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  “I am in no condition to sit down without befouling everything I touch. If you will tell me whether you will try to obtain a meeting with King Louis for me, I will find a lodging and make myself decent.”

  “Lodging? Why seek a lodging?” Alphonse was truly startled. He had not been at all put off by John’s stink or appearance and was shocked that Alys’s brother-by-law would doubt his welcome. “Surely you will stay here with me,” he went on. “Alys will kill me if I let you wander loose around Paris. And as to the meeting, I have already sent my servant with a request for an interview with my aunt, Queen Marguerite, and with the king.”

  Alphonse smiled when John laughed shakily. He had told John the literal truth, but his note to Queen Marguerite had been sent in the hope and conviction that the court was no longer in Paris. And his servant, Chacier, had been gone long enough now that he was nearly sure the hope was well founded. Alphonse liked John’s open, expressive face, but he was very glad he would not need to present it to King Louis, haggard and filled with fear as it was even when John laughed. He needed time to convince John that a raw, emotional appeal would not work with King Louis as it would with King Henry. Not that Louis was hard-hearted. On the contrary, he was easily moved, however, experience had shown him how often strong feeling led to error, and he had become suspicious of his own sympathy to any cause other than God’s.

  Responding to the warmth of Alphonse’s smile, John realized he had been a fool. Alphonse’s comical expression of dismay when he mentioned Alys was also irresistible. John knew just how he felt. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am so tired and distraught myself that I am like the man who planned to borrow an ax. You remember, he struck down him from whom he wished to obtain it without even making the request because of a slight he himself imagined while planning how to ask for the tool.”

  Alphonse knew the story, only in the version he had heard it was a knife the borrower wanted. He nodded. “I understand your impatience,” he said, “but we can do nothing right now, not even stand with those who have petitions and wait King Louis’s notice. I must discover where the king and queen are.”

  “You mean King Louis and Queen Marguerite are not in Paris?” John exclaimed.

  “I do not know,” Alphonse admitted. “When I heard about the battle at Lewes, I realized that King Louis would be fully occupied with the problems of the English for some little while and I thought it would be a good time for me to go home, so I asked for leave. I had an…ah…personal matter to attend to before I left for Aix, however, and it took me out of the city for more than a week. Yesterday and today I was packing and putting my affairs in order—”

  “Good God! What am I to do?”

  “Take heart.” Alphonse put his hand on John’s shoulder and shook it gently. “Surely if the court has gone out of Paris they have moved north to be in easier reach of news from England. I will come with you instead of going home. You will lose no time. You would have had to cover the ground anyway. And one piece of good luck brings another. We can follow the court as soon as you are rested. You are fortunate to catch me here at all. I am all packed and ready to leave. I would have been on the road for Aix by dawn tomorrow.”

  “No wonder you were not overjoyed to see me.” John sighed. “I am sorry to have spoiled your leave. Perhaps it would be sufficient for you to give me a letter—”

  “Even if it were, I would not think of it,” Alphonse said. “I must go with you. Quite aside from the fact that I am very fond of William and Aubery myself and most anxious to hear what has befallen them, do you think I would dare show my face in Aix without news of them? Alys would tear me in shreds and Ray would stamp on the remains.” He shook John’s shoulder again as John put a hand up to his head. “Come into my bedchamber with me and take off your mail. You will have to change into more suitable clothing if the court is still here, and you must eat and sleep before you go farther if it is not.”

  He drew John after him toward the back of the house where a partition had been raised to provide a chamber for private business. Because it was smaller than the main room, it was also warmer and Alphonse had his bed there and his clothing. Leaving John near the hearth where a small fire had burned down to coals, Alphonse threw open a chest and pulled out a set of clothes, which he tossed onto the bed. He felt considerable relief when John took off his sword belt and untied the hood of his mail, which he seemed to have forgotten to do when he came in. Apparently, Alphonse thought, John could still think rationally and had accepted his reasoning. Nonetheless, he was glad when he heard the door in the outer chamber open and close, indicating that his servant had returned. He called out to the man to come in.

