She’d placed the parchment upon the table, awaiting just this moment. Handing it to him, she said, “That is a list of the twenty-two men and women of my household. I ask you to allow them to remain in England. I ask you to spare them exile from their homeland and their families.”
He glanced but briefly at the list, hesitating only at the name of John de la Haye, her constable. “I shall write to the Chancellor, informing him that I have taken them under my protection, and I shall instruct him to order the shire sheriffs to make sure they retain seisin of their lands.”
She’d not expected it to be so easy, had been afraid to let herself hope. She closed her eyes for a moment; at least she could do this for her people, for those who’d served her so faithfully. At least their worlds, too, need not be wrecked. “Thank you.”
“Where will you go?”
“There is a Dominican convent at Montargis, south of Paris. I shall—”
“A convent! You do not mean to take vows?”
“No, I shall not take vows,” she said, smiling for the first time; he wondered why the smile held such bitter amusement. “The convent was founded by my husband’s elder sister; his mother is buried there. When I sought to think where my daughter and I could go, it was Montargis that came first to mind.”
“Ellen,” he said softly, not noticing how the sound of her daughter’s name in his mouth affected Nell. “She has been in my thoughts, for I know how much she loved Simon…and Harry. I suppose she’d not want to see me?”
“No, she would not. Can you blame her?”
He shook his head; this time he’d caught it, a glimpse of the flame burning just beneath the surface. He was quiet for some moments, and then said slowly, “Harry never blamed me for upholding my father’s rights, no more than I blamed him for heeding Simon. He understood that I was doing what I had to do. I’d hoped, Aunt Nell, that you would understand, too.”
It may have been the way he claimed Harry—her son, her firstborn—as his ally. It may have been the hint of reproach, as if it were unsporting of her to hold a grudge. It may simply have been inevitable from the first, no matter what her vows of self-control. But it all fell apart in the time it took her to draw a constricted breath, her composure and pragmatism and common sense fragmenting as thoroughly as the glass flagon she’d once flung into this hearth. “Yes, Harry understood loyalty,” she said. “But do you think he’d also have understood the butchering of his father’s body? Look me in the eye, Edward, and tell me he’d have understood that!”
This was an accusation he’d obviously been braced for; he showed no emotion, although he could not keep color from rising in his face. “That was not my doing,” he said impassively. “I can understand your anger, but it is not fair to blame me for what de Mautravers and de Mortimer—”
Nell interrupted with one of Simon’s favorite oaths. “If that is to be your defense, spare me any more of it. I am the daughter and sister of English Kings, was wife to two Earls. Power is no foreign tongue to me; I speak it as well as any man. No soldier under my husband’s command would ever have dared to maim a fallen foe, for all knew that Simon would never have countenanced it. Just as all knew you would!”
“You are wrong,” he said, not quite so calmly this time. “I am not responsible for what was done to your husband’s body.”
“No? I suppose you are not responsible, either, for desecrating his burial place? I suppose you know naught about that? Simon’s body—what was left of it—was dug up and reburied in unhallowed ground, all done, of course, without your knowledge or consent! Go ahead, make that claim—if you dare!”
She saw his eyes flicker; that he hadn’t been expecting. “I am sorry you learned of that,” he said, after a very long pause. “I’d hoped you would not. It is passing strange, but Simon’s enemies seem to hate him all the more now that he is dead, as if he somehow cheated them of their vengeance. De Mortimer and Gloucester raised such a hue and cry about his burial in consecrated ground that we agreed to their demand, and his body was removed from the church, laid to rest in a secluded corner of the abbey grounds. I cannot speak for Gloucester or de Mortimer or even my father, but I can tell you why I agreed: not to bring further shame upon Simon, and for certes not to give greater grief to those who loved him. It was a political decision, Aunt Nell. His grave was becoming a shrine of sorts, attracting too many malcontents and even some misguided pilgrims. It seemed wise to stop this foolishness ere it got out of hand. I’d have no objections to his reburial in the church at a later date, once all this absurd talk of martyrs and saints has ceased.”
