The Traitor's Wife Read online

  “You have overstepped your bounds, sir. Leave me.”

  “No, I won't.” Mortimer took the queen by the wrist and looked straight into her eyes. “I know you are not a fool, and that is why I am here now. To offer you the chance of your lifetime.”

  “I do not understand you.”

  “In a matter of days, your son will be here. With him here, why should you come back to the king like a little lapdog returning to her master? Put conditions on your return. I'm sure you can think of one.”

  “That the Despensers leave the king.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But he will never agree to that.”

  “Probably not. But you have the heir to his kingdom with you, don't you? One king can be put down, another brought up. It's that simple, your grace.”

  Isabella started. “You mean the king—an anointed of God—should be deposed?”

  “Only as a last resort.”

  “Last resort, first resort—that is outrageous!”

  “No,” said Mortimer. “This is outrageous.” He tilted the queen's chin upward and kissed her.

  October 1325 to October 1326

  GLADYS DID NOT KNOW WHETHER TO LOOK UP, DOWN, OR AROUND FIRST as she entered the chamber in Sheen Palace that had been allotted to Eleanor. Up, the ceiling was painted a brilliant blue that the English sky only occasionally attained. Down, the floor was covered in carpet so thick and soft that walking on it took a bit more effort than usual. Around, there were the goldfinches—forty-seven of them, Gladys later counted—singing a greeting to the ladies as they stepped into the chamber. “My lady, this is fit for a queen!”

  Eleanor, though no stranger to luxury, was equally taken aback. “My uncle told me that there would be a pretty chamber for me, but I was hardly expecting this.” She looked at the bed, where several bolts of cloth in Eleanor's favorite greens and blues lay, begging to be made into robes, and on a table, where a romance, fresh from the hands of the illuminator, rested.

  “Well, if Isabella knew what quarters the king was giving you, she'd be home in a trice to boot you out,” Gladys said dryly. “When is she returning home, anyway?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “Young Edward did his homage several weeks ago, and the French king said he was satisfied. There is no reason for her to be tarrying there. But I suppose Edward might want to travel around there a bit. After all, he is half French, and has never seen the land.”

  “Why he'd want to see it, I don't know,” said Gladys, like a good Englishwoman. “There's plenty of England for him to see.”

  “There is no accounting for tastes,” Eleanor said dryly. She stretched out on the bed contentedly and smiled as the babe she carried within her, due in December, gave a sharp kick.

  The king and Hugh came to visit Eleanor and her charge John of Eltham a few days at Sheen, then moved on to the royal manor at Cippenham, near Slough, in late October. It was there one chilly morning, as the men lay together in Edward's chamber, the bed curtains drawn tight against intruders, that the knocking came, a knocking that was insistent yet so light that neither man could have guessed the fate for each that it portended. Finally, Edward yawned, “Enter.”

  A scrawny page spoke into the bed curtains—gossip had advised him never to pull at them, for one never knew whom one might find inside them. “Beg pardon, your grace, it is Bishop Stapeldon. He craves a word with you immediately.”

  “Stapeldon?” the king echoed. “Why, he should be in France! What is he doing here?”

  “I don't know,” admitted the page. “But he is here.”

  This point being unanswerable, the king dismissed the page. Hugh having retreated to the antechamber where he nominally had a bed, the king's valet and Hugh's valet set to work, and the bishop was ushered in shortly thereafter.

  It was the bishop who could have used the attention of a valet, however. Walter Stapeldon's hair was untidy, his clothes travel-splattered—and he was not, the king suddenly realized, even wearing his normal attire. He looked like a traveling peddler whose business had hit a dry spell. “Sir, what is the matter here? Why have you returned from France with no warning? Where are your men? Why are you dressed as you are? Do the queen and Edward follow you?”

