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  “By God’s—”

  Barbara’s hand flashed up and stopped John’s mouth. “Do not blaspheme!” she hissed. “King Louis is a little mad on the subject of dismembering the Lord to express surprise or disapproval and does not hesitate to order a whipping for the highest lord as well as the meanest peasant. Usually out of his hearing none pay mind to his harmless lunacy, except those who desire a mean revenge on some enemy and carry an accusation to his proctors, but Leicester’s friends watch to carry word to Louis of any fault in King Henry’s supporters, and of course Queen Eleanor’s friends watch Leicester’s friends, and—”

  John took her hand away from his mouth. “I will be careful. I should have remembered the trouble we had over blasphemers during the peace negotiation in 1257.” Then he looked quizzically at Barbara. “Thank you for warning me, and for pointing out your father’s purpose. With whom do you stand, Barbara?”

  “With Joanna,” she said sharply, “and Princess Eleanor and all women who are driven from their homes with their babes in their arms because you men cannot decide how best a realm should be ruled.” She bit her lip. “Come, let us go in before I scold you again for what is not your fault. You have told me already that you do not follow your own will in this matter.”

  Barbara turned away quickly, wondering if John had guessed her passionate answer, though not a lie, was not all the truth. How could she tell the truth, she thought as she climbed the stair to the open door of the great hall, when she did not herself know where her loyalty lay? King Henry was impossible, generating debts and confusion and injustice, yet to have him ruled by Leicester as she had seen him in London surely was a sin against the sacred order God had established. Her father had been as uneasy about it as she.

  The steward’s clerk, who had been writing on a small lap desk near one of the two windows, looked up when the voices of the ladies near the other window stilled briefly. He set aside his work and came to meet Barbara and John as they entered the hall, squinting because they were hardly more than silhouettes. The light from the small windows gave poor definition against the brighter light that came in from the open doorway behind them. However, he slowed his hurried stride when he recognized John as Hugh Bigod’s man and offered a polite greeting. Barbara recited her message, that her uncle craved some time to examine the queen’s suggestions and begged Eleanor not to take any action until he could talk with her.

  She pretended she did not see the way the clerk’s mouth tightened, simply going on smoothly to throw John to the wolf by saying he had come with news from Aix. After all, Queen Eleanor could not really eat John, no matter how furious she was with him for telling her that Raymond was not about to appear with a huge army or large chests of gold with which to hire mercenaries. The queen had no power over John, and he could go back to relative peace in her uncle’s house. On the other hand, the poor clerk might be devoured alive for announcing that Hugh Bigod had not come to support Eleanor’s attempt to circumvent any hope of peace.

  As the clerk, with a much lightened countenance, turned away toward the circular stair behind the eating dais that led to the solar, John said softly, “The poor devil looked quite frightened when you told him Hugh was not coming. Is the queen so much changed?”

  “You have not seen her?”

  “No. I left for Aix before she arrived in Boulogne.”

  Barbara nodded but did not answer at once, moving to stand in the window behind the bench where the clerk had been working, well away from the ladies and passing servants. “She has not accepted this last turn of fortune very easily,” she murmured to John, who had followed her. “For one thing, she blames herself for the battle at Lewes and its outcome. I believe she had been writing letters urging Henry to take stronger action against those who opposed him.”

  “What a fool!” John muttered. “She has too much Provençal pride. What leader did she think we had to stand up against Leicester?”

  “Prince Edward.”

  “Not until he learns to control his temper,” John said furiously. “If Edward had not been so desirous of avenging the insult the Londoners gave his mother that he chased them for hours, leaving our flank naked—”

  He stopped and swallowed and Barbara put a hand on his and squeezed. The clerk was approaching, beckoning to John. “I will leave you then,” Barbara said.

