, for he thought me a boy. I laughed to myself—in my own manner without throatiness—to think how surprised he would be to know the truth.

’TWAS AFTER CHRISTMAS BEFORE Richard visited again. And I was distraught. Had he tired of me—after he’d sworn fealty? My disposition grew antic, up and down, round and round. I wept in secret, shouted when crossed, slumped into such deep melancholy that Enoch began to dose me with his hideous remedies again. Life was dreary, life consumed me, life was a bitter jape.

One day while I swallowed ox-bile, Enoch said casually, “’Tis said in Messina that the king shocks the town wi’ his debauchery.”

And I spit the black poison into his face.

“That war a mean trick, you evil sludge-pit!” He struck me on the cheek so that I reeled away. “Since when did ye think the king an angel? Havena ye heard it said since the beginning that he war filled wi’ foul appetites?” With these spiteful words, he wiped his face clean.

“It’s not true! And who are you to judge?”

“I be better than ye! You doona see me bletherin’ and drooping day and nicht till I drive everyone lunatic! Straighten up, or I’ll gae back to Wanthwaite wi’out ye. Ye’re too tinty to run an estate.”

I didn’t straighten up, of course, but I managed to conceal my grief better thereafter, for I took the threat seriously. Then one day I saw Mercadier ride past our rooms and, fast behind him, the king. I was about to throw down my stylus and run after him, but he didn’t turn my way. All day I awaited his summons, but none came. The
next morning, I was up early and when I saw him ride out with Joanna alone, my heart broke.

Enoch hadn’t seen Richards arrival,
Deo gratias
, for I couldn’t bear his snide jeers; I tried to settle down with the Arabic language, but ’twas impossible. Soon we were bickering and snarling at each other till I was near tears. Enoch put down his stylus and regarded me speculatively from his round blue disks.

“Be ye ailing, bairn? Is summit bletherin’ ye?”

“Aye, you, you bother me,” I snapped. “Can’t I ever be alone? I need to think.”

“Gae think, then, ’tis the age. Soul searchin’ be best near to water. Why don’t ye walk along the beach?”

Surprised at his apparent understanding, I mumbled an apology for being so cross and went to get food from the kitchen. Shortly thereafter I’d left the abbey behind me and walked, head down, southward on the sea’s shingle. When alone at last, I permitted the scalding tears to o’erflow down my cheeks in sobs as I thought of how solitary I was. No one in the whole world loved me, even knew who I was, least of all the king. Oh, I realized ’twas madness to expect him to care for me as I did for him, with all the pressures of his Crusade and vexations from King Philip, but after all, he’d volunteered in Marseilles to take close heed to my welfare; he’d claimed he cared for me on the Far and I needed him. Wanted him. It wasn’t fair, to raise my hopes so, then forget me.

’Twas sultry hot under this southern winter sun, hid though it was behind a thin layer of high clouds, and soon I stopped to take off my shoes and braies. Like Wanthwaite, I thought, that last day, only there I’d trod on soft new grass while here coarse sand scraped the tender area between my toes. I walked slowly, picking my way around rocky promontories, and was surprised when I stopped to see how far I’d come. Now I was truly alone, physically as well as spiritually. I sat in the partial shade of a wild broom growing on a hummock and stared moodily out to sea, a motionless pewter sheen except for the listless heave of the horizon. Ubiquitous gulls circled above or floated in the shallows, attracted by the sweet stench of fish; occasional schools of sardines riffled the surface; sand fleas danced at
my feet while oval beetles iridescent as opals skittered in fast starts and bewildered stops. In vain I sought profound thoughts about my sad condition: my mind remained blank as the sea. The sun finally drove me from my lethargy. I stood, pulled my baggy pants as high as they would go with the weight of my treasure, tied my tunic firmly around the whole as an apron and waded into the frothy tongue-licks.

Cold as the Wanthwaite River that last May, a fearsome undertow even at ankle depth, a change of color not too far out—the drop-off I stepped back to the shore, felt the breeze on my wet feet, waded again and found the water warm. Something shadowed the bottom; I bent and picked up a long horn-shaped shell. Instantly a blue-black slime wiggled from its depths across my hand and plopped into the water. I screamed and dropped the shell, then picked it up again. How beautiful! A lustrous pink lining swirling out of sight. I put it in my tunic and continued looking. When my apron was soggy and loaded, I carried my prizes back to the broom and sat to eat my bread and cheese.

Sweat trickled down my neck and somehow sand had gotten into my hair. I sucked a lemon to quench my thirst, then rubbed it across my nose where my skin felt thin and pulled. I went back to the sea. Time truncated and suddenly I saw my faint shadow fall long across the transparent wavelets; my skin had white spots when I pressed with my fingertips. Now almost hip-deep, I waded awkwardly against the receding sea, bent to pull sea-pods off my legs, and when I looked up again King Richard stood by my hummock, watching me.

At first he seemed a Greek statue, one foot forward, his hair cut shorter than the last time I’d seen him, and I froze on my own shifting pediment.

“I’ve missed you, Alex,” he said.

“Me—me too.” I tried to wade forward and fell into the water.

The next thing I knew, he’d picked me up, dripping wet though I was, and carried me to the dry sand. His heart thumped like the sea, his laughter filled the empty air.

“I’m glad to see you haven’t grown up in my absence, Cupid.”

“No.” Feverishly I tried to unknot my tunic to conceal my legs
but it was too wet, and I noted to my horror that my plunge had made my false penis stand forth like a stiletto against my wet linen. I crossed my legs in vain to conceal it, then hunched forward.

“Joanna and I saw you from the hills and wondered what you were collecting.” He picked up the shell.

“You may keep that as a gift if you like,” I mumbled. “’Tis called a king shell.”

“Thank you, I’ll cherish it.” He blew through it, making a hollow tone, then sat on my hummock pulling me down with him. I bent my knees so that my willow receded somewhat. I was toty with embarrassment, happiness and I know not what. Flowings and poundings shook my body, the bees buzzed on the yellow blooms around us as I tried desperately to think of something interesting to say.