  The king could have strung several more questions on to his bow, but Stapeldon held up his hand. “I know not how to tell you what I am to tell, your grace. I have been thinking, ever since I crossed the Channel, how to tell you. So I will tell you it straight out. The queen has openly, publicly refused to return to England unless Lord Despenser is removed from court.” Stapeldon glanced at Hugh's face, which was impassive. “Her exact words—her words, I emphasize—are that someone has come between your grace and herself, trying to break the marriage bond, and that she will not return until this intruder has been removed. She has even said that she will dress in mourning until she is avenged of this Pharisee, as she puts it.”

  “Which would be me?” inquired Hugh.

  “Yes, my lord. And she has donned mourning robes, or at least a semblance thereof.”

  “Very becoming ones, no doubt.”

  “Rather, sir.”

  Hugh let out an expressive whistle.

  The bishop said hesitantly, “This brings me to my next point. Your grace, you sent me there to watch over your son, I and Henry de Beaumont, and I must tell you why I have returned home without him, and in this poor garb. There were plots against my life, plots by Roger Mortimer's allies, that I learnt of from a person at the French court sympathetic to me as a man of the cloth. I have every reason to believe that if I had not fled at night, disguised in these clothes, I would be a dead man today.”

  “Why you, Bishop?” asked Hugh.

  “Because of the role I played in expediting the seizure of the queen's land. Because I was regarded as a spy when I accompanied the king's son there. And because—I regret having to say this, sir—because I am associated with you.” Hugh flinched, barely perceptibly, and Stapeldon drew a breath. “Your grace, there is worse to tell, and I fear the telling will anger you. But it must be said. The queen is allying herself with your enemies in France, with all those who have exiled themselves there following your victory at Boroughbridge. They swarm about her like so many bees. But she has allied herself with one man in particular. Roger Mortimer. She dines with him at table, accompanies him on the hunt, dances with him. Those things I have seen myself. And there are rumors—ones that I can neither credit nor discredit—that he has found his way into her chamber.”

  “Good Lord!” said Edward. “You are not telling us that they are lovers!”

  “That is the rumor.”

  “Damn her soul if this is true,” said Edward quietly. He paced around the room a couple of times, then wheeled on Stapeldon. “What of my son? Has she seduced my son away from me?”

  Stapeldon shook his head. “I know not what your son thinks of all this. He is unusually reserved for a boy of his age, I have always thought, and our conversations have always been on trivialities or historical matters—he has always enjoyed hearing stories about your distinguished ancestors, your grace. He has never spoken on matters that concern the here and now. He was glad to see his mother, I can tell you—she is, after all, a most charming lady—and she welcomed him warmly. If she were able to appeal to a sense of chivalry within him by this widow business of hers, to convince him that she has been grievously wronged…”

  He fell silent. Hugh finished the thought. “He might turn against the king. And the French might use this as a pretext to invade England.”

  Stapeldon nodded bleakly. All three men were silent for a time. Then Edward said briskly, “Let them plot and cavort in bed! The English people won't stand for an invasion by Charles's troops, nor will they stand for one led by a whoring Frenchwoman and her lover. Isabella and her brother and Mortimer are sadly mistaken if they think otherwise.”

  “I trust they are, your grace,” the bishop said.

  “Nay,” said Edward confidently. “I know they
are.”

  Though Eleanor would never have said so to the king, she disliked her quarters at Kenilworth Castle, where she and John of Eltham progressed in April 1326. It was not that the king had spared expenses in refurbishing Eleanor's chamber—he had not—or that any convenience was wanting. It was that Kenilworth, seized from the late Earl of Lancaster, in itself gave her a feeling of unease. Here, Lancaster had plotted and schemed against the king and Gaveston, then the king and her husband. Lying in bed at night, even when Hugh was in her company, especially when he was in her company, Eleanor could fancy that the earl's indignant ghost roamed the halls.

