Isabeau
A
Novel of
Queen Isabella
and Sir Roger Mortimer
N.
GEMINI SASSON
Cader
Idris Press
(Smashwords
Edition)
*****
ISABEAU
Copyright © 2010 by N. Gemini Sasson
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-0-9827158-3-3
(ebook)
*****
For
Reini and Mitchell -
Dreams are meant to
be lived.
*****
Prologue
Isabella:
Boulogne, France – January, 1308
THE FIRST TIME I saw Edward II of England was on our wedding day in the cathedral of Our Lady of Boulogne. He was twenty-three, a king newly come to his throne. I was not yet thirteen—a girl on the lip of womanhood: nervous, excited, and awestricken by my tall and slender groom. Far too curious to pretend coyness, I stole quick glances at him as we stood before the altar. Faint winter sunlight penetrated the vaulted expanse from high lancet windows and fell about him in a silver haze. The ivory satin of his tunic reflected the smoothness of his complexion and the jewels on his cloak glittered like the bright blue of his Plantagenet eyes.
I was the only daughter of Philip IV of France and, of all the kings in Christendom, Edward had been chosen for me. For years, I had waited for this day, dreamed of it, planned for it.
All morning my damsels had fussed over me, like bees humming about freshly bloomed clover: arranging my pale, silken hair beneath my gold caul with delicate care, plucking my brows into precise arches and rubbing my skin with rose-scented oil until it glistened. They dressed me in a gown of gold and brightest blue, to match my hair and eyes. Next, they hung a mantle of red lined with yellow sindon over my shoulders and secured it with a brooch encircled with sapphires and rubies. Then, with tears of joy, they hugged me and told me I was the fairest woman in all of France and any man who was not struck dumb by my beauty was certainly blind.
Not once during the ceremony did Edward look at me.
I stared intently at him, certain he would sense my tacit plea for attention and glimpse my way, but he kept his eyes fixed on the bishop, a look of sleepy boredom dulling his countenance. As the hour wore on, a chill seeped beneath my skin and gripped my bones. Frigid sweat dampened my chemise. I clasped the edges of my mantle and drew it closer to my shivering body. One of the pins that held the tightly wound plaits of my hair in place dug into my scalp. The beautiful coronet studded with amethysts, emeralds and pearls that I had donned so gleefully that morning began to feel like a jagged band of iron clamped across my forehead. I wiggled numb toes. My shoes were pinching my feet and my back ached from standing so dreadfully long.
Edward gazed up at the web of vaulting ribs that sprung from the fluted columns. He shifted on his feet. Yawned. And sighed.
When the bishop gave his final blessing, Edward’s cold kiss barely grazed my lips. He stuck his elbow out stiffly, flinching as I curled my fingers around his arm. We started forward down the central aisle of the nave, our steps mismatched. His stride was long and hurried, mine hindered by the long train of my gown. While a thousand eyes appraised us, I forced myself to match his pace and pressed the corners of my mouth into a false smile.
At our wedding feast, he leaned close and whispered, “You needn’t wear your dread so plainly. You are . . . how should I say this—not yet ripe for the picking. There will be time, later, for that.” He attempted a half-smile of apology, but it looked to me more like a sneer of disdain.
We spoke no more that day. I fell asleep alone in my bed that night, thankful that he had kept his word and not come, but bewildered as to why he had paid so little attention to me, his new bride. Had I been thrust upon him against his wishes? Did he love another? Did the sight of me so repulse him that he could not bear my presence? Whatever the matter, I vowed to learn how to become a good wife and queen to him. It was my duty.
I was still young then . . . and naïve. I had so much to learn.
*****
Thirteen days later, beneath a lowering sky, we disembarked at Dover, England. There, I discovered the cause for my husband’s distraction. Piers de Gaveston stood on the dock swathed in velvets and furs, waving a kerchief high in the air. Edward sprang across the plank, took Gaveston into his arms and showered him with kisses. Then, he showed him a trunk filled with gifts—gifts which only the week before had been given to Edward by my father. With a flourish of praise for serving as Keeper of the Realm in his absence, Edward draped a gilt chain around Gaveston’s neck, from which hung a lion of gold, each foot balanced on a shimmering pearl and its eyes set with two fiery rubies. If my father were to hear of this, it would be cause enough for war.
“That was meant for you,” I reminded him meekly as I approached. The weathered boards creaked beneath my feet and a cold sea wind nudged me toward the edge of the dock. My damsels were still aboard ship to oversee the unloading of my trousseau, but my brother, Charles, who had followed close behind, came abreast of me. I stood firm and pulled the hood of my favorite red, ermine-lined mantle up over my head.
Edward’s laughter broke off. The hint of a scowl twisted his mouth. “What did you say?”
I moved closer and raised my chin, trying to sound more confident than I actually was. I thought it only fair to warn him. “Those gifts—the jewels, the brooches and chains—they were given to you by my father. You cannot give them away like that. He would not approve.”
He scoffed and shook his head dismissively at me. “They’re mine now. I’ll do with them as I please.” Then, he threw an arm about Gaveston’s shoulder and together they walked away, laughing at jokes only they understood. Like an impertinent child, I had been dismissed. My chest burned with indignation.
Charles clasped my hand and said lowly, “If you ever need my help, Isabeau, you only need ask.”
I squeezed his fingers and tried to smile, but could not. Was it because my cheeks were too stiff from the cold, or because some dread had seeped into my heart and begun to blacken it like a frost that withers still green leaves?
Although only a year older, Charles had always been protective of me; however, the time for that would soon end. I had a husband now, a new home, new life. “But Charles, my coronation is in less than a fortnight and after that you’ll be gone. Who knows when we will ever see each other again? What help could you possibly be, so far away?”
