Authors: Roberta Gellis
“I am sorry your hauberk binds,” she said. “Let us take it
off at once, and I will see to a better fitting of the arming tunic tomorrow.”
Alphonse opened his mouth in protest at the idea of his mail
galling like that of some young or inexperienced knight who fought seldom. His
armor had been worn so long and so hard that, from battering in battle and the
adjustments of armorers, the steel rings had been subtly bent and twisted until
they lay on him like a second skin. But he too had seen the alewife’s surprise
and realized that impatience had made the time she was above-stairs readying
the chamber seem much longer than it really was. So he shut his mouth and
allowed Barbara to undo his belt and pull off his surcoat.
The alewife finished with the bed and came to the tray of
food which had been set on a table. She reached for the flagon to pour wine
into the empty cups. Alphonse drew his lips back from his teeth.
“We will serve ourselves,” Barbara said hastily, and moved
toward the woman making shooing gestures with her hands and glancing
significantly at Alphonse.
The alewife blinked, looked suddenly suspicious, and then
left the room very quickly. Barbara burst out laughing. She was about to
complain that the woman almost certainly now thought Alphonse was her lover
rather than her husband, but he grabbed her and kissed her, then thrust her
away and began to struggle out of his armor. Still laughing, Barbara started to
undress herself, having a strong suspicion her clothing would get torn if she
was not ready before her husband.
Had her shift had any ties, her suspicion would have proved
correct. Fortunately, Alphonse could pull that light garment off in one swift
motion without damage as he backed her toward the bed. They fell together, and
the jolt seemed to snap the leash on which she had held some wild beast within
her. She uttered a soft cry, her nails scoring his buttocks, her legs going
around him and gripping as he found her nether mouth and thrust blindly. He
groaned as he was lodged as if he had been stabbed instead of she and heaved
away as if he would escape his confinement. But Barbara’s powerful legs
contracted, and he slid into the warm and welcome prison once more. She held
him fast, rocking against him, tearing at his back when he once tried to hold
her still. Despairingly, he closed his eyes and threw back his head, but
Barbara’s high, wavering cry brought his release, and he let his seed spring as
he closed her mouth with his.
They rolled apart laughing over their haste, and Alphonse
bruised his hip on the heating stones, which made them both laugh more. After a
while they gathered strength enough to get up, use the chamberpot, find their
bedrobes in the travel baskets, and begin to eat. Somehow neither had much to
say.
Barbara knew she should use this moment, while echoes of
past pleasure still coursed in the blood and glances and smiles exchanged
promised new pleasure to come, to urge Alphonse to send a message back to
Edward that he would not return. Surely Alphonse’s departure could work no
hardship on the prince. If Edward could spare him for long enough to go to
Norfolk, he could spare him for good. The argument was sound, but she dared not
use it. She could not bear that any discord sour the sweetness of the moment or
blur the memory of the piercing joy he had given her.
Alphonse’s thoughts echoed hers, although the subject was
different. He had not forgotten the question she had avoided. Why had she
hidden his own mirror from him? But he pushed it out of his mind, salving
doubts with remembering how eagerly she had come to him, the feel of her full
breasts pressed against him, her legs gripping his thighs, the heave of her
body in response to his. He had been with too many women to be fooled by
pretense. Barbe desired him and enjoyed him.
Naturally, with this trend of thought, they were in bed
again before the meal was finished. Eventually they did talk while they
finished eating, but each had made essentially the same decision, so Barbara
asked for details of the prince’s escape and Alphonse gave them eagerly. He also
told her that Edward’s imprisonment had left him dangerously sensitive and
suspicious, and that was why he felt he could not yet ask to go back to France.
And before she could begin to argue, he changed the subject to their campaign
down the Severn and the great importance of keeping Leicester penned in the
west. If Edward could bring him to battle without support, though Leicester was
a great soldier, he could be defeated.
Talk of war made Barbara shiver with fear. Her father was
safe and so was her uncle, but to her horror she realized she would throw both
into battle to keep Alphonse out. The wish would do her no more good, she knew,
than would pleading or arguing with Alphonse, but the fear made Barbara push
away the remains of her cheese. To change the subject, she commented that it
was fortunate the meal had been cold to begin with. She did not understand why
that made her husband drag her back to bed, although between sucking her
breasts and tickling her lower lips until they were hard and wet he murmured
something about proving her hot, not cold. It did not matter at all. She was as
eager as he and she made no objections to what he was doing.
