Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer

by N. Gemini Sasson

  “A horse,” he said. “Marked in the earth by those who lived here long ago. Before the Romans came.”

  I handed Patrice the remains of my meal and told her to give it to some of the men. Mortimer joined me on the fence, gnawing on a hunk of salted pork and washing it down generously with ale.

  “Why go to the trouble?” I stood and took a few steps forward, although my perspective changed not at all, since the horse carving was half a mile away. “I can’t see it serves any purpose.”

  “Why do we build churches if God is all around us?” He swallowed the last of his meat and drained his flask, wiping his mouth clean with the tail of his cloak. “They worshipped a horse goddess. It was a tribute to her: Epona. Women prayed to her to make them fertile.”

  I almost asked him if Joan had prayed to the horse goddess for her twelve children, but before jealousy took full hold of me, something caught my eye. I took several steps forward. To the north of the horse carving, riders crested the hill at a full gallop. I pointed to them. Mortimer squinted, peering into the distance.

  “More men coming to join us?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. We’ve stopped. They would not be in such a hurry for that. Messengers.” Only a handful, but they rode with determined swiftness. “They’ve come from the London road.”

  A knot of dread drew tight around my chest. Immediately, he called to Arnaud, who still had his horse nearby, and told him to bring the riders to us. Arnaud had barely taken off at a canter when a scowl marred Mortimer’s face. Leicester was approaching – and with a dozen knights tripping along behind him.

  “Ah there, dear niece,” Leicester hailed merrily. Then with a tip of his head to Mortimer, “My lord.” He lifted his face to the sky. “We’ll travel more swiftly now that the weather has broken. I took the liberty of sending men to gather news of the king. He came this way not a week ago. We’re on the right path. I wager we’ll find him before we get to Gloucester.”

  “We’ll find him when he’s run out of places to hide,” Mortimer said mawkishly.

  Leicester glared venomously at Mortimer, but just as Leicester took a step forward, shouts rang out from below. Mortimer bolted off, sprinting downhill, toward the sound of hooves sloshing through puddles. Halfway down the slope, he met the newcomers. One, a younger image of Mortimer, swung himself down from his saddle. In an instant, Mortimer embraced him.

  “Edmund,” I heard him say.

  As if abruptly aware others were watching, Mortimer let go and took a step back. Another young man stood shyly behind the first. Mortimer cocked his head at him. “Roger ... is it ... is it you?”

  Edmund and the younger Roger Mortimer. His sons.

  He embraced young Roger only briefly, before he thrust him, too, away. With a jerk of his hand, he motioned them to follow and led them to where I stood with Leicester and the others.

  Edmund Mortimer patiently endured his father’s stilted introduction before he began spewing out his news. “Sir Henry de Beaumont is on his way. He was but a day behind when you left Oxford. He has a hundred and fifty with him.”

  “No more?” Leicester questioned. “I expected better of him than that.”

  “It is a hundred and fifty less for the king,” Mortimer said. “What news do you have from London, Edmund? Any of John of Eltham, the queen’s son?”

  “Safe in the Tower, for now. Although no one dares to venture out into the city, as yet. It is still dangerous.”

  I feared for my son. For now, however, there was nothing I could do to help him. Nothing any of us could do but wait and hope. “My daughters – do you know where they are?”

  “At Bristol, my lady. I have that on good word.”

  Relieved to finally know where they were, I crossed myself and said a swift prayer for their safety. “Whose word?”

  “Lady Eleanor de Clare, it seems, was very willing to give out information to save herself. According to her, the Earl of Winchester was told by his son, Lord Despenser, to go to Bristol and hold it at all costs. Winchester left London only two days after the king did.”

  My heart plunged into my stomach like a boulder shoved from a cliff. They were indeed in the hands of Despenser. He had used my children against me before; it should not have been any shock that he would do so again. Somehow, I had known it would not be easy to get my children back. Not even with an army at my bidding and the greatest lords in the land beside me. My hands shook as I pulled my cloak around me, trembling. Leicester and most of the others would still want to pursue Edward.

