Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer

by N. Gemini Sasson

  Slowly, Patrice rose, turned, and met the clear blue eyes of Arnaud de Mone. So much was shared in the fleeting look between them that the poignancy of it struck a pang of jealousy in me. Even before Arnaud, men had always desired her, pursued her and she had played with them like a sailor plays at dice to pass the time. But unlike the others, she had not grown bored with him. Rather, she had been the one doing the pursuing. When he first arrived at court on the tail of his knighted uncle, every female at court had learned his name, the place of his birth and his family lineage by his first day’s end. But it was only Patrice he saw. His eyes followed her everywhere, even though for a whole month he could not summon the courage to speak to her. Proving more of a challenge than she was accustomed to, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the pursuit. Two more months passed before he kissed her and two after that before he could no longer deny himself of her.

  Before his lips even parted to speak, Patrice must have recalled clearly the sweet tenor of his voice and the words he had spoken recently, for her fingers drifted up to her ear and paused there. For a moment it was obvious that she forgot me, forgot where she was and that only a day and a half had passed since she had been in Arnaud’s arms.

  “M’lady,” he uttered, his gaze locked on Patrice’s form, both of them visibly flushed. Then with a hard shake of his head, he bowed and thrust a letter into Patrice’s hands. “For Queen Isabella. From my lord king.”

  The letter rustled in Patrice’s outstretched hand. She stared at it as though he had given her a poisoned dagger.

  I willed myself to stand, but my knees were locked, legs numb, the blood draining from my head in a shockingly cold rush.

  “Read it,” I uttered.

  Patrice shrank into her shoulders. The tight, black ringlets at the back of her head disappeared into her mantle. She could read, although not well, and the king’s scrawling, she had once remarked, looked more like the fingernail scratches of an angry child on frosty glass than the letters of a learned man. After so many years of severity leveled at him by the Lords Ordainers, King Edward was too suspicious to entrust letters addressed to me to the scribing of a secretary. But more than the awkwardness of having to decipher the king’s writing, I knew Patrice was as reluctant to reveal the news that might be there as I was to hear it. She retreated, shaking her head.

  Sensing her discomfort, Arnaud stepped closer to her. “May I?”

  The letter relinquished gladly into his hands, Arnaud broke the seal. He squinted, twisted his mouth up tight and read, fumbling along at intervals where the words were crowded illegibly together:

  “Our Dear Consort,

  At present, we are unable to send aid to you, our beloved consort. My dearest and most ... most trusted cousin, the Earl of Richmond, after a long and courageous battle, was taken at Byland Moor by the wicked and traitorous Robert the Bruce. We are deeply ... deeply concerned for our kinsman. As soon as circumstances permit, we will demand his release and if need be offer ... monies for his ransom. We fear, however, the price will be impossible, if only to taunt us.

  We have taken flight from Rievaulx Abbey by way of Bridlington and at last found refuge at York, where we await you. You are commanded to take ship posthaste. My councilors advise that the ... Scottish traitors may be aware of your location and will ride on Tynemouth – we pray not before this letter reaches you.

  May the Holy Spirit bless and keep you.

  Edwardus Rex

  16th day of October, 1322”

  I forced myself to my feet, plucked the letter from Arnaud’s unsuspecting hands and reread it. When I raised my eyes again, my voice began shakily, but with each word it grew in volume and spite. “Take ship? I have no ships. He provided me with none, saying I would not likely need them! How am I to take ship to him if he is in York forty miles from shore?!”

  “My lady, I believe he means,” Arnaud began gently, trying to insert calm into the crisis, “for you to make land to the east at – ”

  “I know what he means!” I stomped my foot. White pain shot up from my heel through my calf, but it was lost in the red fury that consumed me. I had requested ... begged for a sufficient escort to see me safely back to London and for weeks I had been given nothing but excuses. “What this means is the Scots are somewhere between here and York – that we are cut off from any relief force and left to fend for ourselves. What this means is the Bruce has once more outwitted our king. The Scots will plunder their merry way home until there is not a cow left between York and Carlisle and – ”

  The Scots. We were doomed indeed if we expected them to turn away or spare their arrows because we claimed sanctuary here. I scooped up the hem of my gown and took four quick steps toward the door, then whirled about. “Arnaud, where were they last reported?”

