The Traitor's Wife Page 15

  “I know you do, Bella. I am sorry. But you do look so pretty in that saffron you are wearing, with your dark hair.”

  “He was so kind to me, so loving. I will never look at another, whatever I wear.” Isabel's face brightened. “But where is your boy?”

  On cue, the wet nurse entered and put two-day-old Edward in Eleanor's arms. “He came so quickly, Bella! The midwife barely had time to get here; Gladys and I thought she would have to deliver him herself. But everything went fine.”

  “He looks like Hugh, I think. He must be delighted.”

  “He is; he loves Isabel, but a boy is different somehow; men can never have enough, as you well know. He and your father are talking about purchasing a reversion of land for him.”

  “How is your sister-in-law Maud? Do you hear from her?”

  Eleanor snorted. “Margaret and I went to Tewkesbury Abbey—a most gloomy place, someone ought to put in some stained glass—to see Gilbert buried there, and she treated us as little more than spies, checking on her pregnancy. She certainly wasn't showing it then; chest and bosom flat as a board. I loved Gilbert; once I learned Hugh would be all right, I cried every night over my brother. I am still angry with the king for speaking so hastily to him, although I understand it was a tense time for all. And for Maud to act as if my sisters and I would want to see something befall his heir, so that we can come into his land! It is just too sad. So I do not write to her, and I don't think Margaret does either. Elizabeth might hear from her, seeing as she was married to Maud's brother, but Elizabeth is still in Ireland.”

  “Do you plan to return to court after you are churched?”

  “Not if I can help it, Bella. I have seen so little of my son Hugh, though my uncle has kindly told me he can stay at court with me if I wish, but with Isabel and now Edward, I do not want to be such a stranger. And I do not enjoy being there much now that Lancaster is there. He makes me uneasy, Bella.”

  Isabel nodded, “As well he should. I despise him for the hurt he has caused my father.”

  Thomas of Lancaster had publicly attributed the ignominious defeat at the Bannock Burn to the king's failure to observe the Ordinances. At the York Parliament held in September 1314, Edward, in no position to bargain, had capitulated to virtually all of his cousin's demands. He had sworn to abide by the Ordinances, and many of his household officials and most of his sheriffs had been replaced by others. Hugh le Despenser the elder was among those whose removal Lancaster sought. Just days before the birth of his latest grandchild in October 1314, he had returned to Loughborough from that Parliament, looking grim and not a little bit sad. He had served Edward and his father for over thirty years, and though he knew that Lancaster had always wanted to see him gone from court, the moment of dismissal had rankled.

  “Whom do you despise, dear?”

  Isabel looked up at her father, who had noiselessly entered Eleanor's chamber. “Lancaster, Papa, for making you leave court.”

  “Don't trouble yourself, child. Lancaster will give himself plenty of rope, and one day he will hang himself with it.” He kissed Isabel on her cheek. “I was meeting with my council when you arrived. My absence from court does have its advantages; I'm getting much more done here.”

  “You shall soon be back, sir,” said Eleanor.

  “Indeed I shall. In the meantime, it has stopped raining for a moment or two. I thought I would take your and Bella's boys riding.” He nodded toward Edward, sleeping in Eleanor's arms. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  After his death, Gaveston had been embalmed, but he had not been properly laid to rest. Aside from his dying excommunicate, Edward had vowed not to see him underground until his death had been avenged. By January 1315, however, Edward had at least gotten the sentence of excommunication reversed, and although Piers's death had by no means been avenged, the king had healed enough to bear his friend's funeral. He was buried at Langley, the king's and Gaveston's favorite retreat.

  Lancaster and Warwick, needless to say, did not attend, but Pembroke and Hereford did, along with Henry de Beaumont, the Despensers, and many other dignitaries. The king made no attempt to hide his emotion, and as for the cost—Lancaster be damned! He'd not give the dearest person in the world a mean burial just to appease cousin Thomas's miserly little soul.

  March arrived, still rainy, and every day, Eleanor awaited word of Gilbert's heir. March departed, still rainy, and no word was heard from Maud at all. “Surely she would tell us, would she not, Hugh?”

