Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer

by N. Gemini Sasson

  This had gone beyond reason. I had no power to hold over Edward, no force with which to defy anyone. What choice did I have, but to take my children and run?

  18

  Isabella:

  Windsor – October, 1324

  A WHITE FOG LAY suspended over the river as my barge sliced its thickness. It was two days past Michaelmas, October now, and the trees clustered along the banks of the Thames had just begun to yellow. I pulled a fur-lined mantle over little Joanna as she lay sleeping, her head in John’s lap. Ella, holding my hand, her eyes closed, leaned against me and yawned.

  With my three youngest children and Ida, I had left London by barge during the night. We slipped past Westminster where Despenser had been conducting his own parliament, past Sheen and Kingston, until at last Windsor appeared around a bend, rising above the mist hugging the riverbanks like Mt. Olympus above the clouds of heaven. As I gazed up through the curling fog at a high window in the Round Tower, I thought I saw a figure looking out from there. But it was far away and the fog had thickened. By the time we broke through the mist near the bank and I could see more clearly, there was nothing there.

  Beneath the feathery, drooping branches of a giant willow, the children and I left the barge and climbed into a carriage that had been awaiting our arrival for the short ride from the river to the castle. As nervous as a goose with her goslings, Ida unfastened the curtain ties at either end of the carriage to conceal us. I had brought along but four of my personal guards. Too large a party would only draw more attention. The rest had been sent late yesterday to accompany my French damsels, who were given no time to gather their belongings or say farewells. They were to meet me at Windsor and from there we would go north, or south or west, somewhere other than London, although how far or to where I did not yet know. Somehow I would get word to Charles, find a ship, and leave England, keeping my children and friends with me.

  Joanna slept soundly in Ida’s lap, while Ella and John clambered to the front and peeked out between the curtains. The houses along the road that wound up toward the castle were too familiar to invite my curiosity. I sought out a cushion toward the middle of the carriage, propped it against the side and leaned back. Since leaving London, I had not slept at all and could not keep my eyes open – not even when the carriage paused before passing through the main gate. Soon, it lurched forward again, the wheels rumbling noisily over the cobbled path along the perimeter of the lower ward.

  Strong midmorning light invaded the musty confines of the carriage as little Ella parted the curtains. I peeked through my eyelashes to see John leaning inquisitively forward for a look. But as he pressed his full weight into his sister’s shoulder for a better view, Ella mewled like a crushed kitten. Her whine, however, was drowned out by shouts from outside.

  “Stop there!” someone bellowed from in front of us. A coarse reply came from my guards riding alongside.

  The rumble of men’s voices. The creak of weapons being drawn. The clatter of hooves. Horses snorting.

  We slammed to a halt. John threw himself backward and cringed in the corner atop a scattered heap of cushions. “They’re here,” he whimpered. “He is here. Motherrr?”

  The sounds – gruff words hurled back and forth, a truncated rumble of defiance, somewhere a scuffle, a single clang, a muffled thud – they all came one after another so quickly it was impossible to tell what was going on. Finally, there was an extended silence. A silence interrupted only by my own heartbeat and the rapid, indrawn breaths of Ella as she grappled at her brother’s sleeve and buried her face in the cushions.

  “Ida, Ida,” I whispered, grabbing her knee, “look. Tell me who it is.” My other hand crept up to cover my heart. Do not say it is Despenser. Do not.

  Gently, she nudged Joanna from her lap, but she had not even stood to look out when a voice greeted us with the chill of January hoarfrost.

  “Ah, Queen Isabella, welcome,” Hugh Despenser called out. He tossed one of the rear curtains up over the covering’s frame and climbed inside. Upon seeing the three youngest children within, his lips spread into a wicked smirk of triumph. Then he stuck his hand out for me to take. “Please, let me help you.”