  “The Scots? Richmond.”

  “On the road to Durham?”

  “I don’t know. They could be aiming for Cumberland.”

  If such was true, it would gain us precious time, however small. I breathed deeply, gathering myself inwardly. Clearly, we could not rely on others. Certainly not Edward. Our only surety was in ourselves.

  *****

  That evening Patrice found me seated on a pillow in the arched window seat of my apartments. Loose strands of hair dangled down over my forehead. Even as I glanced toward the door, I did not brush them away. I was too fraught with worry to bother.

  “Come,” I bid to Patrice, scooting a pillow across to her. “Sit with me.”

  Patrice sat down and took my hand.

  “So cold,” she remarked, scrunching her eyebrows with concern.

  “It was warmer yesterday. The storm has brought a terrible chill with it. Winter is not far, I fear. It always makes me feel as if my bones might snap.” I returned my gaze to the window. Rain pattered steadily against it, smearing the gray of the nearly night sky into the black of the sea.

  We had grown up together in Paris, born only a month apart. That aside, we could not have been more unalike. My hair, once as pale as yellow primroses, had mellowed to a tawny hue. I was slight, despite having given birth to four children – my prominent collarbone and angular elbows apparent even beneath the thick layers of my brocaded gown. Patrice was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and everything about her was invitingly round: the swirling ringlets of coal black hair; the attentive curve of her brow; the healthy plumpness of her cheeks; a bosom so full and firm she looked the part of perpetual wet nurse. Had I not loved her so much I would have envied her for her looks alone.

  I was the daughter of a king: Philip IV of France. Both my father and mother were dead now, along with my two oldest brothers, Louis and Philip, who had both ruled in succession. My brother Charles, childless and only a year older than myself, was now King of France.

  For these past fourteen years, I had been queen to Edward II of England and done more to preserve this kingdom than any man shall ever know. Fourteen years, mostly unhappy if not for my children to give me some purpose and Patrice to absorb my sorrows.

  Patrice began to get up. “Let me tend the fire and bring you your furs.”

  I held her hand firm. “In a moment. Please, I need someone to ... to talk to.”

  “You’ve been up since before prime. You’re weary. In need of rest. When the ships are ready you’ll – ”

  “It will be days, maybe, before we can sail. Even when we do, in these rough seas we’ll be crammed into the dark hull of some merchant ship like mice drowning in a barrel of rainwater – nowhere to go, nothing to do but tread water and pray it stops.”

  “Oh, Isabeau, must you always worry so?”

  Isabeau. I smiled faintly at the childhood endearment. Even now, with disaster looming dark like a thunderstorm on the horizon, it was a sweet sound in my ears – one that I never heard come from English lips.

  “Yes, I must,” I admitted. “I cannot help it. Storms like this, this time of year – they can last for days. And while we wait for it to pass, the Scots have not stopped to dry themselve
s beneath a roof somewhere. They are still riding. Hard. Fast. If they know I am here ... well, we dare not ride from here without an army of our own, do we? No, we have to wait. Wait for the sea to relent and the skies to break. Wait and hope.”

  Sometimes it seemed that had been my whole life: waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Edward to come to his senses. Waiting for things to get better by some miracle.

  Patrice had been with me at York barely three years ago when the Black Douglas, leader of the Bruce’s lightly armed horsemen, the hobelars, had ripped through Yorkshire, raiding town after town, burning farm after farm, to divert the English army from their siege at Berwick. If not for the rash bravery of Archbishop Melton of York, who clashed with Douglas at Myton, though it amounted to a massacre of English monks and burgesses, we might have fallen into Scottish hands then. The selfless act bought us enough time to escape by horse. But on our way south, we witnessed the terror that Scotsmen left in their wake. The memory stirred the sharp taste of smoke in my throat and visions of bloodied bodies piled three high in carts.