  “My uncle?” Mortimer asked.

  Edmund’s chin dropped. “They say he was taken away.”

  “From the Tower?” Mortimer stared hard at him, confusion evident in the furrowing of his brow. “By whom? To where?”

  “Winchester. To Bristol, as well. But he was not well.”

  I touched Mortimer on the arm. “Why would he take your uncle with him?”

  He spun away, raking his fingers through his hair. Suddenly, he gave a dry laugh of realization. “To bargain with. Bristol is a feint. A double one. Your children to use against you. My uncle against me. Cruel and clever.”

  Henry of Leicester swaggered forward, his thumbs hooked in his sword belt. “It has already been decided. We’re going to Gloucester. To find the king and Lord Despenser.”

  Mortimer rounded on the earl. “They will be found! After all, who do you think is going to hide them? The Welsh? More likely than not, they’ll stay out of this entirely. It would be their death warrant to come to the aid of a powerless king, running for his life. No, if the queen wishes it, we go to Bristol first. Get our hands on the Earl of Winchester, free my uncle and return the queen’s daughters to her.”

  Like a sparring cock, Leicester puffed out his chest. “Bristol is protected by the Avon and the Frome. It has the thickest walls of any castle in England. You won’t be able to take it. No one ever has.”

  “Then we’ll lay siege.”

  A stale, broken laugh shook Leicester’s belly. “A siege could go on for months.”

  Mortimer thrust his jaw out, confident. “So it could, if one were ignorant of Bristol’s weaknesses.”

  “I told you, it has none,” Leicester argued. “And while you loiter outside Bristol for weeks on end, the king and Lord Despenser could escape to anywhere – to Ireland, to the continent, to – ”

  “Can’t you understand?” he screamed at Leicester. “If the king abandons his kingdom without appointing someone to govern in his place and placing the Great Seal in their care, we have every right to put his son in his place. We could take England back without levying a single blow. So let them abandon England. Bloody let them.” He glanced at me, then lowered his voice. “And by God, Bristol will not resist me.”

  I laced my fingers together, brought them to my lips and shut my eyes tight. Before I could beseech God to return both my daughters and my son to me, I heard Young Edward’s voice. I looked to see him bounding up the incline toward us. Sir William Montagu and ten more bright and bold knights followed him.

  “Perhaps,” Mortimer said to Leicester with marked sarcasm, “if you are so intent on hunting them down, you should tell the prince we are going on to Gloucester instead? That we haven’t time to save his sisters.”

  “Sisters?” Young Edward strode into the midst of the group, glanced at Leicester, who was still fuming, and then inquisitively at me. “Hunt whom down, Mother? And what news of my sisters? Have they been found?”

  My hands dropped down to cover my heart.

  “My lord prince,” Mortimer said with a flick of his hand, “these are my sons, Edmund and Roger.”

  Young Edward listened intently as Edmund Mortimer repeated his news.

  Then, with a coy smile, Mortimer turned to me. “My lady? Bristol – or Gloucester?”

  In my heart, I knew the answer. But it was precisely what Despenser expected of me. I shook my head and looked down. I could not think to speak, could not raise my voice in autho
rity when I most needed to.

  “P-perhaps ...” I stuttered, “perhaps Winchester could be persuaded to give himself up? His hostages – ” At the word, I halted, a black cloud of fright enveloping me.

  “Lord Leicester,” Young Edward said, his confidence rising with each word, “will you give the word to march?”

  “To where, my lord prince?” Leicester’s lips twitched as he fought a snarl.

  The prince blinked at him. “Bristol, of course. Where else would we be going?” With a wag of his fingers, he gathered his band of young knights about him and departed.

  Leicester had lost the argument. In the future, I doubted he would always yield so easily.

