The Traitor's Wife (48 page)

The king could have strung several more questions on to his bow, but Stapeldon held up his hand. “I know not how to tell you what I am to tell, your grace. I have been thinking, ever since I crossed the Channel, how to tell you. So I will tell you it straight out. The queen has openly, publicly refused to return to England unless Lord Despenser is removed from court.” Stapeldon glanced at Hugh's face, which was impassive. “Her exact words—
her
words, I emphasize—are that someone has come between your grace and herself, trying to break the marriage bond, and that she will not return until this intruder has been removed. She has even said that she will dress in mourning until she is avenged of this Pharisee, as she puts it.”

“Which would be me?” inquired Hugh.

“Yes, my lord. And she has donned mourning robes, or at least a semblance thereof.”

“Very becoming ones, no doubt.”

“Rather, sir.”

Hugh let out an expressive whistle.

The bishop said hesitantly, “This brings me to my next point. Your grace, you sent me there to watch over your son, I and Henry de Beaumont, and I must tell you why I have returned home without him, and in this poor garb. There were plots against my life, plots by Roger Mortimer's allies, that I learnt of from a person at the French court sympathetic to me as a man of the cloth. I have every reason to believe that if I had not fled at night, disguised in these clothes, I would be a dead man today.”

“Why you, Bishop?” asked Hugh.

“Because of the role I played in expediting the seizure of the queen's land. Because I was regarded as a spy when I accompanied the king's son there. And because—I regret having to say this, sir—because I am associated with you.” Hugh flinched, barely perceptibly, and Stapeldon drew a breath. “Your grace, there is worse to tell, and I fear the telling will anger you. But it must be said. The queen is allying herself with your enemies in France, with all those who have exiled themselves there following your victory at Boroughbridge. They swarm about her like so many bees. But she has allied herself with one man in particular. Roger Mortimer. She dines with him at table, accompanies him on the hunt, dances with him. Those things I have seen myself. And there are rumors—ones that I can neither credit nor discredit—that he has found his way into her chamber.”

“Good Lord!” said Edward. “You are not telling us that they are lovers!”

“That is the rumor.”

“Damn her soul if this is true,” said Edward quietly. He paced around the room a couple of times, then wheeled on Stapeldon. “What of my son? Has she seduced my son away from me?”

Stapeldon shook his head. “I know not what your son thinks of all this. He is unusually reserved for a boy of his age, I have always thought, and our conversations have always been on trivialities or historical matters—he has always enjoyed hearing stories about your distinguished ancestors, your grace. He has never spoken on matters that concern the here and now. He was glad to see his mother, I can tell you—she is, after all, a most charming lady—and she welcomed him warmly. If she were able to appeal to a sense of chivalry within him by this widow business of hers, to convince him that she has been grievously wronged…”

He fell silent. Hugh finished the thought. “He might turn against the king. And the French might use this as a pretext to invade England.”

Stapeldon nodded bleakly. All three men were silent for a time. Then Edward said briskly, “Let them plot and cavort in bed! The English people won't stand for an invasion by Charles's troops, nor will they stand for one led by a whoring Frenchwoman and her lover. Isabella and her brother and Mortimer are sadly mistaken if they think otherwise.”

“I trust they are, your grace,” the bishop said.

“Nay,” said Edward confidently. “I know they are.”

Though Eleanor would never have said so to the king, she disliked her quarters at Kenilworth Castle, where she and John of Eltham progressed in April 1326. It was not that the king had spared expenses in refurbishing Eleanor's chamber—he had not—or that any convenience was wanting. It was that Kenilworth, seized from the late Earl of Lancaster, in itself gave her a feeling of unease. Here, Lancaster had plotted and schemed against the king and Gaveston, then the king and her husband. Lying in bed at night, even when Hugh was in her company, especially when he was in her company, Eleanor could fancy that the earl's indignant ghost roamed the halls.

Her internal state of mind was not helped by the external state of affairs. Soon after Bishop Stapeldon's return to England, Edward had begun to deluge the queen with letters demanding, first graciously and later stridently, her return. England's bishops were also commanded to write to the queen. Though in his initial letters, the king had avoided any reference to Mortimer, deeming it prudent to give the queen the benefit of the doubt while the rumors of her conduct were unproven, there was soon little ground to disbelieve them. The king having cut off Isabella's allowance, most of her disgruntled household had returned to England at the end of November, bearing tales. On several occasions, a tousled-looking Mortimer had been seen emerging from the queen's chamber at the crack of dawn, and one of Mortimer's pages had been heard to boast of his master's royal conquest.

Whether the letters were friendly or unfriendly, whether they addressed Isabella as a pious daughter of the Church or implied that she was no more than Mortimer's whore, whether they came from king or bishop, they produced no effect upon the queen, who would say nothing more than that she feared to return to England because of Hugh le Despenser's presence there and that she would not budge from France until he was removed. Her three children in England had long ceased to ask Eleanor and Lady Hastings when she would be coming back.

