Alphonse bowed his head, as much to hide his mingled gladness and sadness as to express acceptance of the Earl of Leicester’s statement. “Very well, my lord. I have said what I felt must be said, but I am not altogether sorry to be freed of my promise. I would be very glad if you would provide me and my wife, Lady Barbe, letters of passage to permit us to take ship from Dover—” He hesitated, suddenly remembering his promise to try to see William of Marlowe, who was still, with Cornwall, a prisoner.
“I will not refuse you letters of passage if you insist on them, of course,” Leicester said, “but I hope you do not intend to leave immediately. Will you not stay until the emissaries return to France?”
Irritation struggled with relief in Alphonse. On the one hand, Leicester’s polite “hope” that he would stay saved him from needing to take back his request to leave so he could keep his promise to his brother and sister-by-marriage. On the other hand, it was actually only a pretty covering for Leicester’s denial of his request to go home. Oh, Leicester would not “refuse” to provide letters of passage—only there would be so many demands on the earl’s time that somehow the letters would not get written until Leicester was good and ready to be rid of him.
The earl’s reason for separating him from Edward and yet keeping him in England was plain to Alphonse too. Leicester had been misled by his son into believing he could be used to tempt Edward to further compliance. The assumption was wrong, Alphonse was sure. No doubt Edward enjoyed his company and found some relief in it, but Alphonse knew his service was not even a small factor in the prince’s decision on what he would do.
Still, the request that he stay fit in very well with his promise to see William of Marlowe, and Alphonse was just enough annoyed with Leicester’s high-handedness to be amused by the earl’s misjudgment. He smiled his very best courtier’s smile and said, “Just as you like, my lord. To go with King Louis’s envoys will save me the cost of passage. But if I am to remain in this country, perhaps—”
The earl held up his hand, and Alphonse paused. “I am not all powerful and cannot do as I please,” Leicester said. “I owe you something and will not forget it, but I have pressing business just now.”
Alphonse rose at once and bowed. His face showed nothing, but he was thoroughly angry—though not at what the earl would have believed angered him. Leicester’s too obvious intention of preventing him from asking a favor troubled Alphonse very little. He was a courtier with long experience. He was well accustomed to the way those in high places tried to avoid being trapped into making promises to petitioners. Although Alphonse felt Leicester could take lessons in tact from even so plainspoken and direct a monarch as King Louis, he also understood that if every request every courtier made was granted all rulers would soon be in a worse state than King Henry.
What enraged Alphonse, and continued to gnaw at him as he made his way into the great hall, was that Leicester had impugned his honor by doubting the promise of strict neutrality he had made to Henry de Montfort and had had the arrogance to imagine him a fool too. So the earl owed him “something”, did he? A careful word, “something”. Unlike “favor”, the word “something” held no implication of good or ill, leaving Leicester free to bestow a favor or wreak vengeance without betraying his word.
Alphonse’s temper was so short when he returned to the great hall that he cursed himself for not realizing he might meet someone he knew when he felt a hand on his arm. Nonetheless, he stopped, started to smile a greeting, then let the smile die in his relief.
“Good God, what has happened?” Barbara asked. She wore a half-smile, totally at odds with the tension in her voice, which was so low that no one a foot away could hear.
Alphonse lifted her hand from his arm and bowed over it. “I am free today,” he said, smiling as falsely as she. “Can you spare me an hour to walk in the garden?”
“Of course,” she said. “I only came to pass some idle time with Aliva, and she will grant you prior right.” She laid her hand on Alphonse’s wrist and walked out of the hall with him.
At the bottom of the steps, she glanced around, and seeing no one near, asked whether he would not prefer to ride out, as the garden might also be full of people. He agreed, maintaining the same shallow smile while they got their horses and sent Barbe’s men back to the lodging. They went out the closest gate to Winchepe Street, but did not ride far along it, turning right into a tiny lane that, as Barbara guessed, led them to the bank of the Stour, which they followed until they found a quiet grassy spot.
