Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  ‘Not so clean a death nor yet so merciful. There was no mark upon him—remember? It was agreed between you!’

  She could neither nod nor shake her head; she stood there, neck held stiff, eyes sunk deep into their sockets.

  ‘And then, Madam?’ he asked again. ‘What next?’

  And now she did manage to shake her head; stiff head upon stiff neck.

  ‘Then I must help you. They took the table from the trestles. They laid it across his shoulders and across his back; the upper part of his back only—Madam, mark it! So there he lay helpless at the mercy of them that had no mercy. Must I help you, further?’

  She stared fascinated, fearful of what must come; the horror she could not imagine, much less name.

  ‘They took down his breeches like a child that’s to be whipped… your husband and your King; the Majesty of England. They had a horn, a small neat horn… exactly shaped; you know what that was for!’ And it was not a question.

  And still she stood staring. She could not speak with her dried-up tongue, could not shake her stiff head. Because quite suddenly she knew… she knew. Mortimer’s mumbled words clashed like cymbals. They had made no sense… no sense. Now they did make sense, heat out a pattern… a crime so appalling the brain blistered and bled; inside her head she felt the bleeding.

  Let him not speak. Sweet Christ, let him not speak!

  He went on speaking.

  ‘They had lit a fire, Madam. He must have said his thanks for that. He was courteous and he’d been so cold. Into the fire they thrust the poker; it glowed red-hot. They took the horn, the small neat horn; they seized him, they held him fast. They thrust the horn—Madam, you know where! Where but between the buttocks! Do you whiten, Madam? These things you know. They were done; should they not be said? They took the red-hot iron and thrust it through the horn. Christ that a son should speak these things, that a woman give such orders, a man suffer such agony!’

  His face was working again; the pain of his breathing tore through him like a knife. He stood forcing himself to quiet, taking in steadier breaths, letting them go again until he could speak once more.

  ‘Into his body with the red-hot iron; into his very guts. Do I offend your delicacy, Madam?’ Again his smile was dreadful. ‘The horn would tell no tale. No mark upon the body… No mark save the agony on his face so that no man could know the face as his; not even I, his son! Oh it was clever, Madam! Whose wits planned it, yours or his—the man for whom you slew my father? Yours I’ll wager; he was not clever!’ And still he could not bring that hated name upon his tongue.

  ‘Have you ever thought upon it, Madam—the agony, the live flesh scorching, burning, stinking? And the bleeding; the hidden bleeding? There must be left no mark! And the cries for mercy. And no mercy. No mercy! So to murder a man; any man! But… your King and mine; your husband and my father? I could not do it to a beast let alone a man; not to him, even. I might have commanded it and no man blame me; but I could not do it. That man died a merciful death; for that be grateful. But my father, my father! The way he died; doesn’t that deed turn all sweet things to rottenness, all beauty to foulness, all your prayers to blasphemy? Do you sleep at nights, Madam? Me, I cannot sleep!’

  In the midst of her own anguish, her own fear, she wanted to comfort him—he was after all her son, her young son. She half put out a hand; saw the disgust upon his face and the way he shrank, as though she were a leper, from her touch.

  ‘But you; you sleep! Why not? You are not a woman; you are an animal, a savage beast. And so the people name you. She-wolf! But they wrong such beasts; for they are, as God made them, innocent. You are a were-wolf, rather; a damned creature that goes about her familiar friends to drink their blood.’

  She stood there, unhearing; mercifully, his words flowed over her head. Hardened as she was, cruel as she could be, her mind could not, as yet, encompass that death so horrible, so appalling; so, for all the clear detail, not to be imagined. She was filled with loathing; loathing of herself that, asking no question, had let it happen; loathing of Mortimer, of him even, that had commanded it to happen; loathing of him that had been made to suffer it.

  Vomit filled her mouth. She threw out her hands. She went down into the darkness.

