Roselynde (18 page)

Her reward was not long delayed. On the third morning, when she
presented herself in the Queen's bedchamber, Queen Alinor sent all away except
her longtime personal servants.

"Tell me again, Alinor, how old are you?"

"I am well past sixteen, Madam."

The Queen smiled. "I said I knew Lord Rannulf. I am sorry I
did not know him still better. I would have liked to learn how he taught you
such discretion."

"Discretion, Madam? He would have laughed to hear you. He
always said I had no discretion at all."

"Yet not one word of all the news you have written for me has
reached a single ear. I call that high discretion. I wish my clerks were all as
trustworthy."

"Holding my tongue was not discretion, Madam," Alinor
replied laughing. "That was self-interest. I was never lacking in that. I
knew if I babbled your news, soon I would not hear it myself. I was sure you
were testing me. But it can make no difference whether it is a test or not. I
know that my service will end as soon as I forget my duty to be silent."

"I am well pleased, Alinor, very well pleased. I find it most
convenient to have a female scribe about me. Thus, I will ask you to change
your living quarters and join my ladies. It will be a little dull for you, I am
afraid, to be in the company of older ladies, but as I told you before, the
bitter comes with the better. If I wish to call you in the night, you must be
near."

"Yes, Madam. I will miss Isobel of Clare, but for the rest, I
do not care."

"Isobel of Clare," the Queen murmured, looking sharply
at Alinor. First her lips tightened, but then she laughed aloud. "I should
have known! Alinor, why did you stick your finger into Isobel's pie?"

"Because Simon was worried about his friend William. He was
not gaining strength as he should, and Simon thought it was that he was fretting
over Isobel's coldness. From what I knew of Isobel, however, it did not seem to
me that she was given to playing such games. And, indeed, she is not. She is
quite determined to have William. Isobel of Gloucester had been telling her
nasty tales. I merely told her some true things instead."

"What sort of tales did Isobel of Gloucester tell?"

Alinor opened her mouth eagerly, closed it, and sighed. "I
will tell you, Madam, but I think you should know before I speak that I do not
like Isobel of Gloucester. What I say may not be just. Simon says—"

Since the Queen knew the tales Isobel of Gloucester told, having
been the source of them herself, she had merely been testing Alinor's
attachment for herself and was readily diverted from the subject by having heard
Simon's name three times in five minutes.

"Simon seems to have become wondrous great with you. I
thought you would not welcome the interference of an overseer."

There was that in the Queen's voice that turned Alinor cold. Sir
Andre had apparently spoken the truth about the danger to them both if the
Queen learned she cared about Simon. Desperately she gathered her resources.
The Queen was far too clever to miss a lie, but perhaps the truth lacking one
little piece would pass.

"Well, I do not," Alinor admitted, "and we often
quarrel quite dreadfully, but he is so much like my grandfather that I cannot
help but love him."

The word was out, but the Queen's face was unchanged. Alinor was
very careful not to sigh with relief. That, her grandmother had explained, as
she whipped her for telling a lie, was what gave the lie away. Courage and
warmth flowed back into Alinor. She found a smile.

"And," she continued, "he is so very often
right—just like my grandfather, that I find myself asking his advice more than I
would men whom I have known far longer, like Sir Andre."

There was danger there, the Queen thought—not as completely
deceived as Alinor hoped—but she trusted Simon. That thought gave birth
another. She smiled at Alinor. "You were near to bursting these two days
with the news of Richard's coming, were you not?"

Alinor sighed. "I thought I had hidden it quite well."

"You did well enough, but sometimes a tongue needs a place to
vent itself like the air when a barrel is filled. You may vent your news into
Simon. To tell him a secret is like casting a gold coin into a well. It is
forever lost and will go no further."

"I am glad of that, but you will have to tell him I have your
permission. Else, he will not listen and he will be fit to kill me for bearing
tales."

