Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer

by N. Gemini Sasson

  I drew the spear back, planted my foot and heaved.

  The wolf jerked sideways and turned its head just as the spear tore through its chest.

  That night Philip of Valois drank as heavily as if he had killed the wolf himself. Charles was pleased he had not. More valuable to me than a scrap of wolf pelt was the invitation I procured from the Countess Jeanne to come to Valenciennes in Hainault.

  I cannot say I missed England, but I would go back there one day. When the time was right.

  17

  Isabella:

  Kenilworth – Christmas, 1323

  I FIRST LEARNED OF Mortimer’s whereabouts almost two months after his disappearance. Bishop Orleton informed me Mortimer was in Picardy among relatives. Although I yearned to know more, I dared not ask. Ever reticent, Charles made no mention of Mortimer or his plans for him in his letters. Rather, he renewed his demands that Edward come personally to France to pay homage for Gascony. Urged by parliament to settle matters promptly, Edward at first agreed to go. But within the week he postponed his departure until the following year, saying there was too much unrest in England for him to leave it. In truth, it was Despenser he did not want to leave.

  In parliament, Despenser accused Bishop Orleton of aiding Mortimer. There was almost a riot on the floor. Evidence was merely hearsay, but since Orleton could not provide proof of his innocence and no one was willing to openly defy Despenser, Orleton was taken into custody. To protect me, the good bishop had kept our secret. Edward wrote to the Pope and demanded Orleton be removed from his bishopric. But when the Pope would not comply, Edward begrudgingly released the bishop – although his every word and deed were scrutinized.

  If suspicion alone implied guilt, I wondered what would become of me in time.

  For Christmas, the children and I joined Edward at Kenilworth. At the Twelfth Night feast, I took my seat next to my husband at the high table. On the other side of him sat Despenser. All night Edward leaned away from me and whispered to Despenser, who laughed behind his hand.

  The trumpets sounded as servants carried out three great platters bearing a boar’s head with gilded tusks and two peacocks with their feathers pretentiously displayed. All around me, wine and merriment overflowed, but I observed it all as if I were watching from outside through a glass window.

  Young Edward and some of the older children broke off into a game of Blind Man’s Bluff. Little Joanna began to fuss at her nursemaid’s knee and I quickly took her onto my lap, welcoming the distraction. I wound an errant curl from her temple around my fingertip and hummed to her. Her stubby fingers slid into her mouth. She went limp with sleep in my arms. I kissed the crown of her head and waved her nursemaid away. With Joanna’s head on my shoulder, I settled back in my chair.

  Suddenly, a shiver ran up my spine. I stiffened and then turned to look at Edward. He leered at me with a hatred so black I quailed. If I could have placed a finger upon his heart, I would have lost it to frostbite.

  I looked away. He suspected me. He must have. In place of Mortimer, he would cram me in that tiny, lightless hole and tell my children lies upon lies about me. They would not forget me, at first ... but they would be kept from me and the months would blur into years until I was but an echo of the past to them.

  Joanna stretched and yawned. Her eyelashes fluttered. She poked a finger at the corners of my mouth, trying to push my lips up into a smile, and then she kissed me wetly on the cheek. I drew her tightly to my breast.

  “I love you, my little one,” I whispered.

  She threw her arms about my neck and hugged me as fiercely as any three-year old could.

  When Ella escaped Ida’s watchful eye and pulled her big brother John onto the floor, they pretended to take part in a ring dance. I tried to forget about Edward. Tried to forget about Orleton and Mortimer. About Despenser. I concentrated on my children, so giddy with merriment and mischief that they clutched at their bellies and bumped into those around them because they had lost their place in the dance.

  Then, the fiddler laid down his instrument and the music ended. Everyone clapped and drifted away ... and I could still feel the cut of Edward’s stare like a cold blade drawn down the side of my face.