That time Barbara did not even remember their bodies coming
apart. Alphonse remained awake just long enough to pull the cover over them,
but he as well as she slept hard, unaware of the crashing thunder and violence
of the wind, which banged the shutters against the window frames until Chacier,
hearing the noise from downstairs, crept up and fastened all tight. When he
told Clotilde in the morning that their lord and lady had not stirred, although
their bedcurtains were lashing about them, she looked at the rain outside and
agreed that they doubtless needed their rest, hoping they would sleep until the
weather improved.
She did not need to worry. Although Alphonse wakened later
than usual because the room was so dark, he realized morning had come. Hearing
the rain, he decided there was no need to hurry. He thought lazily that it was
most fortunate that he had gathered sense enough before he left to tell the
prince he would follow Barbara if he learned she had left with Norfolk’s men.
Time was no problem. Then he tickled her awake and into playful passion again.
Relaxed and happy, they slept again, to be startled awake by Clotilde’s voice
just beyond the curtain.
“My lord, my lady,” she was whispering urgently, “two men
have just come in with news that an army is marching toward the ford.”
Alphonse leapt out of bed, pulled on his bedrobe, and ran
down the stair. Barbara jumped out the other side, caught up the shift, which
lay near the bed, and pulled it on, then used the pot while Clotilde brought
her other clothes. She was fastening the last laces when Alphonse came up again
with Chacier on his heels. Alphonse’s eyes were blazing bright.
“I cannot believe our good fortune,” he said, ripping off
the bedrobe and yanking on the shirt Clotilde was holding. “The men who brought
the news are merchants from Chipping Norton who were overtaken on the road by
foreriders of the army. Most of their goods were seized—all they got were
promises to pay—and they are somewhat bitter now that the relief of coming away
with their skins in one piece is wearing off. They were eager to talk.”
Alphonse was silent a moment as Chacier slid his arming
tunic over his head. Barbara came forward to fasten it while Chacier readied
his hauberk.
“Barbe,” he continued, “it is the army Simon de Montfort was
ordered to bring to his father. I cannot believe he has idled away two weeks
coming from Winchester to this place. Edward did not seem to think he should
take longer than four days from there to Worcester.”
Barbara nodded. “It is no more than thirty-five leagues. A
man can go ten leagues a day if he must.”
She stepped back as Chacier brought his master’s armor and
Alphonse bent forward into it, arms outstretched, then straightened and
wriggled his head through the neck opening. “The prince has been racking his
brain to discover what clever device Leicester and Simon were planning to use
against him, when he was not blaming the men he left along the northern Severn
for somehow allowing Simon and his army to sneak past.”
Chacier had pulled the hauberk straight and smoothed the
places where the links had caught against each other to form little ridges. Barbara
brought Alphonse’s sword and belt from the chest atop which they lay. She
looked down at the buckle as she fastened the belt, trying to remember which of
them had put it on the chest, and when. All she remembered was the thump when
Alphonse loosened it and it fell to the floor. Then his hand was under her
chin, lifting her face.
“They are going to Kenilworth, Barbe. The merchants are sure
of it.” He bent and kissed her eyes shut. “Do not look at me as if I were
leaving you forever. I will only be gone a day or two. You know I must tell
Edward about this…” His voice faded uncertainly, and Barbara’s eyes fluttered
open. She hoped her misery was causing him to reconsider, but he was not
looking at her. “Do you know how far it is from Kenilworth to Worcester?” he
asked eagerly, his mind plainly on considerations that had nothing to do with
her.
Barbara lost all impulse to weep. Disappointment and fear
were both replaced with a sharp urge to kick her husband where it would do the
most good. Her restraint owed nothing to affection. It was dictated largely by
her fear that, armed as he was, he would only feel enough to make him laugh at
her. Men! Nothing was more important to them than playing at war and politics.
“Less than ten leagues,” Barbara snapped, stepping back out
of his reach.
“Marvelous woman!” he exclaimed, wondering suddenly if she
really knew all these distances. Such knowledge was most unusual in a woman.
Perhaps she just did not wish to confess ignorance. He could not say that
aloud, but he could ask admiringly, “How do you know these things?”
“You would also know them if you had spent ten years
traveling all over the country with the queen,” Barbara replied waspishly. “One
must know how long a journey will take to send a maid or man ahead to be sure
of a good place in the queen’s chamber or good lodging or a bath to be ready
before the great dinner. Or simply to fill one’s head with something other than
gossip. There was a time when we often went to Kenilworth, and Worcester is a
royal city and the next natural stopping place.”
While they were talking, Chacier and Clotilde had stuffed
bedrobes and clothes into the baskets and strapped them closed. Alphonse looked
around at the faint grunt his servant uttered as he lifted two baskets to his
shoulder and started for the stairs.
