The Lords of Arden (5 page)

 ‘A Warwick! A Warwick! St. George for Warwick!’ The old battle cry struck the sleeping stones at his feet, carried up to the
gatehouse and sprang back again, hit the walls of the river-cliff and spilled
out in shattered echoes to be swallowed finally by the Arden woodland. ‘A Warwick! A Warwick!’ Thomas Beauchamp had truly come into his own. He urged Saladin forward
and took the causeway at a gallop until the crimson river of horsemen who
followed were absorbed at last by the dark tunnel of the gatehouse arch. And a
short time later, Thomas Beauchamp set his own hand to Black Guy's standard. The
great rectangle reared up against the snow sky, the cross of St. George and the
Warwick bear where they should always have been. The light held just long
enough for the townsfolk to stand on their doorsteps and look upward, wondering
at the change in their fortunes, before the last of the day was submerged in
the forestland, the final glimmer haunting the foam of the weir, a white
incandescence.

~o0o~

Nicholas Durvassal was doing what he was
best at - eavesdropping. It was a wet November day , almost twelve months after
Thomas’s homecoming, with a bone-chilling north-easterly funnelling along the
Avon when, running pell-mell across the great court, he had almost skidded
beneath the feet of a bedraggled mare, picking her way daintily through the
gatehouse arch, her rider swathed miserably in the sodden frieze of his cloak. The
mare skipped sideways and Sir William Lucy had had to dart in to pluck
Durvassal from harm's way, depositing a light cuff on his ear with the
admonition that he should look where he was going in future.

 Nicholas was an elfin child, with fine,
light bones, green eyes and a silken mop of silver blond hair cut in a blunt
fringe across his forehead and rolled under at his collar. He scowled beneath
the fringe and stood back against the wall to watch Sir William escort the
stranger into the hall, calling out for wine and a bowl of hot potage as he
went. Nicholas's father had joined them and they had closed the heavy oak door
firmly, shutting the child out of the circle of bright firelight and glowing
warmth within. But Nicholas had recognised the King's badge stitched upon the
messenger's shoulder, and had seen the exchanged, anticipatory glances of his
elders. He pushed the door open a little way, stayed long enough at the crack
to hear the first words, jerked out by the rain-sodden stranger, and the
excited exclamations of Lucy and his father and even before the Lord of
Charlecote could announce that he would go in search of Earl Thomas, Durvassal
was away from the door and sprinting across the courtyard again, running
helter-skelter up the spiral with a nine year old's boundless energy, until he
reached the battlements and Thomas Beauchamp's side, breathless and mud-spattered
but still able to deliver one of his pretty, practised bows, knee bent, arms
flourishing, flop of silver blond hair masking his face. Nicholas was old
enough to believe that subservience, once embarked upon as a general policy,
should be done well. Thomas had chosen him as his own page; Thomas's interests
were therefore his life, no matter that he had been picked merely because his
father, the good Sir John, had shown unshakeable loyalty to the de Beauchamps.

 ‘My Lord, there is news from London - good
news, My Lord, sent from the King's Grace to his well-beloved Thomas, Earl of
Warwick. He's dead, My Lord, the White Wolf is dead! They're coming to tell
you, but I was quicker. Taken at Nottingham, in his bedchamber in the castle -
he put up a fight - killed sixty men-at-arms, I daresay, before they
overpowered him. And the Queen Dowager begged for his life, implored her son to
have pity on him and, and…’

 ‘Nicky, you little wretch, how did you
hear all this? Is it true or some fancy? Where is this man?’

 ‘In the hall, My Lord, I heard it at the
door. Don't be angry, come down and see him for yourself.’ He was hopping
excitedly from foot to foot, plucking at the trailing sleeve of Beauchamp's
velvet surcote. William Lucy, the Lord of Charlecote and, along with John
Durvassal, one of the young Earl's advisors, had slipped along the catwalk
behind them. He signed angrily for Durvassal to go below stairs and joined his
lord. They both stared out over the roofs of the town; local thatch mingling
with the towers of churches. A bell sounded for vespers.

 ‘It's true, all the boy said. King Edward
and William Montague took the castle, entering by an old staircase leading up
from the catacombs in the rock beneath. Mortimer could never have known of its
existence - a foolish omission on his part. He was taken with the Queen
Dowager, whisked off to London on a charge of High Treason and duly hanged from
the Tyburn elms. Edward awaits you at Westminster, at your pleasure. It is all
over, My Lord.’ For a moment Lucy rested a hand on the young man's shoulder,
reassurance in the light pressure of his fingers.

