The Lords of Arden (26 page)

 ‘It’s easier,’ said Orabella softly, ‘to
blot out the agony with pain you can control yourself. Do you think you are the
first man Nicholas has had flogged at the pillory?’ She tugged off his boots
and removed the sodden rags which still clung to his body before drawing the
thick coverlet up as far as she dared over his long length. ‘There, I have delivered
My Lady’s message. I have ministered to the sick with moon-gathered herbs. I
will say goodnight.’

 But he put out a hand and touched her
sleeve. ‘Please stay.’

 She sat on the edge of the bed regarding
him with a certain wary detachment. ‘What is it?’

 ‘Just too many demons; too many black
thoughts.’

 ‘And I have a husband who may be prowling
about, racked with insomnia. He would not take kindly to finding me here!’

 ‘But Thomas Beauchamp…’ began John.

 ‘Oh, my liaison with Thomas brought
mutual benefits. Thomas he could stomach. You he cordially dislikes.’

 ‘But he hasn’t set eyes upon me for
years!’

 ‘Ah, but when the wind blows in from the
west and brings the rain, then he remembers you.’

 ‘My Lady, you talk in riddles.’

 Orabella lay down beside him, matching
his length, decorous as a funeral effigy, waxen and cold upon the bier. ‘I
suppose you must have been about ten years old. It was a cold December day and
we had supped well with your father. By the time we were ready to leave there
was a thick blanket of snow. Your father persuaded us to stay the night and you
were turned out of your room in the Audley Tower to sleep with the pages to
provide us with a bed. Oh, but that didn’t suit Master John, so jealous of his
privileges. Three days it took the snow to clear and so we stayed on as
honoured guests. At last we took our leave, mounting down below the barbican
steps. You chose the oldest trick in the book and probably the most effective –
a slip of gorse under the saddle-cloth, the horse cavorting and Roger down in
the mud with a broken collar-bone. It never did knit together quite as it
should and has pained him ever since.’

 ‘I had forgotten,’ said John, ‘though I
remember it pained me too at the time. It was one of the few occasions my
father really leathered me.’

 ‘Oh, yes, you wretch, the whole castle
was quite aware of it; you yelled so loudly. And, afterwards, whilst I was
pacing the floor, waiting for that antique bone-setter from the village to
finish ministering to my husband, you were sobbing your heart out in the room
below. That, my dear, is why I knew they couldn’t leave you out there in the
courtyard for very much longer. I had no particular wish to see your
degradation. Nicholas would have enjoyed it far too much.’

 ‘I am not ten years old any more.’ He was
very quiet then and she knew she had touched a raw nerve, exposed his Achilles
Heel. He took a hand and laid it lightly across her wrist in a brief caress. ‘Wroxall,’
he said. ‘Don’t forget to tell Countess Kate.’

 Smiling, she sat up and slid her feet to
the floor and left him without another word.

John de Montfort’s room in the Audley Tower was unlit, except for the fire-glow which was considerable. Young Guy sat on
a satin cushion in the rushes next to the hearth, diligently polishing away at
his brother’s sword and Simon Trussel, neatly attired in Montfort blue and
gold, was perched on a stool, working away at his master’s boots. The room was
habitually disordered. The Audley Tower being of drum construction, there were
no corners but its circumference was littered with everything from horse
furniture and a tourney helm to priceless books and a casket containing a bone
of the Blessed St. Edward, about which a large alaunt sniffed appreciatively,
thus verifying its authenticity. The alaunt rejoiced in the name of Ajax. He gave up investigation of the Blessed St. Edward and squatted down beside Guy, his
damp muzzle pushing against the boy's knee. John was lounging across the foot
of the unmade bed, half a pullet in one hand and a cup of wine in front of him
on the floor. Occasionally, he would flick over a page in a book of hours with
one desultory movement of a forefinger.

 Guy held the sword at arm's length,
balanced precariously across his small palms. ‘Will this do?’

 ‘It'll do,’ said Trussel. ‘Thank you, My
Lord. I appreciate the help even if he doesn't!’ He jerked his dark head towards
Montfort. Guy smiled and clambered to his feet, pushing aside the hound and
crossing the rushes to kneel at his brother's bedside, arms on the coverlet.

 ‘You never explained about Monday, John. It
was an adventure, wasn't it?’

 Montfort flicked over one hand; the scars
on his wrist were healed over. ‘Yes, it was an adventure but sometimes, for
good reasons, things have to be kept secret, even from one's liege lord and
brother. I'm sorry.’ He put out a hand and ruffled Guy's black hair.

 Trussel, abandoning the boots, said,
‘It's just a case of
Cherchez la femme
. He slashed through his wrists in
a moment of rejection - all for the love of a princess, tall and fair with
golden hair rippling free to her waist and eyes so blue you'd think little
pieces had been cut out of the sky, and skin as white as dairy milk. She turned
up her nose at him and there was nothing to do but end it all. Sad really.’