“I will escort you back to Evesham,” he said to Barbara. “I
would really like to send you on east, but there is too much danger of
stragglers from the army. I think you will be safe in the abbey.”
“I will be safe enough,” Barbara said, still barely
restraining herself from kicking her single-minded mate. “There is no need for
you to escort me and delay your news to the prince by another hour or more.
There is a shorter route between Stratford and Worcester. I told you of it yesterday.
Go out the west gate on the road to Alcester, then west again, and you will
come to Worcester. You cannot miss the way.”
“Beloved!”
Alphonse caught her in his arms and hugged her so hard the
rings of his mail hurt her. He was too involved in his own calculations about
how soon the prince could move his men to hear the sarcasm in her voice. All
that came through to him were the words, so he believed that despite her
original prejudice toward Leicester’s cause she was now as eager for Edward’s
success as he. More marvelous yet, for he had had no time to explain, she
understood how precious time was. Even a few hours might make the difference
between catching Simon’s army outside of Kenilworth and having a good chance of
defeating and dispersing them or having them disappear within the great
fortress. Edward simply did not have enough men to besiege Kenilworth and fight
Leicester. One reason the prince had not yet moved to attack the father was his
fear that the son would come up behind him and catch him between two armies.
“I will send Chacier with you, too,” Alphonse said, after a
grateful kiss.
“There is no need,” Barbara said, pushing him away. “You may
need Chacier, and I will be going in exactly the opposite direction from
Simon’s army and away from where he must know the prince to be also. No one
will be interested in a woman and her maid traveling with a small guard. Go, go
quickly. You do not have a moment to waste.”
“There is no other woman alive your equal!” Alphonse
exclaimed fervently, taking every word she said at face value. He kissed her
hard once more and was out of the room and down the steps before Barbara had
raised her hand to straighten her fillet and cap.
Chapter Thirty-One
Barbara did not begin to weep until she was safe again in the
same chamber of the abbey’s guest house she had left only a day earlier. Fury
had sustained her over the first part of the return journey, a fury intensified
by the miserable weather. She had replayed the parting scene between herself
and her husband many times, finding more elegant and more cutting things to say
to him each time. She had replayed the scene once too often, until she realized
that nothing “clever” she said could have penetrated Alphonse’s mind. She would
have had to slap him or, better, hit him with a war ax to fix his attention on
her. Then she had begun to laugh over the way Alphonse had misunderstood her.
He was not usually obtuse—far the contrary—but his mind had been so fixed on
the need for speed in returning to Worcester that he had believed what she said
and had been quite sincere in calling her wonderful.
Despite the constant drizzle through which Barbara and her
escort rode, they had been able to maintain a much faster pace returning to
Evesham than going to Stratford. Having twice been over the road, every turn
and hill was familiar. When Lewin called a warning to his lady to ride on the
verge because great ruts were hidden by mud, Barbara realized they were passing
through the village of Offensham and would soon be at the abbey.
Still amused by the way her mind and Alphonse’s had been so
far apart, she thrust all thought of him away while she decided what to say to
the abbot about coming back to the guest house. If armies were moving about,
even if they were not too close, she had to warn the abbot of it, but it was
better in these times and this place not to claim connection with either party.
Thus when the abbot granted the interview she requested, she told him that the
way east had been blocked by an army on the move north, toward Kenilworth, and
that her husband had felt it necessary to return to his duty.
The abbot thanked her heartily—but did not, she noted, ask
to what duty Alphonse had returned. She later learned from another visitor, who
had been in the courtyard and had seen the messengers going out, that the abbot
had sent word to those at distant farms and into the hills to the shepherds to
protect the flocks and themselves as well as they could. After the village had
been warned, the gates of the abbey were closed, although it was not yet dark,
and the brothers gathered to sing a special mass. From the back of the church,
Barbara listened to the abbot pray for the safety and well-doing of all men and
ask God, out of His mercy and in the face of their wild and sinful natures, to
infuse the contenders in this war with a desire for peace and reconciliation.
That prayer seemed so hopeless to Barbara, especially after
what Alphonse had said about the darkening of the prince’s spirit that she fled
to her chamber and, at last, yielded to fear. She cried herself to sleep and
woke the next morning drenched with new tears, believing herself a widow.
Unable to bear the thought of Clotilde’s attempts to comfort her, she put on
the riding dress, which the maid had cleaned, and fled to the mute and merry
companionship of Frivole.
The mare had already been carefully groomed, her legs and
belly brushed free of mud and her flanks gleaming. For want of something more
sensible to do, Barbara sought in the saddlebags for the ribbons used to decorate
the animal for great celebrations and began to braid them into the mare’s mane.