  During the fortnight we were at Kenilworth, Edward never once spoke directly to me. We were never together except for when public events demanded it. Countless times, though, Despenser was next to him, his lips as close to the king’s ear as any lover’s. To see Hugh Despenser stroll haughtily about Kenilworth, trimmed in the plushest furs and the brightest jewels, issuing orders at the slightest whim, anyone could have mistaken him for the king had they not known otherwise.

  By winter of the following year, Charles’ patience had been exhausted. He threatened to seize Gascony. Again, Edward stalled. He sent the Earl of Pembroke to France in a furious attempt to remedy matters. I held the greatest of hope in the earl. He was the one man remaining in Edward’s confidence who bore a level head on his shoulders. But Pembroke had barely set foot upon French soil when the hand of God struck him down. My hope withered with the untimely news.

  In June, wearied of the stalemate, Charles sent men to take Gascony by force. Edward’s great blunder was to appoint his youngest half-brother Edmund, the Earl of Kent, as Lieutenant of operations there. Eventually, Kent’s campaign eroded into such a debacle he conceded to a truce that, in effect, left the duchy in Charles’ hands entirely.

  Although it had not been declared, England and France were already at war. And in my husband’s eyes, I was the enemy.

  *****

  Langley, June, 1324

  As the months passed, Edward imposed ever-increasing restrictions on me, ordering me where he wanted me to go, forbidding me to travel without his permission. The following summer, he confined me to Langley to stay with the children while parliament, scrambling for another course of action after Kent’s failure in France, convened at Westminster. The result was that I was also stripped of my lands, along with the income they provided. My allowance, with which I paid my household staff and personal expenses, was reduced to one-tenth of my former income.

  Not so long ago, it seemed, while Young Edward was still a plump babe suckling at the breast of his wet nurse, Edward and I had summered at Langley. Sprawling above the banks of the wandering River Glade, Langley is a grand manor, with its hall hung with shields of green, gold and blue. We held a feast there that Whitsuntide. I can still recall the blur of tumblers, the riotous laughter, and the rounds of song. Edward and I hunted and hawked the days away and in the evenings we battled each other at chess. We stayed on for weeks. Our family was just beginning. Our future glimmered with promise at last.

  But just as summer is brief, so was our joy. Unlike summer though, it was never to come again.

  On a glorious June morning, almost a year after Mortimer’s escape, Young Edward and I rode out from Langley into the countryside. Two of my favorite bitch hounds and a gangly pup loped alongside us. Occasionally, the two older dogs stopped to investigate a smell and invariably the pup would turn the diversion into a game of play-quarreling, which usually earned him a quick nip to the muzzle. He soon learned to curb his roughness and sink to his belly whenever either of the other two so much as lifted a lip at him.

  Of course, we were accompanied by guards – Despenser’s men – but Young Edward and I made sport of galloping in spurts through hidden trails in the woods and over deep ditches, trying like mad to lose them. Eventually, they slackened in their diligence, letting us ride on ahead, so long as they could keep us in their sights.

  We eased our mounts to a walk as we went eastward along a shallow stream. The dogs padded through the water to cool their feet. We stopped to let the horses drink and just as the guards caught up with us, two of them dismounting to dip their hands in the stream, all three dogs lifted their heads, sniffed the air and bolted up the far bank.

  “Hares,” my son whispered. He slapped his horse on the rump and kicked its flanks hard. I rode after him, al
though I was not nearly so skilled a rider. The guards by then had tired of chasing us, but they struggled back onto their mounts and followed from a comfortable distance.

  My son flew over the sea of green like an osprey diving at an angle toward a school of fish. Every now and then a dog’s tail flicked above the top of the grass or a head bobbed up in an arc as the dog reached out in full stride, but the longer the chase went on, the less I saw of them and the further and further ahead Young Edward went. It was some minutes later, over a mile perhaps, before the prince reined his horse to a halt. By the time I caught up with him, the bitches had a half-grown hare trapped between them and were letting the pup have it.

