Authors: Roberta Gellis
“Oh.” Barbara smiled sheepishly. “I should have guessed you
would ask at least one day’s leave. I am sorry I woke you.”
But Alphonse had let his hands drop from his face and was
staring at her. “That is very interesting, Barbe, that you should say I asked
for leave. I did not. Nor did Edward give me leave though that, I think, was
only because we both forgot—I to ask and he to offer. It was Henry de Montfort
who said I should have a day’s freedom, and he told me the night before last,
when we were all making merry at your father’s expense. I thought nothing of
it, only that Henry was being his usual thoughtful self, but now… Did it seem
to you, Barbe, that our wedding feast would never end?”
“It surely did. I was half out of my mind with impatience—”
“Oh? Were you?”
His hand went out so swiftly that she was caught and pulled
onto his lap before she could resist. She pushed him hard when he had snatched
only a single kiss, however, and slid out of his grasp, standing up and saying
with icy dignity, “Not for the bedding.” Then her brows made their enchanting
circumflex on her forehead in response to his hurt expression, and she added,
“After all, I did not yet know whether I would like it.”
The hurt disappeared from Alphonse’s face, replaced by a
slightly smug smile. “And you did, did you not, my love?”
She eluded the hands that reached for her again, stepping
back and out of the way. “That is not to the point, and you had better get out
of bed. Perhaps then you will be better able to think with the head on which
you grow hair, rather than that little bald red one between your legs.”
“You do me an injustice,” Alphonse protested mildly, getting
out of bed as she suggested. “Although I do believe that two heads are better
than one, I manage to keep the one that thinks and the one that feels in their
proper places.”
He looked so bland and innocent that Barbara half turned
away to get his bedrobe. She was totally unprepared to be seized and kissed and
pushed back toward the bed. She almost yielded, her first thought being that
they could discuss the political implications of the wedding feast and her
summons to the king any time. However, the assurance in his manner set off a
clangor of alarms that quickly quelled her desire.
“Alphonse!” she exclaimed. “Stop your teasing and listen.”
An odd expression, a kind of mingled gladness and exasperation came into his
face. Barbara was not certain what it meant, but she felt she had hit the right
note when he smiled and let her go.
“Not only was that wedding feast far too elaborate,” she
continued quickly, “but while you were out cavorting with my father and Henry
de Montfort the evening before,
I
was summoned to have my evening meal
with the king.”
“What?”
Alphonse’s face went dark and rigid and Barbara hastily
shook her head. “No, no. Henry is not so pure as Louis, but he is no lecher. In
any case, his designs were not on my fair body but on yours.”
“What!”
The note of horrified incredulity made Barbara laugh. “You
are making me doubt which head you think with again, or whether you can think
at all, except about futtering. What King Henry said he wanted was for me to
convince you to remain in England now that we are married, but although he
seemed well pleased with the idea, I do not think it was his own. Peter de
Montfort’s wife was my fellow guest, and she was there, I believe, to see that
the king did her husband’s bidding.”
Alphonse blinked and said, “Let me piss while I swallow
that.”
While he went for the pot, Barbara opened the door, called
for washing water from Clotilde, and told Chacier to go for food for breaking
their fast. When she turned back to the room, Alphonse had pulled on his
bedrobe. As soon as he saw her eyes on him, he shook his head.
“I cannot make top nor bottom of why Peter de Montfort
should want me to stay in England with the prince.”
“Even if he does, why would he approach
me
through
the king?” Barbara asked. “Why not ask you himself, or simply forbid you to
leave?”
“He would not forbid my leaving. To keep me here unwilling
would surely make me refuse to serve his purpose, whatever it may be. And he
might not want to ask me directly lest word of that come to Edward, who might
then assume I was Montfort’s man. To tell the truth, after his manner of
swearing to the terms of peace I do not understand why Edward was permitted his
promised rewards. I thought all his privileges would be revoked.”
