Alinor (2 page)

There could be no doubt now that Simon had been right Ian was a fine young stallion, and he was displaying the fact with startling effect. Alinor's first impulse was to laugh and make a bawdy jest A flickering glance at Ian's face checked her. He was certainly well aware of the condition he was in, but he did not think it was funny. Briefly, Alinor was hurt. During the many years she had bathed high-born visitors to her keep, the reaction Ian was having occurred with other men once in a while. Sometimes it was deliberately produced by men who thought Alinor had to be dissatisfied with her husband because he was so much older than she. They had underestimated Simon, and from Alinor had received such icy courtesy that the deliberate provocation did not occur a second time. With those in whom it was an innocent accident engendered by too long a period of continence or an inadvertent physical contact, it was best to make a jest, laugh, and forget.

It was usually best but Alinor somehow knew she must not laugh at Ian's stony-faced refusal to acknowledge his condition. She rose from her knees and stepped back, and for the first time the full impact of his beauty bit her. The black curls that usually tumbled silkily over his forehead were lank and flattened, but that did nothing to reduce the luminous quality of his large, dark eyes. The nose was fine, the lips both sensitive and sensuous. He was very tall for a man, head and shoulders both topped Alinor, and he was surprisingly hairless—just a shadow of dark down at the end of his breastbone and a narrow line from the navel to the pubic bush. His skin was very dark, very smooth, where it was not bleached and knotted by scars of battle.

In the year that Simon had been ill, Alinor was too tired and too worried to think of herself as a woman. After his death, the fatigue and worry had only intensified. Now, without warning, she became aware of her long starvation. The blood rushed from her face to her loins. She put a hand on the tub to steady herself, and thanked God that Ian was staring past her into nothing.

"Get in."

Had Ian been in any condition to notice, Alinor's voice would have given her away. However, he was having his own problems and was grateful that they would be bidden if not solved so easily. He stepped into the tub and eased himself slowly into the water, which was rather hot. Alinor moved quickly to stand behind him. She wondered whether she could bear to touch him, and decided it would be simpler and safer to run away and send a maid to wash him. She could always say she had remembered something overlooked in the excitement of his arrival. Even as Alinor tried to steady her voice to excuse herself, her eyes were drawn back to Ian. They rested briefly on the strong column of his neck, dropped to his broad shoulders.

"Ian! Holy Mother Mary, what befell you?"

Right across the shoulder blades, a large section of skin looked as if patches had been torn away. The wounds were not deadly, but they were horridly ugly, and gave evidence of having been reopened and rubbed raw more than once. Ian twisted his head, saw where her eyes were fixed, and laughed.

"Oh, that. A barrel of burning pitch blew apart. I was like to be a torch. My men doused me with water, but when it came to taking off my clothes, some of me went with them." His voice was normal, light, laughing at a stupid mishap. "I was ill enough pleased at it because we had taken the keep the day before, and I had not a mark on me from all the fighting. No one noticed that the barrel was afire, I suppose."

"But that was in August," Alinor exclaimed, also completely back to normal. "You idiot! Did you not have anyone look to you?"

"There were no physicians. The leeches treated me— for all the good they did. To whom should I have gone?" Ian snapped irritably. "To Queen Isabella?"

Alinor made a contemptuous noise. "At least she is not so bad as the first queen. Isabella might refuse to soil her hands on such a common slave as a mere baron, but Isobel of Gloucester would have rubbed poison into your hurts. Oh, never mind, I will attend to that later. A warm soaking will do the sores good. First I want to wash your hair. Wait, you fool, do not lean back yet. Let me get a cushion to ease you. You will scrape your back against the tub."

"You will ruin the cushion if you put it in the bath."

"It can be dried. The maids are too idle anyway."

She went out. Ian closed his eyes and sighed. An expression of indecision so intense as to amount to fear crossed his face, changed to a rather grim determination. Alinor returned with a maid at her heels. She slipped the cushion behind Ian, and he slid down against it and tipped his head back. He could hear the maid laying out fresh clothing and gathering up his soiled garments. Alinor reached over him to scoop up a ladleful of water, poured it over his head, and began to soap his hair.

