The She-Wolf

by Maurice Druon

  ‘If the guard’s no better turned out next time, Alspaye, it’ll be you,’ he said.

  Then the whole garrison, with the exception of the sentries on the gates and ramparts, gathered in the Chapel to hear Mass and sing canticles.

  Listening at his window, the prisoner could hear their rough, untuneful voices. ‘Be ready tonight, my lord …’ The ex-Lieutenant of the King in Ireland could think of nothing except that he might perhaps be free this very night. But there was a whole day in which to wait, hope, and indeed fear: fear that Ogle would make some silly mistake in executing the agreed plan, fear that Alspaye would succumb to a sense of duty at the last moment. There was a whole day in which to dwell on all the obstacles, all the hazards that might prejudice his escape.

  ‘It’s better not even to think of it,’ he thought, ‘and take it for granted that all will go well. It’s always something you’ve never even considered that goes wrong. Nevertheless, it’s also the stronger will that triumphs.’ And yet his mind, inevitably, returned again and again to the same anxieties. ‘In any event, there’ll still be the sentries on the walls …’

  He jumped quickly back from the window. The raven had approached stealthily along the wall, and this time it was a near thing that it did not get the prisoner’s eye.

  ‘Oh, Edward, Edward, that’s going too far,’ Mortimer said between clenched teeth. ‘If ever I’m going to succeed in strangling you, it must be today.’

  The garrison was coming out of the Chapel and going into the refectory for the traditional feast.

  The turnkey reappeared at the dungeon door, accompanied by a warder with the prisoners’ food. For once, the bean soup was accompanied by a slice of mutton.

  ‘Try to stand up, Uncle,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘They even deprive us of Mass, as if we were excommunicated,’ said the old Lord.

  He insisted on eating on his pallet, and indeed scarcely touched his portion.

  ‘Have my share, you need it more than I,’ he said to his nephew.

  The turnkey had gone. The prisoners would not be visited again till evening.

  ‘Have you really made up your mind not to go with me, Uncle?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘Go with you where, my boy? No one ever escapes from the Tower. It has never been done. Nor does one rebel against one’s king. Edward’s not the best sovereign England’s had, indeed he’s not, and those two Despensers deserve to be here instead of us. But you don’t choose your king, you serve him. I should never have listened to you and Thomas of Lancaster, when you took up arms. Thomas has been beheaded, and look where we are.’

  It was the hour at which his uncle, having swallowed a few mouthfuls of food, would sometimes talk in a monotonous, whining voice, recapitulating over and over again the same complaints his nephew had heard for the last eighteen months. At sixty-seven, the elder Mortimer was no longer recognizable as the handsome man and great lord he had been, famous for the fabulous tournament he had given at his castle of Kenilworth, which had been the talk of three generations. The nephew did his best to rekindle a few embers in the old man’s exhausted heart. He could see his white locks hanging lank in the shadows.

  ‘In any case my legs would fail me,’ the old man added.

  ‘Why not get out of bed and try them out a little? In any case, I’ll carry you. I’ve told you so.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know! You’ll carry me over the walls and into the water though I can’t swim. You’ll carry my head to the block, that’s what you’ll do, and yours too. God may well be working for our deliverance, and you’ll spoil it all by this stubborn folly of yours. It’s always the same; there’s rebellion in the Mortimer blood. Remember the first Roger, the son of the bishop and the daughter of King Herfast of Denmark. He defeated the whole army of the King of France under the walls of his castle of Mortemer-en-Bray.3 And yet he so greatly offended the Conqueror, our kinsman, that all his lands and possessions were taken from him.’

  The younger Roger sat on a stool, crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and leaned backwards a little to support his shoulders against the wall. Every day he had to listen to an account of their ancestors, hear for the hundredth time how Ralph the Bearded, son of the first Roger, had landed in England in the train of Duke William, how he had received Wigmore in fief, and why the Mortimers had been powerful in four counties ever since.

  In the refectory the soldiers had finished eating and were bawling drinking songs.

