The Traitor's Wife (4 page)

“Nelly, is that you? Wake up!”

Eleanor stirred and opened her eyes as a young couple on horseback—her sister Margaret and her new brother-in-law, Piers Gaveston—drew beside her. “Are we near Dover?”

“We're
in
Dover, Nelly dear. Now why are you riding in that litter like a matron—I beg your pardon, my good lady—why are you riding in the litter on a fine morning like this when you could be on that fine palfrey Hugh gave you when you married?” Piers patted his steed emphatically.

Eleanor blushed. “Hugh has forbidden it.”

Margaret looked puzzled, but Piers laughed. “Your modest sister is trying not to tell us that there is a young Despenser in the offing. Am I not right, sister?” Eleanor nodded. “How far along are you?”

“Three months, Gladys and I think. I did not want to tell the family until I was more sure.”

“We shall keep it quiet,” Margaret said. “Won't we, Piers?”

“Death itself would not drag it from me. So where is the proud father?”

“Hugh stayed behind to attend to some business of his father's. He will arrive later this morning.”

“Hardworking men, your husband and your father-in-law. They can't stand to be out of harness, can they? As for me, I shall gladly shake mine off when the king arrives.” He helped Eleanor out of the litter, then Gladys.

“Have you enjoyed being regent, Piers?”

“Lord, no! It's a dreary task of the sort your husband might enjoy. My only satisfaction in it has been in goading the barons. I force them to kneel before me, you know. It drives them mad.”

“Piers, don't you think of the consequences of that?”

“Now, Nelly, don't you turn all dreary on me. Did they think of the consequences when they prevailed upon the old king to exile me?”

“They certainly did not,” put in Piers's new bride.

Piers smiled at his fourteen-year-old wife, nearly ten years his junior. “Indeed, they did not.”

It had been a year before when the king had ordered Piers's exile. Eleanor had learned it from her father-in-law, the elder Hugh. She and her husband had been lounging in the great hall of Loughborough, one of the elder Despenser's best manors. Gilbert, her older brother, was with them, having dropped in for a several days' visit as was his wont. The elder Hugh, who had been attending Parliament, entered the room, dripping wet. Eleanor had hastened to remove his things, although there was a servant close at hand attempting to do the same thing, somewhat more efficiently. “Thank you, ladybird,” he said. “Hugh, have I told you that you have a fine wife?”

“Indeed you have, and you're right, Father. How was Parliament?”

“Miserable, in a word. Carlisle's a dreary place at the best of times, and the king and the prince made it drearier with one of their quarrels.” He looked apologetically at Eleanor. “The king has exiled Gaveston.”

“Why?”

“The prince had the temerity to ask for Ponthieu for him—for services rendered. It must have seemed a trifling gift to young Edward, but the king fell into a fury. He called Edward a baseborn whoreson, asked why he who had never won any lands wanted to give them away. Then he actually fell upon his son and pulled out chunks of his hair. You can see the bald spots here and there.” The elder Hugh grimaced. “After that his rage cooled through sheer exhaustion, but the next morning he saw his council and the order went out— Gaveston must be gone.”

“But it's natural to reward one's friends with land,” said Eleanor. “Gaveston has been a loyal friend to my uncle for years. And he excels in the joust and in military matters, I'm told, which is why the king brought him into Edward's household to begin with. As a soldiery example. So why would the king oppose such a reasonable request?”

The younger Hugh and Gilbert smiled. The elder Hugh looked at his daughter-in-law in some distress. “It is not a thing to be discussed before a young lady,” he said finally.

Hugh the son laughed. “Come, Father. Eleanor is a hardened married woman now, and we're all family.” He waited for a servant to leave the room, though. “The truth is, Eleanor, the king believes that his son and Piers have an unnatural relationship.”

“I do not understand.”

Hugh the elder looked stricken, so Hugh whispered a single word into his wife's ear. She gasped. “Hugh, is he right?”

