The Stolen Queen (27 page)

‘But it is as a mother that I beseech your help, Majesty. They will bring my son and I am afraid for him.'

I bit down the tears that were rising in me. I was a queen listening to a petition, it did not behove me to weep. ‘But why?'

‘The country will come to war, before very long now. There is talk of a plot against the king. The men of the north are grieved. They feel that the king neglects them to continue to fight in France, where they have no lands. He taxes them too hard. They owe him huge sums. They feel angry, pushed aside. And they look to my husband to help their cause.'

‘So the king will keep you here as a hostage? You and your son? For your husband's good behaviour?'

‘Yes. The king has never forgiven him for his knowledge of what passed at Rouen. He suspects him.'

‘The fault was not your husband's,' I said sadly.

‘My son is William. William, like his father. He is a fine man, a father too. I have a grandson.'

‘What do you want of me, Lady Maude?'

‘I hoped that you could intercede for me, with the king. I do not care what he does to me, but my son must be free. Please, Majesty. Will you be so kind as to speak to the king for us?'

I gestured around the room. Lady Maude's eyes followed my hand over the piss pot in the corner, the clumsy wooden shutters, the sagging, stinking bed. The shabby cloth of estate above the tester looked like a spiteful jest. ‘You see in what good standing I am with the king, Lady Maude. How can I help you when I am little more than a prisoner myself?'

‘Majesty, I know I gave you no reason to love me, when we first met. But now, after all this time …'

‘I thought you were my enemy, once,' I replied dreamily. ‘Before I knew what an enemy was. I am sorry for you, Lady Maude, deeply sorry, and for your son, too. I will send a letter to the king, but I cannot promise that he will read it. I have written many letters, these three years.'

‘Thank you, Majesty. Bless you.'

*

I did write to John. That day, I summoned Terric and asked him once again to send the clerk from the church at Corfe. I explained that I had spoken with Lady Maude and that I was certain she and her son, William de Braose, were loyal servants, and that I hoped, for the sake of our own son, Henry, that he would deal with them leniently and allow them to return to their lands. I expected no reply, and I received none.

When I was strong enough to rise, some days later, I resumed my walks on the walls of the castle. Idly, I scanned the road from the town to see if I could make out any activity there. Would the northern barons depose my husband? Then Henry would be king and I should be free. But there was nothing, no riders, no trumpets, no proclamations. I walked and walked, spending hours each day on the walls until I had tired myself enough to sleep, for dreams were the only amusement I had. Terric accompanied me, pacing stolidly a few steps behind, watching to see if I dropped a token or a letter over the walls. One day, two Sundays after Lady Maude's visit, I did hear a noise, a woman, calling. ‘Terric, what's that?'

‘Nothing to concern you, lady. Will you continue your walk?'

‘But I heard something.'

‘The kitchens, perhaps,' he smiled grimly. ‘Not that they're busy, down there.'

Next day, I heard it again, louder this time. A woman's voice, repeating the same word, over and over: ‘Please … Please'.

‘Terric, I feel unwell. I fear I may faint. I must sit. Fetch my maid.' Terric's huge head cast about him, anxiously, peering about him as though he feared a trap. Cruelty comes in two kinds, the cruelty of stupidity and of great intelligence. Terric's was of the first kind. I stumbled a little, put a hand to my head. ‘Terric. I am faint. I need my maid. Fetch her.'

‘I will help you to sit then, lady.' He took my arm and helped me down to the courtyard, where I rested on a bench. A few servers were passing, carrying firewood and greasy platters, but they barely looked at us. The sight of their bedraggled queen in her shabby gown was no longer an object of wonder. My room was in the north-west tower of the court, level with the walls. The noise had come from the south-west, opposite. When Terric had lumbered off towards the staircase, I jumped up and walked swiftly across the court, circling the base of the tower until it met the wall.

‘Lady Maude,' I hissed, ‘Lady Maude. Is that you?'

The base stones of the tower were covered in bright green slime and wet moss, with clumps of weeds bristling out in the corner. I heard the call again, ‘Here, Majesty! Here!'

I looked up, but the casement on the first floor was shuttered. Where could the voice be coming from?

‘Down here!'

Almost buried by the weeds was a rusty iron grille, just a few inches high. I squatted down and pulled away a clump of bindweed.

‘Lady Maude?'

‘They are starving us. We have had no food. Please, please help us.'

I glanced over my shoulder. Terric would return at any moment. ‘I will try.'

