Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer (33 page)

Then I turned to a young squire beside me. “Summon Lord Edward.”

The fatter culprit stumbled to me and let out a belch stinking of vomit. I held my breath until it wafted away. The other man, short and thin with a long, skeletal face, swayed left and right, then crumpled to his knees. Someone kicked him from behind. He crawled to me. I stepped on his outstretched fingers and he let out a kittenish wail.

“What were you sent to do?” I said.

“Find food
 ...
for the
 ...
the horses.”

“Did you?”

“Ahhh, no, my lord.”

“And did you pay for this? Any of it?”

He did not answer. I ground a heel into the bones of his hand. He wailed again.

The bigger one answered for him. “We hadn’t any money. So we took it. Was that wrong, lord?” He dragged a forearm across his beard to wipe away the last drops of ale.

I went toward him, to the relief of the man whose hands I had crushed. “Wrong
 ...
and stupid.” I rammed the butt of my hilt into the soft flab of his belly. “We have ale of our own. And we do not – do
not
steal from the very people we wish to welcome us.”

I beckoned to Sir John as he pushed his way through.

He looked at the cart and its depleted contents. “Thieves?”

“What do you do with thieves, Sir John?”

He thought about it. “Cut off a hand.”

“No!” Lord Edward broke through the crowd. “No. I think that
 ...
that would be too harsh a punishment. Sir Roger, what do
you
do to men who steal?”

“Depends on who they steal from and what, my lord prince. But in Ireland, we would strip them naked, then tar and feather them. Devil to scrub off. Left them stinking for weeks, too. Not even the camp whores would come near them.”

“Do it, then.” Pleased with himself for having a measure of authority, he turned on his heel and left.

But as I watched him go, Isabella was making her way through the commotion. Men parted at the appearance of her spectral form. Her skin was pallid, her eyes dark and sunken. Her hood had fallen back and her pale hair flew wild behind her.

“Your name?” she asked the bigger one as he swayed on his feet.

“Gurney, my lady. Sir Thomas Gurney.”

“And him?”

“William Ockle. We are both of us close acquaintances of Thomas Berkeley.”

My daughter, Margaret, had married Thomas Berkeley when she was fifteen. Two years later his father died, making him Lord Berkeley. But by then I had my falling out with King Edward. Margaret was shut up in a priory somewhere and the young Berkeley imprisoned. “My lady,” I interrupted, “I doubt my daughter’s husband would keep company with pilfering sots.”

Isabella let out a long, worrisome sigh and closed her eyes a moment. “Before you take your amusement in them, send them back to whomever it is they stole from. Let them utter apologies and beg forgiveness. Then, pay the victim for all this from my own coffers. I will not have the people of England running in fear from those who have come to liberate them.” She closed her eyes halfway again. Her voice was thin, ethereal. “A word with you, Sir Roger.”

I gave her my arm and felt her lean heavily into me as we walked slowly toward the shore.

She unhooked her arm and went to the water’s edge where the sea lapped at her shoes. Upon the horizon, the sails of the count’s ships were already disappearing. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not remark on why the fleet was leaving, nor did she flinch as a cawing swirl of blackbirds encircled her.

I looked around. No one had followed us. Not even, for once, Sir John. He had stayed behind to see that the queen’s wishes were carried out explicitly.

I went closer to her. “Did I do something to displease you just now?”

“That? No, no. It’s only that
 ...
that ...” Worry wove itself through the frail threads of her voice. “When I first came to England, to London, its people came out in throngs to cheer me. They threw flower petals before me. I was young then. I thought it wonderful. They did not even know me then, but they loved me. I was their hope. For an heir. For peace. Since then, though
 ...
how terribly wrong everything has gone.” She wrapped herself in her own arms as the wind tore at her hair. “Now, I have returned. With a foreign army. And I fear they will hail me not with flowers, but with arrows.”

“You assume the worst, Isabella. You defied Lord Despenser. Something no one else has dared to do. England will welcome you gladly. And it is your son – their newest hope – who shall ride at the head of our army. One day, soon perhaps, he will become their king.”

“Soon? Perhaps we should not assume too much, my lord.” Her chin drifted to her shoulder and she turned to look at me with narrowed eyes. “I have letters to be dispatched to the people of London and its mayor. I shall write another soon to my cousin, Henry of Leicester, but for now
 ...
for now we must sow the seeds for our favor in London. If Edward is there and London turns against him
 ...
But we cannot go there until we know that we will be welcomed heartily. Do you not think that wise, Sir Roger?”

She was thinking as a queen thinks now, not like the embittered consort of a neglectful king. If London could again love her –

A cry reached us from atop the edge of the low cliffs. I recognized Maltravers’ crooked arm as he waved to us. With him were twenty men on horse – many more than he had taken along to discover our whereabouts.

“Is that ...” she stood frozen, not trusting her own eyes, “who I think?”

