The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  Thomas de Beauchamp as usual cut a glittering figure in vermilion silk, his cote hardie embroidered with golden apples, a coronet pushed firmly down upon his dark head. Katherine wore white satin patterned with gold lilies in yellow cendal. He thought she was probably the most enchanting woman he had ever set eyes upon, with her thick chestnut hair coiled about her ears and netted in a golden mesh which winked with yellow stones. The satin gown was cut so much lower than those of the burgesses' wives who had arrived to sup with Master Scarlet in the capital.

  Richard glanced about him. At his own table sat Master Dawn, fastidiously wiping his fingers after a slice of game pie, and Ned Witchevet, a fellow fletcher with whom he had struck up acquaintance on his first day. Ned was a ginger haired beanpole with a crop of freckles which marched across his face like a map of the sky. But he was friendly and a local man and Richard hoped to enlist his aid in the quest for Lora. Across the table he could pick out the Lord of Charlecote, Sir William Lucy, pre-occupied with a chicken wing, and Sir Roger d'Aylesbury of Edstone, frowning into his wine cup and Nicholas Durvassal, Beauchamp's body squire, who had taunted him that evening in London. Orabella, Lady A, was carrying on an animated conversation, white hands fluttering about her. Even from his place at the lower tables Latimer could see how creamy and clear her skin was; the lovely, oval face held above the pillar of her long, slender neck was surrounded by the whiteness of the barbette which framed it. Her dark hair hung heavily, caught back in a silver snood. The velvet gown, cramoisy red, was cut as low as Katherine's, so low that when she leant forward to dip her bread and reach for her wine cup it was possible to see the shady division between her breasts. He had to ask Ned who she might be.

  Witchevet laughed. ‘Oh, that is Lady A, wife of Sir Roger, the dour knight in the blue and silver; to give her her full title, the Lady Orabella d'Aylesbury, Lady of Edstone. She is not for the likes of us, not even for our dreams. Many men have grown close to Lady A but few close enough. She has kindled many a fire but kept those long white fingers cool. Lady Kate enjoys her company; the Earl, they say, once enjoyed much more. I must admit that she sings well and dances exquisitely and weaves her web to ensnare youthful journeymen fletchers.’ Ned snapped his fingers and grinned again; he had one tooth missing at the front. ‘Come out of your dream, man. They're clearing the boards, there will be entertainments and if we can find a hole and be unobtrusive you will be able to watch the rich and fortunate disport themselves under your very nose!’

  They found a corner near the fire and subsided into the rushes. The Earl's players with lute and flute, rebec and citole, pipe and tambour and gittern, began a merry tune and the tumblers launched themselves into a frenzy of cartwheeling activity until, at a sign from the Earl, they melted away and the little orchestra changed the mood, beginning upon a slow, stately air. Thomas led Katherine onto the floor and, followed by half a dozen other couples, they began to dance. To Richard Latimer, used to the wild extravagances of May Day and Twelfth Night as practised in the City, this formal, mannerly picking out of steps, punctuated every now and then by a low bow from knight and squire and a sweeping reverence from his lady was tedious in the extreme. But the tempo changed, the notes became wilder, the steps faster. Mary de Beauchamp, petite and raven-haired, face flushed, eyes bright, allowed Nicholas Durvassal to lead her out into the dance. He took her from step to step, handling her as if she were already the beauty she promised to become. The adoration was all too plain in the little girl's eyes, the self-satisfaction too poorly hidden in his.

  Ralph Dawn, tankard in hand, pulled up a stool and sat down with Latimer and Witchevet. ‘Well, Richard, Wednesday's a half-holiday, how will you spend the afternoon? Beyond these imprisoning walls, no doubt?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. I mean to hire a nag and see the shire. Ned has offered to show me the sights.’

  ‘The sights, Master Latimer?’ Warwick's Constable was standing above them. ‘And what might those be?’

  Richard laughed. ‘Why, the ale houses, of course. I want to try my wings.’

  ‘That's natural. You'll get used to being cooped up here, but the bird must return to the gilded cage, no taking off on some flight of fancy. The Earl, you will find, has a long creance.’

