A Silver Mirror Page 52

  “Yes, but I cannot believe only one man would have been sent in these times, and for two or more to be injured or dead without any chance to pay for a message to Norfolk or me—I cannot believe that either. I have tried to tell myself that Barbe’s messengers might have somehow missed us and been following behind, but we were at Gloucester so long. Could even a stranger to the country have failed to find us? And many of Norfolk’s men are not strangers to that country.”

  “Strigul,” Edward said, naming Norfolk’s great keep in Wales in acknowledgment that Norfolk had servants who knew the area well. He bit his lip, then asked, “You think she was taken on the road? Made prisoner?”

  Alphonse shook his head. “If ransom was desired or she was taken as a hostage, would I not have had word of it either from her captor or from Norfolk?”

  He stopped speaking and turned away abruptly, unable to admit to Edward—so secure in the perfect adoration of his loving Eleanor—that he did not fear for Barbe’s safety. He felt unloved, abandoned, afraid that she had found in her father’s keep the man who had given her the token she hid from him. Over the weeks, as he realized how much time had passed without a message from her, he forgot the moments of warmth, the fear she had shown for his safety, the unfailing and unstinting support she had offered in public even when she differed with him in private, the signs that she was jealous of him.

  Instead he found himself seeing again and again the furtive motions with which she concealed her love token, and he began to accept the wild suspicions that crawled in his head. She loved her cousin, Roger Bigod, with whom marriage was plainly impossible because of consanguinity and because she could bring nothing to so great a match. Or she had formed an attachment for some poor knight too far below her high, if illegitimate, birth. That was why she had not wanted to go to Framlingham in his company. That was why she put aside the joy of having her aunt at her wedding, of marrying in her own home among her own people. She had wished to spare her lover or to spare herself. All her talk of political danger for her father was only a white cloth over the filthy desire she hid.

  There had been a little silence while Edward thought over what Alphonse had said and decided it was true that Alphonse would have heard if Barbara had been taken as a hostage or for ransom. But what else could have happened to the lady? Suddenly he frowned like a thundercloud.

  “You told me Guy de Montfort desired her,” he said, “but I thought Guy was with his father. Good God, Alphonse, Evesham is not far from Kenilworth, not more than ten leagues—”

  “What!” Alphonse spun around, gray with shock.

  “Yes, and if Guy were riding from Gloucester, he might well pass through Evesham on his way to Kenilworth.” Even as he spoke, Edward caught at Alphonse who was heading out of the room, his face twisted. “Wait,” he insisted. “Let me order a troop to go with you.”

  Alphonse hesitated, then shook his head. “Thank you, my lord, but no. A small troop could not break open Kenilworth to free my wife, so there is no sense in weakening your force by even a few men when they can serve no real purpose.”

  But Edward still held Alphonse. “A word. I am a fool for putting such an idea into your head. We have heard no hint that Guy traveled east from Gloucester when Leicester went to Hereford. I will not give you leave to go until you promise me you will not go to Kenilworth.” Edward’s lips twisted into a caricature of a smile. “Man, do not look at me as if I were a monster. If Lady Barbara is in Kenilworth, she is safe. My aunt may be indulgent to her sons, but not in matters of the flesh, nor would Leicester himself condone lewd behavior. Go to Evesham and ask the brothers when your wife left and with whom. If she has been taken, come back to me, and we will devise a way to obtain her freedom.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Late on the same day, Barbara walked slowly down one path of the visitors’ garden in Evesham Abbey. She was by now as familiar with every bed and bush of this garden as with the garden of Framlingham. With the thought came a surge of homesickness so strong that tears stung her eyes. More and more as time passed and Alphonse gave no sign that he cared whether or not he ever heard from her, she longed for her father and the comfort of Joanna’s company.

  By the beginning of July, after the city of Gloucester surrendered to the prince, she had expected every day to see her husband appear in the visitors’ courtyard or to hear that he had sent an irate message asking where she was. But the days passed and neither Alphonse nor a message came. Day by day the pleasure drained out of Barbara. She remembered that she had agreed to send word where Alphonse was to meet her, but she had never known her husband to wait passively for what he wanted. If he wanted her, he would have sought and pursued her.

