The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  But John wasn’t really listening to this impassioned outburst, bewitched as he was by the rise and fall of the rose-tipped breasts beneath the golden cascade of her hair. ‘Come closer, girl, I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘But your bruises…’ Johanna slipped down beside him, edging closer. He found her mouth, kissing her experimentally before he let his lips travel down towards the warm and mesmerising softness of her body.

  Johanna was a competent horsewoman, she was no mean shot with a bow and her hands were still those of the nut brown maid who had tilled the herb gardens of Coleshill and Beaudesert. Hers were not the practised caresses of the Orabellas of this world. The male anatomy was a place of tremulous exploration, a path to the Paradise Garden and she was an eager pilgrim through uncharted territory.

  And John, who had meant to be kind and patient, found an instant defenestration of all his good intents in the violence of the passion she was unleashing in his bruised body. He grabbed her blindly and pulled her beneath him in a speedy consummation which left them both shaken.

  They lay side by side without a word or look until his hand stole out and took hers.

  ‘I’m sorry, I must have hurt you.’

  Johanna gave him a gallant smile. ‘I’m a Clinton, we’re Red Cross Knights all; not a faint heart amongst us. I suppose that was my fault?’

  ‘Yes, it was rather.’ He grinned at her.

  ‘It seems I have much to learn. Will you teach me?’

  He nodded, eyes half closed, but he drew her to him.

  ‘I could be available most nights,’ said Johanna. She kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Did I ever tell you you were a beautiful man, John de Montfort?’

  ‘No, I don’t recall you ever doing other than harangue me for my shortcomings. You, My Lady, are a gilded Amazon and I could fear I have met my match.’

  ‘And one day, might you love me a little?’

  ‘Girl, I do love you. I fell in love with you that day at Windsor when you accused me of…’

  ‘It wasn’t true?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I could have stayed to listen.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I dragged you from that unfortunate horse - a girl with the longest legs I’d ever seen - and I was lost to you then.’

  ‘Typical male, going for the obvious,’ sniffed Johanna.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t obvious before and your hair was terrible; those braids scared me to death!’

  ‘Are we going to quarrel often?’

  ‘I’m certain of it.’

  ‘And will you beat me?’

  ‘Most assuredly.’

  ‘Then I’ll look forward to it.’ With a contented sigh she found her place in the crook of his arm and fell asleep with the golden hair spread across her young lover’s body as the Lady Mellisent would certainly have done; but her dreams were not the Lady Mellisent’s dreams and could not have appeared in the pages of a romaunt. It was John who lay awake, holding her, afraid that if he slept he would find her gone by the morning.

  Chapter Thirty

  April - 1346

  Nicholas Durvassal rode home to Spernall with the wind at his back. The lanes were runnels of mire and the trees, bare yet of spring foliage, dripped incessantly above him. The world was dun and grey and only the western sky, a watery streak of silver behind the threshing trees, relieved the dreariness of the journey. The groom who helped him dismount and led his sorrel towards the stables informed him that Sir John, Lady Sybil and Master William were away from home but that Lady Rose was within.

  Nicholas stepped into the hall and the familiarity of his home wrapped itself about him like a warm cloak; the fire blazing, the flickering light upon the smoke-blackened timbers of the roof, the smell of the rushes as he moved towards the solar, the pungency of the resin torches in their iron sconces between the windows and over the dais. He put a hand upon the curtain separating hall from solar and ducking his head stepped through the archway. There were no lights in the solar but as in the hall the fire was crackling merrily. Rose sat upon a low stool, she wore a plain surcote of green velvet and her dark red hair, unbound, fell about her shoulders completely uncovered, snarled and tangled, and when she lifted her face he saw that she was crying; her cheeks were wet with tears and smudged with ash from the hearth.

  ‘Rose Red!’ He rarely used the old pet name now but this was the child he had chased through the gardens at Codbarrow, for whom he had sought out and purchased the tiny monkey, whose tears he had dried with some cheap trinket. ‘Rose, what is it?’ He lifted her from her stool and stood her before him, gently pushing back the red hair and dabbing at her cheeks with the corner of his cloak. The girl gulped and sniffed and shuddered between his strong hands. ‘Wait!’ Durvassal unfastened his cloak and tossed it across the window seat, pulled his own chair nearer to the fire and lifted his wife onto his lap. ‘You must tell me, Rose. Has father upset you? No? Then William, Mother even?’ He put a long finger beneath her chin and tilted her face towards his.

