ASilverMirror (10 page)

The thoughts went round and round, back and forth, and
Barbara came no closer to a decision than she had been when she first ran back
to her lodging. Before the long day ended, she regretted bitterly her use of
the bludgeon. She would have been glad of any diversion from her thoughts, but
Princess Eleanor stayed in her own chamber with her infant daughter and none of
the other ladies would speak to her.

One piece of good came out of her misery. She was exhausted
by the endless turnings of her mind and the images of eternal unhappiness she
painted for herself. So when she was free to go to her bed, one pallet among
the long row of pallets in the women’s quarters—the large influx of ladies with
two queens and a princess having exhausted the available cots—Barbara fell
asleep before the first two tears she allowed herself to shed rolled from her
eyes.

If she dreamed, no memory of the dreams haunted her, and the
rest did her good in that she regained some control of her thoughts. At least
when she woke she was able to ignore the problem of what she would say to
Alphonse if he repeated his proposal and to consider instead what she should do
if he did not approach her at all. If he avoided her, should she accept that
and lose even his friendship, or should she approach him and make clear that
she had taken his offer only as a jest? But would that save their friendship?
She heard Clotilde’s voice and guessed that she had asked what her mistress
wished to wear. Barbara asked in turn about the weather.

What should she wear? If she dressed like a lady ready to
receive a lover and he did not come, the women would tease her to madness,
especially after her rudeness the previous day. She would have no armor against
their cruelty, which had only amused her before. Now for the first time the
barbs would strike a sore place in her heart. But if she wore no finery and he
did come, that would be an insult.

Clotilde asked a question, and Barbara, having forgotten
completely the question and answer already exchanged, again thought the maid
had asked what dress to prepare. To avoid an answer, Barbara asked what the
weather was like, realizing only when Clotilde looked at her very strangely
that she had already asked and been answered. In desperation, Barbara, who
still did not know whether it was sunny or raining, had got as far as saying,
“I will wear—” without having the faintest idea what words would follow, when a
little page came up and whispered to Clotilde, who cocked her head in a puzzled
way, following the child with her eyes as he ran off, before she turned to
Barbara and said, “I am called below, my lady. May I go?”

The respite was so welcome that Barbara gave permission
without once thinking how strange it was that Clotilde should be summoned. The
maid had no family, for her mother had died before she came into Barbara’s
service, and she was, like her mistress, a love child. Nor was it likely that
Clotilde had retained any friends in France over the seven years she had lived
with Barbara in England. However, all Barbara felt was relief that Clotilde’s
quizzical gaze had left her, and the relief made it possible for her to go to
her chest and take out a dark gold tunic and a bright blue silk gown of
especially fine fabric. By omitting all jewelry and the embroidered collar she
usually wore over the low, wide neck of the gown, she felt she had struck a
fair compromise.

The decision had been made just in time, for Clotilde came
back wearing no expression at all, which Barbara did not notice until the maid
said, “Sieur Alphonse is waiting below to take you to mass.”

Chapter Six

Alphonse had a better day than Barbara because he spent it
talking to Hugh Bigod and John of Hurley about the situation in England. He had
prepared a full salt cellar in his imagination to have sufficient pinches of
salt to sprinkle on what he expected Sir Hugh to say about Leicester’s
ingratitude and selfishness and the king’s long-suffering. What he heard seemed
to him instead a measured and impartial recounting of the quarrel between the
king and his barons, with Leicester more sinned against than sinning, although
Hugh did state that Leicester’s abrupt manner and tactlessness had added to
troubles already present.

“I do not know the answer,” Hugh said, staring down into the
wine in his cup after the evening meal. “King Henry’s extravagance and the
greed and cruelty of his half brothers constantly incite rebellion. We can have
no peace in the realm while these offenses continue, and war is bringing us all
to ruin. Yet, Henry is the king. It is his
right
to rule and to choose
those he wants to be his councilors and officers.”

“Is it not time,” Alphonse asked, “for Prince Edward to take
a greater part in the government? I have heard that his father is more willing
to take his advice than that of many others. I know the prince from the tourney
field, both as ally and as adversary, and I liked what I saw. He had a cool
head in the joust and in the melee, was generous to those of his party without
extravagance, and was fair to the defeated. He lives up to his rank, too, but
with no unnecessary display.”

“Edward may be cool on the tourney field,” John said
bitterly, “but in battle, where it counts, his temper leads him into disaster.”

Hugh put his hand on John’s arm. “It was a special case,” he
explained to Alphonse. “At Lewes Edward held the eastern flank and,
unfortunately, opposed the troops from London. When he saw their standard, he
forgot everything except the attack on his mother. The Londoners broke so
easily, he must have thought the entire battle would go the same way. After
all, he probably saw Richard of Cornwall’s banner going forward up the hill and
believed Leicester’s center had also been destroyed. So he chased the Londoners.”
Hugh sighed.

