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  “I will not go and leave my husband a hostage.”

  “I am not a hostage,” Alphonse said before Mortimer could speak. “Be reasonable, Barbe. I have been living in Wigmore and riding out with Mortimer and his men for weeks. I have seen too much. But he is protecting me as much as himself. If Leicester asked questions and I refused to answer, might not he begin to regard me as an enemy?”

  “Thank God you are a man of sense and not an idiot woman,” Mortimer said.

  Alphonse cocked his head inquisitively. “When another man says I have sense it means I am doing what he desires. And that reminds me that I must ask, before I urge my wife to go, why you tried to send her away without telling me.”

  “Because you are besotted of her,” Mortimer said, his lips curving downward as if he had bitten a very sour apple. “Anyone can see it. I cannot send an army to protect her. Speed is of importance. And I did not want to argue with you about the cruelty of exposing her to the winter weather and making her ride so far and so fast and the dangers of sending her across this wild land with so few—”

  A double burst of laughter from Alphonse and Barbara cut him off.

  “That I am besotted is perfectly true,” Alphonse got out, “but you have mistaken the reason and the result. I am besotted because I can trust Barbe to ride as hard and as long as is necessary and not to cry for more protection than she really needs. So where do you want her to go?”

  “Worcester,” Mortimer said. “Leicester is gathering the feudal host at Worcester. I would prefer that he come no farther west with his army. That is why I want my message to get to him as soon as possible. All I want Lady Barbara to do is to carry the message. I thought she could gain admission to Leicester’s presence more easily than a common petitioner. She does not need to plead my case.”

  “I am not unwilling to plead for peace,” Barbara said, her demon crushed, at least temporarily, under the weight of evidence that her husband did not wish to be rid of her.

  Mortimer shrugged angrily and turned away to look out of the window. Alphonse touched Barbara’s hand, but he spoke to Mortimer. “Will you trust me, my lord, to suggest the limits Barbe must set on her pleading?” The dark head turned, eyes as black as Alphonse’s locked with his, then slid away. “If she offers more than you are willing to yield,” Alphonse continued, “Leicester will believe you have deceived him, perhaps to gain time. He will feel ill used and angry and be unwilling to grant any compromise. But if she offers less than you are willing to yield, will not the earl think he is making a good bargain?”

  Mortimer’s gaze came back to fix on Alphonse’s again. “You are a clever devil,” he said softly, “but if I offer too little, Leicester will not be willing to talk at all.”

  “There will be a fine line between what is worth some delay to talk about and what is not. What do you say—”

  “Would it not be better to talk of this in private?” Mortimer said quickly. “Or perhaps we have said too much already.”

  “No.” Barbara smiled. “Even if I wished to betray you, all I could tell was that you planned to yield more than the proposals I presently carry, and after all, will not that be a temptation to listen to you in person to see how much more can be wrung from you?”

  Mortimer stared at her for a long moment, then looked back at Alphonse. “I would strangle her if I were you. She thinks too much. That is dangerous.”

  “But I enjoy danger.” Alphonse’s eyes glittered.

  Barbara’s broad brows lifted so that she seemed to be looking down her long, elegant nose. “There is no danger for my husband. It is said that two heads are better than one, and as we are flesh of a flesh and bone of a bone, being made one by wedlock, it is as if the two heads were on one body. My thinking is only for my husband’s good. Would I bite off my own right hand? So neither would I do him harm.”

  Because her absolute refusal to abandon her husband under threat was proof that what Barbara had said was true, Mortimer was silenced. He grunted and his eyes flashed to his own wife, standing silently off to one side. Barbara smiled at him again.

  “I will leave you, then, to pack what I will need so you can talk to Alphonse in peace.” She laughed aloud. “I will swear not to ask a single question of my husband about what you say, if that will ease your mind. But I must ask of you, is there a limit to my time of staying with Leicester? And what am I to do if I am kept over that time?”

  “As far as I am concerned, you need do nothing but obey Leicester’s orders.” Mortimer lifted his brows and added a purposeful exposure of his teeth. “You may tell him that I will wait five days for a reply.”

