Alinor Read online

  “Isobel!” Alinor shrieked, when her guest had entered the hall. She flew across, cast herself into her friend’s arms, and burst into tears.

  “Beloved, beloved,” Isobel crooned, holding Alinor tight. “Alas, I was afraid that your letter did not tell all your heart. Lord Ian is a good man, and the marriage is most suitable and necessary. Do not weep, beloved. It is that demon, that monster of a king, that has forced you with your grief all raw into this marriage. Do not blame Lord Ian.”

  Alinor caught her breath and shook her head. “I do not blame Ian for that, and—and I am not really sad.” She lifted her face away from Isobel’s and peered behind her. “Is William seeing to the men and horses? I will slay those grooms if they do not have all in readiness.”

  “William is not here,” Isobel replied in a strained voice.

  “Is he safe? Does he need help?” Alinor tensed for action, ready to call out her men-at-arms, ready to send another messenger to Ian.

  “He is quite safe,” Isobel replied, smiling in spite of her worries at the unsubdued nature of her friend. “He is waiting a mile or so outside of Roselynde Town. He wanted you to think again about asking him to come here. You know the king’s hatred of him is growing instead of waning. In spite of William’s submission and good behavior, that monster will not release our sons—”

  “God in Heaven, does he mistreat them, Isobel?”

  “Oh no, no. You know William would not endure that. No, as much as I hate him, I must admit the king is most kind to young William and Richard—really, they are well taught and—and I think they actually prefer to be at court. But I do not like it. That court is no place for a godly upbringing.”

  It occurred to Alinor that these were not the times for a godly upbringing, but she did not say so to Isobel, who was truly and deeply religious. “Isobel, no one will turn your boys away from God nor spoil their honor. You and William had them long enough to mold them. I am sure they have only contempt for the evil they see—and you visit them often, I know. But I do not understand what you said about William. What do you mean, I should think again?”

  “My love,” Isobel said placatingly, “William knows you have some quarrel with the king. He felt perhaps it would be unwise, possibly even unsafe, for you to seem to consort with those who are out of favor. Now, Alinor, do not fly into a rage!” she added hastily. “Think! It would not be well for Lord Ian either.”

  “Oh!” Alinor gasped. “Oh! I do not know whose neck I wish to wring first—yours, for bringing me such an idiotic message, or William’s, for thinking up such an insanity in the first place.”

  “Well, do not wring mine,” Isobel said with commendable calm. “I made him come as far as he did. He wished to stay in Pembroke. I told him that if he did, you would probably ride all the way out there to fetch him yourself.”

  “And so I would have done! Edwig,” Alinor called to a passing manservant, “send a message to the new stables to have Cricket sent around at once.” She turned back to Isobel. “There. I will make good your word and make William properly ashamed of himself by doing just as you said and going myself to fetch him. Meanwhile do you come and sit by the fire. It is growing cold apace, although the weather holds remarkably fine. I have put you and William in the south tower room. You will have to walk across the garden, but it will be warmer there than in the wall chambers.” She saw Isobel examining her with anxiety. “Do not be concerned for me, Isobel. I do grieve for Simon still, but I am well content with Ian. He loves the children so dearly, and he is a strong bulwark against trouble.”

  The manservant having returned, Alinor was spared the necessity of trying to decide how much more she should tell Isobel. She was not even sure she knew what to tell her. She did not know how to express the change Ian had produced in her. When she thought of Simon, her heart moved as it always had, but her feeling for Ian was just as strong. It would be best, she decided, as she and her tail of men rode out of the keep, to let matters rest as they were. As long as Isobel did not feel she was unhappy she was not the kind to probe further. There was no need for Alinor to define her emotions more exactly.

  She greeted William with mock rage and then, most sincerely, thanked him for his thoughtfulness. “Both Ian and I know what we do,” she explained. “Simon told Ian about what I did to the king.”

  “Then all the more reason—” William began, frowning.