  “Queen Marguerite and the king are gone to Boulogne,” Chacier said. “I caught the Lord Steward just as he was sending off a packet and he put your request for an audience into it gladly, so the queen will know you are coming.”

  “Excellent,” Alphonse said heartily. “The messenger will take three days to Boulogne, unless the news is very urgent—”

  He paused and looked at Chacier, who shook his head. “I doubt it, sieur. From the look of the Lord Steward and the way he was placing scrolls in the pouch, I would say it was ordinary court business.”

  “Very well, then we can start tomorrow morning and arrive in Boulogne only a few hours after the messenger, our horses being the better.”

  “Not mine,” John said, passing his hand down his face. “I fear I have ridden the poor beast close to death.”

  “That is no problem,” Alphonse assured him, smiling. “I can provide you with a mount.”

  He was delighted that John had not demanded they leave at once and outride the messenger. At the moment he could not decide whether John’s reasonableness was owing to common sense or to the sudden reluctance that comes when one approaches a long-sought goal and realizes it may not be what one desired after all. But later, when they were talking while having an evening meal together after John had slept a few hours, Alphonse learned that John was accustomed to the working of a court. He really knew quite well that it was impossible to thrust oneself into a royal presence without warning and with a private problem.

  Thus it was not at all difficult, as they rode north the next day, for Alphonse to make clear to John the problem with King Louis’s character. Both the discussions of the best way to approach King Louis and the fact that they were riding, doing something, soothed John. He did not beg to travel through the dark each night, recognizing that Queen Marguerite would need time to arrange an audience for them with her husband so that it would do no good to arrive before Alphonse’s letter. By the time the walls of Boulogne were in sight, John had lost the frantic, desperate look that had so disturbed Alphonse and had begun to speak of more practical subjects, like the fact that Boulogne was packed like herrings in a barrel.

  “You may lodge with us,” John told him. “Queen Eleanor found a house for Hugh in the town, unless you think that lodging with Hugh Bigod would prejudice King Louis against your appeal for William.”

  “He will not ask where I am lodging,” Alphonse said. “And I will be glad not to need to pitch a tent in a field or ride twenty miles before dawn each time I come to court. I doubt I could find lodging closer with those who came from England and Louis’s people filling the town. Usually my aunt includes me among her household for lodging when she travels with the king, but I told her I was going home.”

  “Good God,” John said, “I hope Hugh still has the house.”

  “Louis is not the kind to demand his people be given the room of other noblemen,” Alphonse began.

  John cut him short with an impatient gesture. “At least he would have the right. No, I was not thinking of Louis. We had some trouble with King Henry’s half brothers, Guy de Lusignan and William de Valence. They insisted on having the place Queen Eleanor wished for Hugh—”

  “The Lusignans.” There was little expression in Alphonse’s voice, but the corners of his full lips, which usually seemed to curve upw
ard in a slight smile, drew back, making his mouth into a straight, hard line. “I will see to them if need be,” he went on, shaking his head as John began to protest. “I do not think you fear them, but one must respect the wishes of one’s king. Louis, I know, dislikes them for many reasons and will not be sorry to see them… ah…encouraged to leave Boulogne.”

  John laughed. “In a general way, I agree with you. Aside from Henry himself, there must hardly be a man alive, whatever his party, who would not be glad to see the backs of all that brood of vipers, but I must say that in this case we were grateful to them. Hugh really preferred a smaller lodging—he was very short of money, of course—and he wanted to be somewhat farther from Queen Eleanor—”

  John stopped short in confusion, but Alphonse echoed his laugh. “That, too, I understand. Eleanor is my aunt, and I love her, but she has grown harder and more demanding as her husband’s troubles have multiplied. And for any reasonable man who can see that Henry’s troubles are mostly of his own making, it must be very hard to deal with her. As to the money—”

  “Raymond has taken care of that,” John said quickly. “And Hugh and I will cover your expenses too, of course. In fact, if I had not been half out of my wits, I would never have let you pay our scores—”

  “Zut!” Alphonse laughed again. “Do not be so foolish. All the money is coming from my brother’s purse anyway. So what does it matter who pays it out? And my expenses? What expenses? I will not have any if I lodge with you. Moreover,” Alphonse’s eyes brightened, ”if we are here some weeks, someone will get up a tournament in a neighboring town, and I will make a handsome profit on all the young fools in the area who want to try to overset me.”

