The Queen's Spy

by Caroline Newark

  ‘Two what?’ I asked, moving closer.

  Perhaps alarmed at my eagerness for answers, she backed away, pulled up her hood and put her hand firmly over her mouth. I tried more questions but she said nothing, just looked at me out of a pair of terrified eyes.

  Master de Glanville, having finished his conversation with Isabella, took the woman by her arm.

  ‘Wait!’ Isabella reached into the small silk purse she carried on her girdle and pulled out a coin.

  ‘Give this to the woman for her trouble. My heart is greatly eased to know my husband died at peace.’

  I watched the old woman being hurried out of the queen’s presence and wondered what else she might have told me if there had been more time and if I hadn’t been so impatient. The dead always give up their secrets in the end and I was sure this woman had secrets to tell. Her story was very odd: boots that were too small, feet that were too big or too small and a man who lacked something she thought important enough to mention. I wondered what it could possibly be.

  By the time we reached Nottingham where the royal party were to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, it was snowing hard. There was a mounting sense of excitement at the thought of the forthcoming wedding in York, but in the queen’s room, mother and son were having an argument.

  ‘What do you mean, lady mother?’

  The king’s voice had risen a pitch; it was almost a squeak.

  ‘I mean, dearest, that your bride will stay with me for a little while, until she is rested and ready for the rigours of married life. You mustn’t forget, Edward, she is very young.’

  The boy blushed a deep crimson. He looked panic-stricken.

  ‘But we promised.’

  ‘Did we? I think you are mistaken.’

  ‘You said Philippa was to have her own household and we would live together as man and wife. I heard you.’

  ‘She will,’ laughed Isabella. ‘And you will be together, just not yet. Perhaps when Lent has passed.’

  ‘But I am fifteen and I am ready for marriage, mother. And Philippa says …’

  ‘What does Philippa say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He shuffled his feet awkwardly and looked away.

  He muttered something under his breath.

  Like a lightening flash from the heavens my cousin was across the floor. He didn’t lay a hand on the young king but he towered head and shoulders above him.

  ‘Would you care to repeat that? What you said about your lady mother?’

  ‘Mortimer! Leave him be.’

  ‘No, my lady. It is time he realised who is in charge here. Sitting on a throne doesn’t make you a king, boy; nor does prancing around in those pretty clothes you wear. You would do well to consider who put you on that throne. Without your mother and me you’d still be in the nursery playing with your toys.’

  The young king had turned white and he was shaking.

  ‘Now listen carefully.’ My cousin was at his most menacing when he was being polite. ‘If your mother says you have to wait then you’ll have to wait and so will that little bride of yours. Waiting does wonders for one’s appreciation of carnal delights, doesn’t it my lady?’

  He turned to look at Isabella who by now was simmering with fury. She didn’t like my cousin interfering in her relationship with her son. And she particularly didn’t like him making allusions to their own private dealings.

  I despaired. This wedding was supposed to be a joyous occasion, a celebration, but the remainder of the journey up through Rothwell and Knaresborough to York was conducted in icy silence from the king. He spoke to no-one and never so much as once glanced at my cousin. He was cool towards his mother and it was only with his own friends that I noticed any enthusiasm for the great day ahead.

  Despite the herald having given us due warning, the first arrival in York was not the party from Hainault, who were still toiling through the snow and ice, but a lone rider. He brought news from France.

  ‘Good news?’ Edmund enquired.

  ‘The best!’ Isabella’s eyes were bright with excitement. ‘Brother Charles is dying. He is coughing up his life’s blood, cursed to the end, just as I said.’

  Edmund seized the letter.

  ‘He’s not dead yet and it says Madame of Evreux is carrying a child,’

  ‘Boy babies die, Edmund,’ said Isabella coldly. ‘Only girl babies live. You know the curse as well as I do.’

  ‘But if it should be a boy and if he should live?’ persisted Edmund.

