Isabella: Braveheart of France (19 page)

Oh what, the young Earl sighs, not another castle! He will make him the Baron of Britain if that is what he wants. He tosses out earldoms and castles as if they are sweetmeats.

There is a flush to the king’s cheeks, his eyes shine. There is much whispering when they are together, private looks and secret smiles shared with no one else. If he should grab the king by the crutch and satisfy him on the throne it would not appear as lewd as the looks they give each other.

What are these moments they share? It is very like lust, but that is not quite it. It is like Gaveston but it is not. There is a puzzle here and she is resolute to solve it.

***

And now they are to winter, the king and Isabella. A grey sky, grey fields, even the sun would be grey if it should come out, which seems unlikely. It shall be grey and cold like this till the end of days.

How dull her spy looks. Rosseletti never draws attention to himself wherever he is. He sits in corners and blends with the tapestries, the carpets, the walls. If it is not for the scratching of his quill you might forget he is there altogether.

“It should be announced that I am to go on a pilgrimage,” she tells him.

“Where will that be, your grace?”

“Anywhere but where the king is.”

“Until when?”

“Until Forevermas,” she says. “He is heartily tired of me it seems and for my part I am weary of him. Just to see him makes me feel that I should like to be holding a horsewhip and a branding iron.”

“I thought that was the way of all matrimonies,” Rosseletti says. She is startled; she thinks he has just made a joke.

“I wish my brother could help me.”

“It seems unlikely there is much he can do. He cannot interfere in affairs between a husband and a wife.”

“I am his sister.”

“With respect, you are Edward’s wife, your grace.”

She fights an urge to stamp her foot.

“Is there no hope of conciliation?”

“What might I do, Rosseletti? Forget that my king has a mistress?”

She wishes she could bite off this sharp tongue, she must take care to guard it better when others less trusted are around. There is an awkward silence.

“It is not unknown for men to have...consorts, other than wives. Kings most of all.”

“I know that.”

“If Lord Despenser were a woman, do you think you could bear it better?

She ponders the question. The answer, she supposes, would be yes. The king would never talk politics with any woman aside from her. It would be just a fleshly thing, and she supposes she would not fear that as much as a rival who shares her husband’s beds as well as his plans and his royal seal.

So what might she do? The king can snub his nose at the Church and even the fires of purgatory for his private lusts, but the Queen of England can only dream of other lovers. She thinks of Beatrice, strangled by hired ruffians in a tower. Of Beatrice, head shorn and shuffling along a cloister in her penitent’s habit, spending the rest of her days with a chanson and prayer book.

Her ladies say she is beautiful and men of the court flatter her in obsequious ways while their eyes burn. What good does beauty do her? She might as well be a dried out hag praying rosaries in a nunnery.

“You know he still pays eighty pence a day to the Dominican friars to pray for Gaveston, over a hundred pounds a year just on offertory candles for his soul?”

“Still? It has been ten years.”

“A long time to keep milk, but they say that certain loves can stay fresh an eternity.”

She stares at him. Who would have thought the Rosselettis of this world harboured such romantic opinions? He will not meet her eyes.

He is right, she thinks. Edward still loves his Perro.

***

June finds her at Langley, and Eleanor is again at her side, casting baleful sidelong glances as if she wishes to say something but is constrained by either fear or good manners. If she is now Edward’s spy - as Rosseletti believes - then she has little enthusiasm for it. Perhaps she, too, thinks that the Despenser is spending too much time in the company of the king. Eleanor’s attitude towards her seems to have softened. She sometimes hurries to fetch her cushions when she sits and volunteers to water her wine on the hot days.

Isabella receives another messenger from the Lady Mortimer. She resolves to help her but the king pays little heed to her anymore. She will need one of her ladies to run the errand for her.

It has always seemed to her that if you wish someone to carry your load then it is best to do nothing but stumble. So she spends the day sighing and pricking her finger with the needle at her sewing and weeping silently when her ladies pretend not to be watching her.

Finally it is too much for even a mouse like Eleanor. “Your grace, something troubles you?”

“It is nothing.”

Eleanor stares with her huge, liquid eyes.

Finally, as if it is too much to bear: “My friend is in trouble.”

“Your friend? Then I am sure the king...”

“I scarce think so; it is the king who is the cause of it. Never mind this, Eleanor, it is not something that need trouble you.”

“You mean Lady Mortimer?” Eleanor says, for she is a bright young woman and needs little coaching in such conversations.

“A little while ago she sent me a letter. She suffers terribly. She has not enough to feed her children, let alone herself. She is granted just one mark per day for her necessities, and out of this sum she must feed her servants as well. The place they have locked her is draughty and leaks when it rains. Lock up her husband, yes, but what guilt does the wife bear? She was nothing but a good friend to me while she was my lady-in-waiting. Think on it, Eleanor, should your husband ever rise against the king, would that be a fault of yours?”

Isabella watches a squirrel on a branch attack a hazelnut. You just need patience and knowledge of the weakest spot in the nut. Oh, and sharp teeth.

“Have you spoken to the king, your grace?”

“The king will not see me. You know this, Eleanor.”

“Perhaps then I should do so. You know he holds me in great favour.”

“The Lady Mortimer is my friend, not yours. I should not have you trouble yourself unduly on my account or hers.”

“Perhaps then I shall do it because we are both wives and mothers and it is the right and charitable thing.”

