Isabella: Braveheart of France (11 page)

“But very good for yours.” He fixes her with one of those famous looks, as if he can see into her soul. She has never flinched under Lancaster or Edward’s gaze, but she feels her cheeks grow hot now. Suddenly she is twelve years old again.

“A new necklace? It looks expensive.”

“A gift from Edward.” She fingers the pearls at her throat. Forty pounds they cost him, and he had to borrow it all from his Italian bankers. She thinks she will never take them off.

Phillip nods approvingly. A very good sign. Once, Edward’s gifts were only for Gaveston.

“He has several requests to make over your dispute in Gascony,” she says.

“And he has sent you to discuss them with me?”

“He trusts that I understand such matters. After all, I had a good teacher.”

“Now you seek to disarm your father with flattery. I raised you well, didn’t I?” His mouth curls into something like a smile. The second in an afternoon! They should hold a feast day to commemorate it.

“He will need your help to teach the barons their place.”

“Does he want money as well as treaties? And I thought he came here to show me my new grandson.”

“It is more than a grandson, your grace. It is a dynasty, and your blood is in him.”

Philip’s gaze is iron. “You do not have to remind your father of the importance of your son by the King of England. It was the whole purpose of the marriage.”

There is a royal banquet. Edward and her father sit side by side on the dais while stewards bring out dish after steaming dish on silver platters; a pig with the wings of a swan and the tail of a peacock; soup of ground capon thickened with almond milk; kid cooked in cream; pears fragrant with cinnamon and red wine. There are jugglers, jongleurs and fools.

There are private negotiations over Gascony; her father makes concessions, though not many. Still Edward pronounces himself well pleased. He spends a week gambling and dancing and drinking Phillip’s wines.

For the first time since Gaveston’s murder, he seems to be enjoying himself.

Phillip travels with them to Pontoise, outside Paris, on their way back to Boulogne and England. Isabella allows herself to be happy at last. It is a new beginning for them, she is sure of it.

***

She wakes to the sound of screaming.

Two of her ladies are standing over the bed, shaking her. She can smell smoke and hear the horses stampeding. “There is a fire,” Isabella de Vescy says. “We must leave, madam.”

“Where is little Edward?”

“He is safe, madam. The Lady Eleanor has him. Please, your grace, we must leave the pavilion.”

“I have to dress.”

She hears men shouting, panicked. There is a glow creeping up the silk of the pavilion, and men outside running with torches. Her ladies help her with her clothes, but they fumble with the laces, their hands shake.

Théophania is almost jumping up and down on the spot with fright. “We must go! We must go, your grace!”

How did this start? A torch perhaps, a flame touching the silk, it will all burn before anyone has a chance to fetch buckets from the river. Where is the king? She hears him outside yelling orders. Her women finish. Lady de Vescy grabs her hand and drags her outside, forgetting her manners in her haste.

She feels cold air on her shoulders, heat on her cheek. Chaos, the whole field is on fire, orange flames jumping into a black sky. Men try to keep horses from bolting as they lead them away, eyes wide. Others struggle to carry treasure chests, slipping in the mud.

She tears free from Lady de Vescy and runs back into the pavilion.

“Your grace! What are you doing?”

She thinks she has plenty of time to find what she is looking for, but the pearl string has fallen from its table and she has to search for it on the carpets. Flames roar at the silk, and by the time she reaches the entrance again, the embers have caught her dress and the sleeve starts to burn. She tries to put out the flame by shaking her arm about, but that makes it worse.

Someone throws a cloak over her, smothering the fire, then picks her up easily and carries her out.

Edward.

He shouts for assistance, then looks back at the royal camp. If Robert Bruce had done this, they would call it a massacre. A fine return to France.

“Are you hurt, your grace?” He examines her arm. A strip of skin is laid back and peeling. “By God’s soul, what made you go back?”

She holds up the pearls he gave her, still clutched in her fist.

“For those? I would have bought you ten strings to replace them.”

She shakes her head. This was her first from him. They are irreplaceable.

He puts her easily to the ground, and her ladies twitter around her. He calls for his physician and leaves her to their care.

She looks after him as he strides back towards the ruin of the camp. It seems he at least cares for her enough to come back for her. She smiles over the pain. It is just a little burn; if it meant he would rescue her again like that then she would give her whole arm.

***

The night before they leave Paris they lie abed, side by side, staring into the dark. The palace is quiet; a guard calls the all’s well.

He holds her and kisses her. All is indeed well. Once she had dreaded having his body on top of her, now she longs for it. It is a new appetite, one she has not anticipated. Eleanor and Lady de Vescy had whispered to her about their intimate dealings with their husbands and blushed and twittered as if they cared for it, and now she supposes she cares for it also.

She only wishes he would care for it as much.

“What troubles you?” he whispers.

She cannot tell him the truth so she tells him the first thing that comes to mind, which is the behaviour of her brothers’ wives.

“The two French knights who have accompanied us from Paris? They are handsome enough fellows. Are you sure?”

“Their names are Philippe and Gauthier d’Aulnay. Did you see the purses they wore at their belts?”

He shakes his head.

“I embroidered them myself and gave them to my sisters-in-law as gifts.”

“They may have given them over as knightly favours. You know how they are in France.”

Too late, he realises what he has said.

“Yes, your grace. I know how they are in France.”

“I mean only that it is chivalry and no more.”

“Perhaps.”

“Why does it bother you so?”

“I think they may have taken their chivalry too far.”

“You mean they are sleeping together?”

