Alphonse smiled slowly. “I am in no special hurry to leave England—so long as I can have your word that I will not be made prisoner for being a foreigner in time of war.”
“Good God, no!” Simon exclaimed. “We are not at war any longer, even within the realm, and certainly England is not at war with France.”
Alphonse was not sure whether Simon had deliberately avoided saying “You have my word” or thought what he had said amounted to the same thing. He was pleased by the omission, which cleared even the smallest shadow from his conscience. Smiling again, he said, “I am pleased. There is that stag hunt you promised me, and since you say you must stay in Kenilworth all day tomorrow, perhaps we can have another passage or two at arms.”
“With all my heart.”
The look of strain disappeared completely from Simon’s face and then he frowned suddenly and said, “Did I not hear you say before that you detected a halt in your destrier’s gait? Are you sure he suffered no hurt?”
“I do not think so,” Alphonse replied, allowing a faint note of uncertainty to enter his voice, “but I would be glad if you would look at his leg yourself in the morning before we joust. That is another reason I wish to run a few courses. If there is some hidden hurt, the shock of a meeting will show it. Then I will have to ask you to lend me a horse for the stag hunt.”
“Any mount you like.”
Simon gestured widely and began to discuss the merits of the various horses in the stable. Alphonse asked the proper questions to show his interest. Little by little the young man relaxed enough to let his conversation drift away from the safe topics of jousting and hunt. No longer fearful of mentioning his prisoners’ names lest that increase Alphonse’s consciousness of the time passing in which he had not been allowed to see Sir William, Simon was able to complain about the heavy responsibility thrust on him which kept him penned in Kenilworth, and in the next sentence remark bitterly that when his mother was at the keep she ruled it and him except in matters of war.
Alphonse made soothing answers without offering advice or comment. The conversation did not improve his opinion of Simon, but it held more interest for him than the talk of the previous days, and the time until the evening meal and the hour when it was safe to go to bed came swiftly.
Morning saw Simon earnestly examining Dadais’s right fore and calling the farrier to do the same. Neither could find any fault—which scarcely surprised Alphonse, who had magnified a weary stumble on the road home after the hunt into a hint of injury—and each agreed that an experimental run in the lists should be the next test. Alphonse and Simon gathered up two jousting lances each and rode to the narrowest area in the outer bailey behind the wall that protected the domestic buildings of the inner yard. There, as he had done the first time they jousted, Simon ordered the few men working around the storage sheds to leave so they would not be tempted to run too close in excitement and startle the horses or be trampled if the horses got out of hand. Then he sat and watched Dadais as Alphonse rode to the other end of the open stretch of ground.
“I can see nothing,” he called to Alphonse. Then he asked a question of the farrier, who was also watching, and added, “Nor does the horse leech see anything.”
“He feels steady to me,” Alphonse called back.
“Then let us run.”
Alphonse turned Dadais, signaled that he was ready, and when Simon dropped his lance into position, he touched Dadais with his heels and grunted, “Ha!” more breath than voice. The great horse ran straight ahead, indifferent to Simon’s mount thundering toward him. The sun, just risen above the wall, sparkled on Simon’s helmet. Alphonse bent his head as if to avoid the glare, and his lance touched above center and to the left of the boss of Simon’s shield, held for a bare instant, and slipped off over Simon’s shoulder. Simon hit a truer blow, below and on the inner side of the shield. He let out a yell of triumph and thrust hard forward. Feeling his lance catch, he yelled again, but in the next moment the tip came free, Alphonse’s shield twisted and lifted, and the two men were past each other.
“Very good!” Alphonse called. “You nearly had me that time. I should have been thinking about you instead of Dadais’s right fore.” He stopped beside the farrier and said, “He seemed sound at the start of the run, before I had to give my mind to the jousting. Did you see any sign of weakness?”
“None, my lord,” the farrier answered in bad French, “but it was a short run. Will you go again?”
Alphonse waved at Simon and then rode toward him. “Did you hear? Your man says he saw nothing but that the run was short. Will you run again?”
