The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  ‘Everyone on this bloody expedition knows we'll never leave these shores. Why is the word left unsaid that must be on everyone's lips? Why is Ned so devious?’

  Will Lucy was cleaning his nails with the point of his dagger. He said, ‘What word?’

  ‘Scotland! We all know that's where we'll end. Why can't he come out and say so?’

  Lucy joined him on the mounting block. ‘Something to do with placating the Pope and, after all, the King can't be seen openly supporting the Scottish claimant. Philip of France may still be musing over his postponed crusade but one whisper of where Edward's loyalties really lie and he'll rush to young King David's aid, revive the Auld Alliance and we shall have more on our platters than ever we bargained for. So we must make a leisurely progress north - and plan for Ireland. You'll enjoy Ireland.’

  Thomas grinned. ‘It will be very much Ultima Thule if the Scots cross the border, and they will of course.’ He paused at sight of Harry of Derby, approaching them across the cobbles of the courtyard, one hand gripping Warwick's own page by the ear, the other arm spanning the waist of a smaller boy who was protesting volubly. ‘Starting a nursery, Harry?’ laughed Beauchamp, jumping from the block and sauntering towards him. Lancaster's son loosed the unfortunate Durvassal's ear and set the other child on his feet where he immediately made a dash for it. Beauchamp shot out an arm and hauled him back, planting him squarely before him, to face Derby. Harry had found a seat at the tail of a cart; flour spattered the green brocade sleeves of his surcote.

  ‘Caught these two engaged in a rare bout of fisticuffs. For a little one he gave a good account of himself but this rogue of yours can give him three years at least.’

  Beauchamp sighed and crooked a finger at Durvassal. The Warwick livery was muddied, there was a deep scratch on the peachy skin of one smooth cheek and the boy had broken the latchet of one red leather shoe. Thomas composed his face into the semblance of severity. ‘Nicky, it's not good sportsmanship to pick on smaller boys. Aren't there enough about of your own age?’

  Durvassal withdrew into a sulky silence, intent upon his ruined shoe. He had to tread carefully. He had begged to be allowed on this campaign and if he fell foul of his lord he would be sent back home, banished to the solar and set to fetching and carrying for the ladies of the household. Nicholas had ambitions far above the mundane and domestic. The other child was about seven years old, small and wiry, with a mop of fair hair which haloed his head and a pair of eyes dark as ivy berries in his urchin face.

  Durvassal said, ‘He's a thief, My Lord, stealing from the baggage wagons as they unloaded. I caught him with half a loaf of bread and a cheese, but will you look at what he has round his neck and tell me if you've ever seen a guttersnipe with the like of it.’ He stepped forward then and thrust a hand into the breast of the child's shirt, to pull out a gold finger ring, threaded on a leather thong. But the smaller boy didn't have Durvassal's inbred respect for authority and the presence of two such great lords as Derby and Warwick did not prevent him from sinking even white teeth into Durvassal's hand. Nicholas let out a yell of rage and pain and sprang back, sucking the injury.

  Thomas shook the child hard. ‘You are a savage! Let me look at that.’

  Harry laughed. ‘You'd best muzzle him first. Do you know who's talking to you, brat?’

  ‘I know.’ The boy darted out his pink tongue at Harry but allowed Thomas Beauchamp to examine the ring he wore about his neck. It was a lady's ring, an amethyst in an unusual setting, the bezel shaped like two hands, raised to clasp the stone between tiny fingers. He turned it into the September sunshine to read the posy within the band - 'Lora - pensez de moy' - 'Think of me'.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Beauchamp let the pretty object lie in his palm; a lady's ring, the gift of a husband or maybe a lover.

  ‘It's mine!’

  ‘I asked where you got it.’

  ‘I've told you, it's mine. I had it when I was small, from my mother.’

  ‘I don't believe you. If your mother had something of that worth she would have sold it to clothe her ragamuffin family. How did you come here and whose suite are you with?’

  ‘I came on my own.’ The child was stashing his ring away again inside his shirt.

  ‘Liar!’ Warwick shook him again.

