The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  John de Montfort was not smiling, he said dryly, ‘More muscadel, Lady A? You appear to have saved the dynasty!’

  Chapter Thirteen

  July - 1343

  It was raining heavily at Coleshill, sheeting across the river meadows, flinging itself against the shutters like shingle brought in from the sea with the spring tides. Johanna sat in her favourite chimney corner, hunched in her cloak, and reading by the light of a candle-stub. The Lytle Geste of Sir Esquivat took place in a fairer southern summer, beneath a blue sky. Esquivat rode through greening forests with four noble deeds to accomplish before achieving the hand of the Lady Mellisent. Four seemed excessive; three was all that was generally expected. Johanna's thoughts went back to a certain sunny St. Barnaby's and to the coming of the White Knight, to her father’s patient, good-humoured search of the midlands until he found the man's name: John de Montfort, son of Peter of Beaudesert. Illegitimate, of course, but from so romantic a coupling it could be overlooked. Johanna had made her own enquiries and come to her own conclusions weeks before but the game must be played out. No lady makes up her mind in unseemly haste but summer was slipping by and they could be married by Lammas Tide. Johanna laid aside Sir Esquivat. Clinton was almost asleep in his fireside chair; his head was nodding, his chin drooping by inches.

  ‘Father!’ said Johanna imperiously. ‘I am resolved. I shall take John de Montfort!’

  The Lord of Coleshill sat bolt upright with a start. ‘Sweetheart, it will make me so proud! When our name dies here at Coleshill, what better than to replace it with the name of Montfort and all it stands for!’

  Johanna said, ‘Please keep the speeches for my wedding. The Clintons were proud builders of castles, the Montforts merely castle razers when all's said and done. I think I shall have an early night.’ She planted a kiss on his forehead and took her unsteady candle up the spiral staircase to her chamber in the Lady Tower. The rain was relentless. Mazera had lit a fire in the grate and put a hot stone in her bed. Johanna lay for a long time, candle extinguished, watching the glowing embers but only seeing the White Knight’s mocking smile, the lithe body, the long slim hands; and hearing the clear young voice scattering lines of poetry across that hot summer’s day like the troubadours of the old Courts of Love. What if her father and Peter de Montfort had sprung a trap for her? She had willingly, wittingly walked straight into it.

  ~o0o~

  John de Montfort received the news that his future was all but signed and sealed, half way to the Lewes Tower, on another such melancholy day over a week later. The heavens had voided themselves of all they had that July, there had even been a hail storm, and the promise of June with its attendant blue skies and eglantine, birdsong and butterflies had melted away. There had been a fall of masonry loosened by the winter frosts and toppled by the recent storms and father and son were striding out to inspect the damage.

  ‘Have you no comment to make?’ shouted Peter into the teeth of the storm. ‘Does the prospect of the Lady Johanna please you? She's young and strong and Clinton says he won't marry again; she’ll be his heiress. You'll be castellan in your own right when he eventually quits this life.’

  ‘He's younger than you are,’ mouthed John, ‘and you are mistaken, father - castellan in right of my wife only!’

  ‘How else can you achieve the distinction? You're not leading me through a quagmire, are you, boy?’

  ‘No, sir. And what comments am I supposed to make? What am I supposed to feel? Relief, because she appears to have the requisite number of limbs and visible organs?’

  ‘Gratitude would not come amiss, you carping young…’ Peter’s words were lost against the weather. ‘What a bloody mess!’ He was staring at a gaping hole in the wall of the Lewes Tower where it sat athwart the allure.

  ‘Father, I need your good offices. I need the money. I'll submit to this marriage. I'll cherish the woman according to her state. I'll honour her according to her deserts and my inclinations. I'll get you grandchildren on her if she's fruitful but don't expect me to cavort about dewy eyed with wild protestations of love on my lips!’

  They were in the lee of the Lewes Tower now, out of the moaning of the wind.

  ‘Don't shout,’ said Peter, ‘I never mentioned love, never have; it's not an essential prerequisite in marriage.’

  ‘As you discovered with Margaret,’ said John acidly.

  ‘As I discovered with Margaret and don't preach love at me, boy. You don't know the meaning of the word. There's a world more to love than lust. Are we risking the stairs? There may be another fall.’

