The She Wolf of France (20 page)

Though he had no official position about the Queen, which would have constituted too overt a provocation to King Edward, Mortimer in fact led the negotiations. The Bishop of Norwich submitted to his ascendancy; John de Cromwell did not hesitate to declare that the Baron of Wigmore had been treated unjustly and that it was folly on the part of the Sovereign to have alienated so meritorious a lord; the Earl of Kent had struck up a definite friendship with Mortimer and could decide nothing without his advice. And Mortimer received much evidence from England which went to prove that he was now looked on as the real leader of the opposition to the party f the Despensers.

It was generally known and admitted that Mortimer remained with the Queen after supper, for she required his counsel, so she said. And every night, as he came out of Isabella's apartments, he found Ogle, the ex-barber of the Tower of London, now promoted to the position of butler, sleeping on a chest as he waited for his master. Mortimer shook him by the shoulder and they stepped over the servants asleep on the stone floors of the corridors, who never even raised the skirts of their coats from their faces, so accustomed had they become to these familiar footsteps.

Mortimer
went home to his lodgings in Saint-Germain-desPres, to be welcomed by the fair, pink-complexioned and attentive Alspaye, whom he believed - how ingenuous lovers are! - to be the only man who knew of his royal liaison. He breathed the fresh dawn air triumphantly.

It was now settled that the Queen would not return to England until he could do so himself. The bond between them, renewed day by day and night by night, was becoming closer and more firmly knit; and the little white scar on Isabella's breast, to which he ritually placed his lips before leaving her, remained the visible sign of the fusion of their wills.

Though a woman may be a queen, her lover is always her master; Isabella of England, who was capable of facing alone marital discord, the King's betrayals, the hatred of a Court, trembled long when Mortimer put his hand on her shoulder, felt her heart dissolve when he left her room, and took candles to the churches to thank God for having given her so wonderful a sin. When Mortimer was absent, even for an hour, she enthroned him in the forefront of her thoughts, and talked to him in a low voice.

Each morning, when she wakened, before calling her women, she slid across the bed to the place her lover had left. A midwife had taught her certain secrets useful to ladies who seek their pleasure outside marriage. And it was whispered in Court circles, though no one saw offence in it, because it seemed only just amends on the part of Fate, that Queen Isabe
lla was in love, as one might
ha
ve said she was in the country,
or better still, in raptures.

The treaty, whose preliminaries had been dragging on for some time, was at last signed on May 31st between Isabella and her brother, with the reluctant agreement of Edward, who was to recover his domain of Aquitaine
, but shorn of Agenais and Bata
dais, th
at is to say of those districts
which the French army had occupied the previous year, and this only in consideration of , an indemnity of sixty thousand livres. Valois had been inflexible on that point. It had required no less than the mediation of Papal envoys to reach this agreement, which Was still subject to the express condition that Edward should come and render homage; and this he was clearly reluctant to do, not now merely from considerations of prestige, but from motives of safety. It was agreed therefore to resort to a subterfuge which seemed to satisfy every
one. A date would
be appointed for his rendering homage; then, at the last minute, Edward would pretend to be ill, which indeed would
scarcely be a lie, for whenever
there was now, any question f his setting foot
in
France, he was attacked by all the symptoms of extreme anxiety; he turned pale, grew short of breath, felt his heart beat to an irregular rhythm, and had to lie down, panting, for an hour. He would therefore make over to his eldest son, the young Edward, the
titles and estates of the Duke
of Aquitaine, and would send him to take the oath in his place.

Everyone thoug
ht himself the gainer by this
arrangement. Edward escaped the necessity of making a terrifying journey. The Despenser
s avoided the danger of losing
their hold over the King. The Queen would recover her favourite son, for, involved though she was in her love affair, she suffered from being separated from him. And Mortimer foresaw the support of his future plans to be derived from the presence of the heir to the throne in the Qu
een's party.

