Harlot Queen (40 page)

No need for fear. Mortimer knew the risks as well as she. Even while she besought her son, he had acted. His armies were combing the countryside; everywhere in market-place and on church door a reward was posted—a King’s ransom for the man that had been King, dead or alive. With all her heart Isabella hoped it would be dead. There was neither spite nor revenge in the hope; merely the simple knowledge that it would be best for him, best for them all.

The revolt was at an end; the ringleaders secured, the King taken.

‘He goes where there can be no escape!’ Mortimer said.

Isabella nodded. Until now she had been glad to spare the prisoner the worst rigours of confinement; so she had assuaged the guilt that, in spite of reason, at times assailed her. Now, remembering her nighttime terrors, she was not minded to suffer them again. As before she said, ‘Do with him what you will!’ And this time she added. ‘I shall not enquire of him.’

Young Edward had had time to consider the matter. He had listened to Henry of Lancaster and to Orleton; the one twice-bound to his father by ties of blood, and leader of the Council; the other prince and priest of God. Those two had made things clear. His father had played both son and country false. He had delivered up the crown to his son; now he would snatch it back again. He would give the country over to the sword and the horrors of civil war. Such a war must be averted.

To step down from the throne stripped of his crown that though heavy was yet glorious, to be no more a King! It was a humiliation his spirit could not brook. This he would not, could not admit to himself. No. He must keep the crown because the people had chosen him; and because he must keep the oath sworn to them and to God.

The King’s dark journey had begun.

Where he was no man knew. Hustled from prison to prison—and each worse than the one before—he never saw sweet daylight now; scarce knew when summer ended or winter began. Always the bitter journey by night that he be not recognised and again rescued.

Riding; riding in the dark and the cold, the wind making nothing of his garments threadbare and in holes—those same garment in which he had been taken. Why give him better? If he died of the cold it would save himself and everyone else a good deal of trouble. They had shaved him—a further precaution against any man knowing the King; they had taken filthy water from the nearest ditch. His face, denuded of its beard, had a weak, womanish look; where they had cut him with the dirty razor, his face festered. Thin, grey, the once-clear skin scabbed and running; little fear of any man knowing the King!

Berkeley to Corfe, Corfe to Bristol, Bristol to a destination unknown; thence back to Berkeley. When he saw again that grim tower blocked against the sky his poor heart rejoiced. His own small room waited to welcome him, more dear than any palace; the kindly gaoler waited, more dear than son or daughter. He was coming home.

But it was a different gaoler. And it was a different cell… a dungeon cell.

Of all the cruelties he had been made to bear and had stoically endured, this was the most cruel. When they thrust him into the dark he sat upon the wet and filthy straw and wept.

Time was endless in the dark cell where he lay by the world forgotten. His eyes—the bright hunter’s eyes—were growing dim with darkness and with tears. One privilege he was allowed; he might write to his wife and to his son—but to none other. The gaoler, stone-faced, unfriendly, with no mind to follow his predecessor into the grave for kindness to the prisoner, would bring him candle, paper, quills and inkhorn. Crouched upon the low stool, writing upon his knees, weak eyes peering close in the dim light, he would pour out his heart.

Whether they had received his piteous appeals he did not know; from neither of them an answer. He must wait, wait, wait, wear his heart out with waiting; but never an answer.

That he had never heard from his son was not to be wondered at. The young Edward had never received his letters; could not even discover where his father lay. As for his wife—it was no wonder, either; she never answered. To put herself into any sort of relationship with him was physically impossible; revulsion and guilt alike, forbade it. But she sent him gifts—as it might be to a beggar, linen and a woollen cloak lined with fur, not too good a fur; and was glad to be thus easily free of her duty. He never got her gifts. Sir Thomas Gurney, now in charge of the prisoner, took them for himself. Too good by far for the poor wretch in the cell! With the cloak she forced herself to send a few false words. She would have visited him long ere this but Parliament had forbidden; yet she would come soon. Her message he did not get, either, which was as well; she did not mean to set eyes again on that weak and handsome face. When she told Mortimer so, he laughed. If what Gurney wrote was true, that face was anything but handsome now! She heard it without pity; she had neither pity nor anger for him now, nor any desire for revenge. Nothing but a most deadly repulsion. She would die—or he should—before ever she endured the sight of him again.