“He chased them until the battle was lost,” John said
sourly.

Alphonse shrugged. “A bad time and place for a mistake, but
I have seen worse mistakes made in battles that were victories in the end. And
you may put too much blame on Prince Edward. Leicester has exceptional skill as
a battle leader. There is this too. I have known the prince from when he first
began to fight in tourneys, and I have seen him make mistakes, but never the
same one twice.”

Hugh smiled. “That is a strong hope for the future. God give
us all strength to live through the present without wounds so deep and bitter
that they can never be healed. I have no right to complain, since I am the
least injured of any by this trouble. My brother may curse me and shake his fist
at me, but he has placed his own body and honor between me and any loss. That
was what Barbara came to France to say—that my wife is safe and her only
anxiety is for me, her only grief our separation.”

Another silence fell. Alphonse, suddenly reminded of Barbara,
had his need for her doubled and redoubled by what he saw in Hugh Bigod’s face
when he spoke of his wife. Nor did Alphonse fail to notice that Hugh had not
even mentioned what nine out of ten men would have put first, that his property
had also been protected by his brother. From the long discussion of English
affairs, Alphonse had come to a good understanding of Hugh and knew
carelessness about material matters was not characteristic of him. Only in this
case, the value of the woman was so great that everything else paled to nothing
in comparison.

“I knew your niece when she was fostered by my aunt, Queen
Marguerite,” Alphonse said with outward calm. “I was much surprised to learn
that she had not remarried.”

But Hugh did not answer. His eyes were on the little wine
remaining in his cup and there was something in his face so private that
Alphonse looked away.

“I should imagine Lady Barbe would be much sought after,” he
said to John. “Years ago, when Norfolk brought her to my aunt, he put some
business into my hands, and I thought at the time that he was fond of his
daughter. That alone should make her a marriage prize, and though she is not a
great heiress, her manor at Cruas is not poor.”

John laughed and then said softly, “She was sought after,
but she refused all offers, and Norfolk would not force her to marry. You might
call him doting rather than fond, but he has had so evil an experience of
marriage I could hardly blame him. And poor Barby was caught in the middle.
Norfolk had never agreed with his wife, Isabella, but she still blamed Barby’s
mother for being the instigator of the earl’s attempt to free himself from his
marriage to her, and she hated Barby for that. And to speak the truth, I do not
think it was all sweetness and light between Norfolk and Barby’s mother,
either. She must have pressed him hard before he became willing to try to set
aside Isabella, who is the sister of the King of Scotland. Then Barby’s mother
died in childbirth. All in all, one can see why Barby might be reluctant to
marry.”

“One can,” Alphonse agreed dryly.

“Still,” John said philosophically, “my mother was not happy
in her first marriage, but she tried again and is more than content with
Marlowe. Of course, we all knew William for many, many years before he married
my mother. And although I often could have murdered King Henry, I must say that
Barby had an example of a very happy marriage when she served Queen Eleanor.
Whatever his faults as a king, Henry is a model husband, and Eleanor loves him
dearly. Anyway, Norfolk left the matter of marriage to Barby and she refused
every man, no matter whether he wooed or did not woo her. She railed against
how women are made chattels and said she did not wish to be ruled by a man
simply because he was bigger and stronger than she.”

John started to say something else, but broke it off when
Hugh rose and bade Alphonse good night. Alphonse replied, raising a hand in
farewell to John, who followed his master to help him to bed.

The tale of Norfolk’s unhappy marriage gave Alphonse a
twinge of guilt but did not change his decision. Hewould hold Barbe to
the promise she had made, and then he would teach her that marriage could be a
happy state. He refilled his cup and emptied it twice more before he rose from
the bench to seek his own cot while he planned what to do. Decision made, he
told Chacier to wake him at first light as he was undressed.

Although he woke several times during the night with a
pounding heart, having dreamed each time that he was too late for something,
Alphonse thought he was perfectly calm the next morning when he sent his
message up with Clotilde. For a few minutes after she had gone to her mistress
he was tense, half expecting her to reappear with a refusal from Barbara, but
as the time stretched, he became more confident and moved from the middle of
the hall to lean on the wall beside the stairs. From there he would see Barbe
before she saw him and could speak before she did.

Still, if the words he had planned to say had not been
already fixed in his mind when Barbara appeared, he would have been struck
mute. Each time he saw her, he was overwhelmed anew by an intense pleasure,
which surprised him. The first time he had assumed the reaction to be a result
of surprise. When he had spoken to her near the stable, he had told himself the
pleasure was owing to finding her fascinating even when he was not surprised.
Now he acknowledged that he had felt the same pleasure at seeing her for years
before she left France and that the delight she gave him had little to do with
her physical appearance. Moreover, he suspected it would last all his life. In
the moment he had hesitated she stood poised on the lowest step looking for
him. He saw her stiffen with doubt when her eye did not find him, and he
stepped forward and put his hand on her arm before her quick temper could rise.

