The Lords of Arden (15 page)

 ‘Is Peter's son in residence?’ asked Sir
John tentatively.

 ‘Young Guy? He's with his father at
Sudeley. John is causing havoc on the Welsh border. Another tournament,
twelve-a-side, out at Maud's Castle - or was it Richard's Castle? It makes no odds;
he needs to come back loaded with booty or not at all. And every bruise he
exhibits will be the precursor of some outrageous tale. Still, dullness was
never one of his vices.’

 ‘Father Jack,’ said Clinton, ‘you know
the plans Peter and I are formulating for my girl and that lad. You're not the
best ambassador for the Montforts if I may say so.’

 Jack de Lobbenham grinned; he still had
the same narrow, urchin face of his teens, wrinkled now, the red hair grey and
spiky on his forehead. ‘If you were over-worried about your lass, you'd have
withdrawn weeks ago. Who is without sin? But I'll not add to mine by
whitewashing Prince John. He is at best a Montfort, at worst an unprincipled
rake-hell, but the women hereabouts queue for him like a fresh shipment of
oranges.

 ‘I remember the night that boy was born;
his mother really had no time for him and Peter proved soft in the head when it
came to disciplining the lad. When Guy's mother, the Lady Margaret, was
installed here, a little dark wisp of a girl, hardly more than fourteen years
old, she was so anxious to please all and sundry. And then John came home from Kenilworth – some holiday or other. That slip of a lad befriended her, taught her to please
her lord and Madam Maud and Lady Bess, or so she thought. Those weeks were a
disaster. She couldn't put a foot right but she kept her lips tight shut about
who had tutored her in the ways of Beaudesert. I found her weeping her heart
out one morning when My Lord was away and she'd fallen foul of Madam Maud's
tongue. But John said she liked her carp served so, and John said this and John
said that, and out it all came. So I patted her hand and dried her tears and
went in search of Master John. He thought he'd have his new step-mother out of
the way, banished home to Sheffield before she could produce a son to oust him
from his father's favour. All stripling innocence he was, wide violet eyes in a
dirt-streaked face, and holding to his story that Margaret must have
misunderstood him. Still, I leathered him as hard as I dared and hoped the
welts would fade before Peter's return, then hauled him off to apologise to
Lady Margaret, hoping I hadn't made a bad situation worse. He stood there
belligerently, looking at her from beneath those dark lashes, wiping his nose
on his knuckled fist and when Margaret held out her arms to him he catapulted
into them like a stone from a ballista. She was dead such a few years later but
any saving graces he has come from her. If Lady Johanna can forge a like bond
between them you may have a contented daughter.’

 ‘You can give young John a message,’ said
Clinton, ‘if he arrives back in one piece. Tell him not to wear Montfort
colours or flaunt his father's arms when he jousts at Coleshill. Tell him to
come in some guise or other.’

 The Chaplain raised his eyebrows. ‘Your daughter
would baulk at a bastard Montfort then?’

 ‘Good Lord no, nothing like that. It is a
question of romantic appeal. Johanna likes her knights and squires errant and
unidentifiable!’

~o0o~

Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the
streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice
. It was a text which Sir John de Clinton
might have heeded well before he sent his heralds as far as Warwick.

 Katherine de Beauchamp heard the joust
proclaimed in honour of the Lady Johanna and sat silent at her tapestry whilst
her ladies watched her anxiously, wondering at such a phenomena. It was said
that they were well matched, the Black Dog's son and the White Wolf's daughter,
a young man of high temper and the devil's own tongue and his capricious,
malicious little bride. The marriage was five years old now and Katherine had
produced sons with blessed regularity and the adolescent plumpness had ripened
and blossomed into an exquisite flowering.

 In the dusk she walked the rose garden,
pale taffeta swishing across the flags, a nebula of diamonds winking in the
mesh of her hair as the light streamed out from the solar windows. Her
companion and mentor, as always, was the Lady of Edstone, Orabella, wife of Roger
D'Aylesbury, widely, if not always affectionately, known as Lady A. Hers was
not a name to fall trippingly off the tongue in blunt Warwickshire even after
two hundred and fifty years of Norman intrusion. So Lady A she became. It was
whispered that she had been Thomas Beauchamp's mistress. Katherine had invited
her to Warwick with the theory that Orabella was safer under her eye than
tucked away in Sir Roger's grey stone manor in the Warwick woods. It would be
too easy a diversion for a hunting party or a lone rider benighted by the
closing in of the weather....

 ‘I'm bored,’ yawned the Countess, ‘Thomas
has been absent a devilish long time. I see the hot summer stretching away
without entertainment or incident.’ She snapped at a folded rose and tucked it
into her hair.

 'And there came lords, and there came
knights

 From many a fair country

 To break a spear for their ladies' love

 Before that fair lady.

