Roselynde Page 2

  Another order brought a single man out of the troop to ride forward at a full gallop. Alinor took a firmer grip of her reins, listening to the familiar sounds of men loosening swords in their scabbards and swinging shields from shoulder to arm. The anxiety did not last long. A few minutes showed a single rider spurring forward from the oncoming group to meet Sir Andre’s messenger. The riders stopped and spoke, then each continued on his way. Sir Andre’s man knew his master too well to take another’s word for evidence. He would see the queen for himself before he assured Sir Andre it was she. And the men did not secure their weapons, even though they were virtually certain there would be no need for them. Alinor was too rich a prize to take even vanishingly small chances.

  Soon enough confirmation brought the small sounds of shields being replaced and of men dismounting. Sir Andre lifted Alinor from her mare and she shook out her skirts and smoothed her wimple. The leading horse of the oncoming troop was snow white, and its rider was not wearing the glittering mail of the others. Alinor sank in a deep curtsy into the dust of the road, bowing her head. She could hear the creak of the men’s accoutrements as they knelt in their ranks behind her.

  The Dowager Queen of England pulled her horse to a halt and looked down at her namesake. “Look up, child.”

  The voice was not young, but it was strong and full with none of the quaver that might have been expected in a woman three score years and eight. In fact, it was voice that brought instant obedience. Alinor raised her head and her eyes. Old, certainly the queen was old. There were deep lines graven around the mouth and the eyes, and the single strand of hair that escaped from her soft blue wimple was as white as snow. Nonetheless, the queen’s back was straight as a rod, the body in its blue gown was as slender, and the carriage in the saddle as lithe as a girl’s. And the eyes—they were young, dark and bright, sparkling with interest and intelligence.

  “Lovely,” the old queen said, her voice softer and smiling now, “why, you are lovely, my child.”

  Alinor blushed with pleasure. In spite of the fact that her hair was black as a raven’s plumage and her eyes a dark enough hazel to appear brown, her skin was white as skimmed milk and crimsoned readily. Alinor knew that the words of praise might be drawn forth more by policy than by her beauty; nonetheless, the queen’s voice was so warm that she could not help smiling.

  “I thank you, Your Grace,” she murmured.

  “Simon,” the queen turned her head toward the mailed and helmeted knight who rode behind her, “raise Lady Alinor to her mount.”

  The man moved no more than the graven images in a church, and he looked a bit like one, the gray-silver mail blending with the gray surcoat he wore to give him an appearance of granitelike solidity. His left hand, empty of the lance his squire carried, rested on his hip. His right hand held his reins in so iron a grip that his stallion, head curved into its neck, was immobile as he. Alinor’s breath drew in sharply with mingled hurt and surprise. Who was this who was so proud he would not dismount at the queen’s command to assist a lady?

  In the moment that her eyes found his face, the hurt was almost fully salved. His expression was only slightly obscured by the nosepiece of his old-fashioned helmet. It was clear enough that this was no proud princeling, simply a man so stricken by amazement that he was frozen. The queen could not see Simon’s face without moving her horse or twisting her body uncomfortably, but she could see enough to know he had not moved.

  “Simon!” she exclaimed, and then, very peremptorily, “Simon, what ails you?”

  Sunlight flashed on mail as the frozen figure jerked to life. The horse backed and lashed out when the reins tightened convulsively. Alinor bit her lip to suppress a giggle.

  “I beg pardon, madam. What did you say?”

  At that the queen laid aside her dignity, slewed herself around, and stared. Now, however, no more than a slight frown of anxious chagrin appeared on Sir Simon’s face.

  “What ails you?” the queen repeated, more concern than anger in the question.

  “Naught.” The rich basso rumble hesitated; the man’s face closed into careful expressionlessness. “I was dreaming.”

  Dreaming? Surely, Alinor thought as she heard the queen’s command repeated, that is not the face of a dreamer. It was the face of a Norman reaver, square and hard, with a determined chin and a hard mouth. The nose was hidden by the nosepiece, but after Sir Simon had swung down from his horse and lifted her, first to her feet and then into her saddle, her conviction was a little shaken. Perhaps the eyes, a misty gray-blue, held dreams. They were remarkably innocent eyes—more innocent, I would guess, than my own, Alinor thought, and smiled enchantingly.

