The King Must Die (The Isabella Books) (31 page)

I shouted more after that, but what exact words they were I don’t remember. Montagu reeled me back in from the corridor, even as I kicked and spat at him. Enraged, I beat my fists at his chest fecklessly, volleying every insult I had ever heard fall from the mouths of soldiers and sailors, threatening to have him arrested, emasculated and decapitated.

“I regret this, my lady,” he uttered in fallow consolation, even as he wrung my wrists to restrain me. “Please, believe that.”

I spat in his eyes. He flinched and rubbed his face against his shoulder to cleanse himself, then clamped his hands tighter about my wrists.

Two men slipped past us and began upturning everything in the room. One of them ripped my blankets and pillows from the bed and onto the floor. The keys slid across the tiles, then clanked against the door’s bottom. I writhed, trying to free myself from Montagu’s iron grasp.

A howl ripped from my chest. But he was too strong, subduing me with gruff force as I thrashed side to side. Montagu shoved me into my chamber. I tripped, skidded across the floor—hip, elbow and shoulder all at once. A blast of pain shot up my right side. I rolled onto my back. Mindless of my agony, somehow I scrambled to my feet and hobbled forward. But before I could reach the door, Montagu had plucked up the keys and torn Patrice from Arnaud’s flaccid corpse, tossing her in after me.

Patrice’s fingernails raked over the floorboards. Her body shook with shuddering gasps as she wept.

Beyond my door, Montagu calmly issued orders to his remaining men. The leaden scrape of boots followed as they dragged Arnaud’s body from the room. Pain throbbed down my arm. Patrice lay curled on the floor at my feet, mumbling her denial in between sobs of mourning.

I clawed at the door, screeching until my voice was torn raw. By the time I crumpled down beside Patrice, both of us trembling with exhaustion, the intruding light of morning was pouring in through the window to deny us rest.

Over the hours, I undulated from a hysteria so extreme that I was akin to the madwoman who tears through the streets at midnight screaming of the devil; to a soul so steeped in a despondency of lightlessness that hope seemed to have fled from all the world; and finally to a mind so numbed and a body so drained that the only difference between me and a pile of bones beneath the earth was a barely beating heart.

My back to the door, legs outstretched, I fixed my gaze on the fluttering remnants of a partially finished spider web tucked up in a shadowed corner of the room. I wondered why its maker had not persisted. I made to rise, but Patrice was half asleep across my lap. Gently, I rolled her aside and crept on tingling feet to study the web. The threads were frail and ripped in several places. There was no sign of the spider who had laid them. More than likely, it had died waiting for a hapless fly to land on its sticky threads and offer itself up for a meal and none had ever come. If I hunted carefully enough, I could have found its withered remains curled up in some dark recess of the room. That was, I was sure, how they would one day discover me. Shut away and forgotten. Dead from lack of sustenance.

Patrice rolled herself into a ball and moaned in anguish. I went to her and knelt down. Above her ear I whispered, “I will call again for Edward. He will come. He will.”

She pulled at her hair, stretching the roots from her scalp. “Can he bring back my Arnaud from the dead?”

Her outward grief struck me hard. I had been thinking only of myself—and of saving Mortimer. Not of Patrice, who herself had just lost a love as dear as mine.

“Patrice, I am so, so very sorry ... So sorry.”

I knew not what else to say. I could not assuage her sorrow. Could not make anything right in her world. It had all been ripped from her in an instant before her very eyes and she, like me, had not been able to stop it. I reached for her, thinking to lift her by the arm to help her from the floor and to bed, but the moment she felt my touch she flailed herself back toward the door. Her elbow cracked against the door, but she took no notice.

“The king cannot bring him back. You can’t. No one can. He is dead! Dead! Dead because of the vile Roger Mortimer. Because of you and your shameful secrets. You think of no one but yourself and your own satisfaction.” She scraped her fingernails down over her neck, leaving long red traces. “Selfish whore! Have you no care for whom you destroy?”

