Authors: Roberta Gellis
“I will be in trouble,” Barbara pointed out. “If Uncle Hugh
and Joanna suspect I told you how important they have become to one another,
they will both hate me forever.”
“Nonsense. What you said has nothing to do with my
decision.” He frowned and shook his head when she started to speak, then raised
his brows. “Chick, did you not promise me something to eat when you lured me in
here?”
Barbara turned to look for an idle servant to send for food,
only to see Joanna coming toward them leading a manservant carrying a small
table and a maidservant with a laden tray. She had been aware of movement in
the hall, but there were always people coming and going so neither she nor her
father had paid any attention. When Barbara did not answer him, Norfolk looked
out into the hall and also saw Joanna. His lips thinned.
“My lord, forgive me,” Joanna said softly, curtsying low. “I
did very wrong to missay you and—”
“Stop that bobbing up and down,” Norfolk said irritably,
gesturing at Joanna to rise, “and do not be more of a ninny than you must. We
have been brother and sister for more than twenty years. Do you think I do not
understand that you are at your wit’s end with worry? And you might consider
that I am fond of Hugh also. Sit.”
He gestured for Barbara to remove his sword and belt from
the seat opposite to him, and she picked it up and leaned it against his thigh,
knowing that he seldom let the weapon out of his sight, even in his own great
hall. As the servants set out the food, Joanna seated herself and Barbara
pointed at a stool, which was carried to her father’s side. His hand went to
his breast when he saw the platter held slices of meat as well as a large wedge
of cheese, but he was not wearing an eating knife. Before his head turned,
Barbara had the knife out of its sheath on his sword belt and the hilt under
his hand.
“Thank you, chick,” he said. He drew the blade across the
meat, folded the strip, pinned it together with the knife point, and stuffed it
in his mouth. “Do you want to talk now, Joanna,” he asked thickly, “or do you
want to make ready to leave first and listen to my explanations later? Leave
you must, before one of your neighbors hears that Hugh is proscribed and
decides to take this place. I have troops on the way to all Hugh’s properties
to hold them, and I will leave my troop captain here with some of the men. That
should be enough to safeguard this place under my claim but only if you are
gone from it.”
“Will you not
let
me go to Hugh?” she asked. “I will
leave the children with you. I will take nothing—”
He laid down the knife. “No. There are many reasons, Joanna,
but even if I were willing you could not go. The ports are all closed.
Leicester will let no one in or out of the country except those he chooses to
present the settlement he is offering. Would you rather be in his keeping than
in mine?”
There was a moment of silence during which Barbara held her
breath and Norfolk picked up his knife again with a slight clatter. He had,
rather savagely, hacked off a hunk of cheese and speared it on the knife point
when Joanna drew the back of her hand across her wet cheeks.
“He would at least be more polite to me than you are.” She
uttered a watery chuckle. “Likely he would convince me that I had wanted to be
in his keeping from the beginning or that it was best for everyone, even Hugh
and me, if I was.”
“If you ran for a port,” Norfolk said sourly, “you would
never see Leicester. You would be a name on a list, perhaps shackled with other
prisoners for months before he knew you had been taken. But if you prefer him
as host, I will take you to him personally—”
“Oh, no, Roger.” Joanna put out a pleading hand. “I was only
trying to make a little lightness out of my heart’s heaviness.” Then, on an
indrawn breath, she added, “I had not thought I might be taken and kept as a
prisoner. Will Hugh think of that?”
“Not unless he has reason to believe you would try to get to
him.” He stopped abruptly as color crimsoned Joanna’s cheeks and cast a swift
glance at Barbara.
She caught the quick glance and cursed herself for
mentioning the new bond that seemed to have grown between Joanna and her
husband. “Hugh will be worried sick if he does not hear from Joanna in any
case,” she said. “Did you not yourself say, Papa, that you had come to prevent
an attack on Kirby Moorside when news of the battle spread? Hugh might fear
that. I will say this. If you bring Joanna to Leicester, he will let her send a
letter to Hugh.”