 ‘Yes, it's all over. Will, would you see
to the man's comfort and let the news be proclaimed in the town, the usual
thing? I'd like to stay up here for a while then we'll celebrate. Wine for all
tonight, to drink a toast to the King's new freedom.’

 It was raining quite heavily, but he
seemed heedless of the downpour as he followed the walls round to the old Saxon
mount, the highest point and the best vantage for a view from the southern side
of his eyrie. The river stretched away to his right, into the middle distance,
its outline blurred. Thomas ran a hand through the dark hair now plastered to
his head. Tomorrow new freedoms, but he was tugged apart. Half of his being
clung to this gaunt castle rock, the place of his birth, the Black Hound's
kennel, for which he had sensible plans and airy dreams. The other half soared
away to London to the golden king who was his liege lord and the best friend a
man ever had, and who needed him at his side. He would ride tomorrow, in all
the splendour he could muster, with Warwick men at his back. Tonight he would
give thanks in the chapel for Edward's deliverance from the traitor earl, the
man he had hated so faithfully for so long. But he could not reach the joy he
knew should be in his heart. Of all the memories of his youthful persecutions
only one vignette pushed to the forefront of his mind; a dark, winter's night
and the shadow of Mortimer's powerful bulk leaning over him to place his own
furred robe over the shivering body of a child. And the picture persisted,
however hard he tried to dissolve it.

 He swung round angrily as Nicholas
Durvassal, even more breathless and wetter than his lord, dared to reach up and
touch his bowed shoulder.

 ‘My Lord, visitors never come singly. I
am sent to tell you that the Lord of Beaudesert is at the gate, with all his
entourage. The news must have reached Henley village before it came here. Peter
de Montfort offers you his felicitations and his friendship and asks to wait
upon you.’

 Thomas came out of his reverie. Peter de
Montfort, the childhood mentor who had seen him given over to the White Wolf,
who had raised neither hand nor voice to his defence, who had ridden back to
his own lands and his own security. Peter whose betrayal had cost him more
tears than any of Mortimer's whippings and harshness.

 ‘My Lord, will you speak to me!’ pleaded
Durvassal. And Thomas at last straightened and turned and took his small page
firmly by the shoulders.

 ‘Listen, Nicky, go back to whoever sent
you and say that I will not receive this man, that there is no place for him in
my hall. Can you remember that?’

 Nicholas shrugged. ‘Of course I can
remember it but my father will never use those words to the Lord of Beaudesert;
he’ll sugar them. If you want them delivered pat you'd best go down and deliver
them yourself!’

 Beauchamp grinned. ‘Nevertheless, do as I
say. I don't care what reason is given but I want that man off my land.’

 ‘But, My Lord, father says you were such
good friends once, that Montfort was always here, and well liked and well
respected - and it’s raining so hard. To send him away would be an affront.’

 ‘He can take shelter in the town, with
the Friars Preachers. He can do whatever he damn well likes. Are you going,
Nicholas?’

 ‘Yes, My Lord, but they won't like it.’ He
fled down the hill and went in search of his father, but it was William Lucy,
himself a distant kinsman to Peter de Montfort, who strode off to the guest
room over the gatehouse with a difficult and distasteful task in his own hands.

 Peter, who had been warming himself at a
glowing brazier, noted Lucy's expression and raised his dark brows. ‘No
excuses, Will, he won't see me?’

 ‘It's not that.’ Lucy was playing for
time.

 ‘Isn't it? He feels I let him down. He's
right, of course, that is the way it must have seemed. I had hoped that this
would be a time to mend all but it seems I'm too precipitate. Well, another
time, another place perhaps. I can wait.’

 ‘I'm sorry to turn you away on a devil of
a day like this.’

 ‘Oh, I'll survive it. How is he, Will?’

 ‘Well and growing up but stubborn like
all the Beauchamps and quick to make judgements. He's Guy's getting. Every time
I look at him I remember his father. If we survive the next five years we'll
have a strong enough overlord and one well in with the Plantagenet dynasty by
all accounts!’

 ‘I should have liked to have set eyes on
him again; boys grow so fast. John is nearing eight years old; I keep putting
off sending him away. How is Elizabeth?’

 Lucy said, ‘They're all well at home,
very well. Look, if you turn as you ride down the ramp he'll be there above the
gatehouse. We left him on the mount but he's a boy's curiosity still and by the
time you set off he'll be up there, take my word!’

