The Lords of Arden (17 page)

 Aunt Bess, espying the wilting Johanna
abandoned on her window seat, fought her way through the press of the crowd to
her side. Johanna was seeing the White Knight tarnished; hardly recognisable as
the handsome boy who had ridden beneath her tower and demolished Second Cousin
Ned. The brightness was dimmed by the heat, the wit debauched with wine, the
quick tongue slurred, and his gait unsteady. Yet she still longed for his lost
easy gallantry. Elizabeth sighed inwardly as she glanced critically at the
sweat-damp hair hanging in rats' tails on the girl's sun-brown neck, at the
shapeless finger nails, splitting from too close a contact with the herb
garden.

 ‘Johanna, my dear, perhaps you would like
to retire?’

 The girl nodded, swept Peter a deep curtsey,
kissed her father and, followed by Mazera and her girl cousins, let Elizabeth
Freville lead her to John's apartments in the Audley Tower. There was a lot of
good-natured merriment and the flinging of rose petals. Johanna was relieved to
say goodbye to the giggling cousins and to be free of the gold and silver gown.
Sitting in her shift she let Mazera brush out her hair, whilst Elizabeth turned back the covers on the great bed and saw that the room was ordered. There
were herbs strewn about the bed and a pitcher full of wild flowers upon the
bride chest. Waving Mazera away, Johanna moved to bury her face in them.

 ‘Your thought, Madam?’ She smiled at Elizabeth and Lady Freville, who had once been wild, red-headed Bess de Montfort, a lonely
young bride in a strange fortress, nodded and smiled back.

 ‘Goodnight, my dear. If there is nothing
more you need I will take this child with me and we'll return to the revels.’ She
kissed her nephew's bride on both cheeks and, with Mazera at her heels, left
the room. The Fleurdeluce climbed into the big bed, spread her hair about her
as the Lady Mellisent was wont to do in the story of Sir Esquivat, and pinched
some colour into her cheeks. Then she settled down with thudding heart to await
the coming of her handsome, new-wed husband.

 Bess had words with her brother and Peter
forced his way through the dancers to where his son was demonstrating a new
measure from the Eastern Mediterranean, taught him by the jugglers, hired for
the evening.

 ‘John,’ said Peter, clearing his throat,
‘your lady has left the hall; she will be waiting.’

 ‘No,’ said John, ‘she will be titivating,
all women are the same. Aren't you dancing?’

 ‘Go and sober up somewhere,’ hissed his
father and thankfully watched him saunter nonchalantly, if unsteadily, to the
door which opened out into the inner courtyard. Thunder rolled about the castle
hill. There wasn't a breath of air to be had. The young man prevailed upon a
sleepy little page to draw him a bucket of water from the well and sluiced his
face. The water smelt of the dark brown earth and brought a return of his
battered senses. Then he turned and climbed the stairs to the chapel. The altar
candles, still burning, lit the shafts of the graceful pillars, leading the eye
to the groins of the vaulting. The flickering golden light sketched the
sculpted tracery of the mullion heads and brought to life the shadowy company
of the great mural behind the altar.

 Montfort bowed unsteadily to his especial
saint - Michael the warrior, alighting, sword in hand, glowing from the tips of
his mighty golden wings to the silver tinsel of his armour. The saint looked
back at him with his own eyes; his own lips curved in his own sardonic smile
and yet the man who had drawn and painted and set free this mocking young
archangel had gone to his maker before John's birth. Maud had explained; the
living model for the soldier saint had been his namesake, Peter's older
brother, John, Second Lord Montfort, slain at Bannockburn in his twenty-second
year. After that, Peter had been summoned from his studies at Oxford and, a
tonsured cleric, he had taken up the dead boy's mantle and the lordship of
Beaudesert.

 Summi Regis archangele

 Michahel,

 Intende, quaesumus, nostris

 Vocibus
.

 John had long ago discovered that if you
stared at the lips for long enough the corners lifted and the benediction came.

