“With that in mind, it is our intent to begin a Round Table in the same manner as the great King Arthur appointed it, to the number of three hundred knights, always increasing. It is our intention to cherish and maintain it according to our power. We shall erect a building here at Windsor just for that purpose, and we shall meet there every year. We take this vow today, on these Holy Gospels!”
The crowd cheered wildly as Edward took the solemn oath, followed by his steward and the earl marshal and four other earls. Then, with an exuberant sound of trumpets, yet another feast began, this one surpassing all of the rest.
Bess stood on the ladies’ platform as yet another round of jousting began, the king having decided that more was required in order to celebrate the announcement of the Round Table. The day was chillier than the preceding ones had been, and she was grateful that her mantle was amply trimmed with fur inside and out. Indeed, only Queen Philippa, Queen Isabella, and the Lady Isabella wore cloaks richer than Bess's. Bess hoped that the dowager queen, seated some distance away, had duly noted this. Hugh mean, indeed!
She watched the jousting without paying much attention to it, thinking her own thoughts so that the time passed quite quickly. Only when Hugh rode out did she turn her mind as well as her eyes to the jousting. Admiring Hugh's bright red-and-gold surcoat and horse trappings, emblazoned with his arms and looking even brighter against skies that looked as if they could snow any minute, Bess wondered what Queen Isabella was thinking of all of this fine display of Despenser heraldry. Presumably she was bearing it graciously, for no gasps of horror came from the area in the stands given over to the royal ladies.
Hugh unhorsed his opponent handily. Bess blew a kiss to him and cheered, remained politely attentive as Hugh de Hastings, Hugh's cousin, took his turn, and then became fully attentive once more as her father rode out. Like his king, Bess's father loved to joust, though his forty-three years were beginning to show when he was matched against a younger man.
The two horses rumbled toward each other, gaining speed. The men's lances barely touched. The second turn ended in the same result. The third turn, and William de Montacute was knocked to the ground. Bess groaned in disappointment, along with many other ladies; the handsome Earl of Salisbury was always a favorite in the stands. She watched calmly as her father's squires bent to help their master to his feet, just as so many other squires had done before in this tournament. Then a single word cracked in the air. “Surgeon!”
Bess gathered up her skirts and hurled herself down the steps of the platform, pushing aside all who stood in her path. In front of her, her mother was making the same mad rush down from the lower, more spacious platform where the countesses had taken their places. By the time the Montacute women reached the field, the king's surgeon was bending over her father, joined by her brother Will and surrounded by a group of knights.
Hugh, who had been in the midst of having his armor removed and was now wearing only his shirt and hose, guided the countess toward the inner circle, then reached for Bess. “Is he dead?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Will he die?”
He held her close to him. “I don’t know, Bess. Sometimes a man can fall as he did and be up and about moments later with nothing amiss. Sometimes—”
Bess closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again her father would be standing up, laughing at the fuss over him. Instead, she fell to the ground. When she next opened her eyes, she was in Hugh's arms, being carried into Windsor Castle.
Her father remained mostly unconscious for days, only occasionally opening his eyes to stare about him and mumble confusedly. Bess, her sisters, and Joan of Kent took turns sitting with him along with the Countess of Salisbury, who almost never left. Bess herself would have stayed all the time were it not for Hugh, who made her walk outside from time to time, though he took care to keep her away from the tournaments that were still going on as if nothing had ever happened.
The king had visited often at first, sitting silently by the bedside for hours at a time. His visits became less frequent as the days dragged on, and toward the end of the month Edward left Windsor altogether. During one of their walks, Bess told Hugh that she thought that this was callous of the king, but Hugh shook his head. “No, Bess. He just can’t bear it.”
As if she and the other Montacute women could. She said, “It is so unjust! My father set out to capture Roger Mortimer, the most dangerous man in England, and emerged without a scratch. He was a captive of the French king and got through battle after battle. And now he is dying, and for what? A joust, a game! How can God be so cruel?”
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d have a crowd of pupils around my feet, waiting for the next crumb of wisdom to fall from my mouth. I wondered at it myself after Edward died; still do, as a matter of fact. I’m sorry, Bess. Your father was— is—a fine, brave man. England owes him a great debt.”
“My heart is heavy enough, but what is worse is seeing Mother's grief. She and my father have always been so happy together. I wish there were something I could say to help ease her.”
“I know. I feel the same way about you.”
“Your being here is my comfort.” She sighed and leaned closer into his arm. “You don’t need to say a thing.”
During her vigils by her father's bedside, Bess brought her work with her and kept her hands busy and her mind as calm as she could by sewing a shirt for Hugh or even embroidering while the Earl of Salisbury lay still and silent beneath his bedcovers. On January 30, having persuaded her exhausted mother to lie down in her own chamber, she was concentrating on getting the wings of a lovebird just right when she heard her father whisper, “Bess.”
