The young man who now appeared, wearing a short tunic, his well-turned legs in neat white hose, followed by his chamberlains, much resembled the great dead monarch in figure and feature, but his person radiated neither strength nor majesty. He was but a pale copy, a plaster cast taken from an effigy. And yet, because the shade of the Iron King stood behind this spiritless personage, because the Crown of France was incarnate in him, as well as the headship of the family, Isabella tried three or four times to kneel to him; and each time her brother took her by the hand, raised her, and said: ‘Welcome, sweet sister, welcome.’
Having forced her to rise, and still holding her by the hand, he led her through the galleries to the large private apartment, where he normally sat, asking the Queen for news of her journey: had she been properly received at Boulogne by the Captain of the town?
He sent to make sure that the chamberlains were attending to the luggage, warning them not to drop the chests.
‘Because the cloth crumples,’ he explained, ‘and I noticed on my last journey to Languedoc, what a state my robes got into.’
Was he trying to hide his emotion or his embarrassment by fussing over such things?
When they had sat down, Charles the Fair said: ‘Well, and how are things with you, my dear sister?’
‘Poorly, Brother,’ she replied.
‘And what is the reason for your journey?’
Isabella could not help looking painfully surprised. Did her brother really not know what was going on? Robert of Artois, who had entered the Palace with the leaders of the escort, making his spurs ring on the flagstones as if he were at home, gave Isabella a look which implied: ‘What did I tell you?’
‘Brother, I have come to negotiate a treaty with you, which must be ratified if our two kingdoms are to stop harming one another.’
Charles the Fair looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were taking time to reflect. In fact, he was thinking of nothing in particular. As during the audiences he had granted Mortimer, or indeed anyone else for that matter, he asked questions and paid no attention to the answers.
‘The treaty,’ he said at last; ‘yes, I’m prepared to receive homage from your husband, Edward. You’ll discuss it with our Uncle Charles, to whom I’ve given authority to deal with the matter. Were you seasick? Do you know, I’ve never been on the sea? It has always seemed to me a most impressive expanse of water.’
They had to wait till he had uttered a few more trivialities of this order before they could present the Bishop of Norwich, who was to conduct the negotiations, and Lord de Cromwell, who commanded the English escort. He greeted them with courtesy but clearly would never remember who they were.
Charles IV was doubtless little stupider than thousands of men of his age in the kingdom, who harrowed their fields the wrong way, broke the shuttles of their looms, or perpetrated errors in their accounts when selling wax and tallow. What was so unfortunate was that he was the King and had so very few of the right qualities.
‘I have also come, Brother,’ said Isabella, ‘to request your help and to place myself under your protection, for all my possessions have been taken from me, even the county of Cornwall, which was settled on me by England in my marriage contract.’
‘You will explain your grievances to our Uncle Charles; he is a wise counsellor, and I shall approve anything he decides for your advantage, Sister. I will take you to your rooms.’
Charles IV left the assembly to show his sister the apartments that had been set aside for her: a suite of five rooms with a private staircase.
‘For the ordinary comings and goings of your household,’ he thought it proper to explain.
He drew her attention to the fact that the furniture had been refurbished, that he had placed various objects in the rooms that had belonged to their parents, in particular a reliquary which their mother, Queen Jeanne of Navarre, had always kept by her bed; it contained a tooth of Saint Louis in a sort of miniature cathedral of silver-gilt. The figured tapestries with which the walls were hung were new, and he drew her attention to them. He showed all the cares of a good housewife; he fingered the material of the counterpane and besought his sister not to hesitate to ask for all the embers she might need to warm her bed. No one could have been more attentive or more affable.
‘As for the lodgings of your suite, Messire de Mortimer will arrange matters with my chamberlains. I want everyone to be comfortable.’
He had uttered Mortimer’s name without any particular intention, merely because, when English affairs were in question, his name was frequently mentioned to him. It seemed to him, therefore, quite natural that Mortimer should be in charge of the Queen of England’s household. He had quite clearly forgotten that the King of England was asking for his head.
He went on with his tour of the apartments, straightening the fold of a hanging here, checking the inside fastening of a shutter there. And then, suddenly coming to a halt, he leaned forward, clasped his hands behind his back, and said: ‘We have not been very happy in our marriages, Sister. I had hoped to be better served by God in the person of my dear Marie of Luxemburg than I was with Blanche …’
From the brief glance he gave her, Isabella realized he still felt a vague resentment at the part she had played in bringing to light the misconduct of his first wife.
‘And then death took Marie from me, together with the heir to the throne she was about to bring into the world. After that, they made me marry our cousin of Évreux whom you will see presently; she is an amiable wife who loves me well, I think. But we were married in July last; and now we’re in March, and she shows no sign of being pregnant. I must talk to you of matters which one can only mention to a sister. Even with that wicked husband of yours, who has no liking for your sex, you have nevertheless had four children. Whereas, I with my three wives … And yet, I assure you, I perform my conjugal duties most frequently, and take pleasure in them. What then, Sister? Do you believe in this curse my people say hangs over our race and our house?’
