Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer

by N. Gemini Sasson

  Her lashes fluttered. She stirred the food on her plate with the tip of her knife. Slowly, she turned her eyes on me. Green as the Welsh hills, they were. Her skin as creamy as milk fresh from the cow’s udder. I wanted to know every inch of her and I would use every minute of the night to do it, sleep be damned.

  She laid her hand lightly on my forearm “Patience, I beg. There are more important things.”

  “More important?” Under the table, I trailed my fingertips from the middle of her thigh to the point of her hip.

  “Your lodgings tonight are to be at Oseney Abbey, outside the town’s walls.” With an apologetic smile, she nudged my hand away, and then inclined her head in thought. “Two thousand pounds? Is that enough, you think?”

  What? I struggled to sweep the cobwebs from my head. Ah yes, Despenser’s head ...

  The clink of metal rang sharply in my ears. I looked up to see a square-shouldered man with thinning coppery red hair standing before us, both hammer-like fists propped upon his broad hips. His mail was dulled by road dust and the leather of his boots was cracked from wear. Over his mail he wore plates of armor. His spurs were of gold.

  This time, it was Isabella who stood. “Uncle Henry?”

  Henry of Leicester, or Lancaster as he fancied himself, flung his arms wide. Isabella rushed around the table to him. He grunted, even though her embrace was brief. My head rushed with blood. I held no quarrel with Leicester, but I had far from forgotten that his brother had failed me.

  “My lord,” he addressed the prince briefly and returned his attention to Isabella. “My lady and dear niece. When you wrote to me, you told me you had also written to the people of London. You said as London goes, so goes England?”

  “I did.”

  “Pray it does not, my lady. In heart, perhaps. But not in the same manner. When your letter was read there, it caused a great deal of ... unrest. The citizens rose up in your name. Rioted. Hunted down those loyal to the king and Lord Despenser. Mayor Chigwell swore allegiance to you and was spared. Others were not so fortunate. They took the Tower from Lady Eleanor de Clare. She gave your son, Lord John, up without a fight. Thought they’d treat her more kindly for it.”

  At the mention of her son’s name, Isabella clutched her stomach.

  Young Edward rushed forward to stand before Leicester. “My brother – is he all right?”

  “Yes, yes, for now he is. Warden of London, they made him. But I’d advise you to waste not a moment in sending someone to look after him.”

  Isabella pressed her hands together in a quick, silent prayer. Then she returned to her seat and cast an authoritative look at John of Hainault. “Sir John?”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said. “I will leave in the morning, at first light.”

  Before they could lay out the details of Sir John’s mission, Leicester interrupted. “Your pardon, my lady, but I came for other reasons, as well.” He hoisted his belt. “I was denied an earldom out of enmity and spite. My grudge against Lord Despenser, however, is over more than land. My brother is dead because of him. ”

  “If your brother had joined with me when he promised,” I said, my tongue tinged with bitterness, “he might not be dead at all.”

  “Or, you both might be dead,” Leicester countered.

  Before old grievances could be resurrected, Isabella intervened. “Please, my lords, we do no good to guess what might have been. Let us go forward, together. In a common cause. Lord Leicester, if you will remain with us, the council will discuss the earldom of Lancaster. I see no reason to keep it from you.”

  I wondered what ‘council’ she referred to, there were many lords of late who had thronged to her side, but then a more immediate concern gripped me. I scooted my chair back, rose and spread my hands on the table. “Lord Leicester, since you know of London, if those in the Tower were liberated, when can I expect to see my son, Edmund, and my uncle, Roger of Chirk?”

  “There were many held in the Tower, Sir Roger. If they were there, I imagine they have indeed already been set free. Perhaps you will learn more soon, but I don’t know any more than that.”

  A fog of sorrow crept over me. I had advised Isabella to avoid entering London because it was too dangerous there, even though I knew her son, mine and my uncle were in the Tower. I lowered myself slowly into my chair. After so long, I was not yet sure I wanted to see my uncle. The stubborn old bastard would argue I had not redeemed myself. And I hadn’t. Despenser and the king were not yet in my hands.

