The abbey gates opened after sunrise and in minutes the street was full of people not only coming out but going in as if they’d sprouted from thin air. Even insurrection couldn’t come between merchants, beggars, prostitutes and their trade.
There were enough camp women around and more arriving every minute for Epona to move among them unchallenged. Matilda caught a glimpse of her going in through the gates followed by the Magdalene in her tall hat.
Soon the sun was heating the room. Matilda drank a few mouthfuls of ale and poured some of it on the marigolds.
After a while Epona came out again and lazily put up her hand to shade her eyes while she looked westwards down the street. Eustace was not in the abbey but was expected any moment.
Matilda took her time choosing a quarrel and fitting it into the stock groove. Remembering her training, she didn’t put it on the floor but rested it on the window-sill.
John of Topsham stopped chewing his breakfast and went to find his captain.
From the west end of the street came hounds, the blowing of horns, several dead boar tied by their trotters to poles and carried by soldiers, then mounted horsemen. They were out of Matilda’s sight until they got opposite the tower.
Men and animals formed a mêlée in front of the abbey; so many of the horses were decorated with gold that she couldn’t identify Eustace. She began to panic. One of the young men was vomiting – presumably drunk – and getting a lot of attention, but she couldn’t decide whether that was because he was the prince or because he was sick.
“Which one is it? Which one do I kill? Mother, tell me.”
If there was an answer she couldn’t hear it for the hubbub in the street. “You’re here.” Matilda was crying. “I know you’re here. Tell me, for Christ’s sake. Which one do I shoot?”
Sobbing, she turned to look around the room but it was empty except for two soldiers advancing on her.
* * *
They took her to the St. James’s guard-room and questioned her, hitting her across the face when she didn’t answer, but not as if they expected answers, not even viciously, merely as if it were procedure they’d gone through many times before.
Matilda hardly felt or heard them. They advanced and retreated like fish, soundless and ineffective in a void from which Christ and His Mother had withdrawn, taking with them motivation and purpose and leaving creatures which ate each other in a meaningless food chain. They were all partners in a free dance without order and without end. She was crushed by weightlessness; the point to life was that there was no point.
Dimensions no longer existed to give her balance and she was giddy when they stood her up. John of Topsham’s captain got fed up with her. “She’s as mad as the rest. Put her with the other assassins. We’ll wait and see if we get any more today and hang the lot of them together. More effective that way and Eustace needs cheering up.”
She was marched out of St. James’s Tower and up the path towards the great abbey church, left behind St. James’s little church, through the Great Hall and into the cloisters where Eustace’s prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs, were looped together by a long rope that encircled their necks and the garth pillars.
Some were failed Eustace-assassins, but not all. There was an innkeeper from Newmarket who had refused accommodation to some of Eustace’s knights, a hedgerow priest who had preached against him at Sawston, two small boys who were hostages for their father who had gone over to Fitzempress, a herald from Henry of Blois – still attempting reconciliation – a wagoner who’d obstructed Eustace’s progress, a woman from Thetford who’d shouted out an anti-Eustace vision she had been vouchsafed as he passed, and a Jew who had been picked up on Peddar’s Way simply because he was a Jew.
They took Matilda to the end of the line, lashed her hands and put her against the pillar beyond the Jew, untying the long end of rope dangling from his neck and looping it around hers to secure it to her pillar.
They walked away up the line, promising the human washing that it would be hung up higher after Lord Eustace had eaten.
A voice with a Flemish accent spoke from out of sight on the other side of the Jew. “What I like about imprisonment,” it said, “is the class of company you keep.”
Earth and grass rushed up to push against Matilda’s feet, God’s air was expelled towards her with a whoosh of harp strings. She felt the sun on her face and leaned back against the stone behind her with the comfort of a feather pillow. “What have you done this time?”
“Nothing have I done,” said the Jew earnestly, “I swear. I was just walking this track…”
“I took a shot at Eustace,” said Willem of Ghent. “I missed.”
