Alinor

by Roberta Gellis

  There were other, lesser reasons also: the men who would come to render their pledges the next day; Sir Robert de Remy, who was to be taken into service. Ian had made an appointment to discuss the Irish matter at the end of the week. As clearly as she saw all the reasons, Alinor also saw that Ian was temporarily beyond reason. She sighed softly. He was so much more difficult to deal with than Simon. He was softer. Everything hurt him more, and he reacted too often with his gut.

  “You can ride nowhere tonight,” she said, avoiding all issues, save that upon which a woman was customarily considered fit to speak. “You are hurt and tired beyond your own knowing.”

  “I can not go to the feast. I cannot. I cannot go to court tomorrow. I cannot. I cannot face the king—I will spit upon him! I cannot, I tell you.”

  “Nor you will not,” Alinor agreed. “You will take to your bed.”

  “But I am not hurt—a few cuts and bruises.”

  Alinor could not help laughing. “That is what you think now, because the wounds are fresh, and in some measure the heat of fighting is still on you. Wait until tomorrow. You will be glad enough of your bed. You will wish you were dead.”

  The laugh soothed Ian in some indefinable manner so that Alinor’s words made an island of sense in the turmoil in his mind. It was true enough. He would be as sick as a horse the next day, and he was tired. If he could sleep and forget— He began to fumble with the buckle of his swordbelt, but dropped his hands when Alinor’s firmer grip unloosened it. He watched her as she began the familiar process of disarming him. He would say no more, ever, about what had happened at the tourney, although he still felt so shamed that he did not know how he would speak to the men who came to render up their pledges the next day. His mind flinched away from her reasons and clung to the assurance that there had, in fact, been no real violation of the code of honor. Only its heart was broken, and that was nothing new in King John’s reign.

  Ian’s investigation into the nonexistent plot might be over, but another was underway. Salisbury, horribly aware of the rumors of Ian’s planned death, had not taken his eyes off Ian for a moment. He hoped that by interposing himself personally, he would be able to bring about a miscarriage of the plot. Thus, he had seen Cantelu and Cornhill challenge Ian, had seen FitzWalter and de Quincy ride up, and had seen their discomfiture by the six knights-errant. He had assumed that Leicester’s arrival had been what prevented the six from attacking Ian when they were finished with FitzWalter and de Quincy. And he, too, had recognized Robert de Remy’s shield. As soon as Salisbury could free himself from the closing formalities, he had enquired where de Remy lodged, and when he had the information, had gone there and accused de Remy to his face of conspiring treacherously to harm the king’s champion. To his surprise, Sir Robert burst out laughing.

  “I? Harm Lord Ian? By God’s ten toenails, no! Lord Ian has just offered to take me into his service. I would be mad to take any action against him, even if I could, which I dare swear I could not.” Then he sobered and said seriously, “Why should you say such a thing to me? You know I came and begged leave to change sides before the melee so that I could fight in his party.”

  “The better to strike him from behind, perhaps,” Salisbury snapped.

  Color rushed to Sir Robert’s face. “That is not my way, Lord Salisbury. If I did not know you were very much Lord Ian’s friend and those words were spoken for his sake— Oh, this is ridiculous! Lord Ian has been my father’s friend for years. I have known him since I was a child. You need not take my word upon it. Ask Lord Ian; he will vouch for me, I assure you.”

  Salisbury was desperately puzzled. The clumsy, inept plot that Ela had described to him did not sound like John’s doing, yet he could not think of any other of Ian’s enemies who was desperate enough and stupid enough to concoct such a mess—unless it was Cantelu and Cornhill. But he could not believe that Sir Robert would have anything to do with them, and he was certainly telling the truth when he said he had no intention of harming Ian. Yet he had to probe further.

  “Then what were you doing when you held off FitzWalter, who was going to Lord Ian’s assistance?”