  Gleaming white teeth bared, the young dog lunged. Without a sound it sunk its fangs deep into the thin flesh of the animal, raised it up in its eager mouth and gave a hard, sharp shake. The little creature’s head snapped to the side and its body went limp.

  “Did you see that, Mother? He’ll make a fine hunter. Oh, I’d have ten of him if I could. Such a nose. And keen eyes. And girls,” he said to the two bitches, who panted and hung their jaws low to the ground as they eyed the blood bubbling from the nose of the tiny corpse, “well done. Well done, indeed!”

  “Rather young for such a conquest, isn’t he?”

  “Six months, maybe,” Young Edward beamed. “Not half grown.”

  “He has promise, though?”

  “Promise you call it? Brilliance, I say.”

  “Like you. Beyond his years.”

  He slipped down from his horse, thumped the pup on the top of his gray, wiry head, and grinned. The pup laid the prize at his feet and the two bitches stalked closer, licking their lips, but awaiting their master’s approval. “I have done nothing half as amazing as him.”

  “But you shall do many great things. It was easy to see in you long ago.”

  “You only say that because I’ll be King of England one day.”

  I looked back over my shoulder. The guards were still a long way away. All the same, I kept my voice low. “And King of France, perhaps.”

  He shrugged. “My uncle is King of France.”

  “Yes, but he has no heir yet.”

  For a while, he seemed not to understand, but finally, his mouth broke into a smile. “Then I am his heir? Has it been proclaimed? Has he made a promise to you?”

  “No, not yet. But I would say you are the favored one. I have done my utmost to sow the idea in his mind, Young Edward. I think he is receptive to it, but it will take time. He has been searching for a new bride, without luck so far. Sooner or later he will have to give it hard consideration.”

  Young Edward toed the blood-wet hare with his boot, then kicked it toward the bitches, which at once ripped its small belly open and gnashed at its entrails. The pup got none of the prize. “France and England? Can a man be king of both? How?”

  “Not any man, no. But one who is favored by God, loved by those he leads, a brilliant man ... yes. He could be king of both. You could.”

  I anticipated the skeptical look of a boy and a shrug of his shoulders again. Instead, he lifted his chin and nodded, as if they were words he had waited and hoped ... no, expected to hear.

  “I could,” he said.

  *****

  Tower of London – October, 1324

  By summer’s end, I left Langley with my children and household and returned to the Tower of London. At the king’s summons, Lord Edward sat at his father’s side for the remainder of parliament. It was not an unusual request for the king to expect his heir to attend, given his thirteen years, but every parting from any of my children filled me with terror, for I always feared that I might never see them again.

  After supper one evening, Ella and I strolled through the cook’s herb gardens near the kitchen. Clouds had loomed above all day, but never delivered on their threat. The damp air carried the first distinct chill of autumn. Ella tugged me along the paths, stopping to smell every herb and ask its name. For her it was the current fascination, but next week she would be in the stables and the week after that in the kennels, pestering the grooms or the kennel keeper for each animal’s name and what it had eaten that day.

  “Fennel,” I said, as she poked a finger at its feathery leaves.

  “That one? And that one? What is that?” She gestured so rapidly I could barely follow her.

  “Lavender. Sage. Borage, I think.”

  “That one?”

  “I don’t know, dear. You must ask the cook the next time you are in the kitchen.” The cook, however, was no longer Mathilda’s husband, Dicken. While awaiting his trial in the dungeons after Mortimer’s escape last year, Dicken had taken suddenly and violently ill. The guards claimed the food had been bad – rank lamb stew left on the table too long before being scooped up and sent off to feed the prisoners. But no one else had gotten sick from it. Most likely, Dicken had been poisoned by someone who feared he might talk. Mathilda, whom I later learned possessed an endless wealth of knowledge about the properties of herbs, had been mysteriously snatched away one night. Perhaps she had been the one who had drugged the drink? Little matter and better I did not know.

  “They are all for eating?”

