Harlot Queen (45 page)

‘If Madam Queen Isabella would content herself with less of what is not truly hers, then Madam the Queen would have more of her rightful dues!’ Lancaster said so plainly in Parliament.

‘She to have more—the chit; and I less!’ Isabella’s eyes were jade-hard beneath the winged brows.

‘I’ll not forget this,’ Mortimer’s teeth gritted jaw on jaw, ‘any more than I’ll forget it was Lancaster that set himself against me in the matter of the Gloucester title. I’ve had enough of your precious uncle, my dear! I mean to force him to his knees, teach him a lesson he’ll not soon forget!’

‘He’s not worth your anger. He’s old; older than his years. And he’s near-blind. He’ll not live long to plague you. The first strong wind will carry him away—so much rubbish. Patience, a little patience…’ ‘Patience is a vice of the old—you are overpatient, my dear!’

She swallowed in her throat. He forever pricked her with fear of growing old. She needed no prick from him on that score; her mirror spoke plain enough of lines that marred her beauty; lines that came not from time alone. A woman cannot fight to the edge of endurance but the mark of the struggle is left. Still less can she breathe the very air of murder—though herself innocent—without it leave its mark. But Mortimer was a man and his conscience not over-fine, success had added to his looks, put a gloss upon the man; he was handsomer than he had ever been. It did not make him easier to live with; his kindness was ever harder to come by. He had never much tenderness for women; for her now it was less than ever. And, for all she loved him to the point of idolatry, still she must face it—gratitude was not in him. But for all his gibes he still enjoyed her body; yet were he refused it, he’d soon enough find consolation; nothing would be hurt save his pride. And there, at least, she had him! When her body no longer attracted him she could still keep him by his pride, his ambition; an uneasy way. the only way…

From her troubles there seemed no respite. It was not only Mortimer’s fading desire nor Lancaster’s interference; nor was it the open enmity of Kent and Norfolk, and the common people’s clear dislike that weighed her down. All these; and more. Rumour tossed her from one horn of her dilemma to the other—the rumour that branded her with murder; the rumour that her husband still lived. To that later rumour details were constantly added so that she sickened lest, in the killing, an error had been made, and he would come back. He had been seen, they said; actually seen. Archbishop Melton of York that had known him from boyhood had recognised him in a monk’s habit at Gloucester. Gravesend, bishop of London that knew the King’s face as well as he knew his own, had also recognised him beneath a monk’s hood.

It is not true; nor it cannot be true. Sweet Christ, let it not be true!
She prayed, all unaware of blasphemy.

Archbishop and bishop summoned by Mortimer denied the tale. ‘But my lord,’ the archbishop said, ‘I tell you plain, times are not good and there are many to wish the old days back!’

And the bishop. ‘It is the friars. The late King favoured them; they grow impudent! They go about the country spreading their lies. It puts dripping on their bread and, with luck, a piece of meat!’

‘It is those two themselves that spread the mischief!’ Mortimer said when they had bowed themselves out. ‘Give me time and I’ll deal with them. But first we deal with Kent; he’s the heart of the trouble, prime mischief-maker of them all. He swears his brother’s alive; swears he’s actually seen him. He never had the best of wits; he doesn’t see the net he’s spreading for his own feet.’

‘He’s honest enough, the fool!’ Isabella said. ‘And there lies the danger. He believes this tale because he must. He took arms against his brother; if that brother still lives—why Kent washes away best part of his guilt! To believe his brother lives—that’s no crime.’

‘Not yet.’

She looked up startled. Yet more bloodshed? She was weary of it. Shed blood if she must; shed needless blood—no!

He read her more easily than a book; he was no scholar—save in women. He cast a look upon her so that she was conscious once more of yellow cheeks and wrinkles beneath the high paint. He stretched himself that she might more admire the body she doted upon.

She tried to cover up her weak moment. ‘Kent could do more harm dead than alive. He’s well-liked. Shew him no mercy and we may regret it!’

‘Only fools shows mercy to fools! Strange that great Edward should beget fools!Your husband was one and paid for it. Kent’s another and he, too, must pay. To the wicked you may, if it suit your book, show leniency; to the fool, never—and especially the honest fool. He must be put down before he bring the world crashing upon our heads!’

