The Lords of Arden (14 page)

 Warwick supped quietly with Katherine and
sped away to inspect his defences and, where necessary, to chide his garrison. It
was good to stand upon the walls in the blanket of dark, looking out above the
creaming foam of the river where it fell over the weir, and across the ragged
tops of the Arden woodland and to smell the greenness of sap and resin, blossom
and earth mould. Then, he turned his back on the darkness, to see the glimmer
of candle and cresset wavering behind tower windows, smoking beneath the arch
of the gatehouse, streaming from the hand of a hurrying page.

 ‘You are welcome home, My Lord,’ said
Nicholas Durvassal, attending his master upon his night-time ramblings. ‘The
old castle seems to sleep easier when you are in residence.’

 ‘Indeed, Nicholas, is that so? And you,
do you rest easier for my presence?’

 ‘Should I not, My Lord?’ Durvassal stood
in the breeze from the river, his hair blowing white about his narrow face, the
starlight limning his cheek bones.

 ‘That depends upon the plots and ploys
encompassed in my absence.’

 ‘My lord, your thoughts are unworthy. I
hold to my loyalties.’

 ‘I don't question your loyalty to me; it
goes hand in hand with that most important loyalty of all - self-interest. But
when the Cat is away up to London to look at a Queen, what does King Rat?’ Warwick put out a hand and tapped at his squire's cheek. ‘Have you a confession to make to
me? Did my admirable Sir John decide belatedly that his son needed a touch of
discipline? No? Then perhaps a brawl with a drover? No, hardly. You don't
acknowledge the existence of a species below esquire, do you, Nicholas?’

 ‘You mock me, My Lord!’

 ‘I deduce a woman in the case, frail,
beautiful and naturally wildly in love with that angel's face.’

 ‘A mere dalliance, sir.’

 Warwick had him by the shoulders back
hard against the merlons of the cat-walk, the dark face, at that moment
uncannily like Black Guy in one of his famed rages, was thrust close to
Durvassal's own but the young man had learnt long ago not to flinch away from
his master's anger, it was a private test of his endurance.

 ‘I hope you lie, Durvassal. To take
another man's wife is a game of chance to be played for love or for money but
for no baser reason. And do you think I do not have my informants at Lapworth? You
are unusually naive. My body squires, like Caesar's wife, should be above
suspicion. If you must have affairs I do not want to know about them. Even
Katherine seems to be privy to the scandal.’

 Durvassal said, ‘The Countess's spies are
all but equal to your own, My Lord. I should look to it.’

 Warwick glanced at him thoughtfully. ‘Naturally,
Katherine is a Mortimer, I would expect that. I do not expect that you should
imply criticism of the Countess, to tattle of a wife's doings to her husband. You
talk like a piqued girl, Nicky but in word or deed you will never best Lady
Kate and her Amazons. She is the White Wolf's daughter; she will go her way as
I am pleased to go mine. Have you any more tales to tell?’

 ‘It seems I waste my breath!’

 ‘Don't sulk, boy. Lead me to my chamber. I
wish for the tawny bed gown with the libbard trim and I will not need you to
sleep across the door. You may relinquish your privilege for tonight and Nicholas,
you should learn greater control over that angel's face. I detect something
approaching a smirk. Do you want the other side of your face slashed to match?’

 ‘No, My Lord. I am sorry, My Lord and I
am glad you're home. It is dull when you're away - mostly,’ he added
ingenuously, thinking of Christine. He pushed open the door to the Earl's bed
chamber where a low fire glowed even on such a fine summer evening and the
shadows danced about them. Durvassal went to the long chest beneath the window
and took out the tawny robe edged with libbard, shaking out the folds and
placing it across the bed in readiness before turning to help Beauchamp to
disrobe. When the hard, muscled body was completely naked, bronze in the
firelight, the earl snapped his fingers for his robe and slipped his arms
through the hanging fur-edged sleeves. Katherine swept in from the adjoining
tower in a white linen smock, fine and clinging, her thick chestnut hair
falling down over her shoulders onto her full breasts. Durvassal conceded that
it could be no chore for the earl to father his children upon her with
regularity. Katherine, to whom Nicholas was as much a part of the bedroom scene
as the furniture, waved a hand in his direction.

