Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  When Holland stood, at last, before her she saw he could not meet her eyes. She didn’t wonder at it—the traitor! Rage boiled within her; she hated him with a hatred violent as birthpangs. But long dissimulation instructed her to speak him fair; afterwards she would deal with him.

  ‘Sir Robert,’ she said, ‘I hold you blameless. That you are still my friend I make no doubt!’ Judas, Judas! ‘Where does the King ride? Does he take my lord earl of March with him?’

  ‘The lord King’s for London, Madam; and the earl, also. And you, Madam, are to follow later.’ And still he could not meet her eye.

  ‘At once!’ she commanded; and, at the refusal in his face, besought him. ‘At once; I implore you!’

  He shook a regretful head. ‘I have the lord King’s commands. You must await the appointed hour. You are to travel, Madam, by charette, the curtains drawn!’

  She took in her breath at that. Why? Did her son fear that her sorrowful state would arouse the people’s pity; turn their hearts to her again?

  ‘You shall have honourable escort.’ His cold lips touched her hand. ‘Madam, Madam, forgive me,’ he cried out. ‘Would to God I had no hand in this!’

  ‘By that same God, Holland, you shall have cause to wish it; and soon!’

  He bowed and turned upon his heel.

  She sat within the charette, curtains drawn. Men-at-arms enclosed about her, Montague rode in charge. Honourable escort! It was all of a piece with Holland’s lying. As she took her slow way, news of her coming went before. That day, and every day, crowds gathered to hiss, to shout their insults. Now she knew why her son had commanded the charette, the drawn curtains. They hate me. The knowledge fell with all the shock of surprise. Their diminished love she had known, but hatred! That she had not dreamed. Well hate her or not, still she was Isabella the Queen; and Mortimer she would save.

  That first night they lay at a monastery. When the tiring-woman had removed the coif and brushed out her hair, Isabella asked for her looking-glass. Again there was hesitation, again excuses; this time she would take none.

  She stared into the looking-glass; she did not know the strange face. She could not believe it was her own; her hand went up to rub the mirror clear. And still the strange face stared back. And now she saw, with horror, it was her own… and the hair was grey, quite, quite grey. Dead hair. She wanted to cry out in pity for her hair as though it were some treasure, separate from herself, some lovely, lost thing… Mortimer had loved it once. It has its own life, he used to say; it lives, it moves, it changes with every changing light. Those early days in France he would shift the lamp this way and that watching her hair move from green-gold to ripe corn. Now it would never change again. Dead hair. That her face was yellow, the eyes staring from bruised sockets, she held of little account; it would pass. But her hair, her hair…

  Terror on Mortimer’s account was, for the moment, diverted to herself. What value in life to a woman that has no beauty to offer her lover? Though ambition drove Mortimer to her bed, some beauty he did demand—pride in his manhood required it. And, for all he pricked her with her age, when they lay together her beauty stirred him still. In the net of her golden hair she had taken him, held him. And now? What had love, passion, lust—call it what you would—to do with old, dead hair? Mortimer would come no more to her bed; and without him she did not want to live. But we are not free to choose; nor would she dare to die, her sins upon her. She was but thirty-five; and the years stretched ahead, the empty years.

  She put her hands to her face and wept like a child.

  It was the tiring-woman that brought her from the worst of her grief. ‘Madam I have a brew; I had it from my grandmother, a noted wise woman. Soon Madam Queen Isabella will look herself again!’ The promise restored her courage. The years ahead were good years. First of all she would save Mortimer; then she would gather her friends, plan fresh victories.

  But, for all that, she did not sleep that night nor any night of this tormenting journey. If, for a little, she drifted into sleep she would awaken herself with weeping… Mortimer’s body swung before her; and sometimes it lay headless in the black pool of his own blood.

