Simon’s Lady Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  London, England

  Late May in the Year of Our Lord 1153

  Simon of Beresford knelt over his victim. His broadsword lay a foot away, not far from the one his victim had been forced to relinquish only moments before.

  The victim was lying in the dust, looking up at his captor. He was dazed by exhaustion and the fierce sun beating down on the two men. His eyes were glazed with fear. He knew that the face of Simon of Beresford was awesome enough when met upright on the field of battle. He saw it now hovering above him, features set and implacable and found the sight mortally terrifying. With Beresford’s hands around his throat, he felt that he had seen his last.

  Simon of Beresford held down his writhing victim effortlessly. “Now is the time,” he ground out, “to say your prayers.”

  The man croaked a pitiful, “Mercy, sire.”

  Instead of crushing the man’s throat, Beresford rose, but not from any generous act of mercy. He said with disgust, “You’re an old woman, Langley.” He stretched out a hand to help the younger man up. “Never ask for mercy. It’s an invitation to death,” he instructed. “Even when you’re down, you should go after any vulnerable spot you can find.”

  Langley accepted Beresford’s outstretched hand. “I couldn’t find any,” he complained, brushing the dust off his tunic and shaking himself of the true terror that had gripped him.

  “You’ve learned nothing,” Beresford said bluntly. He bent down and retrieved the two broadswords lying on the ground at his feet. He deftly tossed one to Langley. Upon catching it, Langley staggered under the weight of the sword and the strength of Beresford’s toss. For a moment, he seemed likely to stumble backward.

  Beresford brandished his own broadsword idly, flexing the muscles of his forearm and keeping his wrist supple, while Langley strove to regain his footing.

  “I’m tired,” the squire said in defense of his clumsiness, “and so would you be if you’d just been ground into the dust.”

  “You’re whining,” Beresford countered. “You shouldn’t have gone down so easily. You lost the contest in the first minute of engagement with bad sword work. Hold it up, and we’ll review your mistakes. Hold the sword up, I said, Langley. Up! That’s better. And you should know that I’d relish rubbing your nose in the dirt again, so don’t give me the opportunity! Now, look here. When I move like this,” he continued, not even winded from the recent encounter, “you need to defend yourself like this. No! Not like that, young fool. Like this!”

  Langley was panting. Large drops of sweat were rolling down his face. “We’ve… been at this… all afternoon. It’s… hot.”

  “And death is final,” Beresford answered. “We’ll do this series again, so that I have a measure of security knowing there’s a man behind me and not some old woman when next we face Henry’s troops.”

  He forced Langley to move through the series of strokes and counterstrokes, coming at his pupil from the right, from the left, in a relentless attack. When Beresford was finally satisfied, he dropped his arm and called an end to it. He then subjected Langley to a verbal attack as brutal as his physical one had been. He turned his back on the young man and began to walk off.

  Hardly had Beresford turned away before he turned back again. Quicker than the blink of an eye, he knocked out of Langley’s hand the sword that the younger man had raised against his master.

  Instead of being angry, Beresford was pleased. “Very good!” he said with approval. “But next time you come at someone from behind, make sure the tip of your sword is at least at neck level.” He flicked a glance over his weaponless charge, then kicked Langley’s sword across the courtyard and out of the young man’s reach. “Tomorrow we begin an hour earlier,” was his curt command as he strode off the field of combat, the central courtyard of his town residence.

  Beresford clamped his broadsword under his arm. He was stripping off his leather gauntlets when he saw Geoffrey of Senlis leaning against a post of the gallery that encircled the courtyard. Beresford’s harsh features lightened until they resembled something of a smile.

  “What brings you to me this afternoon?” Beresford inquired, as he stepped into the shade next to his friend.

  “God save you and give you good morrow, Simon,” Senlis returned with characteristic politeness. “I come to you with a message.”

  Beresford handed his broadsword and gauntlets to one of the attending pages and accepted from the lad a towel and a leather flagon of water stoppered with a bit of hemp. Beresford held up the flagon, silently offering some to his guest. When Senlis shook his head, Beresford opened the flagon, drank deeply then rubbed his face with the towel. Returning the items to the page, he asked with complete lack of concern, “And the message?”

  “It’s from the king.”

  Beresford bowed slightly in willing acceptance of the duty that would be asked of him. “Very well. What service is it that his majesty requires of me?”

  “No service, precisely,” Senlis replied. “The king—and Adela, I might add—merely request your presence at the Tower and charged me to fetch you.”

  Beresford was surprised. “The king’s mistress requested my presence?”

  “Yes,” Senlis said pleasantly. “They wish to discuss some item of business with you.”

  Beresford looked down at his blue tunic, which had gone as gray as his eyes with courtyard dust. “Allow me to change my clothing,” he said, “and I shall accompany you to the Tower forthwith.”

  “There’s no time to change your clothes,” Senlis told him.