  ‘I don't tell lies!’ flashed the boy. ‘I ran away from London. I wanted to join the army and go to Ireland. I wanted to serve the Lord Harry there because he's the greatest knight in Christendom - or so they said!’

  Beauchamp grinned across at Lancaster's heir. ‘Your fame spreads wide, Hal. Then there's someone lost this brat; some woman will be tearing her hair out over his disappearance.’

  ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I'm a fosterling. I told you, I ran away.’

  ‘Because you were ill-treated?’

  ‘No, I wasn't.’

  ‘Harry, you can have him, you found him. You can sort out his domestic problems. Go and sit on the Lord Harry's knee and pour out your troubles. Succouring women and children, particularly women, of course, is part of the knightly ideal.’

  ‘Then I can stay?’ The dark eyes lit up.

  Beauchamp said, ‘Why did you run away - apart from following the lure of the Lord Harry's charisma?’

  The boy was obviously struggling with the unfamiliar word. He said, ‘I was to be apprenticed to a London merchant. I thought I'd rather be a knight than a fletcher; learn to use weapons not just to cobble them together.’

  ‘What's your name?’

  ‘I'm not going to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You'll be made to tell!’

  ‘Shame on you, My Lord, to taunt a child!’ Out of the corner of his eye, Warwick had noticed the woman ride into the court, a groom flanking her mare on each side. He had seen her dismount, issuing directions to her servants, and was watching as Harry gathered up his long length, leapt from the cart and bowed low. She was young, she was tall for a woman, slim and dark, she had eyes like the summer sea, beneath finely arched brows which winged away towards her temples. Beauchamp remembered the darkness of a tower stair at Windsor, almost five years before, a wretched boy of fifteen and a girl in a dress sewn with silver stars.

  Harry was saying, ‘Surely you know each other? Thomas, let me present the Lady Aylesbury of Edstone - Sir Roger's charming wife. You do know Sir Roger? He's a near neighbour of yours in Warwickshire. Orabella, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.’ Thomas bowed but he had a hand still on the child's collar. Lady Aylesbury sank into a deep reverence, the skirts of her tawny surcote belling out about her. She let him raise her, amusement and recognition on the perfect oval of her face.

  Harry said, ‘Are you good with children, Orabella? I hear you have a son of your own. Is he well?’

  ‘Philip is thriving,’ smiled Orabella. She put one long manicured finger under the boy's pointed chin. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes, My Lady.’

  ‘Then shall we strike a bargain? A good breakfast for your Christian name, that's fair exchange surely?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Can I eat first?’

  ‘That's not placing much trust in a lady's word, is it?’

  ‘My name is Richard and I am very hungry.’

  Lady Aylesbury gave Harry a very unladylike wink and guided her new protégé towards the kitchens. In three yards he had pushed one small and very grubby hand into hers and had sidled closer to her voluminous skirts.

  Harry sighed, ‘Orabella could seduce anything on two legs. She'll have the boy's life history and the names of his uncles and aunts, pet rabbit and the kitchen cockroaches. Why does he interest you? There are dozens of runaways following the baggage wagons; there’ll be more before we reach Berwick.’

  ‘I thought you thought we were still going to Ireland,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Did I say so? I don't remember, and I asked you a question.’

  Beauchamp shrugged his shoulders. ‘There's something tugging at
my mind, a woman once, her name was Lora. Oh, none of mine, this goes back a long way. They said he always chose amethysts because they complemented her violet eyes....’

  ‘He didn't have violet eyes, they were dark as you can get.’

  ‘No, and it doesn't matter. It would be too much of a coincidence, his child in my hands, a son I doubt he even knows exists. I wonder…’

  ~o0o~

  Orabella D'Aylesbury, Lady of Edstone in the County of Warwick, found her way to Thomas de Beauchamp's chamber later that day, after the boards had been cleared of the last traces of supper, the scraps carted away to be fed to the poor of the town and the company generally dispersed. The little page with the lint blond hair opened the door, studying her, head on one side. Beauchamp sent him off to bed.