In this case, however, there was no longer any need for a special
outlet. Because the Queen intended to move the whole Court to Winchester to
greet the new King, she could not pick herself up and go, leaving the others to
follow or not, helter-skelter, as best they could. All must be there to greet
Richard and all must be in as good a humor as possible. She herself announced
the move and the reason for it on the same day that she had spoken to Alinor
and confirmed her service. The result was a great increase in Alinor's status
and in her freedom of movement. First of all the Queen had little time for the
kind of writing Alinor did. State affairs held her, readying all for Richard's
arrival. Second, the Queen's ladies were busy with overseeing the moving of the
household goods. They were glad of a young pair of feet they knew to be
attached to a trustworthy head to run the kind of errand that could not be
entrusted to a maidservant or a page.

Alinor was most willing. The orders she gave made her known to the
Queen's highborn servants, the earls who were responsible for the household, as
a person with authority and high in the favor of the Queen. She tripped to and
fro from the Great Hall where she reminded the Lord Steward of a particular
viand that was to be stocked, as it was a great favorite of Lord Richard's, to
the Small Hall to tell the Lord Butler of a sweet wine from Spain that Lord
Richard loved, to the outer buildings where she ran the Master of the Mews to
earth to instruct him to bring along in particular certain gerfalcons that had
been sent as a gift from the King of Scotland.

More than one pair of eyes followed Alinor. Roger Bigod stopped
her outside the mews to complain of neglect. Alinor dropped her eyes and sighed
that she had been reprimanded for immodesty by the Queen and now, when the
Queen was too busy to notice, she was too busy to flirt.

"Flirt?" Bigod asked sharply.

"My lord," Alinor murmured, "you know I am the
King's ward. I have no choice in my fate. A maid may plead with parents, but
the King is beyond such devices."

"Do not be so sure, Lady Alinor. Lord Richard is a chivalrous
and generous knight—and he will be glad to have my father's gratitude. Do you
add your word to mine, and all will be settled."

"I would not presume so far, my lord," Alinor whispered
sweetly, and ran lightly away.

Milo de Bohun had even less success. He was so unwise as to
approach Alinor in the Great Hall and had barely exchanged two words with her
when a page urgently summoned her away to some new duty. His eyes followed her
and his tongue ran back and forth across his wet mouth.

Ian de Vint, at loose ends because Simon was deputizing for
William Marshal and using William's servants and squires who were more familiar
with the Court and courtiers, made no attempt to speak to Alinor at all. He
merely followed her at a discreet distance whenever she was away from the
women's quarters. He had no purpose other than to gladden his eyes with the
sight of her. Perhaps in the back of his mind he had vague dreams of rescuing
her from a wild beast, which might break loose from its confinement in the
outer bailey, but he was essentially a practical young man and knew the
difference between dreams and reality.

The sixth of August was even busier than the day before and by the
seventh a kind of hysteria was built up and out of the sheer physical
excitement generated by moving and by the expectation of a King few in England
knew. On Alinor the tension had the effect of exacerbating a temper that was
never noted for its mildness so that, when Milo de Bohun waylaid her, she
answered him with less civility than she should have used. Affronted, he
grasped her arm. Alinor, who had been ready to apologize, was irritated anew.
Ian de Vipont started forward out of the embrasure from which he had been
watching, but whether he would have had sense enough to interrupt with some
pretended message from Sir Simon or whether his boiling blood would have led
him into some idiocy was never put to the test. Worse befell. Roger Bigod
entered the Hall just in time to see the whole exchange.

"Do not lay your hands on what is mine," he snarled.

"By whose promise?" de Bohun snapped.

"My lords," Alinor pleaded.

None of the voices had been low, and other gentlemen in the Hall
began to move toward the group curiously. Like two wary cats Bigod and de Bohun
backed away from each other. Ian retreated toward the wall again and vowed that
he would not take his eyes off the lady for a moment when she was open to
molestation. Alinor released her pent-up breath in a sigh that was nearly a
sob, and fled to the women's quarters. She thanked God she had divided her
favors between two men of nearly equal importance. The King would be highly
unlikely to offend Bigod by giving her to de Bohun or de Bohun by giving her to
Bigod.

