“She has such soft hair,” Simon said, looking after her as she ran off. “What a strange childhood she’s having. Of course, we all had an odd one. I was born in Sicily while Father was stuck there for some reason to do with the King... I think my parents had been sent away from England for a bit for offending him. I remember Italy, the warmth of it, and the sea. Just a little.”
“Perhaps you spoke some Italian,” I said. “Children pick up languages easily.”
He nodded. “I was a wild young savage for some time, I was told. And then Father left Kenilworth when I was eight to go to Gascony. That meant four years of barely seeing him. And he almost came to ruin during that time as well. The King turned against him, brought him to trial, even.” He spoke rapidly, restlessly. “Then your Stephen came along. I wasn’t very nice to him, felt jealous, I suppose. He was so pretty. And Father was kind to him because his parents had been killed. It was a good reason to be kind. But I wasn’t.”
“It’s all right,” I said roughly.
“I’ve wronged you.” He spoke so rapidly I thought that anyone around wouldn’t understand.
“It’s in the past now. You don’t have to explain.”
He glanced around, waving to his mother, who had been chatting to the knights about to depart. “Mother may send you to me at some point soon. To get news of the battle, I mean. I just ask that you follow her orders.”
“How could I not?” I asked. “I’m here under her roof. I’m one of her household.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t blame you for holding a grudge. Mother might give you the choice to go or not.”
I looked at him. “Simon, I don’t...” My face went crimson as I paused, trying to parse my words, but deciding to be honest. “I don’t ever want to say goodbye to you, knowing it’s the last time.”
He chuckled slightly. “There will eventually have to be a last time.”
“I hope it’s not today.”
“I don’t think so!” he said lightly. His mother came up to embrace him. “Expect me to be back in Kenilworth soon, Mother. I just don’t know when.”
“I hope you and Henry will meet there again soon,” she murmured.
“Yes, it’s been too long. Father has had him for ages. I don’t think he wants to leave Father now.”
“What news of Pevensey?” she asked.
“I left some men there just so that the garrison will stay put. But it’s hopeless. No matter...”
“I’m still hoping your father will come to terms with the King,” she murmured, as if she was not speaking about her own brother. “The bishops keep trying to arrange it.”
He kissed the top of her head gently. “I don’t think anything could make that happen now. You know Father. He can’t back down.”
She sighed, and her eyes grew wistful. “All these ridiculous quarrels seem so stupid now. The protracted fights over money that we waged with him! It was so important to get what was owed us, your father thought. We were all on such good terms once. It’s hard to see what happened clearly.” She shook her head, recollecting herself. “And I don’t have time to think about it. I must reinforce the castle.”
“Of course.” Simon nodded. “I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job.”
He put his helm on.
“I’ll walk with you to your horse,” his mother said.
He pressed my hand. “Goodbye, Will.”
I watched him walk away until he was out of my view, my eyes dwelling on the impressive sight of him in chain mail, a sight that still stirred me. I sensed he was refreshed, energized. He didn’t seem to feel hopeless that morning. Yet I recognized, from the way he and his mother spoke to each other, that the situation was.
Eleanor walked back towards me with her usual briskness. “He is off to London to gather extra troops,” she said coolly. “And then he will meet up with his father at some appointed place, perhaps Gloucester. I’m afraid my husband will not be able to defeat Edward’s forces without Simon’s help, but I’ve told him to be very careful. Edward is bold and decisive. The last thing I want is for him to get caught unawares. I told him to take his time going back to Kenilworth because Edward will expect him to be there.”
***
We feasted every night at Dover that summer. It was as if Lady Eleanor knew the time for feasting would be over soon. She still had Stephen record her items, but spent with reckless indulgence. At Odiham, I recalled, Earl Simon had sent her a gift of porpoise meat once. She was childishly delighted by such delicacies, and the thought that lay behind them.