  Most likely Alphonse had forgotten all about her, Barbara thought angrily. He was playing at war— She swallowed hard. Perhaps he had been wounded…killed? No. That was ridiculous. Mortimer or Gilbert would have sent her word if harm had come to her husband. No, he was not hurt. Doubtless he had found another woman. She would go home. Tomorrow she would go home without a word to him, without sending for a troop of her father’s men. It would serve Alphonse right if she were taken prisoner. Barbara laughed aloud at her own silliness, although tears still stung her eyes. She would be a far greater sufferer than Alphonse if she were taken prisoner, especially if he was in no hurry to get her back. Biting her lips against sobs, she turned her back on the rose trees and walked quickly to the bench near the tiny pool at the center of the garden. Furious with herself for becoming trapped in a weary round she had sworn she would not think about again, she sat down and pulled a wide band of pale blue ribbon from her basket, found the needle, and threaded it with a deep red silk.

  Grimly, Barbara fixed her eyes on the pattern of little lions with curled-up tails chasing each other along the ribbon. Red was a favorite color of her father’s and the blue would match his eyes. She sewed steadily, keeping her mind on her work and on the small events that were news in an abbey, until the lowering sun, just above the top of the garden wall, shone full in her eyes and blinded her. She turned her head and sighed. The sun would drop behind the wall in a few minutes. It was time to go in.

  Barbara snipped her thread, pulled the needle free, and fixed it firmly into its carrying cloth. She could not leave it in the satin ribbon, where it might pull and leave a hole or catch on a thread and snag it. By habit she counted the pins in the cloth before she put it away. She had been used to loose pins, which dropped to the bottom of her basket and worked their way through the woven withies, and replacing them irritated her father who always felt it unjust to spend so much for such tiny things. She smiled, recalling the many times she had tried to explain to him that greater craft and patience were needed to make a pin than a sword.

  Memory of her father’s likes and dislikes made Barbara put a hand to her crespine. There was not a wisp of breeze, and she had been sitting quite still. How had tendrils of hair worked themselves out? Impatient, she began to push them back into the net, and felt her finger catch and tear one of the delicate knots. Uttering a word no lady should say, especially in an abbey, Barbara scrabbled in the bottom of the basket and pulled out her silver mirror. For the moment she was her father’s daughter and the mirror was no more than a thing she had had “forever”. But with the mirror a finished piece of work came from the basket, a panel of brilliant violet silk now embroidered with little dark purple snakes climbing silver trees bearing golden apples. As the frontlet she had made for Alphonse’s gown unfolded, the pain hit. Barbara sat for a long moment with her hand poised over her basket, thinking of the weeks of work she had done to make Alphonse laugh.

  “Damn you, Barbe, have you no conscience at all!”

  His voice came from her right, from the entrance to the garden from the men’s wing of the visitors’ quarters. Barbara uttered a shriek of surprise and joy, dropping the mirror and frontlet into her basket, jumping to her feet, and whirling to face him. The mail hood of his hauberk had been thrust back so she could see his
face plainly, and his distorted expression stopped her dead. He was angry enough to beat her, she thought, her breath catching. She backed away from the pool, and his mouth grew harder yet. Barbara had never had such rage directed at her in her life except by her father’s wife who wanted her dead. Aware only of the need to put something between her and the threat, she caught up her basket, holding the open side against her breast so that the solid bottom faced outward.

  “Put that down,” Alphonse said, his voice a caricature of its usual gentleness.

  Barbara was so frightened that she did not even think of running into the women’s quarters where Alphonse could not come. She knew the brothers would not interfere with a husband lessoning his wife. She had forgotten that though wife beating was acceptable, they would not tolerate a man’s invasion of the chambers reserved for women. She tried to swallow but her mouth and throat would not move. Her arms would not move either, so she could not put her basket down as ordered. She stood like a statue, having not the slightest idea that she projected an image of rigid defiance.

