A Silver Mirror Page 2

  There was a brief silence, in which Barbara made a wordless sound, half amusement, half despair. Then Joanna went on, “Is it more reasonable to believe that it is right for any group of men who are strong enough to bend the king to their will? That way lies chaos.”

  “Oh, Joanna,” Barbara sighed. “The king himself creates chaos.”

  Joanna sighed too. “As you well know, Hugh has done his best to guide King Henry away from his errors. The attempt was not a success. The king flew into a rage and dismissed Hugh from his service.”

  But her voice had changed over the last sentence into a dreamy softness, almost a purr of complacency. It was a most unsuitable tone for the words. Barbara, who had picked up her work and begun to set stitches, dropped it again and turned her head. “So that was why Uncle Hugh would not come to the meeting father wanted. You were the one who calmed him. I will lay odds that if you had not—”

  “I never speak to your uncle about political matters,” Joanna said. “It is not my place.”

  “Pish-tush,” Barbara snapped. “I suppose you would not try to stop him if he were going to do something stupid or dangerous.”

  “No, I would not. He would do what he thought right anyway and only be more miserable because of my tears and entreaties.”

  “Joanna!” Barbara exclaimed, quite exasperated.

  Joanna smiled. “Your uncle never does stupid things.”

  “Never does stupid things!” Barbara echoed. “What do you call his responding to King Henry’s call to arms after the way he has been treated? Uncle Hugh should have spat in the king’s face instead of going off to fight Leicester in his behalf. Henry is a selfish, petty, spiteful, vindictive, spendthrift—”

  “But he is the king,” Joanna interrupted softly. “God chose Henry, and only he has the right to rule.”

  But Joanna’s eyes had filled with tears and she put her work aside and slid across the bench. Barbara put a sheltering arm around her aunt’s shoulders. The sun had slipped behind a cloud, and a breeze was fluttering the leaves of the rose trees, which was reason enough for Joanna to shiver. But Barbara knew her aunt was not cold, Joanna was frightened. Barbara was frightened herself. She could not bear to think of her uncle and the two armies that might even now be rushing at each other somewhere in the south.

  Joanna had slipped her arm around Barbara’s waist, and the two women clung together. In a war, no matter who won, Barbara thought bitterly, the women always lost. And Joanna’s situation, with her sons on one side and her husband on the other, was heart-wrenching. Was everyone in England so torn apart? Did everyone have some dear one who supported the king, as did her Uncle Hugh, and another who was sworn to the Earl of Leicester, as was her own father? There must be no battle, Barbara thought desperately. Surely someone would find a way to make peace. She clutched Joanna closer, and Joanna shuddered again.

  “Let us go in, you are cold,” Barbara said.

  “No.” Joanna found a smile, released her grip, and sat back, but she did not move away or reach for her work. “The sun is coming from behind the cloud now. And it was not cold that made me shiver. I was thinking of the king.”

  Their glances met and shifted guiltily because of the unspoken thought in both minds. Henry III of England was old. Why could he not die? Why did he live on and on, bringing misery to all? Barbara thought again of what she had said, and it was true. The king was selfish, petty, spiteful, vindictive, and spendthrift. Unfortunately he was also both more and less than that. Henry was more in that he was clever, often brilliant, in devising political expedients to escape the consequences of his blunders and to thrust the blame for them onto others. He was less in that he was basically weak and had, despite his fifty-seven years of age, a kind of hopeful innocence that seemed to prevent him from learning from his mistakes. Barbara bit her lip. It was the weakest part of the king’s nature that was the most dangerous, that hopeful innocence made even Henry’s worst enemies wish to help him and protect him.

  The bitten lip did not dam speech for long. Barbara burst out, “How can Uncle Hugh allow himself to be seduced over and over by that man?” And then she choked on a sob that was half laughter. “How can I be so stupid as to ask when Henry does the same thing to me too each time I speak to him.”