  Her internal state of mind was not helped by the external state of affairs. Soon after Bishop Stapeldon's return to England, Edward had begun to deluge the queen with letters demanding, first graciously and later stridently, her return. England's bishops were also commanded to write to the queen. Though in his initial letters, the king had avoided any reference to Mortimer, deeming it prudent to give the queen the benefit of the doubt while the rumors of her conduct were unproven, there was soon little ground to disbelieve them. The king having cut off Isabella's allowance, most of her disgruntled household had returned to England at the end of November, bearing tales. On several occasions, a tousled-looking Mortimer had been seen emerging from the queen's chamber at the crack of dawn, and one of Mortimer's pages had been heard to boast of his master's royal conquest.

  Whether the letters were friendly or unfriendly, whether they addressed Isabella as a pious daughter of the Church or implied that she was no more than Mortimer's whore, whether they came from king or bishop, they produced no effect upon the queen, who would say nothing more than that she feared to return to England because of Hugh le Despenser's presence there and that she would not budge from France until he was removed. Her three children in England had long ceased to ask Eleanor and Lady Hastings when she would be coming back.

  Young Edward had also received letters from his father, stern but affectionate letters that simultaneously ordered and begged him to return home, with no better results than from those sent to his mother. There were even rumors that the queen and Mortimer had been negotiating with the Count of Hainault, a wealthy man who was also the lord of Holland and Zealand, for the marriage of one of his four amiable daughters with the thirteen-year-old Duke of Aquitaine. The king's wife and son were not the only members of the royal family digging in their heels. King Edward's younger half brother Edmund, the Earl of Kent, who had bungled the St. Sardos affair so miserably, had married Roger Mortimer's cousin, Margaret Wake, in France. He too refused to return to England.

  “What do you think, Hugh? Will the queen—or her brother Charles— invade England?”

  The year before, Hugh's response would have been a breezy, “Nonsense!” Now he glanced at Eleanor and his newest son, John, and said only, “We are trying our best to prevent that.”

  Eleanor looked at the baby's thatch of whitish hair. “Hugh, even the Pope has advised you to retire from the court. Have you considered doing that? We could live comfortably—very comfortably—on our own lands, you know, and the king could visit us often. Would it be that bad?”

  “Are the king and I to have Isabella dictate who shall serve the king?”

  “Not Isabella, the Pope!”

  “It all comes to the same thing,” said Hugh, who had not quite forgiven the Pope for his lack of sympathy with regard to the black arts practiced against him.

  “But England herself is in jeopardy, Hugh. Your children are in jeopardy; what do you think would happen if an invasion succeeded?”

  “Succeeded! Eleanor, don't be absurd.”

  “Hugh, I love my uncle. I would give my very life for him. But he has not won a war, save at Boroughbridge, and that was due mainly to Harclay. He is not a military leader, and you know it.”

  “The English won't stand to be invaded by the French,” said Hugh. “It is a matter of preparation, and the king is preparing for the worst.”

  “But Hugh, we have gotten off the subject. Can't you placate the queen a little by leaving the court? At least until she sees that you mean her no harm?”

  Hugh started to make a sharp reply, then experienced one of those fits of conscience that occasionally afflicted him. Just a few weeks before, in the throes of one, he had offered Eleanor's sister Elizabeth some lands in compensation for those he had taken from her, and now, looking at the woman he had been married to nearly twenty years, he found that he could not lie to her. “It's not that simple, Eleanor. I can't just go away like that. The king needs me.” He paused a long time. “And I need him. We love each other, Eleanor.”

  “Like David and Jonathan?”

  “No, Eleanor. Like the king and Gaveston.”

  “I see.”

  John, who had been cradled in Eleanor's arms, rooted around with his mouth hopefully. Finding no waiting nipple, he began to whimper. Hugh rang a bell and John's wet nurse appeared in seconds. She sometimes nursed her charge in the presence of his parents, but seeing the expressions on their faces, she bowed and hurried to the nursery. When she was safely gone, Eleanor said, “Margaret implied as much when we were at Marlborough Castle together. I thought she meant you had women lovers, and I took it for pure spite. I should have known better.”

  “There's no other woman in my life but you. There's no other man in my life but the king.”

  “How tidy. How long has this been going on, Hugh?”

  “About eight years.”

  “Eight years?”

  “We tried to be discreet.”