  “Worcester is how far?” Alphonse asked.

  “A day’s ride,” Mortimer replied.

  “About fifteen leagues,” Barbara said simultaneously.

  “Then five days altogether, from the time Barbe leaves here, is reasonable,” Alphonse said. “It may take her longer than usual to get to Worcester and return if the weather is bad. Also, Leicester may be too busy to see her at once, and to expect him to answer within moments of receiving the proposals seems too much.” He looked at Barbara. “Tell Leicester that Lord Roger will wait three days before he moves, from the day you arrive in Worcester.”

  Mortimer seemed startled by what Alphonse had said, but Barbara was too relieved to wonder about that beyond the brief thought that Mortimer was far more direct a person than she had thought. That could be no problem for Alphonse, however, and she did not try to linger to hear Mortimer’s question and Alphonse’s response. She simply felt grateful, as she hurried across the small courtyard to the house in which she had been living, that she would not be expected to ride all the way in one day. She could do it, but it would mean changing horses and riding constantly rather than resting and warming herself while the animals rested. Still, she changed at once to her warmest, thickest clothing and bade Clotilde pack several changes and wrap them in oiled leather traveling bags. There was no misery like riding in cold, wet garments.

  Alphonse came in while Barbara and Clotilde were still discussing whether she would need more than one court dress. “Only one,” he said. “You must not seem to be ready to stay for any reason. So far as Leicester is concerned, we were taken prisoner by le Strange, have been held prisoner ever since, and I am a hostage for your swift return. You can devise any pretty threat you like for wishing to hurry back to me. Leicester dislikes and distrusts Mortimer so much by now that he will believe you even if you tell him Mortimer has threatened to send my balls after you if you do not come back fast enough.”

  She turned on him, her mouth flat and thin with irritation. “You expect me to lie to Leicester?”

  “Is our being prisoner really a lie?” Alphonse asked softly. “Perhaps we could have escaped if we tried. More likely we would have ended locked up in the keep. That I do not wish to escape has no bearing on that.”

  Barbara shrugged without speaking. She was less annoyed about telling Leicester a specious truth than by the reason Alphonse had given for her eagerness to return promptly to Wigmore. However, to admit the irritation would merely make Alphonse laugh and mark the words as important.

  “Do you want Leicester to wonder why Norfolk’s daughter has been a contented guest of the rebels since the end of October?” Alphonse went on. “Or perhaps you want a reason to linger where Guy de Montfort is?”

  “Ugh!”

  The spontaneous and involuntary reaction made Alphonse laugh aloud, and Barbara stuck out her tongue at him, but she wrinkled her nose and admitted, “I had forgotten Guy might be there.”

  He came closer and put his arms around her. “And I want you back,” he murmured. “I am a thousand times a fool because I grow more hungry for you the more I have you. I cannot even hide my reluctance to be away from you for a day…or a night. You heard Mortimer laugh at me for being besotted. Come back soon, dear heart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alphonse’s words kept Barbara warm all through the cold ride, and
she drove her escort along beyond Leominster, where they wanted to stop for the night in the priory, across the empty, hilly country, where Bevis and Lewin rode with their bared swords in their hands, as far as Bramyarde. There, with the black hulks of the Malvern Hills rising threateningly before her in the dusk, Barbara agreed to stop. No doubt had yet unsettled her eagerness to be back in Alphonse’s arms at the earliest moment possible, but she knew that riding farther was purposeless and stupid. The gates of Worcester would be shut long before they could arrive, and it would be far too easy to stumble into one of the army camps, where anything might happen, depending on the type of captain and the discipline of the men.

  She was glad she had come so far, however, because she wished to give an impression of haste and urgency. To further this purpose, she told Clotilde that she would wear the same mud-stained garments the next day and bade the alewife in whose house they lodged to wake them at first light. They left before sunrise, followed the alewife’s man’s instructions for finding the pass, and arrived well before the dinner hour at Worcester, passing the gate into the crowded, seething town with a motley of wagons bringing in supplies.

