The Traitor's Wife (59 page)

On January 4, 1327, the queen arrived at Westminster, and on that same day, the Tower's latest constable, Thomas Wake, knocked on Eleanor's door. “My lady, let me have a word with you in private.”

Since his arrival, Wake had been reasonably polite to Eleanor, but on this day, his face was ominously kind. Eleanor knew immediately what he had to tell her: her eldest son was captured, or dead. She thought back to the day she had given birth to him, the happy little boy he had been, the joy she would have had in welcoming his bride. “My son is dead,” she said quietly.

“No. No one is dead.” Wake looked at the parchments he held in his hand and coughed.

“My daughter Isabel? I heard that she and the Countess of Arundel and her boys have been staying with the Earl of Surrey since the Earl of Arundel was executed. Has she been harmed?”

“I know nothing of her. This concerns your three daughters here. They are to go to convents, my lady.” He coughed again. “They are to take the veil.”

She stared. “You must be mistaken, sir. They are far too young. Margaret is not even four years old!” She went on patiently, “Joan is only ten, Nora seven…”

“Here are the orders themselves, my lady.”

She read the orders, identical for each girl, hearing the queen's pleased triumph in every word. “To be admitted and veiled without delay, to remain forever under the order and regular habit of that house, and to cause her to be professed in the same as speedily as possible…”

Forever.
She sagged against the wall and dropped the parchments to the floor. From a distance she heard Wake saying awkwardly, “You won't be here forever, my lady. Then you can visit them.”

“Yes. I can visit them.”

She picked up the parchments and studied them again. Margaret was to go to Watton, Nora to Sempringham, Joan to Shaftesbury. They were issued in the king's name and bore his Great Seal, as did all the orders these days that emanated from the queen and Mortimer. But the king never would have signed such an order. Never in his life had he been unkind to her. She looked at the date: January 1, only a few days after Christmas. So this was how Isabella celebrated the birth of the Lord, that friend of children, by caging hers for life.

She looked at the dagger at Wake's side. With one swift movement she could take it; with another, perhaps, she could put it in her heart. But he would try to stop her, surely, and she was half his size. She would undoubtedly botch it anyway and die slowly, painfully while her children watched. No, dying was too much trouble. And she had the boys to think of—at least until Isabella took them too. “When are they to leave?” She hardly recognized her own voice, so dull was it.

Wake had seen the glance at the dagger, and he put his hand on it. “Tomorrow, my lady.”

“Then I must prepare them for their new life now. Excuse me, sir.”

Joan was the worst. Margaret and Nora had only vague ideas of what was happening to them; they were being sent to live with nuns, just as they had been sent to live with nurses not long ago. But Joan understood. She said quietly, “But Mama, Papa said I was to get married. He said after the Earl of Kildaire's poor son died that he would find someone else nice for me to marry.”

“Things are so much different now, child.”

“But why is the king doing this?”

“It is not really the king, it is the queen. The king would never have made you part from me like this. He loved our family. But this is not about the queen, or your papa, Joan, you must remember. You have been blessed and honored to be chosen as a bride of Christ. It is God's will, Joan.”

“I don't want to be a bride of Christ. I want to be a real bride. And I
hate
God! First he took Grandfather, and then Papa, and made us prisoners—I
hate
God!”

“Joan! You must not say that.”

Joan threw herself on the bed the three girls shared, weeping. Edward, who had taken on almost a paternal air since Hugh's death, came over and patted her on the shoulder.

“Don't worry, sweetheart,” he said, in a voice that before it cracked up an octave was so like his father's that Eleanor started. “I hate Him too.”

It was midmorning when the door to her cell finally opened and a familiar face appeared—her cousin Joan of Bar, Countess of Surrey.

As Gladys readied the girls, Eleanor whispered, “How could she, Joan? How could you?”

Joan of Bar said crisply, “Your husband sent Mortimer's daughters to convents, after all.”

“As boarders. He did not make nuns of them, Joan. He did not force them to take vows that can never be broken, without fear of damnation.”

Joan shrugged. “It is what the queen deems best.” Not unkindly, she added, “You must be realistic, Eleanor. They are better off as nuns now. With Hugh's goods and lands forfeit and his name in ruins, they could hardly hope to marry men of any substance.”

“Not men of any substance, perhaps. But they might have married decent men of modest means who would be good to them. They might have had children of their own to love.”

