The Traitor's Wife (69 page)

His family had already created some sensation in the neighborhood, however, for an hour or so after the pieman's departure, there had been a new commotion outside his window. A man had appeared, a knight from the looks of him, bearing the royal standard, and it was his own mother he had come for, to take her to the king! Sir William de Montacute had stayed only long enough to take some refreshment, but he had allowed Gilbert to give his horse some oats and had told him that Lord Zouche was a fine-looking dog. He reminded Gilbert a little bit of his brother Hugh. Every night, Gilbert prayed to God that Hugh would come back. He had been so tall and so kind and so brave, and Gilbert knew the latter for certain, for he had held Caerphilly Castle—Papa's castle—against the wicked queen.

Now that they had been allowed to leave the Tower, perhaps Hugh would be allowed to leave his prison too? He had thought of asking his mother, but it would probably make her sad, and Edward got very angry whenever Gilbert made Mama sad. Not that he ever meant to do so. The queen had done enough of that already, killing Papa and Grandfather and sending his sisters away and shutting Hugh up. Gilbert would have hated the queen, but Mama said it was wrong to hate. But he didn't have to like her. Mama and Edward had said that not liking her was all right.

Edward was calling him, in the man-of-the-house way he had assumed since Papa died. Edward could be irritating, but he could be kind, too, almost like his brother Hugh. After Papa had died—Gilbert thought it must have been in some dreadful but exciting battle—Edward had caught Gilbert crying in the bed they shared, and he hadn't scolded him at all, the way he had when Gilbert had cried when his pony had thrown him just a few months before.

His pony. Might he ever get his pony back? He'd been such a good rider for his age. Papa had told him so. So had Hugh.

Edward himself had arrived in Gilbert's room, with a very dreary-looking book in his hand. Gilbert sighed, then brightened. There would be plenty of time, after all, to explore London now that they were free.

Eleanor had been uneasy when she was told that the king would be sending an escort for her, wondering what sort of man the king—or Mortimer and Isabella—would choose for the task. William de Montacute was an immense relief. He was the son and namesake of the man who had been a good friend to the late king after the Bannock Burn, and that in itself augured well.

Montacute was not particularly talkative, both by nature and by his instinct that Eleanor wished to be left alone with her thoughts as they headed north, over countryside that Eleanor had traveled so many times in state as Hugh le Despenser's wife and the king's niece. From time to time, however, he broke their companionable silence. Did Eleanor know that the French king—the last of Isabella's brothers—had died suddenly on the first of February?

“I did not know that, sir. Who shall take the throne? I know with the French law the way it is, our queen is out of the question.” She muttered in her horse's receptive ear, “And a good thing that is.”

“His wife is with child, so there may be an heir yet, but he had named Philip of Valois, his cousin, as his successor in the event he had no son.”

“Do you think Ed—our king will try to claim the French throne?”

“It's a possibility,” said Montacute. “Certainly as a grandson to Charles the Fair he would seem to have more right to it than Philip of Valois.”

“Philip of Valois,” said Eleanor. “Isn't his sister Queen Philippa's mother?” “Yes. But the lady Philippa is technically not queen yet, you know. She has not been crowned.”

“Not crowned! What are they waiting for?”

Montacute shrugged uncomfortably. “She is but fourteen.”

“Why, Isabella was crowned when she was twelve, alongside my uncle and with just as much ceremony! Indeed, I was part of the procession!” Isabella, Eleanor thought to herself, was evidently not eager to be supplanted by this young girl.

By the third or fourth day of their journey she felt so comfortable with William de Montacute that she could ask him about her uncle's funeral. “I so much wanted to have been there, to tell him good-bye,” she said softly after Montacute had praised the music at the service. “But at least now I hope I can visit his grave.”

“You will not be alone, Lady Despenser. Many are coming there now, as pilgrims you might say. They started coming in droves after the funeral, even in the dead of winter. The abbot, they say, is thinking of making improvements to the place with all the money they are bringing in.”

“The queen and Mortimer do not try to stop the people from coming there?”

“What good would it do them? It would only raise more sus—”

He called to one of his men and began to issue orders about finding a suitable abbey to stay the night. For the rest of their trip, they talked of nothing but trivialities, and when Montacute had occasion to mention the young king, he did so with the utmost respect and warmth. But his slip had told Eleanor that while Montacute might be the king's man, he was certainly not Roger Mortimer's and Queen Isabella's.

The king had been moving south as Eleanor and Montacute moved north. For several days, he stopped at Lincoln, and it was there that Eleanor was taken to see him.

She was surprised when she was conducted to a small but reasonably comfortable chamber in the castle, for she had expected Lincoln to be so full with the king and his followers that she would have to sleep at an inn. It turned out, however, that Isabella and Mortimer, and their retinues, had left court and were not expected to return until some time in April. “It seems that they are spending some time at one of the queen's castles,” explained Montacute, his face impassive.

