I dabbed a few drops on my throat to please him and because it did not matter to me whether I was dripping in roses or merely scrubbed clean.
“But again, Charles – how shall I reply? I refuse to hurry anything simply because Edward commands it. I do wonder at what I have gained so far by being here – except for my own rejuvenation,” I added sulkily.
“You are not looking far enough ahead, Isabeau,” he chastised. “Come along. We have guests. Important ones, I believe.”
Charles gave me his arm. Outside my apartments, a flock of his courtiers parted before us and fell in behind my damsels. We went down two flights of winding stairs and walked a long corridor that passed by a row of tall glass windows, all open. A late spring breeze wafted through, carrying on it the musty smells of wood and earth. Sunlight painted patches of yellow over the bright blue woven carpet under our feet. Beyond Vincennes, I glimpsed the sprawling woodlands where the slightest fluttering of leaves among the rounded treetops stirred the forest to life.
When we came to the broad stairway that parted left and right, where it descended into the great hall, I slowed my steps, stalling. The large gathering behind us stopped at a respectful distance.
Charles traced the outline of his dimpled chin with a finger. “We will give your English king some of what he wants, but only a little. Not all. Then it will be done. Yes?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “What is some, dear brother? He wants the Agenais. All of it.”
“To train a dog, you have only to wave a piece of meat in front of it. If the dog is hungry enough, you do not have to feed it. Understand? Therefore, we shall let him believe he has won somehow. That he will get something, eventually. A matter of language, really. The treaty ... it will say that he will receive ‘justice’ regarding the Agenais and – ”
“Justice? Meaning what precisely? And when?”
“Whatever he imagines it to be, dear one. He keeps your children from you and we… we shall keep the Agenais from him, for as long as needed. As for when, shall we say ‘in due course’? An ambiguity. He will be momentarily confused, then angry. He will fume and grumble and whine and then ... he will sign his name to have it done with. Then, my dear one, you can go home.”
I stopped abruptly. England was not my home. But my children were there. And so was Despenser. How was I to resolve that terrible paradox? “I ... I can’t. I won’t.”
Charles pinched my cheek lightly and winked, trying to lighten my heart. “You must stay for my wedding, then. Jeanne will want you there. But please, I beg, do not poison her head with tales of wicked husbands. She is a lamb and I will have her that way on our wedding night.”
“My husband will protest,” I said. “Loudly.”
“Then you do wish to go back?”
“No!” I said, almost too boldly, but I could not help myself. “I cannot go back to – ”
He silenced me with a finger to my lips. “A thought, dear sister: What if ... yes, what if Lord Edward paid homage to me? Would he not suffice? Then the matter of homage, at least, is resolved.”
“But I thought we wanted the king to come, because only then can we remove Despenser.”
“He expects that, which is why he will never come. You said so yourself. If we give him the option of sending his son in his place, he will take it to be rid of this one problem. Then, once my nephew is here ... power turns to our favor.”
“How?”
“Then it becomes perfectly clear to everyone where Edward stands. He is not much loved by his people, is he? His son ... is. Who do you think England would side with if you were to return with an army behind you?”
An army? I mouthed, wondering how long he had been helping to plan what amounted to an invasion.
“All those English exiles in Paris,” – Charles put a hand on my shoulder and caressed it – “did you think they were just idly passing their time here? Write to him. Propose it,” he commanded with a quick flourish of his hands. “Now, our guests are probably wondering why we are standing here engaged in a private conversation in front of them. Ah, look. They have been staring at us so patiently.” His countenance brightened in a look of feigned surprise. He waved at Stratford and Airmyn casually over the stair railing. “Your grace, my lord, welcome! Have you been here long? We were planning a hunt in the morning, the queen and I, and were quite caught up in the excitement.”
Arm in arm, we descended the stairs into the great hall of Vincennes.
25
Isabella:
Palace de la Cité, Paris – June, 1325
THE SUN SLIPPED BEHIND the Palace de la Cité – a stark silhouette of blue angled against a muted pink sky – as Jeanne leaned precariously from the side of the barge. Between her fingers, she crushed flower petals and one by one dropped them, watching them spin and float on the air until they landed in the river.