I told myself she only spoke through grief, that neither I nor Mortimer was responsible for Arnaud’s death. But even though I should have, I had little sympathy for Patrice’s problems just then. I had my own. Mortimer—I hoped and prayed—was still alive, shackled in a dungeon crawling with rats and bitten by lice, perhaps, but
still
alive.

I had to see Edward.

I ordered Patrice to move away from the door, but she persisted in cursing me, her lips drawn back in a snarl, her beautiful face contorted grotesquely. I lunged toward the door, but she clawed at me. Out of utter frustration, I kicked at her. My foot struck her so hard in the face so that her head snapped back and banged against the door. As I clutched up a pewter candlestick from the table, she whimpered in fear of me, crawled half way across the room and lay there sobbing. I raised the candlestick above my head and banged at the door.

I hammered until my whole arm and chest ached from the effort, indenting the metal straps across the door and digging splinters from the wood. A hundred times a hundred, I called for Edward, my son.

Like his father had done to me at Tynemouth, Young Edward did not come, did not answer, did not offer help.

This time there were no Scots bearing down on the road toward me. No ship tossing on a stormy sea to bear me to safety. No Roger Mortimer to rescue me from the cruel neglect of a vain husband. No Charles to dress me in fine gowns or replenish my money chests or William of Hainault to spread a mighty army behind me. No Adam of Orleton to show the way to wisdom or remind me of God’s grace. Not even the pope to pen an eloquent letter on my pitiful behalf.

There was only myself and the sum of my misjudgments and sins to bear—and Patrice, who wholly hated me now. Somewhere was Ida, who would chide me a thousand times over for not having a clearer head.

Was there any way to make anything right? Or should I just have asked for peace with God while my heart was still beating?

They had taken Mortimer away. Surely, I would be next.

25

Isabella:

Nottingham — October, 1330

N
ot until several hours later did anyone come to my door, bringing a platter of food for us. It was a girl I had not seen before. She held the platter out tentatively, as though afraid to step inside the room. Judging by her shaking hands, she had evidently heard my screams and thought me possessed by the devil. Two guards stood close at her sides.

I reached for the platter. With a thrust of my arm, it flipped over and smacked the girl squarely in the chest. I tried to lunge past her, but one of Montagu’s men struck me with the butt of his sword. Overwhelmed by brute force, I raised my hands to cover my head and dropped to my knees in the doorway.

When they did not persist, I touched the tender spot on my face, probing for a lump. Already I had bruises on my shoulder and arms—and now one to my jaw. A wonder they didn’t draw blood from me.

The girl leaned slightly forward and in a meek, but earnest voice, asked, “Can I do something for you, my lady?”

“Send for Ida,” I pled, mustering the saddest frown I could manage in order to elicit her sympathy. “I need her.”

She nodded and stepped back as the guards ushered me back to my domain of solitude. The door thudded shut. Patrice had paid little heed to my riot, barely raising her chin from her chest as she sat balled up against the wall, hugging her knees tight and sniffling.

I crept to her. Her eyes flashed at me in warning. Still several feet away, I stopped. “The potion you once drank to rid yourself of Arnaud’s child—what was in it?”

Narrowing her eyes at me, she dug her fingernails into her shins and shook her head so hard the tips of her curls lashed against her cheeks. “What use could you have for it? Nothing will kill a devil’s spawn.” She spat at me.

I blotted at my shift. “This child, Patrice ... it cannot be. They once told me I could bear no more children. That I should not. The child could die.
I
could die.”

Even if both the child and I were to survive, nothing good would come of it. Nothing but perpetual grief and tumult.

Connive as I might to keep the pregnancy a secret, the chances of it staying that way were minute. As small as a dust mote. Young Edward would find out. Joan Mortimer would hate me even more, if that were even remotely possible. All England and France would erupt in an uproar. Philip of Valois would defame me. The pope would censure me ... Beyond disrepute. Excommunication. Did it matter that I was already damned? Not only me, but my unborn child?

How was it that a tiny, innocent child could enter the world bearing the burden of another’s shame and bring such enormous ruin upon a noble house? But it would, it would. My own disgrace would be the least of it. Mortimer’s life would be forfeit. And Young Edward—what extravagant price would it exact upon him?

