Isabella: Braveheart of France (26 page)

“You saw me? Why did you not sound the alarm?”

“I did, but the guards would not wake.”

He laughs. “No, you didn’t. You wanted me to escape. I wonder why. Was it because you wished one day to employ my sword arm?”

“I could not have known it would come to this.”

“Something in you did.”

There is snow in the bare fields. The nights are cold and lonely, and soon the hunger matters more to her than good sense. She does not sleep with Mortimer to make good use of his sword arm. For now, it is another part of his equipment that matters more to her.

She has been too long starved for this. Good sense tells her to delay, that there will be a time to satisfy this craving. But good sense has been left behind, in England.

***

The air is frigid, the coals in the brazier are out as Isabella, dressed in nothing but a thin shift, carries a candle into her private chapel. She stretches out on the bitter cold flagstones, and edges forward like a penitent to the rood screen and, face down and arms outstretched, begs God for forgiveness and to take this longing away from her.

But that night, again, she rests a long finger on the velvet tunic of her lover, breathing hard, and kisses his fingertips and touches them to her lips.

All things seem possible. “They will destroy us if we do not stop,” she whispers.

“We will stop tomorrow.”

“I mean it.”

“They will not do anything while we are still of use to them. You have Prince Edward, Isabella. All can be forgiven.”

“But will God forgive me?”

“Given time,” he says, and then he pins her on the bed again, and the time for strategy and wisdom is gone.

Later, lying in his arms, she whispers: “I do not want harm to befall Edward. I still love him. It is the Despenser I want to be rid of.”

“Those are just words. From the moment you came here, you knew there could be only way out. You make your son king or you go back and spend the rest of your life shut up in a monastery like your cousins.”

Her destiny gathers pace. She sees the way her servants and her son look at her but she cannot help herself. Soon she is notorious.

Chapter 46

There are candles burning in the chapel and the air is sweet with incense. Isabella prays to the Virgin, but what good is a virgin for problems like these? She cannot possibly understand the need to be adored, to be desired. A woman should not want these things, her confessor once told her. It is wanton.

When she sees her son he is cold to her. He is sullen when she asks him about his day: the Lord Mortimer has been hunting with him, they caught two hares with the falcon, it rained, the dogs cornered a boar and Roger killed it with a well aimed arrow.

“A good day,” she says, hopefully.

He shrugs. He does not like Paris, he says. It is dirty and it is too cold. It is, of course, just like London, but he does complain when they stay at Westminster or in the White Tower.

“I should like to go home and see my father,” he says.

“Soon.”

“I am a prisoner here, aren’t I?”

She laughs. Her laughter is too loud, and it startles them both. “Of course not, how can you be a prisoner when you are with your mother?” She knows where this idea is from. His father has been writing him letters again. She asks him what else he wrote.

“Nothing,” he says, and his cheeks flush with the lie. After a pause: “Is Lord Mortimer your new friend?”

Now it is her turn to lie. “He has helped me much since I have been in France.”

“Father says he is a traitor.”

“Bad men have lied to your father about him. He is a loyal Englishman. Did you know it was Roger who subdued the rebellion in Ireland?”

Edward does not care for the rebellion in Ireland. He wants only to know which bad men have been lying to his father. She sees the trap and says only that Mortimer has enemies who wish to see him destroyed, and in time all will be clear.

She squeezes his hand. He lowers his eyes. He does not smile back.

This boy is all that stands between her and her exile. He must become her creation and not his father’s. She must build here a prince that all men could be proud of. It must be done for England’s sake, not just for Isabella’s.

This she believes.

“I promised my father before I left England that I would not contract a marriage without his knowledge and consent.”

“Who talks of marriage?”

“Lord Mortimer tells me I shall marry one of William’s daughters. He says it is all arranged, that there are four daughters and I am fortunate because I can choose from any one of them.”

“Nothing is decided yet.”

“Father says in his letter that he can annul the marriage and disinherit me. He says a disobedient son will suffer the wrath of God.”

“Yes, well he would say that, Edward.”

“Can he disinherit me?”

“On what basis?”

“I gave him my word that I should not marry without his consent.”

She remembers her father’s face bent to hers when she was his age.
You will make him love you.
She reaches out and strokes his cheek, offers bright laughter instead of the truth. “Nothing is decided,” she tells him again and goes in search of the lord Mortimer.

***

“You told him that he was going to marry one of the Hainaut women?” She is livid, controls her temper only with difficulty.

“What of it, Bella?”

Bella
. She remembers last night, the sheets still damp, he put an arm around her, called her Bella la Belle. A pun, an endearment she had allowed in the moment. But she does not wish him to make a habit of it, certainly not when they are away from the bedchamber.

“He should have heard this only from me. It is my decision alone.”

The lip curls. It might be a smile…it could be something else. “But what else can you do in your position? I am trying to negotiate a way for us to bring young Edward to the crown. You must give me leave to enable this as best I can.”

“By promising my son in marriage to the Count of Hainault?”

“I promised nothing. I have explored the possibility of it with Count William and with your son. We are in a parlous position, what else would you have me do?”

It is a pertinent question. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted, a strong and decisive man like her father? “I am the only one who will negotiate the prince’s future.”

