“Permit me.” Hugh Despenser reached out deft fingers to set Johanna’s veil behind her. Wordlessly she lifted the female doll and held it against her plaited hair.
“See, Father, I thought so.” God’s mercy, the other doll was Gervase. She must have swayed for Hugh swiftly set a stool behind her and gently pressured her down onto it. “Help us.”
She could sense the hatred in the fingers that had formed the images and knew there was only one answer. Edyth.
“Let me deal with the matter,” she whispered.
“You? This is not some idle meddling. We can all die because of this.”
“Only if you believe it, my lord.” But her golden cross was warm within her hand. “Do you?
The earl separated the dolls. “These of you are for personal reasons, my lady, but ours,” he stared at her, “could have been commissioned.”
“No,” exclaimed Johanna, loathing the implication. “The queen would not do such a thing.”
Hugh lifted the glittering chain from his shoulders. The reliquary, twinkling with amethysts and pearls, lay across his palm. “I know you, my lady, for a great oathtaker and a damnable perjurer to boot, but here—I swear on the soul of he who sold it to me—is a splinter of our Saviour’s Rood, brought from Jerusalem during the Crusades. Vow by the living Christ that you believe your mistress had no hand in this.”
Johanna reached out her hand without hesitation. “I so swear.”
“Would Fulk de Enderby’s sister have done this on her own?”
So they had been found in Edyth’s possession. Her forehead was beading. They were giving her no time to think. “Y-yes, I am sure of it. Be merciful, my lords. Let me tell the foolish creature she must recant her wickedness and cast herself on God’s forgiveness.”
Hugh Despenser shook his head.
Johanna froze. “What will you do?”
“I, nothing.”
“Your minions then, my lord?”
He answered after a moment’s thought. “The woman Edyth shall be bidden north to Conisthorpe. At Borehamwood, brigands will attack her party.”
“God forgive her.”
If she shut her eyes, would they vanish, would they, please God, vanish? But the Despensers were still watching her and the images still lay between them, the colour of human skin and malevolent as demons. “Wh-what shall you do with those?” she asked finally.
“I think we should make a decision, each on our own behalf,” answered the earl, fingering his with a grimace.
“If we cast them on a fire in prayer, will it destroy them?” she asked.
My lord of Winchester’s eyes held fear. “No, I dare not. Hugh?” His son shrugged, pacing to the window, hands on his belt.
“Do I make a decision for my husband too?”
The earl looked towards Hugh’s rigid shoulders and back to her. “Yes, perhaps you should.”
“Then let his and mine be buried deep in the ground, for so we shall all be one day.” She placed them face to face and rolled them back into their cloth.
Winchester’s eyes met hers with a familiarity that was a blessing. “Aye, amen to it.”
Hugh turned. “As for me, gold may not purchase me the allegiance of the sea and the wind but I can defy this crone.” He picked up the doll meant for him. “A curse on her who did this! May her soul know all the fires of Hell. I do not believe she had any power but ill will.” He tugged out the hair until none was left, pulled out the pins, ripped the doll in four and flung it into the brazier. “It only harms if we believe it,” he said firmly. “Father?”
“Let mine be buried also.” The earl dropped the cloth with its ghastly contents back into the coffer. He turned the lock, flung the key inside and slammed it shut, his chest heaving. “King Edward has commanded that most of the queen’s household is to be dismissed, yourself included.”
“No, my lords, that is unjust!”
The earl towered over her. “You have meddled too much, young woman. Besides, if your presence could mean my death because of that,” he thrust a finger at the coffer, “I will take no chance on it. I want you out of Westminster before the sun sets this day. Oppose me further, Johanna FitzHenry, and I will ruin your family. I never want to set eyes on you again.”
Nor had he. Johanna had been escorted back to Blessington FitzHenry and here she was still. But the queen needed her now. It was time at last to leave.
September 30th 1326, the Feast of St. Jerome.
“Ma brave! Bienvenue!”
