The Queen's Spy

by Caroline Newark

  ‘It was easier when we were first together in Paris,’ he whispered. ‘There were no difficult choices to make. I never had to consider where my loyalties lay or to whom I owed my allegiance. Everything was simple. And then my uncle of Valois died and your cousin came to Paris and everything changed. I wish to God none of this had ever happened.’

  My poor husband. I silenced him by putting my lips to his. As the logs shifted and settled in the hearth and the darkness outside deepened, all I could see were the ties of our loyalties unravelling. There could be only one way ahead but which path to choose? Whose cause should we champion and once we had chosen would either of us be safe?

  The next day we left the children at Arundel together with their little household and travelled north for the parliament. On the journey we didn’t mention the prisoner at Corfe but I was certain Edmund’s thoughts were full of him as were mine. Problems wriggled away at the corners of my thinking, disturbing the proper contemplation of my morning prayers and clouding the hours before sleep with confusing scenes of bloodshed and death.

  Arriving hot and exhausted at Northampton I was met with two pieces of unwelcome news.

  The first was that poor little Madame of Evreux in her white widow’s weeds had given birth to yet another daughter. Seeing no direct male heir to take the throne, the great men of France had hurriedly chosen the count of Valois to be their next king. The quivering greyhound and his wife would sit on their matching thrones in Sainte-Chapelle with the serried ranks of French nobility bending their knees and singing their praises. Isabella could do nothing but gnash her teeth in fury. Her son’s claim to the French throne had been summarily dismissed but I wasn’t surprised. None of the men I’d seen in the palace on the Île de la Cité would have welcomed an English king wearing the French crown and I presumed Isabella’s ambassadors had been swept aside as if the matter had nothing to do with them.

  The second piece of unwelcome news was waiting for me in my chamber.

  ‘What are you doing here, Lady Eleanor?’ I demanded.

  Eleanor Despenser turned her slanting green eyes my way and smiled. She was dressed in an appealing dark blue gown and seated comfortably in front of my hearth as if she belonged there.

  ‘I thought I would pay you a visit since you were good enough to visit me when I was a guest of your brother in the Tower.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing more than you wanted that day. Do you remember? You were looking for answers, weren’t you? Not very subtle questions. it was easy to work out what you wanted to know.’

  ‘You lost the child.’

  I stated it as bluntly as I could, not wanting any misunderstanding between us.

  ‘Did I? When I last counted, all those I have been permitted to keep were still with me.’

  ‘I mean the child you were carrying that day.’

  She looked at me levelly. ‘Perhaps you were mistaken.’

  ‘I know the look of a woman carrying a child.’

  ‘But that wasn’t what you wanted to know, was it? You wanted to know whose child it was.’

  I said nothing just watched her with growing irritation.

  ‘What did you tell Isabella?’ she asked. ‘Was it you who did her dirty work or did she send someone else?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  She turned on me with sudden venom.

  ‘As I bled all over my sheets, I cursed you, Margaret. I cursed you from the bottom of my heart for what you did to me and my unborn child.’

  A shaft of terror ran through me as I quickly made the sign against the evil eye. Some people thought Eleanor a witch, her husband’s willing accomplice in all his foul doings, a woman contaminated by the acts of an evil man and it was wise to be careful.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ I said coldly. ‘You are not wanted.’

  ‘Oh but I am. I am the lady of Glamorgan and my kingly cousin has requested my presence. He requires me to do homage for my de Clare lands which he has most generously returned to me.’

  ‘So do it and go.’

  She smiled, showing her sharp little teeth.

  ‘I thought I would wait until dear Isabella returns. I hear she is travelling with your cousin. Have they sealed their unholy pact between the bedsheets at last or am I mistaken and they’ve been mired in sin from the very beginning? You would know as you acted as procuress. Like a skilled brothel keeper you brought your mistress the very man she desired, a worthy partner for her lust.’

  ‘You disgust me, Eleanor Despenser.’

  ‘Not as much as you disgust me.’

