by Helen Burton
THE LORDS OF ARDEN
by
Helen Burton
All rights reserved
Copyright © Helen Burton, 2013.
Helen Burton is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
For my friend,
Mary McLean
Also by Helen Burton
Waterwitch
The Scarlet Splendour
Blue Days and Fair
No Time for Dances
PROLOGUE
PART ONE - THE BEAR AND RAGGED STAFF
PART TWO - FLEUR DE LUCE
PART THREE – THE SONS OF BEAUDESERT
PART FOUR - VOWS OF THE HERON
Prologue
1324
Moss-green and gold, brightly feathered as a falconer's lure, the finch bobbed in flight, sang out his warning and fluttered into the heart of the hazels, scattering raindrops. Drenched and bedraggled, a thrush poured out his song to the grey skies and the dripping woodland from a perch up in the summer-bright foliage of an elm. The rains filtered down in monotonous tympani through the dark leaves which screened the tree-covered ridgeway and blotted out the skies for those beginning the ascent from the castle. The path rose steeply up to the old track where once, long before the Romans came, the first men forged a roadway across the hills.
Lora Astley, cloaked in brown, led her mount, picking a way over mossy hummocks and tree roots, wresting her skirts from clinging briars and clutching brambles, afraid that the gleam of white from her jennet's flanks would be seen by the look-out on the Audley Tower. Once, she dared to look back, to pause in her flight and survey the fortress, framed in glistening leaves, misted over. They had lit the cressets in the solar; soon the watch would be changing and Geoffrey Mikelton, ten years Constable, would be bawling at his men; speed never was their attribute in such weather.
Lora half turned to move on and caught sight of the sodden standard, limp against its masthead above the Great Gatehouse. The wind caught at it and drew out the heavy folds of rayed cloth, blue and gold. Peter de Montfort's colours streamed out, licking greedily, viciously, at the rain. Lora lifted a gloved hand in a brief, final salute and hurried on.
Out of the trees she mounted to cross the lonely road stretching away northward into a greying distance. Her path lay to the east, across furze-dotted common lands to Yarningale. She paused again at the foot of the whispering hill where the ancients, who had cut the first trackways, had built their camp; only the heath-covered hillocks, challenging shadows in the growing dark, remained of their thriving community.
Lora knew no fear of the lonely place. How often had she and Peter led the chase on the long, late-summer days, sometimes dismounting there amongst the harebells and bilberries, the sun warm on their faces, to trail their mounts. She swung herself down from her jennet's back, her slippers brushing the short, springy turf. She turned to look back across her tracks. The trees stirred but did not part - she was alone. The harebells were already blooming here at the foot of the hill. Lora stared down at the frail flowerets for a while, then, grinding a clump beneath her heel, she jumped again into the saddle to ride away. The brown hood fell back from her face and, carried by the rain-wind, her buttercup hair streamed behind her. The breeze tugged at her cloak, whipping it away from the soft folds of the gown beneath, rose silk; her favourite colour always. Even in flight her vanity would not see it relinquished for a sober hue.
Out of the trees, a young man in crimson paused to draw rein. Stringing out on either side of him ranged his henchmen, liveried in blue and gold.
‘There she is!’ The cry went up and the chase was on.
Lora had seen them now. She spurred her jennet cruelly and found her destination in sight - the dark block of buildings which sheltered the White Ladies of Pinley; the Cistercians had built their abbey far away from the world. Lora tethered her mount, out of sight, beneath a canopy of hawthorns, and fled towards the Church of Our Lady. The door swung open beneath her impatient hands and then she was fastening it hastily behind her and running the length of the nave towards the aged Sister at the High Altar, until she sank at last onto her knees at the altar steps. Her voice was breathy, her words jerking out. ‘I claim the right to the Church's sanctuary, for myself and for my child - my unborn child,’ Lora concluded on a somewhat dramatic note. ‘Now, may I speak with the Mother Abbess?’
Elizabeth de Lotrynton was very still in her high-backed chair; a slight figure with a smooth, oval face, hands motionless in her lap, displaying the sapphire ring of her office, ice-blue and as cold. Lora was pacing the painted room where the bright figures of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, forever smiling, looked benignly down upon her. She turned, rose skirts swishing, hands distractedly twisting together or wildly cutting the air, and at last she brought a white fist down upon the table before the Mother Abbess, with a crash that shattered the peace of the White Ladies' seclusion.
‘Reverend Mother, in minutes from now Peter de Montfort will force his way into this office. A clutch of nuns, even the stout bulk of the Porteress, is hardly likely to hold him for long. All I ask is sanctuary until after the child is born and your oath that none shall know of the event. Afterwards, if you find no objection, I have a benefactress….’ she uttered the word with a wry, twisted smile, ‘she will see me endowed here and will take the child from me; Lady Maud de Montfort herself. I hardly think you will gainsay Madam Maud!’ she giggled, on the verge of hysteria.
