Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  In August of 1311, the Lords Ordainers demanded my presence at Westminster. Under immense duress, I signed the many papers they shuffled before me. I did it to protect Piers, as I had done before and would do again if forced.

  But I stopped short when I read on the crowded pages an ordinance that thrust a cold knife into my heart. Silence gaped in the council chamber as the masters of my demise sat the length of the table, stoic in their countenances, but sure of the outcome.

  “No.” I thrust the parchment away. Ink dripped from the quill trembling in my hand onto the table. “Not that. All the rest, but not that.”

  Lancaster, who had been standing at my shoulder for the duration of this foul encounter, drew the paper back before me. “Sign here, my lord, and we have no more quarrels with you. You must agree to all.”

  “I will not banish him forever. I cannot.”

  Winchelsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, circled the table in his gilded robes. He had come in full dress – his miter balanced on his pointed head and his crozier propping him up like a walking staff – to designate the significance of the event.

  “The order must come from you, sire,” the archbishop said, thrumming his fingers against his crozier impatiently, “to quell the masses.”

  “I suspect you will do it whether I agree or not.”

  Lancaster leaned close by my ear and with his stinking breath uttered lowly, “We could do far worse than just send him away. Now sign... or it’s war you’ll have and it won’t be waged in Scotland, but at your very own threshold.”

  “Is this how you would have me reward loyalty?”

  He took the quill from my fingers, dipped it and blotted the ink and put it back in my hand. A vain smile lifted the corners of his fat mouth.

  Lancaster’s rolling gut pressed against my shoulder. “We are merely trying to reconstruct what has been neglected, sire. Allow us this guidance and peace shall return in full.”

  Peace? I say you pick your wars poorly and Robert the Bruce should be the one who strikes terror in you, not Piers. As for me, you have emptied my pockets and now dangle me naked over a well. I have no dignity, no resources, and no friends I can call upon who do not fear for their lives, as well. Where is the choice in any of this for me?

  They had diminished my power enormously – put it in a mortar and crushed it so fine there was nothing left but the dust of what used to be. The Archbishop of Canterbury had already excommunicated Piers.

  Gladly would I give up heaven and earth to join him in the hell to which they had condemned him.

  I signed my name and flung the quill across the table so that it left long streaks of ink in its path. Twenty-one triumphant faces stifled their grins and gloated silently.

  Ch. 22

  Edward II – Eltham, 1311

  They gave less than a month for Piers to quit the country. Hardly enough time to arrange passage. My older sister, Margaret, and her husband the duke had agreed to receive him in Brabant, but knowing Piers he would too soon grow restless there. Of the many stipulations the Lords Ordainers had imposed, one was that Piers was to be stripped of his earldom; another that he was not to be given the privileges of any office or permitted refuge on any lands owned by me. Why not just set him on a barren island without provisions, stripped naked, and let the wild beasts make a feast of him?

  My every means of ensuring his safety had been suffocated. I was again the child who had no voice, no say, whose judgment was deemed inadequate, whose will was denied. Very little had changed in my twenty-eight miserable years. The only joy I had known had been realized in Piers’ company. I wrote to him almost daily, but I doubt that more than a few letters ever reached him, if any at all.

  Yet, if I could not offer him succor, perhaps Isabella could be of some good to me? Indeed, why not make her my instrument, rather than my undoing? Bound to me for life, would she not rather be my ally than my enemy? It would take wooing, compliments, gifts, but it could perhaps be done.

  I arrived at Eltham Palace, documents in hand. Directed to the solar, I went unannounced. Even through the closed door, I could hear the high-pitched giggles of her damsels. The servant standing at the door put a hand to the latch, but I tapped him smartly on the shoulder with the parchment roll and stayed him with an upheld hand, listening. Court gossip, nothing more. I gestured for him to open it and stepped inside.

