The Lords of Arden (19 page)

 Ralph Dawn, tankard in hand, pulled up a
stool and sat down with Latimer and Witchevet. ‘Well, Richard, Wednesday's a
half-holiday, how will you spend the afternoon? Beyond these imprisoning walls,
no doubt?’

 ‘Oh, yes, sir. I mean to hire a nag and
see the shire. Ned has offered to show me the sights.’

 ‘The sights, Master Latimer?’ Warwick's Constable was standing above them. ‘And what might those be?’

 Richard laughed. ‘Why, the ale houses, of
course. I want to try my wings.’

 ‘That's natural. You'll get used to being
cooped up here, but the bird must return to the gilded cage, no taking off on
some flight of fancy. The Earl, you will find, has a long creance.’

 ‘He always talks in riddles,’ grumbled
Ralph Dawn, ‘just ignore his ramblings. Make the most of the holiday, I'll work
you hard enough in the next few weeks; there’s a consignment of arrows wanted
for the March. Shortage of labour or lack of waking hours doesn’t feature in My
Lord's book, you'll find. It'll be shoulder to the wheel from now on!’

~o0o~

 ‘Beaudesert! Now, my friend, are you
content?’ Ned Witchevet clapped a hand upon Latimer's shoulder and Richard
followed his gaze. Across short, cropped turf starred with summer daisies, over
the furze-dotted common lands, rusty with spires of sorrel, misty blue with
drifts of harebells, rearing the twin heads of its lofty gatehouse, almost
raking the low fleece of the clouds, stood Peter de Montfort's fortress: castellated,
crenellated, with moat and ditch, causeway, drawbridge and barbican. Richard
drew rein and leant across the neck of his hack, suddenly awestruck. The sun
slid through the white, billowing cloud bank, the honey-coloured stone
battlements of curtain and gatehouse warmed into gold and threw back a pearl of
haze so that the towers seemed to float in suspension above the green hill.

 ‘So must Joyous Garde have looked!’
breathed Richard. ‘Can we get any nearer?’

 ‘As near as you like,’ grinned his
companion. ‘We'll ride to the lower guard. Isn't she formidable?’

 ‘Warwick is a sleeping giant beside such
a perched eagle,’ mused Richard, shaking his head.

 ‘And you still think that your kin came
from hereabouts?’ They wheeled back onto the track and began to climb down towards
Henley village. ‘How on God's earth will you trace them with the little you
have to go on?’

 ‘Ned, I don't know but I have to try. Look,
you needn't wait about for me, there's bound to be an inn in the village, I'll
join you when I've asked my questions and satisfied my curiosity.’

 Witchevet looked at him sharply,
considering. ‘I'll not leave you in this god-forsaken end of the shire,
infested as it is with Montfortists. This may sound complete idiocy to a
forthright Londoner, used to settling his little arguments before half the city
population in a hand to hand street fight, but down here it’s a stab in the
back and next morning you're lying dead in a ditch. Someone is very interested
in you, boy, interested enough to be found searching through your belongings
whilst most of us were in hall at supper last night. If you remember, I left
the company early…’

 ‘Are you sure? But then, pilfering is
always to be expected. We ought to report it. I've very little worth taking but
others…’

 ‘Keep it to yourself - until you find out
who your friends are. I'm serious, I may be the only one you've personally
invested with the details of your 'Quest' but someone else is very interested. Someone
else knows a little more about you than you know yourself, or than they intend
you to know, perhaps. Now, shall we make tracks towards the 'White Lion' and
try to remember that we are on holiday?’

~o0o~

The day after their return Richard was
waylaid with talk of an urgent order for Elmley Castle, one of the Beauchamp
holdings in Worcestershire, clinging to the slopes of Bredon Hill. The
Constable, a bull-necked giant with a cap of black hair and protuberant blue
eyes which grew rounder with anger, breathed down his neck as he bent low over
his work in the last of the afternoon light. ‘A word of warning, lad. It’s been
reported that you were seen on Montfort land today. Keep away from Beaudesert
next time. Any interest in that place is an unhealthy one when Thomas Beauchamp
employs you.’

 Ned Witchevet was in the doorway, leaning
against the jamb, his travelling cloak over one arm, a bundle under the other. Latimer
looked across at him questioningly. The young man came over and perched on the
edge of the work bench.