“For a prince to take a mistress, this is...well, it is the way of princes. But it is very different for a princess, and if her husband may one day be king, then it is simply unthinkable. She pollutes the royal blood, and this is the greatest sin there is. She will be at fault before her country and before God.”

He reaches for her hand and squeezes it. “I am sure it is nothing. Marguerite and Blanche would not be so foolish, surely?”

“I hope not,” she murmurs. She rolls towards him, and tries to rouse the king’s servant to life, but he will not rise.

My father and my brother’s wives all say I am beautiful. Everyone says I am beautiful but my husband. What must I do to win his heart and arouse his passion?

Chapter 20

“While you have been on your pleasure jaunt, the Bruce has been at work. Stirling is the only castle left in our hands on this side of the border, and now his men have it under siege. If you do not rouse yourself, I have it on good authority the governor will surrender that to him as well.”

Lancaster stands beneath the vast timbered ceiling and its shields and flags of all England, as if he is hectoring a child. Edward grips the arms of the throne. Beneath him is Longshank’s great prize: the stone of Scone. It’s a constant reminder of what true greatness means, in the eyes of his barons at least.

When Edward finally speaks, his voice is slick with contempt. “It was not a pleasure jaunt.”

“I have seen the bill you handed the Exchequer for wine. If it was duty done, then you drank your way to it.”

Edward tries to keep himself from rage. His eyes glitter, but his face remains a mask, though the blood is much drained from his face.

“We shall attend to the Bruce presently.”

“When he takes Berwick? Or when he is at the gates of York?”

“Presently,” Edward repeats and storms from the chamber. She follows him into a chapel and watches as he hurls a
prie-dieu
across the pews where it lands with a crash, startling a friar. He falls on his knees before the altar and leans on all fours, growling like a dog.

She needs to help him. This will not do. “How dare he speak to you so,” she says, to let him know she is on his side.

“That is the man who killed Perro!”

“It is the man who wishes to usurp your power.”

“I would have his ugly head on a pike.”

She dares put a hand to his shoulder. “One day. But that day is not yet.”

She thinks he might try to shake himself free of her, but instead he takes her hand and kisses it and lays it on his cheek. “Every time I look at him, I see Perro lying at his feet, shaking in terror. What mercy did he get from that dog?”

“This must wait for another time, your grace.” She kneels beside him. “You must take back your power first. Everything else comes from that.”

He nods, his eyes wild. He needs her now; she is all that keeps him from madness. “I will do as you say,” he murmurs.

***

Her uncle Evreux comes back to England to mediate. He and Gloucester and the Pope’s emissaries go to Lancaster and sue for calm yet again. They get nowhere and ask Isabella for her help. She sits down with her uncle and with Warwick and makes a plea for peace.

She begs Warwick and Lancaster to ask the king’s forgiveness for Gaveston’s murder.

“It was not murder!” Lancaster barks at her, offended at being upbraided by a girl, even if she is his queen. “It was the law.”

“They are just words, Uncle,” she says and smiles. “For the sake of my son, let us bring peace back to our country.”

He thinks about this. He looks at Warwick, at Hereford, at the others. The king has a son now, he is not as vulnerable as he was, and the barons are divided. Hugh Despenser the Younger, Pembroke, Gloucester, Richmond, they have all returned their allegiance to the king.

Perhaps they listen to her because she is no threat to their pride, they can back down and appear gallant rather than weak. When they finally accede, the Pope says it is the prayers of his envoy, Cardinal Arnaud Novelli, that changes their minds, and Phillip says it is the work of his man Evreux, but Edward tells everyone it is Isabella.

An agreement is reached and the barons submit to come back to Westminster. There are rumours that Edward intends to arrest Lancaster as soon as he enters London. Other whispers talk of Lancaster coming armed and seizing the king.

But the king’s peace is maintained. They come to it: Lancaster, Warwick and Hereford kneel before Edward in the Great Hall at Westminster, though Lancaster is red-faced and looks as if he is swallowing back his own bile. He begs the king’s forgiveness for Gaveston’s death and Edward pardons him.

They give each other the kiss of peace, and after it is done they all stand and glare at each other, Edward’s smile frozen on his face. “Your pardons,” he tells them, “have been granted through the prayers of my dearest companion, Isabella, Queen of England”.

Afterwards she is attended by two of the king’s physicians and two more sent by her father, Peter and Master Odinet. Her arm is swollen and hot and is weeping fluids. They apply herbal plasters and a lotion of rosewater and olive oil. Edward storms in and sheds his good humour like scalding armour after a long battle.

“Did you see his face? I should soon have taken out his eyes than kiss that man!”

“It is done now, Edward. You need his truce for the moment.”

He kicks over a stool. Then he sees the physicians around her and comes himself to take a look at her injury. “Isabella, you are suffering. Make her well,” he tells them, “there is reward for all of you in it.”

“We are doing all we can,” Master Theobald says.

Her physicians fuss around her. They tell her she should rest. But while Edward needs her, she will not rest. She is his queen and he is in trouble.

She sees the fever in Edward’s eyes. These days the king is not himself, whoever Himself is.

“I will have my revenge,” he tells her when they are finally alone. “He may be your uncle but he is my enemy now. Both he and Warwick, they will pay for this, by God’s holy soul, I will not rest until they pay!”

Isabella smiles. For a time she had been afraid he would be too consumed with his grief to remember to be a king. Lancaster was an uncle, but not much of one, and no one would weep for the Earl of Warwick when the day came. She prefers him vengeful to besotted.