  “Nonsense! If I did not know you better, William, I would say you were afraid to take further contamination from our company. To speak plain, you must come whatever you fear for us. Lord Llewelyn is coming, and I know Ian desires to have speech with you and him together. Moreover, we may all escape clean from this. William of Salisbury is coming also. He asked to be invited.”

  “Then it is true, what I heard, that he and Lord Ian had become close companions?”

  “It is true in fact, but not in the implication you are making,” Alinor said sharply. “Ian is not of Simon’s get, but he is of his training. There is neither self-seeking nor treachery in him. For that matter, did you think that I would invite you to my home to catch you in a trap of King John’s setting?”

  “No,” William admitted, “but I thought that from one cause or another you were not seeing too clearly. Do you see into Salisbury’s purpose?”

  “No, because I do not know him, and Ian is one who sees the best in all men, I fear, but I do not believe Salisbury’s purpose is to spy for John. Ian insists that Salisbury is a good man. If so, it is possible that he comes out of simple affection for Ian. There is some support for that. Salisbury has given his natural son to Ian to raise.”

  While they were talking, the troop had mounted and started back toward Roselynde Keep. At Alinor’s last remark, William shrugged his shoulders. He turned his head to stare straight in front of him and remarked that he knew nothing ill of Salisbury and that anything was possible, with God’s will. Alinor refused to be drawn by that provocative and sarcastic hint. She asked a question about the politics of South Wales.

  “Your interests are in the north, are they not?” William asked pointedly.

  Alinor laughed. “Marriage has been of infinite benefit to you, William. There was a time when you would have followed that false scent without the slightest realization that I wished to turn the subject. Only it is not really a false scent. It is true that Ian’s land is with Lord Llewelyn, but Llewelyn is looking in your direction.”

  “Is this a warning, Alinor?”

  Bad treatment was souring William, Alinor thought, then corrected herself. It was not the treatment he minded. Offices and power had been stripped away from him before to reward some undeserving favorite or owing to a change in the power or condition of his over-lord. It was the cause of the deprivation that was making William bitter. Never before in his life had any man doubted William’s honor.

  “A warning? Again, not in the sense you mean the word. Whatever John is, Lord Llewelyn is not a fool. As I told you, Ian desires that all of you have a chance to talk, I was merely curious about what Lord Gwenwynwyn will do.”

  “I should think Lord Ian would be as good a source of information as I.”

  “Yes, if we ever got to talk about such things. Somehow there is always something more pressing to discuss.”

  “I can imagine,” William responded coldly.

  Alinor had opened her mouth to explain about the reavers, but she shut it with a snap. Her eyes flashed, and she drew breath for a hot retort to William’s ugly implication. Isobel had been so sympathetic that it had never occurred to her that William would feel otherwise. Suddenly it was clear why William was so suspicious of Ian, whom he knew quite well; why, really, he had not wanted to come to Alinor’s wedding. Equally it was clear to Alinor why Ian would not come back to the keep even though his business was long finished. That thought gave Alinor such pleasure that it checked the angry words that rose to her lips.

  “I have not forgotten Simon,” she said softly instead.

  William winced
as if Alinor had caused him physical pain. “Of course not,” he said hoarsely.

  “Do you know what men John has proposed for my next husband?” she asked. It was very necessary that William not meet Ian with resentment and the best way was to show him the necessity of this marriage. “He put forward Fulk de Cantelu or Henry of Cornhill.”

  That made William’s head snap back toward Alinor. “You jest,” he roared.

  “Do I?”

  He knew, of course, that she did not. It was just the kind of revenge that John would take on a woman who spited him. The protest was an instinctive rejection of the idea of Alinor married to either of those coarse and brutal men. William was no practitioner of the higher courtesies toward women. He might, for a fault, strike his wife, but he would not beat her for amusement nor torture her for the fun of hearing her scream. Besides, there was considerable doubt that either of the creatures was even gently born. In fact, Henry of Cornhill was known to spring from a London merchant family. No one knew what Fulk’s antecedents were, but it was rumored that they were even lower than Henry’s.

