This calm-voiced prelate, who could carry on a conversation in these circumstances and in the middle of the Thames as tranquilly as if he were in his episcopal palace, possessed a singular courage, and Mortimer admired him sincerely.
The oarsmen were in the centre of the boat; Alspaye and the barber in the bows.
‘And the Queen?’ Mortimer asked. ‘Have you seen her recently? Is she being plagued as much as ever?’
‘At the moment, the Queen is in Yorkshire, travelling with the King; his absence has made our undertaking all the easier. Your wife’ – the Bishop slightly emphasized the last word – ‘sent me news of her the other day.’
Mortimer felt himself blush and was thankful for the darkness that concealed his embarrassment. He had shown concern for the Queen before even inquiring about his family and his wife. And why had he lowered his voice to ask the question? Had he thought of no one but Queen Isabella during his whole eighteen months in prison?
‘The Queen wishes you well,’ the Bishop went on. ‘It is she who has furnished from her privy purse, from that meagre privy purse which is all our good friends the Despensers consent to allow her, the money I am going to give you so that you may live in France. As for the rest, Alspaye, the barber, the horses and the ship that awaits you, my diocese will pay the expenses.’
He put his hand on the fugitive’s arm.
‘But you’re soaked through!’ he said.
‘No matter!’ replied Mortimer. ‘A free air will dry me quick enough.’
He got to his feet, took off his tunic and shirt, and stood naked to the waist in the middle of the boat. He had a shapely, well-built body, powerful shoulders and a long, muscular back; imprisonment had made him thinner, but had not impaired the impression he gave of physical strength. The moon, which had just risen, bathed him in a golden light and threw the contours of his chest into relief.
‘Propitious, dangerous to fugitives,’ said the Bishop, pointing to the moon. ‘We timed it exactly right.’
The night air was laden with the scent of reeds and water, and Roger Mortimer felt it playing over his skin and through his wet hair. The smooth black Thames slid along the sides of the boat and the oars made golden sparks. The opposite bank was drawing near. The great Baron of the Marches turned to look for the last time at the Tower, standing tall and proud above its fortifications, ramparts and embankments. ‘No one ever escapes from the Tower …’ And, indeed, he was the first prisoner who ever had escaped from it. He began to consider the importance of his deed, and the defiance it hurled at the power of kings.
Behind it, the sleeping city stood out against the night. Along both banks, as far as the great bridge with its shops and guarded by its high towers, could be seen the innumerable, crowded, slowly waving masts of the ships of the London Hanse, the Teutonic Hanse, the Paris Hanse of the Marchands d’Eau, indeed of the whole of Europe, bringing cloth from Bruges, copper, pitch, wax, knives, the wines of the Saintonge and of Aquitaine, and dried fish, and loading for Flanders, Rouen, Bordeaux and Lisbon, corn, leather, tin, cheeses, and above all wool, which was the best in the world, from English sheep. The great Venetian galleys could be distinguished by their shape and their gilding.
But Roger Mortimer of Wigmore was already thinking of France. He would go first to Artois to ask asylum of his cousin, Jean de Fiennes, the son of his mother’s brother. He stretched his arms wide in the gesture of a free man.
And Bishop Orleton, who regretted that he had been born neither so handsome nor so great a lord, gazed with a sort of envy at this strong, confident body that seemed so apt for leaping into the saddle, at the tall, sculptured torso, the proud chin and the rough, curly hair, which were to carry England’s destiny into exile.
THE RED-VELVET FOOTSTOOL on which Queen Isabella was resting her slender feet was threadbare; the gold tassels at its four corners were tarnished; the embroidered lilies of France and leopards of England were worn. But what was the use of replacing the footstool by ordering another, if the new one were immediately to disappear beneath the pearl-embroidered shoes of Hugh Despenser, the King’s lover? The Queen looked down at the old footstool that had lain on the flagstones of every castle in the kingdom, one season in Dorset, another in Norfolk, a winter in Warwick, and this last summer in Yorkshire, for they never stayed more than three days in the same place. On August 1, less than a week ago, the Court had been at Cowick; yesterday they had stopped at Eserick; today they were camping, rather than lodging, at Kirkham Priory; the day after tomorrow they would set out for Lockton and Pickering. The few dusty tapestries, the dented dishes, and the worn dresses which constituted Queen Isabella’s travelling wardrobe, would be packed into the travelling-chests once again; the curtained bed, which was so weakened by its travels that it was now in danger of collapsing altogether, would be taken down and put up again somewhere else, that bed in which the Queen took sometimes her lady-in-waiting, Lady Jeanne Mortimer, and sometimes her eldest son, Prince Edward, to sleep with her for fear of being murdered if she slept alone. At least the Despensers would not dare stab her under the eye of the heir-apparent. And it was thus they journeyed across the kingdom, through its green countryside and by its melancholy castles.
Edward II wanted to be known personally to the least of his vassals; he thought he did them honour by staying with them, and that a few friendly words would assure their loyalty against the Scots or the Welsh party. In fact, he would have done better to show himself less. He created latent discord wherever he went; the careless way he talked of government matters, which he believed to be a sovereign attitude of detachment, offended the lords, abbots and notables who came to explain local problems to him; the intimacy he paraded with his all-powerful chamberlain whose hand he caressed in open council or at Mass, his high-pitched laughter, his sudden generosity to some little clerk or astonished young groom, all confirmed the scandalous stories that were current even in the remotest districts, where husbands no doubt deceived their wives, as everywhere else, but did so with women; and what was only whispered before his coming was said out loud after he had passed by. This handsome, fair-bearded man, who was so weak of will, had but to appear with his crown on his head, and the whole prestige of the royal majesty collapsed. And the avaricious courtiers by whom he was surrounded helped considerably to make him hated.
Useless and powerless, the Queen had to take part in this ill-considered progress. She was torn by two conflicting emotions; on the one hand, her truly royal nature, inherited from her Capet ancestors, was irritated and angered by the continuous process of degradation suffered by the sovereign power; but, on the other hand, the wronged, harassed and endangered wife secretly rejoiced at every new enemy the King made. She could not understand how she had once loved, or persuaded herself to love, so contemptible a creature, who treated her so odiously. Why was she made to take part in these journeys, why was she shown off, a wronged Queen, to the whole kingdom? Did the King and his favourite really think they deceived anyone or made their relations look innocent by the mere fact of her presence? Or was it that they wanted to keep her under their eye? She would have so much preferred to live in London or at Windsor, or even in one of the castles she had theoretically been given, while awaiting some change in circumstance or simply the onset of old age. And how she regretted above all that Thomas of Lancaster and Roger Mortimer, those great barons who were really men, had not succeeded in their rebellion the year before last.
Raising her beautiful blue eyes, she glanced up at the Count de Bouville, who had been sent over from the Court of France, and said in a low voice: ‘For a month past you have been able to see what my life is like, Messire Hugues. I do not even ask you to recount its miseries to my brother, nor to my uncle of Valois. Four kings have succeeded each