by Helen Burton
We travelled to the coast where a city of tents went up at night. And you know how on campaign things are differently ordered? There are always men who would prefer a boy to warm their mattress at night rather than take a whore; you learn early to look out for yourself. I was a pretty boy, God help me. It used to amuse me, saying no, but it gave a sense of power. There was a child, a page, always hanging about hoping for an errand. I sent him to the Earl with a message he learnt off pat. He was not to deliver it with anyone else by. He was to say that, as My Lord obviously had no present use for me, I had agreed to serve a certain knight – oh, let’s call him Sir Gawain – and was sure that he would be pleased to sanction the loan of my person for the evening.’
‘Sir Gawain?’ Warwick’s eyebrows went up.
‘Oh, you would have known him full well; his fancy was always for boys – but that night he was innocent. That night he was in town, not in the camp at all. I knew that; Derby did not. Why should he?’
Montfort was staring into the glowing heart of the brazier, seeing again the city of tents, the pavilions of war, so very different from the Windsor village surrounding them. He remembered the walk along canvas-flanked aisles and ducking into the darkness of his chosen fox-hole, stripping and slipping into that alien bed…
In the end it had been a long wait and spiced by the chance that the bed’s owner might return before Derby put in an appearance. By the time the awaited footfall had paused, out in the darkness, and the tent flap was pulled aside, the whole area bathed in torchlight, he was cold with fright and his heart was hammering so hard that it threatened to choke him. His breathing was ragged and audible.
Henry of Derby set his torch in a convenient bracket, strode to the bedside and tore back the coverlet, raking his erring squire from head to foot until he saw the first mantling of shame flood into face and neck, before grabbing him by the nearest wrist and jerking him to his knees. His expression was one of cold, contained fury.
John, who had achieved exactly what he had set out to do, was foolish enough then to smile at him archly from beneath the flop of his auburn hair.
‘Out!’ said Derby. ‘Boy, you have seconds to dress unless you want my belt buckle across your bare arse!’
It was not the language of chivalry for which he was acclaimed. John’s eyes flickered momentarily to the ornate piece of craftsmanship slung low about the Earl’s narrow hips and plunged for his clothes.
‘Where is he?’ Derby’s voice was ice-brook cold; Montfort had never heard it so before, in all the years he had served this man.
‘Who, My Lord?’
‘You know bloody well who I mean!’
‘I don’t know where, really I don’t. In town, I suppose. My Lord, don’t look at me so, it was a joke; that was all – I swear!’
Derby sighed. ‘John, come here.’
‘My Lord?’
Derby stood him squarely before him and forced the violet eyes to focus unwillingly upon his own steadier grey ones. ‘Tell me the truth. Did he invite you here? The truth, boy!’
‘Not exactly…’
‘Stop dissembling or I will beat you!’
‘Well, there were looks, I know he wanted me. He never said anything. But you had no use for my services. You had forgotten I existed.’
‘So that is all this is about. You set up this, no doubt foolish, young man because you thought I was ignoring you. For that – and for nothing more?’
‘Yes, My Lord, I suppose so.’
‘And if he had come back and if you had been discovered together don’t you realise it would have resulted in a charge of sodomy? Oh, you might have escaped as the dubiously corrupted innocent but he – dear God – they would have burned him!’
John shrugged and looked away. Derby cuffed him lightly to regain his attention.
‘It still doesn’t touch you, does it, what you have tried to do?’
‘It worked,’ said John, ‘you’re here, My Lord.’ His smile was seraphic and earned him a half-hearted slapping wherever Derby could reach.
The Earl said, ‘You’ll spend the night under restraint. Tomorrow morning you’re on your way home and I shall have to spend the next hour writing something suitable for your unfortunate father.’
‘My Lord, you can’t, he’ll be so – disappointed in me – and you can’t send me away. All I wanted was to be back in your favour. Was that so very wrong?’ He wriggled his clothes straight again and ran a hand through the chaotic hair.
‘Boy, you’ve served me well. We have had good times together, exciting times. You were always the one to make me laugh when cares of state threatened to overwhelm me. Damn you, John, I shall miss you but you can’t stay. We’re off to war and I haven’t the time to wonder whose bed you’ll be crawling into or whose reputation you are planning to ruin next. You’re a lethal mix of the amoral and the unprincipled and crying isn’t going to help.’ But he was angry with himself that he was affected by the boy’s distress. He waited for a moment for him to pull himself together.
‘Oh, here with you!’ Derby drew the red head to his shoulder and let him sob into the breast of his cote before shaking him gently.
‘The first time we met I seem to remember you soaked me with grimy tears. You should have grown out of it by now. Blow your nose and let’s get out of here!’ He steered him out into the night, one arm firmly about his shoulders.
‘My Lord, how can I go back to being nobody again?’
