The Traitor's Wife (20 page)

“Then you must have spoken of love,” said Marguerite, and her cousin Blanche giggled.

Marguerite spoke only to tease Eleanor; she had heard enough of Eleanor's wistful references to Hugh, whom she was desperately missing, to realize that Eleanor was indeed a faithful wife. Eleanor herself recognized the jest for what it was, and snorted. She thought nothing of it, then, until late that evening, after a long evening of dancing during which Jean had appeared at her side only a few times, Blanche tapped her on the shoulder. “If you wish to see Jean alone, my lady, you know it can be arranged.”

Eleanor saw to her shock that Blanche was a bit tipsy. “There is nothing I desire less, madam.”

“But my lady! It can be done so easily. No one shall ever be the wiser, and you will have much pleasure. Trust me, Eleanor dear.”

“You have misconstrued the situation, absolutely. Pray excuse me.”

She turned and hastily made her way back over to the queen, watching with a frown from a distance as Blanche downed another cup of wine before being led out of the room by one of her ladies.

Isabella followed her glance. “Why is it you look at Blanche so, Lady Despenser?”

“Was I? I did not mean to do so. She is dressed very strikingly tonight.”

“Yes, she had a beautiful purse with her when she came in. I presented it to her when I was here the year before. Who do you think has it now?”

Isabella had never entirely forgiven her husband for giving her father's wedding presents to Gaveston, and for a few moments Eleanor thought confusedly that this might be more of the same. “I know not, your grace. I did not notice a purse at all.”

“Let us leave this place, Lady Despenser. Come with me to my chamber.”

Puzzled, Eleanor obeyed, following Isabella with the other ladies after Isabella made her farewell to her father. When all were in Isabella's chamber, the queen raised her hand for silence. “My brothers are being made fools of, and this must stop.”

Isabella de Vescy, the only one of the ladies who could be brusque to the queen, said gruffly, “Explain yourself, your grace.”

“Those whores Blanche and Marguerite, is not it obvious? They are cuckolding my brothers, with those Aunays. Do you remember the purses I gave them last year? Those knights are clutching them like favors!”

“Purses prove nothing,” said Lady Vescy.

“Aye, but look at Lady Despenser's face! Tell us what you know, my dear.”

“N—Nothing, my lady.”

“You fool! Your face shows it all. That Blanche said something to you tonight, and you will tell us.”

Eleanor said shakily, “She told me that if I wished to meet a man privately, it could be arranged, and it would give me much pleasure. But I am sure it meant nothing; it was only her French way of talking.”

Joan of Bar laughed nervously at this gaffe, but the queen paid no attention to it. “You see, she knows how to meet a man on the sly, and she is willing to counsel others to do so. The whore! I must inform my father of this.”

“Good God, your grace! You cannot do that!”

The queen gasped in rage, but Eleanor paid her no mind. “Your grace, it will be a death sentence if your father finds out about this! You saw what he did to Jacques de Molay, that brave man; what will he do to those girls and their knights? You cannot tell! If you must tell anyone, tell Blanche and Marguerite what you know! They will not dare to continue in their ways when they know that you suspect them.”

Isabella said crisply, “Do you have any more orders to give me, Lady Despenser? Or do you care to insult my father further?”

“Your grace, you must not tell.”

Lady Vescy said dryly, “Lady Despenser overreaches herself, but what proof do you have, your grace? It would indeed be a pity to tell your father and have it turn out that these stupid girls are guilty of nothing more than flirtation and folly.”

“I assure you I have no intent of hurting the innocent. I shall tell my father my suspicions, and ask that a watch be put on them. If they are guilty of nothing but indiscretion, it will end there.” She glanced at Eleanor, who was white as chalk beneath her freckles. “And Lady Despenser, if you are thinking of warning them in the interim, do think again. I will have my eyes on you too.”

“For pity's sake, your grace! Have some mercy on them. Their adultery is between them and their husbands—and God. It is not an affair of state.”

“You have odd ideas, Lady Despenser. My brother Louis will be King of France by and by, the Lord's anointed; shall I sit quietly and see him cuckolded? My family's honor is too precious to me. Get you gone.”

King Philip's spies quickly went to work and found Marguerite and one of the young men in a room together. They, Blanche, and the other brother were arrested; even the third daughter-in-law, Jeanne, was detained, as she was Blanche's older sister and was presumed to have concealed her knowledge of the younger woman's activities. On April 19, 1314, the two young knights were flayed to death and beheaded. News of their fate reached the queen's party as it headed toward the coast of France.

“You see, they were guilty after all, and they have received their just punishment,” said the queen matter-of-factly. She was not even put out with Eleanor any longer. “Mind you, I pity my brothers, but they will find worthy wives soon, I hope.”

Eleanor spent the return journey to England by her brother's side, silent and listless. Only when she landed at Dover and saw a familiar face did she brighten. Forgetting all protocol, as soon as she could get to shore, she rushed into her husband's arms.

“My love, you look ill and tired. What is it? Look at the offering someone has brought the queen: a porcupine!”

Eleanor buried her head on Hugh's shoulder as he tried in vain to turn her attention to the bristly little animal, which was quite sated with apples. “Please,” she whispered, “take me from court.”