  Rose looked up at the narrow face, cheeks hollowed by firelight and shadow, hair glinting and pale. ‘My Lord, I do not weep for myself, or only a little, I weep for my father and, oh, Nicholas, I weep for you too. My mother is dead! Agnes sent over to tell me this afternoon. She had been ill for weeks. I did not realise how sick she was.’ She buried her face in the shoulder of his surcote and he felt the warmth of her hair against his cheek. He held her whilst she sobbed a little longer and when she lifted her head he was staring into the fire, numb with the shock of the news.

  She said gently, ‘It was the wasting cough, she was never without a cough, you know, but this time it was more. She had no resistance; she just coughed her life away. I don't think she had the will to go on fighting it after – after…’ She slipped from his lap and went to pour him a cup of wine. ‘We must ride to Codbarrow at first light. Agnes is with father and Beata is there, there is nothing to be done tonight.’ But Durvassal wasn't listening; he was trying to imagine the world without Christine, without the proud, cold lady of Lapworth, the ice-princess who had melted into acquiescence with the lengthening spring days. He rose abruptly and, walking blindly past his wife, he grabbed for the wine jar and stumbled into their bedchamber, slamming the door. Rose curled up in her husband's chair and after a while drifted off to sleep. She awoke as the last log shifted in the hearth and disintegrated into ash amidst a shower of sparks. The room was growing colder and the girl had no knowledge of how long she had slept. She flexed stiff muscles and hugged her arms about her. She tiptoed to her chamber door and put an ear to the stout wood. Not a sound was discernible. Taking a deep breath Rose lifted the latch and walked inside, carrying a candle. She put it down upon a stool and the flame swayed and flickered in the draught from the door. The leather wine bottle was empty, lying on its side by the bed. Nicholas had removed jupon and surcote and they were flung down across the bed. He sat upon the ledge of the glassless window with the rain soaking into his shirt sleeves and plastering his hair about his face.

  Rose Durvassal would never be in love with the husband who had cuckolded her father, seduced her mother and betrayed her own child's heart but she was a practical girl and, for better or for worse, she was bound to this beautiful young man until death released one of them from the vows of Holy Matrimony. She slipped out of her kirtle and smock and, pulling a loose robe of watchet about her shoulders, glided to the window.

  ‘My Lord, you will take an ague, you are soaked to your skin. Would she have wished you to grieve so? Come, it's late and we must be up with the dawn tomorrow.’ She led him slowly across the floor to their bed and pulled back the coverlet.

  Nicholas lay on his back, looking up at the pool of light upon the ceiling as the little candle diminished, listening to the wind all about the house, tearing at the Arden woodland, howling and shrieking like an army of tortured souls, condemned to purgatory. ‘Christine…’ He had turned his head and murmured her name against the pillow.

  Rose, kneeling
above him in the cloud of her hair, swam into his blurred line of vision; wraithlike. She slipped down beside him, so near that he could feel her breath upon his cheek, the touch of her body against his.

  ‘Christine is dead, Nicky, but you have her daughter, flesh of her flesh. I will give you children; I will give you pale fair daughters, but strong babies, Nicholas, strong as I am strong.’ She was gently removing the last of his rain-soaked garments. The candlelight caught the gold hairs upon his chest and the whiteness of the small hands which roamed over his body, and at last he stirred and caught her to him.

  ~o0o~

  It was still raining when Nicholas and Rose started out for Codbarrow; two figures wrapped against the weather, heads lowered, faces set. In tune with their grief Arden bowed its head and shed tears of its own from dripping branches. As they rode through Ullenhall, setting chickens scattering and pigs squealing, a little girl ran out straight under the hooves of Durvassal's sorrel mare. He did not stop; it was of no consequence. Later, Rose went to visit the parents. There was no mother, she had died giving birth. Lucy de Ragley was an only child, now she was dead and her father crazed with grief. It had been an accident but Nicholas could have stopped; Christine, after all, would have waited.