And most nights, even at Dover, there were guests. Her manner was poised, as always. She was flying the flag, implying that all was not lost, but I wondered if part of the pretence was for her daughter. Perhaps she knew that her daughter’s childhood would likely be over soon. The fun parts: the feasting, the castles, the happy times with her big brothers, the festive Christmases...
We were not exactly mournful, Stephen and I. I wanted to stay close to him, and it was easy. He made it easy. At the same time, we could never completely be at ease. We were always alert for ominous news. And it came soon enough.
The news kept trickling in throughout June and July. We weren’t sure what it added up to, but each item was grim. The Countess seemed shaken after each visit from Wilecok. We kept expecting Gobithest, but we never saw him; Wilecok said that he was ill at Kenilworth, trying to rest.
The first news came from Kenilworth, where Richard of Cornwall, Eleanor’s brother, and his second son, Edmund, were being held. Earl Simon had ordered them put in irons after Edward’s escape. Lady Eleanor was distressed by this, Wilecok told us. Her brother had been imprisoned for over a year already, his lands seized. It hardly seemed fair—but there it was.
In mid-July, Wilecok finally appeared to report again. The long trip to Dover Castle was taking a lot out of him. He came in hunched over his horse, ragged and dusty. He spent a long time alone with the Countess. But he was willing to talk to us once he’d rested a bit.
Now free to lead an army, Edward had allied with a onetime figure of the reform movement, Gilbert de Clare, a youthful, red-headed nobleman who had fought bravely at the battle of Lewes but had become disenchanted with the earl’s leadership after seeing so much of the country’s land once owned by royalists divided up and given to his sons as spoils, Wilecok said. For example, Henry had been given large chunks of Kent, Simon the lands in Surrey and Sussex, Guy huge estates in Devon and Cornwall that had belonged to the King’s brother. Even young Amaury had benefited, with the rectorship of a church on Duke Richard’s former lands.
Gilbert detested Simon and Henry most of all, though, for their shameless plundering. Wilecok said that they had made a deal with pirates in the Cinque Ports and pocketed part of their spoils. It was very strange to see them as detested figures, as reckless and greedy. I wondered what Tom would have thought at these reports. It was so very far from the way we had viewed them as young squires.
“And those ransoms?” Wilecok gossiped, his loose tongue ever ready to waggle. “You must have wondered how much them nobles would pay to be freed, Will. A thousand pound each. And there was more than a handful of those. In fact, there was a child held as a hostage till his father paid a hefty ransom. You saw him at Odiham.”
Stephen and I stared at each other, open-mouthed. We had both seen a young boy at Odiham for several months, but had believed him to be a guest of Eleanor’s, maybe the child of a relative or close friend.
“That wasn’t the only thing,” Wilecok winked, slurping his ale. “You noticed the dark-haired young woman who was visiting in April, Will?”
We were not in the Great Hall, but on a balcony at the castle where we stood looking out over the sea, far below and distant. The wind seemed to capture Wilecok’s slurred words and blow them into the air.
“Yes, who was that?” I said carefully. I had been entirely too wrapped up in Stephen in April to notice anything about this guest who had spent many evenings with the Countess
.
“She’s Isabella de Fors, the richest widow in England,” Wilecok said. “Simon was after her in the spring. For the money. To marry her,” he added. “But it didn’t happen, did it? The Countess was all for it, too. Simon put her off at the last moment. I think he was just too obvious and she felt afraid for her virtue...so she fled to Wales!”
I glanced at Stephen, who shrugged. A twinkle came into his eye. “Simon will die a bachelor,” he said, smiling at me.
“An old one, I hope.” I couldn’t help saying it, although I knew it was hardly likely.
He shrugged again, the humor fading from his eyes, to be replaced with something I knew well.
Pity.
“Well!” Wilecok announced, breaking the heavy mood that was building up between us. “And then there’s poor Earl Simon.”
“He was in the Welsh marches, last we heard,” Stephen said, deftly continuing the conversation.