“You’ll have a long wait,” Nell snapped. “Time is no longer your ally; now it is Simon’s. You may have defeated the man, but I wonder how you’ll fare against the legend. You should have stopped them, Edward. Your Marcher friends did you no service, for when they hacked Simon’s body to pieces, they tarnished your great victory, turned it into something base and mean-spirited. And the irony is that, in seeking to dishonor Simon, they did but dishonor themselves. All the blood in Christendom will not dim the luster of my husband’s memory. For men will remember Simon de Montfort!”
Edward’s mouth was tautly drawn, and the flush along his cheekbones was very noticeable now. But there was grudging honesty in the answer he gave her. “Yes,” he conceded, “Simon will be remembered.” Reaching for her hand, he brought it to his lips in a very formal farewell. As he turned to go, his gaze fell upon her list, where it had fallen, unnoticed, to the floor. Nell saw it, too, and stiffened. For an endless, suspenseful moment, Edward’s eyes held hers, and then he reached down, retrieved the list and tucked it away in a pouch at his belt. At the door, he paused, glanced back over his shoulder. “But I shall be remembered, too,” he said.
As soon as the door closed, Nell sat down abruptly upon the bed, utterly unnerved by the magnitude of the risk she’d just taken. What a fool she’d been, for she’d never have forgiven herself if she’d destroyed her household’s hopes of reprieve. And yet she could not have kept silent, no matter the cost. There was nothing rational about her rage; it was a physical force, no more within her ability to control than any storm of nature, any tempest of God. There were times when it frightened her, this anger that seemed to have burned into the very depths of her brain, this anger that spared so few, not even Simon.
As she’d once counted her rosary beads, now she counted her enemies, all who’d wronged her children. First and foremost, her accursed weakling of a brother. Edward. Gloucester. Roger de Mortimer and his wife, she who so liked battlefield keepsakes. A man whom she’d never heard of ere Evesham, and now would never forget—William de Mautravers. And as she lay awake at night, thinking what the future might hold for Ellen, who was to have been a Princess, for Amaury and Richard, for Guy, mewed up behind Windsor’s walls like a crippled hawk, some of her anger would spill over onto Bran, Edward’s unwitting pawn, and onto Simon, who’d died with honor intact but his family’s future in ruins, and lastly, onto herself, for believing so blindly.
It was awhile before she remembered the Bishop of Worcester’s message. Breaking the seal, she shook out a small object wrapped in cloth and a letter tied with ribbon. She opened the letter first, but without any expectations of solace. The Bishop of Lincoln and Adam Marsh had been as much her friends as Simon’s, but not so Worcester. She suspected that he suffered from a malady all too common to churchmen, a basic distrust of women. She knew for a certainty that he’d often disapproved of her, for once, years ago, he’d made the mistake of lecturing her about her failings as a wife, admonishing her to be more submissive to her lord husband. When she had related that to Simon, he’d roared with laughter, but Nell had not been amused, and her relationship with Worcester had never fully recovered from that rocky beginning.
With admirable restraint, the Bishop made no mention of his own jeopardy, offered his condolences in language as pedantic as it was elegiac. But then he’d written: “I came across something in Scriptures that could well
serve as Simon’s epitaph, hope it will comfort you as it did me. ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ ”
Nell’s hand jerked; the words blurred. “He’s right,” she said aloud, in a voice suddenly husky. “He’s right, Simon. That was written for you. I know that. So why am I finding it so hard to let you go?”
After a pause, almost as if she’d expected an answer, she resumed reading. “I want to tell you, Madame, of a conversation I had with Simon. It was a night in late July; that day we’d sought again to cross the Severn, had again been driven back. It was probably the bleakest moment of a bleak campaign, for we’d not yet heard from your son, our supplies were running low, and our men were understandably distraught. It was very late, we were alone, and for the first time, we talked about the likelihood of defeat.”
