Passionate Brood

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “And in return he sent you away from us,” added his heir cynically. It was true that he and Richard had been abroad in their duchies most of the time, but whenever they came back they had missed her badly. If the hard-working King had hoped to bring them to heel with the spell-maker safely shut up, he had succeeded only in widening the rift he was so pathetically anxious to bridge. Save in warmth of colouring and temper, they were never his.

  “It was partly my own fault,” admitted Eleanor. “I probably meddled too much in his affairs, and he was furious because I refused to take Aquitaine from Richard and give it to John.”

  “In which you were legally right,” contested Henry.

  But Eleanor shrugged those lonely years of stagnation into the past without rancour. She had her children, strong and splendid as the passion from which they had sprung, and she was too proud to let the world guess that her love for her husband had out-lived neglect, or that she cared so much about his lovely mistress Rosamund. “At least your father knows that men are muddlers when it comes to arranging marriages,” she said lightly. “So now I am here to talk to Johanna.”

  Henry could be depended upon to handle a delicate situation with tact. He put away Richard’s plans and picked up some samples of a new type of arrow his fletcher had just sent. “Come on, John. Let’s try these out before Richard and Robin get their hands on them,” he invited, leading the way up another turn or two of the stairs to where a little iron door gave access to the gatehouse roof. Ann pushed aside her embroidery frame and followed them, whispering to Johanna as she passed, “I told you so!” Hodierna, too, laid down her scissors but the Queen motioned to her to stay.

  Johanna stood alone by the window trying to assimilate the full significance of her mother’s words. “It is I this time!” she thought, remembering how one after the other her elder sisters and Geoffrey had gone. She heard the iron door clang behind her brothers and Ann, and by leaning out she could see the three of them spacing themselves out like a happy frieze of Youth along the battlements. The flight of their arrows and the strong wind in their hair gave them an ethereal, transient quality. Already their voices as they shouted to each other were light, unreal, far off. A sudden desolation gripped her. She felt that she must follow them—mingle carelessly with them again—or some part of her would die.

  Even when Hodierna reminded her that the Queen was waiting, Johanna withdrew her shoulders from the window embrasure with a reluctance that caught at her mother’s heart. More than all her daughters this youngest—vivid, headstrong, generous—was the replica of her own girlhood. “You have such a wild, carefree life with your brothers,” she sighed. “Nothing important seems ever to have happened to you before!”

  “Important?” Johanna swung round on the two women, her hazel-green eyes wide with fear. Suddenly she was down on her knees, her hands urgent upon the Queen’s. “Madam, what are you trying to tell me?”

  “That the King has arranged your marriage.” Eleanor had had to say those words to her two elder daughters, Matilda and Margaret, who were always languishing to the minstrels’ love songs and speculating about every young gallant who came to court. It had not been so difficult then because she had known that both of them would be helped over the moment of parting by thoughts of their new importance and the dresses in their dower chests. Whereas Johanna sprang from her fondling hand as unprepared as any boy, and quite disinterested in the wedding finery her old nurse was preparing.

  “No—no! I can’t! Not yet,” she stammered. “I haven’t finished—playing.” She knew it was a silly, immature sort of thing to say, and her hands made a pathetic groping gesture that included all the everyday things of her life, as if she tried to draw the familiar walls about her like a cloak.

  “I know, my little love,” said the Queen gently. “I remember the morning when they told me the same thing. The scent of the almond trees—the white doves fluttering against a blue sky in sunny Provence—and I had to leave it all for the cold, grey North and a man I had never seen.”

  “But I am so young!” breathed Johanna.

  Eleanor smiled a little, comparing her with Ann. “’Tilda and Margaret were both mothers at your age!” she scoffed kindly. “Remember, my dear, the King has been very patient because we all hate parting with you.”

  The girl stood almost listlessly for a moment or two. “Who—who is it?” she asked presently. Although she asked it as if the matter were of quite secondary importance, the words fell poignantly into the pleasant stillness of the room.

  “The King of Sicily.”

  “That sickly old horror!” Johanna’s voice croaked into sudden harshness like John’s, which was beginning to break. But no gentle woman, according to Eleanor’s code, could indulge in a scene. “Quiet, Johanna!” she remonstrated firmly. “You must always have known that we royal women are just political pawns. You don’t suppose I wasn’t terrified when I heard I was to be Queen of France, do you? And after all, Sicily is a pleasant place to live in, your new relations are half Norman, and probably William is too weakly to be unkind.”

  But far from being soothed, the girl was swept by sudden outraged anger. Frustration beyond her understanding shook her body. At seventeen all her blood was beating passionately to the beckoning rhythm of life. “Kind! Unkind! What does that matter?” she cried incoherently. “I wouldn’t care if he struck me—if he took me by force—but I wanted a man—”

  “We all do,” murmured the astonished Queen, thinking perhaps of the monkish Louis.

  But Johanna’s young, self-betraying protest swept on. “A tall fierce-hearted, adventurous man like Richard. Someone strong enough to compel my desire, to—to lift me down from the saddle the way Robin does…” Frightened by the emotional momentum of what had hitherto been romantic fancies, shocked into realisation that they had all centred in Robin, she ran to his mother and flung herself sobbing into Hodierna’s arms.

  Her old nurse held her close, comforting her as no one else could, petting her with foolish, homely endearments. “It is like the way you used to cry out for something in the night, my pretty. Just another impossible dream. But you always forgot about them in the morning, didn’t you, my poppet?” And across the bright, stricken head she held so tenderly to her bosom Hodierna met the Queen’s surprised, questioning look, and nodded.

  “It certainly was time Henry found her a husband!” thought Eleanor. “But I wish he had forgotten his foreign diplomacy for once and found her a young one!”

  Chapter Four

  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 ho
rror-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.