Son of the Morning (30 page)

The hall was dim even in the bright morning – just a couple of high windows let in light – and lamps and candles were mounted around the walls. Montagu had the impression he’d entered an enchanted cave. He laughed to himself – weren’t dragons meant to inhabit such places?

And then the doors behind the hall opened. Four pages marched in and demanded everyone stand for Isabella, mother to the king. The room came to attention. Two trumpeters stepped forward and delivered a fanfare and the queen glided between them, the jewels of her dress and hair catching the torchlight to sparkle with a cold fire.

The beauty of beauties
. That title had been given to her when she had been married – at twelve years old. Now – at forty or more – she had obviously lost her incandescent childish prettiness but it had been replaced with a disconcerting perfection, a sophistication of poise and manner and, as his friend Bohun had once noted, beauty irresistible as the tide. She did not look forty, or even thirty. Some had called her a witch and a sorceress, as Robert had just suggested. In the hallway Montagu had thought this rubbish. Looking at her now, he could almost believe it. How in the name of God had old Edward preferred his favourites to her? At Newcastle he’d left her to the advancing Scots, choosing to save his lover Piers Gaveston. She’d only escaped through own resourcefulness. Montagu would have presented Gaveston’s body and riches to the Scots on a velvet cushion before he’d have given them one hair from Isabella’s head. Abandon her? He’d face ten thousand clansmen alone rather than that.

Isabella’s gown was of yellow baudekin – silk woven with gold – adorned all over with tiny flowers in red and pink picked out in rubies and sapphires. It was cut in the latest fashion, clinging tight to her body with voluminous sleeves that reached almost to the floor. On her head, making clear her status, was a delicate gold crown studded with rubies. It sat above her white blonde hair which, hung with pearls, remained uncovered, an immodesty that only such an important lady could be allowed.

She was pale as a primrose, her lips deep red and her figure slender and shapely. It would have been easier for Montagu to find her transformed into an ageing hag but no such luck. His desire for her would be written all over his face. And this was not the affectation of a chaste spiritual desire for the queen, some courtly love bilge, but something genuine, incapable of disguise. He remained uncompromised only because the queen was used to the reaction she drew from men.

Montagu bowed as the queen came to her seat.

‘Still beautiful,’ he murmured under his breath to Robert.

‘Only God is beautiful,’ said Robert. His eyes were on the floor. He had not looked at the queen once.

‘Seems they picked the right man for the job when they chose you to guard her,’ said Montagu.

Robert shot him a glance. ‘When a man of the Hospitallers takes a vow of chastity, he means it,’ said Robert.

‘Well, how nice for you,’ said Montagu. ‘A chaste monk! Who ever heard of such a thing? Rarer than dragons.’

‘Dragons are not so rare,’ said Robert.

There was silence, grace was said and the queen gestured for Montagu to join her at a place on her right.

He went directly up to the table first and went on to one knee before her.

‘Ma’am, you do us much honour with this feast.’

Isabella smiled. ‘You did me the courtesy of telling me you were coming. The last time I saw you, you approached more suddenly.’

She spoke in her wonderful Parisian French, none of the crunching consonants of the English Norman court.

‘Ma’am.’ Montagu didn’t know what to say.
Sorry for dragging off the love of your life so your son could execute him in a just, if horrible way.
It seemed inadequate. And they both knew, he wasn’t sorry. He had done what was right and what his duty to king and to God required of him.

He gestured for his squire to come forward. Good boy, George, he’d found a rich red cloth from somewhere on which to show the gifts – a good ruby ring, a book of romances, a finely wrought golden chain.

‘Charming,’ said the queen, signalling for a lady-in-waiting to come forward and take the gifts, ‘really charming. Most thoughtful, Montagu. Your manners always were impeccable. Sit beside me and tell me stories of the outside world. I’ve not seen it in a long time.’

Montagu did as he was bid, sitting next to the queen. He breathed in her smell – rose and apple oil. It was distinctive and he knew that it came from her use of Castille soap. A hundred women at the court used that soap, but not to that effect. If Isabella smelled of apples then it was the ones that hung in Eden.

‘So what brings you to see an old mad woman in her prison?’

‘You’re hardly mad, ma’am, and certainly not old.’