First the sight of the gay colors brought new tears to her eyes, but then the
sun came out and made her more hopeful. Young Simon de Montfort was not the
great military leader his father was. Perhaps his men would be disorganized and
not prepared for battle. If Simon were taken prisoner and his army disbanded,
with little hope of other help might not Leicester be brought to consider
terms?
The lift in spirits made her able to break her fast. She
spent the morning braiding the mare’s tail—with Frivole a ticklish and
dangerous job that allowed no wandering of the mind. The mare tended to lash
out with her heels unexpectedly just to see her groomer jump. She would then
turn her head and raise her lip, producing an expression so like a human sneer
that Barbara suspected she kicked not because she was hurt or startled but with
malice aforethought.
Bevis and Lewin, who had often attended Barbara when she
served the queen, had seen this battle with Frivole before and came to enjoy
the show, however, they were also clearly puzzled to see her decking Frivole as
if for celebration. So, to prevent them from thinking her completely mad, after
dinner she gave the afternoon to rehearsing the mare in the fancy steps and
rearings and bowings she had used in court processions in happier days. She
collected quite an audience, nearly all the abbey guests who were only too glad
to while away dull hours and forget the danger that might be abroad in the
countryside.
That danger was not acute, however. During the evening meal
the abbot sent word to his guests that the lay brothers who had gone out to
give warning had seen no armies or armed men, not even troops of foragers, in
the area. Instead of cheering Barbara, who knew whatever action took place
would be much farther north, that news only reminded her of her fear. She lay
awake with pounding heart most of the night, and when she slept, toward morning
dreamed of death and loneliness again and learned that dreams were not to be
trusted, that they were devil-sent torments, because Clotilde woke her out of
the very depths of her nightmare to say that Chacier had brought a message from
Alphonse and was waiting for her in the refectory.
“He is—” she faltered, sitting up, a hand at her breast.
“Eating his dinner like a starved boar,” Clotilde told her
mistress sharply, wiping the tears off Barbara’s cheeks with the hem of her
sleeve and blocking her attempt to get out of bed. “And cheerful with it too,
so you needn’t fear any harm has come to Sieur Alphonse.”
Relief seemed to lift Barbara out of bed and into her
clothes. Quick as she was in dressing, she found Chacier already the center of
a rapt circle to whom he was announcing the prince’s rout of the army Leicester
had summoned from the east. Knowing Alphonse’s servant, Barbara was sure that
he had been told to spread the word, and when he rose, bowed to her, and handed
her a thick folded parchment, she signaled for him to continue with his news.
Slipping the letter into her gown to lie next to her heart, she found a place
and began to eat the food her maid brought her, listening as eagerly as the
others to Chacier’s tale.
She noted with a tiny surge of anxiety that Chacier gave the
news of Simon’s coming to Kenilworth without saying how that news had reached
the prince. If Alphonse had been telling the tale, that omission would have had
no meaning, for Alphonse never drew attention to himself—except while actually
fighting. Possibly Chacier followed the same path through habit, but more
likely he had been warned not to pinpoint his mistress as having any special
connection with the disaster that had overtaken Simon de Montfort. The caution,
then, meant that Alphonse believed Leicester or his supporters might have
sympathizers in the abbey.
While one part of her thought that out, another heard how
Edward had ordered all the forces that could reach him before vespers on the
last day of July to come to the main camp outside of Worcester. As soon as it
was dark, he and his chief vassals had left the city. The army, which had been
alerted earlier, was ready, and as soon as its leaders were in place, marched
east through the dark to Alcester. Turning more northward, they had continued
by small lanes and over fields and meadows to within half a league of
Kenilworth and had then stopped to rest. Just before dawn they had attacked
Simon’s army and found most of the men still asleep, unarmed and unprepared.
When Chacier began to describe, with considerable enthusiasm, the slaughter and
looting that followed, Barbara got up quietly and went into the garden.
Alphonse’s letter would also contain details, she was sure, but not gory ones.
She was not disappointed. Alphonse wrote first about the
prince’s warm thanks and said he had seized the opportunity to tell Edward that
he hoped, after this battle had been fought and won, he would be permitted to
take ship for France. The prince had agreed at once, and he had letters of
transit in his purse, all signed and sealed. Barbara breathed deep with joy and
offered up a brief prayer of thanks before she read on, even more eagerly.
