The Lords of Arden (42 page)

 ‘No, not with any of them.’ Johanna put
out an exploratory hand and traced the emerging bruise on his nearest shoulder.
‘John, you’re about as insecure as a snowflake on a summer rose.’

 He said, ‘It’s been a long time since
Beaudesert and I wasn’t kind. I thought – you’re beautiful, Johanna, you must
have had offers.’

 ‘Yes, offers I will admit to.’

 ‘Then why…’

 ‘Good God, boy, you can’t see what’s
beneath your arrogant Montfort nose, can you? I fell in love with you on St.
Barnaby’s; you made damned sure of that, didn’t you? I loved you then and,
since my marriage night, I have hated you, and railed against you and cursed
you and wept over you a hundred, thousand times but I never stopped loving you.
I love you still and I will love you till the day I die and if there is a life
beyond the grave I will go to it loving you!’

 But John wasn’t really listening to this
impassioned outburst, bewitched as he was by the rise and fall of the
rose-tipped breasts beneath the golden cascade of her hair. ‘Come closer, girl,
I won’t hurt you.’

 ‘But your bruises…’ Johanna slipped down
beside him, edging closer. He found her mouth, kissing her experimentally
before he let his lips travel down towards the warm and mesmerising softness of
her body.

 Johanna was a competent horsewoman, she
was no mean shot with a bow and her hands were still those of the nut brown
maid who had tilled the herb gardens of Coleshill and Beaudesert. Hers were not
the practised caresses of the Orabellas of this world. The male anatomy was a
place of tremulous exploration, a path to the Paradise Garden and she was an eager
pilgrim through uncharted territory.

 And John, who had meant to be kind and
patient, found an instant defenestration of all his good intents in the
violence of the passion she was unleashing in his bruised body. He grabbed her
blindly and pulled her beneath him in a speedy consummation which left them
both shaken.

 They lay side by side without a word or
look until his hand stole out and took hers.

 ‘I’m sorry, I must have hurt you.’

 Johanna gave him a gallant smile. ‘I’m a Clinton, we’re Red Cross Knights all; not a faint heart amongst us. I suppose that was my
fault?’

 ‘Yes, it was rather.’ He grinned at her.

 ‘It seems I have much to learn. Will you
teach me?’

 He nodded, eyes half closed, but he drew
her to him.

 ‘I could be available most nights,’ said
Johanna. She kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Did I ever tell you you were a
beautiful man, John de Montfort?’

 ‘No, I don’t recall you ever doing other
than harangue me for my shortcomings. You, My Lady, are a gilded Amazon and I
could fear I have met my match.’

 ‘And one day, might you love me a
little?’

 ‘Girl, I do love you. I fell in love with
you that day at Windsor when you accused me of…’

 ‘It wasn’t true?’

 ‘No.’

 ‘I could have stayed to listen.’

 ‘It doesn’t matter. I dragged you from
that unfortunate horse - a girl with the longest legs I’d ever seen - and I was
lost to you then.’

 ‘Typical male, going for the obvious,’
sniffed Johanna.

 ‘Well, it wasn’t obvious before and your
hair was terrible; those braids scared me to death!’

 ‘Are we going to quarrel often?’

 ‘I’m certain of it.’

 ‘And will you beat me?’

 ‘Most assuredly.’

 ‘Then I’ll look forward to it.’ With a
contented sigh she found her place in the crook of his arm and fell asleep with
the golden hair spread across her young lover’s body as the Lady Mellisent
would certainly have done; but her dreams were not the Lady Mellisent’s dreams
and could not have appeared in the pages of a romaunt. It was John who lay
awake, holding her, afraid that if he slept he would find her gone by the
morning.

Nicholas Durvassal rode home to Spernall
with the wind at his back. The lanes were runnels of mire and the trees, bare
yet of spring foliage, dripped incessantly above him. The world was dun and
grey and only the western sky, a watery streak of silver behind the threshing
trees, relieved the dreariness of the journey. The groom who helped him
dismount and led his sorrel towards the stables informed him that Sir John,
Lady Sybil and Master William were away from home but that Lady Rose was
within.