  Joanna’s lips almost curved into a smile and then drooped again. “The king is not an evil person. His faults are those we all understand too well. Those he loves, he loves too much, so he is blind to the wrong they do. He is of expansive spirit, generous, and gives away what he should not, then when he feels the pinch he seeks a way to get back what he gave so blithely. He is easily frightened and under duress promises what he knows is wrong.”

  “He is not fit to be a king,” Barbara snapped. “He needs a governor, and you know it.”

  “That does not make it right to govern him,” Joanna said slowly. “It was by God’s will that he was crowned. It is not for us to question God’s will. If His holy purpose is served in some way by our suffering then we must endure with patience.”

  Barbara jumped up and stamped her foot. “You cannot tell me Hugh believes all that. I know he agreed with my father when Leicester first urged the barons to accept the Provisions of Oxford, and he knew quite well that the purpose of the Provisions was to govern the king.”

  Joanna shook her head. “To help the king govern. That is the difference between what happened when the Provisions were first signed and now. In 1258 the king was willing to accept the Provisions. Henry was truly distressed when he learned of the terrible abuses that had crept into his government and desired that they be amended. But the king became dissatisfied with the reforms over the next three years.”

  “You mean he missed his greedy and accursed lick-spittle relatives more than he cared about his kingdom,” Barbara retorted. Then she bit her lip. “Not that I care. I only care for Papa and Uncle Hugh. Good God, I know Leicester is just as seductive as the king, but could not my father and Uncle Hugh at least have been seduced by the same man?”

  “Neither Henry nor Leicester had much influence on Hugh’s decision. In the beginning Hugh supported the Provisions of Oxford with all his heart. But when he saw how they were being used, not only to cure ills but to overturn the natural order, how the king’s right to rule was being taken from him against the will of God by Leicester and his party, Hugh had to side with Henry. I do not think the king seduced Hugh. He is not easily seduced—”

  Joanna stopped abruptly and blushed. Barbara saw the blush with her eyes, but it meant nothing to her at the moment. She was remembering her father’s admission that many of the barons had not realized where the Provisions of Oxford must lead if they were fulfilled to the letter. Papa himself had not understood the full ramifications until the king’s will had conflicted with the Provisions three years after they had been sworn to by all. Then her father had been forced to decide whether his oath stood above the will of a bad king or whether the anointing of a weak man as king set that man above all oaths, as Joanna claimed. Papa had decided one way, Hugh had decided the other.

  Barbara slowly sank down on the bench again. Three years earlier her sympathies had been with her Uncle Hugh’s Royalist point of view, but she now knew her father was right about the king being unfit to rule. Henry had not only bent the Provisions of Oxford but had arranged for the pope to declare them null and void. And then, as in the past, the king had repeated every mistake that had brought him into conflict with his barons in the first place. Henry had interfered with the special court sessions meant to redress judicial and financial abuses, and he had recalled his Lusignan half brothers, who had caused such turmoil by their cruelty and rapacity.

  When Hugh was dismissed from his office by the king, Barbara had been distressed and asked leave of the queen to visit her uncle. She had not told her father where she was going because she had been afraid he would either forbid her to visit Hugh or urge her to plead with Hugh to oppose the king again, which Barbara felt would be cruel at such a tim
e. But her visit had been brief. Her uncle was not brokenhearted, as she had feared. Indeed, Hugh had looked well and rested for the first time since the Provisions had been signed.

  Relieved and delighted, Barbara had gone on to Framlingham Castle and confessed to her father that she had been at Kirby Moorside, Hugh’s favorite manor. Norfolk forgave her when she told him that Hugh seemed settled into private life without regret, but he would not agree that she should end her service with the queen. She was a clever chick, her father said, and her eyes and ears at court were useful to him. Unless Eleanor dismissed her out of spite over his opposition to Henry, her father insisted she continue to go to court for her regular months of service and be meek and listen, even if she had to bite her tongue when Eleanor criticized him.