My fingers separated the folds of my nightshift, and then pleated the wrinkles to exaggerate them. I had not changed my clothing since the night before. I did not care. I felt dirty and worn and old, and ugly to look upon, like some dog-headed monster risen up from the sewer pit coated in moss and muck. Grime seemed a suiting skin for one of my kind. I was in consort with the lowest of sinners. My soul had long since been committed to the everlasting fires of hell. Did I truly need the pope to confirm that?

My marriage to Edward of Caernarvon had been the first test of my piety and I had failed that one and every successive one afterward. I had justified my carnal indiscretions by convincing myself that my husband had committed far worse sins than I ever would. Would I still say that now? I would not. No one would ever utter my name in the same breath as the devout Margaret of Scotland, who daily fed the orphaned poor before she sat down to table herself.

The shuffle of footsteps came from the outer chamber. I keened my ears, but could hear no familiar voices. It went quiet for several minutes before, finally, the door swung open. Bent old Ida ambled in, dragging one foot, and opened her right arm to embrace me. The left had long since gone bad from a bout of apoplexy. I went to her and hugged her to my breast, crushing her limp arm between us.

“Oh, Ida.” Seeing her brought a fresh spate of tears for me, but Ida would have none of it.

She thumped me between the shoulders blades and thrust herself away, tottering, to leer at me through her good eye. The creased lid on the left eye sagged so heavily she could only see from it if she tipped her head far back. “What s-s-sort of ... t-t-trouble are you in-n-n ... n-n-now, my queen?” she said, her syllables coming out long and irregular with immense difficulty. Since suffering the episode a few years ago, the humiliation of needing help for even the simplest of tasks had forced her to keep to herself. It had been difficult to see her change in only a day’s span from a spry old mother hen to a cantankerous, withered crow, her wings broken. She rarely traveled with my retinue anymore, especially when the journey from one castle to another was far. Come November, she preferred to stay put until March, feeling the bite of sixty-seven winters in her bones. Eleanor and John made a point of paying her visits whenever they could. Even though she protested that she did not want their pity, the visits were uplifting for her.

“You have heard about Lord Roger,” I said, “that Montagu took him into custody? Where did they take him?”

Ida gave Patrice a curious glance and then shrugged a shoulder. “N-n-not here.”

“The Tower? Berkeley? Kenilworth, perhaps?” But I had flung out the possibilities too swiftly for Ida to respond.

She blinked in confusion, her comprehension trying to catch up with my words and sort through them. She shrugged again. The jerk of her shoulder sent her swaying and I quickly grabbed her arm and helped her to a stool, only a few feet from Patrice, who by then was leering at me less harshly.

With a grunt, Ida plopped down on her seat. A sad pout pulled at her lower lip as she studied Patrice. “So s-s-sad, child.” She paused and gulped. Her tongue was thick and clumsy in her mouth. It frustrated her to speak so slowly when she used to rain words faster than a spring shower. “You loved him, y-y-yes?”

Dabbing at her wet face, Patrice sucked back a runny nose and nodded. Then Ida reached out with her crooked arm as far as she could. Patrice crawled to her and laid her head down in her lap.

With the claw of her left hand, Ida stroked Patrice’s head and back. Her voice was a croaking whisper. “We cannot always help ... who w-w-we love, can we?”

Patrice’s body went still for a few moments. She raised her head to look fondly at Ida. Then she looked at me through tangles of hair that fell across her eyes in a black forest of curls. Laced through her raven locks were the first few strands of silver-gray. We were both growing older, and neither of us any wiser.

In that lingering look from her, blame and hatred were absent. I saw only the faint flicker of empathy and the careful mulling of a thought.

“Rue,” Patrice said softly. “You need rue, less than what you can fit in the palm of your hand, a pinch of pennyroyal, and wild carrot—but you must get it dried this time of year and it will be very potent. It could be ... dangerous.” She bit at her lip. “Mathilda, the cook’s wife—she used to know how much of each, precisely, but I don’t know where to find her anymore, or if she’s still alive. Even if we knew, we wouldn’t have time to fetch her. It may be too late, already, to ...” Her lip jutted out, quivered. “Oh no, you shouldn’t. It’s too late, Isabeau. Don’t. Don’t.” She whipped her head back and forth, pleading with me.