  The smile won little response. The face remained closed, but perhaps Sir Simon’s glance lingered a moment longer than necessary on her. The explanation, however, was more prosaic than Alinor had counted on hearing.

  “Your men,” Simon reminded her.

  Alinor woke to her responsibilities with a faint gasp of irritation. Sir Andre and Sir John, together with the whole troop, were still kneeling in the hot, dusty road.

  “I beg, Your Grace,” Alinor began, both grateful to and annoyed with her prompter, “that I be allowed to present my vassals, Sir Andre Fortesque and Sir John d’Alberin.”

  The queen inclined her head graciously. “You may rise and mount, gentlemen.” Then she smiled, not a bit less enchantingly than Alinor, despite the more than fifty years’ difference in their ages. “You must be melting in your armor, and I confess I will be happy to take my ease. Let us return to the keep as quickly as possible.”

  Alinor backed her mare and the queen rode past, signaling to the girl to fall in behind her. Sir Simon retrieved his reins from the squire holding them, sprang into the saddle, and gestured to Sir Andre and Sir John, who had mounted as soon as the queen passed them, to join him. The men in the road scrambled out of the way as the queen went forward with Alinor just behind.

  “Ride forward, child,” the queen ordered. “I cannot speak with you if you trail behind. Do you know that you and I bear the same name?”

  “Yes, indeed, Your Grace. My mother was named for you, and I also.”

  “You also? How old are you?”

  “This spring I completed my sixteenth year.”

  Alinor hesitated fractionally. She knew quite well that sixteen years ago Queen Alinor was not in good odor in England. She was then in the south of France leading a rebellion against her husband, the King of England, and English barons had been summoned to fight the queen’s vassals in France. And English gold had paid the heavy expenses of that campaign. Alinor was divided between her reluctance to remind the queen of those unhappy years and her desire that the queen know she was not simply ignorant of these facts and trying to curry favor with a stupid remark.

  “Perhaps not many Alinors were named in that year,” Alinor continued boldly, having decided it was more important to remind the queen of an old relationship with her family than to be ultimately tactful, “but you had done my father some great service—I do not know what it was, only that he felt great obligation to you—and so I am Alinor.”

  “Your father—”

  Alinor was quick to pick that up. “Adam Devaux, Sire of Roselynde,” she prompted. Although well aware of her family’s worth—even though they bore no high title such as earl or duke—she was not naive enough to believe the queen would remember the name of a single man or an incident nearly twenty years past. Alinor’s father had been dead for fourteen years.

  “Adam Devaux,” the queen repeated softly, musing. Then, to Alinor’s surprise, her lips twitched and laughter rose in her eyes. “Adam Devaux, Sire of Roselynde,” she said again. “Oh, yes, I remember.” And then, softly again, “What befell him, Alinor? He was a preux chevalier.”

  “He and my mother were drowned coming home from Ireland when I was two years old,” Alinor responded calmly. “I am glad you remember him kindly, Your Grace. I do not remember my parents at all. My grandfather and
grandmother raised me.”

  “Yes, Lord Rannulf I knew well. A fine man also. There is good blood in you, child.”

  And what, the old queen wondered, had that hard-bitten old warrior been thinking of to leave such a child unmarried and unprotected when he must have known his time was hard upon him. And then she turned her face forward so that Alinor would not see the speculation growing in her wise eyes. Not so unprotected. Lord Rannulf had been dead over a year, and his “unmarried and helpless” granddaughter was still independent. And she had called Sir Andre and Sir John “my vassals” with all the assurance of a grande dame. Doubtless they were good men, and even more surely they were strongly attached to their lady. Alinor was not such a ripe plum for the picking as might appear at first sight. The child was speaking of her grandfather with enthusiasm, and the queen drew her out with encouraging murmurs while she turned her attention to the men’s voices. Unfortunately the deep tones did not carry forward well.

