The Stolen Queen (19 page)

I knew that she would be unfolding the thin Flemish linen, holding up the treacherous butterfly-stain we had made there that morning after we returned from Mass. Fowl's blood from the kitchens. The proof that Arthur had done what in his heart my husband knew he could not. I heard him draw a long, tightly whistling breath.

‘There is something more. The Duke will tell you that I lie, that I beguiled him, but it is not so. He has my ring, my pearl betrothal ring. You will find it with him. He tore it from my hand, before … Before.'

I dared to glance up at John's face. It surprised me that even then I had it in me to feel saddened as I watched his love for me
slowly drain away. I reached a hand to his face, but he brushed it aside, not unkindly, but as though the fingers whose touch he had sought and loved to toy with were slightly troublesome, like a summer fly.

‘You will tell no one of this, Isabelle. Do you understand? No one is to know of your disgrace. You will never speak his name again. Tell me that you understand.'

I nodded as he rose to leave me. He bent ceremoniously over my hand.

‘Take care of her Majesty,' he instructed Agnes. ‘She will need to recover from this dreadful assault. And I will have your tongue out, old woman, if you ever speak of this.'

Agnes curtsied, and so the man I loved and the man who loved me died together.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
GNES HAD LAID OUT A PLAIN DARK GOWN FOR THE
Maundy Mass. Alongside my husband, I would have to wash the feet of twelve poor women of Rouen before distributing purses of alms to those in want. After the last of the service was sung in the cathedral, we progressed into the city square where the paupers were seated facing one another on stools, a basin of water by each pair of filthy feet. The space was packed with worshippers, come to gawp at the wonder of a king kneeling to a commoner. The nuns of the abbey flapped like crows in their black habits as they sang the order.

The April day was leaden and icy, with a thin sharp wind that fluttered the poor people's rags, so that the stink of their bodies wafted into my face, a bouquet of sweat and dirt that revolted me. John neither looked at nor spoke to me. There was something in his unusually erect bearing that recalled his face at Mirebeau, entirely determined, taut with authority; yet instead of feeling proud, as I had done then, I felt only a sick fear that I had to swallow down in my throat like sour vomit.
As my women looked on, I set my hand on the brow of the first woman and spoke a blessing in as kind and clear a voice as I could muster. I knelt, averting my eyes from the reddened sores on her unhosed legs, dipped the cloth in the basin and began to wipe the heated water around her feet. I was careful to keep it between her skin and mine, but the water in the bowl was soon clouded with filth. From beneath a cracked layer of mud her feet emerged, the flesh white against a grain of dirt worked so deep into their calloused soles that they might have been striped marble. How could people be so disgusting? Had not God sent rain that even the poorest might cleanse themselves? I reproached myself for such prideful thoughts, rose, blessed, knelt and began on the second woman. This time, I kept my eyes closed, saying the Ave under my breath to remind myself to be humble. When I reached the end of the line of stools, my shoulders were shaking under my cloak and my hands were tight, puffed like fresh bread from the water and the freezing wind. I would ask Agnes to make me a balm, or the skin would crack and look ugly, and Arthur – but of course, that did not matter, now. I would never see Arthur again. I glanced around for Lady Maude. It seemed strange to me that I had once thought of her as my enemy, before I knew what real enmity was. I truly hoped that she would be pleased with me, that I had conducted myself so properly, and done credit to her lessons. But Lady Maude was nowhere among my ladies.

Relieved, I cleaned my own hands with a fresh linen cloth and dropped it into a basin held by a waiting page. It would be a year before I knelt again, except at Mass. John turned and took my
arm as we walked back between the stools, handing a cloth purse and a few kind words to each of the paupers. Few of them even attempted to thank us. They looked, if not merely bewildered, actively frightened. I had spent so long despising John that I had forgotten what his power really meant. One word from him and any one of these unfortunate people could be whipped, or hanged. And I had conjured his cruelty like a malicious crone squatting over a cauldron. So Arthur was alone, alone in the dark … I staggered and John gripped my arm more tightly, so tightly that I felt the malicious stab of his nails through the wool of my sleeve.

‘You are well, my lady?' There was sneering, not solicitousness, in his voice.

‘Quite well, my lord.'

‘Then come. Let us dine.'

