Isabel the Fair

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “I am afraid he is not the sort of man to remain without an inkling for long,” said Mortimer, rising reluctantly from her bed and beginning to pull on shirt and hose.

  “You think that he will mind?”

  “It is the men who were wildest in their youth who are most apt to be scrupulous about their wives and sisters.”

  Isabel sat up against her pillows to argue with him. “But he advised me to it, only the last time I was here. ‘If Edward should take another favourite’ he said. And I, poor fool that I was, cried out indignantly that he never would.”

  “Must we speak of Edward, who has so despitefully used us both?” Testily, Mortimer shook out his crumpled cloak, then turned and spoke to her more gently. “TOM have no cause to let your conscience ride you, Isabel. Certainly not the good cause that I have, with a chaste and self-righteous wife in Wales. But there is always the political aspect, I grant you. Charles will not want to seem in the eyes of the world to be harbouring scandal, nor in the eyes of the Pope, lest it turn sympathy towards England in this Guienne quarrel. And certainly it will not suit our future plans if he should withdraw his support and hospitality.”

  “Our plans? Our future plans?” questioned Isabel, all surprised attention. He did not answer, seeming to be occupied by the unaccommodating buckle of his sword-belt. “Am I then so soon become but part of a plan?” she demanded.

  He came then to the foot of the bed, looking across at her, with a hand grasping a drawn curtain or either side of him. “If our lives are to be linked we shall both need plans,” he told her reasonably. “And for the moment, in his business of Guienne, I suggest that you get the boy here.”

  Isabel stared at him in amazement. She was still warm and love drowsy, he as businesslike as if he were giving directions to one of his captains. She found such sudden change of mood disconcerting, but suspected that it was another of his peculiarities that she must learn to live with. “The boy? Ned, do you mean?’ she repeated hazily. Then, all broken up by what she took to be his kindness, “Oh, Roger, I minded so much leaving the children. It was the only thing I did mind. Leaving them for — for this, I mean. It would be wonderful to have Ned, but I doubt if his father would ever — ”

  “Then bring up the idea in council this morning. Suggest that the King of England might be persuaded to send his son over to do homage in his stead,” he told her.

  She had always wanted a man who was decisive and masterful. She was immediately out of bed and clinging to him admiringly. “It is true what you say about our partnership. Together we could bring almost anything to pass!” she exulted, with a happy laugh. “Why did I not think of this before leaving England? It should delight the English and stop all this bickering.”

  “And leave you with all the cards in your own hands, my most ingenuous sweet,” he said, with his boisterous laugh. He bent to embrace her, saw the key of the garden door lying on her table, slipped it into the leather pouch hanging from his belt, and went swaggering down the stairs.

  Isabel was given an honourable place at her brother’s council table. The assembled notables of France listened with flattering attention to her description of affairs in England. Starry eyed when she should have been languishing with sleeplessness, she brought up the matter of her elder son, and all present considered her a veritable Minerva of wisdom. “It is a possible way out and could be arranged. Of what age is he?” said Charles. And when Isabel told him that he was thirteen and well grown and bien serieux, he seemed pleased with the idea.

  “It is by no means the first time that a King’s son has sworn fealty in his father’s place,” urged Mortimer from further down the table.

  “And apart from this question of homage I would willingly make acquaintance with this young nephew of mine,” said Charles, drumming his fine fingers thoughtfully on a pile of state papers before him. “If his father allows him to come he will become Duke of Guienne.”

  And that evening after supper when he and Isabel were watching a masque he leaned across to her and spoke of it again under cover of the applause and laughter. “That son of yours, if I should like him, might well become more important than he imagines. Unless I live to beget sons.” Startled, she turned and looked at him. Tired as he sometimes looked, she had not known that there was any real anxiety for his health. They were both too deeply absorbed in this new train of thought to hear anything of the talk and music. “But there is our uncle’s son — ”

  “Pah! Son of a second son, and a Valois!”

  “Yet surely France would never consider — continuing the Capet line through a woman?”

  “Probably not. Not here, with our Salic law. A pity,” said Charles wearily, “for at least it might make an end of this everlasting feud between our two countries.”