“Of course.”
“I will take the same position so the farrier can see Dadais clearly.”
Alphonse started forward on the words and Simon loosened his rein, then pulled up again as his horse started to move, calling, “Sieur Alphonse.” Alphonse turned toward him and he hurried to say, honestly if a bit reluctantly, “I am sure you missed your mark because the sun was in your eyes. It is only right that we change places. The farrier can walk to the other end of the run.”
Alphonse laughed heartily. “The sun did blind me a little, but this is only practice and it is more important that the farrier see Dadais’s gait clearly. I hope I can count on you not to spread about the news that I missed you and am growing old and weak.”
Simon laughed also and rode back to where he had started before. He did not think Alphonse was old and weak, but his confidence had been elevated. He saw Alphonse take a new lance from where it leaned against a shed. That meant nothing, it was the habit of a professional jouster. He shouted his readiness, heard Alphonse’s answering call, and spurred his mount, all his attention on the spot on the shield he wanted to hit. He did not notice that Alphonse had struck Dadais far harder with his spurs this time, or that he cried out, “Hai! Hai!” in a higher, more urgent voice.
The stallion leapt into a full gallop, curling his lip so his strong yellow teeth showed in threat and screaming a challenge to the oncoming horse. Simon might have felt the slight check in the stride of his mount, but at that moment a blow of enormous power hit his shield, driving the inner edge into his chest so that his breath was knocked out of him. Simultaneously the top edge of the shield lifted and struck him on the visor, pushing the helmet against his face so hard that his senses swam. The dizziness, pain, and sense of suffocation paralyzed him. In fact, he could not have moved his shield to unseat Alphonse’s lance; however, he did not even realize that the dulled point had slid across his shield and lodged against his chest until he felt himself rising and tipping out of his saddle. He cried out, but his voice was the echo of Alphonse’s shout. His last thought was that his guest was as shocked and surprised as he.
That last thought was totally mistaken. Alphonse’s cry was one of pure triumph. He had not been certain until the very last second until he saw the placement of the dulled tip of his lance that he would not pull back and seem to miss completely. But the position was just right and every weakness he had noted in Simon’s jousting form—his head too high over his shield, the inner edge tipped too much, his body too far forward in the saddle—tempted him. He struck, throwing himself forward into the blow, prodding Dadais again to get a last desperate effort from him, angling his lance so it would lift against the boss of Simon’s shield, and finally shouting aloud in triumph as he saw Simon rise up out of the saddle, lose his stirrups, and crash to the ground.
“My God,” Alphonse called to the farrier as soon as he could check and turn Dadais, “is he badly hurt?”
The man had already reached his master, knelt beside him, and lifted the visor. “I see no blood,” he cried.
“Stay with him,” Alphonse shouted, riding past. “I must catch the horse. I will send help.”
“No,” the farrier protested instinctively, but then he shrugged. Any man with the sense of a pea would know that the lord’s young destrier—unnerved by a threat of attack from a more dominant animal, a severe physical shock, an
d then the loss of the guiding hand on his rein—would run harder when he sensed pursuit by the older stallion. If the lord had let him alone, the destrier would soon have stopped. But these lords had not the sense of peas, though they thought themselves all wise. Sure enough, the young horse had bolted, rounded the wall of the inner bailey toward the garden, and disappeared from sight. The farrier shook his head and began to unfasten his lord’s helmet straps.
As soon as the farrier could no longer see him, Alphonse checked Dadais’s pace. The young stallion also slowed, and in another few minutes Alphonse had him trapped in the angle of the outer and the garden walls. A gesture brought closer two menservants who had been watching.
“Does either of you understand French?” he asked. The older man nodded. “Your master has had a fall,” he said. “One of you must run to the hall or the keep and tell the clerk. The other should go around to the back and do whatever the farrier orders. Before you go, just hand me the rein and I will take Sir Simon’s horse to the stable.”
