Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer (32 page)

I wondered what ‘fragile’ entailed. She looked more like a plow horse to me than a butterfly whose wings could be crushed between the fingertips. “Yes? Such as ...”

The countess replied with the common domesticities: needlework, the reading of the Gospel, letter-writing. And so the forced conversation went, which was even worse than it had begun.

Young Edward stretched his lanky legs and yawned, his eyelids sinking as he gazed out the window. In those clumsy minutes, I could see Isabella beginning to fret. Our chances of convincing her son to select a mate were sinking rapidly ... as was our hope of overthrowing Edward and getting rid of Despenser.

I glanced at the prince, only to see him leaning back in his chair, asleep. It was only the stringing together of sharp words and the firm stomping of her foot as Philippa finally, and reluctantly, entered the room that awoke him. She came to a halt beside her youngest sister Isabelle, standing not much taller even though she was four years older, and threw her hands upon her hips. Although not any prettier than the other three, she had a confidence to her demeanor that they lacked.

Wearing a look of irritation, Edward leaned forward and peered at her. He rose from his chair and flew to her in great swooping strides.

“You are late,” he told her.

She stuck her dimpled chin out. “I had better ... I mean more pressing things to do.”

“Better than being presented to the future King of England? Do tell. I should like to hear.” He walked a full circle around her, appraising her from various angles. Her face was oval, her frame tending toward broad rather than slender, and her curves of a matching roundness. Not plump, but robust. Unlike her sisters, whose hair was bound in either a caul or covered by a wimple, Philippa wore hers loose, a mass of glistening golden brown that hung to her waist, bits of straw entangled in it.

“My favorite mare delivered a foal not an hour ago,” she boasted. “A black colt with a blaze. He is already standing. I was not about to leave him.”

“You ride?” he asked, stopping in front of her squarely.

Philippa smiled and drew her shoulders back, brown eyes twinkling with pride. “I do. Every day.”

The countess dug her fingernails into her legs and glared at her daughter.

Finally noticing the scowl affixed on her mother’s face, Philippa quickly retracted her words, her tone notably less pert and more congenial. “At east, I would like to ... my lord.”

Pleased, he nodded. “Good, then we will ride tomorrow, Lady Philippa.” He bowed his head to the count and countess. “If I may beg your leave. I should like to take my rest now.” He glanced at his mother. “Our journey was a hurried one.”

Before going, he took Philippa’s hand, but rather than kiss it, he drew her a step closer. “It would please me if you would sit beside me at supper. We could discuss your new colt.”

Without giving her time to answer, he turned and left. Margaret crossed her arms and, pouting, turned her face away from her sister. The two youngest, holding hands, looked down at the ground and shifted on their feet. Their parents glowed with satisfaction.

Isabella and I did not need to share a look to know that with that one fleeting stroke of fate everything had fallen into place.
 

*****

For five days straight, Edward and Philippa rode together, much to her mother’s displeasure, but on the sixth day a heavy rain prevented them. So instead, Young Edward taught her how to play the game of English tables. Before the afternoon was done, aided by both luck and wit, she was beating him soundly. He took it in good humor and, being obstinate, challenged her to another game and another after that. Their fun ended when the priggish countess voiced her disapproval because the game used dice
–
the devil’s playthings, she declared.

An intelligent girl, Philippa would make a good queen for any king, although I questioned whether she was strong enough to survive childbearing. Margaret would have been a better brood mare, but he would have grown quickly bored of her, dull as she was.

Soon, Young Edward made it quite plain to his mother that he had made his choice: Philippa it would be.

An agreement was quickly struck with Count William. Philippa’s dowry
–
the men, money and sailing vessels that were already being gathered
–
would be delivered within the month. In return, the wedding would take place in two years. Philippa was too young yet for bearing children. But time would go by quickly. The sooner Young Edward got a son on her, the stronger his rightful claims to the thrones of England and France would be.

Near a hundred ships were filled at Dordrecht with the provisions of war: Flemish horses trained for battle, a thousand staunch fighting men, food enough to last us the journey and longer in case we met resistance, and the weaponry to hew our way through if we did.