  “But if I’m to have an audience with Adela, I should—”

  “We’re to go now.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Simon,” Senlis purred, smiling his very charming smile, “since when are you concerned about the state of your clothing?”

  Beresford had no reason to deny the general implication of that question, but he did know that smile. “Since Adela requested my presence,” he answered warily, “and I do not wish to appear before her in all this dirt.”

  “My sense is that, on this occasion, she will value speed,” Senlis countered, “over cleanliness.”

  Beresford regarded his fair friend, handsome and elegant as ever. He did not feel a shred of envy in the presence of the well-dressed Geoffrey of Senlis, but he did begin to have a distinct, uneasy sense of trouble in the offing. “Are Henry’s troops on their way to London?” he asked. “I thought my men and I had held them off for now.”

  Senlis laughed and shook his head. “Ever the military man, Simon!” he commented lightly. “No, they are still in the west, but no longer harassing Malmesbury, thanks to you.”

  Reassured, Beresford asked reasonably, “Then what business would the king wish to discuss with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Senlis said, “and I wish you would hurry so that I may discover along with the others what the excitement is all about!”

  It was Beresford’s turn to laugh at his friend’s frank curiosity. “What exciteme
nt?” he asked.

  “Your name has been whispered throughout the Tower the day long,” Senlis informed him, exaggerating only slightly.

  “It has?” Beresford echoed with surprise. He was never, so far as he knew, the object of talk—but he admittedly knew little of court gossip. His brow lowered. “Now tell me, who are ‘the others’ who wish to stick their very long noses into my affairs?”

  “Your audience is to be in the council room,” Senlis said, “so the usual barons will be there.”

  The council room lacked the highly public formality of the great hall and made the business sound friendly. Beresford’s brow lightened. “To the Tower, then,” he said, abandoning the idea of changing his clothing, which he did not really want to do anyway.

  Matching word to deed, Beresford gestured for his horse while asking the attending page to supply him with his hand sword, which he thrust into the sheath hanging from his belt. He called out some instructions to the knights-in -training who were momentarily idle and put the Master of the Armory in charge of the proceedings during his absence. When he had the reins of his piebald steed in hand, he and Senlis left the courtyard by way of the passage above which spanned the main room of the half-timbered upper story of Beresford’s rambling house. The porter allowed their access to the sunny street, then shut and barred the door behind them.

  Senlis’s horse was being held in the street by an urchin. Senlis took the reins and flipped the ragged lad a copper coin. As they swung into their saddles, Beresford said confidently, “The king—and Adela—must wish to discuss the Saint Barnabas Day tourney.”

  They turned their horses toward Aldgate and the street that would take them to the Tower.

  Senlis asked, “But why would they summon you now when the tourney has been long set and is still more than a fortnight away?”

  “Perhaps an unavoidable change in the program has arisen that needs to be executed,” Beresford ventured.

  Senlis shrugged. “Speaking of the tourney, you seemed to be working young Langley hard just now.”

  Beresford permitted the change of subject. “Not hard enough,” he said grimly, “if he intends to acquit himself respectably during the melee.”

  “But he’s reputed to be the best of the younger knights.”

  “Ha!” was Beresford’s response.

  They passed by the sign of The Swan, decorated with a bunch of ivy announcing entry to a tavern. Beresford, who knew the local rabble well enough, tossed a brief greeting in English to Daw the Diker and Wat the Tinker, who were hanging about the threshold of the open door, sunning themselves, and properly interested in the passing of two fine knights on horseback. Several more rascals were lounging at the open counter with wooden mugs in hand. Beresford nodded to them as well and moved on without glancing into the shadowy recesses of the establishment, where the poor lighting facilitated the trickery of the professional dicers and improved the looks of the laundresses and tradeswomen who had come to the tavern to pursue a profitable sideline.

  Senlis stayed with the subject at hand. “You set your standards too high for any young knight to meet, Simon,” he chided, glancing at his friend. “How do you expect them to measure up when you apparently have eyes in the back of your head and can block their blows even when they come from behind?”

  Beresford’s features lost some of their grimness. He almost smiled. “That was nothing,” he said. “I would have been vastly disappointed if Langley had had no fight in him. You see, I goaded him into it.”

  “But your back was turned, my dear friend!” Senlis exclaimed.

  “That was to give him opportunity.”

  “Well, I did not know that at the time,” Senlis said, “and I own to a moment of unease to have seen his sword raised against you with your back turned. However, you recovered with a speed most remarkable—but I suppose you will tell me that you had it planned that way.”

  Beresford was not going to tell him anything of the sort. He was unused to commenting upon his actions, for the simple reason that it seemed entirely unnecessary to say anything about what was visible to all. Instead, he made a rapid analysis of all Langley’s weaknesses and indicated where the young knight needed to improve if he wished to make a name for himself on the field of combat at the Saint Barnabas Day tourney.

