Alinor Read online

  Only doubtless his woman was still alive. Alinor was shocked to feel a prick of jealousy. I will be no dog in the manger, she admonished herself. I will be blind and deaf. I cannot demand from Ian what I cannot offer to him. If he loves, I will look aside. So much I can do for him, who does so much for me. Perhaps that is what he desires, a woman who cannot offer a heart-whole love and thus would not be hurt because he cannot offer that either.

  “Since you say you will have me, and I can see it will be greatly to my benefit that it should be so, let us consider what fine the king will lay upon us.”

  Ian turned sharply from his contemplation of the fire, his face a comical mixture of incredulity, relief and wariness. It was not like Alinor to yield so readily. On the other hand, she was essentially reasonable and clear-headed, and the solution he had offered was practical. Watching her, he said, “None. I have paid already for the right to marry ‘whomsoever I will’. It is common enough to gain such permission when a man does not know from whom he will obtain the best offer.”

  “The king was not suspicious?”

  “He was so delighted by the success of the siege and his attack on Montmarillon and Clisson, he had no room in his heart for anything else. Besides, I had a strong advocate. I had a piece of really good fortune at Montauban. I did not wish to tell the children, because I would not have it spoken about, and they are heedless. I was so fortunate as to save William of Salisbury’s life.”

  More concern than delight was apparent on Alinor’s face. “Is that fortunate?” she asked. “I never thought it a comfortable thing when one of the Angevin blood owed a debt.”

  “Not Salisbury. I suppose his nature must come from his mother. I cannot deny that I was not easy at first, and I sought to avoid him. He came to me.” Ian’s lips twitched with remembered amusement. “He said, “Thank you.’ I said, ‘It was nothing.’ Then he began to laugh and said his life might be nothing to me but it was rather valuable to him. I replied that that was how it should be. From that we came to talk, and later we were close battle companions for some months. He is a good man.”

  “Perhaps,” Alinor agreed, but doubtfully.

  She was not willing to condemn out of hand a man to whom she had never spoken more than indifferent courtesy. On the other side, she did not trust Ian’s judgment of men the way she had trusted Simon’s. Simon might have dreamed of the long future, but his near vision was keen, and he was not given to enthusiasms. Ian was more warm-hearted than Simon, more easily moved to sympathy, and, of course, he had not Simon’s years of experience. That, naturally, would make him less tolerant of doubts of his judgment.

  “I fear, however,” she added hesitantly, “that the old saw is true, and birds of a feather flock together.”

  “But he is not,” Ian insisted. “He is as unlike King John as it is possible to be.”

  “Salisbury loves the king, or at least pretends to do so.”

  “There is no pretends with Salisbury. He is very open, and he does, indeed, love John.”

  Alinor’s silence was eloquent. Ian frowned, trying to find a way to say what he meant. “Look, I think it comes from their being children together. Salisbury is some two or three years the elder. John, being what he is, was always in trouble, even as a child. Salisbury, as elder brother, always protected him. It has grown into a habit. Often he disapproves of what John does—”

  “You did not listen to him say that?” Alinor asked, horrified.

  “Yes I did,” Ian snapped, “and I spoke my mind on the subject also, and neither of us spoke treason! You need not look like that, Alinor. I am not a child.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Alinor flared back, “but I have no desire that my husband be summoned for conspiracy or whatever other fancy name the king wishes to use to destroy you. Do you doubt that every word you said was poured into the king’s ears?”

  Several impulses hit Ian at once. There was the normal male reaction—a desire to tell Alinor to mind her needle and keep her mouth shut. Unlike Simon, Ian had not been raised in a court where the queen wielded almost as much power as the king. Long as he had known Alinor, he was still often surprised by her masterful manner, more now because she had been so soft and yielding to Simon in the last year of his life. Then, there was his desire to defend Salisbury from the accusation of deceit and, incidentally, himself from the implied accusation of being a fool. Overriding all was the conviction that Alinor really had accepted his offer. The possessive way she had said “my husband” left no doubt in his mind. He moved closer.