  John cast an astonished look at her, and Barbara remembered she had implied she would accompany him into the queen’s presence when she said she would step on his toes if he opened his mouth too wide. He had no doubt been counting on her to do just that, not perhaps step on his toes but to warn him subtly if he was saying what he should not and he had expected her to ask the clerk if she could accompany him. But Barbara felt she could not. She had kept her personal distress submerged, but Queen Eleanor was sure to ask about Alphonse, and Barbara did not feel able to talk about him, or even listen to John and the queen talk about him, without bursting into tears. She had to be alone to consider what she should do about Alphonse.

  As a small compensation to John, she walked with him toward the stair, holding him back a little as the clerk went up. “Do not say anything about how long you have been in Boulogne,” she whispered. “Be sure to bring attention to your muddy condition to show the haste with which you were sent to bring her news. She does not like to be the last to be informed.” And before she could stop herself, she added, “And when she asks why Alphonse did not come with you, tell her he was nearly fainting with exhaustion and did not wish to affright his aunt with his weakness.”

  John could not repress a chuckle. “He will kill me.”

  But before Barbara could reply, Alphonse himself came into the room, newly dressed in a sky blue tunic over which he wore a loose rose-colored surcoat, its huge armholes, which stretched from shoulder to hip, bordered with intricately gold-embroidered strips of ribbon. A little round cap of matching rose, similarly embroidered, perched on his luxuriant black curls, just a bit askew. Barbara choked between laughter and tears. It was remarkable how that tiny tilt to his cap gave Alphonse’s elegant appearance an air of breathless hurry.

  He looked toward them at the sound, and Barbara was momentarily lifted on a surge of hope. There were other people in the hall, none of them deliberately silent. Why should he be able to pick out her laugh? But she shut out the thought without completing it, and Alphonse’s expression was hidden by the glare of the light behind him. There was nothing to be read in it, however, even after he hurried across the room to them and Barbara could see him clearly.

  “Go up to the queen,” he said to John. “Do not say I am here. I will follow you in a few minutes. Quick, before the clerk comes back to see what is delaying you.” Assured of support from someone who knew Eleanor well, John hurried up the stairs and Alphonse turned to Barbara. “In the name of God,” he said, “why are you here in France?”

  There was such urgency to the question, which as far as Barbara could see was totally unimportant, that she hesitated, seeking a hidden meaning. Alphonse glanced up the stair and back at her impatiently. Finally, still without understanding why her presence in France was important, she said, “My father sent me to prevent my uncle from throwing away his lands, and perhaps his life, in a wild attempt to protect his wife.”

  “I thought you said you brought Leicester’s latest peace terms.”

  That was the last thing Barbara wanted to hear. It brushed away the thin spiderweb of hope she had been weaving again. Apparently he had misunderstood what she said earlier and had seen some political purpose in her coming to France.

  “No. Oh no,” she said. “I only came with William Charles, the king’s knight. The Earl of Leicester would not think of entrusting such a mission to me.”

  “Then you will be returning to England as soon as you can, I suppose,” he said. “You will want to rejoin—”

  “Sieur Alphonse!” The clerk’s voice, high with surprise, cut off what Alphonse was about to say. “Oh,” he went on, turning to go into
the queen’s apartment again, “my lady will be overjoyed to see you.”

  “Merde!” Alphonse muttered, his full lips suddenly thin with fury, but he was far too well trained in diplomacy and far too aware of Queen Eleanor’s delicately balanced temper to delay even a moment. He pushed past Barbara and pounded up the stairs.

  She stood staring after him until he disappeared through the doorway of the queen’s chamber. Some emotion had flickered briefly in Alphonse before he mentioned his expectation that she would soon go back to England. It was gone too fast for her to tell whether it was sadness or gladness, but if her purpose for being in France was not political, why should Alphonse care whether she left or stayed? Surely he could not fear that she would throw herself at him again like a foolish child? Nonsense. They had been together at court for years after that and she had never been more than properly polite.