“I thought so myself,” Barbara said, pushing open the
traveling basket in which the linen lay and taking out a drying cloth. “But it
may be that Peter and Henry considered his giving the oath, no matter what his
manner, a softening of his previous behavior.”
Alphonse nodded and went toward the stand where Clotilde was
pouring water into a wide bowl. “Yes, you may have the root of the matter
there,” he said over his shoulder, then turned to face her again to add, “Henry
de Montfort is so relieved that Edward is willing to talk civilly with him that
he will overlook much. He believes he can win Edward to his opinion.”
“Well, the prince did join Leicester three years ago,”
Barbara pointed out. “Edward knows how ill the realm has been governed by his
father, and he is aware of the bitter hatred aroused by the king’s half
brothers. But when King Henry reproached him for joining Leicester and refused
to meet him at all, Edward could not bear it. He left Leicester and since then
has supported his father.”
“So Henry de Montfort has reason to hope that he can win
Edward over,” Alphonse said. “Now I wonder less at his indulgence. I see that
he is trying to use the carrot and the stick—and quite cleverly.”
“You mean that elaborate feast was a taste of what Edward
has lost, and the day’s leave you have is a reminder to the prince of how dull
and miserable prison can be.”
“Just so.” Alphonse shrugged. “Likely, then, that King
Henry’s suggestion that we stay in England was urged by Peter de Montfort to
further Henry de Montfort’s purpose. Yes, why not? Peter took no dangerous
chances. It was certainly by Peter’s order that we almost galloped to the
cathedral and back and the wedding service was overquick. I think it was also
by his order that the king and prince were seated together—to prevent anyone
from coming near either of them and saying a few words without being noticed.”
He dropped the bedrobe off his shoulders, turned back to the
bowl of washing water, and began to scrub his upper body briskly. Clearly
Alphonse was relieved to find some sense in what had puzzled him and made him
uneasy. Barbara was silent while he washed, but when she presented the drying
cloth her face was sad.
“Almost no one came to speak to the king or prince,” she
said, “only the Montforts themselves and Humphrey de Bohun and my father.” Her
lips tightened. “I suppose all the others were afraid, and I wonder if my
father was wise? The king spoke most favorably of Papa to me—and Alice de
Montfort no doubt carried every word he said to her husband.”
“Your father is no fool, Barbe.”
She sighed then smiled. “Quite true. He is always telling me
so himself and calling me a fool for worrying about him. Perhaps I am.” She
took back the drying cloth and asked, “Do you want to dress, or shall we break
our fast as we are? Chacier will be back with the food soon.”
Alphonse hesitated and Barbara cocked her head
questioningly. The corners of his lips curved, and he sighed. “We had better
dress or
Monsieur Tête à Vide Rouge
will begin to do my thinking for me
again.”
Barbara went immediately to Alphonse’s clothes chest, only
turning her head after she had lifted the lid to ask, “Court clothing or common
wear?”
It had taken Barbara that little while to conquer her
disappointment. Now that most of her uneasiness about the king’s summons had
been laid to rest, she would not have minded a bit letting the empty-headed
little red rascal do the thinking. She could not show herself to be eager,
however. Alphonse must always be the pursuer, and the harder he had to run the
better he would enjoy the prize he won. But one could be too coy, Barbara
thought. No, he did not seem disappointed. Actually he looked rather smug as he
answered that common riding wear for both of them would be best.
“I would like to ride out, if it does not rain,” he said,
with a sparkle of mischief in his dark eyes. “Let us take food and blankets. We
can find a haystack for comfort at this time of year, I am sure. And I need to
be out in the open…free.”
As he said the last words, the amusement disappeared from
his expression. Barbara caught up the clothes she had chosen and hurried back
to him. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I never thought how you must hate being
locked up with Edward, as if you were a prisoner yourself.”