‘You flatter me, Montagu. I am old, certainly old. I would
need
to be mad to believe otherwise.’

‘To me you seem the loveliest of women. If that makes me mad, I say thank God for madness.’

He speared out a herring from the dish in front of him.

She smiled. ‘I don’t think you are a flatterer, Montagu, so I thank you for your compliment. But it is true they say that I am mad, is it not?’

‘They say very much, ma’am, little of it makes sense and even less is true. You can hear whatever you want to hear about greatness.’

‘And what do you hear about me?’

‘That you are mad.’

Isabella put her hand to her mouth to cover her laugh. ‘You know, Montagu, you always could make me laugh. You always made everyone laugh. Even Mortimer.’

Montagu studied his plate.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I don’t bear grudges, or rather, there are more important targets for my hate than you. I forgive you – you were acting for your king.’

‘Ma’am.’

‘It’s a trait of my family,’ she continued. ‘Edward has it too. We are pragmatic and can recognise a good man. If I had ruled I would have found a use for you.’

‘As an adornment for a spike on London Bridge?’

‘Perhaps. Who knows what might have been necessary? But if we cannot be friends we can at least be civil. Tell me, finally, how you gained entry to Nottingham Castle? Who let you in? How many guards did you have to bribe?’

‘We had help from the castle steward Eland. He showed us a passage through the rocks at the base of the castle. We came up through a secret passage.’

The queen was suddenly stern. ‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Montagu.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘They were all peddling that story in the year after they took my Mortimer.’

‘It was no story, ma’am, but the plain truth.’

‘No. There was no passage and there was no Eland. The castle warder was William Baricloughe, Mortimer’s man for twenty years. He would have known of any secret passage. And there was none. Whatever Mortimer might have been he wasn’t a fool. The whole castle had been thoroughly searched. Mortimer knew he was surrounded by his enemies and he knew how many nooks and cracks those old buildings contain for spiders like you to crawl through.’

Montagu turned down the wine bowl as it was passed to him but he picked up his cup of ale. ‘I tell you honestly, ma’am, how we came into the castle. I swear it on the tooth of St Anne here in my sword and by her sacred daughter the Holy Mary.’

Isabella stared ahead.

‘Then I
am
mad,’ she said. ‘I was left alone in that castle fearing for the life of my beloved. Do you not think I searched for the way you went? Do you think I did not order you pursued? I had four hundred of Roger’s men in that castle, ready to cut off your escape. But you were gone, poof! –’ she clenched her fist and released it in front of his face, ‘– into the air! I have no idea how you got in or got out. Sorcery was involved, I’m sure of that.’

‘Madam, it was not! Do you think I would imperil my soul?’

‘I think you would do anything for your king.’

‘Not that.’

‘Do you imagine I have no knowledge of these things?’

‘I don’t know what to imagine.’

‘God was coming to recognise Mortimer as equal to a king. But his men could not find you. Nothing could find you. And that time the spirits did not come to his rescue.’

‘What spirits?’

‘The saints were involved more substantially than you could imagine. He prayed, you know, when my husband Edward imprisoned him, to be released. And it was on the feast of St Peter in Chains that he escaped, rescued by holy powers. He was divinely blessed, a saint himself, I’m sure. It must be recognised one day. What powers did you summon to help you? Were the Florentines involved? I know that Bardi had something to do with this. Now there’s a man I would have dealings with. Bankers are vermin, God says so quite clearly in the Bible. I’d make him suffer what I have suffered.’

‘The banker had nothing to do with it. The king was with us. He called his divine aid to protect us.’

‘Did he? I was at Westminster Abbey, Montagu, with the king as he went to the Confessor’s shrine. I’ve seen the angels speak to my father, my husband, my brother a hundred times. It didn’t happen to my son there and, from what I hear, it hasn’t happened since.’

‘Who do you hear that from?’

Isabella smiled. ‘There are murmurs on the breeze if you care to listen.’

‘I can’t imagine you hear much here.’

‘Then you can’t imagine much. Men speak – they always speak if you know how to ask.’ She gave a little wave of dismissal. When the poets wrote of the white hand of my lady, that was very much the sort of hand they had in mind, Montagu thought.

