Alix of Wanthwaite 01 - Shield of Three Lions

by Pamela Kaufman

  “Oh, a long time ago!” I sang out. “My horse Justice, back at Wanthwaite—er—bit me.”

  “A horse bit yer terse!” His eyes widened.

  “Not exactly bit—I mean kicked.” I felt I would swoon. “Kicked so hard that it felt like a bite, if you take my meaning.”

  The Scot now stared at me, more intrigued by my words than my false member. I looked back with a vacuous brightness, trying to read the comprehension or lack of it in his eyes. Again he put one hand on the willows, put his other below the belt, and tried to balance them in what I saw must be the position they rode between my legs. The willows rose in a close proximation of a prick, or so it seemed to me. Enoch narrowed his eyes, turned the whole in profile, looked back at me with the first stir of real suspicion.

  “As I understand it, these willows mun slip o’er yer terse. Lat me see how ye wear it.” He finally handed me my poor disguise.

  “That’s absurd,” I said firmly. “No prick could squeeze inside that narrow pipe as you well know. It once served to hold off horses, as I said, but it’s grown too brittle by far.” Quickly I broke the willows off and threw it toward the sea where, Deo gratias, the wind carried it into the surf. Then, using the same manner I’d done on Dere Street to fool Magnus Barefoot, I reached up from under the hem of my tunic and fastened the belt in place, protected in the act by my garment.

  Enoch was now roused. “Alex, in almost three years, I’ve ne’er seen ye wi’out yer clothes. Why is that? Be there somewhat wrong wi’ yer parts?”

  “If you haven’t seen me, you haven’t looked,” I argued back. “I’ve been without my garments many times.”

  “No, ye have nocht!” Amazement shone in his face. “I doona knaw quhat ye look like!”

  And he lunged toward my tunic.

  I spun away terrified!

  He stumbled after me, not sure but close to sure that something was amiss. Bewildered blue eyes raked me from head to foot, hands reached to catch any part of me. We feinted in grotesque circles as I tried to think of a way out.

  “Ye’re nocht Alex!” he cried.

  “Alex! Is that you?” Sir Roger’s voice sounded from the dusty swirls, almost upon us. Then his welcome figure loomed above.

  “Sir Roger!” I screeched in relief. “Are you going to the king’s pavilion?”

  “Yes, we’re late.”

  “I’ll go with you!”

  I was already on Thistle and spurred my horse to a rear to avoid Enoch’s reaching hands.

  I thundered into the sand-screen as fast as I could.

  “Wait!” Sir Roger called.

  “Alex, wait!” Enoch echoed. “Be ye a …?”

  But I was too far away to hear the last word.

  SIR ROGER AND I WORKED FEVERISHLY to make up for the fact we were late, and we finished setting up the goblets just as the king’s fanfare announced his arrival in camp. I was grateful for the hard tasks which took my mind off the emirs, off Enoch, off the coming night of love. Benedicite, I hoped I would never live through such a day again.

  The king was accompanied by great lords, already in heated discussion about the massacre.

  “Saladin will go down in infamy for his dastardly act today.”

  Saladin? I looked in amazement at the speaker, none other than the temperate Champagne.

  “Yes, ’tis difficult to comprehend the Infidel mind. No Christian king would murder the cream of his own army. And we thought he was a chivalrous leader!”

  The king, I saw, was halfway in his transformation from Death to Great Monarch. His mouth was still fretted by bitterness, his eyes still heavy, his speech lugubrious. “’Tis not Saladin, ’tis Philip who is at fault,” he announced.

  “How so, Your Majesty?”

  “Once France defected, the peace terms no longer had to be honored. Obviously we could not march the emirs in our ranks to Ascalon; just as obviously, we no longer have sufficient army to guard them in Acre. The strategy was to hold us in Acre until Saladin could raise the eight hundred thousand troops he’s called.” He threw his heavy cape on the bed and sat on his throne.

  Strategy, always strategy. The question was, did he enjoy the act of murder? This afternoon I’d thought he did. If so, I would soon be copulating with Death. I handed him a goblet of wine.

