Alinor Read online

  “When you are old enough.”

  “I am old enough now. I am big and strong. You said yourself—”

  Alinor watched Ian’s face, where a most interesting struggle was taking place as Adam pleaded with him. Long habit and strong affection urged Ian to yield to the child. A new sense of responsibility checked him. In the past he had been the children’s advocate against their parents, secure in the knowledge that Alinor or Simon would not yield on any point that was really important or might be harmful. Now, particularly in Adam’s training, he himself was the final judge. Reluctantly he shook his head.

  “You are not old enough. There are many things to prove before the question of jousting arises.”

  “But Ian—”

  “Do you have anything new to say? If not, hold your tongue, or I will take it as a proof that you are not old enough to be reasonable and obedient. If you are not reasonable and obedient, then you cannot be trusted to come out with Beorn and myself to search for the outlaws who have been attacking the serfs. If you are, you can carry my shield for me.”

  Eyes and mouth rounded into ecstatic Os. With an effort, Adam swallowed his further protests. To go out with Ian was a present joy much too marvelous to endanger for any future benefit. Besides, after the hunt for the reavers was over, there was nothing to stop him from asking about the jousting again. Adam had discovered that if one asked for a thing often enough one usually got it. There might be a sharp slap or two in between the asking and the getting, but if a thing was not worth a slap or two, it was not worth asking for either. He followed Ian around the table and began to squeeze himself between his mother and his idol.

  “Go to your mother’s left hand, Adam,” Ian ordered.

  “But Ian, I want to sit next to you. I want to know—”

  “Gentlemen do not sit together when ladies are present,” Ian reproved, “nor do they speak of subjects that would not interest their companions.”

  So clear an expression of horror appeared on Adam’s face that Alinor had to bite her lips, and Ian’s mouth twitched uncontrollably. The child frowned. “You are not near so much fun as my warden as you were when you were my friend,” he complained.

  “That is true, because it is now my duty to see that you grow into a man worthy of your breeding and station. And the doing of one’s duty is more important than any other thing, even the pleasure it would give me to sit beside you or the joy it would give me to give you pleasure.”

  That was sufficiently complex a statement to send Adam, silent as he thought it over, to the seat indicated. Meanwhile, Ian stepped over the bench and sat down between Alinor and Joanna. The squires, who had been waiting, came from the sides of the table to pour wine. Ian watched their handling of the flagons, noting that Geoffrey’s hand shook so much that some wine was spilled. Alinor remarked politely that she had ordered cheese and a cold pasty to be served, since the “men” were riding out. Ian thanked her formally. Then she turned to Adam and he to Joanna. He heard Alinor murmur softly to her son that the proper thing was to offer her some of the pasty and the cheese the squires were slicing. Again that peculiar joy-pain tore Ian: the intense pleasure of being in the bosom of this family, of knowing he was truly a part of it as he had never been before; the equally intense fear that he was snatching at something that was not rightfully his. “May I serve you with cheese, Lady Joanna?”

  The gray eyes, suspiciously liquid, turned up to him. “Why are you trying to take Papa’s place, Ian?”

  In spite of Alinor’s warning, the question hit him like a blow. “I am not,” he snapped, “nor could I, nor would your mother permit it. Moreover, such remarks are not for public places like a table in hall while we are being served by— Good God, Geoffrey, what are you doing to that cheese? Do I have to teach you to carve at this late time of your service?” His eyes lifted from the mangled cheese to the white, stricken face. “How now, child,” he said more softly, “are you ill?”

  “No, lord.”

  The boy was slight and on the fair side, with straight, lustrous, medium-brown hair and light-brown eyes of a peculiarly changeable hue. Just now the eyes were nearly black with misery, and the young skin had turned from white to crimson with either shame or fever. Ian could see that not only the boy’s hands but his whole body was trembling. Joanna, distracted from her shock, looked at the young squire with pity. Alinor turned her head from Adam’s halting effort at polite conversation, cast a single glance at Geoffrey, and touched Ian’s arm. Their eyes met. Ian sighed with relief.

