The Traitor's Wife (77 page)

“What could we have done?”

“No more than I could have, I suppose. But the wrongs were not all on Hugh's side, and you know it.”

Elizabeth said, “I never loved my husband, Eleanor. How could I? The marriage was forced on me by our uncle, barely after I delivered my second husband's child! But I grew to like him well enough; he was pleasant to me and to my children. What more could I ask for? But I've never denied his faults, as you do Hugh's.”

“You wrong me there. I have never denied Hugh's faults. I just did not know he had so many. I suppose I should have had my eyes open more. Well, it will be yet another sin on my head, that I did not. And another one still, that I love him none the less.”

She sighed and studied Hugh's ring, made to stay on her finger by the liberal application of wax to its band. “These ladies you spoke of. Have they been restored to their lands?”

“Yes, all brought petitions soon after your husband's death, and the queen had the council pay close attention to them. And Elizabeth Comyn, Alice de Braose, and the Countess of Lancaster are all married or remarried now, in fact. Quite happily, I understand, even though the countess's husband is beneath her socially.”

“With our mother's history, we can hardly talk, can we?” Eleanor smiled for the first time since Elizabeth had come to her chamber. “I am glad to hear they are doing well.”

They were silent for a long time. Then Elizabeth said, “Have you had much company since you were released?”

“Lady Hastings accompanied me as far as Gloucester, but she went back south after that.” Bella had not been able to face the prospect of going to Bristol, where the Despenser party had crossed the Severn into Wales. In the city where her father-in-law had been killed, Eleanor had left the others behind and gone to view the quarter of Hugh that hung on Bristol's gates. It was an arm, it turned out, chained in such a manner that it perpetually waved to passersby. She shuddered and continued, “Hugh's other sister plans to visit me soon. And—one other came. That is all, except people who come on business.”

“It must be lonely for you. Do you have no lady friends—friends on your social level, I should say?”

“No, as according to you Hugh appears to have taken land from all the ladies I might choose my acquaintance from,” Eleanor snapped. Plainly, inviting Elizabeth here had been a mistake. She said proudly, “I am well occupied here, anyway. The children keep me busy, and my estates take up the rest of my time. I need no society.”

“You ought to remarry,” Elizabeth pronounced.

“You have been widowed far longer than I have, Elizabeth. Why don't you take your own advice?”

“I don't need to,” said her sister maddeningly. “I am quite content as I am; in fact, I plan to take a vow of chastity. I have good friends and many interests, and I have rather come to enjoy my independence. I don't want some man telling me how to manage my lands or, worse yet, setting himself against the king and dragging me into the muck with him.”

Eleanor made a noise of disgust. “Why is it that every widow I know has no intention of remarrying, but thinks I should do so? Even Lady Hastings suggested as much.” She continued in an injured tone, “It is not as if I am a helpless ninny who can't run my estates. I spend hours with my councilors; just ask the poor things! Even the queen, if pressed, would admit I have some administrative talents, I suspect.”

“No one doubts your ability, Eleanor. But you and Hugh were married a very long time, and I know you were fond of him, unaccountable as that is to me. You're so used to being married that you would be happier that way, I think.”

Somewhat mollified, Eleanor pulled a man's shirt from her workbasket and began sewing on it. “Who is that for?” asked Elizabeth.

“My son Hugh. He is still in prison, you know. Lord Zouche—” Eleanor turned scarlet. “I heard through an acquaintance that he is at Ludlow Castle. I am sending him a hamper.”

“Lord Zouche? I know him slightly. He is a good man, everyone says. He has been checking on Hugh? Why, he would make a good husband for you, you know.”

“No, he would not.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because he asked me to marry him, and I refused. He left the castle in a fury, and that is the end of the matter.” Eleanor stared at the shirt she was sewing, trying to forget the ache of desire she had felt when William la Zouche kissed her. Not since the day she and the king had lain together had she felt so guilty. To be kissing William while her Hugh still rotted in five places… Remarriage would proclaim to the world that she, who had loved him so dearly, had cast him aside without a backward thought. Why could not Elizabeth and Bella see this?

And yet she liked William so much. He was so kind and gentle, so easy to talk to. Now she would never see him again. He had told her so.

She put her hand across her eyes, pretending to be squinting at her needlework to hide the tears that were once again rolling down her face. Elizabeth saw them and said, mercifully, “I will go to my chamber and lie down a bit. I am a little tired from my journey.”

Lady Mortimer poked her head into the cell where Hugh le Despenser, who had not a whit of musical talent, was gamely plucking on a lute. “Ouch, what noise! Your lady mother has sent your October hampers, Hugh.”

