Braveheart (4 page)

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THE

REBEL

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6

YEARS LATER, AN ENGLISH SAILING VESSEL RODE AT ANchor at the Pas de Calais. The entire southwest of France was under the control of Edward the Longshanks, the English king, yet still this vessel was surrounded by a contingent of soldiers, half of them attired in the silks and plumes of an honor guard and the other half in the practical battle gear of fighting soldiers. The former unit had arrayed themselves upon the main deck, whereas the rougher fellows stood in guard positions upon the docks. Out on the water, halfway between the shore and the horizon, rode three warships, swiftest in the English fleet, on watch for the pirates who plied the channel or the Spanish or anyone foolish enough to accost this convoy on this day.

A lookout on the topmast of the flagship was watching the shore, not the sea, and when he sang out, “There! Coming!” the sailors poured up from belowdecks and the parade soldiers lined the rails.

Six French knights, armored as light cavalry, galloped up the road, and then a carriage, flying from its corners the fluer-de-lis, gold on a French blue background, sped into view. Its quartet of jet black horses was lathered and sweating; its wheels drummed sudden thunder on the rough planks of the dock. Six more horsemen rode behind.

The procession lurched to a halt beside the ship and the captain stepped quickly across the flat timbers bridging to the dock, and there he swept the hat from his head and bowed low. Footmen sprang from their perches at the rear of the carriage; one opened the carriage door and the other placed a golden step below it. From the carriage emerged the brother of the king of France, himself a prince. He was thirty-eight years old, fair-haired and handsome; he wore the finest clothes that anyone on the ship had ever seen.

But he was not the one they had sailed across the channel to meet. Stepping from the carriage into the sunlight was Isabella, his niece, daughter of the king of France, bride-to-be of Edward, son of Longshanks king of England.

The captain had seen the sun, after a storm-tossed night at sea, rise above the alabaster cliffs of Dover. He had seen the Milky Way on a night so dark and calm that the stars reflected on the black surface of the water and the ship seemed suspended in the heavens. But as he lifted his eyes for his first look at the future queen, the breath left his body, and he knew he would never see anything nearly as beautiful as this blue-eyed woman who kissed her royal father upon his cheek and floated across the bridging timbers into the ship as the sun played upon her yellow hair.

Her name was Isabella Maria Josephina Christiana Marguerita Rochamboulet—well, she had more given names than she had years—And those were just the Christian names. Her family names and titles, in a world where inheritance of crowns depended upon connections of blood and marriage, were a litany as long as the Latin Mass. She had been educated in languages, for which she had great talent, and music, in which she had little, but had received no instruction at all in the art of politics, and it would be years before anyone realized that her gifts in that arena were greatest of all. But she was a woman, and a beautiful one. Yet she could have been utterly unremarkable and still have found herself on this ship, bound for the same destination, because of all those names and titles.

Longshanks had chosen her to be his daughter-in-law because her connection to the throne of France reassured the French nobles of their prospects in the kingdom he sought to create through the union of the two realms. And the king of France had allowed her to accept the proposal because he too wished to see France and England under one crowned head, though with Longshanks already old and his son reputed to be weak, the French king had a different expectation from Longshanks about whose head would wear the crown.

As Isabella stood at the rail and watched the sails fill with breeze, she was aware that nothing she had ever accomplished or said or thought or felt had ever had any result whatsoever. She was a princess already; she was going to be a greater princess still. People would bow and curtsey and would obey her every whim, to marry a man she had never met in a country to which she had never wished to go. No one had every asked for her consent in the arrangement. She had no power at all. Isabella would only have one man, and he was already chosen. She was a virgin—a royal physician had certified that—and once she married she was forbidden to have any relationships beyond those with her husband. To violate this law was treason.

Beside her stood Nicolette, her friend, her confidant, her lady-in-waiting. Nicolette had dark hair, beautiful dark eyes. Isabella had sometimes wished to have hair and eyes like Nicolette’s. Just to be different. But what would it matter?

It was a clear day. The sun was bright. Isabella looked toward the horizon and her new home. They said you could see England from far off on a clear day. She looked toward her new home and gripped the ropes to the sails as the ship rolled through the waves.

Nicolette looked at her lady’s face and saw that it looked sad. Nicolette was not surprised. She had seer, that face laugh many times, but not since they told her of the engagement. Still she would make the best of it. Nicolette knew that. Isabella seemed frail with that narrow waist and those eyes like a painted doll. But when you looked into those eyes, you knew—you always knew—that she would do what must be done.