  “To gloat if nothing else. Eleanor, I've held my tongue, for I was sorry to see Gilbert fall. But now I must tell you that I think this whole pregnancy is a fraud.”

  “Hugh?”

  “Nine months have passed, Eleanor, and that's assuming she became pregnant just before the Bannock Burn, although from what Gilbert let slip one night when he'd had too much wine, I don't think they'd had relations in a while, so shrewish had she become.”

  “But you don't know; they might have made it up, especially with Gilbert facing battle.” Eleanor thought this most likely, for she had been careful to send Hugh off to Scotland with the happiest of marital memories. “And babies can be late, Hugh.”

  “True.”

  “And why, Hugh le Despenser, would Maud do such a silly thing? For shame, Hugh! You are so cynical.”

  Hugh shrugged. “So I am, always will be. But if you're making clothes for this one, I wouldn't bother.” He strolled out, shaking his head, as Eleanor frowned at her work basket, which indeed contained a beautiful swaddling blanket for her latest niece or nephew, embroidered with the Clare arms. She picked it up, finishing the last of the stitching defiantly.

  After Parliament met in the spring of 1315, Lancaster, much to Edward's relief, returned to his estates for a while, having first forced the king to void all royal gifts made in the past few years, but Warwick, now on Edward's council, remained at Edward's side, an ever-present reminder of what Edward could not bear to think about: Gaveston's last days in the dungeons of Warwick Castle.

  Warwick's snarling Black Dog days were behind him, however. He was scrupulously polite to the king now, with none of the insolence that surfaced from time to time on Lancaster's part. He was too polite, thought Edward; had he not been it would have been the king's obligation and pleasure to knock him flat. Instead, he had to sit patiently on a rainy day in late May while Warwick droned on and on in his respectful monotone about problems in Scotland, problems in Ireland, problems in Wales, problems in Bristol, famine caused by the never-ending rain, food prices, Warwick's fool nephew seizing Tonbridge Castle in Kent—

  The king started. “Your nephew?”

  “The younger Despenser.” Warwick was politely apologetic. “Your grace recalls he is my late sister's son. I was rather fond of the lad when he was a pup, but we haven't had much contact lately.”

  “Why in God's name has he seized Tonbridge Castle? Who would even want to seize Tonbridge Castle?”

  “He refuses to speak of the matter to anyone but you and your council, your grace.”

  Edward was on the verge of turning to the seat to his left and asking the elder Despenser what his son was up to, when he remembered that Despenser had been dismissed from his council. He sighed sharply. “Have him brought here, then.”

  “Your grace, here are the keys to Tonbridge Castle. Easy come, easy go.”

  Edward stared at the young man in front of him. “Hugh, what is the meaning of this fool stunt of yours?”

  “To make a point, your grace.”

  “You seized a castle just to make a point?”

  Hugh shrugged. “It got me here, did it not?” His lighthearted tone turned cold. “Were my lord father here on your council, as he deserves to be from his long years of service, there would be no need to resort to such stratagems, but with him rusticating as he is, there seemed no other way for a Despenser to get before your council.”

  “I deeply regret your father's absence; you know that, Hugh. But what point is it yo
u wish to make?”

  “This one, your grace: the Countess of Gloucester has been claiming her pregnancy for well over eleven months now. How long can this farce continue?”

  “You are impugning the Countess of Gloucester's honor, Sir Hugh. Were she a man—”

  “Were she a man, she would not be claiming this pregnancy, now would she?” Hugh smiled. “Your grace, I spoke in haste. It is right that I should give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she did feel the stirrings of life at some point; perhaps she miscarried. Perhaps it is one of those odd cases where a woman's belly swells but she is not with child. But I cannot think of a case where a woman has taken eleven months to bear a child, and I believe the law presumes against such a happenstance.”

  “Your attorneys will have a chance to make such an argument in chancery, where this matter belongs. I shall take care that it is reached there promptly.”

  “I thank your grace.” Hugh paused. Though his seizure of the castle had been bloodless, really quite a lark, he was not at all certain he had not earned himself a sojourn in the Tower. “I am free to go?”

