Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer (9 page)

“The Scots? Richmond.”

“On the road to Durham?”

“I don’t know. They could be aiming for Cumberland.”

If such was true, it would gain us precious time, however small. I breathed deeply, gathering myself inwardly. Clearly, we could not rely on others. Certainly not Edward. Our only surety was in ourselves.

*****

That evening Patrice found me seated on a pillow in the arched window seat of my apartments. Loose strands of hair dangled down over my forehead. Even as I glanced toward the door, I did not brush them away. I was too fraught with worry to bother.

“Come,” I bid to Patrice, scooting a pillow across to her. “Sit with me.”

Patrice sat down and took my hand.

“So cold,” she remarked, scrunching her eyebrows with concern.

“It was warmer yesterday. The storm has brought a terrible chill with it. Winter is not far, I fear. It always makes me feel as if my bones might snap.” I returned my gaze to the window. Rain pattered steadily against it, smearing the gray of the nearly night sky into the black of the sea.

We had grown up together in Paris, born only a month apart. That aside, we could not have been more unalike. My hair, once as pale as yellow primroses, had mellowed to a tawny hue. I was slight, despite having given birth to four children
–
my prominent collarbone and angular elbows apparent even beneath the thick layers of my brocaded gown. Patrice was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and everything about her was invitingly round: the swirling ringlets of coal black hair; the attentive curve of her brow; the healthy plumpness of her cheeks; a bosom so full and firm she looked the part of perpetual wet nurse. Had I not loved her so much I would have envied her for her looks alone.

I was the daughter of a king: Philip IV of France. Both my father and mother were dead now, along with my two oldest brothers, Louis and Philip, who had both ruled in succession. My brother Charles, childless and only a year older than myself, was now King of France.

For these past fourteen years, I had been queen to Edward II of England and done more to preserve this kingdom than any man shall ever know. Fourteen years, mostly unhappy if not for my children to give me some purpose and Patrice to absorb my sorrows.

Patrice began to get up. “Let me tend the fire and bring you your furs.”

I held her hand firm. “In a moment. Please, I need someone to ... to talk to.”

“You’ve been up since before prime. You’re weary. In need of rest. When the ships are ready you’ll
–
”

“It will be days, maybe, before we can sail. Even when we do, in these rough seas we’ll be crammed into the dark hull of some merchant ship like mice drowning in a barrel of rainwater
–
nowhere to go, nothing to do but tread water and pray it stops.”

“Oh, Isabeau, must you always worry so?”

Isabeau
. I smiled faintly at the childhood endearment. Even now, with disaster looming dark like a thunderstorm on the horizon, it was a sweet sound in my ears
–
one that I never heard come from English lips.

“Yes, I must,” I admitted. “I cannot help it. Storms like this, this time of year
–
they can last for days. And while we wait for it to pass, the Scots have not stopped to dry themselves beneath a roof somewhere. They are still riding. Hard. Fast. If they know I am here ... well, we dare not ride from here without an army of our own, do we? No, we have to wait. Wait for the sea to relent and the skies to break. Wait and hope.”

Sometimes it seemed that had been my whole life: waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Edward to come to his senses. Waiting for things to get better by some miracle.

Patrice had been with me at York barely three years ago when the Black Douglas, leader of the Bruce’s lightly armed horsemen, the hobelars, had ripped through Yorkshire, raiding town after town, burning farm after farm, to divert the English army from their siege at Berwick. If not for the rash bravery of Archbishop Melton of York, who clashed with Douglas at Myton, though it amounted to a massacre of English monks and burgesses, we might have fallen into Scottish hands then. The selfless act bought us enough time to escape by horse. But on our way south, we witnessed the terror that Scotsmen left in their wake. The memory stirred the sharp taste of smoke in my throat and visions of bloodied bodies piled three high in carts.

