The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  ‘Enough, My Lord, this sword thrust isn't healed over. Gaddesdon said I should be mindful of it.’ Beauchamp had a hand to his side, ready enough to acknowledge defeat. Mortimer pricked at the breast of his jack with the tip of his sword:

  ‘In the heat of battle will you plead an old wound and demand an amnesty?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then neither will you do so here. On guard, Thomas! Higher there, cover your head. I could have driven straight in …’

  ‘I'm done, My Lord, the bout is yours. I'll match you when I'm fit, my word on it.’ But Mortimer, driving in, had smashed his young opponent's blade upward, jarring his arm from wrist to shoulder. The boy’s right side ached and throbbed mercilessly and still the White Wolf smiled. Thomas Beauchamp tossed his sword aside, the ring of steel upon the stone flags setting up a peal of echoes; it was followed by his helmet. He ran a hand through his dark hair and tossed his head.

  ‘Now you may pick them up again,’ said Mortimer, reasonably, and clear enough for his voice to reach the rooms above them where the boy was aware of featureless, gathered heads.

  ‘My Lord, I will not, I have had enough!’ said the boy, and knew he was doomed.

  In her chamber, Isabella Capet, daughter, sister, wife and mother of kings, sat upon a stool whilst her innumerable ladies fluttered about her: one to brush out the lustrous dark hair, one to hold the silver mirror, one to lovingly smooth out her supper gown upon her coverlet, tweaking away motes of fluff from the glossy ermines. Of her younger ladies, one, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, sat hunched upon the window seat, knees drawn up to her pointed chin, a bowl of sugared almonds at her side. Like Isabella, she had hair of ravens' wing darkness, blue-black and glossy but there any similarity ended. Isabella's beauty was plump and ripe, undisguisedly sensual, a Queen but so much more a woman. The girl in the window was slender as a reed with a narrow-boned face of sculpted loveliness. Fine winged brows sprang away from sea-green eyes and, with a frame still slim and angular as a boy's, save for the high, rounded bosom, she was a nymph from the classical tales, a princess from the Arthurian legends, insubstantial enough to glide back into the mists of Avalon. She had been watching the protagonists, every now and then pushing another of her sweetmeats between perfect white teeth.

  ‘What is happening?’ The Queen Dowager licked a white finger and smoothed it along the arch of one eyebrow. ‘I hear Milord Mortimer's voice.’

  The dark girl shrugged her slender shoulders. ‘Milord Roger is baiting the Bear Cub, or can it be the other way about?’ She laughed, hugging her knees closer. ‘The boy has just suggested a novel use for milord's tourney sword; picturesque perhaps but anatomically painful!’

  Isabella waved her mirror aside and signed for her ladies to lift the heavy silk gown over her head. The rose-coloured taffeta fell in shimmering folds from her white shoulders and she smoothed it over her hips with bejewelled fingers.

  Mortimer said, ‘Do you think I will not use this if you refuse to fight?’ The sword was pricking at the boy's jerkin.

  ‘I know you will not!’ retorted his ward but he was forced to give ground, to move rapidly backwards across the court as the blade leapt and arced about him, feinting at his unprotected head, slapping at his legs until he fetched up, back hard against a stone mounting block.

  ‘Now,’ said Roger Mortimer equably, ‘you can turn about and I will show you another use for the noble blade you so despise and you can judge its efficacy.’ They were pinned in the light from a brace of sconces and the windows, floating squares of light above them, were crowded with interested onlookers, driven indoors by the night and the darkness, awaiting the supper hour - bored. ‘You're long overdue for a trouncing.’ He slapped the blade against Beauchamp's unprotected thigh.

  ‘Not here,’ said the boy dully, mouth dry. In the two years since they had ridden away from Warwick there had been many reckonings, deserved and undeserved, but none as public as this one, turned and sent flying across the block with one hefty blow.

  ‘Ye gods!’ said the girl in the window, ‘Milord is magnificent when roused to anger. What power in that driving forearm!’