 ‘When yon arrows are loaded up for Elmley
I travel with them,’ he said. ‘When the carters return here I stay at Bredon;
apparently they could do with an extra fletcher.’ His voice was toneless.

 Richard frowned; his dark eyes searched
the other's face. ‘It seems short notice. Did you get a choice?’

 Witchevet shrugged his shoulders. ‘I
chose to be your friend. You seem to bring bad luck with your friendships.’ He
swung his feet to the floor giving Richard a wry smile. ‘Just look out for
yourself, man, and good luck. Believe me; I think you're going to need it!’

September came upon Arden in ribbons of
mist, opalescent and milky, in dew-bright cobwebs hanging from bush and tree
already decked with the gewgaws of hip and haw, the ropes of bryony and pendant
nightshade; it came in the tapestry of bronze and gold, rust and latten, copper
and citrine which banked the wooded highways.

 Autumn was never mellow but came singing
to earth more jocund than spring and gaudier than summer with cobalt skies and
rumbustious winds that tore away the waiting leaves to whisk them into neat
pyramids like hoards of the new minted golden nobles cast for the Battle of
Sluys .

 The poppies were still in bloom beside
the high road. Every sunny bank boasted knots of blood bright colour
interspersed with the sun-gold of ragwort, and the hedges were already
garlanded with the soft feathers of Old Man's Beard. Up above, the first fruits
of autumn were already beginning to ripen: russet crabs and the mat brown of
hazelnuts, acorns in their cups and purple sloes with the bloom of far-away
winter already upon their skins.

 The menfolk of Warwick had drifted en
masse towards the butts on this September morning. They had set up their
targets on the greensward of the outer bailey and were now divided into
opposing bands, testing their skills.

 It was good to feel the spring of a bow
again. It seemed a lifetime since Richard and Raymond, challenging Wat
Stringer, had met at the butts beyond Bishopsgate, out on the Moor.

 ‘My dear young man,’ exclaimed de
Beauchamp's Captain of Bowmen, ‘who taught you accuracy at such a range? Few of
my men manage centre target at three hundred yards. I'd hardly advocate it
either for fear of being ousted from my own position.’

 Richard laughed. ‘Every Sunday morning,
March to November, rain or shine, for ten years, you can't remain an indifferent
marksman for long, and I was blessed with brilliant opponents.’ He took aim and
sent one of his own arrows thudding beside the captain's into the black eye of
the target.

 ‘I'm glad you practice what you preach,
Sebastian.’ Thomas Beauchamp, in Venetian Red, was a blazing target from any
point on his own curtain wall. About him, his womenfolk clustered like gaudy
flowers. In the distance, by the upper guard, Lady A, cradling her lute, sat
atop a mounting block with a clutch of red and gold liveried squires around
her, and began the story of the Seven Paladins.

 Nicholas Durvassal was accompanying his
master, aloof and supercilious, when Richard moved forward and dropped down
onto one knee before Warwick. ‘I would have words with you, My Lord.’

 Warwick had turned towards his captain
with a gracious nod. ‘Carry on the good work, men. Now, Sebastian?’

 Durvassal made to thrust the young man
aside. ‘Presumptuous boy! My lord answers no petitions on a Sunday; you'll have
to take your turn, Tuesday next!’

 ‘Gently, Nicholas, gently. Now,
Sebastian, we will walk towards the new tower - I've a deal to discuss with my
masons. You may unburden yourself as we go.’ So the young fletcher in the
darned surcote fell in step beside the most powerful man in the middle shires,
all caution thrown to the winds.

 He took a deep breath. ‘When I sought to
join your household, sir, it was in the hopes of coming to Warwick. I'd learnt
a few days before that my parents are, or were, Warwick folk and I saw my
chance to make enquiries and so sought you out.’

 ‘A disappointing revelation,’ observed
Beauchamp. ‘You did not then choose us for ourselves?’

 Richard looked at him sideways, knowing
himself the victim of a soft irony. He rushed on with his story of the Latimers
and the shadowy servant who dropped in once a year with the allowance and
claimed he was a henchman of the Lady Maud de Montfort. Here he paused, waiting
for the effect of the name.

 Beauchamp only said, ‘Maud is dead.’