  Laughter trickled away as one by one they turned their faces to the door. Patrice, who had been in the center of the room, whirling about in some sort of dance, staggered as she caught sight of me and backed away quickly. The others, Juliana and Marie, stood and bowed, then looked to the queen, awaiting an order.

  “They may stay,” I told her, tucking the parchment beneath my arm. Witnesses, especially those with rampant tongues, would serve well to spread news of the generosity I was about to impart.

  “My lord?” Isabella laid her embroidery beside her stool and came toward me, but cautiously, as if she feared to ask what had brought me here.

  I cast a smile at their curious faces, then at her. Behind her hung an unfamiliar tapestry, the work too intricate to have been spun by inexperienced hands. “Your pilgrimage to Canterbury went well, I trust?”

  She stopped an arm’s length away and tilted her head. “It did, my lord. Very well.”

  I circled behind her to trace a hand over the tapestry, my fingertips sensing the blend of silk and woolen threads. Peering more closely, I realized it was a depiction of the archangel Gabriel, wings outspread and hands extended, as he appeared before the Virgin Mary. Turning back to Isabella, I said, “I hear you left a sizable offering to Saint Thomas.”

  Her chin dipped to her chest, as though she were a child caught stealing warm bread from a kitchen window. A blush of pink colored her alabaster cheeks. The evening sun shone brightly upon her golden hair.

  “All the more likely your prayers should be answered.” I touched a hand to her elbow to get her attention and held out the roll of parchment I carried with me.

  She blinked several times before reaching out to take it. Breaking the seal, she unrolled it and read. So long passed before she looked up that I wondered if there was some part of it she did not understand. I had thought it straightforward enough.

  “This is too much,” she said. “I cannot –”

  “Eltham? Of course you can... and will. I know your fondness for it. Consider it a gift long overdue.” I brushed the back of my fingers across her cheek, feeling the flush of blood there like a rising fever. “Sufficient moneys have been allotted for repairs, but if you need more, simply ask. Bourne and Deeping are in good enough condition, if I recall, but I leave the judgment up to you. Do as you wish with them all. You’ve a good head for such matters.”

  Again, the jaw hanging slack. The vapid gaze. Her eyes narrowed. I steeled myself against the inquiry of suspicion that was sure to follow.

  Instead, she grasped my hand and, standing on tiptoe, kissed me full on the lips. Surprised, I stiffened, but before I could recover, she had spun about.

  “Go on,” she told her damsels with a wave of her delicate hand. “I shall call for you later.”

  The homely and timid Marie shuffled toward the door. Juliana, after a polite nod, followed. But Patrice’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. She stood rooted to her spot, until Isabella took her by the hand and guided her insistently to the door.

  “I promise, later I will read –”

  “La Chanson de Roland? Oh, please?” A radiant smile flashed briefly across Patrice’s face.

  “Yes, yes. Although surely you must have it memorized by now? After supper. Come to my chambers then.”

  Patrice shared a lingering glance with Isabella, implying unspoken secrets. But they were women. Always they made too much of too little.

  The door closed after Patrice. Isabella turned to me. “I have written to my father.”

  “Ah, have you?” I had known. But I said nothing of it. I had long suspected that she harped to her father
of even the smallest slight when I had not a chance to defend myself. Now, however, was not the time for confrontation.

  “He has agreed,” she said, “to allow Lord Gaveston safe passage through France.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he should need to travel from Brabant to Flanders... or Ponthieu, even, no harm shall come to him there.”

  Stunned, I stumbled to the nearest stool. I pressed my palms flat against the tops of my thighs, waiting for the fog of confusion to clear.

  She knelt on the floor beside me and laid one slender hand over mine.

  I searched her eyes for some flicker of falsehood, but they were as innocent as a fawn’s. “Why? Why have you done this for me?”

  She curled her fingers beneath mine, squeezing lightly. “How long have we been husband and wife, Edward? Three years now? We are often in each others’ company and yet it seems as though a distance as vast as from England to Egypt stretches between us. If we cannot work toward a common end, what hope is there for us?”