Elizabeth rose stiffly, carefully, to her feet. ‘But why? Oh, I know your story, child, who does not hereabouts. I know you have one son, not three years old, by the Lord of Beaudesert. I know you have been many years with the de Montforts. Oh, we're not without our contacts here, news does creep in from the outside world, willy-nilly. You have reigned a queen at Beaudesert, despite all efforts on Lady Maud's part to estrange you from her grandson. My gossips bring tales of your bower hung with rose samite and white cendal, of your gowns and your gauds. Now you wish to relinquish them all. Am I to hazard at sudden realization of sin committed?’
Lora turned violet eyes of incredible loveliness upon the abbess. ‘This week an embassy arrived from the Papal Court, an answer at last to My Lord's plea that should our union be sanctified, then my son's birth would be legitimized along with further heirs of my body. But no, the Pope, in his wisdom, will not allow it. In spite of everything I have or may have my son will still be Little Sir Bastard. Oh, I'm sure you know his story; it is, after all, one of the most romantic, the most scandalous, in the shire - conceived under a hedge, the union of a tonsured clerk and a renegade novice. Peter can never marry me now, and marry he must for the sake of the dynasty. There are many, nobly born, who will be inclined to consider him as a suitor providing I am safely disposed of - so, here you see me!’
Elizabeth moved to the window. The scent of the marjoram, growing in the bed beneath the sill, was pungent; it brought her back to the present. ‘Think again, Lora, you are too much of the world. You haven't the makings of heroine, still less of martyr. You storm out because your pride will not allow you to relinquish your position to another woman. Turn back before it is too late!’
‘It is already too late!’ The storm had spent itself. Lora faced her with quiet finality.
; ~o0o~
Elizabeth was relieved when her interview with the Lord of Beaudesert was at an end. Peter de Montfort had thrust his way into her presence, followed by a trio of twittering nuns. He had stormed and threatened Holy Church with a vengeance which would have rendered him outlaw had he the slightest notion of carrying it out. He had demanded the return of his mistress, had cajoled and pleaded to be allowed to speak with her and, finally, had broken down and wept, promising Lora marriage in the face of all, swearing that their son would be well provided for, and imploring the Mother Abbess to go to her and bring him her answer.
Elizabeth went slowly down to the abbey church, kneeling awhile before the High Altar. The last of the light had gone now from the windows, only the sanctuary lamp burned with a cool blue flame. Eventually she rose, determined now to keep her wild young convert, and glided back to her unbidden guest. His eyes, hungry for news, searched every detail of her face.
‘The demoiselle Astley wishes to abjure the world. There is no more to be said on the matter, My Lord. Now will you be pleased to leave us in peace?’ She watched him ride slowly away into the summer darkness.
PART ONE
THE BEAR AND RAGGED STAFF
Chapter One
1327
The landscape which had witnessed Lora Astley's flight to the White Ladies of Pinley was transformed in the blackness of a winter's night. Only a scattering of stars braved the torn cloud mass, here and there, and already the snow was falling, soft and white and silent.
A lone horseman took the road down to the Lady Gate at a gallop; they let him pass over the bridge and into the eastern ward. A boy of thirteen, he cut a slight figure, cloaked in scarlet cameline, soaked to the darkness of wine lees. His hair was plastered to his head and, as he reined in at the East Gate to speak to the sentry, his mount steamed in the torchlight; he had ridden her hard.
It was bitterly cold up on the fortifications and Peter de Montfort had cut short his nightly inspection of Beaudesert's defences and was ready to retire to the solar fire. He stood above the East Gate, slapping his arms about him to try and keep warm, whilst Geoffrey Mikelton, his Constable, outlined a tale of breaches in the southern section of the curtain wall, and muttered into his beard about the ineptitude of the masons.
Peter had heard the thud of hoof-beats crossing the ward but, as their owner had passed almost unchallenged, his curiosity waned. There was a strong gust of wind from the ridgeway and, somewhere, a heavy door slammed to and a flight of roosting pigeons took off from the Mellent Tower. Peter was searching for a good reason to extricate himself from his Constable's earnest exposition and turned thankfully at a sudden clatter of footsteps upon the stair below them. The door giving onto the roof was set crashing back upon its hinges and a figure burst out into the night air. The door smashed home again and Peter saw a sliver of a boy, small yet for thirteen, with plenty of growing time to come. The sodden scarlet cloak was fastened untidily with a large sapphire pin, there were gold studs in the belt which loosely girdled the waist of his shapeless woollen tunic, and the spurs about his scuffed leather boots were tarnished silver.
‘My Lord.’ He gave Peter a sketchy bow; it was Mikelton who made a slow, deep obeisance. The gold crosslets on the boy's cloak were the crosslets of de Beauchamp, and this quicksilver child was the heir to the mighty Earldom of Warwick.
‘Thomas, so that was your dramatic entrance? Where did you leave your escort, at least a mile back, I suppose?’
‘No,’ the boy was out of breath, a hand pressed to his side where he had a stitch, ‘I came alone.’
Peter raised expressive dark eyebrows and signalled for Mikelton to leave them together.
‘You're welcome, Tom, but why couldn't you visit in style? I suppose you left word where you were bound?’ He supposed nothing of the sort and Beauchamp glanced up at him from beneath a fringe of thick dark lashes which shaded clear blue eyes; his mouth was set:
‘I did not. I'm not a child.’
