Isabella: Braveheart of France

by Colin Falconer

  He sees the look on her face and his expression softens. He takes her hand and leans in, smiling. “I have received secret communication from Norfolk,” he whispers. “He says that should you return to England, even with just a thousand men, all England will rally to you and place your son on the throne. Where will we find ships and a thousand men, Bella?”

  She stiffens. There, he has used that name again, even as he whispers hope of redemption he curdles it. “It is for me to decide who he marries.”

  The smile fades. His arsenal is exhausted; he has tried bullying and wheedling, now he is disarmed and he crosses his arms and sulks. “We need William.”

  “I need no one anymore.”

  An eyebrow is raised at that.

  Finally he bows and leaves. In the chansons of the troubadours love was always sweet and gentle, why couldn’t Mortimer be like that?

  The next day she meets with Charles at the Palais de la Cîté, along with Mortimer and Jeanne her cousin, and it is agreed that the young prince will contract a marriage to William’s daughter, Philippa. In return William will provide Mortimer with troops and ships for the invasion.

  They all look at her.

  “This is what you want, isn’t it?” Charles asks her.

  Her throat feels tight. She wonders if she might feel better about this if she were not sleeping with the man who would depose her husband from his throne. After all Edward has done, or has failed to do, she should not feel so badly about this.

  She nods her head, not trusting her voice.

  There, it is decided.

  Mortimer smiles. Charles looks resigned, Jeanne relieved.

  There is no going back.

  * * * * *

  Mortimer goes to it the same way always. He hoists the flag and makes his charge. Once is novelty and twice is breathtaking. But now she is accustomed and looks for more. She remembers his tenderness in the garden with his wife and children. Why does she never see this in him? She feels at times he is angry with her for making him a scoundrel.

  He lies on top of her, breathless, his face flushed, muscles corded in his chest and arms. His seed pools on her belly and thighs. Tonight she had to struggle with him, he almost forgot himself and did not withdraw. Or does he wish to father an heir himself? The thought has occurred to her.

  Later, as he lies beside her, he says: “My mother has been forced into hiding.”

  “By Edward? But she is an old lady!”

  “She is apparently a threat to the state. He has ordered her arrest. It is just spite.”

  “Edward has not done this, it is Despenser.”

  Mortimer sits up in bed and frowns at her. She runs her hand down his back. She used to leave scratches there but it seems her passion is fading already. “Must you always defend him? They are his orders, under his seal. He allows it to happen, it is the same thing.”

  “I think the problem with Edward is Gaveston.”

  “Gaveston? He has been mouldering in his grave these fifteen years.”

  “And Edward still pays the friars at Warwick to say a mass for him every day. He prays at his tomb on his birthday and the anniversary of his death.”

  “It is unnatural.”

  “It is love.”

  “It was sodomy and against all God’s laws.”

  “I only wished he loved me as much, he could have put it where he wanted.”

  She cannot believe the words have come out of her mouth. He turns and stares at her. They are both shocked. What is he supposed to say to that?

  She cannot meet his eyes.

  “We have made a fool of him, Roger. All Christendom will laugh at him because I cuckolded him with his greatest enemy.”

  He is grateful to be talking of something else. “Only if he knows about us,” he says.

  “The whole world knows about us. Almost the entire retinue sent here with me from England has deserted and gone back to England. They will regale Edward with stories of my disloyalty with all England’s traitors as well as my dalliance with you.”

  “Well, it will soon be too late.”

  “I hope so. Every day we delay means another day that he is ready. He has set up watches all along the south coast, he is prepared for invasion.”

  “He thinks it will come from your brother, not from Hainaut.”

  “It will not matter where it comes from if England does not love us.”

  “How can they not? They despise the Despensers, they will greet us as saviours.” He rolls towards her, puts a hand on her breast; the royal breast, his possession now, to fondle as he pleases. “I cannot get enough of you,” he murmurs and finally he has said the right thing.

  “Be gentle,” she murmurs. “I am sore.”

  “I am always gentle,” he murmurs but of course he is not. He batters away again like he is trying to break down the gate of a castle. Sometimes she is nostalgic for Edward. He had such gentle hands for such a big man.

  * * * * *

  The King of France smiles, no more than a curl of the lip, the eyes glittering like steel points. The effect is unnerving. He has a pretty face for such a ruthless man. He may be her brother but Charles is all about Charles, she knows this. She would expect nothing less of a son of France.

  “You slept well?” he asks her and as he rarely enquires after her sleep she knows the question means something else entirely.

  “I am well rested.”

  He seems to struggle with himself. How indelicate can he allow himself to be? “I had the nuncio in here this morning,” he says. “He was roaring against you.”

  “The nuncio? He has said nothing to me.”

  “He is a man of God. He cannot say aloud to a queen and sister to the King of France what he might say to a common sinner.”

  “A sinner?” she enquires, as sweetly as she can.