“No, I do not mind that so much,” he said. “What I hate is
this state where there is neither right nor wrong. Your uncle Hugh explained
some things to me—and Henry de Montfort told me more. And Edward talks about
little else—only the subject of escape is forbidden us. There can be no doubt
that King Henry ruled very ill. Edward does not deny it. There can be as little
doubt that what Leicester desires for this realm is good. But even Henry de
Montfort does not deny that only King Henry has the right to rule, no matter
how ill he does it. Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong. Both sides know
it, and that is the worst of all. There is a heaviness in Edward’s heart and in
Henry de Montfort’s, though he is the victor, that weighs on me.”
Barbara kissed his cheek. “It weighs on us all, but should
not weigh on you, who have no obligation to this land. Come, for today let us
put this grief aside.”
They managed to do that. By the time they had eaten, the
morning damp had cleared, and they were able to ride out. Barbara discovered
why Alphonse had looked both smug and mischievous when he spoke about finding
“comfort” in a haystack. The fresh air, open sky, and feeling of freedom lent a
certain charm to love play, Barbara admitted, and a gaiety was added by small
discomforts, like the prickles and uneven surface of the hay, which once pulled
them apart at a near crucial moment. But later on, when they returned to the
lodging, there was an equal pleasure in the warm, shadowed softness of their
bed where odd gleams from the night-candle gave a kind of mystery to her
lover’s body and to the intentness of his face.
Over the next week, both Alphonse and Barbara blessed their
confinement at Dover for making them too suspicious to stay at the castle. The
privacy of their lodgings permitted them to shake off, even within Canterbury,
the odd pall that hung over the rest of the court. When they were alone in
their chamber they found enough comfort in each other’s company and enough to
talk about in memories of the past and plans for the future to forget England’s
troubles.
The discomfort of the court was not owing to fear. Within a
week of the wedding, news from Wales confirmed that Leicester and Gloucester
had driven the Marcher lords back into their final stronghold and that they had
again sued for peace. The desultory negotiations with the French emissaries
were temporarily suspended. Leicester had written that he expected to join them
in Canterbury very soon, and it did not seem worthwhile to continue the
discussions without him.
The very afternoon the earl’s letter came, Barbara’s father
told her that he would leave the next morning for his own lands. Barbara’s
heart sank at the news. It seemed to her that her father was eager to avoid
Leicester, and the only reason she could think of was that he feared Leicester
would blame him for leaving his duty to guard the coast to come to her wedding.
But when she confessed her fear to Alphonse, he smiled and reminded her that
she worried too much about Norfolk. No blame could attach to her father, he
pointed out, when all the information that came from France made more certain
the failure of Queen Eleanor’s plans to invade England.
Yet Barbara knew that Alphonse was troubled too. And when
she asked him why, he would not meet her eyes, he only shook his head and said
he had no better explanation than what he had already given her, a weight on
his spirit. She asked him then if he would like to go back to France at once,
her purpose in coming to England having been fulfilled, but he shook his head
again, reminding her that he had agreed to serve the prince at least until the
court left Canterbury.
He was relieved of that duty, however. Simon de Montfort,
Earl of Leicester, arrived in Canterbury at the very end of August. That evening
he was closeted with his son Henry and his cousin Peter. The next day he had
several conferences with the French emissaries. On the third morning, when
Alphonse arrived at the castle to join Edward he was met by a page who escorted
him instead to the quarters of the Earl of Leicester. The two men knew each
other slightly from meetings at the French court, but Leicester was much the
elder and they had never even had a private conversation.
Alphonse bowed, and Leicester smiled and gestured him toward
a bench that flanked his own chair. “I wish to thank you,” the earl said, “for
agreeing, against your own inclination, to serve Prince Edward.”
“I have no disinclination to serve the prince.” Alphonse met
the steady gaze of Leicester’s large eyes with an equally steady look. “Prince
Edward and I are tourney companions of old. I am glad to do anything I can for
him.”
Leicester smiled again. “I understand it was you who pointed
out to Henry that if foreign officers of the household are forbidden to the
king, no other royal household should have them either, particularly if
appointed by the…ah…government.”
“Yes, but I hope we covered that problem by giving me no
appointment. I receive no wages or perquisites and am promised no favors.”