  The slowness of the journey maddened her; she was in a fever to reach London. She commanded Montague to halt nowhere, to ride through the night. He informed her that, by the King’s orders, they were to travel by easy stages to save Madam Queen Isabella the fatigues of hasty travel. He was the perfection of courtesy, but it was clear that her wishes did not count. She knew now with anguish and desolation that the King meant to have Mortimer executed without the nuisance of her tears. She had comforted herself that without trial they could not judge him, without her signature dared not kill him. But could they not, dare they not? Dare they, indeed, allow him to live?

  She forced herself to sit quiet in her place, to thank Montague for his courtesy; for all his dislike he must admire her. This slow, hopeless journey was a most cruel punishment; that the punishment was inevitable, the natural consequence of her own ill deeds, did not make it less cruel.

  Through the Autumn weather went the slow, tormenting procession; on either hand lay the golden harvest. It should, she thought, be her own harvest-time; she should be gathering her own golden fruits. It came to her with appalling desolation that, if they killed Mortimer it must be winter with her now and for ever.

  XLV

  London at last. After the week of torment she saw its walls and towers black against the pale night sky. As she neared the northern gate she was taken, without reason, by a fit of shivering. The gates opened to let her through; the streets were all-but empty. She was glad of that; demonstrations along the road had not been pleasant. Had her son commanded so late an entry to spare her the ignominy of a hostile crowd? If he had she might expect grace from such gentleness.

  He had, indeed, commanded it and for that reason. But the gentleness was Philippa’s; there could be no grace from him.

  Some few citizens were taking the evening air. The riders, the men-at-arms challenged attention; the royal charette was recognised. Suddenly the street was black with people, the air menacing with noise. Two sounds repeated over and over, sharp, ugly, scarce to be recognised as words. But all the same she recognised them. Spiteful as flung stones, heavy as blows, blows upon the heart.

  She-wolf! She-wolf!

  Pale, Montague rode up to take his place by the charette; God alone knew how long the mob would content itself with insult! She showed no fear; only the curled lip, the pinched nostril showed her disgust; for what were they but barking dogs? And she forgot that once she had courted their favour, enjoyed their love; she forgot, also, it is in the nature of dogs to bite.

  She said, ‘I care this for them!’ And snapped her fingers. ‘I am blind to them, deaf to them; their stink, however, I cannot escape!’ ‘But fear them?’ She pulled the curtains wide; and since she could not be well seen through the horn of the window, rose and flung upon the doors.

  She stood there, the lines of grief, of fatigue, of ill-living washed from her face by the gentle dusk. Unflinching, royal and most beautiful she dared them all; and the crowd that had gathered to do her injury fell silent. And in that silence she passed. It was, perhaps, the greatest single triumph of her life.

  Through London, between crowds silent and hostile she passed—an image dedicated to her own Queenship. The Tower, its walls and keep rose before her. In this place Mortimer had languished and she had contrived his escape. Could she save him once again? Had he already come to the block; and did the ravens already pick at his bones? Or did he hang upon the gallows, her son refusing him the nobler death? She remembered the king’s face as she had seen it last. She was not hopeful.

  Why were they bringing her to the Tower? Did they intend to imprison her—Madam Queen Isabella? Or even to quiet her for ever? If it suited their book they’d put an end to her here and now; afterwards they would make all good with fair words. Put her to death! Her son would not allow it. But Lancaster would allow it; w
ould, taking a leaf out of her own book, hurry the business on. Her son would know nothing until the thing was done. Her heart was down; but her head was high as the procession halted.

  At the royal entrance the governor stood to receive her. She was to enter as a Queen; that, at least, was reassuring. All was as usual. Yet it was not quite as usual. There was neither smile nor any sign of welcome; above due courtesy his face was blank as an egg. But for all that the Queen’s lodgings were ready and waiting. A good fire burned; there was bread-and-meat on the table, there was a flagon of wine and a dish of apples. Not lavish entertainment for a Queen but it would do. In the inner chamber the bed stood ready, the linen fresh and smooth; when the woman tuned back the sheets the bed was warm with heated bricks.