  The earl’s voice rattled me from my roiling thoughts. “Might you care to know,” Leicester said boisterously, “what has become of Bishop Stapledon?”

  It was not a question, but an announcement.

  “Lord Wake,” Leicester beckoned with a commanding gesture. Lord Thomas Wake shoved his way forward from the back of the hall and brushed past the prince. Wake, who was the brother of Kent’s wife, Margaret, had been in Paris for much of the past two years, but when Isabella and I were forced to leave there, he, too, had left. Until now, I had not given much thought to his whereabouts, but obviously he had taken refuge with Leicester. Against his chest, he held a basket. The sweet, pungent stink of rotting flesh mingling with blood seeped through its cracks and permeated the air.

  Young Edward drew his forearm over his mouth and nose, retreating as he did so.

  As Leicester threw back his head in laughter, Wake flipped aside the basket’s lid and pulled from it – the head of Bishop Walter de Stapledon of Exeter.

  Not by my hand ... but I exulted in it.

  37

  Isabella:

  Oxford – October, 1326

  THE BASKET DROPPED TO the floor at Lord Wake’s feet. With his fingers entwined in Bishop Stapledon’s blood-matted fringe of hair, he lifted it high. One of the misshapen ears, attached by only a loose strip of skin, flapped with every twist of his arm. A squirming clump of maggots fell from its nostrils. With sinister glee, Henry, Earl of Leicester, squashed them beneath his foot.

  A woman’s scream tore through the stunned hush. Then broken shouts rose to a rumble of cheers, swallowing up her cry.

  A burning river of bile rose in my throat. I swallowed it back. Horrified by my own fascination, I studied the distorted features. The bulging, crimson eyes were rolled back into the head. The skin, mottled by green and purple bruises, stretched taut across the cheekbones, except where gashes exposed the bone beneath. Flies swarmed around it in a humming cloud as Wake thrust it in my direction. I averted my eyes. My gaze came to rest on Mortimer.

  He stared at the grotesque trophy intently. An eerie grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. Although shocked, I hardly mourned the bishop’s death and would not have expected Mortimer to, either. Still, I could not allow Mortimer or anyone to take delight in such gruesome acts. Revenge was a sickness that corrupted the soul. I had seen it in Edward.

  My face still turned away from the sight, I raised a hand to quell the crowd. “Take it away, Lord Wake,” I uttered.

  I heard the scuff of the basket over the floor as he scooped it up and the thump of Stapledon’s head as he dropped it inside, then his footsteps dragging away to the end of the hall.

  “My Lord Leicester,” I began, “this was an act of rage, a murder which I cannot condone. May the Lord God forgive those whose hands are stained by this wicked deed. They did not know, in their hysteria, that the Devil led them to commit it.” My voice, I realized, quavered. I had known this uprising would not be a bloodless one. I only prayed it would all end swiftly and my son, John, would remain safe.

  “And yet, my queen,” Mortimer said, his words low but clear, “is there not some measure of justice in the act? We were all spared the tedium of a trial, which would have ended the same. I say the Londoners are to be commended for their expediency.”

  His declaration was met by nods of approval. I resisted the urge to correct him for contradicting me so abruptly, and in public. For too many years I had held my tongue with Edward. Never again would I allow
any man, including Mortimer, to silence me. “Whether it is right, Sir Roger, to take an eye for an eye is not in question. Justice should not be dispensed in so reckless a fashion.”

  “Reckless?” Mortimer echoed with sarcasm. “What would you advise then?”

  Perhaps it was the drink that made him irritable, or that I had rebuffed his overtures only minutes before, but there was a distinct surliness to his words I found intolerable. I tried to remain calm, to be the steady ship in this rising storm, but the rising pitch of my voice told otherwise. “Even the guilty deserve to hear an account of their crimes. And the punishment should be a fitting one, not one meted out by butchers’ knives and bricks.”

  “The punishment for treason is death.”

  “You, Sir Roger, were declared a traitor and yet ... you were allowed to live.”