“I am sure he will. I am less sure that what is in the
letter will be much comfort to Hugh.”
“But it would surely prevent Hugh from trying any desperate
act to save me.” Joanna clasped her hands. “Roger, please let me go. I know you
can put me in a fishing boat in some tiny village.”
“Curse you, woman! Use the brains God gave you, if He gave
brains to any woman!”
Barbara stood up. She was agonized for Joanna, whom she
could see was in terror that Hugh would try to come to her rescue and be hurt.
And if Hugh had become as besotted as his wife, for all Barbara knew Joanna
might be right. She was frightened for her father too, because he might be
ruined and become an outcast to both parties if Joanna, who was cleverer than
he guessed, grew desperate and escaped.
“Papa cannot let you go, Joanna,” she said. “Unless you plan
to murder every man, woman, and child in this area, it would be easy to
discover that he came here before you left. Then he would be in deep trouble.
Leicester might call him a traitor. Still,” Barbara turned to her father, “I
think Joanna is right, Papa. Somehow word must be sent to Uncle Hugh that she
and the younger children are all safe.”
“Not through me,” Norfolk said. “Leicester will be busy
enough not to give any thought to Joanna, and I would like matters to remain
just so. He is no fool. He must have eyes and ears set around Queen Eleanor,
and it is to her in Boulogne that Hugh will go, I suppose. Through those eyes
and ears, Leicester will surely hear if Hugh has had a letter from Joanna. He
would blame me for that, and I do not know whether my temper would hold through
another visitation from young Guy—”
“Guy!” Barbara exclaimed. “Perhaps he is the answer to this
problem.”
“Guy only makes problems. You stay away from him,” Norfolk
growled and addressed himself with more attention to the food before him.
“Barbara—” Joanna began warningly, but Barbara shook her
head and her aunt fell silent.
With eyes that hardly saw, Barbara watched her father eat
another slice of meat and a third of the cheese, washing down both with
draughts of wine. A muddle of thoughts had filled her head when her father said
Guy’s name. The first, come in a flash, was that Leicester’s victory at Lewes
would make Guy’s attentions harder to avoid. Her father would almost certainly
be deeply involved in government business again, which would mean many messages
from and meetings with Leicester and his sons. Almost simultaneously the word
“court” had brought to mind her father’s saying that Queen Eleanor was not at
the French court but living in Boulogne, where news of her husband and England
could come across the narrow sea every day. Atop those ideas was her awareness
of Joanna’s misery and Hugh’s and the hurt their fears for each other might do
her father. At which point, a clear solution had appeared in her mind. If she
went to the queen in Boulogne, she would be safe from Guy, she could calm all
Hugh’s fears. Joanna, knowing that, would cause her father no trouble; and
she
herself would not need to go near the French court, where she might see
Alphonse—not that that mattered at all.
“That is the excuse I could use to go to France, my need to
escape from Guy,” she said.
“What!” Norfolk roared, slamming his knife down on the tray
so hard that the table teetered and Joanna had to reach out and steady it.
“Now do not lose your temper, Papa. Guy is no danger to me,
but it is true that he seemed much struck with me when he was at Framlingham. I
did not encourage him and paid no mind to his babbling. I know you do not like
him, and to speak the truth, Papa, I cannot endure him. He is a nasty little
creature.”
“
His
babbling! What are
you
babbling about?”
“What I am trying to tell you is coming out all backwards
because I do not want you to fly into a rage.”
“Why do I feel that I am about to have a ring slipped
through my nose?” Norfolk asked the wall above Joanna’s head. Then he looked
sidelong at his daughter.
Barbara smiled at him. “Father dear, you know I am not so
clumsy as to let you catch a hint of it when I am about to cozen you. I only
want you to listen to me without oversetting the table.”
