ASilverMirror

by Roberta Gellis

  He gestured for Barbara to remove his sword and belt from the seat opposite to him, and she picked it up and leaned it against his thigh, knowing that he seldom let the weapon out of his sight, even in his own great hall. As the servants set out the food, Joanna seated herself and Barbara pointed at a stool, which was carried to her father’s side. His hand went to his breast when he saw the platter held slices of meat as well as a large wedge of cheese, but he was not wearing an eating knife. Before his head turned, Barbara had the knife out of its sheath on his sword belt and the hilt under his hand.

  “Thank you, chick,” he said. He drew the blade across the meat, folded the strip, pinned it together with the knife point, and stuffed it in his mouth. “Do you want to talk now, Joanna,” he asked thickly, “or do you want to make ready to leave first and listen to my explanations later? Leave you must, before one of your neighbors hears that Hugh is proscribed and decides to take this place. I have troops on the way to all Hugh’s properties to hold them, and I will leave my troop captain here with some of the men. That should be enough to safeguard this place under my claim but only if you are gone from it.”

  “Will you not let me go to Hugh?” she asked. “I will leave the children with you. I will take nothing—”

  He laid down the knife. “No. There are many reasons, Joanna, but even if I were willing you could not go. The ports are all closed. Leicester will let no one in or out of the country except those he chooses to present the settlement he is offering. Would you rather be in his keeping than in mine?”

  There was a moment of silence during which Barbara held her breath and Norfolk picked up his knife again with a slight clatter. He had, rather savagely, hacked off a hunk of cheese and speared it on the knife point when Joanna drew the back of her hand across her wet cheeks.

  “He would at least be more polite to me than you are.” She uttered a watery chuckle. “Likely he would convince me that I had wanted to be in his keeping from the beginning or that it was best for everyone, even Hugh and me, if I was.”

  “If you ran for a port,” Norfolk said sourly, “you would never see Leicester. You would be a name on a list, perhaps shackled with other prisoners for months before he knew you had been taken. But if you prefer him as host, I will take you to him personally—”

  “Oh, no, Roger.” Joanna put out a pleading hand. “I was only trying to make a little lightness out of my heart’s heaviness.” Then, on an indrawn breath, she added, “I had not thought I might be taken and kept as a prisoner. Will Hugh think of that?”

  “Not unless he has reason to believe you would try to get to him.” He stopped abruptly as color crimsoned Joanna’s cheeks and cast a swift glance at Barbara.

  She caught the quick glance and cursed herself for mentioning the new bond that seemed to have grown between Joanna and her husband. “Hugh will be worried sick if he does not hear from Joanna in any case,” she said. “Did you not yourself say, Papa, that you had come to prevent an attack on Kirby Moorside when news of the battle spread? Hugh might fear that. I will say this. If you bring Joanna to Leicester, he will let her send a letter to Hugh.”

  “I am sure he will. I am less sure that what is in the letter will be much comfort to Hugh.”

  “But it would surely prevent Hugh from trying any desperate act to save me.” Joanna clasped her hands. “Roger, please let me go. I know you can put me in a fishing boat in some tiny village.”

  “Curse you, woman! Use the brains God gave you, if He gave brains to any woman!”

  Barbara stood up. She was agonized for Joanna, whom she could see was in terror that Hugh would try to come to her rescue and be hurt. And if Hugh had become as besotted as his wife, for all Barbara knew Joanna might be right. She was frightened for her father too, because he might be ruined and become an outcast to both parties if Joanna, who was cleverer than he guessed, grew desperate and escaped.

  “Papa cannot let you go, Joanna,” she said. “Unless you plan to murder every man, woman, and child in this area, it would be easy to discover that he came here before you left. Then he would be in deep trouble. Leicester might call him a traitor. Still,” Barbara turned to her father, “I think Joanna is right, Papa. Somehow word must be sent to Uncle Hugh that she and the younger children are all safe.”

