by Helen Burton
Mariana watched him thoughtfully. Then, kneeling in the rushes of the floor, put her other hand about his neck and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
He, with a furtive glance at the sleeping Mattie, head down upon her settle bed, kissed her back. When he could speak again he said, ‘What was that for?’
‘Curiosity,’ whispered Mariana, ‘I wanted to see whether the boy I knew had grown up.’
‘And is there no other measure of a man? I thought you had taken a sacred vow of chastity, My Lady.’
She smiled, ‘I merely bought time out of an uncongenial match. When I am ready I will take John Herthill. He'll value what he has the more.’
‘Value it, devalued?’ grinned Montfort and she slapped him lightly on the mouth. The nurse shifted, uncomfortable on her wooden perch, and muttered in her sleep.
‘I'll take the other bench,’ said Mariana, ‘you can sleep across the door and guard both our virtues. Shall we reach home tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ said John, ‘we stick in the saddle until we do, come hell or high water; you’re far too great a liability. Banished from Derby's service, hunted down by my own kin, I cannot afford your father's displeasure on top of all.’
‘Craven,’ mouthed Mariana from across the floor. The last log shifted and disintegrated into a pile of grey ash, the light went out of the room.
~o0o~
Warwick, snow-capped for Christmas, every merlon along the crenellated battlements white-hatted, was a place of enchantment for Kate's four small boys. The pregnant countess had an opulence and lassitude about her, like a cat caught with her paw in a crock of cream. The young people had emerged into the great court from the mystery of the Christmas Eucharist, to pelt each other with snow balls, the girls squealing as handfuls of the stuff found their way down the necks of gowns too low to be considered proper for chapel.
A blood red sun broke through the wintry dawn for a short while and then retreated but the castle was a blaze of light from the first stirrings in the kitchens until the last of the revellers weaved their way upstairs well into the following morning.
Dancing followed the evening feast, but John de Montfort, lounging upon a window seat, violet eyes half closed against the drifting smoke and the dancing light of the cressets, felt himself detached from the scene. They had had rough and ready Christmases at Beaudesert since Margaret had died; good food and wine in plenty, dancing too, but nothing to match the splendour of Warwick. Thomas's masons had worked wonders since he had come into his own lands and Kate's flair for interior decoration had enlivened the barest ante-chamber and tower room.
Up above in the gallery the minstrels had launched into a wild Aragonaise, redolent of sunlight and sand, castanets and roses. The women had joined hands in a ring, circling, darting in and out of the firelight, stars sparking from jewelled nets, from silver tissue, from baudekin veils, warped with gold. Faster and faster played the flutes, faster and faster whirled the dancers, faces flushed as in some wild bacchanal. He caught sight of Mariana, dark hair flowing, a garland of ivy about her brow, closer surely to the maenads and the pagan priestesses than she would ever become to the Holy Sisters of Norfolk. She blew him a kiss and laughed out loud and then a shadow came between them. Orabella in scarlet and gold, the pale skin warmed to the blush of a briar rose with firelight, with wine, with the exertions of the dance.
‘Why so aloof?’ she asked softly, ‘This is not like you, surely?’
John smiled, ‘I am experiencing as an onlooker, an outsider. I wear a cloak of invisibility. I take roofs from rafters. I am Asmodeus; I do not belong.’
She sank back onto the cushions beside him. ‘This is not what Thomas would want. His grudges are for your father. If you serve him well there will be rewards.’
He laughed. ‘No, I merely meant that today I observe as a stranger. Next year, next month, I shall have been absorbed into the bedrock of this fortress like everyone else.’
‘But even so, to be alone on Christmas Night…’
‘Where is the good Sir Roger?’
‘That need not concern you.’
‘Then will you come? You know where I lodge - in the Bear Tower, where they incarcerated my young brother; a fitting pointer to my value, an everlasting irony.’ There was bitterness in his voice.
Orabella said, ‘Your brother was generally liked.’
‘You knew him well?’ It was said with a lift of one eyebrow.
