ASilverMirror (32 page)

Barbara could have bitten her tongue. It was the green-eyed
devil in her that had spoken—and her lust. She had no reason for her “no”, only
a strong reluctance to let her husband out of her sight.

She could not admit that, however, nor could she even look
at Alphonse, so she said to Sir John, “I am not so vain that I believe every man
desires me, but Simon has paid me particular attention.” She smiled. “I think
his attentions were intended mainly to make my friend Aliva le Despenser
jealous. Nonetheless, if he should forget Alphonse is my husband and touch his
pride with some silly remark, it is not impossible that Alphonse would forget
himself and teach Simon a lesson. Whether or not Simon deserved it, Leicester
would be angry. Thus, I think the less time Alphonse spends with Simon the
better.”

Nothing at all showed in Alphonse’s face. No man could
object to what Barbe had said. She had given him no cause to be jealous of
Simon, nor had she implied that her husband was foolish or too hasty. There
were remarks made casually or in jest for which a husband in honor must demand
a retraction. But unless Simon was a monster or an idiot, a retraction—and an
apology too—would be provided in such a case. Barbe did not want him to go to
Kenilworth. Why?

He became certain he would not get a frank answer from her
as he listened to her smooth and logical reasons for him to reject altogether,
or delay responding to, Simon’s invitation. Sir John pursed his lips and nodded
more than once, but not one of Barbe’s reasons woke a flicker in her eyes or a
note of sincerity in her voice. Was it possible that she simply wanted to keep
him with her for pleasure? Certainly he gave her pleasure; but then why had she
never—no, not once in the months they had been married—come of her own will
into his arms. Why each time did he have to woo her anew?

“I cannot refuse altogether,” Alphonse said quickly,
argument being better than chewing that dry old bone.

“Why not?” Barbe challenged. “You can say you must stay in
Warwick because you have a young and foolish wife who—”

She broke off as Alphonse’s brows rose and his lips curled
tightly in a cynical grimace. “Ah yes, my love, Simon knows you well, does he
not? And would he not invite my wife to come with me, that is, if he had not
burst with laughing when I said you were fearful of being left alone in
Warwick.” He turned back to Sir John, who was pursing his lips and then pulling
them tight uneasily. “But if you are also uneasy, Sir John, why do I not say
that I feel it uncourteous to leave you so soon when Gloucester sent me to
Warwick and that I will come on the third day?”

Chapter Eighteen

Simon de Montfort looked down from a window of the solar
above the hall his father had built in Kenilworth Keep. Alphonse d’Aix was
dismounting from his magnificent destrier. Simon was surprised by the unease
that gripped him when he thought of the deception he intended to practice on
the man he was watching. Although many years had passed since his older brother
Henry had taken him to a joust not far from Paris, he now recognized Sieur
Alphonse by his lithe movement, his easy grace under the weight of his armor.
The admiration he had felt then for Alphonse’s style and courage returned, and
he also remembered that Alphonse d’Aix was Henry’s friend.

Well, what of it? Simon asked himself, watching the stallion
paw the ground and shake its head when a groom approached. Sieur Alphonse waved
the groom back, pulled his mount around, and seemed to be talking to it. Then
the servant who had ridden in with the knight came and took the rein, and Sieur
Alphonse turned toward the door of the hall. Simon moved away from the window
to go down the stair and greet his guest, but he was filled with doubts about
what Guy had asked him to do.

Still, the bones had already rolled, he could not change the
symbols on them now. Simon had thought it very funny when Guy first wrote how
Lady Barbara had gotten around her vow not to bear a child out of wedlock and
had readily agreed to detain her husband when he came to visit the prisoner,
Sir William of Marlowe. He had still been amused when he wrote to Guy that Alphonse
had arrived at Warwick, that he had sent Sir William away for a while, and that
his brother should seek out the lady and enjoy her with all dispatch.

Having recognized Alphonse, Simon was no longer amused, but
there was no way to back out of the arrangement with Guy. For all he knew, Guy
was already in the lady’s arms and it would be far worse to release the husband
and have his brother caught committing adultery. No, his father must not hear
of Guy’s lechery. Worse, if Alphonse caught Guy with his wife, he might even
kill him. Simon thought of his father’s grief if either disaster took place and
set his jaw. He wished he had remembered who Lady Barbara’s husband was before
agreeing to Guy’s scheme, but it did not matter now. Montforts supported each
other, right or wrong.

Then, as he came into the hall and walked across the dais,
calling “Sieur Alphonse?” Simon thought that if Lady Barbara was set on playing
with Guy, in a way he was protecting her husband. As it was, the man would come
to no harm. This way, he would never know that he had been cuckolded, and maybe
that fool of a woman would get Guy out of her mind.

“Yes, I am Alphonse. Are you Sir Simon?”

“Yes, Henry’s younger brother. I am very pleased to meet
you. I saw you joust in company with Henry and…” Simon hesitated and then went
on in a harder voice, “and Prince Edward.”