I had just time to run back to the bench and compose myself before Terric returned with the maid. My hands were streaked green, I hid them in my dress. I spent the evening gently tearing another square of linen from my bedsheet, which I used to wrap the food I had saved from my own dinner and supper. All the bread, a piece of cheese, some raisins and a slice of salt pork. The gruel I ate, as I could see no way to carry it. I was still served wine, the only acknowledgement of my estate, but I thought it would be too difficult to conceal the cup, so I drank that, to keep off my own hunger. Lady Maude said they had no food, she and her son. Had they water? I imagined them licking the slimy walls of that dungeon pit to sustain themselves.

I was not permitted to attend Mass in the town. On Sundays and holy days of obligation, a priest from the abbey came with a communion table to serve as an altar, a plain iron crucifix and a leather bag containing a vial of wine, candles and wafers. I ought to have been churched after Eleanor's birth, the customary ceremony where a new mother is cleansed of childbed, but this had been forgotten, just as I was being forgotten. When Terric
came to bolt my door for the night, I spoke to him of this and said that I was sure the king would not be pleased to hear it had been neglected.

‘You might walk with me to the church. It is not far, I see it from the buttresses. I should like to offer to Our Lady, to give thanks for my safe delivery.' I knew he could not refuse, and accordingly, next morning, I was permitted my first outing from the castle in over a year.

I was accompanied by four guards and Terric, and we made our way down through the streets, to the church porch, where the priest who was accustomed to serving Mass to me mumbled hastily through the ceremony. For a moment, I was reminded of my wedding, so long ago at Bordeaux. I had hoped to be permitted to enter the church and pray, but Terric took my poor purse of pennies and handed it to the priest, saying that he would offer for me. He was clearly nervous to be beyond the castle walls, I wondered if the rebellion of which Lady Maude had spoken had already begun. Perhaps even now, Henry's riders were on the road from London, come to deliver me. I would take Lady Maude and her son to Westminster, I thought, find William a place in the new king's household to compensate them for the cruelty John had inflicted on them. As we re-entered the castle, I paused by the grille in the tower. I had the folded napkin hidden in the pocket of my gown. I stooped to adjust my slipper, its soles worn from my hours of pacing the walls, and as I did so I pushed the napkin I had made towards the overgrown bars, coughing as I did so to alert Lady Maude to my presence.

Then I saw a horrible thing. Three fingers shot out from the grille, scuttling spider-like towards the food, scrabbling desperately. They were filthy, the nails torn and bloodied. Then, as I knelt, Terric's great boot came down and stamped upon them. There was a cry, but the fingers continued clutching. He stamped again, and the thing, which seemed barely to be part of a whole being, withdrew. I was left looking up into Terric's face.

‘So you thought to feed the prisoners, lady? Please to stand up.'

I stepped back. He knelt down towards the grille, scooped a broken lump of cheese from the mess in the napkin and held it towards the grille.

‘Here, kitty kitty kitty. Here. Look what the kind lady has brought for you.' He waved the cheese before the bars. I could smell its thin reek. ‘Here kitty,' he crooned. There was no movement from the darkness inside. Tentatively, the fingers reappeared, grasping blindly. Terric placed the lump of cheese under the forefinger, then as it scrabbled to gain purchase on the food, he whipped out his knife and slashed at it like a butcher. A howl of pain. The tip of the finger lay on the ground, oozing blood over the pale cheese. Terric bent to the hole.

‘You can drink your own juice, woman. That's all you'll get for disobeying the king's orders.'

I was still staring at the livid finger, taking gasps of air, trying to stave off a vomit. Then the blood rushed from my head and I swooned. When I awoke, I was in my chamber, and the door was bolted. I never saw Lady Maude again. When they pulled
the bodies from the dungeon, William de Braose's arms and legs were gnawed and tooth-marked. In her frenzy of hunger, Lady Maude had tried to keep herself alive by chewing on the starved corpse of her own son.