 Peter grinned. ‘Yes, that sounds like the
old Thomas. Give him my best wishes, Will. I'll be off before my men get too
comfortable in the guard-house.’ Peter shook himself like a familiar hound and
stamped to the door.

 He led his sodden company, cloaked in
blue, back through the gatehouse arch and down the ramp and, remembering what
Will Lucy had said, he turned once and looked up at the battlements from which
the Warwick standard batted against the rain. Thomas Beauchamp was almost in
silhouette, wedged between two of the merlons, bare-headed. Peter recognised
the rigid set of those shoulders. 'Intransigent Thomas!' he muttered to himself
between gritted teeth, then laughed out loud and raised a gloved hand in a
gesture of farewell.

 And when the snaking procession in blue
and gold was finally lost amongst the houses of the town, and the causeway was
empty again and black with rain, Thomas, Earl of Warwick, lowered his head onto
his folded arms and wept, but whether it was for an old friendship he had so
wilfully destroyed in an afternoon, or for the Queen Dowager's paramour, dying
a hideous death by the Tyburn Brook, even he was unable to say. But when he
finally went down to his own hall to lead the revels in celebration he felt
more bereft than he could ever remember.

Edward of England had pledged himself to a
crusade, a joint crusade with the French King, Philip de Valois. He had shown
great interest and enthusiasm for Philip's plans, he had even been seen
studying Roger de Stavegney's treatise 'Du Conquest de la Terre Sainte'. All
appeared set; Philip, perhaps, even began to trust his young English ally and
then, in a bolt from the blue, Edward had announced that he would have to go to
Ireland. Ireland had problems. Ireland was a commitment; the Holy Land must be deferred for two to three years, it was regrettable but… So the court
began to move northwards leaving Queen Philippa at Woodstock awaiting the birth
of her second child. She had given England her heir four months before
Mortimer's death when the baby's youthful father was still only seventeen; the
little prince was flourishing.

 ‘Only we aren't going to reach Ireland, are we?’ It was a statement. Thomas Beauchamp was sitting on a mounting block in
the middle ward of Nottingham's gaunt castle.

 William the Norman had caused Nottingham to be built, there on its sandstone cliff above the River Leen. William Peveril
had overseen the building of the square, Norman keep and had been its first
castellan. There, on the spur overlooking the valley of the Trent, it must have
seemed impregnable but it had been twice destroyed during the Anarchy and it
had taken the hated Prince John, Lionheart's brother, to revive its former
glories and to build upon its legacy of dark deeds. Only two years ago, Edward
and William Montague had taken Roger Mortimer and dragged him away to trial and
execution. Edward hated Nottingham but it made a convenient staging post on the
road north.

 It was a warm sunny morning in late
September with more than a lingering touch of summer in the blue skies and
nowhere a hint of the frosts to come or a stirring of the air to presage the
equinoctial gales. Beauchamp had left the claustrophobia of his splendid room,
high in the keep, to take the morning air, Will Lucy at his side. The Earl wore
only a white linen shirt, flung carelessly over his scarlet hose, and a pair of
riding boots; his dark hair was uncombed and chaotic. Lucy was armed and garbed
in a surcote bearing the family arms - three silver pikes, standing on their
tails, eyes heavenwards. He was only a tenant of the de Beauchamps and could
not afford to slouch about, half dressed, like his young lord and master; there
were appearances to keep up. The king was out riding with Montague; Beauchamp
saw no need to stand on ceremony.

 ‘Everyone on this bloody expedition knows
we'll never leave these shores. Why is the word left unsaid that must be on
everyone's lips? Why is Ned so devious?’

 Will Lucy was cleaning his nails with the
point of his dagger. He said, ‘What word?’

 ‘Scotland! We all know that's where we'll
end. Why can't he come out and say so?’

 Lucy joined him on the mounting block. ‘Something
to do with placating the Pope and, after all, the King can't be seen openly
supporting the Scottish claimant. Philip of France may still be musing over his
postponed crusade but one whisper of where Edward's loyalties really lie and
he'll rush to young King David's aid, revive the Auld Alliance and we shall
have more on our platters than ever we bargained for. So we must make a
leisurely progress north - and plan for Ireland. You'll enjoy Ireland.’

 Thomas grinned. ‘It will be very much
Ultima Thule if the Scots cross the border, and they will of course.’ He paused
at sight of Harry of Derby, approaching them across the cobbles of the
courtyard, one hand gripping Warwick's own page by the ear, the other arm
spanning the waist of a smaller boy who was protesting volubly. ‘Starting a
nursery, Harry?’ laughed Beauchamp, jumping from the block and sauntering towards
him. Lancaster's son loosed the unfortunate Durvassal's ear and set the other
child on his feet where he immediately made a dash for it. Beauchamp shot out
an arm and hauled him back, planting him squarely before him, to face Derby. Harry had found a seat at the tail of a cart; flour spattered the green brocade
sleeves of his surcote.

