The King Must Die (The Isabella Books)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “A few years from now, perhaps you will indeed.”

  When I finally unbent my spine and stood straight—although every bone in my body moaned in protest—they let go. Stiff as an old man, I took a step, felt my knees fold, and stumbled into Will’s arms.

  “Perhaps you should stand here a minute?” He slipped beneath my arm to hold me up. I sagged against him, grateful for his sturdy frame. “Besides, it seems someone wants to speak to you.”

  I lifted my eyes. Shapes blurred and swayed before me. I had not noticed until then that some thirty or more people encircled us, their faces fixed in concern.

  “Who?” I whispered to Will, unable to turn my head.

  He beckoned a small man forward from the crowd. The man swept back his long, brown hood and fell to his knees, muttering.

  “Speak louder, man. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Eustace, my name is Eustace, sire.”

  “Who sent you, Eustace, and why do you seek me?”

  “I was sent by the Bishop of Hereford, my lord. He has returned to England. Pope John has at last agreed to the dispensation for your marriage to Philippa of Hainault.”

  My heart somersaulted inside my chest. I pushed away from Will, grabbed Eustace’s head between my hands and kissed his great, gleaming bald forehead. “God bless you, Eustace—you and your children and grandchildren!” Then to Will I said, “See he is given a squire’s wages for every day of his journey here and home.”

  Will rolled his eyes. “A bit generous, don’t you think, for someone merely doing their duty?”

  “Do it, Will Montagu,” I said, “and do it cheerfully—or else it’s your wages I’ll see that he gets.”

  “As you wish,”—Will swept an arm across his body and dipped in a mocking bow—“sire.”

  ***

  How slowly the hours crawled, every day longer than the day before. Both glad and beleaguered, my heart was as light as a dove’s wing, my mind in a thousand scattered places. Having also heard the wondrous news, Mother joined me in Nottingham, but her insistence on immersing me in wedding plans were too often futile attempts to capture my attention. Yes, York Minster is an agreeable place for the wedding. Yes, that lord can come. And that one. No, too unimportant, too disagreeable, too boorish. Feasts, yes. Jousts, most certainly. Music? Whatever you wish, dear Mother. No, I do not care what is served, as long as there is food to eat. Yes, yes, no and yes, ad nauseam!

  I would just as soon have left everything up to her and gone back to jousting with Will. The patronizing bastard, however, had not allowed me to joust again since knocking me flat on my back. It seemed I still walked with a limp when not concentrating on my gait. So I beat out my impatience with my blunted sword against Will’s dented armor. He never tired, never gave ground and never praised me. I hated him for those things, but I was determined to one day better him because of them.

  It had been over a year since I last laid eyes on Philippa. How I longed to take her hand, brush the backs of my fingers against her round cheeks and feel her lips on mine. Oh, that and more!

  “If you’re so eager, Ned,” Will said one day, rapping his knuckles against my shield, then backing away and peering at me over the top of his, “I could ... ‘introduce’ you to a maiden or two. Would you prefer her as yet unplucked, pure as an infant’s first tears—or a shameless wanton who could show you the way to heaven?” He swiped his sword harmlessly above my head and then lunged to his left. His blade snapped down, glancing off my shoulder plate with a sharp click. “Fair-haired, raven-tressed or red as flames? Older, younger? English, Irish, German ...”

  It was by then afternoon, but sluggish December clouds darkened the sky and lent a chill to the air. Most of the garrison and servants were busily going about their daily tasks, but as it always was when Will and I met in the bailey to play at swords, a small crowd loitered outside the kitchen door to watch at a respectful distance.

  “You talk too much of impiety, Will.” I feinted to the right, then spun opposite and struck for his elbow. He jerked backward, laughing. My blade whooshed past his arm. I flicked it back and the tip skipped harmlessly off the links of mail over his hip. “What do you take me for—some worldling like yourself?”

