Roselynde (59 page)

Absolute silence ensued. A single, horrible idea blossomed in
Simon's numb brain. What he had done amounted to raping his own wife. The
thought paralyzed him so that when Alinor pushed at him feebly he could not
move.

"Simon," she said calmly if somewhat breathlessly,
"get off me. You weigh like a tun."

The calm tone and practical observation galvanized him into action
as effectively as a cold douche. He not only rolled off but sat up and drew
back the bedcurtains so that he could see Alinor's face. Alinor closed her
eyes.

"I am sorry," Simon whispered.

Alinor opened her eyes again quickly. "For what?"

"I—I forced you. I cannot think what came over me. I—"

Alinor giggled. "Oh, I thought you were apologizing for your
performance. I have no way of judging, of course, but in my lack of experience
I was well content."

"Alinor!" Simon protested, not sure whether he was more
horrified at her unmaidenly lack of modesty or more relieved at her lack of
resentment over his violence.

She sobered and reached a hand toward him. "But, Simon. I
should not have resisted you. I did not wish to resist you, only—only
everything was so strange. It was such a strange wedding and bedding that I—
You, yourself, seemed like a stranger to me. And these last weeks have been so
horrible." Simon had taken her hand and lay down again. Now Alinor pulled
her hand away. Her voice sharpened. "And you were horrible, too! Why did
you not answer my letters? What did you mean when you said you had nothing to
write? Do not spin me cobwebs about there being any danger for a messenger
riding between Jaffa and Acre! Having the King's permission to take me to wife,
was it no longer worthwhile to write a few sweet words to please
me?"

"Do not be a fool," Simon growled. "If you had
doubts of my willingness to please you, you had only to tell the King you did
not wish to marry me. He would have withdrawn his consent hastily and willingly
enough."

"What!" Alinor shrieked, her eyes glinting green and
gold with rage. "After all the trouble I have taken to get you? Do you
think I am mad?"

"Yes!" Simon bellowed. "Yes, I think you are mad!
You are barely a woman, and I am an old man. You must be mad, and I must be
madder than you to have allowed you to bewitch me into this mutual
insanity."

Alinor had drawn a deep breath to enable her to shout her husband
down. Instead she heaved it out in a disgusted sigh. "I should have
known," she muttered resignedly.

"I tell you," he went on in a lower voice, "where
you are concerned, I lose all sense—all sense of fitness, all sense of right
and wrong, all sense of common decency even. I tried to tell the King that he
was right, that I was too old, but I could not."

"I would have slain you!" Alinor exclaimed. "After
I had dragged myself over mountains, through tempests, had endured cold to
freeze the soul and heat to roast the guts, lived in this misbegotten,
disease-infested, pest-ridden so-called Holy Land, put up with Berengaria's
whining and vagaries— all only to be near you."

"I know! But why?"

"Dear heart," Alinor laughed, "I thought you knew
that. I love you."

Simon groaned. "Look at me. My hair is white—"

"Not where it counts," Alinor interrupted, laughing
harder. "If I tickle the flames of Hell, will they burn me?"

There was, Alinor soon discovered, no lack of heat in the flames.
She was well enough scorched so that she rose somewhat unsteadily from the bed
after the fire had subsided to get a drink and bring one to Simon. When both
bed curtains were pulled back, the full light of the tapers on either side fell
onto the bed. Alinor uttered a squeak of dismay and dropped the goblet she was
holding. Simon was bolt upright instantly, his right hand scrabbling by the
side of the bed for the sword that was not there. One does not come girded with
a sword to one's marriage bed.

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes leaping from one wide
open window to another.

"Oh, Simon, I fear you were far too gentle with me,"
Alinor said.

Abandoning his search for his weapons, Simon said bemusedly,
"Too gentle?"

"Look at the sheets!"

Simon got hastily out of the bed and looked carefully. In this
accursed Holy Land a man could find some weird beasts abed with him, and all of
them bit most painfully. There was, however, nothing in this bed. Simon looked
at Alinor with a frown.

"This is no time for silly jests," he said reprovingly.
"I am tired. What ails you? The sheets are clean."

"Yes, indeed, so they are. That is what ails me."

Simon passed a hand over his face. He was very tired. His
emotional turmoil had robbed him of restful sleep for many nights and he had
expended a good deal of physical effort in the last hour. He stared at the
clean if somewhat rumpled sheet for another moment before the various things
Alinor had said added up in his mind. Then he looked up to see a terrified
consternation in his wife's face.

"I swear to you—" she cried, then stopped. Simon was
laughing.

"Save your breath," he said comfortingly. "That is
one advantage in marrying an old man. I have not come to this time in my life
without knowing when it is a maid's first time. For all there is no drop of
blood, you were a clean maid, and I know it. I know also the trick whereby a
maid, who is no maid, can bleed afresh for each new lover."

"Thank God for that," Alinor sighed, but then she
frowned again. "I am glad you know, but what about the King and Queen and
all the others."

"Tush!" Simon began, then shrugged.

It was true there would be jests and comments, meaningless
because, if he made no protest over his wife's seeming lack of virginity, no
one else had any right to do so. But why should Alinor, or he either, need to
be troubled by such nonsense? Simon walked to the table where such food had been
set out as might tempt the appetite of those who were late awake and took a
small eating knife.

"How clever you are," Alinor remarked, and held out her
wrist.

"Fool!" Simon commented fondly. "All we need is for
someone to see the mark of a knife on you."

He got back into bed, pushed his pubic hair aside, stabbed the
knife shallowly into his groin, and flopped over on his face. After a couple of
smearing movements, Simon turned on his back again. Blood showed red on his
thigh. He held out a hand to Alinor.

