The Traitor's Wife (85 page)

“I can read quite well myself, thank you.” Eleanor read the indenture and smiled grimly. “Mortimer, you are quite reasonable after all. I can have my lands back for a mere fifty thousand pounds, payable in one day. May we go to the king now, so I can express my gratitude for your bounty?”

Edward started as his cousin and Lord Zouche entered the room. Eleanor was much thinner than she had been, there was something peculiar about the arrangement of her hair, and her robes were ill fitting and ill suited to her complexion. But the Earl of March had told him that she was suffering from deep remorse about her theft, so deep that it had made her ill, and perhaps that explained her odd appearance. “It is our understanding that you wish to surrender Glamorgan, Morganwgg, Tewkesbury, and Hanley Castle, and all manors associated with them, to the crown, in exchange for a full pardon of your misdeeds. Is that correct?”

“Yes, your grace.”

Eleanor's voice was much less melodious than it had once been, and this was also disturbing to the king. But he did not give it as much thought as he might have, for his mind was very much engaged elsewhere. A few weeks before, Philippa's physicians had confirmed the young couple's deepest hopes. Philippa was carrying a child. If God was good it would be a boy… He pulled his mind back to the situation before him and said, “Very well, Lady Despenser. We will accept your offer. Sign it, Lord Zouche.”

William stepped to a table and signed. Following his signature with her own, Eleanor wondered grimly how many Clares were turning in their graves as she gave away the lands they had held so dear.

They had taken a respectful leave of the king and Philippa—oddly, Isabella was nowhere to be seen—and were entering the great hall to find William's men when William touched Eleanor on the shoulder. “Look there in that window seat, my dear. Is there anyone you recognize?”

“Gladys!” All of the self-control Eleanor had managed over the last nine months gave way when she saw her friend of twenty-three years standing before her. She ran into her arms, sobbing and laughing. William's own eyes misted. “I've missed you so,” she finally managed. Trying to regain control over her emotions, she brushed at her eyes and smiled. “But I think most of all I've missed a warm bath!”

Gladys rearranged Eleanor's headdress, exchanging a look with William as she did so. “You shall have one this very afternoon,” she promised.

They were traveling to Ashby-de-la-Zouche. William had planned to put as much distance between Eleanor and the court in one day as he possibly could, but Eleanor's wan looks soon convinced him and Gladys to stop. He had a friend in the neighborhood and knew that he could count on his manor for hospitality. The master and the mistress were not at home, having gone to visit relations for Christmas and not yet returned, but the servants soon had a fire blazing and water heating in the best guest room for Eleanor. William, having been advised that Eleanor would rest after bathing, sipped ale in the great hall and played a game of chess with his squire.

He was deep in contemplation of a move when Gladys appeared before him. “My lord,” she said, “my lady wants you.”

“Is she feeling ill, Gladys? I didn't like her looks when she came in.”

“She says only that she wants you.”

William hastened to their room. There Eleanor sat in the washtub, glowing from the heat. Her hair, newly washed and rinsed in rose water, hung around her face in tiny ringlets. “You called, sweetheart?”

“Yes.” Eleanor smiled up at him. “I need help getting out of the bathtub.”

He handed her out of the tub and set her on her feet. “And drying.” He took a towel and dried her, missing no spots. “And going to bed.” He carried her to the bed, she breathing as heavily as he, and got his clothes off faster than he had since he was a lad of fifteen. Many minutes later, he whispered, “There may be something to bathing every day.”

“There may well be,” said Eleanor.

They had been lying together contentedly for an hour or so when Eleanor said quietly, “I told you when we married, William, that you did not know what a wretch I was. The king's jewels—”

“You should have bided your time until I became constable of the Tower. Then I could have helped.” She did not laugh. “Why did you do it, my love?”

“Revenge against the queen and Mortimer. Not the most satisfactory revenge. Jewels as revenge for Hugh's life? For my children's freedom? But with every gold cup I took in my hand I felt a gloating within me, because I had something the queen wanted and could never have. I enjoyed it, William. And now because of my stupidity Glamorgan is lost to my family forever. What must my ancestors think of me? What must you think of me?”

“Only that I love you very much.”

She said wistfully, “Even with my hair cut short, and me so skinny now? I must look like a boy.”

He hugged her closer to him. “No, my love. I checked most thoroughly, as you'll recall.”