  Isabel sat looking at him — at his clever mouth and heavily-lined eyes, and at the parchment tightness of the skin across the fine bones of his face. “If he should die tomorrow,” she thought, shocked into silence, “by English law, I should be Queen of France.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As soon as the other members of the Council had drifted away Roger Mortimer sauntered into the room where Isabel was resting in the sunshine by an open window. He came and leaned over the back of her chair — a shade too intimately, some of her women thought. “You think that King Edward will let him come?” he asked, his lips almost against her ear.

  “I think that he will grasp at any alternative to coming himself, and that the Despensers will so advise him,” she answered, pretending to watch the antics of a performing bear down in the courtyard lest anyone should suspect how wildly his proximity made her heart beat. “All the more so as Charles now knows how they have treated me. Though, to be sure, it will mean a wrench parting from the boy.”

  “I scarcely meant for that reason, but rather because of his own prestige.” Mortimer bent to retrieve the well-worn Chansons d’Amour which, in her agitation, she had let fall, and lowered his voice as some ladies of the French Court passed by in a chattering bevy. “You realize, do you not, Madam, that if your son swears fealty, it is he who will bear the title?”

  Isabel laughed because his estimate of her husband’s nature was so wide of the mark. “Edward is not one to covet titles,” she said, almost unaware that she was defending him. “He loves Ned and will delight in any honour shown him. He is proud of the boy — particularly of those very qualities in him which he himself does not possess.” As the words passed her lips it seemed as though she saw for the first time her husband’s vulnerability. The painful stabs of inferiority which the weak son of a warlike father must inevitably feel. The desire to shine at something, however unsuitable, before a public which expected great things of him. And his youthfully bewildered need for strange, private solaces. She thought she saw how he was unconsciously seeking fulfilment in his son, as well as hoping that the lad’s strength and ability would protect him from similar difficulties. And the suddenness of this new clarity of understanding shook her to a sense of wrongdoing. “Is it because I am now so removed from Edward that I can at last see him objectively, without resentment?” she thought. “Or, being at last physically satisfied, do I grow more capable of compassion?”

  But having chosen her course for the future, she knew that she could not afford to dabble in compassion for the past. Yet when time proved that she had judged Edward’s reactions aright, she was glad for some more obscure reason than because they served her lover’s scheming and her own convenience.

  At the close of that strange, exciting summer King Edward sent the Prince in charge of the most kind and trustworthy prelate he could find — Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter. Fashionable young courtiers like John of Bretagne and John Cromwell rode in his retinue, and Isabel herself journeyed to Boulogne to meet him. Edward had seen to it that his son came splendidly as the representative of England, and the only two provisos which he had made were that the duchy of Guienne should revert to himself in the unlikely event of his elder son
dying before him, and that no overtures for a foreign marriage should be made without his consent.

  All Paris was en fete again, and the Prince’s coming did much to heal old sores. As he rode through the streets all who saw him were impressed by his height and horsemanship and by a manly bearing which belied his thirteen years. Charles himself was evidently moved by the grave but fearless courtesy of a lad who had been accustomed to enjoy his own father’s company without repression. And at the solemn ceremony of feudal homage when he knelt to place boyish hands between those of his suzerain, and took his oath of allegiance in a voice alternating touchingly between the treble of childhood and the gruff beginning notes of manhood, his mother felt tears of pride stinging hotly against her eyeballs. However bitter the differences which had marred and finally broken up her marriage with Edward Plantagenet, they two had between them produced an heir to be proud of.

  For the first time she saw her elder son as an individual, dis-associated from the familiar associates and habits of home. Being still young in experience in spite of his splendid growth, Ned enjoyed with zest the entertainments provided for him, and took a healthy pride in his new estate. To the disappointment of the younger ladies of the court his interest lay in jousts and feats of arms rather than in dancing, masques and music. He liked to listen to King Charles and his ministers discussing such matters as might one day help him to take an active part in the ruling of his much neglected duchy. Roger Mortimer he scarcely noticed save as an important Welshman who had displeased his father. If he marvelled at his mother’s graciousness towards him, he was too unsophisticated to wonder why the man spent so much time in her apartments, and his lack of interest piqued the proud border lord from the first.