She began with a much expurgated version of Guy’s pursuit,
emphasizing the sweet words and moonling looks rather than the crude attempts
at physical seduction. What emerged was a picture of a very young man besotted
with an older woman. She explained that she had not earlier thought it
worthwhile to mention the matter. With Queen Eleanor in France, she would not
be going to court and felt she would be able to avoid Guy until he forgot about
her.
“But I cannot bear him, Papa,” she repeated, “and with
Leicester grown so great by this victory, perhaps Guy would think he could have
me. Then you would have to refuse… You would refuse, would you not? Guy would
not make a good husband. He is vicious and mean.”
Norfolk’s gesture stopped her. “I would refuse. So, you have
the ring in. Do not waste my time. Let me see in which direction you want to
pull me.”
Barbara put a placating hand on her father’s shoulder. “If
you refused Leicester’s offer of his son, there would be ill feeling. Guy is a
third son, but I was born outside the marriage bond. So if you went to
Leicester and said you did not think a natural daughter good enough for his son
and that I had ideas above my station, Leicester would be grateful to you and
would not take offense. And you could urge that I be sent away to France, out
of Guy’s way, so he would be safe from me.”
“And I might choke on the words.”
“To keep Uncle Hugh quiet, Father? Surely you could eat a
small piece of pride for your brother’s good.”
“I could eat a large piece of pride if I felt sure the meal
would end with that subtlety.” He turned his head to look first at Joanna, who
was staring at him with tear-filled eyes and had folded her hands as if in
prayer, and then out of the window again, where a four-ox plow team was coming
down a lane between two fields.
Joanna shifted her eyes to Barbara and silently mouthed, “Thank
you, my love.”
Barbara barely moved her head to acknowledge that she
understood. Now that her father had taken up the idea, she knew that she must
not intrude herself into his deliberations in any way. Sometimes she could urge
his thoughts in one direction or another, but he was now suspicious of being
manipulated and would reject everything out of hand if he felt prodded.
“The queen asked you to accompany her to France in
September, although she knows you hate France—why?” Norfolk asked suddenly.
Startled by the change of subject, Barbara answered without
thinking, “I do not hate France, I… Oh, that does not matter anyway. I think
Queen Eleanor only wanted to protect me. She has been so fearful since those
Londoners stoned her barge. She thought she was offering me a haven.”
“And you refused her favor. Was she not angry?”
“No, not at all.” Barbara looked down at her toes. “I gave
her a fanciful reason for wishing to stay, but one with which she was content.
I have served her a long time and know what she will believe.”
“So she would welcome you if you went to Boulogne?”
Now Barbara followed the direction of her father’s thoughts.
“I am not certain,” she admitted. “I have heard that she has been growing more
and more bitter. If she feels I am more loyal to you than to her, she might
refuse to take me back into her household.”
“But you have no reason to believe she would reject you
without at least one meeting?”
“I am sure Queen Eleanor would receive me,” Barbara agreed.
“Taking me as a lady again might be…doubtful.”
“If she does not, you could lodge with Hugh,” Joanna said.
Barbara looked anxiously at her father, but he nodded to
that abruptly and dismissively, and said, “I cannot say to Simon that I want
you to go to France. He must think of that for himself.”
Joanna bit her lip and Norfolk stared at her sightlessly,
thinking about the problem. After a little while, Barbara giggled suddenly and
said, “I think I can manage that. I will tell Guy’s mother of the grip I have
on her son—”
Norfolk choked. Leicester’s wife was King Henry’s own sister
and far prouder than her husband. Leicester might actually welcome Barbara as a
wife for his third son, but his wife would never agree and, fortunately,
Leicester loved her deeply and would never force her to accept Barbara as a
daughter-by-marriage.
“Clever chick,” Norfolk said, grinning. “You had better come
with me to London and flaunt your conquest of Guy in his mother’s face before I
speak to Leicester. I agree. If you do that, you will be on the next ship out
of England.
