Rivals for the Crown (13 page)

Alis had laughed softly. "Oh, yes, he always picks the position. Did you not know? How do you suppose things are done at court? Are you that witty, that entertaining, that the queen had to have you among her ladies? That she chose you, the seamstress' daughter, over all other women in the land to serve her? Yes, Walter Langton arranged it, both yours and mine. And you'd be wise to be grateful."

"So it's true? He did arrange for you?..."

Alis had given a delicate shiver. "I am powerless against him." Her mood had shifted, and she'd given Isabel a catlike smile. "Can you keep a secret? Can we be friends, Isabel de Burke? Can I trust you with my thoughts and my sorrows?"

"Oh, yes, Alis. My closest friend is gone from London and I would be happy if you and I were to become friends."

"And I as well. My own dear friend was the girl who was sent away. Poor silly chit, but I miss her so. Tell me of your friend. Is she also with child?"

"Oh, no, not at all! She is a Jew and was expelled."

"A Jew." Alis's expression had been thoughtful. "But many of them have not left London yet."

"Some were removed at once, and Rachel's family was among them. And you have heard that the rest are being removed to the Cinque Ports and sent to the Continent."

Alis had waved her hand. "Yes, I had heard something of it. We will be friends then, Isabel. Then we must tell each other everything. I never believe Lady Dickleburough, but how can I defend you when she tells me strange things, if you have not confided the truth in me?"

"What did she tell you?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Come, Alis, tell me!"

"Very well then. She says that you told her years ago that your father had been a clerk in the Wardrobe."

"Did she?"

"When you were a child and she asked you. But you have told me he lives in the north."

"Yes."

"So which is it?"

"I thought he was clerk in the Wardrobe. For years. But I was wrong."

"How can you confuse such a thing? Either he lives in London, or he lives in the north. So which is it?"

Isabel had been silent.

Alis had sighed heavily. "I can see you do not wish to be friends after all."

"Tell me about Langton."

"Tell me about your father."

"I have only just found out myself."

"What?"

"It's—"

"It's what, shameful? How can you say that to me, when I acknowledged that I am also Walter Langton's victim? How can anything be more shameful?"

"He is vile!"

"Oh, yes. But powerful. Now tell me about your father."

"His name is Lord Lonsby," Isabel had said, then she'd poured out the rest.

By noon it had been repeated back to her twice.

First lesson, Isabel told herself. I will keep my own counsel after this. She did not tell her mother, not any of it, not the visit to Langton, nor the fact that she'd told Alis about her father, nor that Alis had told the world.

Both the gown and Isabel were ready to leave at dawn of the morning of the queen's departure. She waited, with the rest of the queen's ladies, in the shelter of the porch. None of the other ladies, save Lady Dickleburough and Alis, spoke to her. Now she knew why they did not, and why she had not been invited to share their coach, or their meals. She shivered in the cold, feeling that she was already on a very strange path and they'd not even left London. Once in the saddle, she remembered Langton's words, and her mood soured further.

The royal party traveled for a fortnight, but they were not on the roads every day. Some days were so filled with tasks that Isabel fell asleep as soon as she lay down in her bed. It was Isabel's responsibility to see that the queen's bed was assembled properly, that the linens were arranged just as she liked them, and when they were ready to move on, it was her responsibility to pack the linens carefully and oversee the dismantling of the bed and its delivery to the baggage carts. When they only stayed one night in a place she got little sleep, for she was expected to do all that and still attend

the queen at every moment. And heaven help the fool who overslept and kept the royal train waiting, even for a moment.

There were other days, when they stayed in one place for several days, that were tedious. She and the other ladies would attend mass after mass at an abbey or monastery, sometimes with the queen, sometimes in her stead. Or she simply sat, hands folded in her lap, listening to endless discussions of political matters, or, worst of all, petitions brought before the queen.

It was not all tedium. She saw much of the midlands, from castles such as Warwick and Kenilworth, to the great university at Oxford, and slept in monasteries and manor houses. She was fascinated to see the different ways in which the king's subjects lived, some in tiny cottages, others in large homes surrounded by out buildings, and still others in the fortresses and castles that dotted the landscape less frequently. The queen did not go everywhere she was invited but chose her stops carefully from a host of choices.

By listening rather than by being told, Isabel learned they would continue north, to Lincolnshire, and that the king would meet them on their journey. And by watching rather than by being told, she learned that Alis traded her
favours
for baubles, treats, and the occasional jewel from a grateful man in an outlying area. The bed she was supposed to share with Alis would often be hers alone, but they never discussed Alis's nocturnal absences, or the new clothing or ribbon that would suddenly appear in Alis's wardrobe.

A few of the queen's ladies had thawed in their treatment of Isabel; some were almost friendly as they got to know her better— and as she did her own job and often theirs as well. But all shied away from Lady Dickleburough's company. The older woman often sought Isabel out, as though she could smell Isabel's powerlessness to avoid her. Alis was also excluded from the queen's inner circle, and Isabel rode together with these two ladies- in-waiting behind the queen's carriage. In Nottinghamshire the weather grew colder, and mud made the roads difficult.

"My first husband had lands close by here," Lady Dickleburough said one afternoon. "Lovely lands. It's a shame he'd already had two sons, or I would be there now, counting my riches. If I had not been so young—younger than you are now—I would have made sure he changed his will before he died so suddenly." She laughed with a disquieting note.

Isabel was not sure what to believe, but truly, did she care if Lady Dickleburough's husband's death had been unnatural? She simply nodded.

