ASilverMirror (27 page)

“I thank you again,” Leicester said. “That was very
generous.” Now he looked sad and much older than when he smiled, deep lines
graven between his brows and down his cheeks. “Unfortunately, Sieur Alphonse,
few have so much generosity in them, and most wish to believe everyone as avaricious
as they are themselves. There is talk already—I have heard complaints—and so I
must ask you to end your service to the prince.”

Alphonse was not surprised. He had expected to be dismissed
as soon as the page announced that Leicester wished to see him. In the days
that he had served Edward, however, Alphonse had come closer to Henry de
Montfort’s viewpoint. Not all the way. Alphonse was sure the prince could never
be brought to accept the principle that Leicester or even a group of barons
could interfere with the royal right to rule. On the other hand, he had seen in
the prince the beginning of a less passionate rejection of all that Leicester
upheld. When Edward’s pride and temper were not flayed, he could see the good
in a clear statement of the rights and duties of the king and the barons so
that fair judgment could be given on the basis of solid law.

Now, although the prospect of freedom from his often
depressing service brought Alphonse a wave of relief like a splash of water
from a forded brook during a hot ride, he also felt a sharp concern. “My lord,”
he said, “I hope I have done nothing to cause you to mistrust me. If I have, I
hope you will correct me and let me remain as Prince Edward’s companion until
he leaves Canterbury. I fear—”

“No, no, you have done nothing,” Leicester interrupted
uneasily. “Nonetheless—”

“Forgive me for speaking so plainly,” Alphonse broke in in
turn, “but I feel I must remind you, my lord, that Prince Edward does not have
a temper than can benefit from being handed a comfit and then having it
snatched away. I am sure the court cannot remain in Canterbury much longer, and
the prince understands that I wish to take my new wife home to Aix as soon as
he is moved. Would it not be best that I continue as the prince’s companion for
the little time you are to remain here?”

Leicester looked even more uneasy, but he shook his head.
“My son was mistaken in urging you to serve the prince. Henry is too much moved
by his friend’s suffering. I do not desire that Edward suffer either—I hope you
will believe that—but neither can I permit the appearance of favoring foreign
friends.”

Alphonse bowed his head, as much to hide his mingled
gladness and sadness as to express acceptance of the Earl of Leicester’s
statement. “Very well, my lord. I have said what I felt must be said, but I am
not altogether sorry to be freed of my promise. I would be very glad if you
would provide me and my wife, Lady Barbe, letters of passage to permit us to
take ship from Dover—” He hesitated, suddenly remembering his promise to try to
see William of Marlowe, who was still, with Cornwall, a prisoner.

“I will not refuse you letters of passage if you insist on
them, of course,” Leicester said, “but I hope you do not intend to leave
immediately. Will you not stay until the emissaries return to France?”

Irritation struggled with relief in Alphonse. On the one
hand, Leicester’s polite “hope” that he would stay saved him from needing to
take back his request to leave so he could keep his promise to his brother and
sister-by-marriage. On the other hand, it was actually only a pretty covering
for Leicester’s denial of his request to go home. Oh, Leicester would not
“refuse” to provide letters of passage—only there would be so many demands on
the earl’s time that somehow the letters would not get written until Leicester
was good and ready to be rid of him.

The earl’s reason for separating him from Edward and yet
keeping him in England was plain to Alphonse too. Leicester had been misled by
his son into believing he could be used to tempt Edward to further compliance.
The assumption was wrong, Alphonse was sure. No doubt Edward enjoyed his
company and found some relief in it, but Alphonse knew his service was not even
a small factor in the prince’s decision on what he would do.

Still, the request that he stay fit in very well with his
promise to see William of Marlowe, and Alphonse was just enough annoyed with
Leicester’s high-handedness to be amused by the earl’s misjudgment. He smiled
his very best courtier’s smile and said, “Just as you like, my lord. To go with
King Louis’s envoys will save me the cost of passage. But if I am to remain in
this country, perhaps—”

The earl held up his hand, and Alphonse paused. “I am not
all powerful and cannot do as I please,” Leicester said. “I owe you something
and will not forget it, but I have pressing business just now.”