On a cool morning in late September, we pulled up our anchors and slipped out into the flat, blue-gray sea, which mirrored a drab sky
 ...
a sky which soon began to choke with more and darker clouds – low, heavy ones, warning of storms. Our sails caught the mounting wind, hurling us over the rising waves at dangerous speeds. For a while, Young Edward clung to the rail at the prow, the wind tearing at his hair as he squinted to see, glancing from time to time without apprehension at the storm chasing us. Before the rains came, though, Isabella fled to her cabin, quaking in fear, as if to escape some demon of sea and wind that haunted her.

For two days, we wandered over the water without mastery of our destination. The hull filled with the sour stench of vomit. Isabella slept not at all, but prayed. Prayed to God to find shore. To be delivered, if not to England, then safely, somewhere.

I dreamed of finding King Edward quivering before me, begging for his life. When I did, I would shut him up in a very small, very cold room and mull on it
 ...
for years.

34

Roger Mortimer:

Suffolk – September, 1326

THE GALE HEAVED OUR ships over the surging waves and dropped them like brittle sticks beneath a pounding waterfall. We sailed on a ship called
The William
– named, in vanity, by our benefactor, the count. Although it was a stalwart vessel, no expense had been wasted on the unnecessary. In its sterncastle was a cabin, austerely furnished for the queen’s voyage with a bed made of planks, a small table affixed to the wall and a stool. The cabin was meant for no more than two people. Sitting far back on the straw mattress, which was beginning to stink of mold, Isabella clung fiercely to her damsel Patrice. With every roll and tip of the cog’s unsteady hull she held her breath, shut her eyes and prayed. I nearly asked her to beg a favor of God on my behalf. Death was a possibility that day and it had been some years since I had confessed. But I resisted. I had sworn not to fail on this quest, storms or no. This terror was a passing inconvenience. We would make land. We would march. We would win England back from Hugh Despenser and exact payment from him.

Not until the following morning did the storms relent. We had lost not only our bearings, but also three of our ships. Two carried food supplies and a small number of mercenaries; the other was a taride, in which canvas slings had been set side by side in the below-deck compartment of the deep hull to help keep the horses safe from injury. Thirty-five of our horses, some of them trained Flemish warhorses, had been lost. We would have been at less of a disadvantage had we tossed our gold into the sea. Gray dawn revealed the broken mast of yet another cog as a stunted, jagged knife of black to the east. It was taking on water and so we loaded all its men and what supplies we had room for onto two of the other ships.

Then, far to our west, through a rolling, low fog
 ...
a hump of land stretched across the horizon. As the sky lightened and the mist lifted, the shoreline came into better view. I stood on the platform of the aftcastle and studied it. Shingle littered the strand in sharp, scattered clumps where the waves broke at high tide. The tide was low now and so we let down anchor far out. With small rowing boats, we began to unload men and supplies. The storms had brought with them the first frosty bite of autumn and every man shivered as he worked.

Waist-deep and impervious to the icy cold of the sea, John of Hainault reached for Isabella with his huge hands. Waves crashed against his thighs, but like a deeply rooted tree he stood firm. Isabella leaned out from the little rowing boat we were in with the prince and lowered herself slowly, shaking, into his bulky arms. As he carried her to shore, the hem of her skirts trailed in the water. Then he set her down on English soil – or what we, for now, assumed was. Still accustomed to the sway of the sea, she wobbled
. A priest, Father Norbert, caught her by the elbow to steady her. I had not exchanged more than a few words with him, but already I disliked him more than most holy men for the way he constantly shepherded Isabella aside and preached to her of virtue and godliness. Having been in Cologne the past year carrying out business with Emperor Louis on behalf of Bishop Stratford of Winchester, he had joined us at Dordrecht seeking passage back to England.
Together he and the queen sank to their knees and gave copious thanks to God.

I leapt into the water. The tide shoved hard at the back of my calves. Coarse sand seeped into my boots. Its grit rubbed against my shins and ankles before settling around my toes. Garlands of seaweed tangled about my feet as I trudged through the shallows and stumbled onto shore.