Unfortunately Alinor was not the only one to come to that
conclusion. Both Bigod and de Bohun soon understood that a simple application
to the King—unless it was strongly seconded by the lady herself—was not likely
to win his bestowal of the heiress. Even a lavish gift and the promise of a
share in the revenues of Alinor's property would not be adequate compensation
for enraging another powerful magnate. Some more immediate action would be
necessary. Within the hour, both men had given orders for horses to be saddled
and for their servants to be ready to ride.

Long before dawn of the following day the castlefolk were astir.
The sleepy murmur of voices quickened and rose to the angry humming of a
disturbed hive as the first pink streaks stained the sky. As if the coming of
the sun was a signal, the castle erupted into violence with morning. Men
bellowed, women shrieked, horses whinnied, oxen lowed, and asses brayed. Cart
jostled loaded cart, wheels locked, the carters cursed and occasionally came to
blows. Between them, men-at-arms threaded their overfresh horses, adding
confusion when the more spirited animals took exception to a chance blow or
sudden movement to lash out with their heels or begin to buck.

The scene in the courtyard where the nobles were assembling was
very nearly as confused. Most of the Queen's ladies traveled in great,
well-cushioned wagons, but Alinor, the two Isobels, and a few of the younger
ladies-in-waiting, as well as the Queen herself, planned to ride. Maidservants
ran back and forth with small items of comfort that had been left behind—a
pomander for Lady Leicester, an additional veil to ward the dust for Lady de
Mandeville. The mules stamped and snorted, pages darted about.

At last the Queen came from her chambers. Simon hurried across to
lift her into her saddle. The great white palfrey moved forward, and behind it
the whole disorderly mass was galvanized into action. Because there was no
danger, there was little discipline. By and large the ladies rode somewhere near
the Queen, but Isobel of Clare fell back to ride beside the litter that carried
William Marshal. Alinor teased her a little about that, saying that she went to
determine whether her orders had been obeyed. William had intended to ride and
had yielded to Isobel's tears after all of Simon's logical arguments had been
pooh-poohed.

Alinor had ridden back, too, at one time to talk to Beorn
Fisherman. She had had virtually no contact with her men since she had been at
Court, and she wished to know whether all was well with them. Beorn had a few
complaints. Most of the troop had been quartered in Alinor's house and there
had been some trouble about a woman. Alinor shrugged and laughed and approved
of Beorn's disciplinary measures. It was bound to happen when the men were
idle, she thought. She must either send most of them back to Roselynde or find
duties for them.

Soon after she was riding well ahead. A young squire, who was
vaguely familiar but whose face she could not place, had fallen in beside her
as she was about to return to her position near the Queen. He had admired her
handling of her fresh mount, and Alinor admitted to being accustomed to the
saddle. From this they had passed on to talk of hunting, which was a favorite
sport for anyone who could ride well. That brought sighs and a confession that
she had missed that pleasant activity sorely since being at Court.

The squire shook his head. "And I fear you will continue to
miss it. Lord Richard is no passionate huntsman as his father was. He is more
inclined to war. But even if he had been, he is like to be too busy with
affairs of state to go ahunting."

If Alinor thought it doubtful that any ardent hunter could be
diverted from that pastime by mere affairs of state, she had no time to express
the idea. The talkative young man's tongue was still busy.

"And in Winchester," he said teasingly, "we will
all be pent like prisoners, so that we may make a brave show for Lord Richard's
arrival. It would not do to have the noblemen scattered over the countryside
when he comes." He cast a look around at the disorderly mob. "I do
not think the Queen would mind if some of us rode out a little." His
expression turned roguish. "If I can start some game—will you
follow?"