ASilverMirror

by Roberta Gellis

  As soon as Barbara entered the castle, she saw Alphonse at the other end of the great hall, but before she could excuse herself to her companions and make her way to him, a Montfort page plucked him by the sleeve and Alphonse followed the boy to the stairs. Barbara tried to hold back from choosing a seat, expecting every minute that Henry de Montfort and Alphonse would come down and she could join her betrothed, however, Margaret Basset drew her away, refused to listen to her reason for wanting to speak to Alphonse, saying sharply that she could sit beside the man for the rest of her life if she wished and right now to plan the wedding was more important, and led her to a seat beside Alice de Montfort.

  Alice told her she had received her husband’s approval and Barbara’s father’s agreement to arrange all matters concerning the wedding. From that moment until the end of the meal, Barbara was deeply involved in a discussion of the details of her marriage and wedding feast. She could not be indifferent or ungrateful about the trouble Alice was taking, nor could she forget for a moment that taking that trouble meant a lack of trust in her father.

  Deep in her conversation, Barbara did not notice her father rise from his seat among the other great men at the high table. His bellow made her jump as well as serving its purpose of silencing the hall. The announcement that followed, inviting all present to the wedding, nearly took all power of further movement from her. She finished her meal and rose from the table without really noting what she was doing or where she was. Still bemused by the fact that the entire court, rather than a select group, had been invited to her wedding, she allowed herself to be carried off by Margaret to the garden where Clotilde and the Ferrars sisters were already working on her wedding gown.

  About an hour before vespers, when her dress was finished, Barbara sent Clotilde to find Bevis and Lewin, one of whom could fetch her mare and the other walk back to the lodging with the maid. She was idling near the door to the bailey, when a hand clutched at her shoulder and Alphonse’s voice breathed in her ear, “Barbe! Thank Mary and all the saints. I have no time, but I must speak to you.”

  He looked around, then led her toward the back door, saying they would find a quiet place in the garden. Barbara seized his arm and hauled him back, explaining that she had left a whole tribe of chattering women there. Finally she drew him along the hall, sticking her head into one antechamber after another until she found a wall chamber where her father’s shield was propped against a bench.

  Alphonse promptly kissed her—too briefly for her instant reaction to communicate itself to him—and called her a well of wisdom, which alarmed her so much that the warmth he had generated disappeared. However, it appeared that Alphonse was more afraid of interruption than that his news was so dangerous absolute privacy was necessary. Having explained the outcome of his morning’s visits to Henry de Montfort and Prince Edward, he shook his head.

  “I went back to Edward after dinner to get his agreement to my terms of service. The only thing he did not like was that I refused any official appointment, but he laughed and admitted he did not think I would let Henry de Montfort fall into the trap of appointing a foreign friend to office when the king is forbidden to do so. He almost kissed me when I told him his reward for agreeing to ratify the peace agreement would be freedom from the guards inside his chamber. That seemed natural enough, but I was not equally happy when he did not even blink over my promise in exchange not to speak myself or allow him to speak of escape. I tell you, Barbe, I know the prince. He is planning something and I am caught between.”

  “No,” Barbara said at once. “With you alone, he may weep or rage without shame or fear of exposure. He may be only a man overburdened by trouble, not a prince with pride and dignity. That was why he took such joy in being freed from those who watched him. He may indeed intend to escape his ratification of the terms, but he will not permit you to be blamed. The prince is not above clever trickery, but I will say in Edward’s honor that he carries his own load. He will not drop that burden on you.”

  “You are right, my love.” But Alphonse’s sigh was no token of relief. “I have been so harried from field to bank to hedge that I was beginning to see hunters where none were hiding. Thank you. Edward will save my honor, but I am concerned for Henry too. He is too honest and straightforward, and something is going on inside the prince’s head. I have this fear that Edward will spring his surprise at our wedding—for the ‘thanks’ Henry offered Edward for his compliance was permission to attend. The prince will be guarded, but not shackled or held as a prisoner, and all he was asked for was a firm promise to return to his prison as soon as Henry asked him to do so.”