  ‘Am I to remain here on the threshold?’ enquired milady with a lift of one expressive eyebrow. Thomas was not the innocent of their first meeting. He had an illegitimate daughter back at Warwick with her nurse; child of an adolescent liaison with a gypsy dancer. The girl had arrived at the castle one Christmas with a motley troupe of tumblers and conjurers. She proved the star attraction, able to walk on her hands, displaying shapely calves beneath the scarlet silk of her Turkish-style trousers, and her ankles boasted bands of brass bells which tinkled prettily as she turned her cartwheels. She could dance too; exotic dances from the East, accompanied by the castanets or a ribboned tambourine. She was young and wild and black-haired and Thomas was bewitched. There was no bar to their relationship; she was healthy and clean - there were those who made it their business to check on such things - and she was delightfully unambitious. She left Warwick in the spring and returned on Christmas Eve to deposit a wicker cradle at the gatehouse, containing My Lord's baby daughter. In honour of Christ's birth, Thomas had her christened Mary.

  Now, facing Orabella, he shrugged his shoulders and waved her inside, closing the door. He wore a fur-trimmed robe over shirt and hose, unbelted.

  ‘I had thought perhaps you would find it compromising as I am alone. But please do sit down.’ He swept his cloak off the room's only armchair and she sank into it gratefully and with a smile:

  ‘I am Roger D'Aylesbury's wife, my husband's reputation is all the protection I need,’ she said and began to stare about her at the tapestried walls: Alexander riding in triumph to Persepolis. ‘This was her chamber, wasn't it? This is where Queen Isabella slept the night her lover came to beg for his life?’

  Thomas nodded, ‘I shall be glad to be on the move again. I find it stifling in here. Those tapestried eyes, looking down upon the lives and loves of lesser kings and queens. She was beautiful – Isabella. I suppose she still is, hidden away in her castle prison, but she was hated - more than any queen we ever had and he …’

  ‘I came,’ said Orabella ‘to report upon your little waif and stray.’

  Thomas drew up a stool and sat opposite to her. There was no fireplace for they were in the old Norman keep, but a brazier of charcoal took the chill off the room. The tapestried eyes seemed alert, expectant. Orabella turned her back on them and faced Thomas de Beauchamp, his own eyes very blue and clear in the light from the branched torchiere.

  ‘Did you find out his surname?’

  ‘No, but he insisted it did not matter as it wasn't his own name, but that of his foster parents. He ran away as they were delivering him to his new masters to start an apprenticeship.’

  ‘He was right,’ said Thomas, ‘wasn't he? It really didn't matter because you know who he is, don't you, My Lady?’

  Orabella said, ‘Roger has always been a good friend of his father. They campaigned together many times and once, I met his mother, Lora Astley. You read the ring-posy - Lora, pensez de moy? I was newly wed and Roger took me round the shire, showing me off to all his neighbours and cronies, though I must have looked a pinched, sharp little thing in those days. But Lora was pleased to take my hand and run me up to her chamber in the Audley Tower. Chamber! It was a bower fit for a princess, decked out in light eastern silks and shimmering gauzes, rose and white and lilac. And she showed me the gowns Peter de Montfort had bought for her, and the jewels, especially the amethysts: clasps and brooches and circlets and, in particular, that ring. She even let me slip it on my finger. We laughed because it got stuck over my knuckle; she had such tiny hands. It was not long after that that she left him. If she was pregnant when she fled he could be her son. He must be her son, hers and Peter's. And I am certain that Peter does not know of his existence.’

  Thomas nodded. ‘Thank you, My Lady, for confirming my own thoughts. Richard de Montfort should prove a useful pawn. Where is he?’ He rose and went to pour her some wine but she shook her head.

  ‘He left here late this morning under an escort of Roger's men. I sent him back to London. Oh, not under duress, I persuaded him that it would be best and I think he was tired of scavenging about the carts and glad to go. Besides, the ring of armed men made him feel very important. You may, of course, send after them but I do not think you will catch them now.’

  Thomas was staring ahead, his knuckles white about the stem of his wine cup. ‘But you know where they are taking him?’

  ‘I did not ask and you will need to put my men to the question to have it out of them. I don't think that would be advisable; Roger has some standing in the middle shires and the King's confidence.’