  John snarled like a cornered dog, but Despenser gave him no regard. Despenser was staring at me, commanding me almost, with those ghostly pale eyes of his.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded. “Parliament is still – ”

  “Still shouting back and forth, I would imagine. When I left they were squabbling over the building of ships – or perhaps it was bridges. I don’t know. A dreadful bore. Anyway, my business there was done. I always make certain it is addressed first. Last night, when it was learned you left London of a sudden, the king requested I find you. It wasn’t difficult. Barges move so slowly. And one seldom sees one so richly decorated as yours on the Thames. Besides, there are only so many places along the river fit for a queen. Once we found your French servants, I knew you would be along shortly. The king will be pleased to know you are all fine.”

  Ella scooted to me and tucked herself beneath my arm. I stared at Despenser’s outstretched hand and tilted my head back to look down my nose at him. “I would have sent word. It has not been my custom to seek my husband’s permission every time I wish to move about.”

  “Naturally.” He cocked his head to one side. “But then, with the situation in Gascony, these are not ordinary times. The whereabouts of his children are highly important. So you can understand why the king ... shall we say, why the king was overcome with consternation when he arrived at the Tower last night to find them gone?”

  This was not right. In fact, it was terribly wrong. Why had my personal guards not been able to stop him, or at the least warn us? When Ella retreated again to the front of the carriage and peeled back a corner of the curtain, the answer was there in the ward – all fifty of them. Despenser’s guards outnumbered my own more than ten to one. They stood with swords drawn, facing my guards down, who by then had been ordered down from their mounts, herded into a clump and forced to their knees. My men had not bothered to unsheathe their own blades, for on the walls above archers stood poised with their arrows nocked and ready.

  “What is this?” I asked. This could not be happening. Not now. Not here. Had Kent somehow led them here? Or prompted me to flee in order to give Despenser cause to apprehend me and charge me with some crime against the king? All I could think of was to shout out at the driver to take us away, anywhere, quickly, but I was not even sure if he was still there. Even if he was, there would be an arrow aimed at his head.

  Despenser’s gloating grin twisted into a sneer. He must have sensed the scream of terror rising in my throat, for he stepped further into the carriage and stuck his hand in my face, wiggling his fingers. “Do come out, my lady. Surely you are tired from your nightlong journey?”

  “I’ll go nowhere with you, Lord Despenser.”

  “Of course not.” He drew his hand back, smug. “And I have no plans to take you anywhere, personally. You see, I did not come for you ... although, you will be sent back to London.” He swooped across Ida’s torso and snatched up groggy little Joanna. She flopped in his grasp like a limp kitten as he went to the back and leapt down.

  A scream tore from my chest. I lunged at him, my fingers instinctively curled like claws. Joanna startled and awoke with a jerk. My nails slashed at Despenser’s bare cheek. He plowed his elbow into my breastbone and I felt the air whoosh from my lungs. I reeled back against the seat cushion. As I gulped for breath, Ella cried out. She flailed her hands wildly as a man-at-arms wearing the Gloucester livery yanked her out the front of the carriage. In between curses, Ida hammered punches at the soldier, but her gnarled old fists tapped fecklessly against his rings of mail. He laughed at the old woman for her efforts, tossed Ella to a waiting pair of hands and then dove back inside to go after John.

  But John was not so easy a target. He growled as the soldier came at him and bared his small teeth like a wolf cub. “Don’t touch me!
Don’t touch me, you pig turd!”

  As the soldier reached in to take John by the shoulders, John whipped his head sideways and bit down hard on the soldier’s hand. The soldier howled hellishly.

  “I am the king’s son! You will not touch me!”

  The soldier lifted his other hand and slapped John hard across the face. A bright purple-red mark blotched John’s cheek. Instead of fighting his attacker, my son now fought tears. I kicked at the soldier’s legs to divert his attention, but they were like the tree trunks of a century-old oak. Like Ida’s punches, which she had since given up on and resorted to hysterical cries for help, my assault proved futile. He grabbed John by the front of his shirt and dragged him out.