“No, do not speak,” he said. “What we say to each other now
must be in a place where there can be no jesting and no lies.”

She turned her head. He saw that she was unnaturally pale
and had to bite his tongue to keep from promising he would not hold her to a
promise she clearly regretted. That would be stupid, he told himself as he led
her toward the church. She would be far better off married to him than
unmarried. If he could never reconcile her to being a wife, he would give her
her freedom. Then she need never fear that some great necessity could force her
into a worse marriage.

Barbara balked slightly at the dark entryway to the church,
but Alphonse went forward and she, too, stepped out of the silvery light of a
gray early morning into the deeper gray inside the church. He seemed to feel
her presence. Although he did not turn his head to look at her, he took her
hand as she entered a step behind him and led her out of the center aisle to
the right. Near the wall and opposite one of the wide pillars that supported
the roof and partially hid them from others in the church, he stopped and
turned to face her.

“I am very sorry to hold you to a promise you made in jest,”
he said, “but I love you very much, Barbe, and I think I can reconcile you to
being my wife.”

Barbara peered at his face. “Please say that again,” she
whispered. It was not that the light was so poor that she could not see. She
simply could not believe her ears and wanted to make sure his lips were moving
in the right pattern to form the words she had heard.

Alphonse’s square chin came forward and his lips thinned.
“Very well, but this time I will speak the same truth without courtesy. I
intend to hold you to your promise to marry me, and I am not at all sorry about
it. I am delighted that you have fallen into a trap of your own digging. No
doubt my offer seemed comical to you, who have been sought by others far more
wealthy and powerful. No doubt also you were more cautious in your answer to those
you feared to scorn, but I want you too much not to close my hand on you when
you have fallen into it.”

“You want me?” Barbara repeated, fastening on the words most
important to her. “No, you do not—”

“Yes I do!”

His voice echoed in the almost silent building, the priests
not yet having entered to begin the mass, and they both started and looked
around. However, there were only a few people, well forward in the church, who
did not seek the source of the remark. All kinds of business were carried on in
a church, especially any that might require oath-taking, and raised voices were
not unusual.

“Why would I take you into a church and insist that you
marry me if I did not want you?” he went on in a tense but lowered voice.

“Because you have great pride and I shamed you by accusing
you of wanting to make me your whore.”

Alphonse stared, wondering if he would spend all the rest of
his life being enthralled one moment and exasperated the next. “Idiot!” he
exclaimed. “Would I make such a suggestion to you if I did not want you? Do you
think I am so ill able to find a willing woman that I urge to my bed even those
I find detestable?”

Barbara giggled. She felt divided into two parts, one on the
surface, aware of how ridiculous the conversation was, and another beneath, in
which an enormous joy was growing. But Alphonse had stiffened with indignation
at her wordless reply.

“And I wish you would not call a spade a shovel with such
frankness,” he added. “There are more polite ways of referring to an irregular
arrangement between lovers. To call every woman who forms a bond outside of
marriage a whore does not become you, speaks ill of your charity, and makes me
think poorly of the English court for not having cured you of such crudities of
language.”

Barbara giggled again. For a moment she was back in a time
when her hurt over Alphonse’s rejection had become so much a part of her that
she was no more aware of it as a burden than of the weight of her hair. Over
the years she had been married to the absent Thouzan le Thor, Alphonse had
become a lively friend and a wise, if irascible, teacher. So when she spoke,
the words were a blend of the joyful heart and the amused mind.

“And am I to spend my life with a man to whom I cannot speak
the truth, as I see it, in plain language? Did you not just call me an idiot? I
did not take offense.”

“But to say I intended to make you a—” Alphonse began then
choked back the rest of his remark. Suddenly he chuckled. “You are quite
right,” he said. “A wife must be able to speak as she likes to her husband in
private, so to me you may use the word ‘whoring’ if you think of courtly love
that way, but not in the court, and not in Louis’s hearing or I will murder
you. Now that is done with, and do not try to start a new subject again. Do you
promise, in this place, to marry me?”

“Alphonse—”

“You have already given your word. Will you be a coward and
go back on it?”

She was silent for a long moment, then shook her head. “I do
not wish to go back on my word. I only—” She intended to explain that the
answer she had given him in the stable yard had come from her heart, that the
laughter had been an accident, but he gave her no chance.

“And do you swear, before God, in His own house, that you
will appeal to King Louis and to your father to accept me as your husband?”

“Yes,” she said, and then, realizing that the joy inside her
had become so great that she would die if she first gave it free rein and then
discovered it to be false, she added, “but—”

“No ‘buts.’ You promise you will speak to the king and to
your father as if our wedding were the dearest wish of your heart?”

“Not until you answer one question,” Barbara insisted. And
before Alphonse could object she asked, “Why did you first offer your
‘protection’ instead of asking me to marry you if you wished to marry me?”