Authors: Roberta Gellis
“I hope you did not kill him,” Sir John said uneasily.
“Oh, no, he was only stunned. The farrier had examined him
before I left the course. He was breathing well and no blood had come from his
nose or ears. Nor did I hear any outcry when I brought his horse to the stable,
so I think he was probably showing signs of life already. I am sure I did Simon
no lasting harm. The question is why should he want to hold me? It is
ridiculous! I am nothing and no one in England.”
“You are Prince Edward’s friend,” Sir John suggested.
“But not so close a friend that Edward could be forced into
any action by a threat to me. There are others, much closer to the prince, who
are prisoners already and could be used in that manner.”
They went on discussing the possibility that Simon’s
behavior was by Leicester’s order and the political implications of the idea,
but nothing they said made sense to Barbara, and not much to them either. Guy’s
sudden appearance and her knowledge of his stubborn willfulness gave her an
entirely different notion. Simon and Guy were very close, each was,
paradoxically, the other’s bitterest rival and greatest support. Had Simon
intended to keep Alphonse prisoner until Guy could lay hands on her?
The notion was so wild that Barbara dared not mention it.
Both men would think her puffed up with conceit and would laugh at her. But the
more she listened to what they said, the more convinced she became that
Leicester was not involved in this business and knew nothing about it. Either
it was all a mistake—Simon was totally innocent and only wanted the company of
a man he admired, just as Gloucester had—or two thoughtless and spoiled young
men were engaged in a private game. However, their private game was likely to
turn nasty.
“I do not think it is safe for Sir John for us to remain
here,” Barbara put in at the first pause. It was a polite way of telling
Alphonse of her fear of being trapped in Warwick and handed over to Simon or
Guy as the lesser of the evils facing Sir John.
“I agree,” Alphonse said.
“But where will you go?” Sir John asked, trying to hide his
relief at being rid of the bone of contention.
“Home, to France,” Alphonse said at once. “We have
Gloucester’s letter of permission to travel and to leave the country—”
“Our best route would be to ride south,” Barbara suggested
eagerly, cutting Alphonse off. “We could get a ship at Portsmouth. And it might
be wise, Sir John, for you to send messages to my father and to Gloucester. I
would not want either of them to worry about us.”
She saw Alphonse’s dark eyes flick in her direction, but he
was looking directly at Sir John when he said, “That makes sense to me, and I
think we should pack and leave at once. It occurs to me that even if Simon is
still too shaken to act against me, the moment Guy arrives and hears what
befell his brother he may try to have me brought back to Kenilworth.”
“Yes, and that might be true even if there never was any
intention of holding you there.” Sir John seized gratefully on the idea,
pleased that his knowledge fitted it so well. “Simon might not hold a grudge over
a hard fall, but Guy is a spiteful devil and might inflame his brother’s pride
and convince him he was tricked and ill used. I do not wish to be inhospitable,
but I think you will be safer away from here.”
No more time was wasted in politeness after that, and little
spent on packing, clothing and supplies being bundled any which way into
baskets and pouches. Sir John did not suggest that Barbara and Alphonse stay
for dinner, even though the tables were being set as they passed out of the
gate. He felt kindly enough toward them, however, to make sure that two
substantial hampers of food, more than enough for them and the servants and the
two men-at-arms, traveled with them. However, they did not pause to take
advantage of the bounty for some time, riding fast along the road by the river
until they could see Stratford in the distance.
At that point Alphonse signaled for a stop, came up beside
Barbara, and said, “I hope you have good reason to trust Sir John.”
“Why do you say that?” Barbara asked.
“Why?” Alphonse repeated. “You told him our plans—”
“Oh, no, I did not,” Barbara said indignantly. “I just said
we would go to Portsmouth to stop you from asking his advice.” She smiled and
put out a placatory hand. “After all, Alphonse, you cannot know the country and
surely Sir John does, but I know it well too because my father often traveled
to Castle Strigul through these parts and because the king and queen also
traveled this way to Gloucester.”