Meanwhile, Lord Edward bounded through the waves, splashing, until he stood ankle-high in foaming seawater. He gazed up and down the curving shoreline. Overhead and around him, a cloud of gulls tumbled and jeered. He stooped momentarily in surprise, laughed and opened his arms broadly. Then, he swept one leg through the water and kicked, sending sprays into the air.

He could have come home long ago, had he wanted to. However, he had stayed in France. I suspected it was not out of love alone for his mother, but from pure ambition for his uncle’s throne. Perhaps his father’s, as well.

Near me, a plover studied the pebbles around it. It gobbled down a wayward insect, trapped in a pool of tidal mud in the shape of a footprint. Isabella, who had finally taken respite from her prayers, approached the bird slowly. Disturbed by her closeness, it took flight and flapped along the low, sandy cliffs until it found a length of beach where more tiny pools of tidewater lay trapped in an outcropping of rubble.

“Where are we?” Isabella wondered aloud, crouching over the lone footprint. There were no more tracks. Some time had passed, hours or perhaps a day even, since its maker had trodden there. Instinctively, she looked to me. But I had made it a habit to keep my distance and speak rarely to her in public, instead allowing Sir John to plod in her shadow like a pup begging for attention. He had been but a few steps behind her.

Sir John blinked and scratched at his unshaven neck. In his clumsy, thick accent, he said, “I do not know, my lady. I have never been to England.”

Had I met John of Hainault under other circumstances and not known of his birth, I would have called him an oaf and hired him at a pittance to pull the oars of my boat. He had arms as thick as my neck, a flattened nose and a broad forehead with a ridged, bushy brow, all of which gave him the look of a rustic simpleton. Yet had he cause to, he could have cleaved me in two at the spine with one flick of his axe.

With most of the soldiers and arms ashore, our provisions were now being unloaded: barrels of salted fish, sacks of beans, and casks of cider. A soldier passed by with a flitch of bacon flung over his shoulder. Hunger gnawed at my belly. More than food, though, I thirsted for a long pull of ale. Something to dull the stabbing ache in my head and I needed to wash the taste of salt from my tongue. I called for a drink.

“No man eats,” I told the soldier, “until everything is in order and accounted for.” It would give them incentive to finish their duties, I reasoned.

Nearby, Isabella slumped down on a piece of driftwood next to a leaning clump of sea-holly. She tugged the hood of her mantle up over her head. The waves and wind roared in my ears so that I could barely hear the frail whisper of her voice.

“It’s cold, everything stinks of seawater, and I am weary to the bone.” Isabella cupped her hands to her mouth and blew warm air into them. At that moment, she looked like some haggard old fisherwoman, wizened by harsh winds, not like a queen in the prime of her beauty. Deep creases had formed around her eyes. Her shoulders were rolled forward so that her back was hunched, as if she had carried the equal of her own weight for years on end. The brightness that was Isabeau – the vitality and ardor that I had come to experience so intimately – was gone.

I had Arnaud bring her a blanket to ward off the autumn chill. But when he offered it, she waved it away.

“I need a fire, not a damp rag,” she complained through blue lips. “I am cold. Cold and wet.”

The count’s brother, who had taken it upon himself to be not only her champion, but her caretaker as well, overheard her. Soon there was a fire and a little shelter made of reeds and sticks to shield her from the wind. She called for ink and parchment. Patrice found her a wooden box to serve as her table. Isabella’s hands trembled as she wrote.

A useless task, I thought. What good would pretty words do when we had an army to move?

She paused, wiggled her fingers and pulled them inside her cloak. I longed to hold her against me to warm her, but that was not my place, as her advisor. Instead, I gulped down the last of my drink, turned away and went in search of Maltravers.

I found him bringing the remaining horses ashore. Plowing through knee-deep water, he pulled hard at the reins of a chestnut mare, blurting out a curse every time she resisted.

“Your horse?” I called to him.