7

“
HOW DO YOU LIKE IT SO FAR?” NICOLETTE ASKED AS THEIR carriage rolled across the cobblestones of London. They had just entered the city after two full days journey from the coast. They had seen much of England and only ten minutes of its capital city, but still Isabella knew her friend was referring to London; she was used to Nicolette’s sense of humor.

Isabella smiled. “It’s a dream.”

“It is a nightmare.”

“It isn’t Paris, that’s what you’re saying.”

“It stinks.”

“Paris stinks. We’re just used to the way it smells.”

“Paris smells like rotting flowers. London smells like rotting fish. If you prefer fish to flowers, then that is up to you.”

Isabella laughed. Even in this bone-jarring carriage, with the rain falling and the French guards riding before and after the carriage weighted down by the mud, Nicolette brought warmth and laughter. “London is gray and dirty,” Isabella said, “but the people are hardy. Did you see that man back there at the bridge? He was waiting in the rain, had been for hours, I would guess, but he kept the bridge clear of traffic for us to pass. We didn’t have to stop and wait; he was already keeping it clear because he knew sooner or later we would be along. The people are efficient.”

“Maybe there are stupid. Why else would a man sit out in the cold instead of waiting in a tavern by the fire and coming out only when there is a carriage there to make his job necessary?

“I don’t think they are stupid,” Isabella said. “I think they are afraid.”

8

HER WEDDING DAY.

Isabella woke in a fur-covered bed with four posts carved into angels. They all turned inward as if to watch over her. The canopy that stretched above their halos was woven with patterns of golden thread that caught the light of the fireplace, a cozy blaze maintained all night long by a silent-footed ancient attendant. But neither the wooden angels or the soft bed or the war fire had made her sleep deeply; several times throughout the night she had opened her eyes to see the flickering gold reflections above her. Now as the princess looked up she saw the gold washed out by the gray of a London morning seeping in at the edges of the window curtains, and she squeezed her eyes shut again and said to herself, “My wedding day.”

Many times, as a girl growing up on a castle estate in the country outside Paris, she had imagined this day; she and Nicolette many times had described to each other what colors they would wear, the cut of their dresses, the flowers they would wear in adornment. About the age of fourteen they had begun to include their dreams of a bridegroom in their discussions. He would be handsome, tall, strong. Of course, they were children then, with immature ideas. Isabella was seventeen now, and her thinking was far more mature.

Now she understood that she was a princess, soon to be a queen. She knew her duties: fidelity, respect, maintaining an appearance that would support her husband’s pride, and the obligation—greatest of all—natural; she had no doubts she would be a perfect wife.

But she had other expectations, and they caused her some uncertainty. She hoped her new husband would want to share his thoughts, his feelings, his dreams saw it as her only chance for happiness. Isabella had always known herself to be headstrong. She had ideas; she liked to express them. She had been warned about this many times by the older ladies of the court who had undertaken her instruction in the responsibilities or royalty. They would practice flattery with her: how pressed an idea, how to be breathless with his brilliance. She remembered how Madame Bouchard, sent to her from the king of France, had tried to instruct her.

“Now, my darling, suppose. I am your royal husband and I come to you and say, `I am so proud of my new flagship! It is the largest and finest in the world!’ What do you say?”

“I ask him who built it.”

Madame Bouchard blinked for a moment, sucked her lips between her teeth, and said, “That could work, that might be a good opening. And how would you continue the conversation?”

“I would ask who his sailing master would be and if the master and the builder knew each other.”

Madame Bouchard frowned. “No, you see, my darling, the point is not to make your husband talk or to cause him to answer questions unless they are to lead up to the main embrace of this verbal dance, which is to tell your husband that he has accomplished something wonderful. Something spectacular. Something that a lesser man would never have received, much less attempted.”

“To polish his pride,” Isabella said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Yes!”

“To nurture confident feelings about himself.”

“Exactly!” Madame Bouchard said, new hope in her voice.

“Then I would also be sure to ask him if the sailing master and the builder not only knew each other, but had spent time together sailing vessels of the builder’s making.”

“No, no, no, child, why would a queen possibly wish to engage the king in a conversation about details in which even a man could not find the slightest interest?”

Now it was Isabella’s turn to look baffled. “Because you said it was about his pride. About his confidence.”

“And so it is! But—“

“So what if he brought this ship out before his people, even before another king, and his great ship should sink?”

“That could never happen! What are you—“?