*

‘Why did Lady Maude not attend Mass?' I asked Agnes as she laced me into a fresh gown.

‘She is gone.'

‘Gone? Gone where? It is the crown wearing on Easter Day, she ought to be here. Had she bad news of her family in England?'

‘They left this morning, she and her husband. He was some time first with the king.'

‘Find out then. Find out why they have left.'

For the first time in several months, I dined that day at Rouen without Arthur. Only in his absence did I notice what a mean, grim place our court had become. So many of my husband's household knights had slunk away, some pleading business on their lands
elsewhere, others merely taking horse without leave and riding south to the rebels. I had been so taken up with my game with Arthur that I had barely listened as John fulminated against one weak-minded traitor after another, but now, seeing the empty places in the hall, I said their names over to myself, appalled at how many we had lost. And of course, Arthur's absence glared among those who remained; I could see the speculation in the low murmurings of the men, their watchful glances at the king. I felt as fearful as the paupers in the town square. John barely touched his food, staring dully in front of him and emptying cup after cup of wine, his arm rising steady and regular as a woodsman's axe. I pushed a grey morsel of salt fish around my plate with a lump of bread. At least we would be relieved this dreary diet in two days' time. Abruptly, my husband turned to me.

‘Have you dined, my lady?'

‘Yes, my lord.' I was agonized by the coldness of his tone, desperate for some softening, something that would absolve me of what I had done. Even now it need not be too late.

‘My lord, I would speak with you. Perhaps I might come to your chamber?'

He would never have refused such a request, before.

‘Leave us.'

‘But my lord…'

‘I said, leave us.' The words came out like iron pebbles, spat with disgust.

Though I could not see them, I could feel the shock of his tone in the swift intake of breath among the women kneeling to my right, spreading out along the trestles and down the hall.
Even when foully drunk, John had never spoken to me discourteously. What new scandal was this? Had the little Angouleme baggage lost her charm? I didn't need to look to know that some of the ladies would be preening themselves already, dipping glances beneath their lashes towards the king. Had he not already put aside one childless wife? Had I not reminded him myself that wives could always be got for kings? And there were several of them, I was sure, who would have been content to be less than a wife if there was a chance of getting a royal bastard. ‘You chose this, Isabelle,' I told myself. ‘You chose this.' I made a beautiful curtsey to John and walked from the hall with my head held proudly erect.

When we reached the antechamber, I turned to them. ‘I think it would be fitting if all of us ladies sewed for the poor this afternoon. The maids have an ample supply of coarse linen. I shall work in my chamber, until the king joins me. I will have the cloth sent to the dorter. I intend to fast this evening, in preparation for tomorrow. I suggest that you join me.'

It was a pathetic little show of power, but was that not what they coveted? To receive curtseys, give orders, and spoil other people's pleasure on a spiteful whim? And they would still covet, even if they knew the truth, for what was Lord Hugh not prepared to do for the chance to control a crown?

Although it was just a few hours after noon, Agnes had already lit the lamps in my chamber. The morning's wind had blown in a heavy twilight of dull cloud. How cold Arthur must be, locked away in the dark. But I must not think of him. I could not.

‘What news of Lady Maude? Don't tell me Sir William has turned his coat too?' For a moment I tried to believe that this was the reason for John's silent rage, though I knew it could not be so.

‘I asked among the maids. Lady Maude's tiring-woman was furious. Off to the coast, and barely a minute to pack the baggage. She had to leave a feather bed behind …'

‘Yes, yes, Agnes, but why? Why so suddenly?'

‘Because Sir William had the charge of Duke Arthur. And because after what his Majesty spoke of last night, he felt he could no longer in honour keep his charge.'

‘You mean he refused to do what my husband asked?'

‘How could I know? How could Lady Maude's tiring-woman know of such a thing? No one knows.'

‘Except us,' I said.

‘Except us. And perhaps Sir William, now. They will be at Honfleur soon, to take ship for England.'

‘So it will happen?'

‘As it must.'

‘Then we must pray, Agnes. There is nothing else we can do. We must pray for forgiveness. Put out the lamps. We shall not need them.'

