Harlot Queen (30 page)

But she, once so subtle, had lost herself in love. It was as though she believed that in the sea that flowed between England and France all scandal must be drowned. Théophania tried to make clear to the Queen the danger she courted.

‘Madam, you are a Queen and an honoured guest; and here, in Paris, we take kindness between… friends, lightly. But in England it is another matter. Who would make light of kindness between the King’s wife and the King’s enemy? Certainly not the Despensers. They would—and could—make it matter enough to dissolve your marriage. Then—forgive me, Madam, if I put it plain, I speak with the tongue of love—you would no longer be welcome here in France. We French are a shrewd people; we know how to jump with the times.’

The Queen said nothing. Only her eyes narrowed; there was about her an almost greedy look.

Théophania watched deeply troubled. It was hard to blame the Queen; her life had been loveless and harsh, her young womanhood run to waste. Yet there would be plenty to blame her—and not only her enemies. Censure would spread throughout Christendom. Then, however unwilling, the Pope must speak. Let her look to her marriage and her crown!

Théophania’s words had served as a warning of another kind—the shortness of time; the need to waste no moment. Now the hours of night were not enough; now Isabella must make her chances, stealing away from feast or hunt, drawing Mortimer with her to take their pleasure when and where they would. She was growing thin, her beauty fine drawn; she was burning herself up with passion. That Mortimer’s passion was neither deep nor true, nor yet lasting, she knew well; she had caught him by his lust and his ambition. This was her first experience of love; it was by no means his. He had taken women wherever he found them; not only in his own marches but all the way from Paris to Gascony and back again. He had told her so, not boasting but mentioning it lightly—his male right. She would tell herself she did not care—other women were so much cattle; never before had he won a Queen to his bed. Beside herself all women must pale. But for all that she was, at times, eaten with jealousy of those unknown women. But it was nothing like the jealousy that tormented her on account of the woman she did know. Now she remembered Jeanne was his wife, the mother of his children; to whom he owed an affection, a loyalty that must hold him for life. All other women, the Queen included—were but women; his wife was his wife. When Isabella thought of Jeanne she was eaten as by a canker.

At times jealousy drove her to excite him with lewd words, to touch him with erotic fingers; and then, though she herself fainted with longing, to hold him off. It was always she that surrendered first, yet not until she had roused him to brutality, a brutality she savoured with delight, crying out with joy in the pain.

Brutal she could make him but never tender, never loving; always he was cold, half-amused. Sometimes in the crisis of their love-making he would abruptly stop—it was a game two could play—telling her that she burned herself out with passion; that within a few years there’d be nothing worth any man’s taking. They knew, both of them, that he played upon her secret fear; it made her love him ever more slavishly. She was sick with dread of losing him. He gave her no cause for jealousy. He was not yet tired of her; she was beautiful, she was passionate, and in spite of all disclaimer, there was pride in having for his mistress a Queen.

Gossip was growing louder. Isabella did not care. This was not England; this was France where such things were better understood. Meanwhile there was the business on which she had been sent. Charles was willing enough to be reasonable—he was not a quarrel some young man; but that would settle the affair far too soon to please his sister. ‘The King of England is bound to pay homage for his French lands,’ she told him. ‘If of your courtesy you spare him this, how shall it go with the other lords great and small that hold land of you?’

Yes, he saw the wisdom of that! To England went his letter.

The King of France, your suzerain, agrees that all your possessions in France… shall be restored to you as soon as you, yourself, come to pay homage. Until that homage be paid, the King of France holds them in charge. Out of love for our very dear sister we grant you until the first day of the eighth month of this year, thirteen hundred and twenty five.

Four months; four months to enjoy her love. In four months much could happen!

Edward, they heard, had fallen into a fine Plantagenet rage. And the Despensers encouraged him.
If the King of England cross into France his armies shall pay homage for him!
they declared.

‘Oh,’ Isabella said and she was laughing—she laughed easily these days, ‘men he may collect and ships make ready—and there they’ll stay, his side of the Channel. Fighting; he loathes it. And even had he a mind to it the Despensers would not trust him out of their sight. Stay in England without the King? They dare not. Without his protection they’d not live a day. The barons would see to it. And let the barons delay, the mob would tear them in pieces. I tell you he’ll not come!’