Alphonse rose at once and bowed. His face showed nothing,
but he was thoroughly angry—though not at what the earl would have believed
angered him. Leicester’s too obvious intention of preventing him from asking a
favor troubled Alphonse very little. He was a courtier with long experience. He
was well accustomed to the way those in high places tried to avoid being
trapped into making promises to petitioners. Although Alphonse felt Leicester
could take lessons in tact from even so plainspoken and direct a monarch as
King Louis, he also understood that if every request every courtier made was
granted all rulers would soon be in a worse state than King Henry.

What enraged Alphonse, and continued to gnaw at him as he
made his way into the great hall, was that Leicester had impugned his honor by
doubting the promise of strict neutrality he had made to Henry de Montfort and
had had the arrogance to imagine him a fool too. So the earl owed him
“something”, did he? A careful word, “something”. Unlike “favor”, the word
“something” held no implication of good or ill, leaving Leicester free to
bestow a favor or wreak vengeance without betraying his word.

Alphonse’s temper was so short when he returned to the great
hall that he cursed himself for not realizing he might meet someone he knew
when he felt a hand on his arm. Nonetheless, he stopped, started to smile a
greeting, then let the smile die in his relief.

“Good God, what has happened?” Barbara asked. She wore a
half-smile, totally at odds with the tension in her voice, which was so low
that no one a foot away could hear.

Alphonse lifted her hand from his arm and bowed over it. “I
am free today,” he said, smiling as falsely as she. “Can you spare me an hour
to walk in the garden?”

“Of course,” she said. “I only came to pass some idle time
with Aliva, and she will grant you prior right.” She laid her hand on
Alphonse’s wrist and walked out of the hall with him.

At the bottom of the steps, she glanced around, and seeing
no one near, asked whether hewould not prefer to ride out, as the
garden might also be full of people. He agreed, maintaining the same shallow
smile while they got their horses and sent Barbe’s men back to the lodging.
They went out the closest gate to Winchepe Street, but did not ride far along
it, turning right into a tiny lane that, as Barbara guessed, led them to the
bank of the Stour, which they followed until they found a quiet grassy spot.

There they dismounted, and Alphonse tied the horses to a
tree at the edge of the small meadow. By then he had relieved Barbara’s worst
anxiety, that some personal blow had befallen them. Afterward, she had listened
very calmly while he described his interview with Leicester, until he told her
with cold distaste how the earl had doubted his word and taken him for a fool.

“No,” Barbara said, now angrier than he. “Leicester did not
take you for a fool. He was threatening you.”

“Threaten—” Alphonse choked over the rest of the word. Then
hot rage welled up in him again. His dark skin flushed and his eyes showed red
glints in their depths.

Barbara was terrified by what she had done. Alphonse had had
his temper well under control and she had allowed her own anger to reignite his
rage. Could Alphonse be crazy enough to challenge Leicester?

She put her hand over his and said, “I did not mean to make
you angrier. I wanted to explain that what Leicester said was no planned insult
to you. He has been so often betrayed from trusting too much in other men’s
honor that he has turned right around and now trusts too little in it. And
worst of all, you hit him in a very sore spot, his belief in his eldest son.”

“You cannot think that Leicester fears Henry will betray
him!”

“No, not that,” Barbara said, relieved to see that
Alphonse’s anger was already diminishing as he grappled with a new aspect of
what had happened. “It is the same problem again,” she continued. “Leicester
knows that Henry, the soul of honor himself, expects others also to keep their
word in letter and in spirit. Remember you yourself were much troubled by his
innocence in dealing with Edward. I think Leicester cannot bring himself to
scold Henry for this fault because it is really a virtue, but he cannot trust
his son’s judgment either. So, since Henry assured him you were to be trusted
and no doubt told him that you had warned him of dangers he had himself
overlooked, all the more does Leicester fear you have been using his son for
some purpose of your own—or, worse, of Edward’s.”

Alphonse stared at Barbara for a little while, then took her
hand and kissed it. “You are a wonder to me, my love. I do not think that any
other woman of my acquaintance could see so clearly into Leicester’s or any
other man’s reasons. Some would have listened in silence, others would have
cried out in fear or sympathy. I do not know another who could have helped me
understand.”

“I have had my own reasons to consider Leicester’s nature,”
she said lightly. And then much more seriously, “Possibly no other woman had
the cause I have to desire to help you.”