Isabella looked sadly at him. He had suddenly become rather touching as he voiced the troubles that weighed on his mind and were no doubt his constant anxiety. But the most humble gardener would not have expressed himself differently when complaining of his misfortunes or the barrenness of his wife. What did this poor King want? An heir to his throne or a child in his house?
And, similarly, what was there royal about Jeanne of Évreux, who came to greet Isabella a few moments later? Her face was rather weak and her expression docile; it was clear that she was humbly aware of her status as third wife; that she had been selected from among the nearest relations merely because France needed a Queen and the courts of Europe seemed reluctant to provide one. She was sad. She constantly watched her husband’s face for signs of that obsession she knew so well, which no doubt was the sole subject of their nocturnal conversations.
Isabella found the real King in Charles of Valois. He hurried to the Palace as soon as he heard that his niece had arrived, clasped her in his arms and kissed her on both cheeks. Isabella realized at once that it was in those arms the real power resided, and nowhere else.
Supper did not last long. Gathered about the sovereigns were the Counts of Valois, Artois and their wives, the Earl of Kent, the Bishop of Norwich, and Roger Mortimer. King Charles the Fair liked to go to bed early.
The English all met afterwards to confer in Queen Isabella’s apartment. When they eventually left, Mortimer was the last at the door. Isabella detained him. For merely a moment, so she said. She had a message to give him.
5
The Cross of Blood
THEY WERE UNCONSCIOUS of the passing of time. The liqueur wine, scented with rosemary, roses and pomegranate, had sunk more than halfway down the crystal flask; the fire had burnt low in the hearth.
They had not even heard the cries of the night-watchman which arose hour by hour in the distance throughout the night. They could not stop talking, particularly the Queen who, for the first time in many years, ha
d no need to fear that a spy was concealed behind the arras to report every word she uttered. She could not have said whether she had ever confided so freely in anyone before; she had forgotten even the memory of freedom. And she could not remember ever having talked to a man who listened with so much interest, replied so intelligently, and gave her such generous attention. They had days and days before them in which to talk, and yet they could not make up their minds to stop and part till tomorrow. Theirs was an orgy of confidences. They had so much to discuss: the state of the kingdoms, the treaty of peace, the Pope’s letters, their common enemies, and Mortimer recounted his imprisonment, escape and exile, and the Queen told him of her harassments, and of the latest outrages the Despensers had inflicted on her.
Isabella intended remaining in France till Edward came in person to render homage. This was the advice Orleton had given her at a secret interview between London and Dover.
‘You cannot return to England, Madame, before the Despensers have been driven out,’ Mortimer said. ‘You cannot and you must not.’
‘Their object in persecuting me so cruelly these last months is perfectly clear. They were trying to provoke me to some foolish act of rebellion so that they might accuse me of high treason and shut me up in some convent or remote castle as they have your wife.’
‘Poor dear Jeanne,’ said Mortimer; ‘she has suffered much on my account.’
And he went over to put a log on the fire.
She has been such a great help to me,’ Isabella went on. ‘And it was she who taught me to know what kind of man you are. On many a night I made her sleep beside me for I was so afraid they would assassinate me. And she talked to me of you, always of you. I know you better than you realize, my lord.’
For a moment it seemed as if they were both waiting for something, and they were a little embarrassed too. Mortimer was leaning towards the fire and its glow illuminated his deeply cleft chin and thick eyebrows.
‘Had it not been for this war in Aquitaine,’ continued the Queen, ‘and the letters from the Pope, and this mission to my brother, I am sure something terrible would have happened to me.’
‘I knew it was the only way, Madame. Believe me, I had no liking for a war against the kingdom. If I consented to take part in running it and appear as a traitor – for to rebel to defend one’s rights is one thing, but to go over to the enemy’s camp is another –’
He had the campaign in Aquitaine very much on his mind and wanted to exonerate himself.
‘It – it was because I knew there was no hope of saving you except by weakening King Edward. And it was I who conceived the idea of your mission to France, Madame. I worked for it unceasingly till it was finally agreed and you were here.’
There was a deep vibrant note in Mortimer’s voice. Isabella half-closed her eyes. She mechanically pushed back one of the blonde tresses that framed her face like the handles of an amphora.
‘What’s that scar on your lip? I never noticed it before,’ she said.
‘A present from your husband, Madame, a mark he left on me so that I should never forget him, when the men of his party threw me down in my armour at Shrewsbury where I was unlucky. And unlucky, Madame, less because I lost the battle, risked death and endured prison, than because I failed in my dream of coming to you that evening, carrying the heads of the Despensers, to do homage for the battle I had fought for your sake.’
This was not the whole truth; the safeguarding of his estates and prerogatives had weighed at least as heavily in the military decisions taken by the Baron of the Marches as had the service of the Queen. But, at this moment, he was sincerely persuaded he had acted only on her behalf. And Isabella believed it too; she had so much wanted to believe it. She had so longed for the day when her cause would have a champion. And now here was that champion, sitting beside her, with his long and slender hand that had held the sword, and on his face the slight but indelible mark of a wound incurred for her. In his black clothes, he seemed to her to have come straight out of some romance of chivalry.