Chapter Three
Alphonse d’Aix cursed under his breath and leaned closer to
the window of the bedchamber of his lodging in Paris, hoping the slight
increase in light would help him decipher his brother’s scrawl. He knew the
trouble was not in the dull gray light of the rainy morning, however, nor was
it actually in Raymond’s writing, although Alphonse was convinced it had grown
worse over the years he had been receiving information and instructions from
his brother. As political affairs had grown more complex, Raymond’s letters had
grown more obscure. There was always the chance that King Louis would ask
Alphonse to show him a letter—the king was Raymond’s overlord and had a perfect
right to ask—and Raymond wished to be sure there was nothing that could make
trouble in what he wrote.
That left Alys’s letter. Alphonse had no complaint about the
clarity of either the handwriting or the news Raymond’s wife sent, but her
written French was barbarous. And this letter was worse than ever before. He
could barely make out every third word. Alys spoke perfectly clearly, Alphonse
thought, gritting his teeth and applying himself again to her letter. Why could
she not write in civilized French? And what she said was quite mad, that he was
to save her father? Alphonse was ready to do all he could for William of
Marlowe, of whom he was very fond, but William was in England and he was in
France.
Alphonse had heard of King Henry’s defeat and capture at the
battle of Lewes, but he had been indifferent, not believing the battle could
have any personal relevance. At the time the news had come, he had seen the
deep interest it aroused in King Louis only as an opportunity to free himself
gently from a mistress who had begun to talk of ridding herself of her husband.
He had never given a thought to Alys’s family in England. The conflict between
Henry III and his barons had been going on for many years. William of Marlowe
had been involved in it only as an aide to King Henry’s brother, Richard of
Cornwall, who had been trying to make peace between the parties. Why should
William need to be “saved”? And what kind of help could Alphonse give?
The answers to those questions could no doubt be given by
the man who had brought the letters and had been named by Alys as John of
Hurley, the younger son of Marlowe’s second wife. Alphonse gritted his teeth
again. John was waiting in the solar to speak to him, but in spite of the real
affection he felt for Alys and her father, Alphonse could not simply agree to
any request John made.
After making out most of Alys’s frantic plea, Alphonse
realized that Richard of Cornwall had somehow been forced to join the fighting
at Lewes. If so, of course Richard would have fought for his brother, King
Henry, and William would have supported Richard, which meant that Alys’s father
might be in serious trouble. But if Richard was no longer the chief negotiator
of peace, it was almost certain that both parties would turn to King Louis to
take up that burden.
In that case, Alphonse knew he would need to move carefully
if he wished to enlist King Louis’s influence on William of Marlowe’s behalf.
Louis would take his role as arbitrator of a settlement between the Earl of
Leicester and King Henry most seriously and would refuse to act in the interest
of any individual unless that action was presented to him as a part of a
larger, satisfactory solution to the problem as a whole. Alphonse feared that
John of Hurley might be nearly as hysterical as Alys’s letter. He might demand
instant action to free his father, and Alphonse was sure that would do more
harm than good.
Sir John of Hurley, once page and squire to Hugh Bigod and
now his sworn man as well as his friend, had followed Hugh to war and into
exile in France. As the minutes passed, John glanced uneasily around the richly
furnished chamber to which he had been led. The servant who had come to the
door and taken him up to the solar had politely gestured him toward a cushioned
chair flanking the raised and hooded hearth. But John, splashed to the thighs
with mud, had declined to take a, seat, knowing he would transfer the mud to
the beautifully embroidered cushion.
He wished now that he had found an inn and a bathhouse
before he came so he could have presented himself more decently to Alphonse
d’Aix. Clearly Alphonse was a more delicate and elegant gentleman than John had
expected. He had assumed Alphonse would be much like his brother, Raymond,
Comte d’Aix, who was, despite his high station, a man’s man who hardly noticed
such things as silken cushions or what he wore, except to be sure his armor was
sound.