  More than three years had passed without giving Barbara much reason to worry about Hugh’s withdrawal from participation in the king’s government. Even though matters had gone from bad to worse, Hugh had kept himself quietly retired. She knew he was not happy about the state of the realm, but because her father and her uncle quarreled each time they met, she had seen less and less of Hugh and Joanna.

  Serving at court was horrid. When Hugh and her father were summoned at the same time—and the king seemed deliberately to demand they attend him together—they seemed to Barbara to be a hairbreadth from drawing knives on each other. Nor was her life much easier when her father and uncle were absent. The king’s sycophants said offensive things about Norfolk when he was not there, and the courtiers who were of Leicester’s party made bad worse by trying to protect her. Leicester himself had sullenly retired to France, riding a high horse of pride, after Henry had seized the reins of government again. But the barony in general seemed sunk into apathy, allowing the king to go his own way, except for stubbornly refusing to help him extricate himself from his increasing financial woes.

  Then a quarrel between Henry’s son, Prince Edward, and his steward Roger Leybourne had been blown out of all proportion, and in the past year the barons had again combined and risen against the king. Edward had acted like a stupid hothead at first and temporarily lost the support of the lords of the Welsh Marches, who had been his most faithful friends. In their initial rage, the Marcher lords had asked Leicester to return to England and lead them. There had been some minor battles in the west, and the king had withdrawn to London. But even there he found no real support. Instead of being protected, the king had found himself trapped in the Tower of London, and the people of London had stoned Queen Eleanor’s barge when she tried to leave the city.

  Terrified by the violent hostility of the Londoners, who had always supported him in the past, the weathercock king had again promised everything to everyone and, as soon as his tether was relaxed, had gone back on his promises and the weary round was about to be danced again. There were differences, however. Although the king had not changed, everyone else had. This time Leicester seemed to have made up his mind to fight. King Henry would have been helpless, but Prince Edward had learned a sharp lesson too and had made his peace with the Welsh Marcher lords, but he had made peace with his old friends in order to make war on Leicester. Not all desired war, but so much harm had been done, so much bitterness aroused, that few were able to keep their balance.

  Barbara’s hands were again idle, even though she held her needle poised over the sleeve cuff she was embroidering. She was recalling miserably that even her father, who knew it was wrong to fight, had said bitterly that he could only hold back so long.

  “They will call me a coward,” the Earl of Norfolk had mumbled, half turning his head from Barbara in shame after his chaplain had read him the Earl of Leicester’s letter and he had waved the man away. “But it is wrong to bear arms against the king and yet Leicester has tried everything else.”

  “You are no coward,” Barbara had cried. “No one will even think it, Papa. If more men had your good sense and no one on either side would fight, there could be no war.”

  Her passionate remark had brought a faint smile and a rough hug, but then Norfolk had straightened and stood looking out of the window at the teeming rain, one hand still resting on Barbara’s shoulder. At last he had said, “If it comes to battle, Leicester will win, you know. If I thought he needed my help, I would go, but he has men enough and is a far better soldier than any who support Henry.”

  That was the first time Barbara remembered thinking beyond the fact of the danger in fighting to the results of a great battle won or lost. Until then fighting between the two parties had been raids and skirmishes, tests of strength, perhaps, but with no major effects. She had cried out, “It will not come to battle. It must not! But…but if it does and Leicester wins, what will happen to those who opposed him? What will happen to Uncle Hugh?”

  “I will do my best for him,” Norfolk had said slowly, “but I do not know how much influence I still have. Leicester is not pleased with me.” He shrugged and his lips twisted. “You heard his letter. He thinks me not sufficiently committed to the cause. But if Hugh will remain quiet, I know Leicester will leave him in peace.”

  Barbara’s relief over those words, and her gladness that her father wished to protect his brother despite all their quarrels had made her smile and say, “Surely he will. I am very certain that Uncle Hugh is sick of King Henry and his lies and excuses.”

  It had been a shock when her father shook his head and said, “I wish I were sure. I am afraid that Hugh, thinking as I think that the king is the weaker, will answer Henry’s call to arms. Also, he may hope to serve as peacemaker.”