  XLVI

  She lay back in the great chair. Save for the high painting of cheek and mouth she was grey head-to-foot; grey as the gown she wore, gown of the Grey Friars though she was no religious, and if she lived a thousand years, never would be. It was a dress she affected, fancying so to spread some odour of sanctity, to inveigle God’s forgiveness; never would she forgo her small cunnings. And the gown did double duty, covering shrunken arms and bosom that once had been the loveliest in Christendom; no more than her small cunnings could she forget the beauty that had been hers.

  She was sixty-three and Mortimer dead these twenty-eight years. She was old, she was weary to the bone, and she repented of her wickedness, God knew. Yet, were it all to do again, still she must do it for love of Mortimer, gentle Mortimer. And she forgot, being told and at times half-crazed, that from the first he had never been gentle, that he had used her to serve his ambition and his lust. She forgot that, cruel and brutal, he had with lies dragged her into a fearful murder. And she forgot, also, the loathing she had felt for him when first she heard the truth of her husband’s death.

  Yet she did truly repent. Remorse fed upon her heart like an obscene bird gorging itself full. There were times when, if she were not to go mad with the pain of it, she must sit rigid, the tears pouring down her face, not daring to move until the monstrous thing had departed. Thereafter she would sit whispering, whispering to God. And seeing her weeping for no reason, and talking as they thought to herself, they called it madness.

  Madness? My bitter repentance, my conversations with God? And this, too, I must accept, part of my punishment. I am glad to accept it; for surely, the more I am punished now, the less my punishment thereafter. Twenty-eight years of punishment endured. It is a long time; but longer, eternity.

  Twenty-eight years since Mortimer died. My son bade me hasten to Windsor lest I meet face-to-face my love’s rotting head. I did not wait for that. When they went to take down the body they found the gallows empty. Myself a prisoner, still I had means to command a service. He lies now in the church of the Grey Friars and there, at his side, I hope, one day, to lie. He was my true husband.

  Twenty-eight years. And he is dead and I live still. I had not thought that possible. But we live from day to day; and the days pass into weeks, into months, into years; and the years pass, somehow they pass.

  My son, they said, was merciful to me. I think it was less mercy than shame; shame for his behaviour in the Tower. When he came to his senses, he believed I knew nothing of the way his father died. But even then he did not entirely acquit me; nor does he now. That time in the Tower I can neither forget nor forgive—the way he forced the truth upon me, the brutal truth in all its horror. Had he meant to punish me with life-long torment he could have done no better. For it was my soul he punished; not my body. My body he kept close for three months; and then, free to go where I would. But the punishment my soul must bear for ever.

  Those months at Windsor he never came near me; no, nor sent to enquire of me. Night after night lying sleepless, the scarifying image of that murder burning into my brain, burning as with that same hot iron they used there in the dark cell. Lying there and crying to God to let me die before my wits cracked… and all the time knowing I did not dare to die, that I was afraid to die. Lying there in the endless dark wondering what punishment my son had devised; like all his house he has a cruel streak.

  Those nights I died a hundred deaths; and all needless. Pope John, good Christian man, asked my son to let all rest in silence; that a man shame his mother is unchristian. And who dares disobey the lord Pope? My son lifted the blame from me to set it fair and square upon Mortimer. There was a document… Mortimer alone brought all the evils upon the land. Malicious and lying, he p
ersuaded Madam Queen Isabella that the late King sought her death. For this reason alone she absented herself from her husband’s bed….

  But it did not say into whose bed I went!

  A smile brushed the painted lips.

  It did not say that before ever I set eyes upon my love I hated my husband; and with reason. Nor that it needed no man to tell me the Despensers watched to make an end of me. Nor did it say that were there no Mortimer to love, no Despensers to fear, not God Himself had brought me to my husband’s bed.

  A reasonable document, false and lying and sealed with my virtuous son’s own seal! And, having proclaimed my innocence he must abide by it.

  After those three months at Windsor he let me free. But first he robbed me of my lands and dowers—even those that were my unalien-able right. And who got them? Who but my son’s wife Philippa whose money runs through her fingers like water—and nothing to show for it but figures that don’t balance in her accounts and items set down to charities. She dresses sober as a merchant’s wife and her jewels are laughable in a Queen. For her—everything that was mine; for me dole insufficient for my state.