  “You will take me, then?”

  “I have said so. This business—”

  “We will come back to that anon. To me there is something more important.” It still seemed unnatural to Ian that Alinor should yield so quickly and easily. He had said she was powerless against him, but that was not true. There were a number of expedients she could use. She had not even tried very hard to reason him out of the marriage. “Upon what terms will you take me?”

  “Terms?” She was impatient, feeling that he was trying to draw her away from a more important issue. “I suppose the same terms upon which I took Simon. Yours to you, mine to me, during life. Your lands to be left in male tail—unless you wish to set something aside for a daughter, but that is not necessary. I have enough to dower any girls. There would have to be a special clause if you wish to leave your lands to Adam, failing male issue of your own blood. It is for you to say. He will be well enough to do with what he has from Simon. Ian, this can wait until we summon the clerks to write the marriage contract. You will not find me unreasonable. It is more important to consider what Salisbury means and what he may do.”

  Certainly the catch was not there. She did not mean to set impossible conditions so that he would withdraw his offer. For some reason of her own, which doubtless he would know only in her own sweet time, Alinor had decided after the most token protest to marry him. Tension oozed out of Ian so that his limbs felt weak. He was suddenly aware that he had not slept at all in three days and little enough before that. His eyes were burning with tiredness. He yawned jaw-crackingly, and then grinned.

  “I can tell you one thing he will do very soon. If you will deign to invite him, he will dance at your wedding.”

  That was interesting. More than that, fascinating. Since Ian knew of the king’s grudge, he would be unlikely to invite anyone to the wedding beyond those obliged to come; particularly, he would not invite a confidant of the king. That meant that Salisbury had offered his company. Was this the result of simple gratitude and friendship, as Ian thought, or was Salisbury planting some secret seed? He was the youngest royal bastard that Henry II had fathered, but strong bastards had sat on thrones before. Color rose in Alinor’s face; she raised eyes sparkling with interest to Ian. He was so tired he was swaying on his feet.

  “Good God,” she exclaimed, “what a fool you are. Why did you tell me you had slept? Why did you not go to bed right after dinner?”

  “Because I had to know—” His voice was thick with the sudden overwhelming fatigue that followed relief.

  “There is nothing more you are going to know. Go to bed!”

  The answer Ian began was interrupted by another jaw-cracking yawn. That defeated him. He laughed, stepped still closer to take and kiss Alinor’s hand.

  “Yes, madam,” he agreed meekly.

  She watched him turn away. Even staggering slightly with sleepiness, he was as graceful as a big cat. “Ian.” He stopped abruptly, stiffening a little, turned his head. “Do not you dare dress in the morning before I have seen to that back again.”

  The stiffness melted. He offered a last, sleepy smile. “Yes, madam.”

  Chapter Three

  The year and a half since Simon had fallen ill had seemed like a thousand, thousand years to Alinor. Each day had passed on leaden feet filled with terror, with an ear always cocked for Simon’s laboring breath. And when that breath was stilled, time seemed to stop altogether. There were periods of light a
nd dark that Alinor knew were days and nights; there were sounds that she knew were her voice; sometimes there was even a sound that she recognized as laughter. None of it had any particular meaning. Then time began to move again, but it had gone all wrong. Each day was endless, and yet the things that needed doing never seemed to be done.

  Ian’s arrival broke the dull round of “I should”—”I cannot.” Somehow his physical presence brought urgency and reality to problems, and somehow Alinor found herself able to cope with them. This was not because Ian himself was of any particular help. In a reaction to three months of grief, indecision and anxiety, coupled with enormous physical effort, Ian quietly collapsed. He slept the day through, waking only long enough to eat enormously, have his sore back dressed, and go meekly back to bed when he was told to do so. He was so sodden with exhaustion that he did not see the terror in the children’s eyes. So had their father been for a time, and then he had never played with them again. Alinor herself would have been worried except for the fact that Ian was eating for three men. She was able to comfort Adam and Joanna with the assurance that he was only tired; in two days or three he would be well and strong.