 ‘Even Johanna de Clinton, that plain,
dowdy little cousin of Tom's, will have her hour and I must be cooped up with a
pack of children, old men and maidens. Orabella, I shall ride to Coleshill. I
shall travel incognito, of course, a couple of men at arms, plainly dressed,
and you at my side.’

 ‘No!’ said Lady A, ‘Kate, it's madness. If
Thomas was to hear of it - and how can he fail - he'd hang half the garrison
and you and I would be on short commons for a week!’

 Katherine smiled mischievously. ‘Thomas
is magnificent in one of his rages and he can hardly pin the blame on my
escort. What choice have they in such a matter?’

 ‘He would blame me!’ said Lady A grimly. ‘I
will not go, Katherine.’

 The countess sighed. ‘I'll take Elizabeth
Lucy, she'll appreciate the outing.’

 Orabella threw her a look of scorn. ‘What!
And have her prattle to the county. There'd not be a house or castle in the
midlands that wouldn't be whispering about your escapade.’

 ‘Then you will have to change your mind,’
said Katherine. ‘You really are the only woman I can trust and there's no harm
in it, no harm at all. Shall we go kilted like milkmaids or prinked out as the
wives of city burgesses or gaudy as gypsies?’ She executed a Spanish dance,
hips swaying, the rose transferred to sharp white teeth.

 ‘Nuns would arouse less comment,’ said
Lady A sourly. ‘Milkmaids usually smell, hadn't you noticed?’

 ‘Then we are city wives off the leash,’
smiled the countess, ‘with a servant apiece in tow. Orabella, you're scowling. You
will enjoy the finer points of the sport as well as I shall appreciate giddy
young men falling from murderous destriers. I shall give away fine scarves,
nacreous of hue, and I shall bathe fevered brows with good home-spun linen, and
sip iced vernage in darkened pavilions, resting on silken cushions and fanned
by a single peacock's eye. Orabella, you will, won't you?’

 ‘I just hope it rains and they all troop
indoors for Hoodman Blind and hot pies!’ said Lady A tartly.

June 11th, St. Barnabas Day, dawned rosy
and idyllic. The sky bloomed from the pale wash of water forget-me-nots through
a spectrum of blues, each deeper than the last until it settled quite naturally
into the intense cerulean so beloved of the monkish illustrators. The fields
were undulating seas of green spears where cornflowers raised blue eyes amongst
the white corn daisies and copper-hued butterflies rose like pollen-dust.

 The walls of Clinton's mellow keep, high
above the Cole River, were whitewashed by the sun to swim in heat-haze like the
crusader castles of Outremer. Overnight, a meadow of mushrooms had sprung up in
every colour of the heraldic field, as the contestants arrived and erected
their bright pavilions: brash reds and stygian blacks, Lydian purple and
popinjay blue, Judas colour and Lincoln green, their canopies dagged and
scalloped, dovetailed and engrailed, dancette and raguly.

 ‘Barnaby light, Barnaby bright,

 Longest day and shortest night,’
chanted Johanna from the window of her
bower and the first, faint pulse of excitement crept in, unwanted, to colour
her cheeks and blotch her neck and shoulders. She dressed quickly, ignoring the
excited chatter of her maid, the snub-nosed, rosy-cheeked Mazera.

 ‘That is a gown to sell a soul for, My
Lady; velvet, blue as the necks of peacocks and soft as sin. Shall I brush out
your hair? Will you wear it loose today?’

 Johanna shook her head, swinging the
bell-rope braids. ‘It’s far too hot to have such a mane sweeping about my neck
and shoulders; it will do well enough as it is. I may be sitting prinked out in
finery in a tower decked with white samite and silver bows but I'll still be
plain cousin Joan to most of the men out there. My father is fond of saying
that you cannot paint the lily, he also knows that most of my suitors would
take me hag-ridden for the inheritance alone!’

 Mazera sighed. ‘You have fine eyes, My
Lady, and if you would let me try the chamomile on your hair and a little of
the carmine paste on your lips and high on your cheeks and if you would allow
me to lace your gown a little tighter…’

 Johanna silenced her saying, ‘The fortune
hunters would merely get a more palatable bargain. Leave me be, Mazera, I've
the kitchens to oversee. You may attend me later when I mount the block!’ She
gave a wry smile and swept out of the room.

 Sir John escorted his daughter up into
her white tower and handed her gently into her cushioned chair. Mazera placed a
chaplet of white roses about her brow and the stands, brimming over with
villagers, retainers and visitors clapped dutifully. Sir John patted his
daughter's hand and retired to sit in the sunlight with his cronies. Mazera, in
apple-green fustian, sank down beside her mistress, hugging herself with
anticipation.

