Pembroke hesitated. He thought it would be unwise for Gaveston and the King to meet again. But Gaveston should have a free trial. He had no doubt that there was enough evidence against him to condemn him to death. He had run from Tynemouth so hastily that he had left numerous possessions behind and among them were some of the crown jewels. He would declare that the King had given them to him but that would not save him. Moreover, he had been a traitor to England again and again. He had returned when he had been banished.
To take him now― easily― to bring him to trial, that would be a triumph.
Warenne had agreed with him that they wanted no bloodshed.
‘It shall be so,’ said Pembroke.
‘I have your word as a man of honour?’
‘You have it,’ was the answer.
Pembroke left the castle to report to Warenne what terms he had made.
The journey south was slow. Gaveston was a prisoner and he knew it. He rode between Pembroke and Warenne— and he was never allowed to be out of the sight of one of them. At night, guards slept outside his door.
Each day he waited for a sign from the King. He looked for evidence that his army was approaching. None came. Then he told himself to be sensible. Who would fight for the sake of Gaveston? Englishmen wanted the King to give up his friend and live normally with his beautiful Queen.
At length they came to Northampton and on a June evening they arrived at the town of Deddington, close to the Thames, and here they decided they would rest.
Pembroke with Warenne selected a house in the town and there Gaveston should spend the night well guarded.
They themselves rode on to a castle which was a few miles away where they knew a welcome would be awaiting them.
A terrible sense of foreboding had come over Gaveston. It was more than a month since he had become their prisoner and very soon his trial would be taking place. He had not seen the King and he wondered what Edward was doing now. That he had failed to raise an army was clear. Did he know what these men were doing to his beloved friend?
Sleep did not come easily, and he longed for it. The only time he was at peace was when he could slip into his dreams. Then he would be back in the past with Edward beside him, feeding him the sweetmeats of power, showing him in a hundred ways that none other than his Perrot meant anything to him.
Sometimes his dreams would take the form of nightmare. His enemies would be surrounding him and at the head of them would be one with a face like a dog― a mad dog foaming at the mouth, jaws slavering, trying to leap at his throat. Of them all, he feared Warwick. Pembroke was a man of honour, proud of his royalty, his good name. Not so Warwick. He was the most ruthless of the barons. Then there was Lancaster who hated him and who had, so he heard, promised the Queen that he would destroy the man she hated more than any in the kingdom— himself.
Perhaps he and Edward had not considered the Queen as they should. She had seemed so unimportant. Edward had admitted that he found times spent with her irksome because they took him from his beloved, and he had not hidden this from her. She had displayed an unnatural quiet which might be perhaps a smouldering resentment. She had inspired Lancaster with a determination to destroy him, for Lancaster it was said was half in love with her.
The Queen was in his dreams, her beautiful face a mask of resignation concealing her true emotions. Odd that he should think of that now.
We should have paid more attention to the Queen. That thought kept going round and round in his head. It was absurd. What could a woman do? Women perhaps were more dangerous than some men because they acted in a more mysterious manner. Hatred was obvious in the dark eyes of Joseph the Jew and Lancaster’s scheming face and the foaming lips of Mad Dog Warwick. But how could he know what schemes were planned behind the beautiful face of Isabella the Fair?
He was awakened from an uneasy dream. There were noises below. He heard the shouts of the guards and then silence. He started up but before he could rise the door was opened and figures from his dream were at his bedside.
Warwick, the Mad Dog, was looking down at him.
‘So, my fine fellow, we have you, eh?’ he said.
Gaveston looked up at that cruel dark face, noticed the spittle about the thin lips and said with an attempt at his usual cynicism: ‘So the Mad Hound of Arden has come to Deddington Rectory.’
‘Aye!’ cried Warwick. ‘He is here. He is taking you where you belong.
Beware lest he take you by the throat and kill you.’
‘You cannot touch me. I have the word of the Earl of Pembroke. I am to have a free trial and I am to see the King.’
‘Since when has the Earl of Pembroke given orders to Warwick? Get up. Or we will take you as you are― naked. The dungeons of Warwick are not made for comfort. Be wise and dress warmly. If you can do it quickly, you may still have time.’
‘I protest―’
‘Take him as he is then,’ cried Warwick. ‘The pretty boy likes us to see himself as nature made him. He fancies he is prettier that way than in the finest garments. It may be, Gaveston, but we are not of a nature to admire. Get up. Or I will call my guards.’
Gaveston reached for his clothes and under the eyes of Warwick, hastily dressed.
About his neck he wore a chain set with jewels and there were several rings on his fingers. They were all he had brought with him from Scarborough.
Warwick noticed them. ‘The chain was a gift from the French King to our King,’ he said. ‘The rings are royal too, are they not? How you love jewels, pretty boy. Crown jewels preferred. You stole them from the Treasury.’
‘I did not. I did not. The King gave me― everything―’
‘Ah, he did so. His honour, his people’s regard and mayhap his kingdom.
Guards. Take him.’
‘You will have to answer to the Earl of Pembroke. He had given me his word.’
‘Leave the Earl of Pembroke to me. You should be concerned with yourself.’
As he stepped out into the night air, he knew where they were going and a terrible despair filled his heart.
When Pembroke arrived at the rectory to prepare to continue his journey he was horrified to hear that Warwick taken his prisoner away.
‘This is unpardonable,’ he cried. ‘I have given my word for Gaveston’s safe conduct. This is a slight on my honour.’
He was in a quandary, for he had sworn to the King that no harm should befall Gaveston and he had pledged his lands on this.
Little could have been more dangerous for Gaveston to fall into the hands of Warwick; and Pembroke knew that if anything happened to the favourite the King would be so mad with grief and that he would insist on Pembroke’s being stripped of his lands.
He appealed to Warwick who laughed at him and declared that Gaveston was his prisoner and was remaining so. Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel were on their way to Warwick where they would decide Gaveston’s fate.
Frantically Pembroke sought out the young Earl of Gloucester, for the King’s sister, Joanna, was his mother. Gloucester had been neutral in the affair of Gaveston: Margaret was Gaveston’s wife. Poor Margaret, wife to such a man was an empty title and she had long ceased to admire him, which at the time of her marriage, when she was very young, she had done because he was so pretty.
But when she had learned of his true nature, her feelings had changed. Yet at the same time Gaveston had become a member of the family and families usually clung together, though Glouchester had not come out in Gaveston’s favour because the favourite had offended him on one occasion by calling him Whoreson— a derogatory reference to his mother, the Princess Joanna, who had married old Gloucester and almost immediately after his death had turned to Ralph de Monthermer and secretly married him.