‘My brother is alive. I have seen him!’ Edmund of Kent said, as he had said half-a-dozen times before.

Henry of Lancaster shook a weary head. ‘He’s dead, for him all is finished. And for you, if you persist in this, all will be finished, too!’

‘I’ll not close my eyes upon the truth. If you cannot believe me, then ask the friar Dunhevid; he knew my brother well!’

‘A man you’d be a fool to trust!’

‘A true man; he tried to rescue my brother from prison.’

‘Had he minded his own business your brother would be living now.’

‘He
does
live I tell you!’ Kent’s handsome face flushed with excitement.

‘I’ve seen him with my own eyes; seen my brother!’

‘A piece of deception; trickery—if nothing worse.’

‘I saw him. I tell you, I saw him. I went with Maltravers.’

‘Cousin, what have you done? Maltravers is Mortimer’s man.’

‘No longer. He’s my man; my brother’s man.’

Lancaster peered at him with pitying eyes. Kent went happily on. ‘Maltravers told me that Edward was alive. Shut up in Corfe castle; I could see him for myself. It wouldn’t be easy he said, but he’d manage it. And so he did. We went to Corfe together, he and I. And it was not easy. But see my brother I did. Through a window. There he was, as I’ve often seen him, the bright hair falling about his cheeks; he was writing—his very self!’

‘Oh cousin, how are you misled! His hair was grey,
grey
. It began to turn the day they took Despenser; already at Kenilworth it was grey. Believe me, Kent it was not your brother!’

‘I know my brother’s face.’

‘Did you see him close?’

‘Close enough!’

‘The time of day?’

‘Twilight.’

‘Light failing. They meant to mislead you—and they did!’

‘It was light enough; light enough for me to know him. How should I not know my own brother? We are going to raise his standard, Maltravers and I, drum up an army, take him from prison, Maltravers has promised it.’

‘Cousin, cousin. Maltravers is Mortimer’s brother-in-law! Mortimer puts a rope about your neck; pray God your own hands haven’t tightened it. Fly. Fly the country at once; take passage for France. Edward lies in his grave. Fly lest you go down to your own. Forget what you think you saw. You can help no-one now; none but yourself.’

‘Forget? Run away? Finished? It is beginning, I tell you; beginning! And your advice comes too late. I have written…’

‘To
whom
have you written?’ Lancaster’s voice was the voice of doom.

‘To Maltravers. I sent him a letter for my brother, telling him…’

‘Telling him—
what
?’

‘That I shall rouse all England to set him free. That I shall hang Mortimer higher than ever man hanged yet; higher than he himself hanged the Despensers.’

‘You have hanged yourself!’ Lancaster said.

‘He has hanged himself!’ Mortimer pulled at his finger joints; stiffness brought on by his sojourn in the Tower was beginning to trouble him. He pulled a paper from his pocket. ‘Kent’s letter to—whom do you think? To Maltravers—no less! Here—’ he tapped upon it with a jewelled hand, ‘is enough to hang a dozen men!’

Kent had been taken at Winchester; now he must face Parliament there assembled; and the charge—high treason. He was not unduly troubled. Treason? To seek to release a brother wrongfully imprisoned; to restore a King driven from his throne? How could this be treason?

The young King did not understand it, either.

‘Treason?’ he asked Lancaster. ‘How treason to release my father from unlawful prison? Treason against—
whom
? Against me? None! He is my father and I his dutiful son. Against his wish I would not keep the crown. Against Mortimer then? Mortimer is not King; treason against a subject—there’s no such thing!’

‘Yet still it is treason. Your father is dead!’ Lancaster told him. Kent stood before his peers gathered in judgment. He tried to explain, to make them understand a man’s duty to his brother, to his King. They listened with respect and they listened with grief—he was well-liked; but, for all that, his letters spoke the mischief he had not understood. He had sought to disrupt the state, to being about civil war, to put the freely-elected King from the throne. That he had not known all this was no justification. He was condemned to die.

The trial had ended late; when Parliament rose at last Mortimer offered to carry the news to the King.

‘Keep this from your son, Madam,’ he told Isabella, ‘until it’s too late for him to interfere. We’ll run no risk of pardon. Before he wakes—Kent will be dead!’