“Together?” Eleanor thought of all the men of the Church who had flocked to the queen's banner. She wondered if they thought now of Lady Mortimer, far away from court and alone in one of the Mortimers' Welsh castles.

“So it appears.”

Eleanor could hardly complain about this lovers' retreat, though, for it would be a great deal easier to face the king alone than with his mother and his mother's lover. Having sent in a message through one of Montacute's pages that she would await the king's pleasure, she had nothing to do but to change her travel-worn black dress for a slightly fresher black one and to clean the grime of the road off her face. These tasks being accomplished quickly, she sat and stared at the fire, waiting for the king's summons and thinking of the days when she had been a cherished member of her uncle's court.

The king's pleasure turned out to be an hour or so, but at last a page knocked on her door and led her to the king. Her hope that she might see him alone soon died as she heard her name announced loudly and saw a crowd of courtiers standing near the throne, all with seemingly nothing better to do than to watch her. Lifting her chin, she approached the throne, hearing titters as she did so, and knelt to the boy whom she regarded as little better than a usurper.

“You may rise, Lady Despenser.”

A young knight stepped forth and helped her to her feet. “
Merci
,” she murmured, and surveyed the king as best she could without looking him full in the face. She had not seen him in two and a half years, when he had not yet turned thirteen, and she felt a stab of pain when she saw how much he had grown to look like his dead father.

“Welcome, cousin. I hope you had an uneventful journey here, and I am glad to see that you reached here safely.”

“Thank you, your grace. I had a very kind escort.”

“Ah, Montacute,” said Edward, his voice suddenly relaxing. Then it abruptly stiffened. “Your late husband was a traitor to the realm. But we, with the aid of our council, have considered the matter of your own status and have deemed it just that you be released from the Tower. You may go wherever you wish in England now. Of course, like any other subject you must gain permission to go abroad, and you may not remarry without our license.”

Remarry! The thought was so startling that Eleanor nearly forgot her own prearranged formalities. She recovered herself. “Your grace, I thank you for my freedom. And now, if it pleases your grace, I do have several petitions to place before you.”

“We will hear them.”

“My eldest son, Hugh, was pardoned a year ago, yet he remains a prisoner. I ask that you show him the same generosity you have shown me and free him. He will serve you loyally, I assure you, if only given a chance.”

“It cannot be, Lady Despenser.”

His dismissal of her petition was so abrupt that Eleanor forgot all protocol. “Your grace, why not? What crime has he committed? What has he been accused of?”

“He held Caerphilly Castle while your husband beguiled my father into abandoning the realm for Wales.”

“He held Caerphilly Castle because his king asked him to. He held it because he was loyal to him. And loyal to his father, your grace. Does not the Lord command us to honor our fathers?”

She had stung the king, she saw. Edward flushed and said curtly, “Go on, Lady Despenser, with your next petition, if you have one.”

“I do, your grace. I would ask that you allow me to bury my husband's bones in consecrated ground.”

“No, Lady Despenser. His quarters and head must remain on display as an example to all who crave royal power.”

“Your grace, I have been told that my husband was stripped naked for the amusement of the crowd, crowned with nettles, pelted with dung, castrated— all before he died a traitor's death. Surely that is example enough?”

Behind her, someone gasped, and the king himself looked uncomfortable. Who in the world had told Lady Despenser so many of the details of her husband's execution? But he said coolly, “Your next petition.”

“I ask most humbly that your grace restore my Clare lands. As your grace knows, they were mine through my late brother, who died nobly in service to the crown. Without them I shall be dependent entirely on charity, for all that I had of my late husband has forfeited to the crown.”

“Don't let the traitor's wife beguile your grace,” warned a voice behind her. John Maltravers, the king's new steward and watchdog, had arrived beside them. Eleanor knew that he had been around her uncle when he died, and she shuddered. “She gives a pretty petition, but has she forgotten that her husband used trickery and fraud to deprive her sisters of their share of the inheritance?”

“I do not ask for their share, only for what was originally mine.” Eleanor's heart was thumping, but she kept her voice level. “I trust to your grace to do what is right and just.”

Edward's formal voice had become a trifle weary. “We shall consider your petition.”

“One more, your grace. My young daughters. They have offended no one. Might I visit them in their convents, and be allowed to receive visits from them?”

“We shall consider it.” Maltravers coughed a reminder. “And now, Lady Despenser, we must ask you, what do you know of your late husband's assets? There is much that the crown has not been able to recover. It is certain that he must have had money and jewels hidden in many places besides the houses of Bardi and the Peruzzi and the Tower and Caerphilly. Tell us what you know, and we shall be well pleased.”

Was this why she had been asked to travel two hundred miles to see the king? “I am sorry, your grace, but I know nothing about those affairs of Hugh's. He kept many matters of business to himself, as men are wont to do.” She kept her face calm with difficulty, although save for what she had taken from the Tower, she knew nothing of where anything belonging to Hugh might have been hidden.