  “You may flash your eyes like that at my Lord Mortimer and find it has some effect but Isabella, do not attempt these same stratagems with me. Remember who I am.” He gets up and stalks the carpets. Expensive, brought all the way from Damascus or Aegypt.

  “Why have you done this?”

  She considers a denial, but that would just insult his intelligence. She chooses silence. She supposes he will not wish to know too much of his sister’s earthly longings.

  “This is not strategic! Mortimer and the rest were yours to command anyway.” He looks out of the window, hands on his hips. “You had all Christendom on your side and now you have thrown Edward a lifeline.”

  “He has let the Despenser reduce England to tyranny. He has dishonoured me.”

  “And now you have dishonoured him and set confusion in peoples” minds! What were you thinking? You are his wife, Isabella. While you were wandering the palace in your widow’s weeds, they felt sorry for you. Even the Pope! But now ...”

  “But now?”

  “Now Edward knows you are lying to him. He has written to the Pope asking that he disallow any marriage between the prince and Philippa of Hainaut. He has also made it known to the English Parliament that you are consorting with a convicted traitor. You have played into his hands.”

  “What will the Pope do?”

  “It is adultery and a sin before God. He must do as Popes do. Oh Isabella, what have you done?”

  She hears herself say: “I could not help it.”

  “That, I do not wish to hear.”

  “You will not send me back?”

  “You must stop this affair.”

  “I cannot.”

  He shakes his head. “You are wilful.”

  “Sometimes it is counted as a virtue.”

  “Not in my eyes and not at this moment.”

  “You will not desert me?”

  It seems he has considered it. Finally he shakes his head. Is it an answer or is it despair? “You must delay. You need William’s support and you cannot have that without a contract of marriage between his daughter and the prince. For that you need the Pope’s support. I thought you were better than this, I
sabella.”

  He looks so like her father when he says this. Even his expression is the same, or the same as she imagined it would be. She had never given him cause for disappointment and if he were alive today there would be no Mortimer. She cannot blame this on de Malay’s curse. This is the natural consequence of sin, she supposes, but she feels she has been dutiful long enough; even now, she will not back down.

  Chapter 47

  Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, is mantled in velvet, and speaks French and English as well as she does. It is the first time she has met with the savage enemy and she is surprised at his eloquence and his manners. He seems on friendly terms with Mortimer; they fought against each other once, he says, when he was in Ireland with the Bruce’s brother. It is as if it makes them family. Soon they will exchanging stories of common acquaintances they have butchered and gutted.

  This meeting seems as deadly a sin as her carnal embraces with Mortimer. She is talking to Edward’s deadliest enemy. His father was the Hammer of the Scots; now his wife is offering them lasting peace. Enough that she should make him a cuckold, now she will put him in his father’s shadow forever. She might as well sleep with Robert Bruce and be done with it.

  But this must be done. When they cross the Channel they cannot have the Scots decimate England the moment they are in command of it. She consoles herself with the thought that that you cannot tame these Scots anyway, you beat down one, another two come whooping down out of the bogs screaming bloody murder at you.

  “So I may take your word on this to my king?” Randolph says.

  Mortimer tells him it is so but Moray hesitates and looks at Isabella. Mortimer is not King of England, or even the mother of him.

  “You may tell him,” Isabella hears herself say, her voice choked.

  “Only I have heard that the Pope may oppose you. You know these rumours?”

  Mortimer rushes to assure him that it is not so.

  “Prince Edward is here in France, not in England. What does that tell you?”

  “It tells me you have the advantage for now. But if the Pope will not countenance this marriage it puts any agreement we may reach moot.”

  “The King of France supports us.”

  “The King of France wants to be the next Holy Roman Emperor. He will not want a conflict with the Pope.”

  Edward had called the Scots savages; this man is not savage, he knows what he is about. If the rest of the Scots are as canny, small wonder they had trounced Edward thoroughly every time he marched north of Berwick.

  She cannot believe that the Bruce is finally offered everything he has fought for and here is his ambassador questioning it as counterfeit.

  “There will be a new King of England before the year is out,” Mortimer tells him. He gives himself away in that moment; she sees his ambition naked as a newborn.

  Moray sees it too and smiles. He has the measure of them now. “I’ll tell my king all that you have said.”

  A month ago, he would have danced a jig out of the door. Now he takes solemn leave. How all their fortunes have changed.

  * * * * *

  The nuncios look grim, as well they might. One king blames them for losing half his land in France; the other resents them for coming here to upbraid his own sister for her morals. They finger their crucifixes as if they warding off bad spirits, they are aware that everyone sniffs and scowls wherever they appear in the palace as if they are a bad smell they cannot get out of the drapes.

  A steward pours water in their wine. They refuse sustenance. Orange looks righteous; Vienne looks ill.

  “The Holy Father is most concerned to hear of your situation,” Orange says.

  “None of it is my doing. I have been a dutiful wife and an obedient queen. Another has come between me and my husband.”