“Sir John Maltravers has returned to tell us where we have landed, I assume.” I strained my eyes against the glare of the setting sun behind them. Next to him, a banner fluttered and snapped in the wind. Across its crimson field stretched the golden lion of the Plantagenets. “And with him – Thomas of Norfolk.”

So Kent had spoken true. Even the king’s own brothers had abandoned him.

35

Roger Mortimer:

Walton, Suffolk – September, 1326

ISABELLA RAN TOWARD THE low ragged cliffs where Maltravers and Norfolk were. The sodden hem of her skirts dragged upon the ground. Her foot raveled in the hem. She stumbled, nearly righted herself and then tumbled forward. Fast on her heels, I caught her around the waist and snatched her to me, pitching my weight sideways. My shoulder and arm hit the sand with a muffled thud, absorbing the shock of our fall. We rolled twice before coming to a stop. She had landed on top of me, her small back hard against my chest.

Rather than her gratitude, I received the sharp point of her elbow grinding into my ribs, then a jab.

“Let me go,” she grumbled. Struggling against my hold, she raised her voice sharply. “What are you doing? I said let me – ”

I clamped a hand over her mouth. For a moment I thought she might sink her teeth into my palm, but she expelled a breath and I felt her stiffen in my arms. With an abrupt heave, I rolled to my side and dumped her unceremoniously onto a bed of shingle. She snapped upright and thrashed the sand from her face with the fury of a cornered cat.

I stood and offered my hand. “Saving you from a fall, I thought, and from your own impatience. If that
is
Norfolk, then I suggest you not throw yourself at him, or anyone, until we know a few things more. Where the king and Despenser are, for one. And if they have sent an army against us, for another.”

She spat at my outstretched hand and helped herself to her feet. “I would have looked less ridiculous if you had let me fall.” Still whisking away the last grains from her lips, she walked, this time with forced restraint toward Maltravers and Norfolk, who by then had discovered Young Edward and ridden toward him. The two men dropped from their saddles and paid their respects to him. No alarm was raised with Norfolk’s sudden arrival and William Montagu was, as ever, fully armed and not more than two steps behind Edward.

We picked our way hurriedly along the crumbling cliffs, until we reached a place where their crest eroded into a dune that curved southward along the shore. Beyond the dune, to the west, were grazing marshes dotted brown by the faded sprays of sea lavender, but the recent storms had left the ground a soggy, stinking mess where no herdsman would have dared release his cows. Norfolk must have come from the south then, along the shore, not by the river estuary.

“Why don’t you trust anyone?” Isabella said as I came abreast of her.

“There are many I trust, my lady.”

She kept her chin forward, her strides strong and purposeful, despite the fatigue that still showed in the dark moons beneath her eyes. “But many that you don’t?”

I lowered my voice as we approached the gathering crowd. I had placed my trust too lightly before and nearly paid with my life. I only sought to spare her the same. “It would serve you well to be as cautious, my lady.”

I heard only a slight, but obdurate ‘humph’ from her mouth. She pounded yet more sand from her clothing and drew her shoulders back proudly.

“Lord Thomas, my dear brother,” she called.

As soon as he saw the queen, the Earl of Norfolk swept forward in a long, low bow to Isabella. He was a year older than Edmund of Kent, somewhere in his mid twenties, with boyish, sandy locks that fell across his eyes with every tip or turn of his head.

“Welcome to Suffolk, my lady.” He straightened abruptly and a tepid, yet charming smile broke across the perfectly molded features of his face. The smile disappeared as his attention wandered to his shoulder. He flicked a speck of dirt from it. “My dear nephew
 ...
and sister
 ...
how good to see you. Unexpected and yet overdue. You look
 ...
well.” He had hesitated as he perused Isabella’s wind-tattered hair and soiled clothing. “Edmund was expecting you in Kent, but no bother. It is as well you are here. We are a short ride from Walton, although my lovely Alice will be quite cross with me at the lack of notice. No worry. Her anger will vanish in the merriment. You’ll come then?” He enticed her to his invitation with a tilt of his head. “There by nightfall if we leave now. A roaring hearth. A warm, dry bed for you, my lady. And the best wine.”

If we had landed near Norfolk’s manor at Walton in Suffolk and that was to our south, then the river nearby would be the Orwell. Three days’ march from London.

“Your generosity overwhelms us, Lord Thomas,” she said, her words slow and thoughtful as she cast a swift glance over her shoulder at me, “and we are indeed fortunate, blessed I say, to have come upon you. I shall give thanks to Our Lord that we have found ourselves in good company after such a perilous voyage. But, if I may beg it of you
 ...
we must have news first, before we decide any course.”

“News, ah yes. Of your husband?” Norfolk gave me a sidelong glance and I thought I detected an impish wink. “I daresay you’ve not missed him at all.”