“Papa!” She bent and kissed him. “You are better.”
“No, Bess.” He tried to raise his head but could not. “You’d best get the others.”
She nodded to a servant; one was always standing nearby. “Someone is, Papa.”
“And a priest.” Her father closed his eyes, and for a moment Bess thought he had drifted off into unconsciousness again, or worse. Then he whispered, “Happy, Bess?”
She barely heard the words. “Yes, Papa.”
“I was…worried…few days ago. Hugh…so much older. You and Ed—”
She could have broken down and cried. “No, Papa. I was being foolish. I love Hugh very much. You chose well for me. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Bess hesitated, then came out with her lie. What would such a small sin matter to the Lord if it brought some cheer to her dying father? “I am not sure, Papa, but I think I am carrying Hugh's child. Your first grandchild.”
He smiled. “Good girl.” Then he frowned again. “Will… pretty Joan. Something…wrong there. I think.”
“They are very young still, Papa. They will work it out. I promise.”
Her father sighed and was quiet for a while. “Prosper, my little Bess,” he whispered finally. “Bess. Promise me…”
“Anything, Papa. Anything.”
“Tell your children…the story. Nottingham.” Weak as he was, his smile was a triumphant one, wide enough to include the rest of the family and the priest who had hurried into the room. “’Tis a good one, lass, isn’t it?”
viii
* * *
November 1346 to August 1347
IN HER CHAMBER AT HANLEY CASTLE, BESS SMOOTHED OUT A sheet of parchment, inscribed in Hugh's own unpracticed hand. It had been written that previous summer aboard ship. Even now, Bess thought, a pleasantly salty smell clung to it. Hugh had apparently had trouble getting started on this letter that he evidently had deemed too personal to dictate to a clerk, for several lines had been scratched over. Bess after some effort had been able to make them out:
My dear and esteemed wife. I hope the receipt of this letter finds you well. I am in good health, and so are all of the men with me thus far.
I regret that the French have brought us to this pass, and even more I regret the separation from you that this entails. Bu
t we all pray that right will prevail and that victory will be ours.
You are so lovely. I could kiss your
I know that you will take excellent care of the estates while I am away. All of my men are trustworthy, so I have no worries on that score.
Finally, Hugh had found words to his satisfaction:
It was much easier to part in 1342 when we were both angry with each other, wasn’t it, sweet Bess? I love you. God be with you, and if He is good, we shall be together again. If it turns out that we must part forever, know that you have always been my dearest love.
I miss you, sweetheart.
Hugh.
She unfolded a second parchment, which was a copy that Bess's own clerk had made for her from one that was making the rounds throughout England. She skimmed it, knowing by now exactly where the parts of the most interest to her could be found. Sir Hugh le Despenser, along with the Earl of Suffolk, killing two hundred or more commoners who had taken up arms near Poix. The Earl of Northampton, Reginald Cobham, and Sir Hugh le Despenser leading the king's troops across the River Somme, scattering the enemy awaiting them on the other side and even in the water. Sir Hugh le Despenser and his men taking and burning the towns of Noyelles-sur-Mer and Le Crotoy, killing four hundred men-at-arms in the latter town. Sir Hugh le Despenser leading part of the rearguard when in August, at a place called Crécy, the English troops, sorely outnumbered, had won a stunning victory over the French. And now the English army was besieging Calais.
Folding the parchments neatly, Bess slipped them back into the Book of Hours in which she treasured them, then went to the castle chapel to pray for the safety of Hugh and his men, Emma's husband among them. When she returned, a messenger was waiting with a letter from the constable at Cardiff Castle. It regarded provisions for Hugh's French prisoners, a number of whom Bess was lodging quite comfortably in Wales. They were too flirtatious to keep with her at Hanley, she’d decided.
Bess was dictating a reply when Emma, who’d come to visit that morning and was sitting beside her sewing a garment for the second child she would soon be having, went to the window. “Another messenger is riding up! This one in royal livery. Shall we go to the hall?”
“No.” If there was bad news, she wanted to face it in the privacy of her own chamber, not in a hall full of people preparing for dinner. She remained where she was, drumming her fingers of her right hand against her left wrist and looking around at her surroundings. Like that of many an English lady, her chamber might as well have been in the heart of Paris, filled as it was with booty that had already been shipped back from the French campaign. Emma's more modest chamber at her own manor was scarcely less Frenchified, there having been plenty of treasure to go around.
In a few minutes, the knock came and the messenger, who to Bess's relief did not look particularly solemn, bowed before her. Handing her the parchment, he said, “My lady, I’ve delivered several of these today. The ladies have been enjoying them.”
Bess nearly snatched it from his hand to read it. Then she let out a whoop, embraced the messenger, and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “Reward him for his pains and give him our best ale,” she told her servant, trying to recover some dignity. Giving up the effort, she embraced Emma.
