The King Must Die (The Isabella Books)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “I regret to say,” I whispered rapidly, before anyone could close in and overhear, “that my mother has raised objection to our wedding night being so close to Lent. She thinks we should forego, ah, a certain ‘rite’ in the hopes of receiving God’s blessing upon our union.”

  Philippa clasped her other hand over my forearm. “I had not thought of that. Will we not ...?”

  Casting a glance around, I guided her up the steps. A pair of porters opened the great doors before us. I shrugged. “Do you want to?”

  “I do.” Lowering her chin, she shrank inside her hood to conceal her blushing. “That is, if it would not trouble your conscience.”

  “Mine? No.” I scoffed. “Christ himself could not keep me from you tonight.” With my thumb, I stroked the fleshy part of her palm. She shivered in response.

  We entered the hall to a tide of applause. Warmth and music surrounded us, elevating our excitement.

  Philippa pulled her hood back and bit her lip to suppress a giggle. “But how will you —”

  I pressed a finger to my lips, as servants rushed to take our mantles. “Don’t worry. It’s been arranged. I will come to you later. Wait for me.”

  The hours passed in a dizzying blur of dance, food and drink. Congratulations were showered on us with wearisome abundance. In every touch or glance that Philippa and I shared, I both sensed her nervous anticipation for our wedding night and felt the undeniable strength of our bond. With her beside me, I knew I would never want for comfort or friendship, courage or pleasure.

  ***

  Shifting the loose gown so it wasn’t twisted around my middle, I glared at Will. “You didn’t tell me about this part.”

  “How else do you think I was supposed to get you into her chamber?”

  True enough. Still, I fought the urge to plow my fist into that smirk of his. After the wedding feast, several of my companions and I had escorted Philippa and her ladies to her chambers. In a glow of smoky torchlight, I had kissed her cordially on the cheek, stating that we would exchange gifts in the morning. By then, it was clear from her dubious expression that she had begun to doubt my earlier promise. Feigning a yawn, I bowed as I backed away, and then retired alone to my apartments. An hour later, Will had arrived with a drab lady’s gown of dark gray and a plain white wimple for me to don as a disguise.

  We turned a corner to see a pair of drunken revelers staggering at the far end of the corridor.

  Will yanked me back into the shadows. I leaned away from him to peer around the edge of the wall. Laughing, the two men pushed open a door, went inside a room and slammed the door shut behind them.

  “If I am discovered like this, Will, you’ll —”

  “It’s a good thing you haven’t grown a beard yet.” He patted me on the cheek and then tugged at the wimple to rearrange it. “Although, you do make a fetching maiden.”

  I clenched his wrist, squeezing hard, but he only laughed.

  “Now go, Ned.” He cuffed me sharply on the arm. “Before she falls asleep.”

  Head down, I shuffled forward alone, trying to tread as silently as possible. A servant girl appeared ahead of me, lugging a bucket of water and an armload of rags. I stumbled as I glanced up. The front hem of the skirt was too long, so I gathered it up a few inches, but as I did so and looked down at my feet, I realized I still had my boots on. Mother of Christ! I lowered the hem, shortening my stride until the girl was well past me.

  A dozen steps more and I found myself standing before Philippa’s door. I raised my fist to rap on it, but just then Will, at the far end of the hall, cleared his throat. Reclined against the wall with arms crossed, he mouthed, ‘Good luck’.

  ‘Go!’ I mouthed back.

  He slid back into the darkness, but I waited several heartbeats before raising my fist again. In truth, it was a very short time, for my heart was racing more wildly than it ever had before. For all that I had looked forward to this night, I was suddenly very unsure of myself and what I would do when the moment came: what I would say beforehand, when I would kiss her, where I would touch her, how I would —

  Hinges groaned. I leapt back. The door opened, but only a crack. Pale young eyes, framed by dark lashes, peered at me questioningly. I did not recognize the woman, but Philippa had arrived with so many ladies and servants that they were all as yet unfamiliar to me.

  “Who are you?” Her accent was heavy and Flemish, her tone disparaging.

