The Lords of Arden

by Helen Burton

  John led Warwick's grey forward, snorting and tossing its head, pawing at the sawdust, excited by the crowd. They halted for the Earl to mount and he did so adroitly, lifting his head to stare about him from his high vantage. Behind him blossomed the pavilions: scarlet and gold, popinjay green and sable, sky blue and ermine, Indian purple and silver. John knew all the livery colours, every noble device. There was little he had forgotten of lessons learned in Derby's household; the memories flooded back. Beside the royal tent, set a little apart, he had recognised the blue and white of Lancaster. He caught Beauchamp watching him, enquiry in the blue eyes, and averted his gaze.

  The stands were crammed to capacity, silk awnings flapping in the stiff breeze; a moving panorama of faces, a fluttering of opalescent veils about pale complexions, the winter sunlight coruscating from the jewelled bosses which supported heavy coils of plaited tresses about their owners' ears; the sheen of taffeta, the oiled gleam of sables. Here and there stood excited little knots of pages, clutching each other and giggling like convent schoolgirls. Where the royal stand, carrying its burden of the greatest, the richest, the most exquisite ladies in the land, came to an end, a group of mounted figures caught the attention. A dozen young men, close fitting hose moulding the calf, tightly buttoned jupons opened at the neck to expose the trailing points of the silk shirt, daggers richly fashioned in goldsmiths' work, jaunty caps trimmed with ermine or embroidered with roses; young men of the town bent on pleasure. Thomas Beauchamp gave them a second and a third look and John followed his gaze. The pleasure, it seemed, was theirs to give more surely than to receive. The jupons clung like glove leather to round, swelling bosoms, the rakish caps covered long locks, the smooth thighs imprisoning fine horseflesh promised a night of fire and sensuality. They were high-class whores, ready to bestow themselves upon the victors at whim. But there were one or two amongst them from better stables, lured by greater excitements than cushioned seats in the stands could provide. John de Montfort clamped his eyes upon the nearest, a tall golden girl in sorrel velvet with legs which went on for ever and a nimbus of blonde curls peeping out from a cap of silver fur.

  ‘Get that shameless little hussy out of here!’ grunted Warwick between his teeth.

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘You heard me. I don't care what you do with her but keep her out of sight until you can furnish her with a decent gown and all the trimmings.’

  ‘But which one, My Lord?’ John was amused.

  ‘Dear God, boy, your wife of course, the Clinton girl! It may amuse you to see her playing the painted jade but her saintly mother was my aunt. How do I answer to her in heaven for a debauched daughter?’ But John had grabbed the nearest unoccupied mount - a sturdy brown cob - and was across the tilting ground and out of earshot.

  What was she thinking about? Did she intend to shame him for his inattention? Had a few weeks at court turned the nut-brown maid into a common trollop? He led his mount alongside hers and hissed, ‘Johanna, what are you about? Ride back with me at once and keep your eyes decently lowered.’

  She laughed. ‘You are suddenly attentive, sir. I prefer to remain here. I have a grandstand view and have collected several supper invitations.’

  ‘Supper!’ spat John. ‘I will have you out of here - now - and there'll be no return unless you have the wherewithal to hand to see yourself appropriately attired.’

  ‘I stay. Didn't you hear me?’ She tossed her head and the little fur cap bobbed fetchingly.

  A herald on the sidelines, fingers blue with cold about his silver trumpet, had his eyes glued to the curve of Johanna's calf; she really did have extraordinarily good legs. John realised that he had never seen them; he had never bothered to find out what lay beneath her armour of worthiness. He was angry with her, irked with himself. She caught the trumpeter's eye and her lips parted in a faint smile; no conspiracy, more a secret mirth, a contained triumph. John leant across and got an arm about her waist, having her out of the saddle and across the neck of the cob, her feet clear of the stirrups, her protests smothered in the suffocating nap of his horsecloth. One hand on her belt he gathered the reins of both their mounts and led away towards the tents. Behind him the first faint ripple of amusement grew and spread and set them rocking in the stands. Whoever she was she was justly served. The fur cap rolled into the sawdust.

  ‘God damn you, John de Montfort!’ she managed as he drew rein outside his own pavilion - blue and gold with an undulating valance damascened in gold curlicues.

  ‘You can get down,’ said John, tossing the reins of the riderless horse to a wide-eyed Simon Trussel and signing him away to the stables. His wife wriggled herself from her undignified perch. Her rucked tunic revealed a rounded bottom at the culmination of the long legs.

