Roselynde (8 page)

There was another, more immediate, problem in terms of defense.
Alinor's estates ran for miles along the seacoast, and it was necessary for
Simon to consider protection for the lands both from the pirate bands that
periodically swarmed ashore to rape and loot and from the ever-present chance
of French invasion. Theoretically Philip of France was Richard's ally. He had
helped Richard destroy his father and had also taken the Cross and promised to
go on Crusade. However, Philip of France had a deep-seated and ineradicable
hatred for all Angevins—with good cause. Philip's father Louis had once been
married to Alinor of Aquitaine and her huge possessions, a third of France, had
once belonged to the French Crown. Then Henry the Angevin had tempted the Queen
to annul her marriage to her French husband and take him instead. With her went
enormous provinces. Philip would not rest, nor cease to hate the Angevins,
until every stick and stone of Alinor's dowry was back in French hands. He had
tried by war, but Henry and Richard had beaten him. Then he worked by guile.

First he allied with Richard to destroy Henry. Now Simon knew,
even if Richard did not, Philip of France would seek a way to destroy Richard.
The south coast of England would need to be carefully watched.

Sir Andre watched Simon's face grow bleaker and bleaker as the
miles of beaches and inlets unfolded. "It is not as bad as it looks,"
he suggested after a while.

"How so?" Simon asked testily. "A child could land
a boat on these shores."

"True enough, a
child
could land
a
boat. From
time to time a band of sea rovers does succeed in putting in, and thus a
fishing village is burned and a few fishermen die, but many men cannot land
many boats—not unless the fisherfolk are willing to turn blind eyes to
them."

Simon turned his head, his graying red, short-cropped hair ruffled
by the sea breeze. He was mailed and carried both sword and shield, but helmet
and hood had been thrust back to leave his head bare for the sake of coolness.
On the demesne lands, Sir Andre assured him, there was very little danger of attack.

"That sounds as if it has a meaning, but I do not spell it
out," he rumbled.

"Fisherfolk are different in a manner from the inland serfs.
They are not so tied to the land. Their livelihood is in their craft, and those
are not easy for an armored knight to reach nor, being what they are, easy for
a great ship to find or catch."

"They have the name of serf and the ways of free men. I
see."

"More," Sir Andre continued soberly, "here they
have the minds and wills of free men." He watched Simon's face and when
nothing more than thoughtful consideration appeared there, continued, "You
might think it a weakness in Lord Rannulf and my Lady Alinor that they have
condoned this freedom, but it has paid them well."

At that Simon snorted with contempt. "You mean to tell me
that freedom makes men more honest? That they pay their stones of fish or give
their pennies or their service more willingly?"

"Even that may be, but I was not thinking of rents or corvee.
They watch this coast by day and by night from land and from sea as no army
could ever watch it. Perhaps a single child in a single boat might escape their
notice, but little else."

"Yet you say the reavers have come ashore to burn and
loot."

"It happens," Sir Andre admitted, "but not often.
Far more often my men and I lie waiting for them. They come ashore, but they do
not put back to sea. The fisherfolk are then richer by another boat and we in
the castle by whatever was in the boat."

"You protect them and they—for their own safety and
profit—protect you," the deep voice mused. Then Simon shook his head.
"It works until some fancied slight angers them." Sir Andre shrugged.
"Oh, it is not all faith upon our part. My men patrol the coast close to
the keep, and further—as you saw—there are watchtowers. I spoke of it because I
could see you thought the defenses thin. For many years—as long as there has
been no sharp threat of war—it has been sufficient."

It might well be so, Simon thought, but he was cautious by long
experience and reluctant to agree to what he had not tested himself. "You
have been here many years?" he asked, turning the conversation without
seeming too obviously to avoid approval.

"Oh, no. My keep is in the north, at Donnington. My son holds
it now. After my Mary died, I was glad enough to leave it to him and come to
serve my lord, who was growing feeble. Toward the end he was forgetful, too. It
was Lady Alinor mostly who showed me the way of things in these parts."

