The Traitor's Wife

by Susan Higginbotham

  “I want no wife.”

  “Nor do I. But I must have one, and you really must yourself, you know. When I am king, you shall have titles and lands and that means you must get heirs. And Eleanor would have been a fine wife for you. Sweet and shy, but with a sly wit once you get to know her.”

  “And now I won't have the opportunity. I shall throw myself in the Thames forthwith.”

  “There's her sister Margaret. A good-natured girl, not as much so as Eleanor, but a definite possibility. Elizabeth is by far the prettiest but has too much of the grande dame about her even at her young age. Yes, I would pick Margaret.”

  “Before I have recovered from the loss of Eleanor? For shame! Is my rival Hugh pleased with the match?”

  “He ought to be, getting a Clare for a wife; I would have thought my father would have insisted on an earl for Eleanor. But who knows what young Hugh thinks of anything? He keeps his own counsel. It is disconcerting in a youth of his age.” He bestowed a tender kiss on Piers. “I prefer the more open temperament.”

  “And so do I.” Piers returned the kiss, with compound interest, and for some time afterward no talking was done.

  Eleanor de Clare, some chambers away from her uncle and his friend in Westminster Palace, had been passing the morning less pleasantly, though more decorously. Though in her naiveté she was quite content with the drape of her wedding dress, the styling of her hair, and the placement of her jewels, her mother, aunts, sisters, and attendant ladies were not, and each was discontent in a different way. As her hair was debated over and rearranged for the seventh time, she snapped, “Enough, Mama! I know Hugh is not being plagued in this manner. He must take me as I am.”

  Gladys, a widow who had long served Eleanor's mother as a damsel and who had agreed to go into Eleanor's household, grinned. “Aye, my lady, and he won't much care what you are wearing. It will be what is underneath that will count.” She patted Eleanor's rump with approval. “And he will be pleased.”

  Elizabeth gasped. Margaret tittered. Eleanor, however, giggled. “Do you truly think so, Gladys?”

  “Of course. You're well developed for your age, and men love that. And you will be a good breeder of children, too, mark me. You will have a fine brood.”

  “You can tell me, Gladys. What will it be like? Tonight?”

  Eleanor's mother, Joan, the Countess of Gloucester, had been sniffling sentimentally at the prospect of her first daughter's marriage. Now she raised an eyebrow. “Your little sisters, Eleanor—”

  “They shall be married soon, too, won't they? They might as well know.”

  “We might as well,” Margaret agreed.

  “Each man will go about his business in his own way, my lady. But I'll wager that he will be gentle about the matter.”

  “Will I be expected to—help at all?” At thirteen Eleanor was not quite as naive as she pretended, having heard enough courtiers and servant girls whispering to piece together what happened on a wedding night, but it had occurred to her that no one was fussing over her hair now.

  Gladys had been left entirely on her own by the gaggle of women, who were plainly finding this entertaining. When Gladys paused before answering, Mary, Eleanor's aunt the nun, piped up, “Well, answer, my dear, because I certainly can't.”

  “I've no doubt that once you get interested in him, my lady, you shall want to help.”

  Eleanor nodded and considered this in silence.

  Margaret, sitting on a window seat, sighed. “I wish I was getting married,” she explained.

  “I'm sure you will be soon.”

  “And better.” Elizabeth sniffed.

  “Elizabeth! What mean you?” Her mother glared.

  “I only repeat what I overheard you say the other day.” Elizabeth was only ten, but she had the dignity of a woman twice that age. “Nelly is an earl's daughter, and Hugh is only a mere knight. He has no land to speak of. And he's not even truly handsome, like my uncle's friend Piers Gaveston.”

  “As though we need more of that!” Joan went over and patted her oldest daughter on the shoulder. “I did think you could have done better,” she said gently, “but it was your grandfather's match, and he has always thought highly of Hugh's father, who has served him well for years. There is no reason why his fortunes should not grow in years to come.” She frowned at a tangle in Eleanor's waist-length red hair—it was difficult at times to determine what was tangle and what was curl—and began to brush it out.

  Eleanor glared at her youngest sister.