  With a curl of his upper lip Warwick said, ‘I too have Edward's ear.’

  ‘And you would pursue a mere infant and hold him over this long-standing adolescent feud you have with his father? For nothing more than a piqued child's spite? Oh, I admit that I have wronged you, thwarted you over this, and I am sorry to have done so but I wouldn't have Richard de Montfort upon my conscience and neither would you. You might, in charity, admit that I am saving you from yourself. Think of it. We are at Nottingham where Prince John hung twenty-eight boy children from these battlements in spite at their fathers. Now you are angry. What are you going to do, strike me?’

  ‘You know what I want. It was, after all, why you came.’

  Orabella laughed. ‘Perhaps, but not tonight and not in anger. I suppose there would be a certain appeal to be taken in the Queen-Dowager's bed where her handsome, lusty lover used to slake his thirst, night after night.’

  He said nothing but reached up to remove the jewelled caul from her blue-black hair. She put up her hands and held his wrists. ‘Tomorrow, you travel north. I wait here for Queen Philippa. As soon as she is well enough to travel after her accouchement, we follow to Scotland. Seek me there, Thomas, when you're hot and bloodied from the foe.’ She did not have to stand on tiptoe to kiss the tip of his arrogant nose; they were almost of a height. She laughed and left him.

  ~o0o~

  England was in danger. The Scots were over the border and parliament was begging the King to abandon the proposed Irish expedition and to march north. Edward needed no second bidding, he prorogued parliament and, before he left Nottingham, he had called out his Commissions of Array against the Scots. The Master Plan was unfolding and the time had come to expunge the bitter memories of his father's shameful defeat at Bannockburn.

  It was early summer before the army reached Berwick, the gateway to Scotland, the furthest outpost of England; a town of grey stone, huddled upon its peninsula, washed on the south by the River Tweed. Henry II had annexed it to English soil as part of the ransom paid by the captive Scots king, William the Lion; Richard I had sold it back to the Scots to finance his crusade, and his brother, John, had destroyed it in person in 1216. It had had a stormy, chequered existence.

  The Scots under Sir Alexander Seton set themselves to hold the town and whilst Edward blockaded them by land the English fleet was sent to attack them from the East, by sea; a less than successful venture as the Scots succeeded in burning a considerable portion of the fleet down to the decks. But Berwick was poorly fortified and only scantily provisioned. Edward and his captains brought up mangonel, trebuchet, siege-tower and scaling ladders to assist i
n persuading the beleaguered city that surrender was only a matter of time and he had patience enough. Meanwhile, Queen Philippa and her ladies were settled for the duration further south in lofty Bamburgh.

  The Scots were daily expecting relief but they agreed to surrender if no help arrived by mid-July and Seton sent his young son, Thomas, into the enemy camp as security for his good intent. In an attempt to draw away the besiegers Archibald Douglas, the new Scottish Regent in the boy King David's minority, marched into Northumberland, besieged Philippa at Bamburgh and wasted the surrounding countryside. Bamburgh was strongly fortified and Philippa in little danger but the smell of sack was acrid on the wind and few would have blamed the young queen if she had found herself dwelling on the fate Edward's grandfather had meted out to Robert Bruce's defeated womenfolk. Stouter hearts would have quailed at the thought of eventual capture and imprisonment at the hands of the Scots.

  Edward, young and inexperienced as he was, was too wily to be drawn away from his main objective to fly to Philippa's aid. Berwick would fall long before Philippa was subjected to any real danger or hardship. But when help failed, and the day of surrender passed by with Seton prevaricating and swearing to defend the town to the last man, Edward erected a gibbet and hanged young Thomas Seton in his father's sight; the old man helpless and obdurate upon the city ramparts. Douglas abandoned Bamburgh and retraced his steps, determined to meet Edward face to face. The beleaguered set themselves a new date for surrender, July 20th, and by the 18th Douglas, with a host of fifteen thousand at his back, was crossing the Tweed. Edward, sure of himself, had chosen his own ground, Halidon Hill, two miles north-west of Berwick. True, he had the Tweed at his back and Douglas could have been forgiven for believing that the English were trapped and ripe for slaughter.