by Helen Burton
At this dramatic point they all decided to notice Richard. De Lobbenham's first thought was, 'He's not like John, not really, and thank God for it! But he's Peter's son, Warwick could never have doubted it.'
Peter, forced down to earth said, ‘Don’t stand there, boy, come to the fire and get some warmth into your bones. This is a fine kettle of fish you've landed us in, eh? One son turned Judas to his father and his House, what will you put upon an old man in his last years, eh?’
'Christ!' thought the chaplain, ‘he’s going to play the pathetic ancient, the hapless dupe of his warring sons, and this tall, fair lad is to be the scapegoat for all his brother's misdeeds. I don't envy him his first few weeks here. I should feel like turning round and marching out again. But then, if you've just discovered your father is lord of a dozen manors in five different counties, your own full brother is disgraced with a price set on his head and the only legitimate rival is a delicate child of nine years, it's worth gritting your teeth and hanging on for whatever comes your way. He wouldn't be Lora Astley's son if he didn't have that much in him.'
Bess said, ‘He'd better have John's room, I'll see it aired.’ But Peter and Guy both cried out a vehement 'No!' simultaneously and she shrugged and went away to chivvy the maids.
That evening they supped early and Richard took his place at the high table up on the dais. It was a sombre, cheerless meal and his presence, which in normal circumstances would have caused speculation at the lower tables, was ignored as they muttered and whispered and told over Bastard John's treachery and laid bets as to whether his father's threat to hang him would hold good. Later, the family repaired to the solar again and Bess sent Guy to bed. Peter spent the entire evening staring into the fire, locked in his own thoughts, and Richard was relieved when he could make excuses and go up to his room.
The Audley Tower looked eastward over to the ridgeway and the glittering snow-world he had traversed only that morning. As he began the ascent from the courtyard the wind, finding its way in through shutterless arrow loops, made him hug his cloak about his shoulders. It was snowing again, to good purpose, drifting in to melt about the guttering wick of his lamp, flickering crazily in the downdraft from the stair-well to send his shadow dancing manically behind him. Earlier, his aunt had shown him a room at the very top of the drum tower, clean but austere; it would be pleasant enough in the summer, opening onto the leads. He wondered where John slept; he could not imagine his flamboyant brother in such a functional setting.
When he was still two floors below he heard the child crying, a hopeless, ceaseless keening for a world which had disintegrated. Richard hesitated at the door, uncertain, apprehensive perhaps, and then he put a hand firmly on the latch, lifted it and strode inside. One glance about him as he raised his lamp told him that this was not Guy's room, that he had the answer to his earlier thought. The tapestried wall hangings with their sensual scenes from Arthurian legend, the great bed wallowing in its yardages of drapery, the garments that lay carelessly strewn over the carved bed-chest, velvets and lustrous satin and fine silk, the book of hours still open upon the small table at the bedside, gold curlicues glinting about jewel-rich colours, all had John's stamp upon them. If they lay here untouched for a century his presence would not diminish.
Guy lay half suffocated under the heavy bed-cover, his small body shaking but he had heard the door. He emerged, holding his breath, the light of hope kindling in the smudged darkness of his eyes. The brightness faded, he gave a hiccup and began to cry again. Richard had found space enough to set his lamp down upon the clothes chest at the end of the bed, now he sat beside the child and without touching him said, ‘I don't suppose you want to see me, but I'm here.’
‘No,’ said Guy. ‘This is his room, my brother's room. Go away.’
‘He will come back. It may take time but he'll be forgiven in the end.’
‘He's to hang,’ said Guy. ‘He betrayed us all, it's right he should hang. I want him to hang!’
‘No, you don't, you know that isn't true!’
‘He promised he would always be here, he would ride by my side through all the years to come, to the confusion of our enemies. It was a solemn promise. I thought he meant it.’
‘I expect he did at the time.’
‘I hate him!’ One small fist pummelled the bolster. Guy was undersized for nine, just a pair of enormous eyes beneath a black fringe. ‘I hate you. You think you'll take his place, that it will be easy. You've wormed your way into Beaudesert and now you think you can lord it here, but you can't because they will all hate you. Aunt Bess turned you from the door, sent you back to Warwick, didn't she? Father isn't really interested if you live or die. He only wanted you here because Thomas Beauchamp had you in hold and that he couldn't abide.’
