The Traitor's Wife (12 page)

“Margaret! How well you look!”

It had taken longer than Edward had anticipated, but Gaveston was back in England, the Pope having issued a bull of absolution that Edward would soon wave in front of Parliament when it met later in that July of 1309. The king had traveled to Chester with a small entourage to greet his friend and his niece. Now they were at Langley, with the queen, and Eleanor, who had left Isabella for a visit to her baby, was back there too. Even Hugh had left his affairs at the manor in Sutton the king had granted them to greet his brother-in-law.

The sisters embraced while their brother Gilbert, then Hugh, did the same with Gaveston. Beside him, the king beamed. “It is so pleasant to have
all
of my family nearby again.”

“But less of Nelly,” said Gaveston. He nodded at Eleanor's belly. “How is your boy?”

“He is here, as a matter of fact. The queen was kind enough to ask me to bring him while the weather was so fine he could travel.”

“I thought I was with child last month,” said Margaret. “But then my monthly course started, just like that.”

“Meg!”

“Well, Nelly, don't look so shocked. We are family, are we not?” She turned to the king, who was smiling indulgently. “Now Uncle, tell us. Are these stupid earls and barons of yours appeased for good? Because I do not care to be taking another trip abroad.”

“Meg was seasick,” said Piers.

“Seasick isn't the word. I was at the point of death. I am just now recovered. Don't roll your eyes at me, Hugh le Despenser!”

“My apologies.” Hugh shrugged.

Gilbert said briskly, “As for the earls, Richmond is well-enough disposed to you, Piers, as is Lincoln. Warenne is too much occupied with his latest mistress to care either way. Pembroke is wary. Arundel is still sulking because you defeated him at that tournament following your marriage. Lancaster and Warwick would see you hanged if they could. Not to be unpleasant about it.”

“Gilbert's summing up is all too accurate,” admitted the king. “But they'll come round. We'll not let them ruin our time here, will we?”

For a time it appeared that all would go well. Gaveston had been given all of his Cornwall lands back, and Margaret made it her business to enjoy them, hostessing great feasts to which she invited the duly admiring Eleanor and Gilbert. With Eleanor came Hugh, sometimes, and with Gilbert came his bride of about a year: Maud, the daughter of Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster. Their sister Elizabeth had married also, to Maud's brother John, and moved to Ireland to live with him in October 1309. “The poor girl,” said Margaret complacently. “It is green and pretty there, but how I missed England! I do hope Piers never has to return there.”

Hugh waited until Margaret had left the room. “I'd be looking to getting my sea legs again if I were her.”

“It has started again?”

“It has started.”

“Gaveston has made an effort to get along with some of the barons,” Hugh the elder said some days later to Eleanor. “But most despise him, and he does nothing to help the situation. If they want an audience with the king, he is there in the room. And those nicknames! Childish, but they seem to gall the earls as much as anything. And they stick in one's mind, too. Warwick is my brother-in-law, you know, and I cannot think of him at all now but as the Black Dog of Arden. I have to make a great effort to not address him as that.”

The king was irked. “Ever since my father died, they have chided me for ignoring the Scottish problem. And now that I am trying to discuss the Scottish problem with them, as surely they expect, they refuse to come to Parliament if Gaveston is there. And he an earl as much as they!”

“They, Uncle?”

“Arundel, Pembroke, even Lincoln, and the Black D—that is, Warwick. And a new ally. Lancaster.”

The Earl of Lancaster was Edward's first cousin, like him a grandson of Henry III. Eleanor recalled the gossip she had heard in the queen's chamber. “Isabella de Vescy says that not even his own wife cares for him.”

“A sensible woman, his wife.”

The king, Gaveston, and their wives spent Christmas at Langley, but Eleanor and Hugh did not join them. Nearly a year and a half had passed since little Hugh was born, and Eleanor was worried. Had she become barren? Hugh was a fine boy, a chatty fellow who looked more like his father every day. He was perfectly healthy so far, but one never knew… She had consulted the midwife, who had sternly told her that she had to be on her back at all times when she lay with Hugh. Eleanor had obeyed, at least most of the time, but despite this she had had no success, though once or twice her monthly course had been late enough to give her hope for a week or so. It was time to try something else. “I would like to go on pilgrimage,” she told Hugh.