  “Not through me,” Norfolk said. “Leicester will be busy enough not to give any thought to Joanna, and I would like matters to remain just so. He is no fool. He must have eyes and ears set around Queen Eleanor, and it is to her in Boulogne that Hugh will go, I suppose. Through those eyes and ears, Leicester will surely hear if Hugh has had a letter from Joanna. He would blame me for that, and I do not know whether my temper would hold through another visitation from young Guy—”

  “Guy!” Barbara exclaimed. “Perhaps he is the answer to this problem.”

  “Guy only makes problems. You stay away from him,” Norfolk growled and addressed himself with more attention to the food before him.

  “Barbara—” Joanna began warningly, but Barbara shook her head and her aunt fell silent.

  With eyes that hardly saw, Barbara watched her father eat another slice of meat and a third of the cheese, washing down both with draughts of wine. A muddle of thoughts had filled her head when her father said Guy’s name. The first, come in a flash, was that Leicester’s victory at Lewes would make Guy’s attentions harder to avoid. Her father would almost certainly be deeply involved in government business again, which would mean many messages from and meetings with Leicester and his sons. Almost simultaneously the word “court” had brought to mind her father’s saying that Queen Eleanor was not at the French court but living in Boulogne, where news of her husband and England could come across the narrow sea every day. Atop those ideas was her awareness of Joanna’s misery and Hugh’s and the hurt their fears for each other might do her father. At which point, a clear solution had appeared in her mind. If she went to the queen in Boulogne, she would be safe from Guy, she could calm all Hugh’s fears. Joanna, knowing that, would cause her father no trouble; and she herself would not need to go near the French court, where she might see Alphonse—not that that mattered at all.

  “That is the excuse I could use to go to France, my need to escape from Guy,” she said.

  “What!” Norfolk roared, slamming his knife down on the tray so hard that the table teetered and Joanna had to reach out and steady it.

  “Now do not lose your temper, Papa. Guy is no danger to me, but it is true that he seemed much struck with me when he was at Framlingham. I did not encourage him and paid no mind to his babbling. I know you do not like him, and to speak the truth, Papa, I cannot endure him. He is a nasty little creature.”

  “His babbling! What are you babbling about?”

  “What I am trying to tell you is coming out all backwards because I do not want you to fly into a rage.”

  “Why do I feel that I am about to have a ring slipped through my nose?” Norfolk asked the wall above Joanna’s head. Then he looked sidelong at his daughter.

  Barbara smiled at him. “Father dear, you know I am not so clumsy as to let you catch a hint of it when I am about to cozen you. I only want you to listen to me without oversetting the table.”

  She began with a much expurgated version of Guy’s pursuit, emphasizing the sweet words and moonling looks rather than the crude attempts at physical seduction. What emerged was a picture of a very young man besotted with an older woman. She explained that she had not earlier thought it worthwhile to mention the matter. With Queen Eleanor in France, she would not be going to court and felt she would be able to avoid Guy until he forgot about her.

  “But I cannot bear him, Papa,” she repeated, “and with Leicester grown so great by this victory, perhaps Guy would think he could have me. Then you would have to refuse… You would refuse, would you not? Guy would not make a good husband. He is vicious and mean.”

  Norfolk’s gesture stopped her. “I would refuse. So, you have the ring in. Do not waste my time.
Let me see in which direction you want to pull me.”

  Barbara put a placating hand on her father’s shoulder. “If you refused Leicester’s offer of his son, there would be ill feeling. Guy is a third son, but I was born outside the marriage bond. So if you went to Leicester and said you did not think a natural daughter good enough for his son and that I had ideas above my station, Leicester would be grateful to you and would not take offense. And you could urge that I be sent away to France, out of Guy’s way, so he would be safe from me.”

  “And I might choke on the words.”

  “To keep Uncle Hugh quiet, Father? Surely you could eat a small piece of pride for your brother’s good.”

  “I could eat a large piece of pride if I felt sure the meal would end with that subtlety.” He turned his head to look first at Joanna, who was staring at him with tear-filled eyes and had folded her hands as if in prayer, and then out of the window again, where a four-ox plow team was coming down a lane between two fields.