  Mortimer gripped the table edge and slowly raised smoldering eyes at me. His lips twitched in a snarl like a dog that has been beaten by its master, yet dared not bite. “I never betrayed England. Never. I spoke out against Lord Despenser – that was my crime.”

  Regret flared inside me, warming my ears. I had spoken without thinking. Yes, Mortimer lived because I had begged for his life and I had cruelly seized this moment to remind him of that. Still, it was an unfair blow. I would make amends later, but a guildhall full of drunken men thirsting for retribution was not the place to sort out private grievances.

  “So it was for many, my lord,” Bishop Orleton said, rescuing me from further blunder. “There are innumerable wrongs that remain to be righted, but we cannot leave justice in the hands of a feverish mob. Do you not agree?”

  Mortimer flicked a crumb from the table. “Of course,” he spat between tight lips.

  Before anything more could come of my cruel stupidity, I changed tack. “Lord Leicester, where are my daughters?”

  “Now? I wish I could tell you,” he replied. “They were at Pleshy through May. Marlborough until a month ago. But they were taken from the Lady Monthermer then. Some say the Earl of Winchester, the Elder Hugh Despenser, has hidden them away somewhere.”

  My heart plummeted. It was ill news for them to be in the hands of a Despenser. More than anything, I wanted to see them again, to feel their arms around my neck, hear their small voices calling for me.

  “My dear lady, my good lords,” Leicester implored, raising his broad hands up high and turning about, “who, then, will bring you the younger Despenser’s head?”

  The crowd shouted its approval for Leicester. Tankards were thrust high, spilling ale. Spoons clanged on pewter trenchers.

  “Find Despenser!” he cried. He drew his sword and jabbed it toward the rafters. “Hunt down the thief who has stolen our riches, murdered loyal men and depraved our king. Force him to his knees.” With a jerk, he hacked his blade downward. It bit into the floor planks with a splintering crack. “Free England of its tyrant!”

  My daughters were forgotten. Like hounds on the trail of wounded quarry, they clamored for another beheading. Beside me, Mortimer was silent, clenching the handle of his table knife. As the roar of the crowd died away, Leicester sheathed his sword and smugly took the seat next to Mortimer, that which had been abandoned earlier by Bishop Burghersh. Mortimer, at once, slid his chair back, bowed to me without meeting my eyes and left the hall.

  Even as I watched his back disappear through the mill of bodies clogging the doorway, I thought of my girls and how long it had been since I held them.

  *****

  That night, I writhed in my bed, alone and tormented. I had planned for this, prayed for it. To return to England. To command its people in my son’s name. But justly.

  There were those, however, who would not be satisfied until the blood of their enemies flowed freely. I counted myself among them, because there were things I had not forgotten. Things I could not forgive.

  At midmorning, I sat at council with the prince, the bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Durham and Hereford and a dozen barons, half of them Leicester’s proponents, while he procured their blessing to grant him the earldom of Lancaster at the next meeting of parliament. Leicester also declared we would march to Gloucester, where we would surely learn of Despenser’s whereabouts. All agreed – those who spoke, at least.

  Mortimer was absent from the meeting. The message he sent was that he could not come, because provisions had to be gathered to feed the growing army before setting out again. With the Earl of Leicester’s arrival, our numbers were nearly doubled. Nothing would stand in our way. I should have been glad for that, glad that England had embraced us so heartily, but I had seen the first clouds of another storm brewing.

  The more I looked upon Leicester, who was my half-uncle through my mother’s mother, the more I saw the image of his dead brother Thomas of Lancaster in him. And it frightened me. Frightened me because it was the past hurtling forward into the future. Once, nearly a lifetime ago, I had calmed the rough waters between Lancaster and Edward. In the end, it was all for naught.

  It could not come to the same between Leicester and Mortimer.

  38

  Isabella:

  Vale of the White Horse – October, 1326

  A COOL MIST HUNG IN the morning air as we crossed the bridge over the Thames and headed west toward Gloucester. Like a snake through wet grass, the column advanced silently. By afternoon the mist had become a steady rain, soaking us all to the bone and forcing our heads down.