  “M-M-Matilda.” Dear God, why couldn’t I speak correctly? And I no more sounded like a woman than looked like one beneath these skirts. “Lady Matilda.”

  She shut the door. Someone whispered on the other side. Then I heard laughter, squeals, and the swish-swish of slippered feet across the tiled floor. Moments lapsed. My heartbeat slowed to a sickly plod. I knocked. Silence answered.

  Splaying my fingertips on the door, I rested my forehead against it. So, she had reconsidered? I spun away, only to see Will frantically waving me back. When I looked back, Philippa was standing with one hip propped against the door frame. She wore a plain dressing gown, the front gathered tight across her breast. The young woman who had greeted me slipped past her, rushed through the corridor and threw herself into Will’s waiting arms.

  “Coming in ... Lady Matilda?” Her head tilted, Philippa opened the door further.

  No sooner had I stepped inside and lifted the wimple from my head, than she slid the bar across the door. A well-tended fire crackled in the hearth, its amber light flickering with every surge of flame. I took off the gown and dropped it beside me, feeling more comfortable in my tunic and leggings—and thankful we were finally alone for the first time ever.

  “How did you chase away the rest of your women, my love?” Hastily, I tugged my boots off, then wrapped my arms about Philippa’s waist and pulled her to me.

  She touched a finger to her lips and then pressed her lips to mine.

  The back of her hand grazed my abdomen. A moment later, her sash slipped away as she pulled it loose. The front of her gown gaped open. In the glimmer of firelight, I stepped back and took in the full beauty of my bride. I closed my eyes briefly, capturing the memory of that incredible sight in my mind forever. As she took my hand and led me to her bed, the gown fell back from her shoulders, white and inviting, the silken veil of her long hair cascading down her back. Before she could escape me, I caught her by the waist and laid the lightest kiss where her neck sloped into her shoulders.

  “I take you to be my wife,”—I breathed her in, her hair smelling of cloves and her skin of lavender—“and I give to you the fidelity and loyalty”—I tossed my shirt off, fumbled at the laces of my hose, cursing myself for having knotted them so tightly—“of my body and all my possessions ...” There I paused to sweep her up into my arms and laid her softly upon the bed.

  “In both health and sickness,” she said, lying back, holding her arms out to me, “I will keep you.”

  “For neither worse nor for better will I change toward you.”

  “Until the end of our days,” we said in unison.

  Part II:

  Now, Mortimer, begins our tragedy.

  Isabella

  from Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II

  11

  Isabella

  Brixworth — April, 1328

  They said that my husband Edward of Caernarvon, once king, was dead. I have seen him with my own eyes—it was him: the lifeless corpse embalmed, cocooned in a shroud of cerecloth; his long, rigid form stretched out on stone like an eyeless effigy on a tomb; his flesh shrunken to the framework of his bones; his features vaguely distorted in their tranquility, even though they were without disfigurement or blemish; his eyelids sewn eternally shut.

  When I arrived at Gloucester, I had the midwife who had done the embalming brought to me. She had never seen Edward before then, could not confirm it was him, nor that it was not. She could only tell me there were no bruises or wounds on the body, nothing to indicate foul play. I paid her handsomely for her s
ervices and sent her on her way. Then, I had the coffin opened. I could not look long, but the image seared itself into my mind. I shall never be rid of it. I said a prayer, asked for God’s forgiveness and fled the church.

  I should have thought it a relief to be rid of him, just as it was with Hugh Despenser. Why then was I so haunted by the ghostly image of him? Because I did not know how it came to be? Because I had wished it so? Or that I did not trust my own eyes?

  It began suddenly, although looking back I cannot confess it was unexpected. The first nightmare came to me when the merriment and feasting after Young Edward and Philippa’s wedding was over. Until then, I had so immersed myself in the details of the wedding that I would go from dawn until midnight with barely an idle moment. I carried within me only a vague angst, a wrenching tightness in the pit of my stomach and a rapid heartbeat that I dismissed as a mother’s nerves. But as soon as the urgency and chaos disappeared, the fist of anguish seized my heart and tightened around it, suffocating my spirit like a blanket thrown over my head and held tight.

