Shield of Three Lions (56 page)

“A … little.”

“Come, let me hold you. Don’t be shy. It’s natural to be apprehensive the first time, but I promise …”

He lifted me onto his lap, lay back so that I fell awkwardly to one side, pulled me across his chest.

“You
are
frightened,” he said, laughing. “Your heart strikes like a stone caster. Here …”

He held my cheeks, pulled my face close and kissed me softly, languorously.

“Alex, I love you. Pagan Eros, adorable …” His kisses grew more probing. His tongue …

I was dreadfully hot. The blackness was furry, suffocating, and his skin was sweating. I couldn’t think of him as the king, or even a man I knew—his mouth enclosed me—and I wished desperately to escape. If only Enoch …

His hands took my bare calves, kneaded them gently, slipped upward to my thighs, my buttocks … and stopped. He turned his face away and my nose was buried in his neck, breathing in sweet woodruff, but he was not my father.

His hands no longer caressed—but explored, almost like a
doctor s—where my treasure should be. And stayed, feeling. I leaped slightly. I was extremely sensitive, but also terrified by the peculiar quality of touch, as if I were an alien object. His hands slid upward under my tunic, felt my rising nipples and instantly withdrew.

He plucked me off his chest as if I were a snake. Leaped off the bed.

“What trumpery is this!” he exploded. “You’re …”

Trembling all over, I clutched the sheets around me, not knowing what to say.

He grabbed me by the neck and shook me.

“Who put you up to this! By God, I’ll kill the traitor!”

I lost breath—grew weak—couldn’t speak for choking! Death, he was Death! The wind’s sobs turned to laughter—waiting! My parents!

“As you value your life,
answer me
!”

“You’re hurting me!” I gasped.

He loosened his grip and I fell to my side. Disoriented, I wondered desperately if I could escape under the cover of darkness.

Again those awful hands, on my shoulders now. “I’m waiting.”

“I—don’t—understand. You said you knew, said …”

“Said I knew what? When?”

“That I was female, said you knew …”

“God’s balls, would I make a
girl
my page? Bring a
girl
on the Crusade? Devil’s slut that you are! Spy! Now
talk
, God damn you!”

He sat with a heavy crash, pulled my hair so that tears came.

“I’m Lady Alix of Wanthwaite, ran for my life dressed as a boy as my father told me, had to escape Northumberland who’d killed his wife to marry me … Northumberland …”

I paused,
God damn him for the liar that he was about Northumberland
!

“This father you’ve touted as a hero—deliberately instructed you to lie to your king?”

“No! No!” I sobbed. “Not my father—you were the only one I was to tell!”

“But you didn’t, did you?”

Contemptuously he pushed me away and I rubbed my poor sore head.

“No,” I whispered.

“Because you could get more out of me by feigning to be a winsome, flattering boy, clinging and simpering to make a fool of me! I’ll ask one more time and you’ll answer or live not another day
Who put you up to this?
”

“No one!”

“Zizka?”

“He never knew!”

“Ambroise?”

“No!”

“The French?”

“I don’t know a soul in the French army I …”

“That leaves the Scot, the pair of you, traitors!”

“No!” I screamed. “No, he doesn’t know! Except …”

“I’m waiting.”

“He may have guessed today—and he’s angry, just as angry as you … only, the difference is …”

“Only?”

I could hardly go on, but I had to.
“I thought you knew,”
I whispered. Otherwise … how could he have thought he could make love to me? All these months … the many scenes, now returned with vivid clarity, of happy eyes, kisses, whispered love … and he’d thought I was a boy! I shivered in horror, the darkness a deep pit and I was falling, falling. Other words—
“Better show him, Pat; get on your knees, boys,” “Try a good Lincolnshire prick for flavor,”
and Enoch’s elusive explanation of a sin when men don’t go “twa by twa” with women. I knew now I would never leave this tent alive, for I had indeed stumbled into a scorpions’ nest of secrets.

The king turned away—his foot inadvertently kicked his goblet. “What made you think I knew?”

I turned hot, sightless eyes in the direction of his voice. What could I say? Innocence—my only defense—and true.