“Well do not tell the king that I sent you. Or your husband. They will refuse any request if they know it is from me.”

The Lady Eleanor dares put a hand on Isabella by way of comfort. Then she withdraws. Isabella thinks she will do it. She hopes this will help the Lady Mortimer, for she very much likes her as a friend, and it will also show the Despenser that she is not quite toothless, not yet.

***

The king, she has heard, has gone to Langley, as he does on this day every year, the anniversary of Gaveston’s death. He has Masses said and takes rich, golden cloths to embroider his tomb. He has established a chantry there and prayers are made for Perro in perpetuity.

The Despenser is a rare visitor, but she supposes he has nothing better to do now that his king is elsewhere, on his knees with his hands cupped for another man, albeit this one is dead. Still, the Despenser would not be human if he did not feel a pang of jealousy.

He smiles, appears relaxed, though he prowls the carpets like a bear looking for its lunch.

He is not an unhandsome man. Fine living has made him a little soft, paunchy even, but he still wears many of the marks of youth. He is dressed not in velvets but in plain linens, purples and some scarlet silk to denote his rank and position. But it is land he lusts after, not ostentation.

He appears bookish but she remembers he was at Bannockburn and has some reputation as a warrior and pirate. His wrists are so narrow and delicate, she would not think him burly enough to wield a broadsword. She supposes his greatest asset is that others misjudge him until he is inside their guard, and then it is too late.

His eyes glitter, the fleshy lips part. He smiles, or employs an expression that he has learned is very much like one. He says in a silky voice: “So, how is Lady Mortimer?”

“She suffers.”

“Much?”

“Intolerably.”

He would not be here if she had not perturbed him with her plea to the king. He must still be afraid of her then. Well, that is something. She supposes Edward may have relented in the face of the entreaties by his favourite niece - who also happens to be his own wife! - and she can only imagine what this has done to the Despenser’s equilibrium.

He leans in. “The king does not yet realize how clever you are,” he says with a smile.

“I do not know what you mean.”

“You cannot win this game.”

“I am sure you must be speaking in riddles. I was never good at riddles.”

“Your eyes are so wide and blue and the king is so narrow and trusting.”

She holds his gaze. His smile is so like a grimace he can no longer hold it. “Do not think for a moment you can best me.”

“My Lord Despenser, I do not know what it is you think I have done. Despite our recent misunderstanding, I remain his loyal servant, and wish only to do what it is best for him and for the Crown.”

He simmers. He withdraws. The Lady Mortimer remains at Skipton.

She has decisions to make. Is it enough to be the cosseted wife of a king, a shadow gliding around the anterooms of one of his palaces? She will go mad. She was raised by France to be a queen. She was made by God to be a woman.

She cannot abide it, but railing against Edward will do her no good, and showing her intent to the Despenser will only forewarn and forearm him. From now on she must be more circumspect.

She has a servant fetch Rosseletti and sits him down with his seals and parchments and shows him the letter she has just received from the Lady Mortimer. He reads it, shakes his head, and holds it to the candle flame. “You must have nothing to do with this,” he tells her.

“You will write to my brother.”

“Your grace, I will not.”

“You will do as I say. You will write to my brother and tell him that should Roger Mortimer ever one day appear at his court, he is to give him all possible assistance.”

“That is treason.”

“Rosseletti, you are my clerk, not my keeper.”

What was it her father had said to her?
You will obey your husband in all things.
But he could not have imagined a situation such as this.
Would they shave my head and shut me away in a tower?
The King of France might, but should Edward dare such a thing he would risk war with France.

She saw her father’s ghost in the room glaring at her.
Well, hector me all you want from your grave, I shall not submit like a pretty little lamb and let them make the rest of my life sewing and walking in the garden.

I am a queen. I want my place at the council and at the king’s side, and if he will not give it to me, I will force his hand. He will see that I am no coward. If he will call for rain then I will give him a tempest.

Chapter 37

She resides for a time in London, at the great Tower, with the young prince Edward, now ten years old and growing tall and fair like his father. It is a grim fortress, with its green-slimed reeking moats, its cavernous gateways and iron-tipped portcullis. But her apartments are luxurious enough: jet black beams on the roof and thick glass on the windows.

Occasionally she spares a glance at the Lanthorn Tower. Mortimer is up there, cooped in his little cell.

Tonight she walks the battlements, restless. There is a wisp of mist on the river, lights on the Surrey side, riders out there in the dark. She has heard the sound of carousing all evening from the guardroom downstairs, but it has died down now. Lord Mortimer has bought his guards wine and a feast so they might help him celebrate his birthday.

She hears a noise from the chimney, mice in the bricks she supposes, but then as it gets louder she realizes there are men up here, and her alone and defenceless. This is not anticipated. She freezes in alarm.

She watches, astonished, as two silhouettes emerge from a small door that opens onto the constable’s private walk on the Hall Tower. She takes one careful step back into the shadows, holds her breath, terrified they might see her.

The two men leap on the leads of the adjoining tower and scramble away across the roof. It is all over in moments. Then they are gone.

It is a moonlit night and she cannot make out their faces but she is certain from his voice and from his size that she knows at least one of those men.

She hears the splash of oars as a boat pulls away from the wharf, sees them row across the river towards the Surrey bank. A torch flares, there are men waiting over there in the dark.