She was right. The Despensers spoke. They would not again permit the King to leave England. And more; any man that should advise him to cross into France they would hang—a traitor.

‘Is my brother of England so weak as to allow it?’ Charles asked. ‘Has he no shame in the eyes of Christendom?’

‘He’ll find the way to save his face!’

August. And the King of England ill; too ill to cross the sea.

She had expected it; she knew her man. Her plan was ready; a plan simple, reasonable, excellent.

‘Brother,’ she said, ‘the King of England is ill. But, well or ill, you’d get no good of him. His word’s not worth the breath with which he speaks. But… suppose he agree to send my son in his place? Suppose he send the Prince of Wales? Ned’s a boy; but he stands to his word like a man!’ And waited, breath indrawn, for the answer.

‘Only the man that holds the land can pay homage,’ Charles said. She had known the answer; the only answer. She was ready.

‘Suppose my lord husband agree that you grant the lands not to him, but to my son; would that suffice?’

‘It would suffice.’

She had won. With wile and guile she had won. Her body could scarce contain its triumph. She knew well that whatever her husband might feel about letting these lands pass to his son, the Despensers would force him to it. They would move heaven and earth to keep their protector in England… they had not forgotten the fate of Gaveston!

The Prince should come; her husband had agreed.

‘We shall have the prince in our hands!’ she told Mortimer. ‘Now we shall make our own terms with my lord husband!’ And she made of those last words an insult. ‘God has been good, my love! He sent me back to France, He gave us to each other; and now He sends me my son that we may set the King and his accursed friends dancing to our tune.’

Mortimer’s lips lifted in a grin; it gave him the wolfish look that excited her. ‘It is like a woman to besmirch her husband’s honour, to enjoy her love—and then to proclaim it from God! It is like a woman to plot with her lover to dispose of her husband—and thank God for it.’

‘Dispose of the King! I have never said it!’ Nor, indeed, had she. By making terms she had meant little but staying in France and enjoying her paramour; or, at most, bringing him back pardoned that she might enjoy him still.

‘Do you play innocent?’ Mortimer cried out. Rough with disappointment that ambition had leapt too far, he pulled her down upon the bed. She gave herself up with ecstasy—an ecstasy forever tinged with melancholy—he was a man soon to tire; the longer she could satisfy his ambition, the longer he would satisfy her body. That ambition she must feed little by little; for ambition satisfied he’d make no bones about leaving her. She was more than ever aware, that let him be never so deep in love—which was not likely—he would never lose sight of the claims of wife and family. He was of great family and that family, in the end, must come first. But she? For love of him she would sacrifice husband and children.
But not the crown; not the crown
. Even in her moments of ecstasy she knew it; that was a treachery her royal blood could not allow.

The Prince’s first journey from home. The King was concerned as to how the boy would bear himself; he gave his instructions and his warnings. The Prince listened with respect; but when the younger Despenser sought to add his lessons, the boy turned away with scant ceremony.

He was thirteen. He did not perfectly understand the relations between those two, he fancied, though, it might not stand to his father’s credit. But he knew perfectly well what all England knew—that the Despensers, father and son, commanded the King; and for that he hated them. He loved his father; as a little boy he had delighted in the presents—the hound, the horse, the little ship carved by the King’s own hand. Now, at thirteen, he loved his father still—the handsome man, generous and loving to his children, skilled in every sport, kindly to all, save when his Plantagenet rage took hold of him—a failing the boy knew he must look to in himself. But most of all he hated the Despensers because they had insulted his mother; they had caused her great unhappiness, they had made a division between her and his father. He loved his parents equally; and that love the Despensers had tried to corrupt. With them, as far as was in his power, he’d have nothing to do!

He was overjoyed to be journeying into France; he had never left home before and he was, besides, half a Frenchman. He had heard from his mother of the glories of France, the gaiety of the court; and above all he longed to see his mother again. And he wanted to see Mortimer—there was a hero if you like! Mortimer had escaped the Tower—how nobody knew; that would be a tale worth hearing! He was Prince of Wales and heir to the throne; but he was only thirteen and ready as any boy to hero-worship.

