So this was to be my answer. I was not to know.
I would never know what was found when the king’s men went to Corfe. Was the prisoner dead or had the chickens already flown the coop? Whoever had been at Corfe, if anyone had been there at all, I was not to be told. Whatever my cousin had ordered done or not done that September night three years ago was to remain a secret and if I was sensible I would keep my thoughts to myself.
‘Yes, your grace,’ I said looking down where my hands lay in my lap. ‘I understand.’
It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered at all, not now that Edmund was dead.
‘What of Lord Berkeley and Sir John Maltravers?’ I said bitterly. ‘Will they be called to account? Will anyone pay a price other than my husband?’
‘Lord Berkeley is to answer to the parliament as is Maltravers. What I believe they and their henchmen did at Lord Mortimer’s command was treasonous.’
I should have felt glad. Gurney and Ogle and the unknown watcher who forged the deceit which led to Edmund’s death would be brought to justice. Maltravers would die, as would Meg Mortimer’s husband, as would my cousin.
‘A word of advice, Lady Margaret.’ He hadn’t finished with me. He wanted to be sure I understood what was required of me. ‘Don’t look back. Look forward to the years ahead. You have three children. You are young enough to remarry if you wish. Thank God that you came out of this alive. Not everyone has been so fortunate.’
‘I do, your grace. I thank God on my knees each night that I and my husband’s children have lived through another day.’
I wondered if any of us would ever know exactly what had happened at Berkeley and at Corfe. Soon my cousin would be hanged; Gurney, Ogle and the watcher would be dead; Maltravers, if he could be caught, would be silenced and nobody would be left alive to tell the tale.
Edward was right. Nothing could undo the past and I must look to the future. I could plant a garden. It would be a suitable penance to dig in the earth again as I had at Mansfield after John died. Perhaps in the long empty years ahead I would have my pear trees. What else was there left for me?
Epilogue
Nineteen years later
The seasons are unravelling. This morning I watched through my tiny solar window as the night sky slid from deepest black to grey to the gauzy violet light which comes before dawn. When the sun rose blood-red above the forest and stained the earth’s rim from Clipstone round to Three Thorn Hollow I knew I was afraid. We thought the laws of God were mutable but we were wrong and now death crouches beside every hearth and my friends are dying one by one. In Avignon the papal court lies empty and people say the streets of Paris are full of corpses with no-one left to dig the pits.
It is late and the day has gone from my garden. Soon they will come to carry me in. They disapprove of my staying outside as the shadows gather but I like the peace and in the silence I can escape from the horrors. The evening is warm yet from somewhere amongst the trees a small chill whisper of wind drifts slowly across my hands, disturbing the silk of my sleeves.
Fruit hangs heavy on the boughs of my pear trees, jewels of dull green flushed with gold; a fine crop this year, more than I expected in these dreadful times. The smell of autumn grasses fills the air mixed with the delicate scent of a late summer rose.
It is nearly twenty years since I returned to Mansfield and I have lost so much. Mondi did not live through that first winter. The cough never left him entirely and when the snow came, he closed his eyes and didn’t wake.
Our men have gone: Edmund, his brother Norfolk, my cousin Roger, Lord Beaumont, Lord Zouche, and four years ago Earl Henry. He never recovered from what Isabella did to him, we none of us did. He lived on in darkness for more than fifteen years which was probably a greater punishment than any she could have devised.
Now the pestilence has taken the last of them, my brother, Tom. He died quickly, no time for farewells. His wife wrote a letter but I didn’t care to read it. What could she say that I didn’t already know? Despite my aching bones, I made the effort to travel to Westminster to pay my homage for his lands and see Edward and Philippa for one last time. Four boys and three girls they have, lovely children. As I hoped, they have been truly blessed.
We women have fared little better than the men. This year my friend Lady Abernethy was called to God, leaving me alone. Eleanor didn’t live to enjoy her freedom or her wealth but they say those last years with Lord Zouche brought her a degree of happiness. I can’t imagine it; she was too much a vixen to be content with a simple man like Zouche.
There are just we three left: Isabella, my cousin’s widow and myself. Each one of us is waiting for the others to die; each one of us clinging to life, determined to dance on the grave of her enemy.
I have seen Isabella once since my cousin was hanged. She looked much the same but her sort of beauty wears well. She lives the life of a great lady and it is said she never mentions my cousin. Joan, Lady Mortimer I’ve not seen. She asked the king for her husband’s bones and took them home to Wigmore, so you could say she was right all along - he did come back to her.
A single flake of snow has settled on the sleeve of my gown. It doesn’t melt. From the trees and from the sky more are falling but I see they are not snowflakes, they are blossom - delicate petals of the pear, drifting and circling and softly descending. Around my feet, brushed by the hem of my skirt, the ground has become a carpet of white.
And now, from out of the darkness between the trees, they come. I’m not surprised. I’ve been expecting them for some time.
First John: my dearest one, the young man who left me far too soon. ‘When I return we’ll go to Badenoch and make a garden,’ he had said, and true to his word he has come back for me.
My cousin Roger: young, fresh-faced, happy, the lord of Wigmore as he once was, stretching out his hand. ‘Come little bwbach, it’s time to go.’
And Edmund, my golden-haired, blue-eyed, handsome husband. Edmund, who brought my frozen heart back to life and gave me my precious children. I did not realise until it was too late how much I truly loved him.
And the children: Mondi, smiling and laughing. Beside him, holding his hand, is Aymer, my firstborn. Their little feet tread softly on the petals as they run. Aymer’s face breaks into a wide smile. ‘Mama!’ he calls. ‘Mama! Come here Mama!’
