The Traitor's Wife (54 page)

“If this is not the damnedest thing you have seen, Zouche. Look!”

At Wateville's urging, Zouche looked. Standing slightly apart from the rest of the crowd ringing Bristol's common gallows was Lady Hastings, a guard on either side of her. William winced. He had been friendly with both Lord Hastings and Lord Monthermer, and had sat at many a meal with each man as he had endured good-natured, predictable jokes about his marriage to a much younger, pretty wife. Lady Hastings herself he had seen only occasionally, as neither he nor she had frequented court much. Up until now, he'd thought of her only as someone's wife, not as the Earl of Winchester's daughter, Hugh le Despenser's sister.

“Do you think they are making her watch? I'll only anger her if I approach her.”

“I will see.”

He walked to Lady Hastings' side. “Surely, my lady, you have not been forced to watch this?”

Though in her thirties, Lady Hastings was still slender and youthful-looking, albeit with a worry line etched between her eyes, and her ladies had taken the trouble to dress her with care even today. She looked at him vaguely as if not quite understanding or recognizing him, then said dully, “No. I asked to be brought here.”

“Insisted,” offered the young guard next to her in a whisper.

“If he were dying in his bed I would be there. I did not see a reason to make an exception for this.”

“You have my condolences, my lady.”

She nodded and for the first time looked at the surcoat he wore. “Lord Zouche. I have heard that you will soon be searching for my brother and the king.”

“It is necessary, my lady, as they have left the realm.”

“May you never find them!”

A cloud of dust kicked up by the two horses dragging Winchester on a hurdle announced the earl's arrival. Dazed and bleeding over his bright surcoat, Hugh was untied from the hurdle and hoisted to his feet. Even as he wobbled upright, grimacing with pain, he kept something of his dignity about him. The hangman fastened the noose around Winchester's neck, and Lady Hastings knelt. Zouche, knowing there was nothing more he could say to her, started to move away. Yet it seemed hard to leave her there all alone with no one but her guards for company, so he stayed by her side.

Lady Hastings, not taking her eyes from the scaffold, was oblivious to whether he stayed or went. She prayed as her father was lifted aloft, suspended in the air until he was half-strangled, and then dropped. Her prayers continued as he was cut down, as he was dragged to a block, as the executioner raised his axe, and as the head fell. Only when Winchester's balding head was raised by the ears for the crowd to admire did she crumple to the ground. “Fool woman,” one of the guards said, half-admiringly.

Zouche knelt beside her. To his surprise, Lady Hastings had either never lost consciousness or had done so very briefly, for she was crying as he lifted her head. “There is no need for you to remain here,” he said gently. “Let me take you to the castle. You have women there to look after you?”

“Yes.”

The crowd was dispersing, the fastening of a headless body back upon the gallows being of little interest to all but the most dedicated of execution-goers. William waited impatiently for his squire to bring his horse, then helped Lady Hastings to mount it. She sat up straight as he settled behind her and took the reins. When they arrived at the castle, she let him help her dismount and walked into the great hall with him, saying nothing but, “This way,” when William, not wanting to leave her until she was deposited safely with her damsels, looked to see in which direction her chamber lay.

“Lady Hastings!” Eleanor and little Joan appeared in the hall, their eyes wide with terror. “We have seen something horrid! From our window—a man hanging a ways off.”

“A thief, no doubt, Joan. Do not look anymore. Where is your governess?”

“She felt ill, and we had nothing else to do but look out the window, so we looked.”

“But she first told Joan and me not to look, but Joan looked anyway, and then I had to look. That was wrong of Joan.”

“Yes, but you should not have looked either. In any case, the best you can do now is not to look.” Lady Hastings managed to twitch out a smile. “You should practice your music. Your mama will be very pleased to hear how you have improved, although she is very busy now and may not be able to hear you for a while.”

“I practice. Eleanor does not.”

“Only when Lady Hastings reminds you!”

An attendant came and took the girls, rescuing Lady Hastings from any further need to make light conversation. She had been moved the day before to a cramped chamber some distance off from the girls', and she resumed her silence as Zouche led her there. At last they reached her chamber. “You may leave me here. Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, my lady?”