He was to sail on the twelfth day of September; Stapledon, good bishop of Exeter and one of the few men the King could trust, should have him in charge.

Isabella pulled a face when she heard that last. ‘This Stapledon the prim-prude—he never liked me! When I think of the tales he could carry back, I tremble.’

‘He may not live to carry them!’ Mortimer said, amiable.

‘God is good; but not, I doubt,
so
good!’

‘Then we must help Him a little.’ At her surprised look his lips lifted in that wolfish grin.

The Prince had arrived at Boulogne. He had been met by his mother and a great retinue; now he was on his way to Paris and his uncle. He was charming everyone with his young courtesy, his grave bearing; and then, suddenly, by his boyish pleasure, his clear young laughter. He had not the handsome look of the Capets nor yet of his father; but he was so fresh, so honest, so ready to please and be pleased. Isabella presented her charming well-mannered boy to her brother with pride. Young, honest and innocent; gossip lowered its voice as he went by.

He was surprised to find that he did not like Mortimer; he had come prepared to hero-worship; and he smarted with disappointment. He no longer wanted to hear of the wonderful escape; unlike his mother he was not taken by that wolfish grin. He was surprised, also, to find the man so often in private conversation with her. Nor did he like the way Mortimer carried himself towards his mother, Madam the Queen of England. The man had a way of touching her—shoulder or hand; and once it was her breast. That she did not countenance such behaviour was clear in the quick flush of her cheek and the sharp glance of her eye. She bore with it, the boy supposed, out of her courtesy. But—could she not see it?—Mortimer was, in his way, no less disrespectful than the Despensers themselves.

‘I do not like this Mortimer,’ he told Stapledon, ‘neither the man nor his manners. I would to God he were still fast-locked within the Tower!’

‘You must make some allowance for the manners of France!’ He tried to calm the boy; but for all that the good bishop was troubled. The Queen of England’s behaviour did not, to say the least of it, consort with the dignity of the throne; he must indeed condemn it—a mortal sin.

Young and guileless the boy might be, but he was no fool. He had caught a scrap of conversation between his mother and Mortimer and, puzzled though he was, knew how to put two-and-two together.

‘My lord bishop,’ he said, and was careful how he chose his words, ‘I think you are… perhaps… safer in England.’

Stapledon looked up sharply. The King’s friend, he had been looked upon sourly by Madam Queen Isabella. ‘You know something, sir?’

‘I know nothing; but I fear much. You should leave France, my lord, as soon as you may. Would to God I might go with you!’ Walter Stapledon asked no more question; he would put no further strain upon the boy’s loyalty. He, himself, had felt some malice—and the boy was neither a mischiefmaker nor a fool. Stapledon was not one to waste time. Leaving his retinue behind he travelled post haste through the night. By daylight he had reached the coast and found, by good fortune, a ship on the point of departure.

The King of England listened to my lord bishop with dismay.

That the Queen had cuckolded him with Mortimer he did not for a moment believe. Royal pride forbade such belief! But that she had been indiscreet was only too clear; foolish, she had smeared her honour and his own. For the first time he began to question whether there had not been something between those two—his enemy and his Queen? The Despensers had thought so; he remembered their suspicions. Had her hand, after all, been in the fellow’s escape? He could not forbear mentioning it to Hugh the Younger, asking his question and himself answering it. ‘No, no! It could not be! And why should it be? They have set eyes upon each other once and once only!’

‘Once is enough for mischief between men and women!’ Despenser said.

Despenser had planted the barb; and the King could not withdraw it. The Queen was a snake, a serpent. She must not be left where she could work her mischief. She must be commanded home at once.

Twenty-first day of September, in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty-five, the Prince of Wales, handsomely attended, went in procession to Bois-le-Vincennes to pay homage for Gascony. Proud, yet somehow humble, high upon the great white horse, he made a gallant showing; and as he went, there were cheers and blessings for the boy from England, so courteous and so debonair.