  “Then you must go to Uncle Hugh. You must stop him.”

  “I dare not go, chick.” Her father’s scarred knuckles had stroked her cheek. “First because Hugh would not listen to me. Second because I might be accused of some conspiracy with him. Guy de Montfort did not come here only to carry a letter from his father. He asked some strange questions of my steward and master-at-arms.” He hesitated and looked down at her and suddenly smiled. “But you can go to talk with Hugh.”

  Barbara had left the very next day for Kirby Moorside despite the continuing rain. She had a head full of reasoned arguments supplied by her father to convince Hugh it was his duty to refuse to respond to the king’s summons to arms. She had been too late; Hugh had been gone when she arrived.

  Remembering, a wave of cold passed over Barbara and she glanced up, but the sun was still shining. She did not speak, only swallowed hard, laid down her work, and took Joanna’s hand in hers. At least, she thought, she had had sense enough not to tell Joanna the real reason why she had come. That could only have added to her aunt’s fear for Hugh. The tale of wishing to escape the lewd attentions of Leicester’s younger sons had been the first idea to pop into her head because Guy had made a nuisance of himself whenever he contrived to catch her away from her father. Now the memory of her father’s remark about Guy’s “strange questions” came together with her fear that her uncle might be imprisoned or his lands confiscated, and she suddenly wondered how a victory for Leicester might affect her. Might she be considered a spoil of war, particularly if she were taken here, in an “enemy” household? Might Guy believe that evidence gathered against her father could be used to silence Norfolk if she were despoiled?

  Barbara uttered a gasp of laughter as she realized how fear could inflate one’s self-importance. Her father held wide lands from which many men and rich supplies of grain could be mustered, and he commanded many miles of the eastern coast that could be used to land mercenaries from the Continent if he did not oppose the landing. If Guy was trying to find evidence to accuse her father of disloyalty, it would be so that another governor could be set over Norfolk for those reasons, not because that spoiled child desired her. Probably he had only reached for her because she was there and he, like so many others, could not believe that she neither wished to take the veil nor used her single state to lie with any man at any time without the interference of a husband.

  “Tell me,” Joanna said, squeezing Barba
ra’s hand. “I would like a cause to laugh, even at myself.”

  Because she had been thinking about Guy’s clumsy attempts on her, Barbara recalled Joanna’s last words and her blush. She realized that something had happened between her aunt and uncle. When she had been part of their household, Joanna and Hugh had been comfortable together but more like polite acquaintances than devoted husband and wife. Though both had done their marital duty and produced children, nothing in their relationship, even three years ago, could have called a blush to Joanna’s cheek.

  Add to that blush Joanna’s urging a second marriage on her and Barbara decided that whatever had happened was very good. It was also none of her business, Barbara thought, so all she said was “It just came to me that young Simon was not really trying to seduce me at all and Guy, that idiot, was only after me to imitate his brother.”

  “I do not believe it,” Joanna said with a smile. “You have never come to see that you are now a very attractive woman, no longer a scrawny child with features too big for her face. Why do you say Simon was not interested in you?”

  “Because he was only ardent when Aliva le Despenser was there to see him,” Barbara replied, her brows going up in challenge.

  “And Guy?” Joanna asked. Then before Barbara answered she went on, “Do not be a fool, my dear. Make a chance to speak to Leicester at the first opportunity. Even if Simon was trying to make Aliva jealous, Guy is the kind who is enraged by refusal. If you leapt at his offer, he would soon be bored and forget you, but if you deny him, he will desire to break your will. Now a word from his father hinting that you have taken his advances too seriously will let Guy turn away from you with contempt. He will enjoy the notion that he is scorning you and depressing your pretensions, so no ill-will will linger in him.”

  “But I would like to arouse ill-will in that nasty, vicious— Oh, I cannot even think of a creature I would soil with comparison,” Barbara protested. “I was about to call him a toad, but I rather like toads. They have such beautiful eyes.”