  Johanna's feet were on the ground; she straightened the tunic and tossed back her long honey blonde hair, tumbling unbound without the confines of the cap. Her face flamed. ‘How dare you! Have you not made attempts enough to humiliate me that you must cart me away like a miscreant page before the King's grace, before the whole court!’

  ‘If you behave like a whore, you'll be treated no better and if you propose to harangue me like a fish-wife at least let us go inside!’

  ‘I would prefer to return to my friends. It is a little late now to take a proprietorial attitude after weeks of neglect, don't you think?’

  ‘I can see it rankles. The spoilt little heiress of Coleshill can't stomach a husband unless he dances attendance twenty-four hours a day!’

  ‘Twenty-four! I never saw you. You never came to my bed, you never…’ Johanna found herself ducked backwards through the tent flap, propelled across the floor and dumped roughly and without ceremony onto the tumble of his bed.

  ‘Whatever is customary among the Clintons,’ said John, ‘the Montforts don't wash their dirty linen in public. And as for my neglect, if it sticks in your throat I can make up for my omission.’ He had her pinned down, a hand on each wrist, her arms above her head, before his weight came down upon her heaving bosom. She tried to knee him in the groin but he had her fast. There was little between them but the fine wool of their hose and their body linen and certainly not enough to hide from her his growing desire.

  She laughed, turning her face away from him. ‘Oh, yes, you want me now, My Lord. Tricked out in boy's hose you want me. So they were right who said that your preferences were rank perversions; that it was boys you took to your bed. And I pitied you because Harry of Derby sent you packing for some childish peccadillo - or so I fondly imagined. But sodomy! That is heresy; a man can burn for it!’

  ‘Dear God,’ said John, ‘who told you? No, I needn't ask. Mariana! She promised me a fine revenge and I dismissed her words for childish threats, nothing more. What did she tell you?’

  Johanna sat up. He had rolled away from her and was sitting hugging his knees. ‘That Henry of Derby found you in bed with one of his household knights. Oh, Mariana had it all pat and full of every lurid detail. It is all round the Court tonight you may be sure! And all along I thought, you and Lady Aylesbury….’

  John said dully, ‘So I am condemned unheard?’

  The girl said, ‘Peter Montfort, your father's great grandfather, died at Evesham, defending the rights of Englishmen; Lord John, your father's father, took the Cross and rode away to fight the Paynims; your own father championed the second Edward - and none more loyally. And I am to believe that their blood runs in your veins, that such an ancestry brought forth no more than a cherished catamite! Answer me one question, the only one that matters: Is it true?’

  John had picked up his lute; he struck a jarring chord. ‘Yes, it is true. Perhaps you'd like Derby's account; a little less salacious than Mariana's no doubt, but nevertheless coming close.’

  ‘It is enough that you admit to it. I am going away from court for a time, away from England. Where I go will not concern you. Eventually I shall ask for an annulment.’

  He nodded. ‘Whatever you wish. I'm sorry it had to come o
ut this way. Derby, by all accounts, kept his counsel all these years. You deserve better, Johanna. Choose your friends more wisely than you chose your husband.’

  He watched whilst she gathered her cloak and wrapped it about her. She suddenly hated her boy's attire, the tawdry trappings of the game that had seemed so exciting earlier in the day. He held aside the tent flap and watched her go out into the afternoon light. The sky was leaden. Beyond, in the tiltyard, they were cheering themselves hoarse. It was beginning to snow.

  John flung himself down upon the bed, hands behind his head, watching the lantern swaying crazily from the central post below the canvas roof. A painful truth was beginning to take possession of his thoughts. All those years ago, cast out by Harry Derby, latterly estranged from his own father and now, he was to lose Johanna, the girl he had been too stubborn, too blind even to look upon; Johanna, a girl of spirit and surprising beauty (though it was rather more basic remembrances that caused the unassuaged ache in the area of his groin). He could still feel the yielding softness of her well-rounded breasts, thrusting against his heart; see the long, shapely legs which promised further delights.

  He rolled over and buried his face in his arms, shrinking from the light and from his own turbulent emotions. Suddenly, the Orabellas of this world, with their slim Circean sophistication and practised sensuality, seemed artificial beside Johanna’s uncompromising honesty. He closed his eyes but she would not leave him: the golden girl with the tinsel ringlets, the bold equestrienne with the green-flecked hazel eyes. He thumped a fist upon the pillow beside his head; wanting Johanna was beginning to hurt.