He had stopped writing his letters; his last hope he knew to be hopeless. But since speak he must, he was pouring his heart out in a poem—lament for a life ruined, for friends false, for a wife faithless and cruel. A long poem; he had much to say and time was endless. Through the long unsleeping nights he thought upon it, through the long unending days he worked upon it. Searching his heart for the truth, he moved slowly from bitterness to acceptance; acceptance, first agonising step in his long calvary. Step by painful step he came from acceptance to prayer for forgiveness. So he came at last, to affirmation of his belief in God and His goodness. For always beneath his frivolities and vices he had held fast to his religion; and for that reason the monks at Neath and at Llantony had forgiven him much. Now, alone in the dark cell, his faith centred upon God. He spent his waking hours praying and writing; and both were his solace in the endless hours.

The Song of King Edward son of King Edward, that he himself made.

So he called it, defying those that had declared him not great Edward’s true-born son. He wrote it in French, a tongue he held to be the true language of poetry—the tongue of his childhood, his innocence.

The first lines came easily; he wrote them, the tears pouring down his grey scabbed cheeks.

My winter has come; only sorrow I see.

Too often, too cruel, Fortune has spoken.

Blow after blow she rains upon me,

Heart, hope and courage, all, all she has broken.

Be a man fair or be a man wise,

Perfect in courtesy, honoured in name,

If Fortune forsake him, if his luck flies,

To the blast he stands naked—a fool come to shame.

Of Isabel and her part in this, he found, anger driving, only too easy to write.

The greatest grief my heart must bear,

The chiefest sorrow of my state

Springs from Isabeau the Fair,

She that I loved but now must hate.

I held her true, now faithless she;

Steeped in deceit, my deadly foe

Brings naught but black despair to me,

And all my joy she turns to woe.

And he forgot that he had never loved her, that he had neglected her for his mignons, shamed her with his mignons.

He remembered only that a wife should be loving and true; and that she was unloving and false.

And since there was no hope in man he must turn himself to God and to sweet Jesus.

To Him I turn my contrite heart,

Who suffered for me on the cross.

Jesus, forgive my baser part,

Bend thou to me in my dire loss.

For all my sins and treacherous deeds….

Treacherous deeds
. The words had written themselves; he stared at them astonished. Treacherous—he, so betrayed? His many sins he had, at last, faced; but treachery—never. Now, for the first time he must search his heart in the matter; and come to his bitter conclusion. Treachery, treachery was the word. He had forsworn the oath of his crowning, betraying his people and God Himself. His enemies had done less; far less. He had betrayed the King of Heaven; they but their earthy King. As he hoped for forgiveness he must learn to forgive them.

But it was hard, hard. His punishment was dire, was bitter, was never-ending; and he was but a man, and a weak one. There were backslidings when he cried aloud cursing them all—false wife, false friends. Then he must force his mind from their cruelty to thoughts of his young son, the boy that sat in his father’s place; and he would remember that Ned had refused that place until his father should consent. Then, tenderly, he would pray, beseeching Jesus to keep the boy against all traitors, that all his enemies be brought to shame; and the boy himself grow wise and strong to shine bright in the chivalry of Christendom. Then he would pray for his son until his strength gave way and he lay prone in the filth of the floor.

Day by day searching his soul, agonising for the truth, reshaping his verses, polishing. But for all that it was not a good poem; yet it was the stuff of true poetry since his soul’s agony reached out to move the hearts of those who should read it; even the heart of Isabella… some day.

And so he came to the last lines, asking the prayers of all men, wise and simple, entreating the ear of Mary, Mother of Mercies,

That she beseech the child she bore,

The Son that on her knee she sat,

His tender grace on me to pour,

And grant me mercy yet.