Richard said, ‘Yes, I fear you're right. We're all going to be miserable then. What a pity!’
‘Why?’ Guy lifted his head and looked him full in the face for the first time.
Richard shrugged his shoulders, ‘Because I was looking forward to having a brother; I never had one before. I'd better go; I don't want to stay round where I'm not wanted.’ He got to his feet but one thin little arm shot out of the bedclothes and groped for his wrist.
‘You don't have to go. I didn't mean to be so hateful!’ And as Richard sat down again Guy launched himself into his brother's arms, sobbing his heart out into the breast of the violet jupon. The thin little body, clad only in his shirt, was ice cold. Richard took off his good frieze cloak and wrapped it round him.
‘Where is your room?’
‘In the Mellent Tower, the other side from the East Gate,’ sniffed Guy at last. ‘I came across the roof; no-one saw me.’
‘Without your shoes? What would your aunt say? You can't stay here all night.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it's not a sensible idea, you'll end with an ague. I'm going to my room. Your aunt - our aunt, had them put a hot stone in the bed, do you want to come up?’
Guy slid his feet to the floor. ‘Often I have nightmares. Once I came to John. Aunt Bess was angry and said it wasn't fitting; I was the heir; I should have more pride.’
Richard looked about him. His dark eyes slid over John's tapestry lovers. Bess was probably right. ‘Well, I shall get the scolding in the morning.’ He put out a hand and Guy put his own small, cold fingers into it, trotting beside him. At the top of the tower, Richard set down his lamp, found a tinder box and lit a stub of candle at the bedside, turned back the sheet and located the stone, still warm in its woollen wrappings. He bowed his brother into the white expanse of freshly laundered linen, tucked him up to the chin and went over to the window. He closed the shutters on a brilliant starscape and a world of moon shadows and glittering rime.
Guy said sleepily, ‘Do you know any stories? John knew a lot of stories.’
‘I can imagine,’ Richard said dryly, stretched out on the coverlet beside him and dredged up an Arthurian tale of sound principles, vague morality and excessive blood-letting. When at last the child slept he pulled off his clothes, tossed them into a heap and let the cold, clean, lavender-scented sheets slide over the warmth of his body with as much friendliness as the rest of this snow-bound fortress had extended. Guy was all but won over, others would follow; no man is unassailable. Richard blew out the candle and slept.
~o0o~
It had to be admitted, even by those who disliked or mistrusted him, and that was the larger part of the Earl’s retinue, that John de Montfort was more than proficient at everything he turned a hand to. Few could better him in single combat or on horseback armed with lance or mace. He was a skilled musician at the lute, with a large repertoire of both the sacred and profane; he was lethal at the gaming tables, sharp tongued and quick witted. Thomas Beauchamp fell to wondering why Henry Derby had let him go.
Seated on a mounting block in the Great Court, watching the usual practice bouts with blunted tourney swords, Warwick saw Nicholas Durvassal striding away, set faced
, towards the armoury. He beckoned Montfort to his side.
‘My Lord?’ John’s graceful, practised bow gave no indication that he bore any ill will for the complete character assassination he had suffered at Beauchamp’s hands a few days before. Perhaps he had recognised that there had been more than a grain of truth in such an uncomfortable dressing down.
‘I should not,’ said Thomas, ‘let Nicholas lose too often.’
John raised his eyebrows. ‘Then he will have to do better. I would not debase my skills to bolster a Durvassal and particularly that Durvassal!’
‘Then you will make an enemy there. It is a friendly warning, that is all. By the way, your father wants you back.’
‘Oh, heralded with trumpet and rose petals, I suppose?’
Thomas said dryly, ‘Preferably quartered and served with gooseberry sauce. Though he might settle for public castration. I could barter you for something useful but if I keep you longer your price might go up. Anyway, whilst rumour and counter-rumour circulate around that red head of yours, I have a commission for you. Be ready to leave at first light. Have you lands in Norfolk? No? Then you’ll enjoy the change of scene.’
