Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

His lips lifted above his teeth; she thought he had the look of a ravening hound himself. She guessed at the thought that poisoned his whole being—the thought he would die rather than utter. If I take Pembroke’s hand, I must take de Warenne’s also.

  She said, ‘Take the hand of your enemy—if it may advance you. Within the party you may more easily punish de Warenne. And by God’s Face punishment is due. All Christendom knows that he laid hands upon your wife to shame you both; and that to shame you further he gave her to a fellow of no account, a servant of his!’ So she pressed upon his pain adding for good measure, ‘But she—she knows no shame!’ And that last was true enough. Alice, she had heard, was honoured and happy as never before. ‘No, she delights in her low pleasures and has no care that she bespatters Lancaster’s proud name!’

  She saw him swallow in that thick throat of his as though at some physic indescribably foul. She sent him a long look from her strange eyes. ‘Uncle, you know the saying that we have in France, Take one step backwards to leap two steps forward. Show friendship with Pembroke that you may thrust him from your path—he and de Warenne with him!’

  He looked at her and his heavy face did not lighten. Women. You couldn’t trust them. This one, for all her loving words, had encouraged his bitch of a wife. Yet for all that what she’d said made good sense. He needed Pembroke… for the moment. But she should pay for her humiliating advice, pay for encouraging his bitch! And the King should pay for his coolness and Pembroke should pay. But first and foremost de Warenne should pay, and most of all that bitch should pay! But first he must take Pembroke’s hand. And this chit of a girl had shown him how to do it without loss of face.

  He bent his great head over her hand. ‘Madam and niece, when the Queen asks, how shall a man refuse? Already the country calls you Peacemaker. An honourable name if—’ and he was bitter, ‘the peace be honourable!’

  ‘I would advise nothing to your dishonour, Uncle, and that you know! Take Pembroke’s hand and cut through the tangle in which the jealous lords would bind you!’

  She stood there smiling and friendly; yes and respectful, too. He nodded.

  The Queen had saved Lancaster’s face. Give way he must—and she had made it easy. He had, he proclaimed it aloud, given way to Madam the Queen’s entreaties. What more right and chivalrous than to obey his Queen?

  Peace between Lancaster and Pembroke was followed by peace between Lancaster and the King. Kneeling and humble, Lancaster forced himself to the Kiss of Peace, though his juices turned to acid. But the Kiss meant pardon not for himself alone, but for six hundred of his followers. And the King, longing to strike this man that would have dared outking his King, bent his mouth to his cousin’s cheek.

  Isabella, that peace-maker, sat beside the King; behind her still face thought rode triumphant. I have done this, I! And not for your sake Uncle of Lancaster, but for my own!

  Now the Ordinances must, indeed, be honoured; like Magna Carta binding upon the King. Now those friends that had come creeping back into high places must away back to the wilderness. Now was the time, Lancaster thought, to strengthen his own hand, to build up within the King’s very household his own party. And he had the right! High Steward of England, it was for him, did he wish it, to choose the King’s household; and, in particular, to choose the chief steward—the High Steward’s deputy. He did so choose. He knew the very man to stand by him, to report to him, to identify himself with his chief.

  ‘Cousin of Lancaster,’ the King said very courteous—and the Queen all but laughed hearing him repeat the words she had put into his mouth, ‘we shall enquire into the matter. If it be your right to appoint our household, none shall take it from you. Give us a little time.’

  A little time… and a little time; and the matter—as she thought—quietly shelved.

  These days, Isabella told herself, she was content. Life had taken a turn; she, herself had given it a twist. Life was not all love and passion—nor did she wish it so! Any woman—even the plain and the foolish—could get a man in her bed; power was for the few, the very few. But Théophania noting the restlessness, the brittle brightness, wondered how long this young woman, ardent and ready for love, would endure her empty life. She needed love, needed cherishing; the lack of these things was already twisting her nature out of true. Where would it all end? The fire that slept within the Queen must one day burst forth. And then? Everyone would be hurt—not least the Queen herself.