"Tell me something pleasant," she said.

"Well, we took Montauban," Ian responded a little doubtfully, but at a loss for anything to say that Alinor would consider pleasant. "And a truce between Philip and John is being arranged."

"What is pleasant about that?" Alinor asked disgustedly. "It means the king will return here. Oh, curse all the Angevins. Richard loved England too little, and John—" She gave Ian's hair a rough toweling so it would not drip in his face. "Sit up and lean forward."

"Yes, Alinor, but John
does
love England." Ian elevated his knees, crossed his arms on them, and rested his forehead on his arms.

"Most assuredly. Like a wolf loves little children. He could eat three a day."

Alinor began to wash Ian's back very gently. She felt him wince under her hands, but his voice was steady.

"That is his nature. Like a wolf, he is dangerous only when running loose."

"And who will cage him?"

There was a long pause. Ian jerked as Alinor touched a particularly painful spot and then said, a trifle breathlessly, "I have much to say about that, but not here and now. To speak the truth, Alinor, I am tired and sore, and that is no condition for me to match words with you."

"With me? What have I— No, never mind. I see you are about to engage in some harebrained enterprise, but I will not fret you when you are so tired. There, I have done with you for the moment. Sit up. Do you wash the rest while I go and get my salves."

Alinor handed Ian the cloth and soap. She could, of course, have told the maid to bring the medicinal salves she needed, but she was afraid to wash the rest of Ian's body. There was too much chance of arousing him and herself again. By the time she returned, he was out of the tub and had drawn on a pair of Simon's chausses. Alinor was surprised they fitted so well. She knew Ian and her late husband were much of a height, but Simon had always seemed to be a much heavier man. Perhaps it is the coloring, she thought, and the lack of body hair.

"Sit," Alinor directed, and then, "no, go lie on the bed on your face. This will be a long piece of work, and there is no need for my knees to be sore from kneeling."

"Do comfort me," Ian laughed. "Torturer."

"You will feel much better when I am done," Alinor remarked without the slightest sympathy. "Now, what other news is there?"

"None I care to tell—oh, yes, one thing. There is a rumor that the queen is at last with child."

"Poor thing," Alinor commented. "With such a father and mother, I wonder what it will be."

Ian laughed. "Do you expect horns and a tail? Do not be so harsh. There is good blood on both sides. The child need not be exactly like to the parents, although God knows yours are like enough. And now I think on it, there was something I wanted to ask about. Did you forbid Beorn to teach Adam English?"

"Forbid it? No."

"Did Simon?"

It was the first time Ian had said his name. It had slipped out quite naturally, but he tensed, fearing Alinor's reaction. There was none.

"I cannot imagine why he should. Why do you ask?"

"Because I think—ouch! Alinor, leave me what little skin I have. Give over a minute. Let me rest." He turned to the side so he could see her. "I think Adam wishes to learn, and it is no bad thing to understand what those beneath you say."

"Of course not. It is most necessary. I understand English myself, although I cannot speak it. Thank you for telling me. I will speak to Beorn. Sometimes he is overcareful."

"There is something else. Beorn is a good man, but—" Ian's voice checked as the sound of childish laughter came in the doorway.

"Oh, you are here, are you?" Alinor called. "Come in then. You might as well be of some use. Ian, lie flat again. Adam, hold this pot so I do not need to bend for it each time. Joanna, look you here. See how I clean this. It is not proudflesh, which must be cut away, as I showed you aforetime. When the wound is of the skin, rather than of the flesh, wide and not deep, it must close all at once rather than from the inside. It is needful to be most gentle or the new, tender growth will be torn. See, here, where the shield strap rubbed? There is no mending this. It will heal hard and shiny—and belike tear again."

"Were you wounded in the siege?" Adam asked excitedly. "Tell, Ian. You promised to tell."

"Mother, look here. What is this?" Joanna asked.

"Pox take it! That is an old scar torn open. That will need to be cleaned deeper."

"Ian, you promised," Adam insisted louder.

"Yes, in a moment," Ian gasped, stiffening as Alinor directed Joanna to spread the lips of a pus-filled sore so she could clean it thoroughly.