  He held up a hand as John was about to speak and rose in his stirrups, pointing ahead to what seemed to be a mob around the gate they were approaching.

  “What can have happened?” John groaned.

  “Nothing, except an unusually rich market,” Alphonse answered soothingly.

  He turned to gesture his servant ahead toward the gate to make sure with a small bribe to the guards they were not delayed there. But it was not the guards who put obstacles in their path. The guards were caught somewhere among the shouting, milling throng, and Chacier never found them. Fortunately, John and Alphonse did not wait for the servant to return but forged ahead, picking their way around the outer fringes of angry farmers and carters whose confused and frightened oxen balked and backed and started forward just when it was least expected and most inconvenient.

  When men, beasts, and carts became more tightly packed, Alphonse and John laid about them with the flats of their swords, which quieted most of the protest at their pushing through ahead of others. They found Chacier staring in perplexity at two carts that had locked wheels and jammed in the narrow passageway that pierced the thick wall. The oxen were bawling and bumping into one another in the dark tunnel, trying to escape from the carts and each other, and the farmers on the far side of the gate were exchanging blows and recriminations.

  “You will have to go around to another gate, sieur,” Chacier said.

  “Nonsense,” Alphonse replied. “How do I know it will be any better than this?”

  On the words, he handed his reins to John, loosened his foot from his right stirrup, and slid from his saddle to the top of one cart, using his sword to brace himself upright. Unfortunately, just as he stood erect, the ox attached to the cart chose to back up, and Alphonse lost his balance, pitching forward onto a heap of unwashed and well-fertilized vegetables.

  Alphonse’s remark and the voice in which it was uttered silenced the mob nearest the gate, and they remained quiet while he got to his feet again and worked his way to the front. Having studied the situation for a moment, he leaned down and cut the leather traces that held both oxen to their carts. One being a little ahead of the other already, both were able to lumber forward without hindrance when Alphonse smacked them smartly on the rear with the flat of his blade.

  Their emergence from the gate drew the attention of their masters, who left off their quarrel to pursue the beasts. Meanwhile, Alphonse had clambered back and gestured the nearest men to him. The gesture being made with his bared blade and Chacier standing by whip in hand encouraged cooperation. John had been struggling not to laugh, until he had to dismount and get his horse and Alphonse’s out of the way. He was soon splashed with dung and mud himself, and much less inclined to find the situation exquisitely humorous.

  Now that the oxen were no longer pulling forward, it was no great feat to draw the carts back out of the gate, and John and Alphonse were first through. The streets were almost as crowded as the gate, however, which made John remark despairingly that he was sure Hugh would be gone and they would never be able to find him with the city so crowded. But Alphonse had recovered his good temper and retorted with laughter that, if so, he was going to lie down in the gutter to sleep, since he had no longer anything to lose and it would be better than trying to battle their way out of the city again.

  Neither awful prognostication came true. As they worked their way past the market area, which spread out from the port, and climbed the hill toward the castle at the top, the streets grew somewhat quieter. John’s conviction that the crowding was sure to have displaced his lord was proved wrong at last when Hugh’s own manservant opened the door to them and welcomed them in with considerable enthusiasm, despite their dirt. He apologized for leaving them to make their way up to the solar themselves while he helped Chacier unload the baggage animals and showed him where to take the horses. With the town so full, it was impossible for foreigners to get servants, he said somewhat bitterly. John clapped him on the shoulder and replied that he could forgive him anything just for being where he was and gestured for Alphonse to precede him up the stair.

