The Follies of the King

by Виктория Холт

  Often they talked of this but as the winter passed uneasy thoughts came to her. She discussed these often with Mortimer who attempted to soothe her.

  Mortimer was taking every advantage of his position. His success had been even beyond his dreams. All his estates had been returned to him together with those of his uncle who had died in the Tower. Honours had been secured for his family and he himselfhad been given the title of Earl of March. He was virtually king of the realm; all he had to do was please his mistress and that was easy, for she was a passionate woman long starved of that satisfaction which they had found so spontaneously together. The young King had to be handled with care and there were signs lately that he was beginning to fidget in his harness. The Queen noticed it but Mortimer refused to believe there was anything to be alarmed about.

  ‘He questions everything,’ the Queen insisted.

  ‘Of course he does. He is very conscious of being King. But he is too young, too unversed in statecraft and the ways of the world. He will be a boy for a year or so yet.’

  ‘He is not like his father, you know. He is clever. He learns quickly.’

  ‘My dearest, do not fret about him. We shall know how to handle him when the time comes.’

  ‘And his father? I worry about him.’

  ‘Worry about the prisoner of Kenilworth! He will never rise to power again.’

  ‘But he lives. What if he should rally men to his side?’

  ‘Edward? My love, you cannot mean that. He is despised by all men. The people are delighted with their young King and their new rulers. They are devoted to you. Have you forgotten how they cheer you when you go into the streets?’

  ‘The Londoners have always been faithful to me, I know. But can you trust the people? They are for you one day and against you the next.’

  ‘They have long been faithful to you.’

  ‘Because they hated Edward’s friends, and he never made any effort to please them.’

  ‘Come, my dearest, let us think of other more pressing matters.’

  Mortimer laughed aloud as he held her dose to him. He knew how to divert her thoughts. She was a woman whose sexual appetites were insatiable and for so long they had been suppressed; now that she had found the mate who was completely in tune with her he could divert her thoughts with amazing ease. Her ambition was great but slightly less so than her desire for Roger Mortimer. He exulted in it, exploiting to the full the power this gave him.

  But although for the time her thoughts could be turned in one direction there were occasions when she thought with increasing apprehension of her prisoner husband.

  She began to notice as she rode through the streets that the people were less enthusiastic. She even heard murmurings against the newly created Earl of March. Roger was too rapacious. She realized there could be danger when she heard the whisper that it was Gaveston and the Despensers all over again, for the King and his lover had been replaced by the Queen and hers. She fancied too that young Edward’s manner was changing towards her. She believed he was asking those around him questions concerning his father. He was growing up.

  Since the coronation he had grown very serious, leaving all his boyish pastimes, studying state papers and acting like a king.

  It was all very well for Roger to say that they were in complete control.

  They might hold the reins at the moment but their young stead was getting frisky and at times she felt him trying to jerk himself out of his leading strings.

  Then her thoughts would go to the prisoner in Kenilworth.

  She determined to talk seriously to Roger. She would not allow him to lure her into a sensuous mood. This matter was vital and she was determined to make him see it as she did herself. She was a woman, she said, with a woman’s intuition and she smelt danger in the air.

  ‘Listen to me, my gentle Mortimer. I have heard that Lancaster and the King grow close together. They are cousins, remember, and Lancaster will not forget tbat Edward was once a king. It is said that they spend long hours talking together. Of what do you think they talk?’

  ‘Of what did Edward talk to his dear friends?’

  ‘You cannot compare Lancaster with Gaveston and Despenser. Lancaster is a man of power. He could become like his brother who, you could say, ruled this land at one time. Roger, I want Edward removed from Kenilworth.’

  Roger was thoughtful.

  ‘Yes,’ insisted the Queen. ‘They are together too much. He is not treated as a prisoner. They may well be plotting together. My son will be going to Scotland soon. It is expected of him. They are going to force him to act as his grandfather did and you know how he hammered the Scots. Lancaster must be recalled to join Edward’s army and that means that he can no longer be the custodian of the prisoner king. Come, my dear, tell me whose charge my tiresome husband should be put into.’

  Mortimer was thoughtful. Then he put his arm about the Queen and kissed her lips.

  ‘As usual you are right,’ he said. ‘We must be watchful. Lancaster is too close to him. First we will remove him from Kenilworth. Let the King call Lancaster to confer on the Scottish expedition. I have it. My daughter’s husband Thomas Berkeley shall be the jailer. My daughter’s husband will wish to please me. Edward shall be taken to Berkeley Castle. I can promise you that he will not be treated there as an honoured guest.’

  ‘As usual, gentle Mortimer, you succeed in calming my fears.’

  ‘Then,’ said Mortimer, ‘this coming day I shall set this thing in motion. Our prisoner shall be sent to a more rigorous prison where he will find jailers not in the least inclined to be his friends.’

  The Queen said: ‘He deserves no kindness. He humiliated me bitterly for many years. If you but knew―’

  ‘My love, my love, I know full well. He turned from the most beautiful woman in the world to his despicable boys. But it is all over now, Isabella.

  Sometimes I wonder whether we could have known the fullness of our joy in each other if we had not had to wait for it.’