~o0o~
The thaw had come just days before Christmas and Thomas had a mind to have Mary home again for the feast. Nursemaiding one young girl and her chaperone was not quite what John would have chosen for his first mission in the service of Thomas of Warwick but at least he was out in the country air, away from wagging tongues. They took the charette but the nurse preferred to ride pillion behind one of their grooms; she was a stout, gallant woman who did her best not to slow the pace. Shouldham was a Gilbertine House, ten or so miles south east of Lynn, beyond the Great Ouse and the flat wetlands and less than a day's ride from Castle Rising, the great fortress which housed the Queen Dowager, under house arrest.
The journey took four days, hampered as they were by the lumbering of the charette and the time it took to dig it out of a waterlogged ditch. The nurse was happy to sit about a tavern fire in the evenings with her skirts kilted up and her feet in the ashes, telling uproarious tales gleaned from a long life in the Earl's household.
‘The Lady Mary,’ said John, stretched out on a settle, booted feet crossed, head on his rolled mantle, ‘is she a pious child? Shall we be stopping at every wayside shrine and diving in for Mass at every other country church; there are a lot of churches between Shouldham and Warwick. I stopped counting.’
The woman gave an unladylike snort. ‘Lord love us no, whatever gave you that idea? She'll be anxious to be home and she rides as well as you do. The Lady Mary was sent to Shouldham more in the way of mortification of the body than for the good of the soul. She crossed swords with her father over her marriage plans and, of any man, he is not one to thwart, but she's the apple of his eye and the Countess likes her well enough, so she's bidden home. Next time she displeases him perhaps he'll find a religious house a mite nearer to Warwick. There's Wroxall on our doorstep and the White Ladies at Pinley…’ Here she cast him a shifty, sidelong glance, knowing it was his mother's refuge but he refused to rise to the bait.
The Beauchamp ladies with their Gilbertine sisters, crowded out in the rain and a bitter east wind to wave goodbye to their departing kinswoman. John wondered if they were happy in their cloister, these generations of unwanted siblings. The Beauchamp women produced their offspring with apparent ease and regularity, Katherine would be no exception, leaving a comet's tail of unwanted daughters in each generation. Did they perhaps hanker for Christmas at home in the old surroundings, for twelve days of licence and enforced jollity, for gifts and dancing, for carols and mummery, or was it all another world now, put strictly behind them?
Mary stepped nimbly into the charette in a flutter of veils, waved one white hand and disappeared behind the curtains as it rattled down the rutted track. A mile along the high road she appeared at the awnings, signed for the driver to draw rein and swung her feet down onto the roadway. After a short exchange of words the nurse was assisted down from her seat behind the groom and Mary was helped up in her place; the nurse disappeared into the carriage and they set off again. John, from time to time, cast a glance at his charge, a small girl in a black velvet cloak, her hood up about her face, concealing all but her nose from his view. It was a charming nose, a trifle sharp, a pert nose. It worried him because it was also a familiar nose. They spent the night at Ely as guests of the Benedictines and John did not see the ladies again until they came to mount up the following morning. He had taken one look at the colour of the sky, leaden grey with a low cloud base, and tried to hurry them along. Mary emerged into the dawn light, a neat little figure in her black velvet, a sharp cut-out against the muted colours of the winter landscape. And when he stooped to help her into the saddle the east wind tore at her fur-edged hood and tugged it back so that the night black hair took instant flight and whirled about her and she laughed into his face.
‘Mariana!’ said John.
‘Oh, dear, and didn't you take your time! Six years obviously hasn't improved your eyesight.’ Up in the saddle now, she smiled down at him. ‘Stand back, Johnny, let me take a proper look at you. Mm, I must say you've fleshed out a little. The legs are still inordinately long.’ Her black eyes raked him from top to toe.
‘My lady!’ said the nurse, ‘I take it that you have a previous acquaintance with this gentleman?’
‘Don't be pompous, Mattie. And I haven't seen him since I was eight. Remember the years I spent at Kenilworth in Lady Derby's train, learning how to sew a fine seam, how to curtsey without a wobble half way down - not that Kate couldn't have taught me all and more but she and my father were so wrapped up in each other at the time? John was Harry of Derby’s page and then his squire, until his swift and dramatic exit. I never cared for Lady Derby's women; to a small girl they seemed vapid, insipid creatures, so I hung around after the pages and learned to climb trees and to fish in the great mere at Kenilworth or along the banks of the northern rivers, and to string a bow with the best of them. I was set fair to becoming a hoyden when I finally returned to Warwick.’
