Simon’s Lady

by Julie Tetel Andresen

  Saint Barnabas Day dawned blue and beautiful and with just the right amount of breeze to keep the bright banners fluttering smartly atop their poles. The day was hot enough and sunny enough, too, to make the noble spectators grateful for the awning stretched over the wooden stands that had been erected at the sides of the lists. King Stephen did not frown on tournaments as did the Church, and because the king was so enamored of this aristocratic sport, he pronounced the usual in-town jousting area, Cheapside, to be too narrow and confined for truly grand combat maneuvers. He proclaimed instead that this day’s field be established outside the walls on The Moor.

  Gwyneth came to the field escorted by a retinue of retainers that she had had no difficulty assembling. As a result of the disaster with Beresford, she had consolidated her authority as absolute mistress of the household. This morning she had merely to give a quiet command to find her orders instantly obeyed. She was gratified by the power, but not ultimately consoled.

  After the master had stormed out of the house, the serving men and women had regarded her with a respectful awe bordering on the reverential. They remembered vividly the blistering rows that Roesia had routinely provoked and that Beresford had won with such relish. They remembered the always-vanquished Roesia carping at them in response, finding fault and generally making their lives miserable. And they could not once recall Beresford kissing Roesia passionately the way he had kissed Gwyneth the day before.

  About last evening’s “incident” in the solar, it was common knowledge to everyone in the household that Beresford and Gwyneth had not shouted down the house, or broken anything more than a cup of horn, or so much as touched one another. Nevertheless, and taking into consideration the valuable information supplied by John the Porter, they reached the consensus that Gwyneth had won the contest—that is, if contest it had been. Judging from Gwyneth’s behavior, they were not quite sure. After Beresford had quit the solar, the mistress had proceeded with preparations for supper, sweetly and calmly but a little distractedly, stating only that the master would not be joining them.

  Gwyneth knew it had been a contest and did not feel as if she had won anything. She had slept badly and awoke in worse humor, which took the form of ice-cold detachment. In addition, she had a throbbing headache, which surprised her as much as it irritated her because she was not prone to headaches. Now, she certainly did not need the discomfort. In addition to the sheer pain, she found herself unable to think clearly or quickly, and attributed her sluggish mental state to the further mischief of Loki. On the other hand, she did need her frozen armor to face down the courtiers who, she imagined in her worst moments, would stand as a body and accuse her of traitorous activities.

  This did not happen, although during the course of the tournament she became aware of a subtler version of discrimination.

  No special attention, negative or positive, was given to her upon her arrival at the field. She entered the palisade like everyone else, and like everyone else, spent the first moments admiring the stockade ornamented with tapestries and heraldic devices. The atmosphere within was hushed and expectant, the suppressed excitement heightened by the pomp. The marshals of the lists, the heralds with their trumpets and the pursuivants-at-anns were already stationed within the enclosure. The knights and their squires were milling about, creating a sea of shifting colors with their ribbons and scarves and pennons and surcoats and caparisoned horses. Helmets, lances, maces, shields and swords glinted in the sun, blinding eyes so bold as to gaze upon such magnificence.

  Gwyneth soon came to realize from the variety of greetings given to her that Beresford had evidently not gone to the Tower to denounce her. She knew from the usual household sources that her husband had spent the evening and possibly the night at the most disreputable of all London taverns. However, she did not know what he had done between debauching himself at The Boar’s Head and appearing on the field this morning.

  Once she was standing in the shade of the awning, she scanned the area and picked out Beresford’s form in a crowd of rushing squires and restless knights. She also spotted the largest man among them, who happened just then to be wearing his helmet, thus obscuring his face. Oddly, something about the way the man moved as he strode to his horse and secured the destrier’s mail bard reminded her not of Beresford but of Gunnar Erickson. She closed her eyes in disgust with herself and put her hands to her throbbing temples to massage them.