  This time there was no laughter. Sir Robert stared at the king’s half brother. Hot words rushed into his mind, but he closed his mouth upon them. It had been made very clear to him that, if information about what had happened came to the king’s ears, the matter would be twisted to Ian’s detriment. Sir Robert knew also that, although Salisbury seemed a friend to Ian, his first love and loyalty was to his brother. No matter that the plot was the king’s. There could be no proof of that now. To gain proof, they would have needed to allow FitzWalter and de Quincy to strike and, even then, who would take their words—a few poor knights-errant—against the words of close companions of the king? It had all been explained very carefully to Sir Robert, and he knew what he had to say.

  “That had nothing to do with Lord Ian,” he replied sullenly. “I had a private grudge against FitzWalter.”

  There was a false note in that, Salisbury thought. What sort of grudge could this young man have? How could he even know FitzWalter? “Oh, really? Yet he was on the field all day, and you chose just that moment to attack him. If your love for Lord Ian is what you say, it is strange that you should fall upon one coming to his assistance when he was locked in combat with two opponents.”

  “You may believe what you choose, but the truth is that I did not find FitzWalter earlier. As for Lord Ian, I account him well able to take care of himself, especially against such louts as those.”

  “What is your quarrel with FitzWalter? Does he know of it?”

  “He? The whole world knows of it. He gave away Normandy, and with Normandy my patrimony. I am a second son, Lord Salisbury. My heritage, such as it was, lay not far from the walls of Vaudreuil. I decided to take back a small piece of what FitzWalter or Saer de Quincy owed me in horse and armor ransom.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was not absolutely fitting that three of us went at each of them, but they owed us all and it seemed the best way. We shared in their defeat, and we will share in their ransom.”

  Salisbury hesitated. It was a sounder and more logical answer than he had expected and might well be true. He asked for and received the names and lodgings of the other knights involved. Four more he found without difficulty. They were all of a type—wholesome and seemingly honest young men, none of whom, except Sir Robert, even knew Lord Ian. They had come casually to the tourney to pick up what money they could in the way of knights-errant and had been drawn together by their common grievance of loss of lands in Normandy. That was the story he had from all—but the sixth knight he never found. That one had not returned to his lodgings after the tourney, and no one knew any more than his name—Sir Guy.

  If there was any mystery, Salisbury learned, it was connected with the missing Sir Guy. It was he who had drawn the other five young men together, yet he never said for certain that he had lost lands. Over the next few days, Salisbury made diligent search for the source of the rumor that someone had bought men to kill Lord Ian. Few were willing to speak to the king’s half brother of any plot, but when their minds had been set to rest with assurances and after all tales were traced back to the source, it was to this same Sir Guy. He seemed to have spread the tales of knights-errant hired to kill. And when the tales of poor knights with money to spend were also followed to their source, it was clear that the money was Sir Guy’s. A return to Sir Guy’s five companions produced nothing. They did not know the man, except for having joined him for the stated purpose. They certainly had no money, above the bare minimum they needed to live, and they had received none, nor any offer of money, from Sir Guy. It was true Sir Guy had spoken of the rumored plot with them, but as a rumor, not as if he knew any more than they did. To them he had shown no riches. His lodgings were as poor as theirs; his horse and armor no better. Salisbury was at a standstill. There might be thousands of Sir Guys in the country, and very likely Guy was not the man’s name at all.

 
Of the men of note Salisbury questioned, none except the principals had seen anything. All had been busy with their own duels. The only item that raised any suspicion in Salisbury was the eagerness with which Cantelu and Cornhill, FitzWalter and de Quincy all accepted the version of the story offered by Sir Robert and his companions. Since the suspicion raised was not one Salisbury was willing to entertain, he did not pursue the matter. Leicester was as little help. When pressed for an opinion, he laughed consumedly but said, between the gusts, that, if he were Salisbury, he would accept Sir Robert’s story and be done with it. If one turned enough rocks, he remarked enigmatically but suggestively with a raised brow and a cynical twist to his lips, one was sure to find slimy worms.