‘Only 'set fair'?’ said John with a raise of his eyebrows. ‘You were Isabel Derby's despair; all hair and teeth and late for every occasion. In fact, we're overdue starting now!’ He had mounted and was urging his chestnut forward. The nurse was glad of the empty carriage.
Mariana, (and to John she would always be Mariana,) at fourteen, was an exquisite child with her gypsy mother's black hair and dark eyes, a trim little figure and a skin pale as almond milk. She kept up a constant patter of conversation as they rode west and when, at last, the snow threatened at cock shut they were forced to take shelter in the tap-room at a common tavern. The girl wrapped her nurse up on the settle in a travelling rug and, tucking her feet beneath her, sat next to the hearthstone, roasting chestnuts. John perched upon the only stool. The firelight lit their faces; it did not penetrate into the gloom of the corners or lick up to the smoke-blackened rafters. They were the only travellers, caught in a cosy complicity by the night and the elements.
‘You don't talk about Kenilworth,’ said Mariana, sucking a scorched finger. ‘You don't talk about Henry Derby. I wonder why?’
‘I have had a life since then,’ said John, ‘rather a full and active one.’
‘An empty one,’ said the girl, ‘an empty marriage – or so they say, empty-headed cavorting at village tournaments… You served the greatest knight in the whole of Europe; you met Kings and Bishops, Queens and poets. You must have missed it all when it was over.’
John glanced at the nurse, her eyes were closed. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘That isn't an answer. Do you remember the Count of Artois' arrival at Windsor; a fugitive from the French King's wrath, a big handsome man who laughed a lot and said outrageous things? It was he who made a chaplet of yellow irises, the royal flower de luce of France, for a toothy little girl, crowned her solemnly, kissed her hand and made plain little Mary into Queen Mariana. I was
Mariana ever after to my friends at Derby's court. Now I am Mariana again for you.’ She handed him a plate of chestnuts.
John said, ‘And I was his squire, just for a day, hired out to him because he would go hawking along London River. And his bird took a heron, flushed from the reeds, a sleek, grey, king of a bird in the prime of its life. We sat down on the bank and shared a meat pasty and he told me what he planned to do with his noble prize and I thought him very daring. We walked back, trailing our mounts, and he had the heron slung over his shoulder by its long legs. We sang soldiers' songs in French; his English wasn't too strong in those days, and I taught him one of our own and we bellowed it out all along the river path, till he made me tell him what it meant. Then he ducked me under when we came to the next bridge and I arrived back, overdue to serve at supper and green with weed. We were both late and the King was already seated. It took a long time to roast the heron but you must remember the rest, you would have been at the banquet.’
Mariana poked at the fire, low in the basket, and snuggled into her cloak. ‘He came into the hall from the kitchens, all prinked out in tawny velvets, sleeves trailing, points on his shoes, even his beard crimped, and behind him paraded three minstrels, one on gittern, one on pipe and one on tambour to proclaim the entry of the hapless bird. It took two kitchen girls to carry the silver dish. And he took it from them and placed it before the King in a fanfare of silver trumpets, announcing that as the heron had the reputation for being the most cowardly of birds it was predestined that it should be placed before the greatest coward at the table - a King who submitted tamely to being deprived of the crown of France, even though all knew it belonged to him by right. I can remember the hush throughout the hall as, collectively, we held our breath. A lesser man than Edward would have struck him. His grandfather would have seen him dragged out and beheaded.’
John smiled into the embers of the fire, 'Sire, a vow. Surely you cannot disappoint us!' And Edward, on his feet, swearing to invade France with fire and sword before the year was out, and then the bird was carried round the table so that every man could pledge his support to the enterprise. Looking back now, I wonder if they didn't hatch the whole thing between them; Artois to reap revenge on his own hated suzerain, our Edward to grasp at a tenuous claim. God knows, he has had cause enough to take arms against Philip but to tilt for his crown is another matter. Yes, they were great days!’ He fell silent then, back in a time when life stretched forward in endless sunshine and every side track led to a new adventure.