 Nicholas stepped into the hall and the
familiarity of his home wrapped itself about him like a warm cloak; the fire
blazing, the flickering light upon the smoke-blackened timbers of the roof, the
smell of the rushes as he moved towards the solar, the pungency of the resin
torches in their iron sconces between the windows and over the dais. He put a
hand upon the curtain separating hall from solar and ducking his head stepped
through the archway. There were no lights in the solar but as in the hall the
fire was crackling merrily. Rose sat upon a low stool, she wore a plain surcote
of green velvet and her dark red hair, unbound, fell about her shoulders
completely uncovered, snarled and tangled, and when she lifted her face he saw
that she was crying; her cheeks were wet with tears and smudged with ash from
the hearth.

 ‘Rose Red!’ He rarely used the old pet
name now but this was the child he had chased through the gardens at Codbarrow,
for whom he had sought out and purchased the tiny monkey, whose tears he had
dried with some cheap trinket. ‘Rose, what is it?’ He lifted her from her stool
and stood her before him, gently pushing back the red hair and dabbing at her
cheeks with the corner of his cloak. The girl gulped and sniffed and shuddered
between his strong hands. ‘Wait!’ Durvassal unfastened his cloak and tossed it
across the window seat, pulled his own chair nearer to the fire and lifted his
wife onto his lap. ‘You must tell me, Rose. Has father upset you? No? Then
William, Mother even?’ He put a long finger beneath her chin and tilted her
face towards his.

 Rose looked up at the narrow face, cheeks
hollowed by firelight and shadow, hair glinting and pale. ‘My Lord, I do not
weep for myself, or only a little, I weep for my father and, oh, Nicholas, I
weep for you too. My mother is dead! Agnes sent over to tell me this afternoon.
She had been ill for weeks. I did not realise how sick she was.’ She buried her
face in the shoulder of his surcote and he felt the warmth of her hair against
his cheek. He held her whilst she sobbed a little longer and when she lifted her
head he was staring into the fire, numb with the shock of the news.

 She said gently, ‘It was the wasting
cough, she was never without a cough, you know, but this time it was more. She
had no resistance; she just coughed her life away. I don't think she had the
will to go on fighting it after – after…’ She slipped from his lap and went to
pour him a cup of wine. ‘We must ride to Codbarrow at first light. Agnes is
with father and Beata is there, there is nothing to be done tonight.’ But
Durvassal wasn't listening; he was trying to imagine the world without
Christine, without the proud, cold lady of Lapworth, the ice-princess who had
melted into acquiescence with the lengthening spring days. He rose abruptly
and, walking blindly past his wife, he grabbed for the wine jar and stumbled
into their bedchamber, slamming the door. Rose curled up in her husband's chair
and after a while drifted off to sleep. She awoke as the last log shifted in
the hearth and disintegrated into ash amidst a shower of sparks. The room was
growing colder and the girl had no knowledge of how long she had slept. She
flexed stiff muscles and hugged her arms about her. She tiptoed to her chamber
door and put an ear to the stout wood. Not a sound was discernible. Taking a
deep breath Rose lifted the latch and walked inside, carrying a candle. She put
it down upon a stool and the flame swayed and flickered in the draught from the
door. The leather wine bottle was empty, lying on its side by the bed. Nicholas
had removed jupon and surcote and they were flung down across the bed. He sat
upon the ledge of the glassless window with the rain soaking into his shirt
sleeves and plastering his hair about his face.

 Rose Durvassal would never be in love
with the husband who had cuckolded her father, seduced her mother and betrayed
her own child's heart but she was a practical girl and, for better or for
worse, she was bound to this beautiful young man until death released one of
them from the vows of Holy Matrimony. She slipped out of her kirtle and smock
and, pulling a loose robe of watchet about her shoulders, glided to the window.