She shook her head and he pushed open the door. Two of Lady Hastings' damsels were waiting inside. Zouche had never seen either of them, but the younger one, a girl still in her teens, bore a startling resemblance to Piers Gaveston. As he puzzled over this, they took off Lady Hastings' cloak as she stood passively, staring at the floor. Seeing from the gentleness with which they performed their task that she was in good hands, he turned to leave. “Lord Zouche?”

“My lady.”

“Will you tell the king's daughters good-bye for me?”

“Of course.”

“Tell them"—Lady Hastings' tears were at last flowing—"that I will miss them so much.”

The next day, Isabella, in her son's name, confidently began issuing summons for Parliament. Meanwhile, the Earl of Leicester, who had decided it was high time he was called the Earl of Lancaster, was sent to Wales, along with Zouche, several other knights, and some of the Welshmen who had been freed from the Tower, in search of the king and Hugh le Despenser. The queen herself began traveling to Hereford, where she would lodge at the Bishop of Hereford's palace while awaiting word from Wales.

Zouche and the rest of the search party left Bristol at the same time an ashen-faced Lady Hastings and her small band of attendants left Bristol Castle, under guard, for her dower lands. The Earl of Winchester's body remained on the gallows. It would hang there in its cords for several more days, after which the gallows being needed for the usual miscreants, it would be cut down and served to the pack of wild dogs that had lingered nearby in hopes of receiving just such a treat.

E
DWARD AND HUGH AND THEIR FEW FOLLOWERS HAD ARRIVED AT Caerphilly Castle on the same day, October 27, that the Earl of Winchester was executed. After the news came, Hugh went off by himself. When hours had passed with no sign of his friend, the king went in search of him.

He did not have far to look. Hugh sat in the castle's chapel, lit only by a single candle. “I killed him, Ned, with my folly. If I'd gone as the queen asked…”

“Hugh, no.”

“It's not too late, Ned. I can give myself up, disappear. You can make terms, save yourself at least.”

“Without you, Hugh? Never.”

“It's hopeless, Ned.”

“Hugh, when we are together, there is always hope.” He lit a second candle. “I loved your father as I could never love my own, Hugh. I never met a more loyal, true man in my life. Would we honor his memory by parting now?”

Hugh said nothing, but began to weep silently, his head in his hands. It was dawn when he finally let the king lead him from the chapel.

On November 2, the king and Hugh left Caerphilly Castle, and fourteen thousand pounds, in the hands of John Felton, its constable, and Hugh's eighteen-year-old son. They went to Neath Abbey, from where they sent a delegation, led by the abbot and including Edward's nephew Edward de Bohun, to attempt to negotiate with the queen. It was a futile effort; the queen had no need to negotiate.

“Edward, Sir John Weston wishes to speak to me. Would you like to come along?”

Eleanor looked over at her son Edward, hoping that this inclusion of him in a conference between adults might bring him out of the shell into which he had retreated. After the bishop's murder, Edward, already the most reserved of her children, had been especially quiet and self-contained, but when the news of the Earl of Winchester's execution had reached the Tower, he had become so withdrawn and silent that Eleanor despaired of ever pulling him back into the world.

“No.”

Eleanor sighed. “Very well, Edward. I will talk to him by myself.”

Weston, waiting in an outer chamber, was Eleanor's only source of news these days, for it had been weeks since any royal messenger had passed through the Tower gates. Eleanor herself had not ventured outside of the Tower grounds since Stapeldon's death. “My lady, there are some changes you must know about.”

“Changes, Sir John?”

Weston nodded bleakly. “Today, the Bishop of Winchester came to London bearing orders signed by the Duke of Aquitaine. The bishop has been appointed deputy treasurer, since Archbishop Melton has remained in the north.”

“And as he has always been loyal to my dear uncle, he would be murdered too if he tried to come to London.”

“Probably. In any case, the bishop was greeted with great joy by the Londoners because he came from the queen. These are some of the orders he has been instructed to carry out: I am to be removed from my post here, and Hamo de Chigwell is to be removed from his position of mayor. John de Gisors and Richard de Betoyne will hold the Tower for the time being, and Gisors will be the mayor.”

The names sounded familiar, but Eleanor could not place them.