The Lords of Arden (6 page)

 Thomas nodded, ‘I shall be glad to be on
the move again. I find it stifling in here. Those tapestried eyes, looking down
upon the lives and loves of lesser kings and queens. She was beautiful –
Isabella. I suppose she still is, hidden away in her castle prison, but she was
hated - more than any queen we ever had and he …’

 ‘I came,’ said Orabella ‘to report upon
your little waif and stray.’

 Thomas drew up a stool and sat opposite
to her. There was no fireplace for they were in the old Norman keep, but a
brazier of charcoal took the chill off the room. The tapestried eyes seemed
alert, expectant. Orabella turned her back on them and faced Thomas de
Beauchamp, his own eyes very blue and clear in the light from the branched
torchiere.

 ‘Did you find out his surname?’

 ‘No, but he insisted it did not matter as
it wasn't his own name, but that of his foster parents. He ran away as they
were delivering him to his new masters to start an apprenticeship.’

 ‘He was right,’ said Thomas, ‘wasn't he? It
really didn't matter because you know who he is, don't you, My Lady?’

 Orabella said, ‘Roger has always been a
good friend of his father. They campaigned together many times and once, I met
his mother, Lora Astley. You read the ring-posy - Lora, pensez de moy? I was
newly wed and Roger took me round the shire, showing me off to all his
neighbours and cronies, though I must have looked a pinched, sharp little thing
in those days. But Lora was pleased to take my hand and run me up to her
chamber in the Audley Tower. Chamber! It was a bower fit for a princess, decked
out in light eastern silks and shimmering gauzes, rose and white and lilac. And
she showed me the gowns Peter de Montfort had bought for her, and the jewels,
especially the amethysts: clasps and brooches and circlets and, in particular,
that ring. She even let me slip it on my finger. We laughed because it got
stuck over my knuckle; she had such tiny hands. It was not long after that that
she left him. If she was pregnant when she fled he could be her son. He must be
her son, hers and Peter's. And I am certain that Peter does not know of his
existence.’

 Thomas nodded. ‘Thank you, My Lady, for
confirming my own thoughts. Richard de Montfort should prove a useful pawn. Where
is he?’ He rose and went to pour her some wine but she shook her head.

 ‘He left here late this morning under an
escort of Roger's men. I sent him back to London. Oh, not under duress, I
persuaded him that it would be best and I think he was tired of scavenging
about the carts and glad to go. Besides, the ring of armed men made him feel
very important. You may, of course, send after them but I do not think you will
catch them now.’

 Thomas was staring ahead, his knuckles
white about the stem of his wine cup. ‘But you know where they are taking him?’

 ‘I did not ask and you will need to put
my men to the question to have it out of them. I don't think that would be
advisable; Roger has some standing in the middle shires and the King's
confidence.’

 With a curl of his upper lip Warwick said, ‘I too have Edward's ear.’

 ‘And you would pursue a mere infant and
hold him over this long-standing adolescent feud you have with his father? For
nothing more than a piqued child's spite? Oh, I admit that I have wronged you,
thwarted you over this, and I am sorry to have done so but I wouldn't have
Richard de Montfort upon my conscience and neither would you. You might, in
charity, admit that I am saving you from yourself. Think of it. We are at Nottingham where Prince John hung twenty-eight boy children from these battlements in spite
at their fathers. Now you are angry. What are you going to do, strike me?’

 ‘You know what I want. It was, after all,
why you came.’

 Orabella laughed. ‘Perhaps, but not
tonight and not in anger. I suppose there would be a certain appeal to be taken
in the Queen-Dowager's bed where her handsome, lusty lover used to slake his
thirst, night after night.’

 He said nothing but reached up to remove
the jewelled caul from her blue-black hair. She put up her hands and held his
wrists. ‘Tomorrow, you travel north. I wait here for Queen Philippa. As soon as
she is well enough to travel after her accouchement, we follow to Scotland. Seek me there, Thomas, when you're hot and bloodied from the foe.’ She did not
have to stand on tiptoe to kiss the tip of his arrogant nose; they were almost
of a height. She laughed and left him.