“Why did you miss?” moaned the Jew, “why did you miss?
“A woman on your mind?” asked Matilda.
“Another gaolbird. And you?”
“Same thing.”
The white stone pillars that ran along the low garth wall of the cloister walk opposite her were in perfect symmetry, swelling out like a bulb from their base and narrowing into carved capitals at the roof. The garth itself was patterned with herb-beds where bees crawled in and out of rosemary and lavender flowers and butterflies landed on marigolds.
They couldn’t see each other because any strain on the neck loop tightened it. Matilda managed to turn her head and smile down at the Jew so beautifully that he almost smiled back. “Lovely day.”
The Jew humoured her. “Later on it may rain a little,” he said, “but now it’s lovely.”
Farther along the hedgerow priest recommenced the sermon which had annoyed Eustace and past him one of the little hostages began to cry. From the abbey church the bell rang for Nones – not all the monks had been expelled, a few had been allowed to remain to try and control St. Edmund, who had been heard spinning in his tomb.
Opposite Matilda a door stood open into the refectory and she could see some of the activity going on inside where an enormous table was being got ready for a feast. Camp women moved around it laying out huge rounds of bread as platters in each guest’s place. Epona caught the light as always, but the woman in the prostitute’s hat was not the Magdalene. “Put the stuff in his food,” willed Matilda. “Put it in and get away from here.”
Eustace’s chamberlain, a tall man, strode along the cloister walk leading a file of soldiers carrying casks. The abbey’s cellarer ran distractedly alongside him: “Not the best wine, I beg. The abbot…” He caught sight of the women in the refectory and shuddered: “Not females, my lord, St. Edmund…” Pelion piled on Ossa as he glimpsed the prisoners. His mouth fell open and he grabbed the chamberlain’s arm. “What are they doing there?”
The chamberlain glanced round and shook off the restraining hand: “They’re going to hang, I believe.” The cellarer screamed. “Not there, my lord. It’s holy ground, can’t they hang somewhere else?”
Of course, he was distracted with his troubles and a little later recovered himself and took some water to the woman prisoner who’d had the vision and who was complaining of thirst. The sun was directly overhead now and blazing down straight on to the prisoners’ heads. As he held the cup to her mouth, the cellarer said plaintively: “Heaven protect you, my daughter. But you shouldn’t be here, you know.”
The woman stared him in the eye: “I want to pee and all,” she said.
“Almighty God.” The cellarer ran to the chamberlain.
It was perhaps due to his urging that an hour or so into the afternoon the prisoners were unbound to allow them to go to the reredorter and relieve themselves and, perhaps thanks again to the cellarer, the women and two children were taken separately from the men, although two soldiers stood at the north and south walls to watch that they didn’t escape.
The lavatory was long and narrow, as wonderful in its way as the rest of the abbey. It was in stone and cool; light from the lancet windows fell on a board of polished oak which ran two feet above the ground on one side in which were a dozen round holes. Below them, i
n a deep runnel and adding to the cool freshness of the place, was a stream; the Lark, having fed the abbey’s stew pond, provided its water, turned its grinding and fulling mills, now took away its sewage. The opposite wall held a long stone trough into which a pipe fed more water.
The visionary was a woman of spirit. As Matilda and the others stood around helplessly she bellowed at the soldiers: “Turn your backs, you bastards,” and was obeyed. She seated herself in comfort over a hole and admired the plumbing: “Do themselves well, these monks.”
Matilda comforted the two little boys. “Don’t cry. We’re in the hands of God and His Mother and I promise you, I promise you, everything will be well.” She meant it. Her only sadness was for them and her only worry was that Epona would be caught.
They were allowed to drink from the trough and lave their heads before being taken back. This time they were strung along the refectory side of the cloister opposite the men, so that Matilda and the mercenary could see each other.