  Vienne sucks in his breath and leaves the bishop of Orange with the heavy lifting. “Yet wherever the fault may lie, it is in forgiveness and reconciliation, not blame, that we find the goodness of God.”

  “I have offered conciliation, father, and been rebuffed again and again.”

  “It is never too late.”

  Finally Vienne finds his voice. “On what conditions might this disagreement between you be resolved?”

  She knows where he is going with this and she is ready. “One, that he puts aside he who has come between himself and his lawful wife.”

  “You mean the Lord Despenser?”

  “He is to leave England and never return. Two, I should require assurances - written assurances - as to my status as queen, and my lands and privileges. Three, I should further require a guarantee for the future safety of my Lord Richmond, who fears for his life should he return to England for the simple fact of him doing me good service while I was in France. Should he fulfil these three conditions, then there shall be nothing standing in the way of God’s holy union.”

  They look at each other. They are imagining stepping into Edward’s court, with the Despenser standing behind him, and repeating these terms. Is it legal to have a nuncio drawn and quartered? Possibly not, but she still would not like to be in their holy shoes.

  “The Lord Despenser says that he has done nothing to cause this enmity between you and that before you left you had nothing but sweet words to him.”

  She leans forward. “Excellency, if you are cornered by a mad dog, do you shout at it or do you talk softly while you look for the nearest stout stick?”

  “There must be a way we can mend this misunderstanding?”

  “There is no need to do so for I am not married to Lord Despenser. But you should ask my husband if he is.”

  Vienne coughs to hide his embarrassment. Orange sighs. He has done his best. He sees an uncomfortable voyage to England ahead. He had never imagined that giving service to the Lord might be so difficult.

  At this moment Mortimer bursts in, choked with rage. He starts to upbraid her in front of the nuncios and within earshot of her servants. This will not do.

  “You will not address me this way,” she says, rising to her feet, a tremor in her voice.

  “You are making terms with these lackeys?”

  “I have made no terms.””

  “You told them you would go back to Edward if he exiles Despenser!”

  She looks around the chamber. Is nowhere private? They might as well discuss the future of England in the marketplace with the jugglers and piemen. “Lower your voice, Lord Mortimer, you are in the presence of a queen.”

  His eyes bulge. For a moment he thinks he will slap her like a common wife. He storms out.

  Later, when she has him in private, she finds she has to explain to him the subtleties of their position. It makes her wonder how he has survived this long in public affairs. “They are the papal nuncios. I must be seen to try to try and conciliate if we are to win the Pope’s his support. You remember the Pope? He is the most powerful man in Christendom and without his tacit agreement for our endeavours you will spend the rest of your life in exile.”

  He steps closer. His voice is no more than a growl. “Would you betray me, Isabella?”

  She will not dignify this with response. She has had enough of men in her life who cannot control their rages.

  * * * * *

  By nightfall the news of their quarrel is all over the palace. Even the young prince has heard about it.

  “You are exchanging one yoke for another,” he tells her.

  She is astonished, he has never spoken to her this way before. “You will not speak to me this way,” she tells him. First Mortimer, now her son. She wonders who else she must remind about their manners.

  “They said he struck you,” he says.

  “He would not dare.”

  There are tears in the prince’s eyes. He is ashamed of them and runs from the room. Richmond is there and is witness to it. “He is a prince but he is still a boy,” he says, trying to reassure her. “He does not know what to believe.”

  “This is not what I wanted.”

  “No o
ne wanted this. I never thought to exile myself from England, neither did you. Neither did Mortimer.”

  “Little Edward asked me the other day if he was my prisoner.”

  “It is hard for him to understand.”

  “Tell me this will come out all right.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You hope so? I asked you to reassure me!”

  “The future depends much upon your brother. He already has what he wants, further conflict wins him nothing. What do you think he will do, Isabella?”

  She looks at him bleakly. She really does not know.

  “I also heard that Mortimer raised his voice to you.”

  “Is there anyone does not know the story?”

  “The King of Norway perhaps. But everyone in France has heard it at least twice. The man over reaches himself, Your Grace.”

  “It was right there in front of the nuncios and no doubt they will tell all to Edward when next they see him.”

  “Step carefully, Mortimer is not your equal.”

  “He may be trained. He is useful to us. We like him.”

  Richmond considers. “I had a dog once. He was loyal also. One day he bit me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I threw him in the moat with a rock tied to his leg. A dog might be trained from a pup but only when they are grown do you truly know their nature.” He finishes the wine and bows and take his leave of her.

  For some reason she thinks about Gaveston. For all his fripperies and sharp tongue she remembered him now as a sweet man. In all the five years she knew him she never heard him shout at Edward.

  * * * * *

  The summer passes with meetings held behind bolted doors, whispered conversations in long corridors, letters read and quickly burned in the fire. The exiles say that all she has to do is sail to England and the whole country will rise up. The other possibility is that the king will arrest her immediately and send her to moulder in a tower in Wales, without enough food, without enough clothes, without enough logs for the fire.