Isabella: Braveheart of France (17 page)

She stares at him. This is a different Despenser, the pirate is off to plunder different treasures, and she suspects the king will be the first prize he goes after.

“You forget, he was my uncle, and royal. A blood relative. I hardly think it is
not enough
.”

“He didn’t act like a blood relative when he confiscated your estates and besieged you in the Tower.”

“I would urge a lighter hand. You did enough with this one act to give everyone due warning that Edward may not be trifled with.”

“You wish him to be soft with the rest of the traitors and ingrates?”

Really, she should not be addressed by a chamberlain like this. Perhaps it would be better to speak to Edward alone tonight, in their bed.

She smiles at the Despenser; the Despenser smiles back. Edward looks dreamy. “You know we hanged Baddlesmere?”

“At Canterbury. Yes, I was informed.”

“I will not stop until I have the very last ingrate on the gibbet.”

The Despenser looks as if he longs for her to contend the point.

“Whatever you wish, your grace.” She bobs her head and leaves the room. She feels the Despenser’s eyes burning her back.

Well Mortimer you were right after all. Much good it has done you.

***

Edward does not come to her bed that night, or the next. When he finally draws back her cover, almost a week later, he is sulky, as if he expects she might demand something unreasonable from him. Tenderness perhaps. Affection.

He slips into bed. There is a cold windswept moor between them. He snuffs the candle. He would rather be in his own rooms, clearly.

“What has happened to you?” she says.

“I can tell by your sulky looks that you do not like me to be king. You rather I was still downtrodden and in your thrall?”

These sound like someone else’s words, not his.

“I have done all you have asked of me. I do not deserve your reproach.”

“I do not deserve yours. Why should you think that Lancaster was not deserving of his fate?”

“I did not say that, only that there has been enough blood-letting. People respect a merciful hand in equal measure to a stern one. Hereford is dead and Lancaster and Baddlesmere. Mortimer will be, soon enough. Is that not enough blood?”

“I shall not abide sleeping here if all you do is chide me!”

She rolls towards him, stretches a hand across the vast divide of the bed. She finds his hand, squeezes it. He does not respond.

“I have to ask you something.”

Still nothing.”

“Is Despenser sharing your pillow?”

He throws himself out of bed. She hears him raging down the passage, calling for his steward. Two of her maids whisper outside the door, unsure what to do.

One of them peeks in, holding a candle, and she snaps at her and the door closes again, leaving her alone in the dark.

Chapter 32

Her steward informs her that a lady has come to see her, has been sent from Skipton Castle by the Lady Mortimer. Isabella recognizes her. She is the wife of one of Mortimer’s retainers.

She looks pale and nervous. The blackening torsos and hindquarters that decorate the outside of the castle leave many feeling faint. Nothing like a severed head to sober the mood, especially after the crows have been at it.

Isabella receives the woman in her chambers, has her sit and then sends a servant to fetch spiced wine to revive her. It is a long journey from Skelton.

The woman is clearly awed by her surroundings, being here in the lair of the man who imprisoned her mistress and her mistress’s husband. How quickly Edward has advanced from being a jest to a monster.

“My mistress the Lady Mortimer sent me, your grace.” She hands her a letter. Isabella breaks the seal and reads it quickly. She is asking for her help, wishes someone to argue for her husband when they bring him to trial.

She hands the letter to Rosseletti and returns her attention to the girl. “How is my Lady Mortimer?”

“She is bereft. She fears the king will put her husband to the gallows.”

It is all but certain, Isabella thinks. “The Lord Mortimer took arms against the king. It is hard for me to argue his position.”

The girl chances a glance at Rosseletti, and bites her lip.

“You may speak freely here. He is my servant, not the king’s.”

“The Lady Mortimer asks me to remind you that even though he was wrong to go against the king, he was right in his purpose.”

“How so?”

“She says the king is yet not the real king. It is the Lord Despenser that rules us all, and not well.”

“He is merely his chamberlain.”

The girl hangs her head, looking utterly miserable. She has said what she had been coached to say, and now she fears she will be whipped for it.

“Thank you for bringing me the letter,” Isabella tells her. “Tell your lady I shall do all I can for your lord and her husband.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

After she has gone, Isabella looks at Rosseletti.

“She is right,” he says. “The king gives him everything he wants. He takes land from other lords and names his own price. He is the most powerful man in England next to Edward. He does nothing to curb him.”

“Mortimer is a dead man.”

“You still have the king’s ear.”

“Do I? It seems he forgot his queen as soon as the Despenser returned to England.” She had worked tirelessly to give Edward dominion over his barons, but now he had what he wanted, he had turned his back on her again. “You know, in the end, I think I liked Gaveston better. If he had to have a friend, I would rather it be one who dresses in purple than one who has a dagger hidden in his tunic.”

“It cannot last.”

She shakes her head. “You do not know Edward.”

***

“No!” Edward shouts when she puts the proposition to him. “He is a traitor and he will die a traitor’s death!”

She could badger him with any number of mitigating circumstances, but she knows that he will demolish them all. Instead she falls to her knees. “Your grace, I ask this as a favour, to me.”

“Oh, don’t. Not again.”