  I bolted after him, but just as I reached the front, someone slammed an elbow into my ribs, knocking the air from my chest. Slumping back against Ida, I gasped for breath. Outside, to the front of the carriage, there was a grunt and a thump. Before I could recover, the carriage jerked forward several feet, and then abruptly skidded to a halt again. Pain throbbing in my chest, I scrambled to the front, prepared to dive through to rescue my children. But as I pulled back on the curtain, a shadow fell across my view. Instinctively, I pulled back, my hand still holding the edge of the curtain. My driver’s body lay in a heap on the ground, a gash in his throat leaking blood into the cracks between the stones.

  Beyond the lifeless form, Despenser stood on the lawn of the lower ward, gloating, still holding Joanna in his arms. The shrillness of her crying annoyed him, but he would not give her up – not while I was near. He had never cared for children, not even his own.

  “Why are you doing this? Why?!” I screamed at him.

  “Why?” he echoed mockingly. “Why to keep them safe, my lady.”

  “Where are you taking them?”

  The slash of his mouth tilted into a smirk again. “You need not worry. They will be well cared for.”

  He rolled his eyes as Joanna pattered at his chest with her tiny, balled fists and called out for me. Then he gave an order to the new driver. “Back to London straightaway. Do not stop until you arrive at the Tower. The king wishes to speak with her.”

  The carriage lumbered around in a wide arc to start back and half of Despenser’s mounted guard encircled us, firm in their orders. A pair of riders swung close to the front and two more came to the rear. The mailed soldier nearest me flicked a fly from the rim of his shield, strapped to his forearm. Like the others, he also wore his helmet, as if they had expected more of a fight. He cleared his throat, swished the phlegm around his mouth and spat a great glob squarely in the middle of the curtain.

  “Stay in there till you’re told to come out,” he warned.

  With a terrible jolt that hurled my stomach into my throat, the carriage surged forward. The new driver did not know the horses, nor did he care to make this a comfortable ride for me. I was not about to give my surly guardian a reason to batter the life out of me, but I could at least learn a thing or two from him.

  “Why?” I queried. “Have you orders to take my life if I resist?”

  The only answer he gave was a throaty snort. Then he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hairy hand and fixed his gaze on the road ahead. We rumbled back beneath the raised portcullis of the same gatehouse through which we had arrived only a short while before, unsuspecting. The morning mist had broken, leaving only droplets of chilly dew on the blades of grass alongside the road paralleling the Thames.

  I was too stunned to wallow in tears. I had known this day would come. I had known, known they would take the children from me when all other recourse had been exhausted. Edward would never have done these things without Despenser beside him, telling him what to do.

  Ida reached across the space between the seats and tried to soothe me. Her knuckles were bleeding. “He’ll do no harm to them. He would not dare.”

  My fingernails pricked the flesh of my palms. I opened my hands to see four crimson half-moons in each one. “Ida?” I said, looking up. “Patrice, Juliana, Marie ... where are they? They were supposed to meet us at Windsor.”

  Despenser had not followed my barge. He had followed my women to Windsor. Or perhaps intercepted them before they ever got there at all.

  In the span of a day, my world had shrunk to only Ida. Soon, I would sit before Edward, his judgment of me already tainted by the poison of Despenser’s forked tongue.

  My marriage to Edward had been intended to keep the peace between France and England. Since the very day my father had told me of it, I had accepted my role with pride and honor, later giving more of myself than Edward could ever return, always fixing the pacts and relationships he had broken without him ever acknowledging it, sometimes without him knowing. Instead, our union had pre-ordained me to this fate: an enemy by birth.

  I crumpled against the side of the carriage and covered my face with my hands. Soon, they were drenched with my tears.

  No, no, no, no ... Edward would rather squander his days away hunting or quaffing ale with mummers and minstrels. Hugh ... Hugh Despenser ... he has done this.

  Despenser ripped my children from my arms. Despenser took them away.