She giggled, and William's heart ached when he heard a sigh of relief behind that giggle. In a different tone, he continued, “I have been trying so hard all these months to get you back. But all the petitions I sent to the king went unanswered. I went to court to beg for you; my men and your men went to court to beg for you. We were turned away.”

“You could not get past that hell spawn Mortimer.”

“No.” He shuddered. “I thought you were in the Tower all these months, comfortable at least. And it turns out that you were at Devizes Castle! Ill and alone. I failed you, my love.”

“No, William. I knew all these months that you were somewhere out there, loving me. It gave me hope. It saved my life.” She kissed him on the nose. “And now, with God's grace, we shall at last have a life together.”

“With God's grace,” agreed William. Eleanor yawned, massively, and William laughed for the first time in many a month. “Let's start our new life by getting a good night's sleep, my love.”

The next day, they set off for Ashby-de-la-Zouche. William told her on the way about his manor, one of the few lands he held in his own right and not through curtesy of his late wife Alice. “It's large and comfortable, Eleanor, not what you've been used to, of course, but quite prosperous.”

“I know I shall like it,” she promised.

Eleanor was feeling so much better after her long night's sleep next to William that their journey to Ashby was a quick one. She smiled in delight as they arrived before the manor house. Not for the house, which indeed was large and rambling, but for who stood in front of it—Edward, Gilbert, John, Lizzie, Isabel, and Edmund. “Whoa!” she cried. She jumped from her horse without waiting for assistance and ran toward them, to be embraced by all of them at once.

“Mama, did you miss us in Ireland?”

Eleanor started. Then her eyes filled with tears at the kindly lie that surely must have saved her youngest children from so much misery. “Yes, dreadfully,” she assured John. “I will not go away from you again for a long, long time.”

O
N FEBRUARY 18, 1330, THE KING OF ENGLAND HAD HIS WAY IN ONE particular. Philippa, his wife of two years, was at last crowned. Philippa was five months gone with child, and even Isabella and Mortimer had had to concede that it was faintly scandalous that the woman who was carrying the potential heir to the throne should be not crowned herself. They could comfort themselves with the knowledge that the lands granted to the new queen had not cost them anything: Philippa had been granted Pontefract, Glamorgan, and Morganwgg, the last two owing to Lady Despenser's timely repentance. Queen Isabella had had to give up Pontefract out of her own tremendous dower, but she had been compensated with Tewkesbury and Hanley Castle, thanks to the obliging Eleanor. But every official who administered the queen's lands answered to Roger.

Isabella, watching in Westminster Abbey as her daughter-in-law with her dark hair and purple robe became the Queen of England, thought disdainfully that the girl looked like a very splendid grape. It was not that she had any hard feelings toward Philippa. Philippa treated her with respect, if no real warmth, and even Isabella could find no fault with her as a wife. No, the trouble lay in the ever-burgeoning belly that gave Philippa such a rounded appearance. For that previous December, at Kenilworth Castle, Isabella had miscarried a child who was just recognizable as a boy.

Her midwife and her physician had done all they could, even though Isabella had sensed that both of them thought all had worked out for the best. “I fear after this you will be unable to bear another child,” the physician had told her stiffly, and Isabella, exhausted as she was, had longed to slap his face. She had wanted this child, nuisance as he would have been to her and Mortimer and embarrassment that he would have been to the king. And now she would never have another. Unlike those breeding cows the Countess of March and Lady Despenser, who seemed to have had to get only within arm's length of their husbands to conceive. And Philippa with those great hips of hers was probably another such breeder.

She reminded herself that unlike those other two heifers, Philippa was carrying her own grandchild. She could hardly wish her own grandchildren unborn, now, could she? Yet in a small part of her mind, she did. Being a grandmother would put her in the same category as the dried-up Countess of March, whom Roger had cast aside so easily, only occasionally throwing bones like new gowns and jewels. And she knew what power that small being in Philippa's womb could carry, if it was born male and healthy. It was true that since his extended sulk over Scotland, Edward had been rather complaisant with her wishes—so complaisant, Isabella thought sometimes that her son might have a lazy streak like his father. But the dutifulness that was proper in a son was something quite else in a father to a prince of the realm. If Edward had a son, he would have to declare his independence from her and Roger, for his self-respect in front of his son if nothing else. And then what use would Roger have for Isabella?