  ‘Please, Uncle,’ Mortimer said, ‘do leave our ancestors alone for a while. I’m in no such hurry to go to join them as you are. I know we’re descended from royal blood. But royal blood is of small account in prison. Will Herfast’s sword set us free? Where are our lands, and are we paid our revenues in this dungeon? And when you’ve repeated once again the names of all our female ancestors – Hadewige, Mélisinde, Mathilde the Mean, Walcheline de Ferrers, Gladousa de Braouse – am I to dream of no women but them till I draw my last breath?’

  For a moment the old man was nonplussed and stared absent-mindedly at his swollen hands and their long, broken nails, then he said: ‘Everyone fills his prison life as best he can, old men with the lost past, young men with tomorrows they’ll never see. You believe the whole of England loves you and is working on your behalf, that Bishop Orleton is your faithful friend, that the Queen herself is doing her best to save you, and that in a few hours you’ll be setting out for France, Aquitaine, Provence or somewhere of the sort. And that the bells will ring out in welcome all along your road. But, you’ll see, no one will come tonight.’

  With a weary gesture, he passed his hands across his eyes, then turned his face to the wall.

  Young Mortimer went back to the window, put a hand out through the bars and let it lie as if dead in the dust.

  ‘Uncle will now doze till evening,’ he thought. ‘He’ll make up his mind to come at the last moment. But he won’t make it any easier; indeed, it may well fail because of him. Ah, there’s Edward!’

  The raven stopped a little way from the motionless hand and wiped its big black beak against its foot.

  ‘If I strangle it, I shall succeed in escaping. If I miss it, I shall fail.’

  It was no longer a game, but a wager with destiny. The prisoner needed to invent omens to pass the time of waiting and quiet his anxiety. He watched the raven with the eye of a hunter. But as if it realized the danger, the raven moved away.

  The soldiers were coming out of the refectory, their faces all lit up. They dispersed over the courtyard in little groups for the games, races and wrestling that were a tradition of the Feast. For two hours, naked to the waist, they sweated under the sun, competing in throwing each other or in their skill in casting maces at a wooden picket.

  Then he heard the Constable cry: ‘The King’s prize! Who wants to win a shilling?’4

  Then, as it drew towards evening, the soldiers went to wash in the cisterns and, noisier than in the morning, talking of their exploits or their defeats, they went back to the refectory to eat and drink once more. Anyone who was not drunk on the night of St Peter ad Vincula earned the contempt of his comrades. The prisoner could hear them getting down to the wine. Dusk fell over the courtyard, the blue dusk of a summer’s evening, and the stench of mud from the river-bank became perceptible once again.

  Suddenly a long, fierce, hoarse croaking, the sort of animal cry that makes men uneasy, rent the air from beyond the window.

  ‘What’s that?’ the old Lord of Chirk asked from the far end of the dungeon.

  ‘I missed him,’ his nephew said; ‘I got him by the wing instead of the neck.’

  In the uncertain evening light he gazed sadly at the few black feathers in his hand. The raven had disappeared and would not now come back again.

  ‘It’s mere childish folly to attach any importance to it,’ the younger Mortimer thought. ‘And it’s nearly time now.’ But he had an unhappy sense of foreboding.

  But his mind was diverted from the omen by the extraordinary silence that
had fallen over the Tower during the last few minutes. There was no more noise from the refectory; the voices of the drinkers had been stilled in their throats; the clatter of plates and pitchers had ceased. There was nothing but the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the garden, and the distant cry of a waterman on the Thames. Had Alspaye’s plot been discovered? Was the silence lying over the fortress due to a shock of amazement at the discovery of a great betrayal? His forehead to the window bars, the prisoner held his breath and stared out into the shadows, listening for the slightest sound. An archer reeled across the courtyard, vomited against a wall, collapsed on to the ground and lay still. Mortimer could see him lying motionless on the grass. The first stars were already appearing in the sky. It would be a clear night.

  Two more soldiers came out of the refectory holding their stomachs, and collapsed at the foot of a tree. This could be no ordinary drunkenness that bowled men over like a blow from a club.

