The Lords of Arden by Helen Burton Page B

heap in the corner of the room he became a
young man again, not yet twenty and not yet as sure of himself as he would like
to have been. ‘I've thought of you, many times these last few months, I would
have come sooner if Edward had let me leave Berwick - I was afraid for you, for
Philippa ...’
     Orabella smiled. ‘Edward was right, there
was no danger and it would take more than Archie Douglas to frighten Philippa. We
sat round the solar fire and sang marching songs. Do you want to rest?’ But he
shook his head. He wasn't interested in an anti-climax. He was tired, God, how
tired he was! But he still wanted her.
     She let him slip the velvet gown from her
shoulders, standing statue-still until her kirtle followed to pool at her feet
where she stepped neatly out of it, kicking it aside. Her smock was of the
finest linen, clinging to every line of her slender straight body. She let him
carry her to the bed where for all his bravado and attempted gallantry he only
wanted to lose himself in her white body, to wipe out the phantoms of the dark
hill; strange, bloody shapes rising from the dark morass, still yelling their
curdling war-cries, and his own hand still clutching at his battle-axe. He
wanted to forget the dust and noise of the bombardment and the face of the
Seton boy as they put the halter about his neck and he began to struggle and
when Edward, the bright king and generous friend, had proved himself as
ruthless and as cruel as any of his Angevin brood of ancestors.
     Afterwards, spent, sweat beading his pale
face, furrowing his breast; he lay on his back with sightless eyes, and a sick
realization of what his own fate might have been; openly stricken for the last
time in his life, a luxury he could never again afford. Then Orabella, watching
him, rose and knelt above him, covering them both with the blue-black mantle of
her hair, bringing him back to life again with practised caresses and her own
brand of sorcery.

 
Chapter Five
     
May - 1338
     
    Orabella held sway over Thomas Beauchamp's
affections for five years but, with the coming of the White Wolf's daughter,
she had always known she would lose him; had known it long before he did. It
was May, the time for brides, with bluebells misting the boles of Warwickshire
oaks; an endless, surging, inland sea, heavy with perfume, only to be outshone
by the May blossom; white clouds of incense scattering the last of springtime
upon the threshold of summer, with its darker leaf and its bluer sky.
     There was a cuckoo now, mocking them from
the branches of an ancient ash over on the banks of the ait. They had climbed
the mount to look out across the river and the island and the tartan weave of
forest green over in the Park. A kingfisher darted from reeds, arrow-straight,
at the river edge, iridescent in the sunshine.
     Orabella sat down upon a grassy tussock,
hands linked about her knees like a little girl. She squinted up at him, her
green eyes narrowed against the light. ‘You don't have to stay and pace and
fret, you could ride out and see her for yourself.’
     ‘No,’ said Thomas and dropped down beside
her. ‘A bridegroom too eager? For that I am not. A man too fearful at what he
might find? Yes, that, but it’s not to be admitted.’
     Orabella laughed. ‘Oh, you'd set out on
Black Saladin in your wedding finery, tossing pennies in every hamlet, so that
they would all remember you - others have done it differently.’
     ‘How? Pilgrim and penitent, an approach
full of reverence and awe? I think not.’
     ‘You are always 'Warwick',’ said his
mistress. ‘Have you never wanted to be any other man, even for a day's length?’
     He shook his head. ‘Never. I don't see
what you're aiming at.’
     She sighed, plaiting daisies. ‘A woman
would not have to have it spelled out for her. Katherine Mortimer isn't
marrying a romantic, is she? Warwick cannot ride out in all eagerness a day or
so before his wedding, bridle bells jangling, roses round