  Well, but I was free; free to go where I would—save that I must keep from London. Did he fear the heart of London would turn to me again? Or that I would contaminate his virtuous Philippa? Or that I would dip my fingers in the political pie? My fingers were burned enough already.

  Poor, besmirched for all the whitewash, I yet made a good showing..

  She sat there, smiling, remembering how she had ridden the countryside with a great train—knights and esquires, ladies and waiting-women, household officials and servants—her own court. She’d stayed now at one house her son had lent her, now at another; when her beggarly allowance had run out she’d announced herself a guest at some great house. And always the people had come to pay their respects; but not their love.

  Not their love.

  She stopped her smiling.

  My son need not have feared. The people loved me no longer. It hurt; surprisingly, it hurt. Vanity; vanity, only. I never pretended to love the garlic-stinking mob; not even when they bawled themselves hoarse for me—the Good Queen!

  And she remembered that soon she had given up processions and progresses, telling herself that they were too costly for an impoverished Queen.

  …But it was partly pride because I did not choose to face a people that had no love for me; partly because since Mortimer died I took no joy in such affairs. I was content to stay at home; content, above all, to stay from London where they hated me with an undying hatred.

  And wherever I made my home my son would visit me, as still he does, coming in state, showing all due respect; respect but no love. An unloving heart, my virtuous son. He allows no word to tarnish my good name; but even now he keeps his wife from me. Madam Philippa sends her respects, sends her gifts; but herself comes never. Too busy about her good works!

  And good works no doubt they are; but somewhat odd in a Queen. She should have been a merchant’s wife, that one! She’d not been here a couple of years before she was sending home for weavers in wool—masters with their journeymen, to come and settle with their families. She paid them well to teach their mistery. Soon less and less raw wool was going out of the country, more and more money coming in. And money breeds money—no-one can quarrel with that. But I like a more royal way. Still, money is money!

  She has her eye on the main chance, the so-good Philippa; she cares little for the glories of war; instead of knights she keeps merchants to give her advice—and no doubt more substantial benefits; she keeps scholars and poets to sing her praises. She has Messire Froissart running at her heels like a little dog, proclaiming her virtues to all Christendom.

  Good works and yearly pregnancies—her history. Fertile as a gypsy! So many children; impossible to remember them all—I’ve never been allowed near them!

  Twenty-eight years since the power was snatched from my hands. And my son John lies sleeping in his fine tomb—a kinder son than Edward; and Joan, my little one, lies sick to death.

  And she forgot that her little one was thirty-five and a grandmother.

  Children die; and children are born. My son’s eldest boy—the only one of my grandchildren I’ve ever seen and then by accident—I could have doted upon; the handsome child! A tall young man he must be now; a bonny fighter they say, and a wicked look to his eye like a blood stallion. Black armour he has, from Florence; his father gave it him. The Black Prince they call him—a name to stir the blood.

  She found herself wishing that, him at least, she might see; she dearly loved a handsome man. As for the others, she cared not a fig! But all the same the insult rankled.

  There was a small sound in the room; a little page came quietly in. Careful, he carried a cloak and laid it upon the stool at her feet. A small cloak it was; a child’s, rich velvet lined with cloth-of-gold.

  ‘Madam, the things you asked for! Here’s the cloak; the books are in the anteroom.’

  She smiled at the pretty boy. ‘I have to be certain all is at hand. You see I am making my will; for who can hope to escape death? But all the same I do not like to think upon it!’

  You are very old; it is time. The young face spoke clear; but well-trained to courtesy he said, ‘Madam Queen Isabella need not fear to think upon death. Madam is very good—forever at her prayers!’

  ‘There are many,’ she said, her smile wry, ‘that would not agree with you!’

  ‘Then they are fools!’ he said at once, being too young to know the tales about her. ‘Or else they do not know you!’