“Charles will wonder where we have been,” she said mournfully, as if she had committed a grave sin. “We’ve missed supper.”
“Knowing Charles, he will have waited for you.” Besides, he had not let her go without a handful of dour guards. Six of them were clumped at the front of the barge sharing bawdy tales with the barge’s master and its ragged crew. I found their sense of humor even more offensive than their odor.
I handed Jeanne another pale blue aster. We had spent the afternoon going first downriver, well beyond the outer reaches of Paris, to a meadow dotted with wildflowers. There, we had plucked armloads until our fingernails were stained green and filled some thirty or so willow baskets with lavender, harebells and irises, taking up half the barge. The wedding was close at hand. The gown was fitted, the jewels chosen to complement it, the menu for the wedding feast planned out to the last herb and spice, the wine cellar stocked – every fine detail had been attended to.
She took the aster and stripped away its petals. “Isabella, can I ask you a question? Just one?” Her brows were so seriously drawn together that I was still contemplating when she blurted it out. “Do you love your husband, King Edward?”
Above the purl of the barge pushing through the water, the sounds of Paris slipped down from the banks of the Seine. The people there waved and shouted their greetings. My response, when it came, seemed far away, as if someone else were imparting it other than me. “Marriages are not always love matches, dear Jeanne. Sometimes it is our duty to enter into them for the sake of unity ... and peace. To ensure the royal blood is carried on ... To avert wars, essentially.”
She plucked a sprig of lavender from a nearby basket and inhaled its essence. “Then ‘no’?”
The lavender’s scent made me think of Ella and the evening in London when Edmund had come to warn me they were going to take my children away. Small things reminded me of them. How I missed my children, but Edward ... not for a moment. “No, I do not think I ever loved him, nor he me.” In fact, I could not say that I truly knew what ‘love’ was.
“How was it ... being with him, with a man you did not love?” The words had come out timidly, but whether out of modesty or pity I could not tell.
The act itself was always hurried, methodical, done with few words and even less touching. An act of procreation, not one of passion. I sighed, trying to expunge those black thoughts from my head. “At best – unpleasant,” I admitted.
“Is it always so?”
Poor Jeanne. So innocent. No wonder Charles had plucked up this dreamy virgin and wrapped her in silk and jewels. “No, I don’t believe it is. Not for everyone.”
Jeanne frowned at me in sympathy. I took her hand. “But some are lucky, like you, yes?”
Scarlet flamed her cheeks. “I think ... yes. If it is being able to think of no one else, that you cannot sleep, that it hurts to be apart, then yes.” She opened her other hand over the water to let loose a shower of petals, but they plopped down in a clump as the barge lurched to a halt to maneuver toward the banks of the Île de la Cité.
Charles was waiting there for her – tall and golden in
all his kingly glory. His arms reached for her as she came ashore, his eyes hinted at desire, and his light kiss over her ear promised rapture.
*****
In Paris, there is barely a blade of grass to be found. The rare weed that springs up from a crack at dawn is crushed by a thousand feet by nightfall. The main roads are of cobbles, hard on an animal’s feet and harder yet on human ears as carts rumble over them incessantly. Side alleys run brown and yellow with mud and sewage, reeking of urine and waste. Houses shove against each other and totter out over the streets at the second story, choking the light from the sky. Voices, both human and inhuman, crowd the air at every hour: the shrill whinny of horses being whipped forward, the barking of shopkeepers, the harping of wives, the raucous laughter of drunken men.
But even as I noticed the diseased Paris – its squalor and apathy – I also saw again the beauty: the bridges gracefully arching over the Seine; the boats coursing up and down the river’s length like water beetles skimming over pond water; the stately spaciousness of the Louvre; and the mystical solemnity of Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité, which Saint Louis had built to hold the Crown of Thorns.
