Edward would have to deliver Gaveston to them or there would be civil war.
Thank God for the child. If it were only a boy, she could look forward to a future with excitement. She was heartily tired of Edward and it was more humiliating because if he had cared for her she might have loved him. It would be hard to find a more handsome man. It was maddening and humiliating that he had left her to her fate in order to escape with Gaveston. How was he to know that his enemies would not regard themselves as hers too? Yet he had left her, pregnant as she was, to face them. What man worthy of the name would do that?
If she had a spark of affection for Edward it was over now.
She thought of Lancaster― if she had not been a queen, if she had not to bear the King’s son― she had seen in his expression as he looked at her that he found her infinitely desirable.
He had a reputation for his affairs with women. It was understandable. He had disliked Alice his wife and she, him. This had been a marriage of convenience if ever there had been one. He had little to complain of, though. No doubt Alice had. It had brought him the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury.
What had it brought Alice? The Queen wondered about her and whether she had taken a lover.
If only― thought the Queen. How easy it would have been with a man like Lancaster. He had shown her clearly that he would count himself fortunate if he beckoned to him. They would be discreet― but there was no discretion that could save her from scandal. And she had the heirs to the throne to produce.
Isabella was a voluptuous woman but she was an even more ambitious one.
She wanted power through her children. She wanted to humiliate the man who had humiliated her. Perhaps more than anything she wanted revenge.
She was safe at Tyneside. Lancaster had promised her that no harm should befall her. He would rid her of Gaveston, he had said. It was a promise which she knew he would do his best to keep. She felt at ease. Her women said that the child was certain to be a boy. The wise old goodies could tell by the way she carried it. She was careful of herself. Nothing must go wrong. She must produce a healthy child. And if by the time of its birth Lancaster had kept his word and rid her of Gaveston who knew what would result?
She must have more children. They would not be born in love, of course.
Never, never would she forgive Edward for his last insult. That he should leave her and their unborn child to his enemies was too much to be borne. How was he to know that his enemies might be her friends?
It was necessary, her women said, to take exercise. It could be bad for the child, so she took to walking in the fields and woods about the castle and it was here one day that she met the boy Thomeline. Poor wretched little orphan. He was half-naked and dirty and frightened and yet so desperate that he dared approach the Queen and beg for alms.
Her companions would have driven him away and she would have shrunk from him but she hesitated. It might have been because of the child she carried that she was interested in children. She was not sure but there was something in the boy’s eyes which touched her unaccountably, for she was not a sentimental woman who brooded on the wrongs of others.
‘Nay,’ she said, ‘let the child speak. What would you have, boy?’
He answered, ‘I am hungry, Queen.’
‘Where is your father?’
‘Dead.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Dead too. The soldiers killed them. The Scots who came over the border.
They burned our cottage and took all we had.’
‘And they let you live?’
‘They didn’t find me. I was hiding in the bushes. They didn’t see me.’
‘Give this boy clothes and money to the value of six shillings and sixpence,’
she commanded.
‘My lady!’ cried her women. ‘He is a beggar with a beggar’s tales!’
‘He is a child,’ she answered, ‘and I believe him. Let it be done.’
The boy fell to his knees and kissed the hem of her gown.
She walked on, wondering at herself. There were many orphans in the world. Why be upset by one?
But she was glad that the boy had stopped her. Then she was pleased that she had acted as she had, for she heard the women talking together of her piety and good deeds. She must have the good opinion of her husband’s subjects.
When they turned from him they must look to her.
She thought a good deal about the boy and a few days later she wished to know if her orders had been carried out regarding him and asked that he be brought to her.
He came in his new clothes and he stood before her staring at her in wonderment.
‘Well boy,’ she said, ‘so you have eaten now and you have good clothes.’
His eyes filled with tears and he knelt and would have kissed her gown but she said: ‘Get up. Come and stand near me. Where do you sleep at nights?’
His eyes shown with pleasure. ‘There is an old hut. The Scots did not take the trouble to burn it. I found it. It offers shelter from the cold.’
She noticed how thin he was. He needed care. That much was obvious.
‘When I am gone from here,’ she said, ‘You could go hungry again.’
He nodded. Then he smiled: ‘But I shall always remember you. I shall never forget that I saw the Queen.’
‘When you are cold and hungry and bigger, stronger people turn you out of the hut, you will forget me.’
‘I never will,’ he said fiercely.
‘You will always be my loyal subject then?’
‘I’d die for you, Queen.’
‘It was little I did,’ she said. ‘I would spend what I gave to you for ribbons on my waist.’
‘So should it be,’ said the boy, ‘for you are beautiful as no one ever was before you. You are a queen and an angel from heaven.’
She said: ‘So I am a queen to all but only an angel to you. I am going to make you love me more, little Thomeline. You shall not again be hungry, nor sleep in the hut. How would you like to go to London? But how can you know?
You have no idea of what London is like, have you? I have an organist there. He is French and his name is Jean. He was a wife named Agnes. She longs for children and could never have them. So I am going to give her a little boy and you a mother and father. How would you like that?’
‘Should I see you, Queen?’
‘It might well be that you would.’
‘Please, may I go?’
‘You shall go. You shall be well clothed and fed and taught many things.
You need good food, for you are not very strong. They will make you into a healthy boy.’
‘Will they want me as their boy?’
‘They will if I say they will.’
‘You can do anything, Queen,’ he said.
She had him bathed and dressed and she kept him with her awhile. She enjoyed his adoration. It soothed the wound left by Edward’s desertion. The boy’s belief in her goodness and Lancaster’s obvious desire for her comforted her a good deal.
She had sent a messenger to her French organist, Jean, and his wife, Agnes, to tell them of the child’s coming and that she expected them to treat him as their own.
Then she sent him to London. He was reluctant to go, not because he did not want to, but because it meant leaving her. His life had taken on a bewildering turn― the orphan who had been obliged to fend for himself was now regularly fed; he was taking lessons. Now and then he sat with the Queen.
So when he must leave her, he was filled with sadness and although she too was sorry to see him go, she liked his feelings for her.
She marvelled at herself. She was not a soft and gentle woman. Perhaps it was because she was going to have a child that she had concerned herself with Thomeline. And then his rapt adoration had been irresistible to her.