“Come now, our father is King of France—and you ask what I can do?” He touched my face, his thumb stroking my cheek lightly. “Remember, I’m only as far as a letter. Already he neglects you, dear sister. I will not have it so.”
Neglect? That seemed too harsh a word. But had I not just done worse? In speaking my mind, I had made a poor start of our marriage. If there was ever to be some measure of affinity between us clearly it would have to begin with me. “Perhaps, perhaps I have made too much of too small a thing?”
With a sigh, Charles kissed me on the forehead and offered his elbow. “Oh, Isabeau, are you truly such an innocent?”
A sharp voice cut above the roar of the sea wind. At the door of the aftcastle on the ship, my damsel Juliana clucked at a pair of pages as they carelessly hoisted a trunk filled with my gowns onto their meager shoulders. Beside her, Marie shivered within her cloak, her wide eyes darting shyly from one pale English face to another. I lowered my voice as I tucked my arm into my brother’s. “You mock me, Charles. Please don’t. It’s only that . . . well, that there is so much Edward and I have yet to learn about each other. This Gaveston is an old friend, I hear. They were overjoyed to see each other. Surely, that is all?”
A bemused grin tilted the corners of his too delicate mouth. “You think you can change him, do you? That your marriage will get nothing but better? I wish you luck, then. Luck and a long streak of tolerance.”
We turned and walked toward the carriage that would carry me first to Dover Castle to refresh overnight, and then off to the Palace of Westminster for my crowning. Tufts of white drifted across my vision and I blinked. Snow tumbled down, melting as it touched the earth. I looked out over the somber, glassy surface of the harbor to one side and then far up at the imposing castle of Dover, its stout, gray walls shouldering a joyless sky. With Charles’ help, I climbed inside the carriage. Draping a fur across my lap, I peered out the back as my trousseau was loaded onto wagons to the rear.
Luck, as it turned out, I did not have. Tolerance? Too much for my own good, I dare admit.
Some things, some people—as I was to learn—they do not change, no matter how much we wish them to. We are foolish to even hope they might.
And to hope in vain is to live in despair.
*****
Part I:
You know the King is so suspicious
As, if he hear I have but talked with you,
Mine honor will be called in question;
And
therefore, gentle Mortimer, be gone.
Isabella
from
Christopher Marlowe’s Edward
II
*****
1
Isabella:
Tower of London – September, 1312
I HEAVED MY UNWIELDY bulk upward, my legs cramping with fire. Pressure constricted my ribs, as though someone had clamped a set of irons around my middle and meant to squeeze the life from me. A surge of bile splashed at the back of my throat. I gritted my teeth, swallowing it back, and leaned against the cool, stone wall of the staircase. After a few strained breaths, my knees wobbling, I forced myself up the last few steps. When I reached the landing, I pressed a hand to my gown to blot away the sweat pouring down my breastbone.
The staircase of St. Thomas’s Tower was not any steeper than it had been just a few months before. I had simply grown fatter. Fat with child.
At just past seventeen years, I was vainly conscious of my size. Two months yet to go and my belly was as broad as a merchant’s ship. If set out to sea, I would most assuredly sink to the bottom however, not float. This morning, I could not put on my own slippers without Juliana’s help. And my seamstress had yet to stitch together a gown that flattered my bloated figure in any way, no matter how ornate or colorful. If this—this discomfort—was what it meant to be a woman and bring babes into the world, I would gladly have returned to my own childhood and dallied there interminably, giddy in my irresponsible innocence.
Within the first month of Edward’s visits to my bed earlier this year, I had awoken violently ill, unable to hold down my morning bread and wine. The episodes of vomiting were a fair exchange for the reprieve they brought, for Edward had carried out the act of bedding me with no more tenderness than a yearling ram would give a ewe in season. It was a marvel he ever got around to the business at all. For a time, I was convinced I would die not only childless, but a virgin as well.
Standing before the door to the king’s apartments, I nodded to the lone guard, his mouth carved in the lines of a permanent scowl. With a jerking bow, he swung it open. I squinted in expectation of a flood of sunlight, but the shutters were drawn. Instead, a thin haze veiled my vision. Wood smoke stung my eyes. Blinking, I focused on the limp figure some ten paces away. Edward, chin to chest, sat slumped in a chair by the hearth, his hands dangling down and his knuckles nearly scraping the floor. The rough shadows of unshaven whiskers darkened his cheeks. Blotches of spilled wine dappled his pale blue tunic.
He had been this way since that odious day in June: heavyhearted and listless. Not even the prospect of an heir had served to uplift his spirits in that time.
“Come closer,” he uttered thinly, his only movement a quick shifting of his pupils.
My footsteps echoed in the desolate expanse. The walls were bare of coverings. Even the tables and other furnishings had been removed—all but the carved oaken throne upon which Edward had not sat for three months—as if to discourage visitors or activity of any kind.
“Into the light,” he drawled.
There was little light to be found in that musty, suffocating room. The fire in the hearth had faded to sputtering embers and an early autumn draft fanned the smoke into every corner, tainting the air with the smell of ashes. I walked closer, into a knife of light where the sun stabbed through a crack in the shutters. He flipped a hand up to stay me.
“Turn around.”
Slowly, so as not to lose my balance, I turned in a circle, holding my breath while he studied me like a prize cow in calf.
“You need to eat more,” he said. “You’ll starve the child.”
Letting out a burst of air, I faced him. “Of course, my lord. I shall. The morning sickness has finally abated.” A lie. It had not passed at all. But there was no purpose in arguing with him. He only wanted a healthy child, an heir . . . as any man would.
With a sound that was half whimper, half groan, Edward leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. As he drew forward the hand furthest from me, a glint of gold caught my eye. In his palm he clutched the jeweled lion pendant, the chain swinging freely from the open end of his fist. A sheen of sweat glistened on his blanched cheeks as he tilted his head to look at my belly from a different angle—like a robin would cock its head at a worm. “I pray this one is not a girl.”
