HOW THE FRENCH ROADS rang out clear beneath the horses’ hooves! What happy music the crunching gravel made! And the air she was breathing, the soft, sunlit morning air, how wonderfully scented it was, what a marvellous savour it had! The buds were beginning to open, and little, tender, green, crinkled leaves stretched out across the road to caress the travellers’ brows. No doubt the grass of the banks and fields of the Île-de-France was not so thick or rich as English grass, but for Queen Isabella it was the grass of freedom and, indeed, of hope.
Her white mare’s mane swung to the rhythm of its paces. A litter, carried by two mules, was following a few yards behind. But the Queen was too happy and too impatient to tolerate being enclosed in such a conveyance. She preferred to ride her hack and to set a faster pace; she would have liked to jump the hedge and gallop away across the grass.
Boulogne, where she had been married fifteen years earlier in the Church of Notre-Dame, Montreuil, Abbeville and Beauvais had formed the stages of her journey. She had spent the preceding night at Maubuisson, near Pontoise, in the royal manor where she had seen her father, Philip the Fair, for the last time. Her journey had been almost a pilgrimage through the past. It was as if she were journeying back through the stages of her life, as if fifteen years were being abolished, so that she could make a new start.
‘Your brother Charles would no doubt have taken her back,’ Robert of Artois was saying, as he rode beside Isabella. ‘And he would have imposed her on us as Queen, so much did he regret her and so little could he make up his mind to find a new wife.’
Of whom was Robert talking? Oh yes, of Blanche of Burgundy. Her memory had been evoked by Maubuisson where, a little while ago, a cavalcade consisting of Henri de Sully, Jean de Roye, the Earl of Kent, Roger Mortimer and Robert of Artois himself, together with a whole company of lords, had come to greet the traveller. Isabella had felt considerable pleasure at being treated like a Queen again.
‘I really believe Charles derived a secret pleasure from contemplating the horns of cuckoldom she had set on his brow,’ Robert went on. ‘Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the sweet Blanche, a year before Charles became King, got herself pregnant in prison by her gaoler. Those daughters of Mahaut are such damned hot pieces they’d set a bundle of tow on fire at five yards.’
The giant was riding on the Queen’s left, on the sunny side, and was mounted on a huge, dappled percheron; he cast his shadow over the Queen. She was urging her hack forward, trying to keep in the sun. Robert talked and talked, delighted to have met her again, giving rein to his naturally trivial nature, and trying at the same time, during these first leagues, to renew the links of cousinship and old friendship. Isabella had not seen him for eleven years; she found him less changed than she had expected. His voice was still the same, and so was that odour of a great eater of venison which his body emitted in the heat of the march and the breeze blew in gusts about him. His hands were red and hairy to the nails, his expression malicious even when he tried to make it amiable, and his paunch bulged over his belt as if he had swallowed a bell. But the assurance of his speech and gestures was less feigned than it had been, for it had now become part of his nature; the lines that framed his mouth were cut deeper in the fat.
‘And Mahaut, my bitch of an aunt, has had to resign herself to the annulment of her daughter’s marriage. Oh, not without a struggle and bearing false witness before the bishops! But she was finally confounded. For once, Cousin Charles was obstinate. Because of the business with the gaoler and the pregnancy. And once that weak-kneed creature sticks his toes in about something, you can’t move him. There were any number of questions asked during the annulment case. They even salvaged from its dust the dispensation, granted by Clement V, allowing Charles to marry a relation but without specifying a name. But what member of our families ever married anyone but a cousin or a niece? So then, Monseigneur Jean de Marigny most cleverly turned to the question of a spiritual relationship. Was not Mahaut Charles’s godmother? Of course, she denied it and said she had attended the baptism only as an assistant and unofficial godmother.26 Then everyone, barons, stewards, valets, priests, choristers and townsmen of Creil, where the baptism took place, gave evidence that she had held the child to hand it to Charles of Valois, and that no mistake was possible in view of the fact that she was the tallest woman in the chapel, indeed taller by a head than anyone else. What a liar she is!’