  Mortimer peeled back from the front of the line and came abreast of me on his mount. “You needn’t ride in the rain like this, my lady. Why not make use of your carriage?”

  I kept my gaze forward. To the front, Young Edward’s standard flopped heavily at the top of its pole. Scattered throughout the length of our column were dozens of other standards: sodden rags dangling limp at the ends of sticks, their colors and emblems indistinguishable.

  “The people must be able to see me, as well as their prince,” I said.

  “There will be no one about on a day like this to see you, anyway. You’ll take ill.”

  I lifted my hood from my head. Raindrops pelted my face and stung at my eyes. “I thank you, my lord, for your concern, but lately you seem to have appointed yourself my conscience, as well as my voice.”

  He looked at me, momentarily perplexed, and then scoffed. “That? That was two days ago. It was an offhanded comment. I merely said what others there were thinking. If you were not as happy as I was to see Bishop Stapledon dead, you were at least relieved.”

  The rain drummed on the soggy ground, on tree limbs, on shields and bodies, rising in a roar so loud no one more than a few feet away could have heard our conversation.

  “You contradicted me,” I said.

  “I disagreed with you. If I am to counsel you, then – ”

  “If you are to be among my counselors, you must heed my wishes. When I need advice, I will ask it of you.”

  He propped a hand on his hip above his sword and worked his jaw back and forth. Drops of water gathered in the stubble on his chin and streamed down his neck. “And is my advice of value to you?”

  “Very much so. More than anyone’s.”

  At that, the firm set of his mouth slackened. He dropped his eyes. “So if I disagree with you, if I have something that needs to be said, how am I to let you know?”

  “When we are together, the two of us alone, you can say anything. Anything. Only, in public, I must be the one who says what is to be done, whether in truth it is you who decides it or me. We cannot, in front of anyone, even appear to disagree.” Water ran hard into my eyes and mouth and seeped into the fibers of my clothes. I shivered, but not from the cold and damp. “I will not have anyone turn against you, as they turned against Gaveston and Despenser. You mean too much to England and to my son’s future. I need you too much. So let it be me who speaks. Let it be me they question or confront. Not you.”

  I reached out my hand. He looked long at it before he finally leaned out, took it and kissed it. He squeezed my fingers before le
tting them go. “Tonight, we will discuss our plans?”

  “I cannot promise tonight, but most certainly soon. At length.”

  “Alone?” he added, a playful smile on his lips.

  I forced a serious look as I teased him. “I thought I might invite Bishop Orleton and Bishop Stratford. Would you mind?” But I could not stop myself from returning his provocative smile.

  I lifted my face to the sky, expecting raindrops to patter on my forehead, but only a light drizzle brushed my cheeks. The downpour had passed. An easterly wind pushed along the low, broken clouds. In time they yielded to patches of deceptive sunlight, for it was hardly warm. Beyond Abingdon, we halted to take rest in a broad valley. Mortimer rode to the back of the column where it was reported that two wagons carrying supplies had become stuck in the mud. I noticed he often fussed over such details to busy himself, for thus far our ‘invasion’ had amounted to little more than a royal progression through the countryside.

  Patrice brought me a dry cloak and food. While we sat on a stone fence, nibbling at soggy bread and cheese so moist it turned to mush in our mouths, I gazed absentmindedly at the view around us. Our army filled the valley, looking like the Exodus of Moses’ people from Egypt. Men sank to the wet ground to rest their weary legs and dry weapons on the scraps of cloth they kept tucked away. Squires and grooms tended to horses. Priests floated through the mass of bodies, sprinkling blessings on indifferent soldiers who were more intent on filling their bellies than purging their souls.

  Some distance from the road on which we had come ran a long, low ridge, its thick mat of grass yellowed by autumn’s first hard frost a few days past. In the middle of the hill stretched a figure with sprawling limbs and a long body, carved from the turf to reveal the white chalk underneath. Had we not stopped I would never have noticed it, for we were passing in the opposite direction to which it faced. I puzzled over it for some time before Mortimer returned to relieve me of my curiosity.