  Eat she could not; she longed for the waiting bed but restlessness forbade her; restlessness and disquiet. The woman dismissed, Isabella knelt upon the window-seat. Little enough to see; all-but bare branches against the night-dark sky, dark mass of wall and tower and the gleam of the river heavy and oily beyond. There was little sound either beyond the creaking of boughs, the footsteps of the watch, the password demanded and given. The very ravens slept, gorged, no doubt, with flesh… whose flesh? She shuddered. And now breaking upon the small noises, the long roar of the lions within their cages. For the first time she pitied them, the royal beasts caged and confined. Like them, too, she was caged and confined. And she remembered that, from this very room, Mortimer had escaped to freedom; but though the door opened at her touch, for her there was no escape unless her son chose to set her free!

  She tried to laugh away her fears… She tormented herself to no purpose. She had done no wrong—nothing that could be proved against her. And who should dare to do her hurt—royal blood of France, Isabella the King’s mother, the good Queen? But all the time memory uncomfortably pricked. Royal blood had not saved her husband, the King himself, from death within prison walls. She strained her eyes into the darkness searching for the first sign of dawn; she longed unspeakably for morning. Darkness made familiar things strange; daylight brought back their familiarity, sent unreasonable fears flying. And morning must surely bring her son. She would speak to him, bring him back to the obedience he owed his mother to whom he was beholden for crown and so loved wife.

  All night she knelt by the window. Sometimes she prayed, telling God her requirements; sometimes she rehearsed the words she would say to her son—strong words but not too strong, loving words but not too loving. Now and then she would rise to ease her cramped limbs, then back she would go to her kneeling. Once she took a piece of bread from the table, and, hunger driving, could scarce eat it fast enough though it had gone dry with waiting; she eased it down with wine. But when she tried the meat her stomach rose and she all-but vomited. Back she went to the window and there, the bread-and-wine comforting her, fell into uneasy sleep.

  She opened her eyes upon grey morning. Mortimer. He was her instant thought. Where was he? Did he still live? How many days since she had seen him last? She had lost count; but many… too many to hope that he still lived. But when the October sun burst through the mist, when the river sparkled and came alive, then courage rose in her again. She could not believe him dead on such a day. Maybe in this very Tower he watched the sun and thought of her. But—she knew the way of princes, none better—if still he lived he would be shut away in some dark place where he could not see the sun. And, if he thought of her at all, it would be to wonder if she could save him, or to curse their association; nothing more. Love between them had never been equal; such as he had for her would never stand against strain.

  The bright day clouded; morning passed into afternoon and still she waited for her son; waited in anger and in some fear, rehearsing the words she would say.

  It was late in the evening when the King came.

  She rose and made to bend the knee. He did not, as always, raise her before she touched the ground. He let her kneel; and when, at last, he gave her the nod to rise, let her stumble to her feet unaided.

  ‘Madam,’ and he called her neither Queen nor mother; nor did he sit nor invite her to sit, ‘you are for Windsor to stay there during my pleasure—though pleasure is scarce the word! You are free to go where you will within the Queen’s lodgings and to walk in the King’s private garden but in no other place!’

  She brushed his words aside. There was one thing she must know yet dared not ask. It was not fear of the boy her son; it was fear of what she might learn of a deed already done.

  ‘Mortimer?’ she said at last and there was no sound in her throat.

  ‘Dead, Madam. What did you expect?’ His young face was stone, the boyish look for ever gone.

  ‘How?’ She could say no more; the things she had planned to say were useless now. But if they’d granted him an honourable death she’d ask no more of God!

  ‘What did you expect?’ he asked again; she thought he had prepared his speech, so level the voice so scant the words.

  Suddenly his anger broke through; she saw the havoc within. She saw it and did not care; did not care how he suffered so that the news he gave was not the thing she dreaded.

  ‘A traitor’s death. Need I speak it?’

  And when she stood there, hand at her throat, eyes darkened in her head, he said, ‘Hanged and drawn, Madam. Go out by the north gate until you reach the Tyburn—a small river but you’ll not miss it, nor the place we call the Elms…!’

