The Traitor's Wife (74 page)

It was now William's turn to feel smug as John de Grey looked puzzled. He took advantage of this by hastily dismounting from his horse and then assisting Eleanor off hers. If his hand lingered too long near Eleanor's waist, it was surely the horse's fault.

Eleanor thanked him and introduced the two men to those they did not know. Edward looked at both Zouche and Grey with the utmost of suspicion, but the others greeted them politely. Zouche admired Edmund and Lizzie and reminded Eleanor that the latter had been only a bulge in Eleanor's belly the last time they met, a reference that discomfited Grey even more than the dog had. He was not easily defeated, however, for while William was having his beard pulled by Lizzie, Grey asked Gilbert, who needed no persuasion, to show him his new pony. Soon he was giving Gilbert, whose riding skills were indeed somewhat rusty, various hints, earning him a grateful accolade from his pupil's mother. “I am so glad you told him to use a lighter hand on the reins, Sir John. I have been telling him the same, but he will not listen nearly as well to me, though I have been riding since I was walking, almost.”

“He would prefer to get his lessons from a knight, I suppose,” said Grey amicably.

William, who had been knighted when John de Grey was still in diapers, considered mentioning this but on reflection thought better of it.

It was Lady Hastings, who having had suitors between her three marriages had a better idea of what was passing in the men's minds than did Eleanor herself, who finally called matters to a halt. “Nelly, don't you think we should be leaving now? I believe if we did we could get quite far.”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “I am eager to be moving on.” She smiled. “When I am settled, I hope I shall have the honor of showing each of you hospitality.”

Not, William and John each devoutly hoped, when the other man was within a hundred miles of Glamorgan.

Lady Hastings, worrying that some fortune hunter might recognize the Lady of Glamorgan and abduct her, had arranged for her sons, Hugh and Thomas, and her household knights to escort them to Glamorgan. Their presence had the added advantage of giving Edward, who would be fourteen in a few months, some sorely needed male company.

With him occupied with his cousins, and the little ones being tended in their lumbering cart, Eleanor could ask as they rode along, “Bella, did you ever think of marrying again?”

This had been a subject much on Bella's mind, though not with herself as the reference. “I have thought of it, Nelly, but I doubt I will. I miss Ralph too much. In any case, at my age and after Father's execution there are certainly no men begging for the privilege.”

“There ought to be, my lady,” said Amie warmly. “You are certainly pretty enough still.”

Bella tapped her damsel on the cheek affectionately. “So are you, my dear, if you would let me find you a proper match.”

“I like it as I am,” said Amie.

Bella said gently, “What of you, Nelly? You have been widowed a year and a half now. Do you think of remarrying? It would be no disrespect to Hugh if you did.”

“Goodness, no!”

Amie looked slyly at Eleanor. Lady Hastings had sternly bid her to hold her tongue about the subject of Lady Despenser's knights, but as Eleanor had brought up the subject herself… “Lady Despenser, what about Sir John and Lord Zouche?”

“What about them, child?”

“I believe they want to marry you.”

“Marry me! What nonsense! Lord Zouche has merely been kind to me, no more, for chivalry's sake. That Sir John barely knows me.”

“He knows full well that you are Lady of Glamorgan,” muttered Gladys.

“And you were looking lovely at court today in your green dress,” Bella added.

“I told all of you this morning, I wore that dress for Hugh. It was his favorite, and I thought he would like to see me in it when I got my lands back, instead of those drab blacks.” Eleanor's indignation mounted. “Really! Cannot a man even talk to me without you three thinking I am about to marry him?”

Isabel, who had been riding beside the cart holding Edmund and his nursemaid, trotted up now. “Isabel! Have I said or done anything that makes you think I wish to remarry?”

“No, Mama,” said Isabel loyally. She added, “But I would not be angry if you did, Mama, truly. I know you must be lonely.”

Exasperated at her companions' utter insensitivity and thickheadedness, Eleanor made a sound that was very much like an oath and urged her horse into a canter. “Remarry!” she told the palfrey indignantly as she broke away from the other women. “As if it were just a matter of getting a new one of you!”

The palfrey let out what Eleanor thought was a sympathetic neigh.

As they moved west they passed through Stratford-upon-Avon, a pretty but plodding little town that could boast of only one distinction: It was the birthplace of the present Bishop of Winchester. Which, in Eleanor's biased opinion, was hardly something to be proud of.