~o0o~

England
was in danger. The Scots were over the border and parliament was
begging the King to abandon the proposed Irish expedition and to march north. Edward
needed no second bidding, he prorogued parliament and, before he left Nottingham, he had called out his Commissions of Array against the Scots. The Master Plan
was unfolding and the time had come to expunge the bitter memories of his
father's shameful defeat at Bannockburn.

 It was early summer before the army
reached Berwick, the gateway to Scotland, the furthest outpost of England; a town of grey stone, huddled upon its peninsula, washed on the south by the River
Tweed. Henry II had annexed it to English soil as part of the ransom paid by
the captive Scots king, William the Lion; Richard I had sold it back to the
Scots to finance his crusade, and his brother, John, had destroyed it in person
in 1216. It had had a stormy, chequered existence.

 The Scots under Sir Alexander Seton set
themselves to hold the town and whilst Edward blockaded them by land the
English fleet was sent to attack them from the East, by sea; a less than
successful venture as the Scots succeeded in burning a considerable portion of
the fleet down to the decks. But Berwick was poorly fortified and only scantily
provisioned. Edward and his captains brought up mangonel, trebuchet,
siege-tower and scaling ladders to assist in persuading the beleaguered city
that surrender was only a matter of time and he had patience enough. Meanwhile,
Queen Philippa and her ladies were settled for the duration further south in
lofty Bamburgh.

 The Scots were daily expecting relief but
they agreed to surrender if no help arrived by mid-July and Seton sent his
young son, Thomas, into the enemy camp as security for his good intent. In an
attempt to draw away the besiegers Archibald Douglas, the new Scottish Regent
in the boy King David's minority, marched into Northumberland, besieged
Philippa at Bamburgh and wasted the surrounding countryside. Bamburgh was
strongly fortified and Philippa in little danger but the smell of sack was
acrid on the wind and few would have blamed the young queen if she had found
herself dwelling on the fate Edward's grandfather had meted out to Robert
Bruce's defeated womenfolk. Stouter hearts would have quailed at the thought of
eventual capture and imprisonment at the hands of the Scots.

 Edward, young and inexperienced as he
was, was too wily to be drawn away from his main objective to fly to Philippa's
aid. Berwick would fall long before Philippa was subjected to any real danger
or hardship. But when help failed, and the day of surrender passed by with
Seton prevaricating and swearing to defend the town to the last man, Edward
erected a gibbet and hanged young Thomas Seton in his father's sight; the old
man helpless and obdurate upon the city ramparts. Douglas abandoned Bamburgh
and retraced his steps, determined to meet Edward face to face. The beleaguered
set themselves a new date for surrender, July 20th, and by the 18th Douglas,
with a host of fifteen thousand at his back, was crossing the Tweed. Edward,
sure of himself, had chosen his own ground, Halidon Hill, two miles north-west
of Berwick. True, he had the Tweed at his back and Douglas could have been
forgiven for believing that the English were trapped and ripe for slaughter.

 Beside Plantagenet rode Edward Balliol,
the Scots claimant and Edward's own protégé, the stalwart William Montague -
hero of Nottingham Castle, Harry of Derby and Thomas de Beauchamp, at the head
of his Warwickshire levies. On the crest of Halidon, Edward and his commanders,
with their cavalry, dismounted, and prepared to fight on foot. Before them,
down the slope of the hill, were ranged banks of archers, armed with that most
deadly of weapons, the English long bow. Between Halidon and Douglas's
four-pronged attack lay a wild stretch of marshland, emerald green and luminous
in the lingering light of the sun; the last sunset the beleaguered garrison of
Berwick were to see before the day dawned, fixed for their surrender.