  “Very well. Owain, Geoffrey, we have sufficient to our needs. You may go and break your own fasts now.” The relief Ian felt had a sound cause. Without words Alinor had offered to see to the boy—a natural duty for a wife toward her husband’s squires, but a form of assistance Ian had naturally not had before. He knew little or nothing about medicine, beyond a rough treatment for wounds until the leeches could take care of them. It was the women who treated and cared for the sick, and they were often more skilled than the learned physicians who discoursed gravely of humors while their patients died.

  Both of Ian’s squires were a heavy responsibility. Owain was the eldest and most dearly loved of Lord Llewelyn’s natural children. Since Llewelyn had married the natural daughter of King John and might be expected to have legitimate children, Owain was excluded from succession in Wales—at least for the time being. Llewelyn had no intention of keeping this son in the shade or allowing him to grow up a rustic, and Owain had been entrusted to Ian to be given an elegant Norman polish. Owain had never given Ian any cause to worry or to fear Lord Llewelyn would be disappointed. He was quick to learn, merry of heart, strong and supple as well-tanned, well-braided hide, and solidly determined to make the most of every advantage and opportunity offered to him. Ian had already had two advantageous offers of marriage for Owain.

  Geoffrey FitzWilliam was another matter entirely. One day Salisbury had commented favorably upon Ian’s relationship with Owain. Naturally, Ian could not help expatiating on his own development under Simon’s care and on his conviction that the best could only be drawn from a squire who loved and trusted as well as obeyed his lord. It was so innocent a discussion that Ian was surprised to hear Salisbury clear his throat awkwardly and to see, when his eyes were drawn by the sound, that Salisbury’s color was considerably heightened.

  “You do not think that bastardy stains the child?” he asked.

  Ian looked at him in amazement. “How can it stain the child? The mother, yes; the father—I think, yes, although God knows I am scarcely lily-white in continence myself, but I do not think any can claim me as father. But how the child? God knows the fruit of the union is innocent of all except the original sin of man, and that he bears whether born in or out of wedlock. Who can blame a child for the weakness of his parents?”

  “Isabella can!” Salisbury spat bitterly. Before Ian could remark soothingly that Queen Isabella was capable of any idiocy and should not be used as an example of what others thought, Salisbury was launched on an ugly tale. He had a son born out of wedlock. The mother, a lady, had died in bearing. The child had been raised in his grandfather’s household, but the old man had died when the boy was ten. Since he was well old enough for fostering, Salisbury had entrusted him to the queen.

  “He is a good boy, quiet and obedient. He did not seek me out nor complain. I saw he was unhappy in the beginning, but I believed it could not be otherwise in a strange place. I thought he would grow accustomed. Then you know what befell. When John came to cuffs with the barons and then lost Normandy, I had no time to think of Geoffrey. When matters became more quiet, and I saw what had become of him—”

  Ian had a premonition of where this was leading, but he could think of nothing to say.

  Salisbury ground his teeth in a rage. “The other pages and even the older squires made him their butt, and Isabella encouraged them. She sought him out to punish for anything and everything—for having brown eyes, for his hair hanging straight. I supp
ose it is because she is jealous of the love her husband bears me, but to torment a child— And she said to his face and to mine that he was a lesser thing, a bastard, and his mother was a whore—which I swear she was not.”

  “You must take him out of there at once,” Ian said intensely. The black, blank years of his own childhood rose in a wave behind the wall Simon had built to hold them back. “Even if the king should be angered and Isabella hate you more, you must.”

  “I know. Will you take him? I have watched Owain to some purpose. He has a kind heart. Moreover, he is in the same case himself. You I trust.”

  “I? But I have no household. I cannot train him up to fit his station.”

  “What is his station? The bastard of a bastard—poor boy. Oh, I have something for him, and his grandfather left him something. He will not be penniless. It would do no good to move him from one great household to another. He must be close, and he must be used gently. Ian, he will die, mayhap by his own hand, if something is not soon done for him. Do not fear, I will not blame you if you cannot save him. I am to blame. Only I.”

