ASilverMirror (52 page)

Control of the Severn was also established with varying ease
at different places. Delegations came eagerly from some towns with bridges or
fords to greet Edward. The folk of other places, perhaps remembering a bad
master protected by the king or the prince, resisted loyally in Leicester’s name.
There was enough danger and fighting to keep Alphonse interested, and with each
success Edward became a more genial companion. So, for two weeks, until they
reached the town of Gloucester and settled down to besiege it, Alphonse very
nearly forgot he was married. When the first sorties against the walls failed
and the dull preparations for a full attack began, Alphonse did now and then
wonder where Barbe was.

The thought occurred to him only when he was very bored. He
knew that not enough time had passed for her messengers to reach Norfolk, for
his troop to cross the country and recross it with her to take her to her
father, and then for her messengers to come all the way back to him. Thus,
bored or not, it was too soon for him to think of asking leave of Edward. He
did not even have the excuse that he was anxious about her. All the news coming
from England implied Barbe’s journey was sure to be peaceful and safe. No
armies were gathering and marching.

Information had come in day by day as the messengers Edward
had sent all across England returned. The bits and pieces could be added up
many ways to make a sum good or bad as one chose to see it. The news was bad in
the sense that few men from the country at large were rushing to join Edward,
but it was good in the sense that no feudal host had responded to Leicester’s
summons. Most men were simply too confused or too cautious to support either
side. Were the orders of the king, though he was clearly only a puppet in
Leicester’s power, of more legality than those of the prince, who was free?
Moreover, was it safe to obey any orders since there was no clear sign that
either party would achieve a final victory?

On balance, Alphonse considered the news better for Edward
than for Leicester. Most of Edward’s power was here in the west, and many of
the men who had been his vassals had responded to his call, bringing their
subtenants who were resentful of Leicester’s high-handed “seizure” of the
prince’s land. Clearly Leicester recognized the prince’s advantage. He had not
stayed to fight at Gloucester but had moved north to Hereford. If the feudal
army had come at his summons, Edward would have been caught between the two
forces, but no feudal army had formed. Whatever forces Leicester could command
in the east were still far away, but Leicester did not wait passively in
Hereford. He had taken the poor tired old king with him and was now advancing
on Monmouth.

Mortimer had enough relatives, friends, and allies among the
Welsh to have good and accurate information about Leicester’s activities. It
was soon clear that the earl was trying to bring the Welsh prince Llywelyn into
the war. Leicester had offered Llywelyn a very favorable treaty for his
support.

Edward cocked his head when Mortimer made the report. His
face was brown, his eyes bright, although the day had brought no advance in
their siege of Gloucester city. “Should I send an emissary to Llywelyn to warn
him against alliance with Leicester?” Edward asked.

“No indeed!” Mortimer exclaimed. “The treaty, signed or unsigned,
will do you no harm, and you should not imply my cousin’s act
could
affect you. You will need to be completely free when you deal with him in the
future.” His dark eyes gleamed at the thought of the renewal of the long
contest between himself and Llywelyn on new terms—terms that might now be
slightly favorable to him. “Whatever you do,” he went on, “Llywelyn will accept
Leicester’s treaty.” He laughed. “Why should he not? He will make sure there
are clauses in it that will permit him to violate it if he needs to do so. And
to prove goodwill, he need only send Leicester a few archers. I assure you, my
lord, he will do nothing more.”

Gloucester, who knew the Welsh almost as well as Mortimer
did, told Alphonse the advice was good. The question of whether Edward could
resist trying to influence Llywelyn became moot, however, when Grimbald
Pancefot of Gloucester offered to open the city to him. The town was overrun,
but by agreement not sacked. For a few days Alphonse’s boredom was alleviated
as attacks were launched against the citadel, but the entertainment did not
last long. The castle had been shorn of most of its defenders when the townsmen
fled, and surrender was inevitable. On June 29, Robert de Ros, who held
Gloucester castle for Leicester, yielded.

That Leicester knew the castle could not long resist once
the town opened its gates was clear from the reports about his actions. A
messenger from Thomas, who much to his disgust was in Wales making sure no
large army formed there, reported that Leicester had sent messengers to his son
Simon. The young de Montfort was ordered to abandon his attack on Pevensey and
bring the whole army he had collected to his father’s support at once. One
messenger had been taken, Thomas wrote, but others were sure to have crossed
out of Wales safely.