  “Oh, no,” Alphonse said. “I freely relinquish to you the courtesy due me as a guest and the honor due me as the son of a count. You go first and explain our condition.”

  His intention was to give John a chance to say a few words to Hugh Bigod alone, not to explain why they were both soiled with well-manured mud but to allow Bigod to make mental arrangements for what might be one unexpected guest too many. Thus Alphonse climbed the stair in a leisurely fashion, entering the large front room when John was about halfway across, moving toward a solitary figure just rising from a chair near the fireplace. In the same instant that it became clear that the figure could not be Hugh Bigod, John let out a yell of “Barby! Barby!” and leapt forward.

  Alphonse stopped as abruptly as if he had seen Medusa instead of Barbara de le Pontet de Thouzan le Thor. She had run toward John when he called her name and they were now embracing. With a small shocked intake of breath, Alphonse removed his hand from his sword hilt. He had no right to her. He had been fool enough to turn away the love she had offered him so artlessly when she was a child, a scrawny, almost ugly little girl. And look at her now. Alphonse swallowed hard and took a deep breath. In any case, he reminded himself bitterly, she was doubtless no longer the widow of de le Pontet de Thouzan le Thor. In the seven years since he had seen her she must surely have remarried.

  At least she had not married John of Hurley. That was clear enough. There was nothing of husband and wife in the rough hugs of joy they had exchanged, and they had backed away from each other without the smallest lingering of physical pleasure in touching. John’s questions about his brother and father-by-law had burst out at once, and she was answering, assuring him that all was well with William of Marlowe and Aubery of Ilmer.

  “They are not shackled or in a dungeon,” she said. “At least William is not. He was with Richard of Cornwall. I saw Richard and William in London and William looked too well and easy for me to believe that Aubery was hurt or harshly treated.”

  John bent his head and murmured, “Thank God. Thank God. I could not have borne to have escaped, leaving them to die.” He then laughed aloud and struck Barbara gently on the upper arm. “Now we can work to free them.” But after that he frow
ned, relief providing time for him to become puzzled. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  “My father sent me, of course. Surely you do not think he would leave poor Hugh to wonder what had happened to his wife and children. Joanna is safe at Framlingham with the two younger children, and Father sent his men to hold Hugh’s lands. With any luck, everything will be safe for Hugh when he comes home.”

  “And when is that likely to be?” John asked, his voice gone cold.

  “Do not begin to argue with me,” Barbara snapped. “I am not afraid to warm your ears as they deserve. What do you men care for anything beyond your own pride and your precious ‘right’? Uncle Hugh too! Did he give a single thought to Joanna’s suffering when he agreed to go to war?”

  John made pacifying gestures. “Do not eat me, Barby. I am no more free to do my will than you are. When did you come? Are you staying here with us? Where is Hugh?”

  Hugh Bigod! When Barbara referred to him as Uncle Hugh, Alphonse at last connected John’s lord with Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. Because Alphonse never thought of Norfolk by his personal name, he had not realized Hugh Bigod must be the earl’s brother. But he could not stay in the house while she was there. He had no idea how much seeing her would hurt. If someone had named her to him, he would have said he had almost forgotten her. It would have been a lie, but he had not ached with missing her for years.

  Only the anger and contempt in her voice when she spoke of men’s pride had carried him back to the day when the news of Thouzan le Thor’s death had arrived. Overnight Louis had received a dozen requests for her in marriage. There had been the same anger and contempt in her when she called those men ghouls. And so he had run back to Aix to hide himself, afraid she would class him with the “ghouls” who desired not her but the pretty estate that had become hers when her husband died. Why should she not? How could she know how much he had come to love her over the two years she had been Thouzan le Thor’s wife in name only? He had been very careful to treat her with proper courtesy, and what else could he do? Pierre de le Pontet de Thouzan le Thor had been his friend. He had been fulfilling Alphonse’s own conditions in not claiming his wife until she became fifteen years of age—