The Passionate Brood (3 page)

Blondel de Cahaignes’ first morning at Oxford was anything but dull. He had already laid the King’s table and been sent to gather up the Duke of Normandy’s arrows when John Plantagenet came rushing down the Keep stairs shouting to all and sundry, “They’re coming back from Banbury! I was the first to see them from the battlements.”

Instantly the whole Castle came to life. The inner bailey, drowsing before high noon, suddenly became alive with grooms and baying hounds and servants waiting to unload the pack horses. In the great kitchen the cooks hurried on the midday meal. Caught up in the general excitement, Blondel dumped his arrows on the first bench he came to in the armoury and ran out again into the sunshine, almost cannoning into John. They eyed each other with approval. “If you’re Richard’s new page, I’d nip in and hold his bridle before the others get a chance,” advised the youngest member of the family in his most engaging manner. “He likes brisk service.”

Blondel grinned his thanks and dived under the elbows of the waiting grooms just as Richard and Robin came riding in. They were followed by a bunch of chattering pages and the Steward of the royal household, who had taken the opportunity of replenishing his stores. Blondel looked quickly from one to the other of the two tall, bare-headed young men and found that except for their height and a certain similarity of gesture they were not in the least alike. If Richard looked the stronger of the two it was because he lacked Robin’s sinuous grace. His comely head was capped by the smooth family auburn, while brown hair curled strongly from Robin’s thoughtful forehead. There was no mistaking which was the Plantagenet so—although there was plenty of competition—the new page slipped in first to hold his master’s horse. “Stout work!” approved Richard, amused at his enterprise. “I suppose you are young de Cahaignes?” And Blondel, who had spent so many anxious hours wondering what this man would be like, looked up with the appreciative smile that always lightened the solemnity of his face like sudden sunlight warming a grey mere. He was aware of three things he liked—virile warmth, a fine voice, and a sort of careless arrogance. He was too young to see latent cruelty in the firm mouth and in the lazy green eyes; but he did notice that Richard’s uncorrupted Norman sounded almost like a foreigner’s compared with Robin’s or John’s, and that his great horse stood a hand higher than any other man’s in the courtyard. And although the other pages were full of all they had done and seen at the fair, Blondel ceased to envy them.

When the horses had been led away Richard and Robin stood by a flight of stone steps slaking their thirst while John plied them with questions. Half the garrison seemed to be crowding round, eager for news, and Blondel marvelled at the homeliness of it all and at how little it differed from home-comings at Horsted. Robin was telling them how he and Richard had put a fortune into the fair people’s pockets by entering for a competition in the wrestling booth.

“Robin won, of course,” interpolated Richard, lifting his face from a second mug of ale. “He threw me twice.”

“I had to,” explained Robin, “or the old hag would have got a ducking.”

“What old hag?” asked John.

“A fortune teller at the fair. Richard promised to keep his men off her if I won.”

“She was a witch,” averred the men who would have ducked her.

“I doubt if there be any such thing!” scoffed Robin.

“But some of us old ’uns have seen ’em up to their devilry,” persisted a gnarled old man-at-arms. “I tell ’ee, Sir, there be women who have power to cast spells on a man and make him do all manner of things against his conscience.”

“Then every pretty girl I kiss must be a witch!” laughed Robin.

Blondel was so interested in the conversation that he forgot he was among strangers. “Surely there are witches aren’t there, Sir?” he asked, appealing to his Duke.

But Richard was not to be drawn. “I’m sure I hope you’re right, Blondel,” he laughed, handing the boy his empty mug. “Because this one promises me all sorts of impossible fame.”

He went indoors and called for a wash and then, inevitably, he and Robin and John went tramping up the turret stair, and the Tower room was complete, holding them all again. All but Matilda and Margaret who were married, and Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, who had died just before his little son Arthur was born. Eleanor’s best-loved son was telling her how good it was to have her back and Robin—who seemed older than any of them because he thought more for others—was showing them a ridiculous fairing he had brought for Johanna. He and John set it up on the table—two cleverly carved wooden knights, less than a foot high, who pranced and couched their lances in mock combat when one pulled the strings. But, to his surprise, instead of exclaiming, “Oh, Robin, how adorable!” Johanna thanked him with a preoccupied politeness which made the thing seem tawdry instead of droll. Johanna, who was usually such a satisfactory person about presents!”