“Aye. He’s been trapped there, behind the Severn! Not that I know much about that benighted country, though I’ve had to try to traverse it these last months. It’s what drove poor Gobithest to his bed. The exhaustion.” Wilecok gave a deep sigh. “But aye, he wanted to get a fleet of ships to ferry him and his troops across the Bristol Channel to attack Lord Edward. He finally arranged it. You’ll never guess, though... Edward and Gilbert swooped down upon them and burned them before they could set sail! I had to bring that message to him.
“Then he settled on Gloucester as the place where he wants to fight it out with Edward. You know, the final battle. But Gloucester just fell to the King. It’s in Edward’s hands now, so he can’t go there.”
“Where do you think the final battle will be, then?” Stephen asked.
“As if you don’t know!” I thought, looking at him. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he didn’t.
Wilecok shook his head. “West of Kenilworth somewhere, I reckon, but the problem is that the Prince is liable to sweep down from a nearby town and surprise Earl Simon. The area around there is not safe now, lads. Not at all.”
We were both staring at him now, riveted. I was horrified to think of my county in the hands of the King’s army. So much had changed since I left for Oxford the year before...
“I fear that, and Earl Simon has warned Simon of it, but Simon is playing a game where he’s taking forever to reach the castle, reach Kenilworth. I reckon he thinks Edward will be confused about his movements and won’t ever track him, but it makes it so much harder for his father to find him! Or me to take a message. He’s not at Kenilworth yet. I’ll come back to Dover when I have more news.” Wilecok sighed, looking out at the sea.
“Edward’s a clever bastard,” were his final, bitter words on that occasion.
Edward was indeed a clever bastard. The next time Wilecok appeared, around the third day of August, he looked about ten years older. His hair had turned white. At first I thought it was dust, and handed him a cloth to wipe his head after he dismounted his horse.
“It’s good to find you out here, Will. I have to speak to the Countess.” He wiped his face distractedly with the cloth.
“It’s for your hair,” I pointed out.
“Those are white hairs, lad. And I’ve earned ’em!”
A servant came rushing out with a tankard of ale, which he drained rapidly.
“It’s young Simon,” he said out of the corner of his mouth to me, waiting for Lady Eleanor to emerge. “He got caught out by Edward. Edward captured a large number of his men in the town of Kenilworth where they went for ‘baths’ the night after they arrived. Somebody at the castle tipped Edward off. Don’t know who. He was nearby, you know, thirty miles away. Simon escaped with some of his men and swam the Great Mere to get back in! It was night...they let him go. He’s safe. But...” Here Wilecok shook his head.
“What?” I asked, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of my belly.
“They took the earl’s banners. The Montfort crest. They were supposed to meet. He’s going to see that and think—”
Wilecok said no more as Lady Eleanor strode over to him.
“Tell me the worst,” was all I heard her say. Wilecok gave a sort of moan and fell at her feet.
“He’s alive, my lady,” he moaned. “But I don’t give much for his chances of saving the earl—”
I retreated up the steps. Glancing around, I saw them almost embracing as Eleanor raised the skinny old man up. A servant rushed out to help.
I ran to find Stephen.
He was sitting on our bed, fully clothed, looking at me.
“Is she going to...” I started, looking at him.
“Yes. Because Wilecok’s so exhausted, she’s going to ask you to go to Kenilworth. By the time you get there, the battle will be over, though. You know this.”
I sunk to the floor beside him, resting my head against his knees.
“What if I can’t find him?”
“I think you will,” he said quietly. “If I thought you shouldn’t go, I’d tell you.”
I took a few deep breaths to steady myself.
“You can do this, Will,” he said.
“I know I can, physically.”
A knock came at the door. Stephen looked at it and called, “Yes.”
Lady Eleanor’s red-rimmed eyes were pitiful as she gazed straight at me, ignoring Stephen. “I need you to go and find out whether Simon is safe. And what happened to my husband.”