 Jack de Lobbenham, cat footed, came
between him and the light from the altar. ‘Why are you here?’ His voice seemed
pitched above the ceiling bosses pinning the springing line of the vault. John
stepped backwards, stumbling against a wooden bench in the shadowy nave. He sat
down suddenly.

 ‘This is not where you should be,’ de
Lobbenham said sharply.

 As if in response to Alcuin's prayer to
St. Michael, lightning lit up the sky beyond the ridgeway for a moment and
etched the summer trees. The chaplain's shadow became a gross giant upon the
wall. John had spread his length along the bench, arms beneath his head. De
Lobbenham stood over him. ‘John, what is the matter? Can I help? I wasn't born
in the cloth.’

 ‘I don't know. No, nothing's wrong,’ John
said his face unusually naked.

 ‘But no haste to spend the night with the
Lady Johanna? What is wrong with Lady Johanna?’

 John spread his hands. ‘Nothing so far as
I know and I know little of her. I'm sure she's an admirable girl, a marvel in
household management, cooking, sewing, preserving of quinces, curing the
whooping cough; she even reads poetry! There's nothing wrong with her.’

 ‘Then I ask again, why are you here? Let
them precede you to her door with tabor and pipe, flute and rebec.’

 ‘And when the door closes,’ said John,
‘what do I say to her? Madam, the weather could have been better. What did you
think of the jellies?’

 ‘Stop being flippant. Be courteous. Be
kind. She is in a strange house with her people gone from her and possibly
frightened when all's said and done.’

 John said, ‘I need to get away for a
while...’

 De Lobbenham’s eyes went heavenward. ‘Lad,
you can’t make a bolt for it now, slip through the sally port as you always did
when trouble loomed. You won’t be the first young bridegroom to suffer
wedding-night nerves. I remember how bad-tempered your father was for days before
the Lady Margaret and her entourage arrived.’

 John grimaced. ‘But being father he would
do his duty, stern faced and martyred - poor Margaret, poor Johanna: tired
little girls in stiff silver dresses, smiles wearing thin. And our two fathers,
smug, self-satisfied, and full of roast swan, congratulating each other on the
bargain over the stud fees!’

 ‘You are a hypocrite, boy. Who wooed and
won the lady in white silk and feathers? You weren't so nice then about her
feelings!’

 ‘Only one feather,’ said Montfort. ‘It
was just a game, Father, proof that I could win her.’ He sat up then and swung
his feet to the floor.

 De Lobbenham patted his knee in silent
sympathy, got up and went out of the Chapel.

~o0o~

Johanna was asleep when John de Montfort finally
closed his chamber door against friends and family. The torches had burnt down
in the sconces, a single, guttering candle only showed that the bride was
curled up beneath the sheets, face beneath the mane of honey-coloured hair,
hidden in the bolster. With relief, Montfort undressed and slipped carefully
beside her, blowing out the candle. Tomorrow he could chide her for falling
asleep on her wedding night. He lay awake, listening to the thunder rumbling
about the hills, to the gentle breathing of the girl beside him and he fell
asleep, at last, when the first raindrops rattled at the open shutters.

 In the dawn light Johanna stirred and sat
up, reaching for her mantle. Her young husband lay in a rumple of bedclothes,
auburn hair chaotic. She stood hesitantly wondering what the Lady Mellisent
would have done in like circumstances: donned her most fetching gown perhaps,
brushed out the spun gold of her hair and poured a cup of wine, brimming with
southern sunshine, to present to her lord upon his waking. But she was not,
never could be a Lady Mellisent. She stood over her marriage bed and whispered,
‘Dearest father, let us see what has been purchased with my body and my
inheritance!’ She drew back the coverlet, dropping it lightly at the foot of
the bed. John did not stir; his breathing was light and even.

 Johanna was a good judge of horseflesh
but it would have been an exaggeration to have said that her experience of
naked young men was anything but slight. She followed the line of his body from
the disordered auburn hair which parted at the nape of his neck to reveal a
spattering of freckles, and on down the line of his back, still golden from the
summer sun, over taut, smooth buttocks and on along strong, long legs, scarred
here and there from combat in the Lists.