  Meanwhile, life seemed to come into focus. There was a reason to drive the children out to play; if she did not, they would wake Ian. There was a reason to talk to the cooks about meals, to be sure the laundresses were attending properly to the linens and Ian’s soiled clothing. Alinor picked through his baggage, discarding things that were damaged and soiled beyond repair by neglect while on the field. Some could be replaced from Simon’s clothing—shirts and chausses and the rough, homespun tunics worn under mail. The outer garments, however… Life blurred a little again as Alinor folded away the gray gowns and surcoats. Simon had always worn gray. No one would ever wear those garments again. It was not sentiment. Merely, no shade would fit Ian worse. His coloring was designed for the jewel tints—ruby, emerald, sapphire would make his dark beauty glow.

  Chests long unused were sought for and turned out. Alinor cut the wine-red velvet, the soft, thick, green woolen cloth. Her maids were wakened at first dawn and harried through the day. With half an ear she noted, as she bent over her embroidery, that the maids were chattering and singing and laughing again. The sounds were strange to her; she had not realized how long it had been since there were other than hushed whispers in the women’s quarters.

  On the fourth day Ian woke of himself at dawn. A boy was sent running, and Alinor came sleepily down in a hastily donned bedrobe to clean and bandage Ian’s back.

  “Where do you go?” she asked as she worked over him.

  The question gave him pleasure and reassurance. It was no polite inquiry of a departing guest but a demand that bespoke the right to such information.

  “Where I am needed first. When I came, I had the feeling that Beorn wished to speak to me, but I gave him no opportunity. There were more important matters to settle.”

  “You have the time to give him?”

  Ian twisted his neck to look at her. “Why not?”

  Alinor’s lips tightened, and she made a gesture that sent maids and squires scurrying out of the chamber. “I had the impression that you had stopped only for a brief visit, that you were on your way somewhere.”

  Annoyed for the moment by Alinor’s casual assumption of authority over his servants, Ian was now grateful. “Oh, well—” He replaced his head on his folded arms. “I was not sure how angry you would be when I proposed we should be married. That excuse was for the children, in case you should order me to leave.”

  There was a silence that soon struck Ian as unnatural. He lifted his head again and was shocked to see hurt and real anger in Alinor’s face. He curled around, sat up, and seized her hands. “Alinor, what have I said?”

  “Ask instead what you have not said.”

  A weird mixture of hope and disappointment gripped Ian. The only thing he knew he had not said was that he loved her. The need that grew larger in him as he grew surer Alinor would marry him was the need to be loved by her. He had thought it was the last thing Alinor wanted to hear. If she could love him, that would be heaven. If she had loved Simon, could she change so soon? So soon wipe out so many years of love? How long would her love for him last? Did it matter? If she would look at him once with the eyes that had dwelt on Simon, it would be enough. The warring emotions made him hesitate.

  “Did you think I had forgotten your talk of caging the wolf?” Alinor asked coldly.

  “What wolf?” Ian got out, totally confused, except for the conviction that his initial instinct had been right. Alinor wanted no talk of love from him.

  “The wolf that loves England.”

  That could only be John, Ian realized, but what had he said? All his memories of that first day in Roselynde were blurred by fatigue, and completely unimportant compared with Alinor’s acceptance of him.

  “You may remember, Alinor, but I do not. I was half dead on my feet.”

  “You said you had much to say to me on the subject of caging the wolf but pleaded tiredness not to match words with me. You had better match them now or reconsider your offer to take me to wife. I am no meek and obedient slave. Where my lands and my people are concerned, I will see where I go before I set a foot forward. I will not be dragged, will I nill I, into treason. If I saw a reason for it—or rather, some hope of success, because the reason is self-evident—”

  “Alinor,” Ian snapped. “There is no treason in my heart or my mind. John is King of England, and I will do my uttermost to preserve him in that state with my mouth or with my body.”

