ASilverMirror (15 page)

Other things struck Barbara as peculiar and made her
uncomfortable. The roads were unusually quiet. She would have expected the way
to be blocked more than once with supply wagons hauling salt fish and grain and
with herds of sheep and cattle and gaggles of geese being driven in to feed the
influx of people expected for a gathering of the court. Several times she began
to mention the matter to Alphonse, but changed the subject because of the close
attention their voices brought from the captain of the guard.

Nor was there any crush at the gate when they arrived in
Canterbury well before the time for dinner. Nonetheless, the guards at the gate
that fronted the Dover road were tensely alert, and Alphonse had to show them
Henry de Montfort’s seal before they were allowed to enter the town. The
anxiety implied an overcrowded situation of incipient violence, but Watling
Street, from which one could go left to the castle or right to the cathedral,
was all but deserted.

Barbara could not imagine what Alphonse was thinking. His
expression was bland and bored, his black eyes half lidded. However, he
signaled to Chacier, who promptly turned into the first crossroad, drawing the
packhorses in behind him. Before anyone could react, Alphonse pulled Dadais to
a stop across the entrance to the street, and said to Barbara, “Let us find a
place to eat, my lady.”

The remark caused an instant renewal of an argument that had
arisen several times before. The captain of the guard Grey had sent with them
wanted them to seek lodging in the castle, and he now assured them that a fine
dinner would be waiting for them in the keep. Apparently he had been told to
use any means but violence to get them there, however, in their case nothing
but physical force could have succeeded. Both Alphonse and Barbara suspected
that, once in, they might not so easily come out again. Neither had anything to
gain by obeying the order or to lose by disobeying it, so aside from a single
irritated glance, both ignored the captain and his suggestion.

Unfortunately, they were not agreed on anything else.
Alphonse wanted to find a private lodging or, failing that, an inn. Barbara,
knowing that an inn or private lodging would mean sharing a chamber, put
forward the idea that they ask the White Friars for places in their guest
house.

“And then after we are married where will we go?” Alphonse
asked. “By then the town will be fuller than a barrel of herrings.”

That was true. The captain again advanced the notion of
going to the castle, promising that a private chamber would be found for them.
Barbara sighed.

“No,” she said, “I have had enough of royal castles.” She
turned her mare’s head right, toward the crossroad, and smiled at Alphonse.
“Let us go to the inn at the end of the Mercery. We can have dinner there and
inquire about lodging.”

“You must come to the castle first,” the captain said.

In a single practiced movement, Alphonse drew his sword and
swung his shield from his shoulder to his arm. “My lady says she has had enough
of castles. Now, sir, you may fight me until you have killed or disabled me or
you may let me take my lady to the inn for dinner. If you wish to accompany us
to the inn, you may do so. If you wish to accompany us to our lodgings, you may
do that too, although I will not permit you to enter therein. I have nothing to
hide, no secrets to keep or to ferret out, no desire at all to leave Canterbury
before I can see my friend Henry de Montfort and marry my lady in her father’s
presence, but I will come and go at my own will, not at yours.”

There was a moment’s tense silence. A guardsman tried to
edge his horse between Frivole and Dadais, and Barbara tightened her rein and
kicked her mare, who promptly rose on her hind legs and flourished sharp
iron-shod hooves at the guardsman’s gelding, which backed away nervously. A
quick clatter of hooves behind them made Barbara glance over her shoulder, but
that was no threat. Chacier was coming back with his sword drawn. Farther back,
Clotilde, who had ridden pillion behind Alphonse’s servant, was standing in the
street, pressing one hand to her lips and holding the rein of the lead
packhorse with the other. Then Dadais screamed, lifting his black lips to show
long, yellow teeth.

Hurriedly, the captain backed his own horse north on Watling
Street, signaling his men to clear an area around the stallion, who seemed
about to charge.

“
Pas, pas
, Dadais,” Alphonse murmured soothingly,
pulling back on the reins, which were still caught in the tips of the fingers
of his left hand. “Barbe, go ahead,” he said, louder, but in a carefully calm,
quiet voice.