 Douglas too, dismounted his cavalry, but
he was forced to it for there was no way of crossing that morass on horseback. Advancing
on foot, their lines fragmented, their formation irregular, the Scots were easy
victims to the deadly hail of English arrows, thick as motes in a sunbeam; they
fell by the thousand. Those who struggled through the marsh, hampered by the
weight of their armour, climbed the slope to meet Edward's captains, still
fresh and chafing from their earlier inactivity, sword and battleaxe at the
ready. Archibald Douglas was mortally wounded and about him fell a galaxy of
Scottish earls: Lennox and Carrick, Athol and Strathearn and Sutherland, and,
besides, many a scion of the houses of Stewart and Fraser. Berwick was Edward's
and with Berwick came Scotland herself for there were no lords of note left to
defend her on that day. English losses were negligible and Edward had grown in
stature; the boy king had come of age and Bannockburn was at last avenged.

 Thomas Beauchamp crossed the Tweed at Edward's side with a new and healthy respect for the king who had given them
today's victory. But it was mingled with certain awe for the man who had
cold-bloodedly ordered, and seen carried out, the execution of the hapless
Seton boy. For the future, it would serve them all well, he and Harry and
Montague, never to presume too closely on Edward's friendship. It placed the
first distance between him and the friend of his boyhood; setting Edward apart
as a man but putting him firmly upon the throne of England and freeing him
forever of any taint of his weak-willed, profligate father.

 They had left the reeking hill behind
them in darkness when Edward turned to him. ‘Tom, I have to take the surrender,
go through all the formalities; it will take time. Gather your men and ride,
swift as you can, to Bamburgh and Philippa and stay until I come to you. Assure
her all is well and send her my heart's love. Will you do it?’

 ‘Gladly, Ned.’ They clasped hands and
Thomas wheeled about and abandoned the defeated town and rode south to the
Queen.

~o0o~

Bamburgh had stood a hundred and fifty
foot above the sea since King Ida had built the first wooden fortifications. The
Normans had used the local sandstone to build their square, red keep and
their successors had added to the magnificent pile. Thomas Beauchamp and his
men took the long approach road to the outer bailey at the gallop. They kept
him a long time at the gate before they let him through and he was glad that
their security was so tight. Philippa met him in the great hall, her ladies a
solid phalanx at her back. She let him cross the rush-strewn floor alone and he
had no perception of the chilling spectacle he presented; his surcote soaked
and dried in blood, obscuring the Beauchamp crosslets, his gauntlets stiff, a
dark smear across his cheek. He saw a plain young woman of medium height,
stolidly built, with dark brown hair and dark eyes, dressed in a blue wool
gown, and could hardly have been blamed for comparing her with her predecessor
- Isabella Capet with her rose-coloured shot taffetas, her silver tissue, her
blue-black hair and dazzling complexion. With several feet still to go he
dropped to one knee before the girl, head bent, suddenly very weary and
Philippa covered the floor between them in a few swift, light steps.

 ‘Tom, my dear, you're hurt; don't kneel.’

 He looked up at her, embarrassed. ‘This? It's
not mine. Oh, My Lady, I'm sorry to appear like this before you but I thought
you'd wish for the news as quickly as possible.’ He had taken and kissed her
hand and realised how cold it was, how pale her face. She was preparing herself
for grave news, for the worst news, and he cursed himself for appearing so
before her and in such haste. What could she think but that all was lost and
Edward fled or slain.

 ‘Madam, a great victory and Ned - the
King - is safe, unharmed. He will be here as soon as he has taken the final
surrender.’

 ‘And you rode through the night, hot
foot, to put my mind at rest? Bless you, Thomas.’ And the plain little Queen
put her plump white hands upon his soiled shoulders and kissed him on one
smeared cheek, regardless of the light stuff of her gown, all concern for his
welfare. And the relief in her eyes lit her face, leaving it radiant. Philippa
could never compare with Isabella Capet, with Eleanor of Aquitaine, with any of
the legendary queens who had come to England from a scattering of countries
across the wild channel, but no queen was ever loved as the English loved Flemish
Philippa. She clapped her hands. ‘I will hear all when you're fed and rested. Someone
conduct my Lord of Warwick to the best chamber and see that he has all he
requires. Orabella, would you?’ And though Beauchamp did not notice it, a look
passed between the two young women and Orabella's expressive brows rose a
fraction. She curtsied to her queen and without a glance at the young man
beside her led the way up into the keep via a dark, twisting flight of stairs.