Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  And when still she cried out, clutching him again by the sleeve, once more he pulled himself away but this time so roughly that she stumbled and all but fell. It was Gaveston that put out a saving hand, Gaveston looking from one to the other. They could hear, all three, Time’s wings beating in the room.

  Gaveston came and knelt before her. ‘For this, too, Madam Queen, forgive me!’

  She said no word. Eyes dark in her head with fear she watched them go.

  She was glad, afterwards, she had made Gaveston no reproaches; their peace had been made.

  XII

  They had escaped; but by the skin of their teeth. Captains gone, the garrison made no resistance; at the first note of the trumpet the castle surrendered.

  Lancaster greeted his Queen with due respect; but the eyes in the great head were pin-pointed with rage. One hour; one little hour and his hand would have closed over them both!

  ‘Gaveston makes for Scarborough—it is his last hope!’ His voice was heavy with anger. ‘God send he be taken on the way!’

  He had expected instant agreement; but there she sat, silent. He cast upon her a sour look. He had expected her warm thanks; but nothing from her, nothing. He said, the voice grating in his throat, ‘Let him reach Scarborough—which I doubt seeing Pembroke and de Warenne are on his heels if not already there and waiting—and he’ll not leave it alive. Or let him bribe his way out—he’ll find every road a death-trap!’

  And still she said nothing. Since those last words with Gaveston she was not unwilling he should have another chance.

  It was some time before he thought to ask of the King.

  She shrugged. ‘I cannot say. They escaped together.’

  ‘Leaving you without protection?’ The question was, as he meant, an insult.

  ‘He knew I would be safe in your hands, uncle!’ And, indeed, in Lancaster’s hands safe she was. He was master now of this castle—fortress and everything in it—the Queen, the men-at-arms, the horses, the weapons, the treasure. All, all within his hands.

  ‘Why yes, Madam,’ he said at once. ‘Safer than with the King! With you we have no quarrel. You are free to go where you will; you shall have escort and honours due to the Queen.’

  The King and his sweetheart were not together; they had parted for greater safety. Now the King was safe in the strong town of York; and there, as far as the barons were concerned, he might stay. It was Gaveston they wanted.

  Through the green-and-white maytime southward went the Queen’s procession. She remembered how she had come this way eaten with anger against those two; now she was returning to Westminster touched with pity for them both. She had gone despairing; she returned high with hope.

  Scarborough Castle had been taken. Gaveston had held out a full fortnight—longer than any man could expect. Lack of men, of food, of firing had forced him out at last; they had eaten the last of the meat raw.

  In York the King waited for news of his heart’s friend. In Westminster the Queen waited with a strange anxiety for tidings of the man she had once hated. News, when it came, was more favourable than even the King had dared hope. Pembroke and de Warenne, in the name of the barons, had sworn to guarantee Gaveston’s safety until he should be brought to trial; meanwhile his own men were allowed to hold the castle. If by August no pronouncement had been made against him he might return to Scarborough to take undisputed possession.

  ‘I am glad of it,’ Isabella said, ‘if only for the sake of his new-born babe.’

  ‘He has, it seems, a gift to charm a bird from the tree!’ Queen Margaret said drily. ‘But on that charm he’d do well not to count. He deals with men driven by hatred… and there are three months yet to August.’

  ‘Still he need not fear. Pembroke and de Warenne have sworn to his safety on the blessed Host.’

  ‘But Lancaster has not sworn, nor has Warwick sworn; no, nor many another!’ Margaret said.

  They were taking Gaveston to his own house at Wallingford; but though they were sworn to the prisoner’s safety, they were not sworn to his comfort. They set him upon a sorry donkey too low for his height and saddleless, Gaveston that had ridden fine and free. From Scarborough to Wallingford is a weary way; yet, though they had neared Oxford, he made no complaint. But he was weary to the bone; and the pain from blisters rubbed raw where his feet scraped the ground was greater than many a battle-wound. At Deddington, so weary he looked, so wretched, that de Warenne being for the time absent, Pembroke took pity; a pity sharpened, perhaps, because the lady his wife, that he had not seen these long months, lay nearby at Brampton.

