The Traitor's Wife

by Susan Higginbotham

  He rolled over, looking for Eleanor's tangled red hair and white skin, and found that her side of the bed was empty. Then he saw Eleanor sitting in the window seat, once again in her nightclothes and cloak. “Sir. We need to talk. Outside.”

  “I am not a whore, Sir John. I behaved whorishly last night, but I am not a whore.”

  “I thought no such thing, Eleanor.”

  Eleanor wrapped her cloak more tightly around her. Bundled up as she was now, there was not a spot on her body that John had left unexplored the night before. “That is the first thing I wanted to tell you. The second is that I was angry and grieved over my son, and I spoke and acted in haste. I love Hugh. I know he meant no harm to come to us. But he thought he was untouchable.”

  “Yes. And now let me say my piece, Eleanor. I came here for one reason, and that was to ask you to marry me. We can marry today, if you wish, and when this damned business of Lancaster's is over I shall return and we shall live together as husband and wife.”

  “I don't know.”

  “Why not? We got on well enough last night, I think.” He smiled. “I know you still mourn your husband, but there is no disrespect to him in remarrying. Many widows in your position would have remarried long before. You like me, don't you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there's much of your problem solved, right there. And think of your children, Eleanor. The little ones could use a man about, and it would be good for your son Edward as well. You said yesterday that he wanted to be knighted when he was older, and if you were married to me, he could act as my squire, go to tournaments, mix with some lads of his own degree, get his confidence up. He's a bit isolated here on your lands, you know, and the past years couldn't have been easy on him. And your oldest son might benefit too. I am in favor with the king, and if he had a stepfather who was trusted by the crown—”

  “I will consider your offer, Sir John. When you come back I will have an answer for you.”

  “Very well.” He turned around and stalked away. Then, as Eleanor watched in astonishment, he headed back to her, smiling. “I have come back, and I want my answer now, Eleanor.”

  “You cheated!” she protested. But his effrontery made her laugh, and when he led her into the outbuilding by which they were standing, she was still laughing. Only when he kissed her, gently at first and then passionately, did she fall silent.

  He pushed the hood of her cloak back. “You are driving me mad. Do you know how much I want to take you right here? You want me just as badly, don't you, sweetheart? You will marry me?”

  His hands and mouth were moving everywhere now, and she did not have the slightest desire to call them to a halt as she and John sank down atop the sacks of grain stacked in a corner. “Yes,” she whispered, pressing against him, not knowing or caring which question she was answering. “Yes.”

  Zouche had watched the quarrel between Lancaster and Mortimer from a distance. Disgusted as he was with Mortimer, particularly in his new guise as the Earl of March, he could not bring himself to join Lancaster either. He blustered well, but was there anything underneath that blustering to offer? Zouche was not sure, and so he stayed neutral. Neutrality, in any case, was easy, for William had found that since he had left Cardiff Castle, he did not much care about anything.

  It was with little more than indifference, then, that he watched Lancaster's rebellion falter and die. Days after Christmas, the king had announced his intention to march to Leicester, adding that anyone who surrendered to him before January 7 would receive a pardon. On the way, he had sought access to Kenilworth Castle—Lancaster's castle—and had been refused. Led by Mortimer, the royal army had then wreaked havoc on Lancaster's lands that had not been seen since the destruction of the Despensers' lands seven years before.

  Lancaster, whose eyesight was now so poor that he could barely see his horse's head, had determined then to face his army against the king's. But then all fell apart. The Earls of Kent and Norfolk, suddenly losing their nerve, deserted the Earl of Lancaster and submitted to the king. Mortimer, hearing this, advanced the royal army to Bedford, where Lancaster was encamped. With his support having dwindled away, Lancaster surrendered his sword to the king.

  All for nothing, Zouche reflected as he sat in his chamber at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, where he had gone to spend a very bleak Christmas. Was that not the way of the world? “Come in,” he said listlessly as a knock sounded on his door.