“I see.” He sighed with exaggerated resignation. “It is sad
to know your wife thinks you a lackwit—”
“I do not!” Barbara exclaimed. “I think you far too likely
to welcome a pursuit so that you can have an amusing little battle. You would
not care—”
Alphonse laughed. “So where do we go?”
“Not to Portsmouth, which is fifty leagues or more overland.
Nor do I think it safe to travel toward Norfolk or toward London or on any of
the great roads. I think we should follow the river to the city of Gloucester
where I am sure we can find a ship. I think a letter of safe passage from the
Earl of Gloucester might have more influence among the ship captains of
Gloucester town too.”
“But from so far west, will not the ship take us to Brittany
rather than France?”
Barbara shrugged. “What if it does? Are you not well known
to the Count of Brittany? But actually it is more likely that the first ship to
leave will be a coastal vessel with cargo for London.”
“How clever you are!” Alphonse’s eyes lit with his smile.
“If few ships sail from Gloucester to France, we are not likely to be expected
to go there. Gloucester it is, then.” He began to signal Barbara ahead with
Bevis and Clotilde so he could again take up rearguard position with Chacier
and Lewin, but then said, “Wait. Let us muddy the trail a little more.” He
beckoned Chacier and the man closer so they could hear and went on, “If anyone
reports a party leaving Warwick, it will be a party of six. When we were seen
on the road we were still a party of six. But if you go ahead with Bevis and
Chacier, Barbe, taking two of the pack-horses, and I follow with Lewin,
Clotilde, and the other pack-horse, no party of six will be seen entering
Stratford and I hope we will be thought to have left the road earlier to avoid
pursuit.”
Barbara elaborated the plan somewhat further by pointing out
that if Alphonse struck out west and south from where they were, he would come
to the road to Alcester Abbey. Once on it, he could turn back and enter
Stratford from the east. He should then head south along the river. She and her
party would enter Stratford from the north and take the road west toward the
abbey, turn south across the meadows when it was safe to do so, and meet
Alphonse on the road.
Although it wasted nearly an hour in traveling time, the
plan worked faultlessly. The two parties met a few hundred yards past a
roadside shrine on a deserted stretch of road where Barbara’s party had waited
for Alphonse’s to come slowly south. No one had shown the least interest in
them. By now all were ravenous, so they stopped in the first likely spot, where
a large tree had come down beyond the road making a small clearing. So much
confidence had been generated, even in Barbara who was beginning to doubt her
own suspicion that Simon had tried to make her available to Guy, that she did
not harry her maid to hurry in serving or urge her husband to eat faster.
Alphonse, too, was beginning to believe that even if Simon had wished to detain
him, his reason was not strong or important enough to merit pursuit. He said
that aloud. Barbara did not reply directly but glanced at the sun, which was
dipping into a dense bank of clouds in the west, and remarked that they could
never reach Gloucester in daylight and before it rained. They would have to
find somewhere to stay for the night. However, when they came to Evesham, the
sun was still above the clouds.
Dividing again they entered Evesham separately, this time
Barbara with Bevis and Clotilde and Alphonse with Chacier and Lewin. Less time
was wasted because they took the same roads in and out of the city, Barbara
entering first but spending time in the Chepe while Alphonse rode out ahead.
Still, only streaks of westering sun cut the clouds and made long shadows when
Barbara’s party overtook Alphonse’s, and the sun was gone, although the clouds
showed red and yellow edges, as they approached the short side road that led to
Pershore Abbey. Barbara suggested they stay there. Alphonse agreed with
enthusiasm. A long evening with Barbe was more important than any pursuit. His
appetite had been whetted by four nights of sleeping alone and by the way Barbe
had greeted him at Warwick.
“By all means,” he said. “I am very willing to give up the
hour or so that remains for traveling and go early to bed.”
Unfortunately, the slow smile that curved his lips not only
sent a flush of warmth over Barbara but reminded her of how she had betrayed
herself by running into his arms when he returned to Warwick. She looked away
without answering and no more was said until they arrived at the abbey, where
Alphonse explained his needs to the elderly porter. Only then did he learn that
the abbot was of that strict variety who would not even permit a woman to enter
the abbey itself. A guest house within a special walled enclosure was
maintained for that accursed sex.