“They are both fine fighters,” Alphonse said smoothly,
showing no sign that he had noticed Simon’s hesitation.

“But not as good as you,” Simon said. “You took the prize.”

Alphonse smiled lazily, his dark eyes sleepy under their
half-lowered lids. The look was not all pretense. Barbara had given him a
parting gift that had kept both of them awake half the night.

“Ah, but they tourney for pleasure,” he said easily. “I
fight for need. It is the way I make my
pourboire.
”

Simon looked shocked. He could not imagine his father and
mother allowing one of their sons to pick up scraps at tourneys for a living.
Somehow lands would be found to support each of them and to dower their sisters.
Then he smiled uncertainly, his eyes on Alphonse’s surcoat, a rich gold velvet
sewn over with stripes of red, and from left shoulder to right hip the bend
that marked the bastardy of his house. The wide black band was embroidered with
a tilting lance that glittered even in the dim light of the hall. Simon knew
the device was done in real gold. His eyes flicked over the rest of Alphonse’s
accoutrements and his smile widened. Whatever Alphonse said, he was not poor.
He felt a trifle contemptuous of a man who would pretend poverty, and that
feeling eased his conscience.

“Does that mean you do not wish to show me your skills?”
Simon asked, unable to hide a faint note of condescension.

“I hoped I would have no reason or time to do so,” Alphonse
replied without the smallest sign that he had noticed the contempt. “I expected
to see Sir William and then return to Warwick.”

“Oh, no, you cannot expect me to allow you to escape without
once crossing lances with me,” Simon cried.

There was enough sincerity in that cry to make Alphonse
laugh. “Not before I see Sir William,” he said, and blandly revenged himself by
adding, “if I should happen to overset you, I would not wish to be thrust out
of the keep without accomplishing my purpose.”

“I would not do that,” Simon protested, smiling, and then
began to apologize for not earlier having him shown to the upper chamber so he
could remove his armor.

“But I will need my armor if you wish to try a passage at
arms after I have spoken to Sir William,” Alphonse insisted gently.

“Forgive me,” Simon exclaimed. “I am so pleased to meet you
that I feel you are my invited guest. I keep forgetting you have a private
reason for being here. I am sorry. Sir William has not yet returned from
Cornwall’s holdings. He was to go to several different estates, you see. I sent
my messenger to the place I thought him most likely to be, but I seem to have
misjudged. That would mean the man must try again to find him. Still, it cannot
be much longer—a day or two. Surely you can stay that long?”

“Yes, of course,” Alphonse answered smoothly.

He felt the trap close, but because he was relatively sure
that no bad news about the peace negotiations had come, he could see no reason
why Simon would want to detain him. Moreover, the young man seemed relatively
transparent. Alphonse had been able to read his surprise and disdain for a man
who would speak of poverty with ease, so perhaps everything Simon said was
true. Perhaps he really was thrilled to have a well-known tourney fighter as a
guest, and perhaps the messenger had not yet found and recalled Sir William.

In any case, Alphonse thought, his best defense was to seem
unaware, so he smiled and said he would be glad to change out of his armor but
that he had not brought any clothing because he did not expect to be allowed to
stay. “I thought perhaps, despite your kind invitation, that the shorter the
visit made by the prince’s friend the better.”

Simon laughed heartily. “Since Edward has been here many
times himself, there is nothing you could learn about Kenilworth that he does
not already know. Please believe my invitation was most sincere. You are
welcome here for as long as you like. There are guesting clothes in plenty.
Come now to my chamber and choose what you like to wear.”

Alphonse agreed easily, only asking that a servant be sent
to tell Chacier to take the horses to the stable and where to come to take
charge of his armor. Simon did so and then accompanied Alphonse to his own
chamber and opened his clothes chests. Not unwilling to be thought a man who
was interested only in surface matters, of fighting and hunting and clothing,
and because he did like fine garments, Alphonse spent some time choosing what
to wear. By then Chacier had arrived.

While Chacier helped Alphonse out of his armor, Simon, as if
drawn irresistibly to the subject, began to talk about tourneys again and
lightly mentioned the riots that had followed several meetings in England.
Alphonse was rather surprised, considering the principles the father espoused,
to learn that Simon had been more amused than distressed by the destruction of
property and injury done the common folk involved. But he wanted to seem
stupid, so he did not try to point out to the young idiot that if tourneys got
a bad reputation with the burghers, they would soon be banned by all towns. All
he said was that he did not like riots because he liked to tourney in a
familiar place where he knew the inns and the people and where comfortable
lodgings were held for him year after year.

Simon then had the grace to look somewhat abashed and turned
the talk to hunting, which Alphonse encouraged. Seizing this opening, Simon
promptly offered to arrange a hunt if Alphonse would stay a few days. Without
actually agreeing, Alphonse managed to give the impression he would be delighted,
and they went down the hall again discussing the types of game each preferred.
Eventually Simon invited Alphonse to examine the hunting dogs, and when
Alphonse had given well-deserved praise to the kennels and the animals, they
moved on to the stables.

