The Queen's Spy Page 5

  By the time the second summer came to an end I acknowledged that our affair, if I allowed myself to call a tentative friendship by such a name, was over. Whatever had been between us was no more and my hopes of a future together had vanished in the warmth and the dust of an early French autumn.

  Yet here he was in my brother’s room in Paris on a cold December day, exactly the same man as before.

  He inclined his head. ‘Lady Margaret, you are well?’ He spoke hesitantly as if afraid of what I might say.

  I had some difficulty forming the words but was determined he shouldn’t know how much he had hurt me.

  ‘Yes, I thank you, I am.’

  ‘Still serving Isabella?’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ I replied sharply.

  His lips curved in the smallest of smiles. ‘I wouldn’t know; perhaps following some handsome French lord around the countryside, tucked up snug in his baggage train?’

  I raised my gaze to his and looked at him levelly. I wasn’t smiling. ‘My lord, you insult me.’

  ‘It was a joke.’

  I paused a moment. ‘I don’t appreciate jokes about my virtue.’

  He frowned, a puzzled look on his face as If unsure what to say next. I didn’t like the silence.

  ‘Have you made your glorious marriage with Castile yet, my lord?’ I tried to keep my voice steady. I would be perfectly composed and treat him like any other man of my acquaintance.

  He smiled at the question as if something only he knew about had been resolved. ‘Would it distress you if I had?’

  ‘What you do is of no concern of mine, my lord. You have made that abundantly clear.’

  The smile broadened as if he was enjoying my discomfiture.

  ‘Ah Lady Margaret, if only that were true. In the end I decided the Infanta was not to my liking.’

  A wave of relief flooded through me. He hadn’t made the marriage his brother had wished to foist upon him.

  ‘The king must be disappointed,’ I said. ‘I believe he had invested a great deal in the proposed alliance.’

  He put his head on one side and considered the matter. ‘He is my brother, he will forgive me. And if he doesn’t, so be it.’

  This was a new Edmund. The old Edmund would have cared deeply about his brother’s response, not wanting in any way to displease him. I wondered what had changed.

  ‘You didn’t write,’ I said, unable to hold back the words any longer.

  ‘No’ he said slowly. I didn’t write. I should have done. It was wrong of me but you must understand how difficult things were. My brother expected a peace accord with Cousin Charles and there was the war and Uncle Valois treating me like a turd. Gascony was a nightmare of a place; you can have no idea how dreadful it was.’

  ‘I am sure you found plenty of diversions.’

  ‘If you mean that story about the girl in Agen, it wasn’t true.’

  I had heard nothing of a girl in Agen, but for him to think I had, meant the story had currency.

  ‘There was no girl?’

  ‘Yes, there was a girl.’

  ‘You were not in Agen?’

  ‘No, I was there, but it wasn’t as they made out. I didn’t steal her from her father. She crept into my bed of her own free will. I didn’t know she was there until I slid between the sheets but afterwards she made it plain she wanted to stay.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to you to throw her out.’

  He put his head on one side and smiled. ‘My dear Lady Margaret, you’ve been married, you know what we men are like.’

  I knew exactly what he was like so why was I disappointed? Why did I feel as if my heart had been savaged?

  ‘I was lonely without you,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed.’ I was entirely unconvinced however much I would have liked to believe him.

  He pushed himself upright and walked across the room. He came right up to me and stood there, his legs brushing against the skirts of my gown.

  ‘Margaret.’ He reached for my hand. His voice was low. ‘You know how I feel about you.’

  Yes, I knew. He had never lied. He’d said he wanted me but that marriage was out of the question; his brother needed him to make a foreign alliance and I was not worthy.

  ‘You’re not married yet? You didn’t accept that Everingham fellow?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, lowering my head so that he couldn’t see my distress. ‘He has married someone else.’

  He was making certain there would be no outraged husband in the background because if I was a married woman there would need to be a pay-off to make a husband stand aside. Lord Edmund was not powerful enough to take another man’s wife against the man’s wishes.

  Blessed Mary, Mother of Christ! I thought. How has it come to this? How have I arrived at this shameful point in my life where I am thinking of giving my body to this man in exchange for so very little? All because he stirs my blood and because I am tired of being alone. He promised he loved me and yet he left me and here he is speaking lover’s words and smiling as if we’d parted only yesterday. This life he was promising me would be no glorious future free from poverty and fear, but a continuing shame, an unhappy reminder of my past foolishness.

  ‘Margaret. I have something for you.’

  He picked up a document from the table. He turned it slowly in his hands then held it out, offering it to me. It was covered in seals. I doubted I had seen such a weight of parchment before. This would be a gift, some pretty little manor he wished to bestow upon me to seal what he thought would be our bargain.

  ‘I cannot accept anything from you, Lord Edmund,’ I said trying to speak in my coldest voice but failing as my words faltered. Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I thought if I didn’t escape soon I would weep.

  I made the mistake of looking up into his eyes.

  ‘Oh Edmund,’ I said. ‘I know what you want but it cannot be. I cannot be your mistress.’

  ‘Read it,’ he said.

  I hesitated. Was I so sure I would let him walk away? I still loved him. How could I not love him?