  “I will tell him how you climbed my kitchen chimney in the Tower, which is sure to intrigue a boy. And do you, milord, enter for the Michaelmas tournament and unhorse all comers,” advised Isabel, amused by his obvious annoyance and anxious to feed her own pride upon his prowess. To her, Mortimer was the epitome of virility and courage, and she wished her son to see him in the same light.

  Mortimer boldly wore her favour in the lists and, with the ease born of many a border fray and of his early training under Piers Gaveston — though with none of Gaveston’s careless amusement — he bore all before him; and it was a high moment for Isabel, as Queen of Beauty, when he knelt to her to receive his guerdon in the sight of all the chivalry of France. And after that, nothing would do for the avidly watching young Duke but that he must take lessons from the champion to improve his own promising but immature thrusts, so that all present supposed that he had conceived a great admiration for the spectacular victor, and even Isabel was deceived into thinking so. But she could read her husband’s mind more accurately than her son’s. His was a singularly stubborn nature, given to pursuing the few ends he cared about with patience and singleness of purpose. And at this period of his life it was proficiency in arms Ned wanted, no matter from what source he acquired it.

  Ned had no idea that the man who instructed him was his mother’s lover, but disliked him instinctively, whereas King Charles, who had quite liked the Welshman, shared none of his nephew’s innocent blindness.

  “You have a diligent pupil there, Mortimer,” he called as he sauntered through the tiltyard with his sister and stopped to watch them practising at the barrier. “And you, ma soeur have a most spectacular lover,” he added, lowering his voice and turning to Isabel, who was watching, bright-eyed, beside him.

  She started and looked up at him in dismay, but was relieved to see no forbidding anger, only an eyebrow quirked in teasing amusement. “Your espionage must be better than I imagined — or my ladies less discreet,” she murmured ruefully, with a little shamefaced laugh.

  “It is the Sieur Mortimer who takes no pains to be discreet.” Charles Capet’s eyes were turned again towards the two ill-assorted figures in the almost deserted lists, and Isabel had the impression that his enthusiasm for his uninvited guest had waned. “I did but take your advice, Charles,” she reminded him. “‘Take a lover,’ you said, here in this very garden behind us, ‘if Edward should give you further occasion.’”

  Charles turned his back on the lists and, leaning against one of the gaily-decked stands, looked down at her with his inscrutable smile. “And the occasion arose, as anyone but an optimistic wife supposed it would?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Little liar!” he countered. “The second blooming of beauty on your face shows that by that time you found it mighty fortunate. Oh, do not spit out at me, little hell-cat! I admit that were I a woman in your place married to that type of man I should probably have murdered him long ago. So for so long as you are my guest, amuse-toi-bien, ma chere. But do not take your affair too seriously. The man is not worth it.”

  “Not worth it!’ retorted Isabel. “When he is the man most capable of keeping order in all that turbulent island kingdom, and has but yesterday out-fought the flower of your chivalry here?”

  It had always seemed to her that Charles, even in childhood, had enjoyed the unfair advantage of keeping his temper. He shrugged and spread his hands in tolerant admission of her facts. “But what ultimate happiness will he give a woman?”

  “He is the world’s most ardent lover!”

  “He would need to be to satisfy Isabel Capet!” grinned the head of her house. “I am only warning you that he will always put his own plans first. Even now, it seems, he is too arrogant to take pains to guard your good name. Our countrymen, who are not backward at such things, begin to smile covertly when he approaches you, and I would not have the rumour reach Edward.”

  “I know your thoughts are for me, and will try to persuade him to act more discreetly,” Isabel promised docilely. “But I cannot help asking myself what further harm could such rumours do me? You know how Edward depends upon first this person and then that — so ardently and so briefly? And for that reason, Hugh Despenser fears I may yet regain some ascendancy, so he is already trying his utmost to persuade Edward to divorce me.”

