ASilverMirror (19 page)

Her voice was angry when they were past the gates and she
said, “You do not need to take me to my lodging. Please feel perfectly free to
go back and tell Henry what you wanted to say but could not where I could
hear.”

“You are a little confused, my love.” Alphonse chuckled. “Do
you not recall that you are the one who is supposed to be conspiring with
Henry. I am supposed to be Edward’s ally. And, in truth, I thank God you were
there and I was able to use you as an excuse to leave.”

“So you
were
passing messages to Edward!” Barbara
exclaimed. And then added hotly, “Well, I do not care. It is cruel to keep him
penned like a wild beast. And what in the world were those guards doing with
the stools?”

Although he felt elated by the clear indication that Barbe
would not be angry about any attempt he made to help the prince, Alphonse
uttered an exasperated “
Zut!
” and then went on to explain, “Edward is
penned like a wild beast because he has been behaving like one. The guards will
not let him touch the stools, no doubt, because he must have seized one and
tried to kill someone with it—likely poor Henry. That is also why the chair of
state is there. He cannot throw that.”

“Poor man,” Barbara said softly. “How desperate he must be.
And poor Henry too. I was so angry when he asked for your sword and even my
knife. I thought he did not trust your word not to help the prince unlawfully.
But if Edward has been behaving like a madman—”

“He has, I am sure, although Henry did not say more than
that the prince hated him.” Alphonse stopped suddenly in the middle of the
street and took Barbara’s hands, his dark eyes glowing. “You are a marvel,
Barbe. What you said to him was perfect, masterly. You made him understand that
Henry was not trying to manipulate him without adding to his rage.”

“Now you are confused,” she said, smiling. “I am
supposed
to make Edward think well of Henry.”

An irritable shout behind them and muffled curses from
people who were trying to squeeze by between them and a shop counter made
Barbara start forward again. She sighed and shook her head.

“I do not know what I want,” she said so softly that
Alphonse had to bend toward her to hear. “I cannot bear to see Edward
imprisoned, but if he is not brought to some terms, he cannot be freed. As he
is now, if he were free, he would surely start the war again.”

Neither spoke again until they were at the door of the
lodging. Barbara glanced at it and walked on, saying, “It is nearly time for
dinner—” Then she hesitated, looked sidelong at Alphonse, and uttered a soft,
exasperated laugh. “I do not wish to send you away, but if we go to the inn to
eat—”

“I am sorry about yesterday evening,” he said, his full lips
twitching as he controlled a grin. “I was only trying to praise you for your
rational attitude toward Prince Edward.” He raised a hand, palm up as if
offering the excuse. “If you misunderstood… Well, I cannot say I am sorry,” he
chuckled softly, “but I will promise most faithfully not to kiss you again when
there is a table full of food between us.”

“Or at all, if I invite you into our lodging?”

Alphonse tucked an errant curl back into her crespine. The
laughter was gone from his voice and he looked troubled, but all he said was
“Yes, at least until the fifteenth.”

When they were settled with the meal ordered from the inn
between them, Alphonse regretted his promise, even though he suspected that
Barbe would have refused to go up with him if he had not given it. As a safety
measure, he decided that the time had come to clear his conscience.

“Louis did not grant remission of our marriage fines for
nothing,” he said.

Barbara smiled. “I am not an idiot,” she retorted. “No king
remits fines without receiving value in kind.” Then she reached across the
table and touched his hand. “I trust you, Alphonse. I know you would not agree
to what could hurt me.”

“Nor would King Louis ask what was not honest,” he said,
covering her hand with his. “I should have told you at once, of course, but we
were so busy until we took ship and then neither of us was fit for much talk.”

“No.” Barbara laughed. “Besides, on the ship I would not
have believed that I would live to perform whatever promise you made.”

Alphonse smiled in response. “You have already done your
part, which was only to tell Edward that his wife and child were well and in no
need.”

Barbara’s thick brows rose to make their little tent on her
forehead. “You are a masterly bargainer if Louis remitted my marriage fine for
that. I would have done it gladly without recompense.”