  ‘Margaret, you need to know what it says. Believe me, you need to know.’

  I knew I should read it. It would be utter folly to do otherwise. This would be my security. Mistresses could be discarded at a man’s whim but this would ensure I was well provided for no matter what should happen. It was important to have a document lawyers could chew over, something to protect me and any children we might have.

  I wondered would I have to sign anything. I doubted it but I was totally ignorant in such matters. My brother would have attended to everything. Tom would have satisfied himself that I would never be left destitute because everybody knows one man’s mistress can never be another man’s wife. No-one would want her. I would be used goods patched together to look like new, presented as a virtuous woman. But no-one would be deceived. They would all know and of course I would not be welcome in the queen’s presence again.

  I held it in my hands. It was weighty and felt strange. The softest of parchment, the very best. I looked at the Latin words, beautifully written, beautifully phrased. I blinked. I read the words again and then a third time.

  ‘It is a papal dispensation,’ I whispered. ‘For marriage, for those persons named who are related in the third or fourth degree.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said in the gentlest of tones.

  ‘Given on the sixth day of October.’

  ‘It has taken me a while to get here. Storms, poor roads, you know how things are.’

  I was crying now and could not see him clearly.

  ‘Margaret, dearest Margaret,’ he said, removing the document and taking both my hands in his. ‘The Holy Father has sanctioned our marriage, your brother has given his approval, I’m asking you to be my wife. So why are you crying? Was this not what you wanted?’<
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  ‘Oh Edmund, it was. It is.’

  He put his arms round me and, with the greatest of care, kissed me, not with urgency like he had the last time, but slowly and gently, his mouth warm and his lips inviting. A flood of sensation filled my very being and I could think of nothing but this moment of complete and utter happiness. I wouldn’t ask who had changed his mind, what persuasion had made him take the honourable way. He was the shining knight of my dreams come to rescue me from the prison of my widowhood and that was all that mattered.

  ‘Marriage?’ Isabella favoured me with a beaming smile. ‘How wonderful! And how good of Lord Wake to come from England with the news. Mind you, Margaret, he has been somewhat slow in arranging this. How long have you been a widow?’

  This was Isabella at her sharpest. She knew exactly how long it had been since John’s death and was telling me I should be grateful for any crumb, no matter how small.

  ‘More than eleven years, your grace.’

  ‘Indeed!’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘So long! Tell us, who is the fortunate man? He must be fortunate, must he not, ladies, for Margaret is a jewel amongst women?’

  There was a murmur of assent from the others, all dying to know who I was to marry even though none of them regarded me as a jewel.

  Isabella frowned impatiently. ‘Come Margaret, tell us who it is. Can it be the emperor of Byzantium? I know he is in need of a wife but …’ She smiled while the others tittered behind their hands at the outrageousness of her suggestion. ‘Regretfully a widow in your circumstances cannot expect much when it comes to remarriage - an elderly knight perhaps? So tell us - who is it?’

  ‘I am to marry Lord Edmund, the king’s brother.’

  There was complete silence. You could have heard a pin drop. No-one moved, not even an inch. Nobody laughed or gasped or giggled or even coughed. Isabella’s eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed with suspicion.

  ‘That is a very poor joke, Margaret. It does not amuse me.’

  I bit my lip. This was worse than I’d imagined.

  ‘It is the truth, your grace. Lord Edmund and I are to be married.’

  She drew herself up to her full height, stepped forward and slapped me hard across my face. The pain was immediate and shocking as I jerked my head away.

  ‘You slut! How long has this been going on? How many times have you sneaked away from my presence to meet with him?’

  Her face was white but two angry red spots blazed on her cheeks.

  ‘I expected something better from you,’ she spat. ‘Though perhaps it is no surprise. Your father was a liar, pretending he was descended from some brave Saxon hero while all the time the man was a pot-scrubber from Normandy. Your mother lowered herself into the gutter when she married him.’

  I said nothing. She was the queen and had the right to be angry if she chose. To her, I was merely one of her ladies, little more than a servant for all her pretty words the other night.

  ‘If you think this marriage will go ahead,’ she hissed, ‘think again. It is an abomination, an impossibility. Lord Edmund’s mother was my father’s sister. The sacred blood of the Capet kings ran in her veins. Do you think I shall permit this insult to my family?’

  She was trembling with fury, her fingers curled into claws ready to scratch out my eyes. I took a step back in alarm but she followed me until she had me against the table. She was in such a fury I thought she might strangle me with her bare hands. The other ladies huddled together, far too afraid to do anything other than mew.

  ‘Get out of my sight and do not return,’ she said in her coldest voice. ‘I never want to see you again.’

  Edmund laughed when I told him.

  ‘Isabella will come to accept our marriage, sweetheart. She’ll have to. You’re going to be her sister-in-law.’

  We were walking side by side in the inner court of one of the houses within the palace confines, the most my brother would allow in the circumstances. ‘Your reputation must be spotless now that you are to marry the king’s brother,’ he had said, lecturing me on my behaviour as if I was an untouched girl of thirteen not a woman of almost twenty-eight who’d been married and bedded and borne a child.