She cautiously edged Frivole around the stallion, whose
high-arched neck still betrayed tension, and stopped beside Clotilde, turning
in time to hear the captain shout the names of six men and order them to follow
Alphonse while he rode to the castle for assistance. Alphonse backed Dadais
into the side street watching until, with a curse, the captain rode away up Watling
Street. Then Alphonse sheathed his sword and slid his shield back on his
shoulder. His face was completely blank as, with eyes on the six men ordered to
follow them, he soothed Dadais into a more relaxed stand. Then he turned him
and passed Chacier, who moved aside and fell in behind. By the time he reached
Barbara, however, he was grinning broadly.

“That felt good,” he remarked, glancing over his shoulder to
make sure that the guardsmen were far enough behind not to overhear him. “I was
almost hoping that Dadais, who is not named ‘idiot’ for nothing, would get away
from me and charge. It would have been a real pleasure to drop that captain in
the mud.”

Barbara also looked back, assuring herself that Chacier had
pulled Clotilde safely onto the pillion saddle. The guardsmen were just behind
the packhorses. When she had touched Frivole with her heel and started forward,
she chuckled. “That captain has a great deal in common with Dadais, I must say,
but it was not his fault, after all. He must follow his orders, and if they are
impossible to fulfill, then he cannot help looking like an idiot.”

“You were not frightened, I hope.”

“Oh, no,” she assured him, laughing again. “If the captain
had been permitted to use force, Grey would never have allowed you to ride out
armed on your destrier.”

“You have a touching faith in me, my love, and I do not wish
to discourage it, but eleven to two are bad odds, even for me and Chacier, and
I am not sure Sir Richard de Grey is aware of my reputation.”

“Do not be so silly. Grey could not afford to put even a
bruise on you after Henry de Montfort invited you to Canterbury. And Henry must
have written separately to him because he did not ask to see your letter.”

“So you guessed that. I thought so too.”

Barbara nodded but did not reply. She had to give her full
attention to her mare, who was less skittish than she had been when they
started, but still had enough energy to take exception to a child running in
the street and to the slamming of a door. In places the street narrowed too
much for Alphonse and Barbara to ride abreast, and he took the destrier
forward. Barbara had to hold Frivole well back. The mare did not like to follow
and tried to nip Dadais, which would have been a disaster because the war-horse
was still shaking his head and snorting, barely under control.

The nameless lane they had been following curved north after
a while and ran into the Mercery, but before they came to the end of the
quieter street, they could hear the noise of the market. Alphonse muttered a
curse. “I will never be able to ride Dadais through there without killing
someone,” he told Barbara. “Either I must go around if you know a way or I must
lead him.”

Even as he spoke, Barbara was sliding from her saddle. “We
must sacrifice our dignity,” she agreed, taking Frivole’s reins in a firm grip
just under the mare’s jaw with her right hand and lifting her voluminous skirt
to midcalf with her left. “There is no way that will not take us through one
market or another. I do not think Frivole will kill anyone if I ride her, but
she will kick over half the stalls just for fun.”

The precautions were wise. Even with them, several disasters
were narrowly averted and it was a relief to arrive at the inn that faced the
cathedral on the southwest corner of the Mercery. Barbara was so annoyed with
Frivole, who had jerked her arm half out of its socket and made her drop her
skirt so that one edge was soaked in a gutter running with filth that she
relinquished her without a word of precaution to the hostler who ran out.
Alphonse did not need to say anything because Chacier had already thrust his
own gelding’s reins and those of the first packhorse into another hostler’s
hand so he could run to Dadais’s head.

“That horse worries me,” Alphonse said mildly to Barbara,
after watching Chacier lead the beast away and then glancing at the men-at-arms
who had followed them into the inn yard.

Barbara had just told Clotilde to arrange for dinner and for
the innkeeper to set up a private table for her and Alphonse. Her mind was mostly
on food, and she waved the maid on her errand before she looked up at Alphonse
in considerable surprise. “Is he so intractable that you fear him?” she asked
in a carefully neutral voice.