‘Was it Mortimer’s saints that kept the angels away from old Edward? Is it something like that that still keeps them away?’ He realised he’d said too much. This woman had a way of making you drop your guard.

She laughed. ‘No. The source of all my husband’s troubles was Hugh Despenser, his favourite, his lover, his devil.
He
kept the angels away.’

‘I can believe that. The man
was
a devil.’ He looked over to where George sat munching on a chicken leg. Very unlike his father, thank God – a pleasant boy, eager to serve.

‘Despenser was in league with these fellows,’ she said, pointing at Robert.

Montagu brought his hand to his mouth to stifle a cry of ‘what?’

‘The Knights Hospitaller. They visited him before they tried to face us at Orwell.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Do you imagine I was entirely without friends in my husband’s court?’

‘So what did Despenser do?’

‘I don’t know. We knew Edward was having difficulty raising his army, such was his unpopularity and the hate the people bore Despenser. But the angels came. We saw them at Orwell.’

‘So why did Mortimer think he would be successful? He had no angels, old Edward had three.’

‘Because the angels don’t always do anything. It’s a risk but war is a risk.’

Montagu thought how like her son she sounded. ‘And they didn’t act?’

‘No. They left. It was a great boost to our army. Despenser caused them to leave.’

‘How did he do that?’

‘By making a serious mistake. Some magic was cast. Something was called. We know that from his servants.’

‘A demon?’

‘Maybe. Whatever it was, we were grateful for it.’

‘Why isn’t this known?’

‘What happened to Despenser and his servants?’

Montagu pondered. Mortimer had given Despenser an inventive and cruel death. A ritual death. Verses from the Bible had been scratched all over his body before they’d executed him, and monks had chanted all around his execution. Despenser had been too beaten to speak. His closest men had been purged too, viciously. Had Mortimer been trying to conceal something?

‘I always thought you had a say in Despenser’s death. Your hate for him was well known.’

‘No.’

‘Speak plainly, ma’am, what are you saying?’

‘I tell you what I think. Despenser was a black magician. He bewitched my husband and led him to folly. At Orwell, he relied on his arts to make up for the lack of an army. And it failed him.’

‘Why not rely on the angels? They were seen there, as I recall.’

‘Perhaps he feared they’d do nothing – as they did. Perhaps he wanted to impress the king. You know what Despenser was like.’

Montagu sipped at his beer.

She continued: ‘Despenser knew the secret of what happened to England’s angels. There was a blaze of fire and they left. The fire came from his side.’

‘I thought that was Mortimer’s doing.’

‘No.’ She gently pulled the meat off a tiny quail. ‘Mortimer only had his faith, which was rewarded. My lover was a holy man. Perhaps God rewarded him by cursing Despenser and making him drive the angels away.’

Montagu thought it was time to be direct. ‘Did Mortimer tell your son his father was still alive?’

Her face was impassive. ‘If he did, he lied. Did you know I made them give me his heart in a vase?’

‘It was a sign of your love.’

She smiled, her perfectly even white teeth showing. ‘My husband told me he loved Despenser. He said no woman could ever win his heart. I proved him wrong.’

Montagu thought it better to concentrate on eating for a while.

Eventually, after some lamb cutlets, he said, ‘Why have you not told of your suspicions about Despenser before?’

‘Tell whom? My son has me cooped up here like an old hen.’

The queen smiled as the Hospitaller leaned closer. ‘That is enough of talk,’ she said. ‘Do you intend to stay the night or will you be about your business?’

‘We will stay the night,’ said Montagu. He had thought to press on to King’s Lynn. But Nottingham was only eighty miles west and he very much wanted to inspect its castle. And from there it was no distance at all to Hanley Castle – the Despenser’s family seat. It was a ruin now, but Montagu wanted to take a look at it, as well as questioning Despenser’s wife who lodged down the road at Tewkesbury. There was no other reason he wanted to stay – was there?

Isabella put her hand on his.

‘I’m glad you will stay. We will give you our best lodgings in the east wing. It’s where my chambers are. I love to watch the sun rise there.’

Montagu felt his mouth go dry. The wine bowl was passed to him once more. He turned it aside. ‘Servant, bring me some weaker ale,’ he said. ‘I have affairs of state to attend to and must keep a clear head.’