  ~o0o~

  John de Montfort stayed on throughout the spring in Derby’s service. Although he had given his hand to Richard in a grudging acceptance of their kinship they still circled each other warily. Riding cross-country at Harry’s side the years had rolled away. Derby never referred to his young squire’s fall from grace and the old, teasing camaraderie had returned.

  Johanna, up on the battered walls in a flutter of moon-white veils, was watching him cross the courtyard now; Derby resplendent in coat armour over his mail, had one arm around John’s shoulders in easy companionship. John said something, laughing aloud, and the older man smote him playfully. Then they looked up and saw Johanna. Derby gave her an elaborate bow and waved his hand; John blew her a kiss and she turned to run lightly down the staircase to meet him.

  Early in June the Earl called both Montforts to him. He had dispatches for the King, a king who was due on French soil any day. They were to go to him together.

  ‘There will be fighting in the north; you’ll get more than enough to satisfy your appetites. You have served me well, both of you, but you have a father in the King’s army and he will have need of his sons. It is right that you should go. See to your packing; we shall make our farewells in the morning.’

  ~o0o~

  Richard was already there in a dark green travelling cloak; neither would wear Derby’s livery as it would have drawn too much attention to themselves. He knelt for the Earl’s blessing. Harry searched his face and saw no sign of the runaway who had fled Beaudesert in order to prove himself worthy of his new status. Here was a self-assured young man who knew what he wanted out of life, a son for any man to be proud of.

  ‘Good luck and God speed, Dickie. Let us pray that we all meet again and that I may thank your esteemed father for the loan I have had of you.’ He leant and gently raised the boy by the shoulders. Richard snatched at his hand and kissed it before spinning wordlessly on his heels and clattering away down the stairs and out to wait for his brother at the gate.

  Derby turned to John: ‘You have made your farewells to Johanna? Be assured we shall look after her for you. Perhaps the next time she sets foot in England you will be able to take her back to Beaudesert where she belongs.’

  John shook his head. ‘No, My Lord, I dare not. I am still a wanted man. He will never forgive me. Perhaps it is right that he never should. It is no matter; I can make my own way in the world.’ He knelt before the Earl as his brother had already done, head bowed, but then he lifted his face and the violet eyes searched the Earl’s steady grey ones. ‘But I sense I have your forgiveness, My Lord, for all those years ago.’

  The Earl raised him to his feet. ‘Johnny, you had it before you left the camp the very next morning. Your exit heralded a succession of bright-eyed, industrious, eager, impeccably attired young men; blue-blooded to the last drop in their veins, but I would have exchanged them all for one manipulative young devil who carried his bastardy like a proud standard and could always be relied upon to make me laugh. Be off with you now, and see you keep your hands from Richard’s throat!’

  He watched from the window as they both rode away from La Reole, taking the road north.

  ~o0o~

  Lora Astley, alone at the well, hands clasped before her almost in an attitude of supplication, heard the sound and flung up her head like a startled doe trapped in the brake. It was nothing more than a dull vibration, a rhythmic disturbance of the ground under her feet but she knew it for the tramp of the levies, the approach of the foot soldiers coming in from the surrounding manors to join Thomas Beauchamp in the march to the sea. There were horsemen too, lords and knights with their squires and their garrisons. Inevitably, Peter de Montfort would ride at the head of the Henley bowmen, in the blue and gold of his coat armour, Geoffrey Mikelton at his back with the men of Beaudesert, proud to follow their Lord.

  Lora was still there, motionless, an hour later, the rhythm still in her head, blotting out all other sound on that still July afternoon.

  The trees, thick with summer foliage, sheltered all view of the distant high road from the quiet precincts of the nunnery. Lora the child would have climbed up into the branches of those trees; Lora the woman would have hastened to the gates and out across the field, but Sister Lora had to remain in the deserted cloister garth listening to the rumble of the siege engines and the baggage wagons on the rutted surface of the high road.

  In the dimness of the chapel the Mother Abbess was praying. Lora slipped quietly into the black velvet gloom and knelt beside her.