  When she opened her eyes again, the crowd of knights and squires had shifted, but she still easily identified Beresford, now standing away from his horse, his helmet resting in the crook of his arm. She noticed, too, his beautiful deep blue surcoat, emblazoned with the Beresford shield of argent and azure. She had not previously noted his dress, but dismissed the oversight as a product of her unwontedly dull wits.

  She noted that he was speaking with several young men, obviously his squires. The name Breteuil flitted through her aching head, along with another significant detail that hovered just beyond her grasp. She was about to make some connection when her thoughts were interrupted by a gentle hand on her arm and the words, softly spoken, “It is very hot today, isn’t it? Pity the poor knights, who must be sweltering in their mail and surcoats!”

  Gwyneth looked up to see the kind, smiling face of Johanna. “Oh, yes, it is very hot,” she agreed, vaguely worried about the loss of her train of thought, “and the contests should prove, then, all the more intense.”

  “Have you chosen a place to sit yet?” Johanna asked.

  When Gwyneth shook her head, Johanna gestured to the section she had taken for herself and her women, and invited Gwyneth to join her. There was enough room for two of Gwyneth’s retainers. The rest could remain standing near the benches, still in the shade of the awning.

  Gwyneth and Johanna proceeded toward the benches, pausing to curtsy to Adela, who was seated front and center on a chair, making prominent the innovation of having women among the spectators at what had been until recently an exclusively male celebration. Along the way, Gwyneth became aware of suspicious glances cast at her. She missed their significance at first, so subtle were they. However, enough people lifted their eyes to her then looked away, for her to guess that the looks concerned her relationship to Beresford and the rumors of traitors within castle walls. It occurred to her that if it had become generally known that the most loyal knight in the kingdom had spent the night apart from his new and foreign wife, all kinds of inferences could be made without Beresford having to say a word to anyone.

  Yet Gwyneth knew that someone would have to have spread the word of Beresford’s disaffection from her.

  When she and Johanna settled into their places on the benches, Johanna looked out over the orchestrated chaos on the field and remarked mildly, “But Simon wears no token of yours, my dear!” She glanced at Gwyneth and clucked her tongue with amused disgust. “Why can the man never seem to follow the least convention?”

  Gwyneth felt stricken that the absence of a token from her was so immediately obvious. She had no ready explanation.

  Johanna kindly supplied her with one. “It is perfectly obvious that the man is unused to respecting the courtesies! Now, I have never known him to wear the token of any lady before but,” she teased lightly, “I was hoping that, in this instance, he would surely sport one from you!”

  Gwyneth saw an opportunity to feel out her friend. “I did not give him one, I am afraid,” she said.

  “Oh?” Johanna’s expression displayed only polite interest.

  “You see, Beresford did not spend last night at home,” Gwyneth said, “and he left yesterday evening before I thought to give him a scarf to wear on his sleeve.”

  “Ah!” Johanna said sympathetically, as if this were the most ordinary explanation in the world. “Of course, it would no doubt go better for him not to be with his lovely wife the night before a tournament. Such a practice is quite common, in fact!”

  Gwyneth had no reason to think that marital abstinence before a tournament
was at all common, but she thanked Johanna with her eyes for helping to preserve her dignity. Unfortunately, Johanna’s efforts were undermined the next moment, for their brief discussion had been overheard.

  “Oh, the practice is very common,” Lady Chester purred delightedly, without further greeting. She laughed. “But usually only when the knight and his lady have been married a very long time!”

  Gwyneth’s heart sank to her stomach, and she turned to look at the beautiful Rosalyn, lovely in a white kirtle over which she wore a purple bliaut. The pressure in her aching temples increased when Rosalyn made a place for herself next to Johanna.

  “Do you know what we are talking about?” Gwyneth asked directly.

  Rosalyn smiled sweetly and condescendingly. “That Beresford spent the night away from you, my dear, and that Johanna—who is so fond of her cousin—suggests that Simon was saving his strength for the rigors of this day’s activities!”

  Gwyneth relied on her icy armor to see her through this encounter. It would go better for her, she knew, if her headache were less blinding. She fought against Loki’s mischief and tried to keep her voice pleasant. “Do I infer that you are skeptical of such an explanation of my husband’s whereabouts last night?”