This party was continually growing, and in France itself. Edward was surprised that several of his barons, in this late spring, should have found it necessary to visit their French possessions, and he was even more disturbed by the fact that none of them returned. On the other hand, the Despensers had a number of spies in Paris who kept Edward informed about the attitude of
the Earl of Kent, the presence of Maltravers in Mortimer's household, and generally about the opposition party which was gravitating to the Court of France about the Queen. Officially the correspondence between husband and wife was still courteous, and Isabella addressed Edward as `sweetheart' in the long letters she wrote explaining the slowness of the negotiations. But Edward had given orders to the admirals and sheriffs of the ports to intercept all messengers, no matter who, they might be, carrying letters sent to anyone by the Queen, the Bishop of Norwich or members of their entourage. These messengers were to be sent to the King under safe escort. But was it possible to arrest all the Lombards who travelled about with letters of exchange?

One day in Paris, when Roger Mortimer was walking in the Temple quarter, accompanied only by Alspaye and Ogle, he was grazed by a block of stone falling from a building under construction. He was saved from being crushed
to death only by the noise the
block made as it hit a plank in the scaffolding. At the time he thought it merely an accident; but three days later, as he w
as coming from Robert of Artois'
house, a ladder fell in front of his horse. Mortimer went to seek advice from Tolomei, who knew the secrets of Paris better than anyone. The Sienese sent for one of the leaders of the Companion Masons of the Temple who had kept their privileges in spite of the dispersal of the Knights of the Order. And the attempts on Mortimer's life ceased. Indeed, from then on, as soon as the workmen saw the black
-
clothed English Lord, they saluted him with raised caps from their scaffoldings. Nevertheless, Mortimer took to having a stronger escort and had his wine tested with a narwhal's horn as a precaution against poison. The vagabonds in Robert of Artois' pay were told to keep their eyes and ears open. The dangers threatening Mortimer merely increased Queen Isabella's love for him.

And then suddenly, at the beginning of August, a little before the time arranged for the English homage, Monseigneur of Valois, whose power was now so firmly based that he was generally referred to as `the Second King', suddenly collapsed, at the age of fifty-five.

For several weeks, he had been extremely irascible, losing his temper about everything and nothing; in particular, he had flown into a great rage, which had frightened his entourage, on receiving an unexpected proposal from King Edward that they should marry their youngest children, Louis of Valois and Jane of England, who were both about seven years old. Had Edward realized too late the blunder he had made two years ago by
refusing his eldest son in marriage, and did he think he was going to win Valois over by this offer and detach him from the Queen's party? Monseigneur Charles, reacting somewhat eccentrically perhaps, had taken this proposal as another insult, and had become so enraged that he had broken every object on his table, which was very abnormal behaviour in him. At the same time he had shown a feverish impatience in his approach to the wor
k of government, had complained
of the slowness of Parliament in ratifying decrees, and had argued with Mille de Noyers about the accounts produced by the Exchequer, and had then complained of the exhaustion all these duties caused him,

One morning in Council, as he was about to sign an act, he let the goose-quill fall as it was being handed to him, and it spattered ink over the blue robe he was wearing. He bent as if to pick up the quill and was unable to raise himself; his hand hung down by his leg and his fingers had turned stiff as marble. He was surprised by the silence all about him, and did not realize he was falling out of his chair.

They picked him up. His eyes were fixed in their sockets, turned up towards the left, his mouth was twisted to the same side, and he was
unconscious. His face was very-
red, almost purple, and, they hastily summoned a physician to bleed him. As had happened to his b
rother, Philip the Fair, eleven
years earlier, he had been stricken in the head, in the mysterious mechanism of the will. They thought he was, dying and, when they got him back to his house, the huge household was thrown into the tragic bustle of mourning.

However, after a few days, during which he seemed to be alive more by the fact of breathing than by any consciousness of mind, he recovered a sort of semi-existence. His power of speech returned, though it was hesitant, badly articulated, stumbled over certain words, and lacked all the fluency and force that had previously distinguished it. His right leg was paralysed, as was the hand that had dropped the goose-quill.