“I remember, too.” I brushed my fingertips against Patrice’s cheek, and then laid my head upon her shoulder. “I used to wonder what would have befallen us if ... if we had given ourselves up to the Scots then.” I thought I felt a shudder run through Patrice’s body, but I realized it was me. “They say that when the Bruce held Ralph de Monthermer prisoner, the stepfather of Gilbert de Clare, after Bannockburn that they went hawking together whenever the weather was good and feasted together daily. His nephew, Thomas Randolph, who betrayed him, was granted every comfort and kept in his constant company until Randolph was won over by his charm. Can the Bruce be so bad a man, then? Certainly there is kindness to him, despite his reputation in battle.”

“I have heard he is fine to look upon,” Patrice mused.

“And that he had a dozen mistresses while his wife was being held captive in England.” I had meant it to shock her, but I believe she thought it somewhat alluring. “I know not, Patrice, how long we can hold here against the Scots or how many lives I can give up trying to save my own. I only know it should not have come to this. If we stay, if too many die ... I will have to surrender the fortress. But they do not come to take a monastery. They come for a queen. And if they ask a ransom for me, Edward will balk at it. He will stall in negotiations. He cares not what happens here, to me. But I do. Not for myself so much, though. I cannot be without my children, Patrice. Cannot.”

We sat close for a while, saying nothing, our fears absorbed by the sound of the rain as it drummed against the window. Finally, the deep rumble of thunder shook Patrice from her trance. She crossed the room to the hearth, jabbed at the logs with a poker and busied herself sweeping ashes, even though it was not her duty to clean. Then, she took my furs from the bulging chest at the foot of the bed.

“You will see the children again soon. You will,” she promised as she draped a deep pelt of fox fur over my shoulders.

“I pray so. If not for them, I would as soon wait here and give myself over to the Scots than throw myself to the mercy of the sea.”

8

Isabella:

Tynemouth Priory – October, 1322

TYNEMOUTH WAS BOTH MONASTERY and royal residence. On two sides its buildings were enclosed by a stout wall, one side was further defended by a deep ditch and the other by sheer sea cliffs. It would have seemed a likely place to discourage any foe’s assault, but the Bruce and his men, I knew, had conquered higher walls and crossed wider ditches than these. Thomas Randolph, the Earl of Moray, had taken Edinburgh by scrambling up the craggy, forbidding face of the mountain-high rock on which it sat. Sir James Douglas had scaled Berwick’s walls with his crude rope ladders, even as archers let loose their arrows into the darkness around him. In comparison to those fortresses, Tynemouth was an anthill. A siege would have been a mere formality: a grace before the slaughter. I thanked Our Lord for having given me the sense to leave my children behind: Young Edward at Windsor and the others
–
John, Eleanor and Joanna
–
at Langley.

I had to leave Tynemouth. I had to return to them. I could not leave them with only Edward as a parent. They would fare better as orphans.

Three days more it rained. On the fourth day after receiving the letter from Edward, there was only a thin, dreary mist coming down. The clouds broke, gathered, and broke again, all before midmorning.

I leaned upon the parapet of the seaward wall of Tynemouth, my fur-lined mantle bunched tightly to my chest against a breath-stealing wind that muffled even the incessant cries of the kittiwakes. Occasionally, the gulls took flight from the cliffs – rippling clouds of gray-white against a shining dark sea. They beat their wings to go higher, only to retreat in exhaustion and huddle once more upon the broken cliffs. I thought I saw a pair of gannets dive from the clouds and slice into the water, but they were far away and the whitecaps were everywhere. Even further out, a thick bank of slow-moving clouds muted the union of sky and sea, but whether it was a new storm building or the last of an old one was impossible to tell. Westward, the land swelled up in a blend of moss-color and straw beneath a sky of slate. Somewhere there, the Tyne cleaved the undulating hills and a road traversed its length.

The sea wind nipped at the back of my neck as I looked once more in that direction. A shaft of sunlight gilded the waves and I smiled to see a broad break in the clouds. If we were going to leave Tynemouth, it would have to be soon or else the next riders to come sweeping along the western road could very well be Scottish hobelars. Trusting in the sentries, I gave up my vigil on the wall and went inside.