“Daughters can bring strong alliances,” I countered defensively.
He scoffed. “Like you? I suppose, but little good that has done me lately. Where was France when they mur—” The thought died on his tongue with a shudder. Slouching back against his chair again, he turned his face toward the dying flames and brought the lion pendant to his chest, laying it over his heart.
Even now, months later, he still could not say his name aloud. Not anymore. He had only spoken it one time since then—on the day he learned of Piers de Gaveston’s death.
For too many years, Gaveston had mocked authority. Twice, he was banished from the realm. Twice, Edward wooed his barons and proffered promises until they relented and Gaveston was recalled. Then a third time, Gaveston was sent into exile, warned never to return. But return he did. This time, however, the barons were implacable. Edward and Gaveston had fled from London, only to be pursued and besieged by the king’s own cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. In the end, Gaveston gave himself up, sure he would receive a fair trial and reunite with Edward once more.
One month later, in the dark of night and stripped of his clothing, Gaveston was executed on Blacklow Hill with a blunt axe. It was said that he was wearing the lion pendant and chain and that Edward demanded its return when told of the murder. Now he clove to it like a starving man to his last loaf of bread.
“Lancaster should be brought to account for his crime,” I said, attempting to offer some compassion. But I stopped short of saying Lancaster should die for it. The question still stood of just how involved he had been in the cursory execution. Besides, bloodshed never ended bloodshed. It only perpetuated more of it.
Edward sniffed. “When our son is born, England will rejoice. And I will hold the upper hand. Because the more boys you can give me, my queen, the further from the throne my murdering cousin Lancaster will be.” Eyes clamped shut, he threw the back of his head against the chair. The veins in his neck throbbed blue against the scarlet rising along his throat. He slammed a fist against his thigh. “Red-handed, perfidious, donkey-swiving miscreant! May his testicles shrivel and turn to stone. He gave his word to Pembroke.” His eyes flew open and he jabbed a finger at me, punctuating each vitriolic syllable. “Gave . . . his . . . word!”
There would be retaliation. I had no doubt of that. But now was not the time. Better to let him simmer in despondency until his head had cooled. At least let him wait until our child was born. Already it was becoming clear that my duty would go far beyond bearing royal English progeny; my duty—unspoken though it may be—would be to bear influence upon my inconstant husband, upon whose unfit head the crown had fallen.
As if cued by my thoughts, the ache in my back fanned upward. The floor tipped beneath me. I spread my arms to steady myself and looked about the room for another chair, but there was only a low foot stool next to a rolled up tapestry at the far end of the room. The murals spanning the walls were obscured in smoky darkness, the figures adorning them now taking on the ghastly shapes of the eternally condemned struggling to escape the torments of hell. A chill rippled from my tailbone up my spine and I braced my shoulders against it to stop my whole body from trembling.
I could not remain in this dank, comfortless room for much longer without crumpling into a weary heap. With stiff fingers, I kneaded at my lower back to emphasize my condition. “My lord, I leave for Windsor in two days. If you will allow me to take my leave now, I need to oversee the packing of my things. Otherwise, Juliana and Patrice will want to take my whole wardrobe, most of which will do me no good. As you know, I will not be back in London for some time—not until my churching at Westminster.”
Rigid now, he molded himself to the chair frame. His fingernails clawed the length of his thigh, snagging the cloth of his hose. The pendant was still clutched in his other hand. His lips went taut, then began to twitch, as though he fought back tears.
I ran my hands down my sides, from breasts to hips, to remind him not only of the future, but to distract him from past horrors.
“Edward,” he muttered. “We will call him Edward.”
I had expected nothing else. Of course he would name the child after himself. “You will attend the birth, I trust?”
The last log in the fire cracked, then crumbled into a pile of flickering ashes. “If it is safe for me to leave London . . .” He brushed his fingers toward the door. “Go. I shall provide you with a sizeable armed escort. To keep you safe.”
In our more than four years together, it was the closest thing to genuine concern that had ever graced his lips. I uttered a perfunctory word of thanks, gathered up the ponderous weight of my skirts and dipped at the knee. As I took my first steps to leave, a knock rattled the door in its frame. I halted partway across the room, braving a look back. Edward peered at me through tearful, slit eyes.
“Were you expecting someone, my lord? I can send them away, if—”
“People come and go at all hours,” he sniveled. “The sooner they state their business, the sooner I can be rid of them.”
With a nod, I went to the door and opened it. The musky scent of horse hide and leather wafted in. Behind the guard stood a nobleman, hands clasped behind him. His clothes had the wrinkled and smudged look of one who has ridden long and with purpose. At his right shoulder, a circular silver brooch secured his hooded riding cloak. On his left side, the scabbard of his sword dangled beneath the cloak’s embroidered hem. Black hanks of hair, knotted by the wind, hid his downcast eyes.
“Sir Roger Mortimer, my lady,” the guard said lowly, as if he were reluctant to disturb Edward yet again, “to seek an audience with the king.”
Slowly, Mortimer looked up, his dark eyes lingering for a moment on the mound of my pregnancy. My fingers groped the air for a mantle to cover myself, but with a flush of embarrassment I remembered I had none. I retreated behind the door—as if I could hide there, suddenly invisible.
“What? Is Death at my door, come for me now?” Edward jested. “Who is it?”
“Sir Roger Mortimer.”
“So soon from Ireland? The devil indeed has wings, eh? Send him in. I have rotten work to be done in Gascony.”
“Gascony?” I echoed, my hand upon the door, stalling. “But I thought Ireland and Scotland—”
“Ireland, Scotland . . . the whole mad world is against me. Why not Gascony, too? Even the pope chides me. Anyway, it’s Mortimer’s kin who are quarreling now—and they’re costing me in fines levied by your father. So I’ll set Mortimer to task. Now please.” He waved a hand in the air expansively.