  The Queen was aware of the loaded sarcasm in the clear young voice. She sighed: ‘The Beauchamp brat is a sore trial to Lord Roger. It is a game they play between them - How far dare I go versus How far can I let him taunt me. Thomas is fifteen, Thomas invariably loses. But Roger is set upon rearing him for his daughter, for his pretty Kate, though I doubt the boy will get her before he's twenty one. In the meantime, there are lessons to be learned, as all boys must learn.’

  ‘And what will a public thrashing teach him, My Lady, due humility? And shall we require humility of our Earls of Warwick? Oh, that is vicious! I wouldn't care to have my young brothers striped so!’

  Mortimer had sheathed his sword; he grabbed the boy by his belt and yanked him upright, straightening his tunic as if he were one of his own ten-year-old pages.

  ‘Are you mastered, Thomas? I hope so. Dammit, boy, you drove me to that, what did you expect? Now, you can gather together the tattered rags of your dignity, retrieve your sword and change for supper. Off with you!’ For once, Beauchamp did not trust himself to reply; he did as he was told.

  ~o0o~

  Supper took on the aspect of a nightmare. The great hall was a gauntlet to be run of sarcastic comments from the household knights, sympathetic grins from pages half his age and the smothered laughter of Isabella's damsels. Worse was to follow as the company lined up at the trestle tables waiting for the party on the dais to seat itself. One of Isabella's bumptious little pages appeared at Beauchamp's elbow carrying a blue silk cushion, fringed with silver tassels. He gave a jerky bow:

  ‘My Lord of Warwick, My Lady begs that you will take this and use if for your greater comfort.’ He bowed again and fled.

  The boy could have hurled the offering at the rose-silk queen, standing on the dais at Mortimer's side, laughing at him. The whole gathering took their cue and roared with her; waves of laughter undulating about him. Harry of Derby, a hand on his arm said, ‘Bow and smile and just sit on it. It might help after all!’

  It was an endless evening and Thomas escaped as soon as he could, standing on the battlements in the welcome night air, chest tight with anger he could not express, eyes stinging with mortification. He struck a fist against the nearest merlon, turned and went below. At the turn of the stair, a young woman blocked his path, a slender creature in a dark gown sprinkled with silver stars which caught the ambient light from the tiny window above them. Her skin was milk white in the darkness, a fine veil fluttered about her dark head.

  ‘My Lord Warwick.’ She made a graceful reverence.

  ‘My Lady.’ He did not recognise her but then, Queen Isabella had sixty demoiselles on call so it was hardly surprising. This girl was as tall as he, perhaps she was only a year or two older but he knew by the gleam of gold on her left hand that she was a married woman, intimate with the mysteries whispered about in the pages' dormitory, practised by squires in dim stable lofts, and that the gulf put her beauty as far beyond him as the summer stars. He would have stood aside for her to pass but she said:

  ‘In Amiens they say you stood by the King, that perhaps you saved his life; that was a brave act.’

  He shook his head, embarrassed that she should speak to him. ‘I was there, that was all. It was nothing, pure instinct.’ With this girl it would have been impossible to spin the tale he had embellished for the small boys in the armoury.

  ‘And do you always follow your instincts, Thomas of Warwick?’ She had taken his wrists between her slim fingers and her left hand slid up his arm until she found the nape of his neck and the dark thatch of his hair. He was a nice-looking boy, he would be a handsome man when he reached his full height and began to flesh out the light bones. Don't you want to kiss me, My Lord?’ The other hand, about his waist, strayed to caress his bruised rump, massaging the sore places with an insistency which sent fire through his b
ody and he grabbed her, two-handed, his lips finding her mouth at last, his body hard against hers, his arousal in little doubt.

  She put him away from her, her palms flat against the breast of his cote. ‘My Lord, you grow too ardent, I must go.’

  ‘Please, not yet. Tell me your name.’

  ‘It doesn't matter and there's someone above.’ She took his face between her hands and kissed him gently. ‘Sweet dreams, My Lord.’ And she slipped from his side to descend the spiral again as Harry of Derby almost cannoned into them. He raised an eyebrow comically at Beauchamp's flushed face:

  ‘You're a dark horse, young Tom; starlit trysts at your age!’

  ‘Harry, follow her, you know everyone, I must have her name.’