It was at Saint-Chapelle that Charles and Jeanne were wed. The day began blistering hot at dawn. By noon, old women were wilting like cut flowers removed from water. Overdressed noblemen mopped the sweat from their brows and loudly groaned their misery. Jeanne’s gown was violet-purple, trimmed at the collar in white velvet, and with a silver cord strung with pearls around her waist. When her veil was lifted, her small eyes glimmered with tears of joy. Even Charles smiled throughout it all, as though in this young and innocent flower he had found the bloom of hope.
They began down the aisle to the eddying peal of bells. I turned to watch them go from the chapel. The colors of Christ and all his saints streamed down on them from the high stained glass windows. Before the doors swung open to yield to the ordinary light of day, I saw a familiar figure standing in the very last row.
Roger Mortimer.
Paris roared in approval as Jeanne and Charles stepped out into the light. And he, Mortimer, disappeared into the milling crowd surrounding them as if he had never been there at all.
*****
While only two hundred were able to attend the wedding ceremony in the narrow Saint-Chapelle, four times that number must have crammed the main hall of the palace for the banquet. Servants shuffled forth with elaborately arranged dishes of food on silver platters: a meat pie covered in rows of almond slivers and shaped to look like a hedgehog, pastries painted with egg yolk and saffron so they glimmered like lumps of gold, and halved pears simmering in red wine and cinnamon. Knives pinged as the carvers sliced away at mounds of venison, lamb and beef; wooden bowls scraped across tables; pewter goblets were plopped down on the trestle boards; drinks flowing from ewers and flasks gurgled; tittering and guffaws; the pleasant hum of conversation; and low growls followed by yips of surrender as Charles’ hounds, lurking beneath the tables and between the benches, lunged and battled for flung scraps and spilled sauces.
I searched the crowd for Mortimer, but with so many bodies and so much commotion it was hard to discern one face from another. People jostled elbows and bumped knees at the tables while servants swarmed around them like honey bees, bearing pitchers of wine and trays of food and carrying away the discarded samplings of the guests. Every voice joined together in a buzz of talk and laughter. The rhythm of music rose up and wrapped around it all. The din of merriment pressed out against the walls and bulged up toward the vaulted ceiling where it seemed to explode into an even greater noise.
I beckoned Patrice and whispered into her ear to seek out Mortimer. Shortly after that, she was at my shoulder, pointing to my right. Several tables away sat Sir Roger Mortimer.
“Tell him to come to me tomorrow morning. I wish to speak with him.”
Patrice wove her way through the twining servants. Then, she bent her glistening, dark head of ringlets to slip my message into Mortimer’s ear. He rose and lifted his goblet to me.
Robert plopped down in the empty seat next to me. Startled, I gasped, having been so absorbed in my thoughts.
“Bishop Stapledon has returned, have you heard?” He plucked a swan’s feather from his cap and twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.
I curled my fingers tight around the handle of my table knife. “When?”
“Today, hours ago, no more.”
“So soon?” I carved brutally at my slab of beef, dividing it into fine ribbons, not to eat it, but to appear busy as I digested this unwelcome news. “What more do you know, Robert? Is my son with him?”
Robert traced the edge of his jaw with the feather and then trailed it down his throat before laying it to rest on the table. “Sadly, no. No sign or word of him yet. Although I think we shall soon learn whether he is to come or not. There have been rumors ... I hear Stapledon asked – no, demanded to see you only minutes ago. Charles refused. The bishop was most displeased, I understand.” He leaned forward and blew a puff of air at the feather to send it fluttering from the table and onto the floor.
Knowing Stapledon had not come to offer fawning congratulations, I excused myself from my cousin’s company with a kiss and wended my way through a tangle of bodies. Charles, temporarily abandoned by his bride, stood at the edge of the open floor where the dancing was about to begin.
“I thought I should never get to speak to you today,” I told him.
Charles plucked up my hand and signaled for the music to begin. “Ah, you wished to congratulate me?”
“That,” I said, as we ducked through an upraised bridge of joined hands, “and to ask why Bishop Stapledon presses for an audience with me?”