  ‘You are worn with the journey,’ he told the prisoner, ‘and I have business near at hand. There’s a pleasant house here where you may rest in safety; none shall harm you, I swear it! But you must swear, also! Swear you’ll not attempt to escape—though escape is not possible. Try it—and it will be worse for you!’

  ‘I thank you for your courtesy; you have my word!’

  The rectory at Beddington was large enough to hold both prisoner and escort. In a pleasant chamber overlooking the road Gaveston fell upon the bed and, in spite of his fears and the pain from his blistered feet, fell asleep.

  A man like Gaveston cannot be brought through the country and the news not spread; in town and village there had been many to jeer at the King’s mignon brought low. Guy Beauchamp of Warwick heard the news; heard it, at first, with disbelief and then with fury. Gaveston lay in a small house with a small escort; Gaveston daring and desperate.

  He wasted no moment.

  June the tenth, in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twelve; and the sun slanting through the heat-mist of early morning to give promise of a perfect day. Beneath the heaviness of exhausted sleep, instinct struggled to warn the sleeper. Gaveston stirred, started, leaped from bed to door. Beneath the heavy bolt it did not move. The window then?

  From the garden below the faces of armed men turned upwards; foremost stood Warwick, fierce face agrin.

  ‘Get up traitor, you’re taken!’ Harsh and sharp he barked like a dog; Black dog of Arden.

  For a moment Gaveston stood staring down; then, with a shrug, reached for his doublet.

  ‘Do not stay for shoes!’ Warwick cried out. ‘A thief goes barefoot.’

  Gaveston heard the bolt grate in the socket; he was smiling a little as he came down the stairs with that easy grace of his. The sight infuriated Warwick. He snatched the bonnet from the prisoner’s head. ‘A thief rides barehead!’ he cried out, ‘And thief you are! We found the jewels in your baggage; the jewels you stole from the King and Queen. They’re worth a King’s ransom; but they’ll not ransom you!’ With a sudden, vicious movement, he tore off the belt of knighthood; and stood booming the laugh that was like the baying of a hound. ‘Neither horse nor shoes nor belt nor bonnet for a common thief. March!’

  Gaveston that had lived soft in the King’s company set his feet upon the cruel roads. Now one could see blisters upon feet that had known the soft leather of Spain; there was blood where he walked.

  Walking, walking… like a man in nightmare dreaming. And here and there, a peasant wiping the sweat from his brow in the heat of the summer day would stop to wonder who this might be and what he had done, the prisoner, stumbling white-faced, eyes closed.

  Half-way to Warwick it was clear he could walk no more; so once more they set him upon the wretched donkey and there he sat, bare feet dragging in the dust, ribbons slack in his hand, letting the donkey carry him onwards. And so they came to Warwick town; and there crowds stood and laughed at the sight of the fine gentleman that had played the harlot in the King’s bed.

  In the dungeon, dark and cold, even this bright summer day Gaveston shivered and tried to comfort himself. Pembroke swore to my safety and Pembroke is honest… but Warwick did not swear. Already he knew his end.

  He was not to know, lying there in the darkness, how Pembroke, all dismayed to find his prisoner gone, ran hither and thither on useless errands to redeem his word and his h
onour; Pembroke imploring the barons and especially imploring Gloucester whose sister was Gaveston’s wife. But Gloucester’s honour lay with the barons. He said, You acted without our counsel; you have only yourself to blame! From the barons to Oxford, beseeching priests and justices, beseeching the university; but their honour was not in the matter, either. They had no love for the favourite; nor did they relish taking arms against grim Warwick for such a one. Let Gaveston stay where he was!

  Warwick, also, wasted no time. His hand had closed over the fellow; what now? One answer, only. But… kill the King’s friend—and not even the pretence of a trial! Bold as he was, he did not dare. At Kenilworth, a stone’s throw away, Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel were gathered in company; and there Warwick rode. Let four backs bear the burden.