  In fact the queen would have received confirmation of her own deductions had she been able to hear the conversation. Sir Simon had opened the talk with a comment about the large troop the two knights led.

  Sir Andre laughed. “They are not all, Sir Simon. Others are posted to raise the alarm back at the keep if we should be molested. Such a prize as my lady is strong bait. I was not all ill pleased when the queen’s writ came. Now that she is known to be in the king’s ward, perhaps my burdens will be somewhat lighter.”

  “Not all ill pleased?” Sir Simon remarked mildly. “Then you were tempted to deny the royal writ?”

  “No. I am not so much a fool as that,” Sir Andre replied promptly. He struggled briefly with a smile at the memory of Alinor’s first fury, and Simon noticed the fleeting change of expression. However, Sir Andre’s voice was very deliberate—purposely deliberate—when he continued. “My doubts are only for the use the king will make of his ward. I am tied to my lady by more than my honor. To speak true, I love her dearly, having known her from a babe. It is not sufficient that we vassals be content with the man chosen for her. For us, it is needful that she, too, be content.”

  “The queen is very wise,” Sir Simon assured the men.

  “No doubt,” Sir John put in dryly. He had been one of the barons who fought in Aquitaine. “But queens are constrained by circumstances.”

  There was a pause just a trifle too long, just long enough to draw Sir Andre’s and Sir John’s eyes to Sir Simon’s face. What they saw there—a brief consternation quickly schooled into iron-hard determination—was not reassuring.

  “If the queen is constrained,” Simon’s deep voice was steady and hard, “then we must also be constrained.”

  “Oh,” Sir John said easily, “the king’s will through the queen’s mouth must be done—if it be for the good and quiet of the realm. Only, the Lady Alinor might be a very young widow.”

  Sir Simon looked from one face to the other, and his lips twisted. “You are loyal vassals, indeed.”

  “Lady Alinor was the sun and the moon to Lord Rannulf, and we are all beholden to him,” Sir Andre pointed out. “For me, there is even more in it. We are in some way tied in blood. My wife was a natural daughter to Lord Rannulf. It is no claimworthy blood bond, but it is there.”

  Suddenly Sir John laughed. “If you come to know her better, Sir Simon, you will be of our party in her defense.”

  “You have had some work in that direction already,” Simon said quickly, as if he did not wish to respond to Sir John’s remark.

  “That we have!” Sir Andre exclaimed in heartfelt accents. “Not two weeks after the earl was dead, I had to close the keep against the first aspirant to the Lady Alinor’s hand and estates. That was nothing. A younger son with a few ragtag men-at-arms in his tail. But twice we have had more ado with men of substance.”

  “This last time they came out from Lewes,” Sir John commented sourly, “and I had need to bring men post haste from Mersea to lift the siege. I was given to understand that the castellan of Lewes Keep feared the change of overlordships from King Henry to Lord Richard. Believing he would lose his keep, he put aside his wife and brought the whole force of the shire upon us in an attempt to take my lady.”

  “I do not wonder that you were glad to see the queen’s writ,” Simon said, smiling. “To take her now is profitless, since the king’s word must be had before her marriage is good.”

  Sir Andre shrugged, his shield strap creaking as his shoulders moved. “It will help—if the realm lies quiet. But I for one will continue to have a care for her. If she be taken and hidden away, wedded and well bedded, perhaps even got with child, the king might find it easier to take a fine and give his consent than to undo the knot.”

  Sir Simon raised a gauntleted hand and rubbed his nose under the nosepiece. “You have the right. If she does not marry at once, I do not envy whoever is made her warden.”

  To his surprise, both men shouted with laughter. “I do not envy him his task, well aside from the little matter of those who wish to wed her without the king’s consent,” Sir Andre crowed.