  “Ah, you speak too highly of me, my lord. I prefer ‘irreverent, wine-soaked ribald’, if you will.” He held his hands wide, shield and sword extended outward, his unprotected chest an invitation to my temper. “Come now, you don’t want to disappoint her on your wedding night, do you?”

  My pride urged me to launch myself at him, thrash him soundly and leave him whimpering in a battered heap. But I knew I couldn’t—and wouldn’t for years, yet.

  “What happens between Philippa and me is none of your concern, Will Montagu.” I tossed my sword at his feet, loosened the straps of my shield and dropped it, too, to the ground. I tugged my hands free of my gauntlets and flung them down. “She is to be my wife and my queen. And I will only ever be with her!”

  I shoved my way between the stable groom and a kitchen maid, but Will clamped a hand on my upper arm. My face hot with anger, I spun around to face him, ready to spew enough admonitions to last a lifetime.

  “Your pardon, my lord.” He dipped his head contritely. “I shouldn’t have spoken thus.”

  I flicked his hand away. “You shouldn’t even think such things, let alone speak them. Like everyone else, you forget who is king.”

  The first drops of rain fell like cold metal against my face. By the time I had crossed the bailey, stormed up the tower stairs and into my chambers, I was soaked and shivering. Sleet now blew through the open window. I peeled the mail hood from my head, swung the shutters closed and turned to find my chair. Will stood by the door, closed it.

  “I never forget who you are,” he said, propping his shield and sword against the wall. He moved to the hearth, pulled off his leather gloves and stretched his palms toward the fire. “But I know what you are capable of becoming. Kings must be more than mere men. They must be fearsome and decisive, yet know when to compromise, when to retreat, when to yield.”

  I wanted to do none of those last few things, but damn him, he was right.

  Joining him by the hearth, I sank to my haunches and cradled my head in my hands. Minutes later, the heat had warmed me. I desperately wanted to crawl out of my mail and don dry clothes, but I felt moored in place, unable to commit to the effort.

  “They want to make peace with Scotland,” I said.

  “Your mother?”

  “And Mortimer, yes.”

  “That is a bad thing? Do you think being king is all about waging war?”

  “They want my sister Joanna wed to the Bruce’s son David.”

  He scoffed. “That would be years from now, surely.”

  I gazed up at him. “I wish that were true, but King Robert’s health is failing. They want it done soon. Within the year.”

  “Who proposed this?”

  “Remarkably King Robert.”

  Will scratched at the scruff on his neck. “Ah, his last great act—merging his noble blood with that of England’s. You must credit him with boldness, my lord. As for the queen and Mortimer, I suppose they fear if he dies David’s regents may squabble and have a change of heart. Anything could happen then. Better to secure a sure thing while it’s being offered, than risk losing it.”

  “This doesn’t sit well with me, Will. She’s far too young. And peace with Scotland? When has there ever been peace with Scotland?” I dug my fingers through my hair, pulling at the roots. “But after Weardale ... No, I’m not yet ready to bring arms against them. Besides, who would I trust to lead the way? Mortimer misled me, Kent was worthless, and Lancaster was all ideas and no substance. One day, one day perhaps. When you’ve taught me enough. For now, what choice do I have?”

  Will sat down on the floor beside me. “You’re asking me for diplomatic advice?”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Much as I value you, I would never do that. You know as much of diplomacy as
I do of weaving tapestries. No, I’ll agree to the terms, for now. There’s been too much turmoil in one year, as it is. With my father dead ...”

  My thoughts suddenly vanished, interrupted by a roiling uneasiness. I wrapped my arms around my knees, leaning closer to the fire. My father’s death was a deliverance for many, and too convenient.

  “Can you leave for Gloucester early with me, Will? The funeral is set to begin within a week, but there is something I need to do.”

  “Details of state? Again, I’m not —”

  “No, something else.” I rose, fumbled at the buckles of my arm plates, but gave up. “I need to see him. Need to be certain.”

  “See who?

  “My father.”