“The only reason, my love,” the letter continued, “that I
did not come myself instead of sending this letter with Chacier, is that I have
been busy making arrangements for the payment of some fat ransoms. You will not
believe that Simon could be more foolish than he seemed in taking so long to
come west, but he outdid himself after arriving in Kenilworth. He must have
known the prince was not far off, and one would think he would by now have
taken Edward’s measure, yet he seemed to think that he was perfectly safe. He
sent out no patrols, which would surely have seen us marching through the open
land despite the dark, nor did he set any special watch. Worst of all—we are
still puzzling over the reason for such madness and thanking God, Mother Mary,
and all the saints for removing whatever wits that young fool ever had—neither
Simon nor any of his principal men went into the keep. They stayed in the
village, and we caught them also abed. I captured, in naught but their shirts,
the Earl of Oxford and William Muntchenesy and two other young gentlemen whose
names I will not write because I took those two in the inn, not the priory, and
they had not even braies on.
“The one misfortune we had was, in the tumult and rush of
naked men, we missed Simon himself. Apparently he knew where were kept the
little boats used to row about for pleasure on the lake that fronts Kenilworth
Keep. Perhaps he crept out through a window after we set guards on the doors,
or his ears were keener than those of his friends and he fled without warning
them before we reached the priory. All we know is that a boat was missing and
though we found his armor, sword, and shield, Simon himself escaped.
“As you can imagine there is considerable confusion here.
Not only are there so many prisoners of high rank that we are having some
difficulty in finding places that are safe and suitable to keep them, but very
violent feelings have arisen between some captives and captors. I barely
prevented Muntchenesy from spitting in Gilbert’s face, and Mortimer, for some
reason I did not bother to ask, grabbed Adam de Neumarket by the throat and all
but throttled him. Gilbert and I had much ado to pull him off. Thus I cannot
simply turn my prisoners over to Gilbert and have him send me whatever ransom
he decides is just.
“Another thing, I have traded one of my braies-less young
men for your aunt Joanna’s eldest son, Baldwin Wake. He was slightly wounded,
not dangerously but enough to keep him from swinging a sword. Since he will not
be able to fight for a time, I hope, if I can find a moment’s peace to plead
his case to Edward, that I can get Baldwin paroled to his mother’s custody. But
the prince is buried in all kinds of business and is not—for many reasons, some
of them very good—inclined to show too much softness. I will have to remain
here for a few days longer.”
Barbara dropped the parchment in her lap. Was it only for
Baldwin that he remained in Worcester or had he been wounded? She jumped up and
ran back to the refectory to pull Chacier away from his eager audience and ask
anxious questions.
Chacier laughed. “With what would they have wounded him? A
pillow? Most were naked and had not time even to snatch up a sword. Nay, my
lady, he has not a scratch.”
The answer seemed easy and natural, and Barbara told herself
that Chacier would not have left his master if he was in any danger. Chacier
added, too, that he had been told to stay in Evesham. First Barbara’s heart lightened,
then it sank again as she realized Alphonse must have given that order with the
sole purpose of reassuring her. There was no other reason for him to deprive
himself of his servant.
She shook her head. “No, I do not need you here,” she said,
and then, not wanting to throw her husband’s generous gesture in his face, she
sought an adequate reason to send Chacier back against his master’s orders.
Memory pricked her, and she scanned the letter again, soon finding the familiar
name. “Besides,” she added, “you must carry a message about one of your
master’s prisoners. The Earl of Oxford is married to my friend Alyce. She is
very young and will be frightened. I would like you to ask Alphonse to let
Oxford write to his wife, and to set a ransom and let him go if Oxford will
give his parole and the prince will agree.”
The alacrity with which Chacier seized the excuse she
offered troubled her a little, and when he had left, riding Lewin’s horse,
which was fresh, she blamed herself for not going back with him. Upon which she
burst out laughing. Alphonse would have murdered her if she had added herself
to the problems he already faced. Worcester, overcrowded with prisoners and
those rushing to Edward’s standard after his victory, must be like a sow with
an overlarge litter—everyone pushing and shoving for a place to eat and a quiet
corner in which to sleep. The image in her mind—alas for dignity—of a heap of
squirming piglets with the faces of Edward’s graver supporters, like John
Giffard and Roger Leybourne, sent her giggling for her work basket and then out
to find a shaded bench in the garden.
From time to time over that day and the next, Barbara did
have to take out Alphonse’s letter and reexamine the strong, steady strokes of
his pen to assure herself once more that he was not hurt, that business more
important than affairs of state—substantial profit to his purse—were what held
him in Worcester. She was not aware of having bad dreams either, except that
she found herself waking suddenly several times during the night. In the early
dawn of August 3, she jerked awake again, sighed with exasperation, and was
just about to turn over and try to go back to sleep when a scratch on the door
brought her out of bed, holding the light blanket around her.