  Joanna shifted her eyes to Barbara and silently mouthed, “Thank you, my love.”

  Barbara barely moved her head to acknowledge that she understood. Now that her father had taken up the idea, she knew that she must not intrude herself into his deliberations in any way. Sometimes she could urge his thoughts in one direction or another, but he was now suspicious of being manipulated and would reject everything out of hand if he felt prodded.

  “The queen asked you to accompany her to France in September, although she knows you hate France—why?” Norfolk asked suddenly.

  Startled by the change of subject, Barbara answered without thinking, “I do not hate France, I… Oh, that does not matter anyway. I think Queen Eleanor only wanted to protect me. She has been so fearful since those Londoners stoned her barge. She thought she was offering me a haven.”

  “And you refused her favor. Was she not angry?”

  “No, not at all.” Barbara looked down at her toes. “I gave her a fanciful reason for wishing to stay, but one with which she was content. I have served her a long time and know what she will believe.”

  “So she would welcome you if you went to Boulogne?”

  Now Barbara followed the direction of her father’s thoughts. “I am not certain,” she admitted. “I have heard that she has been growing more and more bitter. If she feels I am more loyal to you than to her, she might refuse to take me back into her household.”

  “But you have no reason to believe she would reject you without at least one meeting?”

  “I am sure Queen Eleanor would receive me,” Barbara agreed. “Taking me as a lady again might be…doubtful.”

  “If she does not, you could lodge with Hugh,” Joanna said.

  Barbara looked anxiously at her father, but he nodded to that abruptly and dismissively, and said, “I cannot say to Simon that I want you to go to France. He must think of that for himself.”

  Joanna bit her lip and Norfolk stared at her sightlessly, thinking about the problem. After a little while, Barbara giggled suddenly and said, “I think I can manage that. I will tell Guy’s mother of the grip I have on her son—”

  Norfolk choked. Leicester’s wife was King Henry’s own sister and far prouder than her husband. Leicester might actually welcome Barbara as a wife for his third son, but his wife would never agree and, fortunately, Leicester loved her deeply and would never force her to accept Barbara as a daughter-by-marriage.

  “Clever chick,” Norfolk said, grinning. “You had better come with me to London and flaunt your conquest of Guy in his mother’s face before I speak to Leicester. I agree. If you do that, you will be on the next ship out of England.

  Chapter Three

  Alphonse d’Aix cursed under his breath and leaned closer to the window of the bedchamber of his lodging in Paris, hoping the slight increase in light would help him decipher his brother’s scrawl. He knew the trouble was not in the dull gray light of the rainy morning, however, nor was it actually in Raymond’s writing, although Alphonse was convinced it had grown worse over the years he had been receiving information and instructions from his brother. As political affairs had grown more complex, Raymond’s letters had grown more obscure. There was always the chance that King Louis would ask Alphonse to show him a letter—the king was Raymond’s overlord and had a perfect right to ask—and Raymond wished to be sure there was nothing that could make trouble in what he wrote.

  That left Alys’s letter. Alphonse had no complaint about the clarity of either the handwriting or the news Raymond’s wife sent, but her written French was barbarous. And this letter was worse than ever before. He could barely make out every third word. Alys spoke perfectly clearly, Alphonse thought, gritting his teeth and applying himself again to her letter. Why could she not write in civilized French? And what she said was quite mad, that he was to save her father? Alphonse was ready to do all he could for William of Marlowe, of whom he was very fond, but William was in England and he was in France.

  Alphonse had heard of King Henry’s defeat and capture at the battle of Lewes, but he had been indifferent, not believing the battle could have any personal relevance. At the time the news had come, he had seen the deep interest it aroused in King Louis only as an opportunity to free himself gently from a mistress who had begun to talk of ridding herself of her husband. He had never given a thought to Alys’s family in England. The conflict between Henry III and his barons had been going on for many years. William of Marlowe had been involved in it only as an aide to King Henry’s brother, Richard of Cornwall, who had been trying to make peace between the parties. Why should William need to be “saved”? And what kind of help could Alphonse give?