They were at Loughborough again, the king having taken only the smallest possible group of attendants with him to Langley and Eleanor having been given leave to spend Christmas with her husband and child. Hugh the elder was there, of course, along with Philip and the youngest of the Despenser children, Margaret. Dinner was over, and they were lazing in their chamber, having seen little Hugh to bed. “Where?” asked Hugh.

“Canterbury, I think.”

“So it shall be.”

She was delighted. Hardly ever had she and Hugh traveled together, save from one family manor to the other, followed by men and baggage.

So to Canterbury they went. Never before had she spent so much time alone with Hugh, whose comings and goings, though still frequent, were less noticeable now that Eleanor herself had resumed her own travels with the queen. Together, they traveled with only a squire, and moved much more quickly than Eleanor, used to the cumbersome progress of the court, was accustomed to. It was with real sadness that she reached the shrine at Canterbury and offered up her prayers and coins, for now there was nothing to do but to turn back home. She said as much to Hugh as they sat at supper at one of the hole-in-the-wall inns Hugh had a knack for finding and for which Eleanor had developed a certain affection.

“Actually, my love, I was thinking of going to Dover.”

“Dover? What is at Dover?”

“The Channel, what else? I thought we would go to France.”

“France!”

“Aside from being full of Frenchmen, it's a pleasant place.”

“We must get the king's permission.”

“The king has other things on his mind,” said Hugh offhandedly. “And why would he care? You have leave from the queen to be away from court until February, so her pert little nose won't be out of joint.”

“Hugh!” Eleanor swatted him.

“So will you go?”

“I would love to.”

In her worst moments years later, Eleanor could tip her head back and remember their trip to France that winter of 1310: the salt water spraying her face as she stood on the deck with Hugh's arm around her; her wobbly legs as he handed her off the boat; the sleet storm that blew in from the shore just as they reached their inn; the day when it was too cold and miserable outside to do anything but stay in their warm bed and make love (breaking the midwife's rule without shame) and talk to each other.

“Hugh, what was your mother like?”

They had undressed for the night, and Hugh had had other plans in mind, but he answered obligingly, “Beautiful. You know her brother, Gaveston's Black Dog of Arden, of course. He is a handsome man, and she was better-looking than he. Beautiful, and she could sit a horse better than most men.” He smiled sheepishly. “She put me in mind of the goddess Diana.”

“She must have been lovely. Was she delicate-looking like your sister Isabel?”

“Lord, no. Isabel gets her name from my mother but nothing else. Mother loved hunting more than anything in the world—Diana again—and she was good at it. As a matter of fact, she took five deer on one occasion and had the hue and cry raised against her. I was only about ten when it happened, and I still remember when she came galloping home, in a fury. I don't know what made her angrier, having the hue and cry raised against her or leaving her five bucks behind. Father was with the king at the time, or she probably would have made him slay the gamekeeper. If I'd been a trifle older she probably would have had me do so.”

“Do you miss her?”

He shrugged. “In a way. But she never saw much of us children; it was our nurses or Father we went to when we were troubled. It is his loss that I would take to heart.” Hugh crossed himself and looked at the sleet beating against their window. “A gloomy topic for a gloomy night.”

“I am sorry, Hugh. But I enjoy talking to you so much. There is so much I don't know about you even yet.”

“Aye, you women must talk. But now I am done with words.”

He gathered her to him and began kissing and fondling her, and she responded with her usual eagerness. It was therefore with great disappointment that she suddenly felt him arise from the bed. “Hugh?”

“I am getting some wine.”

“
Now?
”

“Now.”

He went to the table where the remnants of their supper sat and returned with a cup of wine, smiling. She shrugged and lay back, naked and irritated. It was not like Hugh to arouse her and then to leave her unsatisfied, but as she had said, there was much she did not know about him. Then she jerked back as wine splashed in the hollow of her throat and began to trickle downward.

“How clumsy of me, my love. But I shall clean it up.”

And he did, in a manner that so shocked and pleased Eleanor that she expected lightning to strike them dead at any minute. As none did, she settled against Hugh for the night and reminded herself that after all, they were in France.