Alphonse, seeming to look only at her, managed to cast quick glances over her head and shoulder, noting the position of his two guards and the one who had come with her. They were far enough away, he thought, not to hear clearly what was said, especially if he kept his voice low.
Leaning closer, as if to say a word of love, he asked, “Did they?”
At first, because she thought he was about to kiss her, the question seemed meaningless to Barbara. She stared fixedly into Alphonse’s face for a moment before she realized he had used the movement of his body as an excuse to lower his voice and recalled that they had been talking about whether the Marcher lords had agreed to give up their prisoners as one price of their freedom.
“So I heard when I was at court,” she replied.
Her fixed, challenging stare made Alphonse even more determined to shake her attachment to Leicester’s party.
“Perhaps you have been told only what your friends thought it safe for you to know,” he said.
As he spoke, Alphonse pulled gently on Barbara’s hand, drawing her nearer. Although she yielded to the pull and even leaned against his shoulder, allowing him to turn them both so their backs were to their guards, the fear that he could feel her desire for him made her suspicious. She rallied her scattered wits to say sharply, “And you will tell me only the truth and all the truth?”
Alphonse laughed and slipped his free arm around her waist. “Do not be a goose! Even if I were mad enough to wish to do it, how could I possibly know all the truth? The information I have comes from my aunt, Queen Eleanor, who must surely be the most prejudiced person involved, and from King Louis. I do not believe him to be prejudiced—”
“Except, perhaps, in his belief of the rights inherent in kingship?” Barbara suggested. Her voice still had an edge, but there was more amusement than anger in it.
“He does not forget the duties either,” Alphonse reminded her.
“Very true, which is why King Henry’s barons are forced to put constraints on him while King Louis’s barons obey him without argument.”
“Not completely without argument,” Alphonse said, chuckling. “There are groans and growls and howls of rage in France too. Nonetheless, I do not mean to deny your point. I was about to say that I may be no nearer the truth than you. I must suppose both Queen Eleanor and King Louis have told me what they wanted me to know and no more.”
He drew her still closer, bending as if to kiss her. Barbara drew in her breath, not quite sure whether she was about to pull away or respond, but his voice came softly instead. “But think, Barbe. If what you know is from the point of view of Leicester’s party and what I know is mostly from King Henry’s point of view, will we not come somewhere near the truth if we put what we know together?”
The warm breath tickling her ear made her shiver, even as tears of disappointment stung her eyes because he was still only trying to hide their conversation from the guards. All she could manage was “Is it safe to talk about this?”
“We must,” he murmured, “but it would be better done in private, and perhaps we can make more sense after we see what is in our letters. I think we have idled away time enough here.” He straightened up, but pulled her even tighter against him as he added, less softly, “And you are cold, I think. Let us go down to the hall.”
Chapter Nine
Both clerk and letters had disappeared from the hall when Barbara and Alphonse entered it. Neither of them was surprised, but before they could decide whether to betake themselves to a window seat and pretend ignorance or ask about the letters, a servant came forward and asked them to come into the castellan’s chamber. There the letters were given to them and Sir Richard de Grey politely offered the services of his clerk to read to them. As politely, Alphonse refused, remarking that he was a good clerk himself, it being the custom in the part of the country from which he came for the nobility to learn to read and write.
“The better to compose verses to our ladies,” Alphonse said, smiling. “But sometimes it is useful for other purposes. And I will read Lady Barbe’s letter to her, since it concerns me most closely.”
A flicker of irritation was barely hidden by a curt nod, but Grey handed Alphonse both letters without any further remark. Alphonse was surprised by this sign that Grey had not examined their contents and hoped he would learn them from his clerk, but that seemed to be true. A close examination of the seals in the privacy of his chamber showed no sign of their having been lifted.