Lancaster tried to see the King—the boy must surely need some comfort: but, being told that he had gone to his bed, must leave the matter until morning.

So it was that the King did not hear the news until next day; did not even know the trial had ended until Lancaster told him. It sent him hot-foot to his mother.

‘No!’ he cried out in horror. ‘No! What has my uncle done but show love for his brother and his King?’

‘Not his King.
You
are the King! she reminded him. ‘The King he pretends to serve is dead and he knows it. No! He meant to make trouble; trouble for you. He meant to put you from the throne and put himself in your place!’

‘I’ll not believe it. I’ll not allow him to die. I shall go to Parliament at once.’

‘Parliament’s dissolved; the most part of it gone home.’

‘I did not dissolve it.’

‘Your Council did.’

‘It had no right.’

‘It had the right. The Council may act without the King at need. There was need. You are young and your heart easily moved. The Council would not put so great a burden upon you.’

‘I will call the Council, set aside the judgment.’

‘Have you not learned what happens to Kings that flout Parliament and Council? Be satisfied that you can do nothing—the Council, also, has dispersed. But take this for your comfort; your uncle shall have an honourable death!’

He saw his uncle’s handsome head bared to the axe—the handsome head so like his father’s. It was as if his father came again to his death.

‘I’ll not have him die. I’ll not have it!’ He struck palm against fist—the very gesture of great Edward.

‘Well, sir,’ she lied, ‘if you feel so deep in the matter you must have your way. When all’s said, you are the King. You may command both Council and Parliament. We ride for London later in the day.’

‘We start at once.’

‘It cannot be done. There’s much business before we leave. Nor is there need for haste; there’s time aplenty!’

All day she kept him within doors beneath her eye lest he catch some whisper of what was toward. There was this document to sign and that; that matter and this for his consideration. He worked feverishly that he might be free to deal with the matter that lay upon his heart.

And all that day Kent waited upon the scaffold. They had led him in the early morning to die. The scaffold stood ready but save for the man to die—empty. The executioner was not to be found; for what had the condemned man done but what any good man must do… if he have the courage?

Morning gave way to noon, noon to evening. The March wind moved in the young leaves, moved in the young prisoner’s hair. It was hard to die when springtime stirred in the blood; to die for a crime that was no crime. Yet, patient he waited; patient and proud. And those that had come to see him die wept for him—so like the late King in his handsome looks, so fine, so noble. As the long minutes passed, it came to the prisoner sitting there that, let him speak the word and these people would rise and rescue him. In his slow mind he considered the matter. Speak he must not. He had been judged and by that judgment must abide. At last, night all-but fallen it came to him that to die for no wickedness was the act of a fool. He was about to speak to them that watched with him and wept, when he heard a hissing from the crowd; he lifted his eyes to the executioner. A prisoner, a base murderer had offered for the work on promise of release.

Butcher’s work. The handsome Plantagenet head held high amid the groans of the people.

Edmund of Kent noble in his dying that might so easily have saved himself. Great courage—and less common sense. It was his tragedy.

Isabella, that subtle woman, had been foolish, indeed. Her lies on the day of Kent’s death had set her son forever against her. His last lingering affection was gone; he would trust her never again. But the wound went deeper than his own personal hurt. The death of Kent—the haste and like manner of it—had been an insult to the throne. In this Lancaster and the King were of one accord; and Lancaster, alone, knew how grievous the hurt.

The speed with which the prisoner had been hurried to his death—royal Kent—shocked the whole country. High and low grieved for him, waited with fear and anger for the Queen’s next move. For in this it was the Queen, the Queen to blame; she held the power. She had but to say the word to delay the execution, to enquire further into the matter. That word she had not said.

The tide was rising steadily against Madam Queen Isabella and her lover.

Murder
. The cry rose louder, louder, louder. Edward of Carnarvon was dead; that they must believe. Lancaster, that honest man and leader of the Council, had proclaimed it. But…
how
had he died? And by whose hand? She that had hurried her husband’s brother to his death, good young Kent, was likely to make short work of her husband—she and her paramour! It had not been a natural death, it had been a martyr’s death; witness the unending miracles from the dead King’s tomb.