  “Tell me,” she said, submitting ungraciously to having some color put on her naturally pale cheeks, “who is this Piers to my uncle? I have never seen my uncle out of his company since we came to Westminster. And why does his being around him vex my grandfather the king so?”

  Gladys became deeply interested in a discarded bracelet lying on a table. The other women stared absorbedly at Eleanor's robes. Only her little sisters looked at Eleanor, and their faces were as curious as hers.

  “We must get to the chapel,” Joan said. “Come, ladies.”

  Eleanor's husband-to-be was only nineteen, a fact that had gratified her, as she had long worried about being married to an ancient knight in his thirties or even older. He was not a stranger to her, having been brought over to meet Eleanor a few days after his father and the king made the marriage contract, but they had exchanged only a few words and had never been alone in each other's company. It startled her as they exchanged their vows in the king's chapel to find that his dark, unreadable eyes were searching her face as closely as she was searching his own.

  The wedding feast and the bedding ceremony that followed were subdued affairs. The elderly but still intimidating king, even though accompanied by his second queen, Margaret, more than forty years his junior, lent an air of dampening dignity to the occasion. The prince and Piers, who might have otherwise enlivened matters, behaved themselves with tedious decorum in his presence, and the other young men—all of whom had been knighted only days before in a splendid ceremony meant to provide recruits for the never-ending Scottish wars—followed suit. Only Eleanor's fourteen-year-old brother, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in England and with only his good-natured stepfather to hold him in check, felt free to overindulge in wine and to make ribald jokes so feeble that no one but his young sisters tittered at them.

  Eleanor's bridal nerves, meanwhile, were beginning to show. She openly fidgeted as the priest blessed the marriage bed. She submitted to the king's toast, to the prince's toast, to her stepfather's toast, to her father-in-law's toast. When her brother began his own meandering toast, however, she snapped, “Gilbert, you fool, go to bed! All of you! Leave me alone!” To her utter mortification, she burst into tears. She yanked the covers over her head.

  There was a stir among the onlookers, and then she heard Hugh's pleasant voice. “You heard my wife, good people. Let her alone.” From under the covers, she heard some laughter, then the sound of feet filing out of the room. Her husband, however, had not moved. Without budging from underneath the covers, she commanded, “You, too.”

  “Me?”

  “Especially you! I don't want to be married.”

  “But you have been.” Hugh lifted the covers from his own end and revealed Eleanor. She had been put to bed naked by the other ladies before Hugh arrived clad only in his robe, and the expression of tolerant amusement on his face changed to admiration as he saw her body. “You're lovely, Eleanor.”

  “Go away!” She flounced away from him.

  “You're as lovely from the back as from the front.”

  “Stop it!”

  “You're nervous, I know. It's natural for girls getting married.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I've sisters.”

  “I've a brother. But I've never set myself up as an expert on men.”

  He took off his robe and wrapped his arms around her, and she lay against him grudgingly as he talked into her hair. “My sister Isabel, the mildest creature
in the world, threw a comb at my mother on her wedding day. Then she threw a bracelet at her servant. By the time her husband appeared she'd run out of missiles, which was fortunate for him.” Hugh saw a glimmer of a smile on Eleanor's face. He began scratching her back, very slowly. “I'm nervous too, you know.”

  “You? Why?”

  “I've only been with whores, who are paid to act delighted. So now I have a beautiful girl in my bed, to live with for the rest of our lives. What if I can't please her?”

  She said confidently, “I am not beautiful.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My sisters, for one.”

  “They are silly chits.” His hands were browsing. With Hugh's encouragement, Eleanor's were doing the same, rather to her surprise. “All my family, all your family, have let me know that you are too good for me. And looking at you now, I think they're right.”

  “They say that to you?”

  Hugh's voice held a trace of bitterness. “You are the eldest daughter of a great earl, the granddaughter of the king, while I am the landless son of one of many advisors of the king. They have let me know the difference between us, believe me.”

