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“Not of my own will, certainly, Lady Alice,” Barbara
replied. “However, I must reserve the right to obey my father if he objects to
a large celebration. He may be more pressed for money than I realize—”

“And he will get no aide for a bastard daughter,” Eleanor de
Bohun said.

“He will need none,” Alice de Montfort retorted sharply.
“The king’s guests must eat anyway. It will be less costly for Norfolk to add
some delicacies to the feast than to pay for a whole wedding, including feeding
and lodging the guests at his keep.”

Barbara felt almost dizzied by the many implications in
Alice de Montfort’s remark. She had never thought for a moment of the exchequer
bearing the cost of her wedding. For a single instant she had been ready to
rise and cheer. Then doubts damped the pleasure she had felt when she first
thought her father would be relieved of the expense. Why should Peter de
Montfort overlook the opportunity to have her father pay the cost of supporting
the court for one day? To flatter the French emissaries? No, that was
ridiculous. How could Claremont and Peter the Chamberlain know who had paid for
the feast? And why should they care? The purpose must be to
prevent
her
father from holding a feast on his own lands to celebrate her marriage.

Barbara was about to lodge a protest against Peter de
Montfort taking over the plans for her wedding, but Margaret Basset reached out
and pinched her hard. Margaret’s hand was innocently behind her by the time
Alice de Montfort stood and looked down.

“You were about to say?” she asked Barbara.

“Only not to set the wedding mass too early, please.”
Barbara smiled. “I have been so rushed from here to there and back again that
my dress is not completely finished.”

“Well, do not run back to your lodging to work on it until I
give you leave,” Alice said. “You may be needed to support this decision or
give your agreement to it.”

“If I ask for leave, Lady Alice, I will ask it of my
father,” Barbara retorted. “There is none other here who has any right over me,
except my betrothed—and he has already given me leave to come and go as I
please while he is prevented by business from attending me.”

“Oh, for the holy saints’ sake, Alice,” Margaret exclaimed
when Alice drew an indignant breath. “Do you not yet know it is fatal to give
Barby an order? I promise you she will not go if you will hold your tongue
until you need it to speak to your husband and Norfolk.”

“Well!” Eleanor de Bohun got to her feet. “I had no idea
that a hasty little betrothal between two bastards was going to turn into a
state wedding. I’m sure you should reconsider, Alice. I doubt my husband will
approve of a grand celebration.”

“Do not be such a goose, Eleanor,” Alice snapped. “Humphrey
will be delighted. Why do you not come along with me now and ask him?”

As the two women started off, a soft, almost tremulous voice
asked, “What will your gown be like?”

The fairer of the two Ferrars sisters had spoken, and she
shrank back a trifle when Barbara turned to her rather abruptly. Barbara
smiled. “Not very grand. Not grand enough, I am afraid, but I never expected my
marriage to become a state affair. The tunic is a darkish cream color, almost
the shade of undyed wool, but with a gloss because it is silk—a gift from Queen
Eleanor. The overgown will be blue. It has a wide, low neck and very deep
armholes. Actually, it is the embroidery of the armholes that is not finished.”

“We are very good at embroidery,” the darker sister said
eagerly. “Do send for the work. We would gladly help with it. Oh, I am Agnes
and my sister is Isabel.”

Barbara at once exclaimed gratefully. A servant was sent to
the lodging with instructions for Clotilde to bring the dress, and the
half-hour until the maid arrived was filled with idle chatter. Barbara
disappointed the ladies a little. They did not know she had been confined at
Dover and thought she would have more gossip about the French court to impart.
Still, she was a prized audience because she was ignorant of the gossip in
England of the past two months. She listened gladly, although she soon realized
that Aliva was strangely silent, except when Margaret prodded her.

When Clotilde came, Margaret rose, shook her head, and said
she would go since embroidery was not the greatest of her pleasures. She would
see Barby later, she remarked, with a meaningful glance. To Barbara’s
amazement, Aliva blushed.