When he decided to come to Alphonse as soon as he arrived in
Paris, John had not stopped to consider that Alphonse had spent nearly all his
life as a courtier. He felt that his message was of desperate urgency. Whether
Sieur Alphonse would feel the same, John was less and less certain as more
minutes passed and the gentleman did not come forth from his bedchamber to
greet him. John could not help wondering how convincing he could be to a
courtier in his present condition. He could not smell himself—his nose had
become accustomed to the stink of his own sweat and his horse’s—but he knew the
aroma with which he was filling the room was not delicate.
“I am very sorry to take so long, but I still have great
difficulty reading Alys’s letters.”
John turned from the fire into which he had been staring to
examine the man who had finally bestirred himself to come from his bedchamber.
Alphonse was as dark as Raymond. He looked darker because his eyes were black
rather than blue-gray, and his black hair surrounded his face more closely.
John was surprised by the features, which were larger and harsher than
Raymond’s. As if to compensate for that, Alphonse wore his hair longer, curling
over his forehead and ears almost to his shoulders in back.
The voice was deep and pleasant but rather languid, as if
the urgency and terror in Alys’s letter meant little to Alphonse, and his
expression was bland, totally unreadable. John did note that his speech carried
much less of the accent of the south than did Raymond’s, which made John wonder
whether Alphonse’s remark about his difficulty in reading Alys’s writing was
true.
“She was upset,” John said, making a strong effort to keep
his voice steady and not bellow with rage. “We do not know whether her father
and my brother are dead or alive. We do not know what will happen to my mother
and my sister-by-marriage, to our lands—”
Alphonse frowned, strode forward, and clasped John’s
forearm. “I was not making light of the matter. I really did have trouble
reading Alys’s part of the letter, and I felt I should because she often adds
important details to what Raymond says. Raymond can be vague so the letter can
be shown to anyone. No one ever asks to see what my sister-by-marriage wrote.
Please sit down, Sir John. You must be very tired.”
“I am in no condition to sit down without befouling
everything I touch. If you will tell me whether you will try to obtain a
meeting with King Louis for me, I will find a lodging and make myself decent.”
“Lodging? Why seek a lodging?” Alphonse was truly startled.
He had not been at all put off by John’s stink or appearance and was shocked
that Alys’s brother-by-law would doubt his welcome. “Surely you will stay here
with me,” he went on. “Alys will kill me if I let you wander loose around
Paris. And as to the meeting, I have already sent my servant with a request for
an interview with my aunt, Queen Marguerite, and with the king.”
Alphonse smiled when John laughed shakily. He had told John
the literal truth, but his note to Queen Marguerite had been sent in the hope
and conviction that the court was no longer in Paris. And his servant, Chacier,
had been gone long enough now that he was nearly sure the hope was well
founded. Alphonse liked John’s open, expressive face, but he was very glad he
would not need to present it to King Louis, haggard and filled with fear as it
was even when John laughed. He needed time to convince John that a raw,
emotional appeal would not work with King Louis as it would with King Henry.
Not that Louis was hard-hearted. On the contrary, he was easily moved, however,
experience had shown him how often strong feeling led to error, and he had
become suspicious of his own sympathy to any cause other than God’s.
Responding to the warmth of Alphonse’s smile, John realized
he had been a fool. Alphonse’s comical expression of dismay when he mentioned
Alys was also irresistible. John knew just how he felt. “Forgive me,” he said.
“I am so tired and distraught myself that I am like the man who planned to borrow
an ax. You remember, he struck down him from whom he wished to obtain it
without even making the request because of a slight he himself imagined while
planning how to ask for the tool.”
Alphonse knew the story, only in the version he had heard it
was a knife the borrower wanted. He nodded. “I understand your impatience,” he
said, “but we can do nothing right now, not even stand with those who have
petitions and wait King Louis’s notice. I must discover where the king and
queen are.”
“You mean King Louis and Queen Marguerite are not in Paris?”
John exclaimed.