  “But you have never spoken kindly of him.” An understatement. She may never have said it in such words, but she loathed him.

  “He was your friend, your confidante, long before I was thrust upon you. You love him. I only wanted it to be me.”

  She spoke of love like one would say they love the scent of roses or a favored pet. How could such a naïve thing know anything of a passion so consuming, so maddening, that reasoning flees because of it? No, she did not know. She could not. To her, love was a myth captured on the pages of a book or warbled by a bard: a man worships a goddess-like woman whom he cannot have, slays a dragon in her name and gives up his life for her.

  So much is written and sung about the love of man for woman. But is that all there is, the only kind? If God can create such a boundless love as I have for Piers, how can it be ‘unnatural’? Where is the harm in it? I can no more understand condemning what I share with him than I can fathom where the earth ends or what lies on the other side of it. And I... I have my own dragons to slay – but they lie not sleeping in caves or burrowed beneath the mountains – they surround me.

  The warmth of Isabella’s hand seeped into mine. Loyalty, if not love then, was what she bore for me. And if she wished to think I loved Piers as a friend only, then let her.

  “Then you will stand by me in this?” I asked.

  “It is a queen’s duty,” she replied, “to be her husband’s greatest advocate. And I will be that, Edward. Never doubt it.”

  In time, I could grow fond of her. She was young, her skin so milky fresh it was a wonder kittens did not trail after her to lap at her fingers. Indeed, some would even call her ‘beautiful’. Although she wore her youth like a mask of innocence, I sensed something of the diplomat in her and guile beyond her years. Traits which could prove far more useful than having a quivering lamb for a consort.

  I slipped my hand from hers and cupped her chin in my fingers, tilting her head so the last of the day’s light washed over her vernal features: the nose, so delicate it would not have looked out of place on a child; the chiseled planes of her cheekbones; almond-shaped eyes an ever-changing hue of green; and a smooth forehead framed between golden brows and the slightest widow’s peak of a hairline. In many ways and on many occasions, my father had cursed me, burdened me, and in the matter of betrothal to this French nursling deprived me of choice. But perhaps, this once, he had chosen rightly. If her whelps were half as fair, if she indeed remained as faithful as she now espoused herself to be...

  “As a king’s consort,” I said, “your loyalty will be tested, often. More so as my queen, I fear. So many wish to bring me down, to take away as much of my power as they dare. I will resist them to the last, for to cede ground at any point is only to encourage them to push harder and take more. No, I will not yield, ever. The question, however, stands: How far, dear wife, will you bend against those forces before you break?”

  Windsor, 1311

  Spiced cider slid down my throat, numbing limbs weary from lack of sleep. In my upper story chambers at Windsor, rain drummed against the window pane so loudly that I did not hear the groan of the door on its hinges.

  Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, unclasped his sodden cloak and handed it to a servant, who scuttled from the room holding the garment at arm’s length. Water dripped onto the flagstones, leaving a long, wet trail from the puddle collecting at my nephew’s feet to the door.

  I waved him to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth from me. Gilbert’s shoes squelched as he dragged himself across the room. Blue-lipped, he slumped down in the chair with a drawn-out groan.

  “God’s eyes, Gilbert, you look pathetic. Did your horse drag you through the mud all the way from Gloucester?”

  “Not quite so far.” He sneezed violently and drew a sleeve across his chafed nose before continuing. “Only from Wallingford, Edward.”

  I leaned forward, my hands clenching the corners of my chair. “Did he send word through Margaret? And will she come with us?”

  Sighing, he half-rolled his eyes at me. “Yes, and yes.”

  I bolted to my feet, although I resisted grabbing him by the shoulders to shake some urgency into him. “Tell me, then. What did he say?”

  “He will join you, but he thinks it inconvenient for Margaret to journey so far in her present state.”