Soon Agnes and Isabel were talking enthusiastically to Alyce
about what they would wear themselves while they worked away at Barbara’s
wedding gown. Barbara and Aliva sat apart from the others, quiet until Barbara
was sure the younger women were deeply absorbed in their own subject.

“What has happened, Aliva?” Barbara asked. “I can see
something is very wrong. Oh, I am so sorry I will not be able to offer you a
refuge with my father anymore.”

“I could not come, even if you were still living at home and
not being married,” Aliva said. “The trouble is that Roger—”

“
Papa?
” Barbara gasped.

As far as Barbara knew, since her mother’s death her father
had confined his need for women to whores, maidservants, and a girl in a field
now and again. Even though Aliva was spectacularly beautiful, just like the descriptions
in the romances—blonde, with strawberry lips, milk-skin, but brown rather than
blue eyes—Barbara could not believe her father would have made a dishonorable
proposal to her friend. In the next moment Norfolk was redeemed.

“No. Oh no.” Aliva gave a watery smile. “Your father pats me
kindly on the head, just as he does you—when he notices me at all.”

“My cousin?” Barbara was almost as horrified to think that
young Roger Bigod would offer dishonor to a decent woman.

Eleven years earlier she would not have felt that way. She
would have been glad to hear any evil of young Roger Bigod. At that time
Barbara had hated Hugh Bigod’s eldest son, who was her father’s namesake and
heir. Young Roger had come to live with her father from the time he was eight years
of age, serving first as page and then as squire to the earl. In 1253, a child
herself, Barbara had felt he had replaced her in her father’s affections. Roger
had come and she had been cast out, exiled to France. By the time Barbara
returned to England in 1257 she had come to understand that her sojourn in
France had nothing whatever to do with young Roger and that what her father
felt for her was hers and no one could ever take it from her. Then, having come
to know her cousin well, Barbara had grown fond of Roger, who was very like
both her father and her uncle.

“Roger was trying to help me,” Aliva said faintly. “Simon
was forever pawing me and trying to catch me alone. He cannot believe that I
would never cuckold my husband, no matter how little I love him. Roger does
understand and he knows that Hugh will make no effort to protect me, partly
because he trusts me and partly,” she laughed bitterly, “because he does not
care. Hugh would be as glad to declare me a whore and put me aside.”

Barbara took Aliva’s hand but did not say anything. Hugh le
Despenser was not an evil man, but to him a woman, no matter how beautiful or
clever, was less than a horse—even less than a good dog. One could always get a
new woman, and property or goods would come with her, whereas one had to pay
for a horse or a dog.

After a little silence, Aliva went on. “Please do not be
angry at Roger. I think he simply felt he should continue the good work he had
started before you left for France, when you engaged him to keep Guy and Simon
away from us. Anyway, Roger took to escorting me about. While he was with me,
Simon could only hint, not touch me and try to drag me into dark corners.
Only…only…we began to enjoy being together. We laugh at the same things…”

Her voice trembled into silence and all Barbara could say
was “Oh, how dreadful.”

Aliva looked up, shocked, and then burst out laughing.
Barbara could not help but join her. The remark seemed singularly
inappropriate, but it was all too true. Had Roger merely been smitten by Aliva’s
beauty, the attraction could easily have been a passing fancy. But if they
laughed at the same things, just as she and Alphonse did, their desire for each
other went deeper than the flesh. If so, Roger might refuse to marry, as she
herself had refused, and that
was
dreadful for he was heir to her
father’s estates and must have heirs of his own.

Alyce turned to the laughter and asked about the jest.
Barbara said desperately that she had just admitted that her mare had made her
marriage and described Frivole’s behavior in the stableyard at Boulogne. The
girls laughed heartily, and Aliva pressed her arm. The conversation then became
general, and despite her worries about Aliva and her father, Barbara had to
concentrate on the light talk in order to avoid making her young companions
suspicious. She was relieved when a page came to summon them to dinner.

