Isabella: Braveheart of France (29 page)

Mortimer and William seem on good terms though. They know what they are about.

She never warms to William. He is like every baron she has ever known, the manners of a grandee and the heart of a banker. Behind the grand gesture it is all business. He reminds her of the Despenser, for he has no conversation if he is not talking politics or money. He has amassed a vast fortune, and this is why he can now buy his daughter the next king of England. She imagines it is like getting her a pureblood Arab pony, only he is the one that will get the joy out of it.

She endures his hospitality with bitter smiles, the prince a ghastly presence beside her, fidgeting and scowling.

The palace windows look out over windswept fields where fat herds of cows bend to the grass and cold biting winds sweep from the narrow sea. They eat from gold plates, their crystal goblets breaking the long and difficult silences. The prince picks at his food without appetite. She wonders if this is the face his own father wore when Longshanks told him he was to marry Isabella of France.

Chapter 50

Mortimer is restless. He wanted to make a start on this business in the spring, now it is close to autumn. He does not want to delay another year. The fruit is ripe for the picking; the harvest must come in now.

He harangues her about the prince. When will he choose? ‘It’s only a wife,’ he says, damning himself without even knowing it. If there was a coin with four sides he could try his luck that way, he says, it’s a good a way as any other. He passes the days riding with William until gout has the count sat by the hearth, shrieking as if he is being drawn and quartered. The young prince spends time with the one called Philippa. She is a stout girl and not very pretty, but they both like horses. In Mortimer’s mind that settles things.

“How many soldiers can William provide?” she asks him.

“Perhaps a thousand.”

“A thousand?”

“He is not Lancaster.”

“But so few? We might not take Bury St. Edmunds with a thousand men, let alone all England.”

“We do not have to defeat England. Think of these men as a bodyguard, that is all. Once we are there, the country will rise to support you against the Despensers.”

“And the ships?”

“A hundred and forty. Enough to transport our army -”

“- bodyguard - “

“ - horses, and supplies.”

How did it ever come this far? She has never imagined taking arms against Edward. She wonders what her father would say about it.

“We await the prince’s pleasure,” Mortimer says.

“I shall talk to him.”

“The money and the ships are being gathered. Once the marriage contract is signed, William will underwrite the entire expedition.”

“What of the Pope?”

“He will not approve the marriage while we are in Hainaut, but he will sing a very different tune when your son is on the throne of England. God is on the side of the victorious.”

“What if we drown in the Narrow Sea? What if my son is taken prisoner? William undertakes huge risk here.”

“Not so much. Charles is backing him.”

“My brother? But he abandoned me! He threw me out!”

Mortimer shrugs his shoulders. “It was all a shadow play, no more. He had no choice. The Pope put him in an impossible position. Do not believe for a moment that he abandoned you. You are France, remember. He plays a subtle game, your brother.”

“He was convincing enough when he wants to be.”

“As we all must be.”

Another look between them, lovers considering their next move at chess.

***

A wind from the Narrow Sea rattles the shutters. Is it never summer here?

She thinks of that last night in Dover. Even then the Despenser wished to stop her leaving. Could Edward not see what must happen? When a king cannot leave his own borders for fear that his countrymen will rise up and slaughter his prime minister - for that was what Despenser had become - then it is time to appoint a new minister. If a king is not practical, he cannot long be a king. This is not her fault.

“I am sorry for my ill temper,” Mortimer murmurs. “I have just had news. My uncle is dead.”

“When did you hear this?”

“A messenger came this morning. It was starvation, they say. Edward let him die by inches in the Tower. I could understand it if he had gone against Gaveston, but it was done simply because of his relation to me. The king revenges himself on everyone now. I shall not forget this barbarity.”

“I am sorry, Roger.”

“Tell your son to choose one of William’s brood and let’s be done with this. Remind him that he is not expected to be faithful to her when he is of age. What man is?”

“No one in this room,” Isabella says. She cannot look at him these days without thinking of Lady Mortimer, who thought her a friend.

“You are hardly a paragon yourself,” he bites back.

“At last something you and the king agree on.” They sit in silence, listening to the wind howling from England.

***

But when she sees the young prince, he is of no mind to be hurried. “Must I marry?”

“It is a good union, Edward. You surely understand the importance of it?”

“But Father said I mustn’t.”

“Then I shall put you on a ship for England, and we must part. For you know very well that I cannot ever return with things as they are.”

“What would you do?”

She holds her breath. The question is asked in earnest. Would he yet contemplate leaving her? Would she allow him to do it, or is she bluffing? “I don’t know. All I know is that I fear for my life if I return to England.”

“Father would never harm you.”

“There are other men who would, and your father has a habit of looking the other way.”

“Uncle Hugh,” he says. ‘Uncle’--the name grates with her as much as “Bella.” She wants to shake him:
He is not your uncle!
Instead, she watches him make calculation.

How royal he has become. He holds out a hand for a cup and a steward brings it. He lets him pour a little wine and add water to it. The future King of England does not even look at the man, just taps his foot with impatience when he is slow about it.

The prince says: “You’re right, I believe he might do it. “

The Despenser has surely considered it: a little poison in a cup would do the trick. Edward may not sanction it but he would be relieved to be rid of her if someone else would do it for him and bear the guilt. There would not be the need for rough men with knives or ropes, she would feel unwell one day, and then take to her bed, complaining of cramps in her belly.