  ~o0o~

  It was snowing heavily outside, blanketing the bright pavilions, reducing colour and metal to a virgin whiteness, disguising the familiar tinctures of heraldry which distinguished their owners' canvas castles, silencing footstep and shod hoof alike, setting the torches hissing and the braziers spitting.

  Simon Trussel was rubbing away at a pair of spurs, sitting on a cushion, diligent as always. He breathed upon the star of the rowel and looked up as John surfaced, sat up and swung his legs to the floor.

  John said, ‘Simon, I want you to pack.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Not we, you. You're going home tomorrow.’

  ‘In this weather! To Billesley?’

  ‘Not unless that is what you want – I thought, to Beaudesert, to my father.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A good squire asks no questions, he gives his master unquestioning loyalty.’

  ‘Very well, I'll answer for myself. I'm to be safe out of the way when this story spreads about the Court. I've heard it all and I don't know the truth of it and I don't care.’

  John sat, hands between his knees, staring down at the floor. ‘You've served me loyally, Simon and I have noticed. It has been a good partnership; I owe you better. I don't want you mixed up in rumour and counter-rumour. I don't want a finger pointed in your direction. I'll write to my father, he'll have you back at Beaudesert. He won’t hold my defection against you; he’s always been a fair man. I can’t say you won’t have a couple of uncomfortable days…’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Simon dryly.

  ‘Perhaps you could serve my brother,’ John hazarded.

  ‘Richard the Fletcher? Have a heart! I shan't go, sir, you may as well get resigned to that. I'm used to you. Nothing surprises me, nothing is likely to.’

  ‘Thank you for that back-handed compliment but it's not your decision. You serve me and I have your name to protect. I don't want to lose you but I'll not drag you down.’

  ‘Who will look after you?’

  ‘Oh, Old Jobus, he used to serve my grandfather in his youth. He's a bit slow but we'll manage.’

  ‘Slow! Slow is when he's putting on a spurt! You're insane; you'll be a laughing stock! You can't make me go.’

  ‘I can, you're getting an escort – Beaudesert men; one or two are restless to be home again. I can’t say I blame them.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, go down on my knees and beg?’

  ‘I want you to start packing. If not you'll have your belongings stuffed in a saddle bag anyhow and that will offend your sense of style!’ John swept out, face set and unreadable.

  When he got back the boy was savagely cramming shirts and tunics into a leather bag. Simon rounded on him. ‘I know you. Who knows you better? Who can refute the accusations better? Who let all those women into tent or chamber or stood guard outside town houses. All I've ever wanted was to serve you!’ He turned his back again.

  ‘And you have, none more loyally.’ Montfort watched the heaving shoulders, the face hidden by the dark curly hair, and dared not put out a hand in a gesture of comfort.

  ‘I would have given you anything,’ sobbed Simon, ‘That if you'd wanted it too; you only had to ask!’

  Montfort did touch him then. He took him by the shoulders, turned him round and shook him hard so that the dark curls shook about his blotched face and the tears coursed harder. ‘You damned little idiot! I might have relented by tomorrow, who knows? But if you're going to say dangerous things like that!’

  ‘I didn't mean it; I don't know why I said it. Oh, I'm sorry. You're really angry, aren't you?’

  ‘Bloody angry, and can't you stop crying?’

  ‘I don't think so. Oh, damn you, damn you!’ He turned and ran out into the white night and it was after midnight when he returned and crept to his pallet without a word.

  When John awoke in the pre-dawn darkness, too cold to sleep longer, the boy was dressed and cloaked, hair combed, immaculately groomed. There were circles beneath the dark eyes but they were steady enough. ‘Shall I see you again, sir?’

  ‘I don't know. I'll make no promises, perhaps you'll have made other arrangements; you should try, you have your own career to think about.’

  Trussel assimilated this and nodded, ‘Well, goodbye, take care of yourself, sir.’

  John put out a hand and Trussel clasped it. It was a strong, firm clasp, there was nothing left of last night's hysterics save that print of violet shadow beneath his eyes.

  ‘The horses are ready, Jobus is shouting,’ said John, wishing he would go.

  ‘Yes. Oh, and I forgot, there's a hole in the heel of your yellow hose, you'll have to get it stitched. Jobus will never be able to see the needle let alone thread it! Oh God, how are you going to manage!’ He flung both arms about Montfort's neck, loosed him and stalked out of the tent. It was John who found himself confounded. He had his horse saddled and rode out. He was not in the chapel for the oath-taking and when Warwick asked for him he could not be found. He returned that evening very drunk, stumbled back to the wreckage of his tent and passed out.

