The Hammer of the Scots by Jean Plaidy

brother that was indeed a tragedy. She recalled that time when her brother Henry and her nephew Edward had been brought to Kenilworth as her husband’s prisoners and put in her care. She had treated them with respect; she had wanted to shake her brother and say: ‘Why cannot you see what you are doing? Simon is right.’ Simon would have ruled wisely. It was Simon who had inaugurated the first parliament. Simon wanted a peaceful prosperous country. Henry might say he wanted this too and so he did, but Henry also wanted money … money and lands so that he could satisfy the demands of his rapacious wife. Yet she had loved them both – Henry, her brother, Eleanor of Provence, her sister-in-law. They had ruled badly; they had been her husband’s deadly enemies; yet she had loved them all.
    What a difficult problem life set, with war in the country and war in the family! Violence had bred violence. What they did to her husband and her son Henry at Evesham would haunt her for as long as she lived. She had nightmares about Evesham. That beloved body to be so treated! It was no wonder that her sons Guy and Simon had done what they did. They had revered their father. They had wanted revenge.
    And it had ended thus with the proud de Montforts in exile. Guy, a fugitive wanted for the murder of Henry of Cornwall which he with his brother Simon had committed in a church at Viterbo. It was a murder which had shocked the world because Henry of Cornwall had been killed while in prayer before an altar, and after he had been stabbed to death his body had been obscenely treated as Simon de Montfort’s had after Evesham. It was meant to be a grand revenge for what had happened to their father. Poor Guy! Poor Simon! They had chosen the wrong victim in one noted for his bravery and goodness; they should never have mutilated his dead body, and now young Simon was dead but none would ever forget the murder at Viterbo and she often wondered about what would happen to Guy in the end.
    So many promising children and they had come to this! She called to her daughter and took pleasure in looking at her. She was tall, graceful, a Plantagenet. Llewellyn would surely be pleased with his bride.
    ‘My child,’ she said, ‘it will not be long now.’
    The Demoiselle bent over her mother and asked if she would take a cooling beverage.
    ‘I am sinking fast, daughter,’ she said. ‘Nay, do not grieve. This is the end of my life – and it has been a rich one – but it is the beginning of yours. You will go happily to Llewellyn.’
    ‘Yes, Mother, I shall go happily to him.’
    ‘It was long ago when you saw him.’
    ‘Yes, but we both knew then … I am sure he has not changed and I know that I have not.’
    ‘Be happy, my child. When I was very young and scarcely out of the nursery they married me to an old man. When he died I thought I should never marry again. There was talk of going into a convent. Then your father came. To marry in love is the best thing that can happen to a woman.’
    ‘You and my father faced terrible odds.’
    The dying woman smiled. ‘A mésalliance . A king’s daughter and an adventurer, they said. Perhaps they are the best sort of marriages because the people who make them must want desperately to do so to defy everyone about them.’
    ‘You and my father wanted to marry very much, I know.’
    ‘Ah yes. What days they were! The excitement … the intrigue! I suppose I was one to flourish on intrigue. Now I look for peace. That is something we all come to. I want only to know that you are settled and on your way to Wales. Then I could die happy.’
    ‘I should never leave you, dear Mother.’
    ‘Bless you, but I shall not detain you long. When the ship comes for you you must go. Almeric shall take you. I have much to say to Almeric.’
    ‘Shall I send him to you, Mother?’
    ‘Yes, my child. Tell him to come.’
    Almeric de Montfort sat by his mother’s bedside and asked himself how long she could live, and