Just as Warwick did.

“Philippa,” the prince says.

He says it so softly she misses it. He has to repeat himself: Philippa, he will marry Philippa. There, it is decided. They may move to contracts, they can load the ships.

God grant them a fair wind.

Chapter 51

By the end of summer the contract is signed, and the dowry - troops, ships, horses, money - is paid in advance. That night Mortimer takes her with breath-taking ferocity. Afterwards she eases herself from beneath him while he snores and wraps a fur around her shoulders. She gets out of the bed and pours water from the silver ewer on the nightstand. Mortimer stirs. He groans and snakes out an arm, stroking her thigh.

“You are a hell cat,” he murmurs.

“And you, sir, make me purr like a kitten.”

“I live to serve my queen.” He raises himself on one elbow and she shares her cup with him. He grimaces. He does not want water, he would rather wine. “This time next month we shall be lying in the keep at Windsor.”

“Or dead in a field.”

“I perhaps, but not you. I shall not let them take me alive, for I know what they will do to me. But he will not harm you. The worst for you is you will be divorced and sent back to France.”

“Where Charles will have no choice but to put me in a nunnery.”

“Better than your head on a pike above London Bridge.”

The prospect makes him thirsty. He gets up and goes to the table by the fire and gets a jug of wine. So much muscle and hair; he is a bear to Edward’s sleek, smooth stallion. “But it will not come to that,” he says. “When the country knows their queen has returned, they will flock to you. They all pray for deliverance from the Despensers.”

“I have pledged no harm to my son’s father.”

“Once the Despensers are taken care of and you are regent for your son, then Edward may retire to some country manor and take his pleasure of as many favourites as he wishes, and none shall come to harm.”

It all sounds so simple.

There were days since she had come to Hainault when she woke in the morning and wondered if her children would curse her for what she is about to do. She has angered the Pope and is about to overthrow a king. This is not what her father had raised his daughter to do.
Your job is to obey, Isabella
.

“England will mob you,” Mortimer says, as if reading her mind. “The only men that will decry what you are about to do are the Despensers.”

“And my husband.”

“Oh, Edward,” he says airily, waving a hand in the air, “Edward will be all right. We’ll set him off to making thatches. He will be happier on a roof than on a throne.”

***

Mercenaries arrive at Dordrecht from all over Europe; there are Flemish, German and Bohemian. With Hainaut’s men she counts a little more than a thousand, but not much more; not an army, just as Mortimer had said - a bodyguard. They have more on a night watch on a Welsh castle.

There are fewer than a hundred ships, not the hundred and forty that Mortimer had claimed. The soldiers, baggage, and high Flemish horses are all loaded on board.

There is wine and salted beef, enough to last them the journey over the Narrow Sea, and a little longer if they have to fight. But with a thousand men they are unlikely to settle in for a long campaign. They will eat English beef and drink English wine or they will not be eating at all.

It is a blustery morning in autumn when they pull up anchors and slip out of Holland. Dark clouds choke the horizon and there are whitecaps on a grey sea. The wind whips the yards and sailors mutter under their breath.

Spray crashes over the bows. Somewhere out there, through the storms and the churning waves, is England. Soon she will know what her fate holds. Edward and his lover are waiting.

Chapter 52

The mist lifts; she hears a gull cry overhead. A shoreline comes into view. Mortimer comes to stand beside her. She is so weak from seasickness that she has to support herself on the aft rail to keep from falling. Her knees shake.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know, your grace.”

“There is an estuary to the north of us. Could that be the Stour?”

“I doubt that very much. If it was, there should be land on our starboard side.”

For three days they have been battered by storms, they have come early this year. Has God pronounced judgment on her plans? They are supposed to meet Edmund of Kent at Thanet. Instead they could be in Norway for all the captain knew. They have lost two ships; they count themselves fortunate to make landfall at all.

Mortimer orders them ashore. He is first with the men and supplies that head for the beach in small rowing boats. She shivers in her cloak, watching them. The first bite of autumn is in the air.

Finally she can stand the rocking of the ship no longer and demands to be let ashore. She has changed into her widow’s weeds. If there is to be a welcome, she wants England to know she comes as a wronged wife, not as conqueror.

Mortimer comes out to meet her, wading through the grey and cold sea to carry her ashore. She could never imagine Edward doing that, though he might have done it for Gaveston. She smells cooking fires, her stomach growls. None of them has eaten for days. They are all so weak, if Edward finds them now he could slaughter them all with an army of laundrywomen.

They have pitched her a tent, laid carpets on the sand beneath it. She stands within, out of the wind, watching the waves rush up the shore, sucking at the shingle stones. Plovers dip and cry.

Mortimer stands, hands on hips, barking orders. She summons him. “How do we fare?” she asks him.

There is fire in his eyes, he has waited three years for this moment and the campaigner in him is warming to the task. “We have the last of the horses to bring ashore. Then the fleet will be ready to sail.”

They want the ships away from here, so the mercenaries are not tempted to turn back if the business goes hard. It is probably already too late to work the element of surprise. Edward has posted watches all along the coast and someone will have spotted them.