I knelt and began to mutter the Pater Noster. In a while, I no longer felt the cold stone beneath me, and in a while longer, stupefied by the low hum of my own frantically repeated words, I felt nothing at all. I must have prayed myself to sleep, for when I woke, Agnes was sleeping beside me, still in her gown, and the sky outside the casement was black. I listened for a few moments, but all was silent. There was no noise from the hall
below, the men must have retired to the guardrooms, or be sleeping among the rushes. It took me a few moments to ease my stiffened joints into suppleness, then I stepped quietly to the door. The latch would not lift. It was locked – John's doing. I tapped softly on the wood.

‘Is anyone there?'

Silence, and then a stirring, the bang of a scabbard on stone.

‘Yes, Majesty.' No voice I recognized, though he was not a Rouen man; his tone, though thick with sleep, carried the light clear accent of the langue d'oc.

‘Why is my door locked?'

‘The king's orders, Majesty.'

‘Open the door.'

‘Majesty, I cannot.'

‘I said, open the door!' I hissed.

‘Forgive me, Majesty. I cannot disobey the king.'

‘And I am your queen!' Even to my ears, there was no threat, only shrill petulance. Then I had an idea. What was a man of the south doing here when all of his countrymen had fled? I heard him settle his weight against the door, imagined his hand poised on his sword. ‘What is your name?' I whispered.

‘Gilbert, Majesty,' he answered reluctantly.

‘Then, Gilbert, open the door. Not in the king's name, but for the old ones. I have their mark on me.'

I heard a sharp intake of breath, then nothing. He was shocked, and he was thinking.

‘I do not know what you speak of, begging your pardon, Majesty.'

When I spoke again, I did not know where the words came from. They twisted out of me, supple as a serpent's tail.

‘Yes you do, Gilbert. Yes you do. And you shall see it too, when Duke Arthur is come into his own again. You shall see it on my naked flesh at the sabbat. It's just … here.' I scrunched my gown against the keyhole so he could hear the rustle of fabric. ‘Just here, on my shoulder, where the horned man placed it. Shall you kiss it then, Gilbert? Shall you?'

The bolt slid smoothly open. As I came into the passage, he was on his knees. I bent and allowed my lips to brush his hair. ‘Thank you. I shall not forget,' I breathed.

As I skittered down the staircase to the hall, my slippers silent on the stone, I saw a light through one of the arrow slits set into the wall. Rouen was an ancient fortress, built for the first Viking dukes of Normandy. In places the walls of the keep were ten feet thick, with passages cut into them like wedges of cheese to allow bowmen to defend it. I paused, listened, then hauled myself onto the ledge and followed it to the opening. I put my face against the stone, worn smooth with hundreds of years of salt rain, and breathed the cold air off the river. Something was moving on the bank, a humped shape silhouetted by a lantern. Just for a moment, the heavy cloud moved, and I recognized a bending figure in a shard of moonlight. John. I knew him from the white surcoat he had worn to the Maundy service, gleaming briefly until the clouds banked once more. At the same time, it was as though a cloud that had been across my mind since Paris shifted. I had not cared since then, I saw, whether I lived or died. My savage joy at Mirebeau had come from that, my
reckless pleasure in Arthur, too. I lived now, and Arthur was dead, so I had stopped Lord Hugh. Even if I was killed by one of the castle guards, I would have stopped Lord Hugh. I had chosen Arthur for my sacrifice, and only God knew how easy it would have been for me to sacrifice myself in his place. I did not pretend to myself that I had been courageous. I had committed a foul, foul sin. I had not always wished to live. Yet when I had prayed to God to end it, when Lord Hugh raped me, when Pierre blackmailed me, all He had shown me was more death. Very well. Let it come now.

Although I had put on flesh during my brief, happy time with Arthur, it was easy enough to work my way through the tall arrow slit and onto the ledge. The drop to the riverbank on this side of the keep was no longer than a tall man, so I peered down into the darkness, trying to spy a shrub or young tree by which I could lower myself. The bank seemed clear below me; John must have had the ground cleared in case of attack. I twisted myself around, worked my body downwards until I was clinging to the ledge with my hands, and allowed myself to drop. I landed heavily, sinking ankle deep in freezing, reeking ooze, yet I was unharmed. My feet would look like a pauper's, now. Cautiously, my hands stretched out before me, I half walked, half slid towards the river's edge, where I had seen the muffled light.