Isabella: Braveheart of France (8 page)

One day he will say that about me:
she means more to me than anything.
For now I am still a girl, but when I am a woman I will change his mind.

“I do not understand you, your grace.”

He shakes his head. “I doubt you ever shall. But that is not your fault,” he adds, for the second time that day, and they lapse into gloomy silence.

Chapter 14

A boar has gone to ground somewhere in a thicket. As they wait for the hounds to flush him out, she walks her horse beside Gaveston. He smiles when he sees her at his shoulder. He has a brilliant smile, though the barons have never seen it.

The wind burns her cheeks.

“You cannot hope to win. Why do you fight them?”

“What else is there to do?”

“They will kill you if they can.”

“Would that make you sorry?”

“Yes and no.”

He laughs at that. “I understand why you would say no. But why yes?”

“I don’t know.”

The dogs are howling but they cannot see them. They are closing in on their quarry down there in the brambles. When they flush him out, Edward will take him first. The boar has no chance, there are too many of them, and they have him trapped.

“We fight for every moment, even when we are doomed,” Gaveston says, and at that moment the boar appears, and the king’s arrow takes him in the throat. Four more bolts thud into him and he goes down. He dies, belly heaving.

The king waits until summer to go down to London and meet his tormentors in the Parliament. She joins him later.

It is a long journey and she has endured a week bumping along in the back of her horse-drawn charette with her ladies. But when she arrives, Edward is not there to greet her. He is busy with more important affairs.

But Rosseletti is there, and she meets with him privately and he tells her all that others will not. The barons have presented Edward with a list of forty-one ordinances; if they have their way, Edward will not be allowed to grant land, go to war or even leave the realm without their consent. His bankers, the Frescobaldi, have been ruined and banished, thus cutting off his source of private funding.

“What does this mean for me?” Isabella asks him.

“Your fortunes are tied to his, and his prospects are fraught unless he bring his barons to heel. But unless he sends Gaveston away, they will continue their defiance of him.”

“Because he favours him or because he loves him?”

He blushed at the queen’s forthrightness. “That is not for me to say, your grace.”

She speaks to the servants who say the king is much changed. He spends all his time gambling and drinking. He is in a fury most days. He beat one of the stable boys who was slow to fetch his saddle. It is not like Edward.

That evening he storms into her quarters and sends the servants scurrying out. He reaches into his tunic and pulls out a crumpled parchment. He thrusts it at her, without greeting.

“You have heard what they have done?”

She takes the document and glances at it. “The king must not, the king must not...” The list of prohibitions is endless.

“Forty-one clauses in all. They say I should live more wisely and avoid oppression of the people. Oppression of the people! Which people, Isabella?” She smells wine on his breath and his eyes are unnaturally bright. “They restrict my right to issue pardons. All royal incomes to be paid directly to the Exchequer.” He leans in. “Read Ordinance Twenty.”

She does as he tells her to do.
“Because Piers Gaveston has misled and ill-advised our Lord the King, and enticed him to do evil in various deceitful way ...”
She pauses and looks at Edward, who is pacing the hall like a hungry lion. “
...that he be exiled for all time and without hope of return as a public enemy of the King and his people.”

“Public enemy! They say he led me to hostile lands - Scotland, where they urged me to go! That he put the king in danger - is a king not meant to lead his armies? And that he must be gone from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales by November. There is scarce a kingdom they do not exclude from their prohibition. I doubt there is a place left in the known world where Perro may now safely abide.”

What can she say to him? Did he not anticipate this?

“Before you celebrate his destruction, note that your good uncle has seen fit to attack you as well. He wants one of your ladies banished.”

“Who?”

“Isabelle de Vescy.”

“But why?”

“Because she’s French.”

“She was born in England!”

“Not good enough for Uncle Lancaster. She and her brother are back to Yorkshire and the sheep.”

“What can you do?”

“What might I do? If I do not sign it, they will make war on me, and who will stand for me then? Old Hugh Le Despenser is the only one who has not abandoned me.”

“If today brings no hope we should plan for tomorrow.”

“I cannot plan for tomorrow unless I give up Perro. And without Perro what use is tomorrow to me?”

And then, unexpectedly, he throws himself at her feet and buries his head in her lap. She strokes his hair while he weeps. She does not know whether she should feel pleased or horrified. Not far past her sixteenth birthday and already she feels as weary as a crone.

***

The Ordinances are publicly proclaimed on the twenty-seventh day of September in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Archbishop Winchelsea announces that anyone who dares violate them will be excommunicated from the Church.

Gaveston leaves on All Saint’s Day for the Brabant. For weeks Edward is inconsolable.

But one morning his mood lifts. He appears at court with a jaunty air, and even greets her with a smile. She goes at once in search of Rosseletti to discover what mischief he has been up to now.

“Gaveston is back in England,” he says.

“Here? In England? How could he be so stupid?” Gaveston has been gone scarcely a month. A month!

“He was sighted first at Tintagel, then at Wallingford. He has come with Edward’s full knowledge and consent. The barons have knowledge of it now and have ordered a search.”

Isabella stands up, gathering her skirts. “Where is Edward?”

“It would not be wise to offend the king,” he tells her.

“Really, Rosseletti,” she murmurs, though she is ready to burst. “Have you ever known me to lose control of myself?”

“No, your grace.”