  Nine days Gaveston had lain in the dark cell. Nine days as the world goes; but, to the prisoner, time eternal. He lay there and thought of the King’s love and cursed it. He thought of the Queen he had injured and might have won for friend, and cursed himself. He thought of the young wife he had not given himself time to love and pitied her. And most of all he thought of the young child that must grow lacking a father. Ah well, without such a father a child was best!’

  He was half-asleep when he heard the bolts of his dungeon drawn; hope caught him by the heart. One look at Warwick’s face—and he knew his doom.

  ‘This is your last day on earth,’ Warwick said. ‘You have one hour to make your peace with God!’

  Gaveston’s face moved like still water when a stone is cast; he said no word, but, Warwick being gone, he wept in the dark cell. Where is my friend for whose love I now must die? The King’s love has brought me to my death.

  And now in the dark cell where Time’s wings beat to eternity he remembered another King long forgotten, in Whose kindness there might yet be hope—if not now then hereafter; and addressed himself to Him. Then, like the brave man he was, he accepted his fate, saying Let the will of the earls be done!

  Within the hour they came for him. After the dark cell, sunlight smote upon his eyes like a sword; it struck sharp across his bare neck. Had the sword of the executioner fallen then, he had not felt it and gone easy to his death. But since it was not so, and seeing sweet summer all about him, he fell to his knees in the dust and cried to Warwick for mercy. ‘Take him up!’ Warwick said; that and no more.

  So the sad procession came to Blacklow Hill that lies between Warwick and Kenilworth. This was Lancaster land, Lancaster having ‘declared himself willing for the responsibility. Now he was glad to feed his grudge against de Warenne that had sworn also to Gaveston’s safety; glad thus to stain his enemy’s honour.

  On the hill—top Lancaster was waiting together with Gloucester, Hereford and Arundel; two of Lancaster’s men stood by swords bared.

  ‘We grant you an honourable death because of your kinship with my lord of Gloucester. But for him you would have been hanged, drawn and quartered like the traitor you are!’ The Black dog of Arden bared his great teeth.

  Gaveston bowed his head, courteous in death as never in life. Then he knelt in the grass and bent his head, that head the King had so often kissed; and one fellow ran him through the body and the other took his head. And they brought a bucket of sand to cover the blood; but the blood ran through and stained the sweet grass. Then the two fellows bore the head to Lancaster; he would not receive it but turned his back and left it lying. The executioners took up the body—the handsome body the King’s love had brought to its death and carried it together with the head to Warwick Castle.

  But Warwick, it seemed, had lost his nerve. He had put to death a great earl upon whom the King had set his whole love. So there it lay in the heat of the summer sun, the headless body and severed head, until news coming to Oxford, the Dominicans, of their charity, went in slow procession to carry the poor remains to their monastery until the archbishop should speak. Bury it they dare not; the man had died excommunicate.

  Isabella lifted a shocked face.’ They have broken the sworn oath. They have blackened their honour. Murderers all!’

  Margaret’s brows lifted. Once the girl had desired this very thing, desired it above all else; and those that had done the deed she would have called by a nobler name.

  ‘They have killed a man without trial; they have stained their honour breaking the oath Pembroke swore for them all—so much is true,’ Margaret said. ‘But it was not murder. They had the right; Gaveston himself gave it. The man was an outlaw, a public enemy. Any man might kill him on sight. It is the law!’

  ‘Yet it was murder,’ Isabella said, strangely desolate. ‘What the King shall make of this, or this of him, who knows?’

  ‘Only God knows. But one thing any man can foresee—undying anger against the lords; and especially against Lancaster and Warwick. Those two he’ll never forgive. But you; you may pluck some good from this! He’s shocked and bereft; this could be your time. You should tell him about the child.’

  ‘I had rather choose some happier hour. If he take the news without gladness I think I shall hate him forever!’

  ‘Grief takes men divers ways, the King’s grief is heavy and shocking. Comfort him even a little and you may win him—to his happiness and your own!’

  ‘I doubt any happiness can come to me from him!’

  ‘Then throw your doubts away and use your woman’s wits.’