  ~o0o~

  He came to himself at three in the morning, lying face down upon his rumpled bed, a sheepskin cover carelessly flung over his shoulders. Someone had removed jupon and surcote and they were neatly folded over a stool. The centre lantern was lit and a brazier, safely damped down for the night, kept out the chill of the frost.

  ‘I can't work in a pig-sty,’ said Thomas Beauchamp. ‘How is your head?’

  Montfort did indeed look wrecked; face ashen, eyes deeply shadowed, hair sweat soaked to a darker red.

  ‘My Lord, you here!’ John sprang up, wincing as he did so. ‘I'm sorry; did I cause a scene last night?’

  Warwick shrugged. ‘Not that I heard but you can usually hold your drink better than that.’

  John was pressing his fingers to his temples. ‘Why are you here? Rumour and chaos hover round me. I am about to become an untouchable, didn’t you know?’

  Thomas yawned and stretched out booted feet nearer to the brazier. ‘Perhaps I thought you might be in need of a Father Confessor. Perhaps it was sheer, blind curiosity. And, after all, I believe it was my delinquent daughter set rumour adrift. I could have told you not to cross Mary. Young maids have fancies; you should have had a better care for her child's heart.’

  John, choking at that, r
eached out blindly for a cup of water.

  ‘Hair of the dog?’ asked Warwick, handing him a goblet of malmsey. ‘It never occurred to me that your service with Harry Derby coincided with Mary's sojourn with the Countess. And you never knew she was my daughter?’

  ‘I don't think so. There were many little girls, they came and went; Mariana was different.’

  ‘You mean she was underfoot more than most? Yes, I can imagine. John, you do dissolute extremely well but you are in my service now and I don’t tolerate slatterns. Get dressed!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I sent Simon home.’

  ‘A wise decision in the circumstances.’

  John pulled on a blue surcote and belted it savagely. ‘It’s not an edifying story.’

  Warwick indicated a stool, giving him permission to sit. ‘I didn’t suppose it could be with you involved. Harry Derby would never discuss your dismissal. You owe him for five years of silence.’

  ‘I know what I owe him. Do you really wish to hear the Decalogue of my sins? I was sixteen and a bloody little idiot.’

  ‘Confession is good for the soul and I have nothing better to do at this time in the morning. My chamber is full of the Countess’s women, proffering remedies for acute indigestion; it’s not the most attractive stage of pregnancy. I believe your wife is travelling again – wise girl! So, when did you join Henry of Derby?’

  John hunched up one shoulder against the Earl’s voice and said: ‘I was eleven, I was a spoilt brat. I liked to get my own way but somehow I avoided most of the big mistakes. We got on well together. I liked to feel I was favoured above my peers and perhaps I was. I was certainly jealous of my position. It was during the months leading up to Sluys. We'd been everywhere: marches to the North, to the coast, to Flanders - exiting when you're that age and the man you serve is one of Europe's most charismatic figures. We were the chosen ones, the immortals. And then things got out of hand. We'd been warned once or twice about drinking bouts in the town - things got smashed up - we were getting a bad name and there were dire warnings about any infringement of his orders. Of course, I had to break my word and every rule in his book. I was untouchable, you see. Regulations were for others, not for me. Then, one night I was delivered back from the town in a parlous state after blabbing out who knew what campaign secrets to the wrong quarters... I was packed off to bed but next day Henry sent for me and told me I was no longer to serve as his body squire, that I should stay within the wards and take to any menial tasks that fell to hand until he felt I had served my sentence and earned reprieve.’ He shifted on his stool and cast a sideways glance at the Earl. ‘You can't imagine how it felt. There were too many to crow over my misfortune, many to take advantage. Some had served diligently for a long time, were hard workers and if he found their company a little dull it wasn't their fault. I worked hard; I debased myself to do it. It was about the worst time of my life and he didn't seem to notice. One week, two weeks, three went past and others rode out to hunt with him and others waited on him in his chamber. I was desperate to be noticed, desperate for him to realise how he was missing me. I wanted him to crook a finger and take me aside and tell me I was forgiven. But he didn't and the disappointment turned to anger. I wanted to be taken back under his wing but I wanted to hurt him too and I think in the end that desire overrode everything else, blotted it all out.