"But she is little more than a child!"

Sir Andre looked hard into Simon's face. "Not so much of a
child. She is all of sixteen, and should have been wedded and bedded two years
since, like any other girl. But she saw no man who took her fancy and my
lord—well, aside from the fact that he could never bring himself to say her
nay, I think he could not bear the thought of any man touching her."

"There is little wisdom in such indulgence," Simon
growled. "See what she has come to through his doting."

"Has she come to ill?" Sir Andre asked, laughing.
"I will say no more, for I am in some way kin to her. It will be better if
you answer this question for yourself."

When Simon finally had seen what he felt was enough of the coast,
they stopped in a village. Most of the men were at sea, but a graybeard came
from a hut readily to greet them and to offer refreshment. Simon controlled a
shudder with some difficulty and, having mastered his tendency to choke in the
overpowering stench of fish, refused with considerable courtesy.

"I am the King's warden, set to oversee this land," he
said then. "How many boats go out from this village?"

"How many?" the old man repeated. "I cannot tell
numbers, master. How can I know?"

"As many as the houses?" Simon prompted.

"Oh, no, not so many as that—at least, I think not."

It was fortunate that Simon's attention was given to the old man.
Had he seen the expression of blank surprise on Sir Andre's face, he would have
realized that there was more here than the usual reluctance of the serf to
answer any question.

"You mean you would not know if a boat did not return?"
Simon asked more sharply. He was experienced in trapping liars.

The old man met Simon's eyes steadily. "I know every man and
boy in this village. I would know if some of them did not return."

Simon did not lose his patience. He had dealt with this kind of
thing too often before. He tried a new tack. "How much tithe goes to your
priest?"

A shrug.

Simon's voice grew harsher. "You must know the number of
stones' weight given to the priest. Where are your tally sticks?"

"But I do not know. Why should I?" The expression was
surprised, Simon noted, not sullen. "It is written in mistress's book and
she comes with the priest. Mistress would not let him cheat us." The old
man smiled and nodded vigorously. "Mistress will know the number of ships
also. Ask the mistress. She will speak true. The old master and mistress never
cheat us."

Light dawned on Sir Andre. He ground his teeth together to
suppress the laughter that rose in his throat. Alinor had doubtless sent word
that her people were to hold their tongues. Then the impulse to laugh died. If
she intended to cheat the King, she would get into trouble. Sir Simon was no
fool.

That was true enough, but Sir Simon's experience had been with
ill-run estates and corrupt administrations. He was accustomed to cringing and
lying and evasion. Thus, the only unnatural thing he noted was the fearlessness
of the old man and his trust that his mistress would not cheat him. Perhaps, he
thought, Sir Andre's notion—or, rather, Lord Rannulf's— was not so farfetched
as it seemed. Unfortunately it could only be tested in time of stress and then,
if the fearless and free-thinking fisherfolk were not faithful, it would be too
late to begin anew and build a proper terror that induced respect for
authority.

However, if the fisherfolk were "different" in their
manner, Simon found when they turned inland that he obtained no more
information from the herdsmen or farm bailiffs. The herdsmen also "could
not tell numbers," the tally sticks were "away yon," and the
farm bailiffs, who dared not use those excuses, scratched their heads and
blamed the varying weather of the coast for their inability to say how many
bushels of grain were reaped. Oh, yes, last year it was so much, and the sticks
were here, but the year before it was much less—or, perhaps, much more— There
was no need to keep tally sticks or remember such matters. It was "written
in my lady's book."

Simon had become a competent penman and reader—as any high-level
servant of Henry II's had to be. The King was violently addicted to sending
notes and receiving answers. If Simon had not learned how to read and write
fluently himself, he would have been at the mercy of the clerks who served him.
By the misinterpretation of a word or two—innocently or deliberately—a man
might come to grief. Simon had thought it better to make his own mistakes, and
he had learned to read and write. He had learned, incidentally, that much
pleasure might be had from books, but he was beginning to develop a strong
aversion toward "my lady's book."