“You love me!” he exclaimed, lifting her hand to his lips
again.

Barbara swallowed, then laughed. “Love you or hate you, my
fate is bound to yours. You may be sure that I will always do everything in my
power to forward your well-being and well-doing.”

“Do you hate me then?” Alphonse looked down at the hand she
had left resting confidingly in his.

“Do not be so silly.” Barbara leaned forward and kissed his
cheek. “I would not have married you if I
hated
you. I like you very
well. I always have. If you want more than that from me, you must win it.”

He caught her in his arms, loosened her wimple with a
practiced tug, and began to kiss her throat, murmuring, “How? Thus? And thus?”

Chapter Fifteen

Passion spent, Alphonse pulled down his own surcoat to hide
his nakedness and laid Barbe’s over her. She sighed contentedly, eyes still
closed, and he lay back and looked at the sky. He must be happy; Barbe was
everything any man could want in a wife. She was clever, she desired the same
kind of life he did, she was wanton abed—he sighed gently, still aware of the
tremor in the muscles of his belly and thighs, for she had drained him until
his giving was as much pain as pleasure—but modest in her behavior.

There his mind stuck. Barbe was more than modest, she was
distant, quiet, and passive, almost as if she was unwilling. Even this last
coupling he had misunderstood her. She had not meant what she said as an
invitation to make love and had come near to fighting him off until he stirred
her body enough, whereupon she burst into so hot a flame that she burned away
all sense, all care and caution in him.

Still, she was willing in the end. He
must
be
happy…but if he was, why was he so uneasy? Why did he feel—not that Barbe did
not love him, he could hope to teach her that—that she was hiding something
from him, something so important that he could never truly know her and have
her until he uncovered the secret.

Without thinking what he was doing, Alphonse lifted himself
on one elbow and stared down at his wife. Slowly her eyes opened and she
smiled. He was wrong, he thought, there was nothing hidden behind her eyes now.
They were bright under their heavy bars of brow, and her strange beautiful
mouth was somehow smiling at him, although the lips were not curved at all. She
sat up, too, and leaned against him, both now watching the flow of the river
until a boat passed, coming out of Canterbury. As it went by, Barbara exclaimed
in horror, wondering whether they had provided entertainment for passing
sailors. Alphonse laughed and assured her they had not and explained, when she
accused him of making light of her embarrassment, that even absorbed as they
had both been they would have heard the cheering and jeering had they been
seen.

Once her first shock passed, Barbara found her forgetfulness
of time and place quite amusing—until she saw the thoughtful expression on
Alphonse’s face. Then in her desire to divert him from thinking how easily he
could make her forget everything with a few caresses, she said, “If you really
wish to leave England—”

“No, I do not, at least not immediately,” he replied, and
reminded her that he had promised to visit or at least write to Marlowe, his
brother’s father-by-marriage, who was in prison with Richard of Cornwall,

“I had forgotten,” Barbara said. “I am sorry.”

“No reason for you to think about him,” Alphonse replied
easily. “I have not given him much thought myself. Henry de Montfort said he
was still with Richard, so I do not think he is in any distress.” He smiled at
her. “Should you not dress now, love, while there is no boat on the river?”

She snatched up her clothes and hurried away toward the
horses so she could dress in the partial cover of the thin woods. In a more
leisurely manner Alphonse drew on his chausses, tied his cross garters, and
finally put on his boots. He knew Barbe’s hurried retreat was natural, no
decent woman would want to dress in the open. Nonetheless, even that natural
retreat troubled him, and to occupy his mind he fixed it on William of Marlowe.

“I have bethought me,” he said, as he reached Barbara,
nodding to her request that he tie her laces, “that what might be of far more
benefit to William than an offer to pay a ransom he does not want paid, is for
me to go to see his wife and family. Then if I get permission to visit William,
I will have news to lighten his heart—I hope—and news to bring back to his wife
and to John. I wonder if we could get leave to visit William’s keep—”

“Let me ask,” Barbara said. “Let me take with me the letter you
got from King Louis about Sir William.” She smiled a tight, flat smile that
made her mouth look hard. “Leicester thinks he did me a hurt by depriving me of
his precious son, so he will wish to make amends. Moreover, if he does not ask
how I came to have King Louis’s letter—it might have been obtained by either
queen at your brother’s request and have been given to me—Leicester might not
associate it with you.”