Tugging the door fully open, I took a step back.
“My lady.” Mortimer bowed, his mouth spreading into a broad smile as he met my eyes again. “Your condition, if I may say, suits you exceedingly well. My own wife, Joan, is at Ludlow this very moment, due our eighth child.”
Eighth? He was barely in his mid twenties and his wife the same age. The poor woman. I could hardly imagine bearing a child of Edward’s every year for the next eight years. But then, Roger Mortimer was not at all like Edward.
“If it is a girl,” he said, “I will ask that she name her Isabella, in hopes she will grow to be as beautiful as you.”
Heat ignited in my breast and flared upward from my neck to my face. Unable to hold his gaze, I spoke at my shoes in a voice no bigger than a small child’s. “I-I have no objection. It is a common enough name.”
I scurried down the stairs, too quickly for good sense. When I reached the bottom, dizzy and breathless, I sank down to rest on the last stair. The chill of the stones seeped through the cloth of my gown and into my hips. I drew my knees in close and curled both arms around my extended belly, aware of an odd sensation. Not pain, but a stirring. Movement. Slight perhaps, but certain.
If it is a boy, let him become a greater man than his father.
I
prayed:
“Hail Mary, full of grace,
God is with thee.
Of all women, thou art most blessed
And
blessed be the fruit of thy womb . . .”
This
time the babe kicked hard, just beneath my ribs. I pressed a hand
there, overcome with wonder as I felt his strong limbs push against
my palm.
*****
The day that Young Edward—or so I would come to call him—was born at Windsor, the nursemaid, Ida, swore she saw a lone golden eagle soaring above the Round Tower, as if it were heralding some extraordinary event. My damsel Patrice argued it was merely a buzzard eyeing the bloated corpse of an old stable cat that had strayed onto the roof to die. But superstitious Ida could not be convinced otherwise. She believed it was an omen that there would be a great war in the young prince’s lifetime. But when is the world ever without some terrible strife between or within kingdoms?
I did not see the eagle—only the strange, blue-veined protrusion of my stomach, looking to my vain, seventeen-year old self like a tumor that did not belong there. For me, the birthing was easier than it was for most women. It did not go on long. I had awoken in the night with a sense of urgency, my middle contracting. While Ida fetched the midwife, I paced the floor, chatting with Patrice to pass the time and stopping occasionally as a shiver rippled through me. When the midwife came, she made me lie down, spread my legs apart in a rather vulgar pose and exclaimed that the baby’s head was already crowning. It was almost as though I were watching someone else give birth to him. Afterwards, my astonishment gave way to a wave of exhaustion, but I do not remember any pain. I remember more the tickling of pride, like I had indeed done something out of the ordinary. The midwife placed the small, wailing babe in the crook of my elbow. Immediately, he looked at me and quieted, as if he knew my face already and that sanctuary would always be within my arms.
*****
2
Roger Mortimer:
Berwick – June, 1314
THE DUTIES OF A king’s liegeman are too often unwanted, unending and thankless.
For years in Ireland I, Roger Mortimer, had fought against small chiefs who called themselves ‘kings’ and brought them all down. Then, just as a lull had settled there, King Edward sent me to play peacemaker among my petty kin in Gascony. I had barely set foot in Ireland again when another summons was flung at me—to join the king on campaign in Scotland to relieve Stirling Castle. Did he not think for a moment to better prepare himself against the Bruce?
Bannockburn. Thousands upon thousands of Englishmen lay dead there now. Yet I had survived.
For this.
Two carrion crows eyed us from the distant parapets of the towers that flanked Berwick’s gate. My gaze drifted to the walls surrounding the city. How many batterings had those walls seen? The scars were still there from Longshanks’ assault, almost twenty years ago. Inside now huddled his successor: Edward II, King of England.
This Edward was nothing like his father.
I pulled in a breath and held it. My lungs burned. The air was still hot with the scent of blood, even though the battlefield was many days and miles behind us.
“Come, Maltravers,” I said to my companion beside me. His horse flicked its ears, reluctant to go on. Eight years ago on Whitsunday, Sir John Maltravers and I had taken our vows of knighthood at Westminster. He was now less half of the last two fingers of his left hand. His reminder of Bannockburn. Not yet healed, he kept them wrapped in strips of cloth that were brown and stiff with dried blood.
I shifted in my saddle, my arms and legs flaming sore. The ride to Berwick had been long and hard. The sun so searing hot it felt as though my flesh might melt from my bones. Sweat pooled in the creases of my clothing. I licked at dry lips, making them sting.
With his good hand, Maltravers yanked at the reins of the extra horse we had been given. Flies swarmed around the canvas-wrapped lump draped over its back. The corpse was beginning to stink. Perhaps it would have been better had I not survived the battle. Or been ransomed instead. Anything but this.
Bloody Christ, I had not asked to do this. It would earn me no favors.
I pricked my horse’s flanks with my spurs and we rode up to Berwick’s gate.
To bring the king a token of his defeat.
*****
An hour passed before Maltravers and I were given entrance to the town. Another hour before we were taken to the castle. All the while, flies assaulted us in great swarms of agitation. We paused on the steps to the main door of the great hall. There, an old woman gave us water from a ladle dipped in a leaky bucket. I guzzled it down, doubled over as a pain ripped through my belly and turned my head aside to vomit. My insides cleansed, I dragged my hand across my mouth and straightened. I fought the urge to turn and go back the way I had come, but I had a duty to complete. I owed my life to it, however disagreeable.