Hugh smiled as two men lugged his latest gifts up the stairs. Every month since July, Eleanor had been sending her son goods—clothing, bedding, candles, food, wine, a chess set, dice, books, money, and even the lute. As she had taken the precaution of delivering them to Lady Mortimer, there had been no pilfering by the guards, and as Lord Mortimer had not been to Ludlow Castle since June, there had been no one to cavil at the comforts being sent Hugh's way.

Lady Mortimer was dressed in mourning, for two of her four sons had recently died, one in the summer of an illness, the other in the fall of injuries received at a tournament. They were Mortimer's sons too, of course, but just as Lady Mortimer lived as a single woman these days, she had mourned fairly much as a single woman too. Roger Mortimer had Isabella to share his grief with, and he had not had the luxury of grieving much anyway, for he had returned to England from Scotland to find Lancaster more hostile than ever.

Hugh le Despenser was slightly younger than one son and slightly older than the other. It was scarcely to be wondered at, then, that Lady Mortimer found some solace these days in mending his clothing, seeing to it that he was well fed, and generally coddling him. Hugh had responded affectionately to these motherly attentions, and it had thus come about that he and Lady Mortimer spent much time together, though in a completely different manner than that feared by William la Zouche.

After the men left their delivery behind, Hugh sat cross-legged on the floor and motioned Lady Mortimer to the stool she had had brought in for him some weeks before. Together they searched happily through the hampers. “A nice warm cloak, and some shirts for you.”

“And here's the cheese from Caerphilly my mother swears by, Lady Mortimer. Take some.”

Lady Mortimer obediently took a chunk and nibbled at it. “You shall have to call me 'Countess' soon, Hugh.”

“Lord Mortimer is to become an earl?”

“The Earl of March. John, the king's brother, will be the Earl of Cornwall, and Edmund Butler, who married your cousin Eleanor de Bohun last year, is to be the Earl of Ormond.”

“The Earl of March? For the entire march of Wales? I have to give him credit for his nerve, Lady Mortimer. My father never aspired to anything more grand than Earl of Gloucester, and he decided not to press his luck when it came down to it.”

“My husband is a fool to grant himself such a title,” Lady Mortimer said bluntly. “It will only make the Earl of Lancaster angrier at him than he is already. The Londoners, you know, have come to Lancaster's side, as has the Bishop of Winchester. They are saying that my husband and Isabella have squandered the royal treasury, that the queen is sucking the country dry with the huge grants she has given herself, that they have humiliated the king with this Scottish truce, that they have made the king's regency council a mere joke. I am not sure they are wrong, Hugh.”

“So you will tell me when I have to start bowing to you?”

“The ceremony will take place during this Parliament meeting in Salisbury. My men tell me that both my husband and the Earl of Lancaster are traveling around with large armies, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury has tried to mediate between them, with no success.”

Hugh shook his head ruefully. “Quite a task for our new archbishop, from what you've told me.” Walter Reynolds, the second Edward's faithless friend, had died the previous November, just two months after the old king, and had been replaced by Simon de Mepham, an Oxfordian with no political experience who probably wished by now he had stayed at the university. He had been consecrated only a few months before.

“Lancaster won't even come to Parliament.”

“Where is the king in all this?”

“Being led around on his leash by the queen and my husband,” said Lady Mortimer. “It seemed that he was going to break free for a while, with his refusal to go to the wedding, but he got right back on it again, good as gold. They have convinced him that Lancaster means him harm, and Lancaster hasn't helped matters with those troops of his. God knows where it will all end.” She shook her head and placidly resumed her search through the hampers. “Ah, some combs, which reminds me, Hugh, I must send the barber to you. Your mother would cry if she saw that raggedy beard of yours.”

In December, after a brief stay in London intended partly to mollify its citizens and partly to intimidate them, the court lumbered into Gloucester. There the queen studiously avoided visiting her husband's grave, while the Earl of March raised troops to fight Lancaster, who had brought the Earls of Kent and Norfolk to his side. The king, who truly did worry that the Earl of Lancaster might be taking after his bellicose brother, dutifully signed the orders that his mother and Mortimer had the royal clerks prepare.

He frowned, however, at one parchment that contained a familiar name and that was in no way related to the Earl of Lancaster's business. “Hugh le Despenser, my cousin. He is being transferred to Bristol?”

“Yes, your grace,” said Mortimer, who in those days was still most polite to his king. “My lady finds the custody of him at Ludlow Castle burdensome, and he has been presuming on her good nature to be allowed privileges he should not have. Bristol Castle will be better for him.”

“With Thomas Gurney for his keeper.” Edward frowned, trying to remember how the name was familiar to him. One of many knights who had passed through his court, he decided, and signed the order, unaware that he had just placed his kinsman into the hands of one of his father's killers.