The Lords of Arden (32 page)

 The Beauchamp ladies with their Gilbertine
sisters, crowded out in the rain and a bitter east wind to wave goodbye to
their departing kinswoman. John wondered if they were happy in their cloister,
these generations of unwanted siblings. The Beauchamp women produced their
offspring with apparent ease and regularity, Katherine would be no exception,
leaving a comet's tail of unwanted daughters in each generation. Did they
perhaps hanker for Christmas at home in the old surroundings, for twelve days
of licence and enforced jollity, for gifts and dancing, for carols and mummery,
or was it all another world now, put strictly behind them?

 Mary stepped nimbly into the charette in
a flutter of veils, waved one white hand and disappeared behind the curtains as
it rattled down the rutted track. A mile along the high road she appeared at
the awnings, signed for the driver to draw rein and swung her feet down onto
the roadway. After a short exchange of words the nurse was assisted down from
her seat behind the groom and Mary was helped up in her place; the nurse
disappeared into the carriage and they set off again. John, from time to time,
cast a glance at his charge, a small girl in a black velvet cloak, her hood up
about her face, concealing all but her nose from his view. It was a charming
nose, a trifle sharp, a pert nose. It worried him because it was also a
familiar nose. They spent the night at Ely as guests of the Benedictines and
John did not see the ladies again until they came to mount up the following
morning. He had taken one look at the colour of the sky, leaden grey with a low
cloud base, and tried to hurry them along. Mary emerged into the dawn light, a
neat little figure in her black velvet, a sharp cut-out against the muted
colours of the winter landscape. And when he stooped to help her into the
saddle the east wind tore at her fur-edged hood and tugged it back so that the
night black hair took instant flight and whirled about her and she laughed into
his face.

 ‘Mariana!’ said John.

 ‘Oh, dear, and didn't you take your time!
Six years obviously hasn't improved your eyesight.’ Up in the saddle now, she
smiled down at him. ‘Stand back, Johnny, let me take a proper look at you. Mm,
I must say you've fleshed out a little. The legs are still inordinately long.’ Her
black eyes raked him from top to toe.

 ‘My lady!’ said the nurse, ‘I take it
that you have a previous acquaintance with this gentleman?’

 ‘Don't be pompous, Mattie. And I haven't
seen him since I was eight. Remember the years I spent at Kenilworth in Lady
Derby's train, learning how to sew a fine seam, how to curtsey without a wobble
half way down - not that Kate couldn't have taught me all and more but she and
my father were so wrapped up in each other at the time? John was Harry of
Derby’s page and then his squire, until his swift and dramatic exit. I never
cared for Lady Derby's women; to a small girl they seemed vapid, insipid
creatures, so I hung around after the pages and learned to climb trees and to
fish in the great mere at Kenilworth or along the banks of the northern rivers,
and to string a bow with the best of them. I was set fair to becoming a hoyden
when I finally returned to Warwick.’

 ‘Only 'set fair'?’ said John with a raise
of his eyebrows. ‘You were Isabel Derby's despair; all hair and teeth and late
for every occasion. In fact, we're overdue starting now!’ He had mounted and
was urging his chestnut forward. The nurse was glad of the empty carriage.

 Mariana, (and to John she would always be
Mariana,) at fourteen, was an exquisite child with her gypsy mother's black
hair and dark eyes, a trim little figure and a skin pale as almond milk. She
kept up a constant patter of conversation as they rode west and when, at last,
the snow threatened at cock shut they were forced to take shelter in the
tap-room at a common tavern. The girl wrapped her nurse up on the settle in a
travelling rug and, tucking her feet beneath her, sat next to the hearthstone,
roasting chestnuts. John perched upon the only stool. The firelight lit their faces;
it did not penetrate into the gloom of the corners or lick up to the
smoke-blackened rafters. They were the only travellers, caught in a cosy
complicity by the night and the elements.

 ‘You don't talk about Kenilworth,’ said
Mariana, sucking a scorched finger. ‘You don't talk about Henry Derby. I wonder
why?’

 ‘I have had a life since then,’ said
John, ‘rather a full and active one.’

 ‘An empty one,’ said the girl, ‘an empty
marriage – or so they say, empty-headed cavorting at village tournaments… You
served the greatest knight in the whole of Europe; you met Kings and Bishops, Queens and poets. You must have missed it all when it was over.’