Hugh shrugged. “Who knows? They're often alone together at Langley; anything could go on there. No doubt they're discreet when the king's around. I sure as hell would be.”

“The prince calls Piers his brother,” added Gilbert. “You've heard him do so yourself, haven't you, Eleanor? But it seems more than a brotherly relation to me.”

“Brothers don't gaze into each other's eyes like that,” said Hugh. “Speaking from experience as one.” He yawned and stretched his legs. “So has he started packing yet?”

“No,” said his father. “The king has given him quite a bit of time to prepare—until after Easter.”

“With his wardrobe he'll need every day of it,” Hugh said dryly.

Hugh was not far wrong. Caring not a whit that his father would see his household accounts, Edward bought tunics and tapestries for his friend and accompanied him to Dover himself, along with Gaveston's household and two minstrels. Even the king was unwilling to make life too harsh for the exile, for Piers had been given an annuity of a hundred marks. “
I
should get myself exiled,” said Hugh, upon hearing the details. “Money from the king, gifts and money from the prince. And minstrels! What's an exile without minstrels?” He threw his head back and sang in an unmelodious voice, much to the distress of two dogs sitting by the fireplace, “Piers, sweet Piers, my life will be a vacancy without you…”

“Don't be so cynical, Hugh. My uncle is deeply grieved.” Her voice caught as she added, “Grieved about my mother, too.”

Joan, Edward's favorite sister and Eleanor's mother, had died just days before. Eleanor had not been much with her as a child, but their relations were affectionate. She was rather in awe of her mother, in fact, for her mother had done what few had done—stood up to the king. Eleanor's nurses had told her the story often enough. Joan had been ordered by the king to marry a man twice her age, Gilbert de Clare. Having done so, she had persuaded her husband to take her from court after their marriage so that they could enjoy their first days of married life by themselves. Irked at this show of independence, the king had had his daughter's valuable wedding clothes seized. Then when Gilbert died after just a few years of marriage, Joan had taken charge of her future. The king had lost no time in looking for a second husband for his daughter, and soon announced her betrothal to the Count of Savoy, only to find that Joan had married a nobody in Gilbert's household named Ralph de Monthermer, a squire who had been knighted only weeks before at Joan's own request. Edward tossed Ralph into prison. Joan had bided her time. She had sent Eleanor and her two other little girls by Gilbert to visit the king; then, trusting that her father had been put in a grandfatherly mood, had asked to appear before him. There, visibly pregnant, she had not quaked or cried but had coolly explained that a widow should be allowed to choose for herself and that there was no shame in a great lady's raising the status of a poor knight. Whatever reply to this philosophy the king had made, he had gradually been brought round, and Ralph had been released and given the title of Earl of Gloucester. Would Eleanor have been able to defy the king so? She often wondered. She'd been a timid child, except among those she knew well. Her uncle Edward was one of the few persons she'd felt totally at ease with, probably because he was naturally shy himself. He too had loved her mother. When he'd fallen afoul of the king the previous year and had to stay out of his presence, with most of his funds cut off, Joan had lent him her seal so that he could borrow money and had offered to let him stay with her.

She turned away from the window where she and Hugh had been standing and began to cry. Hugh's sardonic expression vanished, and he instantly came to her and pulled her against him. She settled into his arms comfortably. “She died only as I was coming to truly know her, Hugh. And she was still so young. Why couldn't it have been later?”

“I don't know, my sweet.”

“I could not bear it if anything like that happened to you.”

“Don't be silly.”

She crossed back to the window. “And whatever people say about my uncle and Piers, I know it must be breaking his heart to part with him, however you might scoff at him, Hugh.”

“I don't scoff to be cruel. The king is an old man in failing health, Eleanor, and however sad your uncle and Piers may be today, it won't last long. They must be aware of that as anyone else. All Gaveston has to do is bide his time, and soon he'll be back in England.”

“His ship could sink! All sorts of things could keep them apart.”

“Gaveston would swim to shore. He loves to thumb his nose at those who consider him an upstart Gascon; he'd never give them the satisfaction of not returning. Trust me.”