  10

  Young Edward:

  Gloucester — December, 1327

  A thousand candle flames wavered in the vast darkness of St. Peter’s Abbey, as though God had hurled the stars down from the firmaments to scatter them amongst the bulging piers of the nave, where they would forever remain trapped beneath airy vaults of stone. In the corbels and capitals of the masonry, grapevines crowned the stout faces of green men, their chins bearded with oak leaves. As I stood at the entrance, I ran my fingers over the intricate figures on the surface of the lead font, but those long forgotten kings and saints offered no guidance.

  A pair of heavily armed guards had been posted at every door, as if the danger existed that someone might steal away with my father’s corpse. His bier stood before the altar. There, a man had been sleeping, but my footsteps startled him into wakefulness. He cast off his blanket, revealing a sword clutched in both hands. Upon seeing the guards relaxed at their posts, he lowered his weapon, but stood his ground.

  “William Beaukaire?” I called. My footsteps rang from the tiled floor to the celestial arches above, Will’s echoing in unison. “I am the king.”

  At once, he laid his sword down and dropped to his knees. I approached my father’s bier. Two days from now, it would be loaded upon a hearse and drawn by four white horses throughout the streets for the funeral procession, before being returned to the church. Here, my father would rest eternally in his alabaster tomb, his spirit no less troubled than mine.

  I had left word with my mother that I had plans to visit with my cousin John de Bohune, the Earl of Hereford, before the funeral was to take place. It was a plausible excuse for leaving Nottingham a day ahead of her. Winter’s first snow had fallen soft and virginal around us as we rode southward, to Coventry and Kenilworth, then to the River Avon. At Tewkesbury, Will suggested we stop for the night, but I pressed on, eager for Gloucester. A sense of urgency pulled me onward, refusing rest. Now, past midnight, I had reached my destination, road-weary and wondering why the hurry to view a man so long dead?

  When I first received the news of my father’s death, it was with stunned acceptance. Banished were the clouds of doubt and discord that had accompanied my crowning. But it was what Berkeley had not said in his letter that gave rise to suspicion. Just as a weed will sprout in fallow ground, I could not shake the question that rattled my mind: How had he died?

  As I moved closer, something struck me as odd, out of place. It was not his body lying there in full view, waiting for the mourners to gather and pay their final respects, but a wooden effigy. The likeness was carved in painstaking detail, down to the hem of a king’s robes and painted with the brilliant colors of the jewels he once wore.

  Gesturing to Will to stay where he was, a dozen steps back from the coffin, I beckoned William Beaukaire closer. One shoulder hunched higher than the other, he ambled forward.

  “Sire?”

  “My father ...”—I indicated the effigy covering the coffin, my sights coming to rest on the immutable face—“lies beneath?” Although recognizably my father’s resemblance, it was far too peaceful to depict the expression he must have worn in his final, turbulent year.

  Beaukaire’s head bobbed, streaks of candlelight flashing across creviced features. His nose was crooked and the thick ridge of a scar ran where the outer half of his right eyebrow should have been. The man had survived more than a few battles, witnessed death firsthand in all its naked gore.

  “And how long have you watched over ... the body?” The last two words stumbled across my tongue. To me, yet so young, it was still strange to know that one day a person lived and breathed and the next they were but a shell, yellowed bones and decaying flesh, empty of a soul.

  He pushed a tongue through a gap in his jumbled teeth, one eye squinting thoughtfully. “Since the day after Sir Edward’s death.”

  “Ah, you were at Berkeley Castle all along, then?” Eager for details, I pressed him further. Perhaps the manner of my father’s death was not important. Still, I wanted to know. “You saw my father beforehand? Spoke to him, perhaps? Was he ill or weak?”

  “No, my lord. I never saw him ... I mean not when he was alive.”

  “Did you see him before ... before the embalming?”

  He looked down. “No, my lord.”

  Disappointment welled up inside me. I had hurried here for nothing, it seemed. This Beaukaire was of no use. “Tell me, when did you first arrive at Berkeley?”

  He lifted his hunched shoulder in a half-shrug. “The day before, I suppose.”