There they dismounted, and Alphonse tied the horses to a tree at the edge of the small meadow. By then he had relieved Barbara’s worst anxiety, that some personal blow had befallen them. Afterward, she had listened very calmly while he described his interview with Leicester, until he told her with cold distaste how the earl had doubted his word and taken him for a fool.
“No,” Barbara said, now angrier than he. “Leicester did not take you for a fool. He was threatening you.”
“Threaten—” Alphonse choked over the rest of the word. Then hot rage welled up in him again. His dark skin flushed and his eyes showed red glints in their depths.
Barbara was terrified by what she had done. Alphonse had had his temper well under control and she had allowed her own anger to reignite his rage. Could Alphonse be crazy enough to challenge Leicester?
She put her hand over his and said, “I did not mean to make you angrier. I wanted to explain that what Leicester said was no planned insult to you. He has been so often betrayed from trusting too much in other men’s honor that he has turned right around and now trusts too little in it. And worst of all, you hit him in a very sore spot, his belief in his eldest son.”
“You cannot think that Leicester fears Henry will betray him!”
“No, not that,” Barbara said, relieved to see that Alphonse’s anger was already diminishing as he grappled with a new aspect of what had happened. “It is the same problem again,” she continued. “Leicester knows that Henry, the soul of honor himself, expects others also to keep their word in letter and in spirit. Remember you yourself were much troubled by his innocence in dealing with Edward. I think Leicester cannot bring himself to scold Henry for this fault because it is really a virtue, but he cannot trust his son’s judgment either. So, since Henry assured him you were to be trusted and no doubt told him that you had warned him of dangers he had himself overlooked, all the more does Leicester fear you have been using his son for some purpose of your own—or, worse, of Edward’s.”
Alphonse stared at Barbara for a little while, then took her hand and kissed it. “You are a wonder to me, my love. I do not think that any other woman of my acquaintance could see so clearly into Leicester’s or any other man’s reasons. Some would have listened in silence, others would have cried out in fear or sympathy. I do not know another who could have helped me understand.”
“I have had my own reasons to consider Leicester’s nature,” she said lightly. And then much more seriously, “Possibly no other woman had the cause I have to desire to help you.”
“You love me!” he exclaimed, lifting her hand to his lips again.
Barbara swallowed, then laughed. “Love you or hate you, my fate is bound to yours. You may be sure that I will always do everything in my power to forward your well-being and well-doing.”
“Do you hate me then?” Alphonse looked down at the hand she had left resting confidingly in his.
“Do not be so silly.” Barbara leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I would not have married you if I hated you. I like you very well. I always have. If you want more than that from me, you must win it.”
He caught her in his arms, loosened her wimple with a practiced tug, and began to kiss her throat, murmuring, “How? Thus? And thus?”
Chapter Fifteen
Passion spent, Alphonse pulled down his own surcoat to hide his nakedness and laid Barbe’s over her. She sighed contentedly, eyes still closed, and he lay back and looked at the sky. H
e must be happy; Barbe was everything any man could want in a wife. She was clever, she desired the same kind of life he did, she was wanton abed—he sighed gently, still aware of the tremor in the muscles of his belly and thighs, for she had drained him until his giving was as much pain as pleasure—but modest in her behavior.
There his mind stuck. Barbe was more than modest, she was distant, quiet, and passive, almost as if she was unwilling. Even this last coupling he had misunderstood her. She had not meant what she said as an invitation to make love and had come near to fighting him off until he stirred her body enough, whereupon she burst into so hot a flame that she burned away all sense, all care and caution in him.
Still, she was willing in the end. He must be happy…but if he was, why was he so uneasy? Why did he feel—not that Barbe did not love him, he could hope to teach her that—that she was hiding something from him, something so important that he could never truly know her and have her until he uncovered the secret.