  In the centre of the tiny paved courtyard stood a little fountain where clear water still trickled into the shallow basin despite the danger of frost and ice. Here, where tall, pale-coloured buildings blocked out the raucous cries and foul smells of the alleyways, we had found a surprising peace. There was nothing but the gentle splashing, our muffled footsteps and the sound of our beating hearts.

  ‘Tell me about your first husband,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Why do you ask? He’s been dead eleven years.’

  Edmund reached for my hand. ‘A husband likes to know who his wife compares him with when he comes to her bed. It is man’s nature to wish to be the best.’

  I smiled. So Lord Edmund was nervous about his performance. Despite his dreadful reputation and his boasting about village girls and eager prioresses, he was still unsure.

  What to tell him? John Comyn and I had married in our springtime, a boy and girl affair, just two young people exploring love. In the evenings as we’d sat by the fire, he’d told me of his father’s murder at the hands of the king’s enemies, and of Badenoch, his boyhood home, high in the Scottish hills, a home he hadn’t seen for more than six years.

  ‘When I go back,’ he’d whispered. ‘I shall plant a garden for you with banks of thyme and pear trees like those in the queen’s secret garden at Woodstock, where they shed white blossom across the grass.’

  But he never went back. One sunny day he’d ridden away up the sandy track to Southwell, gorgeously arrayed in scarlet and blue as if off to a wedding. I never saw him again. He died beneath the Scottish pikes at Bannockburn and if I dream of Badenoch now, I cannot see the pear trees. There is no garden, no bank of thyme, no snow-white blossom on the grass; just the mute grey walls of a stone-built castle and the crimson blood of a thousand Englishmen spreading out across the ground, trickling away into the still dark waters of a Scottish loch.

  ‘There is nothing to tell,’ I said quietly. ‘It is too long ago and I have forgotten.’

  I could see my answer pleased him. He wanted no ghost hovering around our marriage bed and no opponent in the joust of love. He wished to be the undisputed champion who could claim the purse of gold.

  He lifted my hand to his mouth and easing off my glove, kissed my fingers one by one.

  ‘Only three more days,’ he whispered. ‘Then I shall have licence to remove your clothing.’

  ‘I trust you will not be disappointed, my lord. I hope there will be no regrets.’

  He risked a quick kiss. ‘Margaret, how could I regret marriage with you?’

  ‘Will the king be very angry?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘But he won’t confiscate your lands?’ My voice quivered. How would we manage if the king withdrew his favour? Edmund wasn’t wealthy and I had very little of my own.

  ‘No, he won’t do that but if he does, he’ll give them back again. Why the concern? Would you not marry me if I was poor?’ A sliver of doubt clouded his eyes. Did he really imagine me so faithless?

  I stood on my tiptoes and forgetting my brother’s orders, kissed his cold lips. ‘I would marry you if you had nothing and were clothed in homespun, and I shall do my best to be a good wife.’ And then, remembering what the duties of a good wife entailed, I promised that once we were married I would let him remove my gown.

  A day later I was summoned back to the queen’s presence. Isabella had decided to be magnanimous and forgive me for what she perceived as my presumption in daring to consider marrying the king’s brother.

  ‘She will be there to see you become my wife,’ Edmund told me, fumbling with the ribbons on my winter cloak as we walked along the covered cloister, trailed by my maid and one of Ed
mund’s grooms. ‘There is little else she can do other than make the best of things as Cousin Charles has given us his blessing. If the king of France is to attend our wedding then you can be certain the queen of England will not wish to be left out in the cold.’ He slipped the cloak off my left shoulder.

  ‘Lord Edmund!’ I said severely, pulling myself away from him and rearranging my clothes. ‘It is freezing outside. The river has iced over, the fires are barely warming the rooms and I am a virtuous woman who has no intention of removing any of her clothing before marriage, so will you please stop what you’re doing or I shall have to go and walk elsewhere.’

  I compared this fabulous wedding we were to have to the tiny gathering at Lincoln in that time long ago when John and I were wed. Apart from Aunt Mortimer and John’s uncle, the earl of Pembroke, there was no-one there of any note: no finery, no glittering presents, no pomp or fuss, just a boy and a girl gazing at each other in wonder as an elderly bishop muttered the words of the marriage service and led us through into the chapel for the nuptial mass.

  Later, as I entered the royal apartments and made my formal greeting, the queen passed her gaze across me in much the same way as she did to her lowest servant to show me I hadn’t really been forgiven. Edmund was right. She had weighed up the situation and seen little advantage in continuing to oppose the match but I knew from the way she deliberately ignored me that she didn’t approve.

  I sat quietly with my embroidery on my knee near some of the younger ladies who had chosen my company in the hope of discovering more about my scandalous wedding. The colours of their close-woven gowns jostled one with the other as they squabbled for the seat next to mine and a faint scent of lavender rose from the folds of their skirts.

  An elbow dug uncomfortably into my side as one of them placed her stool on the hem of my gown. Several shoulders were inclined in my direction while the ladies smiled and raised their eyebrows in mock sympathy. They told me they were unsure if my marriage would take place as the queen had threatened to have it stopped.