The Traitor's Wife (86 page)

She thrust the thought from her mind. Edward might have a girl, and Roger was not about to cast her aside. He needed her, even if her color was not as fresh or her hair as shimmering as it had been five years before, even if she could not bear his children. The plan they had been concocting for well over a year now was well proof of that. And when Parliament met at Winchester Castle, overlooked by the grinning skull of the elder Despenser (Isabella smiled at this memory), it would come to its triumphant fruition.

On a March night, William lay awake next to Eleanor. Her covers had slipped down in her sleep, and he admired her naked body in the moonlight. Though she had been shockingly thin after her release from Devizes Castle, the ensuing weeks of good food and outdoor exercise had had their effect, and her curves were coming back. Then the moon disappeared behind the clouds, and he gently tugged the covers over her so she would not be cold. He reached out to fondle her hair. Since it had been cut it had become a bristling, springy mass of curls, pleasant to touch. Now that he had gotten used to her with short hair he thought it resembled a little cap; rather amusing.

But there had been nothing amusing about her appearance that day at Kenilworth Castle. He hadn't recognized her at first; he only hoped she had not noticed. What in God's name had been done to her? Then came a new worry: What damage had been done to her mind? He would love her always, would protect her for the rest of his life, but was the Eleanor he had fallen in love with gone for good? He'd quickly been relieved of that worry, at least, and could only marvel at her resilience.

Only once, clasping her close to him after they'd made love, he had dared to ask, “My love. Did they treat you badly? At Devizes?”

She was silent for so long he thought she must have drifted off. Then she had said, “I don't wish to speak of it. It is in the past and done with. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my love. I understand. Done with.”

“Good.” She settled against him, and soon he heard her snoring very faintly.

He'd not raised the subject again. But a few days later after their arrival at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Bob from Devizes Castle had arrived at the gate and asked to be admitted into their household; he had no stomach for remaining in a household controlled by Roger Mortimer. Eleanor had seconded his request. He had been kind to her, she said. William had instantly complied—if Eleanor had wanted the whole garrison, he would have complied—and, talking with the man a day or so later, he'd learned enough to sicken him. His wife to be carted to Devizes Castle, shut up in a cell, treated as a madwoman—all so that Mortimer could control her lands, with Queen Isabella's connivance. What had happened to the woman who had decried Hugh le Despenser the younger for his treatment of widows?

With Bob's revelation, which had only confirmed his deepest fears, William had placed aside the last of his misgivings about the Earl of Kent's scheme. Mad it might be, but wasn't it madder to sit and wait patiently for the young king to shake off his yoke?

The Earl of Kent, he heard from their go-between, was making progress. The Pope himself had encouraged him to do all he could to deliver his deposed brother from prison. In Paris, Henry de Beaumont had agreed to help. Donald of Mar, the second Edward's devoted friend and now third to the throne of Scotland, would give money and military aid. The Archbishop of York had five thousand pounds, belonging to Hugh le Despenser the younger, to give to the cause. At the coronation of Queen Philippa, Lady Vescy's confessor had pledged his lady's support. The Bishop of London had joined the Earl of Kent.

William still had doubts that the old king was alive, although he wished for Eleanor's sake that it was true. But if all the discontented and the disinherited— some of them who had loved the old king, some of whom had been attached to the Despensers, some of whom had lost their lands through the Scottish truce, some of whom had been oppressed by Isabella and Mortimer, some of whom were simply disgusted with the new regime—could be brought together, Mortimer would fall.

In the meantime, the king had called a Parliament for Winchester, to meet on March 11. Zouche, though reluctant to leave his wife, had decided to obey the summons. It would be a chance to see the Earl of Kent in person, a chance to see who else might be receptive to the plot.

He had not told Eleanor about the Earl of Kent. Though he trusted her absolutely, he was certain that she would urge him to caution, and he was not of a disposition now to heed such urgings. But when Mortimer fell he would take such joy in telling her the news…

Beside him, Eleanor stirred. “William?” she yawned. “Can't you sleep?”

“Supper was a little rich,” he said. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I'll be asleep soon myself.”

Parliament was well attended, the recent coronation of Queen Philippa having lifted the country's sagging morale and brought many of the lords back to court, banners flying and their horses bedecked in their masters' heraldic colors. The Earl of Kent, flanked by his outsize retinue, hissed into Zouche's ear as he passed into Winchester Castle with his much more modest following, “I have seen him at Corfe Castle! Oh, not face-to-face, but close enough to know his unmistakable physique. All will be in readiness soon.”