Without thinking what he was doing, Alphonse lifted himself on one elbow and stared down at his wife. Slowly her eyes opened and she smiled. He was wrong, he thought, there was nothing hidden behind her eyes now. They were bright under their heavy bars of brow, and her strange beautiful mouth was somehow smiling at him, although the lips were not curved at all. She sat up, too, and leaned against him, both now watching the flow of the river until a boat passed, coming out of Canterbury. As it went by, Barbara exclaimed in horror, wondering whether they had provided entertainment for passing sailors. Alphonse laughed and assured her they had not and explained, when she accused him of making light of her embarrassment, that even absorbed as they had both been they would have heard the cheering and jeering had they been seen.
Once her first shock passed, Barbara found her forgetfulness of time and place quite amusing—until she saw the thoughtful expression on Alphonse’s face. Then in her desire to divert him from thinking how easily he could make her forget everything with a few caresses, she said, “If you really wish to leave England—”
“No, I do not, at least not immediately,” he replied, and reminded her that he had promised to visit or at least write to Marlowe, his brother’s father-by-marriage, who was in prison with Richard of Cornwall,
“I had forgotten,” Barbara said. “I am sorry.”
“No reason for you to think about him,” Alphonse replied easily. “I have not given him much thought myself. Henry de Montfort said he was still with Richard, so I do not think he is in any distress.” He smiled at her. “Should you not dress now, love, while there is no boat on the river?”
She snatched up her clothes and hurried away toward the horses so she could dress in the partial cover of the thin woods. In a more leisurely manner Alphonse drew on his chausses, tied his cross garters, and finally put on his boots. He knew Barbe’s hurried retreat was natural, no decent woman would want to dress in the open. Nonetheless, even that natural retreat troubled him, and to occupy his mind he fixed it on William of Marlowe.
“I have bethought me,” he said, as he reached Barbara, nodding to her request that he tie her laces, “that what might be of far more benefit to William than an offer to pay a ransom he does not want paid, is for me to go to see his wife and family. Then if I get permission to visit William, I will have news to lighten his heart—I hope—and news to bring back to his wife and to John. I wonder if we could get leave to visit William’s keep—”
“Let me ask,” Barbara said. “Let me take with me the letter you got from King Louis about Sir William.” She smiled a tight, flat smile that made her mouth look hard. “Leicester thinks he did me a hurt by depriving me of his precious son, so he will wish to make amends. Moreover, if he does not ask how I came to have King Louis’s letter—it might have been obtained by either queen at your brother’s request and have been given to me—Leicester might not associate it with you.”
She was still angry because Leicester had insulted him, Alphonse thought, pleasantly surprised. “A very good idea,” he said, preparing to lift her into her saddle, and suddenly realized that he was still angry himself.
The heat had gone out of his anger, though. What was left was a kind of dislike for the holier-than-thou attitude of the Earl of Leicester and pleasure that Leicester might be diddled into granting him a favor. It was not fair, Alphonse knew. Leicester was a good man, a far better one than he was. He should not permit the earl’s manner to obscure that. Nonetheless, he felt a definite satisfaction because his principles inclined him to the party opposed to the earl.
“Should we go back to town now so I can get the letter and apply for audience with Leicester?” Barbe asked as he mounted.
“Not this morning,” he said. “Let the affairs of the day push me out of the earl’s mind. Also,” he smiled at her, “I would like to spend a few hours without thinking of any affairs save our own.”
They found the road again and, in a village, an alehouse that had a table in a garden and a chicken roasting for the master’s dinner, which he was glad to exchange for a silver penny. His wife added a new baked loaf, a jack of foaming ale, some cooked greens and pottage intended for supper, and a half-dozen near-ripe apples. Barbara and Alphonse sat down on rough stools to enjoy their simple meal, and neither was at all disappointed to see clouds begin to pile up in the sky not long after sext. Rain would be a good excuse to delay their return to trouble.