  And why had he been so angry when the clerk interrupted their conversation? “You will want to rejoin—” he had said. Want to rejoin whom? Her father? She loved Papa dearly, of course, but to feel any urgency to rejoin him was ridiculous. She had gone home with him after he came to negotiate the peace treaty with France in 1257 only to avoid all the ghouls who wanted to gobble up the estate that became hers when Thouzan le Thor died. Any one of them was willing to swallow her with the lands, like a bitter pill wrapped in the sweetmeat of her manor and farms. Alphonse knew that. She herself had told him of her disgust, and it was Alphonse who had suggested to her the device that prevented King Louis from choosing a “good man” to be her second husband.

  A smile curved Barbara’s lips for an instant. Only King Louis would have taken seriously her plea that he not give her in marriage because, though she did not yet feel a call to the cloister, she did not wish to close that door to salvation either, and wished to remain celibate until she was sure. But Alphonse had told her to say that, so he knew she felt no desire to be a nun. And then he had been called home to Aix and had not returned to court until after her father arrived in France and agreed to take her home. He acted when he first returned from Aix as if he found her desirable, but then, when he heard she was going to England, he had suddenly gone away again to fight in a series of tourneys.

  Barbara went slowly outside and stood at the foot of the stair for a moment while duty to Princess Eleanor pulled one way and desire pulled another. She glanced over her shoulder at the open doors of the church and then blushed. In a time of so many great troubles, would it not be a sin to pray for a solution to her very small problem? Surely God and His saints should not be badgered about one girl’s stupid inability to master her own heart. So she started toward the smaller house that had been assigned to Eleanor of Castile, but her need to be away from everyone made the idea of idle conversation horrible, and she set out instead for the kitchen shed to get some apples.

  The poor things were very brown and wrinkled, but Frivole would not mind. Feeling better already, Barbara made her way to the stable. She peeped in, but only the huge bulk of battle destriers showed in the dim light, and she did not enter. Around to the back there was an area between the building and the outer wall closed off by a gate where the lesser beasts, the palfreys and roncins and light mares, were kept. Barbara’s fluting whistle drew the attention of all the horses, and several began to move toward the gate. Two were roughly shouldered aside, another nipped sharply as Frivole took precedence.

  “Tchk,” Barbara said, as she held out one apple on her open palm. “You are supposed to be gay and flighty, not a shrew.”

  Frivole snorted so emphatically that the apple was nearly blown away, and Barbara laughed. She knew quite well that the snort was not a response to her words, but it seemed so like an arrogant reply that her spirit lightened. She went on talking to the mare, who nodded her head, often at comically appropriate moments. Within a few minutes a groom came out of the stable and asked how he could serve her. He looked at her strangely when she bade him go away and said she had just come to visit her mare. Men often came to examine their destriers, which were very valuable animals, but few women rode other than pillion, and even those who could ride usually did not know one animal from another. But it was clear from the way the mare pushed her head into the lady’s breast that she was accustomed to fondling by this woman, so he shrugged and went away.

  Barbara gave Frivole a second apple, rubbing her nose and stroking her neck. Eventually she laid her cheek against Frivole’s head, circled the mare’s neck with her arm, and sighed. If she had married and had a household of her own, she could have had a more convenient pet, a dog or cat. But at court such an animal caused endless trouble, and to leave it behind to the uncertain care of people like her father’s kennelman—a good man but totally contemptuous of a dog that had no purpose but to love a mistress—was impossible. The poor creature, loved and petted while with her, lonely and even mistreated by being forgotten when she was away, would go mad.

  The stable cast a shade across the yard behind it. It was cool, Frivole was plainly enjoying being petted, and Barbara lingered, leaning against the fence and thinking about a more settled life. But though she complained often about the inconveniences of court service and might have preferred a more gentle and considerate mistress, like Princess Eleanor, Barbara had to admit to herself that she enjoyed the excitement of life at court. She did not think she would care to exchange her life for Joanna’s, living retired and busying herself with babes, a dairy, a stillroom, weaving, and embroidering—in short, a woman’s life. As a retreat from too much intrigue, Kirby Moorside was a desired haven. As a full-time residence, she would soon regard it as hell.