  So it was that we turned for Bristol, great in numbers, but divided in purpose. With each mile, my uncertainty faded. Not one more day would I suffer, if there was even the slightest chance of getting them back.

  39

  Roger Mortimer:

  Bristol – October, 1326

  THE RAINS ABATED AND so I drove the pace, aware that rest beckoned at the end of a long road. Food to feed our soldiers and wood for fire to warm them were easily come by, for no one seemed to care that King Edward had proclaimed many of us, myself foremost, as outlaws. The irony of it all amused me. Only a few years ago, I had ridden at the head of a straggling army, begging for scraps in a land already stripped bare, while men weary of empty bellies slipped away into the night. Now we had but to approach a town and the gates stood gaping before us. Whenever I demanded provisions in the queen’s name, they were given without question, often eagerly; but while I reveled in the ease with which success had so far come to us, I had also grown quickly bored of it. There was no thrill without a chase; no conquest without a contest.

  The queen sent an envoy to Bristol to demand entrance, while she and her son remained safely behind with the army. The envoy also carried word that our numbers would shortly be augmented by those of the Earls of Kent and Norfolk. If Bristol resisted, it would soon be overrun.

  Not far outside the city, I waited for a reply with a delegation, which included Leicester and the bishops of Hereford and Stratford. Bristol’s white keep thrust starkly against a menacing sky. The castle walls looped within a tongue of land between the River Avon to the south and the River Frome to the north and west. It had been years since I was inside those walls, but if my memory held true, the castle was not as impenetrable as Leicester swore it to be.

  Our answer came quickly.

  The messenger, a youth less than half my age with a knot of black curls bunched into a forelock, dropped from his saddle to bow before us. “My lords,” he said almost cheerfully, “a good morning to you.”

  One hand resting on his sword hilt, Leicester spat at the messenger’s boots. “It will be, if you bring us good news. What does Bristol say?”

  “We extend a hale welcome to our fair Queen Isabella and the noble Lord Edward. The town’s gates stand open, my lords.”

  With his fingernails, Leicester scraped at his scraggy chin and grunted. “What of the castle? What says the Earl of Winchester?”

  A cold wind raced across the open field to our west, tearing at our hair and clothes. In the distance, a column of black clouds advanced toward Bristol.

  “The earl wishes to negotiate.”

  At that Leicester slapped at his thigh, laughing. “Negotiate what? He’s surrounded.”

  He bluffed. Bristol was not surrounded. Not yet. Any fool looking out from the castle keep could see that. We would have to wait for the others to arrive before we could sufficiently position ourselves around the town without spreading too thin.

  The messenger’s jaunty smile dissolved. He forced his back straighter and met Leicester’s patronizing gaze. “He requests pardons for himself and his son, Hugh the Younger, Earl of Gloucester.”

  Leicester sobered abruptly. We exchanged a glance.

  “Why,” I asked, “does the elder Despenser speak on behalf of the younger one?”

  The messenger cast his eyes downward, as if it were the one question he had hoped not to hear. “He did not say, my lords, but” – he looked up again, tentative – “I can tell you the younger Lord Despenser arrived here with his father.”

  Blood surged through my veins. The wolf was near. The hunt had begun in earnest.

  I sprang down from my saddle and in one bounding stride reached the messenger. He recoiled, but not fast enough. I grabbed the front of his jerkin, yanked him to me and closed one gauntleted hand around his slim throat.

  “Perhaps, you could be persuaded to tell us” – I tightened my hold on his neck – “whether Hugh the Younger is still within?”

  His face flamed red, then took on a bright, purplish hue. Slowly, I uncurled my fingers until he drew in a ragged breath.

  He gulped and sputtered, struggling for air. “I do n-n-not know.”

  Again, I squeezed. Great drops of rain splattered against my face.

  “I swear,” he croaked, his knees beginning to buckle.

  “And the king,” I asked, “did he come to Bristol with them?”

  He tried to shake his head, but my grip prevented it. I let go and shoved him down into the muck.