  ‘I'll go up and have a look round. Wait here.’

  Peter put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No, John, whilst we're here in some privacy I've something that needs to be said. I don't want to preach…’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said John, ‘this sounds ominous.’ He was leaning against the core of the spiral, auburn hair tangled in the dampness of the air, eyes bright, raindrops spattering the dark stuff of his mantle. ‘Why don’t we go to my room? Simon has been trained to light fires. If you go down with an ague you’ll never get me to the church door!’

  Peter nodded, pulling his own warm russet cloak about him. They trudged back up the slope of the bailey towards the Great Gatehouse and into the inner wards, making for the Audley Tower and John’s inner sanctum. Peter realised that he had rarely been invited over the threshold of his son’s room; like most boys he had guarded his private space jealously. But now John was standing aside, ushering him into the firelit space with a mocking bow. Simon Trussel vanished unobtrusively leaving them to a heaped fire of crackling logs. In spite of Trussel’s best efforts it remained a jumble of a room; cushions heaped on the bed, rare and costly books piled in a corner and various military accoutrements in odd niches. The walls were hung with the kind of tapestries you did not see in the average solar.

  Peter coughed. ‘These will have to go. The Lady Johanna…’

  ‘She might appreciate them. It’s said she has a romantic turn of mind.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Peter, ‘there’s romance and there’s …. That reminds me. It wasn’t so long ago you chided me for my silences where your mother was concerned. I’ve come to think that perhaps you were right to do so. A man, especially a man about to be married, should know something of his parentage.’

  ‘Please,’ said John, ‘sit down, there is a chair.’ He hooked the room’s only seat towards them with one foot and, when his father was settled, flung himself onto the bed, arms under his head. ‘So what was she like, Lora Astley?’

  Peter did not look at him; his gaze was fixed upon the flickering flames. ‘I can only tell you that I loved her; that from the day I met her until the day she left us both to be with the White Ladies, I never ceased to love her, never took another woman outside of wedlock. When she fled from Beaudesert my world crumbled about my ears; that is why I have never been able to talk about it. Your mother was a delightful girl, a beautiful woman. I was the first man she had ever known and I have no doubts that she will go to her grave amongst the Holy Sisters without knowing another. Whatever you hear from others, she was no strumpet. She left me bereft but she also left me her son, our son. I thank God for it. Perhaps I made a poor job of rearing you, I don’t know, but when I look into your face I see her. I fear I was too lax a father.’

  John had been watching him as he spoke. He accepted all without comment before saying lightly. ‘Then you needn’t have worried on that score. No sooner were you out of the gates but the rest of the family would descend upon me and I would pay for my sins in full.’

  ‘I didn’t know. What I am trying to say is that your mother and I had something a world apart from what I could ever have had with Margaret, though I honour the girl’s memory and give thanks for Guy’s birth. When you marry Johanna it won’t be as it was for us, for Lora and me, it can’t be, but if you start well together and build firm foundations it will be a good marriage.’

  John grimaced. ‘That was rather trite. I
don’t want a ‘good marriage’; it sounds like a death knell.’

  ‘You need to grow up, John. Be kind to her, be gentle, let things settle, let her get used to us and then, in a few months, if your inclinations take you elsewhere just be discreet. Eventually, of course, she will discover the truth. Women have a nose for such things. But she will resign herself in time, realise that that is how men are made and how things will be.’

  ‘Poor Johanna,’ said John sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, by then she will be thinking about babies and re-decorating the solar and who to invite for Christmas, the sort of minutiae women love to involve themselves in. She’ll just be thankful that you don’t expect to bed her every night. For God’s sake, boy, stop laughing at me. I am obliged to say such things. Your Aunt Bess has been on at me for weeks; thinks you ought to practice a little abstinence between now and the wedding, clear the blood; see you at your fittest…’

  ‘Dear heaven,’ sighed John, ‘how about if I back down and profess a desire for the flower-filled gardens of some monastic cloister?’

  ‘I don’t speculate in miracles,’ said Peter.