 ‘I don't believe a word,’ said Guy,
uncertainty in his brown eyes. ‘John doesn't know any princesses. Isn't anyone
coming down to supper, I'm ravenous?’

 John shook his head, waving his chicken
bone. ‘You might take Ajax down with you, his self-control is beginning to ebb
and there isn't a lock on the Blessed St. Edward.’

 Guy nodded and, catching the great hound
by his collar, dragged him away down the stairs. Trussel kicked the door to
with a resounding crash. Smoke eddied out into the room and they both started
to cough. John shook himself out of his lethargy and began prowling about,
making a half-hearted attempt to put the room in order. The bed hangings were
of a dark murrey brocade, embroidered with gold oak leaves; the metal thread
was a little tarnished and an experimental shaking of the drapes produced a
patter of moths’ wings and desiccated crane-flies. The tapestries were
Arthurian; Igraine, scantily clad, emerging from Tintagel; Vivien wearing even
less beckoning from the shores of a lake.

 John paused at the window. ‘Tonight, I am
expecting a lady. Not quite your princess, but you will treat her with as much
respect and hold your tongue should you recognise her face. I want her brought
up here immediately she arrives and I shall rely on you to look after her
grooms; they are on no account to wander further than the gatehouse. Simon, do
I make myself clear?’

 ‘Yes, sir, but you could have told me
earlier. Look at this room! And you've nothing fit to play the lover in; your
wardrobe is a disgrace!’ grumbled his squire. He grinned. ‘I can say what I
like at this distance; I can't see you rousing yourself to clout me.’

 ‘No, you're right, but I'm chalking up
all the insults and one day there'll be an almighty reckoning!’

 ‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell of
that!’ said his squire cheerfully. He moved to the long chest at the foot of
the bed, pulled out a fresh shirt and a long gown of figured brocade, cerulean
blue, with open sleeves and a sable trim.

 John said, ‘I shan't want to be
interrupted for anything.’

 Trussel rolled up his eyes. ‘I didn't
come in with the milking herd. You've been too much on edge lately; if you make
a good night of it perhaps you'll be better tempered tomorrow.’ He dodged a
feinted blow, caught the edge of the bed behind his knees and overbalanced. Montfort
had him pinned down by the wrists.

 ‘I don't need your advice; I don't need a
dresser…’

 ‘You do!’ said Trussel as they wrestled
together like schoolboys. ‘You need a bloody Master of the Wardrobe and a
milliner. I know perfectly well why you want me out of the way; I'm not
supposed to know you got your come-uppance three days ago.’

 ‘Meaning?’

 ‘The bracelets on your wrists, I imagine
you've got the back to go with them. I wasn’t reared in cowl or cloister. My
father has everything at Billesley: whipping post, pillory, stocks, right of
gallows and a scold stool. Every Friday some old biddy got ducked squawking
into the mill pool. What happened to you?’

 Montfort let him up. ‘Some day I'll tell
you; not tonight though.’ But he unbuttoned his jupon, laid it aside and pulled
his shirt over his head.

 ‘Holy Mary!’ Trussel whispered. ‘Striped gules
and argent, sinister chief to dexter base and back again! My Auntie Alice does
a marvellous goose grease ointment. I've got a pot in the dormitory but it
could prove disastrous if the lady has a mind to get to grips…’ He ducked the
bolster hurled at him and fled laughing for the door.

~o0o~

It was Trussel who brought her to him,
cloaked and hooded and romantically mantled in mystery. He withdrew with a deep
bow and an expressionless face; when he chose he was the perfect squire.

 Montfort stepped forward, moving out of
the shadows until the firelight caught him, burnishing the dark auburn hair,
oiling the sleek sables which edged the blue robe he had belted casually over
shirt and hose.

 ‘May I take your cloak, My Lady, and
please come to the fire. It is a wild night for travelling.’ But even before
she had tossed back her hood, revealing the frame of a white goffered headdress
beneath its all enveloping canopy, and unfastened the emerald pin at her
throat, he knew she was not Katherine; she was too tall and too slim.

 ‘Welcome, Lady A. I rather hoped you
would come.’

 She wore a simple gown, blood red velvet
moulding breasts, hip and thigh to pool about her feet.

 ‘I am Kate’s proxy. It must have been
more than obvious that she could not ride here without discovery but she is
beside herself over the wretched brooch. You do have it, I suppose?’

 He nodded and jerked his head towards a
small satinwood box on top of the bed chest. ‘Take it.’

 Orabella moved across the room, her gown
sighing though the rushes like the wind across a sea of ripe barley. The box
was velvet-lined; the great pearl in its diamond setting was unharmed and
startlingly genuine. Orabella, satisfied, snapped the lid down. She began
moving about the room, touching things, examining the bed hangings, prowling
before the tapestries.

 ‘These were not here last time. I
remember you had dragons with coloured stones worked in for the eyes. You told
me all their names. There was a purple one called Cedric….’

 John smiled at her. ‘That was half a
lifetime ago but you are right.’