  ‘He always talks in riddles,’ grumbled Ralph Dawn, ‘just ignore his ramblings. Make the most of the holiday, I'll work you hard enough in the next few weeks; there’s a consignment of arrows wanted for the March. Shortage of labour or lack of waking hours doesn’t feature in My Lord's book, you'll find. It'll be shoulder to the wheel from now on!’

  ~o0o~

  ‘Beaudesert! Now, my friend, are you content?’ Ned Witchevet clapped a hand upon Latimer's shoulder and Richard followed his gaze. Across short, cropped turf starred with summer daisies, over the furze-dotted common lands, rusty with spires of sorrel, misty blue with drifts of harebells, rearing the twin heads of its lofty gatehouse, almost raking the low fleece of the clouds, stood Peter de Montfort's fortress: castellated, crenellated, with moat and ditch, causeway, drawbridge and barbican. Richard drew rein and leant across the neck of his hack, suddenly awestruck. The sun slid through the white, billowing cloud bank, the honey-coloured stone battlements of curtain and gatehouse warmed into gold and threw back a pearl of haze so that the towers seemed to float in suspension above the green hill.

  ‘So must Joyous Garde have looked!’ breathed Richard. ‘Can we get any nearer?’

  ‘As near as you like,’ grinned his companion. ‘We'll ride to the lower guard. Isn't she formidable?’

  ‘Warwick is a sleeping giant beside such a perched eagle,’ mused Richard, shaking his head.

  ‘And you still think that your kin came from hereabouts?’ They wheeled back onto the track and began to climb down towards Henley village. ‘How on God's earth will you trace them with the little you have to go on?’

  ‘Ned, I don't know but I have to try. Look, you needn't wait about for me, there's bound to be an inn in the village, I'll join you when I've asked my questions and satisfied my curiosity.’

  Witchevet looked at him sharply, considering. ‘I'll not leave you in this god-forsaken end of the shire, infested as it is with Montfortists. This may sound complete idiocy to a forthright Londoner, used to settling his little arguments before half the city population in a hand to hand street fight, but down here it’s a stab in the back and next morning you're lying dead in a ditch. Someone is very interested in you, boy, interested enough to be found searching through your belongings whilst most of us were in hall at supper last night. If you remember, I left the company early…’

  ‘Are you sure? But then, pilfering is always to be expected. We ought to report it. I've very little worth taking but others…’

  ‘Keep it to yourself - until you find out who your friends are. I'm serious, I may be the only one you've personally invested with the details of your 'Quest' but someone else is very interested. Someone else knows a little more about you than you know yourself, or than they intend you to know, perhaps. Now, shall we make tracks towards the 'White Lion' and try to remember that we are on holiday?’

  ~o0o~

  The day after their return Richard was waylaid with talk of an urgent order for Elmley Castle, one of the Beauchamp holdings in Worcestershire, clinging to the slopes of Bredon Hill. The Constable, a bull-necked giant with a cap of black hair and protuberant blue eyes which grew rounder with anger, breathed down his neck as he bent low over his work in the last of the afternoon light. ‘A word of warning, lad. It’s been reported that you were seen on Montfort land today. Keep away from Beaudesert next time. Any interest in that place is an unhealthy one when Thomas Beauchamp employs you.’

  Ned Witchevet was in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, his travelling cloak over one arm, a bundle under the other. Latimer looked across at him questioningly. The young man came over and perched on the edge of the work bench.

  ‘When yon arrows are loaded up for Elmley I travel with them,’ he said. ‘When t
he carters return here I stay at Bredon; apparently they could do with an extra fletcher.’ His voice was toneless.

  Richard frowned; his dark eyes searched the other's face. ‘It seems short notice. Did you get a choice?’

  Witchevet shrugged his shoulders. ‘I chose to be your friend. You seem to bring bad luck with your friendships.’ He swung his feet to the floor giving Richard a wry smile. ‘Just look out for yourself, man, and good luck. Believe me; I think you're going to need it!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  September - 1343

  September came upon Arden in ribbons of mist, opalescent and milky, in dew-bright cobwebs hanging from bush and tree already decked with the gewgaws of hip and haw, the ropes of bryony and pendant nightshade; it came in the tapestry of bronze and gold, rust and latten, copper and citrine which banked the wooded highways.