Derby laughed. ‘I can see that obscurity is hardly an option for you, John, but it won’t hurt you to keep your head down for a while and reflect upon your sins…’
~o0o~
John surfaced from his reverie and wondered how much he had said to Warwick. There was a long silence before he turned towards Thomas Beauchamp and said savagely, ‘So you see, a man who would have whored to get his own way would not baulk at murdering his brother or betraying his own father. Men would say he was just running true to form!’
Warwick only said, ‘You were sixteen. I did a lot of things I was ashamed of when I was sixteen – and since. I can and will silence Mary. God only knows how she picked up the story in the first instance. Tomorrow, I hunt with the King and you will be at my side in my livery; not a venture for the faint-hearted in the present circumstances but no-one has ever accused you of that. Brazen it out. It can only add to your novelty value with the ladies, after all.’
‘It hasn’t worked with my wife,’ smiled John ruefully.
‘At least you have remembered that you have a wife,’ said Beauchamp. ‘Beautiful girl, Johanna; decent hips where it’ll matter to your sons. I should try to curtail all this travelling – not natural in a bride, not natural at all!’
Chapter Twenty-Six
March - 1344
Lady Day brought the first true promise of spring that year, with its cobalt sky and its drifting cloud castles. The snowdrops were faded now which had clung tenaciously to the banks of the fosse during a harsh February, but in the muddied ruts of the outer bailey the tough roundels of coltsfoot flowers turned their faces to the light.
Being Sunday and Mass over and done, the menfolk of Henley had trudged their way up to Beaudesert from the porch of St. Nicholas's Church and were dutifully at target practice within the bailey. There was always a spirit of friendly rivalry - the village versus the castle - and Peter and Richard strolled down to oversee the proceedings in a spirit of noblesse oblige. Besides, it was good to be out and about in the sunshine. They stood aside watching the team from the village and then turned towards Peter's own garrison with Geoffrey Mikelton in charge. A young man in Montfort blue let fly his shaft, missed the target completely and swore under his breath. Richard was at his side, the March wind tugging at his shaggy curls, his dark eyes alight and aware:
‘You aim too high, friend. Let me take her, and aim so…’
The arrow, fledged with grey goose, whistled into the eye and the young man, whose bow was now in Richard's capable hands grinned and shrugged his
shoulders. ‘I'll never match that. She's yours for as long as you want, I've had enough for one morning. Take my quiver; I'd as soon sit in the sun.’
‘Richard shook his head. ‘That won't do; you'll never end a good shot if you take that attitude. If they call up the levies you can't hand your bow to another man in the heat of battle. They will call them; it’s only a matter of time. Don't you want to see France?’
‘Shall I get a choice?’ said the other boy sullenly. ‘Look, do you want it, Sir?’ He put the emphasis on the last word, reminding Richard that for all his honest attempts at fraternisation he could never rank with the men, his blood cut too deep a channel between them.
Montfort said, ‘I'm not impressed. You should all be able to manage two hundred yards. Who has the training of you? You'll make a wraggle-taggle army!’ His clear young voice carried to where Mikelton and his cronies stood together, their own bows at rest. Richard took up the weapon again and turned to where a brace of crows flew cawing into the eye of the sun. He took aim and pulled his arm back. One black scavenger plummeted to earth and two or three men clapped politely. Mikelton had heard Richard's words, light and careless; the truth of them struck home and he felt his years. Those about him coughed or ground out the grass with their heels, embarrassed to meet his eyes. For a moment he stood there, pathetic, mouth slack, eyes downcast, hands limp at his sides; an old man forced to acknowledge that he wasn't always up to things these days.
Peter was beside his son, an arm about his shoulders. ‘Well done! Now perhaps we can see your prowess with a sword.’
Richard smiled blithely, ‘Not my weapon, I'm afraid, sir.’
‘Come now, you're too modest. Geoffrey, you'll oblige my son?’
The old man came warily forward, buckling on his sword belt. Richard shouldered his way out of the encircling arm. ‘My word upon it, I'd make poor showing.’
Peter drew his own blade, it hissed and shuddered in the sunlight; a fine piece of workmanship and forged to ice-brook temper. He reversed the pommel and handed it to his son. The archers drifted away from the butts and drew a cordon about the three, a wide circle of flattened grass before the north curtain. Richard set his jaw, knowing there was no appeal.
Mikelton had no way of ascertaining how practised a swordsman he was; his father had a very good idea. Apprentice boys had as fine a chance as any of taking to the bow, though their accustomed weapons were the cudgel and the knife, and agility and a quick wit were of paramount necessity, but the weight of a sword was something other, the training long and arduous. John had had a wooden sword at his belt from the time he could walk. Richard had never handled anything as fine as Peter's blade and an archer's strength is no replacement for the supple wrist of a master swordsman.
