The Traitor's Wife (67 page)

“Poor creature!” mimicked Maltravers. “I daresay you weren't poor-creaturing him when he was taking your estate and giving it to Nephew Hugh. And who, by the way, is 'Nelly'? The guards and I were having a chat with him the other day, before he became so barmy, reminiscing about Hugh's execution—”

“Good God, Maltravers, why do you keep harping on that with him?”

“And he started crying, which is hard to get him to do these days. 'Poor Nelly,' he said, again and again until we cuffed him to get him to stop. 'My poor, sweet Nelly.'”

“That's his niece, you fool, Hugh's widow. They put her in the Tower.” Berkeley pushed his cup away and stood. “I'm having a featherbed brought in there, and giving him some fresh clothing, at least.”

“Against Mortimer's orders.”

“This is my castle and I'll not be dictated to as to how I treat my prisoner.”

“Not your prisoner, the crown's prisoner. And what do you think will happen if he doesn't die of natural causes? You're doing him no favors, Berkeley. Mortimer will see to it that he goes, one way or the other.”

“I'll worry about that when the time comes,” said Berkeley.

The Scots had not finished with the English. Having left Stanhope, they turned their attention to invading Northumberland, this time under the direct supervision of Robert Bruce himself. The English army, meanwhile, had mostly disbanded, and the Hainaulters, to whom England owed over forty thousand pounds for this campaign alone, had been sent back to Hainault. Henry Percy was left to protect the north as best he could, while the court moved south, from York to Nottingham to Lincoln. While some districts nearby were able to raise the money to buy themselves out of a Scottish occupation, Northumberland's towns were burnt to the ground.

One Scot, however, did not join the others in the north: Donald of Mar, now the Earl of Mar. With the blessing of his uncle, Robert Bruce, he was in Wales, stirring up trouble against the new English regime. Roger Mortimer had also eschewed the north in favor of Wales. He was at Abergavenny when he received a certain letter.

“According to Lord Mortimer's lieutenant, William of Shalford, men in Wales, South Wales and North Wales alike, are plotting to release the old king,” said Sir Thomas Gurney, who along with William Ogle had hurriedly arrived at Berkeley Castle on the evening of September 20. “They are led by Rhys ap Gruffydd. Shalford says that if this plot succeeds it could be the undoing of Mortimer.” He looked toward the direction of the guardhouse and smiled. “Lords Berkeley and Maltravers, you are to acquaint yourself with the contents of this letter and find a suitable remedy to avoid the peril. Well. It's pretty damned obvious what they have in mind.” Gurney passed the letter to Berkeley and Maltravers, who read it silently.

Maltravers laughed when he finished reading, but Berkeley said, “I'll have nothing to do with this, nothing.”

“Nothing! The man's been living in your castle since April, except when you let him escape,” said Gurney.

“I did not
let
him escape,” snapped Berkeley. “I underestimated the determination of his friends, that is all. Be that as it may, I'll still have nothing to do with this.” He turned and left the room.

“Well?” said Maltravers. “How?”

“Mortimer says it will have to leave no mark, as people will be expecting to view the body.”

“So chopping his head off is out of the question,” said Ogle cheerfully. “Well, there's poison.”

“We'd have to find someone to make it up for us,” objected Gurney.

“Strangulation?”

“Strong as he is? He'd have to be knocked cold, and that would leave a bruise. Bruises around his neck, too.”

“Suffocation?”

“I suppose that's the only real choice,” admitted Gurney. He shivered and looked at the fire, which was dying. “Can't Berkeley's servants make a decent fire?” He took a poker and began prodding the logs with it. He poked too hard, and he had to pull it out of a log with some difficulty. Then he began laughing.

“Are you daft, man?”

“No,” said Gurney, laughing all the harder. “I've an idea. A most fitting idea.”