“Nor shall I then,” she says and sweeps from the room.

***

The King retreats to Windsor for the Christmas season. His high spirits are now explained. She smiles and says nothing.

There are Biblical murals in her apartments: one depicts the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which seems a cruel joke.
I have been ready for my bridegroom for a long time
, she thinks. That night he asks her to leave a candle burning in her bedchamber, and sometime after the bells have rung for Compline, the door creaks open and he slips in. This time she wraps her arms around him in a tight embrace, determined to do more than just lie there, wishing for something more.

***

Gaveston has a wife, Margaret. She is the younger sister of one of her other ladies, Eleanor, and is barely older than Isabella herself. Her first baby is not long to be born, so her husband has clearly not spent every night in the king’s chamber. Isabella feels a kinship with her, because of their unique situation, but she is not easily drawn into conversation.

But one morning, as she is combing out her hair, Margaret bends to whisper in her ear: “The king came to your bed last night,” she murmurs.

“How did you know?”

“The servants gossip about everything. If you sneeze in the Upper Ward of the castle, by the time you come down to the Great Hall someone has fetched herbs and warm honey.”

“There was blood on the sheet this morning. I expect all England will know by Christmas Day that I am no longer a maiden.”

“Did it hurt you?”

“It hurt a little. But he was gentle.”

“You are disappointed?”

“I thought there should be more than discomfort to my wedding night, if that was what it was.” Margaret bites her lip, and Isabella senses that she would like to say more. She has already uttered more words this morning than in the past four years. “What is it like...for you?”

“Piers is a kind man and a good husband, for all that they say about him.” She puts a hand on Isabella’s arm. “Don’t expect more from them than they can give, it will only make you unhappy. At least he does not bull every servant girl in the castle like...”

“You were about to say ‘like my Uncle Lancaster.’”

“Forgive me. But I think that would be worse.”

There is a commotion at the gate. They go to the window and look down into the cobbled yard. It is Gaveston, returned from his exile. He wears a red cloak with a gold clasp, and a jaunty red hat with an emerald jewel winking in the sun. He looks dapper even as an outlaw.

He leaps down from his horse into the embrace of his king. They laugh and walk arm in arm back into the great Hall, the king calling for spiced wine and beef.

Margaret squeezes her arm. “I only ever see him smile like that when he is with Edward,” she says.

Later, she sees them sitting together, staring at the Yule log smouldering among its bed of holly, Gaveston on the carpets leaning against his king’s thigh. Margaret is right. It is the only time Edward ever looks content. The wolfhounds are curled around them, all legs and yawning and snoring. The king bends to kiss Gaveston’s head.

Everyone is secure in their affections except the Queen. She might stand under the kissing branch of the mistletoe and its bright red berries all Christmas Eve and not draw a single glance from dog or man.

Chapter 15

Edward avoids her bed and her person after Gaveston arrives at Windsor. Perhaps he anticipates her petulance.

It is more than petulance, and he cannot avoid her forever.

She finds him sitting in his bathtub. A servant is scrubbing him with rosewater as he sweats in the steam. Gaveston is sitting at the window, watching. Edward’s back is towards her but Gaveston makes a face as she enters to warn him.

“Why have you done this?” she asks him, dispensing with pleasantries.

“I find it relaxing,” he says. “And I was starting to smell.”

“I don’t mean the bath. Why did you bring...” She glances at Gaveston and he makes an elaborate bow. “...why did you bring him back?”

Edward sends his man scurrying to the door. He leans back in the tub, the sweat pouring down his cheek in rivulets. “The question should be: ‘why did I let him go?’ My father would never have allowed the barons to dictate to him like this.”

“You are not your father.”

This is the wrong thing to say. Even Gaveston raises his eyebrows at this.

“I am the king of England!” he shouts and stands.

He glares at her, fists clenched at his sides. Hard for a man to look regal or righteous when he stands naked in his tub. Gaveston hands him a towel. Edward hurls it back at him.

Isabella has never seen him naked; their lovemaking to this point has been conducted in candlelight under linen sheets. Her eyes travel the length of him. Even when wet, he is an impressive man. She feels her cheeks burn.

Gaveston widens his eyes in mock horror and grins at her. His expression is so lascivious she wants to slap him. Has he no shame? Flustered, she turns on her heel and leaves.

He returns all of Gaveston’s forfeited estates and signs a public proclamation to be read at the Guildhall in London that the good and loyal Piers Gaveston has returned at the royal command, after his exile contrary to the laws of England.

He then orders his sheriffs all over England to fortify their castles and take in provisions, and sends to Gascony for more troops. His barons conduct musters of their own. Archbishop Winchelsea finally declares Gaveston excommunicate.

Having thrown his gauntlet in all their faces, Edward flees north to Yorkshire. He takes with him his Chancery clerks and cartload of documents. It is clear that he does not intend to return to London with his government anytime soon.

***

Gaveston takes his wife, Margaret, to York as well. By the time Isabella arrives, the child is born. Margaret returns to her service and Gaveston finds a wet nurse for the infant.

Isabella hates the castle; she hates the north. Even this late in the winter there is still snow on the north tower. Her apartments are dull and draughty, unlike the vibrant burgundies and royal blues at Windsor and Langley. She misses most the hooded fireplace with a plentiful supply of logs from the scullery and charcoal braziers glowing in every room.