Nell put the letter down, only to pick it up again almost at once, afraid to read further, afraid of what she might discover, and yet afraid not to read it, too. Had Simon’s last days been poisoned by despair? If he’d lost hope, she did not think she could bear to know. Holding the letter up to the light, she read:
“I asked Simon if he’d ever feared that all our struggles, all our suffering might be in vain. Not a priest’s question, and he shamed me by his answer, by the shining certainty of his faith. He said no, my lady, and then he told me of a cave he’d found whilst in the Holy Land. It was said to have magical powers; a man could shout and long after it had died away, it echoed back as if from the very bowels of the earth. Simon had so marveled at it that he’d never forgotten it. And that night in Hereford Castle, he said that whilst it might seem as if we were but shouting into the wind, our echoes, too, would come back in time, echoes to hearten the godly and haunt kings. He laughed then, but he believed it, my lady, and I found I believed, too.”
Nell did not realize she was crying until tears splashed onto the parchment, bled into the ink. “It was then that Simon said, ‘My fears are not for England. My fear is that because I could not fail my God, I might well fail my wife.’ ”
Nell’s throat closed up. “Simon, you knew…” The letter fluttered from her fingers, and she wept as she’d not wept since that first night of her widowhood. She lay prone upon the bed, clutching a pillow as if it alone could keep her afloat, for she truly did feel as if she were drowning, strangling on her own sobs. And yet this hot, surging tide was somehow easier to bear than the ice-encrusted desolation that had so blighted her heart, her soul. When the spasms finally eased, she was panting, trembling, drenched in sweat. Sitting up, she wiped her face with the sheet, then groped in the floor rushes for the letter.
“I would that I could remember all we said that night, my lady. Alas, I cannot. I do recall that Simon talked about your children, in particular, your little lass; I think he saw her as more vulnerable than your lads. And then he truly surprised me. He’d moved to the window, for as you know, he was never one for sitting still. I always thought it a minor miracle that you ever kept him immobile long enough for that broken leg to heal. It was quiet; neither of us had spoken for a time, when he said softly, ‘All men fear for their families; in that I am no different from any soldier asleep out in the hall. But I am luckier than most, for I have a wife able to cope with Armageddon itself. As I entrusted Nell with the defense of Dover Castle, so, too, could I entrust her with our children’s future, should it ever come to that.’
“I must confess, my lady, that I’d never taken your true measure, and I could not keep from voicing my doubts, for that seemed too onerous a burden for the frail shoulders of a wife. I feared I might have offended him, but Simon was amused, instead. He said, with that sudden smile of his, ‘If there is but one woman in Christendom capable of matching wits with Edward, that woman is mine.’ ”
Nell could read no more; she began to fumble with the cloth, jerking until a ring tumbled out into her lap. She recognized it at once, a sapphire cut into the shape of a cross, set in heavy gold. It was Simon’s favorite ring, given him by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and never off his finger since his long-ago return from the Holy Land. Nell touched her lips to the cerulean gemstone. “Relics from the saint of Evesham fetch a pretty price, my love. If worst comes to worst, we can always pawn it.”
She was astonished by her own words; for the first time, the bitterness had been diluted with a hint of humor. Unfastening her crucifix chain, she looped it through Simon’s sapphire ring, dropped it down between her breasts; it felt warm against her skin, a tangible talisman to ward off the dark, to ward off demons, mayhap even hers.
“You did not fail me, beloved. And I will not fail you. I swear to you, Simon—and to God—that no matter what lies ahead, I shall not lose faith.”
On October 26, Henry invested his younger son, Edmund, with the earldom of Leicester. Two days later, Nell and her daughter sailed for France.
41
________
Kenilworth Castle, England
January 1266
________
England in the fiftieth year of Henry’s reign was an unquiet, troubled land. There was no peace, for Henry’s terms had been too harsh; there were too many men with nothing left to lose. Banding together, they joined John d’Eyvill on the Isle of Axholme, in the marshes of the River Trent. There Baldwin Wake came, upon escaping confinement. And there, too, Bran had come, bringing with him some of the Kenilworth garrison.