  The king did not answer immediately. To seize a castle to make a point! He looked at Hugh as if seeing him for the first time. His features were too sharp for real handsomeness, his leanness bordered on skinniness, and at some point he'd broken his nose, or had it broken for him, for it was slightly askew. Not a beauty like Gaveston, not even close.

  So why did Edward suddenly long to take this man into his bed?

  No! He'd never lose his heart again in that manner; he'd concentrate on his beautiful queen, who could be loved with absolute safety and who had many excellent qualities, all of which Edward reminded himself of daily. He'd keep this unsettling young man far from him, even if he was husband to his sweet little niece, whom Edward could prefer to his wife if he thought about it, which he certainly would not. “Yes. You may go.” The next two words came unbidden. “For now.”

  Long before Eleanor's father, Gilbert the Red, had married her mother, Joan, Gilbert had been married, quite miserably, to Alice de Lusignan. With the connivance of the first Edward, who wished to see the sometimes troublesome Gilbert safely married to his daughter Joan, the marriage had at last been annulled, and Alice's children had been barred from receiving any of the Clare inheritance. One of these children was a woman by the name of Isabel, and her name had been confused with that of Eleanor's sister Elizabeth in the postmortem inquisitions held regarding the disposition of young Gilbert's estates. County by county, each jury that had named the hapless Isabel as a coheir of Eleanor, Margaret, and Elizabeth was finding out its mistake, but at a slow pace. Meanwhile, Maud, staying in Caerphilly Castle in Glamorgan, doggedly continued to claim she was pregnant. By this time, Eleanor herself had lost patience. She had yanked out the Clare embroidery on the baby blanket in her work basket and put it aside in hopes that she would soon have use of it for a fourth Despenser child.

  “I could have told them that Elizabeth and Isabel were two different people, and that Isabel is only a sister of my half blood,” she complained to Hugh. “Why, I've only seen her three or four times in my life, I think. She's years older than I am, much less Elizabeth. Why did they have to put the question to the jury?”

  “Patience, my dear, patience. Is that not what you were telling me?”

  “At least I have never seized a castle over this, Hugh.” Though Eleanor had tried to be affronted at her husband's actions in the spring, she had not been able to muster up any true indignation, and Hugh knew it. He grinned.

  “Give Maud another year, and then you will, so practice your swordsmanship, sweetheart. But I've a petition to take to the king at Lincoln. As Maud is in her fifteenth month, perhaps he'll see reason. But I wonder why she hasn't had any vassal of hers do her a small favor in between the sheets? Either the fool woman is barren or entirely lacking in imagination and initiative.”

  The Black Dog of Arden had ceased to bark. Warwick, having taken ill in July of 1315, had left the court in hopes of recuperating and had died a month later at Warwick Castle. Edward wrote what was proper to Warwick's widow, Alice—he had been married to her for only five years, but the marriage had been fruitful and had produced a handful of young Beauchamps—but privately felt nothing but intense satisfaction, for Warwick had been only in his fourth decade of life. If Gaveston had been cheated of so much life by Warwick, at least the Almighty had done nearly the same to his killer.

  To his new friends, Roger Damory, Hugh d'Audley, and William de Montacute, Edward ridiculed Warwick's desire to be buried simply. “What, did he think I was going to bear him to Westminster, with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself officiating? I'd see him buried a deal more simply if I could: throw him into the moat at Warwick Castle for the fish to snack on.”

  Damory and Audley laughed, but Montacute, who was of a somewhat more thoughtful temperament, said, “Perhaps he felt remorse, your grace?”

  “If he did, it's too late.” The king snorted. “I have even heard rumors that I am said to have poisoned him! If I had, trust me, I would have done it sooner.”

  The men were dicing in Edward's private chamber at Lincoln Castle, where Edward had summoned his council and other great men of the realm to discuss the Scots, who since the battle of the Bannock Burn had not lain idle, but had made frequent raids into England. Now Montacute, staring out the window, started, “If my eyes don't fail me, young Despenser is riding up. Has he business with your grace?”