Like a lion’s yawning jaws, the doors opened. Maltravers and I were led inside. I probed the sack I carried for a lump. Still there. Several knights, scowls visible even across the distance, leered at us from the dais at the hall’s end. In his high-backed chair in the middle, the king slumped. I forced myself forward. I still felt the aches of battle, sharp as knives, especially the sword blow I had taken to my left shoulder. My mail had saved me. The Scotsman who struck me had lost his arm for the offense. I had not bothered to finish killing him, merciful as that might have been. There was too much going on around me and he was going to die anyway.
Maltravers staggered like a drunk under the weight slung over his shoulder. His knee banged against the leg of an overturned bench and he spit out a curse under his breath. The tables and benches that lined either side of the hall were in disarray. Toppled cups lay atop the tables; puddles of spilt ale beneath. Rotting fruit littered the floor. My eyes lingered on a half eaten chicken. When had I last eaten? I could not recall. I reached out my hand, thinking to sample the meat, but the fetid smell wafting from beside me made me retch.
“I thought you were dead, Sir Roger,” King Edward drawled.
Before the dais, I halted Maltravers with my hand and set the sack down at my feet, eager to be rid of it. “Is that how you would prefer me, sire?”
“Not at all,” he muttered absently, his gaze fixed on Maltraver’s burden. “Too many are dead already.” Tears rushed to his eyes. He clenched both fists and threw his head back so hard it thunked against the back of his chair. Then he gulped air and spoke again, his voice cracking with sorrow. “You were with the Earl of Pembroke at . . . at Bannockburn, were you not? He is in Carlisle, I was told. Why, then, are you here?”
“We were followed by the Scots, my lord. I turned and fought, so that Pembroke could escape. My horse, a good one, was piked. I lost my sword as I went down. I had no choice but to give myself up. When they learned who I was, they took me to their king, the Bruce. He was at the little church of St. Ninian’s, praying over the body of this his fallen kinsman—and yours. He released me so that I might bring the body to you. That, sire, is why I am here.” I motioned Maltravers forward.
As he neared the king, Maltravers dragged his feet. In relief, he exhaled heavily and lowered the great weight from his shoulder. He laid it out full length on the step below the king’s chair and backed away, his head down so that he would not meet the king’s eyes and his maimed hand hidden behind his leg.
“Robert the Bruce,” I began, “said to tell you, my king, that he grieves, as well, and that your nephew was a good and courageous man.” I peeled away the cloth covering the face. Despite a cursory embalming by the monks of Cambus Kenneth Abbey, the sweet odor of decay invaded the air. I held my breath and looked down at the bloodless, wizened face. He had died young. And foolishly—thinking he could take the Bruce single-handedly. “Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester.”
The group of men who stood to the side of the dais murmured. I recognized only a few of them. With so many great lords dead or captured there were bound to be new faces surrounding the king, all plying for their fortunes.
Edward took one glance, shivered and clamped his eyes shut. “Cover his face, Hugh. Cover it!” The Scottish monks had taken great pains to sew up the skin over the cleft in his skull near Gilbert’s left temple. That was where the Bruce’s axe head had been imbedded. But it was Gilbert’s body being dragged across open ground by his frightened horse that had torn a hunk of flesh from that side of his head. The mending had left his features ghoulishly distorted, his mouth stretched taut to one side. Edward sniveled. “That grotesque . . . thing . . . is not my beloved Gilbert.” His voice dissipated like mist scattered by the wind. “He always wore a smile. Always.”
The younger man beside him obliged. He paused to study the face before carefully laying the cloth back over it. “It is him, my lord king,” he said in a detached, languorous voice.
I recognized him then as Hugh Despenser the Younger. He had been with the king at Stirling’s gate. His wife was Eleanor de Clare, Gilbert’s sister. I had seen him at court only a handful of times, as he dangled expectantly on the fringes like a hound waiting for scraps to fall from the table. It appeared he had found the abandoned foxhole and burrowed himself under the king’s armpit recently.
With a shudder, Edward opened his eyes, wept red and dry, and gave Despenser a doleful look.
Despenser moved up the steps of the dais and knelt before the king. He touched a hand lightly to his knee. “He was a loyal kinsman, a kind friend to you. His loss is a heavy blow to many. Eleanor will shed many tears when she hears of it.”
His words were too contrived, his tone too hollow to have been in earnest.
Edward laid his hand on top of Hugh’s. He shook his head for a long time until his lower lip began to quiver. “Was it not enough, what happened? This, too? He was so dear to me. So very, very dear. My brother, I often called him.”
“A pity he never had children, my lord.”
No heirs. And Hugh Despenser married to one of his sisters, who would undoubtedly inherit Gilbert’s numerous holdings, including an earldom. What a convenience that Despenser now stood close enough to mop the king’s tears away.
Edward nodded and then cocked his head to one side. “Bruce—he expects something for this . . . morbid gesture?” He scoffed into his hand. “I’ll not call that bastard ‘king’, ever.”
“He did not ask that, not yet.” I reached inside the sack at my feet and revealed its contents. “But he sends this: The Great Seal.”
Edward’s eyes bulged. The Great Seal bore his likeness and without its imprint in wax no royal document was valid. He gestured at Despenser to retrieve it. Once in his hands he turned it over, inspecting it carefully to confirm its authenticity. Then he clenched it so hard his knuckles went white. “What does he want for it?”
“His wife, sisters and daughter back, my lord. And Bishop Wishart of Glasgow.”
“Wishart? The shriveled old turd is blind and deaf.”
“Then it will do little harm to release him. He says, also, once you send them back to Scotland, he will free the Earl of Hereford and other lords.”
“So why did he let you go?”
He would have doubted me had I been his own brother. “To bring you this message.”
“Phhh . . .” Listless, Edward wilted into his chair again. “I need time to think. To seek counsel.”
