The Traitor's Wife (40 page)

Lady Hastings frowned at Eleanor's lying-in chamber in Canterbury Castle. “How cheerless, my dear!”

“I had to leave most of my goods behind me when I left Hanley, Bella, and it was too dangerous to send for anything afterward. And, of course, Hugh's enemies still have possession of many of our lands, even though they were to be taken into the king's hands.”

“Well, I had suspected as much, and I have brought some lovely tapestries for you to hang.”

“It is so sweet of you, Bella. Thank you.”

“I hoped they would cheer you, for I know you must be frightened. With Hugh gone, and what happened the last time you were with child—”

Eleanor winced and nodded. “I must say that I am. After all that has happened in the past year… But things are looking brighter. You know, of course, that Hugh and your father have petitioned the king to annul their exiles? That means they must be in communication again with each other; it was so sad to have them estranged. The king showed me Hugh's petition before I came down here to stay; it was truly eloquent. So was your father's.”

“I had not seen them, but I know the king's council—though not exactly a full council, since only four of the bishops on the council were there—have agreed to their return. But Lancaster has sent his own petition, along with the Earl of Lancaster and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. They accused the king of maintaining my brother and aiding him in his piracy! Then—you will not believe the effrontery, Nelly—they set a deadline for the king to answer their grievances. As if he were their subject!”

“I had not heard of that, but I know the king is on his way to Cirencester now, with an army.”

“I hope John de Hastings will join them. He did nothing to hinder the Marchers in Wales out of fear, but has told me he wishes to make his peace with the king over Christmas.” John de Hastings, the Earl of Pembroke's nephew, was also Bella's stepson by her second husband, though stepmother and stepson were about the same age. She added wryly, “I can only hope he keeps his word. It is not as if I can send him to bed without supper if he disobeys.”

Eleanor sighed. “I am sorry things have reached this pass, but I do think this exile was horribly unjust. I only hope that when Hugh is back, life will be more peaceful for everyone. But Bella, how I miss him! I should be angry with him that he turned pirate, I know, but I can only think of how much I miss him.”

“Has he sneaked ashore lately?”

Eleanor shook her head wistfully. “I have not seen him since the business with Leeds Castle. That is why I asked the king to let me stay here in Canterbury, instead of in the Tower with the queen, for hopes that he might come. I wanted to go to Thanet Island, where it would be easier for him to do so, but the king and Hugh wanted me in one of the royal castles in case there was any trouble. But enough of me. Do you hear from your father?”

“I have had several letters. I am not sure he wants to come back from exile! He has grown spoiled by having the wines of Bordeaux so near at hand, he tells me. I just hope he doesn't come home with a little French bride half my age. Imagine having a stepmother at my time of life!”

Eleanor laughed more lightheartedly than she had in months. “You are a fine one to talk, Bella!”

“May I hold him, Mama?”

“If you are very careful, Isabel.”

Isabel took Gilbert le Despenser from Eleanor's arms and cautiously cradled him in hers, while Edward, Joan, and Nora pressed closer to see. “He looks like a piglet,” said Joan.

“All new babies do,” said Edward in a bored voice, though he was itching to hold his brother himself.

“Well,
I
didn't,” said Joan.

“Yes, you did!”

“Did not!”

Nora sucked her thumb, as she had been wont to do ever since Hugh went away. “Stop fighting,” she said sternly.

“I'll second that.”

“Papa!”

“Hugh!”

Hugh strode into the room, grinning. Tactfully, he greeted his daughters and Edward—his eldest son was still in the king's household—with hugs and kisses before he frowned as if just remembering something. “They told me at the gatehouse you had a brother. Is that true?”

“Here he is, Papa!” Isabel thrust Gilbert in his father's arms.

“Oh?” Hugh eyed Gilbert critically. “Well, I guess he'll do.”

“Papa!”

“Oh, he's handsome enough,” Hugh conceded. He kissed Gilbert on the forehead. “Now will you let me have a word with Mama? And then we will all sit together for a while before bedtime.”

“Yes, Papa!”

Hugh admired his new son a bit longer, then gently laid him in the nearby cradle. He climbed into the bed next to Eleanor and wrapped his arms around her. “A fine boy. Didn't I tell you we would be blessed again with a healthy child?”

“Yes, you did, Hugh, and I am so happy and thankful.”

“So am I, sweetheart.”

They lay quietly together for a while. “I saw Bella on the way in here. She said that you had had an easy labor. Was she just sparing me?”

“No, Hugh. It was easy, and quite fast. Nothing like—” She crossed herself. “It was all that I had prayed for, and now that you are here, all my prayers have been answered.”

“I cannot stay long, sweetheart, as much as I would like to. The king has given me a safe conduct, I hear, but that's not worth a great deal when ruffians like the Mortimers and Lancaster are still about. But I did want to see you and the children—and I have some money for the king. It came from a source we need not discuss.”

“Hugh, I hope there is to be no more money from that source.”

“No, I am quite ready to settle down to the straight and narrow. I think I shall go to my father in France and make a complete peace with him. Soon the time will be right for us to rejoin the king, and we need to be working together when that time comes.”