Gaveston's ship did not sink. Though he had been exiled to Gascony, he went no farther than Ponthieu, and the king, perhaps because of his preoccupation with military matters, perhaps because even he had a certain liking for the lively Piers, did not press the issue. The rich possessions Gaveston entered his exile with were soon added to by the prince, who purchased more clothing just so his friend could make a fine showing of himself at the French tournaments, then, for good measure, several horses, a gift that caused Hugh to wonder to Eleanor whether the prince would soon be sending his friend a supply of hay. There was scarcely time for Piers to attend the tournaments, however, for his exile ended abruptly when the old king, having made one last Scottish expedition, took ill and died in early July. The old man had told his son not to recall Gaveston, to lead one hundred men on a crusade each year, and to boil his bones down and carry them before the army on each subsequent incursion into Scotland. Edward, hearing the news, found the first order as absurd as the last two. Within minutes, a messenger was heading toward Dover with a simple message to Gaveston: to return home to England and his dearest friend.

The new king soon proved himself to be different from his father. Though he was no coward, he had neither an interest in nor an aptitude for warfare and spent his days in Scotland not plotting strategy but figuring out how best to reward his loyal friend. Ponthieu had been acceptable when the prince was in the position of a meek supplicant before his father, but hardly worth the giving when Edward himself was king. The earldom of Cornwall was eminently more suitable. Next, the Earl of Cornwall deserved a proper countess, and who better than Edward's own niece Margaret de Clare? It was only a pity that Edward's one unmarried sister was a nun. Settling for this next closest female relation, and certain that his friend would be delighted with the match, the king had the charter proclaiming Piers as the new earl decorated with the Clare arms as well as Gaveston's own.

Eleanor and Margaret's brother, Gilbert, had sanctioned the marriage, rather to Eleanor's surprise. “Gilbert, what about the—brotherhood—between Gaveston and the king?”

“What about it, sister?”

“What of Margaret? Have her wishes been consulted?”

Gilbert shrugged. “He's a handsome and agreeable man, and now that the king has made him Earl of Cornwall, a rich one as well. How can she complain?”

“But she will be sharing her husband with the king.”

“Those may be just idle rumors, Nelly. I've never noticed anything so very much amiss. In any event, the king is king now and must act up to the role. He will be married soon himself, you know.”

“Hugh does not believe they are just idle rumors.”

“Your husband is a cynic, Nelly, always has been.”

“He is older than you, Gilbert, and more observant.”

“Maybe. But I have promised Margaret to Gaveston, and told her of the match as well. She didn't threaten to take the veil, or faint, or refuse dinner. In fact, you'll find her very engrossed by the subject of her wedding dress, I believe. So don't concern yourself with the matter.” Gilbert's voice was sharper than he meant it to be, for he himself had had doubts about the marriage, not so much because of whose bed Gaveston would share but because of his awareness that Gaveston had never been a popular man at court. Even when he first came to Edward's household, the son of a loyal but financially strapped Gascon knight, he had carried himself as proudly as any great landholder's son and spared none his insolent wit. Any humility he might have possessed had vanished when the prince, almost from the moment of looking upon the handsome young man, found him to have every quality he had ever wanted in a brother, a friend, and even a lover. Humility was in short supply in the new king's court, as it had been in the old king's, and Gilbert knew that the barons would not tolerate any missteps by the new earl or his royal patron. He had wondered about catching his sister in such machinations. But no man who could aspire to the hand of the king's granddaughter was likely to live a life of quiet obscurity free from such intrigue, and Gilbert as his father's heir did not feel that he could deprive his middle sister of the chance of being a wealthy countess. Nor had he been truly inclined to offer any opposition to his uncle the king, who after Joan's death had granted the sixteen-year-old Gilbert the right to enjoy his estates immediately. Gilbert otherwise might have had to fritter several more years away while someone else managed—or mismanaged—their hefty revenues for him.