“As you wish, my lord king. In the meanwhile, shall I carry the Earl of Gloucester’s remains back to one of his sisters, so he may be properly buried?” Inwardly, I revolted against the prospect of traveling so far south with a putrid corpse in the blazing height of summer, but it seemed the proper thing to do. Besides, I did not want to stay here and watch King Edward wallow in self-pity. I would return to court when he had regained his senses, or else I would go back to Ireland and earn his regard there. Meanwhile, I had a wife to get home to.
Edward traced his jawline with a fingertip. “Yes, do that.”
“Which sister, my lord?”
He waved a hand in the air. “Eleanor. Take him to Lady Eleanor in . . . in . . .”
“Gloucester,” Despenser answered for him. “Do you wish me to go along as well, my king? To settle his estates?”
“No.” Edward clasped Despenser’s hand fiercely, as if the thought of him leaving was too much to bear. “No, Hugh, stay. I will need your guidance on these ludicrous demands. But first, we shall go on to London. Oh, London . . . dear God, I do not want to go there at all. But we cannot stay here. Not in Berwick. Even York is too close. If we are pursued one more step with a pack of Scottish dogs on our heels . . .” He stopped himself and flipped a hand toward the door. “Go, Sir Roger. At once. Have a Mass said in Gilbert’s name for me.”
I bent to retrieve the empty sack at my feet, but before I could turn to go, the king said, “Gilbert’s father-in-law, Ralph de Monthermer. What became of him?”
I hesitated to answer. He would not like the truth. Sooner or later, though, he would hear it. “Taken by the Scots, my lord.”
“For ransom? Part of the exchange for the Seal?”
“No, my lord. The Bruce gave him his freedom. Some sort of repayment for a past favor, as I understood. I do not know the story behind it, but Monthermer chose to stay as his guest . . . for now.”
Edward jerked his face away and snarled. “Traitors, everywhere.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, as if he were still suspicious as to why I had been spared by the Scots. I hardly knew. Nothing more than luck, I supposed. Bad luck, at this point.
He skimmed the Great Seal upwards over his throat and the whiskers of his chin, until it came to rest on his lips. He kissed it before he returned it to his lap. “Then I thank you, Sir Roger, for your loyalty. And your service. You have done well by me in Ireland. I do not forget such things.”
I bowed to him and went from his presence. Maltravers hoisted the reeking bundle back onto his shoulder and followed.
To have a king’s gratitude was a good thing. But kings were fickle creatures. Especially this one. I did not want to offend him, although that was a hard thing not to do.
To
offend a king is to court death.
*****
Wigmore – July, 1314
In Gloucester, I gave Gilbert de Clare’s body over to his sister. She fell to her knees and wept while she clung to my shins. I hardly knew the earl well enough to share in her grief, or Lady Eleanor enough to comfort her.
On the road north of Hereford, I paid Sir John Maltravers with the money that Lady Eleanor had given me for my labors and dismissed him. He wanted to go home, he said. So I let him, but I told him also when the time came for me to go to Ireland, I would need him.
It was well past nightfall when I arrived at Wigmore. Not wanting to be assailed by an exuberant flock of children, for I was too spent to endure their attentions, I hushed the porter and crept up the stairs. I turned the latch to our chamber door and nudged it open.
Joan stood by the open window, vigilant. Moonlight outlined the pleasing roundness of her hips through the edges of a white nightshift. My weariness was swept away in a rush of longing for her.
She glanced over her shoulder at me, nothing more than passing irritation in her voice. “So, did you come home merely to dispel rumors of your death—or is there some other reason?”
“I’ve come home to be with my wife.” I barred the door behind me.
“For longer this time, I hope.”
“How else,” I said, “is a man to advance himself at court when it is his sword that is his strength? It has won me the king’s gratitude several times over.”
“And the king’s gratitude is more important to you than your wife’s company?”
I let the matter go. Too often our reunions had been callous ones, tainted with misunderstanding. This first night, at least, I wanted to be pleasurable for us both.
As she turned sideways to fetch me a cup of wine, I noticed the slight fullness of her belly in the haze of the moon’s silvery glow. How long since I had lain with her? Four months? No, five. And only eight since our last child was born.
I walked past her, took the cup she held out for me, and eased onto the bed. While I gulped down the wine, Joan knelt at my feet and tugged off my boots. I must have stunk like a cow shut up in the byre too long. Despite my rankness, she kneaded at the arches of my feet, my calves, my thighs.
“Your uncle is here from Chirk,” she said. “He heard of the king’s defeat at Bannockburn and hoped . . . knew you would be home soon. Although, we heard nothing until the Earl of Pembroke passed through. Shall I fetch your uncle now?”
“In the morning.”
“How was your journey home?” Her question was a courtesy, the same one she posed every time upon my return.
I leaned back, caught her by the wrists and pulled her hard against my chest. Her breath caught. “Let us not talk of it. I would rather have you.” I rolled her over beside me and ran my calloused palm over the curving mound of her middle. “Is it safe?”
“Has that ever stopped you before?” She looked up at the ceiling.
It was not an answer, but it was not denial, either. Beyond our bed, sometimes even in it, we were strangers to one another. Even after so many years.
I tried to lighten her mood, teasing, “Have we room here at Wigmore for an eighth? Do I need to build another wing?”
“It will be our ninth, Roger.” She wriggled free of my hold and slipped from the bed.
I propped myself up on an elbow to gaze at her. “Will it? Well then, tomorrow I shall have to reacquaint myself with them all. They forget their father so quickly.”
“It is not the children who forget.”
In invitation, I pushed the corner of the bedcovers away. “After this one, let us work on the tenth, and the eleventh, and the . . .”
As she lifted her nightshift from one shoulder and then the other to let her breasts spill out, I forgot what I was saying. I went to her, peeled her shift downward so it rested on her hips, and kissed her neck. Instinctively, I pressed against her body, the growing heat in my loins seeking to be quenched within her. She turned her head aside and a thin sigh escaped her throat.