That much was easy, both men obeyed without question. Now came the last bit, though, which might be the end of the venture.
Chapter Nineteen
After dinner on the day that Alphonse sent Chacier back to Warwick, Sir John Giffard had formal news from the Earl of Gloucester that all chance of Louis of France or the Church mediating a peace between Leicester and the king had collapsed. On October 21 the papal legate had issued orders of excommunication against Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester; Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford; Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk; and all their adherents for contumely in their support of the Provisions of Oxford, which the pope had declared null and void.
Barbara immediately raised the question with Sir John about whether, because of Alphonse’s association with the French court, he should try to leave England as quickly and quietly as possible, and then, when Giffard said with surprise that Gloucester’s letter contained no such implication, she asked whether the earl could have forgotten about her husband. Sir John assured her it was most unlikely.
“Gloucester is not careless or indifferent about those he has come to like,” Giffard protested.
“Not in general, of course,” Barbara said. “But under these circumstances, perhaps…”
Then she shook her head. Alphonse had been gone only three days, but she wanted him back and was trying to find an excuse in Gloucester’s message. Unfortunately, it held no excuse. As he should, Gloucester was sending news to his allies and supporters, but his letter held no warnings or sense of urgency. Leicester might have been angry and disappointed over Louis’s refusal to mediate a peace, but clearly Gloucester did not feel the same. Nor did Gloucester appear to be much disturbed by his excommunication. Barbara thought he had the inability of most young people really to believe in death and damnation. Not that he lacked faith. He simply felt there was more than time enough before he died to change the pope’s mind and be received back into the bosom of the Church.
Sir John Giffard and Barbara were still discussing whether it would be wise to send the news to Alphonse when Chacier rode in. He was circumspect in what he said to Barbara, having gauged her reaction from the way her face whitened when she saw him. Chacier had long experience with the screaming terrors and screaming rages of women suspicious of his master’s doings, and he knew no explanation he gave would content her. Thus he said only that his master had sent him for clothes. Sieur Alphonse had not yet seen Sir William and intended to stay in Kenilworth one or two more days.
Later, when it was full dark, Chacier caught Sir John on his way to the outer gate where a large armed party, twenty men and a leader claiming to be Sir Guy de Montfort, were demanding entrance. In a few words Chacier told Sir John Alphonse’s full message, explaining that he had not given it earlier because he did not wish to frighten Lady Barbe.
Sir John uttered a soft, angry oath and waved Chacier away. There was no reason under the sun why young Simon should want to keep Alphonse in Kenilworth. Yet earlier, the moment Chacier left them, Barbara had told him the servant had not been sent to fetch clothing but to be safely out of the way of some danger. Sir John had been startled by her expression of controlled terror and had soothed her as best he could, not believing a word she said and assuming her a prey to female idiocy. Now Chacier had virtually confirmed what she had said. Surely, then, he must take seriously that, when one of his gate guards had told him that the third de Montfort son was demanding shelter, she had begged him not to tell Guy she was in Warwick.
Thinking her crazed as a moonstruck witling, Sir John had agreed to keep her presence a secret, although at the time he had not believed Guy de Montfort was at his gate. Disseisined Royalists had tried before to win Warwick back, and he had thought the demand for lodging an attempt to get into the keep. He had armed, since he did not know whether the troop would be gone or whether he would need to summon more men to defend the walls. The implications of Alphonse’s message, however, caused him to revise his opinion. Probably Guy was at the gate. Somehow Alphonse had become a bone of contention between Gloucester and Leicester, and Sir John found himself caught holding that bone.
He made some swift decisions, then leaned out over the wall to shout across the moat that he would be glad to welcome Sir Guy, but because there was no way to identify him in the dark, he must refuse to accommodate the troop that accompanied him. When they rode back into the town, he would let down the drawbridge. He prayed Guy would ride away in a fury, but he had little hope that his prayer would be answered. What he expected was angry and furious protests or possibly threats, but none came. Although the half-moon was partly obscured by moving clouds, it gave enough light to show the troop riding away, leaving two mounted men and two baggage animals waiting. By the time the troop had withdrawn far enough to make a charge at the drawbridge impossible, Sir John had the walls lined with archers and a party standing behind the portcullis, which was not raised.