  “He makes it his business to remind me regularly that the Countess of Gloucester has not yet given birth, and that my niece Eleanor waits patiently for her share of the late earl's lands.” Edward stood. “And as he is married to my dear niece, I will see him in the presence of my council.”

  “Strange case, that,” said Damory, after the king had left the chamber. “Do you really think the wench is with child?”

  “I don't in the least,” said Montacute. “I suspect the king simply wants to keep the lands in his hands as long as possible, to keep them out of the wrong hands and the revenues flowing into the royal coffers, and she's making it easy for him with this preposterous story of hers.”

  “Aye,” said Audley. “And Lancaster is in no hurry to see young Hugh get his share. There's been bad blood between him and the older one since the old king died and old Hugh stood fast with the king on the Gaveston matter.”

  “Pity that the other sisters have to wait. The Countess of Cornwall has turned into a fine woman. And little Elizabeth, tucked away in Ireland, is pretty, I've heard.”

  “Aspiring, Damory?”

  “Why not? Two rich young widows, already broken in, if you can count Gaveston as breaking in. And as he left a brat behind, I suppose we can count him.” Damory yawned, then grinned at William. “Sorry, Montacute, that as a married man, you won't get to pluck any of those flowers.”

  “I'm pleased with my lot, thank you.” Montacute had bored of the dicing and had resumed his station at the window seat. “And you should be for a while too, for young Hugh's coming out of the castle, and he doesn't look like a man who's just been awarded the lordship of Glamorgan.”

  “The council told the king that the case was novel and hitherto unseen in the realm and that they would do nothing without the consent of Parliament. Of course it's novel! It's novel because no damn fool woman has ever been mad enough to claim she is fifteen months pregnant before. God, if the first Edward was alive he'd have cut her belly open by now, just to check.”

  Eleanor shuddered, but Hugh, having vented his anger, shut himself up with his lawyers and after a number of conferences emerged with another petition, which he presented to the king in October. The king duly sent it on to his council in London. The council, having consulted with the chancellor, sent back a beautifully sealed reply stating that they dared do nothing without the assent of the great men of the realm because of the strangeness of the case. There being nothing to be done until Parliament met, as it was scheduled to do in Lincoln in
January, Hugh took this latest disappointment graciously and contented himself with remarking to his father that in the time it took Maud to produce one child, his Eleanor could produce two, for by the time the council made its decision in October 1315, Eleanor was once again pregnant.

  In late January 1316, as her husband and father-in-law were preparing to depart for Lincoln—Hugh the younger had received his first summons to Parliament in 1314—Eleanor received some welcome news. “Hugh! My uncle is recalling Elizabeth from Ireland. She shall soon be in England. I have worried so, with the Bruces invading Ireland.”

  “Worried for her, or for the Bruces, darling?”

  “Hugh! But it is true she is rather a formidable character.”

  Robert Bruce had lately turned his attentions to Ireland, which his brother Edward had invaded the previous May. Elizabeth's father-in-law, the Earl of Ulster, one of whose daughters was married to the King of Scots, had been forced to flee from his son-in-law in September, an inglorious episode that gave rise to hints of treason on the earl's part, and Roger Mortimer had suffered a humiliating defeat in December after being deserted by his English vassals. He too was on his way to Parliament, having come to England to report on the disastrous situation in Ireland. It needed no Roger Mortimer to report that it was a dangerous place for a widow of twenty-one, however, and Eleanor was heartily glad to hear that the king had decided to bring Elizabeth to England, forceful character or no. As she had not seen her sister in six years, she determined to meet her at Bristol Castle, where Elizabeth would be staying for the time being.

  She made the trip with some trepidation, for although Elizabeth was three years her junior, she slightly intimidated Eleanor, who was much more comfortable with Margaret or with her sisters-in-law. When the girls had been together at Amesbury, Elizabeth was the Clare sister whom the nuns had never had to nag about neatness or punctuality. She'd baptized all of her dolls (though without the sin of using real Holy Water) at age seven. After she learned to write, she had started off each day by listing what she needed to do in a handwriting that was as perfect as a clerk's. Gaveston had aptly nicknamed her the Prioress.