“If he was so interested, why did he not look?” Alphonse said to Barbara as he handed her Norfolk’s letter. She, to his surprise, had followed him into the room and shut the door in the guards’ faces without hesitation. He guessed she was too intent on whatever news had come to worry about anything else, but fate seemed against him. When he had schemed and planned to get her alone, she had been as adroit as a fish in slipping out of his grasp. Now that he wished she would go off alone to read what her father said, she wished to share the news. Not that he was uninterested in Norfolk’s letter, but he wanted time to consider the best way to handle whatever Henry de Montfort had written.
“Now I think of it,” she said somewhat absently, while breaking the seal on her father’s letter and unfolding it, “Grey might well hesitate to open a letter from Henry de Montfort.” She looked up for a moment. “Leicester’s sons are precious to him, and Henry is pure gold in the earl’s eyes. If you should complain to Henry and Henry should speak to his father, Leicester might be angry. He might even believe Grey was spying on him rather than trying to protect him.”
“Nonsense.” Alphonse was still turning Henry’s letter in his hands, a little reluctant to open it in Barbara’s presence. “Sir Richard de Grey has proven himself loyal.”
Barbara did not answer, but after she had eagerly scanned the parchment, she let the hand holding it drop and uttered a sharp sigh of impatience. “He says nothing!” she exclaimed, and proffered the letter to Alphonse.
The disappointment in her voice wiped everything from his mind but the fact that Barbe seemed as eager for her father’s approval as he. But as he reached out to embrace her, she thrust the parchment into his hand. By then the sense of what she said had penetrated and he looked down at the letter, noting the neat cursive lines of a scribe’s hand. Norfolk had not written it himself. After he had read it, he looked up again, black eyes intent.
“He does not say nothing,” he remarked. “He says you have chosen well. Surely that is permission for us to marry, Barbe.”
“I suppose it is,” she said, but the eyes that met his were full of tears. “But here? Without a person I know to attend me? I wanted to see him. Oh Alphonse, something is very wrong, very wrong. Papa cares for me. He would want to speak to me, to see me married.”
Alphonse did not answer immediately. The tearful protest did not make him angry because he did not think it was an excuse to delay their wedding. He sensed something wrong in Norfolk’s stiff reply himself, recalling the man’s real affection for his daughter.
“Do you think he did not write this?”
“No, not that. I recognized his clerk’s hand, and as for the exact words, he hardly ever says more than ‘tell her this or that’ when he bids the clerk write to me or anyone else, except the king, perhaps. But why did he not tell us to come to Framlingham or Orford to be married where I could have Joanna with me?”
“You are afraid he is in deep trouble with Leicester,” Alphonse said slowly, then shook his head. “No, if that were true, Grey would have opened his letter. That he did not touch it at all can mean only one of two things. Either your father is above suspicion—and we do not believe that to be true for good reasons—or he is still too powerful to offend.”
“Why did I say Orford?” Barbara muttered and snatched back the letter. When she had reexamined the heading, she smiled. “You must be right, for he wrote from Orford, and that is a royal castle. Leicester would have demanded my father give up Orford if he really distrusted him and could enfo
rce the order. But I still do not see why Papa did not bid us come. But you have not yet read what Henry de Montfort wrote. Perhaps that will explain. Henry is more in his father’s confidence than anyone else. What does he say?”
To hesitate about opening the letter now would amount to screaming aloud that he did not want her to know what was in it, so he broke the seal and read, bursting out after a few minutes, “We are freed!”
“To go to my father?” Barbara asked eagerly.
“No, to Canterbury. Wait, let me finish.”
“Canterbury?” Barbara murmured to herself.
At first she was disappointed, but after a moment she smiled. I will be married in the cathedral, she thought. The archbishop is in France, but someone else will marry us. Whom do I know in Kent who could come to attend me? She wandered away and sat on the chest that held Alphonse’s clothing to think about the women who lived in Kent.
