The Traitor's Wife (53 page)

“Silly, that wouldn't explain this awful room.”

Joan glared at her embroidery hoop. “It is because,” she finally said triumphantly, “you are going to be living in a dark place.”

The girls were still debating this issue, mentally and with each other, on October 26, when Lady Hastings sat listening to them say their lessons to their governess. So lost was she in worry that she did not hear her father's voice at first. “Come with me, Bella,” he repeated.

He took her into his chamber. “I have decided to surrender.”

“Why?”

“It is hopeless, my child. The men will not fight; they have told me so. That leaves you and me and the king's girls and all the ladies here to hold the queen and Mortimer off with their army. I don't care for the odds.”

“There is Donald of Mar.”

Donald of Mar, a nephew of Robert Bruce, had been taken hostage as a youth by the first Edward and had been raised at court. After the Bannock Burn, it had been arranged that he would be returned to Scotland, along with Bruce's wife and other relatives, in exchange for the English hostages. At the last moment, he had flatly refused to go, having developed an unshakable loyalty to the second Edward.

The earl shook his head. “Papa! Surely you cannot mean that even Donald of Mar has deserted us.”

“No. I sent him off. He may be able to persuade Robert Bruce to come to the king's aid, if all else fails.”

For an Englishman to speak of getting assistance from the Bruce was desperation indeed. Hugh paced about the room. “Bella, I did think of holding out anyway, of fighting to the last gasp. Of making a grand gesture. But that would jeopardize my grandsons' lives, perhaps, and in any case I feel too old for grand gestures.”

Bella said bitterly, “Hugh has brought you to this.”

“Yes, he is at fault. So am I. I tolerated much that I should not have, and participated in things that I should not have. We are both to blame. Don't be bitter with him, Bella.” He saw her unrelenting face and said urgently, “He needs your prayers desperately.”

Bella was silent for a while. She looked at the rich gown and jewels she wore, some the gifts of her doting father, some the gifts of her doting husbands, but others the gifts of a brother she had always loved and who had always looked out for her. Finally, she said, “Of course I will pray for him, Papa.”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I sent a message out a little while ago. I made certain that your life would be spared, that you would not be shut up. They agreed. You will be kept under guard while they look for your brother, but after that you will go free. Caring for the queen's children isn't treason, after all.”

“And your life?”

Hugh shrugged. “It's been a long one, my child.”

Bella began sobbing. Her father went on calmly, “And now I have a secret to tell you. Are you hearing me?”

She nodded bleakly.

“You have a younger brother, a bastard. I sired him some years after your mother died.”

Bella looked up, shocked out of her tears. “You?”

“I don't recall taking Holy Orders, my dear. His name is Nicholas, named after his mother's father. He lives with his mother in Litlyngton. She was not a young woman when I met her, but a widow of many years. I was rather surprised to hear of our child, having thought she was past her time, but there is no doubt that he is mine.”

“All these years I would not have guessed. But Father, why didn't you tell the rest of us? I would have welcomed him as our brother, and I am sure Hugh would have too.”

“Hugh knows. I should have told you girls, but in truth, I felt too much of an old rooster doing so.”

“Papa! What silliness.”

The earl blushed. “His mother wants him to be professed as a monk. I think that is fitting.”

Bella asked, “Does he know you are his father?”

“Yes. I have seen him and Joan quite often. When I am gone I would like you to see them and say good-bye for me. I have left plenty for their support, but I want you to give them my love.” He touched Bella's hand. “Your sister-in-law Eleanor will be in sore need of kindness from you too, if the worst happens.”

“Do you think there is no hope for Hugh at all?”

“Things are different now than in '21 when our enemies were divided. It would take a miracle, and I think miracles are in short supply these days, save at the tomb of the Earl of Lancaster.” He gazed out the window, where the tents of the queen's army were visible in all directions. “But perhaps the circumstances have made me overly pessimistic.” Hugh pressed Bella's hand gently. “Your sons will grow to be fine men, I think, and so will your brothers' and sisters' sons. And you and your sisters and my granddaughters and Eleanor have been the lights of my life. Don't mourn overlong for me.”

Bella put her head on her father's shoulder and wept as she had not wept since she was a child of five. When she had at last quieted, her father said gently, “Wash your face, and get ready to take the girls to the queen. I am going to find my confessor.”

She obeyed, and a few minutes later was back in her charges' chamber, smiling at the little girls.

“Come,” she said lightly. “I know someone who wants to see you very much, who is waiting outside for you. Can you guess?”

“Eleanor's husband-to-be!” said Joan triumphantly. But Lady Hastings looked so baffled by this reply that Eleanor ventured, “My brother John?”

“No! Your brother Edward. And your mama.”

“What! They are back from France!”

“Yes.”

“But no one told us! Why, Lady Hastings?”

Bella's tone grew lighter yet. “So it would be a big surprise for you, of course.” She smiled. “I am afraid I may be losing you, though. Your mama will want you with her, so I must give you up.”