As soon as Barbara entered the castle, she saw Alphonse at
the other end of the great hall, but before she could excuse herself to her
companions and make her way to him, a Montfort page plucked him by the sleeve
and Alphonse followed the boy to the stairs. Barbara tried to hold back from
choosing a seat, expecting every minute that Henry de Montfort and Alphonse
would come down and she could join her betrothed, however, Margaret Basset drew
her away, refused to listen to her reason for wanting to speak to Alphonse,
saying sharply that she could sit beside the man for the rest of her life if
she wished and right now to plan the wedding was more important, and led her to
a seat beside Alice de Montfort.

Alice told her she had received her husband’s approval and
Barbara’s father’s agreement to arrange all matters concerning the wedding.
From that moment until the end of the meal, Barbara was deeply involved in a discussion
of the details of her marriage and wedding feast. She could not be indifferent
or ungrateful about the trouble Alice was taking, nor could she forget for a
moment that taking that trouble meant a lack of trust in her father.

Deep in her conversation, Barbara did not notice her father
rise from his seat among the other great men at the high table. His bellow made
her jump as well as serving its purpose of silencing the hall. The announcement
that followed, inviting all present to the wedding, nearly took all power of
further movement from her. She finished her meal and rose from the table
without really noting what she was doing or where she was. Still bemused by the
fact that the entire court, rather than a select group, had been invited to her
wedding, she allowed herself to be carried off by Margaret to the garden where
Clotilde and the Ferrars sisters were already working on her wedding gown.

About an hour before vespers, when her dress was finished,
Barbara sent Clotilde to find Bevis and Lewin, one of whom could fetch her mare
and the other walk back to the lodging with the maid. She was idling near the
door to the bailey, when a hand clutched at her shoulder and Alphonse’s voice
breathed in her ear, “Barbe! Thank Mary and all the saints. I have no time, but
I must speak to you.”

He looked around, then led her toward the back door, saying
they would find a quiet place in the garden. Barbara seized his arm and hauled
him back, explaining that she had left a whole tribe of chattering women there.
Finally she drew him along the hall, sticking her head into one antechamber
after another until she found a wall chamber where her father’s shield was
propped against a bench.

Alphonse promptly kissed her—too briefly for her instant
reaction to communicate itself to him—and called her a well of wisdom, which
alarmed her so much that the warmth he had generated disappeared. However, it
appeared that Alphonse was more afraid of interruption than that his news was
so dangerous absolute privacy was necessary. Having explained the outcome of
his morning’s visits to Henry de Montfort and Prince Edward, he shook his head.

“I went back to Edward after dinner to get his agreement to
my terms of service. The only thing he did not like was that I refused any
official appointment, but he laughed and admitted he did not think I would let
Henry de Montfort fall into the trap of appointing a foreign friend to office
when the king is forbidden to do so. He almost kissed me when I told him his
reward for agreeing to ratify the peace agreement would be freedom from the
guards inside his chamber. That seemed natural enough, but I was not equally
happy when he did not even blink over my promise in exchange not to speak
myself or allow him to speak of escape. I tell you, Barbe, I know the prince.
He is planning something and I am caught between.”

“No,” Barbara said at once. “With you alone, he may weep or
rage without shame or fear of exposure. He may be only a man overburdened by
trouble, not a prince with pride and dignity. That was why he took such joy in
being freed from those who watched him. He may indeed intend to escape his
ratification of the terms, but he will not permit you to be blamed. The prince
is not above clever trickery, but I will say in Edward’s honor that he carries
his own load. He will not drop that burden on you.”

“You are right, my love.” But Alphonse’s sigh was no token
of relief. “I have been so harried from field to bank to hedge that I was
beginning to see hunters where none were hiding. Thank you. Edward will save my
honor, but I am concerned for Henry too. He is too honest and straightforward,
and something is going on inside the prince’s head. I have this fear that
Edward will spring his surprise at our wedding—for the ‘thanks’ Henry offered
Edward for his compliance was permission to attend. The prince will be guarded,
but not shackled or held as a prisoner, and all he was asked for was a firm
promise to return to his prison as soon as Henry asked him to do so.”