Meanwhile, Alphonse had breathed a sigh of relief. Henry de Montfort’s letter was delightfully discreet. After an apology for the long delay in replying, for which Henry gave no reason, he urged Alphonse to come at once to Canterbury where the court was gathering for discussions with King Louis’s emissaries. Henry de Montfort himself expected to be there by August 12 “in company with Prince Edward.” Although he said no more on that subject, Henry expressed his joy about Alphonse’s betrothal and warm praise of Barbe. In fact his expressions of delight were so warm that Alphonse reread them. He did not remember telling Henry about his long and hopeless desire for Barbe. He had never told anyone, unless he had spilled something when drunk.
“We are to join the court in Canterbury,” Alphonse said, dismissing the puzzle of Henry’s enthusiasm. “Apparently arrangements have been made to meet with Louis’s emissaries in Canterbury some time after the twelfth of the month.”
“I thought you told me that the meeting was to be here in Dover on the eighth,” Barbara said, drawn from her pleasant, if inconclusive, thoughts.
“That was what King Louis told me, and why he sent us off in such a rush—” Alphonse barely prevented himself from gasping at what he had let slip, but he went on quite smoothly, “I suppose Leicester sent word after our departure to put off the meeting. He would not want Queen Eleanor and the king’s half brothers to learn of the Marcher lords’ rebellion. That would be an open invitation for an invasion.”
Somewhere in Barbara an alarm sounded, but it was faint and far away. She ignored it, diverted by what came foremost to her, the fact that the whole court would be at Canterbury. “Perhaps that was why my father did not tell us to come to Orford. He must be coming to Canterbury.” She laughed. “He thought we knew all along.”
“I hope so, Barbe, but do not set your heart too much on his being there,” Alphonse warned. “He might have guessed we would be at Canterbury but could not promise to meet us. He might not be able to leave his post if the threat of invasion seems immediate.”
He gave no sign of his relief. Seemingly she had not noted the hint that Louis had a private purpose in sending them to England. He could not understand why he was unable to keep any thought private from Barbe. He had always trusted her and admired her cleverness, but the present situation should have made him more wary, and by habit he did not blab anything to women.
Barbara had hesitated over his warning, but shook her head. “Canterbury is not far from Orford. He could come by coastal boat in a day.” She jumped to her feet. “I will write to him at once and beg him to come and to bring Joanna—” The brightness of her face dimmed. “No, I must not ask that. Even if Leicester himself is not there, one of the others might demand that my father give Joanna up to him.”
Alphonse laid both hands gently on her shoulders. “But Norfolk may have reasons about which we know nothing to remain on his own lands. If he cannot come, will you make me wait, Barbe?”
She hesitated, not wanting to seem too eager and troubled because her father might be hurt. “Let us see what my father answers.”
“His answer might take long to come if the letter you write today takes the same route as the one you wrote when we first arrived.”
Her thick brows drew together. Alphonse had provided her with a salve she could use to soothe her father’s wounded feelings—if he was wounded by her marrying without his support. “If there is no letter and Papa has not come by the fifteenth, and if King Henry will give his permission, we can marry before the court is dismissed.” She smiled. “I would like to be married in the cathedral with the court in attendance.”
“Barbe—”
She stepped back, stiffening as he reached for her. “There is a problem more immediate than my agreement,” she said. “Before we make more plans, I think we had better discover whether Grey will let us go.”
That reminder was as effective as a bucket of cold water in cooling Alphonse’s flush of heat. He nodded briskly and went to open the door, quickly marshaling arguments and veiled threats to induce the castellan to free them, and then considering the problem of how to get to Grey if he tried to use delay as a weapon. In the event, none of Alphonse’s devices were necessary. Although Grey was clearly angry and uneasy, he merely nodded when Alphonse told him that Henry de Montfort had bidden him to join the court in Canterbury and that he and Lady Barbe wished to leave the next morning.