 Beyond the sanded tiltyard, so carefully
measured and fenced about and hung with banners of arms, the pavilions wavered
in the swimming haze, bright against an incandescent sky. Below the tower, the
arms of Clinton of Coleshill flapped outward in the breeze, argent and azure,
charged with the golden fleurdeluce.

 The two housewives from Warwick town
arrived at a leisurely pace on a pair of gentle nags, two family servants a
respectful distance behind them. Both ladies were veiled; the tendency for such
a fiery sun to lure forth a whole colony of freckles was well known. Orabella
wore the lightest of velvets, in a deep Indian purple, powdered with silver
roses, her dark hair bound up beneath one of the new goffered headdresses. Katherine
was in amber silk, her surcote damascened in gilt and her heavy chestnut hair
was held in a net of gold, bright with spangles.

 ‘I'll see that we commandeer a seat in
the shade,’ said Lady A but the countess shook her head:

 ‘No, let the men look to the horses and
then be off amusing themselves. I have a mind to be more than spectator, but
first, let us study form. We'll take those two spaces just by the gate.’

 ‘Kate…’ warned Lady A and closed her
mouth. What use in wasting breath upon a lost argument. She followed her
mistress and they sat upon a rough wooden bench, crushed between Sir John's
laundress and Johanna's fifteen year old kennel boy.

 At the declaration that proceedings were
open the combatants of the home team, Clinton's nephews and cousins and distant
kin and nearer neighbours, rode into the yard, each one garbed as Sir John had
promised in the trappings of the infidel, in flurt silks and sarcenet and shimmering
tissue, with brilliant sashes about their waists and fanciful turbans upon
their hot heads, plumed and beribboned and damascened, and beside each mount
strode the squires, each lad leading his master's captive, trussed in chains of
plaited golden silk, teetering along on soft-slippered feet, hair unbound, each
in her prettiest kirtle; the gigglers, the blushers, the whitely reticent, the
bold and the demure; pantry maid and buttery girl, and at least two of the
local whores, necklines gaping, breasts swelling above tight lacing.

 A strident trumpet call from the heralds
in tabards of blue and silver summoned the challengers onto the field and the
Lady Johanna's suitors nudged their destriers forward one by one to salute the
Queen of Beauty in her tower.

 Johanna, nibbling eryngoes, face already
shiny below the wilting roses of her chaplet, passed a jaded eye over each as
their names and titles were announced: Archer of Umberslade, displaying golden
arrows pointing heavenwards from his surcote; a Fulwood, a third son in red and
silver, (Mazera whispered that it looked as if the moth had been at his
horse-cloth); a Conyngsby, whose unfortunate, buck-toothed smile complemented
the rabbits of his canting arms so well. Even the Queen of Beauty had to smile
back and let fall one of the baudekin scarves neatly piled in a sewing basket
at her side.

 ‘Ralph Shirley!’ This was a fearsome
six-footer, the shield clamped to his left arm charged with a ferocious
Saracen's head. Johanna looked wearily beyond to the lozenges of the Montagues,
the quartered arms of the Butlers of Sudeley, the silver pikes of the Lucy's of
Charlecote, the red cross of the Tamworth Frevilles, and the rampant lion of
the de la Warres. She sighed and reached for another piece of candy.

 ‘And I myself as lady gay,

 Bedeckt with gorgeous rich array;

 The bravest lady in the land

 Has not more pleasures to command.’

 ‘My Lady?’ Mazera turned to her mistress.

 ‘Oh, nothing. Surely we're at an end. What
is Arnald muttering about; I can see the perspiration breaking out on his bald
pate. Is there going to be a late-comer?’

 ‘Yes, My Lady. See, here he comes. Milady,
he bears no arms, he carries a blank escutcheon!’

 The powerful grey, caparisoned in white
taffeta figured in silver, drew a little gasp of approval from Johanna and she
lifted her gaze to his rider. The young man with the white shield wore a silk
tabard over his coat of mail, warped with silver threads, a single white plume
curled rakishly from the helm he carried and his bridle glittered.

 ‘Your name, sir?’ asked Arnald, the
Master of Ceremonies, passing a warm finger beneath the neck of his cote and
wishing the day were over.

 ‘I prefer to perform what feats I may
unnamed and unknown.’ The young man inclined his head politely in Arnald's
direction. He looked up at the Queen of Beauty, sticky but alert. One heavy
braid swung threateningly forward. The rider was a handsome young man with dark
auburn hair which haloed his head and would not conform to the fashionable
sausage-like roll across the forehead. Beneath the dark brows the fringe of
curling eyelashes shaded fearless violet eyes. He put his head on one side and
gazed up at Johanna. ‘Ah, the Fleurdeluce,

 My sweet lady, lily white,

 Sweet thy footfall, sweet thine eyes,

 And the mirth of thy replies….’

 Johanna was wiping her fingers on the
peacock blue velvet. ‘What does this bleached apparel signify, Sir Unknown? A
virgin knight, a virgin honour?’ said she somewhat unkindly. ‘What is the
mystic symbolism?’