  “I knew I would find you here.”

  Barbara was so startled that she tried to right herself and turn around at the same time. The combination of her sudden movement and Alphonse’s voice, which was tight with tension, made Frivole throw up her head. Barbara’s hand slipped from the mare’s nose so that she banged her elbow on the top rail of the gate, while the twist of her head to look at Alphonse brought her headdress right under Frivole’s mouth. Never loath to try what was offered, Frivole seized Barbara’s fillet and pulled. Both fillet and the net that held her hair promptly came off as Frivole backed away, and Barbara’s chestnut mane tumbled down her back and around her face.

  “Peste!” Barbara cried, leaping up and grabbing for Frivole’s prize.

  Unfortunately, with her hair in her eyes, her hand went wide of its target and slapped Frivole’s neck, thus further startling the mare, who turned and trotted away. And because she was reaching out over the gate, Barbara came down on the rail on her belly with enough force to knock the breath out of her and leave her teetering dangerously, her feet on one side, her head on the other.

  Alphonse seized her by the hips and hauled her back, holding her against him as she gasped for air.

  “Is it I or the horse who is a pestilence?” he asked.

  “Frivole! My crespine!” Barbara cried despairingly, ignoring the facetious question as the mare tossed her head, sending the net, its beads glittering, flying through the air into the trodden dust of the yard.

  Laughing, Alphonse set her aside and leapt over the gate. The horses all trotted away and he picked up the net and shook it. “Since you do not think me a pestilence, I have saved your crespine. Do you want the fillet too?” he called back.

  “You are surely a plague, if not a pestilence,” Barbara retorted. “No, I do not want the fillet. That idiot mare is chewing it.”

  She brushed back her hair and reached for the net as Alphonse came over the gate, but he held it away and said, “No, if I give it to you, you will run away again. I have some questions I want answered.”

  “I! Why should I run away?” Barbara asked with as much indignation as she could muster. She held out her hand imperiously. “Give me my crespine. Do not act like a naughty child. It does not befit a man of your age.”

  He shook his head, but he was no longer laughing. “Is it true that you have come to gather information o
n the invasion that Queen Eleanor hopes will free her husband?” he asked. “She said she will not allow you to return to England because she fears you have already learned too much and will pass the information to Leicester.”

  “I assure you I have not made the smallest effort to learn what I should not,” Barbara said angrily. “Give me the net.”

  “I was not accusing you of spying deliberately,” he said. “But—”

  “No one hereabouts would need to spy deliberately,” Barbara snapped. “Every mouth, including Queen Eleanor’s, pours forth a steady stream of information. But I assure you, the Earl of Leicester has friends better placed than I to send him important news.”

  Alphonse sighed. “I am making you angry, and I do not mean to. You must understand that I cannot help being partial to my aunt’s cause any more than you can help being attached to your father’s. I was only trying to discover if helping you would truly hurt Eleanor and Henry. But I cannot bear for you to be unhappy, Barbe. If you are very eager to go back to England, I will try to arrange it through Marguerite and Louis.”

  “I would love to know why you are so eager to be rid of me. Is this some ploy of Queen Eleanor’s to get me out of Boulogne before I learn something she does not want me to know? Or do you have some private reason? Unfortunately for you, it does not matter. I must stay in France for a while whether you and the queen like it or not. Give me my net and I will go away and promise to avoid you—”

  “Like a plague?”

  Alphonse laughed and held her crespine behind his back. Barbara could see that the tension had gone out of him, but she could not guess why. Because she was staying in Boulogne? She tried to crush that hope, and told herself it was more likely because she had promised to avoid him.

  “Sieur Alphonse—” she began with rigid formality.