Ann had taken up her embroidery again. The Plantagenets’ demonstrative delight in each other made her feel an outsider, and she considered it bourgeois.

“What an industrious chatelaine you’ll make!” praised Richard, trying to make amends for having forgotten to bring her anything from the fair. But the thought of her industry seemed to cast a gloom over his future. How much more fun, he thought, if she plagued the steward for parties and joined in forbidden boar hunts like Johanna! He kissed the cool cheek Ann offered him and, as an antidote to her gentility, took Hodierna into a bear-like hug. “Fond woman, when are you going to make me that magic suit of mail?” he demanded.

“When I’ve found the herb that’s proof against poisoned arrows,” promised Hodierna. It was an old bargain between them. One of those threadbare inanities upon which family life is built.

“You’re not even looking for it,” he scolded. “Just wasting time on all this woman’s gear.” But as he disentangled the handle of his hunting knife from a froth of clinging white stuff Johanna said tonelessly, “It’s my wedding veil.”

Richard dropped the stuff as if it had burned him. “My dear infant!” he muttered, suddenly sobered.

Living less carelessly from day to day, Robin had always known that this must happen. That was why he always bought her amusing fairings and never brooches, as a lover might. And now his heart bled for her, understanding her desolate preoccupation.

They all stared at her expectantly, but when the words came she felt that she was explaining about someone else. “I know now why we have Mother back. The King wants me to marry William of Sicily.”

“The swine!” ejaculated Richard.

“Which?” enquired Henry.

“Both, for that matter.” Richard stood in the middle of the room, frowning and furious. “Mother—Henry—it’s damnable!” he burst out. “Selling a girl to that mouldering old deathshead for the sake of a Mediterranean alliance!”

Robin stood dumbly torn. Months ago he had had to make out the marriage contract from the King’s dictation. It meant the immolation of Youth’s fires, but there was nothing he could say without criticising the man who had given him everything.

With a wild gleam of hope, Johanna caught at her brother’s arm.

“Oh, Richard, can’t you persuade him—”

Richard shook his head regretfully. For the first time he wished that he had tried to keep on better terms with his father. “Not I, my dear. Nor Henry.” Untouched by the issue that absorbed them all, John kept importuning him to look at his new dagger, and as Richard took it he ruined the boy’s hair and suggested good-naturedly, “Try John here. He has the royal favour.”

“You’re right. He almost rivals Rosamund!” broke out Henry bitterly.

They all knew that jealousy was his particular demon and that ever since Ann’s brother, the Dauphin, had been crowned prospective King of France, Henry had been sensitive about the insecurity of his own title, but the unexpected outburst shocked them to silence. Richard swung round, the little jewelled knife clenched in his hand. “Shut your foul mouth!” he muttered threateningly.

“Why?” argued Henry, with cool disregard for his mother’s feelings. “Doesn’t everybody know the King is at Woodstock?”

As if by accident Robin moved between them, and Eleanor tapped angrily on the floor with her scarlet shoe. “Henry! Richard!” she cried, with weary disgust. “Must you be for ever snarling like curs over every stale bone?”

The moment of tension was snapped by the unexpected appearance of Blondel. He had found his way to their aerie because the whole place was seething with news which he felt that they should know—and which none of the other pages dared tell them. “The King has come home,” he warned breathlessly, from the stair head.

“From Woodstock? Already?” exclaimed Ann, rising involuntarily in a cascade of scattered silks.

“I must go and see the servants,” said the Queen, who always remembered to order a bath and the special dishes that he loved. But Blondel barred her way, white-faced and resolute. “Do not go down now, Madam,” he begged. “He is in one of his rages. He…”

“What is it, Blondel?” she asked quietly, steadying him by her own perfect composure.

He dared not look at her. “This woman they call Rosamund has been murdered,” he blurted out.

“Murdered!” The sinister word was echoed round the room.

“At last!” added Eleanor, triumphantly.