“Then don’t shout at me.”

He pulls her to her feet. “They cannot see me weak ever again!”

“This one act of mercy will cost you nothing in public esteem. It may gain you admirers. Being unpredictable is just as feared as tyranny.”

“Who told you that?” He lets her go and regards her with some suspicion. “What is he to you anyway?”

“He is nothing to me. But his wife I count as one of my dearest friends. I would do her this one favour for all that she has done for me. Let him live his life in prison. At least she might see him now and then.”

“He deserves to die.”

“I do not doubt it. But I ask this for me. I did as you asked at Leeds Castle, did I not? I gave you your victory. Now give me this one small grace as the price of it.”

Edward can be conciliatory when the Despenser is not there. “I will think on it,” he says.

And he does.

Mortimer is tried and sentenced to death; the next day Edward commutes his penalty to life in prison.

The Despenser is not amused when he hears this.

“Who persuaded you to this, your grace?” he says, his voice rising impertinently in the presence of the king. He glares at Isabella.
Soon he will shout at me, too.

Edward appears sulky. “I wish to appear unpredictable.”

“You appear weak.”

“Hardly that,” Isabella tells him, “when all you have to do is step outside the castle and smell the reek of decaying flesh. He has put half of Yorkshire to the gallows.”

He clearly resents her, this Despenser. He knows she has Edward’s ear in the marriage bed, the one place he does not have a voice, or his spies. It’s written on his face, he believes she is meddling with his king.

He turns back to Edward. “Then at least ensure his stay is not too comfortable.”

“What do you suggest?”

“The Lanthorn Tower, and no more than three pence a day for his keep. It is still more than he deserves.”

“That seems harsh,” Isabella says.

“Not as harsh as losing his head, surely?”

“The Lanthorn Tower it is,” Edward says. He smiles. There, he has pleased them both. Or so he thinks.

Another victory won.

Chapter 33

Tynemouth Priory

October, 1322

The king sets out on his quest; defeating the Bruce has become his Holy Grail. He wants greatness, he wants to be admired and feared as his father was. Isabella urges caution, but he will not listen.

It is a morning late in summer, warm for the north country, and for a rare moment the king is unattended by the Despenser and his clerks and money counters. She catches him out on the walls, walking alone. He stops and turns his face to the sun. His hair shines, his face is beatific.

He is talking to someone. She comes closer to listen but there is no one there. Then she hears a name: he is talking to Gaveston, and for a moment he looks happy.

She feels guilty for interrupting this reverie, as if she had caught the two of them abed. He turns and sees her. He is not at all abashed, does not realize he was speaking his thoughts aloud.

“Ah, Isabella. A fine morning.”

“It’s always good to see the sun shining. Where is the Lord Despenser?”

A hollow laugh. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

“It is not for me to have an opinion in the matter.”

“I wish you would get on. He is a great help to me, you know. The Treasury is full at last, and he is fond of those details that I am not good with.”

“It seems so. You spend all your time cloistered with him”

“There is much to discuss in the running of a kingdom.” She bridles at this. He speaks to her as if she is some twittering maiden who has spent all her youth with ponies and sewing. But she lets it pass.

“What of Scotland?”

“We leave within the week.”

Isabella is astounded. No word of this had reached her. “Would you not make me party to these plans?”

“This is war, not politics. It is men’s business.”

“Was Lancaster men’s business? Was it men’s business when they fired arrows at me at Leeds castle?”

He laughs. At her. “You were in no danger. You did not ride up to the gate.”

“Once you would have consulted me on such matters. You said, when you asked for my help in the matter of his exile, that if he came back he would never usurp me, that he was no threat to me. You promised me this.”

“And I have kept my word. He is no threat to you.” The sunshine has gone from his face. “Do not give me cause to rebuke you, Isabella. You are becoming tiresome.”

“I beg your leave, your grace,” she murmurs and turns away, before her face betrays her.

***

The days up here drag by like centuries. There is only so much piety one can take, kneeling before the mouldy bones of Saint Oswin, here in a place as far from God as one can go and still freeze. The sun has made its brief appearance and has now fled south once more. Outside, the sea batters on the rocks, and even the light that seeps through the high lancet windows appears grey.

The velvet cushion under her knees cannot keep the chill from settling in Isabella’s bones. Tynemouth priory may be one of the best-defended priories in the country, but it is so bleak it makes death seem attractive. She had never been so cold, even in Scotland.

The monastery has stout walls but is unlikely to keep out the Scots should they wish to get inside. They have taken better-defended castles than this. The Black Douglas once scaled Berwick’s walls with rope ladders in the face of a hail of arrows. If they ever discovered she was here, they would do anything to take her. They could ransom the throne of Scotland for England’s queen.

She tries to concentrate on her rosary.

When the king appears, her lady helps her rise to greet him. His breath freezes on the air.

The King smiles at his queen; his queen smiles at him. Such a beautiful man, and so dazzling on this forbidding day in his red tunic and cloak. He towers over her, all booted and ready to ride. She craves his touch. Hers is a constant state of longing.

His voice is imperious. “I must leave.”

“So soon?”

“I take our army against the Bruce tomorrow. This time I will rid our northern marches of him forever.”