Johanna knelt, somewhat muddied by Suffolk puddles, before the queen in the hall at Walton Manor, and marvelled at the change in her royal mistress. Isabella’s spirits had been at a nadir when they had parted two years before—her French attendants sent home and almost all her household dismissed in the wave of anti-French sentiment that Hugh Despenser had used against her. But now everything about the queen, her proud stance, the happiness in her lovely face, exuded purpose.
“My gracious lady, it is a joy to see you in such good spirits. I bring you what men-at-arms I have. Would I had more.”
Sir Geoffrey and a dozen footsoldiers in the scarlet surcotes with the golden rampant FitzHenry lions, knelt in the wake of Johanna’s soles. So too did Agnes, who had insisted on accompanying her mistress—especially since her husband, Matthew, the fair-haired groom she had long lusted after, was now one of the men-at-arms and not to be trusted out of her sight.
Queen Isabella’s Parisian accent was stronger than ever. “Friends, we welcome you with all our heart to help us vanquish those who wish to destroy us and our dear son.” Her azure sleeve caught the light like an iridescent birdwing, and her lanky fledgling stepped dutifully forward. Johanna had always liked the boy; the Prince of Wales’s eyes had ever been honest and he was smiling at Johanna and her men as if he were truly heartened by their coming.
“Lady Johanna, sirs, you are right welcome to our cause.” The thirteen-year-old’s voice was husky, no longer the reedy warble of a boy.
Our cause. Johanna’s glance met Isabella’s and both women smiled in mutual understanding. King Edward and the Despensers had been outmanoeuvred. They had made the mistake of sending the prince to do homage to King Charles of France for the disputed lands of Gascony and Ponthieu. While it might have averted an inconvenient war between the two realms, it had given the queen—already in France negotiating a settlement—the most precious piece on the board, and Isabella cleverly had taken herself off to Hainault and told the count he would need to provide ten ships and a troop of mercenaries if he wanted the next queen of England to be his daughter, Phillippa. Such offers were rare in Hainault and the bargain was made.
“Mignonne, I have missed you.” Clasping Johanna’s forearms, Isabella compelled her friend to her feet and flung her arms about her. “See, Mortimer, here is my Johanna restored to me.”
“My lady.” So this must be the famous Sir Roger Mortimer who had managed the incredible—escaping from the Tower of London. He inclined his head, his gloved hand a courteous curl of superficial devotion at his breast. It was not Christian to make instant judgments, but here was a rainbow bubble of vanity if ever Johanna saw one. She neither trusted Roger Mortimer’s aqua gaze beneath the auburn flick of fringe nor did he light a candle in her heart with his grinning mouth of almost flawless teeth. Hair the colour of earwax, Gervase had said.
Isabella drew her aside. “Viens! Let me look at you. No babe yet?” she teased, setting a palm against Johanna’s flat belly. “No tidings from that méchant husband?”
“I understand you have done my liege lady much service,” Roger Mortimer interrupted, impatient for their attention, a goblet in each hand. Possibly he felt excluded, for Isabella was holding Johanna’s hands like an affectionate sister, and their heads, glistening jet and opulent gold, were almost touching.
Johanna tactfully drew him in as she took the offered wine. “And I will do so again, my lord. I truly wish I were a man so I might lead my company myself.”
“You think we would look stunning in breastplates, Roger?” The queen thrust back her shoulders.
“Madam, you embarrass me.” He glanced about, enjoying a pretence of anxiety, before letting his eyes return to caress Isabella’s beautiful neck and the lustrous pearl above her bounteous cleavage. “Can I say no? The enemy would be so diverted at such pretty treasures that the rest of us unworthy followers could creep up unawares and throttle them.” He had moved behind the queen as he spoke and his fingers stroked down her throat and settled upon each shoulder. Clearly his hands had ventured further in privacy.
“See how I am adored,” she purred.
It was not that Johanna did not want to see, although their happiness together made her conscious of what she lacked, but she had no choice; the intimacy of the relationship was proclaimed by their every gesture and it dismayed her. If Isabella was now fulfilled as a woman, it seemed she was just as besotted with the handsome Mortimer as her husband was with Despenser.
“Madam, the Earl of Kent is come.”