  ‘She won’t want to see you.’

  ‘She will. Seeing me humbled and on my knees will please her greatly. And as for your cousin? I’m intrigued to know what makes him so attractive to our queen. I remember him as a plain man, inclined to violence, greedy for power, with no manners and little imagination.’

  I thought that description might amuse my cousin but it would certainly anger Isabella.

  ‘You should be careful what you say, Eleanor. The queen will not like to hear criticism of Lord Mortimer.’

  ‘And what of your husband, Lady Margaret? Have you discovered the man behind that handsome face and do you like what you have found? Not a faithful hound I would imagine. Does he lie at your feet in your chamber with his head resting lovingly on your knee, or does he stray? I have heard rumours. It is amazing what people feel they must tell you when you return to court after an absence.’

  ‘I have no wish to hear what other people say of my husband and I do not wish to discuss him with you.’

  She gave me another little smile.

  ‘Not quite the man you thought you’d caught for yourself, is he?’

  Eleanor always knew where to aim her arrows.

  ‘I am perfectly content with my life,’ I said, ‘And with my husband.’

  ‘And do you enjoy your view from the top of the dunghill? Is it all you expected it to be? You’d better make the most of it because women like you never last. Take one look at our little coroner’s daughter, shut away in a draughty castle watching spiders weave their webs. That could be you, dear Lady Margaret. One tip of the wheel and down you’ll fall. And once that happens you’ll never rise again. Not like me. Go on - look at me!’

  Against my will I forced myself to stare at Eleanor.

  She stroked the side of her neck with her long slim fingers and raised her chin. ‘Yes, Lady Margaret. I am resurgent, already climbing up from the depths where your cousin and dear Isabella saw fit to throw me.’

  ‘You are nobody.’

  She laughed. ‘How wrong you are. How long did it take you to find a second husband? Five years? Ten years? I seem to remember it was a very long time. Whereas I already have men squabbling at my feet for the honour of claiming me as their wife. I merely have to decide which one to choose.’

  ‘Nobody will want you.’

  But even as I spoke I knew it was untrue. Eleanor was a royal lady, the king’s cousin. She would easily find a husband. And despite the months of imprisonment she still had a vestige of beauty.

  ‘My first husband once said you were a dangerous woman but I think he was wrong. I think you are a foolish woman.’

  With that display of rudeness, Eleanor Despenser rose in a flurry of skirts and swept out of the room. Imprisonment had not deprived her of her ability to wound and I found my eyes full of tears.

  ‘It’s good for a man to have a loving wife,’ said Edmund complacently as we stood watching the king and his young wife distribute alms.

  ‘I hope her eyes are not blind to his faults,’ I said lightly. ‘Otherwise one day she may have an unpleasant surprise.’

  Edmund was amused by my words. ‘Kings don’t have faults, sweetheart. Ask Lady Philippa. She will tell you they are utterly perfect.’r />
  Certainly the young Hainault girl blushed each time she looked at her husband, her fingers constantly seeking his in a way contrary to royal protocol.

  ‘He is only playing at being king,’ I whispered. ‘Wait until his mother returns.’

  ‘Ah but when she does she will discover that Edward is not the boy he once was. An adoring wife in one’s bed changes everything. I should know.’

  A week later amidst a flourish of trumpets and banging of drums, Isabella returned. My cousin, flushed with triumph, was more demanding than ever but I observed a new softness to Isabella. Gone was the endless bickering which had marked their relationship for so long and, for the first time since we’d returned to England, she looked happy. If it had not been for nagging thoughts of Lady Mortimer left languishing in Ludlow while her husband shared the queen’s bed I would have welcomed Isabella’s good fortune.

  When the time came for Lady Eleanor to make homage for her lands in Glamorgan, she made a perfect demonstration of the faithful subject. She sank to her knees in front of the king, her head dutifully bent, and placed her hands between those of her sovereign in the traditional manner of submission. I could barely hear the words she murmured because of the appreciative whispering of men nearby. There was no mistaking the fact that the fetching, fertile and extremely wealthy lady of Glamorgan was not short of admirers.