  Derby had every intention of tracking the girl down but not to discover her name; he already knew it. He had seen enough to recognise her; his intentions were other. He patted Beauchamp on the shoulder in elder-brotherly fashion and sped down the spiral and across the court after the gliding dark shadow.

  She stopped short at his step and turned to face him. ‘Such haste, Lord Harry?’

  ‘What game are you playing, My Lady; he's a child. You have a husband still young and fiery enough to satisfy most women, and one who would not appreciate night time gallivantings with schoolboys.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Your concern is natural and laudable. Put your mind at rest, we shall be gone by tomorrow; my stint as Isabella's handmaiden ended tonight. I shall be happy to ride north, to get the stench of the town out of my nostrils and the wind through my hair; your little protégé is quite safe from my evil machinations.’

  ‘Then was that fair, to tantalise and tease. If you were my wife, lady…’ he began severely.

  ‘If I were that, Harry, we should have better things to do than stand at loggerheads on such a summer night. It was not meant cruelly, merely to restore a battered amour-propre; you saw this afternoon?’

  ‘Thomas asks for all he gets, he's an intractable little devil, but Edward has struck up a friendship with him and Edward will need friends. Very well, I will concede it kindly meant though you have fuelled a fire with your witchery. Do you happen to have a penchant for schoolboys or might you perform a similar service for the House of Lancaster?’ His long fingers were firm upon her shoulders; his silver fair hair brushed her cheek. She ducked away from his kiss, laughing, and fled into the state apartments. Derby took himself to bed, mildly rattled. He could not sleep.

  Chapter Three

  December - 1329

  The barge which glided smoothly into Westminster Stairs was hung about with the White Wolf's arms and clustered with men in his familiar canary yellow livery. Edward and Philippa were at Westminster and the entire court was moving house to join them.

  Thomas Beauchamp, leaving Windsor, warmly clad against the winter wind, a thick frieze cloak over a fine blue woollen tunic, had been ordered back to change.

  ‘The robes you wore for Amiens, your best finery!’ roared his guardian as the boy stalked away from the landing stage. ‘There is to be a state banquet tonight; try not to disgrace us!’

  Beauchamp had re-appeared in scarlet and gold, a circlet on his dark head studded with balas rubies. ‘My Lord, this is too fine. Should I eclipse your lordship?’ he enquired in sugared tones.

  ‘Get in; we've delayed long enough waiting for you. The men will not be best pleased to pull against the tide.’ Mortimer tossed him a leather purse and the boy weighed it from palm to palm.

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘Largesse, Thomas. Let the people get to know you.’

  ‘I'd rather they remembered my deeds than my ability to shy silver pennies. What's the function tonight?’

  ‘You ask too many questions, Thomas. Cast off aft there!’ Mortimer took his own seat in the stern, pulling an ermine mantle close about him against the December chill. The banks of the Thames were mist blurred, the sedge stiff as a forest of spears, white with hoar frost. When they drew into the near bank Thomas tossed his pennies to pretty girls and apprentice lads of his own age. All along the river-board they encountered pinched winter faces. Mortimer's insignia brought forth few cheers.

  Westminster Palace was thronged with the nobility, their ladies, their squires, their hangers-on, all gathered together in the great hall when Mortimer's entourage embarked at the water-stairs. Beauchamp fell in step beside his guardian; their spurs rang as they crossed the cobbles of the court. They were fully accoutred in spite of the fact that their mounts were following later with the rest of the baggage. A youth in the Royal livery hurried out, flinging himself in Mortimer's path, bowing low.

  ‘My Lord Earl, the King is ready and waiting. All is - as it should be.’

  Mortimer nodded and strode into the palace, making for the great hall. He glanced down at his ward, but not so far as he was used; Thomas had turned sixteen and had shot up rapidly of late. ‘Wait until you are announced then go forward. But first, remove your spurs and your sword and circlet. You go forward into the royal presence bare-headed.’

  ‘Forward, My Lord?’

  ‘To be presented to the King! Don't start to argue with me now, get in there!’ He waited until the heavy doors were open and nudged the boy forward.