A few days later another messenger came. This time Thomas’s
letter did not begin with complaints of being overprotected and pleas to join
the prince. Instead it gave news that Leicester had been repulsed by several of
Gloucester’s keeps in the valley of the Usk. Having tested the defenses and
found that conquest would require more time and more men than he had, Leicester
had moved south toward Newport. Thomas thought the earl had hoped to take that
town, cross the channel to Bristol, and so pass behind Edward’s army. If so,
his messenger reported with grim satisfaction, the move had been checked.

During the third week in July news came that Leicester had
turned north again and was making for Hereford. Edward, however, had traveled north
ahead of his enemy. A week earlier an outraged deputation had come from
Winchester to report that young Simon, because they would not give him without
payment everything he desired, had sacked the city. The prince promptly secured
Gloucester, garrisoned it with troops that had long been faithful, and put the
rest of the army on alert. When, a few days later, word came that Simon had
passed Oxford and was marching due north, the prince was ready to move too.
Edward assumed, since Simon had not turned toward the city of Gloucester to
attack him, that he had new orders from his father about joining forces.
Because the Severn was unfordable in the south and all the bridges were gone,
Edward expected an attempt to cross near or north of Worcester, where fording
the river was possible. He returned there to guard against the passage of
either father or son across the Severn.

Early on July 29 a report came from one of Mortimer’s
friends in Hereford that Leicester had arrived in the town on the
twenty-seventh. By then, Edward was certain an attempt to cross the river would
have been made, but a close watch had been kept on the east bank of the Severn
north of Worcester and no sign of young Simon’s army—not even of small units to
test for fords—had appeared.

In the tower chamber of Worcester Castle he had claimed for
private use, Edward had been wondering aloud to Alphonse, who because he had no
other responsibilities like provisioning and commanding his own men had become
a constant companion, whether Simon could have doubled back and somehow crossed
farther south. Listlessly, Alphonse remarked that he did not think Leicester’s
son likely to expend so much thought or effort. Spoiled and selfish as he was,
Simon probably had decided to stop to rest or amuse himself.

“Not if he knew his father to be in need,” the prince
argued. “Leicester’s indulgence has bought him his sons’ love, and—” He stopped
abruptly, expecting a half teasing, half serious reminder that his own father
was scarcely a model of severity, but Alphonse said nothing. Edward stared.
Several weeks’ worth of visual and aural cues had finally pierced his
self-absorption to add up to a clear picture of Alphonse as a very unhappy man.

“What is wrong?” he asked. And then with a touch of reserve,
for the prince had learned to be wary of generosity, “Is there anything I can
do to help?”

“I seem to have lost my wife,” Alphonse replied. His voice
was even, his face was without expression, but sudden tears glittered in his
dark eyes.

“Lost your wife!” Edward’s voice shook with horror for he
loved his own gentle princess deeply. “Man—” he came and put a hand on
Alphonse’s shoulder. “I have been busy, but not so busy I could not mourn with
you.”

“I do not mean that she is dead, my lord. No, not that.”
Alphonse found a smile and went on to explain how he had arranged for her to go
to Evesham where her father was to send for her and that she was to send a
message back to let him know when she had arrived safely and where he should
meet her. The smile disappeared and his voice shook when he said, “But no
message ever came.”

“Norfolk is across the whole width of England,” Edward said
comfortingly. “And a messenger can get lost, injured, or even killed.”

“Yes, but I cannot believe only one man would have been sent
in these times, and for two or more to be injured or dead without any chance to
pay for a message to Norfolk or me—I cannot believe that either. I have tried
to tell myself that Barbe’s messengers might have somehow missed us and been
following behind, but we were at Gloucester so long. Could even a stranger to
the country have failed to find us? And many of Norfolk’s men are not strangers
to that country.”

“Strigul,” Edward said, naming Norfolk’s great keep in Wales
in acknowledgment that Norfolk had servants who knew the area well. He bit his
lip, then asked, “You think she was taken on the road? Made prisoner?”

Alphonse shook his head. “If ransom was desired or she was
taken as a hostage, would I not have had word of it either from her captor or
from Norfolk?”

He stopped speaking and turned away abruptly, unable to
admit to Edward—so secure in the perfect adoration of his loving Eleanor—that
he did not fear for Barbe’s safety. He felt unloved, abandoned, afraid that she
had found in her father’s keep the man who had given her the token she hid from
him. Over the weeks, as he realized how much time had passed without a message
from her, he forgot the moments of warmth, the fear she had shown for his
safety, the unfailing and unstinting support she had offered in public even
when she differed with him in private, the signs that she was jealous of him.