  Barbara’s eyes went wide. “You mean Henry did not ask for Edward’s promise not to try to escape?”

  “He did not, and I see you know how Edward’s mind works. After all, he would not be breaking any promise if he escaped during the wedding and was not there to hear Henry ask him to return to prison. I knew nothing about it because I was not there when the offer was made. I had been sent off to King Henry, who wished to thank me for lifting up his son’s spirit. But you know I had nothing—or little anyway—to do with that. And Edward laughed when he told me of the promise he had made. Now what am I to do?”

  The tense pose Barbara had held relaxed. “Laughed?” she repeated. “No, if Edward intended to make trouble for you, he would not have laughed.” Then she touched his face and smiled. “I think he was just bedeviling you. I cannot see how he could escape. You must have asked Edward to be your groomsman—” Alphonse nodded, and Barbara went on, “So Papa and I will ride before him, you will ride beside him, and the whole court will be behind. No, he would not ride over me, and he knows my father will be armed and would stop him. Nor would he shame you so deeply,” she smiled, “especially when his friends, the Marcher lords, are so far away, in Wales, across the whole width of the widest part of England.”

  “Oh, good God, what a fool I am!” Alphonse exclaimed. “I myself told Edward this very morning that the lords Marcher are in no case to help him. He will not try to reach them, but he might talk to people at the wedding.”

  “That is Henry de Montfort’s problem, not yours,” Barbara said. “You cannot be expected to attend Edward at your own wedding. But what do you mean the lords Marcher are in no case to help Edward?”

  Alphonse then repeated the news he had had from Claremont about Leicester’s defeat of the Marcher lords, and after a brief hesitation, he told her how the papal legate had threatened to excommunicate Leicester, Gloucester, and her father. “I did not mean to tell you and worry you,” he finished, “but I think your father should know. I intended to tell him myself, of course, only now I am not sure I will be free from one minute to the next.”

  “Can they believe the legate’s threat will be the stick that makes the ass balk?” Barbara muttered.

  “They? Who? What ass?”

  This time it was Barbara’s turn, and she hid nothing, telling Alphonse how Peter de Montfort planned to turn their wedding into a compliment to the French emissaries and King Louis.

  “Nonsense,” Alphonse scoffed. “Marguerite loves me well, but her influence with Louis is limited. Louis…ah…Louis knows me for what I am, so he trusts me, but there is much about me Louis does not like.” He paused and chuckled. “I never thought of it before, but you may be a great political advantage to me in France. Once I am well married and bound to one woman, Louis might come to like me much better.” Then he sobered and frowned. “No, unless Peter de Montfort is an ass, he cannot think I am of any account to Claremont and Peter the Chamberlain. He must understand that they know me as a clever courtier who has nothing to gain or lose in this trouble in England. So they can rely on me for as fair a picture as I can see, but they will certainly not take as a compliment to themselves or to King Louis any honors bestowed on my wedding.”

  “Exactly what I thought. So the reason must be to keep Papa from using my wedding as an excuse to invite a large gathering of folk to Framlingham.”

/>   Alphonse stood still, looking a little to one side of her. Finally he said, “There might be other reasons, but I admit I cannot think of any. Barbe, will you forgive me if I go about and hear what I can hear?”

  “Forgive you? I will be grateful.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “God has blessed me in your good sense as well as in your charm. If I hear something you should know, I will send Chacier to you.”

  “Or you can ask for Bevis or Lewin among my father’s men-at-arms. They are to be with me as long as I need them.”

  He kissed her, more lingeringly this time, and she had to push him away to hold back too eager a response. He looked troubled, but she touched his face again and said, with a shaky laugh, “Only two more days. Go now.”

  But when he was gone, Barbara sank down on the cot, her thoughts spinning back and forth between her concern for her father and her increasing difficulty in hiding her passion. She wondered hopelessly how she could manage to conceal her feelings and still escape hurting Alphonse too deeply. Norfolk’s voice from the doorway startled her and she looked up with an intake of breath.