  ‘Then he won’t live long,’ said Isabella. ‘No mewling, puking child of that little mouse is going to get in the way of my son and his rightful inheritance.’

  She was pacing the floor, full of energy at the thought of the vacant throne of France. She had no liking for the probable heir, the quivering greyhound, Philip of Valois, but I thought it unlikely the great men of France would allow Isabella’s son to take their throne. I thought of Eleanor Despenser in the Tower, and my cousin’s wife at Ludlow, and now Isabella’s brother, and wondered for the hundredth time, how far Isabella’s ambitions would drive her.

  At that moment we heard cheers and the sound of trumpets. The party from Hainault was making its way through the city streets. The king’s bride had arrived.

  Isabella stood at the top of the steps regarding her son with a degree of displeasure. The boy was waiting expectantly in the courtyard having ignored his mother’s wishes and ridden out to greet his future father-in-law. Isabella’s eyes slid over the other members of the party, resting momentarily on the handsome figure of Sir John, until she found what she was looking for: the little bundle of velvet and fur that was the count of Hainault’s daughter.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with that one, Mortimer,’ she said quietly. ‘Barely more than a child. And no looks from what I can see. A fat little dumpling.’

  ‘Nothing to compare with you, my lady,’ murmured my ever-attentive cousin, his lips a shade too close to Isabella’s neck for propriety.

  Both of them had failed to look at the king. Although he was standing very correctly waiting for his bride to be brought from her carriage to meet him, his face was suffused with a naked yearning. He loved her. It was plain to see that this girl, however plump and unprepossessing, however unfashionable her clothing, and however red her little snub nose; this girl was loved.

  Unexpectedly, Edmund’s hand sought mine and he gently squeezed my fingers.

  After the lengthy welcoming formalities for the party from Hainault, Edmund handed me into the care of his brother. Lord Norfolk had offered to escort me back to our lodgings while Edmund renewed his acquaintance with Count William and Sir John. As we walked through the inner courtyard I glanced out of the corner of my eye at this brother of Edmund’s. A dark-haired, hard-looking man. I’d not been alone in his company before and felt a certain nervousness as his reputation was terrible and he was rumoured to be violent with women.

  ‘How do you find my brother?’ he asked after we’d walked in silence for a little while. ‘To your liking?’

  ‘Yes. He is a good husband.’

  He looked at me in a way I didn’t care for as if appraising me for some purpose or other.

  ‘Treats you well?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And you? D’you treat him well?’

  ‘He has not complained, my lord.’

  He barked a laugh. ‘By the saints, I’ll bet he hasn’t.’

  I thought in his rough way he was trying to pay me a compliment so I gave him a small smile.

  ‘I never thought he’d do it.’

  ‘Do what, my lord?’

  ‘Have the bollocks to marry you.’

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Naturally I knew the word. Listening to the gossip of servants and spying on men who thought themselves unobserved, how could I not? But I’d never had it
used knowingly in my presence and never by a man such as my brother-in-law.

  ‘My lord, your words are offensive.’

  He put a large hand on my arm and squeezed uncomfortably. ‘But you’re not a coy little maid, sister; you know what I mean, don’t you?’

  ‘My lord, I have no idea what you mean.’

  He leered at me, smiling with his teeth. ‘Oh sister! Come now. My brother’s a well-made man. I doubt all your dealings with him are conducted beneath the sheets. Have you not looked, not ventured into unknown terrain?’

  ‘My lord!’ I gave him a frosty glance. ‘As I am sure my husband has told you, I am a virtuous wife.’

  Another bark. ‘He has. Warned me off. Told me to watch my manners.’

  I stood quite still trying not to show the distaste I felt for his nearness.

  ‘Your manners are commendable, my lord, but your words leave much to be desired.’