Sitting motionless in a chair, oppressed with heat from the coverings with which it was considered proper to stifle him, the former King of Aragon and Emperor of Constantinople, the Count of Romagna, the Peer of France, the perpetual candidate to the Holy Roman Empire, the tyrant of Florence, the conqueror of Aquitaine, the assembler of crusades, suddenly realized that all the honours a man may reap count for nothing when his body is in process of dissolution. He who since childhood had had no anxiety but to acquire the goods of the earth,
suddenly became aware of other cares. He demanded to be taken to his Manor of Perray, near Rambouillet, to which he had seldom gone but which had now suddenly become dear to him by one of those eccentric longings the sick have for places where they believe they may recover their health.

The similarity of his disease to that which had struck down his elder brother obsessed his mind which, though it had become less energetic, was still as clear as ever. He sought in his past deeds the reason for this punishment the Almighty had inflicted on him. Become weak, he turned pious. He thought of the Day of Judgement. But the proud easily persuade themselves
o
f a clear conscience; Valois found, almost nothing, with which to reproach himself. In all his campaigns, in all the pillages and massacres he had ordered, in all the extortions he had imposed on provinces he had conquered or delivered, he considered that he had always used his powers, both as General and Prince, for the good. Only one memory caused him remorse, only one action seemed to him to be the possible, cause of his present expiation, one name alone hung on his
lips
when he examined his career: Marigny. For, indeed, he had never really hated anyone, except Marigny. In the case of all those others whom he had ill-treated, punished, tortured, sent to their deaths, he had never acted except out of a conviction that it was for the general good, which he confused with his own ambitions. But the case
o
f Marigny had really been a matter of private hatred. W
hen accusing Marigny, he had de
liberately lied; he had borne false witness against him; and he had organized false depositions. He had shrunk fr
om no baseness in order to send
the former Prime Minister, Coadjutor and Rector of the Kingdom, who had then been younger than he himself was now, to swing at Montfaucon. There had been no other reason for this except his desire for vengeance, the rancour he felt at seeing, day after day, another enjoy greater power in France than he did himself.

And now, sitting in the courtyard of his Manor of Perray, looking at the birds flying past and watching his grooms bring out the beautiful horses he would never ride again, Valois had begun - the word surprised him, but there was no other - had begun to love Marigny, to love his memory. He would have liked his enemy to be still alive so that he might be reconciled to him and talk to him of the many things they had both known and experienced and about which they had quarrelled so much. He missed his elder brother, Philip the Fair, his brother Louis of Evreux, and even his two first wives, less than his old rival; and
at moments, when he thought no one was looking, he might have been surprised muttering a few phrases
o
f a conversation with a dead man.

Every day he sent one of his chamberlains to distribute a bag of money in charity to the poor of a Paris district, parish by parish, and the chamberlains were ordered to say as they placed the coins in the filthy hands: `Pray, good people,,' pray God, for Monseigneur Enguerrand de Marigny and for Monseigneur Charles of Valois.', He believed he might, earn the Divine Mercy if his name were
coupled with that of his victim in the same
prayers. And the people of Paris were much surprised that the powerful and magnificent Lord of Valois should desire his name to be mentioned after that of the man whom he had once proclaimed responsible for al
l the misfortunes of the realm
and had, had hanged in chains from a gibbet.

In the Council the power had passed to Robert of Artois who, owing to the illness of
his father-in-law, now suddenly
found himself promoted' to the first rank. The giant frequently galloped down the road to Perray, in company with Philippe of Valois, to go to ask the sick man's advice.
- For everyone was aware, and Artois first of all, of the gap that had suddenly been opened in the direction of t
he affairs of France. Of course
Monseigneur of Valois had often passed for a bungler, had indeed often made decisions without having given them enough thought, and had governed by instinct rather than principle; but from having moved from Court to Court, from Paris to Spain and from Spain to Naples, from having supported the interests of the Holy Father in Tuscany,, from having taken part in all the campaigns in Flanders, from having intrigued for the Empire and from having sat for more th
an thirty years in the Councils
of four kings f France, he had acquired a habit of placing the problems of the realm within the framework of the affairs f Europe. It was a mental process that took place almost automatically.

Robert
o
f Artois, who was a stickler for custom and procedure, had not such wide views. Also, people said of the Count of Valois that he was `the last', though they could not have explained precisely what they
meant by this, unless it was that he was the last
representative of the grand manner of administering the world, which would doubtless disappear with him.