I was in the gatehouse, meeting with the garrison’s captain, when Lady Eleanor de Clare found me. My lady-in-waiting swooped at the waist and, before receiving acknowledgment, burst out, “My lady, the Scots have turned eastward from Haltwhistle and are following the Tyne.”

Perturbed, I paused in my instructions to the captain and gazed at Eleanor. She was Edward’s niece and the wife of Hugh Despenser
–
that alone made her less than loved in my heart. Even more, Eleanor had been placed in my household without my consent. I would just as soon not have Despenser’s bedfellow, however occasional she might have been in that manner to him, hovering about. I might as well have had my mouth pressed to Despenser’s own ear.

“When?”

Eleanor shrugged. “The scout said they may be as far as Hexham by now.”

Hexham was roughly a day’s ride. Outwardly, I did not waver at the news, but within I felt the rain’s dampness on my skin, felt it seeping through my flesh and into my bones.

“My lady ...” Eleanor began, her voice thinning to a mewl, “if we do not do something, they will
–
”

“As I was telling the captain: The ship has already been loaded with provisions. But for my personal guard, the garrison will stay and defend the castle until we are safely away. If the winds allow, we’ll go as far down the coast as we can.”

Immediately, I set about issuing orders. No task, I had learned, was ever accomplished by pondering on it overlong. By noon we departed Tynemouth, our cloaks wrapped tight about us as we descended the steep and winding path toward the shoreline where our ship awaited.

Beyond the cliffs where the Benedictine priory sat, a rising wind lashed at the blue-black sea, churning the waves into foamy peaks. Against the ragged shoreline, the raging waves crashed in sprays of white. Then, broken and hushed, they retreated seaward in defeat. At the northern edge of the horizon, the sky had already begun to darken again.

I looked once more toward the priory, wondering if I should order us back to wait until tomorrow, but with a glance Patrice banished my thoughts. She did not want to relive York, nor did I.

My men-at-arms lifted the small rowing boat from behind a sand dune and carried it forward on their shoulders. I waited on shore while they rowed my damsels out in twos and threes to board the ship. The youngest of my damsels, Cecilia de Leygrave who was fifteen, hovered at my elbow, already blanched in complexion.

“You do not like to sail, Cecilia?” I asked cautiously.

Tremulous, she cast her brown eyes toward the lowering horizon. “Oh, I have not sailed much. Once before maybe. I was little then, so I don’t remember much of it. But I do not like storms, my lady. I do not like being wet or cold or standing out in the lightning. Ida told me once about her cousin who was struck by lightning
–
there was nothing left of him but a pile of ashes in his boots and the ring from his finger. And I have heard there are monsters in the sea that follow ships. That they especially follow ships with women on them.”

It was strange to see the usually witty and tittering Cecilia so terror-stricken. I hung an arm over her shaking shoulders and forced a laugh. “Was it Ida who told you about the sea monsters who devour women? She is full of silly stories. Well, I have never seen a sea monster, nor have I ever known anyone who has. It is simply a tavern tale told by old sailors to make themselves sound braver than they are. So you needn’t worry about monsters, Cecilia. They don’t exist. Besides, I have hired the best sailors and the fastest ship north of London. We will arrive somewhere safe sooner than you know.”

But I stretched the truth. The ship I had commissioned for our rescue was one that had recently been blown back by storms. A sodden and battered crew had crudely mended its sails, sliced by the gale. The hull had received a hasty caulking of moss and a spotty daubing of pitch. Its seaworthiness was highly suspect, but taking ship was no surer a fated death than remaining at Tynemouth.

She pressed her fingertips together in a hasty prayer. “I am to be betrothed to a squire from Oxford. A good man, I’m told. He sent me this.” She splayed the fingers of her left hand and wiggled them to show a ring of tarnished silver set with a milky blue stone. A pretty bauble, it was nothing of great value. To her, however, it was a treasure.

“Very beautiful.” I leaned close to peer at it. “So you have not met?”

She twisted the ring on her finger. Then, deciding it was loose, she switched it to another finger. “No, but he writes. I have one of the monks read them to me. It is ... embarrassing sometimes, what he says, to hear a holy man say it. But he sounds most kind.”