But in December, it was Edward who led troops to Axholme, and it was Edward who had the victory. A Christmas surrender took place on Bycarrs Dyke. Bran and his companions were compelled to place themselves “at the King’s award and ordinance, saving life and limb and prison,” and Bran accompanied Edward under safe-conduct to Henry’s Christmas court at Northampton. There Richard pleaded eloquently on his behalf. Edward, too, argued for clemency, and for a time Henry vacillated, pitying his nephew in spite of himself. But in the end, it was Roger de Mortimer and the Earl of Gloucester whom he heeded. Bran’s claims to the Leicester lands and titles were declared forfeit. Henry agreed to grant him five hundred pounds a year; in return, he was to abjure the realm, never to return to England.
But before he sailed, there was one final service he must do for the Crown. It was bitterly cold. Snow had been falling since dawn and by the time they reached Kenilworth, they were half-frozen. Ice glazed the surface of the lake, thick enough to still the water’s surge but not to bear a man’s weight, and the castle’s formidable walls were almost obscured by the swirling snow. Bran drew rein, glanced back at Edward. “You want me to ask for entry?”
“No…you might find so warm a welcome within that you’d decide to stay,” Edward said dryly, and Bran shrugged. He was doing what they demanded of him, seeking Kenilworth’s surrender, but Edward knew he did not care whether he succeeded or not. No more than he’d cared whether he came to terms with his uncle the King. Or that he was now moving within arrow range of the Kenilworth garrison. Edward had never before realized what a redoubtable shield indifference could be. He watched intently as Bran rode toward the Brayes Tower, called out for Henry de Hastings.
Edward and Thomas de Clare exchanged startled looks. Henry de Hastings was one of the few survivors of Evesham, and had contrived to escape custody once his wound had healed. But until now Edward had not known his whereabouts. Bran was continuing to advance, utterly undaunted by the sight of crossbows protruding from the tower embrasures. “I am Simon de Montfort,” he shouted. “Tell Henry de Hastings I would talk with him.”
The words, no more than what Bran could have been expected to say, nonetheless gave Edward a peculiar jolt. After a moment, he realized why. This was the first time that he could remember Bran ever using his given name. The wait seemed endless; it had begun to sleet. After an interminable time, a horseman emerged from the gatehouse, started down the causeway. Another ice-encased delay, and then a voice echoed mockingly from the battlements of the Brayes Tower.
“Is that truly you, Bran? I cannot say much for the company
you’re keeping these days!”
Bran disregarded the sarcasm. “I bear a message from the King. He promises that if you yield the castle now to the Lord Edward, he will seek no reprisals against you.”
Again, the words were right; could he be faulted if they sounded as if he were parroting foreign phrases, quoting from an alien tongue? Edward felt an unwelcome stab of pity. Kicking his stallion, he moved closer, heedless of his men’s cautionary cries.
They had their answer almost at once; obviously it had been well rehearsed. “Tell the King,” Henry de Hastings shouted down, “that we will surrender Kenilworth at the command of but one person—our lord’s lady. We’ll yield the castle to the Countess of Leicester and no other!”
Behind him, Edward heard exclamations of anger and dismay. For himself, he was not surprised. “Bran?” He nudged his stallion forward, ignoring the prickling at his neck as he ventured into the sights of a dozen bowmen. “Bran?”
Sitting his horse before his father’s castle, blinded by blowing snow and sleet, Bran was laughing. Peal after breathless peal, laughter choked and jagged and defiant, a sound that scraped along Edward’s spine like the point of a knife.
After failing to effect the surrender of Kenilworth, Bran was taken back to London, where he was kept under such close surveillance that he began to suspect treachery. On February 10, he succeeded in eluding his warders and fled to Winchelsea, where the men of the Cinque Ports were still in rebellion. Edward followed, won yet another decisive victory, and then shrewdly offered the defeated men a full pardon. But Bran managed to evade capture and escaped to France.
Upon her arrival at Montargis, Nell had been warmly received by the nuns, who’d gladly rented her one of their guest houses on the priory grounds. Their new home was far less luxurious than the accommodations to which they were accustomed, containing only a hall, a kitchen, and a small bedchamber for Nell and her daughter; moreover, the ship carrying Nell’s household goods had been captured by Channel pirates. But Nell’s regrets were not for castles, her sorrowing not for manors or jewels.
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