"Adam, be still!" Alinor snapped.

"But Mother— Oh, Mother, may we sit at the high table for dinner? May we?" the irrepressible Adam demanded, jiggling up and down.

"May we, Mother?" Joanna echoed, unwisely looking up from her task so that a finger slipped and Ian jerked and groaned.

"Joanna, you careless girl! Adam, stand still! Sooner than reward you both, I will send you dinnerless to bed."

"Alinor," Ian said sharply, "do not punish them the first day I am here. They are excited. If you will be quiet, Adam, I will tell you at dinner."

"I am sorry, Ian," Joanna whispered.

"Never mind, love," he soothed, "it is nothing. Just do as your mother tells you. Do not be frightened. I will not die for a prick."

"One more sound from either of you and all Ian's pleading on your behalf will be naught. If I must speak to either of you again, I will make good my first threat and add a whipping to your dinnerless state," Alinor warned.

With her helpers properly subdued, Alinor finished her work quickly. Over the medicinal creams she spread a thin layer of grease to prevent the bandages from sticking to the sores, told Adam to pack the pots carefully and take them away, and instructed Joanna in wrapping Ian firmly but not tightly in soft, old linen. Then she sent the girl away also. Ian started to get out of the bed.

"For Mary's sake," Alinor exclaimed irritably, "lie down and sleep until dinner. If you show your face, those little devils will be at you."

"I do not mind," Ian said pacifically, then smiled. "It pleases me that they love me."

Alinor opened her mouth, shut it firmly for a moment, and then said, "Oh, go to sleep! If you do not,
I
will be at you, and you are too tired now to be of the least help to me."

"Alinor—" He reached for her hand.

"No, Ian. Let me be. Let me go."

He watched her run from the room and, after staring some time at the empty doorway, lay down again. The task he had set himself grew harder and harder. Somehow he had expected Alinor to be less affected, more like Adam. He had never known her to carry a burden of woe for long. Even when she lost children— You fool, he told himself, she would not make a parade of her grief for you. There was Simon to comfort her.

"It is too soon," he muttered, but there was no way around that part of the problem.

Although Ian had craved leave to attend Simon's funeral, when that had been refused he had not, as he implied to Alinor, come as soon as he could. In fact, he had delayed as long as he thought it safe, until the terms of the truce between John and Philip were fixed and it was apparent that the king intended to sign and return to England. Simon had told Ian, not long before he died, that King John had some long-standing grudge against Alinor, which for Alinor's sake he could not explain further. The years of John's reign had been too troubled, even from the first, to permit him to vent his spite on so powerful a vassal as Simon, but now Simon was dead. Until now, the king had had more important things to think about, but if he returned to England and someone drew Alinor's defenseless state to his attention, he would work off that grudge in the most vicious way. John never forgot a grudge, and he was a vicious man.

One could not kill a woman outright or challenge her to mortal combat with a proven champion, but imprisonment and death by starvation was one of John's favorite methods of dealing with helpless prey. Ian would not give a pin for Adam's life either, and Joanna would be sold to the highest and vilest bidder, probably after the king had used her himself.

Ian groaned softly. It was hell to serve such a man, yet his faith was given. Even if he had been willing to besmirch his honor by violating his oath of fealty—and John had driven many otherwise honorable men to that pass—who else was there? Arthur of Brittany was dead. John had disposed of him, some said with his own hands. Alinor of Brittany, Arthur's sister, was kept tighter in the king's hand than his own wife, and in any case she was not like her grandmother, not a woman men would obey. The male line of Plantagenets was finished, unless John's wife bore a son. There was no one else except French Philip and his son Louis. Ian sighed. Not again. Not ever again a king who loved France better than England. There had been enough of that in Richard's day. Whatever John was as a man, he was king of England and his interest lay first with that realm.

There was no one else and Ian could not rebel, but he could keep Simon's wife and Simon's children safe from John's vengeance. He started to turn onto his back, and hissed softly with pain. Alinor was right. The sores troubled him so little now that he had forgotten them. Alinor— Would she hate him when he told her what he had planned and had arranged? That would be unendurable, yet he must endure it for Simon's sake.