  “Convenience is not a luxury we have. But we cannot leave now. Not until the New Year. If I leave before Christmas court at Windsor, then Lancaster’s hounds will be on our trail within the hour.”

  “The New Year? Dear Lord, Edward! Are you mad? She’ll drop the child on the frozen road.”

  “There is time yet before the child is due. While I trust Lord Pembroke to keep her in his care, she’ll be far safer in York than so close to Lancaster’s reach.”

  Gilbert pressed his fingertips together and shook his head slowly. “Edward...”

  “Do not say it, Gilbert.” I turned from him and strode to the window to look out on a world as gray and bleak as my life had been. Beyond fields of mud and trampled grass, naked trees huddled bent along the banks of the Thames like old men with twisted bones.

  “Only a month-and-a-half since –”

  “No!” I whirled about to face him, stabbing a finger toward him. “You will not be among those who condemn me. You will not!”

  He stood, his gaze hard and fixed. “I am not among them, Edward. I never have been. You know that. The Lords Ordainers have already heard rumor that Gaveston is back in England. They have been searching for him. What do you think they will do when he appears in plain sight?”

  “His wife is with child. He should be with Margaret. Not in Brabant.”

  “Your reasoning is as thin as straw, Edward. If you go through with this, you gamble his life, his child’s, your crown... And the queen? She will have you castrated and quartered alongside Gaveston.”

  “Ohhh, I think not, dear nephew.” I leaned back against the wall, the rough stones digging into my scalp and snagging at my clothes. A smile crept across my mouth. “She has already agreed to it.”

  Ch. 23

  Edward II – York, 1312

  It’s a fool that falters for want of surety. Sometimes, one must act, even if out of desperation, or else leave one’s fate to the whim of others.

  But so little time to act and no room, not even an inch, for error.

  In the biting dead of winter, in the darkest of hours before a dawn that was a distant blur to me, I collected my niece Margaret from Wallingford and fled north to York. Her belly near to bursting, she lay in a carriage bundled in ermine, whimpering her discomfort with each passing mile. I took with me only enough of my personal guard to fend off an attack and the minimum number of household servants I could manage with. It was imperative that we travel as swiftly and as unnoticed as possible.

  We were somewhere past Bishopsthorpe by the River Ouse, when she let out a scream that ripped a knife of panic down my spine.

  I reined m
y mount about and spurred its flanks, flying back along our small column to the carriage for fear that her shrieking would harken my enemies to descend like wolves on stumbling prey. With a flip of my palm, the driver drew the horses to a halt. Steam curled from their flaring nostrils. I yanked the rear curtain aside and peered in. Two handmaidens drew back, clutching their mantles to their breasts as January cold gusted into the confines. A third woman, her hands spotted with age, dabbed at my niece’s forehead with a bunched cloth.

  My personal physician, William de Bromtoft, pressed his hands to Margaret’s taut belly. Her young face, too plain to be pretty, was distorted in anguish and the hue of her cheeks and forehead startlingly pallid.

  “No trouble, I hope?” I said.

  Bromtoft probed deeper, his knobby fingers kneading at her flesh, slowly moving outward and downward. Margaret opened her mouth as if to cry out, but she kept silent, her back arching with strain as she wrung the older woman’s wrist.

  “Not yet, my lord,” Bromtoft said, “but the child has dropped. It could be hours... or days.”

  “God’s soul, can’t you tell?”

  His single gray, feathered eyebrow fluttered. “If my lord would close the curtain, so that she may keep warm and have her privacy, I will... let you know.”

  “Hasten, then. Every moment we dally here is one nearer to death for us all.” I dropped the flap. Impatient, I dismounted and paced along deeply worn ruts, centuries after the Romans had trod over these same tracks. The moors stretched to the horizon around us, nothing but a tiny church and a few cottages in view. Near the road, the river gurgled by sluggishly, its banks crusted with ice.