  Rosalyn put a delicate hand to her breast in self-defense. “Why, not at all!” she replied. “Simon’s caution is entirely understandable, particularly given the reports of the prowess of the unknown knight! It is said that he is the strongest man to have ever appeared on the tourney field.”

  That was it, then, the detail that had eluded Gwyneth earlier: the mysterious knight whom Geoffrey of Senlis had mentioned would be entering the lists today.

  “I have heard something of him,” Gwyneth admitted, then quoted her husband, “but the matter of his strength will be decided in the usual manner.”

  “In the fifth joust, I believe,” Rosalyn informed her with a smile, “where Simon will be meeting him.” Her gaze moved on to Johanna. “Isn’t that right?”

  “So I’ve heard,” Johanna said with reassuring indifference. She scanned the group of far-off knights and even called Rosalyn’s bluff. “But I am going to assume that he has not shown up yet, for I see no one on the field to rival Simon.” She turned to Lady Chester and smiled complacently. “And Simon is meeting Valmey in the—let me see, now—sixth joust, isn’t it so? He’ll be in form by then, no doubt.”

  Rosalyn’s smile became a little fixed. “But the sixth is scheduled to be merely a joust à plaisance,“ she said with a pretty shrug.

  Gwyneth felt a jolt of alarm. “They are all jousts à plaisance, are they not?” she asked. Until this moment, she had not considered that any “jousts to the death” or à outrance would be enacted. She had assumed they would all be à plaisance or “of peace.”

  Rosalyn looked at her directly. “I don’t know,” she said slowly and in a way that caused the blood to drain from Gwyneth’s face. “Would you care very much, my dear, if Simon were to be … hurt?”

  Gwyneth sensed a trap. Think, silly goose, think! she admonished herself. However, she could not. The horrible realization had come to her that if Beresford had spent the night drinking and whoring, he would hardly be in top condition to meet a vigorous rival in the fifth joust, possibly one to the death. Assuming that he could miraculously survive that, he would still have to go against Valmey in the very next round, where he could be grievously wounded, even in a joust of peace.

  With a further sinking of her spirits, she realized that if anyone had wished to do Beresford in, they could do no better than to have him in bad form this day. The stray thought came to her that Beresford’s possible disadvantage was all the fault of Gunnar Erickson’s ill timing. Loki had, indeed, wrought his worst. Her head ached to the point of exploding.

  “Well?” Rosalyn prodded.

  Gwyneth turned bravely to face her tormentor. “Well, what?” she had to ask, for she was having difficulty remembering the question and working through the problem that was pounding at her temples.

  “Would you care very much if Simon were to be hurt?” Rosalyn repeated.

  Gwyneth turned toward her and asked, “And what would happen to me if my husband were injured?”

  Rosalyn’s smile was as beautiful as snowfall on a winter’s day. Gwyneth looked into her face and was surprised to see the arch of her slim back brow over the secret, ugly jealousy that slumbered in the depths of her ebony eyes.

  “Why, my dear,” Rosalyn said, “you are so attractive and your lands are so vast that I am sure your widowhood would not last long.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gwyneth’s headache receded a little, and the misty gauze over her thoughts began to lift. A pattern that had previously eluded her was emerging.

  Rosalyn’s jealousy suggested that it was not Loki wreaking havoc in Gwyneth’s life, but a mere mortal whose name was most likely Cedric of Valmey. It was Valmey who had sent Gunnar Erickson to her the day before, knowing that Beresford had a castle guard looking out for her. It was Valmey who had captured Gunnar Erickson at Castle Norham and entered into a scheme with him for Beresford’s undoing. It was Valrney who was Duke Henry’s man inside the Tower, but who was hedging his political bets by seeming to remain loyal to King Stephen.

  Gwyneth was finally able to focus her thoughts. She asked, “When does Geoffrey of Senlis enter the jousting?”

  Johanna looked startled by her question. Rosalyn turned to her, a crafty look transforming her expression from jealous to curious. “Ah, yes, the handsome Geoffrey,” she commented. “Why do you wish to know?”