"The queen's fever is worse," Lady Dickleburough said. "You weren't here when she was so ill earlier. Three years it's been, and I'm not sure she has ever fully recovered. This was a foolhardy journey, coming north in November. We could be trapped away from London for the winter."

"We're almost at Clipstone," Isabel said, "and the king is there. He will have doctors who can treat her."

"Doctors!" Lady Dickleburough snorted. "As if any doctor is worth his salt."

"Not all doctors are charlatans," Alis said.

"No," Lady Dickleburough said, "not all doctors are charlatans, are they, sweet Alis? You are grateful to one in particular, are you not?"

"I have no idea of what you mean," Alis said, but the bright spots on her cheeks belied her words.

"No idea." Lady Dickleburough's smile was smug. "Isabel, did you know that it is possible to rid yourself of the burden if you ever find yourself with child?"

"I have heard that," Isabel said carefully. "There are women who know potions."

"And witches who will cast spells," Lady Dickleburough said, slanting a look at Alis. "And doctors who will give you something to drink. And if that doesn't work, who will even cut the thing out. For a price. Wasn't it in Lincoln, sweet Alis, that you were taken so very ill?"

Alis's glance was impassive. "I was. But I was not with child, Lady Dickleburough, no matter what you've heard. Or imagined."

Lady Dickleburough chuckled again and spurred her horse forward, to talk in low tones to another of the queen's ladies. Alis stared at her back with hatred in her eyes.

"I loathe that vile creature!" she hissed. "It's not true! Not any of it!"

"She's hideous," Isabel agreed.

Lady Dickleburough turned then to look at Isabel with a knowing smile, and Isabel felt a chill down her spine. London seemed very far away.

The next few days were uneventful, although the queen was still feverish by the time they reached Clipstone and joined King Edward. Eleanor's illness, and the king's concern, filled the entire entourage with tension. They traveled slowly north, toward Lincoln, part of a much larger party now. There was little conversation among the travelers, whose mood grew more
sombre
as word came each day that the queen was worsening. The king spent most of his time with Eleanor.

They lingered in Harby, near Grantham, just ten miles short of their goal of Lincoln, where the queen was housed in the home of Richard de Weston. And then word came that they would not travel farther.

Isabel and Alis spent many hours, as did most of the queen's ladies, in the small parish church near de Weston's house, praying

for the queen's recovery. Or in the corridor, outside the queen's rooms, where her women, the ladies-in-waiting, waited.

Isabel heard the queen cough so violently and so often that she wondered how her chest was still in place. The King was a madman, calling for unguents and potions, shouting for broth in the middle of the night and hovering over his queen. And somewhere in all of it, Isabel began to forgive King Edward for expelling the Jews from London. Perhaps he had been misled by his advisors. How could a man who loved his wife so well be so harsh with others? The doctors had been arriving daily, Egyptians with swarthy skin who looked deeply into Eleanor's eyes, doctors from London who bled her and left her weaker than before, doctors from the north who applied poultices. Astrologers who leaned over charts and muttered to each other, their expressions grim. She did not need to hear their pronouncements.

The hours seemed to slow, the moments seemed to drag by as they waited. Few spoke aloud, and none said what was obvious to all. In the evening of November 28 a priest was rushed in to give Queen Eleanor the last rites.

It was said that the king held her hand while she died.

The next days were a blur. The queen's body was brought to Lincoln for embalming, where prayers were said for her soul in elaborate masses that filled not only the cathedral but the entire town as well. Her viscera were buried there, but her heart, placed within a golden box, accompanied her body to London.

It took twelve days for the funeral procession to reach London. They stopped at Grantham, Stamford, and seven more times before reaching Charing, and Westminster Abbey at last.

Isabel, lost in the middle of the procession, wept almost the entire journey. She wept for Eleanor, the queen who might not have been loved by the English people but who had held a king enthralled for thirty-six years. She wept for Edward, whose suffering was tangible although his expression was stony. And she wept for herself and her mother, for what would their future hold now?

SIX

R
ory took a bite, of the roasted chicken,
savouring
it. Then

another, knowing he would miss the cooking at the inn. Berwick was an interesting place, but it was time to go home. They'd learned what they could here. They'd heard all the news the travelers had brought from the Continent, of Edward's disagreements with Philip of France, and the new alliances between city-states in Italy. And from England, where Queen Eleanor had died. King Edward, they'd been told, was bringing her home to London, where a royal funeral would be held for her. An Englishwoman had burst into tears when the news had come to the inn, but her husband had shushed her. "She was not a good queen, madam. Don't waste your tears on the likes of her," he'd said, and many others had agreed.

Rory and Kieran had kept their mouths shut. Two queens dead in two months was passing strange, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was time to go home. He watched Rachel take food to another table and glanced at his cousin. "Have ye talked to her about it?"

Kieran shook his head. "What do I say? *I dinna ken ye were a Jew, and seeing ye at yer ceremony was a surprise, but I should ha' figured it out, kenning as I did that ye'd come suddenly from London, and yer name is Rachel and that should ha' been a hint, but I was too busy looking at ye and what does it matter anyway?' How do I work that into a conversation?"

"Why not say just that? Ye've not spoken to her since. D'ye think she hasna noticed that? We're leaving, Kieran. Say it, or ye'll wish later ye had. And stop watching her every movement."

"Aye." Kieran nodded but continued to watch her.

Rory made a disgusted sound in his throat and raised his arm, drawing Rachel's attention. He motioned her to them, ignoring Kieran's red face. Rachel moved slowly to stop at the end of their table, her hands folded before her.

"Ye ken we're leaving today?" Rory asked her.

"Yes. I heard you telling my father."