Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer (15 page)

“Not at all like you envisioned. Nor what you deserved.” His words faded to a dreamy whisper. “Shall I see you in Paris?”

“No. I have not been there for years.”

Although I would have given up anything then to go there and leave Edward and England behind. Anything, except for my children. So I thought.

14

Roger Mortimer:

Tower of London – August, 1323

A MASON’S CHISEL PINGED on stone, fracturing the silence of the night. I sat up in bed, my heartbeat quickening. Slowly, I turned my head, trying to locate its source. From behind me, metal rasped at mortar. I went to my cell door and listened. Only the snores of a sleeping guard. I crept to my window. A watchman was slumped against the wall of the battlements, dozing soundly. Beyond the wall walk and the Salt Tower, nothing else stirred. Not even the ravens on the merlons. They were not there.

I slid my bed over the floor planks and away from the wall. Bending down, I probed with my fingers and detected the first fine crack between the stones. I searched the dimly lit confines of my room frantically for some crude tool to hurry the work along, but there was nothing that could have served. And so I watched and waited, keen to the alarm of guards’ voices or the scuff of boots.

So it was true. Soon, I would be free, just as Queen Isabella had promised. Almost four months had gone by since
she stood before me like a dewy angel in the darkness, beguiling and beautiful. At that moment, I thought God had indeed smiled on me.
But why would such a heavenly creature cast favor on a troublesome rebel like me when she herself stood to lose so much? A pity I might never have the chance to thank her. An even greater pity that I would not come to know her better.

Finally, one of the stones groaned as it was pulled from the other side. I strained to push it free with my fingers. It was half way out when it became wedged at an angle against the other stones. I tried to rock it from side to side, but it would not budge. From the other side of the wall, something hammered at it, like the butt end of a weapon striking its base. Suddenly, the blows stopped. A long pause followed. I crouched nearer. Then, the scraping and pinging started anew.

At last the stone moved again. I pried my fingers into the mouse hole beside it to gain leverage and with the other hand maneuvered it until the block slid away, pinching two of my fingers in the crevice. As I wrenched my throbbing fingers loose, I bit back a howl of pain. Candlelight flickered through the dark hole. Cautiously, I peered into it. The outline of a familiar face greeted my eyes.

“That’s one,” Gerard huffed. “The rest will come easier, my lord.”

“Hurry,” I whispered back.

He disappeared. I heard the low murmur of another voice. When Gerard reappeared he slid a length of heavy metal through the hole: a crowbar. “With your help.”

I chipped at mortar and swept the dust and jagged flakes aside by hand. Twice, I stopped to listen at the door, but all was as strangely dead as before. Another block fell away, and another, each one loosening more easily. Gathering an armful of my clothes, I arranged them lengthwise beneath my blanket. Not entirely convincing, but if anyone glanced over it in the darkness they might assume I was still asleep there. When the hole was barely big enough, I put the bed back in place and crawled under it. Arms before me, I wriggled forward. Sharp stones scraped at my shoulders and caught on the cloth of my shirt, tearing it. When my torso had cleared the opening, I dragged my hips and legs through.

Arnaud de Mone hauled me to my feet. We were in the adjacent room, lit by a single candle. The room, much like the one I had inhabited for a year and a half, appeared as though it were used for nothing more than the storage of spare furniture.

A haze of dust billowed from my shirt as I pounded at it. “I gather you could not get the keys to the door?”

“The castle’s lieutenant keeps them on his person,” Gerard said, “and since there is more than one lock on the door, we would have made far more noise trying to get you out that way. Besides, this room is closer to the kitchen.”

“The kitchen?”

Gerard lifted the lid of a chest and tossed me the clothes of a kitchen servant, drenched with the smell of grease and rotting refuse.

“There are men,” Arnaud explained, “waiting on the far side of the Thames with horses to take you to Portchester. Then on to the Isle of Wight. There, you’ll find a boat which will take you across to France.”

I smiled as I rubbed at the stains on my borrowed tunic. So Orleton had held true on his promises. King Charles, as well. Perhaps my days of being betrayed had at last come to an end? I thumped Arnaud on the arm. “You’re coming, I trust?”

Ignoring my question, he handed me a belt with a sheathed long knife attached. He knelt down and shoved the bottom stone back into place.

I helped him with the rest, but he bore the brunt of the work with easy strength. My muscles had withered from imposed idleness. If the ride to Portchester did not break my back in two, I would consider myself fortunate. “I’ll make it worth your while once we get to Picardy, Arnaud.”

He checked his sword with the heel of his hand and motioned me to the door. With a puff, he blew out the candle. “I’ll come, but not because of the money.”

My eyes adjusted to the dim glow of starlight coming in through the single small window. Although grateful for Arnaud’s company, I sensed he was not coming along out of pure loyalty to me. “Why else?”

“Later, my lord.”

Carefully, Gerard lifted the bar of the door. He stuck his head into the corridor, and then hitched a shoulder at us.

I snagged Arnaud by the sleeve. “We’re going to get my uncle and son now.”

He shook his head. “No time.”

I leapt forward and blocked Gerard’s way, my arm across the door. I pulled it shut. “We cannot leave without them.”

They exchanged a swift look, but the shadows veiled their faces and I could not read the meaning that passed between them.

“We were told,” Gerard said blandly, “to get you out of here. Not anyone else.”