From this forgettable hamlet they moved to Evesham, where Hugh and Bella's grandfather had been slain so many years before by royal forces that had included Eleanor's own father. He had been buried at the nearby Evesham Abbey. Lady Hastings went to visit his tomb by herself and came out weeping. “I could have buried Papa in the abbey close by him, if the queen had let me,” she said later as they headed toward Eleanor's manor of Tewkesbury. “It would have pleased him and done her no dishonor.”

Their moods lightened, however, as they neared Tewkesbury, where Gilbert, goggle-eyed, made the stunning discovery that the green fields and rolling hills they were riding on belonged to Eleanor. “This is ours, Mama? Ours?”

“Yes, Gilbert, by the grace of God.”

Edward said superiorly, “And this is nothing compared to what Mother owns in Wales.”

Gilbert could express his feelings only by whistling in disbelief. Smiling at him, Eleanor could not but wish that her husband had been as easily satisfied.

Tewkesbury was the first of Eleanor's manors that she had visited since regaining her land, and when she arrived at the manor house at Tewkesbury, not far from the Abbey of St. Mary the Virgin, she half-expected to have to force her way in, the king's order notwithstanding. The keeper, however, handed over the keys to her readily, if sullenly, and she moved into the great hall. Save for some trestle tables, benches, and chairs, and the supplies the keeper and his men had brought in for their own needs, it was bare, though once the walls had been hung with tapestries and the window seats fitted with cushions. They and everything else of any value had long vanished, seized either by the common looters who had swept through the Despenser estates during the queen's invasion or by the royal looter Isabella herself. Though Eleanor had expected as much, still she could not keep the tears from her eyes when she remembered how welcoming the great hall had once looked. “We shall make it handsome again someday,” she said finally. “But what is that commotion outside?”

“Your tenants, Aunt Eleanor,” said Hugh de Hastings. “They want to swear their homage and fealty to you.”

“And,” said Lady Hastings, “I am sure some of them want to take service with you.”

The great chair in which the lord of the manor habitually sat had disappeared with the other furnishings, but the small, battered stool sitting in a corner would do. Edward, following Eleanor's gaze toward it, carried it to the dais at the other end of the hall and dusted it with his own sleeve. Then Eleanor took a deep breath, walked across the room, and sat on it. “I am ready for them,” she said.

“Hugh did this?”

The Abbot of Tewkesbury nodded as Eleanor walked slowly down the ambulatory that had been built behind the high altar at Tewkesbury Abbey. Off the ambulatory lay a series of chapels: St. Catherine's Chapel, St. Faith's Chapel, St. Dunstan's Chapel, St. Edmund's Chapel, St. Margaret's Chapel, and the finest and largest of all, the Lady Chapel. “He paid for the improvements, my lady, and he had very strong ideas of what all should look like, too.”

“I am sure he did,” said Eleanor, smiling as she remembered Hugh and his endless letters to John Inge. “I only hope he did not drive all of you mad in the process.”

“Close to it,” the abbot admitted. “But it was well worth it. Your lord husband was most generous.”

“He never told me about these chapels, and they are so beautiful! Simple, yet elegant. Oh, he did tell me he had given the abbey a bit here and a bit there…” Eleanor's voice wandered off. Only three months before his death, Hugh had arranged for the abbey to receive a large donation of land, in exchange for the monks praying for Hugh and Eleanor's good estate during their lives and their souls after their deaths. Could Hugh have foreseen that his soul would soon be in need of such prayers?

The abbot shrugged. “Perhaps he wanted to show you when it was completed, my lady. He always did speak with the greatest respect of your ladyship and your great ancestors. And as you can see, there is still work to be done. We had planned to rebuild the choir, but late events—”

“Yes, I see.” Eleanor followed the abbot into the gloomy Norman choir and by the high altar, where her father, her brother, and her sister-in-law were buried. How Hugh would love to see her finish what he had started! “It could be made so much lighter and brighter. The roof could be raised—windows put in—the ceiling painted…”

“Exactly along the lines of what we monks and your lord husband were thinking.”

“Then let us continue it, Abbot! It will be a while before I can be as useful as I would like, for I must put my estates in some order, and it will be some time before my revenues begin coming in. But when that happens, what is mine shall be at your disposal.”

“I thank you for your generosity.”

“And it will be a memorial, also, to my dear husband. It may be the only one he is ever allowed.” Eleanor fingered the purse that hung from her waist. It was full of coins, her own and the florins that she had stolen from the Tower. She had planned to dispose of the florins at the next abbey she visited, but this too was a worthy cause. She took a handful of them and gave them to the abbot. “In the meantime, I hope this will help in finishing what has already been started.”

The abbot had to stop himself from whistling as he did a quick calculation. “Yes, my lady, it certainly will.”