  Edward Plantagenet sat upon his throne in the regal robes he too had worn for the homage at Amiens, the royal crimson and gold. The heavy gilt hair was bright in the torchlight; tiny points of fire flamed from the chains about his neck, the rings upon his fingers. His court was ranged on either side of the hall: grey-bearded lords in long brocaded robes, young men in alarmingly short jupons of crushed velvet or shot silk, ladies like coloured butterflies, gold and silver nets, sequin-spattered, flickering like fireflies in the shadows.

  Between King and subject lord stretched the length of the gabled hall, carpeted in sweet flags. Beauchamp hovered on the threshold, his mind in turmoil. Edward's Chamberlain rapped his staff upon the floor and voices were stilled to a fading murmur like a faraway sea.

  ‘Thomas de Beauchamp, step forward!’ rasped the voice and there was no way out but to obey. Was this some plot of Mortimer's hatching, some new humiliation? Afterwards, he could never remember the walk to the throne beyond the feeling of nakedness without sword hilt or dagger left to finger for comfort on the way. But others could have told him that he walked proudly, neither laggard nor with the hurried strides of a man anxious to be over some unpleasantness. His own scarlet surcote and mantle contrasted with the royal crimson, the gold crosslets caught the torchlight. He halted before the throne and the blue eyes which met Edward's solemn gaze were guarded, veiled quickly by the long dark lashes.

  ‘Tom, you must kneel!’ hissed the king from the corner of the royal mouth and Beauchamp swept back his cloak with a theatrical flourish and knelt upon the lowest step, arms loose at his sides though his fingers were clenched tightly into his palms.

  The Chamberlain was speaking again, carried away by the pomposity of his own deliverance. ‘Thomas Beauchamp, do you swear homage to the most puissant Lord Edward, King of England, for the Honour of Warwick and its appurtenances as your father, Guy, Tenth Earl, did, and his ancestors before him? Do you give your allegiance to the King for life and limb and earthly worship?’

  Edward held out his hands, palms facing one to the other and, placing his own hands together, it was easy for Thomas to slip them between and to feel Edward's firm, friendly clasp.

  ‘I swear!’ His voice was clear enough to reach the darkest, smokiest recesses of the hall, as if to deny any who might later question the day's events. Then he raised his dark head and kissed Edward full upon the lips in the age-old kiss of fealty. At sixteen years old he had suddenly become his own master and one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. As the King raised him, a hand on each shoulder, he could not decide whether he wanted to laugh or cry.

  ‘That's over,’ said Edward, matter-of-factly, ‘and I've something to show you. You're sixteen and we never celebrated your name day, but I'm about to reme
dy the omission.’ He stepped down from the throne, one arm flung easily across Beauchamp's shoulders as if to acknowledge that the act of liege-homage had been no empty ceremony, that his friendship for this young man was real enough. They turned to face the assembled company.

  ‘My lords, Thomas de Beauchamp, Eleventh Earl of Warwick. Will you welcome him to your ranks?’ The silence was broken, they clapped enthusiastically and many cheered as the two boys walked the length of the hall. The doors at the far end were flung open before them and they passed out, finally, into the last of the light and the chill December night.

  ‘My Liege,’ began the new earl - the cold wind brought him back to earth, his feet no longer felt as if he trod upon shifting sands.

  ‘Not a word! Now, close your eyes.’

  ‘Ned, what is this!’

  ‘Cover them properly! Now, are you ready?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  The King clapped his hands and there was no mistaking the clop of shod hooves in the cobbled yard. An ostler emerged from the darkness of the stable-block, leading a black stallion, young and mettlesome, who seemed to dance towards them through the river mist.

  ‘Now you can uncover!’ Edward watched his friend's face, his own radiant with the pleasure of giving. ‘I chose him carefully; he’s an Arab. I thought he would suit your temperament.’

  Beauchamp swallowed, ‘Ned, I've never seen finer even in your own stables. I'm speechless.’

  ‘You must think of a name,’ said Edward practically.

  Beauchamp put out a hand and cupped the velvety muzzle, letting his other hand run over the arched neck. ‘From Araby, you said? Then he shall be named for the bravest and wisest of the race; he shall be Saladin, Black Saladin. Ned, you've given me so much today but how did you do it! How in this world? To have persuaded Mortimer to give up the wardship when he could have held on to it for another five years; and besides, to give a man seisin of his lands at sixteen - it's unheard of!’