  On the third day, Salisbury came to put what evidence he had uncovered before Ian. He found him still abed, with blue marks under his eyes that spoke clearly of little sleep. The amenities past, he said, “On this matter of a plot—” but got no further.

  “There was no plot,” Ian interrupted tonelessly.

  “No,” Salisbury agreed, “it seems not.”

  He was about to explain further, but Alinor looked such daggers at him across the bed that he held his tongue. If it was ever necessary, he could always give Ian the details at some other time. There was only one thing he had to know.

  “I spoke to Robert de Remy, who was one of the men involved. He said you knew him from a youth and were about to take him into your service and would vouch for him. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that ends the matter,” Salisbury said briskly, but he was uneasy. The lifeless quality of the answer disturbed him. “Ian, are you ill?”

  That drew a faint smile and lit a spark in the dark eyes. “No, only sore and very tired still. I have not had so sound a drubbing since Simon took me from my father. I hope the king was not offended at our absence from court.”

  “No,” Salisbury replied, then grinned and shook his head. “You know John. He was pleased. He felt avenged for that you made him angry. He wished to beat you, as one lessons a child, and that was accomplished. You will have no more trouble with him, I think. He was really outraged at the rumors that flew about. He set me to ferret out the truth— Good God, Ian, what ails you?”

  “Nothing, an incautious move. You would not believe how I ache. It seems to grow worse instead of better. William, I am not sure I will be able to come to the meeting with Oxford and Pembroke tomorrow. Except for reserving myself from setting out in my own person, I think you can take for granted my agreement to almost any plan Pembroke puts forward. I believe he knows the extent of Alinor’s lands there and therefore what it would be sensible for us to commit to him in men and money.”

  “Remember, Ian, that you have the matter of the three castellans to settle—and there is also Sir Peter of Clyro. We will need men here, too,” Alinor interposed.

  Salisbury looked at Alinor in amazement. She had been so still, except for that one admonishing look she had cast at him, that he had forgotten her existence, as he frequently forgot Ela’s. That Alinor should interpose a military suggestion was odd enough—even Ela, whose wit Salisbury respected deeply, had never done that. Even odder was that Ian took it as a matter of course, merely assuring her he had not overlooked the matter.

  “I had intended to call out Simon’s—I mean, Adam’s other men as a levy, Alinor. I cannot see that the king will engage in any new war this year, so I will not need them for that purpose. And it will be salutary for them to fight under my orders and to punish those others who were once their equals, until they broke faith.”

  She thought about it, her lips moving a little, then nodded. “It should be enough—about five hundred men, I make it. The keeps are small. I doubt they hold more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred, even stuffed and garnished.”

  “I make it only four hundred, or a little over,” Ian agreed, “but you may be nearer right than I. As for Sir Peter, I am still not certain he is unfaithful. Assuredly, he must be tested, but not with an army, Alinor. What will that tell us except that he knows when an overwhelming force is facing him? So he might well yield in order to be able to work his own will another time. I will need to go with my own troop only, as if, perhaps, to visit Llewelyn. Then, if I smell trouble, I can use my Welshmen and call men in from the north.”

  “Can you levy upon your men to fight my castellan?”

  Inn smiled faintly again. “I am not sure what it says in law, but those devils will not argue point of law with me for that cause. They will merely cease from fighting one another for a while so that they can enjoy the pleasure of fighting someone new.”

  Salisbury’s eyes had been flicking from husband to wife as if he were watching a game of pitch the ball. “By God’s bright eyeballs,” he said with a slight flavor of resentment, “I wonder why you trouble yourself about ‘her’ men, Ian. It seems to me Lady Alinor knows almost as much as you about the art of war. I am surprised she does not don armor and dispense with a husband entirely.”

  “For Mary’s sake, William, shut your mouth,” Ian groaned and laughed at the same time. “Did you not know that was why I married her? She was all prepared to do just what you said. I thought I had driven the matter out of her head, and here you are reminding her of it.”