  I rubbed at my temple. Beaukaire was either daft or confused. Surely, he had his days mixed up? If not, it was all a strange coincidence. “By whose orders?”

  “Sir Roger Mortimer’s.”

  “Mortimer?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Always Mortimer. Was there anything in England he did not seek to control? Why had I ever so blindly admired the man?

  My hand drifted up toward the effigy, but the faint odor of decay wafted to my nose and I yanked it back. Summoning my courage, I laid both palms flat against the side of the coffin, pressed my forehead between them and whispered:

  “When the Lord God calls thy name,

  Then shall thee pass

  From bed to shroud,

  Shroud to bier,

  Bier to grave,

  And the grave will be closed up,

  Bones to dust will be

  But thy spirit shall roam

  Forever free.”

  ***

  A quartet of golden lions and angels playing their harps adorned my father’s hearse. His funeral was as stately as any king’s. So many people filled the church that one would have assumed him far more beloved than he had truly been. In the streets outside the abbey, wooden barriers had been constructed to keep the oglers from disturbing the day’s solemnity. Some of them had come on foot from hundreds of miles away. Like the rest of us, they wanted to witness with their own eyes that the shambles that was King Edward II’s reign was truly and finally over.

  My mother appeared more agitated than grief stricken. I am certain if she had been given a choice, she would not have been there. They handed her a small silver casket containing my father’s heart. Her grip on it was so tenuous, her hands trembling terribly, I feared she might drop it at her feet and the contents would spill open.

  My uncles Kent and Norfolk were there, as well as half the lords and prelates of England.

  Kent wrapped me in his arms, clung to me. His fingers dug into my cloak, bunching the cloth into a wad. As he detached himself and turned his head to speak to me, his tears moistened my cheek.

  “So unexpected,” he said, gripping my shoulders as if to steady himself. “It was by God’s grace that he did not suffer. I regret ...” He lowered his eyes, closed them so tight it looked as though his brow might collapse onto his cheekbones. His breath caught sharply. When he forced the words out, his voice was frail with grief. “I regret I did not make peace with him.”

  Those words cut me with guilt. Guilt that I had not been a better son. And anger that he had not been a better father or king.

  “You didn’t know,” I said. “None of us did.”

  But they were words offered in comfort, not candor.

  As t
he congregation began to filter out, I saw Mortimer among the mourners. He must have sensed my gaze, for he turned around, nodded in acknowledgment, then was lost in the crowd. I distrusted the man, but I would not bother to ask him the questions that had begun to fill my head. He wouldn’t have answered truthfully anyway.

  ***

  York — January, 1328

  One month later, I stood before another altar—this one at York Minster. Archbishop Melton presided over the wedding. My bride wore a gown of palest blue, the hue of a winter sky. Even beneath the diaphanous veil, secured by a circlet of gold and pearls, Philippa’s smile was bright enough to outshine the past year’s darker moments.

  Through a haze of happiness, I remember uttering these words: “I take you to be my wife; and I give to you the fidelity and loyalty of my body and all my possessions. In both health and sickness, I will keep you; for neither worse nor for better will I change toward you, until the end of our days.”

  Somewhere in the crowd was her father, the Count of Hainault, who was given a special chair to sit in and a padded stool on which to prop his gouty foot, and with him was her uncle, Sir John. Hundreds of faces gazed on, yet I saw only Philippa and a thousand tomorrows stretching bright and boundless before us.

  While a howling wind lashed the snow into knee-high drifts, we proceeded to the castle. Philippa and I rode abreast of one another, our horses caparisoned in heraldic silks, the silver bells attached to their bridles and reins tinkling gaily amid the clamor. It may well have been the coldest and snowiest day in years, but it did nothing to dampen the spirits of England’s people. We dismounted before the steps to the great hall, the bells of York’s churches pealing in celebration. She slipped her hand from beneath the warmth of her miniver-edged cloak. I grasped her fingers and pulled her closer.