 The White Knight - who by his silver
spurs was only an esquire - swept her a bow. ‘I rather thought the colour
suited me.’

 Mazera was all giggles. Johanna caught
her eye and smiled, flicking back the tawny braids.

 
‘Sweet thy laughter, sweet thy face,

 And the touch of thine embrace.

 
Who but doth in thee delight….’
said
the White Knight randomly plucking lines from
Aucassin and
Nicolette
,
usually a firm favourite with the susceptible young ladies of his acquaintance.
He turned to ride away to join his fellows. Johanna dropped the last of the
baudekin scarves to drift across his pommel. He kissed it and allowed his valet
to tie it to his helmet

 Sir John de Clinton mopped his brow with
a scalloped sleeve; the first hurdle was over. The challengers threw lots for
an opponent and the dubious possession of a dairy-maid, although in reality the
prizes were to be of a more practical nature, issued in chinking coin.

 The captive ladies were led away to a
place of honour, chains dangling, and the serious business of the day began. Only
Lady A saw the countess move from her side and felt the laundress and the
kennel-boy move in about her and stretch themselves in comfort. Only Lady A saw
the exchange between the veiled countess and the pantry girl in blue frieze,
saw the new coins pass into the girl's hands, saw her struggling from her
silken bondage before slipping away. Katherine de Beauchamp, wrists tied
securely by someone's verderer's niece, sat down beside a yellow-haired prostitute
and prepared to enjoy herself. Lady A shuddered. 'Thomas is likely to throttle
her!' she thought.

 The clash of arms, the snorting,
whinnying of horses, the excitement as lances snapped or rider became unhorsed,
caused tension to mount as the hours went by. One of the Turks passed out from
heat stroke, two of the challengers limped from the field with minor wounds. Orabella
forgot the erring countess and laid bets with herself as to the outcome of each
contest. Johanna had abandoned the eryngoes and was craning forward in her
tower and Lady Kate found herself clutching the prostitute in her excitement,
clouded in a cheap sandalwood perfume.

 Sir Edward de Clinton, known to Johanna
as Second Cousin Ned, rode out in blue and gold to face the unknown challenger
in white. The Turk's cap was tossed aside in favour of the tourney helm, his
lance couched ready for the signal which would send him at a gallop towards his
opponent. The young man in white and silver inclined his head towards Johanna
and turned his horse to ride along the line of captive girls; the
as-yet-unclaimed and those unredeemed by the unfortunate challengers. Lady
Kate, in her silks and gauzes, looked like a queen amongst the milkmaids, her bold
amber eyes caught his bright gaze and he leant down from his saddle to snatch
at her veil.

 ‘By your leave, mistress?’ but she shook
her head, eyes mischievous and, unpinning the great jewel which fastened her
light cloak to one shoulder, she reached up and attached it to the white
feather in his helm from whence floated Johanna's milk-white scarf. It was an
outsize pearl, crudely shaped like a perched eagle and surrounded by large
diamonds. It was undoubtedly vulgar and worth a fortune.

 Second Cousin Ned was an experienced man
at a joust, there were few to equal him in the middle shires, he certainly
envisaged no difficulties in besting this effete young man, glittering like a
frosted snowdrop on a winter's morning. But before he entered the jousting
ground a furtive little man in a dun-coloured cote had begged a word and,
looking up and down and whispering behind his hand, had suggested that it might
be more lucrative to let this boy win his laurels. And Ned did not know whether
the attempt at bribery issued from the White Knight himself, from the Lord of
Coleshill, match-making in the stands, or from the beautiful woman in the gold
chains on the captives' benches. Ned would have struck out in disgust at the
little man in the dun cote but he had slipped back into the crowds.

 Riding together to the tilt-yard Ned had
leant across, a hand on the stranger's knee. ‘Whatever you want, boy, you will
fight fair for it!’ he hissed. The other only raised his brows in surprise at
the outburst and deemed no reply necessary.

 The two opponents were evenly and
superbly matched with the heavy tourney lance. The crowd shouted and cheered
itself hoarse and went wild with excitement at each atteint. Once, the unknown
challenger came near to unseating Clinton; the man rocked in his saddle but
regained his balance, reined in his mount and, turning to charge through the
lists again, took the full force of the White Knight's lance upon his shoulder
plate. The coronel was dissevered from the haft but Clinton, though winded,
kept his seat again. His opponent was left staring, wry-faced, at the
splintered shaft which now looked for all like the remains of a Twelfth-Night
cresset. The crowd laughed delightedly. Sir Ned had dismounted and, with a
mocking bow, drawn out his sword. His opponent tossed away his mangled weapon,
leapt lightly to the ground and returned Clinton's salute with an elaborate
obeisance, before drawing his own steel.