  Thus Geoffrey had come into Ian’s care. He had more toughness, Ian discovered, than his anxious father believed. Ian did not think, after coming to know Geoffrey, that he would ever have succumbed to the cruelty practiced upon him. He had blossomed very rapidly under Ian’s and Owain’s kindness, putting on flesh, developing a ready tongue, and even getting into serious enough mischief once to merit a whipping. This Ian had administered and Geoffrey had withstood without flinching, apparently indifferent, until Ian caught the boy roughly into his arms to growl, “You little fool! You could have been hurt or killed!” Then came tears and remorse and promises of amendment. The boy had good spirit. He could be led by love but not cowed by pain.

  It was therefore a worrisome thing to see Geoffrey suddenly reduced to the condition he had been in when he had first been removed from Isabella’s household. There had been nothing Ian could discover to account for it. He could not believe that anyone in Roselynde Keep would have insulted his squire and, anyway, Owain would have put that to rights or have reported it. Ian could only believe that Geoffrey was sick—and that was best left to Alinor. He would bid Geoffrey remain in the keep today, and Alinor could put him to bed and dose him if necessary. Ian put that concern aside and turned again to Joanna.

  “I am sorry I spoke so sharply to you, love,” he said gently. “It hurt me that you should think I would do anything that would displease your father.”

  A horrid qualm passed through Ian. He did not really believe that it would please Simon that Alinor should lie under him in the marriage bed. Yet there is no other way, he told himself; there is no other way to be sure she will be safe.

  “I must keep you safe,” he said aloud to Joanna. “I owed your father a deep debt of love, and I can best repay it by keeping you and your mother and Adam under my protection. When she has time, your mother will explain to you why this is needful. A little you must know already in that you heard me say I must go with Beorn to search for the reavers. But, Joanna, you are old enough to know better than to speak of such things while the squires are in attendance.”

  “I am sorry. I was so—” She stopped and struggled to find a safe word, “surprised.” She seemed almost reconciled. She had always adored Ian, but he seemed so different when he spoke to Adam. And there was something else that troubled her. She needed time to think. “Is Geoffrey ill?” she asked.

  “I hope not,” Ian replied, as glad as Joanna to leave the subject of his new relationship with Simon’s wife and daughter, “but even if he is, your mother will make him well, I am sure. I hope Geoffrey and Owain have been pleasant guests?”

  “Oh, yes, but Owain said I am ‘just a girl’. That is neither nice nor true. Some day I will be the Lady of Roselynde. That is not ‘just a girl’.”

  “No, indeed,” Ian said in a slightly constricted voice. “I will speak to Owain. He will not be so discourteous again.”

  “You need not,” Joanna replied loftily. “I have spoken to him—and Geoffrey did, too.”

  “Geoffrey?” Ian asked faintly, Geoffrey admired Owain with all the hero worship a younger boy feels for a kind elder. Ian knew that to Geoffrey he was still a slightly unapproachable god; Owain was on the order of a kindly and helpful saint.

  “Geoffrey said that nobody is ‘just’ an anything. They are all persons, and each must be judged on his own.”

  “Geoffrey is very wise for his age,” Ian remarked approvingly.

  Then his attention was drawn to Alinor, who had just given Adam permission to leave the table. She glanced across Ian at her daughter’s untouched bread and cheese and watered wine.

  “Do you not wish to eat anything, Joanna?” Alinor asked.

  “It is my fault,” Ian said quickly. “I kept her talking.”

  “Then eat now,” Alinor urged. “Lessons in courtesy are over. If you do not hurry, you will be late for your lessons in ciphering—not that that would grieve you, but it will grieve me.”

  Actually Joanna rather enjoyed her lessons, which was more than could be said for Adam. He went protesting and groaning that reading and writing were for clerks and he would not be a clerk. Why should learn? Why should he waste time that would be better spent practicing with his sword, or riding? Joanna, on the other hand, found reading, writing and ciphering much more interesting than spinning, weaving and embroidery. Her mind diverted to the lesson Father Francis would probably give, Joanna bit hungrily into her bread and cheese.

  “I will tell Geoffrey that I will not take him,” Ian said, turning to Alinor. Then, low-voiced, he explained something of the boy’s background and trouble.