Thus, when the rain did begin just about the time they finished eating, they cheerfully moved their horses to the shed and themselves to the common room, where they found not only shelter but a battered fox-and-geese board. Half the pieces were missing, but the fox was there and Barbara laughingly accepted thirteen hazelnuts in place of the geese. A second jack of ale and several hard-fought games kept them well occupied during the first heavy downpour and the period of light rain that followed, so that it was past nones and the sun was out again before they left. Alphonse bestowed a second silver penny on the alewife and her husband for their hospitality, and she and Alphonse rode off with good feeling all around.
The light mood lasted until they came to the gates of Canterbury where guards still questioned all who entered about their business in the town. Although Alphonse and Barbara were passed without delay, both suddenly felt impatient with the suspicion and restrictions, and when Barbara again suggested that she get Louis’s letter and ask to speak to Leicester, Alphonse agreed. He would have preferred to leave England altogether, but to get out of Canterbury and do what he could for William of Marlowe seemed a good substitute.
Nothing ever was as simple as one hoped, Alphonse thought, when Chacier greeted him at the door of their lodgings with a letter from Henry de Montfort and a verbal message begging Alphonse to meet him at the White Friars monastery at vespers.
“I can set Henry’s mind at rest,” he said to Barbara, “because of what you told me about his father. Poor Henry, he certainly does not deserve to feel he has done me harm or that I feel bitter toward him. Shall I escort you to the castle? The White Friars is just past it—”
“No,” Barbara said. “Just for this afternoon, it will be better if we are not together. And I think I will go to the castle at once. Whenever Leicester has a free moment, I wish to be ready. The sooner I see him the sooner, God willing, you and I can leave this place. Bevis and Lewin can come with me and escort me home too. Then you also will be free to come and go as best suits your need.”
At the castle Barbara found a page in Leicester’s colors and told him she would like a few words with the earl, if that was possible. The boy ran off and soon returned, begging her to follow him to the earl’s apartment. So quick a response, Barbara thought, implied that Leicester’s conscience was still tender in regard to her and boded well for a favorable response to her plea. She was pleased as she followed the boy up to the second floor of the keep and threaded her way past groups of talking people toward the far end of the large chamber where Leicester stood with another man on a dais. Barbara was concentrating on how
to present her request to Leicester and not at all prepared to be seized and drawn into a window recess before she was halfway down the room.
“So here you are, back in England again,” Guy de Montfort said. “And toothsome as ever.”
Barbara was certain that he thought he was speaking in a sensuous purr, but her first impulse was to box his ears and her second was to tell him to spit if he had to. She repressed both urges and also the exasperated sigh that nearly slipped out. Guy was by no means his father’s favorite, but Leicester was fond of all his children and offending Guy would not be diplomatic.
“Marriage agrees with me,” she said. “You had heard I was married to Sieur Alphonse, the brother of the Comte d’Aix, had you not?”
“Quick work.” He nodded with a self-satisfied smile. “I wondered how you would get around the excuse that, with your mother’s life as a lesson, you would never take a lover and chance bearing a bastard.”
Barbara looked at him with blank incomprehension. “Whatever can you mean?” she asked. “That was no excuse for anything. It was the plain truth.”
His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “I have no time for your pretenses. I know and you know you want me. That has not changed, even if you took another man in spite after my father sent you away.”
This time her astonishment was so great it made Barbara mute, and she merely gaped.
“But you were stupid to ask to see my father,” he went on. “He will not have forgotten that you cast out lures for me and will send you away again.”
“That is just what I desire,” Barbara got out, “and just what I have come to ask of him, that he give me leave to go away.”
Too amused by the conceit of the little toad to be angry, she laughed aloud. That was a mistake. Guy did not like laughter directed at him, even as a protective pretense. Any woman he addressed should plead for his favors or for consideration so that her reputation not be ruined. Before Barbara suspected what he would do, Guy had seized her elbow, pulled her toward him, and then released her arm. The sudden tug unbalanced her. She gave a low cry, and her hands went up in an instinctive move against falling.
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