 Johanna drew in a breath quite sharply. ‘Dear
God,’ she murmured ‘but you are beautiful!’ She put out a hand as if to touch
him but withdrew it as quickly; bent and pulled the coverlet over him again. He
had nothing about him of the White Knight’s mystery; he was flesh and blood
after all and no doubt flawed with the frailty of men, but the living girl who
was now Johanna Montfort and who had left the Lady Mellisent far behind in the
pages of fiction, found longing stirring within her and something rather
unladylike called desire.

 She moved to the window and took in deep
breaths of Henley air; everywhere looked fresh and green-golden.

 John muttered and flung out an arm and
she turned from the view, back hard against the stone ledge of the window,
enveloped in blue frieze from neck to toe like a surprise parcel. The young
man's eyes narrowed against the light, half-hooded with sleep. He thought he
remembered who she was. ‘Good morning, madam; you’re awake early.’

 Johanna said, ‘It's a beautiful morning;
I am going riding. I trust my roan was looked to after I arrived yesterday.’

 John nodded, and then said hurriedly,
‘You really cannot ride out now, they will all be arriving with the spiced ale
and we must be here to receive them.’

 ‘If you have a thirst, you may receive
them,’ said Lady Johanna. ‘I am going riding!’

 ‘Girl, you can't!’ said John, alarmed
that she might. ‘A bride is not expected to rise with the lark and go
gallivanting about the countryside. It is the custom to remain blushingly
fragile and to breakfast in bed.’

 Johanna flashed him a look of hauteur. It
would not have been said in the romaunts, it would certainly never have passed
the lips of the now defunct Lady Mellisent, but she was an essentially honest
young woman. ‘I will ride. I wish to feel good horseflesh between my thighs
this morning where I lacked the feel of a man last night!’

 ‘Christ!’ said John, angry to feel the
colour rushing to his cheeks. ‘But you were sleeping, My Lady!’

 ‘And you were tardy, sir!’ She stood
above him, fresh and wide awake, imperious and intractable.

 John shot out a hand for her wrist and
pulled her down beside him. ‘Have I wed a shrew? You will take part in this morning's
mummery for both our fathers' sakes. With this exception, I shall make few
demands upon you.’

 ‘That,’ said Johanna tartly, ‘is rather
obvious!’

 ‘For God's sake be quiet!’ John sat up,
elbows on knees, hands pressed to his throbbing temples. How much had he drunk
last night?

 Johanna obediently arranged herself
neatly beside him and shot him a sidelong glance. ‘Go and have a long drink of
water, it’ll flush your system out and I think you'd better avoid the
bride-ale. I really hope you're not going to be sick, you have that kind of
greenish pallor.’

 ‘Johanna,’ said John, ‘take your bloody
horse. Ride him over a cliff if you can find one!’ He lay down with his back to
her and pulled the sheet over his head. When the family arrived with the
bride-ale they both found it expedient to be fast asleep.

The Worshipful Company of Bowyers and
Fletchers held its examinations for seventh year apprentices annually at
Fletchers' Hall. Richard Latimer and Raymond met inside the porch. It was mid
August; London was hot and the streets stank.

 ‘This is ridiculous,’ Raymond said, ‘my
hands are shaking so, I'll never hold a knife!’

 Richard, who had been rather
uncommunicative up till then, suddenly smiled and pushed open the heavy oak
door. They clasped hands briefly, wished each other the best of luck and passed
into the gloom. There were already several apprentices standing before the
work-benches and the adjudicator, whom Richard recognised as one of the Guild's
hierarchy, motioned them to their places and they set out the tools of their
trade, examining the materials before them: fine grey goose quills, brilliant
peacocks' feathers, stout ash.....

 Hours later, the Guild's newest
journeymen gathered appropriately enough at the Bowyer's Arms to celebrate. Harry
Holt, appointed as Richard's successor as leader of the Bishopsgate 'prentices,
drained a mug of ale and enquired, ‘What are your plans, Journeyman Latimer?’