  At that moment, standing in the courtyard of the abbey at York in the company of my husband’s brother, I had a sudden image of Edmund that morning stretching his beautiful naked body, a body which I knew intimately - a very well-made man indeed! And with a leap of understanding I knew what the embalming woman had seen. All men have two, she’d said and yet the man she’d embalmed had only one. Was it possible? Could a man have just one? I shook my head. I didn’t know and women didn’t talk about such matters amongst themselves.

  There was no-one to ask and perhaps I was imagining murder and deceit where none existed. Perhaps there was no mystery, no trickery, just a man dying before his allotted time, a man whose life was of no further use to anyone other than God.

  Two weeks later Edward and Philippa were married in the half-finished Minster at York. William Melton, the elderly archbishop, had been a friend of the late king and had protested violently at his removal from the throne. Isabella could ill-afford to make an enemy of a man such as him and this wedding was intended as a friendly gesture. Once the wedding feast was finished, the bride dutifully trailed away at the heels of her mother-in-law while young Edward disappeared with his friends and, I suspected, got thoroughly drunk.

  All through February the council met daily.

  ‘What do you discuss at such great length which keeps you from your wife’s side?’ I teased Edmund.

  ‘The peace treaty with Scotland,’ he said morosely. ‘Nobody wants it, least of all my nephew.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t want it. Scotland is part of his realm. He’d as soon cut off his right hand as give it away. Your father fought to keep it and ten thousand Englishmen died for the cause.’

  Edmund sighed deeply. ‘Unless we wish to send our men barefoot to war with no provisions and nothing but wooden staves to fend off the Scots, we have no choice. The treasury is empty. We can’t afford to go on fighting.’

  ‘Has it really all gone? Even Despenser’s gold?’

  Edmund shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know Isabella. As soon as she had the keys, she took the lot. There was barely enough for the campaign last summer and in the end we had to borrow. Nobody will agree to more taxes and without money we have no choice but to accept Bruce’s terms.’

  ‘Is everything beyond the border lost?’

  ‘Yes and many men will be disinherited.’

  I thought of Lady Abernethy and her daughters, and of John’s cousin whose husband would never be earl of Buchan and I thought, with tears, of Badenoch which I would never see.

  ‘They plan to send Isabella’s younger daughter to Scotland,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Poor little mite, she’s only seven. Who will have care of her?’

  ‘Sir James Douglas. The one they call Black Douglas.’

  I sighed. ‘Your nephew won’t like seeing his sister marry Bruce’s son?’

  ‘He’s powerless. He has to agree.’

  The next day, as I sat in the queen’s room thinking longingly of my children far away at Arundel, Isabella gave me a piece of unwelcome news.

  ‘The king wishes to free the Lady Eleanor,’ she said smoothly. ‘I do not agree but in this one matter I shall let him have his way. She can do no harm.’

  I glanced over to where Philippa was obediently sewing. I wanted to see if she was taking note of the conversation but the girl had a distant look on her face, doubtless lost in thoughts of her young husband.

  ‘Where will Lady Eleanor go?’ I asked.

  ‘Some of her lands will be restored, enough to keep her in a degree of comfort. It would not be fitting for my late husband’s niece to be begging her way from gate to gate.’

  ‘Will you receive her?’

  ‘No, but she must do homage for her lands and it will be interesting to see how prison has agreed with her. I did my best to ensure her well-being, as you know, but imprisonment can affect a woman in strange ways. I was told my brother’s faithless wife liked her gaolers very well. Perhaps Lady Eleanor took a fancy to your brother, Margaret? After all, anything is possible when a woman is caged.’

  ‘My brother did nothing but your bidding,’ I said stiffly.

  Isabella laughed. ‘Would that were true of all men.’

  11

  Sir John Pecche 1328

  One evening, long after the candles had been lit in our lodgings, my husband had an unexpected visitor.

  ‘Sir John Pecche,’ announced Edmund’s boy.

  The man who entered was dressed in dark clothing and looked unwell. His face had a peculiar grey tinge and he was sweating. Unwilling to risk a contagion I made my excuses and left the men together.