Had
I cared to listen, I might have heard it for what it was—a
sigh of indifference.
*****
The next morning I awoke late. Joan’s side of the bed was long since cold, the indent of her body smoothed over by fastidious hands. She was probably with the children somewhere already or going over records with the steward. I had not told her I could be sent back to Ireland at any time, should the Scots cause trouble there. When the time came for me to go, I would insist that she come with me, even though I expected her to protest profusely over the conditions there. At least she would not be able to complain of my absence.
Wearing only my breeches, I rose, stretched my arms and went to the washbasin Joan had left out for me. I dipped the washcloth in and began to scrub. Every time I wrung the cloth the water turned browner and cloudier, until I could not see the bottom of the blessed bowl. Indolent servants. Or had Joan shooed them all away to let me sleep?
“Gladys? Clementina?” I grabbed a dry shirt and buried my face in it. There was a faint knock on the door and a long creak as it swung open. “Fetch me more water.”
“Fetch your own.”
I turned to see my uncle, Lord Roger Mortimer of Chirk, in the doorway, propped up by a carved walking staff. He hobbled across the room and tapped me on the knee with his stick.
“I waited up half the night, do you know? Going to tell me about it? The whole thing?” He leaned into the gnarled staff, rotated his weight on it and gimped over to a chair, where he plopped down in anticipation of a story. He pounded the staff on the floor to punctuate each sentence. “I want details. Who fought well. Who died. Who lived. Who’s being held for ransom. All that.”
“Tales of battle are better told over a cask of wine and late at night.”
He grumbled in disappointment. “What took you so long to find your way home? Pembroke came this way over a week ago. Said he lost you after the battle and had not heard from you. For shame, you should have seen your poor wife. She assumed you were dead. We all did.”
“How unfaithful of you all.” I gave up on getting clean water and put on the shirt I had dried my face on. Next, I went in search of a fresh pair of hose. As she always did, Joan had lain everything out for me on top of the chest at the end of our bed. “The king has another sycophant, Uncle.”
His white feathered eyebrows leapt upward. “Who?”
“Hugh Despenser the Younger. His brother-in-law, Gilbert de Clare, was killed at Bannockburn. I think he covets his earldom.”
“Gloucester dead? That will set things on end.” He hunched forward, scenting scandal. “Is Despenser anything like Piers de Gaveston?”
The king had pandered to the impertinent Gaveston, a man of humble Gascon origins, by granting him the earldom of Cornwall. Rumors about the king and Gaveston had abounded, until the Gascon’s murder ended speculation. “No, this is no roistering boyhood friend of the king’s, to be spoiled with sparkling jewels and fancy clothes. No, he is . . . different.”
“Hah, I don’t doubt, given his stock. Watch him carefully, but from a distance.”
I hitched my shoulders in a half-shrug. “What do you mean? Do you know something of this Hugh the Younger?”
“Him? Barely anything. But I know his family. I know the oath his father once made to your father.”
“Tell. What oath?” I fastened the cord on my hose.
“That he would kill him.”
“Come now. I have never heard such a story. Did father slight the elder Despenser somehow? Steal his cows? Hunt on his lands? Sleep with his mistress?”
“You take it too lightly. I warn you not to. This Hugh the Younger—your grandfather killed his grandfather at the Battle of Evesham.”
“Evesham?” I scoffed. “Evesham was fifty years ago, Uncle. My grandfather fought for Longshanks then. Saved his life—it was you who told me so. Surely King Edward will know of that?”
“Hmph, a Plantagenet’s memory is not that long. But Despensers . . . they do not forget.” He slammed his stick down hard once, emphatic. “Watch him.”
I belted my tunic and sat down on the chest. “I am more concerned for the king than for myself.”
He replied with a visceral grunt.
“Despenser and I are on the same side—unlike our grandfathers.”
“For now. But be careful. If you offend the king’s favorite, you offend the king. Edward has hardly forgotten what they did to Gaveston.” He drew a kerchief from his sleeve and wiped his nose. “Now, tell me about Bannockburn.”
“Later, I told you.” I slipped my shoes on and went to the door. “I’m going to go find my wife. Have a look at my children.” And count them again.
*****
3
Isabella:
Tower of London – August, 1321
ONCE, LONG AGO, I dreamt of a happy marriage. But how quickly that dream had been quashed. First, Gaveston had owned Edward’s attentions. Now it was Hugh Despenser upon whom he lavished titles and treasures. Whenever I spoke up, I was chided by Edward, spurned even—as if he resented my presence altogether. Yet time after time, when things were at their worst and there was nowhere else to turn, it was me Edward called upon. Me, who salvaged the shattered bits of his life and pieced them together like shards of pottery into a mosaic. My one reward for enduring such perpetual misery had been my children, four of them. Four joyful blessings that gave some purpose to this misery of a marriage.
Beyond the Salt Tower, dawn’s first blush showed against a brightening sky. Armed sentries peered sleepily down at us from their posts along the walls of the outer ward. To the west, a pair of guards clutching poleaxes glanced through the open gate behind them. The groan of a winch rumbled in the morning silence. Iron scraped stone in a drawn-out screech as the portcullis of the Middle Tower went up.
Puffy-eyed and yawning, my nursemaid Ida cradled a tiny bundle in the crescent of her plump arms. I peeled back the edge of the blanket to gaze upon my little Joanna’s pink face. She wriggled a hand free to grasp my thumb, a bubble of spittle forming around her tiny mouth. When I smiled down at her, she cooed, bursting the bubble, and laughed. If only I could know such happiness, too.