  “But Hugh, I don't think that at all.” She pulled back and looked at him in the candlelight. He did not have the overwhelming good looks of Gaveston, which demanded the full attention of man and woman alike, but his sharp features were agreeable and regular, and were much improved by an expression of alertness and intelligence. She had been proud to see him standing beside her at the altar, no matter what her sister had said.

  “No?”

  “Truly, no.” She put a hand on his bare shoulder and looked imploringly at him.

  “Good.” He looked her in the eyes solemnly. “But someday I will make you proud of me, I swear to it. I will be the man your father was.”

  “Hugh.”

  “Yes.”

  “Stop talking.”

  He laughed and kissed her, and it was much, much later when he spoke again. “Do you still want me to leave?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “No.” She settled herself against the body she had just learned so much about and looked up at Hugh wonderingly. “I don't ever want you to go.”

  February 1308 to March 1308

  IN THE CHILL OF A FEBRUARY MORNING, DOVER CASTLE SPARKLED IN THE sunshine as though scrubbed for the occasion. It had indeed had some freshening done to it, for it was in a state of high hospitality, with flags flying and the drawbridge lowered as noble after noble rode over it. Eleanor saw none of this, however, for she was dozing in Gladys's lap in the litter that both ladies rode in.

  “Nelly, is that you? Wake up!”

  Eleanor stirred and opened her eyes as a young couple on horseback—her sister Margaret and her new brother-in-law, Piers Gaveston—drew beside her. “Are we near Dover?”

  “We're in Dover, Nelly dear. Now why are you riding in that litter like a matron—I beg your pardon, my good lady—why are you riding in the litter on a fine morning like this when you could be on that fine palfrey Hugh gave you when you married?” Piers patted his steed emphatically.

  Eleanor blushed. “Hugh has forbidden it.”

  Margaret looked puzzled, but Piers laughed. “Your modest sister is trying not to tell us that there is a young Despenser in the offing. Am I not right, sister?” Eleanor nodded. “How far along are you?”

  “Three months, Gladys and I think. I did not want to tell the family until I was more sure.”

  “We shall keep it quiet,” Margaret said. “Won't we, Piers?”

  “Death itself would not drag it from me. So where is the proud father?”

  “Hugh stayed behind to attend to some business of his father's. He will arrive later this morning.”

  “Hardworking men, your husband and your father-in-law. They can't stand to be out of harness, can they? As for me, I shall gladly shake mine off when the king arrives.” He helped Eleanor out of the litter, then Gladys.

  “Have you enjoyed being regent, Piers?”

  “Lord, no! It's a dreary task of the sort your husband might enjoy. My only satisfaction in it has been in goading the barons. I force them to kneel before me, you know. It drives them mad.”

  “Piers, don't you think of the consequences of that?”

  “Now, Nelly, don't you turn all dreary on me. Did they think of the consequences when they prevailed upon the old king to exile me?”

  “They certainly did not,” put in Piers's new bride.

  Piers smiled at his fourteen-year-old wife, nearly ten years his junior. “Indeed, they did not.”

  It had been a year before when the king had ordered Piers's exile. Eleanor had learned it from her father-in-law, the elder Hugh. She and her husband had been lounging in the great hall of Loughborough, one of the elder Despenser's best manors. Gilbert, her older brother, was with them, having dropped in for a several days' visit as was his wont. The elder Hugh, who had been attending Parliament, entered the room, dripping wet. Eleanor had hastened to remove his things, although there was a servant close at hand attempting to do the same thing, somewhat more efficiently. “Thank you, ladybird,” he said. “Hugh, have I told you that you have a fine wife?”

  “Indeed you have, and you're right, Father. How was Parliament?”

  “Miserable, in a word. Carlisle's a dreary place at the best of times, and the king and the prince made it drearier with one of their quarrels.” He looked apologetically at Eleanor. “The king has exiled Gaveston.”

  “Why?”

  “The prince had the temerity to ask for Ponthieu for him—for services rendered. It must have seemed a trifling gift to young Edward, but the king fell into a fury. He called Edward a baseborn whoreson, asked why he who had never won any lands wanted to give them away. Then he actually fell upon his son and pulled out chunks of his hair. You can see the bald spots here and there.” The elder Hugh grimaced. “After that his rage cooled through sheer exhaustion, but the next morning he saw his council and the order went out— Gaveston must be gone.”

