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chausses.
    Norfolk was stripped to shirt and hose when she came back
and was standing at a window with its shutters open to the sweet spring air and
sun. He shook his head when she asked if he wanted a bath, and continued to
stare out toward the hills, bright green with spring growth beyond the plowed
fields, until the manservant brought a basin of water for washing and a towel.
    Turning at Barbara’s touch, he pulled off his shirt and
scrubbed his broad, hairy torso with the washing cloth, then let Barbara dry
him and slip the clean shirt over his head. When she had tied the sleeves, he
pushed off his undergarments under the shirt and sat down in the short window
seat. The manor house was a substantial building, but its walls were nowhere
near the ten- or twelve-foot thickness of a keep’s. There was room in the inlet
bays that held the arched windows for only a single wooden seat on either side.
    As Barbara knelt to pull off her father’s chausses and fit
the feet of the fresh pair on, he turned his head sharply. Barbara looked up
also and saw Joanna pass among the workers and idlers—who sought suddenly to
look busy—through the hall and into the solar.
    “What the devil has got into her?” Norfolk asked his
daughter.
    “I am not sure, Papa.” Barbara pulled the fresh chausses up
to her father’s knees, letting go when he took the garment from her and got up
to draw it up to his waist. “But…”
    He looked down. “But?” he echoed, making clear that he
wanted to hear any idea Barbara had, which was not always the case.
    “I think she has fallen in love with Hugh.”
    “Fallen—”
    The word came out in a roar, and Barbara jumped to her feet
and put her hand over her father’s mouth.
    “You silly filly,” he went on, but much more softly. “She
has been Hugh’s wife for twenty years. Is it not a little late for ‘love’? You
have been reading those stupid tales again and are growing addle-witted.”
    “Papa!”
    “ Merde !” He turned away toward the window again. “If
I had known that Queen Marguerite would take it into her head to have you
taught to read, I would never have left you with her in France. You are
spoiled. And I am at fault too. I should have married you properly as soon as I
brought you home, instead of allowing you to—”
    Barbara put her hand on her father’s shoulder. “Now, Papa,
you are not at fault. We have talked before of the complications of getting me
married because my lands are in France and I am in King Louis’s gift. Forget
about it. I have been content, and I am not dreaming of love. I know it seems
strange to say that Joanna has fallen in love with the husband she has had for
twenty years, but I have good reason to think so. In any case, she is different
from when I lived with her and Uncle Hugh. She never really cared then whether
he was with her or not. Now she cannot bear to be parted from him. Papa, would
it really matter so much if she went to France?”
    Norfolk turned around, but he did not answer his daughter’s
question at once, remaining silent as Barbara pulled on and laced his tunic,
slipped the tabard-style surcoat over it, and fastened that with a supple
leather belt. He glanced at his sword belt, which lay across the opposite
window seat, then around at the hall, but there were only unarmed servants
about. His men at the gate and in the courtyard would make sure now that no armed
men came in to attack him, and he let his sword lie where it was.
    “Now you listen to me, chick,” he said at last. “I came here
for a double purpose, only partly for Hugh’s good. The other part is for the
good of the realm—as I see it. I swear to you that I love Hugh and do
not wish to see his property despoiled. I intend to have it whole and safe for
him on the day he can win a pardon for his misguided support of Henry. But I
also intend to make a pardon his only way back to England.”
    “But what has that to do with Joanna?” Barbara asked. “She…
Oh,