 ‘My Lord, you will take an ague, you are
soaked to your skin. Would she have wished you to grieve so? Come, it's late
and we must be up with the dawn tomorrow.’ She led him slowly across the floor
to their bed and pulled back the coverlet.

 Nicholas lay on his back, looking up at
the pool of light upon the ceiling as the little candle diminished, listening
to the wind all about the house, tearing at the Arden woodland, howling and
shrieking like an army of tortured souls, condemned to purgatory. ‘Christine…’ He
had turned his head and murmured her name against the pillow.

 Rose, kneeling above him in the cloud of
her hair, swam into his blurred line of vision; wraithlike. She slipped down
beside him, so near that he could feel her breath upon his cheek, the touch of
her body against his.

 ‘Christine is dead, Nicky, but you have
her daughter, flesh of her flesh. I will give you children; I will give you
pale fair daughters, but strong babies, Nicholas, strong as I am strong.’ She
was gently removing the last of his rain-soaked garments. The candlelight
caught the gold hairs upon his chest and the whiteness of the small hands which
roamed over his body, and at last he stirred and caught her to him.

~o0o~

It was still raining when Nicholas and
Rose started out for Codbarrow; two figures wrapped against the weather, heads
lowered, faces set. In tune with their grief Arden bowed its head and shed
tears of its own from dripping branches. As they rode through Ullenhall,
setting chickens scattering and pigs squealing, a little girl ran out straight
under the hooves of Durvassal's sorrel mare. He did not stop; it was of no
consequence. Later, Rose went to visit the parents. There was no mother, she
had died giving birth. Lucy de Ragley was an only child, now she was dead and
her father crazed with grief. It had been an accident but Nicholas could have
stopped; Christine, after all, would have waited.

~o0o~

John de Montfort stayed on throughout the
spring in Derby’s service. Although he had given his hand to Richard in a
grudging acceptance of their kinship they still circled each other warily. Riding
cross-country at Harry’s side the years had rolled away. Derby never referred
to his young squire’s fall from grace and the old, teasing camaraderie had
returned.

 Johanna, up on the battered walls in a
flutter of moon-white veils, was watching him cross the courtyard now; Derby resplendent in coat armour over his mail, had one arm around John’s shoulders in
easy companionship. John said something, laughing aloud, and the older man
smote him playfully. Then they looked up and saw Johanna. Derby gave her an
elaborate bow and waved his hand; John blew her a kiss and she turned to run
lightly down the staircase to meet him.

 Early in June the Earl called both
Montforts to him. He had dispatches for the King, a king who was due on French
soil any day. They were to go to him together.

 ‘There will be fighting in the north;
you’ll get more than enough to satisfy your appetites. You have served me well,
both of you, but you have a father in the King’s army and he will have need of
his sons. It is right that you should go. See to your packing; we shall make
our farewells in the morning.’

~o0o~

Richard was already there in a dark green
travelling cloak; neither would wear Derby’s livery as it would have drawn too
much attention to themselves. He knelt for the Earl’s blessing. Harry searched
his face and saw no sign of the runaway who had fled Beaudesert in order to
prove himself worthy of his new status. Here was a self-assured young man who
knew what he wanted out of life, a son for any man to be proud of.

 ‘Good luck and God speed, Dickie. Let us
pray that we all meet again and that I may thank your esteemed father for the
loan I have had of you.’ He leant and gently raised the boy by the shoulders. Richard
snatched at his hand and kissed it before spinning wordlessly on his heels and
clattering away down the stairs and out to wait for his brother at the gate.

 Derby turned to John: ‘You have made your
farewells to Johanna? Be assured we shall look after her for you. Perhaps the
next time she sets foot in England you will be able to take her back to
Beaudesert where she belongs.’

 John shook his head. ‘No, My Lord, I dare
not. I am still a wanted man. He will never forgive me. Perhaps it is right
that he never should. It is no matter; I can make my own way in the world.’ He
knelt before the Earl as his brother had already done, head bowed, but then he
lifted his face and the violet eyes searched the Earl’s steady grey ones. ‘But
I sense I have your forgiveness, My Lord, for all those years ago.’

