The Traitor's Wife (43 page)

“That's Mortimer for you! With the Tower garrison dead drunk or drugged, does he give a thought to his old uncle in his cell? Not a bit. Leaves the old man to starve there.”

“He's being fed well enough,” said the king defensively. He and his chamberlain were supposedly hunting, but the huntsmen and the dogs had moved off in one direction, the king and Hugh in another. “I would not mistreat the old man.”

“I daresay he could teach you a thing or two if he chose. Did you ever hear what happened in your father's time? Two little boys, set to inherit Powys, were put in his charge. They drowned, strangely enough, and to whom did your father grant the better part of their lands? Their guardian.”

Edward nodded. “Yes, I remember hearing of that. I'm glad the nephew didn't take the uncle with him, in truth. One Mortimer on the loose is bad enough.”

“We'll catch him,” said Hugh soothingly. “Or the Irish will for us, and I'm sure there's some with grudges there.”

“What shall we do with his wife?”

“Keep her where she is for now, in house arrest in Hampshire. From what I've heard, Mortimer isn't exactly uxorious, for all he's had a passel of children by the woman. Ten? Twelve? In any case, she breeds them well out of sight. I doubt that Mortimer's confided in her, if he even troubles himself to think of her.”

Edward smiled. “Your wife troubled herself to think of her. She and the queen took the Exchequer to task for not paying her expenses promptly, did she ever tell you?”

“Ah, yes, my softhearted wife. When she heard that Mortimer had escaped, she said, 'Hugh, what about Lady Mortimer?'” Hugh shook his head tolerantly. “She told me about the letter; she said that she felt guilty going behind my back. God knows what she sneaks to the other traitors' widows and children.”

“You've a sweet wife. I wish I were married to her, Hugh.”

“Too late, Ned. She's mine, thanks to your father.”

“And I have Isabella, thanks to my father.”

“Shouldn't she be back from that pilgrimage of hers soon?”

“In the next few weeks. I'm not looking forward to it myself. I wonder if she still blames us for Tynemouth.”

“Probably.”

“I can never forget that she begged me to exile you, Hugh.” Edward leaned over his horse and touched Hugh on the cheek. “After that it was all I could do to lie with her, and that only because I thought we should try for more sons.” The king himself had been his father's fourth son, but the first two sons had predeceased Edward, while the third had died within months of Edward's birth. Edward sometimes wondered what life would have been like if one of his older brothers had lived to be king. “And I must keep on trying once she returns. But my heart just isn't in it.”

“The issue here isn't your
heart
, Ned.”

Edward laughed. Hugh, like Gaveston before him, could always make him do so. “Let's leave the hunt to the others, shall we, and go to my chamber.”

“What is this latest I hear about France, Edward?” The queen was back with the king, who commented to Hugh later that pilgrimage had not improved her temper.

Edward sighed. “Come to my chamber, dear, and we shall discuss it. The Earl of Winchester and Lord and Lady Despenser shall join us.”

Isabella narrowed her eyes. “Sir Hugh is most familiar with this French business, my dear, and his presence will be most useful. So will that of the Earl of Winchester.”

“And Lady Despenser? Is her presence also necessary?”

Eleanor had herself been wondering about this, but Edward said coolly, “Lady Despenser is my dear niece. Her presence is welcome to me anytime.”

The queen shrugged elegantly, and the five of them went to the king's chamber. “As you know, my dear, your brother has been asking me for some time to do homage to him—”

While the king had been battling his enemies in January 1322, death had dethroned yet another French king. Isabella's second brother, Philip, had been succeeded by her third brother, Charles. “Yes, and I must say, Edward, his patience has been tried sorely. He has been on the throne for nearly two years.”

“There was that business with Lancaster, and then the business with Scotland, and—”

“Lancaster is dead, and the business with Scotland is settled. So what cause do you have for delay now?”

She was not looking at the king, however, but Hugh the younger. He, therefore, replied with a disarming smile, “You well know, your grace, that no English king relishes doing homage to France. Aside from it being disagreeable in itself, it is an expensive business, at a time the kingdom can ill afford it.”

“You are very well versed in the feelings of English kings, my lord, almost as if you were one yourself. And your concern for the finances of England is commendable. I wonder that you can bring yourself to accept another forfeited estate, when each could be fattening the king's coffers.”

“They have been somewhat the thinner lately for your grace's traveling about.”

Eleanor sighed imperceptibly. Ever since the queen's return from pilgrimage about a month before, in October 1323, she and Hugh had been having these types of conversations, trading polite insults back and forth. The queen and Hugh could keep up these exchanges forever, except when someone intervened, as the Earl of Winchester did now.

“In any case,” said the Earl of Winchester, “the king had every intention of fulfilling his obligation to your grace's brother. However, there have been complications since then. You know that Mortimer is being harbored in France.”

“Yes, after so much time was wasted searching for him in Ireland.”

Edward said stiffly, “My dear, most of his career has been based in Ireland, was it so unreasonable that we should have thought he would be there?”