  The Kiss of Peace had cost the King more than he or she had dreamed. The barons had elected a new Council; without its consent the King could not carry out his most ordinary duties. To this Council, led by Pembroke, all of the great barons had been elected. Save one. They had had enough of Lancaster; he, alone, had found no place.

  He made the best of a bad situation. ‘I have no wish to row in such a boat!’ he told the Queen. ‘So many captains will bring it to grief. I can afford to wait; I am the hidden rock. I have my friends in this Council, friends that sicken of Pembroke—Bannockburn is not forgiven him yet! He will find himself every way obstructed. Events move in my direction; you will see!’

  She did not believe in his power to sway events; but still she murmured her approval and her praise; one must not underestimate his mischief-making—nor his treachery.

  The Council had strengthened itself with new names; it had gone further afield to find them. The Mortimers had been summoned, those marcher lords of power; to Westminster they came to kiss hands.

  They were in the palace—two new faces and each man a legend! Isabella had herself dressed with especial care. The gown of gold embroidered upon green set the green and gold of her eyes aflicker; the pale gold hair gleamed through the transparent lawn of her headveil—a beautiful but quite shocking fashion she had borrowed from Italy. And the same lawn, transparent as water, revealed the high white breasts—a fashion from Italy even more shocking… and more beautiful.

  A small gilded statue she sat beside the King; the elder Mortimer came to salute the King’s hand and then her own. She summed him up. In no way remarkable; his legend did him too much grace. In early middle-age and clearly a gentleman of good birth. Shrewd, she would judge, rather than clever; brave, honest up to a point and not over-delicate in his dealings. A typical man of his class; she could pick half-a-dozen such and not stir a step.

  The young Mortimer she could not so lightly dismiss. Her first impression was one of disappointment. He was not tall, scarce above middle height and looking shorter by reason of his broad shoulders; a thick-set man. A bullet-head well-cropped, defying fashion, red and bristling. A cold blue eye, nose of a hawk.

  The mouth she could not judge; he held it close-pressed above a chin like a rock, for wearing no beard, he again defied the fashion; she liked him for that! And the sun falling upon reddish-gold stubble of head and chin gilded him with a fiery light; it lent him a fierce, an urgent look. When he knelt to the King he did it with more grace than she could have expected from so thick-set a man. When he spoke she saw that the lips were full, and, contradicting the eyes, sensual; his voice lifted in the musical lilt of the Border.

  He was not handsome as the King was handsome, as Despenser was handsome, as Gaveston had been handsome; and for that she liked him the better. There were no airs and graces about him; a soldier determined and commanding. What was there, she found herself wondering, to stir the longing of women?

  When he knelt to the Queen, when she felt that full mouth hard, vicious almost, upon her hand, she understood. She felt the moment like a rape… but it would not be rape; the whole of her body consented to him. So shocking a desire for any man she had never imagined. He was the most virile, the most male man she had ever seen; women were made for his domination.

  Her face gave no sign of disturbance; her voice spoke the words of welcome and he stepped backwards. Whether he had noticed her as a woman it was impossible for her to say. He had saluted her correctly; no more.

  From his place Mortimer considered the Queen. He was not o
ne to blind himself to a woman’s beauty, nor yet to be blinded by it. A handsome enough piece; they didn’t call her the Fair for nothing! Spirited, too, he judged well-versed in women. Passion in that small body… unsatisfied; a man could smell it! He’d like fine to put her to bed—were she not the Queen of England. Well, there were enough pretty women to go to bed with; no need to make trouble for himself on her account! A man’s work came first, his career, his ambitions; women a long way after. But even were he disposed to make love with the Queen, there was no time; no time but for the business in hand—swearing obedience to the Council, taking his place, listening to its policies and taking his instructions—if he saw fit. These things done he and his uncle must hurry back to the Border; it needed constant vigilance—iron hand, iron heel.

