“Because he fears me,” Lancaster says.
“Some say that is not the reason!” Edward shouts.”
“What other reason could there be?”
“Could it be you are plotting with the Bruce against the crown?”
Lancaster looks from his niece to his king, he feigns outrage but his eyes tell a different story and confirm both their suspicions of him. “To do such a thing is treason. Who accuses me?”
“You deny it then?”
“Of course I deny it! Where is your proof?”
There is no proof. The other magnates fidget in their seats, they can all see England sliding again to civil war. Mortimer says something ferocious and soon everyone in the chamber is on their feet and shouting at each other and nothing is achieved.
Lancaster hurls yet more insults at Edward who cannot contain himself and rises red-faced to the challenge and hurls them right back. This is not about the Bruce. This is about Gaveston. Everyone knows it.
“Uncle.” She speaks so softly that they all stop their yelling to listen to her. “Uncle, you say the king allows this Robert Bruce to raid our northern borders with impunity but you are the one that prevents him from going to war to stop him. With these restrictions you have placed on him, what is he supposed to do?”
Her voice is so sweetly reasonable it calms him for a moment. He leaves off shouting to reflect.
But this is not what the king wants. “You are a whoreson dog,” he growls at Lancaster and the time for peacemaking is past. Lancaster storms from the parliament. She doubts he will ever return.
After they disperse she sees the Despenser with Edward. They withdraw to a window and converse in whispers, some private matter of the realm she supposes. But she does not like the way the Despenser looks at the king, as if he is something he would like for dinner.
But it is only a moment and she thinks she must be mistaken.
* * * * *
A scandal, and one that brings Edward a great deal of merriment when he is not fretting about two more of his barons going to war. Lancaster’s wife, Alice, tired of her husband’s whoring, has absconded with one of Surrey’s knights. Lancaster blames Surrey, musters an army and marches south. He does not care about losing Alice as much as the damage to his pride.
By now Isabella is confined to Woodstock; she has two sons and now there is a daughter, Eleanor. A healthy brood and no Gaveston to come between them. Surely this was her triumph?
Yet something is missing.
Lonely in her bed, she thinks of Marguerite and Blanche and their lovers; they paid dearly for their pleasures. They said her brother Louis had his wife strangled in the nunnery to stop the inconvenient breaths she continued to draw. It had allowed him to take a rather beautiful princess of Hungary as his new queen.
At the time she had been shocked by Marguerite’s behaviour and had been glad of her punishment; now she was no longer as sure of what was right, and there was no king of either France or England to remind her. A bed as large as this was cold in winter, and in summer with the sheets kicked back and the sweat trickling down her breastbone she longs for a man’s caresses and his kisses on her face.
It seems no longer as important if that man is Edward.
Sometimes she thinks of Mortimer. Why Mortimer? She does not even find him pleasant. Perhaps it is the way he looks at her. Edward has never looked at her like that.
She hears her father’s reprimand in the darkness. He looks disappointed, disgusted even. When she closes her eyes she sees Marguerite, her head shaved, lying filthy in some dungeon. She sees her assassins dragging her feet first from her cell, her face mottled and blue.
Is that what you want, Isabella? Because you are a queen and if you persist in this way of thinking, one day that could happen be you. How can you think this way when you have a new daughter in the nursery?
She is almost asleep when the door opens. When her ladies see who it is they scamper from the room in their nightgowns. The king removes his robe and climbs into the bed. He is cold as a marble statue but she lets himself warm himself on her, though she thinks she will scream at the touch of his cold hands.
The branches of trees move in the moonlight beyond the dull glass like ghosts and there are enough of those. He shivers in her arms. It reminds her of those long nights after Bannockburn.
His hands creep beneath her nightgown. It is like being fondled by the dead, but she resists the urge to push him away and hopes that he warms soon. She has hungered for his touch but in her dreams his hands were not so chill.
* * * * *
It is clear that something must be done about Lancaster, though he has lost much of the support he once enjoyed from his fellow earls. As the summer wears on the king spends many afternoons closeted with Pembroke. One day he summons Isabella. “Pembroke says the only way forward is for you to go to Lancaster,” he tells her.
“Go to Kenilworth? Should he not come here, your grace?”
“He should. He won’t. Pembroke and Mortimer think it is important that we have the peace. Bruce has taken Berwick. He must be attended to and for that we must have a truce of sorts. They think you are the one who can arrange it.”
“Me, Your Grace?”
He takes her by the shoulders and kisses her cheek. “He is still your uncle. And these barons defer to your gentle words more than they will the threat of my sword. If I cannot do this by force of arms, then I will do it by your sweetness.”
She has waited a long time to hear these words from him. She has wanted him to long for her; relying on her seems to do as well.
* * * * *
Every journey the queen makes requires as much planning and marshalling - according to Edward - as it does to raise an army against the Scots. Her household and much of her furniture must go with her, all packed in boxes and stacked onto carts and covered with waxed canvas to keep the rain out. Sumpter horses carry the rest.