In one sudden, twisting motion, I grabbed Gerard by his jerkin and slammed him up against the wall. The side of his head glanced a sconce. He winced sharply.

“They staked their lives alongside mine,” I growled. My fingers dug deep into his padded jerkin. A shining bead of blood trickled down his cheek.

“My lord, please.” Arnaud laid a hand on my arm pleadingly. “There is no time
 ...
no way to get to them. Your uncle is housed in the White Tower. Your son on the far side of the grounds from here. We cannot risk that distance. Too many doors, too many walls between here and there. We must get beyond the outer curtain, quickly. Every minute that we
–
”

“No! We
don’t
leave without them.”

“There is no time,” he repeated with calm restraint. The rest of his words came more hurriedly. “There was a feast tonight. The cook put a sleeping potion in the ale. The entire garrison is sleeping soundly, but any one of them could awaken at any moment. We’ve already used too much time. We may not get more. If we try to rescue your uncle and son, we would put all our lives in peril. We cannot save them if we’re dead.”

And I would not be able to save them from France.

I let go of Gerard and pulled my hands down over my face, gathering my senses. How could I go without them and reason it was the right thing to do? Yet how could I risk even more than I already did? I circled the room, my mind spinning, even as time slipped dangerously away. I knew my uncle would more than despise me for abandoning him.

No, even if it was possible to free him, the old goat would not want my help. He would curse and turn his back on me. But my son, Edmund ...

Too many doors, too many walls between here and there.

At the window I paused and leaned on its ledge to look down into the seemingly empty outer ward below. I had no view to the inner ward, but I remembered the gaping expanse of the Tower Green.

There is no time ... no way to get to them.

No, if I risked saving my son and my uncle, then England’s woes would forever be upon me. It simply couldn’t be done.

“From whom did you take your orders for this night?” I asked Arnaud.

“Bishop Orleton.”

“And the queen?”

“She will not learn of it until morning.”

When everyone else would.

“Then let us hope,” I said, pushing away from the window and crossing the room, “she hears Roger Mortimer is nowhere to be found. Gerard, lead the way.”

Arnaud fell in behind me and we slipped out into the corridor, around the corner
–
stopping often to listen above the creaking of the floorboards beneath our weight
–
and crept, step by step, down the tightly winding stairway of the Lanthorn Tower. We came to a landing where Gerard halted. Torches flamed brightly in their sconces on either side of the door. Gerard knocked twice, waited, and knocked twice again. A fine, ragged line of dried blood marked the near side of his face.

The latch clicked and the door, slowly, swung open without a sound.

A black cat darted out with a silver fish’s tail dangling from its mouth. From where I stood, I saw only a wall with pigs’ carcasses on hooks and strings of onions hung along its length.

Gerard entered the kitchen cautiously. “Do you have the ropes, Dicken?”

A tall, hunch-shouldered man appeared, mumbling. The fire in the cooking hearth had burnt out hours ago, but torches threw ample light throughout the spacious, high-ceilinged chamber. One table was strewn with dirty pots, another with the remnants of the night’s meal: a bowl of eggshells, baskets of leeks and cabbages, scattered apple peels. Casks of ale were stacked along another wall.

Arnaud and I stepped beneath the low lintel of the door, closing it behind us. Dicken shuffled over to a row of barrels and lifted the lid from one. He stooped over it and plunged his huge hands inside. With a careless heave, he hurled a coil of rope, reeking of salted fish, at Gerard’s feet. The hook tied to its end clanked on the stones.

Gerard lifted the coil over his head and slipped an arm through it. Then he dug beneath his jerkin and produced a pouch. “More than you asked for.” It jingled as he tossed it to the cook, who snatched it out of midair with surprising reflexes.

Dicken untied the pouch and ogled the treasure within. Then he tucked its bulge beneath his apron, went to the hearth and ducked beneath its broad, stone arch. He fumbled above his head and the knotted tail of another rope dropped down. He emerged wearing a scowl.

Ignoring him, Gerard scooped up a pile of ashes and smeared them on his forehead and cheeks, avoiding the still seeping gash.

While Gerard grasped the rope above his head and scrambled up, Dicken went about cleaning up his tables, brushing the waste into a bowl at his hip. I passed by him, grabbed a strip of dried dough and heard a low rumble in his throat. Although I stepped wide of him, he leered at me.

“Best hurry,” he warned. “One arrow in your chest and you’ll drop dead as a goose.” He chortled to himself as he flung a spray of almond shells onto the floor with a sweep of his hairy arm, missing his bowl entirely.

I tossed the dough onto the floor. Before the hearth, Arnaud and I swiped our hands through the ash pile and darkened our faces. I went up next. With each pull, I slid my feet further up the rope, squeezed it between my feet for leverage and raised myself up again. The rope burned between my legs. My arms shook with the effort, my shoulders tightened. Halfway up, the sides of the chimney narrowing, my grip weakened. I paused, bearing my weight in my legs, until they, too, began to tremble. Lying on my flea-infested mattress and staring up at the ceiling for so many months, I had become an invalid. I reached above my head to grasp the rope again with cramped fingers, but my palms were slick. From below, Arnaud tugged at the rope. My fingers slipped down the rope, its fibers searing my palms. I locked my arms and caught myself with a jerk. I swallowed back my heart like a stone. Sweat poured down my neck and chest.