W
HILE THE QUEEN'S PARTY WAS IN FRANCE, THE SCOTTISH KING, ROBERT Bruce, had seized two castles, Roxburgh and Edinburgh. Years before, these and other fortresses had been captured for the English by Edward I; now, to the horror of the English, Robert Bruce and his men were steadily winning them back. Roxburgh Castle had fallen on February 27 to the terrifying James Douglas, who had dressed his men in black surcoats and ordered them to crawl on their hands and knees so that they resembled a herd of black cattle straying toward the castle. When the cattle arrived at the castle, they had produced collapsible ladders carried beneath their bodies, scaled the castle walls, and overcome the garrison, the members of which were vigorously celebrating a feast day. The next month, Thomas Randolph, the Earl of Moray, aided by one of his men who had been accustomed to using rope ladders to get in and out of the castle to meet his lover, led a group of experienced mountain climbers into Edinburgh Castle.

The year before, Robert Bruce's brother, Edward Bruce, had besieged Stirling Castle. He had no siege weapons; his only strategy was to starve out the garrison, a tactic that was tedious as it was sound. Sir Philip Mowbray, the castle's commander, had recognized his besieger's frustration and had offered in June 1313 to yield the castle a year hence if he were not rescued by battle. Robert Bruce, whom Edward Bruce had not thought to consult before entering into this treaty, was furious at his brother, but the King of England, heartened by the peace with the barons, the cordiality of his relationship with his French father-in-law, and the quiet prevailing in Ireland and Wales, took up the challenge. As Gloucester had told his sister, the king had begun making plans to bring troops north, and as the queen's household traveled in France, he was mobilizing his troops.

Gilbert, of course, had responded, as had Pembroke and Hereford. The Earls of Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel, and Surrey, however, did no more than send the required numbers of cavalry and footmen; they did not set foot outside England. King Edward scarcely missed them, for his army was of a size not seen even in his father's day: twenty thousand men. In his confidence that Scotland would soon be his, he granted some men Scottish land; to the son of his trusted advisor Hugh le Despenser the elder he granted the estates of Robert Bruce's nephew the Earl of Moray. Hugh the younger, like many others expecting to move into his new castle shortly, brought tapestries, plate, and other furnishings with him; the wagon train groaned with such baggage of the confident.

“Who is that?” asked Eleanor as she watched the army, finally assembled in Berwick, prepare to depart.

She and the queen, both being about to send their husbands to war, had recovered something of their friendly relationship, although Eleanor would never dare to mention their visit to France. It had been a modest success from an English point of view: Philip, perhaps contrasting his daughter's behavior with that of his faithless daughters-in-law, had granted some of the concessions she sought with regard to Gascony. Isabella smiled as Eleanor pointed to a tonsured figure sitting in a wagon. “That is the poet.”

“Poet?”

“He is Friar Baston, a monk who is proficient in Latin verse. He is to sing England's triumphs when the Scots are defeated. Rumor has it that he has written much of his material already.”

“Isn't that premature?” asked Margaret dryly. Although Gaveston's lands had been forfeit to the crown after his death, Edward had arranged for Margaret to have a dower worthy of her husband's riches, and she had been left very well off. Nonetheless, she frequently traveled with the queen's household now, Edward liking to keep her safe from fortune hunters and Margaret preferring the company of her sister and the other ladies to the solitude of her manors. She caught the queen's disapproving look and added, “I mean, shouldn't he wait so he can write an account of the actual battle?”

“I suppose some of what he wrote could serve for any battle,” said Isabella. “The clash of armed men on horseback, the agony of the wounded, the grief of the widowed and orphaned… He can fill in the details later.”

“And he need not wait to write about our magnificent army,” said Eleanor. She almost pitied the Scots, but wisely said nothing.

Indeed, the tail end of the procession as it left Berwick was almost as impressive as its beginning. A hundred and six carts, each drawn by four horses, and a hundred and ten wagons, drawn by eight oxen, bore the army's supplies: corn and barley, portable mills, wine in jars and casks, gold and silver, gold and silver vessels, Hugh's plate and furnishings, and those of many others. Herds of cattle, sheep, and pigs followed the wagons and carts, and more was coming by water. Two thousand knights, each attended by at least one squire and mounted on the finest pieces of horseflesh to be found in England, had answered the call to battle, and the king's best Welsh archers were there. Even the lowly foot soldiers looked somehow grand and glorious. Those churlish earls, thought Eleanor, would be sorry to have stayed away.

Berwick Castle was a sad place, though, one that Eleanor did not like to wander alone after her husband had departed from it. Nailed to the castle walls, as one of Eleanor's young pages had gleefully noted to his companion when he thought his lady could not hear, was the left arm of William Wallace, who had been hung, drawn, and quartered in 1305 on the orders of the first Edward. It was mostly gone now, but enough was visible to provide the page boys with some satisfaction and to make the ladies shudder. Worse, though, in Eleanor's mind, had been the fate of the Countess of Buchan, who had crowned Robert Bruce King of Scotland in the absence of her brother, the Earl of Fife. She had been seized and sent to Eleanor's grandfather the English king in 1306, not long after Eleanor's wedding, and had been ordered to be confined in a cage hung from Berwick Castle; other female relations of the Scottish king had been similarly caged or, if they were lucky, sent to nunneries. For years the Countess of Buchan had remained in her open cage, visible to passersby; her only comfort was a privy, to which she could at least retreat in the worst weather. The second Edward had released her from the cage in 1312 and sent her to a nearby convent. She had died only months before, aged about twenty-seven. Eleanor, gazing at the spot where her cage had hung, had said a prayer for her soul; that night, praying for her family dead, she had for the first time purposely omitted the name of her grandfather.