Виктория Холт - The Hammer of the Scots

He was seated on a throne-like chair which called attention to his royalty. She stood before him.

‘My lord father,’ she said, ‘I crave permission to sit.’

He nodded and she sat on a stool.

‘Why do you come here?’ he asked coldly.

‘Because you are my father though you are also the King.’

‘I do not forget it. You offend me doubly … as a daughter and as a subject.’

‘Dear Father, I cannot bear it when you look at me so coldly. I remember so much when my dear mother was alive. Ah, I would that she were here this day. She would listen to me … she would plead with you for me. How unhappy she would be to see you hating me so.’

‘She would indeed be unhappy to have borne such a rebellious daughter.’

‘You loved my mother dearly,’ she said. ‘So do I love my husband.’

‘This … nobody … whom you persuaded me to make a knight!’

‘No one deserved the honour more … nor that of being son-in-law to the greatest of kings. Father, remember … the past … the happiness we have known together. My child will be born in due course, the fruit of my love for my husband whom you have cruelly imprisoned.’

‘It was a mistake,’ the King said harshly. ‘He has his just deserts. I could find him a harsher prison which would no doubt fit his crime.’

At the thought of her husband, Joanna’s calm tactics broke down. She cried out, ‘Release him. He has done no harm. I love him, Father. You understand what that means. I persuaded him to this marriage … I forced him to it … through his love for me.’

A faint twitch which might have been of amusement showed itself at the corner of the King’s lips. He was thinking, Yes, she would have forced him to marry her. She would have selected him and then he would have had no say. That was his daughter Joanna. How could he help but admire such a daughter? She was all fire and energy. And she was not afraid either.

‘Tell me this,’ she went on. ‘Why is it not disgraceful for a man of rank to take a poor woman to be his wife, yet when a woman of rank takes a man of none it is considered so?’

‘You are a princess. He is nobody. You must ask my permission to marry. You flouted me … and the whole country. There were many seeking your hand.’

‘Seeking to better themselves by a royal alliance. My lord, I married once to please you. You gave me to an old man.’

‘Gilbert was good to you.’

‘What else could he be? He did well, did he not, to marry the King’s daughter? But I married him to please you. I took this ageing man because he was important to your schemes. I lived with him, I bore his children, then he died. Now why should I not marry according to my choice?’

‘You should never marry except where I say you may.’

‘How unfair it is. So I am to be denied love, am I, because I am a king’s daughter? One marriage for state reasons … I accepted it. But I claim the right the second time to choose for myself.’

‘You have no right,’ shouted the King. ‘You will do as I say.’

‘You cannot break up our marriage. Ralph is my husband. Nothing you can do to him will alter that.’

‘He can remain my prisoner. You will be stripped of your possessions. You will have to learn what happens to any who disobey the King.’

‘I see I am mistaken. I thought I had a loving father. How we loved … once. When our mother was there and the girls and little Edward … How we trusted you; how secure we felt in your love. But it was tender blossoms was it not, destroyed by the first cold wind … like buds in Maytime … beautiful but delicate.’

She put her hand on her body where she could feel the child.

‘My lord … perhaps my women …’

The King was beside her. ‘What is it?’

She waved him aside. ‘It is as though the child feels the unkindness of its grandsire.’

‘You should be taken to your apartments.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Goodbye, Father; you are a hard man. I could not have believed …’

The tears welled into her eyes and suddenly she threw herself into his arms.

‘I cannot bear it,’ she said. ‘Not my dear, dear father …’

He put his lips against her hair. How beautiful she was! How fierce in her passion! He would not have had her otherwise. The wild one, his dear daughter. So proud he had always been of her.

She clung to him. She would not let him go. Not that he showed any sign of forcing her to do so.

‘Tell me I am forgiven,’ she murmured almost incoherently. ‘Then I will go away … Perhaps I may join my husband in his prison … Your grandchild will be born in captivity but at least I shall be with my husband …’

‘Have done!’ said the King gruffly.

‘Oh, Father, I believe you love me a little after all.’

‘You are my beloved child and you know it,’ he said.

She put her arms about his neck and her face was radiant.

‘Still … your beloved child?’

‘You will always be that.’

‘Oh, my dear father, how happy you have made me.’

‘My dear child, I have been so grieved that there should be this unhappiness between us.’

‘It must be no more. Dear Father, let me tell you how I love my husband. You will love him too if you will but see him. You must love someone who loves your daughter so dearly and has brought her such happiness. Father, to make me happy, will you give the order for his release?’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘I suppose I must do this as my imperious daughter commands it.’

‘None commands the King, but in the goodness of his heart and his love for his children he could not let them continue heart-broken. I want to visit all our mother’s crosses and give thanks at them because you have forgiven me. I want to take my husband there so that we can both give thanks to her. If you will love me again I can be the happiest woman on earth.’

‘I never ceased to love you.’

It was her turn to punish him. ‘It seemed you did. Our mother must have wept in Heaven at your harshness to me and mine.’

He winced a little. He was wondering what Eleanor in Heaven was thinking of his plans to marry again, of his longings for the beautiful Blanche, the most lovely princess ever seen, they said.

He felt uneasy because his desire for Blanche seemed like infidelity to Eleanor.