Two soldiers each extended a hand to help us into the little rowing boat that reeked of fish. “A very important trait for a husband to have. You will be happy.” I hooked my arm through hers and together we walked into the foamy rush of cold waves that wrapped about our feet. The boat rocked as we each stepped into it. We plunked down on a rowing thwart in the front and the two soldiers took the back, leaving the oarsman in the middle. I hugged Cecilia close. As I did so, I saw, far to the south and high up at the edge of the cliffs ... a line of horsemen, armed. Their silhouettes cut stark and ominous against a gray veiling of clouds. The tips of their spears jabbed at the sky as they rode hard and fast along the thin lip of earth.

The oarsman pulled hard, grunting, and we slipped away from shore. My heart tumbled in fear with each jerk of the oars. Most of my damsels, including Patrice and Juliana, had already boarded the broad-bellied merchant ship that would take us down the coast to safety, but three others still waited on shore for the rowing boat to return for them.

Cecilia bit fiercely at her lip as we lurched toward the bobbing ship, each wave knocking our tiny boat back almost as far as the oarsman could manage to advance.

“He will be in York, waiting for me.” Her voice was barely a whisper above the roar of waves around us. Rain began to fall suddenly, heavily, stabbing at my shoulders and back. Cecilia crouched down before me and tucked her head tight against my bosom to keep the rain out of her eyes.

I did not think to ask what her betrothed’s name was, so fixed was my attention on the horsemen now leaning back in their saddles to plunge rapidly down the steep trail toward the shore. “Do not worry, Cecilia. The brunt of the storm is to the north. Away from us.”

But there was a closer fate to the south, closing fast. The last of my damsels were quaking in a tight huddle at the edge of an angry sea. A remnant of my guard, four men, waited with them. A small garrison had remained at the priory, thinking that if anyone came to attack, they would approach by the road to the west. Lightning cracked overhead. One of the soldiers glanced up at the cliffs. In the flickering light, sword blades glinted. I could now make out the round, studded shields affixed to their forearms
–
the targes of Scots. And at the lead a man with wild black tresses that fell to his shoulders. With his sword thrust out before him, he raised himself up out of his stirrups and closed on those below like a demon of the night.

The garrison soldier let out a cry to stand in defense. The black-haired Scotsman cocked his arm back and leaned out hard to the side. His blade slashed through the darkness and severed the man’s bare neck. The soldier who had given the warning was forever silenced. His head bounced in front of the terrified clutch of women and rolled to the water’s edge. The man’s torso swayed until a gust of wind finally pushed it over.

Above the crash of thunder, I could not hear the screams that followed.

They were now three men against thirty. Through the deluge, I saw the rest of the hobelars swoop down upon the English soldiers, who did not last a minute under the onslaught of weapons, valiant though they were. Before we reached the ship, their bodies lay strewn over the sand, the rain washing red rivers of blood into a turbid black sea.

And then I saw my women being plucked up by the Scotsmen like half-empty sacks of grain and slung across their horses’ withers.

The black-haired Scotsman galloped his horse out into the stormy sea, stopping only when the waves crashed so forcefully against his horse’s chest that the beast refused to go any further. Our eyes met across the bleary distance and I knew, without being told, who the dark-haired one was: the Black Douglas.

For a moment, my heart faltered. I felt our little boat struggle and pitch back toward shore as the oarsman tired, but with a fit of energy he leaned hard into the oars once again. With a few strokes more we were there and being pulled into the ship. Cecilia, still in my protective embrace, saw none of the swift massacre or the man who had led it.

We were no more than a few hours out when the winds began to beat like the fists of undeniable death at our ship.

Rain lashed cold and heavy. The sail was taken down while the keel heaved high above jagged waves. The ship did not hold its mending. The mast groaned against the hammering of the wind. There was no bargaining to be had. The sea would exact its price for passage. One which was dear. The storms were no more merciful than the Scots had been.

It was almost a week before we stumbled, less several of my household, into York.