Young Prince Edward, still motionless by the window, was silently watching his mother and judging his father. After all, it was his marriage that was being discussed and he was allowed to have no say in it. But if he had been asked to choose between his English and French blood, he would have shown a preference for the latter.
The three younger children had stopped playing: the Queen signed to the maidservants to take them away.
And then, with the greatest calm, looking the King straight in the eye, she said: ‘When a husband hates his wife it is natural he should hold her responsible for everything.’
Edward was not the man to make a direct answer to that.
‘My whole Tower guard dead-drunk,’ he cried, ‘the Lieutenant in flight with that felon, and my Constable sick to death with the drug they gave him. Unless the traitor’s malingering to avoid the punishment he deserves. It was up to him to see my prisoner did not escape. Do you hear, Winchester?’
Hugh Despenser the Elder, who had been responsible for the appointment of Constable Seagrave, bowed to the storm. He was thin and narrow-shouldered, with a stoop that was in part natural and in part acquired during a long career as a courtier. His enemies had nicknamed him ‘the weasel’. Cupidity, envy, meanness, self-seeking, deceit, and all the gratifications these vices can procure for their possessor were manifest in the lines of his face and beneath his red eyelids. And yet he was not lacking in courage; but he had human feelings only for his son and a few rare friends, of which Seagrave indeed was one. You could better understand the son’s character when you had observed the father for a moment.
‘My lord,’ he said in a calm voice, ‘I feel sure that Seagrave is in no way to blame.’
‘He’s to blame for negligence and laziness; he’s to blame for allowing himself to be made a fool of; he’s to blame for not suspecting that a plot was being hatched under his nose; he’s to blame perhaps for his bad luck. And I never forgive bad luck. Though Seagrave is one of your protégés, Winchester, he shall be punished; and people will no longer be able to say that I’m unfair and that my favours are lavished only on your creatures. Seagrave will take Mortimer’s place in prison; and perhaps his successor will take care to keep a better watch. That, my son, is how you rule,’ the King added, coming to a halt in front of the heir to the throne.
The boy raised his eyes to him and immediately lowered them again.
Hugh the Younger, who knew how to turn Edward’s anger aside, threw back his head and, gazing up at the beams of the ceiling, said: ‘It’s the other criminal, dear Sire, who’s defying you most contemptuously. Bishop Orleton organized the whole thing himself and seems to fear you so little that he has not even taken the trouble to fly or go into hiding.’
Edward looked at Hugh the Younger with gratitude and admiration. How could one not be moved by that profile, by the fine attitudes he struck when speaking, by that high, well-modulated voice, and that way, at once so tender and respectful, of saying ‘dear Sire’, in the French manner, as sweet Gaveston, whom the barons and bishops had killed, used to do? But Edward had learned from experience, he knew how wicked men were and that you never won by coming to terms. He was determined never to be separated from Hugh, and all who opposed him would be pitilessly struck down, one after the other.
‘I announce to you, my lords, that Bishop Orleton will be brought before my Parliament to be tried and sentenced.’
Edward crossed his arms and looked round to see the effect of his words. The Archdeacon-Chancellor and the Bishop-Treasurer, though they were Orleton’s worst enemies, looked disapproving for they could not help standing by members of the cloth.
Henry Crouchback, who was by nature a wise and moderate man, could not help making an effort to bring the King back to the path of reason. He observed calmly that a bishop could be brought only before an ecclesiastical court consisting of his peers.
‘Everything has to have a beginning, Leicester. Conspiracy against Kings is not, so far as I know, taught by the Holy Gospels. Since Orleton has forgotten what should be rendered to Caesar, Caesar will remind him of it. Another favour I owe your family, Madame,’ the King went on, addressing Isabella, ‘since it was your brother Philippe V who, against my will, had Adam Orleton provided to the see of Hereford by his French Pope. Very well. He shall be the first prelate to be sentenced by the royal judiciary and his punishment shall be exemplary.’
‘Orleton was not originally hostile to you, Cousin,’ argued Crouchback, ‘nor would he have had any reason to become so if you had not opposed, or if your Council had not opposed, the Holy Father’s giving him the mitre. He is a man of great learning and strength of character. And you might even now perhaps, precisely because he is guilty, rally him to your support more easily by an act of clemency than by a trial at law which, among all your other difficulties, will draw upon you the anger of the clergy.’
‘Clemency, forbearance! Every time I’m scorned, provoked or betrayed, that’s all you have to say, Leicester. I was implored to spare the Baron of Wigmore, and how wrong I was to listen to that advice. You must admit that had I dealt with him as I did with your brother, the rebel would not be fleeing down the roads today.’
Crouchback shrugged his heavy shoulder and closed his eyes with an expression of weariness. How very irritating was Edward’s habit, which he considered royal, of calling the members of his family and his principal councillors by the names of their counties, addressing his cousin-german by shouting ‘Leicester’ instead of simply saying ‘my cousin’, as did everyone else including the Queen herself. And his bad taste in mentioning the execution of Thomas on every possible occasion, as if he gloried in it. Oh, what a strange man he was and what a bad king. To imagine you could behead your nearest relations and that no one resented it, to believe that mourning could be effaced by an embrace, to demand devotion from those you had wronged, and expect loyalty from everyone while you yourself were so cruelly inconstant.
‘No doubt you’re right, my lord,’ said Crouchback, ‘and since you’ve now reigned for sixteen years you must know the consequences of your actions. Hail your bishop before Parliament. I won’t stand in your way.’
And, muttering between his teeth so that no one should hear but the young Earl of Norfolk, he added: ‘My head may be set askew on my shoulders, but I’d rather keep it where it is.’
‘You must admit,’ Edward went on, his hand fluttering, ‘that it’s simply snapping his fingers at me to escape by piercing the walls of a tower I built myself especially so that no one should escape from it.’
‘Perhaps, Sire my Husband,’ the Queen said, ‘when it was building you were more preoccupied with the charms of the masons than with the solidity of the stonework.’
A sudden silence fell over the company. The insult was flagrant, and most unexpected. They all held their breath and stared, some with deference, some with hatred, at the rather fragile-looking woman who sat so upright and lonely in her chair, and held her own like this. Her lips drawn back a little and her mouth half-open, she was showing her fine little teeth; they were clenched, sharp, carnivorous. Isabella was clearly delighted with the blow she had dealt, whatever the consequences might be.
Hugh the Younger was blushing scarlet; Hugh the Elder made a pretence of not having heard.
Edward would certainly have his revenge. But what means would he adopt? The retort lagged. The Queen watched the drops of sweat pearling her husband’s brow. And nothing disgusts a woman more than the sweat of the man she has ceased to love.
‘Kent,’ cried the King, ‘I’ve made you Warden of the Cinque Ports and Governor of Dover. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you on the coast you’re supposed to be guarding and from which our felon must inevitably take ship?’
‘Sire my Brother,’ said the young Earl of Kent, somewhat taken aback, ‘it was you yourself who ordered me to accompany you on your journey …’
‘Well, now I’m giving you another. Go back to your county, have the towns and countryside searched for the fugitive, and see to