 ‘But once this was your mother’s chamber?
I came here as a girl. You never really knew your mother?’

 ‘No.’

 ‘I wonder why. She is cloistered, it’s
true, but not immured. Many men have mothers in convents. Some have them home
for Christmas.’

 ‘I owe her nothing.’ John’s face was set.

 Orabella laughed. ‘When you have sons
perhaps you will realise how great a debt you do owe to Lora Astley. Life is
sprinkled with the stepping stones of small gratitudes; debts never paid
perhaps but set like jewels into the heart.’

 ‘And disaffection and grievances and
regrets? Where would you set them?’

 ‘Oh, they come and go, creeping into our
existences like the succubus that steals into a man’s bed and lies with him and
leeches his soul away.’ She took his hands and turned them, examining his
wrists. ‘You are ice-cold, what is it?’

 ‘Nothing. Nothing at all, and mightn’t
you remove the hideous headdress? I can’t talk to a pie frill!’

 ‘It cost my husband a small fortune.’ She
reached up and slowly removed the goffered cap. In doing so she tweaked out the
pins and let fall the blue-black coils of her hair.

 He took both hands and slid them over her
shoulders, filling them with weeds of raven darkness.

 Orabella said, ‘Whatever happened to
Johanna?’

 ‘I married her. She is travelling. She
enjoys travel.’

 ‘They do say it broadens the mind. I
imagine she will need to be broadminded, married to you.’

 ‘We have an open arrangement,’ said John
airily, leading her to the bed and inviting her to sit beside him.

 ‘Indeed, and is Johanna aware of it? My
spies tell me she has been seen at Court. She will be well-placed to take some
red-blooded young buck into her bed.’

 John only raised one eyebrow, refusing to
be baited. ‘But are there any left, Madam, who have not first served their
apprenticeship in yours?’

 Orabella turned on him then and boxed his
ears until he caught at the slender wrists and pulled her down on top of him,
laughing. For a while they fought each other until she said imperiously, ‘You’d
better unlace my gown!’

 ‘Will it be worth my while or do you
intend to spend the evening pricking at my conscience with your poisonous barbs
– first my mother, then my wife. I now seem to have acquired a brother.’ He was
lounging on one elbow, hair shockingly tousled; robe thrust back from his
shoulders and shirt half off his back. He looked fetchingly decadent and
frighteningly young.

 She said, ‘I am come as proxy for Kate; I
will not renege. I am here to offer myself in sacrifice for My Lady.’

 ‘Then you are absolved, free to go. I
would not have you arched before me like a saint on a griddle.’

 Orabella kissed him, rather thoroughly. ‘Would
you deny me my Crown of Glory? Martyrdom carries with it its own essential
ecstasy.’ She paused. ‘Last time I kissed you, you tasted of blackberries.’

 ‘Did you kiss me very often?’ John was
working deftly at the lacing which imprisoned her into the sheath of her gown.

 ‘No, I think once was probably enough. It
pleased Roger that I should make myself amenable to your father and that
apparently included embracing the fruit of his loins. At eight you were a
calculating little monster. Might you have changed?’ But he had rid her of the
last clinging folds of the blood-red velvet; the fine linen of her shift slid
away from her shoulders and he was pressing easy kisses into her smooth white
flesh and down along the notches of her spine as he laid her bare inch by inch.
She turned towards him and caught him to her, murmuring on an in breath, ‘I
suspect you’ve done this before.’

 ‘I might have. You talk a deal too much,
lady!’ There was nothing now between the moon-whiteness of her breasts and the
thudding of his heart. His hands were on her hips, stripping away the last
clinging folds of gown and shift until they slithered into a scarlet pool upon
the floor beside the bed.

 John had his mouth at her neck. ‘Can you
get me out of…’ the firelight was pricking out the tiny beads of perspiration
clustered about his hairline and she took pity on him then, helping him to shed
the last encumbrances of his own garments until they were both naked, couched
by the heaped cushions which had earlier graced the White Knight’s pavilion at
Coleshill.

 Orabella lay as white and pale as a lily
in its calyx, blemish free and seemingly untouchable. John de Montfort was much
more a creature of his own world, with the scattered scars of melee and joust
marring the translucency of his fair skin, spattered by the freckles of his
great grandmother’s legacy.

 He jabbed a knee purposefully between the
yielding columns of her thighs. Orabella smiled at the predictability. ‘I never
asked. How is the back?’ She took his head upon her breasts and let one hand
trace the fretted scars with the gentlest of caresses that, perversely, sent
frissons of desire arrowing through his body and he drew in a shuddering breath
to be stilled against the soft whiteness.

 ‘I’m sorry, I hurt you,’ she let the
importunate hand drift through the auburn hair.

 ‘No, you didn’t. Don’t stop. Orabella, I
never thanked you – for Warwick.’

 ‘Then you can thank me now. I’m quite
ready to be thanked. In fact, I don’t think you should wait a minute more….’