Deftly, she deflected the barb. “Thomas, tell us, will the people of England welcome their prince home?”

He returned his gaze to her. “Why ever would they not, dear sister?”

“Because of them,” Young Edward broke in flatly. He tossed his head back, indicating the mass of soldiers looking on behind him, most not of English birth. By then, the Hainaulters were aware there were no ships to carry them back to the continent, should the tide of judgment turn against us.

Norfolk tugged at his chin, one finely curved eyebrow dipping down. “Hmm, an interesting lot. Not a mere escort, then, are they?” He let out a ripple of laughter and clutched his stomach. “Oh, I have news
 ...
yes, fantastic news indeed, fair sister. Edward has been expecting you for some time.”

I scanned across the marsh, broken across its green expanse by only a weedy stream, and down the coastline for indications of a royal army encircling us. But I saw no horses hidden amongst the far away hazel copses to the northwest or soldiers hunched down in the reeds. Aside from a few cow paths through the tall grass and our bedraggled army of less than a thousand men crowded now between the south-lying dunes and the marsh, there was little sign of life at all.

“My brother, mighty king that he is, ordered some two thousand odd men to Kent and as many here. But how many do you see? Any at all? Did any ships pursue you? Any? Not one, I venture. And do you know why? Because, plainly put, no one will heed a thing he says. Sad, truly it is. But is it any wonder when Hugh Despenser robs them all with my brother’s blessing? So, you ask, sister, if England will welcome their prince?” He strode over to Young Edward and threw his arms around his nephew, clutched him to his chest and planted a kiss upon his head before releasing the bewildered and slightly offended young man. “They will shove each other aside to have a look at you and proclaim their love. They will flood the streets with wine, feed your men with their last cow and offer their virgin daughters in thanks. By God’s ears, they will more than welcome their prince. They will do all but build shrines in his honor, so as not to blaspheme. To Walton, then? We’re wasting daylight, bantering about. Come, come.”

He extended his hand to Isabella. She took it, but with reserve.

“You’ll tell us more along the way?” she probed.

A mischievous grin plied at his mouth. “Much, much more, my dear, sweet sister.” He laid a kiss upon her knuckles, then one on each cheek, brushing her lips as he pulled back.

As soon as our column of disciplined mercenaries and once-exiled Englishmen was in formation, we began our march along the shoreline with Norfolk as our guide. In time, the flat marshes yielded to dryer, rolling ground spotted with clumps of heather and gorse. King Edward, we learned, was shut up in London with Despenser. The city was wickedly restless. Rumors of our coming had been sweeping across the land all summer long. Our delay in gathering funds had proven to our benefit, as any sympathies there might have been on the king’s behalf had trickled away with the mounting resentment toward Despenser.

Not all the news was good, however. London’s masses were fickle, as swift to embrace as they were to exchange blows. It was not yet safe for us to go there. But within the Tower was Isabella’s young son John
 ...
and likely living in less comfort were two of my own: my oldest, Edmund, and my namesake, my Uncle Roger. Isolated within the squalor and darkness. Deprived of their freedom. Just as I had been.

*****

We – or Isabella and her son, rather, as I took housing at a nearby abbey – stayed only the night in Walton, much to the displeasure of Norfolk’s wife Alice, for whom Isabella had much fondness. If, as Norfolk claimed, Edward’s summonses were going ignored and London was not decided in its loyalty, then we had to go where sympathies would assuredly be in our favor – to the Welsh Marches. Isabella’s letters to London and to her uncle, Henry, Earl of Leicester, were dispatched with great haste.

As we went deeper into England, Isabella donned her widow’s weeds – a high-necked gown of plain, black serge and the modest veil to match. We followed the River Orwell to Bury St. Edmunds, where Isabella again prayed. What was offered to us in the way of food, she ordered, was to be promptly paid for. In those simple gestures performed over a few scant days, Queen Isabella began to win the battle that King Edward, in nineteen years, could not.

None but a few dozen men rallied to the king’s banner, most of them pardoned murderers. Barely enough to guard his person even in the most impenetrable of fortresses. Norfolk stayed behind in Walton to further our cause, but he sent with us sixty men and along the way more and more joined with us.

As we rode on to Baldock and then Dunstable, the people of England, who had at first scattered in confusion and reluctance, now began to greet us openly. Young Edward sat tall in his shining armor. While still a boy, he had changed during his stay in France, not so much in looks, although he had grown taller, but in his manner. He now strode with the confidence of a young man who had discovered his place and purpose in life. He spoke more boldly and commanded with stern glances, where once he had observed everything with quiet obedience.

The belief that he was born to be a king had taken hold of him. Even though that was the very thing I had hoped for – a thirst to lead, a glimmer of vainglory – it carried with it the hazard of untold troubles, as well.

Pride, if left untamed, could bring a man to his death. A king, even.