  Lord Zouche could not take his eyes off her. His appointment as constable of the Tower in place of my brother would have brought him into contact with Lady Eleanor. Perhaps visiting her in her prison rooms he’d been caught in her toils and now had designs on her fortune. If so, he had a rival. Another of my cousin’s supporters, Sir John Grey, was equally smitten. He offered his opinion on the lady’s beauty and demeanour to each and every one of his close neighbours. Later I saw the two of them hovering around her like a pair of dogs circling a bitch.

  ‘Who shall we choose for her next husband, my lady?’ whispered my cousin to Isabella. ‘If we don’t hurry, one of those adventurers will have her in a hedgerow and ruin our plans. You have to admit she’s quite an eyeful.’

  The veil of fine white open-weave silk which Eleanor had pinned over her head barely hid her red hair which she had artfully coiled around her ears exposing her long pale neck. She was certainly every man’s idea of a desirable woman. And she had money.

  ‘Are you sizing her up for one of your boys, Lord Mortimer?’ said Isabella tartly.

  ‘I have only two still unwed,’ replied my cousin coolly. ‘Geoffrey is his mother’s favourite and she has asked my de Fiennes cousins to arrange a match for him.’

  Isabella frowned.

  ‘I trust Lady Mortimer will be an obedient wife and do as she’s told.’

  This was clearly a well-worn path but my cousin seemed unwilling to tread it.

  He turned to me.

  ‘My daughters are to be married at the end of the month. You and Lord Edmund must join in our celebrations. Kathryn is marrying Thomas de Beauchamp, the Warwick heir, and Joanna, the Audley boy.’

  I thanked him, noting his self-satisfied smile and wondered how he’d achieved these honours for his daughters. It was a worry because there were many Mortimer daughters still unwed and I didn’t want my cousin draining England dry of every titled young man. Not when Edmund and I had a husband to find for our little Joan.

  ‘We travel to Hereford where the young people will marry,’ said Isabella, smiling slyly. ‘And afterwards, we progress to Ludlow for the celebrations.’

  I almost gasped aloud. My cousin must have lost his senses. Was he mad? He was proposing to take his royal mistress to his wife’s castle and expecting us to pretend that nothing was amiss.

  Once the unsavoury business of the treaty with the Scots was complete, the king and queen departed. Edward was still not speaking to his mother or to my cousin. He had accused them of arranging matters behind his back, giving away his kingdom, disinheriting his people, and selling his sister for a shameful peace. The Londoners were calling it a “fraudulent treaty” and there was talk of what Lord Mortimer had received in payment.

  ‘There’s a whisper going around that Bruce has promised to help your cousin make himself king in exchange for his arranging the treaty,’ remarked Edmund. ‘They’re saying he’s up to his ears in double-dealing with the Scots.’

  ‘What utter nonsense,’ I replied.

  But whispers grow louder in the dead of night, and as I shifted myself uncomfortably beside my sleeping husband, I wondered what ambitions my cousin really had. The Mortimers were a proud family and claimed descent not only from a bastard daughter of King John but also from the line of King Arthur. Like all Mortimer men, my cousin believed his destiny was part of the Great Prophecy.

  I had a clear memory of sitting in the hall at Wigmore one Christmas, listening to a travelling singer. He was an old man who wore a tattered grey cloak spangled with silver and he sang of the glorious days to come. He plucked at the harp on his knee and wove a tale of such magical beauty that I was entranced. The song spoke of the rise of a great king of the line of Arthur, a king who would come out of Wales to rule over England, a king whose great deeds would shine like the stars in the heavens until the end of time.

  To me, as a child, the story was a romance, but Aunt Mortimer said her son believed, as did all the Mortimers, that the family’s destiny was written and that it was a magnificent one.