Author’s Note
Only two men paid the ultimate price for the murder of Edward II and the entrapment and execution of Edmund, Earl of Kent - Roger Mortimer and a little-known man called Simon Bereford. If you want to know more about the mystery surrounding Edward II’s death and possible afterlife, I would urge you to read Medieval Intrigue by Ian Mortimer published by Continuum or Long Live the King: The Mysterious Fate of Edward II by Kathryn Warner published by Amberley.
Isabella died at the age of 62, some nine years after Margaret. She was buried, not in Gloucester with her husband, but in the fashionable Greyfriars church in London. According to her wishes she was buried with the clothes she had worn at her wedding some fifty years earlier and with her husband’s heart in a silver casket placed on her chest.
Joan, Lady Mortimer died two years before Isabella at the age of seventy. She was probably buried at Wigmore, possibly with her husband.
Several of the people who appear in this book you will meet again in The Fair Maid of Kent.
Acknowledgments
A book, particularly one about a real-life person from the past, does not appear fully formed in an author’s mind. Among the many hundreds of books and websites I consulted when writing Margaret’s story I would particularly like to mention the following:
Ian Mortimer
The Greatest Traitor
Ian Mortimer
Medieval Intrigue
Kathryn Warner
Edward II: The Unconventional King
Kathryn Warner
Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen
Alison Weir
Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England
Kathryn Warner
edwardthesecond.blogspot.com
I cannot thank Jackie, Jane, Kat and Ken of the writing group enough for their advice and for their assistance with the editing (not to mention coffee and cake on Wednesday mornings). My thanks go, as always, to Richard for acting as unpaid chauffeur, celebrity photographer, chief publicity agent and part-time chef, and for his unstinting support in what I do.
Also by Caroline Newark
The Pearl of France
It is 1299 and as part of a treaty of peace between England and France, Marguerite, the nineteen-year-old sister of the French king, is married to her brother’s enemy, the elderly Edward I. Marguerite expects nothing from this marriage other than a lifetime of dutiful obedience. But Edward is a man experienced in the art of pleasing a woman and awakens unexpected passions in his young bride.
Used by her stepchildren as a peacemaker and by her husband as a vessel for the sons he craves, Marguerite believes she is content until she comes to desire a man who is not her husband and whose interests run counter to those of the king. But when the quicksands of a Scottish war move beneath her feet and her beloved stepson rebels against his father, she is engulfed in a nightmare of brutal conquest and barbarous retribution.
The Pearl of France tells the story of a royal marriage where passion runs high and jealousy bites deep but nothing can protect you from your husband’s world of treachery, murder and hideous bloody revenge.
The Fair Maid of Kent
It is 1341 and Joan, the beautiful young cousin of the king of England, is poised on the brink of marriage with the earl of Salisbury’s son. While plans are made for the king’s continuing war against France the families gather to celebrate the wedding. But the bride is in tears. For unknown to everyone, Joan has a secret and it is one so scandalous, so unspeakably shocking, that discovery could destroy this glorious marriage and place the lives of those Joan loves in danger.
Faced with a jealous and increasingly suspicious husband Joan must tread a careful path precariously balanced between truth and deception, where love is an illusion and one false step could spell disaster.
From the glittering court of Edward III to the lonely border fortress of Wark and the bleak marshlands before the walls of Calais, The Fair Maid of Kent tells the story of an enduring love in a dangerous world where a man may not be all he seems and your most powerful enemy is the one you cannot see.
Coming Soon
An Illegitimate Affair
It is 1374. The prince is dying, the king is in his dotage and the vultures are circling the throne. The heir is not the powerful duke of Lancaster but seven-year-old Richard, half-brother of Alys’s husband, Thomas Holand.
Alys is the daughter of the earl of Arundel and does not care for her husband. She considers him dull, unambitious and a disappointment in every sense and yearns for the young man to whom she was once betrothed. But her view of a golden past is shattered when her father dies and she learns of a monstrous deceit.
Later when her husband’s brother, John, is accused of murder, Alys offers to help despite her instinctive disgust at his wild and unprincipled behaviour. She has been warned of the dangers and thinks she knows how to protect herself but ultimately knows only half the story.
From elegant riverside palaces to the wilds of the Yorkshire moors and a shabby upstairs room in a London tavern, An Illegitimate Affair is a tale of infidelity, deception and the true nature of love.
About the Author
Caroline Newark was born in Northern Ireland. She has a degree in Law from Southampton University and her career spans such diverse activities as teaching science, starting a children’s nursery business and milking Jersey cows.
In the 1950’s Caroline’s father began researching his wife’s ancestry and Caroline has used his findings as the basis for her series of books about the women in her mother’s family tree. There will be one book for each generation starting with The Pearl of France, the story of Marguerite, the young sister of the French king who marries her brother’s enemy, the elderly Edward I. Marguerite is Caroline’s 19 times great-grandmother.
The Queen’s Spy tells the story of Marguerite’s daughter in-law, Margaret, and The Fair Maid of Kent that of Marguerite’s granddaughter, Joan, the first English Princess of Wales. The Illegitimate Affair (to be published in 2019) is the story of Alys who marries Joan’s son.
Caroline Newark lives in Somerset with her husband and their border collie, Pip. She has two daughters and five grandchildren.
Website:
www.carolinenewarkbooks.co.uk
Contact:
[email protected]
Follow:
caroline newark on Facebook
@CaroNewarkBooks on Twitter
Notes
* brownie, a mischievous good-natured spirit.
The Queen's Spy Page 31