  Getting into the keep was a different problem entirely. When Barbara saw the strict watch being kept, she regretted her stained dress, fearing she would not be believed if she announced herself either as Norfolk’s daughter or as a messenger from Mortimer. She was hesitating, one moment turning her mare toward the center of the town to find an inn and change her clothes, the next turning back because she realized that arriving decked in her finest would give the wrong impression, when shouts and groans announced the lowering of the drawbridge. Barbara rode forward eagerly, hoping Leicester himself would come out of the keep. She was not alone in that hope. Others waiting near the road pressed forward, and Barbara soon feared she would not be able to get close enough to catch his attention. Her luck was even better. First over the bridge came a horseman with a head so red she could not mistake it.

  “Gilbert!” she screamed. “Gilbert, it is Barbara. Help me!”

  Gloucester’s sword was out, his horse leaping off the bridge driven by sharp spurs, before his eyes found her. By then the crowd in front of her had melted out of the way of the charging horse, and Gloucester could see Barbara was in no immediate danger. He pulled his horse up and shouted, “Where is Alphonse?”

  “Hostage for my carrying a message from Mortimer to Leicester,” Barbara called out. “Can you bring me to the earl?”

  Gloucester sheathed his sword and rode close enough to speak in an ordinary voice. “I can try,” he said, his lips thinning. “What happened? I heard from Sir John at Warwick that you were on your way to Portsmouth.”

  “Did you hear the rest?” she asked quietly as they went back across the drawbridge to the castle, pausing for Gloucester to order that her maid and two men just behind them be allowed to enter. But the dark passage under the walls echoed sound and was filled with arrow slits and pour holes through which words might pass. Barbara shook her head when Gloucester looked at her, expecting her to continue.

  “What rest?” Gloucester asked after they passed the gatehouse. “Sir John wrote that Alphonse had seen William of Marlowe after a short delay, no more than that.”

  “Let us dismount before we talk, Gilbert,” Barbara said. “I am too tired to shout at you from horse to horse.”

  The bailey was full of men rushing about, but Gloucester, with Barbara and her party following closely, rode straight through the crowd, leaving a trail of curses behind. At the stable, Barbara told Bevis and Lewin to stay with Clotilde, then laid her hand on Gloucester’s arm and smiled faintly as she said she could trust herself to him. He flushed slightly but covered her hand with his and started toward the gate to the inner ward.

  As long as they were moving, no one could hear more than a few words and Barbara thought it the safest time to tell her story. She explained how Simon de Montfort had tried to hold Alphonse in Kenilworth and the ruse Alphonse had used to get away—which brought a brief crow of delight from Gloucester. He did not think it funny, however, when she said that she and Alphonse had been attacked on the road by Guy and, in fleeing, she had fallen into the hands of Hamo le Strange.

  “Alphonse could not fight them all,” she said defensively.

  “Four against forty are no odds for a sane man, no matter how good, and Tybetot was holding you so Alphonse would hardly blink an eye unless he were bid.” Gloucester patted her hand, then looked concerned. “Were you ill used by le Strange?”

  “Not at all, except that he took us to Bristol and we were confined there—although with the greatest courtesy—by Robert de Walerand. Not, to tell you the truth that I even thought of protesting against going with Hamo. Rebel or not, I liked his company better than Guy de Montfort’s.”

  Gloucester’s hand tightened over hers and Barbara said no more until they had passed into the inner bailey. But before they entered the forebuilding to go up the stairs to the hall of the keep, she asked, “Gilbert, is Guy here?”

  “No, but he is expected, which is why I decided to stay in the town.”

  Barbara sighed. “Too bad. But it is better than his being here now.”

  She was quiet again as they passed the guards at the entrance of the fore building, but she glanced back at them as she started up the stair. More guards stood at the inner end of the passage from the stair landing through the thick wall of the keep. One put out a hand to stop her, but dropped his arm when he saw Gloucester just behind.

  “Why so many guards?” she asked softly as they crossed the room.

  “King Henry is here now, and after the attempt to free Edward—had you heard of that?”