He was also developing strong suspicions about the clerk who kept
that book and about his influence on Alinor and her vassals. Sir Andre, for
example, seemed startlingly ignorant about "my lady's book." Of
course, Sir Andre could not read or write, but such a loyal vassal should be more
attentive, more wary. Clerks did not always take their religious vows—
especially that of poverty—as seriously as they should. It was not unknown for
a clerk to feather his own nest with purloined feathers. In fact, it was all
too common, for a dishonest clerk had an out. Discovered in his crime, he could
escape the just retribution of the lord he had cheated by fleeing to the arms
of the Church where, by disgorging some of his ill-gotten gains, he could buy
safety from civil prosecution.

It never occurred to Simon that Sir Andre's trusting indifference
was owing to the fact that Alinor kept her own books. Women did not read and
write. The Queen did, of course, but the Queen was not "a woman." And
there were nuns who had the skill and a few of the younger ladies of the Court
who were addicted to the Court of Love ethos and wished to read and even reply
to the poetic effusions of their "troubadours." But that "this
innocent child," as Simon persisted in thinking of Alinor in spite of Sir
Andre's protestations, should not only read but cipher and keep accounts did
not ever cross his mind.

What grew in Simon was a feeling that, dearly beloved as Alinor
was by her vassals and the serfs and villeins of the demesne land, she was not
loved in the right way. He became grimly satisfied with the impulse that had
precipitated him into being King's warden against his better judgment. Now he
had a real purpose. Someone was cheating his ward, and he seemed to be the only
one who noticed. A fierce protectiveness surrounded the lovely image of Alinor
in his mind.

When they returned to the keep, the reality of Alinor magnified
that feeling. She came lightfooted and smiling to greet them, her hair shining
under its soft veil, her eyes lightened with laughter and showing flecks of
green picked up from her bliaut. Not a trace of her earlier anger remained, for
swift-footed huntsmen, trained to endurance by tracking and coursing game, had
come sidling into the keep to confirm breathlessly the success of her plans.
Her people had done their part; now it only remained for her to do hers.

It was as well that Simon had eyes only for Alinor. One glance at
Sir Andre's grim and disapproving face would have forewarned him. But he saw
only Alinor, who held out a cool, white hand to him and asked with sweet
thoughtfulness whether, since he had been much in the saddle these three hot
days past, he would like to bathe before sitting down to meat.

She was like a lily, he thought, slender and graceful and all
green and white, and sweet scented, too. His courtier's ways nearly deserted
him, but he managed to bow and raise her hand to his lips. "If it can be
done without trouble, I should like nothing better." The deep rumble of
his own voice, easy and natural, gave him confidence, and he laughed.
"Doubtless you could smell me across the bailey and thus knew I was
coming."

There was nothing wrong with Alinor's nose, and she could smell
him—not, perhaps as far away as he implied, but quite distinctly from where he
stood. However, Alinor's nose was inured to the stenches that rose from the
garderobe of the castle, from the huts of the serfs and the serfs themselves,
from rotting fish in the coast villages, from the sewage that drained into the
moat and, when the weather was dry, permeated the whole castle. There was
nothing to offend her nose in the clean sweat of a healthy man.

"I look to your comfort, not mine, my lord," she
replied, laughing. "You smell as you should, of hard-working man and
horse—an honest smell, and more welcome to me than the scents of the
merchants."

Alinor had no intention of dallying in talk just now. She promptly
signaled a maid with a raised hand and snapping fingers. Simon would sit next
to her at dinner and she would have plenty of time to talk to him. Right now it
was more necessary to talk to Sir Andre, who was glowering at her from behind
Simon's back.