  Roger Mortimer went to the other end of the dungeon; he knew exactly where his boots stood in a corner and put them on; they slipped on easily enough for his legs had grown thin.

  ‘What are you doing, Roger?’ the elder Mortimer asked.

  ‘I’m getting ready, Uncle; it’s almost time. Our friend Alspaye seems to have played his part well; the Tower might be dead.’

  ‘And they haven’t brought us our second meal,’ the old Lord complained anxiously.

  Roger Mortimer tucked his shirt into his breeches and buckled his belt about his military tunic. His clothes were worn and ragged, for they had refused his requests for new ones for the past eighteen months. He was still wearing those in which he had fought and they had taken him, removing his dented armour. His lower lip had been wounded by a blow on the chin-piece.

  ‘If you succeed, I shall be left all alone, and they’ll revenge themselves on me,’ his uncle said.

  There was a good deal of selfishness in the old man’s vain obstinacy in trying to dissuade his nephew from escaping.

  ‘Listen, Uncle, they’re coming,’ the younger Mortimer said, his voice curt and authoritative. ‘You must get up now.’

  There were footsteps approaching the door, sounding on the flagstones. A voice called: ‘My lord!’

  ‘Is that you, Alspaye?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘Yes, my lord, but I haven’t got the key. Your turnkey’s so drunk, he’s lost the bunch. In his present condition, it’s impossible to get any sense out of him. I’ve searched everywhere.’

  There was a sniggering laugh from the uncle’s pallet.

  The younger Mortimer swore in his disappointment. Was Alspaye lying? Had he taken fright at the last moment? But why had he come at all, in that case? Or was it merely one of those absurd mischances such as the prisoner had been trying to foresee all day, and which was now presenting itself in this guise?

  ‘I assure you everything’s ready, my lord,’ went on Alspaye. ‘The Bishop’s powder we put in the wine has worked wonders. They were very drunk already and noticed nothing. And now they’re sleeping the sleep of the dead. The ropes are ready, the boat’s waiting for you. But I can’t find the key.’

  ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘The sentries are unlikely to grow anxious for half an hour or so. They feasted too before going on guard.’

  ‘Who’s with you?’

  ‘Ogle.’

  ‘Send him for a sledgehammer, a chisel and a crowbar, and take the stone out.’

  ‘I’ll go with him, and come back at once.’

  The two men went off. Roger Mortimer measured the time by the beating of his heart. Was he to fail because of a lost key? It needed only a sentry to abandon his post on some pretext or other and the chance would be gone. Even the old Lord was silent. Mortimer could hear his irregular breathing from the other side of the dungeon.

  Soon a ray of light filtered under the door. Alspaye was back with the barber, who was carrying a candle and the tools. They set to work on the stone in the wall into which the bolt of the lock was sunk some two inches. They did their best to muffle their hammering; but, even so, it seemed to them that the noise echoed through the whole Tower. Slivers of stone fell to the ground. At last, the lock gave way and the door opened.

  ‘Be quick, my lord,’ Alspaye said.

  His face glowed pink in the light of the candle and was dripping with sweat; his hands were trembling.

  Roger Mortimer went to his uncle and bent over him.

  ‘No, go alone, my boy,’ said the old man. ‘You must escape. May God protect you. And don’t hold it against me that I’m old.’

  The elder Mortimer drew his nephew to him by the sleeve, and traced the sign of the Cross on his forehead with his thumb.

  ‘Avenge us, Roger,’ he murmured.

  Roger Mortimer bowed his head and left the dungeon.

  ‘Which way do we go?’ he asked.

  ‘By the kitchens,’ Alspaye replied.

  The Lieutenant, the barber and the prisoner went up a few stairs, along a passage and through several dark rooms.

  ‘Are you armed, Alspaye?’ Roger Mortimer whispered suddenly.

  ‘I’ve got my dagger.’

  ‘There’s a man there!’

  There was a shadow against the wall; Mortimer had seen it first. The barber concealed the weak flame of the candle behind the palm of his hand. The Lieutenant drew his dagger. They moved slowly forward.