The afternoon passed most pleasantly. Alphonse began to
wonder whether Barbe’s reluctance to let him stay in Kenilworth had poisoned
his mind. Simon did not seem at all dangerous. Alphonse was more and more
inclined to agree with Sir John that he was young for his age, spoiled and
thoughtless but not ill-natured, and hardly an evil plotter. Moreover, Simon
had left him alone several times during the afternoon to speak to a servant or
attend to a minor estate matter, and Alphonse could not detect a single sign of
being watched. The only oddity that struck him was that Simon asked him, after
the evening meal, whether he would like a bed partner and offered to collect
all the more palatable women in the keep so he could choose among them.

Alphonse refused with warm thanks but considerable firmness.
He did not want Simon to think he was merely being polite and find a girl
between his sheets. To make clear that he meant what he said, he stated frankly
that his wife satisfied him completely and he would have to be separated from
her much longer before he sought the kind of relief one got from a common slut.

At the time Simon made the offer, Alphonse was too horrified
by the notion that, the two keeps being so close, Barbe might hear that he
taken a woman the first night they had not shared a bed to think beyond how to
refuse. Later it occurred to him that such an offer was not common custom. A
host, seeing his guest look with longing on a maid, might bid her quietly go
serve the guest or might wink and nod in such a way that the guest knew he
could take what he wanted with no offense. But to suggest displaying all
suitable women, that was going too far. And had not Simon looked dismayed by
his refusal?

The next day provided enough ordinary reasons for Simon to
be eager for his company that Alphonse almost dismissed his doubts. After
mass—to miss a day was a grave sin in Leicester’s keep and one that was
reported to its master even when the sinner was a son—and breaking their fast,
Simon begged Alphonse to break a few lances. Alphonse laughed and agreed at
once, and when they were armed and mounted they rode to the outer bailey where
there was room enough for the destriers to find their stride. Both enjoyed
themselves.

Simon recognized that Alphonse’s ability was based on skill,
not on an exaggerated reputation, because he was not able even once to make his
lance catch on Alphonse’s shield. His best efforts were slatted off like those
of a novice. Simultaneously he swelled with pride because he was not overset
even once. Alphonse was particularly pleased with the delicacy of touch he was
able to manage, which never allowed Simon to land a telling blow on him and
concealed the fact that he was holding back much of his own power. Thus he
salved the young man’s pride while saving him from overconfidence.

From the thanks he received and the eager way Simon
discussed each blow after they removed their armor and while waiting for
dinner, Alphonse was certain that Simon sincerely loved martial exercise. It
was equally clear that Simon preferred drinking and talking of fighting and
hunting with a guest to other duties—not that Alphonse could detect that he had
many. Once before and once after dinner a clerk approached Simon with a
question and was waved away. Neither time did the clerk seem surprised nor
dismayed. Alphonse assumed either that the matter was truly minor or that
Simon’s behavior was not out of the ordinary, and the clerk was accustomed to
dealing with problems himself. The third time the clerk came was late in the afternoon
when Alphonse’s fount of small talk was running dry. He thanked God silently
when the clerk insisted Simon accompany him and after a petulant protest Simon
did so.

Alphonse thought nothing of it. He was too glad to be rid of
his young host for a while. Alone, he continued to stroll about in the
well-kept garden, thinking idly how strange it was that he should be so soon
bored by conversation with a man, many of whose interests he shared, while he
had never been bored by Barbe in all the weeks they had done nothing much in
Tonbridge. That led him to wonder how soon he could ask Simon again when Sir
William would come back…or perhaps he should just say he wanted to go back to
Warwick and wait there. But since he could not admit that Barbe was there, what
excuse could he give for wanting to sleep at Warwick? He chuckled. Simon would
scarcely believe he wanted to go to bed with Sir John.

Simon returned before he had thought of any reason and after
that Alphonse had enough to do to hide his boredom and irritation as young
Montfort went over the same subjects. Still, as he lay on his cot that night
wondering how long he would have to endure, he realized he might have been
hearing false notes. That aimless and repetitive conversation might indicate a
wandering mind rather than silly vanity. Alphonse began to suspect that Simon
was worried about something—and not anything directly to do with him—although
he might be affected indirectly. Had news arrived of the failure of the final
effort to negotiate peace?

If so, he might need to escape from Kenilworth. Alphonse
sighed softly. That would not be easy. The walls of both inner and outer bailey
were high and well guarded. There could be no question of climbing them, in
armor or out of it. In any case he had no intention of leaving his fine armor
or Dadais behind. That eliminated stealth. But force was equally useless. The
keep was well manned, and for two men to fight their way out was impossible.
Worse yet, Kenilworth was virtually an island, the outer walls were surrounded
by water on three sides. The gatehouse closed one exit, and the other was over
a long causeway. A shout at one end would close the other.