  Mortimer was gone. The Queen sighed, shrugged and forgot him. She was absorbed once more in the press of affairs; the need to watch, to guess, to wait, to choose the moment for the right word. There was, for instance, the stewardship of the King’s Household; in that matter she had laughed too soon. Certainly Lancaster’s toady had not been chosen; but then, neither had the King’s. It was Pembroke that had his way in the affair; Pembroke! He had chosen Lord Badlesmere—unacceptable to both King and Queen; and his wife still more unacceptable—the loud-mouthed harridan. A mean and ill-bred pair. In this matter, at least, King and Queen thought alike.

  The King’s dignity disregarded, his personal desires ignored! For this neither he nor she had bargained; some show of respect, at least, they had expected. Of the two she was the more shaken. She had thought to gather the reins into her own hand. But it was Pembroke that had gathered them… But not for long, I swear it! The King is weak as water—stir it and it closes again; no mark. But I am strong; this slight I shall remember; and for it Pembroke shall pay!

  She heard her thoughts clear as though she spoke with dead Margaret; but there was no voice to answer—nothing but the voice of her own ambition, her own loneliness.

  XIX

  The King is not the true King. They were saying it, everywhere, even within Westminster palace itself. How can such a one be son to great Edward? And there were times when Isabella herself wondered whether the virtuous Eleanor had not played harlot in her husband’s bed. The King, if he heard the rumours, seemed not to mind them—the rumours that smeared not himself alone but his Queen and his children; the very crown itself.

  She endured it till she could endure it no longer.

  ‘Sir—’ and she was passionate, ‘there’s a fellow goes about the streets of Oxford that claims to be the true King. Stolen from his cradle—that’s his story; and you, that call yourself King, put in his place!’

  ‘It is not worth a moment’s thought!’ He was in a lazy mood. She could have struck him full in the handsome face. No wonder they doubted his royal blood! She bit upon her tongue lest she speak her disgust. She gave him no peace in the matter and he gave way at last; he cared little one way or the other.

  When the man was brought before the King he neither unbonneted nor bent the knee. A comely fellow, he stood erect and told his tale as though he were, indeed, the King. He spoke well; an unfrocked priest, maybe. He was plainly crazed and one doesn’t punish a crazy man—not this King at any rate.

  It was the Queen that spoke, ash-pale with anger that shook her head-to-foot. ‘Sir, under correction, may I speak?’ and did not wait for his answer. ‘He who smears the good name of the King is a traitor. This fellow is such a traitor; he deserves to die the death.’

  The King fidgeted in his place. He preferred to let the fool go free. But she had spoken in open court; he saw agreement on every face. Now he must show himself King, speak the hateful words of a traitor’s death.

  First taste of blood shed at her word. Power. Power over life and death. The thought went to her head like strong liquor. ‘You should have torn his tongue out—it is the punishment!’ she said later. ‘But you… you!’ Anger choked her. ‘Nothing moves you, neither right nor wrong; nothing but your whims and your passions!’

  It was the first time she had dared speak so to him; he took it mildly enough—women were kittle-kattle. ‘You must allow me my whims and my passions—a King’s but human. Yet mark this! When I am angered I can be cruel enough to satisfy even you, God forgive me! Otherwise I am satisfied to deal kindly with my fellow-men.’

  ‘A King has no fellow-men!’

  ‘We are all equal under God!’

  They looked at each other. He saw her—nostrils pinched, eyes narrowed, lips lifted above white, sharp teeth; it was as though he saw her for the first time. She saw him, as she always did—foolishly kind, foolishly smiling, lazy, insouciant. In him surprise was deepening to distrust; in her scorn was hardening to dislike.

  In the north the people suffered even more cruelly from the Scots. And Lancaster, captain of the northern forces, did nothing.

  Berwick had fallen, English Berwick; and still Lancaster did nothing.

  Pembroke, once captain of those same forces, could endure it no longer; the King’s honour must be redeemed, the Scots driven from the north, from Berwick and from every place where they had no right to be. Scotland must be made to acknowledge the lordship of England. Commons as well as barons demanded it.

  The King of England was not greatly interested. Why plunge, once more, into the mess, the discomforts of war when one could sleep soft, could bide at one’s ease? If men must pit themselves against each other, he preferred to watch his servants wrestle in the courtyard while he stood by to mark their points; he had no desire to see men expire in useless agony.