  When Alphonse took another step forward, however, Barbara jerked back as if the distance between them were fixed by some solid matter. “I said—” he began, and moved more quickly. She took two quicker steps too, and then her heel tangled in her skirt and she fell—still frozen with the basket tight against her breast.

  She landed in a bed of thyme. Low-growing and springy as it was and with the earth beneath the plants stirred and loosened so that it was soft, she was not hurt beyond the thump that bruised her backside, shoulders, and the back of her head. The violent jarring and slight pain broke her paralysis. More important in reducing her terror was the note of anguish in her husband’s voice when he called her name as she fell.

  “Barbe,” he cried again, as he bent over her.

  “What have I done? Why are you so angry?” she asked, fury at the unnatural terror she had felt making her voice sharp.

  He did not answer, only stared down at her. His rage broken by shock and anxiety over her fall, Alphonse could not summon it again and bury himself in it to protect him from a far greater pain. Her questions flayed him. Why was he angry? Because by refusing to go home she confirmed his belief that she was keeping herself out of the way of a lover. Was that wrong? Was it not modest and prudent of a good wife to avoid temptation? Her behavior was perfect. She had sworn faith and loyalty, and faith and loyalty she had given him. But he did not want a perfect wife, he wanted love.

  Disgust rose like bile in his throat as he suddenly understood why he had so eagerly accepted Edward’s unlikely notion that Guy had seized her. Rather than believe she had an old love, still so powerful that she could not face it, he preferred her to be a prisoner, perhaps raped and beaten. Whatever she was, he was worse. Alphonse straightened and backed away.

  Staring up at her husband, Barbara watched wide-eyed as the rage in his face was replaced with horror and then pain as if her questions had stabbed him. Then his eyes had gone dead. She drew a sharp breath, willing to bring back the fury if she could erase what she now saw.

  “Wait,” she cried, rolling over and struggling to her feet. “I am sorry if some plan of yours was overset because my father did not send his men for me, but I could not let you make a tool of me to trap him into war. You are my husband, but I owe my father for the years of nurture—”

  “Trap your father?” Alphonse interrupted, looking back over his shoulder. He turned toward her, his black brows knitted into one line above eyes that held a reborn gleam. “What the devil are you talking about?”

  “Did you not hope that the coming of my father’s men and their turning away without joining Leicester would make all believe he had abandoned Leicester’s cause?” she asked somewhat uncertainly.

  Alphonse blinked and his mouth fell open. Barbara recognized that ploy, and it annoyed her. In any case, the crisis was now past and her fear with it. She walked forward to the bench and smacked her basket down. Alphonse closed his mouth and swallowed.

  “You can make yourself look foolish by imitating a frog if you like,” she said irritably, brushing at the twigs caught in her skirt, “but you cannot convince me that you are foolish or innocent.”

  “I am innocent of that plot,” Alphonse said, but he did not look at her. His eyes were on the basket. “My mind, it is clear, is not half so devious as yours. But what a marvelous idea! If only I did not have these stupid scruples against tricking those with whom I have made bonds of blood into actions that might be dangerous.”

  The sarcasm of the words and what he said rang true, but his voice and expression were wrong. He should have grown angry again. Instead he sounded almost indifferent, as if he were thinking of something more important. He was still staring down too, as if fascinated. Her gaze now followed his, and she saw he was looking at the basket. Suddenly she remembered how he had told her to put it down as if it were horrible. That was ridiculous. It was an elegant basket, beautifully shaped and richly patterned. And he had been too angry to care if her work spilled out when he hit her.

  “What are you looking at?” she cried.

  “What have you in that basket?” he asked.

  “Are you mad? My work is in it.”

  “And your love token! Is that not so?”

  Barbara was stricken mute by so unexpected an accusation. She stared into her husband’s face, where emotions she herself felt too often showed plainly. She had acted too cleverly it seemed at being indifferent. He was jealous! But the knowledge gave her no joy as she realized she had inflicted on Alphonse all the agonies she herself had felt. Alphonse had never shown her anything but love, and she knew he would not, even if he did play with other women. He was, and always would be, kind. She had been cruel.