“He’s thinner,” she thought, “and older.” Then she thought: “I must look a sight,” and then she didn’t care. “What is it about him? What is it in that thin, low-bred man with a rope around his neck from which he will soon be swinging, that I, with a rope around mine from which I too will be swinging, thank God?”
The Plato person had been right. God had made an unfortunate social error and put the other half of herself in the body of a mercenary crossbowman. “And me with queens in my ancestry.” It didn’t matter. There was surprisingly little that did.
By the side of the mercenary the Jew was seeking distraction from his anxiety and discussing St. Edmund. “If you ask me he’s taking this matter too lightly. Jehovah would have struck down the prince by now. How did he die?”
“What?” Willem was looking at Matilda.
“Your St. Edmund. Did they burn him? Perhaps there’s not so much left of him to be angry.”
“Shot him with arrows, I think.”
“Like your St. Sebastian?”
“St. Sebastian didn’t die from arrows. A woman healed his arrow wounds so they battered him to death instead.”
The Jew could see he wasn’t commanding attention and he was a romantic. “Dijn vrouw?” He had languages. “Your woman?”
“Yes.” He still didn’t know if she was beautiful and it still wasn’t important.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.” If they ever got out of this he wouldn’t let her out of his sight again.
By late afternoon the feasting began; the prisoners could hear uproarious noises coming through the refectory door. Every so often groups of soldiers and knights with their arms around girls would lurch out into the cloisters to be amusing at the prisoners’ expense. Over a soldier’s shoulder Epona nodded at Matilda. The poison had been delivered. “Now go,” said Matilda clearly to nobody in particular. Epona and her soldier wandered back inside.
Now that she was on this side of the cloister she could see through the opposite walk and through the open door which led into the abbey church. Deep inside something glimmered and hovered. The dying sun from the choir windows caught the silver of St. Edmund’s tomb but left its black marble plinth in darkness so that the thing seemed to levitate. She was right in its path, she a poisoner. She began to be afraid. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to kill anybody but it had to be stopped.” She glanced to the hall end of the cloister where the boy hostages were looped together. She had been forced to make a choice between slaughter. It had been Eustace or them and hundreds like them. St. Edmund, the protector of his own, glimmered back at her. “You should have left it to me and God.”
The feast was ending; the cloisters became full of men, some of them urinating. She could tell now which one was Eustace from the gold band round his head and the way his entourage attended to him. He was the one who had been vomiting that morning and if he hadn’t been drunk then he was now. He began a staggering progress round the three sides of the cloister which held his prisoners, leaning heavily on the shoulder of his chamberlain with one hand and flapping the other vaguely at the bound figures. As he passed Matilda she saw that his eyes were not viewing people but obstructions. “Shouldn’t have done it,” he told them reproachfully, “shouldn’t have done it.”
His face was flushed and twisted as if in pain, but it wasn’t a bad face, just young; were it sober it would be stronger than his father’s.
He went back to the empty end of the cloister and was helped over the wall so that he stood framed between two pillars with his hands on the coping. His mouth opened and closed as if he wanted to make a speech, but he gave up. “String ’em up,” he said.
Soldiers began cutting the rope between the prisoners, knotting each section into a noose and flinging the other end up over the corbels on the roof. Candles had been lit in the darkening church and flickered on St. Edmund’s tomb. Some monks began a chant which was less of a psalm than an incantation.
At the other end one of the little hostages had wriggled away and was being chased along the cloister walk. He was caught and brought back.
They were going to begin at Matilda’s end and the Jew’s, and work their way up the sides to the hall end. She had made a choice of slaughter and even if she had chosen right, even if she should have made a choice at all, it had been for nothing; it was going to go on and on without end. Two soldiers advanced on her, she could smell the boiled leather of their coats. She felt the harshness of the rope on her neck as they slipped the knot down. But this was ridiculous. This wasn’t her death at all. Matilda de Risle should die honoured and graceful among her grandchildren. She couldn’t be expected to die this vulgar, somebody-else’s way.