  “That Isabella,” Alinor hissed. “Only she could hurt a child because she was jealous of the father. And what sort of uncle is the king—”

  “Indifferent, belike, or truly unaware. John loves Salisbury and would not, I think, allow his boy to come to harm—unless… No. It must be that the households are so large that he did not see what Isabella was doing. I hope the boy is not seriously ill.”

  “I doubt he is ill at all. He has been perfectly well these four days and even this morning.”

  “Then what happened to set him first pale, then blushing and trembling—” Ian’s voice faded.

  A horrible notion had just occurred to him. Geoffrey had been carving the cheese, which was standing in front of Joanna, and Joanna—Ian cast a glance at her—Joanna bid fair to be a beauty to make men mad. But not now! She was nine years old! Yes, and the boy was not quite fourteen. Only fourteen? Ian had another memory of his youth that he had not mentioned to Alinor—that one was quite pleasant. He had not been much more than twelve when he had had his first woman. Fortunately, at that moment Joanna bolted her last bit of bread and asked permission to go. Alinor nodded, and the girl ran off. Ian’s eyes followed her.

  “Do not leave Geoffrey and Joanna alone together,” Ian said sharply to Alinor.

  She looked at him in surprise, then raised her brows. “I had not thought of that, but you are right. It is possible. Is he forward in that manner?”

  “I do not know, but in John’s court he would have sufficient opportunity to learn. Take care. He who is safe is not later sorry.”

  Chapter Four

  It was late in the morning before Alinor was free to go to Geoffrey, who had been ordered to lie down on his pallet in Ian’s bedchamber and rest until she had time for him. He had begged to go with Ian, assuring him over and over that he was not ill. By then he was so flushed with distress and with struggling to restrain his tears that he felt very feverish to Ian’s touch, and Ian remained adamant. It could not hurt the child to rest abed for a day, even if he was well, and if he was beginning some illness, the rest might check it.

  Alinor found Geoffrey with his face turned to the wall. She wondered whether he was asleep, because he could not have failed to hear her coming. Then a glimmer of an idea came to her. Joanna might not be the only child to be dis
tressed by her marriage to Ian. She drew over a low stool, settled on it, and put a hand under the boy’s hair on the back of his neck. He was not asleep. She could feel the tension of the muscles, but he had no fever.

  “Turn round, Geoffrey.”

  Rigidly, reluctantly, the boy turned. His face was as blank as a mask, his eyes nearly black, fixed on nothing and as much as possible hidden under lowered lids. Alinor loosened the laces of his shirt and found the pulse in his throat. It pounded hard and fast, not weakness or fever.

  “I do not believe you are ill, Geoffrey,” Alinor said quietly.

  “I said I was not, madam.”

  “Sit up, then. It is easier to talk.” She waited until he had settled with crossed legs and his back against the wall. “You are fond of Lord Ian, are you not, Geoffrey?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Alinor smiled. “And not overpleased that he should take a wife?”

  The young face was still expressionless, but the eyes flicked to her swiftly, once. “I must be glad of anything that makes my lord glad. Of course I am pleased.”

  Restraining her impulse to laugh aloud, which would surely offend the delicate sensibilities of youth, Alinor patted Geoffrey’s tightly clasped hands. “That is very generous of you, since you must fear that Lord Ian’s time will be spent in different ways and that he will not be able to give so much attention to your training and advancement. But it will not be so. First, Lord Ian would never forget his responsibilities in that way. Second, I could not wish it nor permit it. It will be very important to me that you be strong and skilled in your duties. Many times Lord Ian’s safety will depend upon you, so I must urge him to teach you all he can as quick as he can.”

  Something was stirring behind the fixed young mask. Alinor waited, her hand resting gently on Geoffrey’s. The boy stared at her, taking in the white skin, the full, generous mouth, the short, slightly tip-tilted nose, the large green-brown eyes shaded by black, black lashes. Geoffrey was young, but not too young to recognize that the way the features were put together produced beauty. It was a beauty different from the queen’s, but it was still hateful and suspicious. In his grandfather’s house, the women had been kind to him. None of them looked like the queen or like Lady Alinor.