  “But it's natural to reward one's friends with land,” said Eleanor. “Gaveston has been a loyal friend to my uncle for years. And he excels in the joust and in military matters, I'm told, which is why the king brought him into Edward's household to begin with. As a soldiery example. So why would the king oppose such a reasonable request?”

  The younger Hugh and Gilbert smiled. The elder Hugh looked at his daughter-in-law in some distress. “It is not a thing to be discussed before a young lady,” he said finally.

  Hugh the son laughed. “Come, Father. Eleanor is a hardened married woman now, and we're all family.” He waited for a servant to leave the room, though. “The truth is, Eleanor, the king believes that his son and Piers have an unnatural relationship.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Hugh the elder looked stricken, so Hugh whispered a single word into his wife's ear. She gasped. “Hugh, is he right?”

  Hugh shrugged. “Who knows? They're often alone together at Langley; anything could go on there. No doubt they're discreet when the king's around. I sure as hell would be.”

  “The prince calls Piers his brother,” added Gilbert. “You've heard him do so yourself, haven't you, Eleanor? But it seems more than a brotherly relation to me.”

  “Brothers don't gaze into each other's eyes like that,” said Hugh. “Speaking from experience as one.” He yawned and stretched his legs. “So has he started packing yet?”

  “No,” said his father. “The king has given him quite a bit of time to prepare—until after Easter.”

  “With his wardrobe he'll need every day of it,” Hugh said dryly.

  Hugh was not far wrong. Caring not a whit that his father would see his household accounts, Edward bought tunics and tapestries for his friend and accompanied him to Dover himself, along with Gaveston's household and two minstrels. Even the king was unwilling to make life too harsh for the exile, for Piers had been given an annuity of a hundred marks. “I should
get myself exiled,” said Hugh, upon hearing the details. “Money from the king, gifts and money from the prince. And minstrels! What's an exile without minstrels?” He threw his head back and sang in an unmelodious voice, much to the distress of two dogs sitting by the fireplace, “Piers, sweet Piers, my life will be a vacancy without you…”

  “Don't be so cynical, Hugh. My uncle is deeply grieved.” Her voice caught as she added, “Grieved about my mother, too.”

  Joan, Edward's favorite sister and Eleanor's mother, had died just days before. Eleanor had not been much with her as a child, but their relations were affectionate. She was rather in awe of her mother, in fact, for her mother had done what few had done—stood up to the king. Eleanor's nurses had told her the story often enough. Joan had been ordered by the king to marry a man twice her age, Gilbert de Clare. Having done so, she had persuaded her husband to take her from court after their marriage so that they could enjoy their first days of married life by themselves. Irked at this show of independence, the king had had his daughter's valuable wedding clothes seized. Then when Gilbert died after just a few years of marriage, Joan had taken charge of her future. The king had lost no time in looking for a second husband for his daughter, and soon announced her betrothal to the Count of Savoy, only to find that Joan had married a nobody in Gilbert's household named Ralph de Monthermer, a squire who had been knighted only weeks before at Joan's own request. Edward tossed Ralph into prison. Joan had bided her time. She had sent Eleanor and her two other little girls by Gilbert to visit the king; then, trusting that her father had been put in a grandfatherly mood, had asked to appear before him. There, visibly pregnant, she had not quaked or cried but had coolly explained that a widow should be allowed to choose for herself and that there was no shame in a great lady's raising the status of a poor knight. Whatever reply to this philosophy the king had made, he had gradually been brought round, and Ralph had been released and given the title of Earl of Gloucester. Would Eleanor have been able to defy the king so? She often wondered. She'd been a timid child, except among those she knew well. Her uncle Edward was one of the few persons she'd felt totally at ease with, probably because he was naturally shy himself. He too had loved her mother. When he'd fallen afoul of the king the previous year and had to stay out of his presence, with most of his funds cut off, Joan had lent him her seal so that he could borrow money and had offered to let him stay with her.