“My lady?” Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, cleared his throat in a signal of impatience and swept a hand toward the waiting carriage, which was surrounded by a mounted guard of three dozen fully armed men. Impatient hooves tapped on the cobbles. Bits jangled. Pembroke had returned from Paris only a week ago, having just wed my cousin Marie, a daughter of the Count of Saint Pol. Although he was nearly two decades my senior, I regarded Pembroke as a dear friend, but I sorely regretted that he was being tossed into the lion’s den of disorder that was Edward’s court so soon upon his return. By evening, we would arrive in Westminster. Worse than leaving my youngest child behind, who was barely now a month old, I dreaded the purpose of this journey.
Reluctantly, I tugged my thumb free of my daughter’s grasp. Her forehead puckered like a grape that has shriveled under the sun’s rays. Red fists flailing, she stretched her lips taut across toothless gums. An ear-splitting wail emanated from bottomless lungs.
“You’ll come back soon, my lady?” Ida rocked her arms gently to soothe the babe. When that did not seem to work, she bounced on her heels, making her too heavy bosom jiggle inside her unbelted gown. There was a fleeting moment of peace as Joanna inhaled, but too soon another demonic howl ensued.
“Take the babe outside for fresh air as often as you can,”—I stepped back, guilt weighing down my heart like a sack of stones—“but shield her face from the sun so that her cheeks do not blister. When you’re walking in the garden with Ella, watch that there are no bees about. She likes to sniff the roses before looking. It was most traumatic when she was stung inside her nose last month. She could not breathe properly for two days because of the swelling. Take care, too, that she does not prick a finger. She’d sooner smear the blood on her clean skirts as she would complain of a throbbing finger. As for John, do not allow him within sight of Young Edward’s new pony. That, if nothing else, is imperative. He wants to do everything exactly as his brother does, but he cannot understand that he’s more likely to get trampled than anything. He’ll sulk and wield his temper, but do not be swayed, Ida. Do not. Let him cry himself to sleep, if you must. I’ll not come back to find my second oldest lying broken in bed.”
Ida harrumphed at me. “My lady, you know I do not let them fool with danger. Never. Or say cross words, or eat with dirty hands or forget their prayers. None of that. I’ll see that Young Edward is awake for his lessons, too, and does not pester his tutor with requests for stories about battles.” She cocked her chin out, her pride evident.
“My lady, please.” Pembroke came up behind me and hooked an arm about my waist to shepherd me toward the carriage.
I stole one last glance over my shoulder at Ida and my daughter, then climbed inside and scooted along the cushioned bench seat. On the opposite bench, my damsels Patrice and Marie leaned against one another, already dozing.
Pembroke appeared at the rear of the carriage and undid the ties of the curtains. Before he let them fall, he held them aside for a moment, concern furrowed between his Spaniard-black brows.
“Thank you, my queen, for obliging my request. I know you are not long out of childbed, but this is dire. The Marcher lords have surrounded London and will not scatter until their demands are met. The king must come to his senses. The past, unfortunately, seems to be repeating itself and if so . . .” He shook his head of close-shorn dark hair and let out a long sigh. “If so, there will be bloody days ahead. Worse, I fear, than before.”
He disappeared then, leaving me in near darkness to contemplate his warning. The carriage jolted forward and soon we were rumbling along over the cobbles as London stirred sluggishly to life around us. I groped for the stray cushion at my feet and wedged it behind my back to ease the jarring.
If I could not convince Edward to exile Hugh Despenser and make amends with his barons, blood would rain down upon England until we were all bathed in it.
Already
it was worse than before.
*****
Westminster – August, 1321
Edward marched the length of the King’s Chamber of Westminster Palace. The long toes of his leather soles slapped the tiles like the rhythmic threshing of a flail. Twenty-five paces. Head down, hands clasped behind him. He halted beside the vast canopied state bed, gazed up at the metal bosses studding the panels of the ceiling, then spun around to face me.
I stood moored in the doorway, Pembroke behind me. It would be dangerous to approach the king or speak before judging his mood—that much I knew. Too far from me to see his countenance clearly, I dipped my head in a bow and waited.
A warm breeze stirred the hairs that had pulled loose from beneath the brim of my coif, tickling my cheeks. Tall windows lined the long wall across from me where Robert Winchelsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, stood. Jewels, a hand-width apart, trimmed his brocaded red chasuble. Piled in folds around his neck, his amice was adorned with quatrefoils formed from gold braids. He smiled serenely at me and tipped his head so far I thought his miter would topple from it.
When I looked again, Edward had grabbed at one of the dense green curtains hanging down from the canopy above the throne. He buried his face in the heavy cloth for a moment, then yanked hard before letting go. The frame of the canopy rattled, but held. Hands outstretched, he rushed toward us. “Have you any idea how they have betrayed me?”
I shook my head, feigning ignorance. During the time that I had been awaiting Joanna’s birth at the Tower, I had insisted on hearing the news from across England. Patrice had fed me every detail. Edward’s unbounded patronage of the younger Hugh Despenser had fostered widespread dissent among the Marcher Lords. Rebellion loomed. Had he heeded the signs—any of dozens—it could have all been averted. But Edward was beyond obstinate. He was blind with devotion to Despenser, just as he had been with Gaveston—and that had ended miserably.
Edward stomped to a halt before me, his face contorted, as if he were wracked with anguish. “Not only have they burned and ravaged Hugh’s lands, but they’ve taken up with Lancaster. God in Heaven—Lancaster!”
Eyes downcast, the archbishop’s shoulders sagged, as though he had long since given up trying to persuade the king to hear reason.
Pembroke stepped past me into a slanted beam of reddish sunlight. “It was said that the Mortimers sent Lord Badlesmere to meet with Lancaster in Pontefract. If Lancaster joins them, their might and power will be far beyond anything we can muster. I beg of you, sire, this is not the time to resist. Remember your coronation oath. Hear the barons out. Grant their request to banish Despenser. Then promise pardons in full. If you shut your ears to their pleas, you stand to lose more than your kingdom.”