There are not cushions enough in the world to make the journey from London to Kenilworth any easier. It goes on for days, jarring her spine with every mile as they bump over roads better suited to goats. Finally she peers from the litter, sees flocks of sheep on wild moors, a burned and ransacked priory. Her uncle is a brutal landlord.
She craves rest but her uncle is all business. He seems amused that Edward has sent his niece to negotiate with him. He slouches in a chair, and asks her what favours she requires of him.
She does not let him see her fatigue. She is, after all, Queen of England and royalty may bend, but it does not break.
* * * * *
The daughter of France wins England her peace. One hot summer’s day she watches from the banks while Edward and Lancaster meet on the bridge at Loughborough and once again share the kiss of peace.
A charade, for she knew her husband would rather have run a sharp blade across his throat as kiss him. But it was politics, and it was necessary.
“But I still have to obey his ordinances. He can still tell me what I can do and whom I can take as advisors!” he shouts at her afterwards, when they are alone.
“Not Lancaster. He has agreed to relinquish his place as an Ordainer. He doesn’t want it anyway. He is as bored with government as you are.”
“You have bribed him?”
“We have compensated him for the loss of an important post.”
“So who will be Ordainer in his place?”
“Pembroke.”
Edward sucks his teeth. That might work.”
She takes his arm. “Pembroke has no great love for Lancaster. Nor Mortimer. Surrey hates him heartily. You can play these barons off one against the other until you get what you want.”
A moment of reflection. “You’ve done well.”
“I understand politics.”
He wraps his arms around her and kisses her, taking her breath away. It is not passion but it is enthusiasm, at least. It has all been worth it, to watch Lancaster ride away, outplayed if he but knew it; worth it to see her husband beam
at her, the peace done.
“I am going to have his head,” he says.
Two months later the rebellions in Ireland are over. Mortimer is recalled in triumph. There is just the small matter of the Scots and then they can turn their attention to their real enemy, the Lord of Kenilworth Castle.
Chapter 25
Restless, she roams the palace. In the Great Hall, the Despenser’s clerks snore on the Chancery, other servants sleep where they can on the benches. She sees lights in the King’s Painted Chamber, hears a man laughing.
She had forgotten what there is to learn from the common folk. Stand at a door of a stable or a kitchen and you may learn how a whole country is thinking. No one can speak their mind like a steward with his private opinion of the King of England.
They say he goes to it with every stable boy and every young buck at the court, and where will that get him when all knows it is a sin in the eyes of the lord and one day the devil will stick a red hot poker up his nether parts for all damnation.
The kitchen girls giggle and tell him to keep his voice down but this only encourages him and he tells them he has heard that Edward’s twizzle is shaped like a pig’s, all corkscrew shaped when it comes out, and it has seen more back entries than a Turk and sucked more cocks than a Jerusalem whore when a new Crusade comes to town.
Once she might have been shocked. Now she is merely curious. What is in Edward’s heart?
* * * * *
She finds Mortimer idling in the hall. Her cheeks flush when she sees him. “Lord Mortimer,” she says, as casually as she can. “What are you doing lurking in a draughty hallway?”
“I am waiting to see the king.”
“Then do so. Announce yourself.”
“I am afraid I have to see Sir Hugh first.”
“The Despenser boy? Why?”
Mortimer looks surprised that she should ask the question. “No one sees the king without first seeing ... the Despenser boy.”
Really? Why does she not know of this? A few weeks away from court and everything changes. “You are well returned from Ireland? I have heard of your triumphs.”
“I have heard of yours. You won England a great peace.”
“I am glad you think so.”
“They say your presence on the councils has made the barons more reasonable men. Edward is fortunate to have such a one as you. You are his greatest adviser.”
She flushes to the roots of her hair at this complement.
“You are to be congratulated on the birth of another daughter. She is well?”
“The rudest of health.”
“And the princes?”
“They grow taller every day.”
“And you, Your Grace. Look at you! You grow more beautiful with each passing year.”
Now this last remark is unexpected. She blinks, wondering if she has actually heard him correctly. His eyes bore into her and there is no mistaking the message in them.
He must be mad.
A secretary appears, his approach disguised by the carpets. “My Lord Despenser will see you now,” he says to Mortimer, and the scourge of Ireland bows meekly and follows him.
She stares after him, trying not to appear disconcerted in front of her ladies who appear suddenly from one of the apartments. She grapples with the news; my husband’s general has just tried to seduce his queen and now the King has a new favourite.
These days it is difficult to keep up.
Chapter 26
Three years later
Mortimer has asked to see her. She hopes there are to be no more declarations about her beauty. She hardly feels beautiful now. She feels heavy and bloated with the new baby, and she is not long from her confinement.