  Night after night, the apparition of Edward of Caernarvon hovered at the foot of my bed, dressed in tattered black rags of serge. He glided toward me, bony hands outstretched, speechless lips twitching, rats scampering about his bare, dirtied feet, beetles crawling through his hair, worms writhing from his nostrils ... I begged him to stop, telling him that he was alive—alive! Woefully he shook his head at me, staggering closer, slowly closer, and I could not run, could not fight back. Then, his icy hands went around my neck, tightening, squeezing, strangling ...

  And all I could do was recite prayers to the Virgin Mary. As his fingers closed off the air from my lungs, I heard my own voice somehow growing louder and louder, word by word. Then, I would awaken in Mortimer’s arms to the shrillness of my own terrified screams.

  Lying down in bed brought a cold, raw fear, for whenever I would go to sleep the dreams were almost always there. It was not until absolute exhaustion overtook me a fortnight after the nightmares began that I found any rest at all. Still, the dark visions came and held me captive.

  For several weeks I lived in some tortured, wakeful sort of death, until Mortimer suggested we go away somewhere, someplace quiet and isolated, keeping our location a secret. I refused outright, for in truth I did not want anyone to think there was anything amiss or that I had anything at all to hide. But the madness persisted.

  In my heart, I believed Edward was still alive—or maybe it was only that I wanted to make myself believe it, to rid myself of this affliction—but what proof did I have? Through all of this, even as he saw how I suffered, Mortimer seemed unshaken, as if nothing macabre had happened, as if his heart guarded no secrets.

  At last, in early April, I summoned Lord Thomas Berkeley to come early to Northampton, where Parliament was to convene within the month. While I awaited him, I attended a Mass at the church in Brixworth, a few miles north of Northampton. My soul was deeply troubled and the only way to achieve peace was by God’s guidance and the truth that I was sure Lord Berkeley was keeping to himself.

  Brixworth Church had been built in the time of the Saxons with stones recovered from nearby decaying Roman villas. In the entranceway to the nave, there was even a stone carving of an imperial Roman eagle. I paused there to gaze upon that vestige of the ancients, with its wings outstretched in a display of ascendancy and its beak agape in a voiceless cry of ages gone by. For a moment I was unaware of anything but this spiritless creature, frozen in flight, fixed in eternity.

  “Shall I have your horse readied, my lady?” Arnaud had come up behind me, but between my own daydreaming and the gentle buzz of the congregation as it filtered from the nave and on outside, I had not heard him at all. Patrice was at his side, a soft smile on her mouth and her face alight.

  It had taken time, nearly three years, before the rift between Patrice and Arnaud had completely mended, but with it Patrice had regained both the brightness and the fire within her. I had heard that Arnaud still visited his wife, who was by now so completely bereft of her wits and incapable of even the simplest tasks, that the nuns of Aldgate made sure she was kept watch over every waking hour. Useless as she was, they would probably have turned her out into the streets if not for Arnaud donating generous portions of what little funds he had to them. It was easy enough to tell when he was away at Aldgate, for Patrice became quite irascible. But whenever he returned, as he had only a few days ago, she was like a new bride flushed with joy. I did not need to discover them together in the stables, strewn over with strands of hay, or tucked away in the wardrobe, their clothes all disheveled, to know that they were intimate again with one another. It was easy to see in moments like this and further betrayed in the number of times Arnaud went to chapel to absolve himself. I often hoped, as I witnessed them sharing that look of deep familiarity, that Mortimer and I were never so obvious.

  “The horses, my lady,” he prompted again. “Shall I bring them?”

  I meant to tell him ‘yes’, to ready for our return to Northampton, for I had much to discuss with Mortimer and the king before Parliament commenced, but I was still hoping for Lord Berkeley to meet me here. “I will take a meal first, on the hill.”