“Will that be a long time, you think, Hugh? I have missed you so, and worried so much about you.”

“I think it will be very soon. The king is planning a surprise for the Marchers; he wasn't the Prince of Wales for naught. But no more about this now. Let's call the children back and have a pleasant evening, shall we?”

Hugh had visited Eleanor in late December of 1321. By the end of the year, the royal forces and those of the Marcher lords were clashing along the Severn. Hereford and the Mortimers, determined to prevent the king from crossing the river into Wales, burned the town of Bridgnorth, where a royal force led by Fulk FitzWarren was attempting to repair the bridge there. Undaunted, the king's forces crossed at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile, the surprise Hugh had spoken of took place. Welsh troops, led by Sir Gruffydd Llwyd, began attacking the Mortimers' lands in the north of Wales, including Chirk, along with lands belonging to Hereford and Lancaster. The Mortimers' troops, many of whom had been coerced into serving, began deserting, while Hereford took his men to Gloucester, sacking the Despenser castles of Elmley and Hanley on the way. Lancaster, occupied with besieging Tickhill Castle in the north of England, refused to send any aid to the Mortimers, ostensibly on the ground that Badlesmere was with them. Isolated, the Mortimers surrendered to the king on January 22, 1322. In the middle of February, they were imprisoned in the Tower. The queen, watching from a window as they arrived, barely glanced at the elder Mortimer, a man well into his sixties, but her gaze lingered for a long time on Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. He was, she thought, an undeniably handsome man.

Before the Mortimers' arrival in London, however, the king had moved to Gloucester, where he received two more surrenders, those of Audley's father and Maurice de Berkeley, and encouraged others to follow their example. Hereford and the king's former friends, Audley and Damory, hastened north to join Lancaster. Theirs were not the only troops moving around the north. As Edward sat in the great hall at Gloucester Castle, cheerful from having received the surrenders, Sir Andrew de Harclay, a lord from Carlisle, hurried in. Dropping to one knee, he exclaimed, “Your grace! You must know that the Scots are afoot again in the north. They are back to their old tricks, looting, pillaging, and burning.”

“Aye,” said Edward dispassionately. “The treaty has expired; I would have expected as much.”

“Your grace, cannot we march against them immediately?”

Edward shook his head. “By and by, but not now.”

“But sir—”

“Lord Harclay, you have done well in bringing this news to me, and I thank you. I wish all of the other barons were loyal and faithful like you. But they are not, and I must deal with that first. If Robert Bruce threatened me from behind, and those of my own men who have committed such enormities against me should appear in front, I would attack the traitors and leave Bruce alone. I shall pursue these traitors, and I shall not turn back until they are brought to naught!” He added, “Go back to your lands. I shall have important work for you to do soon.”

Harclay obeyed. Edward, having ordered Lancaster not to receive the rebel Marcher lords, and having received an unsatisfactory reply, ordered that troops be raised to join him at Coventry. Among those who received the orders were the Despensers. By early March, in Lichfield, the Despensers were sitting in the king's tent. With them, setting up camp outside, were the Despensers' own ample troops, raised with the help of their allies in the Midlands and Wales. Eleanor, from her station at Canterbury, had sent some of the necessary messages, just as the queen from her station in the Tower had sent messages on behalf of the king.

Hugh had not found it as difficult to win his father back to his side as he had thought. Though the older man still held the younger responsible for their joint exile, and had been angry—and not a little chagrined—to learn that his son was making his living by piracy, he, like Eleanor, had a hard time staying angry at Hugh, particularly when his son was braving the winter gales in the English Channel. “Never mind,” he'd told Hugh when he arrived at the chateau in Bordeaux that the elder Hugh had rented for his own comfortable exile. The younger man had gone so far as to bend his knee to his father and ask him for his forgiveness. “Never mind,” he'd repeated, impatiently pulling him up and embracing him. “We'll work together, from now and evermore.”

“There is much news to tell you,” Edward said, his fond gaze wandering from father to son, but especially on the son. Tonight, after dark, Hugh could at last visit him alone… He shook his mind back to the present.

“I heard a rumor that Kenilworth had surrendered,” said the elder Hugh. Kenilworth was one of the Earl of Lancaster's grandest castles.

“Just a few days before,” said the king. “And just look what was found in it, dear friends. Look.”

He pulled out a few parchments. Several were safe conducts, allowing Lancaster's followers to go unmolested into Scotland. The first had been issued the previous December, the last less than three weeks before. Two were from the dreaded James Douglas; one of them was addressed to “King Arthur.” The last informed an unidentified correspondent that Hereford, Damory, Audley, Badlesmere, and several others had come to Pontefract and were ready to make surety with the Scots if the latter would come to their aid in England and Wales.

“Good Lord,” breathed Hugh the younger. “Lancaster has been treating with the Scots!” He turned delighted eyes in the king's direction. “Edward, did not I mention long ago that after the siege at Berwick, Lancaster's lands were never touched by the Scots, while all the surrounding ones were despoiled? Now, you see, he has only continued what he was doing long ago.”