"Come mount astride me and bedabble your thighs. So? Now all
will be well. On neither of us will any see a mark?"

It was true that as soon as the bleeding stopped the thin cut was
invisible under the thick pubic bush.

"And where did you learn that piece of chicanery?"
Alinor teased.

"From a friend who did as much for his lady—for a somewhat
less pure reason, I am afraid. They had had some years to think it out."

Simon shut his eyes and pulled the bed curtain closed. Alinor did
the same on her side and snuggled against him. He put an arm around her so that
her head rested on his shoulder.

"You will not need to be troubled with me when I am too old
for you," he said suddenly. "Many husbands and wives are more content
to live apart than together. In a few years, I will move the castellan who
holds my lands to one of your properties. He is a good man. You will lose
nothing by having him. Then I can live in my own keep, and you will be free of
me."

"Oh, Simon," Alinor sighed, "can you never live
within the day? Must you always look long years ahead? Who knows if you will
ever be too old for me? I could die nine moons from now in childbed. How often
in these past years have you felt the cold hand of death brush you? We could
drown together on the voyage home. Beloved, my grandfather had three wives. He
was older than all, and he outlived them all. The last, my grandmother, was
some twenty years younger than he. In the end, 1 think he died more of her
death than of any effect of his own age."

It was quite remarkable, Simon thought, how hard of heart a happy
man was. He knew that in the common saying much sorrow made the heart hard and
bitter, but when he was troubled he was quick to weep for the troubles of
others. Now that there was a constant song of joy inside him, he did not care a
fig for what grieved other men. Richard might sorrow over a lost cause. Simon
found he had much ado to maintain a suitable gravity, let alone feel any
sympathy.

Everything added to his happiness. He had Alinor. He would soon be
free of his heavy-hearted master. He was going home, home to a land and people
he understood and loved, to work he understood and loved. For this little time,
Simon was following Alinor's advice. He was not looking ahead, although he knew
trouble loomed on the horizon. Richard would never breed an heir on Berengaria,
nor any other woman. This experience with marriage had finished any hope for a
female connection for the King. That meant that sooner or later John would be
king.

It was an unsavory and depressing prospect. The only hope was that
John would rebel against Richard and die in battle, and that was a very
unlikely thing. John was no coward in the sense of being senselessly afraid.
Merely, battle was no joy to him. He was cautious and very conscious that his
death would end his power and ambition. Richard did not think that way. In
fact, Simon had come to believe that the unhappy King, happy only when he
wielded sword and lance, sought death in battle. It was more likely that
Richard would die in some war than John would. Simon could only pray that a pox
or a flux or a stone from the sky should end John's life. Then Richard might
find a way to get young Arthur into his hands, and there would be hope for a
peaceful realm. These thoughts were only flickers deep in his mind. Simon did
not permit himself to dwell on the coming horrors. He really had very little
time to do so. By day he was fully occupied in arranging transport home for
Berengaria, Joanna, and the other ladies; by night he was fully occupied with
Alinor.

For a few days after his marriage, there had been a single cloud
in Simon's sunny sky. When he was no longer sharing Richard's bedchamber, the
King's affection for him had increased dramatically. Richard bewailed aloud the
loss of "his right hand," "his dear companion," "his
trusty ears without a tongue," until Simon feared the King would not
permit him to go home with Alinor. Finally he decided he had better warn and
prepare his wife. Taken by surprise, Alinor was capable of refusing to leave or
committing some other folly. He gave her the unwelcome news after they had
mated and she was tired and quiet.

"Nonsense," Alinor murmured sleepily, "all you need
do is remind the King that when I am gone you will move back in with him,
having lost your bedmate."

It worked like a charm. Richard grew rather cross, but he saw the
truth in Simon's hint. Once Alinor left, there was no reason why Simon should
not resume all his usual duties. Although Richard was less careful than he had
been in the past, he still wished to give no cause for open scandal. Simon was
only sorry he could not so easily blow away the clouds in Alinor's sky. These
were not dense nor dangerous, only being vapor raised from Berengaria's
constant weeping, but they left Alinor a little damp and out of sorts.

"My love," Simon said one night when Alinor turned from
him saying she was too tired, "why do you not feign sickness for a day or
two. It is not uncommon in new wives."

Alinor turned back into his arms and chuckled. "Yes, and we
gave good evidence that you used me roughly enough."

Simon laughed also. "Well, how could I know that cursed prick
I gave myself would open again in the night and nearly flood us? But, jesting
aside, you should try for a few days of peace. There will be no escaping her on
the ship."

That prediction was more true than either had suspected. Although
Simon had contrived a clever arrangement whereby he and Alinor could have a
tiny, private sleeping place together, Berengaria absolutely forbade his coming
anywhere near the women's quarters after sundown. He was a man of lewd
reputation, Berengaria said coldly in answer to Alinor's protests, and informed
her that she was not the first woman in Simon's life and that he had so behaved
himself in Sicily as to make himself the talk of the gentlemen. Simon was
furious and might well have dared the Queen's wrath, but Alinor was too sorry
for Berengaria to allow him to show his contempt of her authority.

They managed to snatch a few hours together at several ports, but
in general the trip was a nightmare in spite of unusually smooth sailing and
good winds. Their arrival at Brindisi was an unmitigated relief to all, except
Berengaria. She found another cause for grief and dissatisfaction when Alinor
informed her that she would now share Simon's quarters, since these could be
placed both well away from the ladies and also well away from the men-at-arms.

"You are my lady. You have a duty to me," Berengaria
whined.

"He is my husband. My first duty is to him."

"Not when he is cruel to you."

"Cruel to me? Simon?"