He is ushered in by Lady Vescy, who disapproves of him. Mortimer has eyes for one of her demoiselles, at least when his wife is not at court. But today he spares no glances for anyone; he appears to be a man in a hurry. He asks if they may speak in private.
She walks to the end of the passage and stands by the window, overlooking the gardens.
“An unexpected pleasure. Should I be alarmed?”
“I wished to see you because it is easier than seeing the King. You do not have Lord Despenser standing guard over your every word.”
“You make much of nothing.”
“Do I, your grace? Your husband’s new chamberlain leads Edward like a cat after straw. It is Gaveston all over again.”
“You sound like my uncle Lancaster.”
“What make you of young Hugh, Your Grace?”
“He is good with figures. The Exchequer is much healthier since he took over the role of chamberlain. I shall admit his greed outweighs his charm.”
“You underestimate him.”
“Lord Mortimer, you would say that about any man who has the king’s ear over you.”
“He uses Edward for his own ends. You know that he is building an empire in the west country, by every means he can. He steals and cheats and uses the King’s men and the King’s name to do it. And Edward allows it.”
“Why do you come to me with this?”
“Because you have Edward’s ear. Tell him he must listen to his Marcher lords or there will be war.”
Another rebellion. It was becoming habitual with these mighty lords. Would there never be peace in this blighted country? Yet Mortimer was not unjust in his accusations. Why did Edward continue to provoke them?
“This sounds very much like a threat.”
“He is not only a threat to me but he is a threat to you also.”
“Once perhaps, when I was young, but Edward needs me now.”
The look on his face: it is twisted between jealousy and pity. “There are rumours told about the king.”
“There are always rumours about the king. If he is wise, a man would not listen to them.”
“The young Despenser has stolen d’Amory’s inheritance and the king let him to do it. Is this just?”
“They say that many years ago your grandfather killed Despenser’s ancestor in some baronial feud. Is it true?”
“You think that is why I go against the king in this?”
“I think my husband has suffered enough at the hands of his magnates. He is the king and his lords should obey him.”
“He has confiscated Gower from John Mowbray and given it to his new favourite! It is against the law.”
“On the contrary, as I understand it Mowbray did not first ask for the King’s licence.”
“That is mere form. It is commonly never done!”
“So you agree, my husband was within his rights to confiscate the lands. He is then at liberty to give them to whomever he pleases. Or is it rather you do not wish one of the Despensers for a neighbour?”
Her ladies are staring, startled by the sound of their raised voices. How dare he! But then there are many things that Mortimer might dare, if given the opportunity. She likes that about him.
He takes a breath and bows. “Your Grace, I defer to your greater wisdom in the matter. I shall pray that all goes well with the birth of the royal child.”
“Thank you, Lord Mortimer. Shall I announce you to the king?”
“Would that you could,” he says and strides away, through the ladies, several of whom eye him speculatively. Even Lady de Vescy.
The man is insufferable.
He had not told her she was beautiful this time.
* * * * *
“I heard that Mortimer paid you a visit today,” Edward says to her that night as they dine in the Great Hall.
He chooses a morsel of chicken and places it on the silver plate in front of her. Occasionally he can be very charming. “He complains about your new chamberlain.”
“His name is Hugh. You may call him by his name.”
“Whatever I call him, he will not like him any better.”
“No chamberlain I choose will be acceptable to the magnates. They are jealous of everyone.”
“It is what I said to him. But he seems greatly ups
et. You should take him seriously.”
“I did.”
“He said that he cannot see you any more without your chamberlain’s permission.”
“Well I cannot talk to everyone.” He smiles. “Do you find him charming?”
“Not especially.”
“Many of the ladies do. I don’t know how Lady Mortimer suffers it.”
“Will there be war, Edward?”
“That is not my decision.”
“They should obey you. You are the king.”
“That is what I would have them understand also.” He sighs. “I should have left Mortimer in Ireland. He was useful to me there. Now he has no one else to fight, he wants to fight me.”
* * * * *
Whatever the true reason, Mortimer is surely spoiling for a war. He joins the Marcher lords who have formed a confederacy in the west. Hereford is among them and together they have amassed a massive army. Newport, Cardiff and Caerphilly fall and then they burn half of Glamorgan and Gloucester, ransacking every Despenser castle in their way.
Edward leaves to confront them the day she goes into confinement in the Tower. He orders them to disperse and they refuse. He cannot impose his will; the forces ranged against him are too great. Once again, Edward is powerless in his own lands.
Then Mortimer and Hereford march north and join with Lancaster.
* * * * *
It is raining the day he returns from the borderlands, water is leaking through the ceilings and onto the bedclothes. When Edward sees it he summons the constable and sends him sprawling down the stairs.
“What have they done to you?” he shouts and carries her out of the room.
She clings to him. Even defeated he is still a man to be reckoned with.
“Whose drums are they?” she asks him, as he trails along the corridor looking to find her a bed that isn’t soaked through.
Isabella: Braveheart of France Page 10