  “You think I am very quick to cast off the old and take on the new,” Alinor went on, “but I must marry before the king thinks to lay his commands upon me. To deny him outright would be treason. Do you doubt he would take my lands and probably cast me into prison, too, for such an act? How long do you think Adam would survive?”

  “Not long,” William snarled. “Arthur did not live long. And as for you—yes, I see.”

  “Nor do not think that Ian is snatching at Simon’s lands or, for that matter, lusting after Simon’s wife. Ian is marrying for love, I admit, but for love of Simon, not for love of Alinor.”

  “I never thought—” William began, his face crimson. Then the color began to fade. “That is all the truth, Alinor. I never thought at all. When we had your letter, such a fury of pain seized me—as if I had heard newly again of—of Simon’s death. And Ian—Ian is so different from Simon, so young, and with a face like a black angel.”

  Alinor could not help laughing. She was not resentful of William’s assumption that she had lewd motives. It was, of course, the common opinion of women, but Alinor had seen further than that. Simon had been thirty years older than she, but William was also considerably senior to his wife—nearly twenty years. It was plain unadulterated jealousy that had driven him to be unjust to Ian. He had doubtless seen himself dead and Isobel rushing into the arms of a handsome young man. Alinor would never suggest to William what she had discovered. That would hurt him terribly, since Alinor was sure he had never permitted himself to see the true cause of his dislike of her new marriage. She liked William and besides, she was grateful to him for healing the hurt Ian’s determined absence had caused her.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “Ian is as beautiful as a starry night, but his face is nothing new to me, you know. Nor am I new to him.”

  To her surprise William crimsoned again. “Perhaps,” he said in a rather stifled voice, “I should turn around and go home again. I am guilty of truly disgusting suspicions. Did you guess? Was that why you came to fetch me instead of Lord Ian?”

  Alinor knew that remark would be made sooner or later, just as she now knew that Ian was avoiding Roselynde just so that she could answer such comments with perfect truth. Nonetheless, she needed a moment to subdue her temper again. It was a truly disgusting idea that William was apologizing for. Ian had stayed for some months at Roselynde while Simon was ill. No doubt William, and many others, thought nothing of it at the time but, when they received invitations to Alinor’s wedding to Ian, all had probably leapt to the ugly conclusion that they had planned their union under Simon’s dying eyes or, even worse, that they had been lovers all along.

  “Ian is not in Roselynde,” Alinor said, failing to keep the coldness entirely out of her voice. “He has not spent more than a few nights in the keep since he came. He has been afield, hunting outlaws.”

  “I beg your pardon most humbly,” William mumbled, responding to the tone rather than the words. “I do not blame you for being angry. If you cannot forgive me, I will go home. I cannot think what came over me, Alinor.”

  It was true. He did not understand. Priests preached so often of the lustful nature of women, who seduced men from the path of true virtue, as Eve had seduced Adam into eating the apple. The suspicion was always buried somewhere in a man’s mind, even those men who thought they believed implicitly in the love and virtue of their wives. The preaching had its effect upon women, too. However sure they might be of their own honesty, they sadly accepted the general statement. Alinor acknowledged that William might even be right to be jealous of Isobel. She did not think so, but nonetheless she understood what he feared and was placated by his apology. She made a soothing remark and then introduced the subject of the replacement for the Archbishop of Canterbury, which kept them harmlessly occupied until they arrived at the keep.

  To Alinor’s horror, Ian did not arrive that evening nor the next day. Now that William and Isobel were there, the excuse that he wished to avoid gossip about their premarital relationship was no longer valid. Alinor was furious again. She could only believe he was spiting her because she had been rude in her command that he return at once. She could not make herself write to him again and fumed in private, making no attempt to explain his absence beyond telling the story of the band of outlaws. She left her guests to make the assumption that Ian was trying to arrange for the secure control of his prisoners, although why that should take three weeks Alinor did not mention. Robert of Leicester came on the 23rd, as did Sir John d’Alberin—who held Mersea for Alinor now that old Sir John was dead—and a number of the castellans who held Simon’s strongholds. The 24th brought Lord Llewelyn and his wife Joan, who was King John’s bastard daughter. She looked much like her father and had the same beautiful voice, but in spite of her heritage she seemed to be a warm and pleasant person.