  ‘Sister,’ said Amice Hynton, ‘we shall pray together for the lives of your sons that they may be spared to the world for many more years. And let us also ask that God's grace may light upon your past and our present benefactor.’ And though Lora was looking directly ahead, her eyes fixed upon the altar cross, gleaming gold before the shadowy figures upon the marble reredos, her lips were pressed together in a veiled smile which revealed that her thoughts were not of God but were winging away to a tower of golden, sun-warmed stone; a bed with rose silk hangings; a wilful girl with buttercup hair and the footfall of a dark young man on the tower stair...

  ~o0o~

  Thomas Beauchamp had bade farewell to Kate and their little ones, to Orabella and the demoiselles, to the chief officers of his household who would remain behind at Warwick but, as he rode through the great court towards the gatehouse, he had suddenly turned and sprung down again from his mount and strode back to the little knot of women and children and old men, dutiful before the hall door. He had pulled Kate to him again and kissed her, crushing her softness against the mail shirt he wore beneath his emblazoned surcote.

  ‘Just once more for luck,’ he murmured into her ear beneath the jewelled net of her hair, and she laughed and wound a hand about his neck, the other fluttering over his body.

  ‘We made a good night of it, My Lord.’

  ‘And will enjoy more, Kate. When it's safe, I'll send for you.’ His own caresses were intimate enough to set broad grins upon the faces of his garrison and to bring blushes to the cheeks of the demoiselles, but at last he let her go, turned and swept his first born son up into his arms and mounted his black charger again, sitting the boy before him. Old Saladin was retired now but this was another such as he and they made a fine spectacle, crossing the court in the June sunshine; the black horse and the dark young man, resplendent in scarlet and gold, and the small boy, slight and brown in his blue jupon but surely so proud to be there before his father, brows fierce beneath the dark fringe which shaded his blue eyes, chin stuck up at an angle, the Beauchamp nose straight as an arrow. He was all Thomas, this one; none of Kate's features softened the child's face.

  Thomas said, ‘Look about you, Guy, look up at Warwick, look at
the new buildings, at Caesar's Tower. I love every stone, every square block you see before you. My father and your grandsire loved this edifice and I think there are no ghosts for all our past sins. I leave her in your hands when I ride through the gatehouse. Keep her safe for me. Now, I must let you down to earth again. Have you a kiss for your father?’

  Guy de Beauchamp put his head on one side and looked up at him. ‘Will you bring me the plume from a French helm taken from the field of battle?’

  ‘I'll bring you a hundred Frenchmen, plumes and all,’ laughed Thomas. ‘We'll set them in Caesar's Tower and ransom them for gold coin and build a castle fit for the Bear and Staff!’

  And Guy reached up, pursed his red mouth and planted a sticky kiss upon his father's cheek. ‘I should like that. See to it, My Lord!’ And he swung himself from the saddle and Thomas Beauchamp set his nose for the south, trotted beneath his own gatehouse arch, cantered down towards the river, his knights at his back, and paused once upon the bridge to draw his sword. The rising sun drew blood from the blade. ‘A Warwick! A Warwick! St. George for England!’

  Then the forest closed in about them all, the last riders disappeared into the dust of the highway and the smell of horseflesh was gone. Only the dankness of the river remained and the sound of the water lapping at the arches of the bridge.

  ~o0o~

  After a minor skirmish with the townsfolk, put down by the action of his vanguard, Edward of England set foot upon French soil at noon on Wednesday 12th July, running his ships inshore at the little fishing port of St. Vaast-la-Hogue. The portents were unhappy for the golden Plantagenet who had disembarked at last, set upon fulfilling those long ago Vows of the Heron. As Edward sprang down from the shoulders of those who would have born him through the surf he misjudged his footing, stumbled forward and sprawled full length upon his face. A great cry went up amongst all who had witnessed his fall, followed by mutterings: ‘An omen, an omen!’ The King seized the moment and turned it to his advantage. He waved away those who had moved to help him rise, sprang up laughing and spread out his arms so that they could all see the mud and the weed that clung to his splendid surcote.