 ‘I guessed so, sir. She must have known
who my parents were; it’s possible others at Beaudesert may know. My mother's
name was Lora…’

 ‘Not such an uncommon name hereabouts. How
did you discover that?’

 Richard showed him Lora's amethyst, pale
in the sunlight. Warwick hardly gave it a glance. ‘What do you want of me?’

 ‘The freedom to travel to Henley unhampered. You know my quest; there can be no reason to forbid me the journey.’ The
two were facing each other in the middle of the bailey.

 ‘No,’ said Beauchamp, ‘you do not set
foot within the walls of Beaudesert. I make that quite clear.’

 ‘I am a free man, not one of your
bondsmen, My Lord!’ Richard stood his ground.

 ‘You are nothing but a boy and an
irresponsible one at that. But before you storm away in high dudgeon, I will
make you a pledge to do all in my power to trace your parents. Give me the
ring. I have agents in Henley village with greater powers of search than would
become available to a mere - artisan. Now, retrieve your uncharitable
thoughts.’

 Richard hesitated then stripped off the
amethyst and dropped it into Thomas Beauchamp's palm. The Earl let his hand
close over Lora's love-token and Richard gave him a sketchy bow, raising his
head to look into the dark face. Warwick appeared to have forgotten him; he was
staring out across the bailey into the far distance, a smile on his face.

~o0o~

Voices in the soft September dusk, shadows
in the star-silvered garden, planted years ago by the first Lady Beauchamp. The
night was full of murmurs; of the flutter of moths’ wings; of whispering, fragrant
herbs.

 Mary's headdress, like a discarded toy,
shimmered in the grass, its veiling limp and damp in the dew, her dark hair,
loosed from its prison falling about her shoulders. Nicholas Durvassal,
searching her face for something of Thomas or Black Guy lifted his fair head
from the cradle of her lap and leant upon one elbow, playing with the rings on
his left hand.

 ‘You will speak to my father, Nicholas?’ Mary
de Beauchamp's voice was low but not so low that the man couched behind the
aromatic shrubs could not hear her every word without pricking up his ears.

 ‘As soon as opportunity presents itself,
ma belle. I think he will not refuse me.’

 ‘Who has served him so faithfully? Ever
since I can remember you have been at his side. Since you were a little boy of
nine, so your father says, dogging my father's heels with the other pages, you
have never missed an opportunity to look to his welfare.’

 That, reflected Durvassal, was only too
true.

 ‘You're happy, Nicky?’

 ‘How could I be otherwise, ma petite?’ He
had ceased to think of her now; he only saw a new coat of arms, the scarlet
crosslets of Durvassal impaling the golden crosslets of de Beauchamp.

 ‘Nicky, you are day-dreaming and I am
locked out of your thoughts!’ Mary pouted prettily until her father's squire
silenced her with practised kissing and drew her down beside him. The watcher
in the bushes crept stealthily away; he had business with Lord Warwick.

~o0o~

Johanna was clawing a herb garden out of
the rich loam of the outer bailey. She had abandoned the deserted pleasance in
the middle wards, tended in a desultory fashion by previous generations of
Montfort women, to make her own stab at independence. Today she had the honey
blonde braids secured beneath a demure veil and her skirts were kilted up above
her kirtle and tucked into the belt slung low about her hips. Kneeling there in
the September sunshine she looked the picture of a healthy young country wench.
She was so absorbed that she never saw Bess Freville approaching until a shadow
crossed her line of vision. Her husband’s aunt had a small page in tow with
cushions and a flask of wine.

 ‘I thought you might be in need of
refreshments,’ said Bess, lowering herself onto a cushion and sending her page
back to the kitchens.

 Johanna sank back onto her heels, passing
a wrist over her damp forehead.

 ‘I must say you are working wonders
already,’ said Bess. ‘After the spring planting we shall be set fair for all
our still-room needs. Come and sit by me. You don’t know how good it is to have
another woman at Beaudesert. I can talk horse and hound and hunt with the best
of them but when Montfort men begin on battles lost and won I am out of my
depth.’ She poured Johanna a beaker of wine. ‘My dear, you are happy with us? With
Beaudesert?’