  He collapsed to his knees and threw his hands out before him, kneeling like a dog. Coughs rattled his body until he retched, his spine arching with each convulsion. When he had finally regained his breath, head still bowed to me, he answered hoarsely, “My lord ... I swear on my life, I know nothing of the king. He was not with the Despensers when they came here.”

  If this stripling spoke the truth, the king and Despenser had separated. But why?

  I stuck out my hand to him. He gazed long at it before he took it. Then he got to his feet, wobbling.

  “The Earl of Winchester’s request is denied,” I said.

  Once, I had asked the same grace of Edward for my uncle and myself. If Despenser was still within ... if he actually was, he would receive no mercy from me.

  Leicester dropped from his mount and came at me, flailing his arms. “Denied? You can’t mean to lay siege? Bristol could stand a year against us.”

  I motioned the earl aside so our voices would not carry. Rain and wind whipped hard, forcing us to turn our faces away from its assault. “Do you want this over with ... or do you want both Despensers dead?”

  He threw his head back, sucking air between his teeth. It was too sweet a temptation for a man as vengeful as Leicester. “Dead.”

  More ox than fox, Leicester had to be led by the nose to see anything less than obvious. So I led him.

  “Then listen. Ten years ago Bristol defied the king over a matter of taxation. The Earl of Pembroke and I were ordered to bring the town to submission. There was a more effective weapon for that than starving them out: terror. With only two trebuchets and a mangonel we hammered the town with stones. Less than twenty days later Bristol fell. This time, with the town already throwing open its gates, we will not have to loiter here as long.”

  By then, I had his full attention. I continued. “Since Bristol was given into their lordship, the Despensers have permitted the building of houses that abut the castle walls. All we need to do is lull them into complacency. Let them think we have the patience and means for a siege – they have no contact with the outside now. We can scale the walls from the roofs of those houses. With enough men, the garrison will be easily overcome. All of Bristol will be ours, Winchester and Lord Despenser our prisoners ... and the queen’s daughters back in her care.

  “Put them on trial then – I give you free rein there, Henry. We know what the end will be. But negotiate with Winchester ... and you will have lost your chance at that which you most want.” I could have gone on, but Leicester was not so stupid he could not get my point.

  In a freezing rain, the messenger raced back to the castle, no doubt eager to be out of my reach. I could have promised pardons and then reneged on them, as Edward had done to me at Shrewsbury, but even when dealing with my enemies I would maintain my honor and not
offer lies to gain the advantage.

  There would, however, be no compromise. No clemency.

  *****

  I dispatched patrols around the perimeter of the city to watch for anyone trying to enter or leave the castle undetected. My spies went to work harvesting information from the townsfolk, journeying craftsmen, and nearby farmers. At every road, our soldiers blocked the way, ruthlessly interrogating travelers. Very soon, they brought to me a Flemish cloth merchant, who had come directly from Gloucester, where, he said, King Edward had issued another summons to gather an army to him. Those who heard the king’s order had laughed and ignored it, going about their business as before. The Fleming had heard Despenser was with the king, but he could not say it as a certainty. Since one man could not be in two places, Despenser had either been with the king at Gloucester all along, meaning the envoy had lied, or he was still inside Bristol Castle, fool enough to think the king would raise an army and rally to his defense. Electing to come to Bristol had been a calculated risk. I only hoped that it was one that would not cost me – and England – more than could be gained from it.

  I did not worry Isabella with the news that Hugh Despenser the Younger might be inside Bristol Castle, for in truth I did not know that he was. Yet with each passing day, I could tell by her silence that she had begun to doubt not only me, but her own judgment, as well.

  For six days we idled outside the town walls. Kent and Norfolk, who finally arrived on the third day, were stationed to the south and east, Beaumont and Wake to the west. The larger part of our army, Leicester’s forces and the remaining Hainaulters, were encamped on the far side of the River Frome, north of the Abbey of St. Augustine’s where Isabella had taken up residence.