  A vagrant breeze brought both the scent of roses and the words of the two last speakers to the queen. She looked about her suddenly with attention and was surprised to see the untilled land near the road carpeted with tangles of wild roses. They were not as beautiful as the flowers cultivated in gardens, but their scent was very strong and sweet. Beyond them, in brutal contrast to the delicate pink of the flowers and the soft green of the leaves, rose the enormous gray walls of the keep. With its customary alacrity the queen’s mind leapt from the flowers to the words and laughter she had heard. She judged the laughter correctly, and turned to look again at the girl who rode beside her. The child looked quiet and submissive, but the devotion of the vassals and Sir Andre’s hints foretold fire and a strong will under the obedient demeanor—thorns under the roses.

  Alinor had fallen silent after a few moments, aware that the queen’s mind was elsewhere. Now she smiled and pointed ahead. “There is Roselynde, Your Grace.” Her hand flickered toward the keep but a shade of anxiety crossed her face. “I hope all is in readiness for you. My maids, even those who are older and should be wiser, were in such a fever at your coming that they were fit to air the rushes and use the bedding to cover the floor.”

  “And you,” the queen teased, “no doubt you remained as calm as a nun telling her beads in her cell.”

  Alinor uttered a little chuckle, a delightful gurgle of laughter that warmly invited any listener to laugh also. “Not quite so calm as that, I am afraid. In fact, now I distinctly remember myself saying that the rose leaves should be carefully boiled instead of steeped. I pray you, Your Grace, forgive us our deficiencies. It is true that I have been the Lady of Roselynde for as long as I have been old enough to carry the keys, but we have lived very quiet and retired lives. My grandfather was old, and the king—I mean King Henry—” her voice faltered.

  “Of blessed memory,” the queen said gravely. “Do not fear to speak of him to me. We had our differences, Harry and I, but I forgive the wrongs he has done me and I pray most fervently that he forgives those I have done him. What were you about to say?”

  “Only that the king did not call my grandfather’s vassals to war. He was content with the younger sons long as my grandfather paid their keep.”

  The queen smiled, a little grimly this time. “Yes, I remember that little way of Lord Rannulf’s very well,” she murmured dulcetly. “And Harry bore with it? He was hard pressed.”

  “I only meant to say that there was little coming and going and that we had few visitors except old friends who did not care if my housekeeping was not perfect. Thus, I pray your indulgence if something is lacking that we should have provided for your welcome.”

  But nothing was lacking. The great drawbridge clanked down as soon as the devices on the pennons became clear, and the queen rode into the outer bailey under the lifted portcullis with Alinor at her right hand. Alinor cast a single glance around. All was in p
erfect order. The outbuildings were closed, the bailey swept clean of filth, the animals penned at the far end. The great stone curtain walls frowned down upon them, a soothing protective background to the bright surcoats of the knights.

  Alinor felt the last of her nervousness leave her. She was always happy and safe inside Roselynde Keep, even though it was old and brutally built to withstand brutal attacks. But this time, she reminded herself as she gestured toward the right where a gate opened to another drawbridge, the enemy is within. Only she did not feel that the queen was her enemy. She felt the power and authority of the woman, but there was warmth too.

  They crossed the second drawbridge into the inner bailey with the three vassals close at their heels. Alinor’s men-at-arms did not follow. The queen’s retainers would be lodged in the keep itself. Alinor’s would have to make do with whatever accommodation they could find in sheds and tents. It would be no hardship in the fine summer weather.

  In the inner bailey the better class of castle servants were assembled, and a wave of movement passed over them as they knelt to the queen. Sir Simon, Sir Andre, and Sir John dismounted, bent the knee briefly, and went to help their ladies down. Once on the ground Alinor prepared to curtsy again, but the queen stopped her.

  “Enough, child. You make me giddy with all your bobbing up and down. And I am fain to be in a cooler place.” She gestured at the kneeling crowd. “You may rise and be about your business. See that you are as brisk about that as about staring and louting.”

  When they had passed through the forebuilding into the large guard room, three sturdy retainers hurried forward. One stood between the foreshafts of a high-backed, armed chair covered with fine new cushions, and two others held the newly affixed strong rear poles. They knelt promptly, which set the chair down on its legs. The queen stared at the sumptuous affair with starting eyes. Alinor blushed poppy red. Sir Simon burst into a guffaw of laughter that rang through the huge chamber.