‘No?’ asked Peter, an arm about his shoulders, guiding him across the leads towards the private staircase which wound straight down to the solar. A single torch lit the foot of the spiral, sending its lemon light to meet the darkness.
The solar was a pleasant room: firelit, torchlit, painted and tapestried. The shutters were fastened against the winter darkness. Beauchamp made straight for the hearth.
‘If you'd fallen among thieves,’ began Montfort.
The boy shrugged, ‘If they'd slit my throat there would have been an end; I have brothers.’
Peter poured him a cup of hippocras which had been warming on the hearth. ‘Flaunting the crosslets of Beauchamp you'd far more likely have prompted a ransom demand; a king's ransom for an earl, wouldn't you say? So the Honour of Warwick, your household, your tenants, all would have been bled white to redeem your august person. Not, on the face of it, a very responsible attitude. Think about it next time you plan a solitary escapade.’
Thomas wriggled out of the half-circle of his arm. ‘I had to come.’
‘Then you can sit for a while and thaw out whilst I rouse an escort to get you home.’
‘No, you can't! It's too late, it’s pitch dark and I've ridden so hard …’
‘And I have my guest bedrooms full; my sister, Lady Butler, is here. You know Lady Butler, if she has one failing it's her inability to travel light; her household is legion.’
‘Then I'll sleep here by the fire; it doesn't matter.’
‘You're Warwick, lad, you'll be treated according to your state whilst under my roof, or not at all. If you're saddle sore it will teach you to think ahead in future. Do you imagine I'm going to enjoy the journey on a night like this? But the whole of Warwick will be scouring the countryside for you by now; I can't let them sweat it out all night.’
Thomas sniffed, ‘Who cares! I'm not going back. I won't!’ The blue eyes were challenging. Peter cast him a shrewd look and settled back into his carved armchair, drawing the boy to stand before him, a hand on each arm. He shook him lightly.
‘Now, My Lord of Warwick, let's hear your story and if you're going to lie, make them good ones!’
‘On my honour, My Lord, I wouldn't!’ The boy was indignant. ‘But He's there! He's at Warwick, strutting through My hall, instructing My garrison, chivvying My household, pacing My walls, threatening, shouting ...’
‘Who?’ roared Peter. ‘For God's sake slow down, lad.’
‘The White Wolf,’ said the boy, ‘Roger Mortimer. My father always hated him; you know how he hated him!’
‘Yes,’ said Montfort reasonably, ‘but your father died eleven years ago; death can wipe out enmity.’
‘Sanctimonious twaddle, My Lord!’ said Beauchamp scornfully. ‘He has no right to assume command at Warwick, to order me about. He said I didn't know how to wear a suit of clothes, that my education had been sorely neglected, that by now I should be able to read and write a fair enough hand, that I rode like a gypsy and ate like a peasant. He called me a sullen brat and, when I answered back, he threatened to have me whipped for my insolence. He has no right!’ He kicked at the rushes with the toe of one boot.
Peter drew him against his knee, an arm comfortably about him. ‘Roger Mortimer is now your legal guardian, Tom - in loco parentis - he has a father's rights in your minority. He's obviously ruffled your feathers but things will mend. What was between him and your father is all in the past and you will have to submit to him until you come of age.’
‘Submit! Submit to that whoremonger!’
‘Dear God, child, what stories have you been listening to? Keep silent! Even in this house walls have ears.’
‘But it's true, you know it is. He debauched the Queen; everyone knows that!’
‘And you are too young to sit in judgement; wait until you come into your own, the time will pass quickly enough, I promise.’
‘But you will speak for me? Let him know I am past needing a nursemaid, that I can handle my own affairs?’
P
eter shook his head sadly. ‘I have no jurisdiction over you. The King made you Roger Mortimer's ward. I cannot quarrel with that.’
‘But you were my father's friend; you counselled my widowed mother; he’ll listen to you. We'll ride home together, My Lord, you and I at the head, your retinue streaming out behind us in a river of Montfort blue and gold. Remember how you used to let me ride before you on Brigliadoro? I though you could see the whole world from his broad back. You taught me everything about this shire; showed me each river and hill and copse and field, every hidden village, and what to look for at the change of the seasons; the coming of the cuckoo and the flight of the swallows. I learnt more from you than I will ever learn from him. You made me love this land in all its moods, told me that in the end it was the only thing that mattered.’ The blue eyes lit up, giving Peter a glimpse of the man he might one day become, with the power to fasten grown men to his side, if others, mantled in avarice, did not crush the spirit out of him before he grew up.
‘Tom,’ he said, ‘you're all night and day, no room for dawn and dusk, soaring to the heights or sunk in the mire. I've decided you can stay the night, there's a pallet in my chamber, and we shall set out at dawn with that cavalcade you talked of. But I want your oath on it that you'll be civil to My Lord Mortimer and make your apologies.’
‘Yes, My Lord,’ said Thomas demurely.
‘And if you're crossing your fingers behind your back you can uncross them,’ Peter growled. ‘Now get off to bed.’ He turned him for the door and prodded him between the shoulder-blades.