  “What are you doing here, chick?” her father asked, coming closer. “Bevis is in the hall, worried to death. He has been looking all over for you.”

  “Oh, heaven, I forgot about him,” Barbara cried, “but Alphonse told me to warn you. The papal legate—”

  Norfolk’s lips thinned. “I have heard about that. Do not trouble your head…but I will thank Alphonse for wishing to warn me when I see him. I suppose he heard the news from Louis’s men. Never mind that. Tell me instead how you managed to persuade Alice de Montfort to urge her husband to pay for your wedding.”

  Barbara stood up and clutched her father’s arm. “I did nothing,” she said, and she explained how Margaret Basset had suggested the idea of flattering the French emissaries and how eagerly Alice had seized on Margaret’s suggestion.

  He was shaken with laughter, but got out, half choked, “I swear I will give you in silver every penny you have saved me.”

  “Father, it is no laughing matter.” She tightened her grip on his arm. “Do you not see that either they are trying to bribe you to remain loyal to King Henry, which means they do not trust you, or worse, they fear that you will gather the doubtful about you for a wedding feast at Framlingham and—”

  “Do not you begin to take me for a fool,” he said harshly. “And do not worry about me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Although it was impossible to dismiss her father’s troubles m her mind completely, Barbara did not dwell on them. For one thing, she did not take him for a fool and knew him well capable of caring for his own interests. For another, so much happened the next day that she had no time to think about him or even about her own marriage.

  First, King Henry and Prince Edward were escorted under heavy guard to the cathedral. There, after mass, in the presence of all the bishops, the French emissaries, and all the people who could be crammed into the great church, both swore to uphold the terms of the Peace of Canterbury. Despite the general desire for a peace among those who attended, the occasion was not joyous. The king had lost, at least temporarily, his usual buoyant optimism. He swore with a lifeless lack of enthusiasm that boded ill for the sincerity of his oath. Worse, Edward’s fury and hatred glared from his burning eyes while every line of his tense body screamed rejection of the words he obediently mouthed.

  Barbara did not know whether to be appalled or relieved. This silent rebellion almost certainly was what Edward had planned, not any attempt to escape while a guest at her wedding. That was a relief. But as far as Leicester’s cause went, the result of the prince’s swearing was appalling. She was sure Edward’s absence would have been an advantage over the effect produced by his manner, which cried aloud that he was being forced into compliance by some threat too dangerous to ignore.

  The prince’s frequent glances at his father and the way he touched the king’s arm from time to time, as if for reassurance of his father’s physical well-being, hinted strongly that the threat was against the feeble old man. Angry as Barbara felt at the implication that Leicester’s supporters would threaten harm to King Henry—no matter how often she prayed for the old king’s death, to do more than pray was an abomination—she could not help but admire Edward’s cleverness. Even the most devoted of Leicester’s adherents cast questioning glances at Henry de Montfort and looked uncomfortably at one another. Barbara was also sure that every nobleman present knew of the papal legate’s opposition to the peace terms. Thus, Edward’s manner was virtually a promise that as soon as his father was out of danger, he would repudiate the oath he had sworn and the Church would support him.

  Alphonse was one of four attendants grouped on the prince’s right. Once he caught her eyes, for she was well forward in the crowd, standing beside her father near the aisle down which the royal party had walked. He cast his eyes up to heaven over Edward’s manner, but she could see he was amused rather than troubled. Barbara stiffened angrily. Alphonse did not care that the rejection displayed by Edward’s body and expression of every phrase he spoke aloud might well bring renewed war. But after a moment she dismissed the anger. First of all, Alphonse like most other men seemed to regard war—except on one’s own lands—as a kind of pleasant, energetic sport. Second, she was sure what was foremost in his mind was his fear that the prince might use their wedding for his own purposes and welcomed any proof he would not.

