The King Must Die (The Isabella Books) (12 page)

“I would have you alive upon the morrow ... and for the next fifty years so you can rule as you were born to. My duty is to see that you survive to do so. Not sacrifice a thousand men for the slim chance of a single victory.”

I half thought, then, that he wanted the Scots to get away. That he
allowed
them to. But why? Rage boiled in my veins. I turned away.

“They’re long gone now,” I said with regret, for I would have hunted them down like limping deer had my own men not been so spent and hungry. “Tomorrow, we shall make to return to York. You, Mortimer, will keep your distance from me. This won’t happen again.”

He remained for a few moments, as if wanting to spew out further protests, to imbue me with more of his godly wisdom, but he resisted. He would go back to my mother, complain to her of my behavior and then I would have to deal with this again. So be it. I had tired of being ordered about.

8

Isabella:

York — August, 1327

O
n the day I rode out from York to meet Young Edward, an August sun poured into every crevice, chasing away the shadows that had lurked in my heart for more than a month. It had not rained in nearly a week. At last, the rivers were receding within the confines of their banks, the mud had dried to leave roads passable and, fed by the radiant light, the grass blanketing the hills beyond the city gleamed in shades of green more brilliant than any I had ever seen.

I paused with my riding party at the crest of a hill where the road stretched out to the north. There, we saw the first rows of the army’s column, pennons bobbing rhythmically. Midday heat pressed down on us. A thread of perspiration trickled from my breastbone to my stomach, dampening my linen chemise. A hot breeze tickled my skin and I brushed a stray hair from my cheek. On my head, I wore only a caul of woven pearls. Patrice had clucked at my decision to don it that morning, insisting that the white of the pearls was indistinct against my fair hair, but the headdress had been a recent gift from my brother Charles, King of France, and I loved it for that reason alone.

“Do you wish to wait here, my lady,” my squire Arnaud de Mone said, shooing a pesky fly from his horse’s mane, “or ride out to meet them?”

It was his way of asking to go. Understandably, he felt fealty to both Mortimer and me. For many years he had been my loyal servant, before flying to France with Mortimer when he escaped the Tower. Upon discovering him in my brother’s court, I had quickly forgiven him for abandoning my service. Patrice, who had been until then his lover, was not so indulgent of the offense. For a year, she kept him at arm’s length, until we were back in England and she could no longer pretend to hold anger toward him.

“They’ve marched many miles,” I said to Arnaud. “Let us go out to greet them and hasten our reunion. Too many days have lapsed already since I last saw my son.”
And
Roger, I wanted to add. But my love for him was something I could never proclaim aloud. Too many knew of it already.

My son John eased his horse abreast of mine, his eyes bright with anticipation. “May we go now, Mother? It has been ages since I’ve seen Ned, too.”

“Why don’t you lead us, John? Your brother will be overjoyed to see you’re the first to welcome him back.”

With that, John spurred his horse in the flanks. I gestured for Arnaud to accompany him and together they closed the distance, small clouds of dust billowing behind them in their wake. My damsels and I, surrounded by a small collection of guards, followed at a more restrained clip. Patrice sneezed at the road dust. She hated to travel—to her, it was always too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry, never a comfortable in-between.

When I had received word early that morning that the king would return by afternoon, I was dressed and ready to go within the hour. So giddy I was with excitement that I could hardly refrain from riding out immediately. Yet now, as I saw Edward and John clasp hands and begin back toward us, a sense of foreboding settled on me. Just behind them rode Lancaster, Norfolk, Kent and Mortimer. None of them appeared joyful. Every mouth was downturned, their shoulders slumped with weariness.

It was Lancaster who hailed me first, urging his horse ahead of the group. As he came to a halt, he slipped his fingers beneath his collar and stretched his neck. “Bloody Scots haven’t changed a whit. But at least we’ve run them from English soil.”

“Yes,” I said, “we heard of their ‘tactics’ at Stanhope Park. But should any of us have been surprised by their unscrupulous methods?”

“Mother?” Edward called, coming around Lancaster. He reached out to grasp my fingers, brushed stiff lips over my knuckles and dropped my hand as coldly as one greets a hated nemesis. A snarl flickered over his mouth. “I say Cousin Lancaster has grossly understated our failure. If the Scots left, it wasn’t because they feared us. They left because they’d made their point—that they could kill me, given the chance. Had I been better advised, they never would have had the chance.”

He flashed a smoldering look over his shoulder at Mortimer. Then with a smart slap to his mount’s rump, he rode past. Lancaster, obviously not concerned that the king’s comment was directed at him, was close behind. Kent and Norfolk hesitated, and then followed.

As I swung my palfrey around to ride beside Mortimer, he imparted, “I did as you asked—kept him from the certain death of battle. He doesn’t, however, appear to appreciate the fact.”

“No,” I said, keeping my voice low, “I don’t expect he would. Perhaps now we can bargain for peace, as I intended all along?”

“You might get that for now,”—he nodded toward the king ahead of us—“but if he has his way, eventually he’ll wage a war on Scotland that will eclipse his grandfather’s achievements.”

It vexed me to know he was right. King Edward III of England would one day pride himself on the wielding of his sword, much as I had my use of the pen. Conquest in lieu of compromise. Perhaps in arranging the invasion which had put him on the throne, I had set a poor example.

Already, I could see that my influence on my son was fading. He was far from the innocent babe who had once gazed at me with admiration and smiled at my lullabies. He was grasping at manhood, in the resolute way that kings who crave power do, and I, as his mother, would only grow less useful and more contrary to him with each passing year.