‘Do you remember, friend Mortimer …’
She had dropped the ‘my lord’ and Mortimer felt greater joy at it than if he had been victorious at Shrewbury.
‘… do you remember the lay of the Knight of Graëlent?’
He knitted his thick brows. Graëlent? It was a name he had heard; but he could not remember the story.
‘It’s in a book by Marie of France, which was stolen from me, like everything else,’ Isabella went on. ‘Graëlent was so strong and so splendidly loyal a knight, and his renown so great, that the Queen at that time fell in love with him without knowing him; and having sent for him, the first words she said to him when he appeared before her were: “Friend Graëlent, I have never loved my husband, but I love you as much as it is possible to love, and I am yours.”’
She was astonished at her own audacity, and that her memory should furnish her with words so exactly appropriate to her own feelings. For some seconds the sound of her own voice seemed to be echoing in her ears. She waited, anxious, troubled, embarrassed and ardent, for this new Graëlent’s reply.
‘Can I now tell her I love her?’ Roger Mortimer wondered, as if there were anything else to say. But there are lists in which the bravest of warriors prove themselves singularly clumsy.
‘Have you ever loved King Edward?’ he asked.
And they both felt equally disappointed, as if they had missed an irretrievable opportunity. Was it really necessary to mention Edward at this moment? The Queen sat up a little in her chair.
‘I thought I loved him,’ she said. ‘I forced myself to it like a girl going to her wedding with all the proper emotions; but I soon realized what sort of a man I had been married to. And now I hate him, and with so strong a hatred that it can die only with me, or with him. Do you know that for long years I thought my body could inspire nothing but repulsion, and that Edward’s disgust for me was due to some physical fault of mine? And do you know I even still sometimes think so? Do you know, friend Mortimer, since I am admitting everything to you – besides, your wife knows it all – that in fifteen years Edward has entered my bed no more than twenty times, and then only on days appointed both by his astrologer and my physician? On the last occasion we had relations, when my youngest daughter was conceived, he insisted that Hugh the Younger should accompany him to my bed, and he fondled and caressed him before he was able to accomplish his conjugal act, telling me that I should love Hugh like himself, since they were so united that they were but one. It was then I threatened to write to the Pope.’
Mortimer turned scarlet with anger. Honour and love were both equally offended. Edward was utterly unworthy to be king. When would they be able to cry to all his vassals: ‘See who is your suzerain and before whom you have knelt and paid homage! Take back your sworn allegiance!’ And when there were so many unfaithful wives in the world, why should that man have a wife of such extraordinary virtue that she had respected his honour in spite of everything? Would he not have deserved it if she had dishonoured him with everyone who came along? But had she been completely faithful? Had no secret love lightened that desperate loneliness?
‘And have you never sought the arms of another?’ he asked in a voice of sombre jealousy, in that tone of voice which, so touching and moving at the awakening of love, becomes so wearying at the end of a love affair.
‘Never,’ she said.
‘Not even with your cousin, the Count of Artois, who seemed this morning to be showing you with considerable frankness that he was attracted to you?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘You know my cousin Robert; all’s one that comes to his net. Queen or whore, it’s all the same to him. One day long ago, at Westminster, I told him of my loneliness and, as we stood in a window embrasure, he offered to console me. That was all. Besides, didn’t you hear him say: “Are you still as chaste as ever, my fair Cousin?” No, dear Mortimer, my heart is desolate and free, and very weary of being so.’
> ‘Oh, Madame, it is so long now that I have not dared tell you that you were the only woman in my thoughts!’ cried Mortimer.
‘Is that true, sweet friend? Is it so long?’
‘I think, Madame, that it dates from the very first time I saw you. But I believe I realized it only one day at Windsor when tears came to your eyes for some shame King Edward had put on you. But you were distant; not so much because of your crown, but because you were protected by that aloofness of demeanour you have always maintained. And then Lady Jeanne was with you, always talking to you, but an obstacle to my approaching you. Shall I tell you that when I was in prison there was no morning or evening I did not think of you, and that the first question I asked when I escaped from the Tower …’
‘I know, friend Roger, I know; Bishop Orleton told me. And it made me happy to think I had given money from my privy purse to help you towards freedom; not because of the gold, which was nothing, but because of the risk which was great. Your escape increased my troubles …’
He bowed very low, knelt almost, to show his gratitude.
‘Do you know, Madame,’ he said, his voice graver yet, ‘that when I set foot in France, I made a vow to wear nothing but black till I could return to England, and to touch no woman till I had freed you and seen you again?’
He was slightly altering the original terms of his vow and confusing, in the service of his love, the Queen and the kingdom. But in Isabella’s eyes he was but the more like Graëlent, Perceval and Lancelot.
‘And have you kept your vow?’ she asked.
‘Can you doubt it?’
She thanked him with a smile, with tears swimming in her great blue eyes, and with an outstretched hand, a fragile hand that sought refuge like a bird in the tall baron’s. Their fingers opened, crossed, interlaced.
‘Clasp them,’ Isabella murmured. ‘Clasp them hard, my friend. For me, too, it has been a long time.’