  The answers to those questions could no doubt be given by the man who had brought the letters and had been named by Alys as John of Hurley, the younger son of Marlowe’s second wife. Alphonse gritted his teeth again. John was waiting in the solar to speak to him, but in spite of the real affection he felt for Alys and her father, Alphonse could not simply agree to any request John made.

  After making out most of Alys’s frantic plea, Alphonse realized that Richard of Cornwall had somehow been forced to join the fighting at Lewes. If so, of course Richard would have fought for his brother, King Henry, and William would have supported Richard, which meant that Alys’s father might be in serious trouble. But if Richard was no longer the chief negotiator of peace, it was almost certain that both parties would turn to King Louis to take up that burden.

  In that case, Alphonse knew he would need to move carefully if he wished to enlist King Louis’s influence on William of Marlowe’s behalf. Louis would take his role as arbitrator of a settlement between the Earl of Leicester and King Henry most seriously and would refuse to act in the interest of any individual unless that action was presented to him as a part of a larger, satisfactory solution to the problem as a whole. Alphonse feared that John of Hurley might be nearly as hysterical as Alys’s letter. He might demand instant action to free his father, and Alphonse was sure that would do more harm than good.

  Sir John of Hurley, once page and squire to Hugh Bigod and now his sworn man as well as his friend, had followed Hugh to war and into exile in France. As the minutes passed, John glanced uneasily around the richly furnished chamber to which he had been led. The servant who had come to the door and taken him up to the solar had politely gestured him toward a cushioned chair flanking the raised and hooded hearth. But John, splashed to the thighs with mud, had declined to take a, seat, knowing he would transfer the mud to the beautifully embroidered cushion.

  He wished now that he had found an inn and a bathhouse before he came so he could have presented himself more decently to Alphonse d’Aix. Clearly Alphonse was a more delicate and elegant gentleman than John had expected. He had assumed Alphonse would be much like his brother, Raymond, Comte d’Aix, who was, despite his high station, a man’s man who hardly noticed such things as silken cushions or what he wore, except to be sure his armor was sound.

  When he decided to co
me to Alphonse as soon as he arrived in Paris, John had not stopped to consider that Alphonse had spent nearly all his life as a courtier. He felt that his message was of desperate urgency. Whether Sieur Alphonse would feel the same, John was less and less certain as more minutes passed and the gentleman did not come forth from his bedchamber to greet him. John could not help wondering how convincing he could be to a courtier in his present condition. He could not smell himself—his nose had become accustomed to the stink of his own sweat and his horse’s—but he knew the aroma with which he was filling the room was not delicate.

  “I am very sorry to take so long, but I still have great difficulty reading Alys’s letters.”

  John turned from the fire into which he had been staring to examine the man who had finally bestirred himself to come from his bedchamber. Alphonse was as dark as Raymond. He looked darker because his eyes were black rather than blue-gray, and his black hair surrounded his face more closely. John was surprised by the features, which were larger and harsher than Raymond’s. As if to compensate for that, Alphonse wore his hair longer, curling over his forehead and ears almost to his shoulders in back.

  The voice was deep and pleasant but rather languid, as if the urgency and terror in Alys’s letter meant little to Alphonse, and his expression was bland, totally unreadable. John did note that his speech carried much less of the accent of the south than did Raymond’s, which made John wonder whether Alphonse’s remark about his difficulty in reading Alys’s writing was true.

  “She was upset,” John said, making a strong effort to keep his voice steady and not bellow with rage. “We do not know whether her father and my brother are dead or alive. We do not know what will happen to my mother and my sister-by-marriage, to our lands—”

  Alphonse frowned, strode forward, and clasped John’s forearm. “I was not making light of the matter. I really did have trouble reading Alys’s part of the letter, and I felt I should because she often adds important details to what Raymond says. Raymond can be vague so the letter can be shown to anyone. No one ever asks to see what my sister-by-marriage wrote. Please sit down, Sir John. You must be very tired.”