 John glanced at the nurse, her eyes were
closed. ‘It was a long time ago.’

 ‘That isn't an answer. Do you remember
the Count of Artois' arrival at Windsor; a fugitive from the French King's
wrath, a big handsome man who laughed a lot and said outrageous things? It was
he who made a chaplet of yellow irises, the royal flower de luce of France, for
a toothy little girl, crowned her solemnly, kissed her hand and made plain
little Mary into Queen Mariana. I was Mariana ever after to my friends at Derby's court. Now I am Mariana again for you.’ She handed him a plate of chestnuts.

 John said, ‘And I was his squire, just
for a day, hired out to him because he would go hawking along London River. And his bird took a heron, flushed from the reeds, a sleek, grey, king of a bird in
the prime of its life. We sat down on the bank and shared a meat pasty and he
told me what he planned to do with his noble prize and I thought him very
daring. We walked back, trailing our mounts, and he had the heron slung over
his shoulder by its long legs. We sang soldiers' songs in French; his English
wasn't too strong in those days, and I taught him one of our own and we
bellowed it out all along the river path, till he made me tell him what it
meant. Then he ducked me under when we came to the next bridge and I arrived
back, overdue to serve at supper and green with weed. We were both late and the
King was already seated. It took a long time to roast the heron but you must
remember the rest, you would have been at the banquet.’

 Mariana poked at the fire, low in the
basket, and snuggled into her cloak. ‘He came into the hall from the kitchens,
all prinked out in tawny velvets, sleeves trailing, points on his shoes, even
his beard crimped, and behind him paraded three minstrels, one on gittern, one
on pipe and one on tambour to proclaim the entry of the hapless bird. It took
two kitchen girls to carry the silver dish. And he took it from them and placed
it before the King in a fanfare of silver trumpets, announcing that as the
heron had the reputation for being the most cowardly of birds it was
predestined that it should be placed before the greatest coward at the table -
a King who submitted tamely to being deprived of the crown of France, even
though all knew it belonged to him by right. I can remember the hush throughout
the hall as, collectively, we held our breath. A lesser man than Edward would
have struck him. His grandfather would have seen him dragged out and beheaded.’

 John smiled into the embers of the fire,
'Sire, a vow. Surely you cannot disappoint us!' And Edward, on his feet,
swearing to invade France with fire and sword before the year was out, and then
the bird was carried round the table so that every man could pledge his support
to the enterprise. Looking back now, I wonder if they didn't hatch the whole
thing between them; Artois to reap revenge on his own hated suzerain, our
Edward to grasp at a tenuous claim. God knows, he has had cause enough to take
arms against Philip but to tilt for his crown is another matter. Yes, they were
great days!’ He fell silent then, back in a time when life stretched forward in
endless sunshine and every side track led to a new adventure.

 Mariana watched him thoughtfully. Then,
kneeling in the rushes of the floor, put her other hand about his neck and
kissed him firmly on the mouth.

 He, with a furtive glance at the sleeping
Mattie, head down upon her settle bed, kissed her back. When he could speak
again he said, ‘What was that for?’

 ‘Curiosity,’ whispered Mariana, ‘I wanted
to see whether the boy I knew had grown up.’

 ‘And is there no other measure of a man? I
thought you had taken a sacred vow of chastity, My Lady.’

 She smiled, ‘I merely bought time out of
an uncongenial match. When I am ready I will take John Herthill. He'll value
what he has the more.’

 ‘Value it, devalued?’ grinned Montfort
and she slapped him lightly on the mouth. The nurse shifted, uncomfortable on
her wooden perch, and muttered in her sleep.

 ‘I'll take the other bench,’ said
Mariana, ‘you can sleep across the door and guard both our virtues. Shall we
reach home tomorrow?’

 ‘Yes,’ said John, ‘we stick in the saddle
until we do, come hell or high water; you’re far too great a liability. Banished
from Derby's service, hunted down by my own kin, I cannot afford your father's
displeasure on top of all.’

 ‘Craven,’ mouthed Mariana from across the
floor. The last log shifted and disintegrated into a pile of grey ash, the
light went out of the room.

~o0o~

 Warwick, snow-capped for Christmas, every
merlon along the crenellated battlements white-hatted, was a place of
enchantment for Kate's four small boys. The pregnant countess had an opulence
and lassitude about her, like a cat caught with her paw in a crock of cream. The
young people had emerged into the great court from the mystery of the Christmas
Eucharist, to pelt each other with snow balls, the girls squealing as handfuls
of the stuff found their way down the necks of gowns too low to be considered
proper for chapel.