 ‘You have finished with Durvassal,
haven't you, Thomas?’

 ‘Yes, you may leave us, Nicholas.’

 Durvassal bowed, almost low enough to be
servile and said, ‘Would it be in order to wish you a restful night, My Lord,
My Lady?’ He let his green eyes flicker from one to the other and beat a hasty
retreat.

Peter de Montfort, lightly cloaked, was
lingering in the black pit which was the stairwell of the Mellent Tower. He heard the ring of the postern and the scraping of the timber baulk driving home
across it. He moved out onto the flags of the middle ward. One of his own
squires slipped past him, wraith-like, unrecognisable in the dark shelter of
the wall.

 Peter called out, ‘John, stop skulking in
the shadows like a moulting fox!’ A light footfall brought his son to his side.

 ‘I never skulk; I have nothing to hide. What's
the trouble, sir?’

 ‘Did you leave the sally-port open?’
asked his father sharply.

 ‘You know I did not. You must almost have
tripped over the lad who opened up for me.’

 ‘That,’ said Peter, ‘is what I find so
annoying. You keep my squires up all the hours God sends, dancing attendance,
and I find them surly in the mornings, too tired to keep upright in the saddle.
It's high time I found you a wife and cut down on these nocturnal wanderings.’
He led the way into the tower, climbing the stairs by touch and accustomed
usage, without the aid of a torch. John followed obediently. ‘You could then,’
puffed Peter, ‘take your pleasures in your own bed and stop disrupting my
household.’ They had reached the top of the stairs and Peter's chamber.

 ‘Am I to come in for a lecture or shall I
say goodnight?’ enquired John equably. Peter was lighting the cressets with a
brand from the low fire. It was clammy indoors in spite of an afternoon's
sunshine. The chamber walls were painted grass green and sprinkled with gold
stars. John shuddered at his father's taste in decor.

 Peter caught his expression. ‘What was it
tonight, drinking or whoring or both? I like to take a fatherly interest.’

 John de Montfort had drunk more than was
outwardly obvious. He shut the door behind him and leant back against it. Beside
his father's bulk he cut a tall, slender figure, auburn hair tousled by the
night breeze, violet eyes unfocused. His surcote of ruby velvet over a
rose-coloured jupon was exquisite but he wore it with a careless elegance and
his linen shirt was unlaced at the neck revealing the light golden skin of his
throat beneath; the enamelled belt, slung low about his hips, must have cost
someone a king's ransom.

 ‘She was here again,’ said Peter, ‘this
afternoon.’

 John said nothing, his face a mask of
filial politeness.

 ‘That girl, the one who is dunning me for
support of your by-blows!’

 ‘Have a heart,’ said John, ‘only one. Incidentally,
it isn’t mine.’

 ‘Ha!’ barked Peter, ‘haven’t got it in you,
I suppose.’ He raked his son’s slender length from top to toe with what could
only be called a leer. The boy’s face coloured up beneath the persistent
freckles. Peter was triumphant; it was hard to find this elder son of his out
of countenance.

 John said equably, ‘I always thought it
was necessary for the father to be there at conception. But then, my sex
education was limited.’

 ‘I don’t remember,’ said Peter lamely.

 ‘I do. You took me down to the Mews where
it was so dark I wouldn’t be able to see how embarrassed you were. You coughed
and muttered for a full half hour and that was it.’

 ‘This girl,’ said Peter.

 ‘Whom I have never spoken to before,
never seen before – let alone got a leg over – are we talking Immaculate
Conception? Honestly, sir, if you, out of charity, pay her off, you will have
every unmarried mother in the shire clamouring at your door. You could open a
crèche.’

 ‘You’re not lying to me, boy?’

 ‘Of course I’m not lying. Why would I?’

 Peter grunted. ‘I might believe you if
your morality was never suspect.’

 John was not a redhead with a temper, he
was too indolent, but he had drunk far too much. ‘Your reproachful tone isn’t
convincing, sir,’ his words were vaguely slurred, ‘considering that you got me
on a whore!’ He supposed he deserved the blow which knocked his head back
sharply against the unyielding oak behind him with an alarming crack and split
his lower lip.