 Richard shrugged his shoulders, ‘I
haven't made up my mind, felt it was no good counting chickens.’

 Raymond said, ‘I'm for home, there'll be
plenty of work in Coventry.’

 ‘Won't you miss London life?’ Harry was
born and bred within the walls.

 ‘Coventry's a fine city, cleaner too;
three miles of walls, thirty two towers and twelve gates, you'd be impressed. I'll
tell you who we're going to miss, our friend Arthur Chigwell. Law abiding
journeymen fletchers don't brawl with the local ‘prentices. But seriously, what
advantages will there be in a life of respectability and sobriety?’ They stared
gloomily into their ale pots. It seemed sad but no one, just then, could think
of an answer.

~o0o~

The Master Fletcher's house was silent
now, worlds away from the daytime clatter of the streets, the rumble of cart
wheels, the shouts of traders. The light from a single lamp on the work bench
cast deep shadows into the farthest corner of the shop. The curtain across the
doorway was pulled aside, the shadows swayed drunkenly, a swirl of dust eddied
under a chair and the light flickered and glinted upon an open sackful of
peacocks' feathers; glowing verdigris and velvet brown. Simon Scarlet passed
through into the shop, Latimer at his heels.

 ‘Sit down, Richard.’ He motioned the boy
to a chair opposite his own. Latimer realised that perhaps this was the first
time he had ever sat anywhere but at his bench in the ten years he had worked
for this man; the first time he had faced him on anything like equal terms. Scarlet
went across to the locked cupboard where he kept wine and drinking vessels for
visitors and his more important customers. ‘You'll join me in a glass of
malvoisie, Richard? I believe you'll remember I have a certain partiality for
it?’ He turned to glance at the young man over his left shoulder, eyebrows
raised. Richard smiled, sharing the joke, and Scarlet handed him a cup. ‘I
suppose you'll be wanting to leave us now?’

 ‘I - yes, sir. Not that I haven't been
very happy here, sir, or that I'll ever forget you and Mistress Scarlet; what
you've done for me, taught me…’

 Scarlet waved an arm. ‘Yes, yes, forget
about that. Here's to your future, Richard.’

 They drank in silence then Latimer said,
‘Before I leave, there is one thing I think I have a right to know.’

 ‘Then speak away.’

 Richard was staring down into his cup; he
turned it by the stem. It was a while before he spoke. ‘When the Latimers
brought me to you, ten years ago now, did they tell you who I was, my real name
and why they fostered me?’

 ‘No, lad. Richard is your given name,
that I do know, and I have reason to believe you were no kin to the Latimers. That
is all I can tell you.’

 ‘Where are the Latimers? You do know?’ He
set down his cup.

 Scarlet shrugged broad shoulders. ‘They
went to Flanders just after, I never heard they had returned.’ He drained his
own cup and was regarding his one-time apprentice gravely. ‘You intend to seek
out your parents? There are none to help you that I know of. You're wrong,
Richard, you must let sleeping dogs lie. What good did they ever do you? They
abandoned you in infancy. You don't need them; you are your own master now. I
thank God I don't know of anything worth while, for who knows what you might
unearth.’

 Richard was musing, almost to himself. ‘They
weren't poor villeins. Why should Latimer foster a poor man's child? Yet
otherwise, why get rid of me? I can't condemn them, not knowing the
circumstances.’

 ‘Then know this,’ Scarlet said fiercely,
‘your kinsmen all but sold you to Latimer - a generous enough sum, I'll grant
you.’

 ‘Thirty pieces of silver?’ said the boy
wryly.

 ‘Hardly, but an allowance as long as you
were with the family; it was since transferred to me in place of the indenture
fee. It ceased a while ago and we've heard nothing from them since.’

 ‘From whom?’ Richard was on his feet,
very determined.