  “I have no love token,” she said softly, stretching a hand to him.

  “For God’s sake, do not lie to me!” Tears glittered briefly in his eyes, and then he shrugged and turned half away. “I have seen you hiding what you carry under your work in that basket, or pulling your skirt over it, a dozen times since we were married.”

  Barbara choked, swallowing down a hysterical peal of laughter. The mirror! She had forgotten all about it. But if she showed it, he would know she was enslaved. She caught at her aching throat, torn between his pain and her own, not realizing her gesture looked like one of fear.

  “You need not be afraid. I am not accusing you of fouling your honor or mine,” he said bitterly. “I know you have not seen your lover. Perhaps you should and you will discover I am not so bad a substitute—”

  Rigidly repressing another impulse to laugh at this comical display of hurt pride, Barbara said soothingly, “You are a substitute for no one. I have never loved any man but you, which I told you when you first asked me if I would marry you.”

  Now there was contempt in his face. “Do not drag out that tired old lie again. I will not hurt you. I have no cause for complaint about our marriage. You are doing your duty to me nobly.”

  All temptation to laugh died as Barbara realized something deeper than Alphonse’s pride had been hurt. He would soon hate her, she thought, terrified. She took a quick step, bent, and upended the basket so everything tumbled out onto the bench. Then she caught up the mirror and thrust it into his hands.

  “There!” she cried. “There is the token of love I have carried since I was thirteen years old. Do you not recognize it, you great fool! It is the mirror you won in a tourney and gave to me.”

  Alphonse stood with the mirror in his hands, gaping as she picked up everything, ostentatiously shook out every piece of cloth so he could be sure nothing was folded into it, refolded it, and replaced it in the basket. She held up the comb, the only other item that was not necessary in a work basket.

  “This is my father’s gift to me. You may send it to him and ask him.”

  Wordlessly Alphonse shook his head. Clearly the comb had been designed to match the mirror and he did, indeed, recognize the mirror, although he had not seen it for many y
ears. Its form and decoration had been seared into his memory as an ugly, awkward little girl carried it about and showed it to everyone, innocently implying that he was her lover. He remembered vividly, even now, how he had told her in very plain language that she must stop what she was doing, that he did not love her or intend to marry her. She had sent the mirror back to him, and it had lain on a chest in his chamber, silently accusing him of cruelty until he had sought her out and returned it, explaining that he did not regret having given her the mirror. He wished to be her friend, although he was not fit to be her husband.

  “Well, then,” Barbara said with cold indignation recalling him to the present, “do you wish to reexamine the contents of my basket or the basket itself in case there is some hideous secret woven into—”

  “Do not you dare!” Alphonse roared, thrusting the mirror into her hands so hard that she hit herself in the solar plexus and gasped. “Do not you dare try to make me a guilty fool! You hid that mirror apurpose, as if it were a shameful thing. What game are you playing?”

  “I cannot see any reason to stay here and listen to you seek reasons to be angry with me,” she said, drawing herself up and dropping the mirror into the basket. She reached for it, but Alphonse caught her wrist. She shrugged and her eyebrows rose into the little peaked form on her brow that marked puzzlement and scorn. “Oh, very well. I will leave the basket with you. When you are through with it, you can send it—”

  He pulled her so sharply that she fell against him. Because her head had been lifted and tilted a little back in a posture of haughty disdain, her chin struck his chest, slamming her mouth closed and angling her head perfectly. Alphonse clasped her tight and kissed her brutally hard. The step forward he had taken to reach her had opened the split front of his hauberk, exposing the arming tunic underneath, and she felt a familiar protrusion against her groin. She pushed against his chest, although not hard enough to break their kiss, which pressed their lower bodies even tighter together. The bulge pressing against her grew even harder, but there were strange gurgles in Alphonse’s throat.