Isabella: Braveheart of France by Colin Falconer Page B

Castle, and our good Earl turned them away!”
    “Will there be war now?”
    “If I could not defeat them before, how should I do it now? But the wheel will turn, Lancaster will part with his head and so will Warwick, I shall swear it on my father’s tomb. They will pay for every drop of blood, by God’s soul they will!”
    The king makes overgenerous financial arrangements for monks in Oxford to keep him at their friary and to pray for his unhallowed soul. He hires two men to watch over the coffin night and day. Margaret and Gaveston’s former servants are all awarded pensions.
    Lady Vescy returns, no longer outlawed, and then Winchelsea dies. More good news, then, Edward says, clapping his hands in delight when the messenger brings him the missive. Edward makes his friend Walter Reynolds Archbishop of Canterbury in his place with the pious hope that his predecessor will moan everlasting in hell on the end of a hot pitchfork.
    Hereford and Arundel come snivelling back, and old Hugh encourages the king to make peace with Lancaster and Warwick, for the good of the realm.
    “I cannot do it,” he tells her. “I cannot forgive them.”
    “Just make a show of it,” she says. “You have the other barons on your side now. If you were to take an army and defeat the Scots, your kingship would be unquestioned. You could then turn the army on them. Hold your hand till then.”
    “But I have vowed to see them dead!”
    “Vengeance cannot be rushed. Have patience, take their submission and when you are stronger then you can make them pay you in full measure for what they have done.”
    The birth of her son thaws the frosty relationship between her husband and her father. Gaveston’s death does no harm to it either. Now Phillip sends the king a letter, inviting him to Paris, so that he can see his new grandson and talk about Gascony.
    Edward is delighted. He senses the possibility of concessions. As soon as his wife is recovered, they will take ship to France.
     
     
     

Chapter 19
     
    Paris. March, 1314
     
    “He is so handsome!” Marguerite squeals, peering between the curtains.
    Pentecost Sunday and Isabella’s brothers are to be knighted by their father, Phillip. But it is Edward who attracts the attention; tall, strong and handsome, it seems at last Isabella is envied, as she never is in England. And he does carry it well; working on a roof or a field may not be regal, but it has made him a physical specimen to be admired.
    She thinks Marguerite should instead have eyes for her husband Louis, for it is his day; but she and Charles’ wife Blanche have always been this way: flighty girls, though pleasant company. The silk purses she has made for them warrant barely a glance. Once they treated her as a little pest, now they behave as if she is all but invisible.
    Neither do they try to hide the looks they give the two young men on the other side of the church. Isabella makes a point to find out who they are; they are brothers by the name of d’Aulnay, both knights and outrageously handsome. They pretend not to notice that the two sisters are watching them.
    They do not pretend very well.
    Her sisters-in-law’s gossip is about the Templars; all arrested and put to the torture, at the Pope’s behest. Marguerite and Blanche are not concerned about the politics of it, their talk is of how the Order encouraged their members to have sexual dalliance with a cat and worship a disembodied head.
    Really, she could have more intelligent conversations with her horse.
    Neither Marguerite nor Blanche has many kind words for her brothers, their husbands. “All Louis ever wants to do is play tennis,” Marguerite says.
    Her father has not aged at all. His nickname is Phillip the Handsome, and he still is, frighteningly so. He actually smiles when he sees her, a rare compliment indeed.
    “You have grown beautiful,” he says and nods with approval. This she did not expect.
    They are in the White Chamber, so named for its pure