  The man was standing quite still in the shadows. His shoulders and arms were flat against the wall and his legs wide apart. He seemed to be having some difficulty in remaining upright.

  ‘It’s Seagrave,’ the Lieutenant said.

  The one-eyed Constable had become aware that both he and his men had been drugged and had succeeded in making his way as far as this. He was wrestling with an overwhelming longing to sleep. He could see his prisoner escaping and his Lieutenant betraying him, but he could neither utter a sound nor move a limb. In his single eye, beneath its heavy lid, was the fear of death. The Lieutenant struck him in the face with his fist. The Constable’s head went back against the stone and he fell to the ground.

  The three men passed the door of the great refectory in which the torches were smoking; the whole garrison was there, fast asleep. Collapsed over the tables, fallen across the benches, lying on the floor, snoring with their mouths open in the most grotesque attitudes, the archers looked as if some magician had put them to sleep for a hundred years. A similar sight met them in the kitchens, which were lit only by glowing embers under the huge cauldrons, from which rose a heavy, stagnant smell of fat. The cooks had also drunk of the wine of Aquitaine in which the barber Ogle had mixed the drug; and there they lay, under the meat-safe, alongside the bread-bin, among the pitchers, stomachs up, arms widespread. The only moving thing was a cat, gorged on raw meat and stalking over the tables.

  ‘This way, my lord,’ said the Lieutenant, leading the prisoner towards an alcove which served both as a latrine and for the disposal of kitchen waste.

  The opening built into this alcove was the only one on this side of the walls wide enough to give passage to a man.5

  Ogle produced a rope ladder he had hidden in a chest and brought up a stool to which to attach it. They wedged the stool across the opening. The Lieutenant went first, then Roger Mortimer and then the barber. They were soon all three clinging to the ladder and making their way down the wall, hanging thirty feet above the gleaming waters of the moat. The moon had not yet risen.

  ‘My uncle would certainly never have been able to escape this way,’ Mortimer thought.

  A black shape stirred beside him with a rustling of feathers. It was a big raven wakened from sleep in a loophole. Mortimer instinctively put out a hand and felt amid the warm feathers till he found the bird’s neck. It uttered a long, desolate, almost human cry. He clenched his fist with all his might, twisting his wrist till he felt the bones crack beneath his fingers.

  The body fell into the water below with a loud splash.

  ‘Who goes there?’
a sentry cried.

  And a helmet leaned out of a crenel on the summit of the Clock Tower.

  The three fugitives clinging to the rope ladder pressed close to the wall.

  ‘Why did I do that?’ Mortimer wondered. ‘What an absurd temptation to yield to! There are surely enough risks already without inventing more. And I don’t even know if it was Edward …’

  But the sentry was reassured by the silence and continued his beat; they heard his footsteps fading into the night.

  They went on climbing down. At this time of year the water in the moat was not very deep. The three men dropped into it up to the shoulders, and began moving along the foundations of the fortress, feeling their way along the stones of the Roman wall. They circled the Clock Tower and then crossed the moat, moving as quietly as possible. The bank was slippery with mud. They hoisted themselves out on to their stomachs, helping each other as best they could, then ran crouching to the river-bank. Hidden in the reeds, a boat was waiting for them. There were two men at the oars and another sitting in the stern, wrapped in a long dark cloak, his head covered by a hood with earlaps; he whistled softly three times. The fugitives jumped into the boat.

  ‘My lord Mortimer,’ said the man in the cloak, holding out his hand.

  ‘My lord Bishop,’ replied the fugitive, extending his own.

  His fingers encountered the cabochon of a ring and he bent his lips to it.

  ‘Go ahead, quickly,’ the Bishop ordered the rowers.

  And the oars dipped into the water.

  Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, who had been provided to his see by the Pope and against the King’s wish, was leader of the clerical opposition and had organized the escape of the most important baron in the kingdom. It was Orleton who had planned and prepared everything, had persuaded Alspaye to play his part by assuring him he would not only make his fortune but attain to Paradise, and had provided the narcotic which had put the Tower of London to sleep.

  ‘Did everything go well, Alspaye?’ he asked.