 ‘Christ, boy,’ exploded Peter, menacing
in his own shadow, ‘you will withdraw those words!’

 John put up a hand to staunch the blood. ‘You
don’t talk about her, you won’t be drawn. I have no memories, only what is
mirrored in the smirking faces of old retainers and the indisputable fact that
she abandoned me at two years old. What I had of mothering came from the sharp
edge of Maud's tongue and the flat side of Aunt Bess's slipper - and from
Margaret.’

 Peter said, ‘Margaret was a pale
night-moth beside Lora's butterfly brightness.’

 ‘Margaret,’ retorted John, ‘was kind when
she had every cause in the world to resent me, as well you know! She served her
purpose and she died, poor girl. At least the women I take smile over their
nights with me. What did Margaret ride down from Hallamshire to find? A prosaic
mating with a man old enough to be her grandfather!’

 ‘Only just old enough,’ sighed Peter,
‘the young can be very cruel. Look at you!’ He took the trailing point of one
of John's sleeves, dagged at the edges and lined with white sarcenet, shuddered
at the extravagance and mopped at the rivulet of blood on his son's face. ‘And
there are circles under your eyes like benighted hollows. You’re a bloody
disgrace. Old enough to be Margaret's grandfather, eh? A paradox in that I've
the strength yet to trounce you, don't forget it, my lad!’

 ‘Ah, violence, the last refuge when
reason fails,’ grinned John. ‘Shall I summon Ralph Archer to attend you or
valet you myself?’

 ‘That would be a benevolent gesture towards
an old, tired man.’ Peter sat down on the green silk of his coverlet and thrust
out a foot so that John could pull off his boots. At John's age he had
peacocked it in soft velvets, these days he was happier in russets and homely
wool. He looked down at his kneeling firstborn. ‘I am serious about your
marriage; it may be just what you need.’

 ‘No, My Lord, I'll not have it. I’m
having a good time. I’m not ready for it.’

 Peter smiled. ‘I'm paying your debts. I’m
pacifying angry husbands and fathers and a constant stream of creditors. My
dear lad, you don't have a choice, do you?’

 ‘If I metamorphosed to a pillar of
sobriety, a chaste ascetic, you'd lose half your prestige. You adore having the
neighbours' sympathy, to hear them commiserate over the enfant terrible, the
black sheep. They've been taking bets for years as to how much you'll stomach
before you throw me out neck and crop.’

 ‘Why don't I?’ sighed Peter, wandering
about in his shirt, looking for a knife to pare his nails.

 ‘Because I make you laugh and Beaudesert
would be dull without me,’ yawned John. ‘Besides, the time isn't far off when
you're going to need me beside you.’ He lay back on Peter's great bed; the
hangings had been Maud's and were lavishly embroidered with the rampant lion,
the cognizance of the de la Warre's, her maiden arms. Peter had found his
knife; he sent it thudding into the top of a stool and with surprising strength
took John's right wrist in a punishing grip.

 ‘Oh, I'll need someone I can trust, I
grant it; a strong sword arm, not the languorous wrist of the gaming tables,
not the lily white hands of a philanderer palsied by the pox!’ he snapped.

 John twisted neatly from his grasp and
laughed up at him with blithe violet eyes.

 ‘Set down the wine and dice and perish
who thinks of tomorrow.

 - Here's death twitching my ear.

 ‘Live,’ says he, ‘for I'm coming’.’

 ‘You're disgustingly drunk,’ grumbled
Peter. ‘Get out and don't break your neck on the stairs; take a torch.’

 John, on his feet, bowed slowly, head
bent low, and slipped backwards through the doorway.

 ‘John de Clinton's daughter!’ thought
Peter. ‘I'll ride to Coleshill tomorrow. Between us we'll mesh that boy as fast
as a blow-fly in a cobweb.’ He chuckled to himself and fell fast asleep without
bothering to turn back the bed covers.