‘Only through Thomas's eyes and Thomas's thoughts and he thought well of him. Richard will always know what he wants and judge the right road for his quest.’
‘And I do not know? I am floundering in the dark?’
‘Not quite, but I think life will spring its surprises upon you, as it does on most of us. Perhaps it is better that way. And Mary - your Mariana - has her gypsy eyes upon us. She is an importunate child.’
John said, ‘For a girl under so bleak a vow she looks well enough.’
Orabella smiled. ‘Black is such a contrast to the gaudy parrot hues of her contemporaries, it also suits her. Mariana is a baggage; she has her mother's amorality without her mother's excuses. Beware!’
~o0o~
The lamps were lit but burning low, the cushions were spread, the brazier in the corner giving comforting warmth to the small chamber. John de Montfort, a long robe of emerald brocade belted about his waist, sat upon the embroidered counterpane, one foot tucked beneath him, plucking out a song on his lute. It seemed half a lifetime away since he had burst from the gilded pie and serenaded Kate. He thought of Kate, plump and serene, secure in her marriage-bed with Thomas. He let his fingers strum out a discord; he would not think of Kate again. He tuned his strings, head bent low, and waited for Orabella. He heard the door open and softly close, he heard the whisper of her gown as she crossed the floor. He caught the scent of her hair; unbound, it drifted about his own as she leant over and covered his eyes with her hands. He laid the lute aside, blind still, put up his hands and, prising her fingers away, spun her with a grip on one slim wrist until she lay supine across his lap, laughing up at him. She wore only a light mantle of black velvet, fastened loosely across her slender throat, its folds lay pooled about her nakedness; white breasts and white thighs translucent in the lamp light.
‘Christmas gifts,’ said John, ‘usually appear better wrapped and tied in tinsel bows; half the fun is opening the box. Wouldn't you agree?’
‘I take it,’ said Mariana, ‘that you were expecting someone else.’
‘That is the story of my life. You wouldn't expect me to give you her name?’
‘I'm not really interested and I've slipped the peg in the latch; we needn't be disturbed.’
‘I assure you, I'm not - disturbed,’ said John but it took an effort of will.
‘Oh, but that's a lie,’ Mariana rose in one moon-white, fluid movement, to sit, mermaid-like, before him in the sea of his coverlet. She was very young, her body without blemish.
‘I am not interested in schoolgirls and, as you rightly assumed, I have an assignation.’
‘And she has more to offer?’ Mariana's white hands moved to the cord which fastened his robe, her fingers working nimbly at the knot. Her black, gypsy’s hair tumbled to his thighs. She heard him catch his breath and laughed softly.
‘You're Warwick's daughter,’ said John practically. ‘I have told you before, I have one man after my skin, I'll not place my neck in another noose.’
‘A man of honour speaks, or else a coward!’ jeered Mariana, beginning to be angry. Kneeling before him, her hands moving beneath the breast of his robe, she caught the sheen of perspiration on his pale face and smiled into the violet eyes. He pushed her ungently from him and strode to the door, belting his robe as he went, jerking out the latch pin and pulling the door wide. ‘Orabella,’ he said, ‘for God's sake get her out of here!’
Lady A swept in, resplendent in flurt silk and red brocade, veils fluttering about her face, all promise without open invitation; a rose full-blown s
weeping down upon the bud. She stood above the girl with the milk-white limbs and midnight hair. ‘Have you?’ Her words were for John.
‘No, of course not; but she doesn't make it easy.’
Orabella snatched at the girl's cloak and thrust it at her. ‘Did any see you enter this room?’
‘I'm not such a fool! And do you think I came uninvited?’
John shrugged his shoulders. ‘If I said she was a hot little trollop who would believe it?’
‘Oh, Orabella would,’ said the girl, ‘but Orabella is her own yardstick.’
‘I remember,’ said John, ‘you warned me about her. If she's decent would you take her back to her nurse?’
‘Damn you, John de Montfort, damn you! You think you can treat me like a child. It will not be a child's revenge, that I can promise you. You think you can shame me, cast me out? Oh, you will regret this night's work.’