 ‘Don't romanticise. You believe yourself
to be some noble's bastard, I suppose. Search for him, if you will, but in
doing so you repudiate all London has taught you. You are Richard Latimer,
Journeyman Fletcher, and a self-made man. Remember that when you think to beg
at a rich man's gate.’ He brushed past him and out into the back of the shop. Richard
sat for a long time, chin in hands, before he too crept silently up to bed.

~o0o~

Mistress Scarlet had her hands covered in
flour when Richard came to say goodbye. He wore his best cote and carried the
remainder of his possessions in a leather bag, hanging from his shoulder. The
Fletcher's wife handed him his dinner and a small bottle of wine.

 ‘Richard, you've nowhere to go. Why don't
you stay with us until you find work?’

 Latimer shook his head, smiling. ‘I'll
seek it beyond London, in the shires. Don't worry about me. But I'll miss you,
all of you.’

 ‘We'll miss you, luv,’ Emma Scarlet was
sniffing loudly. Suddenly, she put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him
to her. ‘If ever you find your Lora tell her I was pleased to have the loan for
ten years. I can't begrudge the loss of what's rightfully hers, when all's said
and done.’

 ‘Who was she?’ Richard whispered, holding
her off and fixing her with the dark eyes.

 ‘I don't know, luv. He as brought the
allowance was nothing but a serving man. He came to us when he called upon the
lorimer for his mistress. He always talked about her as Madam Maud, a very old
lady. The last we saw of him he told us she was ailing. I suppose she's dead
for she was nearing ninety. Perhaps she helped out of charity. We'll never know
as I never even found out her surname. The man came from a place called
Beaudesert; a true Norman name if ever there was one. Have you ever heard tell
of it?’

 The boy shook his head. ‘Never. Where in
the world is it?’

 Emma Scarlet wiped her hands upon her
apron. ‘I always thought it was in the middle shires. Now why? Ah, I remember. Old
Hal - the servant - talked about his lord's lands marching with Earl Warwick's.’

 ‘It's something to go on,’ said Latimer. ‘If
they're to be found I'll find them, but I doubt if I'll ever have the fondness
for Lora I have for you - and tell Master Scarlet when I've made my fortune
with my own hands I'll come back and visit you both.’

 ‘I'll tell him. Bless you, Richard!’ The
fletcher's wife clasped him to her again and then he was away, running out of
the shop.

 Wat caught him in the yard. ‘Good luck,
Dick. Where are you bound? You seem purposeful enough.’

 Richard grinned cheerfully, ‘Corpus Christi, two years ago - the Tragick History - remember? I'm about to call upon his
mightiness of Warwick, to offer him my services - as a fletcher.’

 Wat, somewhat flabbergasted, watched him
saunter down the street and out of sight.

~o0o~

The sky was leaden grey, heavy and
forbidding and there was rain in the air; the breeze tugged at Richard's
clothing. He pulled a patched cloak about his shoulders; faded watchet, it had
seen better days. It was still early morning and his feet rang on the deserted
cobbles. He passed the fountain at Clerkenwell, scene of many an adventure in
the past. A scruffy urchin ran out of an ally across his path without even
noticing him and stood in the middle of the street, cupped hands before his
mouth:

 ‘Bowyers, apprentices - clubs!’ The
familiar cry rang out, thrown backwards and forwards between the leaning
houses. All at once London became alive. Shouting, scuffling bodies filled the
street, knives flashed and the warden of the soke appeared in the midst of the
fracas and came face to face with Richard Latimer.

 ‘You!’

 The young man shook his head with genuine
regret. ‘Not this time.’
Nor ever again
. In the midst of the brawling
apprentices and scared, raging townsfolk he felt incredibly alone.

 Threading his way through the narrow
streets backing onto the wharves of Billingsgate he had waved a hand as he
passed the Chigwells’ shop. Arthur, lank black hair hanging in strings across
his face was scrubbing at a slab, sleeves rolled up, hands red and chapped. He
smiled good-naturedly and tossed a cod's head from the offal bucket in the
direction of his old enemy. Latimer ducked with a laugh but did not pause.