“I do not know,” Alphonse admitted. “When I heard about the
battle at Lewes, I realized that King Louis would be fully occupied with the
problems of the English for some little while and I thought it would be a good
time for me to go home, so I asked for leave. I had an…ah…personal matter to
attend to before I left for Aix, however, and it took me out of the city for
more than a week. Yesterday and today I was packing and putting my affairs in
order—”
“Good God! What am I to do?”
“Take heart.” Alphonse put his hand on John’s shoulder and
shook it gently. “Surely if the court has gone out of Paris they have moved
north to be in easier reach of news from England. I will come with you instead
of going home. You will lose no time. You would have had to cover the ground
anyway. And one piece of good luck brings another. We can follow the court as
soon as you are rested. You are fortunate to catch me here at all. I am all
packed and ready to leave. I would have been on the road for Aix by dawn
tomorrow.”
“No wonder you were not overjoyed to see me.” John sighed.
“I am sorry to have spoiled your leave. Perhaps it would be sufficient for you
to give me a letter—”
“Even if it were, I would not think of it,” Alphonse said.
“I must go with you. Quite aside from the fact that I am very fond of William
and Aubery myself and most anxious to hear what has befallen them, do you think
I would dare show my face in Aix without news of them? Alys would tear me in
shreds and Ray would stamp on the remains.” He shook John’s shoulder again as
John put a hand up to his head. “Come into my bedchamber with me and take off
your mail. You will have to change into more suitable clothing if the court is
still here, and you must eat and sleep before you go farther if it is not.”
He drew John after him toward the back of the house where a
partition had been raised to provide a chamber for private business. Because it
was smaller than the main room, it was also warmer and Alphonse had his bed
there and his clothing. Leaving John near the hearth where a small fire had
burned down to coals, Alphonse threw open a chest and pulled out a set of
clothes, which he tossed onto the bed. He felt considerable relief when John
took off his sword belt and untied the hood of his mail, which he seemed to
have forgotten to do when he came in. Apparently, Alphonse thought, John could
still think rationally and had accepted his reasoning. Nonetheless, he was glad
when he heard the door in the outer chamber open and close, indicating that his
servant had returned. He called out to the man to come in.
“Queen Marguerite and the king are gone to Boulogne,”
Chacier said. “I caught the Lord Steward just as he was sending off a packet
and he put your request for an audience into it gladly, so the queen will know
you are coming.”
“Excellent,” Alphonse said heartily. “The messenger will
take three days to Boulogne, unless the news is very urgent—”
He paused and looked at Chacier, who shook his head. “I
doubt it, sieur. From the look of the Lord Steward and the way he was placing
scrolls in the pouch, I would say it was ordinary court business.”
“Very well, then we can start tomorrow morning and arrive in
Boulogne only a few hours after the messenger, our horses being the better.”
“Not mine,” John said, passing his hand down his face. “I
fear I have ridden the poor beast close to death.”
“That is no problem,” Alphonse assured him, smiling. “I can
provide you with a mount.”
He was delighted that John had not demanded they leave at
once and outride the messenger. At the moment he could not decide whether
John’s reasonableness was owing to common sense or to the sudden reluctance
that comes when one approaches a long-sought goal and realizes it may not be
what one desired after all. But later, when they were talking while having an
evening meal together after John had slept a few hours, Alphonse learned that
John was accustomed to the working of a court. He really knew quite well that
it was impossible to thrust oneself into a royal presence without warning and
with a private problem.
Thus it was not at all difficult, as they rode north the
next day, for Alphonse to make clear to John the problem with King Louis’s
character. Both the discussions of the best way to approach King Louis and the
fact that they were riding, doing something, soothed John. He did not beg to
travel through the dark each night, recognizing that Queen Marguerite would
need time to arrange an audience for them with her husband so that it would do
no good to arrive before Alphonse’s letter. By the time the walls of Boulogne
were in sight, John had lost the frantic, desperate look that had so disturbed
Alphonse and had begun to speak of more practical subjects, like the fact that
Boulogne was packed like herrings in a barrel.