  19

  Isabella:

  Tower of London – October, 1324

  IDA AND I WERE given nothing to eat or drink that day except for a nearly empty flask of water, tasting of old leather, a bruised pear and a fist-sized hunk of moldy cheese when we made a short stop in sight of Westminster. I feared we might be headed there, that I would be brought before parliament on some fraudulent charge, but it was only long enough to water the horses and then we were off again toward London. I nibbled at the cheese, then gave it to Ida, who stuffed it behind a cushion. She held my hand all the way and said not a word. The fear was plain on her face, as it must have been on mine, although neither of us spoke of it.

  We arrived late at night at the Tower of London. The rear curtain was flung open. I stepped out and before I could turn to wait for Ida, the horses were whipped forward, leaving me alone in darkness. My legs trembling with exhaustion, I was escorted by a mob of brutish guards, their countenances as grim as any executioner’s, to the king’s apartments directly above the watergate in St. Thomas’s Tower.

  They prodded me to the center of the room. Behind me, a hundred candles lined a long wall of windows overlooking the Thames. It felt as though I had walked into my own death chamber and at any moment a priest would float forward to utter last rites. If not for the boom of the door as the guards left, I would not have noticed them going, for all my attention was drawn to the end of the room.

  I stood before my judge.

  On a low dais at the end of the room where he usually gave audiences, Edward sat slumped in his tall throne. His sigh was as loud as the crashing of ocean waves upon a rocky shore.

  At the king’s right, on a similar, but smaller throne, sat our eldest son – Young Edward. He fidgeted, his mouth sunken in a frown, as if he no more wanted to be there than I did. No one could ever have questioned who his sire was, so striking was his resemblance to his father. But there the similarities ended.

  I swayed on my feet. It must have been after midnight by then. The sun had disappeared many hours ago while I was still on the road, shut up in my carriage like a caged chicken headed to the butcher’s. Edward, though, had apparently been waiting up for my return, expecting me.

  On the far end of the dais sat a blind harpist, his voice hauntingly beautiful. Einion, he was called, and although I had often heard him sing, I had never heard him speak. It was as if he could not form words without music.

  The Welsh harpist plucked sadly at the strings of his hand-carved instrument and sang of two lovers torn apart by their feuding fathers, only to have the young woman escape her prison and find her lover had killed himself out of hopelessness. Edward was adrift in melancholy. He liked such tales – those that ended miserably. I glanced around the room, counting candles, waiting for him to blame, accuse or interrogate me. But when the ballad ended, E
dward requested a gayer tune. The change in music, however, did nothing to alter his mood.

  I could tell from the way Young Edward barely held my gaze that there was confusion roiling around in his head. The last time my son and I had been reunited, not two weeks ago, he had run to my embrace and bowed his head for a kiss. Now he sat there aloof, immured by some invisible wall between us, and I wondered what lies his father might have fed to him in my absence.

  At the king’s left shoulder stood Walter Stapledon, the Bishop of Exeter. His rigid, blanched form resembled a statue chiseled onto the façade of a marble column. Of all England’s prelates, I liked him least.

  “Dear, dear Isabella.” Edward clicked his rings on the arm of his chair, his voice patronizing. He yawned, showing the cavernous back of his throat, and rubbed at reddened eyes. Then he reached for his goblet, took a long sip and peered at me over the brim. By the slur of his speech, he had staved off boredom by emptying several pitchers of wine. “I return here after an arduous session at Westminster, wanting to enjoy my family, and I find you nowhere. Gone. My children vanished without a word. How utterly upsetting. And disappointing. But then, you have often disappointed me. I expect it.”

  He leaned forward from his velvet-padded chair, elbows on his knees, the empty goblet dangling sideways from his hand. “What were you thinking?”

  There was little point in answering his question, so I ignored it. He would tell me anyway. Along the length of the wall behind him, a painting of a hunting scene showed three men in pursuit of a stag. Edward had commissioned the painting. The hunter poised for the kill was supposed to be Edward himself, but it bore only a faint likeness to him, being much more muscular. The second was clearly his old favorite Piers, although Edward claimed it to be one of his brothers, and the third was his nephew Gilbert de Clare, who was killed at Bannockburn.