“This is beside the point,” the earl said. “He is in France now, and would be a danger to our king if the king were to go there. Indeed, he may have sent agents to procure the death of my son and myself.”

Eleanor gasped.

“No need to worry, love,” said Hugh. He walked over to Eleanor and kissed her quickly on the cheek. Isabella looked on balefully. Hugh straightened. “But I suppose what you are referring to, your grace, is this business in St. Sardos. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“In Gascony?” asked Eleanor.

“In Gascony, my love. Fine wine country, as my lord father can testify from his enforced stay there.” Hugh's eyes glittered at Isabella, but he continued, “There are plans to build a fortress there, which the French have no business building, but that's for another day. In any case, in the midst of construction, Raymond Bernard of Montpezat, one of the Gascon lords, led a group of armed men to the site and burned it down. In the process they hung a French official. Now Charles has hinted that our seneschal of Gascony, Ralph Basset, is implicated in this business.”

“Was he?”

“He says not.”

“I shall order an investigation,” said Edward. “Surely that will satisfy your brother, Isabella?”

“Perhaps about the St. Sardos affair, but not about the homage.”

“If Charles sends Roger Mortimer to me in chains, or without chains and without a head, then I will gladly pay him homage,” said the king. “In the meantime, if he wishes to show him hospitality, he will have to do without my company.”

Hugh frowned at a letter bearing the papal seal. “Well, this is all but useless.”

“What is, dear one?”

Hugh read, “'In answer to your complaint that you are threatened by magical and secret dealings, it is recommended that you turn to God with your whole heart, and make a good confession and such satisfaction as shall be enjoined. No other remedies are necessary beyond a general indult.'” He tossed the letter aside. “One would expect more from the Pope.”

“Are you still fretting about those men making wax images of us? Dear one, they will be dealt with.”

Hugh sighed. Though he had cleverly managed to get William de Braose to bring a writ of novel disseisin against Elizabeth de Burgh for Gower, with the result that Gower had passed back to the hapless Braose, who had subsequently granted it to the Earl of Winchester, who had then granted it to Hugh himself, his pleasure in having even more of Wales in his hands had rather been diminished by the news that a group of men in Coventry had been making wax images of the king, Hugh, the Earl of Winchester, and several nobodies in an attempt to kill them by black magic. “But what if there are more of them?”

“Well, you hear the Pope. You must make your full confession.”

“That would take a while,” admitted Hugh. He shook his head, trying to erase from his mind the look in Eleanor's green eyes when she had heard that Elizabeth had lost Gower. Hugh managed to keep a good deal from his wife, but there inevitably were leaks. Still, she had seemed almost convinced when he explained to her that Braose had acted quite on his own and that much as Hugh would have liked to restore Gower to Elizabeth, it seemed best for the realm that it not be in hostile hands. After all, he had pointed out, Elizabeth might marry again.

“Marry! I think she is quite tired of marriage by now. After all, she never wanted to marry Damory, and what did that marriage bring her?”

“But she might be abducted, as she was by that fortune-hunter Theobald de Verdon.”

“Theobald was no fortune-hunter. They were genuinely fond of each other.”

They had bickered about this side issue for so long that Eleanor had forgotten all about Gower for the time being. He supposed once she remembered, he would have to satisfy her somehow. Perhaps he could rent Usk to the Prioress…

“Hugh?”

“I beg your pardon. I was distracted.”

“See your confessor after you leave me. In the meantime, I think we have something more important to worry about. Do you think the queen is loyal to us in this business of France?”

Although Edward had, as promised, appointed commissioners to hold an inquiry into the St. Sardos affair, the French king had summoned several men, including Ralph Basset and Raymond Bernard, to appear before him. When they had failed to do so, they had been sentenced to have their possessions confiscated and they themselves banished from France. Edmund the Earl of Kent, the king's young brother, had been sent to France with others to try to ease the situation and, through what seemed to be a natural aptitude for bungling things, had succeeded only in making things worse. He was followed by the Earl of Pembroke. But in June 1324, as Pembroke was traveling toward Paris, news reached the English court that the aging earl had collapsed and died while on his way. Though negotiations went forward in his absence, the castle of Montpezat had been razed by the French, after which Edward in late July had ordered the arrest of all French subjects in England and the confiscation of their goods. Charles of Valois, the queen's uncle, had invaded Aquitaine, where the Earl of Kent had been appointed lieutenant.

Hugh mused. “She's done nothing to help our cause, that's for certain. But whether she'd hurt it, I don't know.”

“I think we should confiscate her lands.”

This sounded so much like something Hugh himself would have thought of that he started. Edward continued. “Confiscate her lands, at least for the time being, and give her an ample allowance in their stead. And I think an eye should be kept on what she writes, what goes in and out, and what she spends. And it is high time that the younger children were given their own households, away from her influence. It's not that she has much to do with them now; she hardly saw them during that endless pilgrimage of hers.”