  “Yes, Leybourne told us about it when he came to carry us off to Wigmore,” Barbara answered, and then, before Gloucester could ask any questions, she added, “Thank God I found you. Who knows how long it would have taken me to get past all the guards if I had not.”

  “Oh, the common guards have not been told to keep me out.”

  Gloucester’s voice had a thin edge. “But I am not so sure my influence will be enough to get you in to see the earl, who holds himself very high these days.”

  The question of Gloucester’s influence was not raised, however. Mortimer’s name held enough magic to provide Barbara with an immediate audience the moment she said she had been sent with a message from the lord of the Welsh Marches, and since she clung to Gloucester’s arm, he entered with her. Leicester exclaimed about her worn and travel-stained appearance, but she only said shortly that she had ridden as fast as she could from Wigmore because her husband was being held hostage for her immediate return. Then she drew from under her cloak the pouch that had been concealed there, and handed it to the earl.

  “I beg you to give me an answer at once, my lord,” she said. “I was told that Mortimer would wait no more than five days from the time of my setting out before he moves, and I have been two days on the road already.”

  “Before he moves?” Leicester laughed harshly. “Where can he move? The Marchers are alone in rebellion. Even his cousin Llywelyn has seen reason and made treaty with me.”

  The words hit Barbara like a blow. No wonder Mortimer had looked surprised when Alphonse bade her say he would wait five days before he moved. Alphonse must have known how hopeless Mortimer’s situation was, yet he had hidden it from her. Alphonse was apparently deep in rebel plans. Simultaneously she felt Gloucester’s arm stiffen under her hand. He said nothing and she dared not take her eyes from Leicester’s face to look at him, but Gloucester’s tension implied that something Leicester had said was false. Barbara swallowed nervously. She could not believe that. The Earl of Leicester did not lie. Still, if he was sure Mortimer could not resist, why make any terms? And if he would not make terms, why let her return to Wigmore?

  The sensible court-trained part of Barbara told her it did not matter if Leicester would not let her go back to Wigmore. Alphonse was not really a hostage. Mortimer would not harm him e
ven if he did not regard Alphonse as a friend and ally, because doing so would make his situation worse. And if Mortimer yielded to Leicester, it could not be long before she and Alphonse were reunited…unless Guy convinced his father that Alphonse was not Mortimer’s prisoner and should be treated as an enemy. Even then her father could— No, that would only make trouble for her father. Leicester must at least agree to talk to Mortimer. Barbara swallowed again and wet her lips.

  “My lord,” she said, “I know nothing of where and how Mortimer can move, but that is a wild and empty land and he looks more like a Welsh chieftain than a Norman gentleman. I can tell you nothing definite because I was never in the inner keep at Wigmore and never heard any of the talk among the men there. My husband and I were lodged in a house in the outer ward. All I can tell you is that there was much coming and going every day and I saw many armed men.”

  “The same troop passing in and out on patrol.”

  “My lord, I am no fool.” Barbara kept her voice even, but now she was annoyed as well as frightened. “I was held in Wigmore for near a month. Do you really think I would not recognize the same men passing, even if they were dressed differently each time—and why should Mortimer do such a thing? Surely he did not believe a month ago that he would be in so hopeless a position. Surely he would have done something more practical in that time than send one troop back and forth to befool a woman.”

  “You plead his case very well,” Leicester remarked.

  “I do not plead his case at all,” Barbara said. “You are my father’s ally. I tell you what little I saw and heard.”

  Leicester frowned at her. “How did you come to be taken prisoner by Mortimer?”

  “Not by Mortimer, my lord,” Barbara said quickly, suddenly realizing why Leicester had been looking at her so strangely.

  If Leicester did not recall why she and Alphonse were in the west and thought they had been riding around on the border of Wales, he had a right to be suspicious. She reminded him of her husband’s desire to visit William of Marlowe and explained that they had been traveling south from Kenilworth to find a ship at Gloucester and had been caught by Hamo le Strange on the road. Leicester listened without expression. When she had told her tale, carefully omitting any mention of his sons, he nodded and asked if she had anything more to tell him—as if his presence should have awed her into some confession.