  The sincerity of that statement could not be mistaken. Alinor was annoyed with herself. She knew Ian had done fealty to John. Honorable idiot that he was, he would not break that oath. She had gone the wrong way about finding out what she wished to know.

  “I know you do not wish to supplant the king,” she said pacifically, “but are there not other forms of treason?”

  “In my mind, no.”

  That was flat and clear. As far as Ian was concerned, it ended the discussion. He began to loosen his grip on Alinor’s hands, but she turned them and gripped his. Ian thought he knew Alinor; he had been her friend for many years. He had argued with her before, but her argument had always been maintained for his good. He had yet to learn what Alinor was like when she felt her own good was at stake. He had yet to learn that when she agreed to marry him, he had become “hers, to her”. That meant not only that his good and hers were inextricably bound together in her mind, but also that no part of his mind or soul would be left in peace until Alinor had picked it apart and understood it thoroughly.

  “‘Ian,” she said softly but insistently, “what of the king’s mind?”

  His lips twisted bitterly. “What of it? To his mind there is no word or act, except ‘yea’, that is not treason. Has he not deprived Pembroke of every honor he could strip from him for giving him good advice? That, too, is treason in King John’s mind. If it is not by his order, it is treason. And what was by his order yesterday may be treason tomorrow.”

  Alinor folded Ian’s hands together and held them between hers. “And yet you will follow him and obey him?”

  “There is no one else!” Ian cried. “Do you not understand? Since Normandy was lost to Philip three years ago, England is all there is for the English lords. We must have a king who understands that.”

  “You believe John understands that? His whole mind is fixed upon making his provinces in France safe and winning back Normandy,” Alinor remarked caustically.

  Ian’s lean cheeks showed bunches of muscle as his jaw clamped. “It is true and yet not true. John would not see his patrimony eaten—well, Alinor, what of you? Would you sit and see someone take what was yours? Would I?”

  It was an honest and reasonable point. Alinor nodded.

  “But for all of that, John knows England is most important,” Ian continued. “It is England that is his home and the place he best loves. Here he comes to rest and take his pleasur
es—”

  “And to collect the taxes to pay for them and to pay for his wars in France,” replied Alinor.

  “What of that? To whom would you prefer to pay? To Philip’s son Louis?” Ian asked coldly. Frustration made Alinor stamp her foot, and Ian laughed. “Well?” he insisted. “Who else is there? The sons of Stephen of Blois’ daughters?”

  “There is Salisbury,” Alinor said softly.

  To her surprise, Ian did not roar a protest or tell her to hold her tongue. He shrugged and sighed. “Who has not thought of it? It is hopeless. Salisbury would not agree. He has been sounded. Old King Henry did his work well on Salisbury. The idea that he cannot be king is bred deep into the bone. Do not shake your head at me, I know him, and you do not. More important even than that—once you open that door, on whom can you close it? Do not the bastards of the first Henry have even better claim? Do you not see that a dozen ‘kings’ would spring up? John may be a running sore, but to overset him would bring on a plague.”

  He was right, and Alinor knew it. “Then what will you do to cage the wolf?” she asked tartly, reverting to her original question.

  “You know that the trouble has become much worse since Hubert Walter died last year. Thus, the first step is a man as great as Walter to be Archbishop of Canterbury, a man who can stand against John if need be.”

  Alinor had been prepared for some vague generality or some hopeful, illusory nonsense. This flat, practical statement woke an instant response in her. “I thought the king had already chosen that ass-licker Gray to be archbishop. How can another be appointed? Who?” she asked eagerly.

  Ian freed his hands gently and lay down again. “Finish with me, Alinor,” he suggested, “while I tell you. There are matters closer to us that I must see to also.”

  “Of course. Turn a little this way.” She swabbed another spot and then sighed. “It is an excellent thought, but I do not see—”