  “I daresay the pope will approve,” a bishop opined uneasily, “since the purpose was holy.”

  Richard turned cynical eyes. “If we take Jerusalem, he will approve.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Your Majesty,” the bishop agreed hastily. “The pope has great faith in you.”

  Richards lips twitched; then he turned to his advisers. “Look you, we agreed in conference on this awesome act. I suggest that we put it behind us now and turn our attention to the more pressing matter of our march to Ascalon. If I am right about Saladin’s recruitment, we face formidable odds on the narrow stretch along the sea. We’ll go in triple file, mounted knights closest to the sea and our following ships. Here is the map …”

  Well, these were momentous decisions, I knew, but soothly of little interest to me. The Scot’s unfinished question hurled at my back occupied all my mind. If Enoch knew I was female—and I was sure he did, if not now, then within the next few hours as he thought things through—then my whole situation was changed. He would see and grab his advantage. Which meant that he would leave for Wanthwaite at once, knowing that I could not dispute his male sovereignty. He would bring an army, challenge Sir Roland to the ordeal of single combat, the absolutely legal way of attaching my estate.

  What could I do?

  Enlist the king’s help. ’Twas unfortunate that I had to ask on the heels of his own disasters, but there was no other way. So as he plotted how to defeat Saladin, I pondered how I might outwit the Scot.

  I had arrived at my own strategy long before the king finished planning his, and I thought the parley would go on until dawn. Finally, however, close upon midnight, the first lord rose to take his leave. Soon others followed and in a short time Sir Roger and I were busily cleaning the pavilion, laying out the king’s sheets and robe.

  Then Sir Roger and the king carefully rolled the maps and placed them in a chest. Two of the wax lanterns had been extinguished and the one that was left cast an eerie light across the swelling canvas which rose and fell in the wind like a great heart.

  The king accompanied Sir Roger to the exit of the pavilion where they stood talking earnestly for a few moments. Then the secretary untied the flaps and bent low into the wind; before the king could close the opening, the wax lantern flickered out and we were in darkness.

  “God’s feet, help me tie the flap, Alex!”

  I groped my way across the inky space, hit the side of the tent and edged to where the king stood. He tied the upper part, while I sat on the ground and tied the lower. Then I rose and he grasped my shoulder.

  “Where’s the ember?” he asked. “’Tis said that darkness is a friend to love, but I believe we need a little light.”

  “One of the bishops told Sir Roger to remove it, Your Highness. He was afraid of fire in this gale.”

  “A presumptuous prelate, I might have guessed. Well, we shall be night partners then.” He laughed and led me to his bed.

  The simultaneous loss of human voices and light isolated us. I heard anew the fierce winds wailing about us, an anguished sobbing chorus of tortured souls, calling in the darkness.

  I thought of the emirs.

  “What’s wrong, love? Why that frisson?”

  “Nothing, Your Highness.”

  “Call me Richard. Night is a great leveler.” Again the rich laugh.

  Death is the great leveler, I thought, and I wished we had light. True, the king had diminished to a disembodied voice, a single hand, but he was emblazoned in my mind’s eye as a skull-like grinning face riding past the pile of dead hostages.

  “Ah, there we are.” He sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t suppose you’re clever enough to get us a cup of wine i
n this pitch.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I made my way along the bed, from the bed to the partition where the wine chest stood. I took a goblet and a flask, thinking it would be safer to pour after I reached the king. When I groped my way back, I touched a muscular leg.

  The king was naked.

  “None for you? We’ll share a loving cup.”

  He took the flask and poured, sipped and pushed the goblet toward me, spilling a little.

  “If you were in my state, wine stains wouldn’t matter. Let’s make you comfortable.”

  His hands groped at my neck laces.

  “I’ll do it, Your—Richard.” I stepped away, took off everything except my tunic which was still slightly damp at the edges. ’Twas as far as I could force myself to go.

  “Where are you? Ah, there. I’ve poured more wine and you must drink it, as a good omen.”