  Autumn was never mellow but came singing to earth more jocund than spring and gaudier than summer with cobalt skies and rumbustious winds that tore away the waiting leaves to whisk them into neat pyramids like hoards of the new minted golden nobles cast for the Battle of Sluys .

  The poppies were still in bloom beside the high road. Every sunny bank boasted knots of blood bright colour interspersed with the sun-gold of ragwort, and the hedges were already garlanded with the soft feathers of Old Man's Beard. Up above, the first fruits of autumn were already beginning to ripen: russet crabs and the mat brown of hazelnuts, acorns in their cups and purple sloes with the bloom of far-away winter already upon their skins.

  The menfolk of Warwick had drifted en masse towards the butts on this September morning. They had set up their targets on the greensward of the outer bailey and were now divided into opposing bands, testing their skills.

  It was good to feel the spring of a bow again. It seemed a lifetime since Richard and Raymond, challenging Wat Stringer, had met at the butts beyond Bishopsgate, out on the Moor.

  ‘My dear young man,’ exclaimed de Beauchamp's Captain of Bowmen, ‘who taught you accuracy at such a range? Few of my men manage centre target at three hundred yards. I'd hardly advocate it either for fear of being ousted from my own position.’

  Richard laughed. ‘Every Sunday morning, March to November, rain or shine, for ten years, you can't remain an indifferent marksman for long, and I was blessed with brilliant opponents.’ He took aim and sent one of his own arrows thudding beside the captain's into the black eye of the target.

  ‘I'm glad you practice what you preach, Sebastian.’ Thomas Beauchamp, in Venetian Red, was a blazing target from any point on his own curtain wall. About him, his womenfolk clustered like gaudy flowers. In the distance, by the upper guard, Lady A, cradling her lute, sat atop a mounting block with a clutch of red and gold liveried squires around her, and began the story of the Seven Paladins.

  Nicholas Durvassal was accompanying his master, aloof and supercilious, when Richard moved forward and dropped down onto one knee before Warwick. ‘I would have words with you, My Lord.’

  Warwick had turned towards his captain with a gracious nod. ‘Carry on the good work, men. Now, Sebastian?’

  Durvassal made to thrust the young man aside. ‘Presumptuous boy! My lord answers no petitions on a Sunday; you'll have to take your turn, Tuesday next!’

  ‘Gently, Nicholas, gently. Now, Sebastian, we will walk towards the new tower - I've a deal to discuss with my masons. You may unburden yourself as we go.’ So the young fletcher in the darned surcote fell in step beside the most powerful man in the middle shires, all caution thrown to the winds.

  He took a deep breath. ‘When I sought to join your household, sir, it was in the hopes of coming to Warwick. I'd learnt a few days before that my parents are, or were, Warwick folk and I saw my chance to make enquiries and so sought you out.’

  ‘A disappointing revelation,’ observed Beauchamp. ‘You did not then choose us for ourselves?’

  Richard looked at him sideways, knowing himself the victim of a soft irony. He rushed on with his story of the Latimers and the shadowy servant who dropped in once a year with the allowance and claimed he was a henchman of the Lady Maud de Montfort. Here he paused, waiting for the effect of the name.

  Beauchamp only said, ‘Maud is dead.’

  ‘I guessed so, sir. She must have known who my parents were; it’s possible others at Beaudesert may know. My mother's name was Lora…’

  ‘Not such an uncommon name hereabouts. How did you discover that?’

  Richard showed him Lora's amethyst, pale in the sunlight. Warwick hardly gave it a glance. ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘The freedom to travel to Henley unhampered. You know my quest; there can be no reason to forbid me the journey.’ The two were facing each other in the middle of the bailey.

  ‘No,’ said Beauchamp, ‘you do not set foot within the walls of Beaudesert. I make that quite clear.’

  ‘I am a free man, not one of your bondsmen, My Lord!’ Richard stood his ground.