Together they walked over the drawbridge, presenting a weirdly domestic scene: Eleanor and Joan running ahead trying to glimpse their mother, the Earl of Winchester and his daughter walking arm in arm, Bella's ladies and the girls' attendants trailing uncertainly behind. However much the queen might have liked to give her attention to Hugh le Despenser, kneeling and offering his sword in surrender, Eleanor and Joan's exuberant greetings prevented this, and when Edward hesitantly put his hand out for the sword, he too was overwhelmed by his little sisters. It was Henry, Earl of Leicester, who at last had to step forward and accept Winchester's surrender.

“Where shall we take him, your grace?”

Take him? Eleanor and Joan frowned, for suddenly everyone around them looked very grim.

“To a cell,” said the queen. “We try him first thing tomorrow.”

“It was not a mere manner of expediency, I assure you. I did wrestle with my conscience.”

In the great hall of Bristol Castle, where Queen Isabella's leading men had assembled after the Earl of Winchester had been hustled away, Robert de Wateville was sitting next to William la Zouche of Ashby, Wateville's face gloomy because of his aforesaid conscience, Zouche's face gloomy because this was by no means the first such conversation he had had with Wateville.

Wateville had cause for guilt. Till the very moment of Isabella's landing, he had been trusted by both the king and Hugh the younger, and just months before, the king had paid part of the expenses of his wedding—to Lady Hastings' daughter. Discovering her son-in-law in the midst of the queen's men who had arrested her father, the mild and gentle Lady Hastings had spat on him, had called him a Judas, and had been about to attack his face with her elegantly manicured nails when she was yanked away by one of the Hainaulters. “But what else could I do, Zouche? I sincerely think the queen is justified in her actions.”

“I do too. Despenser has gone beyond all bounds in his greed for land and money. England will be better for the steps we are taking.”

Wateville sighed. “Tell that to my mother-in-law.”

Zouche, the very same man who had taken the Countess of Warwick's fancy after the death of her husband, himself had been loyal to the king. He had fought for Edward at Boroughbridge, yet since that date he had watched with dismay, and then disgust, as widows were despoiled of their dower rights, men were forced to buy their freedom by executing huge recognizances to Hugh le Despenser, and highborn ladies such as Margaret d'Audley languished in convents. He had seen, and still saw, the queen as the savior of her country, and he knelt reverently as she entered the great hall, looking fragile and vulnerable in her widow's weeds, and motioned for the Earl of Leicester to speak for her.

It was a pity, declared the earl, but the king had deserted the realm, led out of it by the wicked Hugh le Despenser the younger. This state of affairs could not continue, clearly, so the only alternative was to name a keeper of the realm in the king's absence. Who better to fill this role than the king's own son, Edward, the Duke of Aquitaine? As one, those assembled—including Zouche, Wateville, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the Bishops of Hereford, Winchester, Ely, Lincoln, and Norwich, and Henry de Beaumont—agreed.

Young Edward, at fourteen already tall and well built, then stood to acknowledge the bows of the assembled company. Looking at him, dignified and grave, yet with an appealing air of boyish shyness, Zouche was reassured that the right thing was being done. Even Wateville stopped justifying himself for the moment.

The next morning, however, Wateville was glum again as William Trussell, accompanied by the Earls of Leicester, Norfolk, and Kent, Roger Mortimer, and Thomas Wake, tried, or made a pretense of trying, the Earl of Winchester. The regent and his mother, along with the other nobility and prelates of the Church, sat as spectators. The Earl of Leicester, although he had not much liked his ill-tempered older brother, nonetheless felt obliged to avenge his death properly, and chief among the charges against Hugh was that he had put the Earl of Lancaster to death without reason, the man's traitorous activities being conveniently forgotten. He had made a law that men (like the Earl of Lancaster) could be condemned without right of reply. He had appropriated royal power to himself. He had counseled the king to persecute the prelates of the Church. He had been such a robber that the people demanded vengeance. Despite the fact that he himself had stolen property from Winchester's manors in 1323, Trussell managed to make his voice shake with outrage.

Winchester, like Lancaster, was not allowed to reply, and as any reply would have been worthless anyway, he listened to the charges without emotion, his eyes never leaving the faces of his accusers. Trussell rolled on, “For your treason you are to be drawn, for your robbery hung, and for your offenses against the Church beheaded. Your head will be taken to Winchester, of which you were earl, contrary against law and reason. Because you have dishonored chivalry and hung men with quartered coats, you are to be hung with your quartered coat and your arms destroyed for all time.”

Zouche thought he saw Winchester flinch at these last words. But his voice was level and quiet as he said, uninvited, “Would that I have had an upright judge and a just sentence. But we will look for what is not given to us in this world, in the next.”

No one replied to the old man. Zouche found himself and others looking appealingly at Isabella, silently hoping that she would intervene and spare the earl his life. Her face was impassive as the defendant's, however, and after a moment the Earl of Winchester, head still held high, was led away.