Gurney had received his orders. The Queen knew nothing of them; she desired to know no more of the affair. The prisoner’s life grew ever more bitter. Such captivity was not fit for a savage beast let alone a man—and a man that had been a King. From his dungeon, than which he had imagined nothing worse, he was removed to a cell above a cesspool; the stink was so foul that never for a moment, could he forget it. He tasted it in his food so that, racked with hunger, he must turn from his meat in loathing; it followed him into his sleep so that he awoke retching upon an empty belly. When he tried to pray it came between himself and God. The stink fastened upon himself—it was in his body, in his hair, it had become the breath of his nostrils; it had become himself. The last cell had been dark and cold; here darkness was so dense, the cold so bitter, that though it was high summer without, with him it was forever black winter. And, since they no longer allowed him to write, no candle-light ever penetrated the darkness. Damp straw his body had grown used to; but the straw on which he now lay was no longer damp; it was wet from the cesspool and his own urine. It soaked through his rags, through the flesh to the very bones; he was racked with a swelling in his joints. He could not sleep for pain; and let him fall, for a moment into uneasy dreaming, he was awakened by vermin. Rats rustled in the straw, lice fed upon the once-fair hair, the once-bright cheeks of Edward of Carnarvon.

His mind began to play him tricks. For long stretches of time there was no clear understanding of where he was or what had happened. Now he was a child, now a man, now a King to rule, now a boy to be punished. His father came, the great tall man with the old, cold face. His mother never came; it did not surprise him—he had never truly known her. But Madam Queen Margaret came and sat with him and held his hand; she loved him and he loved her and when she went away he cried like the child he had become.

He had a lot of sisters; how many he didn’t know. Elizabeth he remembered and Joanna because they came often. Elizabeth laughed a lot, even in this strange, dark place she laughed; her yellow hair lit the dark like a summer day. Joanna was loving and lovely. You mustn’t be afraid, Joanna said. Aren’t you afraid? he asked. She shook her bright head. Not even of our father? Well yes, she said; a little. But I hide it; when you’re afraid nobody must know.

His mind gave a leap, brought him back to the black and stinking

He wasn’t young any more. He was a man and his eyes were dim with darkness and with tears. There was no more father, no more Madam Margaret, no more Elizabeth nor Joanna. There was only the woman his wife, that flaunted herself—the Queen; that ruled for the young King, that slept with her paramour; lecherous and treacherous she dwelt in a world of her own making—a heaven of power, a heaven of lust.

He lifted his arm in one of his old, sudden angers, to strike; it fell upon the fur covering worn to the skin brittle, heavy with grease. He thought he struck with power; the blow fell light as a withered leaf. Yet for all that it was a blow of power; for with it vanished his last will to violence against her and her paramour, the last of his anger. He had no anger against anyone, not any more. He no longer wanted his crown nor his place of power. All he wanted was to be free. Freedom, clean air, a crust of bread so it were not mouldy, fresh water; and most of all his head bare to the wide sky.

Three people were anxious about the fate of Edward of Carnarvon.

The young King was anxious for news of his father. More than once he had spoken to his mother on the matter; and each time, ‘Soon he will be free!’ she had promised. ‘Until then he is well, and lodged as befits a King!’ And when he asked that, with his own eyes, he might see his father, ‘Soon,’ she said. ‘He’s best not disturbed until he’s free.’

Isabella was deeply troubled. Would to God the man was free of his prison—but not in the way she would have the boy believe. Yet she would lift no finger to take away his life. She had believed the rigours of his prison would do that work for her; but nothing seemed to put an end to this hateful man to whom she was bound. And she was the more troubled by ever-growing rumours of plots to set him free. His weakness and his vices forgotten in the bitter discontent, favour was turning ever more strongly towards the deposed King. And now it was not the common, the ignorant alone that favoured him. She knew the heavy anger of the barons, of the church. How long before the storm broke? It was a question she did not care to face.

Most troubled of all was Mortimer—and his anxiety was all for himself. He had played a leader’s part in driving the King from the throne. He had treated his prisoner with the utmost cruelty. He had defiled the King’s bed. He had put to death, in circumstances of horror, the King’s sweetheart. If ever Edward of Carnarvon came back to the throne he would see to it that for all these things Mortimer paid in full, in his own flesh to suffer the torment he had put upon dying Despenser.