  ‘You are nothing but a boy and an irresponsible one at that. But before you storm away in high dudgeon, I will make you a pledge to do all in my power to trace your parents. Give me the ring. I have agents in Henley village with greater powers of search than would become available to a mere - artisan. Now, retrieve your uncharitable thoughts.’

  Richard hesitated then stripped off the amethyst and dropped it into Thomas Beauchamp's palm. The Earl let his hand close over Lora's love-token and Richard gave him a sketchy bow, raising his head to look into the dark face. Warwick appeared to have forgotten him; he was staring out across the bailey into the far distance, a smile on his face.

  ~o0o~

  Voices in the soft September dusk, shadows in the star-silvered garden, planted years ago by the first Lady Beauchamp. The night was full of murmurs; of the flutter of moths’ wings; of whispering, fragrant herbs.

  Mary's headdress, like a discarded toy, shimmered in the grass, its veiling limp and damp in the dew, her dark hair, loosed from its prison falling about her shoulders. Nicholas Durvassal, searching her face for something of Thomas or Black Guy lifted his fair head from the cradle of her lap and leant upon one elbow, playing with the rings on his left hand.

  ‘You will speak to my father, Nicholas?’ Mary de Beauchamp's voice was low but not so low that the man couched behind the aromatic shrubs could not hear her every word without pricking up his ears.

  ‘As soon as opportunity presents itself, ma belle. I think he will not refuse me.’

  ‘Who has served him so faithfully? Ever since I can remember you have been at his side. Since you were a little boy of nine, so your father says, dogging my father's heels with the other pages, you have never missed an opportunity to look to his welfare.’

  That, reflected Durvassal, was only too true.

  ‘You're happy, Nicky?’

  ‘How could I be otherwise, ma petite?’ He had ceased to think of her now; he only saw a new coat of arms, the scarlet crosslets of Durvassal impaling the golden crosslets of de Beauchamp.

  ‘Nicky, you are day-dreaming and I am locked out of your thoughts!’ Mary pouted prettily until her father's squire silenced her with practised kissing and drew her down beside him. The watcher in the bushes crept stealthily away; he had business with Lord Warwick.

  ~o0o~

  Johanna was clawing a herb garden out of the rich loam of the outer bailey. She had abandoned the deserted pleasance in the middle wards, tended in a desultory fashion by previous generations of Montfort women, to make her own stab at independence. Today she had the honey blonde braids secured beneath a demure veil and her skirts were kilted up above her kirtle and tucked into the belt slung low about her hips. Kneeling there in the September sunshine she looked the picture of a healthy young country wench. She was so absorbed that she never saw Bess Freville approaching until a shadow crossed her line of vision. Her husband’s aunt had a small page in tow with cushions and a flask of wine.

  ‘I thought you might be in need of refreshments,’ said Bess, low
ering herself onto a cushion and sending her page back to the kitchens.

  Johanna sank back onto her heels, passing a wrist over her damp forehead.

  ‘I must say you are working wonders already,’ said Bess. ‘After the spring planting we shall be set fair for all our still-room needs. Come and sit by me. You don’t know how good it is to have another woman at Beaudesert. I can talk horse and hound and hunt with the best of them but when Montfort men begin on battles lost and won I am out of my depth.’ She poured Johanna a beaker of wine. ‘My dear, you are happy with us? With Beaudesert?’

  Johanna smiled. ‘My Lord, my father-in-law, is kindness itself and Guy is already the young brother I never had, and my own father is fairly bursting with pride at the alliance of our two families. Indeed, Madam, I can have no complaints. I am well housed and well fed and well served…’

  ‘And well husbanded?’ enquired Bess. ‘Oh, call me a meddling old besom if you wish…’

  ‘I might call you so,’ said Johanna, ‘and will you leave well alone if I do?’

  Bess laughed. ‘You forget, I helped bring him up; I remember him at three months old, lying naked on a rug. There is little I do not know about John.’

  Johanna, resting back upon her elbows, and turning her face towards the sunshine said, ‘Tell me about him. What was he like as a child?’

  ‘Much like any other small boy, much like my own, I suppose - his father spoilt him – mischievous, obstinate, enchantingly funny one minute, a little tyrant the next but totally endearing.’