  John was sitting up, arms linked about one knee. The firelight limned his face, bringing the cheek bones into relief, burnishing the red hair. He looked suddenly very young. Peter put a hand on his shoulder and patted it lightly.

  ‘Now, is there anything you’d like to ask me?’ He seemed to have shed his habitual reticence and was throwing himself into his new role as father of the groom.

  It was John’s turn to feel discomforted. It was not the firelight which set the rose-glow suffusing his face and spreading down the smooth neck. ‘Father, I wish you’d just go! The masonry needs sorting out. The Lewes Tower, remember? You don’t have to tell me; we need the Clinton inheritance. The whole tower needs to come down and half the Curtain with it.’

  Peter got up amicably enough and went out, whistling to himself. John sent the door crashing to and retreated back to his bed, the bed he would soon be sharing with the alarming girl with the bell-rope braids. He looked about him at the room which had always been his sanctuary, his bolt hole, and tried to imagine it cluttered with women’s apparel. Eventually, he rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the pillow over his head. Simon came in and tidied up around him.

  ~o0o~

  At least the weather had warmed for Lammas. At the castle of Beaudesert in the County of Warwick, John de Montfort, natural son of Peter, Third Lord Montfort and his paramour, Lora Astley, now of the Holy Sisters of St. Mary the Virgin, Pinley, was wedded to the Lady Johanna, only daughter of Sir John de Clinton of the Manor of Coleshill. But it was a dull, humid day, sticky and uncomfortable indoors, oppressive in the open. Even the two fond parents could not, it seemed, command the elements.

  The ceremony took place in the chapel at Beaudesert, performed by Jack de Lobbenham, Peter's chaplain, amanuensis and former partner in levity and graceless deeds. The Lady Johanna wore cloth of silver, heavily powdered with the Clinton fleurdeluce. Her hair, unbound from its accustomed braids to proclaim her virginity, snaked down her back in a shaggy pelt. The snowy blossoms in her coronet wilted in the heat. The bridegroom wore Montfort blue and gold.

  Immediately after the ceremony the feasting began with no visible expense spared. Bride and groom sat side by side upon the dais with their illustrious fathers, John's half-brother, eight year old Guy, his Aunt Bess and a clutch of Freville and Butler cousins of John's and Clinton kin of Johanna's. The boards were spread with a feast fit for an emperor.

  Peter looked about him with satisfaction and nudged his elder son. ‘They'll be finding a new nickname for you soon, lad, Prester John no doubt.’

  Before them gleamed the family silver and pewter and the great salt. From between the service screens filed a long column of pages carrying the main dishes: crane and swan in their plumage, a hog's head stuck with almonds, tiny venison pasties, plover and quail, teal and widgeon, a paste of lark's tongues; numerous fish dishes, sturgeon and roach, bream and tench, all garnished and spiced with cinnamon and ginger, saffron and nutmeg, decorated with fragrant herbs and bright radishes, candied violets and gaudy marigolds. Then came the crumbling pastries, yellow custards, trembling jellies and towering sugar subtleties, moulded into the shapes of palaces and fabled birds. Wine flowed as from a bottomless conduit; muscadel and malvoisie, clary and vernage..

  In the gallery above the hall the minstrels played throughout the feast. When the boards were cleared and the trestles removed the dancing began. John led Johanna forward. The bride was pink with the heat, made clumsy by the weight of her gold-encrusted surcote; the groom was flushed with wine. They trod a stately measure together, stiffly, formally. John bowed, Joan made a less than graceful reverence and they parted to mingle with their guests. As the hall became hotter and the dancing more abandoned, as voices rose and the musicians became just a little too strident Johanna moved to take a seat in one of the window embrasures, leaning an aching head against a cool stone mullion. John was flinging himself into the dance, every now and then reaching out for a brimming goblet of wine, egging the musicians on to faster measures, bawdier songs, a wild bacchanal.

  Aunt Bess, espying the wilting Johanna abandoned on her window seat, fought her way through the press of the crowd to her side. Johanna was seeing the White Knight tarnished; hardly recognisable as the handsome boy who had ridden beneath her tower and demolished Second Cousin Ned. The brightness was dimmed by the heat, the wit debauched with wine, the quick tongue slurred, and his gait unsteady. Yet she still longed for his lost easy gallantry. Elizabeth sighed inwardly as she glanced critically at the sweat-damp hair hanging in rats' tails on the girl's sun-brown neck, at the shapeless finger nails, splitting from too close a contact with the herb garden.

