Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer Read Online Free PDF Page A

downward so it rested on her hips, and kissed her neck. Instinctively, I pressed against her body, the growing heat in my loins seeking to be quenched within her. She turned her head aside and a thin sigh escaped her throat.
    Had I cared to listen, I might have heard it for what it was – a sigh of indifference.
 
     
    *****

    The next morning I awoke late. Joan’s side of the bed was long since cold, the indent of her body smoothed over by fastidious hands. She was probably with the children somewhere already or going over records with the steward. I had not told her I could be sent back to Ireland at any time, should the Scots cause trouble there. When the time came for me to go, I would insist that she come with me, even though I expected her to protest profusely over the conditions there. At least she would not be able to complain of my absence.
    Wearing only my breeches, I rose, stretched my arms and went to the washbasin Joan had left out for me. I dipped the washcloth in and began to scrub. Every time I wrung the cloth the water turned browner and cloudier, until I could not see the bottom of the blessed bowl. Indolent servants. Or had Joan shooed them all away to let me sleep?
    “Gladys? Clementina?” I grabbed a dry shirt and buried my face in it. There was a faint knock on the door and a long creak as it swung open. “Fetch me more water.”
    “Fetch your own.”
    I turned to see my uncle, Lord Roger Mortimer of Chirk, in the doorway, propped up by a carved walking staff. He hobbled across the room and tapped me on the knee with his stick.
    “I waited up half the night, do you know? Going to tell me about it? The whole thing?” He leaned into the gnarled staff, rotated his weight on it and gimped over to a chair, where he plopped down in anticipation of a story. He pounded the staff on the floor to punctuate each sentence. “I want details. Who fought well. Who died. Who lived. Who’s being held for ransom. All that.”
    “Tales of battle are better told over a cask of wine and late at night.”
    He grumbled in disappointment. “What took you so long to find your way home? Pembroke came this way over a week ago. Said he lost you after the battle and had not heard from you. For shame, you should have seen your poor wife. She assumed you were dead. We all did.”
    “How unfaithful of you all.” I gave up on getting clean water and put on the shirt I had dried my face on. Next, I went in search of a fresh pair of hose. As she always did, Joan had lain everything out for me on top of the chest at the end of our bed. “The king has another sycophant, Uncle.”
    His white feathered eyebrows leapt upward. “Who?”
    “Hugh Despenser the Younger. His brother-in-law, Gilbert de Clare, was killed at Bannockburn. I think he covets his earldom.”
    “Gloucester dead? That will set things on end.” He hunched forward, scenting scandal. “Is Despenser anything like Piers de Gaveston?”
    The king had pandered to the impertinent Gaveston, a man of humble Gascon origins, by granting him the earldom of Cornwall. Rumors about the king and Gaveston had abounded, until the Gascon’s murder ended speculation. “No, this is no roistering boyhood friend of the king’s, to be spoiled with sparkling jewels and fancy clothes. No, he is ... different.”
    “Hah, I don’t doubt, given his stock. Watch him carefully, but from a distance.”
    I hitched my shoulders in a half-shrug. “What do you mean? Do you know something of this Hugh the Younger?”
    “Him? Barely anything. But I know his family. I know the oath his father once made to your father.”
    “Tell. What oath?” I fastened the cord on my hose.
    “That he would kill him.”
    “Come now. I have never heard such a story. Did father slight the elder Despenser somehow? Steal his cows? Hunt on his lands? Sleep with his mistress?”
    “You take it too lightly. I warn you not to. This Hugh the Younger – your grandfather killed his grandfather at the Battle