  His squire was leading in a very large lady, who had reached the time of life when ladies were known only as being of a certain age. Zouche started. “Gladys? Is El—Lady Despenser well?”

  Gladys said, “She thinks I have gone on a visit to my family. Lord Zouche, normally I don't meddle in my lady's affairs, or anyone else's. But now it is time to meddle. Here.”

  She handed him a crumpled piece of parchment, written in the same hand as the letters William had delivered to Hugh le Despenser at Caerphilly Castle. “Lord Zouche. I hope I find you well. I will be at Hanley Castle this Christmastide, and I hope you will honor me there by allowing me to show you hospitality.” He stared at it, hearing Eleanor's sweet voice in each line. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “My lady wanted to invite you to stay with her, Lord Zouche, but could not get up the courage. I found this lying just by the fire. She never could hit a target, sir.”

  “What did she think would happen if I came?”

  “She thought you would offer again to marry her, and that this time she would say yes.” Gladys shook her head. “My lady loves you, Lord Zouche. No, she hasn't told me so, but I've seen the look on her face when I mention your name, and I've been doing it often enough lately just to check. But she had convinced herself that if she remarried, it would be a disservice to her late husband, and there was no getting the idea out of her head. Her parents were as pigheaded a pair as could be, and so was her uncle, and her grandfather, and she is as pigheaded as the whole lot of them put together.”

  William smiled. “So what do you recommend, Mistress Gladys? Waiting?”

  “You can't. She will be married to John de Grey if you do.”

  “She loves me and she will marry him? For God's sake, why?”

  “She lay with him, sir.” Zouche flushed with anger, and Gladys put a hand on his shoulder. “You must understand, Lord Zouche. He arrived at Hanley for a visit, and that same night she heard news, something that upset her against her husband. Grey was there, and she was angry and unhappy and lonely, and he took his opportunity. She told me later, in tears, poor lamb. Oh, he didn't force her, I'll say that much for him. And he's decent and honorable, I'll give him that. So she will marry him, out of guilt and shame, when it's you she loves.”

  “Has she agreed to marry him?”

  “He asked, and she said she would think about it. He spent but one night at Hanley Castle before one of his men came and fetched him back to the king's camp, quickly. He had just enough time to say a quick good-bye before he left. But she expects him to come back after this Lancaster business, and she plans to marry him then.”

  Zouche, suddenly feeling a good twenty years younger, rang for his squire. “Not if I get to her first.”

  Eleanor was sitting with her council in the great hall when Zouche arrived at Hanley Castle. Not since the Scots were on his heels at the Bannock Burn had he traveled so quickly. She saw him, and the preoccupied expression on her face changed to one of shock. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” She greeted Zouche. “Lord Zouche, I am glad to see you well.”

  “Might I speak with you privately, my lady?”

  She nodded, and they proceeded to the outer room of her chamber in dead silence. When they stood in it, facing each other, William said, “There's only one thing that stands between us marrying, isn't it, Eleanor? Your late husband.”

  “My lord—”

  “Think, Eleanor. Your husband wasn't a fool, by any means. What if he knew what he was doing when he sent me to you? What if he knew that I would find you irresistible? What
if he didn't want to leave you all alone in the world? Have you thought of that?”

  “No, but—”

  “He told me to tell you not to marry the first handsome young buck who asked you. Note the wording there, Eleanor. Handsome. Young. Nothing about not marrying a homely old fellow like myself. Not a thing.”

  He kissed her, and this time, he met with no resistance. It was William, as a soldier ever alert for sudden noises, who drew back. “Horses. It looks as if John de Grey has arrived.”

  “William, I—”

  “Yes, yes, Gladys told me. It's best that you get out of here. Fortunately, I noticed you have a barge. We'll take it.”

  “William, my children!”

  “I told Gladys to get them on the barge, just in case. Along with a priest. But hurry!”