“But King Louis did not know that. Still—”

Suddenly Alphonse nodded, and a black curl fell over his
forehead. Barbara had some difficulty resisting the urge to push it back among
its fellows, but the intensity of his stare and the way the corners of his lips
tucked back corrected her wandering thoughts. Then he laughed shortly and
shrugged.

“Perhaps Queen Eleanor told Marguerite you had come to
France to spy for the rebels. I did think Louis yielded your fine more easily
than I expected. It may be that he thought he was ridding his court of a clever
spy.”

Barbara laughed aloud at that. “You seemed to think so too.
I do not care, since we are the gainers, unless… What did you promise Louis?”

“Nothing of which even Leicester would disapprove. I only
promised to discover, if I could, what Edward would consider reasonable terms
for peace and, if peace was made with fairness, whether he would keep that
peace after his father’s death.”

“Are you going to tell Louis that Edward will neither make
nor keep any peace with Leicester?” Barbara’s eyes were wide with distress.

“I have no way to do so, even if I wished it,” Alphonse
said, “and despite the prince’s present mood, I am not without hope. What I
wish to do is calm him enough so that he will listen to some decent compromise.”
He then praised Barbara again for skillfully reducing Edward’s suspicions about
them, and added slowly, “I think it likely that the terms Leicester has
proposed are not fair to the prince. Perhaps the pope’s legate will—”

“Do not hope for that,” Barbara said. “The papal legate was
Queen Eleanor’s best hope for pushing Louis into actively supporting the
invasion. She is very clever and has subtly convinced him that Leicester and
the bishops who support him are contemptuous of the pope. And I must admit that
refusing to allow the legate’s messengers into the kingdom in June, seizing his
letters, and throwing them into the sea was not the wisest way to deal with
him.”

“I wonder if more damage has been done to Leicester’s cause
by his friends than by his enemies?” Alphonse remarked dryly. “Certainly after
the handling we received at Dover, what little sympathy I had for his ideas was
burned away by anger.”

“But you cannot blame Leicester for what Richard de Grey
did,” Barbara protested. “We were freed as soon as Leicester had news of us.”

Alphonse was not at all sure that was true, but he saw no
sense in arguing the point, which could not be proven and would only mark his
political differences with Barbe. He said instead, “Poor Leicester. He is so
very good and noble really, that his few faults stand out like black warts on a
handsome face. What you would hardly notice in another man draws one’s whole
attention in his case. It is not fair, but it is true.”

“But—” Barbara began, then stopped and shook her head.
Alphonse was perfectly right, as he always was. How many times she had excused
indulgence to their children in others, but was enraged because Leicester did
not see fault in and curb Guy and young Simon. “I never thought of it,” she
continued slowly. “How dreadful. Poor man.”

“I did not mean to increase your sympathy for him,” Alphonse
pointed out. “I had better get back to the main point. My Aunt Eleanor did not
mention her dealings with the pope’s legate to me. In this case, I could wish
she was not so clever for even with the legate’s approval she will not be able
to persuade Louis to help her invade England. He is too well aware of the
disaster that followed his father’s ‘holy crusade’ in King John’s time, and
from the tales that have come down to us, John was far more hated than Henry.
Damn!”

“Was that what you were trying to hint to Edward? That the
pope’s legate might find a compromise? But what has fighting in tourneys to do
with—”

“Nothing. I was only reminding Edward that rage and hate are
useless. I was not hinting anything to him other than that Louis had not
abandoned him. He must have hope. Without hope, all Edward has to think about
is his own mistake at Lewes of pursuing the Londoners, who were already beaten,
and by his absence allowing Leicester to win the battle. No doubt such thoughts
build a black rage in him that makes him desire punishment.”

Barbara’s eyes opened wide. “So he tries to kill Henry de
Montfort and attacks his guards and possibly tries to escape when he knows
perfectly well it is impossible to do so… And then Henry must put greater and
greater restrictions on him. Yes, I see. How clever you are, Alphonse.”

“Worst of all, he probably does not realize what he is
doing. He is trapped in a round of self-hate, which is covered by hatred of
everything and anyone to do with Leicester and makes him provoke them to offend
him so that he can hate them still more. If I can break into that with hope, he
may be able to think more clearly so that if fair terms are offered he will not
reject them out of spite.”