~o0o~

In the best tradition of the romaunts,
John de Clinton, Lord of the Manor of Coleshill in the middle shires, had an
only daughter, an unmarried daughter and a rich one at that. Unlike the
romaunts Johanna de Clinton was not a renowned and much sought after beauty
although it could not be said that she was ugly or ill-favoured or even
undeniably plain. She had preferred horses to men until well after her fifteenth
birthday. She still preferred gardening to tapestry work even at the approach
of her nineteenth name day. She wore her honey blonde hair in two thick braids
which swung before each cheek like fat bell ropes; a style which had been
completely out of fashion since the coming of Eleanor of Aquitaine nearly two
centuries before. Her unremarkable gowns, of sensible cloth like kersey or
fustian or honest russet, successfully masked both her figure's good and bad
points. Of course, she read a lot, curled up by the fire in the winter months,
ruining her complexion and encouraging chilblains, but she was perfectly
capable of running her father's household, one arm tied behind her back, and
doing it with a maximum of skill and thought. It was so regrettable that whenever
visiting nobility arrived, with eligible sons in tow, she was usually to be
found in the herb garden, the sleeves of her oldest gown unbuttoned and rolled
up, arms mud-covered to the elbows and a smut on her nose.

 Sir John was fond of his daughter and
flattered that she had no apparent desire to leave him for a home of her own,
but he had awoken to the fact that she was well past eighteen and should by
rights be both wife and mother. The evil day could not be postponed any longer;
a husband must be found for Johanna.

 Making a great pother about her birthday
in June, Sir John had announced that he was to hold a joust, no expense spared,
Johanna as Queen of Beauty, the cousins and hangers-on to challenge all comers.
The girl could then pick her husband from the lists; what could be more
romantic, more like the chansonettes?

 Sir John, pacing up and down the great
chamber above the hall, hands behind his back said, ‘We really do live in a
backwater, it's no wonder you can't find a husband to your liking. Who do we
ever see? I'd like to show the district what a treasure I possess; let the
midlands honour my Joan. We haven't had tourney or joust since before your
mother died. I'm sending heralds out well in advance; splashing out on
expensive prizes, side-shows, all manner of entertainments and you shall be the
centre-piece, the Queen of Beauty in her flower-decked tower. You shall have a
new gown cut on London lines. What do you think of all that, sweetheart?’

 Johanna put down her book. ‘It won't
alter my face, but Coleshill is a big enough inducement for the most ambitious
lordling. Dangle enough bait and the fish always rises.’

 Sir John looked a trifle hurt but
continued gamefully. ‘When I was in the Capital King Edward held a marvellous
tournament, all his own men decked as Saracens and leading the court ladies
captive in golden chains. The Challengers, of course, fought to free the ladies
of their choice from the infidel. Marvellous costumes, marvellous fun. I
thought we'd try something similar. We could round up the prettiest girls on
the manor; promise them a new kirtle…’

 Johanna said, ‘As long as you don't
envisage me in chains. Are you really set on this idea, father? Why not just
line up the prospective grooms and let me walk up and down examining their
teeth?’

 ‘Very well, I'll cancel it; I’ll recall
the heralds; I’ll write six names down and pick one out with a hairpin!’ said
her exasperated parent.

 ‘I'm sorry, father. It should be fun. Some
of the cousins haven't lifted a jousting spear for ten years; I hope you'll
have a priest and a surgeon standing by.’ She flicked a finger at her book. ‘Now,
in the romaunts, every tourney seems to produce an unknown knight or squire,
dressed cap a pie in black or scarlet or bright puce, that's the kind of
unlooked for, but hoped for, excitement real life never provides.’ She picked
up her volume and, finding her place, left Sir John to his plans.

~o0o~

A week later, the Lord of Coleshill
appeared at the imposing upper guard of Beaudesert with its twin towers and its
impressive breastworks and barbican. It was a stormy day and chilly for June
and the rain was running off the brim of his hat and making rivulets down the
frieze of his cloak. Peter de Montfort was away at Sudeley with his nephew,
Lord Butler. His Chaplain, Jack de Lobbenham, took the dripping Sir John into
the solar and ordered mulled wine and a light dinner; the offer was gratefully
accepted. The solar was elegant, pale blue walls powdered with silver roses,
tastefully done, the perfect foil for the great tapestry on the end wall; Salome
offering the Baptist's head on a king-sized salver. Sir John gazed down at his
own plate and the modest half-capon and looked away again.

 ‘Can I help?’ asked the priest. ‘Perhaps
the business is private? In that case it will have to be deferred until My Lord
returns in three days' time.’