  They were married on the barge as it traveled down the Severn to Cardiff. All of Eleanor's children watched the short, simple ceremony except for Edward, who took a cue from his royal namesake and absented himself from the proceedings. As William kissed his bride, his new stepson sulked on the edge of the barge and tossed bread to the seagulls.

  With so many of them on the barge, there was no question of them consummating their marriage or even having a private conversation. But that night when the barge was tied up for the evening, to keep warm they all had to huddle together under their blankets and furs. Eleanor wrapped her arms around her youngest children and snuggled close to William, safe and utterly content as the warmth of their bodies together and the gentle rocking of the barge lulled them all to sleep.

  At Cardiff, Gladys hustled the children away, and Eleanor and William at last climbed the stairs to Eleanor's chamber. Wildly as she had coupled with John de Grey less than a month before, she felt strangely shy as she and William sat sipping wine together. Then William took the cup from her and began undressing her from head to toe, so slowly and with so much kissing and fondling of each part of her he unveiled that by the time he'd stripped her bare, she could not stand to have him outside of her a moment longer and climaxed almost as soon as he entered her. He, aroused as she, gasped out her name over and over again into her hair as he spent himself with an intensity he had not felt in years. “Second thoughts, my lady?” he managed finally.

  She smiled up at him. “None at all.”

  There followed a brief confusion occasioned by the fact that both of them, when sharing a bed with their late spouses, had been accustomed to taking the left side. William accommodatingly rolled to the right, and then they could at last hold each other and talk of the future.

  “Shall it go hard on us, marrying without the king's license?” asked Eleanor.

  William shrugged. “What's done is done, and couldn't have been done better.” He held Eleanor tighter. “I suppose there will be a hefty fine to pay.”

  “Yes, indeed. Hugh's father and sister each—” She stopped, abashed.

  William stroked her hair. “I was harsh on Hugh before, my love, and I shouldn't have been. Anyone whom you loved so well had to have good qualities, many of them. Don't think you have to pretend Hugh never existed now that you're my wife. I know you loved him, and you can tell me all about him, provided that you always speak even more highly of me, of course.”

  She giggled. “And you may tell me all about Alice, provided you don't dwell too much on her blond hair and sapphire blue eyes.”

  “More like cornflowers, and I have developed a taste for green eyes in the past year or so, anyway.”

  They dozed a while. She woke before he did, and lay still next to him, thinking, until he stirred. “William. Do you forgive me? For John?”

  “There's nothing to forgive, my love. You weren't mine at the time.” He was quiet for a while. “We've all made mistakes, Eleanor, all done things we were ashamed of. I've done worse, I'm sure.”

  “Ah, you don't know what a wretch I have been!” She rested her head on his chest. “I don't deserve you, William. I should be in the chapel right now, thanking the Lord for my blessings.”

  “And so we shall thank Him,” said William. He kissed the top of her head, began moving his lips farther down. “But can we wait just a little while, my dear?”

  In due time they did go to the castle chapel, where they offered prayers of thanksgiving and then prayed for the souls of all they had loved, especially their late spouses. Eleanor took the time to whisper some private words to Hugh. “I'm sorry, dear,” she whispered, touching the wedding ring that she had moved to her right hand. “I do still love you; never mind the nonsense I said that other day. But I love my lord Zouche too, and the world must move on. But I shall never forget you or cease to love you, not for one day of my life.”

  From the chapel they went to the children's rooms, where they found John and Gilbert in a heated dispute over the question of nomenclature. “Shall we call you Lord Zouche or Father?”

  “As you prefer, Gilbert.”

  “We could call him Father William,” said John. “And our other father Father Hugh.”

  “Why would we need to call our father Father Hugh? He's dead.”

  “We pray for him,” said John primly. “So we will pray for Father William and Father Hugh.”

  “That makes them sound like priests. I shall pray for Father and Lord Zouche.”

  “And I will pray for Father William and Father Hugh.”