“God willing,” she said.

Her voice was so warm and the admiration on her face so
clear that Alphonse stood up suddenly. “Would you like to ride out?” he asked,
then laughed. “If I am to keep my promise, I fear I must also keep my
distance.”

“I would love to, but I will not,” Barbara replied, laughing
also. “Otherwise, my wedding dress, which is only rough stitched, is likely to
come apart—”

“Oh, do ride out,” Alphonse pleaded, laughing also.

“No!” Barbara exclaimed. “Go away, you evil man.”

“Very well, cruel woman.”

Alphonse made a mournful face, but he was not really sorry.
During their talk he had come to a decision about how to present his request
that Edward be allowed to attend his wedding if the guards had not already told
Henry de Montfort about what he and Barbe had said. That was what he had hoped
for when he used Barbe as an excuse to avoid discussing the visit to Edward
with Henry. Then he had felt that the suggestion that Edward attend the wedding
should come from Henry himself or should not be made. Now he was ready to push
the point himself, but when he returned to the castle he found the place in
turmoil. King Henry, Peter de Montfort, the chancellor Nicholas d’Ely, and the
rest of the court had ridden into Canterbury.

Before Alphonse could decide what to do, Chacier found him
and told him Norfolk was looking for him, and he was soon being introduced to
the king’s new attendants as Barbe’s betrothed and a courtier to King Louis of
France. All were eager for news from France, so Alphonse did not find time to
hang heavy, and just before the evening meal Louis’s emissaries rode in from
Dover where they had come to port the previous day. Simon de Claremont drew him
away at once to ask for a report on the situation in Canterbury, and approved
heartily of Alphonse’s plan to pacify Edward, but he admitted that he saw
little hope that Louis’s mediation would have much effect on Leicester.

Later Peter the Chamberlain, the other French envoy who had
presented Louis’s authorization to King Henry, joined them and told Alphonse
that, in his opinion, there was even less hope than before he left that any
invasion would take place. Louis was as set as ever against breaking his
promise to be neutral, and the inefficiency and quarreling of Queen Eleanor and
King Henry’s half brothers had discouraged the men who had gathered. The
invasion force was breaking up. Queen Eleanor’s purse was almost empty, and
King Henry had written forbidding her to raise funds by selling his lands on
the Continent to France. Seeing little hope for the future, the mercenaries
were leaving as their pay ended. The knights who had come for the sake of
adventure or a hope of lands as reward were also drifting away to more
promising opportunities.

Then Alphonse had to repeat to Peter what he had said to
Claremont and he heard for the first time that a preamble had been added to the
Peace of Canterbury that extended Leicester’s new form of government for some
undefined term of years into Edward’s reign.

There was no question, Peter said, that Louis would utterly
reject that provision, and since the pope had already declared null and void
the Provisions of Oxford, which were the basis of the government outlined in
the Peace of Canterbury, he and Claremont were wasting their time.

The situation did seem hopeless. It depressed Alphonse
thoroughly and he wished he could put the whole thing out of his mind. His
conscientious countrymen, however, still wanted advice on whom they might
approach with Louis’s more reasonable opinions. Alphonse named Norfolk at once
and explained how he had been kept in Dover so that he had met no one and could
suggest nothing else. Even so, he was not able to free himself until the
evening meal was being served.

Alphonse was relieved when he saw Henry de Montfort with a
large crowd around him. To his surprise, Henry excused himself to those waiting
to speak to him, grasped his arm, and dragged him up to his own chamber on the
third floor.

“I cannot thank you enough,” he said as soon as they were
private. “Edward has been like a new man ever since you and Lady Barbara spoke
to him.”

“I am not sure you should thank me,” Alphonse said. “I have
now heard of the extension of the Peace of Canterbury any unnumbered years into
Edward’s reign. I do not blame him for being angry. Edward is neither weak nor
foolish. And I merely reminded him that calculation is a sharper weapon than
the bludgeon of hate. Are you sure, Henry, that you want Edward thinking about
how to get his own way by cleverness?”