‘The only thing I shall regret,’ said John, when Orabella returned to take up his lute and pluck softly at the strings, ‘is that I didn't give her a good spanking!’
Orabella smiled. ‘You would both have enjoyed it too much. But don't underestimate her, my dear; you have made an enemy. Be on your guard!’
PART FOUR
VOWS OF THE HERON
Chapter Twenty-Five
January - 1344
Edward, with the noble enterprise of France before him and the chivalric ideal always at the forefront of his thoughts, was set upon founding a permanent Round Table. By proclamation, he summoned the greatest knights in the land to come to Windsor in mid-January to take part in a week of jousting and ceremonial. With legends of Arthur's Camelot in mind, he was determined to establish a permanent base and, thereafter, to found an order of knighthood to rival all others. When the time came for the great embarkation for France and the fulfilment of the Vows of the Heron, he would be backed by an army of knights fully committed to his cause and bound together in the strongest of brotherhoods.
Windsor could not hold the great names that were to converge upon its round tower. A city of tents flourished in the river meadows and days of preparation went into the building of stands to flank the measured ground of the lists. The castle became the home of a vast bevy of ladies and their entourages who had been invited to accompany their lords. Taking up an inordinate amount of space were their wardrobes, as it was inconceivable that a gown could be worn on consecutive days. Trunks and saddle-bags cluttered every corner, whilst small pages darted up and down stairs with messages, colliding with tiring women, their arms laden with silks and brocades, and maid servants flourishing goffering irons and curling tongs.
Monday, January 19th was, for most of the kingdom, a dull day with leaden skies, promise of snow and a sharp east wind; for the King's guests it was the beginning of the most glittering occasion witnessed in a colourful reign.
Just beyond the fenced off enclosure of the lists stood the Tree of Arms, an ancient oak, last week stark against the winter sky, now gilded and bedecked with leaves of silver and gold foil and hung with the arms and achievements of every visiting knight and squire, displayed for all comers to see and under the critical eye of the heralds, for fear that anyone should slip in whose arms had been abased or whose right to bear them should be suspect. Prominent were the leopards of England, for Edward himself would joust tomorrow. Six Earls were upon the guest list, nine Countesses and numerous lesser barons, knights and squires. All were free to inspect the arrayed shields hung against the winter sky.
The festivities were to begin with a banquet, the King personally escorting each lady to her seat in the hall whilst the men sat down to sup in torchlit pavilions in the courtyard. The hall was ablaze with cressets and flambeaux, the minstrel gallery suspended, wavering above the wreathing, rising smoke; the musicians played discreetly whilst the ladies were seated. A fanfare of silver trumpets announced the arrival of two Queens, Philippa and Isabella, the Queen Dowager, freed from house arrest at Castle Rising to grace the occasion. Both royal ladies wore identical gowns of crimson velvet, edged with ermine; a gracious complement from Philippa to her mother-in-law. Isabella was still a beauty, the flesh pared down a little, wings of grey at her temples. Philippa was blooming. She sat beside Katherine Beauchamp and they compared notes on their forthcoming confinements. Kate should have been at Warwick, dreaming in her fireside chair, a rug over her knees. It was no time of year to travel but Thomas knew better than to forbid her attendance at what was reckoned to be the social event of the year; so she had travelled down by charette with Lady A and Mariana in attendance.
After a banquet whose number of costly dishes had run into double figures, the boards were cleared away and the Queens moved to the thrones set out for them on the dais whilst the floor was swept clear for the dancing to begin. For most this meant an undignified scamper up to their rooms and a speedy change of costume, for the latter part of the evening was to take the form of a masque and the guests had been supplied with fantastic disguises: vizards in the shape of dragons and elephants, swans and conies. Thomas Beauchamp, in black velvet, trailed a cape of peacocks' eyes; John de Montfort allowed Simon Trussel to button him into an alarmingly short jupon made entirely of gold and silver spangles and finished with a gryphon's tail, whilst Orabella wore a white sheath stitched over with swansdown which puffed away at every draught. The tall, well-muscled man in the leopard's head, who manoeuvred her out onto the wall walk and tried to kiss her, said he hoped that the rising gale might divest her further.