  12

  Ludlow 1328

  In the early days of summer we set out on our long slow progress across the country to Hereford for the wedding of the Mortimer daughters. It was well known that the royal coffers were empty yet my cousin and Isabella continued to spend lavishly and ignored what was being said.

  At Hereford, the four young people were married in a swirl of good wishes, showers of silver coins and noisy trumpet calls. Afterwards we made our merry way to Ludlow. There we would have the feasts, the tournaments and the celebrations which accompany all weddings and enjoy the hospitality of my cousin’s wife.

  ‘Very fine indeed,’ said my husband as we rode beneath the gatehouse in the warmth of the late afternoon.

  Edmund was right to be impressed. Ludlow Castle had changed mightily since I’d been here as a child. My cousin must have spent a great deal of his time and money on improving this part of his wife’s inheritance. On top of the old solar wing was a new soaring mass of grey stone and at the end of the hall, where we used to dine in great luxury with Aunt Mortimer, was another building pierced through with tall windows. I was intrigued. I’d seen nothing like it except in the palaces of the French king.

  ‘What do you think?’

  It was Joan, Lady Mortimer. She had come up behind me as I stood staring in amazement at a room I would not have recognised. Across the width of the hall stretched an expanse of painted cloth. There were knights on horseback and fire-breathing dragons and men rushing into battle with swords held aloft. Merlin, the wily magician was there as was Llewelyn Fawr, the fabled Prince of Gwynedd, flanked by his sons.

  ‘I don’t recognise the scenes,’ I said, furrowing my brow in concentration. ‘Aunt Mortimer said my grasp of Welsh history was as poor as my stitching.’

  Lady Mortimer laughed and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I would hardly have recognised you, dear Margaret. You’ve grown so grand.’

  I eyed the impressive tapestries hanging where I remembered something faded and dark. These were a brilliant white and covered with brightly coloured butterflies.

  She could see where my eyes had strayed. ‘For the wedding couples,’ she said with a smile. ‘As you see, he has spared no expense.’

  From the silver cups and tureens gleaming beneath the new circular wheels of light which lit the hall from one end to the other, to the expensive silk hangings in the bedchambers, my cousin must have spent a king’s ransom.

  On our arrival I had tried not to notice as Isabella cast h
er predatory gaze over Lady Mortimer’s possessions. The way she looked her up and down as if she were no better than a servant, had been embarrassing to everybody, but the lady of the castle had smiled serenely and behaved as a great lady should when receiving her queen into her home. If she was disturbed at the presence of her husband’s royal mistress, none of us would have guessed.

  She linked her arm with mine. ‘Are you content with your marriage?’

  ‘I could not be happier. Lord Edmund is a good husband.’

  She fingered one of the little engraved bowls laid out on the sideboard. When I looked more closely I was surprised. It was new, yet bore both their names – hers and my cousin’s.

  ‘He will come back to me,’ she said softly.

  The candlelight caught the ravages of time reflected in her face: the web of fine lines about her eyes and the touches of grey on her hairline. She was no longer the young woman I had known at Wigmore and had suffered greatly when her husband rebelled against his king. After the success of our invasion and the execution of the Despensers, she would have expected him to return to her in triumph and it must have been a bitter blow to discover how his loyalty to her had slipped away. I wondered how she had withstood the shame of being cast aside for a younger, more beautiful woman.

  ‘Is there a great deal of hurt?’ I asked shyly.

  She smiled. ‘He is still my husband, Margaret. When he comes to my bed, he is still my husband.’

  I forced myself to show nothing in my face. Wanting Isabella and, since Paris, living with her in the same lodgings, I assumed my cousin had abandoned his intimate relationship with his wife. He had visited her on one or two occasions but, as he had said to Isabella, she could not be thrown out to starve. I thought theirs was a business arrangement not an affair of the flesh, but apparently I was wrong. To survive my cousin’s passionate affair with his queen, their relationship must be founded on a deep and abiding love for each other - there could be no other explanation.

  ‘You are the mother of his children,’ I said carefully.