  “I remember, too.” I brushed my fingertips against Patrice’s cheek, and then laid my head upon her shoulder. “I used to wonder what would have befallen us if ... if we had given ourselves up to the Scots then.” I thought I felt a shudder run through Patrice’s body, but I realized it was me. “They say that when the Bruce held Ralph de Monthermer prisoner, the stepfather of Gilbert de Clare, after Bannockburn that they went hawking together whenever the weather was good and feasted together daily. His nephew, Thomas Randolph, who betrayed him, was granted every comfort and kept in his constant company until Randolph was won over by his charm. Can the Bruce be so bad a man, then? Certainly there is kindness to him, despite his reputation in battle.”

  “I have heard he is fine to look upon,” Patrice mused.

  “And that he had a dozen mistresses while his wife was being held captive in England.” I had meant it to shock her, but I believe she thought it somewhat alluring. “I know not, Patrice, how long we can hold here against the Scots or how many lives I can give up trying to save my own. I only know it should not have come to this. If we stay, if too many die ... I will have to surrender the fortress. But they do not come to take a monastery. They come for a queen. And if they ask a ransom for me, Edward will balk at it. He will stall in negotiations. He cares not what happens here, to me. But I do. Not for myself so much, though. I cannot be without my children, Patrice. Cannot.”

  We sat close for a while, saying nothing, our fears absorbed by the sound of the rain as it drummed against the window. Finally, the deep rumble of thunder shook Patrice from her trance. She crossed the room to the hearth, jabbed at the logs with a poker and busied herself sweeping ashes, even though it was not her duty to clean. Then, she took my furs from the bulging chest at the foot of the bed.

  “You will see the children again soon. You will,” she promised as she draped a deep pelt of fox fur over my shoulders.

  “I pray so. If not for them, I would as soon wait here and give myself over to the Scots than throw myself to the mercy of the sea.”

  8

  Isabella:

  Tynemouth Priory – October, 1322

  TYNEMOUTH WAS BOTH MONASTERY and royal residence. On two sides its buildings were enclosed by a stout wall, one side was further defended by a deep ditch and the other by sheer sea cliffs. It would have seemed a likely place to discourage any foe’s assault, but the Bruce and his men, I knew, had conquered higher walls and crossed wider ditches than these. Thomas Randolph, the Earl of Moray, had taken Edinburgh by scrambling up the craggy, forbidding face of the mountain-high rock on which it sat. Sir James Douglas had scaled Berwick’s walls with his crude rope ladders, even as archers let loose their arrows into the darkness around him. In comparison to those fortresses, Tynemouth was an anthill. A siege would have been a mere formality: a grace before the slaughter. I thanked Our Lord for having given me the sense to leave my children behind: Young Edward at Windsor and the others – John, Eleanor and Joanna – at Langley.

  I had to leave Tynemouth. I had to return to them. I could not leave them with only Edward as a parent. They would fare better as orphans.

  Three days more it rained. On the fourth day after receiving the letter from Edward, there was only a thin, dreary mist coming down. The clouds broke, gathered, and broke again, all before midmorning.

  I leaned upon the parapet of the seaward wall of Tynemouth, my fur-lined mantle bunched tightly to my chest against a breath-stealing wind that muffled even the incessant cries of the kittiwakes. Occasionally, the gulls took flight from the cliffs – rippling clouds of gray-white against a shining dark sea. They beat their wings to go higher, only to retreat in exhaustion and huddle once more upon the broken cliffs. I thought I saw a pair of gannets dive from the clouds and slice into the water, but they were far away and the whitecaps were everywhere. Even further out, a thick bank of slow-moving clouds muted the union of sky and sea, but whether it was a new storm building or the last of an old one was impossible to tell. Westward, the land swelled up in a blend of moss-color and straw beneath a sky of slate. Somewhere there, the Tyne cleaved the undulating hills and a road traversed its length.