  ‘Maybe they know me too well. But there’s none so bad he couldn’t be worse; and none so good he couldn’t be better! But it isn’t only bad they call me; mad, they say that too! Do you think me crazy?’

  ‘No…’ He was a little doubtful. ‘Madam talks to herself at times, but I think it is not foolish talking. I think she talks to God!’

  ‘They say I am crazy because I weep without cause.’

  ‘We all have cause to weep.’

  ‘So young and so wise! Well, it seems I have one friend at least! You are a good page; one day you will make a good knight!’

  ‘I would like to be your knight, Madam; to serve you with my life!’ But you are old… too old.

  She knew the thought; how should she not? She sighed. ‘Life goes by… so quick. You’d not believe how quick!’ She picked up the little cloak. ‘I was married in this!’ She stroked it with a gentle hand.

  His eyes widened. ‘Such a little girl!’

  She nodded. ‘Happy and innocent; but neither for long!’ And now she spoke to herself, forgetful, as was her way at times. ‘But because of that short happiness, that short innocence, I must be buried in it. They must lay it about my shoulders. It will reach, perhaps, to my waist.’ She was silent a while; then, remembering the boy she said, her voice clear and direct, ‘Have you bid my priest to me?’

  ‘Madam, he lies sick abed. But there’s a friar below in the kitchens; comes from Gloucester way he says. Would Madam Queen see him, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps. See that they look to his needs. Yes, bring him later… later. Go now!’

  Upright in the great chair Isabella regarded the little cloak. In the dim room it shone—a small sun. She turned a restless head from side to side as though to shake away pain.

  The little cloak. It brought everything back. The young child kneeling by her groom—so handsome a prince, golden Edward—in far away Boulogne.

  Tears stung the old eyes.

  A good child….

  She considered the word good with care.

  … not always good; but a will to goodness; and that’s the thing that counts. A loving child wanting to be good.

  The tears fell faster, remembering what that child had become.

  A child that had asked nothing but to love her husband; to be a little loved and to serve him with all her heart… and, in the end how had she served him?

  The restless head moved
yet more restless, the grey face twitched with pain.

  The child grew up; the little cloak fitted her no longer. She grew beautiful. Isabella the fair. But, for all that, unloved of her husband and slighted still; a woman crying in her heart for love and finding none; a woman the world praised—a woman alone.

  Alone. Familiar misery bridged the long years; she came back to the empty room.

  But even then I did my best; and it was not so poor a best. I made peace between the King and his barons; I made peace between England and France. I would have prospered the King and prospered the country but that vile favourites brought it all to nothing…

  She sat there sending her thoughts back, further back, beyond the Despensers.

  Not Piers. He was never vile; wild, only, wild. There was good in him. Piers I won; but it was too late.

  Now she was muttering in the way they called crazy. She could hear it for herself, the whispering in the empty room; hear the black angel’s wings beating within her head. If she didn’t stop now, while she could, the whisper would rise to a scream and she wouldn’t be able to stop it. Scream after scream until they came and tied her with a cord and put her into the dark. Above all things she hated the dark; she feared it. It was as though they shut her living into the grave.

  She bit upon her lips, bit until the blood ran salt in her mouth; the whispering stopped.

  But not the thinking. That went on and on.

  Lonely. Unloved. Humiliated. And then—Mortimer.

  She was old, she was grey, she was drained of life. Yet remembering Mortimer her body grew soft again, open and desiring.

  Even now, death at her elbow, she could not forget her love for him, nor the passion there had been between them; neither forget nor regret, not though she prayed for forgiveness until the knees shook beneath her.

  Yet God should forgive; they call Him merciful. And for that thing we did together we paid in full—he with a shameful death, I with the terrible loneliness; and the black angel that beats in my head and the black raven that sits upon my heart. Torment beyond endurance, so that, at times, I must run from wall to wall, beating my head against the stone, driving away the black angel; beating my clenched fists upon my breast, beating out the black raven; wailing like the lost soul I am till they come and put me away unto the dark.