  By the 25th, the keep was packed. Until now there had been enough variety for the guests in greeting those new arrivals with whom they were acquainted and making the acquaintance of those they did not know. That entertainment would not serve for more than another day or so, Alinor realized. A hunt would have to be arranged. Alinor found time to tell her huntsman that he would have to recall his men from their watch for the king’s messenger and have them track and mark game. They should continue to keep watch as well as they could, Alinor urged, but preparations for a series of hunts was now more important.

  William of Salisbury arrived on the 26th, bringing with him Aubery de Vere, Earl of Oxford—who had not even been invited. Alinor greeted him with effusive cordiality and protestations of joy at his condescension, while her mind spun like a top. What did he want here? What had he come for? And there were another fifty mouths to feed and, far more serious, another nobleman of such stature as could not be accommodated in the hall. To move someone already established in a chamber out into the hall would be equivalent to starting an unending blood feud. Smiling sweetly, Alinor excused herself from her guests and gave instructions for some men to clear the chamber that had been kept for Ian. Damn him and rot him, she thought, he can sleep on a pallet in the maid’s portion of my apartment. The maids could lie on the antechamber floor between them, thus preserving the decencies—if anyone would care or notice at this late date.

  Naturally Salisbury asked for Ian. Alinor told her story again, feeling as if she had only to open her mouth and the words would pour out over and over, preventing her from saying anything else ever again. Salisbury said nothing, but Alinor did not like the expression that came into his eyes. For the first time her rage changed into a sickening fear. She had been so intent on the contest of wills she imagined was being played out that it had not occurred to her that some harm might have actually befallen Ian. This was no time for pride. Again Alinor excused herself to her guests and went out into the bailey, where she sent a groom for her huntsman.

  “It is not like him,” Salisbury’s voice said behind her as
she waited for her man to arrive. Alinor jumped with surprise, not having realized that he had followed her, and Salisbury begged pardon for startling her. Then he returned to his theme. “Madam, I do not wish to worry you or to croak forebodings at this joyous time, but it would be well to send out to seek for him.”

  “That is what I am about to do, my lord,” Alinor admitted. Color rose into her cheeks at the look he gave her. “It is not that I have been indifferent,” Alinor protested. “It is that we—we had some sharp words and I thought Ian was sulking. But you are right. It is not like him. He is no sulker. Had I time to think, I would have realized it.” Tears rose to her eyes. “Curse my pride and my temper,” she whispered.

  “Now, do not begin to imagine him dead in a ditch or you will be furious with him all over again when he walks in hale and hearty. It may well be he is delayed by something neither you nor I have considered. He cannot be sore hurt or dead. He was not alone. His men and his squires would have come to tell you.”

  To that specious piece of reasoning, the more ridiculous because of the anxiety that was mirrored on Salisbury’s face when he mentioned Ian’s squires, Alinor did not have to reply. The groom returned, breathless and fearful, to say the huntsman was nowhere to be found. Alinor hissed with irritation.

  “Madam, be calm!” Salisbury snapped. “The man is doubtless about some business. Do not give an order you will be sorry for.”

  For a moment Alinor was speechless with surprise. “He has been my servant for more than twenty years,” she said repressively when she regained her voice. “You need not fear for him.” Then she turned to the nervously waiting groom. “Send Beorn to me.”

  Salisbury was almost as surprised by Alinor’s tone as she had been by his. Indignation passed almost instantly into indulgence. She does care for Ian, he thought, and she is overset by worry. “Do you wish me to instruct your man?” he asked kindly.