 ‘Caught these two engaged in a rare bout
of fisticuffs. For a little one he gave a good account of himself but this
rogue of yours can give him three years at least.’

 Beauchamp sighed and crooked a finger at
Durvassal. The Warwick livery was muddied, there was a deep scratch on the
peachy skin of one smooth cheek and the boy had broken the latchet of one red
leather shoe. Thomas composed his face into the semblance of severity. ‘Nicky,
it's not good sportsmanship to pick on smaller boys. Aren't there enough about
of your own age?’

 Durvassal withdrew into a sulky silence,
intent upon his ruined shoe. He had to tread carefully. He had begged to be
allowed on this campaign and if he fell foul of his lord he would be sent back
home, banished to the solar and set to fetching and carrying for the ladies of
the household. Nicholas had ambitions far above the mundane and domestic. The
other child was about seven years old, small and wiry, with a mop of fair hair
which haloed his head and a pair of eyes dark as ivy berries in his urchin
face.

 Durvassal said, ‘He's a thief, My Lord,
stealing from the baggage wagons as they unloaded. I caught him with half a
loaf of bread and a cheese, but will you look at what he has round his neck and
tell me if you've ever seen a guttersnipe with the like of it.’ He stepped forward
then and thrust a hand into the breast of the child's shirt, to pull out a gold
finger ring, threaded on a leather thong. But the smaller boy didn't have
Durvassal's inbred respect for authority and the presence of two such great
lords as Derby and Warwick did not prevent him from sinking even white teeth
into Durvassal's hand. Nicholas let out a yell of rage and pain and sprang
back, sucking the injury.

 Thomas shook the child hard. ‘You are a
savage! Let me look at that.’

 Harry laughed. ‘You'd best muzzle him
first. Do you know who's talking to you, brat?’

 ‘I know.’ The boy darted out his pink
tongue at Harry but allowed Thomas Beauchamp to examine the ring he wore about
his neck. It was a lady's ring, an amethyst in an unusual setting, the bezel
shaped like two hands, raised to clasp the stone between tiny fingers. He
turned it into the September sunshine to read the posy within the band - 'Lora
- pensez de moy' - 'Think of me'.

 ‘Where did you get this?’ Beauchamp let
the pretty object lie in his palm; a lady's ring, the gift of a husband or
maybe a lover.

 ‘It's mine!’

 ‘I asked where you got it.’

 ‘I've told you, it's mine. I had it when
I was small, from my mother.’

 ‘I don't believe you. If your mother had
something of that worth she would have sold it to clothe her ragamuffin family.
How did you come here and whose suite are you with?’

 ‘I came on my own.’ The child was
stashing his ring away again inside his shirt.

 ‘Liar!’ Warwick shook him again.

 ‘I don't tell lies!’ flashed the boy. ‘I
ran away from London. I wanted to join the army and go to Ireland. I wanted to serve the Lord Harry there because he's the greatest knight in Christendom - or
so they said!’

 Beauchamp grinned across at Lancaster's heir. ‘Your fame spreads wide, Hal. Then there's someone lost this brat; some
woman will be tearing her hair out over his disappearance.’

 ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I'm a fosterling. I
told you, I ran away.’

 ‘Because you were ill-treated?’

 ‘No, I wasn't.’

 ‘Harry, you can have him, you found him. You
can sort out his domestic problems. Go and sit on the Lord Harry's knee and
pour out your troubles. Succouring women and children, particularly women, of
course, is part of the knightly ideal.’

 ‘Then I can stay?’ The dark eyes lit up.

 Beauchamp said, ‘Why did you run away -
apart from following the lure of the Lord Harry's charisma?’

 The boy was obviously struggling with the
unfamiliar word. He said, ‘I was to be apprenticed to a London merchant. I
thought I'd rather be a knight than a fletcher; learn to use weapons not just
to cobble them together.’

 ‘What's your name?’

 ‘I'm not going to tell you.’

 ‘Yes, you are. You'll be made to tell!’