For my own preservation, it was imperative that I hold on to control—authority, lands and wealth—however I could. I had been deprived of those things once before. I would not be again.

Let men believe this is their world to conquer and rule. More women have decided the fate of kingdoms than would ever be recorded in the annals. Yet they must wield power silently, otherwise it will be taken from them.

***

Somerton Castle — September, 1327

Amply compensated for his service, Sir John returned to Hainault, the English levies dispersed homeward and Mortimer left briefly for Wales, where he now served as Justice. I made him swear to return to me with all haste in preparation for the upcoming parliament. A part of me, however, did not want him to linger so close to Ludlow, where his wife Joan resided. So far he had made no mention of doing so, but the simple fact that he would be so near to her sent waves of panic and jealousy crashing through me, even though he had held me the night before he left and professed his love a dozen times over. My bed never seemed so vast and lonely a place as when he was not there.

But there were things I could do for Mortimer that Joan could not: I could make him powerful—king in all but name. To remind him of that, I arranged to have him granted the castles of Oswestry and Denbigh. Other lands I garnered for myself. If too many of these holdings ever fell to avaricious men such as the Earl of Lancaster, those individuals might one day prove too weighty a force to reckon with. In increasing my own wealth, I was protecting my son’s future, for whatever I owned would one day pass to him. In the meanwhile, if I could not command an army, I would make good use of my holdings and ensure a certain level of influence. I had seen my husband’s options restricted due to lack of funds—a predicament he had brought on himself time and again by being overly generous toward his friends—thus, I was well aware that income equated to power.

A full week after the parliamentary session opened that September in Lincoln, Mortimer arrived, his spirits bold and his appetite for me renewed. On his first night, he joined me at Somerton Castle in Navenby, a swift ride through the countryside from Lincoln, but far enough removed from the city’s crowded streets.

We always stole time together when we could—most often he came to me, for it would have been too easy for someone to notice when the queen was rambling about the castle after nightfall. What we suffered in lack of sleep, we made up for in the exhilaration of our lovemaking.

Once, many years ago, I had announced at the foot of this very same bed to Edward of Caernarvon that I was carrying our second child. He had seemed unimpressed by the news and all too eager to leave my presence as I swallowed back the sour taste of morning sickness and threatened to spew it on the floor. How different this place was to me now, how bright the world shone, if only because Mortimer was here with me.

Moonlight cast Mortimer’s features in silvery light, accentuating every fine line of his face and each contour of his muscle-hard body. I trailed a hand over the mat of dark hair on his chest, then around the side of his ribs, my fingertips pausing at the ridge of a scar I knew well. “Did you have time to look in on your estates?”

He caught my hand, pressed my palm over his heart, held it there. “I did not see her, if that’s what you want to know.”

“I did not ask —”

“No, but you’ve been wondering ever since I left, haven’t you?” He let go of my hand, slipped his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled me close. “She was a good wife for many years, managed both brood and household well, but she is not you—certainly not as beautiful.”

I rolled onto my back, my head sinking into a feathery pillow, and pulled the sheets up over my breasts, as if modesty had suddenly overtaken me. “It’s me you love, then?”

“Mmm, do I love you?” He pushed himself up on an elbow, gazed into my eyes. “Isabeau, I would give my life for you.”

His kisses chased away my maddening doubts, banished my jealousies like a dandelion seed dispersed with a puff of breath. Again, my passions quickened. I could no more deny the thrill of his touch than I could cease breathing. Being apart from him only intensified our encounters in ways that both intoxicated and terrified me. To what lengths would I go to save him? And what would he do for me, if I but asked or needed it of him?

In his arms, I felt safe, needed, desired beyond reason. And in moments such as these, I realized that love was more powerful than wealth or armies.

***

Somerton Castle commanded a modest hill. Surrounding it was a moat barely wide enough to have deterred any attackers. It had once belonged to Antony Bek, the Bishop of Durham, but upon his death he left it to my husband. Edward had never favored the place, but I liked its less imposing size and bucolic environs. Often, I would stand upon the curtain wall, looking out over the green of the fields and woodlands as the wind fluttered over blades of grass and stirred the tree leaves.

I crossed the bailey and climbed the spiral stairs of the southeast tower. As I neared the top, the light from the open door poured into the narrow space. Cool air brushed my cheeks. Then, Mortimer’s voice reached my ears from just beyond the door. My steps became lighter, quicker, as I yearned toward the view that I knew would refresh my tired body.

Then, I heard another voice, one only faintly familiar, but distinctly coarse. It was someone I had not heard speak for some time, months perhaps, and so I paused, not meaning to eavesdrop, but simply to ascertain whether or not I should interrupt.

“There was another plot,” the other man said rapidly, “to free Sir Edward.”

A sickening shock washed through me. I leaned against the wall to steady myself. It was William Ockle, one of those Mortimer had assigned to my husband’s keeping. Rather than retreat, I took the last few steps, each footfall of my leather soles silent against the stones. Upon seeing them on the wall-walk, I paused in the shadows, ready to fly back down the stairs as quietly as I had come.

Mortimer grasped the front of Ockle’s shirt and yanked him close. “Dunheved, again? Has he been found?”

“No, no sign of him. But it wasn’t him this time. ’Twas the damned Welsh.” Ockle dug a letter from beneath his grimy shirt. “Words of ‘advice’ from William de Shalford in Anglesey.”

Mortimer snatched the letter away before Ockle could even extend it. He moved from behind the merlon so that sunlight fell across the page and read it quickly.

Ockle craned his thin neck sideways, squinting as though blinded by the day’s brightness. Short in stature, he stood on his toes as he tried to read over Mortimer’s shoulder. “What does he say?”