  “He jests,” Alinor explained. “I had no intention of donning armor. All I said was that—“

  “Alinor,” Ian interrupted, shaking his head, “you are making matters worse. All she said, William, amounted to the fact that two experienced men of war and a young, but not childish, vassal needed her guidance in the matter of taking three small keeps.”

  “Well,” Alinor responded tartly, “now you have met Sir Giles, Sir Henry, and Sir John—was I wrong?”

  Ian uttered a bark of laughter that checked on a gasp of pain. “No, you were not—at least, not in the matter of their need for guidance. I beg leave to think that mine will be better than yours, however.” But the last sentence was spoken sharply, no longer in a light tone of teasing.

  “Yes, of course,” Alinor replied flatly.

  Another flicker of pain crossed Ian’s face, but Salisbury did not think it was caused by any twinge in his body. Ian rubbed his hand across his mouth, then dropped it, and the lips were set hard.

  “I am sorry to intrude our affairs upon you,” he said formally. “Please assume that my choice will be the same as Pembroke’s in the Irish matter.”

  “But why should you pledge yourself blindly? Would it not be better for us to meet here, if you are not well enough to come to Oxford’s house?

  Salisbury could not conceive what had happened between Ian and his wife. He had thought there was no constraint in Alinor’s manner when he came in, but he had dismissed it as anxiety, either about the plot against her husband or about his health. At first they had seemed easy enough in talking to each other about settling the trouble on Alinor’s son’s lands, but then this touch of bitterness had crept in. Salisbury wondered whether Ian had some reason to suspect Alinor’s loyalty to him. The offer to move the meeting was an easy test for that.

  “If you think the others would be willing, I will be most grateful,” Ian responded promptly.

  Then it was no desire to keep Alinor ignorant of his participation in the Irish expedition, Salisbury thought, as he arranged to send a messenger to let Ian know what time they would meet.

  Ian made an effort to smile again. “Any time will suit me. I will be here.” Then he frowned slightly. “But I hope not abed for much longer. Do you think I can have leave from the king to go, William? I need to visit the strongholds that have been neglected since Simon fell ill, and I would like to do it before summoning the men to war in the spring. I will need to spend some time in each, so the sooner I start the better I can manage.”

  “I am sure John will grant leave. In fact, I think he intends to depart in a day or two himself. Let me ask him, and I will tell you when we meet tomorrow what he says.”

  With the words, Salisbury
rose. The atmosphere had grown so glacial that he feared he would freeze to death, despite the roaring fire and the generally mild weather, if he stayed any longer. Not that the icy disapproval was directed at him. Salisbury was sorry for Ian, because he did not look in proper condition for the blast of cold wrath that seemed about to strike him. However, kind of heart as Salisbury was, he had no intention of trying to interfere. He had learned better during his forty-odd years of life than to interpose himself between a husband and a wife. Ian had married the woman, let him deal with her.

  To Ian’s horror, however, Alinor did not say a word when she returned from seeing Salisbury out. She went directly to the window and sat down before her embroidery frame. If Ian had been less proud, he would have wept. He had said the most provocative thing he could think of. He had spoken as if Alinor’s property were his, as if he intended to go to her castles alone and establish his authority over them. He had said it, moreover, in front of a stranger, deliberately, to enrage her further. He did not doubt that he had succeeded in making Alinor bitterly angry, but it seemed as if he had failed in his real purpose. She would not quarrel with him any more than she would quarrel with a total stranger.

  For three days this nightmare had continued, ever since he had awakened the morning after the melee. Ian stared sightlessly into the fire across the foot of the bed. Alinor was attentive, polite, kind, gentle in cleaning and dressing his maltreated body—and as distant as the moon. If he spoke to her, she replied—politely. If he cried out, she was there at once with a cool cloth or a soporific drink. If he chose to jest, she curved her lips. She was no shrew, for she did not quarrel; she was no nag, for she did not scold; she was not Alinor, for her soul had withdrawn from him.