“I know now I was wrong, Your Highness, but, you see, I loved you with a dreadful passion and my excuse is that I saw what I wanted to see. So when you said in Italy on the hunt that you loved me—that you were willing to take a chance in loving a child, then
talked of Alais later and your father, I thought you meant you loved me as he did her.”

“God help us,” he groaned. “Go on.”

“In Bagnara—on the beach—you”—I gritted my teeth and forced myself—“touched me and
said
you knew. When I asked when you’d first known, you said when I’d played Cupid—and soothly it would have been possible, since I was without disguise at that time.”

“Disguise?”

I covered my face with my hands and spoke in muffled tones through my palms. “I—constructed—a false prick.” I waited and when he made no answer, went on. “After you told me I was going to crusade—I had to take some measures, in that crowd of men. It fooled everyone, even Enoch.”

“Go on,” the sepulchral voice ordered. “How did you shape this article?”

I told him in fine detail.

Then there was silence.

The king groped along the floor seeking his goblet, picked it up and walked to the chest for a fresh flask of wine. In the meantime, I collected what clothes I could find and put them on. When he returned, he, too, had on his white silk robe.

“Wine—Alix?”

“No thank you, Your Highness.”

There was another long silence between us, but I was keenly aware of many other things, like a blind animal whose senses are alerted. I heard the thin rustle of silk as his arms raised his goblet, heard wine sliding down his throat in long swallows, heard his heart and his breath. Smelled him as well, the strong musky horse-smell beneath the sweet woodruff. And sensed his thoughts—that there was a greater problem here than my discovery.

Finally his words came, almost expected. “Well, little Alix, our show is finished. Did I frighten you?”

“Aye,” I said cautiously, “just a little.”

“I’ve been planning this test for some time. Do you understand why?”

Suspecting a trick, I remained silent.

“Of course you know that I am surrounded by spies and traitors at all times. Every one of my familiars is subjected to an—er—examination to be sure he—or she—is exactly what he seems. ’Tis a sad but necessary part of my security.”

Another long silence. “Don’t tell me you believed me! Of course I knew you were a lass—often joked with Joanna about it. Otherwise …” His voice had strained jocularity and I knew this time I must answer.

“You did frighten me some, Your Highness,” I admitted quickly. “You’re a remarkably skilled actor.” Which was indeed true, except for this performance. Brise-Tête could have done better.

He sat on his bed and continued, thus making an error that I could easily have corrected: he went too far. As an accomplished liar, I knew the secret was to tell no more than was absolutely necessary. But the king was anxious.

“I confess I had a second motive. I knew your knocking heart might crack a rib if I didn’t desist. You were frightened by my advances, weren’t you?”

At last I could be honest. “I believe I’ve feared—men—since I saw my mother killed.”

“How did she die?”

To underscore my fear, I told him graphically what had transpired. Again my heightened awareness revealed to me he was not listening, but that my description gave us both time to gather our thoughts.

“Poor child. The example of our parents does affect us, does it not? The sins of the fathers …”

I frowned, for my father had not sinned, then realized he was speaking of Henry II. A black melancholy thickened the natural gloom.

“Well, we must sleep. I promise not to … I mean, I won’t …”

“Like a courtly lover?” I prompted.

“What?”

“My book on the rules of love says the chivalrous knight does not touch his beloved until the lady gives her consent.”

He made a sound of relief. “Exactly so. Yes, from my sister
Marie. I believe the expression is that we lovers worship from afar, as sycophants before a shrine.”

“Aye.” He had no fear of receiving a signal from me to make love.

“Then, my dear, shall we sleep?” He dropped his goblet on the floor and lay across the bed. Gingerly, I hung on the outer edge, my mind as awake as it had ever been.

“Alix—did you say that the Scot learned your secret today?”

“I believe so, Your Highness.” And I told him of Enoch’s discovery his reaction.

For the first time in more than an hour, the king chuckled dryly. “One thing never fails—you are a most droll creature, whatever your sex.”

I waited.

“However, the Scot’s knowledge creates a dilemma. Will he continue to care for you?”

“I believe he’ll go back to Wanthwaite,” I said bleakly. “He may even try the single ordeal—get a legal hold on my land.”

The king raised himself on his elbow. “How would you feel about that?”

