Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer by N. Gemini Sasson

days, maybe, before we can sail. Even when we do, in these rough seas we’ll be crammed into the dark hull of some merchant ship like mice drowning in a barrel of rainwater – nowhere to go, nothing to do but tread water and pray it stops.”
    “Oh, Isabeau, must you always worry so?”
    Isabeau . I smiled faintly at the childhood endearment. Even now, with disaster looming dark like a thunderstorm on the horizon, it was a sweet sound in my ears – one that I never heard come from English lips.
    “Yes, I must,” I admitted. “I cannot help it. Storms like this, this time of year – they can last for days. And while we wait for it to pass, the Scots have not stopped to dry themselves beneath a roof somewhere. They are still riding. Hard. Fast. If they know I am here ... well, we dare not ride from here without an army of our own, do we? No, we have to wait. Wait for the sea to relent and the skies to break. Wait and hope.”
    Sometimes it seemed that had been my whole life: waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Edward to come to his senses. Waiting for things to get better by some miracle.
    Patrice had been with me at York barely three years ago when the Black Douglas, leader of the Bruce’s lightly armed horsemen, the hobelars, had ripped through Yorkshire, raiding town after town, burning farm after farm, to divert the English army from their siege at Berwick. If not for the rash bravery of Archbishop Melton of York, who clashed with Douglas at Myton, though it amounted to a massacre of English monks and burgesses, we might have fallen into Scottish hands then. The selfless act bought us enough time to escape by horse. But on our way south, we witnessed the terror that Scotsmen left in their wake. The memory stirred the sharp taste of smoke in my throat and visions of bloodied bodies piled three high in carts.
    “I remember, too.” I brushed my fingertips against Patrice’s cheek, and then laid my head upon her shoulder. “I used to wonder what would have befallen us if ... if we had given ourselves up to the Scots then.” I thought I felt a shudder run through Patrice’s body, but I realized it was me. “They say that when the Bruce held Ralph de Monthermer prisoner, the stepfather of Gilbert de Clare, after Bannockburn that they went hawking together whenever the weather was good and feasted together daily. His nephew, Thomas Randolph, who betrayed him, was granted every comfort and kept in his constant company until Randolph was won over by his charm. Can the Bruce be so bad a man, then? Certainly there is kindness to him, despite his reputation in battle.”
    “I have heard he is fine to look upon,” Patrice mused.
    “And that he had a dozen mistresses while his wife was being held captive in England.” I had meant it to shock her, but I believe she thought it somewhat alluring. “I know not, Patrice, how long we can hold here against the Scots or how many lives I can give up trying to save my own. I only know it should not have come to this. If we stay, if too many die ... I will have to surrender the fortress. But they do not come to take a monastery. They come for a queen. And if they ask a ransom for me, Edward will balk at it. He will stall in negotiations. He cares not what happens here, to me. But I do. Not for myself so much, though. I cannot be without my children, Patrice. Cannot.”
    We sat close for a while, saying nothing, our fears absorbed by the sound of the rain as it drummed against the window. Finally, the deep rumble of thunder shook Patrice from her trance. She crossed the room to the hearth, jabbed at the logs with a poker and busied herself sweeping ashes, even though it was not her duty to clean. Then, she took my furs from the bulging chest at the foot of the bed.
    “You will see the children again soon. You will,” she promised as she draped a deep pelt of fox fur over my shoulders.
    “I pray so. If not for them, I would as soon wait here and give myself