  All the anger she had hoped for snapped now in Charles’s dark eyes. “The impudent dog! What are our domestic concerns to do with such as he? By Saint Denis, Isabel, I will defend you from such insults!” She reached for his hand and kissed it passionately, but although he was quick to control his wrath his manner was still grave. “With my new marriage upon which the succession depends I want no scandal in the family, nor any further arguments to offend the Pope.”

  In the lists Mortimer and Ned had dismounted, and squires were hurrying to collect their gear. Charles began to walk back with her through the palace garden, with a brisk autumn wind swirling russet leaves about them. And as he walked he relented, remembering that she was all he had. “Do not think me too stem, dear Isabel,” he said. “Le bon Dieu knows I have ever taken my pleasures where I found them. And I suppose that a woman as beautiful as you must want amours —”

  Hearing hurrying steps behind them and knowing that they would no longer be alone, Isabel clutched urgently at his arm. “No, no, you are wrong, Charles. Even as a girl I did not want amours. What I wanted — always, Heaven bear me witness — was a marriage like that of la chere reine Eleanor, for whom my father-in-law erected crosses. A passionate, life-long married love” Neither Charles nor she understood her sudden urgency, nor the compulsion she felt to proclaim this truth aloud just once before a witness. Her son came bounding after them, sweating from exertion and babbling of some marvellous counter-thrust, and her pathetic words were swept away with the dying leaves by the autumnal wind. Dead of their own initial improbability, she felt. For what chance had she ever had, poor hopeful fool, of constant married love?

  Charles laid a kindly arm across his excited nephew’s shoulder, though neither of them took in what the boy said. “Is that to be your epitaph — ‘She wanted married love’?” he teased, regarding her keenly across Ned’s tousled and unheeding head.

  “I scarcely expect so kindly a one,” admitt
ed Isabel, with a bleak answering smile, knowing well that such worldly quips seldom mirror the unseen struggles of the soul.

  When she reached her apartments she found a messenger from England who knelt before her with a letter from King Edward. A letter begging her, now that the necessary negotiations and homage were done, to come home.

  It was easy to make excuses. There was the matter of her own heritage of Ponthieu. Ned had done homage for this, too, and was styled Count of Ponthieu, but the terms had been ambitious. It was only reasonable to point out, with all wifely duty, that since her estates were so curtailed in England, she would need the revenues from that province during her lifetime, and that for convenience’ sake the matter should be settled before she left France. And then again, Ned was profiting so much from the tournaments. Charles, who had taken a most fortunate liking to the boy, was arranging a series of jousts for young competitors in which the lad was wildly anxious to do well. Edward, she knew, would be the last to curtail his pleasure. And she herself would like to stay through the winter for her new sister-in-law’s coronation. She sealed her letter in the knowledge that Hugh Despenser, her bitterest enemy, would surely read it and see through each excuse. Because he did not want her back, he might, in his soft suave way, add his persuasions to her own. But the most she could hope for was delay. The future was like a dark wavering curtain, and so that she need not try to peer behind it she gave herself gaily, passionately to every moment of the satisfying present.

  And then began a series of letters reaching out to her, dragging at her, to bring her back. Edward charged her to cease from all pretences and delays and to come at once. She wrote then, openly refusing, and giving the Despensers’ enmity as her reason. Entreaty changed to indignation as he perceived how he had been tricked. His letters grew formal with his sense of injury. But he wrote Charles a reasonable and brotherly letter, asking him to compel her to return and discrediting her complaint that she went in peril of her life from Hugh Despenser, refuting the suggestion by referring to those hypocritically friendly letters and overtures which she had undoubtedly exchanged with the man in order to get to France. The letter was so excellently composed that Isabel suspected that Despenser had had a hand in it, but when Edward finally appealed to his son it was unmistakenly a personal cri de coeur. “Fair Son,” he wrote, “at your departure from Dover you said that it should be your pleasure to obey our commandments, as far as you could, all your days. It causes us great uneasiness of heart that you now say you cannot return because of your mother. Neither for her, nor for any other, ought you to displease us. We do not doubt but that your uncle the King will grant you safe conduct. So by the faith, love and allegiance which you owe us, do not delay to come to us.”