“I couldn’t bear it! Do you think …?”

I hadn’t the courage to ask him for a favor.

Then to my astonishment, he leaned in the dark and kissed my lips—a chaste kiss by his standards, but startling nonetheless. And repellent. For me, a shadow thick as Acre’s wall lay between us, real for all I couldn’t define it.

“Ask, Alix. I believe you want to go back to Wanthwaite and are afraid that I will be hurt by your desertion.”

“If I could have my own writ guaranteeing me sovereignty without the Scot.”

He lay back. “Done. See Ambroise tomorrow and have him write it. I’ll sign it and give it my seal as soon as you bring it.”

“Oh, thank you!” I cried, overwhelmed by relief.

“I think we owe each other that much,” he replied. “Good night.”

“Good night, Your Highness.”

We lay quietly a long time more, my mind full of thoughts.

“I wish I could see you,” he said plaintively. “It’s all so …”
Sudden
, I finished for him.

“Tell me, Alix, is there some part of you that’s disappointed?” he asked.

I was glad there was darkness, for the gloom veiled my despair which must show otherwise. “Yes.”

“In what way?”

I felt I was skirting a quicksand waiting to suck me under. Yet something within demanded honesty.

“I was thinking of our oaths by the lighthouse, on the Far. Do you remember?”

“We swore to love each other—to never betray.”

“Yes. You said your family was cursed by children who turn on you. I promised I’d never turn—but I warned that I had a lack.” Of a small pendulum between my legs, such an insignificant organ but essential for the king’s love, it seemed.

“You should have been more explicit.”

“I grant you. But you see, what I miss—since you did ask—is the sense that you love me. I never knew till now how I depended on …”

Tears streamed down my hot cheeks and I couldn’t go on. But that was the truth. The king was formidable, dazzling and frightening, inscrutable, cruel, brave beyond words—all secondary to the fact that he loved me. I could accept almost anything except this terrible loss.

Rough arms pulled me across the bed and held me close. To my amazement, I thought the king wept as well, though ’twas impossible to say whose tears were whose. He pulled me tight against his body which shook with deep sighs, like repressed sobs. He held my head against his neck, stroked my hair and didn’t speak.

“Alex.” He kissed my hair.

I reached a hand and touched his cheeks.

We were comforting each other.

“I’m going to—miss you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I meant it—I did love you.”

“I know. I too—”

And we could hardly bear to put it in the past. An elegy. The darkness reduced to two lost people,
enfants perdus
, timeless, ageless, sexless even, but filled with such yearning.

We didn’t want to part and gradually we fell asleep so, clasped as close as we could get. If we moved in the night, it was always together.

We woke in predawn gray.

Richard rose on his elbow and looked down on me. ’Twas August twelfth and yesterday had been August eleventh; this was Richard and this was Alix; but a millennium had passed during the night and we were strangers. I stared with wonder at eyes I could not fathom, at a mask which concealed another mask, layered back and back to I knew not what. Except that it was an awesome secret.

Richard seemed equally confounded. He twisted a curl on my forehead against his finger, licked his lower lip, studied my face as if it were written on vellum, frowned in concentration.

“Alix?” He smiled with his mouth, his lower lip more thrusting than usual. His eyes remained aloof, smoke-screened.

“Good morning, Your Highness.”

“Richard,” he corrected. “How could anyone think you were a boy?”

’Twas a rhetorical question.

He sat up, heavily, held his head in his hands.

“Stay there,” he ordered. Soon he returned with wine and bread. Deeply inhibited by the unspoken, we broke bread and ate. He finished first and stared openly as I drank my dregs.

“Alix, good morning.” He bent and kissed me. We both measured the kiss: neither hit nor miss, a trial shot. “I, too, was recalling in the night our vows on the Far. Remember?”

“Yes, Your Highness, to be faithful …”

“And to love—whatever surprises might be in store.”

That I was a girl, that he was …?

He laughed uncomfortably. “I suppose all lovers must accommodate to age and sickness, but few have our trial …”

I hung my head, wishing he would leave.

“Love is faith,” he said quietly.

I raised my head.

His eyes glowed somberly. “No matter what revelations or changes, faith is steady.”