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

over to the Scots than throw myself to the mercy of the sea.”

 
    8
     
    Isabella:
    Tynemouth Priory – October, 1322

    TYNEMOUTH WAS BOTH MONASTERY and royal residence. On two sides its buildings were enclosed by a stout wall, one side was further defended by a deep ditch and the other by sheer sea cliffs. It would have seemed a likely place to discourage any foe’s assault, but the Bruce and his men, I knew, had conquered higher walls and crossed wider ditches than these. Thomas Randolph, the Earl of Moray, had taken Edinburgh by scrambling up the craggy, forbidding face of the mountain-high rock on which it sat. Sir James Douglas had scaled Berwick’s walls with his crude rope ladders, even as archers let loose their arrows into the darkness around him. In comparison to those fortresses, Tynemouth was an anthill. A siege would have been a mere formality: a grace before the slaughter. I thanked Our Lord for having given me the sense to leave my children behind: Young Edward at Windsor and the others – John, Eleanor and Joanna – at Langley.
    I had to leave Tynemouth. I had to return to them. I could not leave them with only Edward as a parent. They would fare better as orphans.
    Three days more it rained. On the fourth day after receiving the letter from Edward, there was only a thin, dreary mist coming down. The clouds broke, gathered, and broke again, all before midmorning.
    I leaned upon the parapet of the seaward wall of Tynemouth, my fur-lined mantle bunched tightly to my chest against a breath-stealing wind that muffled even the incessant cries of the kittiwakes. Occasionally, the gulls took flight from the cliffs – rippling clouds of gray-white against a shining dark sea. They beat their wings to go higher, only to retreat in exhaustion and huddle once more upon the broken cliffs. I thought I saw a pair of gannets dive from the clouds and slice into the water, but they were far away and the whitecaps were everywhere. Even further out, a thick bank of slow-moving clouds muted the union of sky and sea, but whether it was a new storm building or the last of an old one was impossible to tell. Westward, the land swelled up in a blend of moss-color and straw beneath a sky of slate. Somewhere there, the Tyne cleaved the undulating hills and a road traversed its length.
    The sea wind nipped at the back of my neck as I looked once more in that direction. A shaft of sunlight gilded the waves and I smiled to see a broad break in the clouds. If we were going to leave Tynemouth, it would have to be soon or else the next riders to come sweeping along the western road could very well be Scottish hobelars. Trusting in the sentries, I gave up my vigil on the wall and went inside.
    I was in the gatehouse, meeting with the garrison’s captain, when Lady Eleanor de Clare found me. My lady-in-waiting swooped at the waist and, before receiving acknowledgment, burst out, “My lady, the Scots have turned eastward from Haltwhistle and are following the Tyne.”
    Perturbed, I paused in my instructions to the captain and gazed at Eleanor. She was Edward’s niece and the wife of Hugh Despenser – that alone made her less than loved in my heart. Even more, Eleanor had been placed in my household without my consent. I would just as soon not have Despenser’s bedfellow, however occasional she might have been in that manner to him, hovering about. I might as well have had my mouth pressed to Despenser’s own ear.
    “When?”
    Eleanor shrugged. “The scout said they may be as far as Hexham by now.”
    Hexham was roughly a day’s ride. Outwardly, I did not waver at the news, but within I felt the rain’s dampness on my skin, felt it seeping through my flesh and into my bones.
    “My lady ...” Eleanor began, her voice thinning to a mewl, “if we do not do something, they will – ”
    “As I was telling the captain: The ship has already been loaded with provisions. But for my personal guard, the garrison will stay and defend