Instead he found himself seeing again and again the furtive
motions with which she concealed her love token, and he began to accept the
wild suspicions that crawled in his head. She loved her cousin, Roger Bigod,
with whom marriage was plainly impossible because of consanguinity and because
she could bring nothing to so great a match. Or she had formed an attachment
for some poor knight too far below her high, if illegitimate, birth. That was
why she had not wanted to go to Framlingham in his company. That was why she
put aside the joy of having her aunt at her wedding, of marrying in her own
home among her own people. She had wished to spare her lover or to spare
herself. All her talk of political danger for her father was only a white cloth
over the filthy desire she hid.

There had been a little silence while Edward thought over
what Alphonse had said and decided it was true that Alphonse would have heard
if Barbara had been taken as a hostage or for ransom. But what else could have
happened to the lady? Suddenly he frowned like a thundercloud.

“You told me Guy de Montfort desired her,” he said, “but I
thought Guy was with his father. Good God, Alphonse, Evesham is not far from
Kenilworth, not more than ten leagues—”

“What!” Alphonse spun around, gray with shock.

“Yes, and if Guy were riding from Gloucester, he might well
pass through Evesham on his way to Kenilworth.” Even as he spoke, Edward caught
at Alphonse who was heading out of the room, his face twisted. “Wait,” he
insisted. “Let me order a troop to go with you.”

Alphonse hesitated, then shook his head. “Thank you, my
lord, but no. A small troop could not break open Kenilworth to free my wife, so
there is no sense in weakening your force by even a few men when they can serve
no real purpose.”

But Edward still held Alphonse. “A word. I am a fool for
putting such an idea into your head. We have heard no hint that Guy traveled
east from Gloucester when Leicester went to Hereford. I will not give you leave
to go until you promise me you will not go to Kenilworth.” Edward’s lips
twisted into a caricature of a smile. “Man, do not look at me as if I were a
monster. If Lady Barbara is in Kenilworth, she is safe. My aunt may be indulgent
to her sons, but not in matters of the flesh, nor would Leicester himself
condone lewd behavior. Go to Evesham and ask the brothers when your wife left
and with whom. If she has been taken, come back to me, and we will devise a way
to obtain her freedom.”

Chapter Thirty

Late on the same day, Barbara walked slowly down one path of
the visitors’ garden in Evesham Abbey. She was by now as familiar with every
bed and bush of this garden as with the garden of Framlingham. With the thought
came a surge of homesickness so strong that tears stung her eyes. More and more
as time passed and Alphonse gave no sign that he cared whether or not he ever
heard from her, she longed for her father and the comfort of Joanna’s company.

By the beginning of July, after the city of Gloucester
surrendered to the prince, she had expected every day to see her husband appear
in the visitors’ courtyard or to hear that he had sent an irate message asking
where she was. But the days passed and neither Alphonse nor a message came. Day
by day the pleasure drained out of Barbara. She remembered that she had agreed
to send word where Alphonse was to meet her, but she had never known her
husband to wait passively for what he wanted. If he wanted her, he would have
sought and pursued her.

Most likely Alphonse had forgotten all about her, Barbara
thought angrily. He was playing at war— She swallowed hard. Perhaps he had been
wounded…killed? No. That was ridiculous. Mortimer or Gilbert would have sent
her word if harm had come to her husband. No, he was not hurt. Doubtless he had
found another woman. She would go home. Tomorrow she would go home without a
word to him, without sending for a troop of her father’s men. It would serve
Alphonse right if she were taken prisoner. Barbara laughed aloud at her own
silliness, although tears still stung her eyes. She would be a far greater
sufferer than Alphonse if she were taken prisoner, especially if he was in no
hurry to get her back. Biting her lips against sobs, she turned her back on the
rose trees and walked quickly to the bench near the tiny pool at the center of
the garden. Furious with herself for becoming trapped in a weary round she had
sworn she would not think about again, she sat down and pulled a wide band of
pale blue ribbon from her basket, found the needle, and threaded it with a deep
red silk.

Grimly, Barbara fixed her eyes on the pattern of little
lions with curled-up tails chasing each other along the ribbon. Red was a
favorite color of her father’s and the blue would match his eyes. She sewed
steadily, keeping her mind on her work and on the small events that were news
in an abbey, until the lowering sun, just above the top of the garden wall,
shone full in her eyes and blinded her. She turned her head and sighed. The sun
would drop behind the wall in a few minutes. It was time to go in.

Barbara snipped her thread, pulled the needle free, and
fixed it firmly into its carrying cloth. She could not leave it in the satin
ribbon, where it might pull and leave a hole or catch on a thread and snag it.
By habit she counted the pins in the cloth before she put it away. She had been
used to loose pins, which dropped to the bottom of her basket and worked their
way through the woven withies, and replacing them irritated her father who always
felt it unjust to spend so much for such tiny things. She smiled, recalling the
many times she had tried to explain to him that greater craft and patience were
needed to make a pin than a sword.