  “Pray for them however you like,” said Eleanor. “As long as you pray for them.”

  “His way is stupid.”

  “Your way is stupid!”

  They stomped out of the chamber. “Boys,” said William contentedly. “And I still have to alert my own.” He glanced at Eleanor's little girl, who had clambered onto his lap. “What shall you call me, Lizzie?”

  “Papa,” said Elizabeth.

  On January 26 at Dunstable, where the court had paused on its way to Windsor, Isabella was startled to see one of her son's most amiable knight bannerets storming away. “What on earth ails him, Mortimer?”

  “Sir John is having marital problems,” said Mortimer grimly.

  “I thought his wife had been dead for some time.”

  “He has remarried, darling, or at least he thinks he has. Do you know who his new bride is? Lady Despenser. Say it, madam.”

  “I told you so, Roger. But what is the matter with him? I suppose he abducted her and she escaped?”

  “No, it's even worse than it appears. She seems to have two husbands at the moment. Sir John and Lord Zouche. Husband number two abducted her from Hanley Castle and married her, or so Grey thinks anyway. After she pledged herself to marry husband number one. Jesus! I should have known better. Her mother married that baseborn squire of hers, after all, and her sister Elizabeth eloped with that Verdon fellow. Like mother, like daughter.”

  Isabella had been in high spirits ever since the Earl of Lancaster, looking ten years older than his true age, had knelt in the mud at Bedford and handed his sword to the king. She therefore could not help but snicker at her former lady-in-waiting's marital misadventures, even as the Earl of March continued to scowl. “So, Roger. Now that we have a choice, which husband shall she stay married to?”

  “I would prefer neither of them,” said Mortimer irritably. “Grey was practically weeping when he came here, like a baby who's had candy snatched out of his hand; that slut's bewitched him. He was all but whistling when we moved toward Bedford that miserable rainy night, and now I know why. And Zouche is no better. Remember that visit he paid to her brat when we were at Ludlow this summer? They're both besotted with her, I'll wager. They'll do what makes her happy, and that's not what I want in the Lord of Glamorgan. If my damned son Geoffrey had done my bidding, she'd have been safely off the marriage market before now. But he insists on a French bride, and one not fifteen years older than he. Stubborn whelp.”

  “Did either of the men get a royal license to marry her?”

  “Lord, no,” said the Earl of March. “They're both too lovesick—or landsick—to bother with such niceties,
it seems, although Grey did allow that he had been planning to get one after the fact. Gracious of him to consider the king! But that's a blessing, in a way. I can seize the bride's lands now, as a punishment.”

  “Until husband one or husband two pays the fine for marriage without a license?”

  Mortimer smiled. “Until I decide what to do next. I've recently learned some interesting information about our Lady Despenser, you see.”

  After a few pleasant days at Cardiff, during which William met his new tenants, the newlyweds decided to ride to nearby Caerphilly for a short visit. As the day was a mild one and the children liked the sprawling castle, the entire family came along.

  William had not been idle in the days since his elopement with Eleanor. He had sent a respectful message to the king begging his pardon for his hasty marriage and expressing his wish to pay whatever fine the crown demanded, and he had sent for Alan to join him in Wales. Alan had caught up with him in Cardiff, along with a number of his men, but he had not heard anything from the king yet. Probably, he thought to himself cheerfully as the big castle came into view, the Earl of March, into whose pockets the fine would certainly go, was pushing for the largest sum possible.

  Only Eleanor's constable and a small staff were at Caerphilly. Eleanor had sent some of her men up ahead of them in advance to warn them of the approach of their large party. She started as she saw horses galloping toward them from the castle. “William! Those are my men! And my constable there, too. Why, what is it?” she called.

  “It is the king, my lady. He has sent his men to take all of your lands back into his hands. As a punishment for marrying without license.”

  “All of them?”

  “So the king's men say.”

  “They must be seizing Cardiff as we speak,” said William. “How many men did the king send?”