  They left the commercial avenues and steered their horses toward the protecting wall surrounding the town, which had begun with the Romans. The wall was eight feet thick and twenty-two feet high and had been faced and refaced over the centuries. It had kept out the Danes in six successive sieges, just as it had kept out Earl Godwin more than a century before. However, it had been unable to keep out the great-grandfathers of Simon of Beresford and Geoffrey of Senlis who had sailed with William the Conqueror and put the island kingdom under Norman rule.

  As they neared the north bank of the River Thames and the eastern extremity of the perimeter wall, the main bastion of the City of London loomed before them: citadel, castle, palace and prison. Such was the Tower of London.

  Above the walls of the fortress rose the central keep, known as the White Tower, its limestone facade blazing candid in the afternoon sun, a potent reminder of the quarry across the Channel from which the stones had come. Beresford and Senlis were greeted expectantly by the gatekeeper and penetrated the fortress’s defenses through a wicket in the principal entrance to the castle. Once in the inner ward, they dismounted and were attended by groomsmen in purple-and-gold livery. The two knights made their way to the central keep on foot.

  Their passage was accompanied by the comments of various men-at-arms and peers of the realm who, upon sight of the subject of the latest castle rumor, encouraged helpfully, “The king desires to see you, Simon!” “To the council room, without delay!” and “An honor awaits you, Beresford, if the rumors are true!”

  Beresford scowled and muttered, “Damn the wagging tongues!”

  Senlis laughed. “I hope it’s an honor that awaits you, dear friend. In all events, I have the true sense that it will be a surprise!”

  Simon of Beresford made no response. He was a man whose instincts were entirely suited to the battlefield, where force and physical skill reigned supreme; he had no talent for the sly caprices of the court. He knew of maces and lances and the bright, shining shield of chivalry; he had no patience for the duplicities of political maneuvering. Though he was generally deaf to the subtleties of court life, his reception at the castle thus far was anything but subtle, and he began to feel uneasy. As he trod the broad, cool flagstones of the wide castle hallways with Senlis at his side, he discarded the comfortable notion that the royal summons had anything to do with an event as straightforward as the tournament; and he did not like surprises, even pleasant ones.

  When they turned to enter the council room, he was considering the faint possibility that an honor indeed awaited him. That possibility was slain, however, upon crossing the threshold and perceiving the looks of lively curiosity on the faces of the dozen or so assembled barons when they turned to him. Though not a perceptive man, he knew for a certainty that mischief was afoot.

  He was at all times a fearless man. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and faced down each baron in turn. He little realized how his stark presence filled the small yet stately room or how appropriate he looked, hands on his hips, his sword at his side, standing strong and proud beneath the purple-and-gold silken banners of King Stephen’s reign, which hung from the beamed ceiling.

  He had stepped into the oblong of light that streamed in from one of the long, arched, mullioned windows that broke the masonry walls at harmonious intervals. The summer sunlight, gilding the deep oak planking of the floor and glancing off the aged ash table that occupied center place in the room, fell on Beresford as well. It created a bright aureole around the man who had come to court straight from the field, with his sun-lightened, shoulder-length curls uncombed, his tunic and chausses alive with the honest dirt of physical labor that mingled with the glittering motes of du
st dancing around his head and above his shoulders.

  His hard gray eyes came to rest on the king and his mistress at the head, opposite him, seated on chairs that were slightly raised on a dais.

  Adela said to him, “I am pleased that you were able to come so readily, my lord.” She murmured as well her thanks to Geoffrey of Senlis, who had slipped into his seat at the table while all eyes were on Beresford.

  Beresford knelt then rose. “I am always ready to serve you, madam,” he said, his deep voice resonant and respectful, “and the king, my liege.”

  “That, too, pleases me,” she said and invited him to take his chair, the vacant one at the foot of the table.

  He did so, with a heightened sense of unease at Adela’s graciousness, insensibly increased by the sight of the table ceremoniously set with two impressive silver ewers and weighty silver chalices, heavily embossed and chased, one for each person at the table.

  Stephen of Blois, King of England, slumped in his chair, was a handsome man turned heavy whose one act of decisive courage had won him the throne twenty years before. The king had one or two innocuous words to say to his most loyal knight, then returned the initiative to his capable mistress, Adela of Chartres, seated on his left, who was plainly in charge of the proceedings.

  Adela was dark haired and even a little dowdy, despite the grandeur of her raiment, but as canny a politician as Queen Mathilda, who had died the year before. Upon Mathilda’s death, it had been widely feared that Stephen would lapse into an inactivity that would surely lead to the Angevin duke Henry’s usurping of the throne. However, when Adela stepped in to strengthen Stephen’s resolve, her position as surrogate queen in Stephen’s court was met with acceptance and even approval.

  Adela began to speak to the man she had summoned, yet was able to include all the barons in her gentle conversation. It seemed a disjointed discourse at first, though mellifluous in its delivery, wandering at random over a review of the loyal services that Simon of Beresford had performed for his king.