Memory of her father’s likes and dislikes made Barbara put a
hand to her crespine. There was not a wisp of breeze, and she had been sitting
quite still. How had tendrils of hair worked themselves out? Impatient, she
began to push them back into the net, and felt her finger catch and tear one of
the delicate knots. Uttering a word no lady should say, especially in an abbey,
Barbara scrabbled in the bottom of the basket and pulled out her silver mirror.
For the moment she was her father’s daughter and the mirror was no more than a
thing she had had “forever”. But with the mirror a finished piece of work came
from the basket, a panel of brilliant violet silk now embroidered with little
dark purple snakes climbing silver trees bearing golden apples. As the frontlet
she had made for Alphonse’s gown unfolded, the pain hit. Barbara sat for a long
moment with her hand poised over her basket, thinking of the weeks of work she
had done to make Alphonse laugh.

“Damn you, Barbe, have you no conscience at all!”

His voice came from her right, from the entrance to the
garden from the men’s wing of the visitors’ quarters. Barbara uttered a shriek
of surprise and joy, dropping the mirror and frontlet into her basket, jumping
to her feet, and whirling to face him. The mail hood of his hauberk had been
thrust back so she could see his face plainly, and his distorted expression
stopped her dead. He was angry enough to beat her, she thought, her breath
catching. She backed away from the pool, and his mouth grew harder yet. Barbara
had never had such rage directed at her in her life except by her father’s wife
who wanted her dead. Aware only of the need to put something between her and
the threat, she caught up her basket, holding the open side against her breast
so that the solid bottom faced outward.

“Put that down,” Alphonse said, his voice a caricature of
its usual gentleness.

Barbara was so frightened that she did not even think of
running into the women’s quarters where Alphonse could not come. She knew the
brothers would not interfere with a husband lessoning his wife. She had
forgotten that though wife beating was acceptable, they would not tolerate a
man’s invasion of the chambers reserved for women. She tried to swallow but her
mouth and throat would not move. Her arms would not move either, so she could
not put her basket down as ordered. She stood like a statue, having not the
slightest idea that she projected an image of rigid defiance.

When Alphonse took another step forward, however, Barbara
jerked back as if the distance between them were fixed by some solid matter. “I
said—” he began, and moved more quickly. She took two quicker steps too, and
then her heel tangled in her skirt and she fell—still frozen with the basket
tight against her breast.

She landed in a bed of thyme. Low-growing and springy as it
was and with the earth beneath the plants stirred and loosened so that it was
soft, she was not hurt beyond the thump that bruised her backside, shoulders,
and the back of her head. The violent jarring and slight pain broke her
paralysis. More important in reducing her terror was the note of anguish in her
husband’s voice when he called her name as she fell.

“Barbe,” he cried again, as he bent over her.

“What have I done? Why are you so angry?” she asked, fury at
the unnatural terror she had felt making her voice sharp.

He did not answer, only stared down at her. His rage broken
by shock and anxiety over her fall, Alphonse could not summon it again and bury
himself in it to protect him from a far greater pain. Her questions flayed him.
Why was he angry? Because by refusing to go home she confirmed his belief that
she was keeping herself out of the way of a lover. Was that wrong? Was it not
modest and prudent of a good wife to avoid temptation? Her behavior was
perfect. She had sworn faith and loyalty, and faith and loyalty she had given
him. But he did not want a perfect wife, he wanted love.

Disgust rose like bile in his throat as he suddenly
understood why he had so eagerly accepted Edward’s unlikely notion that Guy had
seized her. Rather than believe she had an old love, still so powerful that she
could not face it, he preferred her to be a prisoner, perhaps raped and beaten.
Whatever she was, he was worse. Alphonse straightened and backed away.

Staring up at her husband, Barbara watched wide-eyed as the
rage in his face was replaced with horror and then pain as if her questions had
stabbed him. Then his eyes had gone dead. She drew a sharp breath, willing to
bring back the fury if she could erase what she now saw.

“Wait,” she cried, rolling over and struggling to her feet.
“I am sorry if some plan of yours was overset because my father did not send
his men for me, but I could not let you make a tool of me to trap him into war.
You are my husband, but I owe my father for the years of nurture—”

“Trap your father?” Alphonse interrupted, looking back over
his shoulder. He turned toward her, his black brows knitted into one line above
eyes that held a reborn gleam. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“Did you not hope that the coming of my father’s men and
their turning away without joining Leicester would make all believe he had
abandoned Leicester’s cause?” she asked somewhat uncertainly.

