He waved the servant onwards, and the man led the way along the high corridor, and into a tower. They descended by spiral stairs to the ground floor and turned left, past the kitchens and storehouses, where the din of clattering pans and dishes mingled with shouted commands to the kitchen staff and one hoarse bellowing voice demanding to know where on God’s earth his kitchen knave had gone. The Cardinal also saw the black-haired whore who was Hugues’s latest favourite, sitting and combing her hair with slow, wanton deliberation near the horse troughs. No doubt she’d been washing away her sins, the Cardinal thought sardonically.
At a door near the great gate, the servant stopped, waiting for a sign. The Cardinal nodded, his eyes closed. ‘Be quick!’
The servant opened the door for the Cardinal, and stood back.
Cardinal Thomas entered. ‘What on … Man, there’s been a murder! Call the guard at once!’
‘Sir? I-’
‘GO!’
As the servant hurried away, his feet silent on the sanded ground, the Cardinal crouched by the side of the man on the ground. The fellow was only twenty or so. Not much more, certainly. He had a strong face, but resentment showed in the narrow set of the eyes. There was much you could tell from a man’s face, the Cardinal thought; this one had lived with bitterness. ‘Where you are going, all bitterness will be gone,’ he muttered gently, and pressed his fingers to the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse. There was nothing. Just the coolness that was unnatural in a living man.
Sighing, Cardinal Thomas knelt and began to recite the Pater Noster, then the Viaticum, as he glanced about him at the room where the fellow lay.
‘What a place to die, eh? What a place.’
Château du Bois, Paris
Queen Isabella of England stood with her back to the window as she held her arms out for her ladies to clothe her. All must be perfect, after all. She was a Queen.
Yet even a Queen had concerns. For Queen Isabella it was hard to know what to do for the best. If she were weaker in spirit, she would have given up her embassy and returned to her husband. There was so very little money remaining now. That was a permanent worry, because her grasping, miserly spouse had not entrusted her with sufficient funds when he sent her here to Paris to negotiate with her brother. No, instead he had taken away all her revenues, as though she herself might become a traitor. All because she was French.
Perhaps there was no actual malice in it. Edward was not generally malicious. Or hadn’t been before his mind had been poisoned by that murderous devil, Sir Hugh le Despenser.
When they had first been married, he had treated her with scant respect, but she had been so young compared with him. He was four- or five-and-twenty, while she was just twelve. It was not surprising that he preferred the company of others, of older men. And women, of course. She was wise enough to know that. It was four years before she would be able to give birth to their son, Edward. Adam had been the King’s firstborn son, although poor Adam had died in Scotland on one of the King’s adventures to pacify that cold and wet province.
Still, he had appreciated her when his great companion, Piers Gaveston, had died, murdered by his most powerful barons. They had dared set themselves against their lawful King! That was something a French baron would never have thought to attempt, but the English were ever truculent and rebellious. Even the people of London would revolt at the slightest opportunity and rush through the streets causing mayhem and murder as they went. It was a land that demanded a mailed fist to control it.
At that time she had done all in her power to aid and support him, as any wife would. The birth of their boy had helped, naturally. King Edward II was besotted with the lad. As soon as little Edward was born, the King seemed to change. He lavished presents upon the man who brought news of the birth, he made grand gestures to his boy, endowing him with lands and ennobling him when he was only a few days old.
But the depredations of Despenser were bound to cause problems, and soon the depth of the Despenser’s greed became apparent.
In the beginning he was more circumspect, but as he grew less worried about his position, depending upon the King for support, the people in the land grew to hate him more and more. Eventually his thefts, his murders, his kidnaps and tortures proved too much and the Lords Marcher in Wales could take no more. They overran his territories and brought their armies to London. For a while they held the King to account and forced Despenser’s exile. But then, when he returned, he was stronger, more deeply in the King’s affection, and all the more powerful.
The Lords Marcher were crushed at the Battle of Boroughbridge, and afterwards began the slaughter. Men-at-arms, squires, even knights and lords, were rounded up and executed as an example to others. The first to die was the King’s own cousin, Earl Thomas of Lancaster. It was as though all the King’s rage at the way his ‘dear brother’ Piers had been slain was guiding his mind now. All those who now stood against his new favourite were his enemies, and he would destroy them all. The bodies of his enemies decorated the gates of every town and city in the realm.
It was a hideous shock. Isabella could see the change in every aspect of her own life.
All was the fault of that snake, Despenser, and the foul Bishop of Exeter, the untruthful, greedy thief who set such stock on probity in public, and who enriched himself at the expense of all while he was Lord High Treasurer to the King. It was those two together who caused her such terrible trouble.
Despenser hated her. There was no hiding his feelings. They both knew and understood each other. There might be occasional flashes of mutual respect, but little more than that. Despenser had lured her husband from her, and she would never forgive him. Her ease of spirit was all gone, stolen away by this … this pharisee. Any joy she had once experienced in her marriage was now nothing but a fading memory.
The Bishop was equally evil, in her mind. It was he who had spoken to the King after the War of Saint-Sardos last year, he who had murmured soft words of deceit. He said that it was unsafe for the French to have an ally in the easily invaded lands of Devon and Cornwall. Perhaps it would be best if they were taken out of the control of the Lady who was sister to the French King, and who was yet the Queen of England. Not because she was herself disloyal, of course … but she had a huge familia to support her. And almost all were French themselves.
Her household was broken up shortly afterwards. All her properties were taken into the King’s hands, all her income confiscated, her servants, guards and even ladies-in-waiting dismissed, all bar a tiny number. Even her children were taken from her. No doubt, in order that she might not pollute their minds against the lawful commands of their father. That was how effective the Bishop’s sly mutters had been. She had not even the solace of her daughters. And then she was herself given a new household of ladies; now nothing could be written or sent in private apart from some few, carefully concealed notes which the Queen managed to secrete about herself. There were still one or two men upon whom she could rely. Even the woman responsible for her household was installed at the insistence of Despenser. Isabella’s most senior lady-in-waiting was his wife, Eleanor. And Eleanor held that most potent proof of Isabella’s independence: her personal seal. There was nothing remaining of Isabella’s regal position, in truth. It was utterly humiliating.