 ‘Shame on you, My Lord, to taunt a child!’
Out of the corner of his eye, Warwick had noticed the woman ride into the
court, a groom flanking her mare on each side. He had seen her dismount,
issuing directions to her servants, and was watching as Harry gathered up his
long length, leapt from the cart and bowed low. She was young, she was tall for
a woman, slim and dark, she had eyes like the summer sea, beneath finely arched
brows which winged away towards her temples. Beauchamp remembered the darkness
of a tower stair at Windsor, almost five years before, a wretched boy of
fifteen and a girl in a dress sewn with silver stars.

 Harry was saying, ‘Surely you know each
other? Thomas, let me present the Lady Aylesbury of Edstone - Sir Roger's
charming wife. You do know Sir Roger? He's a near neighbour of yours in
Warwickshire. Orabella, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.’ Thomas bowed but he
had a hand still on the child's collar. Lady Aylesbury sank into a deep
reverence, the skirts of her tawny surcote belling out about her. She let him
raise her, amusement and recognition on the perfect oval of her face.

 Harry said, ‘Are you good with children,
Orabella? I hear you have a son of your own. Is he well?’

 ‘Philip is thriving,’ smiled Orabella. She
put one long manicured finger under the boy's pointed chin. ‘Are you hungry?’

 ‘Yes, My Lady.’

 ‘Then shall we strike a bargain? A good
breakfast for your Christian name, that's fair exchange surely?’

 ‘I suppose so.’

 ‘Well, then?’

 ‘Can I eat first?’

 ‘That's not placing much trust in a
lady's word, is it?’

 ‘My name is Richard and I am very
hungry.’

 Lady Aylesbury gave Harry a very
unladylike wink and guided her new protégé towards the kitchens. In three yards
he had pushed one small and very grubby hand into hers and had sidled closer to
her voluminous skirts.

 Harry sighed, ‘Orabella could seduce
anything on two legs. She'll have the boy's life history and the names of his
uncles and aunts, pet rabbit and the kitchen cockroaches. Why does he interest
you? There are dozens of runaways following the baggage wagons; there’ll be
more before we reach Berwick.’

 ‘I thought you thought we were still
going to Ireland,’ said Thomas.

 ‘Did I say so? I don't remember, and I
asked you a question.’

 Beauchamp shrugged his shoulders. ‘There's
something tugging at my mind, a woman once, her name was Lora. Oh, none of
mine, this goes back a long way. They said he always chose amethysts because
they complemented her violet eyes....’

 ‘He didn't have violet eyes, they were
dark as you can get.’

 ‘No, and it doesn't matter. It would be
too much of a coincidence, his child in my hands, a son I doubt he even knows
exists. I wonder…’

~o0o~

Orabella D'Aylesbury, Lady of Edstone in
the County of Warwick, found her way to Thomas de Beauchamp's chamber later
that day, after the boards had been cleared of the last traces of supper, the
scraps carted away to be fed to the poor of the town and the company generally
dispersed. The little page with the lint blond hair opened the door, studying
her, head on one side. Beauchamp sent him off to bed.

 ‘Am I to remain here on the threshold?’
enquired milady with a lift of one expressive eyebrow. Thomas was not the
innocent of their first meeting. He had an illegitimate daughter back at Warwick with her nurse; child of an adolescent liaison with a gypsy dancer. The girl had
arrived at the castle one Christmas with a motley troupe of tumblers and conjurers.
She proved the star attraction, able to walk on her hands, displaying shapely
calves beneath the scarlet silk of her Turkish-style trousers, and her ankles
boasted bands of brass bells which tinkled prettily as she turned her
cartwheels. She could dance too; exotic dances from the East, accompanied by
the castanets or a ribboned tambourine. She was young and wild and black-haired
and Thomas was bewitched. There was no bar to their relationship; she was
healthy and clean - there were those who made it their business to check on
such things - and she was delightfully unambitious. She left Warwick in the
spring and returned on Christmas Eve to deposit a wicker cradle at the
gatehouse, containing My Lord's baby daughter. In honour of Christ's birth,
Thomas had her christened Mary.

 Now, facing Orabella, he shrugged his
shoulders and waved her inside, closing the door. He wore a fur-trimmed robe
over shirt and hose, unbelted.

 ‘I had thought perhaps you would find it
compromising as I am alone. But please do sit down.’ He swept his cloak off the
room's only armchair and she sank into it gratefully and with a smile:

 ‘I am Roger D'Aylesbury's wife, my
husband's reputation is all the protection I need,’ she said and began to stare
about her at the tapestried walls: Alexander riding in triumph to Persepolis. ‘This was her chamber, wasn't it? This is where Queen Isabella slept the night
her lover came to beg for his life?’