  “No reason,” Gwyneth said artlessly.

  “Really?”

  Gwyneth did not care if Rosalyn thought that she was suddenly imagining the possibility of a different, more attractive, more courtly husband than Simon of Beresford. In fact, if Rosalyn was misled, so much the better. But Gwyneth was sorry that Johanna had to be similarly deceived. Still, she had to eliminate Senlis as a possible target of Valmey’s plotting.

  “No reason, really,” Gwyneth answered with a shrug. “I was simply wondering whether Sire Senlis jousts before or after the fifth and sixth rounds.”

  “After,” was Rosalyn’s response. She regarded Gwyneth with a bright, speculative eye.

  Gwyneth withstood Rosalyn’s gaze. She was about to ask for the jousting order of the other knights who had squires named Breteuil. Then she realized, with a further clearing of her head, that such a pointed question might make Lady Chester suspicious. Instead, she said, “Well, that is still a very long time away, and there is so much to come before! Can you tell me the matches of the first four jousts?”

  Rosalyn told her.

  Gwyneth’s headache receded, and the pounding in her head slowed to an occasional thump. The unknown knight would appear first in the third joust, but he was not paired to a knight with a squire named Breteuil. Gwyneth guessed that his first joust would warm him up for Beresford.

  “But about the unknown knight,” Gwyneth said, “who is he?”

  Rosalyn looked scornfully amused. “No one knows, of course, my dear. That is the point.”

  “Look now, the commençailles have begun,” Johanna said, nodding toward the field.

  The assembled knights were divided into two teams according to the heraldic march of their origin. They were facing off to meet one another as individuals in this prelude to the jousting of the champions, which, in turn, would eventually lead to the mock battle that would last all day, in one form or another.

  “I should have rather asked,” Gwyneth said, “how the unknown knight came to enter the lists, or rather how it is that he has been able to enter and remain unknown.”

  Rosalyn shrugged and said with convincing offhandedness, “It’s Adela’s doing. She knows, of course, who he is, and the introduction of an unknown into the lists was very successful at one of the tourneys last summer. It added a piquant element to the event.”

  Johanna added, “Yes, and although the unknown turned out
to be a man as well-known as Breteuil, I confess that all of us did enjoy the mystery. However, since Breteuil is so distinctly big, many of us guessed his identity before he was unhelmeted.”

  “Breteuil?” Gwyneth questioned, looking at Johanna. “The name sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “It should be, for it’s a large family,” Johanna replied, “and well connected. Renaut of Breteuil is a powerful baron with three sons and a half-dozen nephews who are squires to the leading knights.”

  “Could it be Renaut of Breteuil who is again the unknown?” Gwyneth asked innocently, or so she hoped.

  “Most likely,” Rosalyn assented lightly, “simply because no one would be expecting him twice!”

  Gwyneth paused then asked reasonably, “But how could Adela condone a joust with sharp weapons, that is, à outrance, between two of her own knights, Breteuil and Beresford?”

  Rosalyn glanced at her, a very complex and crafty look composing her features. “A joust to the death ….?” she began as if she did not understand, then broke off in artful comprehension. “I am sure that there will be only blunt weapons in use today, my dear. I was only teasing you about the joust à outrance earlier! Just to see how you felt about … various matters.”

  The blare of the trumpets resounded in Gwyneth’s now -clear head. Her headache had vanished. She looked at Rosalyn with limpid, implacable serenity. “And did you?”

  Lady Chester did not answer, but spied instead “her dearest friend,” to whom she wished to speak. She rose to go and offered the briefest of goodbyes which was drowned in the first call from the field of “Laissez aller!”

  For the first few minutes after Rosalyn’s departure, Gwyneth sat straight and very still, concentrating deeply, examining her options, fully aware of the awkward position she was in. Thus she was blind to the colorful and active spectacle unfolding before her eyes, and she was deaf to the repeated sound of the trumpet announcing the entrance of each competitor, who was followed into the lists by his squires.