  The Elms at Tyburn where they hanged the lowest of the low… and there his body hung! Now she knew why, last night, she had shuddered as they came near the north gate. Her eye had not seen; but her blood had known.

  ‘You must have missed it by night. Go there by daylight, Madam; you’ll see your lover once again. A pity to miss him while yet he’s all of a piece; today we take him down to deal with his body—the traitor that murdered his King and defiled his Queen. We’ll stick his head upon the Bridge—his insolent, wicked head. I advise you to make all haste to Windsor that you may escape the sight; it is not pretty. The lips you’ve kissed so often—I doubt you’ll want to kiss them now!’

  At the sight of her stricken face, he cried out, ‘Are you so delicate, Madam, that you cannot speak of the things you two did together and did not hide your shame? No, rather you flaunted your sin! The man’s death was just—fair judgment by his peers; a traitor’s death for a traitor; not more nor less. Be thankful, Madam, we spared him the torment he put upon my father. Fair judgment and time to repent his sins—these things my father never had. We have been merciful, indeed; too merciful. We might have torn him with pincers as he tore the Despensers—for the one defiled his King, the other his Queen!’

  And while she went on staring at this terrible stranger that wore the face of her son, he cried out, ‘He confessed; your paramour confessed, there in the cell, before they took him out to hang. And it was not fear of what man might do; he was no coward, that much I give him! It was fear of God loosened his tongue. No need to tell you the things he said—what they were you know already.’

  And now she saw what she had seen before but had not truly grasped. He was all in black; not only doublet, hose and cloak, but shoes, chaperon, and gloves, even. All black. A figure of doom.

  Again her hands went to her throat. Now, now she understood the meaning. He mourned—and meant her to know it—as though, this very day, his father had died. What new thing had he learned?

  What had Mortimer to confess beyond what all Christendom knew—that he had been the Queen’s lover? That his hand had been in her husband’s death? True it was—but let them prove it! Confession dragged from a man in the agony of torment! Let her son swear there’d been none—she’d not believe it! Confession heard—if ever it had been made—by one priest alone. Who could give credence to it?

  But there was something more; something of which she knew nothing.

  He said, ‘I know now how my father came to his death.’ And his face was sickening to behold—like a little animal, she thought, with a
life of its own, writhing and twisting. What, she wondered, had stamped that anguish in his face, marks he must bear for ever?

  ‘I know nothing!’ she cried out, ‘nothing but what they told me—that your father died suddenly.’

  ‘Is that all, Madam?’ And his smile was dreadful.

  ‘That is all. What more? Is there more? Mortimer never told me, never said… not the smallest word. Sir… sweet son, for the love of Christ, believe it!’

  ‘There is more. And what that is I know, and you know! So anything I have forgot you shall tell me!’

  The white face framed in the black chaperon was stone now; face of the dead, incapable of love or pity. She felt his will upon her, his black will… like a great bird, she thought, fearful; one of the ravens flown in to sit upon her heart. But what did he want of her? What could she tell him? There came to her mind some words Mortimer had uttered in sleep.

  She said, ‘That night… the night he died, they gave him a good supper….’

  ‘Is that a thing to be remembered—that once the King of England had enough to eat? Did they starve him then, my poor father, and then cram him full before his death like a bird that’s to be killed?’ His face began to work again.

  ‘A good supper; do you quarrel with that? A good supper and a good bed.’

  ‘A good bed! Had he lain then upon the earth—the King of England? And the bed; how good?’

  She said, desperate, since she knew so little, ‘Good enough, I must suppose. A soft bed, clean….’

  ‘How clean? When they had finished with him—how clean?’

  ‘I don’t know; I don’t know. How should I know?’

  ‘Then let me help you, Madam. They cast him upon the bed; they threw him upon his face… and then?’

  She tried to escape those eyes that held her prisoner. How could she tell him what she did not know? The eyes, relentless, held her fast. The bed… the bed….

  ‘They smothered him with pillows, Christ save us!’ She hazarded her guess; how else could the thing be done?