  ‘Sir, England’s honour is in the matter!’ Isabella told him.

  ‘They laugh at us; make songs about us—our clothes and our customs—the half-naked savages!’

  ‘They are welcome—save that their poetry is vile!’ He shrugged and smiled.

  She sent him a long look out of her green-flecked eyes, staring with insolence at the handsome face, the head and beard golden and long-curling, the bright jewelled gown. There came to her the sudden memory of Mortimer—close-cropped head, strong naked chin, plain leather jerkin. A man! As for this King—useless. Useless!

  Scotland must be taught its lesson. Parliament stood with Pembroke in this and called upon the barons to assemble each with his own men; not one to absent himself. June in the year of grace thirteen hundred and nineteen, five years since Bannockburn, the great army assembled at Newcastle, leading them that handsome figurehead Edward Plantagenet of England; at his either hand rode the Despensers able with sword as with tongue, no coward, either of them. At their heels rode the King’s half-brothers, eager each to prove his worth. Hereford was there with Arundel, Richmond and their brother peers—not one absent. A little apart Thomas of Lancaster rode with his brother and heir, Henry of Derby. Lancaster looked upon Pembroke riding in friendship with de Warenne and at the sight of them his gorge rose. De Warenne he hated; but Pembroke even more. De Warenne had robbed him of his wife—a thing of little worth; Pembroke had robbed him of his own place— the highest; not only in the Council but in the army Pembroke led them all. In Lancaster bitterness rose, it tasted bitter on his tongue.

  Berwick. Day after day the bitter siege. In the end it was the English that must withdraw, must surrender castle and town. And it was not because of defeat in arms. Traitor Lancaster had laid his plans. Himself he did not appear in the matter but he knew the man to act as go-between. Ten thousand Scottish pounds the Bruce paid; for the fall of Berwick, cheap enough. A simple plan… though it did not turn out exactly as Lancaster had planned.

  The Queen walked in the garden this fine summer day. She fretted within the walls of Brotherton whither the King had commanded her with her children. She wondered how he carried himself; she prayed, without much hope, that he made a show, at least, of war like behaviour. She longed to be at Berwick; longed for the sound of trumpet and the clash of arms.

  ‘Madam!’ She wheeled about.

  It was my lord archbishop
of York, Melton himself; he was covered with dust and pale as ash.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you must come with me at once. We are for York. Send for the children. The Scots are upon us!’

  She stared at that. The Scots so far south! She could not believe it. ‘The Black Douglas leads—ten thousand at his heels. Madam, you have been betrayed!’

  ‘Give me some proof. I’ll not be a laughing-stock—the Queen that runs from her own shadow!’

  ‘Madam, you waste time! My spies have seen them—we forever look to the Queen’s safety. The Douglas hides in a wood some two hours’ ride away. We must take the road; we go by water—I have a boat ready. Before he reaches Brotherton you will be safe in York. Now, Madam, will you send for the children?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The Queen must not be taken by pawns!’ and smiled so that he marvelled she showed no sign of fear.

  The wind was with them. In the nurse’s arms the baby Eleanor leaped and crowed for joy in the sunshine; Edward, six-and-a-half and John just three, laughed, dabbling their hands in the cool water; and their mother laughed with them. The archbishop himself lent a hand to speed the boat. As they neared York they heard the bell ever louder, ever more demanding, summoning men to the town’s defence—priests and farmers, burghers and craftsmen; and to captain this motley, valiant band, my lord archbishop himself!

  Along the high road the Black Douglas came marching, ten thousand at his heels. Black he was, indeed, to find Brotherton empty, the birds all flown that were to win Scotland for the Scots. Had Lancaster played double traitor, warned the Queen? No matter! He’d take them at York if he had to sit down before the city for a year. And God damn His meddling priest!

  God’s meddling priest had no intention of letting the Scots anywhere near York. At Myton-in-Swaledale the two armies met—the Douglas with his Scots, hard-disciplined men that had fought from their cradles; and the archbishop, man of peace, with his band undisciplined to war, untrained to arms.