Mikelton had this boy's measure in the time it takes to knock arrow to bow and let fly - the very way he angled the blade, the lamentable footwork. Some of the tension about them had eased and the men were beginning to enjoy the spectacle. Whatever he was, and Mikelton could be a bastard at times, no-one would dispute it, he was their own and they did not need any young sprig of the nobility, who thought he was cock of the walk, telling them how to rule their lives, humiliating the old man. They cast a glance towards their lord, perched on a wooden mounting block, eyes narrowed, a broad and satisfied grin upon his face. It would obviously be permitted to laugh and laugh they did as Richard slashed his way furiously, able to make no headway and forced continuously backwards. Once Geoffrey drove in under his guard with such force that the blade was wrenched from his wrist to spin down at his father's feet. There was a glance, hardly perceptible, between Lord and Constable and Peter nodded.
Mikelton said, ‘A mere fluke, a chance. Pick it up and we'll try again.’
It was the last thing Richard wanted, this conniving at his further humiliation, but there was no help for it and the spectacle was prolonged. Backing the young man up against the north curtain Mikelton tried the same trick, neatly depriving him of his blade and pinning him against the stonework with his own sword at the open neck of his shirt.
‘You didn't learn, did you?’ grunted Mikelton. ‘Do you yield?’
‘I do.’ Richard was out of breath, perspiring, and the old man sheathed his blade and turned back to his young opponent, hand extended, but Richard had brushed past without seeing and was striding away towards the gatehouse, face set and furious. The Constable retrieved Montfort's sword and handed it to him.
‘I'm sorry,’ said Peter, ‘that my son should lack manners. I'll have him called back.’
‘No, I would not want that. It was a hard lesson and I've no wish to make an enemy there. Let it stand.’
Montfort clapped him on the shoulder and they wandered back to the bowmen. The clouds were bunching up beyond the ridgeway; it would soon be raining.
In fact, it rained all afternoon, sheeting in through every unshuttered window, turning bailey and courtyard into the usual quagmire. Richard made his way to the guardroom above the upper gate and paused in the doorway. Mikelton was seated on an arrow box before a brazier, the rest of the watch sprawled about him, cleaning harness. One of the men nudged him and nodded towards their lord's son. The old man got to his feet.
‘What can I do for you?’
The boy had taken off his new Sunday finery and wore a plain tawny-hued jupon, open to the waist, sleeves rolled up; he must have come from the stables. Skulking there until he got over the morning's humiliation, Mikelton supposed. Well, what of it, it can't have been too easy, learning to play the prodigal son.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Is there anywhere that isn't open to your father's son in this house? Yes, by all means.’
Richard ducked beneath the stone lintel and entered the fug. He disregarded the curious glances of the garrison, his eyes fixed upon the Constable. ‘I need to apologise for my behaviour this morning; it was downright rudeness. I'm sorry. Will you take my hand on it, belated though it is?’
It must have taken a lot of courage to admit to his own shortcomings in front of his father's men. Mikelton did not hesitate; he took the offered hand and wrung it vigorously. ‘Gladly, gladly.’ But his encouraging grin was brief and he pierced the onlookers with a gimlet gaze and they stumbled clumsily to their feet, muttering excuses, making for the leads again and the steady downpour.
‘Will you sit for a while? Would you like a bite to eat? It's only cold sausage but the bread's fresh.’
‘Thanks; I missed the midday meal, licking imagined wounds.’ Richard gave a rueful smile. ‘But I have to say something further if you'll listen.’
‘I'm listening but I can't look up that far, couldn't you sit down and say it, lad?’
So Richard seated himself on the arrow box and Mikelton plumped down beside him and busied himself hacking up a dark sausage with his dagger. ‘Well?’
‘At the butts I spoke too hastily, I never thought - they were your men, your ultimate responsibility. I shamed you before them.’
Mikelton sniffed, ‘I admit we fall short, no doubt you can teach us a few things but I'll own I could have wrung your handsome young neck. Would you like a hard-boiled egg or are we still at confession?’
Richard said, staring between his toes, ‘I'm treading on cat ice here, you must know that. I'm hard put to set a foot right. I don't want to make enemies so if I can make amends…’
‘Lord love us, boy, don't take yourself so seriously. If you want a penance you've come to the wrong man. I see no enemies, you're his son and that's enough for now. Later, perhaps, you'll be more.’ He put out a hand and patted the nearest knee.
Richard said, ‘If you'd give me some tutoring with a sword, I'd be obliged. I've had no training; I need a master's hand.’
Mikelton growled, mouth full of sausage, ‘John could always sweet-talk me; you won't do it, I'm far too old and canny these days.’
‘But I'm serious!’
The old man got to his feet. ‘I’ll work you damned hard.’ He shot the gimlet gaze
at him.
‘That's fine, when do we start?’