She was still angry because Leicester had insulted him,
Alphonse thought, pleasantly surprised. “A very good idea,” he said, preparing
to lift her into her saddle, and suddenly realized that he was still angry
himself.

The heat had gone out of his anger, though. What was left
was a kind of dislike for the holier-than-thou attitude of the Earl of Leicester
and pleasure that Leicester might be diddled into granting him a favor. It was
not fair, Alphonse knew. Leicester was a good man, a far better one than he
was. He should not permit the earl’s manner to obscure that. Nonetheless, he
felt a definite satisfaction because his principles inclined him to the party
opposed to the earl.

“Should we go back to town now so I can get the letter and
apply for audience with Leicester?” Barbe asked as he mounted.

“Not this morning,” he said. “Let the affairs of the day
push me out of the earl’s mind. Also,” he smiled at her, “I would like to spend
a few hours without thinking of any affairs save our own.”

They found the road again and, in a village, an alehouse
that had a table in a garden and a chicken roasting for the master’s dinner,
which he was glad to exchange for a silver penny. His wife added a new baked
loaf, a jack of foaming ale, some cooked greens and pottage intended for
supper, and a half-dozen near-ripe apples. Barbara and Alphonse sat down on
rough stools to enjoy their simple meal, and neither was at all disappointed to
see clouds begin to pile up in the sky not long after sext. Rain would be a
good excuse to delay their return to trouble.

Thus, when the rain did begin just about the time they
finished eating, they cheerfully moved their horses to the shed and themselves
to the common room, where they found not only shelter but a battered
fox-and-geese board. Half the pieces were missing, but the fox was there and
Barbara laughingly accepted thirteen hazelnuts in place of the geese. A second
jack of ale and several hard-fought games kept them well occupied during the
first heavy downpour and the period of light rain that followed, so that it was
past nones and the sun was out again before they left. Alphonse bestowed a
second silver penny on the alewife and her husband for their hospitality, and
she and Alphonse rode off with good feeling all around.

The light mood lasted until they came to the gates of
Canterbury where guards still questioned all who entered about their business
in the town. Although Alphonse and Barbara were passed without delay, both
suddenly felt impatient with the suspicion and restrictions, and when Barbara
again suggested that she get Louis’s letter and ask to speak to Leicester, Alphonse
agreed. He would have preferred to leave England altogether, but to get out of
Canterbury and do what he could for William of Marlowe seemed a good
substitute.

Nothing ever was as simple as one hoped, Alphonse thought,
when Chacier greeted him at the door of their lodgings with a letter from Henry
de Montfort and a verbal message begging Alphonse to meet him at the White
Friars monastery at vespers.

“I can set Henry’s mind at rest,” he said to Barbara,
“because of what you told me about his father. Poor Henry, he certainly does
not deserve to feel he has done me harm or that I feel bitter toward him. Shall
I escort you to the castle? The White Friars is just past it—”

“No,” Barbara said. “Just for this afternoon, it will be
better if we are not together. And I think I will go to the castle at once.
Whenever Leicester has a free moment, I wish to be ready. The sooner I see him
the sooner, God willing, you and I can leave this place. Bevis and Lewin can
come with me and escort me home too. Then you also will be free to come and go
as best suits your need.”

At the castle Barbara found a page in Leicester’s colors and
told him she would like a few words with the earl, if that was possible. The
boy ran off and soon returned, begging her to follow him to the earl’s
apartment. So quick a response, Barbara thought, implied that Leicester’s
conscience was still tender in regard to her and boded well for a favorable
response to her plea. She was pleased as she followed the boy up to the second
floor of the keep and threaded her way past groups of talking people toward the
far end of the large chamber where Leicester stood with another man on a dais.
Barbara was concentrating on how to present her request to Leicester and not at
all prepared to be seized and drawn into a window recess before she was halfway
down the room.

“So here you are, back in England again,” Guy de Montfort
said. “And toothsome as ever.”

Barbara was certain that he thought he was speaking in a
sensuous purr, but her first impulse was to box his ears and her second was to
tell him to spit if he had to. She repressed both urges and also the
exasperated sigh that nearly slipped out. Guy was by no means his father’s
favorite, but Leicester was fond of all his children and offending Guy would
not be diplomatic.

