Chapter 24

Paris, November 1325

Queen Isabella flung open a hinged diamond paned window and placed her elbows on the casing. The small apartment she'd inhabited these past few months was located on the third floor of an unremarkable half-timbered dwelling. Like so many others in this part of Paris's Right Bank, the apartment cantilevered over the story below and leaned out above a narrow street cluttered by business signs shaped like the products they advertised.

Sighing contentedly, Isabella gazed out at the darkened city of her childhood. After the nightly Angelus signaled bedtime, Paris plunged into darkness. Only around its crossroads or in grottoes dedicated to patron saints did candles or an occasional lamp provide light. The smell of rotting garbage wafted upward from the deserted lane. While Paris's main streets were paved and wide enough to accommodate two passing chariots, the city's more than three hundred fifty side streets were topped by mud and offal.

The Right Bank, located beyond the old walls, was the area of commerce, industry, and the luxury trades. Wealthy residences also clustered here, and from their elaborately ornamented belvederes watchmen maintained vigilance. As a child Isabella had enjoyed her occasional outings to the public markets, which were largely serviced by riverboats traveling the River Seine. Soap makers, hatters, cabinetmakers, potters, furriers, barbers, and apothecaries with rows of strange-smelling potions packed in peculiar-shaped bottles all inhabited the Right Bank. Traffic jams were a way of life with basket-laden pack mules struggling for space against street vendors and porters bearing bundles of wood or charcoal. In the plazas jongleurs performed acrobatic stunts and feats of magic, or recited satiric tales, and when the king's vintage was readied, public criers cried the royal wine.

Hearing movement from behind, childhood memories fled. "Soon I must return to the Louvre," the queen said. "Charles may have a reputation as a philanderer but he would frown on his sister's indiscreet behavior."

Isabella stretched languidly but made no move to dress. She hated the very thought of the royal palace, where decorum must once more be put on as firmly as the crown atop her head.

A tentative dawn began inching across the eastern sky. She smiled as she remembered her recent triumphal return, with her countrymen waving and cheering so tumultuously they'd drowned out the ringing of the city's church bells. Parisians had strewn flowers along her route and kissed the hem of her skirt as she passed by. Their exuberant welcome had provided a soothing balm to a sorely wounded self-esteem. For seventeen years she'd tried to be a good wife to Edward Caernarvon, but he had always treated her ill. Now he had quarreled with her brother the king, Charles IV, over Gascony, which was a foreign province of England, and which had been recently confiscated. Edward, using circuitous reasoning Isabella could only guess at, had blamed her and had sought to punish her by staying away from their marriage bed.

Small loss, she'd thought at the time, but his continued coldness had triggered rumors that his emissaries were travelling to Rome to seek a divorce.

The very idea of such an act made Isabella grind her teeth with rage.

That Edward should seek to rid himself of me, when he is the one guilty of unpardonable sin!

The situation with the Despensers had degenerated so badly that in September of 1324, Hugh the Younger had openly confiscated all of Isabella's estates and imprisoned her servants, dispatching them to religious houses throughout England. The worsening conflict in Gascony had provided an unexpected relief for the queen.

"Perhaps I myself should travel to France," she'd suggested to Edward. "Charles has always doted on me. I believe he would listen to England's side if 'twas properly presented."

Reluctantly King Edward had agreed and in March of 1325 Queen Isabella had crossed the channel to her homeland. Seeking to make a good impression, Edward had even loosened the royal purse strings enough to allow her a new wardrobe. She'd entered Paris regally attired in a black velvet so voluminous and long that only the tips of her white checkered leather riding boots peeked from beneath the hem. Her pale hair had been left unplaited and held on either side of her head by cases of gold fretwork.

As she'd ridden to the royal palace, smiling and waving to children and shopkeepers, her thoughts had been on her forthcoming meeting with her brother the king. And one other—Roger Mortimer.

Will I still find Mortimer captivating? she'd wondered. Does he yet even reside at the French court? Has he found a younger woman whose charms he prefers?

Isabella might have been Queen of England but Mortimer made her feel as vulnerable as a maid suffering her first crush. Remembering her uncertainty, Isabella smiled. Such doubts now seemed foolish.

Her gaze swept the Paris skyline. In the Ile de la Cite, surrounded by the River Seine, the spire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame soared above the rest of the buildings. No English church could favorably compare with Notre Dame, which contained room enough for nine thousand worshippers. Near the cathedral stood the Queen's temporary residence, the royal palace. In the fauborgs, where houses possessed gardens and on Sundays the bourgeois promenaded, windmills labored in the damp November air. Amid harvested vineyards, abbeys etched against the lightening sky.

Paris rumbled awake. Shutters slammed, dogs barked, roosters crowed, servants, empty pails in hand, stumbled to the nearest public fountains.

Calloused hands slid around Isabella's naked waist. She leaned back, into the arms of Roger Mortimer. "I love it here," she whispered. "'Tis like I never left."

"I hate it," Mortimer said decisively. "On the Left Bank those university students are as plenteous as rats. They prattle about reason and philosophy and other matters of no consequence and the booksellers around Notre Dame are so numerous I cannot move without stepping on one of them. I despise the shouts of the muleteers, the stench of the butchers and tanners around the Chatelet, the moneychangers on the Grand Pont who have robbed me of my money as truly as a bandit. Everything about this city..."

Isabella laughed. "My wild Marcher lord. You just mislike being imprisoned by any city."

"There is no place like the March," he said flatly. "I will not rest until once again I race across its hills."

The earl's powerful fingers tightened around her waist, but he wasn't thinking of lovemaking. Roger Mortimer approached all of life with an intensity that was as overwhelming as it was intriguing. His dynamism and self-confidence had long ago convinced the queen that he was capable of deeds other men only dreamed of. In this case the intimation behind his words frightened her.

Other exiled Englishmen, including members of the contrariants, had gathered at the French royal palace to plot all manner of disturbing things. So far Isabella had refrained from becoming involved in their schemes.

In truth, she found some of their wild talk disturbing. Edward Caernarvon was a fool and a weakling but he was also the father of her children, after all. Recently their eldest son, Prince Edward, under his newly bestowed titles of duke of Aquitaine and count of Ponthieu, had arrived to do homage in lieu of his sire for the Gascony provinces. Isabella had found the prince so much like Edward—without the pettiness and perversions—that she had wept for what might have been.

Isabella slipped away from her lover and reached for her clothes. She preferred to dress herself than risk the gossip that came with her maids, though a part of her knew they were fooling no one.

Looking up, she caught Mortimer staring at her, and Isabella's very bones seemed to melt at the intensity reflected in the black depths of his eyes. She who had dutifully accepted her aberrant husband, her political and domestic position, who placed responsibility above personal happiness, had fallen hopelessly in love.

She crossed to him. If Edward had been a normal husband, I would still remain in your thrall.

"My gentle Mortimer," she breathed.

He laughed. "You did not call me gentle last night." He crushed her against him. Roger was indeed a wild lover, but after the indifference of Edward she found his lustiness exciting beyond endurance. To Edward she had been a duty. To Mortimer she was a woman.

"Stay awhile yet, Madam." He leaned back, his manner mocking. "We have matters to discuss."

"Is that an invitation or a command?" Though Isabella loved his dominance sometimes his lack of respect for her position nettled.

"Take it as you will, sweetheart." Mortimer swept her in his powerful arms and carried her to his narrow bed. As he settled atop her, Isabella forgot about duty and position, about everything save the delight of her lover's embrace.