 Johanna smiled. ‘My Lord, my
father-in-law, is kindness itself and Guy is already the young brother I never
had, and my own father is fairly bursting with pride at the alliance of our two
families. Indeed, Madam, I can have no complaints. I am well housed and well
fed and well served…’

 ‘And well husbanded?’ enquired Bess. ‘Oh,
call me a meddling old besom if you wish…’

 ‘I might call you so,’ said Johanna, ‘and
will you leave well alone if I do?’

 Bess laughed. ‘You forget, I helped bring
him up; I remember him at three months old, lying naked on a rug. There is
little I do not know about John.’

 Johanna, resting back upon her elbows,
and turning her face towards the sunshine said, ‘Tell me about him. What was he
like as a child?’

 ‘Much like any other small boy, much like
my own, I suppose - his father spoilt him – mischievous, obstinate,
enchantingly funny one minute, a little tyrant the next but totally endearing.’

 ‘Thank you,’ said Johanna.

 ‘But he treats you well, he is not –
unkind?’

 ‘Aunt Bess, if we are to become friends,
and I do need a friend, please say what it is in your mind to say.’ She shook
her head at the offer of more wine and sat up, arms about her knees. ‘What you
are aching to ask is, has he bedded me?’

 ‘Johanna, my dear, I would not be so
forthright! It is none of my business.’

 The girl said, ‘We share a room. I sleep
in the great bed; he retires to a truckle. No, he is not unkind; he has never
touched me. When we are alone, we do not speak. In company he is unfailingly
polite. He opens doors for me. Now it is not every woman who has a husband who
opens doors, wouldn’t you agree?’ She rested her forehead upon her folded arms.

 Bess said nothing, searching vainly for
an appropriate response. At last, the girl lifted her head and said, ‘At night,
I lie awake, listening to his steady breathing; so near and yet a world away. Sometimes
he is restless, tossing and turning and I long to go to him. Worst of all is
when I know he is awake as I am, with who knows what thoughts, and there is no
comfort to be had for either of us. Madam, have you looked upon your nephew
lately? I am nineteen years old and, God forgive me for such impious thoughts,
but I want him inside me where he should be. Is that so base a wish?’

 ‘Oh, my poor Johanna!’ Bess Freville took
her in her arms and held her, rocking her gently as if she were a small child. At
last she said, ‘If we put our heads together we can make all right; he is but a
mere male. I admit I had guessed that there was a problem but I had thought,
well, you are young and inexperienced; patience is not a common virtue in young
men. Perhaps a little encouragement is needed. Might you manage that?’

 Johanna sat up and wiped her eyes upon
her sleeve. ‘Madam, I am a Clinton, not a Turkish houri. Clinton women expect
to be wooed!’

 ‘You’re a Montfort now, girl, and
Montfort women learnt the art of compromise centuries ago. John’s mother wound
his father about her little finger. Mightn’t you relax the Clinton values just
a little?’

 ‘Absolutely not! He has behaved
abominably!’

 ‘Well then,’ said Bess reasonably, ‘you
could threaten to apply for an annulment – on non consummation of the marriage.
That would hurt him – he has something of a reputation.’

 ‘But I have no wish to hurt him. And, as
to his reputation, I am not such a green girl. Do you think I did not have him
vetted before I made up my mind to take him? A handsome face and a fine body
are not, I think, always divorced from a vicious mind.’

 ‘How perspicacious,’ said Bess dryly. ‘John,
you will find, has a viper’s tongue but vicious? No, I suspect not.’

 Johanna was plucking at daisies in the
short turf. ‘We started badly and now there seems no way to redeem the
situation. I thought that I might go away, very soon.’

 Bess looked alarmed. Thoughts of Lora
Ashley’s flight to Pinley came to mind.

 ‘Oh, don’t worry, nothing permanent, but
I’ve been invited to stay with your cousins, with the Montagues. After that,
I’m bound to get further invitations; it’s a large family. It will give me
space to breathe and he – he will fare better without me. I’ll mention it at
supper. Perhaps you could endorse the idea, give it your blessing.’

 ‘I think that is a splendid plan,’ Bess
smiled. ‘You will return a new woman. Come, we’re finished here. Go and don
your best gown and pinch some colour into those pale cheeks!’ They walked up to
the East Gate and through the sunless archway into the light beyond.