  I had barely reached my room when I was summoned back. Edmund was standing by the hearth and the visitor was crouched on a stool by the table. His shoulders were hunched and he was shaking. He struggled to his feet, gave a little bow and then sank back onto his seat.

  ‘Tell the countess what you have just told me, Pecche,’ ordered Edmund.

  The man looked up. His face was full of fear. It was unmistakeable: the flickering glance, the twisting hands, the unwillingness to look me in the eye.

  ‘My name is John Pecche, my lady,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I am constable of the castle at Corfe. A wild place, near the sea, far from anywhere. My new wife has no liking for it. She says it lacks in everything which give a woman enjoyment.’

  He cleared his throat and bit his lip. ‘I have been constable there for two years or more but for much of that time I have been absent on business.’

  I had not heard of Corfe and didn’t know where it was.

  ‘Where did your business take you, Sir John?’ I asked, trying to put the man at ease.

  ‘The Low Countries, my lady. I was due to remain there until the end of the summer but I became sick. I was in such straits I thought I would die. I believed someone was trying to poison me and once you think that, you don’t rest easy. My good wife said we must return to England. She said the food was not of good quality but I believe it was poison.’

  ‘Do you have enemies?’

  ‘Every man has enemies if he looks hard enough. But I never expected to find them in my own castle.’

  ‘At Corfe?’

  He looked over his shoulder as if making sure nobody else had sidled into the room, unheard. Whatever it was he wanted to say was making him extremely nervous.

  ‘Tell her the rest, Pecche,’ said Edmund.

  Sir John dabbed his mouth with the back of his hand and went on with his story.

  ‘When we arrived at Corfe, he was there.’

  At this point he stopped and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘The poisoner?’

  ‘No, no, my lady. You see, I wasn’t supposed to be there. They thought I was overseas.’

  Now he looked positively terrified.

  ‘He was locked away beneath the floor of the hall. I saw him with my own eyes.’

  This story wa
s becoming too muddled for me to understand.

  ‘Sir John, tell me slowly. Who did you see?’ I hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those fantastic tales of hobgoblins and demons, the kind they tell in these wild out-of-the-way places.

  ‘The king, my lady.’

  ‘Sir John, the king is here,’ I said gently. ‘I saw him this morning. He cannot be in your castle.’

  ‘No, no! The other king. The king that was before - Sir Edward.’

  ‘It is a ridiculous tale, Pecche,’ interrupted Edmund. ‘Whoever you saw, it cannot have been my brother. We buried him at Gloucester two months ago.’

  ‘I told Sir Ingelram you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘Who is Sir Ingelram?’ I asked.

  ‘Sir Ingelram Berenger, one of Despenser’s men,’ explained Edmund. ‘He advised Pecche to come to me. Said I was the one to tell.’

  Sir John Pecche might be a man who had seen ghosts while his wits were astray but it was just possible there was more to this. There was still the matter of the boots. And the one where there should have been two.

  ‘How did you know the man was my husband’s brother?’

  ‘Yes, Pecche,’ said Edmund, ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’d seen him often enough, my lord, when we were fighting at Shrewsbury. You couldn’t mistake him - a head taller than any other man and what shoulders he had, built like a young bull he was. And that head of hair. There was no-one else to match up to him. Not even you, my lord, and you’re a fine man yourself.’

  ‘And the prisoner looked like him?’

  ‘No, no, my lady. He didn’t look like him, he was him. I’d swear on the Host it was him.’

  Edmund shook his head. ‘It’s impossible. Men do not rise from the dead.’

  ‘Christ did,’ I said.

  There was complete silence and for a moment neither man spoke. What I’d said was blasphemous and I could feel Aunt Mortimer’s switch across my shoulders from a distance of twenty years.

  ‘Look Pecche,’ said Edmund. ‘To satisfy you I shall make enquiries and in the meantime say nothing.’