“Marriage agrees with me,” she said. “You had heard I was
married to Sieur Alphonse, the brother of the Comte d’Aix, had you not?”

“Quick work.” He nodded with a self-satisfied smile. “I
wondered how you would get around the excuse that, with your mother’s life as a
lesson, you would never take a lover and chance bearing a bastard.”

Barbara looked at him with blank incomprehension. “Whatever
can you mean?” she asked. “That was no excuse for anything. It was the plain
truth.”

His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “I have no time for
your pretenses. I know and you know you want me. That has not changed, even if
you took another man in spite after my father sent you away.”

This time her astonishment was so great it made Barbara
mute, and she merely gaped.

“But you were stupid to ask to see my father,” he went on.
“He will not have forgotten that you cast out lures for me and will send you
away again.”

“That is just what I desire,” Barbara got out, “and just
what I have come to ask of him, that he give me leave to go away.”

Too amused by the conceit of the little toad to be angry,
she laughed aloud. That was a mistake. Guy did not like laughter directed at
him, even as a protective pretense. Any woman he addressed should plead for his
favors or for consideration so that her reputation not be ruined. Before
Barbara suspected what he would do, Guy had seized her elbow, pulled her toward
him, and then released her arm. The sudden tug unbalanced her. She gave a low
cry, and her hands went up in an instinctive move against falling.

If a revulsion against touching Guy as strong as her fear of
falling had not made Barbara twist away, she would have looked as if she had
tried to fling herself into his arms. Instead, her right hand struck his
shoulder, propelling him a step backward, deeper into the window embrasure,
while her forward movement was checked. She nearly whirled around to slap his
face, but became aware of the shocked stare of a young man standing a few yards
away. Distressed as she was, he was striking enough to catch Barbara’s
attention, with an unruly thatch of flaming red hair and a face almost equally
red from exposure to sun and wind. The face was vaguely familiar and the dress
very rich, so Barbara dropped a half-curtsy as she hurried past him toward the
center of the chamber where any further tricks by Guy would be impossible.

She heard the redhead call out to Guy, who snarled a reply,
but the brief delay saved her from another immediate confrontation because she
found the page. The boy looked startled when he saw her and asked, “To where
did you disappear? I have been looking for you.”

“Someone stopped me for a word,” Barbara said, relieved when
her voice did not come out as a croak or a squeak. “I am sorry. I did not know
you intended to take me right to Leicester.”

“Well, he was with someone, but said you should wait and he
would—” The boy stopped, sighed with relief when he saw Leicester still talking
to a short man in clerical garb, and whispered, “Stand here, Lady Barbara. The
earl will gesture to you when he is ready.”

Barbara nodded to the page and smiled pleasantly in
Leicester’s direction. He looked bored to death, she thought, which surely
meant the cleric was making some political or financial plea rather than
talking about a matter of faith. Leicester adored theology and knew more about
it than any except the greatest religious scholars, like Grosseteste. However,
a cleric making a political plea probably meant she should not need to wait
long, and indeed, before a quarter of an hour had passed, the earl had pointed
her out to his companion, clearly excusing himself.

The priest retired with a bow, and Leicester gestured to
Barbara, who came forward and dropped a brief curtsy. He looked at her severely
as he said, “You are quickly returned from France, Lady Barbara, and without
permission.”

Barbara’s eyes opened wide, and then she almost laughed. Her
marriage was a matter of the greatest moment to her, but because it had not the
smallest significance in the present crisis in England, probably no one had
bothered even to mention it to the earl.

“I came to obtain my father’s approval of the husband King
Louis chose for me,” Barbara said. “My father has been too good to me to let me
send such news in a letter and disregard his will, even on the order of a
king.”

“Husband—” Leicester repeated.

He stared at her but clearly without seeing her, and Barbara
realized that failure to mention her wedding was impossible. Henry de Montfort
might have forgotten to do so even when he talked about Alphonse, because he
was concentrating on Alphonse’s effect on Edward, but Peter de Montfort would
not have dared to neglect mention of her father’s arrival and departure or to
explain why Norfolk had come to Canterbury. Then as if he had suddenly
remembered why she had been sent to France, Leicester looked troubled and
patted her on the shoulder.