  I sipped it as slowly as I dared. Gradually I could see the faint pale outlines of the silk fenestrations. Richard was a ghostly mass next to me.

  But if ’twas hard to see, the sound was terrifying. Canvas cracked like sails, metal objects outside crashed, rolled, thumped. And that mournful keening howl. We were sailing through a pitching universe, enclosed only in a flapping charnel tent.

  “You’re still dressed!”

  “Just my tunic,” I stammered.

  “Are you afraid?” His whisper made me start, for ’twas directly in my ear.

  “A … little.”

  “Come, let me hold you. Don’t be shy. It’s natural to be apprehensive the first time, but I promise …”

  He lifted me onto his lap, lay back so that I fell awkwardly to one side, pulled me across his chest.

  “You are frightened,” he said, laughing. “Your heart strikes like a stone caster. Here …”

  He held my cheeks, pulled my face close and kissed me softly, languorously.

  “Alex, I love you. Pagan Eros, adorable …” His kisses grew more probing. His tongue …

  I was dreadfully hot. The blackness was furry, suffocating, and his skin was sweating. I couldn’t think of him as the king, or even a man I knew—his mouth enclosed me—and I wished desperately to escape. If only Enoch …

  His hands took my bare calves, kneaded them gently, slipped upward to my thighs, my buttocks … and stopped. He turned his face away and my nose was buried in his neck, breathing in sweet woodruff, but he was not my father.

  His hands no longer caressed—but explored, almost like a doctor s—where my treasure should be. And stayed, feeling. I leaped slightly. I was extremely sensitive, but also terrified by the peculiar quality of touch, as if I were an alien object. His hands slid upward under my tunic, felt my rising nipples and instantly withdrew.

  He plucked me off his chest as if I were a snake. Leaped off the bed.

  “What trumpery is this!” he exploded. “You’re …”

  Trembling all over, I clutched the sheets around me, not knowing what to say.

  He grabbed me by the neck and shook me.

  “Who put you up to this! By God, I’ll kill the traitor!”

  I lost breath—grew weak—couldn’t speak for choking! Death, he was Death! The wind’s sobs turned to laughter—waiting! My parents!

  “As you value your life, answer me!”

  “You’re hurting me!” I gasped.

  He loosened his grip and I fell to my side. Disoriented, I wondered desperately if I could escape under the cover of darkness.

  Again those awful hands, on my shoulders now. “I’m waiting.”

  “I—don’t—understand. You said you knew, said …”

  “Said I knew what? When?”

  “That I was female, said you knew …”

  “God’s balls, would I make a girl my page? Bring a girl on the Crusade? Devil’s slut that you are! Spy! Now talk, God damn you!”

  He sat with a heavy crash, pulled my hair so that tears came.

  “I’m Lady Alix of Wanthwaite, ran for my life dressed as a boy as my father told me, had to escape Northumberland who’d killed his wife to marry me … Northumberland …”

  I paused, God damn him for the liar that he was about Northumberland!

  “This father you’ve touted as a hero—deliberately instructed you to lie to your king?”

  “No! No!” I sobbed. “Not my father—you were the only one I was to tell!”

  “But you didn’t, did you?”

  Contemptuously he pushed me away and I rubbed my poor sore head.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Because you could get more out of me by feigning to be a winsome, flattering boy, clinging and simpering to make a fool of me! I’ll ask one more time and you’ll answer or live not another day Who put you up to this?”

  “No one!”

  “Zizka?”

  “He never knew!”

  “Ambroise?”

  “No!”

  “The French?”

  “I don’t know a soul in the French army I …”

  “That leaves the Scot, the pair of you, traitors!”

  “No!” I screamed. “No, he doesn’t know! Except …”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “He may have guessed today—and he’s angry, just as angry as you … only, the difference is …”

  “Only?”

  I could hardly go on, but I had to. “I thought you knew,” I whispered. Otherwise … how could he have thought he could make love to me? All these months … the many scenes, now returned with vivid clarity, of happy eyes, kisses, whispered love … and he’d thought I was a boy! I shivered in horror, the darkness a deep pit and I was falling, falling. Other words—“Better show him, Pat; get on your knees, boys,” “Try a good Lincolnshire prick for flavor,” and Enoch’s elusive explanation of a sin when men don’t go “twa by twa” with women. I knew now I would never leave this tent alive, for I had indeed stumbled into a scorpions’ nest of secrets.