 The Earl raised him to his feet. ‘Johnny,
you had it before you left the camp the very next morning. Your exit heralded a
succession of bright-eyed, industrious, eager, impeccably attired young men; blue-blooded
to the last drop in their veins, but I would have exchanged them all for one
manipulative young devil who carried his bastardy like a proud standard and
could always be relied upon to make me laugh. Be off with you now, and see you
keep your hands from Richard’s throat!’

 He watched from the window as they both
rode away from La Reole, taking the road north.

~o0o~

 Lora Astley, alone at the well, hands
clasped before her almost in an attitude of supplication, heard the sound and
flung up her head like a startled doe trapped in the brake. It was nothing more
than a dull vibration, a rhythmic disturbance of the ground under her feet but
she knew it for the tramp of the levies, the approach of the foot soldiers
coming in from the surrounding manors to join Thomas Beauchamp in the march to
the sea. There were horsemen too, lords and knights with their squires and
their garrisons. Inevitably, Peter de Montfort would ride at the head of the Henley bowmen, in the blue and gold of his coat armour, Geoffrey Mikelton at his back with
the men of Beaudesert, proud to follow their Lord.

 Lora was still there, motionless, an hour
later, the rhythm still in her head, blotting out all other sound on that still
July afternoon.

 The trees, thick with summer foliage,
sheltered all view of the distant high road from the quiet precincts of the
nunnery. Lora the child would have climbed up into the branches of those trees;
Lora the woman would have hastened to the gates and out across the field, but
Sister Lora had to remain in the deserted cloister garth listening to the
rumble of the siege engines and the baggage wagons on the rutted surface of the
high road.

 In the dimness of the chapel the Mother
Abbess was praying. Lora slipped quietly into the black velvet gloom and knelt
beside her.

 ‘Sister,’ said Amice Hynton, ‘we shall
pray together for the lives of your sons that they may be spared to the world
for many more years. And let us also ask that God's grace may light upon your
past and our present benefactor.’ And though Lora was looking directly ahead,
her eyes fixed upon the altar cross, gleaming gold before the shadowy figures
upon the marble reredos, her lips were pressed together in a veiled smile which
revealed that her thoughts were not of God but were winging away to a tower of
golden, sun-warmed stone; a bed with rose silk hangings; a wilful girl with
buttercup hair and the footfall of a dark young man on the tower stair...

~o0o~

Thomas Beauchamp had bade farewell to Kate
and their little ones, to Orabella and the demoiselles, to the chief officers
of his household who would remain behind at Warwick but, as he rode through the
great court towards the gatehouse, he had suddenly turned and sprung down again
from his mount and strode back to the little knot of women and children and old
men, dutiful before the hall door. He had pulled Kate to him again and kissed
her, crushing her softness against the mail shirt he wore beneath his
emblazoned surcote.

 ‘Just once more for luck,’ he murmured
into her ear beneath the jewelled net of her hair, and she laughed and wound a
hand about his neck, the other fluttering over his body.

 ‘We made a good night of it, My Lord.’

 ‘And will enjoy more, Kate. When it's
safe, I'll send for you.’ His own caresses were intimate enough to set broad
grins upon the faces of his garrison and to bring blushes to the cheeks of the
demoiselles, but at last he let her go, turned and swept his first born son up
into his arms and mounted his black charger again, sitting the boy before him. Old
Saladin was retired now but this was another such as he and they made a fine
spectacle, crossing the court in the June sunshine; the black horse and the
dark young man, resplendent in scarlet and gold, and the small boy, slight and
brown in his blue jupon but surely so proud to be there before his father,
brows fierce beneath the dark fringe which shaded his blue eyes, chin stuck up
at an angle, the Beauchamp nose straight as an arrow. He was all Thomas, this
one; none of Kate's features softened the child's face.