Isabella compelled herself to listen, but her attention was really focused on herself and on a curious contact which, a little while before, had moved her. How surprising a man’s hair felt when it was suddenly brought in touch with your fingers.
The Queen glanced up at Roger Mortimer, who had placed himself on her right with a sort of natural authority, as if he were her protector and guardian. She looked at the thick curls emerging from under his black hat. You would never have thought his hair could be so silky to the touch.
It had happened by chance at the very first moment of their meeting. Isabella had been surprised to see Mortimer appear beside the Earl of Kent. So in France the rebel, fugitive and outlaw – for Edward had, of course, deprived him of all his rights, titles and property – rode beside the King of England’s brother and seemed even to take precedence over him. The members of the English escort had looked at each other in astonishment.
And Mortimer had jumped from his horse and hurried over to the Queen to kiss the hem of her dress; but the hack had moved and Roger’s lips had lightly touched Isabella’s knee, while she had mechanically put out her hand and rested it on the bare head of the friend she had regained. And now, as they rode along the road, its surface striped with the shadows of the branches overhead, the silky contact of his hair was still with her, as perceptible as if it were enclosed within her velvet glove.
‘But the most serious grounds for pronouncing the marriage annulled, besides the fact that the contracting parties were not of canon age for copulating, nor indeed physically capable of doing so, were discovered in the fact that your brother Charles, when he was married, lacked the discernment to select a wife suited to his rank, or the ability to express a preference, in view of the fact that he was incapable, simple and imbecile, and that the contract was consequently invalid. Inhabilis, simplex et imbecillus! And everyone, from your uncle Valois to the last chambermaid, were at one in agreeing that he was all that, and the best proof of it was that the late Queen his mother had herself thought him so stupid that she had nicknamed him “the Goose”! Forgive me, Cousin, for talking of your brother like this, but after all he’s the King we’ve got over us. A pleasant companion however in other respects, and with a handsome face, but with not much spirit about him. You’ll realize that one has to govern in his stead and that you mustn’t expect too much of him.’
From Isabella’s left came Robert of Artois’s inexhaustible voice and his wild-beast odour. From her right Isabella felt Roger Mortimer’s eyes resting on her with a disturbing persistence. From time to time she looked up at his flint-coloured eyes, his clean-cut features and the deep cleft in his chin, at his tall, shapely figure sitting so erect in the saddle. She was surprised she had no memory of the white scar marking his lower lip.
‘Are you still as chaste as ever, my fair Cousin?’ Robert of Artois suddenly asked her.
Queen Isabella blushed and raised her eyes furtively to Roger Mortimer, as if the question had already made her, in some inexplicable way, feel a little guilty towards him.
‘Indeed, I’ve been forced to be,’ she replied.
‘Do you remember our interview in London, Cousin?’
She blushed deeper still. Of what was he reminding her, and what would Mortimer think? It had been nothing but a moment of forlornness when saying goodbye; there had not even been so much as a kiss; she had merely leaned her forehead against a man’s chest in search of refuge. Did Robert still remember it after eleven years? She felt flattered, but not in the least moved. Had he mistaken what had been but a moment of dismay for an avowal of love? Yet, perhaps, on that day, but on that day only, had she not been Queen, and had he not been in such a hurry to leave in order to denounce the Burgundy girls …
‘Well, if you do take it into your head to change your habits …’ said Robert gallantly. ‘Whenever I think of you, I always have the feeling of a debt I’ve never collected …’
He broke off suddenly, having met Mortimer’s eyes and seen in them the glance of a man ready to draw his sword if he heard another word. The Queen saw the challenge and, to keep herself in countenance, stroked the white mane of her mare. Dear Mortimer, how noble and chivalrous he was! And how good it was to breathe the air of France, and how pretty the road was, with its alternating sunlight and shade!
There was an ironical half-smile on Robert of Artois’s fat cheeks. As for the debt – he had thought the expression delicate enough – he must think no more of it. He felt sure that Mortimer loved Queen Isabella and that Isabella loved Mortimer.
Other people are generally aware of our love before we realize it ourselves.
‘Ah, well,’ he thought, ‘my good cousin will amuse herself with this Knight Templar.’