The castellan’s sullen acquiescence, without even a request to see Henry de Montfort’s letter, was virtual proof that Henry must also have written to Grey. Alphonse was delighted, nor was his satisfaction diminished at all when Grey said that he would be sending a guard of ten men-at-arms to see that they arrived safely.
“By all means,” Alphonse answered with a sunny smile. “I gather that is most necessary in this country now.”
What Grey would have replied to that subtle insult remained forever lost because Barbara appeared at that moment with a letter in her hand. “I have written an answer to my father’s letter,” she said, looking down her long, elegant nose at Grey. “I wish this to go direct to my father at Orford rather than being sent to the Earl of Leicester first.”
The castellan made a wordless protest and Barbara’s brows went up. She sniffed disdainfully.
“Please understand, Sir Richard, that I have nothing to hide and no objection to Lord Simon seeing what my father and I have written, but the matter is wholly personal, concerning only my marriage to Sieur Alphonse. To make matters simpler for you, I have brought the letter open so that a copy could be made and sent to Leicester if you so desire. However, if you do not send my answer direct to my father so that he can come to Canterbury for one day to give me in marriage, I will be very angry and very bitter.”
Grey turned puce, and Barbara lifted her head still higher, struggling mightily not to laugh at his reaction. In a way she was sorry to pretend contempt for what she knew the man felt to be his duty, but she had considered a variety of ways to get her letter directly to her father and this seemed the only practical method.
“If you will be good enough to have your scribe copy the letter,” Alphonse suggested, “it would allow us more time to oversee our packing.”
“Canterbury is only some six leagues distant,” Grey protested. “The court will not arrive until the twelfth. What is your hurry?”
Barbara and Alphonse looked at each other and then back at Grey. “I do not wish to sleep in the gutter,” Alphonse remarked, as Barbara said, “Queen Eleanor is in France, and I will have no place among her ladies. Sieur Alphonse and I must seek lodging. It is late for that already.”
Sir Richard started to speak, then changed his mind. Barbara thought she caught a flash of an odd expression, but she could not define what it meant and was not even certain she had seen anything. In any case he did not interfere with their departure early the next morning. Indeed, once they were out of Dover, the captain of the guardsmen assigned to them showed himself most eager to get them into Canterbury town as quickly as possible.
Barbara almost made a fool of herself twice—once by rem
arking on her surprise about the captain’s desire for an early arrival at Canterbury and again by very nearly suggesting that since the day was fine, bright but not too hot, they might take the coast road to Richborough before turning inland. Both her mare Frivole and Alphonse’s great gray destrier, Dadais, were in need of exercise, prancing and lunging in their eagerness to run after being confined for so long. Barbara was completely in sympathy with the animals. She too had had enough of confinement. Fortunately the way the guard surrounded them as soon as they emerged from the gates of Dover Castle reminded her that there must be armed encampments along the cliffs that they should not seem eager to see, and she held her tongue.
Other things struck Barbara as peculiar and made her uncomfortable. The roads were unusually quiet. She would have expected the way to be blocked more than once with supply wagons hauling salt fish and grain and with herds of sheep and cattle and gaggles of geese being driven in to feed the influx of people expected for a gathering of the court. Several times she began to mention the matter to Alphonse, but changed the subject because of the close attention their voices brought from the captain of the guard.
Nor was there any crush at the gate when they arrived in Canterbury well before the time for dinner. Nonetheless, the guards at the gate that fronted the Dover road were tensely alert, and Alphonse had to show them Henry de Montfort’s seal before they were allowed to enter the town. The anxiety implied an overcrowded situation of incipient violence, but Watling Street, from which one could go left to the castle or right to the cathedral, was all but deserted.
Barbara could not imagine what Alphonse was thinking. His expression was bland and bored, his black eyes half lidded. However, he signaled to Chacier, who promptly turned into the first crossroad, drawing the packhorses in behind him. Before anyone could react, Alphonse pulled Dadais to a stop across the entrance to the street, and said to Barbara, “Let us find a place to eat, my lady.”
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