It was Ann, the quick-witted, who implored her to be more careful what she said. Her own trembling mouth was half hidden by horror-stricken hands.

“How?” Henry wanted to know.

“Poisoned, Sir.”

Young John, eaten by morbid curiosity, pulled at his new friend’s sleeve. “But hadn’t he hidden her in some cunning bower?”

“I heard people down in the hall talking about it. It seems some malicious person had the wit to unravel a thread from the silk of the embroidery she was carrying—just as you might from those silks milady Ann has let fall.”

“How damned ingenious!” exclaimed John.

“So ingenious that people will probably say it must have been by order of another woman,” speculated Henry.

“Someone who was jealous?” suggested Ann.

“They’re saying—” began Blondel; then stopped short, abashed at finding himself the centre of their interest. It seemed fantastic that he—the new page—should already be playing a role in this Plantagenet drama. He went down on one knee with his burning face hidden against the scarlet of the Queen’s skirts. “They are saying that you yourself had most cause, Madam. Some malicious gossip has spread it all over the town—” he reported shakily, and was thankful when a concerted murmur of indignation stemmed his words.

“He will send her back to Salisbury for this!” wailed Johanna.

“Now, by God’s heart, hasn’t he insulted her enough?” cried Richard, making for the stairs. But the Queen herself was there before him. She winced at the muttered guardroom oath with which he cursed his father, but countered it with laughter. It was not the first time she had averted something approaching parricide by bringing her family’s heroics down to everyday sanity.

“What
can
you see to laugh at, Madam?” reproved Hodierna.

“The silk, my dears!” explained Eleanor, looking back at their shocked faces. “What an old fool I’ve been all these years not to think of it!”

Richard stood nonplussed.

“You heard what she said?” asked Ann, when they had finished staring after the Queen, and the sound of Blondel’s following footsteps had died away down the dark turret.

“Of course we all heard,” retorted Hodierna, turning back to her work. “And we all know it’s only people with something on their consciences who need guard their tongues.”

“Besides,” added Henry, moving lazily from the window, “if that malicious sort of gossip means anything you had as much cause for jealousy yourself.”

The French girl, conscious of the shrewdness of his glance, began putting away her embroidery. “Sometimes I hate you so much, Henry, I hope you will die young!” she said, with one last vindictive thrust of her needle.

He smiled imperturbably and, crossing to the littered table, began playing with Hodierna’s great shear-like scissors. “I don’t mind going when the Almighty sees fit to oblige you, of course,” he drawled. “But poisoning, I’m told, is becoming quite a pretty art in France!”

They were always sparring like that, but Richard became aware of some unusual tension. “What the devil d’you mean?” he asked, pushing between them.

Henry dropped the scissors and the light, mocking tone he always adopted with Ann. He surveyed his brother through narrowed eyes, half affectionate and half contemptuous. “To be blunt, my blind armament builder,” he explained suavely, “it’s high time you asked the royal old rip for your betrothed.”

“God damn your insolence!”

Ann screamed as Richard lunged at him, trying to choke the words in his throat. The heavy oak table crashed against the wall, dragging work and scissors with it. The women crouched against it. Although of lighter build, Henry held him off with the cool, maddening smile on his bruised lips. Richard’s eyes went light and golden as an angry, watchful cat’s—the way they always changed in battle. Their auburn heads swayed levelly, and they struggled in silence save for their panting breath and the shuffling of their feet among the rushes.

When Johanna could bear it no longer she slid from the protection of Robin’s arm. “Stop them now!” she begged, and he intervened instantly, dodging their blows with the litheness of some wild forest creature and parting them with such superior strength that he flung each of them to a different corner of the room.

“He’s stronger than either of you!” yelled John, dancing on the stone window seat in an ecstasy of excitement.

“I ought to be strong,” smiled Robin, almost apologetically. “My own father bequeathed me the muscles of a lumberer, and your father had me taught how to use them.”

“Then is it because you’re half a peasant that you use them only to protect old women and to keep the peace?” asked John, jumping down to start one of those interminable arguments which helped them all to bridge over the embarrassment of their ill-controlled passions.