Throwing off Roger Mortimer’s hands, Isabella laughed and sped to the open casement.
“Have we truly not met before?” Mortimer asked. His appraising look implied he was already assessing her worth as a reward for someone.
“No, my lord.” She stepped back slightly, giving herself space.
“And you are widowed, I understand?”
The practised lie rose readily; she was not prepared to make inquiries yet. “I am not certain, my lord. My husband fought in the campaign against Scotland four years ago, but since then I have heard nothing.” Except for a rose each Lammastide and the letter three years ago.
“You have surely inquired?” The expected patronising assumption that every woman’s mind moved at snail-speed.
“Oh yes, within my limited means.”
“Hmm, we shall have to decide what is best done for you.”
We! As though he and Isabella were handfast. She must be doubly careful with this man.
“Mortimer! Come, let us greet my dear brother-in-law.”
Johanna took a deep breath of relief as he left her, his tail wagging to do a mistress’s bidding. She had forgotten how treacherous the quicksands of court might be.
Was Gervase here? This was the cause he had cherished. Her eyes desperately scanned the men’s faces and marvelled. Certes, there must be more great lords here than with King Edward.
“I hear you are joining us again?” Cecilia de Leygrave, one of the few ladies attending the queen, slid an arm through hers and propelled Johanna over to meet a young woman called Elizabeth Baddlesmere who had just arrived and had not yet made her obeisance to the queen.
Baddlesmere! Johanna gazed on freckles, springy cinnamon hair and a nose tip pinkened by a summer cold. Was it not Elizabeth’s father who had been cruelly executed in the aftermath of the king’s victory at Boroughbridge?
“I had hoped my husband would have sailed with the queen.” Elizabeth also was sending sideways glances at the knights about them.
“Husband?”
“Sir Edmund Mortimer. His son.” She lifted her chin towards Sir Roger Mortimer. “But they say some of the exiles have not taken ship yet.”
Johanna’s jaw slackened. Edmund Mortimer! The hammer hit the anvil.
Elizabeth was staring at her with irritation.
“Y-you are Bartholomew’s daughter?” Johanna managed.
“Yes,” asserted Elizabeth, obviously out of patience with people trying to be delicate. “There is someone behind you. Do you know him?”
Fingers jabbed Johanna in the ribs.
“Miles!”
“Where is your armour, Captain Jo? I see you have brought old Geoffrey out of wrappers. Is not the poor sot past all this?” His tone was affectionate.
“Yes, it is good to see you too, little brother, and no, Sir Geoffrey does not need his horseshoes taken off yet awhile,” she added dryly and bestowed a kiss on his bossed cheek. He grimaced, rubbing at it.
“I was sorry to hear about poor old Father Gilbert, God rest his soul. Mother wrote that it was inflammation of the lungs. Was it?”
Johanna nodded, her feelings still raw. It was just over a month-mind since the chaplain’s death and the household was not the same without him. He had forgiven her for not taking the veil but she knew her choice to serve the queen instead of God had gravely disappointed him.
“So my lord of Richmond has come south to the queen’s banner,” she declared, steering the conversation onto steadier ground. “Oh, Miles, let me look at you.”
He was a head taller than her and, save for the pustules that marked the passage through his fourteenth year, almost winsome with his dark curls and roguish eyes. But he was no longer smiling once Elizabeth had moved away.
“I am displeased you have come. This is not a women’s pilgrimage. Upon my soul, you are not hoping Gervase de Laval will turn up, are you? That will be a spectacle since my lord of Richmond has had word that Fulk has changed allegiance and is on his way to join us and I have not the means to keep you safe if he makes trouble for you. I suppose you have heard nothing from Gervase. I know you still carry a fondness for him, sister, as I do too, but we must look to the new order of things. Our family needs to reassert itself. You have to find yourself a proper husband. Upon my soul, Jo, there should be some knight here with a reasonable income who will take you on.”
She did not tell him that a travel-stained letter announcing the death of Gervase de Laval had arrived three years before to free them both. She had told no one.