  The sea wind nipped at the back of my neck as I looked once more in that direction. A shaft of sunlight gilded the waves and I smiled to see a broad break in the clouds. If we were going to leave Tynemouth, it would have to be soon or else the next riders to come sweeping along the western road could very well be Scottish hobelars. Trusting in the sentries, I gave up my vigil on the wall and went inside.

  I was in the gatehouse, meeting with the garrison’s captain, when Lady Eleanor de Clare found me. My lady-in-waiting swooped at the waist and, before receiving acknowledgment, burst out, “My lady, the Scots have turned eastward from Haltwhistle and are following the Tyne.”

  Perturbed, I paused in my instructions to the captain and gazed at Eleanor. She was Edward’s niece and the wife of Hugh Despenser – that alone made her less than loved in my heart. Even more, Eleanor had been placed in my household without my consent. I would just as soon not have Despenser’s bedfellow, however occasional she might have been in that manner to him, hovering about. I might as well have had my mouth pressed to Despenser’s own ear.

  “When?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “The scout said they may be as far as Hexham by now.”

  Hexham was roughly a day’s ride. Outwardly, I did not waver at the news, but within I felt the rain’s dampness on my skin, felt it seeping through my flesh and into my bones.

  “My lady ...” Eleanor began, her voice thinning to a mewl, “if we do not do something, they will – ”

  “As I was telling the captain: The ship has already been loaded with provisions. But for my personal guard, the garrison will stay and defend the castle until we are safely away. If the winds allow, we’ll go as far down the coast as we can.”

  Immediately, I set about issuing orders. No task, I had learned, was ever accomplished by pondering on it overlong. By noon we departed Tynemouth, our cloaks wrapped tight about us as we descended the steep and winding path toward the shoreline where our ship awaited.

  Beyond the cliffs where the Benedictine priory sat, a rising wind lashed at the blue-black sea, churning the waves into foamy peaks. Against the ragged shoreline, the raging waves crashed in sprays of white. Then, broken and hushed, they retreated seaward in defeat. At the northern edge of the horizon, the sky had already begun to darken again.

  I looked once more toward the priory, wondering if I should order us back to wait until tomorrow, but with a glance Patrice banished my thoughts. She did not want to relive York, nor did I.

  My men-at-arms lifted the small rowing boat from behind a sand dune and carried it forward on their shoulders. I waited on shore while they rowed my damsels out in twos and threes to board the ship. The youngest of my damsels, Cecilia de Leygrave who was fifteen, hovered at my elbow, already blanched in comple
xion.

  “You do not like to sail, Cecilia?” I asked cautiously.

  Tremulous, she cast her brown eyes toward the lowering horizon. “Oh, I have not sailed much. Once before maybe. I was little then, so I don’t remember much of it. But I do not like storms, my lady. I do not like being wet or cold or standing out in the lightning. Ida told me once about her cousin who was struck by lightning – there was nothing left of him but a pile of ashes in his boots and the ring from his finger. And I have heard there are monsters in the sea that follow ships. That they especially follow ships with women on them.”

  It was strange to see the usually witty and tittering Cecilia so terror-stricken. I hung an arm over her shaking shoulders and forced a laugh. “Was it Ida who told you about the sea monsters who devour women? She is full of silly stories. Well, I have never seen a sea monster, nor have I ever known anyone who has. It is simply a tavern tale told by old sailors to make themselves sound braver than they are. So you needn’t worry about monsters, Cecilia. They don’t exist. Besides, I have hired the best sailors and the fastest ship north of London. We will arrive somewhere safe sooner than you know.”

  But I stretched the truth. The ship I had commissioned for our rescue was one that had recently been blown back by storms. A sodden and battered crew had crudely mended its sails, sliced by the gale. The hull had received a hasty caulking of moss and a spotty daubing of pitch. Its seaworthiness was highly suspect, but taking ship was no surer a fated death than remaining at Tynemouth.