  She was ready to be soothed, to be made love to.

  She exulted in Mortimer.

  * * *

  Edward was glad that the winter was over. His cousin had seen that he did not suffer too much from the cold as he might well have done. In the chamber where they met and played chess there was always a great fire and there were furs for Edward’s bed and others in which to wrap bimself when the wind whistled about the castle walls.

  Lancaster was changing, growing fond of his captive. He was beginning to ask himsehf whether it had been such a good exchange of rulers after all. Even in Kenilworth there came rumours of Mortimer’s arrogance, of the blatant manner in which he and the Queen openly lived in adultery. Mortimer was not only the most powerful man in the land, he was fast becoming the richest.

  Avarice had been the downfall of both Gaveston and the Despensers. But here was as greedy and grasping a man as had ever gone before.

  The more dissatisfied Lancaster grew with the Queen and her paramour the more sympathetic he became towards his pathetic prisoner.

  One May day when he had risen from his bed he found that visitors had arrived at the castle. He received them immediately for they came from the court. He was quickly informed that the King wished him to prepare to leave Kenilworth and join him in London. His counsel was needed with regard to the Scottish campaign.

  Lancaster was surprised. ‘What of my prisoner?’ he asked. ‘Am I to bring him with me?’

  Nay, was the answer. Within the next few days Sir Thomas Berkeley and Sir John Maltravers would be arriving at the castle. They would take over the Earl of Lancaster’s duties.

  Lancaster nodded slowly.

  He had known that at some time Edward would be taken out of his charge.

  He did not greatly care for the task which lay before him of informing Edward that they were to part.

  He looked with compassion on the tall thin figure— now almost gaunt, with the dark shadows under the faded blue eyes.

 
; ‘Thomas, cousin,’ murmured Edward, ‘they are going to take me away from you.’

  ‘It was to be expected,’ said Lancaster. I have my duties. I am to join the King.’

  Edward closed his eyes and the lines of despair were obvious about his mouth. Then he opened them and the stark fear in them deeply disturbed Lancaster.

  ‘It is because you have been too kind to me,’ he said fiercely.

  ‘I am told the King commands me to join him.’

  ‘And we know who commands the King.’

  ‘It may be that you will enjoy a change of castles.’

  ‘Who, cousin?’

  ‘Berkeley. Thomas Berkeley.’

  ‘Did he not marry Mortimer’s daughter?’

  ‘I think that was so.’

  ‘You see, cousin. I am to be put with my enemies. Berkeley! He was no friend of mine.’

  ‘His lands were confiscated,’ said Lancaster. ‘I beleive they were bestowcd on Hugh le Despenser.’

  Edward shuddered. ‘No friend of mine,’ he murmured. ‘And they will take me from here.’

  ‘To Berkeley Castle, I doubt not.’

  ‘Oh cousin, do not go. Do not leave me. Let us stay here together. You have made life bearable for me here.’

  ‘My dear lord, I must obey the King.’

  ‘I am your King, Thomas.’

  But Lancaster shook his head sadly, and silence fell between them. It was Edward who broke it. ‘Maltravers did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir John Maltravers. A natural choice because he married Berkeley’s sister.’

  Edward shook his head. ‘Another traitor― to me. He fled from England and joined the Queen in France.’

  ‘It is hardly likely, my lord, that they would choose your friends.’

  ‘Oh, cousin, a great foreboding bas descended on me.’

  ‘It is the thought of change.’

  ‘Nay, cousin. Here I have accepted my fate. I have grown accustomed to your company which has become very agreeable to me. And now― and now― I feel closing in on me, cousin― a darkness, a horror―’

  ‘My lord, it is this sudden shock. All will be well. When you first came here we were not such friends― In time you and Berkeley and Maltravers―’

  Edward shook his head.

  ‘Oh, cousin,’ he said, ‘pray God to help me.’

  Lancaster took Edward’s hand and knelt and kissed it and it was as though Edward had become his king again.

  ‘I shall pray for you, my lord. Be of good cheer. It may well be that life will be good to you yet.’

  But Edward continued to shakc his head. The deepest melancholy had settied upon him.

  Lancaster had gone and his new custodians had arrivcd. Maltravers was outwardly insolent, Berkley almost shamefacedly so, as though he could not stop himself remembering that this poor emaciated man had once been his King.

  ‘Rouse yourself,’ said John Maltravers. ‘There is a journey to be made forthwith. Should he be bound with ropes, think you, Thomas?’

  ‘Let be,’ replied Berkeley. ‘He is hardly in fit state to run away from us.’

  He who had once been a king before whom men bowed was now talked of in his presence as though he were a piece of merchandise to be moved whichever way suited his possessors. Humiliation indeed! But he was beyond humiliation. The terrible fear which had come to him when Lancaster had told him he was going would not leave him. He feared these men.

  To Berkeley Castle they rode. How different it looked from when he had last seen it. Then he had ridden in as the King and there pageants and festivities greeted him. How different now! Gloomy! Foreboding! An impulse came to him to shout that he would not enter. Let them kill him here― on the spot. He would not go inside that stone-walled fortress. His whole being cried out against it. He wanted to turn back to Kenilworth, to beg them to send his cousin Lancaster back to him.