The mercenary was fighting the soldiers despite his tied hands, flinging his body in an effort to get to her.
“It hurts,” said a voice and the soldiers who were beginning to pull on Matilda’s rope let it go. “Where does it hurt, my lord?”
Eustace was swaying between the pillars with one hand clutching his stomach and the other gripping the wall coping “It hurts.”
In the church the chanting rose higher and so did the tomb. One of Matilda’s soldiers saw it and screamed. “St. Edmund.”
Eustace was on his knees now and as all his men turned towards him he slipped out of sight altogether behind the wall, but his hand still clawed the coping. It was beringed but it had the short, grubby nails of a boy, of her son.
“He’s been poisoned,” she said to the soldier who had been going to hang her. “Give him salt and mustard-water.” The soldier paid the madwoman no attention but over the other side the Jew said: “He’s been poisoned? And she’d give him an emetic?”
They could hear the chanting and the irregular breathing from behind the wall. “It hurts.” The hand scraped its nails on the stone as it slid out of sight. Knights leaped over the wall to get to their prince. She heard scuffling and groaning as they lifted him, then heavy running feet.
She caught a glimpse of his face. The boy was dying. She had seen too much death not to know it.
The tomb of St. Edmund levitated itself higher as they carried Prince Eustace to it to beg its mercy. The last Matilda saw of him was a boy’s hand trailing out of a press of bodies.
She looked across at Willem: “I poisoned him.” The mercenary struggled to get to her but the rope had been tied to the corbel above him and he was strangling himself. “Vengeance is mine,” called out the prisoner priest. One of the soldiers crossed himself. The rest stood around helplessly.
The cellarer came out of the church and Eustace’s chamberlain ran beside him, pleading. “Well,” the cellarer was saying, “you can release these people for a start and recall my lord abbot and restore what you have stolen, but I can’t promise anything. He looks exceedingly ill to me and as I’ve said, St. Edmund is a terrible protector of his own…” His voice trailed away as he disappeared into the Great Hall and the chamberlain, following him, glanced over his shoulder. “Let them go.”
&nb
sp; The ropes were ripped down and the prisoners, some with nooses still round their necks, were shoved and jostled out into the empty street. A captain came behind with an armful of cloaks and baggage and threw it after them for its owners to sort out. “Sorry,” he said, and ran in.
The Jew stared after him, sighed and spat. “Don’t mention it,” he said, and went off west towards the sunset.
Willem picked Matilda up and rocked her. “Shsh. It’s over.” She buried her face against his neck. “I poisoned him, oh, I poisoned him.” He could feel her shaking. He carried her over to the abbey wall and sat her down so that she was propped against it. “It’s over.”
Gradually the shaking stopped but she stared ahead of her into a future that she had poisoned as surely as she had poisoned Eustace. All her life a boy’s grubby hand would claw at her. And in any case she could not live Matilda de Risle’s life any more. It had been taken away from her years ago and the somebody else that she had become had lost touch with it for ever.
What did she have in common with the well-bred ladies of Fitzempress’ court, now that she had won it for them? What could she talk to them about? Drainage? Disparagement? Assassination? “I’m afraid my hands are too crippled for embroidery nowadays, but you should see my poisoning.” All her contemporaries were dead or lived on an island in a marsh. She had lost.
A bell began tolling for the death of a prince.
The street was getting dark and bats were flicking across the sky. Epona came towards them and Willem handed Matilda over. “Look after her a minute. I’ll find her a cloak, and I’ve got to get my crossbow before we go home.”
Matilda looked up at him. “We didn’t win, did we?”
He saw how old and ill she was. “No.” Desperately he tried to think of something that would comfort her, and caught sight of the two small hostages waiting, bewildered, for someone to tell them what to do. “I think they did.”
The Morning Gift Page 29