Young Edward had also received letters from his father, stern but affectionate letters that simultaneously ordered and begged him to return home, with no better results than from those sent to his mother. There were even rumors that the queen and Mortimer had been negotiating with the Count of Hainault, a wealthy man who was also the lord of Holland and Zealand, for the marriage of one of his four amiable daughters with the thirteen-year-old Duke of Aquitaine. The king's wife and son were not the only members of the royal family digging in their heels. King Edward's younger half brother Edmund, the Earl of Kent, who had bungled the St. Sardos affair so miserably, had married Roger Mortimer's cousin, Margaret Wake, in France. He too refused to return to England.

“What do you think, Hugh? Will the queen—or her brother Charles— invade England?”

The year before, Hugh's response would have been a breezy, “Nonsense!” Now he glanced at Eleanor and his newest son, John, and said only, “We are trying our best to prevent that.”

Eleanor looked at the baby's thatch of whitish hair. “Hugh, even the Pope has advised you to retire from the court. Have you considered doing that? We could live comfortably—very comfortably—on our own lands, you know, and the king could visit us often. Would it be that bad?”

“Are the king and I to have Isabella dictate who shall serve the king?”

“Not Isabella, the
Pope
!”

“It all comes to the same thing,” said Hugh, who had not quite forgiven the Pope for his lack of sympathy with regard to the black arts practiced against him.

“But England herself is in jeopardy, Hugh. Your children are in jeopardy; what do you think would happen if an invasion succeeded?”

“Succeeded! Eleanor, don't be absurd.”

“Hugh, I love my uncle. I would give my very life for him. But he has not won a war, save at Boroughbridge, and that was due mainly to Harclay. He is not a military leader, and you know it.”

“The English won't stand to be invaded by the French,” said Hugh. “It is a matter of preparation, and the king is preparing for the worst.”

“But Hugh, we have gotten off the subject. Can't you placate the queen a little by leaving the court? At least until she sees that you mean her no harm?”

Hugh started to make a sharp reply, then experienced one of those fits of conscience that occasionally afflicted him. Just a few weeks before, in the throes of one, he had offered Eleanor's sister Elizabeth some lands in compensation for those he had taken from her, and now, looking at the woman he had been married to nearly twenty years, he found that he could not lie to her. “It's not that simple, Eleanor. I can't just go away like that. The king needs me.” He paused a long time. “And I need him. We love each other, Eleanor.”

“Like David and Jonathan?”

“No, Eleanor. Like the king and Gaveston.”

“I see.”

John, who had been cradled in Eleanor's arms, rooted around with his mouth hopefully. Finding no waiting nipple, he began to whimper. Hugh rang a bell and John's wet nurse appeared in seconds. She sometimes nursed her charge in the presence of his parents, but seeing the expressions on their faces, she bowed and hurried to the nursery. When she was safely gone, Eleanor said, “Margaret implied as much when we were at Marlborough Castle together. I thought she meant you had women lovers, and I took it for pure spite. I should have known better.”

“There's no other woman in my life but you. There's no other man in my life but the king.”

“How tidy. How long has this been going on, Hugh?”

“About eight years.”

“Eight years?”

“We tried to be discreet.”

“You were that.”

“Sweetheart, neither of us wanted to hurt you.”

“But you have, haven't you?” She snorted and headed toward the door.

Edward, preparing for a spot of hunting and believing Hugh to be doing the same, was puzzled to hear that Lady Despenser wanted to speak to him urgently about John of Eltham's knightly training. They had spoken about the very subject the afternoon before. But it was not like his niece to bother him with trivial matters, so he bade his attendant to show her in, then agreed to her strange request that they be left alone.

“So, Nelly. You were concerned about my John?”

“No, Uncle. I have found out just now that you and my husband are lovers.”

“I see. Have some wine, Nelly.”

Eleanor took the cup he poured for her and drained it. “Another, please.”

He complied. “Eleanor, I didn't mean to hurt you. Neither did Hugh. You were a scruple we both had to overcome, and should not have. But, of course, we did, and we will have to answer for it someday.”

“You will give each other up?”

Edward shook his head. “No, Nelly.” He stared out the window. “You probably heard from Gaveston that he and I gave each other up. Did you?” She nodded. “And what was his reward? Nine days in a dungeon and then Blacklow Hill. No. I won't give Hugh up, not for you or for any man or any woman or God Himself.”

“So be it. But Hugh comes with strings attached.”

“Strings, Nelly?”

“Me.”

She yanked off her headdress, letting her red curls fall past her waist, and unclasped her cloak. Beneath it, the king saw, she wore only a shift, so sheer that it revealed every outline of her body. He was still gaping at the shift when Eleanor shrugged and sent it slithering to the floor. “Christ almighty,” he whispered.