  Patrice arranged my short mantle over my shoulders and closed the clasp. Although the sun shone arrogantly in a cloudless sky, it was deceiving. Being only early March, there was still a biting chill in the air whenever a spring breeze picked up. It had snowed lightly not more than a week ago, but a few warmer days had painted the first tinges of green upon the land and the song of birds heralding the end of winter had brought everyone out of their shelters to absorb the rejuvenating sunlight with outstretched arms.

  “Very good.” He nodded to me, but then paused, catching eyes with Patrice. They looked at each other for so long that I was sure they were no longer aware of me even being there.

  I jostled past them, giving one more reminder about the food, lest they wander off and lose themselves in one another to forget altogether.

  No sooner had my friends left me to arrange our meal, than I found a gaggle of half a dozen highborn ladies who had attended the service closing in on me. I nodded politely, lowered my eyes and scurried away. But even as I retreated to a pretend solitude, their whispers chased after me. In my head, I imagined them speaking of the mysterious death of the old king, gossiping about private details of my affair with Mortimer and speculating of murder. The moment I turned to look at them, they smiled and waved. I turned away and again I heard the faint whispers. From the corner of my eye I saw the glances, the shaking heads.

  Arnaud spread a blanket for me on the grassy hillside. While he and Patrice went to fetch a basket, I sat there alone, trying not to look at anyone, hoping they would leave me to myself and desperately wishing to get back to Northampton to close myself inside my private rooms and be with Mortimer. I was beginning to believe that he was right—that we needed to go away somewhere undisclosed, despite what anyone might think. I needed to be where I would not have to be surrounded by murmuring mobs or exposed to those I did not trust. But too soon I found myself besieged by several of the querulous ladies, wives of the local barons.

  “My lady?” A tall, heavy woman, dressed in her best brocaded blue kirtle, one which had seen many wearings, waddled toward me. Her gray-streaked chestnut hair was pulled back tightly from her face in an attempt to lift her deeply sagging cheeks, which slightly resembled the jowls of a scent hound. The smoothed hair, however, had the opposite effect of accentuating her advancing years. Another lady, older perhaps, or merely more worn with troubles, straggled along beside her. Together, they dipped their heads and bent their stiff knees toward the ground.

  “I am Gladys de Warley of Banbury,” she huffed, struggling to rise as I motioned her up. “This is my sister, Maudeline. She hails from Dunchurch. My husband is Peter, squire to Sir Walter Barlow. Perhaps you know him?”

  I nodded, wishing to hurry this strange introduction along. I had never heard of the squire
and the knight’s name was barely familiar. Wondering to myself if my own skin was beginning to hang loose like hers, I touched the tips of my fingers to my cheekbones and then drew them down toward the underside of my throat. If it sagged at all, at least it did not look like the stuffed cheeks of a squirrel.

  “We were wondering if you had heard?” Maudeline said. Her beak-like nose was bent to one side and had several bumps along the ridge of it, as if it had been broken more than once.

  “The news from France?” Gladys added. She looked at her sister and simultaneously both raised their eyebrows up and tucked their chins in, then shook their heads judgmentally.

  “There is news from France all the time. I hear a great deal.” I inched backward to signal my withdrawal from their petty little festival of gossip.

  “Oh!” Maudeline exclaimed, slapping a hand against her breast in feigned relief. “Then you must be elated? Or perhaps not ... considering it is not good news for the king that, well ...”

  Although I had tried to resist being dragged into it, my curiosity was piqued. “Elated? About what?”

  “About the baby,” Gladys offered with a shrug, as if it were known to everyone what she was talking about and I was the only ignorant one. “But of course you knew ... did you not?”

  “What baby?” I was both annoyed by their intrusion and agitated at them for dribbling morsels of information, as if they were tossing out bits of cheese to trap a rat.

  “Why King Charles and his queen, Jeanne, are expecting. Wonderful for them, naturally. Who would not want a child? We all do. I would give them one of my nine if I could. But after so much trouble for your dear brother—forgive me, you must feel in the middle. Dreadful. There is no chance at all now that our dear young king would be named to —”