  Barbara hurried back to her lodging after the painful ceremony, expecting a messenger to arrive at any moment to say that the prince would not, after all, be permitted to serve as groomsman. The messenger arrived, just as she expected, but she had barely time to wonder whom Alphonse would ask to serve in Edward’s place when she realized the man was from the king. Long practice as the queen’s lady allowed her to ask with seeming calm what King Henry desired, to accept with the same seeming calm an invitation to share the evening meal with the king, and to dismiss the messenger with thanks and a small reward for being the bearer of good tidings.

  One must always pretend that a summons from the king was good tidings, but this summons was so unexpected and so inexplicable to her that Barbara fell a prey to formless fears. For one crazy moment she even wondered if the king had gone mad and thought he had seigneurial rights over her. The contrast of that silly notion with her knowledge of the real Henry was so great that she felt relieved and laughed aloud. Even as a young man, Henry had no reputation as a lecher, and once he married he had been startlingly faithful to his Eleanor. At the king’s present age the idea that he would force himself on an unwilling woman was truly ludicrous.

  Curiosity and concern, because she could not conceive of any reason for the king to summon her to a private meeting, filled the rest of her day, pushing Alphonse and her father right out of her mind. And though her assumption about the innocence of King Henry’s sexual intentions was proved correct—she found Alice de Montfort present when she was shown into the king’s presence—the time she spent with him furnished no answers that did not raise even more puzzling questions.

  Henry greeted her with smiles and the information that he intended to honor her wedding with his presence. This brought Barbara down again into the full curtsy from which she had just risen as she gave polite but insincere thanks. She enjoyed court functions and had looked forward to a cathedral wedding presided over by two bishops. However, she had not welcomed the information that Edward would attend, although she had tried to soothe Alphonse’s worries about the prince’s intentions. The addition of the king to the guest list only multiplied the chances for disaster. Despite the defeat of Edward’s Welsh friends, could there be plans for royal supporters to rush the church and try to free the king or the prince?

  Other equally unlikely notions drifted in and out of her head while she half listened to the king’s fulsome compliments throughout the meal—when he was not asking her to repeat what she had already told him about Queen Eleanor. Their talk seem
ed totally meaningless to Barbara until she picked out one theme: The praise Henry lavished on Alphonse was even more fulsome than the compliments paid her. The king seemed to have fallen more in love with Alphonse than she had. If there was any purpose to his invitation, it seemed to be to urge her to ask Alphonse to remain in England.

  To these remarks, Barbara replied as ambiguously as she could, stating that she loved England and adding similar platitudes but also reminding the king that Alphonse owed a duty to his brother that required his presence at the French court. At first she was annoyed with Henry, but then she realized from Alice de Montfort’s nods and smiles that the pressure to keep Alphonse in England was not from the king at all but from the Montfort party.

  They were toying with the sweet and the sharp at the very end of the meal, when Henry went back to the subject of her wedding, blandly assuring her that his pleasure in honoring the celebration with his presence was increased by his hope of an opportunity for a better understanding with her father. Since a cry of protest would have done more damage than good, Barbara was fortunate in being struck mute by surprise.

  Once she was alert, however, the sly gleam in the king’s eyes assured her that what he said was no innocent compliment. Henry’s political blunders were most often caused by selfishness, sometimes by misplaced generosity or blind affection, they were not owing to stupidity. Doubtless the king knew his compliment would increase the distrust felt for her father by Leicester’s supporters. What Barbara could not guess was whether the remark really had anything to do with Norfolk at all.

  Henry might have spoken in pure spite, taking revenge on his enemies for using him as a tool for their purposes. That would show his very worst side, the childish pettiness that took no account of the harm done to others—in this case to her father, who honestly loved him and only wished to restrain him to prevent him from harming himself as well as the realm. But there had been no spite in the king’s face, the slyness had looked mischievous. So, more likely, it was not aimless spite but an attempt to foment discord among Leicester’s party that the king intended.