Kneeling beside her, I cupped her tear-soaked face in my hands. “I must. It cannot be.”

I felt the meager strength of Ida’s good arm as she cuffed me. “What f-f-for? Are you ... Mother of m-m-merciful Christ. How could you b-b-be so stupid?”

I shook my head, flushed with shame like a child who has been caught stealing pies from a window ledge. “Stupid? Yes, that and more. But I need your help, Ida. You must bring me the rue, pennyroyal and wild carrot, as soon as possible. Will you?”

She gave me a condescending look and crossed her arms by holding the weak one against herself with the other. “No! N-n-n—” Vexed, she grunted at her bumbling speech and spat the rest out. “Never.”

“Then I order you to. Or I will tell all sorts of stories about you. Some of them true.”

“Hah. There’s nothing to tell.” Ida staggered to her feet and, swaying side to side like a sapling willow in the wind, she shuffled to the door, grumbling to herself. She pounded on the door with the heel of her hand.

“Out! Let m-m-me out of ...”—Ida gasped, sapped of strength by the short walk—“here. Now!”

The servant girl helped her along while Ida squawked like a wounded jay at her. Although it was hard to tell from the slant of her bad eye, I almost thought she winked as they escorted her from the room.

***

“A headache remedy,” Patrice had explained to the quizzical-looking servant girl as she took the dried herbs and a cup of warm cider from her. “She cannot sleep.”

Over and over again, Patrice apologized for her lack of knowledge, muttering that it was witchcraft to practice such arts, until I reminded her that she had been dabbling in it for years already and there was no sense in repenting now.

By the light of a single candle—for that is all they would afford us as prisoners held for an unnamed crime—Patrice crushed the herbs with the heel of one of my shoes in a wooden bowl. She measured the rue into the palm of her hand, then the pennyroyal and dumped them each in the cup. Tentatively, she pinched the wild carrot between her thumb and forefinger and sprinkled the flakes above the cup. She mixed them together with a carved ivory hair parter, clinking it against the side of the cup as she stirred vigorously. Unorthodox implements, but we had not been given so much as a spoon, let alone a knife, to eat with earlier. Nothing but coarse bread and pears on a wooden platter and some tepid stew in a wooden bowl that we had to share, scooping the vegetables up with our bare fingers after we had sipped the broth. Supper had yet to come and it was nigh on evening by then.

The very moment Patrice stopped stirring to stare down into the bowl’s mystical depths, I seized it from her, splashing some over the side of the bowl. I threw my head back and gulped it down not like a poison, but an elixir. I tasted mostly the crisp tang of unripe carrots, and then something sharper, more bitter, scraping at the back of my tongue. It began to burn. I gagged and swallowed, my eyes watering hotly. I thought I would retch at the vile taste scorching my throat, but deigned to hold it in and let it work its dark magic on me.

By Our Lord God’s own word, this is wrong, wrong, wrong ... terribly, inextricably wrong—but what is one more mark upon my blighted soul? If whores and murderers can be forgiven, am I not one of them?

The first convulsion gripped me so fast and fiercely I doubled over. Bolts of pain stabbed through every length of my body. When the next spasm hit, I had already dropped to my knees, clutching my stomach hard, as if I could reach within myself and gouge out the pith of my wickedness.

Again. Again. I threw my head back, aware that some primal wail emanated from me. It was the sound that women make as they wander among broken and dismembered bodies on the battlefield, keening their dead.

I existed only within my pain. My cries, though, were not calls for help. They were a release of all my torment—every regret, every worry, all my shame.

Patrice wedged a leather belt between my clamped teeth for me to bear down on and stifle my screams.

Through the bleary veil of my lashes, I saw Patrice kneeling beside me, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead, although I could not feel it. Then, she crammed a rolled blanket between my legs ... Why?

Wetness. Blood. Too much. Life seeping away. Out of me.

“It was too strong.” She whimpered between breaths. “I will call someone to —”