Alphonse first laughed and said that he would stay in the
guest house also, but when the porter replied, in a horrified voice, that it
was forbidden for a man to enter that place, he cast a puzzled glance at
Barbara, and said no, meaning to add he would prefer to camp in the open
despite the chance of rain. But Barbara, who was looking in the direction the
porter had gestured, agreed to accept that lodging and bade Clotilde choose a
cell in the guest house and make it ready.
Fury strangled Alphonse for a moment, and before he found
his voice, the porter was telling him that there was no other hostel until
Tewkesbury and that, as he could see by the fact that the abbey’s gate was
closed in daylight, the area was not safe.
“There is much looting and pillaging hereabout because many
were put off their lands by the war and have turned to outlawry,” he said. “You
should not be on the road after dark. And this news that the king of France
will not uphold Leicester’s peace will put heart into those who oppose the
earl. A party from Wigmore Abbey came in today and one of the brothers told me
that there is much stirring in Roger de Mortimer’s keep.”
“I am sure we have nothing to fear from Mortimer,” Alphonse
said. “We are of no party, only visitors to this land.”
“It is going to rain soon, and there is no sense in chancing
an attack by outlaws,” Barbara said flatly. “I will see you in the morning.”
Alphonse was still so angry in the morning that he was
grateful to go to mass in a church that completely screened off the section
where women were permitted and to break his fast afterward with the monks. He
did not see Barbara again until he was mounted and outside the gate of Pershore
Abbey, and when he did, he did not speak a word, only gestured her ahead on the
road. His rage was a little abated when he saw the ditches by the road still
running with water. The rain had been harder than he thought, misled by muting
of the sound of the storm by the thick-walled abbey. They would have been
soaked and had little pleasure lying on the ground. And the porter had spoken
the truth, there was no other shelter. The area was indeed desolate, mostly
wooded with only a few ruined farms, blackened beams marking the sites of
houses and sheds and testifying to recent violence. Probably the porter was
also right about the lonely track being no road to travel after dark. But they
could have stayed in Evesham, he thought resentfully. Barbe had not really been
afraid of pursuit. She had known they would be kept separate in Pershore Abbey.
Riding along as silently as her husband behind Chacier and
Bevis, who were in the lead, Barbara wavered between frustration and amusement.
She had been as disappointed as Alphonse when the porter made clear the
guesting arrangements. Separation of the sexes in an abbey hospice was common
enough, but for married couples, where there was a guest house outside the
abbey proper, such strictness was excessive and she had not expected it. Fear
of revealing too much disappointment had kept her from admitting any, and
self-discipline—because she knew if she allowed any discussion she would agree
to ride on in the dark just to satisfy her lust—had made her rush off to the
guest house.
Thus, Barbara understood Alphonse’s bad temper. At the same
time, she was grateful that he was riding rearguard position. She knew she would
have to make her peace with him by explaining that she had never stayed before
in Pershore and had no idea the abbot was so strict, but she did not want to do
it too soon. The eagerness he displayed to lie with her delighted her. It gave
her hope that he had not even tumbled a maidservant while he was away from her
bed. However, it also made her fear he would propose they go aside and take
their pleasure as soon as she soothed his anger. If she agreed, would he not
think her too eager? As eager as she really was, she thought, her mobile mouth
flattening even more as the corners of her lips turned down. And if she did not
agree, he would be even angrier.
When Chacier rode back to tell Alphonse they had come to a
main road, the old high road just north of Tewkesbury, Alphonse did not consult
with Barbara. He bade Chacier take the main road—saying acidly and loud enough
for Barbara to hear—that on that route they would be in less danger from mud
and outlaws. She cocked her head impudently and giggled, which naturally earned
her a black look. But when Alphonse gestured her angrily ahead without
speaking, she turned onto the wider, stone-paved road without argument. She was
not going to raise the subject of pursuit by Guy or Simon. By now she felt
embarrassed over her conceited notion that she was the prize to be taken.