  “You were that.”

  “Sweetheart, neither of us wanted to hurt you.”

  “But you have, haven't you?” She snorted and headed toward the door.

  Edward, preparing for a spot of hunting and believing Hugh to be doing the same, was puzzled to hear that Lady Despenser wanted to speak to him urgently about John of Eltham's knightly training. They had spoken about the very subject the afternoon before. But it was not like his niece to bother him with trivial matters, so he bade his attendant to show her in, then agreed to her strange request that they be left alone.

  “So, Nelly. You were concerned about my John?”

  “No, Uncle. I have found out just now that you and my husband are lovers.”

  “I see. Have some wine, Nelly.”

  Eleanor took the cup he poured for her and drained it. “Another, please.”

  He complied. “Eleanor, I didn't mean to hurt you. Neither did Hugh. You were a scruple we both had to overcome, and should not have. But, of course, we did, and we will have to answer for it someday.”

  “You will give each other up?”

  Edward shook his head. “No, Nelly.” He stared out the window. “You probably heard from Gaveston that he and I gave each other up. Did you?” She nodded. “And what was his reward? Nine days in a dungeon and then Blacklow Hill. No. I won't give Hugh up, not for you or for any man or any woman or God Himself.”

  “So be it. But Hugh comes with strings attached.”

  “Strings, Nelly?”

  “Me.”

  She yanked off her headdress, letting her red curls fall past her waist, and unclasped her cloak. Beneath it, the king saw, she wore only a shift, so sheer that it revealed every outline of her body. He was still gaping at the shift when Eleanor shrugged and sent it slithering to the floor. “Christ almighty,” he whispered.

  “Edward,” she muttered drowsily a few hours later. She stroked the golden hair on his chest, burnished by the light of the setting sun. “Edward, are you awake?”

  He stirred and smiled. “Ned,” he yawned.

  “May I tell you something, Ned?”

  “Anything.”

  “You won't remember this, but when I was little and you only in your teens, Gilbert and my sisters and I came to visit you at Langley. You had your boat, and I wanted so badly to ride in it, I could have cried. But I was shy, so timid that Mama was even thinking of giving me to God, like my aunt Mary. She
thought I would never be able to assume the duties of a great lady like herself. I wasn't supposed to have heard of her plans for me, but I had anyway, and that made me all the more shy, because I was scared of being sent away. And that is when we came to visit you.

  “Gilbert, of course, asked to get into the boat; he was never shy a day of his life, poor boy. But I didn't dare to ask for myself, because I knew all the women around me would disapprove, and you intimidated me so, with your muscles and height. So you helped Gilbert in, and got in yourself and then you looked at me back on the shore. 'Nelly? Would you like to come?' I don't think you'd ever spoken to me directly before; I was always hanging back, or always with my governess. Gilbert answered before I could get any words out. 'Nelly would like to come,' he said. 'But she's too shy to ask you, and besides, it isn't ladylike.'

  “And then you looked at me and laughed. 'I am shy too, Nelly,' you said. 'And as for it being unladylike, I have been told I am unkinglike too often to care whether you are acting like a lady. Come, sweetheart.' And then you stepped out and helped me in, and on that long ride—it seemed to last forever— you talked to me, and made me laugh, and I felt like a queen. I never was as shy as I had been, after I got out of that boat, and there never was any more talk of making me a nun.” She swallowed hard. “I think it was then that I fell in love with you, quietly, so quietly that I did not know myself until today how much I loved you. And when Hugh told me he and you were lovers, I was angry at both of you, but I was also so jealous, that you had chosen him and not me.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “So that is why I came here today.”

  “I've always had the gift of loving the wrong people,” said the king ruefully. “First, when I was fifteen, there was my stepmother—a woman only a few years older than me! Thank the Lord I kept my infatuation to myself before it passed, though I've often wondered if my father didn't guess, and if that wasn't one of the reasons he disliked me so. Then there was Lucy, a peasant girl. Piers and Hugh, of course. And another, Nelly.”