Having received this communication, William was tempted to turn back to Ashby and Eleanor. He had been deeply honored when he had received his first summons to Parliament some years ago, but since then he had found it to be a rather tedious business for the most part. This Parliament, he thought, would be little different. There were the usual petitions to deal with, none of them controversial, and there was talk about the ongoing problem of the king's French homage, King Philip, after due consideration, having decided that King Edward's homage had been insufficiently far-reaching. To smooth things over, the English were proposing a royal double marriage, between two of Philip's children and Edward's brother and sister. But all of this was still in the negotiation stage and did not take up too much parliamentary time. Most controversial, it seemed, would be the king's demand for taxes on the common people and on the clergy. No lord wanted to go back to his tenants with such news.

On the morning of March 14, William and his fellow peers were in their places, grumbling about the taxes and waiting for the king to arrive, when the Earl of March strode in. “There is a traitor among you,” he said. “This morning, the Earl of Kent was arrested for treason.”

William's heart stopped.

“Parliament is adjourned today,” Mortimer continued. “It will resume this time tomorrow. Then we will try this enemy of the realm.”

It was as if the lords were standing in tar. Too stunned to move or speak, they were looking at each other vacantly when the king's sergeant at arms, the only person in the great hall moving at a normal pace it seemed, touched William from behind. “Lord Zouche, you must come with me. You are under arrest for treason yourself.”

At Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Eleanor stretched in her bed lazily, knowing that she ought to be attending to her duties as lady of the manor but too comfortably sleepy to will herself to get out of bed. She had, she hoped, an excellent excuse for her lassitude. Her monthly course for January had delayed itself, most obligingly, until after she and William had had several very busy days together. Since then, there had been no bleeding at all, and whatever else the vicissitudes of Eleanor's life were, she had always been able to count on her monthly course, save for when she was with child. What news for William when he came home from Parliament! But such a gift from the Lord required thanks, and Eleanor reluctantly eased herself out of bed and began to dress to attend morning prayers at the manor's tiny chapel.

She had other things to be thankful for as well. Three weeks before, she and William had gone before the King's Bench and received their pardon for their misdeeds—or, more strictly speaking, Eleanor's. At the same time, her men Tom and Hugh Dalby had been released from Newgate and were safely at Ashby with Eleanor. Benedict de Fulsham, still in possession of the stolen goods—Mortimer had not been the least interested in recovering them once Eleanor signed over her lands—remained under mainprise, but the king's men seemed inclined to leave him alone.

Gladys fastened her new gown on her—William had really spent too much on new robes for her after her release, but she had not had the heart to tell him so—and began to arrange her headdress. “The country around here agrees with you, my lady. I have never seen your cheeks bloom so well.”

“It is my lord Zouche who agrees with me, Gladys. He is so kind and loving.”

A knock sounded at the door. Eleanor looked around and saw her young chaplain, John de Barneby. She smiled. “John, am I that late? I am afraid I have been very derelict this morning. Pray excuse me.”

“It is not that, my lady. Some of my lord Zouche's men have come back, after riding all day and night. They say—”

“Lord Zouche? He is well, yes? Tell me!”

John de Barneby gripped her by the shoulder and led her to a stool. “My lady, he has been arrested.”

“Arrested,” Eleanor repeated slowly.

“For treason, my lady.”

The Earl of Kent stared at the letter that the Earl of March was dangling in front of him like a baited fishhook. “Yes,” he said dully. “That is my seal. I do not deny it.”

“You do not?”

“No.”

Mortimer flipped open the letter, written not in a clerkly hand but a feminine one. “'Sir knight, worshipful and dear brother, if you please, I pray heartily that you are of good comfort, for I shall ordain for you that soon you shall come out of prison, and be delivered of that disease in which you find yourself. Your lordship should know that I have the assent of almost all the great lords in England, with all their apparel, that is to say, with armor, and with treasure without number, in order to maintain and help your quarrel so you shall be king again as you were before.'” The Earl of March looked toward the royal coroner, Robert Howel, acting as the judge. “Sir, I told you at the opening of this trial that the Earl of Kent was plotting with many others to impair our lord the king's estate by delivering from prison Sir Edward of Caernarfon, sometime King of England, who was put down from his royalty by common assent by all the lords of England. This letter, sealed by the earl himself, as he has admitted, proves my case. He is a traitor to the realm, and should be adjudged as such.”