  ‘Johanna, my dear, perhaps you would like to retire?’

  The girl nodded, swept Peter a deep curtsey, kissed her father and, followed by Mazera and her girl cousins, let Elizabeth Freville lead her to John's apartments in the Audley Tower. There was a lot of good-natured merriment and the flinging of rose petals. Johanna was relieved to say goodbye to the giggling cousins and to be free of the gold and silver gown. Sitting in her shift she let Mazera brush out her hair, whilst Elizabeth turned back the covers on the great bed and saw that the room was ordered. There were herbs strewn about the bed and a pitcher full of wild flowers upon the bride chest. Waving Mazera away, Johanna moved to bury her face in them.

  ‘Your thought, Madam?’ She smiled at Elizabeth and Lady Freville, who had once been wild, red-headed Bess de Montfort, a lonely young bride in a strange fortress, nodded and smiled back.

  ‘Goodnight, my dear. If there is nothing more you need I will take this child with me and we'll return to the revels.’ She kissed her nephew's bride on both cheeks and, with Mazera at her heels, left the room. The Fleurdeluce climbed into the big bed, spread her hair about her as the Lady Mellisent was wont to do in the story of Sir Esquivat, and pinched some colour into her cheeks. Then she settled down with thudding heart to await the coming of her handsome, new-wed husband.

  Bess had words with her brother and Peter forced his way through the dancers to where his son was demonstrating a new measure from the Eastern Mediterranean, taught him by the jugglers, hired for the evening.

  ‘John,’ said Peter, clearing his throat, ‘your lady has left the hall; she will be waiting.’

  ‘No,’ said John, ‘she will be titivating, all women are the same. Aren't you dancing?’

  ‘Go and sober up somewhere,’ hissed his father and thankfully watched him saunter nonchalantly, if unsteadily, to the door which opened out into the inner courtyard. Thunder rolled about the castle hill. There wasn't a breath of air to be had. The young man prevailed upon a sleepy little page to draw him a bucket of water from the well and sluiced his face. The water smelt of the dark brown earth and brought a return of his battered senses. Then he turned and climbed the stairs to the chapel. The altar candles, still burning, lit th
e shafts of the graceful pillars, leading the eye to the groins of the vaulting. The flickering golden light sketched the sculpted tracery of the mullion heads and brought to life the shadowy company of the great mural behind the altar.

  Montfort bowed unsteadily to his especial saint - Michael the warrior, alighting, sword in hand, glowing from the tips of his mighty golden wings to the silver tinsel of his armour. The saint looked back at him with his own eyes; his own lips curved in his own sardonic smile and yet the man who had drawn and painted and set free this mocking young archangel had gone to his maker before John's birth. Maud had explained; the living model for the soldier saint had been his namesake, Peter's older brother, John, Second Lord Montfort, slain at Bannockburn in his twenty-second year. After that, Peter had been summoned from his studies at Oxford and, a tonsured cleric, he had taken up the dead boy's mantle and the lordship of Beaudesert.

  Summi Regis archangele

  Michahel,

  Intende, quaesumus, nostris

  Vocibus.

  John had long ago discovered that if you stared at the lips for long enough the corners lifted and the benediction came.

  Jack de Lobbenham, cat footed, came between him and the light from the altar. ‘Why are you here?’ His voice seemed pitched above the ceiling bosses pinning the springing line of the vault. John stepped backwards, stumbling against a wooden bench in the shadowy nave. He sat down suddenly.

  ‘This is not where you should be,’ de Lobbenham said sharply.

  As if in response to Alcuin's prayer to St. Michael, lightning lit up the sky beyond the ridgeway for a moment and etched the summer trees. The chaplain's shadow became a gross giant upon the wall. John had spread his length along the bench, arms beneath his head. De Lobbenham stood over him. ‘John, what is the matter? Can I help? I wasn't born in the cloth.’

  ‘I don't know. No, nothing's wrong,’ John said his face unusually naked.