* * *
“AH, JOHANNA,” ISABELLA exclaimed, lowering herself into the hot water of the Prior of Barnwell’s bath, some three days later. “It is like old times between you and I, except that I am no longer triste. You frown, ma brave. If the king spent years frolicking with Gaveston and now plays with that malin Despenser, can I not indulge in a little pleasure with Mortimer? Tiens! I am thirty-one and have given England two healthy princes.”
Johanna sighed. Since they could be overheard by the queen’s other ladies, it was necessary to select a tactful answer. “Of course, my dearest lady, you deserve happiness. It is just that if I were in your shoes I might not be so wise as you and I am sure I should find myself falling into the same errors as the king and be in danger of making my other noble counsellors jealous.”
The queen drew her mouth into a small, petulant rosette, but then she relented and sent a flick of bathwater good humouredly over her friend.
Love makes us such fools, conceded Johanna silently, berating herself that she was still gulled by its memories. Even if Gervase arrived by ship from France, he would not want to be embroiled with her. She must not hope; the rose each Lammastide had been a sign of friendship, nothing more.
The knocking on the bathhouse door at length aroused her from her reverie. “My liege lady, my lord Mortimer’s son has arrived.”
“Dis-donc, I must get out and greet the dullard,” muttered Isabella, “but I suppose it is for the best that Sir Edmund takes after his maman; the world could not hold two such as Mortimer.”
At last, thought Johanna, in trepidation as she helped Isabella to dress. If Mortimer’s heir was the same Edmund who had fled Boroughbridge, the waiting might be over.
A THRONG OF newcomers clustered around the queen in the priory guesthouse by the time Johanna had clothed herself and joined the gathering. Isabella’s delighted shrieks following her formal speech of welcome betrayed that she was well acquainted with the arrivals.
Heavy-boned Edmund Mortimer was depressingly as the queen had described him, a man likely to bruise his partner’s toes when dancing and bore her afterwards. The other knight, stepping forward to take the queen’s outstretched fingers, was a destrier to Edmund’s rouncey, with broad shoulders tapering to a far slimmer waist and—Christ Almighty!—Johanna stepped back with rare clumsiness, knocking over the royal chessboard. Gervase!
For an instant, her husband turned his head. An indifferen
t stare swiftly assessed her before he returned his gaze devotedly to the queen who was enthusing so loudly that no one noticed Johanna’s confusion. It was Elizabeth Baddlesmere, irritated at being similarly ignored, who steadied her. Together they bent to retrieve the pawns and court pieces. Johanna tried not to stare at him, but it was like bidding the waves to stop lapping the shore. He looked older, yes, tired with travelling, but as alive as the candle flames she had lit day after day for his wellbeing.
He was bending his knee, his lips upon Isabella’s scented hand. His smile would have melted the hoary frost off hedgerows, while she, Johanna, was reeling from the wounding message that he would not acknowledge her as his wife.
In defiance of fate, she smiled bravely at Elizabeth while time stretched the present moment. As the laughter splashed around her, she stood precariously on a tiny jutting rock trying to find a balance of rational understanding, an equilibrium based on hope. Oh, she had rehearsed this meeting a dozen times in her imaginings and never once had she permitted herself a happy ending—but the reality was now a juddering, hurtful shock after four years of longing.
“I suppose I must wait my turn,” growled Elizabeth as the newcomers were made comfortable on stools before the queen, “but it is quite unjust. I have not seen my husband for nearly five years. He did not even notice me.”
“Be patient a little longer,” Johanna warned, trying to staunch her own frustration and pain.
“What lotions does she use? I mean, yes, she is beautiful but at her age. . . .” Elizabeth stared enviously. The two men were answering the queen’s questions, their gazes idolising her. “Not much alike, are they, the Mortimers?” the girl added bitterly, as if she suspected everyone admired her father-in-law and disparaged her husband. Johanna obediently dragged her glance up but her gaze was drawn desperately to her husband’s profile before she discovered that Roger Mortimer, positioned, as always, behind the queen’s chair, was watching her like a tawny owl. There was no curious benevolence in his face, only covert interest. She coloured, uneasy, praying that he had not seen the hunger in hers.
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