Alphonse blinked and his mouth fell open. Barbara recognized
that ploy, and it annoyed her. In any case, the crisis was now past and her
fear with it. She walked forward to the bench and smacked her basket down.
Alphonse closed his mouth and swallowed.

“You can make yourself look foolish by imitating a frog if
you like,” she said irritably, brushing at the twigs caught in her skirt, “but
you cannot convince me that you are foolish or innocent.”

“I am innocent of that plot,” Alphonse said, but he did not
look at her. His eyes were on the basket. “My mind, it is clear, is not half so
devious as yours. But what a marvelous idea! If only I did not have these
stupid scruples against tricking those with whom I have made bonds of blood
into actions that might be dangerous.”

The sarcasm of the words and what he said rang true, but his
voice and expression were wrong. He should have grown angry again. Instead he
sounded almost indifferent, as if he were thinking of something more important.
He was still staring down too, as if fascinated. Her gaze now followed his, and
she saw he was looking at the basket. Suddenly she remembered how he had told
her to put it down as if it were horrible. That was ridiculous. It was an
elegant basket, beautifully shaped and richly patterned. And he had been too
angry to care if her work spilled out when he hit her.

“What are you looking at?” she cried.

“What have you in that basket?” he asked.

“Are you mad? My work is in it.”

“And your love token! Is that not so?”

Barbara was stricken mute by so unexpected an accusation.
She stared into her husband’s face, where emotions she herself felt too often
showed plainly. She had acted too cleverly it seemed at being indifferent. He
was jealous! But the knowledge gave her no joy as she realized she had
inflicted on Alphonse all the agonies she herself had felt. Alphonse had never
shown her anything but love, and she knew he would not, even if he did play
with other women. He was, and always would be, kind. She had been cruel.

“I have no love token,” she said softly, stretching a hand
to him.

“For God’s sake, do not lie to me!” Tears glittered briefly
in his eyes, and then he shrugged and turned half away. “I have seen you hiding
what you carry under your work in that basket, or pulling your skirt over it, a
dozen times since we were married.”

Barbara choked, swallowing down a hysterical peal of
laughter. The mirror! She had forgotten all about it. But if she showed it, he
would know she was enslaved. She caught at her aching throat, torn between his
pain and her own, not realizing her gesture looked like one of fear.

“You need not be afraid. I am not accusing you of fouling
your honor or mine,” he said bitterly. “I know you have not seen your lover.
Perhaps you should and you will discover I am not so bad a substitute—”

Rigidly repressing another impulse to laugh at this comical
display of hurt pride, Barbara said soothingly, “You are a substitute for no
one. I have never loved any man but you, which I told you when you first asked
me if I would marry you.”

Now there was contempt in his face. “Do not drag out that
tired old lie again. I will not hurt you. I have no cause for complaint about
our marriage. You are doing your duty to me nobly.”

All temptation to laugh died as Barbara realized something
deeper than Alphonse’s pride had been hurt. He would soon hate her, she
thought, terrified. She took a quick step, bent, and upended the basket so everything
tumbled out onto the bench. Then she caught up the mirror and thrust it into
his hands.

“There!” she cried. “There is the token of love I have
carried since I was thirteen years old. Do you not recognize it, you great
fool! It is the mirror you won in a tourney and gave to me.”

Alphonse stood with the mirror in his hands, gaping as she
picked up everything, ostentatiously shook out every piece of cloth so he could
be sure nothing was folded into it, refolded it, and replaced it in the basket.
She held up the comb, the only other item that was not necessary in a work
basket.

“This is my father’s gift to me. You may send it to him and
ask him.”

Wordlessly Alphonse shook his head. Clearly the comb had
been designed to match the mirror and he did, indeed, recognize the mirror,
although he had not seen it for many years. Its form and decoration had been
seared into his memory as an ugly, awkward little girl carried it about and
showed it to everyone, innocently implying that he was her lover. He remembered
vividly, even now, how he had told her in very plain language that she must
stop what she was doing, that he did not love her or intend to marry her. She
had sent the mirror back to him, and it had lain on a chest in his chamber,
silently accusing him of cruelty until he had sought her out and returned it,
explaining that he did not regret having given her the mirror. He wished to be
her friend, although he was not fit to be her husband.

“Well, then,” Barbara said with cold indignation recalling
him to the present, “do you wish to reexamine the contents of my basket or the
basket itself in case there is some hideous secret woven into—”

“Do not you dare!” Alphonse roared, thrusting the mirror
into her hands so hard that she hit herself in the solar plexus and gasped. “Do
not you dare try to make me a guilty fool! You hid that mirror apurpose, as if
it were a shameful thing. What game are you playing?”