He squinted at me with one eye. “Mine? Thank the saints, no. She’s a stubborn mule. Mine broke its blessed leg. Kicked at a hurdle in a fit of terror. I’ll need another.” With a grunt he yanked again. Her neck arched as she dug her forelegs into the muck.

I waded out to his side, caught the reins close to the bit and stroked her muzzle. In moments, she had settled and began to walk willingly with me. On shore, I gave her a firm pat and chastened her. “Whose is she?” I asked.

Maltravers spat into the sand at his feet. “The queen’s, I was told.”

“Ah, I remember now. Given to her by Countess Jeanne. But she still preferred her old mare – the gray. The other horses
 ...
What of the taride carrying the Flemish ones? Did it go down?”

“Blown away by the storm, someone said. With good luck it will be found, but I wouldn’t count on it soon. It could be anywhere.” He wrung out the tail of his shirt. “The hay was ruined, all of it. We’ve some oats and fresh water, but they won’t last more than a day.”

“We don’t need more than that. This is England, man, at least I think, and it’s far from being winter.” I looked along the shoreline for a meadow or some indication of fresh water. “The shore, there to the north, where it bends westward
 ...
Do you see the reeds of an estuary? If the water is less brackish there
 ...
A river.” But which one? Our intention had been the beach of Thanet, north of Dover, where Edmund of Kent, who had left Valenciennes two weeks earlier, awaited. But I doubted the river was the Great Stour. We had been pushed too far north for that. The Deben, perhaps? “Leave the horses and provisions to others for now, Maltravers. Take some men with you. Follow the river. Find out where we are,” I told him, hoping it was not so close to London that we would be set upon like salmon leaping out of the water and landing on shore. “And learn the whereabouts of the king.”

The whimpering Edward would stay where it was safest – yet never far from his dearly beloved Despenser.

*****

The scent of wood smoke filled the afternoon air. Cooking fires, most surrounded by dozens of hungry soldiers, were closely tended. The ships had been quickly emptied and were preparing to sail out on my orders. The likelihood was great that someone had already spotted the fleet. Soon enough, word of our arrival would spread like fire in a dry hayloft. With the ships gone, not only would there be less cause to cry foul, but our band of mercenaries would be unable to abandon us if our situation went too suddenly bad. Although I trusted John of Hainault because of his incurable devotion to Isabella, it would be all too easy for his men to skulk away and return to the continent if they had the means. I had prevented that from happening. They would serve the queen and her son until they were released from their duties – for however long they were needed.

The heavy clouds of that morning scattered northward. Patches of bright blue invaded the sky between. I sent a couple of men to find pasture for the horses, figuring that was an easy enough task for them. But when they returned, which was long before Maltravers, it was not with fodder or grain.

Two soldiers warbled a tavern song from the bench of a tottering cart drawn by a swaybacked nag. They laughed raucously, whipped the old horse with a willow switch and shouted to their fellow soldiers, “Ale! Ale!” A hail that brought thirsty, tired men in throngs, who shoved and grappled at the dozen casks.

The cart’s bed was emptied by the time I reached it. Parched men-at-arms guzzled down ale in torrents. Some men shared in the spoils, but others thought nothing of slamming a fist into someone’s gut to take what they wanted. A cask fell from the grasp of a Flemish soldier and broke into splinters on the ground. Liquid gold and bubbling foam soaked into the earth. A nearby Englishman kneed the Fleming in the groin for his wastefulness. Then, he pulled a knife and twirled it in his grip.

From behind, I whipped my sword free of its scabbard – a sound which made heads turn and bodies fall back in reflex. I brought it to where his neck met his spine. “Do it. You’ll serve as a fine example of what happens to those who quarrel.”

The knife fell from his fingers.

I stepped past him and turned around, my blade held straight before me. Slowly, they put down the casks and cleared way. “Not one day in England and already you cannot tolerate each other. Why did you come? You are worth nothing to me like this. Nothing! If you cannot discipline yourselves, I will gladly do it. And I will think nothing of getting rid of any one of you who dares poison this army with disobedience. You
 ...
and you, over here!” I pointed to the two men who had stolen the cart. “Here! Now!”