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
HE PLOT AGAINST JOHN NEVER CAME TO PASS. NO
riders appeared from London to release me in King Henry's name. I could not close my eyes without seeing that terrible, desperate hand. Sometimes it ran like a crab over the pale body of Arthur in the waters of the Seine, sometimes it crawled across my face like a rat in the darkness. I begged Terric to fetch me a sleeping draught, or even some strong drink, until I perceived the pleasure he had in refusing me. Seeing the lines of exhaustion in my face and the black hollows beneath my eyes, so pronounced that I saw them in my washing basin, the only looking glass I had. The dull witted maid asked me if I was ailing, and shyly produced a lump of poppy seed paste from her apron. I gobbled it down, and slept again, and for a few days we might have been friends, for I grew as stupid as she. Since I had tried to help Lady Maude, Terric had not permitted me to walk outside, and I sank into a state of half-living, like a bear hibernating in a cave. The poppy gum stayed my appetite, and when I was lively enough to do anything other than watch the
shadows of the clouds as they played across the daub ceiling of my chamber, I thought that I too might waste away entirely, and then I wept for Lady Maude and wished that I had had some poppy to share with her, before I recalled that she was dead now, with her son's congealed blood dry on her teeth, and then I would shift and scream in my flower-hazed stupor. So time stretched and narrowed, and my heart beat stubbornly on, until one day I did hear the sound of horses and voices beneath my window. I dragged myself to the casement, wondering if I was still dreaming, and saw that the yard was full of men in brightly coloured surcoats over their mail: my brother's colours. Was it to be that time again? My first thought was to call the girl and request a clean shift, have her brush my hair, but then, despite that I was ashamed of myself, I threw myself back defiantly upon the bed – let him see what he had brought me to.

When Pierre entered he did so bareheaded, kneeling to me as reverently as if we were in the great hall at Westminster. I looked down at him.

‘Forgive me, Brother. I have had little time to prepare for your visit. It is very … informal here, as you see.'

‘Majesty—'

‘Do not toy with me. Come. Close the door and do what you are here to do. I am very busy.' I raised my dingy shift and closed my eyes. Nothing. I waited a little longer. His weight did not join me on the bed. ‘Brother?'

He was still there on the dust-clogged rushes. A quick spasm of disgust passed his face, but he composed himself and spoke to me courteously.

‘I am sorry to find you have been so unwell, Majesty. I am come to escort you to court. The king commands it.'

I sat bolt upright. So it had happened! ‘The king?'

‘Why, your husband, Sister. Is there another king in England? The king commands you to court, and then you are to sail with him to Poitou.'

The last I saw of Corfe was Terric's startled face as my litter was carried through the gateway, surrounded by a hundred knights, their lances raised, three heralds riding in front, calling on the people to make way for the queen. His astonishment was perhaps provoked because he was being manacled by three of my brother's guards and bundled towards the south-west tower. I had no idea how long my new status would endure, but this was one thing I could do for Lady Maude, at least. The fresh air startled me after the long captivity of that hateful chamber, and when I looked between the curtains of the litter, I saw that the trees were full, their shadows deep on the flower-strewn meadows. It was summer. I had drowsed away a whole season since Eleanor's birth.

We rested that night at Wareham, at a long, low manor house by a ford. The jouncing of the litter had shaken the poppy from me. I was ravenously hungry and horrified by my matted hair and the grey skin of my hands. Surreptitiously I slid my hands beneath my gown, my ribs poked out like a pair of house eaves and the skin of my belly felt loose and slack. What had I allowed myself to become? Pierre had women waiting in the house to attend me. It was given out that I had fallen ill at Corfe and been the victim of neglectful servants. I saw nothing to be
gained by objecting, at least until I knew what John's purpose with me was.

When I was bathed and dressed in new clothes, supper was served in the solar, with plate and silver ewers of rosewater to cleanse my fingers, my food was tasted and the pages knelt. All these things seemed strange to me, but then, I had never thought to see them before they were taken from me. I ate slice after slice of capon boiled in sweet wine, bottled figs, white manchet bread, a pudding of carp, quince jelly, almond custard and saffron cakes with honey. The meal was a battle between my quivering hunger and the dainty manners I knew I should use, I wanted to mop my plate and stuff the food into my mouth; it was difficult to hold back. I felt the strength flow back to my limbs with each bite. I did not take wine, since I feared it would affect me, and after I had eaten I knew I should have to speak with Pierre. After I had dined, I received the lady of the manor, thanked her graciously for her hospitality and made a few moments' pleasant conversation. I said that I should be sure to recommend her to the king and remarked on the beauty of the setting of her home. She was a widow with four sons, all squires in the service of the local lord. She asked me anxiously if her boys should be sent to fight in France, and I pretended I knew what she meant. Was John finally moving against Philip? I complimented her, saying that I was sure her boys would be knighted if they served their master well, and that perhaps they would be given lands of their own, in Poitou, when my dear husband had retaken his own, as surely God willed.