Mortimer slams his hand on the table. “We need him. He is all that keeps us from disaster, do you not realize that?”

He is not accustomed to being questioned about the way things should be. As a lover it is an admirable quality, but this is not the bedchamber, and she is not reclining.

He sees the look on her face and his expression softens. He takes her hand and leans in, smiling. “I have received secret communication from Norfolk,” he whispers. “He says that should you return to England, even with just a thousand men, all England will rally to you and place your son on the throne. Where will we find ships and a thousand men, Bella?”

She stiffens. There, he has used that name again. Even as he whispers hope of redemption he curdles it. “It is for me to decide who he marries.”

The smile fades. His arsenal is exhausted. He has tried bullying and wheedling, now he is disarmed and he crosses his arms and sulks. “We need William.”

“I need no one anymore.”

An eyebrow is raised at that.

Finally he bows and leaves. In the chansons of the troubadours love was always sweet and gentle, why couldn’t Mortimer be like that?

The next day she meets with Charles at the Palais de la Cîté, along with Mortimer and Jeanne her cousin, and it is agreed that the young prince will contract a marriage to William’s daughter, Philippa. In return, William will provide Mortimer with troops and ships for the invasion.

They all look at her.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Charles asks her.

Her throat feels tight. She wonders if she might feel better about this if she were not sleeping with the man who would depose her husband from his throne. After all Edward has done, or has failed to do, she should not feel so badly about this.

She nods her head, not trusting her voice.

There, it is decided.

Mortimer smiles. Charles looks resigned, Jeanne relieved.

There is no going back.

***

Mortimer goes to it the same way always. He hoists the flag and makes his charge. Once is novelty and twice is breathtaking. But now she is accustomed and looks for more. She remembers his tenderness in the garden with his wife and children. Why does she never see this in him? She feels at times he is angry with her for making him a scoundrel.

He lies on top of her, breathless, his face flushed, muscles corded in his chest and arms. His seed pools on her belly and thighs. Tonight she had to struggle with him--he almost forgot himself and did not withdraw. Or does he wish to father an heir himself? The thought has occurred to her.

Later, as he lies beside her, he says: “My mother has been forced into hiding.”

“By Edward? But she is an old lady!”

“She is apparently a threat to the state. He has ordered her arrest. It is just spite.”

“Edward has not done this. It is Despenser.”

Mortimer sits up in bed and frowns at her. She runs her hand down his back. She used to leave scratches there but it seems her passion is fading already. “Must you always defend him? They are his orders, under his seal. He allows it to happen, it is the same thing.”

“I think the problem with Edward is Gaveston.”

“Gaveston? He has been mouldering in his grave these fifteen years.”

“And Edward still pays the friars at Warwick to say a mass for him every day. He prays at his tomb on his birthday and the anniversary of his death.”

“It is unnatural.”

“It is love.”

“It was sodomy and against all God’s laws.”

“I only wished he loved me as much. He could have put it where he wanted.”

She cannot believe the words have come out of her mouth. He turns and stares at her. They are both shocked. What is he supposed to say to that?

She cannot meet his eyes.

“We have made a fool of him, Roger. All Christendom will laugh at him because I cuckolded him with his greatest enemy.”

He is grateful to be talking of something else. “Only if he knows about us,” he says.

“The whole world knows about us. Almost the entire retinue sent here with me from England has deserted and gone back to England. They will regale Edward with stories of my disloyalty with all England’s traitors as well as my dalliance with you.”

“Well, it will soon be too late.”

“I hope so. Every day we delay means another day that he is ready. He has set up watches all along the south coast. He is prepared for invasion.”

“He thinks it will come from your brother, not from Hainaut.”

“It will not matter where it comes from if England does not love us.”

“How can they not? They despise the Despensers, they will greet us as saviours.” He rolls towards her, puts a hand on her breast--the royal breast, his possession now, to fondle as he pleases. “I cannot get enough of you,” he murmurs, and finally he has said the right thing.

“Be gentle,” she murmurs. “I am sore.”

“I am always gentle,” he murmurs, but of course he is not. He batters away again like he is trying to break down the gate of a castle. Sometimes she is nostalgic for Edward. He had such gentle hands for such a big man.

The King of France smiles, no more than a curl of the lip, the eyes glittering like steel points. The effect is unnerving. He has a pretty face for such a ruthless man. He may be her brother, but Charles is all about Charles, she knows this. She would expect nothing less of a son of France.

“You slept well?” he asks her, and as he rarely enquires after her sleep she knows the question means something else entirely.

“I am well rested.”

He seems to struggle with himself. How indelicate can he allow himself to be? “I had the
nuncio
in here this morning,” he says. “He was roaring against you.”

“The
nuncio
? He has said nothing to me.”

“He is a man of God. He cannot say aloud to a queen and sister to the King of France what he might say to a common sinner.”

“A sinner?” she enquires, as sweetly as she can.

“You may flash your eyes like that at my Lord Mortimer and find it has some effect, but Isabella, do not attempt these same stratagems with me. Remember who I am.” He gets up and stalks the carpets. Expensive, brought all the way from Damascus or Aegypt.