 A blood red sun broke through the wintry
dawn for a short while and then retreated but the castle was a blaze of light
from the first stirrings in the kitchens until the last of the revellers weaved
their way upstairs well into the following morning.

 Dancing followed the evening feast, but
John de Montfort, lounging upon a window seat, violet eyes half closed against
the drifting smoke and the dancing light of the cressets, felt himself detached
from the scene. They had had rough and ready Christmases at Beaudesert since
Margaret had died; good food and wine in plenty, dancing too, but nothing to
match the splendour of Warwick. Thomas's masons had worked wonders since he had
come into his own lands and Kate's flair for interior decoration had enlivened
the barest ante-chamber and tower room.

 Up above in the gallery the minstrels had
launched into a wild Aragonaise, redolent of sunlight and sand, castanets and
roses. The women had joined hands in a ring, circling, darting in and out of
the firelight, stars sparking from jewelled nets, from silver tissue, from
baudekin veils, warped with gold. Faster and faster played the flutes, faster
and faster whirled the dancers, faces flushed as in some wild bacchanal. He
caught sight of Mariana, dark hair flowing, a garland of ivy about her brow,
closer surely to the maenads and the pagan priestesses than she would ever
become to the Holy Sisters of Norfolk. She blew him a kiss and laughed out loud
and then a shadow came between them. Orabella in scarlet and gold, the pale
skin warmed to the blush of a briar rose with firelight, with wine, with the
exertions of the dance.

 ‘Why so aloof?’ she asked softly, ‘This
is not like you, surely?’

 John smiled, ‘I am experiencing as an
onlooker, an outsider. I wear a cloak of invisibility. I take roofs from
rafters. I am Asmodeus; I do not belong.’

 She sank back onto the cushions beside
him. ‘This is not what Thomas would want. His grudges are for your father. If
you serve him well there will be rewards.’

 He laughed. ‘No, I merely meant that
today I observe as a stranger. Next year, next month, I shall have been
absorbed into the bedrock of this fortress like everyone else.’

 ‘But even so, to be alone on Christmas
Night…’

 ‘Where is the good Sir Roger?’

 ‘That need not concern you.’

 ‘Then will you come? You know where I lodge
- in the Bear Tower, where they incarcerated my young brother; a fitting
pointer to my value, an everlasting irony.’ There was bitterness in his voice.

 Orabella said, ‘Your brother was
generally liked.’

 ‘You knew him well?’ It was said with a
lift of one eyebrow.

 ‘Only through Thomas's eyes and Thomas's
thoughts and he thought well of him. Richard will always know what he wants and
judge the right road for his quest.’

 ‘And I do not know? I am floundering in
the dark?’

 ‘Not quite, but I think life will spring
its surprises upon you, as it does on most of us. Perhaps it is better that
way. And Mary - your Mariana - has her gypsy eyes upon us. She is an
importunate child.’

 John said, ‘For a girl under so bleak a
vow she looks well enough.’

 Orabella smiled. ‘Black is such a
contrast to the gaudy parrot hues of her contemporaries, it also suits her. Mariana
is a baggage; she has her mother's amorality without her mother's excuses. Beware!’

~o0o~

The lamps were lit but burning low, the
cushions were spread, the brazier in the corner giving comforting warmth to the
small chamber. John de Montfort, a long robe of emerald brocade belted about
his waist, sat upon the embroidered counterpane, one foot tucked beneath him,
plucking out a song on his lute. It seemed half a lifetime away since he had
burst from the gilded pie and serenaded Kate. He thought of Kate, plump and
serene, secure in her marriage-bed with Thomas. He let his fingers strum out a
discord; he would not think of Kate again. He tuned his strings, head bent low,
and waited for Orabella. He heard the door open and softly close, he heard the
whisper of her gown as she crossed the floor. He caught the scent of her hair;
unbound, it drifted about his own as she leant over and covered his eyes with
her hands. He laid the lute aside, blind still, put up his hands and, prising
her fingers away, spun her with a grip on one slim wrist until she lay supine
across his lap, laughing up at him. She wore only a light mantle of black
velvet, fastened loosely across her slender throat, its folds lay pooled about
her nakedness; white breasts and white thighs translucent in the lamp light.