“You heard he was here? I doubt it is as important as he deems it to be. I would assume he bears the treaty with King Edward’s signature. But I would refuse the Pope himself today, were he to ask for my time, or yours.”
“Were that true – that his appearance has to do with the treaty alone – he would have asked to talk to you, not me.”
“If he has half a wit, he knows I would have said ‘no’. Perhaps he wishes to consult with you first?”
“With me? He has never ‘consulted’ with me.”
“Isabeau, forget him. Celebrate with me. The music is high. The wine is flowing. And, if God would so bless us, I’ll have my son nine months from this night. Look at Jeanne. Have you ever seen anything so pure, so ripe for the picking? My life has a new beginning.”
“I’m sorry, Charles. I did not mean to steal any joy from this day of yours. Only, it worries me.”
Nearly breathless, we halted as he clasped my other hand and we joined the end of the tunnel. He looked past me and abruptly scowled. “Perhaps you should ask him yourself? There.” He yanked me aside and spun me around.
“My lord.” Stapledon wrung his hands beneath the draping folds of his vestments. He bowed, barely. “A joyful day. King Edward sends his compliments.”
Nothing about his countenance conveyed a look of joy; on the contrary, he looked as if he were bearing a death sentence.
“My bride and I thank you, your grace.” Charles gleamed on the
surface, but his voice was terse with indignation. “You were told not to interrupt this day. You came anyway. The treaty?”
“Signed, as written.”
“He agrees to send Lord Edward?”
Stapledon nodded curtly.
“Delightful! Now, if you will excuse us, your – ”
“I bring a message from my king, for his queen.” The bishop glared at me like a crow standing over a worm, angling its head to peck the life from a defenseless creature.
“It shall wait,” Charles ordained. “This is my wedding day. I forbid any seriousness.”
The request went ignored. “She is to return to England with me at once. Her business here is done.”
“No!” I blurted. Charles clamped a hand on my arm, but I shook it loose. “I will not. My son, he is to come
to France. I will not leave until he does.”
Stapledon remained smug. “He will come later, after you have returned to England.”
“My business in France is not done. Not until homage has been paid to my brother.”
“Your husband ... your king has decreed otherwise. Besides, he never made any such agreement to that effect.”
“I will go nowhere. Nowhere!”
Charles grasped me from behind by both shoulders. My limbs shook with rage.
“My sister,” Charles began, before I could bellow any further protests, “came of her own accord, on her husband’s behalf, to perform his duties. Because he refused to come. She will remain until they are completed, if she so wishes. She’ll go nowhere against her will.”
The dancing had ceased. The musicians broke from their unison; the flute faded breathily away; the harp notes drifted off erratically until they stopped altogether; and the pulse of the drums died suddenly until the only sound was the lonely keening of a bow being drawn across the strings of a rebec. Even Jeanne rose from her seat at the head table and came to Charles’ side to find out what was amiss.
Effused with his purpose, Stapledon glared at the fresh, young bride. “It is a woman’s duty to obey her husband. Such is God’s word.”
“And is it not God’s word,” I shouted for everyone to hear, “that a man and a wife shall not be rent asunder? What has that pariah Hugh Despenser done but that?”
Charles pinched a tiny fold of skin on the inside crease of my elbow. “Isabeau!”
“I will not stay silent anymore! He will hear me. God in heaven will hear me!” I ripped myself from my brother’s hold. The words emanated not from my rage, but from a truth that had gone unspoken. “Hugh Despenser has poisoned my husband’s head and his heart against me. Cleaved our holy union. Threatened me, even. I have begged my husband to let go of Lord Despenser, pled with him to show me kindness, for I am guilty of no wrong. Yet it is because of Lord Despenser that I have been denied, not only my husband’s affections, but also the company of my children. Hugh Despenser has filled my husband’s ears with vile counsel – vicious words that imperil the kingdom of England and those in it. But none will speak against him for fear of falling into disfavor. So I will do it for them. England has lost its king to the egregious influence of Hugh Despenser – and I have lost my husband.”
Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer Page 21