  “Some are for strewing on the floors, so we cannot smell the garderobe.”

  She wrinkled her nose at that. Then, distracted once again by the tidy rows of plants at her feet, she stripped some of the faded lavender from its stem to inhale. A smile opened up her face and she giggled. But it was not the lavender that tickled her nose in pleasure. She waved and I turned to look behind me.

  “Edmund?” I said, not expecting to see the Earl of Kent in England again so soon.

  He rushed at me with such suddenness that as Ella scurried forth to greet her uncle, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me. She churned her neck to look up at me in confusion.

  Breathless, Kent dropped to his knees before me. “Sister, there is something I must tell you.”

  “Should you not be in Westminster, Edmund? Or have you only now arrived?”

  “I was there.” He looked up at me with those same pale eyes as Edward’s, only his were not so cold and harsh. “I came straightaway, to tell you, so you would have time to prepare. To get away.”

  “Away? Edmund, what do you mean? Has this something to do with why I was told to come here?”

  “Everything, Isabella.” Standing, he cast a glance over each shoulder and lowered his voice. His fingers twitched. “Men-at-arms will arrive here in the morning – Despenser’s men. Your French servants, all of them, are to be banished. At least that was the talk when I slipped away, which was not easily done. Oh, Edward had much to say. He gave me quite a scathing lecture about my failures – as if he could do any better.” He turned his face aside, fighting a snarl. “He hasn’t, you know. Not once. Not really. The French come at you in deep columns, and as wide as the horizon, with row upon row of mounted knights in their shining armor. I was hardly sent with enough soldiers to take on the likes of that ... or enough money to pay for what I did have. How was I supposed to – ”

  “Edmund, they will discover your absence soon. They will wonder why you are gone and when they find out ... What will you tell them?”

  He scoffed nervously. “Nothing. I can be at Kennington Palace by nightfall. I won’t run and I won’t hide. If they wish to hang me for failure, they will find me wherever I go. And when they do, I shall say, truthfully, that I had tired of their persecution.”

  So, Kent thought his own life forfeit if he offended Despenser and if it was to be then he might as well spare me the same fate.

  “Where is my eldest son?” I had no more time for Kent’s self-pity, however grateful I may have been to him. I had to think, to act.

  “Still with Edward.” With a sad tilt of his head, he reached out to touch Ella on the arm, but she yanked it away from him. Her reaction startled him. Suddenly, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it so hard I felt the bones of my fingers crushed against one another. “Isabella, the children
... they are to be taken from you. Lord Despenser argued before parliament that there was too much danger of spying from the French in our midst. He rallied the barons to agreement, although they did not need much convincing. They all fear Charles’ intentions. Fear he will take us to war however he can. That he does not mean to return Gascony and will only make more and more demands of Edward. And before that rumble had died away, someone stood up and cried out that the king’s heirs were not safe and that they should be put into English hands so – ”

  “Meaning out of mine?”

  So, it had come to this at last. I marveled that it had taken so long. And all because Hugh Despenser whispered his every direction into Edward’s ear. Edward, who could not think for himself. Edward, who neither wished nor cared to be king ... who should not be king.

  Kent released my hand. His chin fell to his chest. “I am ashamed to say it, but yes.”

  I gathered Ella into my arms and lifted her up. She was almost too big for me to hold like this anymore. The scent of lavender drifted on the air as she buried her cheek against my neck.

  What does he think I will do to them?

  Ella whimpered and wriggled against my ribs, making me realize I was holding her much too tightly. I pressed my cheek against her tangle of hair and stroked her small back.

  My oldest son was at his father’s side. The request for his attendance at parliament had been nothing more than a ruse. And I had fallen so easily for it, believing the boy would be intermittently learning procedure and battling boredom, while pompous old men droned on like bees hovering about their hive. Being yet a child, he would sit obediently by and say nothing. They would inure him with their own mistrustful thoughts and blind prejudices.