  The king turned away—his foot inadvertently kicked his goblet. “What made you think I knew?”

  I turned hot, sightless eyes in the direction of his voice. What could I say? Innocence—my only defense—and true.

  “I know now I was wrong, Your Highness, but, you see, I loved you with a dreadful passion and my excuse is that I saw what I wanted to see. So when you said in Italy on the hunt that you loved me—that you were willing to take a chance in loving a child, then talked of Alais later and your father, I thought you meant you loved me as he did her.”

  “God help us,” he groaned. “Go on.”

  “In Bagnara—on the beach—you”—I gritted my teeth and forced myself—“touched me and said you knew. When I asked when you’d first known, you said when I’d played Cupid—and soothly it would have been possible, since I was without disguise at that time.”

  “Disguise?”

  I covered my face with my hands and spoke in muffled tones through my palms. “I—constructed—a false prick.” I waited and when he made no answer, went on. “After you told me I was going to crusade—I had to take some measures, in that crowd of men. It fooled everyone, even Enoch.”

  “Go on,” the sepulchral voice ordered. “How did you shape this article?”

  I told him in fine detail.

  Then there was silence.

  The king groped along the floor seeking his goblet, picked it up and walked to the chest for a fresh flask of wine. In the meantime, I collected what clothes I could find and put them on. When he returned, he, too, had on his white silk robe.

  “Wine—Alix?”

  “No thank you, Your Highness.”

  There was another long silence between us, but I was keenly aware of many other things, like a blind animal whose senses are alerted. I heard the thin rustle of silk as his arms raised his goblet, heard wine sliding down his throat in long swallows, heard his heart and his breath. Smelled him as well, the strong musky horse-smell beneath the sweet woodruff. And sensed his thoughts—that there was a greater problem here tha
n my discovery.

  Finally his words came, almost expected. “Well, little Alix, our show is finished. Did I frighten you?”

  “Aye,” I said cautiously, “just a little.”

  “I’ve been planning this test for some time. Do you understand why?”

  Suspecting a trick, I remained silent.

  “Of course you know that I am surrounded by spies and traitors at all times. Every one of my familiars is subjected to an—er—examination to be sure he—or she—is exactly what he seems. ’Tis a sad but necessary part of my security.”

  Another long silence. “Don’t tell me you believed me! Of course I knew you were a lass—often joked with Joanna about it. Otherwise …” His voice had strained jocularity and I knew this time I must answer.

  “You did frighten me some, Your Highness,” I admitted quickly. “You’re a remarkably skilled actor.” Which was indeed true, except for this performance. Brise-Tête could have done better.

  He sat on his bed and continued, thus making an error that I could easily have corrected: he went too far. As an accomplished liar, I knew the secret was to tell no more than was absolutely necessary. But the king was anxious.

  “I confess I had a second motive. I knew your knocking heart might crack a rib if I didn’t desist. You were frightened by my advances, weren’t you?”

  At last I could be honest. “I believe I’ve feared—men—since I saw my mother killed.”

  “How did she die?”

  To underscore my fear, I told him graphically what had transpired. Again my heightened awareness revealed to me he was not listening, but that my description gave us both time to gather our thoughts.

  “Poor child. The example of our parents does affect us, does it not? The sins of the fathers …”

  I frowned, for my father had not sinned, then realized he was speaking of Henry II. A black melancholy thickened the natural gloom.

  “Well, we must sleep. I promise not to … I mean, I won’t …”

  “Like a courtly lover?” I prompted.

  “What?”

  “My book on the rules of love says the chivalrous knight does not touch his beloved until the lady gives her consent.”

  He made a sound of relief. “Exactly so. Yes, from my sister Marie. I believe the expression is that we lovers worship from afar, as sycophants before a shrine.”