‘You seriously believe it’s better to tell her than Lord John?’
‘John Cromwell is a good man, but he takes his orders from the King — and in his case, I think that many instructions actually come from Despenser. Despenser hates Mortimer. The conclusion is clear — Despenser would command John Cromwell to have Mortimer murdered. The Queen knows Mortimer, though. She would surely understand him better.’
Saturday before the Annunciation of Our Lady 17
Poissy
The King had arrived in his royal palace a little earlier, but it was important for a king to ensure that all was prepared before he made his entrance. Jeanne, his bride-to-be, had already welcomed his sister to France, so King Charles IV could give himself up to making the preparations for the welcome feast.
And at last all was ready on the Saturday.
To Baldwin’s embittered eye, it was as unprompted and natural as any play-actor’s performance.
The King was a tall, handsome man. He had the natural grace of a man of authority, and the lightness on his feet of a trained man-at-arms. This was a noble who was experienced in the lists, he thought. And he was genuinely interested in people.
‘You are?’
Lord John Cromwell gave his name easily enough. He was used to speaking with kings, and he bowed low and respectfully, gruffly introducing the other men from his party. De Sapy was careful to bow low, as was Peter de Lymesey, but Sir Charles, Baldwin saw, was less reverential in his approach. He bowed, but in an almost perfunctory manner, which made some in the chamber eye him suspiciously. For his part, Baldwin bowed as low as he would to any king. There was no point in making a show of rudeness. It could all too easily make an enemy of a ruthless man in the lands where his power was absolute.
‘Sir Baldwin de Furnshill,’ Lord John intoned.
‘I am delighted to meet you,’ the King said in that soft voice of his. His tone was light, but Baldwin had the impression that it would carry clearly a great distance.
‘I believe you have all looked after your queen, my sister, well. I am most grateful to you all for that. If there is anything you require while you stay here in Poissy or in Paris, let my servants know and I will ensure that they will provide it for you. You are all my honoured guests.’
He had turned to return to his throne when the doors opened at the far end of the hall, and the Queen stepped in.
She was clad in black, a dress rather like a widow’s, Baldwin thought, and then his mouth twitched cynically. No fool, she would have carefully considered what to wear before entering. This was designed to make men question her state of mind. Everyone knew of Despenser’s relationship with her husband, and wearing widow’s weeds would allow them to appreciate the depth of her own disgust and shame.
The King stepped forward as she entered, and taking her hand asked how she fared, how her journeys had been. ‘Welcome, my fair sister!’ She attempted to kneel before him, not once, but three times, at each occasion held up by him. ‘You are my sister, my equal. You shall not kneel for me.’
Baldwin saw the tears running down her face as the King led her to a seat and installed her, commanding wine and sweetmeats for her, and for all his loyalty and devotion to her, he could not help but reflect that she was a more consummate actor than any he had seen displaying his craft on a wagon at the miracle plays each year.
‘Well?’ Simon demanded as Baldwin walked out into the yard later. As a mere yeoman, Simon had not been invited to the audience. Not that he cared a whit. As far as he was concerned, kings were above his usual rank of companion, and he was content to leave such people to Baldwin’s acquaintance.
‘It was tedious. The Queen met her brother. That is about it.’
‘What did she say? Was he excited? What is he like?’
‘She said hello. He was happy as any monarch who now holds the secret to upsetting a rival; and he is tall, handsome, and as ruthless and avaricious as any king,’ Baldwin said.
‘Ruthless and what?’
‘Simon, he has one interest and one interest only. He is a devoted Christian, and he is determined that he shall become the Holy Roman Emperor. His only rival for the position has already been excommunicated, I hear, so he is likely to win that race. And then no doubt he will launch a new crusade. I think that is what he desires above all else.’
‘And meantime, if they get on so well, then with fortune we can leave here and get back home before too long?’ Simon said optimistically.
‘Perhaps so,’ Sir Charles said. He had followed Baldwin from the room, and now stood at the bottom of the steps to the hall. ‘I should not hold out for that to be very soon, though, old friend.’
‘Surely, if he still loves his sister, he will not refuse anything she asks for?’
‘Simon, dear fellow, that is what we must hope will happen if he wants peace with the English. It has little to do with his sister’s wishes, though. If she were to win what she desired, we’d be in great trouble, and would be forced to remain here a damned sight longer.’
Simon frowned. ‘I don’t …’
‘What the king of England wants is his territories returned, at no cost, and without having to pay homage to King Charles. What King Charles wants is any pretext to keep the lands and force the English king to pay allegiance to him. What the Queen wants is somebody to remove and preferably execute Sir Hugh Despenser so that she can return to her husband again.’
‘But the French have no power over whether our king turfs Despenser out.’
‘Quite so. Which means that the Queen must be disappointed. Will that make her keen to assist her husband? I somehow doubt it. No. You have to pray that the self-interest of the French will make them try to force our king to agree to accept back his lands, while still coming here to pay allegiance for them.’
‘But he won’t,’ Baldwin said. ‘The last man he would ever trust is his brother-in-law.’
‘Why?’ Simon asked, baffled.
Sir Charles sighed slightly, glancing at Baldwin as though unbelieving that any man could be so far behind the realities of the nation’s politics. ‘Simon, the two of them are neighbouring kings. Both wish to lead Christendom. That means that they hate each other. It’s not helped by the fact that the English still rage about the French stealing Normandy from us; now they want to steal Guyenne. They are dishonest and unreliable.’
‘You do not like the French, do you?’ Baldwin asked mildly.
‘When dead, they make tolerable companions,’ Sir Charles said with chilling amiability.
‘Baldwin, you don’t believe all that, do you? I mean, we’ll be home again early in the summer, won’t we? It shouldn’t take long for the Queen to knock together some sort of deal with her own brother, will it? They love each other, after all.’
‘Simon, I don’t know what he feels towards her. You have heard of the matter of the silken purses?’
‘I think so, but I don’t know …’
‘There was a meeting in France some ten or eleven years ago. The Queen, our Queen Isabella, was there, and she met her father. Now she had given some purses to her sisters-in-law a while before. They were all embroidered in silk, so easily recognisable to her. Imagine her feelings when she saw them, not in her sisters-in-law’s hands, but bound to the belts of some knights with whom they were dancing.
‘She worried about the matter for some little while, I expect, but her conscience wouldn’t let her be. She decided she must tell her father, for if these women were committing adultery it was not only a matter of cuckolding their husbands, it meant that they could be compromising the succession of the royal line of Capet. They could be raising bastards to take the crown. That was enough to make her, a daughter of that royal house, bridle. She told her father, he arrested the men concerned, and they died as any man would, guilty of such an appalling crime.’