Joan snorted. “Yes, they might have married such paragons as you speak of. Or they might have married a profligate like I did, or a pervert like the queen did, or a villain like you did. At least there shall be no surprises for them as there were for us.” She sighed. “Don't fear, Eleanor. I shall take good care of them on their journey, and I am sure the nuns will too.” Joan looked at the three bundled-up little girls and smiled at them. They gazed back at her unsmilingly, three sets of Hugh's brown eyes meeting hers. “I brought them plenty of provisions for the trip.”

Eleanor bent and kissed the three of them. “Good-bye, my pets. You know that I cannot leave here now, but someday I will, God willing, and then I shall write and visit you. I love you dearly. Not a day will go by without my thinking of you.”

They were filing out in front of Joan of Bar. As the stout countess followed them slowly, still breathing heavily from her climb up the Tower stairs, Eleanor seized her by the shoulder and hissed, “Joan, wait! Please don't let them see Hugh—on the bridge—if you have any kindness in your heart.”

Joan sighed. “Do you think I am some sort of monster, Eleanor? I will guard their eyes. In any case, though, they would not know it was their father. He is already unrecognizable. You would not know him yourself.”

Boisterous Gilbert was unusually well behaved that day, settling himself to his lessons without the usual protest he thought behooved him. Even John played quietly with the wooden pigs and cows the king had carved for him. As for Edward, he showed none of his usual moodiness. When he saw Eleanor sitting staring into space, he put his arm around her and whispered, “I didn't mean what I said to Joan, Mother. God will protect them,” in such a manly fashion that Eleanor, who had thought she could feel nothing now, felt a surge of pride.

Two days before, she had snapped at Margaret when she misplaced her doll for the dozenth time and wanted Eleanor to find it immediately. (How could she lose something in such small quarters? Eleanor had wondered.) Only yesterday morning before Wake came, she had told Nora not to chatter so incessantly. Four days ago, she had told Joan that just because they were prisoners was no reason why things should not be put away neatly. Now she would never search for Margaret's doll again, would never hear Nora's volley of questions again, would never pick up after Joan again.

Did the girls know she loved them? She had tried so hard to be good to them since Hugh died, knowing that they were grieving like herself and were more bewildered at their sudden change of fortune than she. But she had not always succeeded. She had been so weary, so on edge since the news came of Hugh. Would they remember the mother who had tucked them into bed each night with a gentle word and a kiss, even on the nights that she had wanted to do nothing but lie on her bed with Hugh's cloak, draw the curtains around her, and cry in peace? Or would they remember the shrew who had pounced on their every imperfection?

A guard had appeared in their rooms without her noticing and was standing by her. “My lady. Would you like to go to the chapel for a while?”

She nodded numbly and let him conduct her to the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, just a few feet away from the Beauchamp Tower. Several times in December, she had been allowed to go there to pray for Hugh's soul, and she had come out feeling a dim sort of comfort that was better than none at all. But today when she was left there kneeling all by herself, nothing came—no prayers, not even tears. What was the point of praying or crying? If there was a God, he was clearly on the side of Mortimer and Isabella.

She got to her feet and knocked at the door, where her guard waited tactfully on the other side. “You were not here very long, my lady.”

“No. My thoughts are not of the sort one wants to be alone with, and there is probably no one to hear my prayers anyway.”

The guard, a young man named Tom, looked shocked by this blasphemy. Eleanor added dully, “But thank you for taking me there. It was a change from our cell at any rate.”

He led her back to the Beauchamp Tower, and had conducted her through her doorway when he hesitated. “My lady, I would like to bring you something. May I?”

“What? Daughters to replace the ones I have lost?” She recoiled at Tom's hurt look. “I suppose, Tom. What is it?”

“You will see.”

Not really caring what he brought back, Eleanor nodded. When Tom returned, Gladys had taken the boys outside, and Eleanor, in an attempt to numb her mind through activity, was mending one of her sons' shirts—trying to ignore Nora's smock that had been put in the same basket of items needing repair. Tom was carrying a small sack, which clinked when he set it down. “What?”

Tom opened the sack and pulled out a large gold cup. Eleanor gasped as she saw the Despenser coat of arms on it. “My husband's goods?”

“Or his father's. More are being brought here every day, now that your husband has—um—passed away.”

The absurdity of the euphemism in Hugh's particular case almost made Eleanor laugh.

“They're in a storehouse here on the Tower grounds, still to be sorted and valued. Some were taken from the Despenser manors that the queen's men looted after she landed, and some of these came from your husband's wardrobe here. The queen has already ordered your late husband's wardrobe keeper to give her the best ones for her own use.”

Eleanor started. “What does she want with my husband's jewels? If they are forfeit to the crown, aren't they to go to the treasury?”

“She wants them because they were your husband's, my lady. She wants to gloat over them.”