“I gather the news is good. My lord is coming home?”
Bess shook her head. “No—he is staying in Calais. But the news is good. We—I and the queen and her daughters and many others—are going there!”
So many ladies had been invited to go to Calais that an apprehensive Frenchman could have taken their fleet for that of a second wave of invaders. Bess's mother, who’d taken a vow of chastity after her husband's death, had stayed behind, but the Montacute women were amply represented by Bess, Sybil, and Philippa, all of whom had husbands in Calais. Sybil had married Hugh's nephew Edmund Arundel, while Philippa—much to Hugh's amusement—had married the grandson of the wicked Roger Mortimer. “Montacutes, Mortimers, and Despensers all at one table next Twelfth Night, perhaps. Who’d have thought it possible?”
Joan of Kent was there, as was Hugh's sister Isabel, the former Countess of Arundel, whose husband had finally succeeded in having their marriage annulled. Isabel had gone not only to see her son and her brothers, she admitted to Bess cheerily, but also to discomfit the new Countess of Arundel, a cousin of Isabel's whom the earl had married with unbecoming haste after the Pope had issued the annulment. In this Isabel had succeeded, for the new countess had looked anything but pleased as her predecessor arrived at Dover Castle, dressed in finery provided by Hugh's generosity and hardly looking the part of a cast-off wife whose son had been declared a bastard.
Their voyage having been a surprisingly smooth one, the ladies were all on deck and all dressed in their finest clothes as the harbor of Calais came into view. Though the queen was an old hand at making the journey across the Channel, most of the other ladies had never crossed before, and fewer still had been present at a siege. Eager as she was to see her husband, Bess half dreaded getting off the cog. Would the shore be littered with corpses? Would the stink of death be everywhere? And where on earth would she sleep?
The harbor, however, looked quiet, although as the ship came closer Bess could see that it was heavily guarded to keep out enemy vessels. She impatiently awaited her turn to be rowed to shore. A cluster of men anxiously watched each small boat full of ladies, and each time a knight was reunited with his lady, a cheer went up from the troops.
A boat came back to the ship, was filled with ladies, and made the journey to shore and back with excruciating slowness. Then Bess, her sisters, and Hugh's sister were finally assisted into a boat, rowed by the slowest oarsmen in Christendom, Bess decided. At last a man offered her his hand and assisted her out of the boat. “Hugh!”
A cheer went up as they embraced. Somehow Hugh moved her out of the way of the others disembarking; she knew not how, for she had not left his arms.
The queen had landed well before the others and rode on horseback to the English camp. The remaining ladies and their men followed on foot, not unhappily, for it gave them more precious time together. “I have heard the reports about you, Hugh. The crossing of the Somme, and Le Crotoy—”
He grinned. “Aye, something to regale the nephews with at last. They were beginning to find my Scottish tales a bit dull.”
“You will tell me about your deeds too?”
“Certainly, my love.” He glanced around to see who was within earshot. “But only after I’ve had my way with you.”
She giggled. “Are we to live in a tent? I daresay I can get used to it—but lying together in your tent with your squires within arm's reach?”
“Only my most discreet squires.”
“Hugh!”
“I think you’ll find that we’ve arranged things nicely.”
Bess had her doubts, but she put them aside and took in the sight of Hugh again. As always after he had been fighting for a while, he was leaner and more taut, with a face browned from the sun. He and the other men had had adequate warning of the ladies’ arrival, however, for all seemed fresh from their barbers, with neatly trimmed hair and beards. She began to wish herself nearer to their living quarters too, whatever they might be.
Nearby, Sybil, walking hand in hand with Edmund, gasped. Bess turned her attention from her husband's attractions to the direction of her sister's stare. Then she let out a gasp that rivaled Sybil's.
Outside the walls of Calais, a miniature city of wood had sprouted. Streets, perfectly symmetrical and lined with look-alike houses and shops of timber, intersected with other streets, surrounding a market square. One wooden building, bigger than any of the others, bore Edward's arms. From several long structures came the sound of neighing. On the fringes, precariously near the shore, were rows upon rows of huts.
“The king has named it Villeneuve-le-hardie,” said Hugh. “See that house near the square? That's mine—ours.”
But Bess was too enchanted with the town to care much about her own ho
use. It was almost like a toy, she thought. “Why, it even has taverns!”
“Aye, but you’d best not go inside that one, sweetheart. Food isn’t the main concern there.”
She followed his eye and saw a pair of women, bare-headed and wearing dresses that did little to conceal the contours of their voluptuous figures. “Hugh! I hope you have not—”
He grinned. “No, sweetheart, but they’re part of the reason you’re here. The king thought we could use some more civilized company. And he's a wise man. We could.”
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