‘She will rejoice now because we are good friends,’ Joanna said. ‘I am sure she is looking down on us now and weeping with joy.’

She would understand, he thought. Eleanor had always understood. Had she lived he would have remained her faithful husband until the end of his days. But she had gone and he was alone, and Blanche by all accounts was so beautiful.

He said: ‘Your husband shall be released, your lands shall be restored.’

She clung to him, kissing him, exultant in her triumph. How right she had been. Strength, sternness, Plantagenet temper – none of that could stand out against her wiles. His sentimentality had helped her of course, his family feeling. But it was her skill which had played on that.

He was so happy to see their relationship restored. He admitted that he would rather lose a castle than have an unkind word or deed from his family. He loved them all so much. They had been the crowning glory of his love for the Queen.

He was anxious about her. All this upset was not good for the baby she carried.

‘The child is happy now. You may laugh, my lord, but I can tell you it has settled down now. I believe it knows already that it has a king for a grandfather.’

‘You talk nonsense,’ he said fondly.

She wanted to remember every word that was spoken, every gesture he made. She would tell Ralph all about it when they were together again. He would realise that he had a clever wife as well as a seductive one.

She took a fond farewell of her father and everyone marvelled at the way in which he had been won over, for in a very short time Ralph de Monthermer was released and as the Court by that time was at Eltham Palace he went there to do homage to the King.

Edward received him kindly and bestowed on him the title of Earl of Gloucester and Hereford. Honour indeed. He and Joanna went then to Marlborough Castle where their child was born. It was a daughter and they called her Mary.

The King had received a terrible blow. For some years he had been dreaming of Blanche. He had written to her, received answers to his letters, and had instructed his ambassadors at the Court of France to send all the news they could of the Princess Blanche.

Philip, the artful King of France, was well aware of what effect the news of his sister’s charms were having on the ageing monarch of England. It was a source of amusement. Edward was building up an image in his mind and it was to the advantage of the King of France to let him do so. The more he desired Blanche the higher price he could be asked to pay for her.

The price was indeed high. Gascony to be passed over to the French for ever.

How can I do it? Edward asked himself. Gascony! It was of the utmost strategic importance to him. The French King was well aware of this – and of Edward’s passionate desire – and it seemed to him that he might succeed in getting the besotted King to agree.

Edward’s nights were haunted by Gascony. It was as though Gascony lay beside him with the desirable Blanche.

How could he give up the province? Yet how could he live without Blanche? He had been a widower too long. It was more than seven years since Eleanor had died. She would understand that was a long time for a king who, though ageing, was still too young in body and mind to be without a wife.

At last he could wait no longer and made his decision. Yes, Philip should have Gascony and he would have Blanche. His brother Edmund was negotiating for him at the Court of France and keeping him well informed of what was happening there.

That Edmund was uneasy was obvious. He did not trust that wily monarch who because of his handsome looks was known as Philip le Bel.

In due course Edward received word from his brother that Gascony had been handed over to the French and a marriage contract was on the way, but alas it was not to be the contract Edward had anticipated. The fact was, wrote Edmund, that the Princess Blanche had been contracted to marry the Duke of Austria, the eldest son of the Emperor. Blanche, however, had a younger sister Marguerite, and the King of France proposed to substitute her name for that of Blanche in the marriage contract.

The King was overcome with rage and grief. For all the years he had dreamed of Blanche and now he was to have her sister! Marguerite was much younger than Blanche, but a handsome girl, wrote Edmund. It was a difficult situation. The French already had Gascony and it would mean hard fighting to get it back. And Blanche was already betrothed so there seemed no alternative – if the King really wanted a wife – but to take Marguerite.

Edward cursed the King of France. He likened himself to Jacob who had served seven years for Rachel and had been deceived by the girl’s father and given his eldest daughter Leah. The difference being that he was offered the younger daughter.

But there was nothing he could do about it. He must either accept Marguerite or go without a wife until he entered into more lengthy negotiations.

In the meantime he had family worries. Joanna was in favour again and he had accepted her husband, but he was deeply concerned about his elder daughter Eleanor whose husband, the Duke of Bar-le-Duc, was still the prisoner of the French. Poor Eleanor was desolate, but it was impossible for the King to do anything. He worried a great deal about her and was arranging a trip to Ghent where he hoped she would be able to join him. To be reunited with her would give him great joy, he wrote to her, and in her reply she said that nothing short of reunion with her husband could give her greater pleasure.

There were many matters to concern Edward. There were differences with France besides minor outbreaks in Wales. These he had expected for he could not hope that that proud people would quietly accept English domination. Events in Scotland were working towards a climax and John Baliol was proving a very unsatisfactory ruler. And there were family matters. The behaviour of Joanna had given him many sleepless nights; he worried continually about Eleanor and there was young Elizabeth’s marriage to think of now. Margaret was not very happy with her libertine of a husband; how different it would have been if they had all gone into convents like Mary. Yet he worried about Mary too because it sometimes occurred to him that she had been shut away from life before she had had an opportunity of deciding whether she wanted to be. Young Edward needed watching too. He was nearly fourteen, and although clever enough would not devote himself to his books, and had a habit of gathering about him, and showing too much friendship to, the least desirable companions.