Edward, comfortable and warm on the feather bed Berkeley had so kindly brought him several days before, raised up on his elbow and stared as he heard his cell door being unlocked. He watched as Maltravers, the Gurney fellow who had just arrived at Berkeley, and a number of men he did not know filed in, smiling most peculiarly at him and not bothering to invent any excuse for their being there in the middle of the night. So he had been right; he would soon be free, free with Piers and Hugh and Hugh's dear old father. His favorite sister, Joan. Adam and Lucy. His mother, his stepmother, his father… His mouth almost crinkled into a smile. No, his father probably wouldn't be pleased to see him, under the circumstances.

In the torchlight he could now see that the men were carrying some rather incongruous items. A drinking horn? A table? A cooking spit, glowing red hot? He frowned. Were they going to
feed
him first? But before he could make any inquiries, he was seized and pushed over on his belly and felt the table, legs in the air, being pressed against his back as someone ripped off his drawers. Then the drinking horn was shoved into his body, then the spit through the horn, and Edward's screams were echoing through Berkeley Castle. Just as Thomas de Berkeley, lying in his chamber weeping, thought he could not bear to hear them any longer, they died.

Eleanor's screams that same night of September 21, 1327, woke not only her family, but the guards dozing outside the Beauchamp Tower. Their sleepy fumblings at the door, combined with the howling of Lizzie and John and the barking of the dog, only caused her to scream the harder. It was not until Tom, in the kindliest manner possible, resorted to slapping her briskly across the face that she calmed enough to sit in a chair and sip the wine Gladys carefully gave her. “Another nightmare about Hugh, my lady?”

“No.” Eleanor took a shuddering breath and stared at Gladys in bewilderment. “My uncle.”

S
HORTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, TOM HURRIED INTO THE BEAUCHAMP TOWER, his face alight. “She is here in London, at last!”

“Is she pretty, Tom?” Eleanor asked. “You have an eye for a pretty woman, Tom, I know.”

Tom considered the question with the air of authority. “Hard to say, wrapped up as she was, but I thought she was nice-looking. Pleasingly plump, I would describe her as.”

Since the news had arrived that fourteen-year-old Philippa of Hainault and her uncle John had landed in Dover, in preparation for her marriage to the fifteen-year-old king, all of London had been abuzz with excitement, a happy excitement for a change, and even Eleanor had caught a bit of the anticipatory mood. It was much more pleasant for all concerned to think of the wedding, which was to take place at York in January, than of the funeral that had taken place at St. Peter's Abbey in Gloucester on December 20. There, Edward, late the King of England, having lain in Berkeley's chapel for a month and by the high altar at the abbey for two months, had at last been interred amid great pomp.

The details of the funeral reached the Tower at about the same time the bride-to-be, her carts groaning with the weight of the gifts presented to her by London's officials, proceeded on to York. The queen, dressed suitably and elegantly in mourning, had spared no expense in burying her husband. Edward's body had been watched and prayed over constantly, before and after being personally escorted to Gloucester by Thomas de Berkeley and his followers. Each side of the hearse bore a gilt lion, wearing a mantle bearing the arms of England, and one of the Four Evangelists. Eight angels holding censers, and for good measure two more lions, stood outside the hearse. Edward was enclosed in his coffin, but a wooden figure of him, draped in cloth of gold and bearing a gilt crown, had been carved to rest upon the hearse. New robes had been provided for the knights in attendance. Roger Mortimer himself had ordered a black tunic (very somber, very expensive) especially for the occasion.

The young king, of course, had attended the funeral, along with his brother and sisters. John of Eltham and the girls, Eleanor thought, must have shed some honest tears for their father. So, perhaps, had Mary, Edward's sister. Eleanor's own sisters, she heard, had also gone to the funeral, though she herself, needless to say, had not been offered the opportunity. It was just as well, she knew, for she had never believed for a moment the official announcement that the former king had suddenly been taken ill. She could not have sat through the hypocritical business without shouting out to accuse the queen and Mortimer of murder, and where would she and her children be then? Better for all concerned that she mourn the king whom she had loved first as a niece, then as a woman, privately in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.