  Maltravers jerked his head as he might to a groom.

  ‘Why the hesitation?’ he cried. ‘You waste our time, Edward Plantagenet.’

  How they loved to show him that he who had once been their King was no longer of account!

  He entered the outer court and went under the machiolated gatehouse. He wondered if he would ever come out a free man.

  His horse was taken from him— a poor miserable creature to denote his state and the contrast between it and the steeds ridden by his captors was pathetic. Maltravers laid ungentle hands on him and hustled him forward. ‘This way,’ he muttered.

  High-born Lancaster had never shown him such disrespect. He must now think of his days at Kenilworth as happy ones.

  He was in the baronial hall— a fine place at the end of which was the chapel.

  ‘I would like to say a prayer,’ he said. ‘Allow me to go to the chapel and kneel before the altar.’

  ‘You can pray in your room,’ said Thomas Berkeley.

  Maltravers sneered: ‘You should have thought more of praying when you had the time. You could have knelt before your altars then instead of before little Hugh.’

  They were determined to torment him. He knew they would be cruel jailers.

  He was mounting the great staircase leading to the keep and passing along a gallery when they came to a room which was heavily locked and barred.

  ‘Your new palace, my lord,’ said Maltravers with a mock bow.

  Berkeley unlocked it and the door swung open with a creak suggesting it was long since it had been used. It was dark. The only light which came into the room was from a slit high in the wall. It was narrow with enough room for a man to get his arm through, nothing more. On the floor lay a straw pallet; there was a stool and a small wooden chest which would serve as a table.

  ‘You cannot mean to lodge me here! cried Edward.

  ‘The man is ungrateful,’ cried Maltravers turning his eyes to the ceiling.

  Berkeley looked uneasy.

  ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘it has been chosen as the room you shall occupy while you are here.’

  Edward shivered and said no more.

  They left him and he heard the key turn in the lock. This was abject misery.

  He knelt down and prayed. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘let me die― now. Let this wretchedness end. God help me.’

  He rose from his knees and lay on his straw pallet. And then it seemed that God answered his call for help for he began to think of his son. That dear boy had loved him. It was true he himself had neglected the child. There had never seemed to be time to concern himself overmuch with children in the schoolroom. Hugh had demanded so much of his attention. But he had always shown his son love and affection. Edward could not know that his father was being treated thus. He would never allow it.

  Hope had entered the dismal room.

  Edward, the King, would save him. If he could but know what was happening to his father he would come and rescue him.

  If he could only get word to Edward. Meanwhile he was here in Berkeley Castle in the hands of men who hated him.

  * * *

  And how they hated him! It was their pleasure to heap indignity upon him.

  Maltravers was the worst. Sometimes he thought he detected a gleam of pity in Berkeley’s eyes and when he visited him without Maltravers he behaved almost humanely. The discomfort of his room was intense. Fortunately it was summer.

  He did not think he could live through a winter in such quarters. But perhaps by then Edward would have come to save him. If he could only get a message to his son!

  The food they brought him was almost inedible— the leftover slops from the platters of the serving men, he believed. They brought him cold muddy water from the moat in which to shave himself and Maltravers had brought with him a wreath of ivy to place on his head to resemble a crown.

  He had steeled his mind against their mockery.

  He had always enjoyed physical health. Like his father he had in his youth been full of vigour. He had preferred the outdoor life to study. So had his father but he had never let that preference pre
vent the attention to state matters and the study of documents which were part of a King’s duties.

  Lying on his bed, drifting back into the past, he knew he had failed miserably. He knew he deserved to lose his crown, but not this degradation. No, no man whatever his sins should suffer thus.

  He could not eat the foul food they sent him. Sometimes he thought of Kenilworth as a kind of paradise. So it had been in comparison.

  If only Lancaster were here that he might talk to him― He would not have cared what they talked of as long as they talked.

  The odour of the food on the platter sickened him. He longed for someone to take it away.

  He lay on his straw and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  There were voices in his room.

  ‘Perhaps we should send for a priest.’ That was Berkeley.

  ‘A priest! What matters it? Let him go unshriven to hell!’ Maltravers indeed.

  ‘Nevertbeless I will send a friar to him. No man should be denied such a privilege on his deathbed.’

  ‘Who would have thought he could have lived so long? He has the strength of an ox.’

  ‘He is like his father. They are giants, these Plantagenets.’

  ‘If his father could see him now―’

  ‘Perhaps he does, Maltravers.’

  ‘You are nervous, Thomas. You always have been. You can never forget, can you, that he was once a king?’

  ‘I am going to send a friar to him.’

  ‘If you wish it. I would save myself the trouble of sending for him.’

  There was quiet in the room.

  So they had gone and he was near to death— so near it seemed that Berkeley was going to send a friar to him.

  I welcome death, he thought. If I went to hell it could be no worse than this.

  I have seen Satan himself in Maltravers. I have touched the bottom. I can go no deeper.

  Edward, my son, you will come for me one day. If you knew what they were doing to your father, you would not allow this to happen to me.

  Edward, come to me, before it is too late.