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

the darkness, some landing astray, some piercing flesh. I pressed my fingers over my ears to deaden the screams of a dying man and spoke at the ground. “We must keep going north, then.”
    “Humph. Lancaster’s not so stupid as to rush his own death.”
    I raised my eyes. “Joan is pregnant again. She may have had the child by now, for all I know.”
    “An even dozen, will it be?” He gave me his hand to pull me up. “How many years is your Edmund now? Nineteen?”
    I nodded dully, feeling the faint buzz of ale, and stood. Together we began the walk back to camp. Ice crackled beneath our boots. “We quarreled the last time I saw her – bitterly.”
    “Over what?”
    “Everything. She complains incessantly – whether I come or go, whose side I take, what I have done or not done. Nothing I do pleases her.”
    “It is you who complains. You’re ungrateful if you don’t realize what she’s given you and I’m not talking of inheritances. Your daughters will build you more alliances by whom they wed than any other bargains you might strike. And your sons will sire Mortimers by the score to carry on your name.”
    I almost told him after what happened to the young Elizabeth Badlesmere, no man would marry his daughter to a Mortimer traitor. Instead, I held my tongue and told a passing squire to spread the order to break camp. We would leave enough men to hold the bridge and march again, through the night. Our numbers were compromised, but it gained nothing to stay and we could not leave our backs unprotected.
    “To Shrewsbury?” my uncle asked.
    “Yes.” Beyond Shrewsbury, the Severn snaked back westward and if we did not cross the river and race north to find Lancaster, then we would be trapped interminably between the Welsh and the royal army.
    “What there?”
    “Either we are met with a miracle when Lancaster arrives as our savior  ... or we throw ourselves at Edward’s fickle mercy.”
     In horror of the thought, he sucked his chin to his neck. “No. How can we?”
    “What else can we do? Fight? It would be suicide. I want to see my children again, Uncle. I want to go home someday. It is the only way. The only way.”
    “And what of Lancaster? Why should we grovel at Edward’s feet while he roams free? The king will take our lands. Put us in chains.”
    “Better that, Uncle, than hang with him.”
    The corners of his mouth plunged and he rattled his hoary head at me. “This year I turned sixty, Roger. And this is what is to become of me? I am too old to be shut up. Too damn old.” He turned his face from me and walked away.
    In the darkness, I heard the short, indrawn breaths of a man weeping to himself, hopeless and exhausted. A man who had no more years of his life to waste on pursuits as futile as trying to correct a lawless king.

 
    5
     
    Roger Mortimer:
    Shrewsbury – January, 1322

    TRODDEN IN SPIRIT AND road-weary, we did not make it to Shrewsbury ahead of the king. Like fish in a net being hauled into the boat, we were trapped, bounded on three sides by the River Severn. It was only a brief matter of time before a royal detachment would cross the river somewhere behind us or a band of screaming Welshmen would fly down at us from the mountains.
    Across the river, the king’s army, insouciant, warm and well fed, sprawled around Shrewsbury. The smoke from their fires, infused with the aroma of cooked meat, drifted to us on an icy January wind, reminding us constantly that starvation was only ever a few days away. Provisions were running short. Already rations had been halved. We had ceased to forage. The local farms had been wrung stone-dry. We had butchered every cow, pig and chicken within two days’ ride. The abbeys had bolted their doors against us, shouting the message that if we wanted any more from them we would have to burn them out. I considered it, but my uncle was a more reverent man than I. Each day I cinched my belt a little tighter, as I succumbed to the same, irritable