I got to my feet, walked towards her, and for some reason knelt down. She rested her hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll give you a letter for Simon. You bring one back to me. Don’t worry, you won’t be harmed with my letter in your possession.”
I could still be killed by a stray arrow, I thought, but I said, “Yes, my lady.”
“You’ll have to keep me company, Stephen.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said comfortably.
Once she had gone, I turned to him.
“Can you not tell us what’s happened? It would prevent all this.”
He looked at me and shook his head.
“I’ve tried to see. It’s cloudy and awful. I might tell her the wrong thing.”
“You’re sending me in blind,” I told him.
“You won’t have to view the battlefield, Will.” His voice was very quiet, almost a breath.
I waited, so he spoke again.
“Trust me, Will. If you don’t go...”
“Just say it.” I wanted to shake him.
“You won’t see him again. For years.”
I nodded, took a quick look at him, threw some things in a bag, and left the room. We didn’t even embrace. That didn’t seem to bother him; he seemed so sure I’d be back.
***
I would like to say the journey was endless. It wasn’t. The weather was fair and crisp as I moved through Kent as fast as I could. Early August, Lammas, always a time I associated with home and harvest. Well, this would be a bitter one.
I decided to go straight to Odiham, then turn north and go up to Kenilworth via Oxford. Odiham was two days travel, Kenilworth another two days. I had a strange desire to see Odiham again. It was also a practical place to rest.
Moving west through Sussex, I took in scenes that I vaguely remembered from the battle of Lewes. Oh, if only I had Tom with me now.
Oxford would be in the King’s hands again. I knew it, and knew that riding with a Montfort surcoat on was a liability. But somehow I thought that I would be all right. If the battle had decisively gone in the King’s favor—
Well, I knew that it had. It wasn’t even a question.
I alternated galloping and trotting. They had given me a young, strong horse. He performed well. I talked to him sometimes for company.
“The last thing I want is to worry about you,” I said.
I enjoyed feeding him apples. That was the only enjoyable part of the trip, watching him graze as I rested. He seemed completely unconcerned.
I managed to sleep for a few hours
the first night in a field, armor on. My sword belt and appearance kept the few people I saw on the road at a respectful distance. I was starting to feel like a knight, finally. It was odd.
By the second night, I’d hit Odiham, and I was welcomed to sleep in front of the fire by the old cook who let me in.
“We’ve heard no news,” she said heavily. “Wilecok stopped in here on his way to Dover Castle. He always does. No news since then. We’re out of the way.”
She asked after the Countess and young Lady Eleanor and brought me a jug of mulled wine. I fell into a deep, drugged sleep.
In the very early morning I set off. I hoped to get to Oxford that day. Actually, that night, so I could creep through and not be seen.
And that’s what happened. I rested somewhere in a barn and got back on the horse the next morning.
My body was feeling so tired and achy as to be unrecognizable. But so were the surroundings as I passed Banbury, where people looked at my surcoat with worried stares.
Wounded men were limping around in the town. There were people talking at the rather empty market. I swear I saw someone cross themselves as they looked at me. An old woman pressed a cake into my hand and cried out something.
I didn’t ask what had happened. I didn’t want to hear it from them.
I moved along. The horse was plodding more gently now, patiently covering the miles. As we neared Kenilworth, the skies were dark and gloomy and the mists rose off the fields, covering all traces of life.
I rode in this whitish-gray bubble until I took the turn for the castle.
The Great Mere looked the same, though the water seemed dark because of the cloudy day, and I spotted no swans. I’d wondered drearily if the King’s soldiers had surrounded the place. They hadn’t, which was strange. The castle walls, which I’d last seen glowing rosily, were now colorless and almost drab.
I rode up to the portcullis and banged on it, afraid that the castle might be deserted.
“Who goes there?” someone cried. It sounded like one of the guards whose voice I’d heard for years.
A Knight's Tale: Kenilworth Page 23