“Of course not,” Alphonse replied, his eyes opening and his
brows rising with astonishment at the notion of his fearing any horse. “He is
not vicious at all. On the contrary, I believe he loves me and Chacier too with
the idiot devotion of a dog. It is likely he thought he was protecting me back
on Watling Street.” Alphonse sighed. “He is the strongest and bravest destrier
I have ever ridden—and the
stupidest
too. What worries me is whether the
three things always go together.”

“Strong, brave, and stupid—like you?” Barbara laughed
although she was annoyed with herself for not seeing the point, since she knew
the horse’s name and Alphonse had already commented on his destrier’s
stupidity.

Alphonse put an arm around her waist and led her into the
passage to the door of the inn. “Yes, like me,” he said softly. “Perhaps it was
not so clever of me to refuse to go to the castle. Henry would have given us
our freedom when he arrived anyhow. Now he is going to hear a strange tale
about us before we can explain.”

“Oh, no,” Barbara replied, equally softly, turning and
lifting her head so she could speak near his ear.

Her nose almost brushed the line of his jaw, and Alphonse’s
sharp male smell of sweat, horse, and the oil and metal of armor—a smell that
was subtly different from her father’s—sent a wave of arousal through her. For
a moment she could not speak at all, and the hand she had laid over his at her
waist tightened.

In the next moment footsteps echoed under the overhanging
second story of two sides of the inn as two of the men-at-arms hurried after
them. Barbara could feel Alphonse’s hand stiffen under hers, and she let a
small sigh of relief spill out. She had escaped betraying her desire for him
again by the barest accident. He had taken her silence and the sudden pressure
of her hand together with the sound of the men’s footsteps as a warning of the
way sound carried in the passage.

At the door the innkeeper was waiting, bowing low at the
sight of Alphonse’s mail and Barbara’s rich silk riding dress. He backed into
the low-ceilinged, dark room, which smelled of ale and roasting meat and many
people. But the place was almost silent, the subdued voices of the few shadowy
customers scattered around the heavy tables hardly a murmur, nothing like the
raucous noise of a full room.

Nonetheless, the innkeeper did not gesture them toward an
empty table. He preceded them to a side door that opened into another small
courtyard, walled off from the stableyard. The center of the area was grassed,
and beds of flowers brightened the edges around all the walls. Servants were
there already, setting up a table and placing two benches. Barbara smiled.
Clotilde could always be relied upon to get the best. Sitting in this little
garden would be much more pleasant than sitting in the dark inn.

Meanwhile Alphonse had glanced around approvingly, noting that
there was no gate in the wall—a reasonable precaution if the innkeeper did not
want his guests to disappear without paying. He released Barbara and turned to
face the two men-at-arms, who were just about to enter the garden.

“You may come in and look about,” he said. “Make sure there
is no one waiting to meet us. Check that there is no way out save through the
door we entered. Then go. I will give you my word to go out only by the front
door, but I would advise you to divide and let two men watch our horses and
another two see that we do not climb the wall.”

The men retreated hastily into the inn, not being made of
the same stuff as the captain, and Alphonse seated himself on the bench
opposite Barbara, lifting the tails of his mail so he would not be sitting on
the metal rings. She giggled faintly, not loud enough to be heard inside the
inn.

“Climb the wall, indeed! I would like to see you do it in
full armor, not to mention me in my best silks.”

Alphonse shrugged. “I do not like to make people hate me.
The men will be in trouble enough with their captain for not having forced
themselves into our presence, even though the captain knows quite well they
were powerless to do it. However, if they set a guard on the door, on our
horses, and on the wall, no one can punish them for a real oversight. So if
their captain’s bad temper results in their being lash-bitten, they will be
angry with him, not with me who gave them good advice.”

Barbara nodded. “Very clever. And if they escape punishment,
those men will certainly be willing to talk to you or perhaps even do you a
small favor.” She smiled. “I do not think you need worry about too close a
resemblance to Dadais,” she said, then nodded again. “And I do not think you
need worry that Henry de Montfort will think your behavior suspicious. He will
understand how you felt about being penned up like an animal. Remember, his
brother Simon was taken prisoner at Northampton, and perhaps kept more straitly
than we. Simon was only released two months ago. Henry will not have forgotten
Simon’s fury.”