All the preparations were unnecessary. In the light of many torches it was clear that only Guy and an unarmed man, clearly a servant leading pack animals with loads that could not be men, waited on the drawbridge for the portcullis to rise. Guy made very merry over Sir John’s “caution”—the way he said the word implying cowardice—while he dismounted and all the while it took to walk to the hall. Long before Guy allowed himself to be diverted from that subject to answer Sir John’s pointed and repeated question about why he was crying out at the gates of Warwick rather than remaining in the comfort of Kenilworth, Sir John had decided he would tell Guy nothing at all.
When Guy finally felt he had drained dry the jest of Sir John’s fear of two men and some bundles of clothing, he finally said, “Oh, I have not come from Kenilworth. I was at Hereford on some business for my father. It grew dark and I decided not to ride farther.”
The reply was reasonable enough, but when they entered the hall and Sir John noticed how eagerly Guy looked around, he felt a grim satisfaction that there was no sign of any noble presence but his own. His chair with its footstool stood alone by the central hearth. On a table by the chair lay the hunting knife and the oil and sharpening stone he had been using before he had hurriedly pulled his mail over his tunic and gone out to see who was at his gate. The bench on which Lady Barbara had been sitting with her basket of embroidery silks beside her was gone.
“I thought you had a guest,” Guy said.
“You mean Sieur Alphonse?” Sir John responded. “He only stayed a few days. Then he went on to Kenilworth to see his brother’s father-by-marriage who is a prisoner there. I should imagine he is gone by now. That was…let me think…three days past? Four? In any case, if you are looking for Sieur Alphonse, I cannot help you. He did not say where he would go from Kenilworth, but I imagine he rode for the nearest port when he heard the news that King Louis had refused to act as mediator—”
“I thought it was his wife who wished to see Sir William,” Guy interrupted.
“His wife? He never mentioned h
er.” Sir John looked straight into Guy’s eyes. What he said was perfectly true. Alphonse had never mentioned Barbara because she was right there and could speak for herself. “And Gloucester’s letter to me,” he went on, “clearly said that I should do what I could to forward Sieur Alphonse’s purpose to see Sir William.”
“Gloucester’s letter,” Guy repeated. “So Sieur Alphonse came direct from Tonbridge?”
“He certainly came from Tonbridge,” Sir John replied. “I cannot swear that he came direct from there. I never asked. Why should I?”
“He has Royalist sympathies,” Guy snarled. “Did you not know he was Prince Edward’s friend?”
“He is your brother Henry’s friend too,” Sir John said placidly. “We talked mostly of Gloucester and Henry and jousting while he was here.”
“Gloucester is a—”
“Gloucester is my overlord and my friend.” Sir John’s voice was hard and cold.
Guy’s lips curled into a sneer, but he made no direct reply, saying only that he had ridden a long way and was tired. Sir John agreed at once that he had been just about to go to bed himself when the message from the gate arrived. Then, with no expression at all on his face but a good deal of satisfaction in his heart, Sir John inquired politely whether Guy would prefer to have his sleeping pallet set by the hearth or near the wall. He did not laugh at the shocked expression on the young man’s face. Plainly Guy had expected him to yield his own bed to his guest, but Sir John was not about to give precedence to a third son who was ten years younger than he.
The next morning it was clear that Guy had been chewing the cud of his anger half the night. He slept late and then, instead of leaving at once, demanded to see how the work of dismantling the keep was progressing, claiming he had been ordered to report on it to his father. Sir John was tempted to tell him to get out before he lost his temper, but recalling how plainly he had spoken to Leicester of his opposition to the destruction, he felt a refusal would be unwise. Guy would certainly tell his father that he had not been permitted to see whether the keep was being torn down.
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