John de Montfort, drawn into the ring dances beside a tall young woman in a black mask and a ripple of tinsel ringlets which fell to her waist and, threaded with tiny silver bells, gave out a sound like wind-chimes, contrived to keep her at his side for the unmasking ceremony which traditionally took place at the wicked hour of midnight, as soon as the bells chimed out. But minutes before, as he turned to pay some outrageous compliment to Lady Derby, aquiver in rose-madder fish scales, the girl had slipped away, taken to the stairs and vanished among the warren of rooms and antechambers about the oval tower. He asked Orabella who she was but she shrugged her pale shoulders, causing another fall of swansdown, and claimed not to have noticed the tinsel ringlets and Thomas said there were half a dozen girls in black masks. When at last John found a vacant cushion and sank down at Lady Kate's red-slippered feet, she only laughed and said didn't he know that long flowing hair, whether tinsel or floss or just plaited straw, was the traditional way of representing a virgin and at Edward's court they were probably as rare as dragons’ teeth and far more of a novelty. If this one was what she purported to be, she presumably wanted to stay that way.
John went to his costly pavilion - sky blue with a gold trim - unusually bad-tempered, and clouted the hapless Trussel about the ear for falling asleep and letting the brazier go out. They both spent a cold and miserable night huddled in their cloaks. There was a film of ice on John's shaving water in the morning.
~o0o~
In later years, looking back, the next few days came together as a handful of pages flicked over in a book of hours; a colourful blur packed with incident. Here and there the book fell open and let the memory dwell for a moment longer upon the jousting: a king against his peers; golden Edward charging down upon My Lord of Arundel; upon the velvet queens sitting in the draped stands, clasped hands at their breasts as they held breath or closed their eyes until relief sighed out as their menfolk clattered safely out of the sanded yard; upon nights of dancing, each hour bringing greater licence and daring; snatched kisses in deep window seats, fumbled couplings in tapestried alcoves; upon a solemn Mass in the chapel, the air quivering with fervent voices, the King swearing an oath to found a permanent Round Table here at Windsor, seeing himself a latter-day Arthur, renewing the glories of Camelot, his knights his paladins; Derby and Warwick, Pembroke and Arundel echoing the oath taking; Lancelot and Percival, Galahad and Gawain again, without the saving grace of a Holy Grail but still shot through with the fire of Edward's presence, the bolts o
f his enthusiasm.
~o0o~
Johanna Montfort, she of the tinsel ringlets, had managed to elude her husband that first night. The second evening she had abandoned carnival dress and appeared in the peacock blue velvet she had worn at the Coleshill joust, with her hair braided up within a glittering gold crespine. He still failed to recognise her.
Taking to the floor in a ladies’ dance which involved a variety of wheel movements and much balancing back and forth, she found herself hand to hand with Orabella.
‘Lady Aylesbury?’ smiled Johanna.
‘Have we met?’ Orabella reversed, looking her over.
‘I believe,’ said Johanna, ‘that you have the loan of my husband.’
‘Johanna? My dear, I assumed you had no further use for him.’
‘On the contrary, the day will come when I shall require his return, and in good working order.’
‘You have only to ask.’ Orabella reversed again. They made their reverences to each other and passed on in different directions.
~o0o~
On the third day of the jousting, John de Montfort had been called upon to squire Thomas de Beauchamp to give Nicholas Durvassal the chance to enter in a lesser series of bouts, staged purely to give the army of esquires a competition of their own. Montfort wore Warwick's red and gold livery, a short close-fitting jupon over scarlet hose, and Warwick’s badge at his breast. Thomas was splendid as always from the trailing mantling of his tourney helm to his polished golden spurs; his horse cloth and bridle glittered with gems. It was the showy magnificence beloved of the populace who, given the choice, would never have exchanged these circuses for bread. A crust could comfort the belly for an hour or so, such a spectacle was food for the dreams of many a winter's night.