 It was raining now, all pervading. The
old cloak was thin and he wriggled his shoulders, already damp; he quickened
his step. Warwick's great stone town residence on Thames Street had the river
running below its south facade. In St. Laurence Parish it lay sandwiched
between Old Swan Stairs and the Hay Wharf. Downstream, across Lambeth Marsh,
you could see the spires, the towers, the turrets of Westminster, and much
nearer the higgledy-piggledy jumble of roofs which crowned the stews of
Southwark. Southwark was a district to be whispered about beneath the blankets
when the candle was out in the attic bedroom. Master Scarlet's apprentices had
been dutifully warned to keep well away after nightfall when, behind lamp lit
windows, the Ladies of the Rayed Hood were said to display their naked charms
to the snare of any young man with a few pennies in his purse. Wat Stringer had
ventured there one summer evening and had returned without a purse at all, having
been robbed before he left, and with a tale he never told and a dose of
something he could well have done without.

 From the lancets of the upper floor of
the Beauchamp residence the bridge was an impressive structure; nineteen
pointed arches of varying spans, stretched across the waters, the river
frothing and gushing about the huge timber starlings. There was a gate at each
end and the chapel of St. Thomas, somewhere in the middle, jostled between
houses and shops. Beyond the bridge the view was obscured but turning your back
to look west it was possible to see Blackfriars and the gardens of the Knights
of St. John. Beyond the Fleet stretched Vintners' Wharf and Crane Wharf, Queenhythe, Timberhythe, Paul's wharf, Waingate and Fleur de Luce Wharf, and
further still, beyond the Temple, the great mansions of the Strand, their
gardens stretching down to the river's edge. Greatest of them all was the Savoy, Lancaster's palace. Richard thought how convenient it must be for Warwick, having
only to take to the river to be in Westminster in half an hour or even away to Windsor.

 A few yards before him, a soldier, back
to the wall, was cleaning his nails on a small dagger. His livery was easily recognisable;
the scarlet surcote emblazoned with the gold crosslets of the de Beauchamps. For
the first time, Richard noticed Warwick's twin badges, the curious devices of
the bear and the ragged staff.

 ‘Well, what's with you?’ The man sheathed
his weapon and folded his arms. ‘Off with you!’

 Richard squared his shoulders. ‘I'm
seeking employment,’ he began.

 ‘Seek it elsewhere then, lad. We're
overcrowded as it is.’

 ‘Hear me out. I'm a journeyman fletcher. I'm
sure if the Earl were to grant me an audience…’

 ‘Audience! There'll be an audience for
you in the stocks! Do you think you can just march in here?’

 ‘Let me speak to his Constable then. He
must need fletchers. Look, I've some arrow flights here…’ Richard sorted about
in the bag and proffered a fine example, fletched with grey goose.’

 ‘Look, laddie, I don't know a good arrow
from a quarter-staff, I'm a pikeman. The Earl and his Constable are over at Westminster with the King and the Prince of Wales and won't be back before dusk. Now move
on before I lose my temper.’

 Richard spent the morning wandering about
the city and made his way back to St. Laurence's Ward as dusk was beginning to
fall; it was still raining. The torches were lit now in the great houses and
within doors there would be fires crackling, no doubt. Back at Bishopsgate the
Scarlets, Harry, Wat and little Stephen would have sat down to sup without him.
Somewhere along the road north-westwards, Raymond would be quaffing ale at a
wayside inn, nose set for Coventry. Richard glanced down at Lora's ring and,
with a look of determination on his face, he found his way, through the
shadows, down to the water stairs, for there, surely, the Earl would leave his
barge. No-one took any notice of the young man in the damp cloak. Then a
torch-bearer ran out of the house and Latimer saw the lighted barge turning to
come in to the steps, oars raised now, and willing hands reaching to help it
alongside the landing stage. The Earl leapt forward, sumptuously attired in
black velvet. The torchlight left his sables sleek and oiled and set sparks
from his gold accoutrements. Then he was striding up the steps. Richard stepped
out into his path...