Chapter Nineteen #3
The mood of the room suddenly turned dark and brittle; all eyes turned to Isabella, whose cheeks were turning a dull shade of pink.
She gazed back at Toby with the stark jealousy that all women have when facing a younger, more beautiful rival.
But instead of focusing her venom on Toby, she looked at Roger.
“Did you ask this of this woman?” she demanded, her voice low and shaky.
Roger shook his head. “Of course I did not.”
Isabella sighed sharply, her jaw ticking and her dark eyes burning. Toby, watching the interaction, knew it was time to act. If she was going to succeed as planned, then she needed to be strong and dramatic. Bursting into loud sobs, she suddenly buried her face in her hands.
“It is true,” she wept loudly. “He tried to force himself on me again and again. He told me that he would kill St. Héver if I did not spend a night of passion with him. He was most descriptive in his desires, how he wished to taste my flesh and gorge himself on my delicacies. I… I did not know what to do. Now that he has my husband, I felt that I had to offer myself in order to gain his freedom. I had to come back!”
It was an overwrought performance at best. Tate stared at her, torn between the urge to tear Mortimer apart with his bare hands and his curiosity on how Isabella was going to react.
He could see what Toby was doing; God bless her, he knew exactly what she was doing and had to admit that it was brilliant.
He had tried to do the same thing but Toby was playing upon the queen’s jealousies far better than he ever could.
So he held his tongue, and his fists, to wait for the queen’s reaction.
It wasn’t long in coming. Isabella’s face darkened with fury and she clenched her little fists, pushing her way past Stephen and standing next to Toby. She stood for a moment, watching the woman’s lowered head as she sobbed. Her lips pressed into an angry, flat line.
“Did he touch you while you were his guest at Wigmore?” she demanded.
Toby bawled. “He touched my… my….”
She appeared too distraught to continue. Even Tate was on edge. Isabella reached out and shook her.
“Where did he touch you?”
Toby took one hand away from her face and put it on her inner right thigh, very close to the junction where her legs joined. “Here!”
The location could have been interpreted many ways. Isabella’s nostrils flared and the grip on Toby’s arms turned gentler. It was evident that the queen was struggling.
“Did he do anything else?” she asked, quieter.
Toby shook her head, still weeping. “He did not,” she sobbed. “But the fact that he would want to… after all, I am pregnant with my husband’s child but it made no difference to him. He wanted to bed me regardless. It is a disgusting and unholy desire.”
Tate went from coolly observant to wildly shocked all in a split second.
He leaned in Mortimer’s direction, or perhaps he swayed; in either case, Stephen was there to grab him.
Or steady him. Together the two of them stared at Toby, stunned, as Isabella seemed to morph into something rarely seen.
She became enraged, like an avenging angel, and swung on Mortimer viciously.
Roger barely had time to draw a breath before she was plowing into him with the fury of a woman betrayed.
“Is this true?” she roared.
Roger was taken aback; he had never heard that tone from her. But the man stood his ground. “It is not true!”
Isabella’s jaw flexed dangerously. “You… you foul beast,” she hissed. “I have known of your desires for other women all of these years but I have ignored your tastes because… because….”
She growled, sweeping her arm across the table directly to her right and scattering the cups and utensils to the floor.
Everything crashed with a clamoring noise but she wasn’t done yet; she clenched her fists and howled angrily.
As the room stood in stunned silence, including Roger, Isabella turned to Tate.
“Take your wife and go,” she commanded, whirling to Roger with an extended arm. “If you refute my order, I will take all you hold dear and destroy it. Do you understand? I will destroy you.”
Tate didn’t wait to be told twice. He grabbed Toby, nodding quickly to Stephen and Wallace.
The two knights fell in behind him, Stephen facing the crowd to challenge anyone who might try to stop them.
Wallace leveled his broadsword against the room as they made their way to the exit.
Suddenly, they had the upper hand. Trapped inside the Mortimer stronghold, they were now stronger than those who held them.
Roger watched the group head towards the cavernous threshold, his attention split between furious Isabella and his captives. Isabella’s anger finally won out and he focused on her completely.
“You are making a mistake,” he told her softly. “I did none of those things. I am ever faithful to you, my love. You know this.”
Isabella raised a dark eyebrow. “You are faithful so long as my power holds true,” she said. “You are faithful so long as it means that England is under your control.”
Roger stood before her but refrained from touching her; now was not the time. He had to wait until she cooled.
“If you let de Lara go, you are continuing to fuel the rebellion,” he said gently. “It is not wise to let him leave.”
Isabella’s jaw flexed. “You will not stop them,” her anger was rising again. “You have more important issues to deal with at the moment. For as I gave you power, Roger, I can easily take away. And you are very close to losing everything.”
Roger did the only thing he could do; he smiled at her. “You would not do that,” he purred. “Not to the man who saved you from your husband. You would not destroy me.”
Neither one of them noticed the lone queen’s guard that was suddenly standing very close to them.
It was a solitary figure, covered with mail and draped in the queen’s colors.
As Tate and Toby reached the giant doorway of Wigmore’s great hall, the tall, slender figure standing next to Mortimer leaned close to the earl and removed his soldier’s helm.
“Perhaps she would not destroy you. But I will.”
Startled, Mortimer turned to gaze into the eyes of young Edward.
The lad was taller and stronger than he had remembered, a young man of considerable presence in just those few words.
In fact, he looked very much like his grandsire, Longshanks.
Roger’s eyes widened when he realized that Edward had been in the hall since the queen’s arrival; he had been there all along and no one had been the wiser.
But there was nothing that Mortimer, or anyone, could do about it at the moment.
He had no choice but to let the lad slip from his grasp, one more time in a world that had been full of a thousand such times.
And Edward was well aware of it. His presence was a statement, a promise of things to come.
With a lingering glare at the man who had usurped his power for the moment, Edward strolled away, snapping his fingers at the rest of the queen’s escort who immediately unsheathed their weapons to the room full of Mortimer supporters.
As Roger watched with shock and Isabella with pride, Edward joined Tate, Toby, Stephen and Wallace at the door.
There was no mistaking the triumphant grin on Tate’s face.
With the queen’s escort as protection, the five of them made their way from Wigmore’s enormous keep and out into the snowy bailey.
When they rode away, it was on Mortimer’s fine horses, disappearing into the wintery afternoon.
As quickly as the king had appeared, he had vanished just as he always had for the past two years; without a trace and escaping Mortimer once again.
On the wings, as they would say in later years, of the dragon.