  The King was in York when he heard the news. He took it badly. At first he did not seem to understand. He rose in his chair and stood speechless, words strangling in his throat, as though taken by apoplexy. God! God! God! he mouthed. God! God! God! Louder and louder until he was screaming. And then, out, out it came, a never-ending dribble of words, in his misery blaming his heart’s darling. ‘Piers, Piers, you fool, you fool! Had you listened to me you had never fallen into those cruel hands. Do not trust them! I said it again and again. Do not trust them! Had you listened to me you would not now be lying dead. Piers, Piers, I told you, I told you…’ In his grief he seemed not to understand that Gaveston had been constrained by force. ‘Oh Piers, Piers, Piers…’

  On and on blaming them all—the dead man, also; all but himself who from first to last had played chief part in the tragedy.

  Talking, talking, talking; shattered, broken, ignoble. Until he had spewed forth his sorrow in words he could do nothing, be nothing; for words transmuted his sorrow into anger, such anger as was not to be borne.

  And now, his grief a little abated, the King called his Council. Pembroke was there and de Warenne with him, each burning to avenge his smeared honour; De Beaumont was there and some others that, for all they were Ordainers, disliked the manner of Gaveston’s death. But Lancaster was not there, nor Arundel nor Warwick whose hands had been in the killing; nor Gloucester, nor any of those younger lords that had allowed the thing to happen.

  ‘Sirs,’ the King said, white and ravaged above his mourning, ‘we must avenge the cruel murder of an innocent man. For innocent he was. The jewels they found in his baggage were his own. I gave them him, I, myself. And more. He was bringing them back to the Queen—a free gift; mark it! And for this he must die!’

  Then Pembroke, all bitter with his wrongs, burst out, urging the King to his revenge upon the perjured lords, the murderers. And so, also, Hugh le Despenser the younger, who saw his own chance now Gaveston was dead. And it was seen how the King took the pretty youth by the hand—all-unknowing it would seem—and held it as though to draw comfort from the handclasp.

  But the Council was divided, some standing by Pembroke; but others, knowing that the most part of the country would stand by Lancaster and Warwick in this matter, besought the King to peace. No good could come of such a struggle, but evil, only; the miseries of a country divided against itself.

  And now the King knew not what to say. He burned to avenge the death of his friend; yet he was unwilling for such a war—not so much that he feared its miseries but that he feared defeat, not knowing how many would stand by him. He must, he said, con
sider the matter.

  The King was home; no man had seen his face. He had covered it with his cloak as he entered; he could bear no man’s gaze. Now he was in his private closet… alone.

  This was her chance—so her aunt said. But suppose her aunt was wrong? Suppose this was the worst possible moment? And, if she had no comfort for him now, never in this world would they find comfort in each other. But how could she make him believe she truly regretted Gaveston’s death? She had hated Gaveston, and with cause; and all Christendom knew it. Of his last words to her, of reconciliation and friendship, the King could not know—Gaveston was the last person to tell him. What should she say to him now? In her mind Isabella tried out this word and that; and always they seemed insincere, worse than useless. And, even if she could find the right words, how could she go to him unasked, unsent for; go into that private room he had shared with Gaveston, that cried aloud of Gaveston? And if she went might he not refuse to see her? And how should she bear that humiliation?

  Even while she sat considering, mother-wit got the better of her. Before she knew what she was about she was hurrying, gown lifted in both hands, towards the King’s apartments. The ante-room was empty and she went across to the closet; the high beat of her heart clamouring in her ears, she pushed open the door.

  He was seated on a low stool, still in his travelling-cloak. His face was hidden in his hands; across them and across his breast the bright hair fell. He lifted his face. Such a face she had never seen—eyes and mouth dark holes in an empty mask. She stood for a moment, frightened; then she went running towards him.

  ‘Oh,’ she cried out, ‘sir… sir…’ that and no more. There was no mistaking the sorrow in her voice and he looked at her surprised; this from her he had not expected. She came and knelt by him. She said no word. She took the bright head and held it to her breast. The empty mask crumpled; tears rolled from the dark holes of his eyes; she felt them warm upon her own face, her own breast.