by Paul Doherty
‘My lord Gaveston,’ Isabella whispered through clenched teeth as she sat on the edge of the great bed one evening, ‘should go once more on his travels and stay there. Now listen, Mathilde.’ She plucked at the gold-fringed tassels of the counterpane. ‘The earls will try to trap us. We must, at all times, be ready to flee.’
‘Your meetings with the king?’ I asked.
‘A dialogue with fools,’ Isabella retorted. ‘Schemes to bring the great earls to battle, to ally with the Scottish rebels, even . . .’ She paused. ‘Yes, Edward has even asked my beloved father for troops from France. Nonsense!’ She waved a hand. ‘Mathilde, I am enceinte. I should be relaxing in flowery bowers at Sheen, Windsor or Westminster, not scuttling across the heathland like some rabbit darting from hole to hole.’ She glanced directly at me. ‘The glass is darkening; we must bring an end to this foolery.’
So she said it, that brief remark. The dice, cogged or not, had rolled and Isabella was committed. Little did I realise then how the game might end. Now my duties at the court were to advise and protect my mistress. Sometimes this involved sinister secrets and murderous shadows, but these swirled through a tangle of other ordinary matters that filled my days, for my mistress now ruled a great household. She was domina of extensive estates, be it the manors of Torpel and Upton in England or the county of Ponthieu in France. She presided over an exchequer, a chancery and accounts chambers. The great departments of her household were headed by royal clerks such as William Boudon, John de Fleet and Ebulo de Montibus. She employed three cooks, two apothecaries, a number of butlers, pantlers, spicerers and marshals of the hall, grooms for the stables, laundresses and washerwomen. The large coffers, chests and caskets of her household were crammed with precious items, be it the ring of St Dunstan or exquisite embroidered cloths from Flemish looms. Isabella owned falcons, lanniers, hawks, greyhounds and a string of horses: sumpter, palfreys and destriers. My task was not to get involved in petty details but to survey and assist as my mistress directed. I ensured that after Easter Sunday no fires were lit, that the hearths be cleared and decorated with garlands, whilst linen curtains were to be hung over windows to keep out the spring draughts. I kept a particularly sharp eye on the kitchen, buttery and spicery. The most serious threat to Isabella’s health was tainted food or practices. I insisted that all who served the queen above the Nef, that gorgeous gold salt-cellar carved in the shape of a ship, regularly clean and scrub both their hands and all vessels and cutlery intended for her table.
Other tasks outside the household also concerned me. The arrival of the court at the priory attracted a legion of beggars, some genuine, others counterfeit. They would cluster at the gates pleading for alms. I was responsible for disbursements of ‘queen’s bread’ and ‘queen’s pence’. I would often supervise such charity after the Angelus bell; other times I would delegate it to others. One beggar, however, caught my attention. He called himself ‘the Pilgrim from the Wastelands’, a grim, dark-featured, slender individual, easily noticeable because of his wild staring eyes and the birthmark on the right of his face, a large mulberry-coloured stain. He’d definitely been in Outremer under the scorching sun of Palestine, deep-voiced with a commanding presence. I glimpsed him on a number of occasions, especially as the queen’s almoner reported how the Pilgrim had the audacity to petition ‘to see the queen or one of her ilk’. Of course, he was refused. Other urgent business dominated our days, nevertheless I could not forget his pleading eyes and strident voice. However, at the time, I did not know what part he had to play in the murderous mystery play unfolding around us, whilst the busy routine of each day left little time for such petitions even to be considered.
Such ordinary tasks kept me busy for the first few days after my return from the moors, but that day had not been forgotten. A harvest of evil had been sown, and sin is a fertile shoot. My mistress and I were attending the Jesus mass in the friary church. We knelt on prie-dieus just within the rood screen. Brother Stephen Dunheved, resplendent in the robes of the Easter liturgy, was bringing the mass to an end. The tower bells were tolling; Dunheved was raising his hand in benediction. I was lost in my own thoughts, staring at the carved wooden statue of Judas used to hold twelve candles that were extinguished during Tenebrae on Maundy Thursday, a symbol of the Apostles’ desertion of Christ, when piercing screams from the cobbled yard outside carried through the church. Dunheved quickly finished his blessing. I glanced at the queen; she nodded and I joined the others who hurried through the corpse door out into the great courtyard that stretched alongside the church. Lanercost lay there in a tangle of cloak, boots sticking out, head eerily turned, skull shattered so that the blood seeped out in rivulets. A serjeant-at-arms came hurrying over. I ordered him to keep back the crowds while I approached the grisly scene. Of course Lanercost was dead, his neck broken, his skull smashed.
‘What happened?’ I stood up and walked away as Dunheved, who’d been informed about the incident, came hurrying out of the church still in his vestments, a phial of holy oils in his hands.
‘What happened?’ I repeated.
Dunheved was kneeling by the corpse, swiftly anointing the stricken man. I murmured a requiem and glanced around. A crowd was now gathering to gape at the corpse. Some were pointing to the top of the steepled bell tower built on the south side of the church. According to the serjeant, Lanercost had fallen from there. I glanced up. The tower rose sheer above me. Small arrow-slit windows on its sides, and in the bell chamber itself, two great oblong windows on each of the four walls. The bells had ceased tolling but the birds nesting in the tower still fluttered noisily. I glanced down at Lanercost. He was dressed in a brown cloak over shirt and hose; his boots were unspurred and he wore no war-belt. The serjeant-at-arms pushed back the crowds. I glanced over my shoulder, to where Isabella and two of her ladies-in-waiting clustered at the church door. The queen stared bleakly across. I quietly gestured with my hand that she should not approach. She nodded, turned and went back into the church. I abruptly realised then how my mistress’ mood had recently changed, to become more withdrawn and reflective. A trumpet sounded, a sharp, braying blast that brought everyone to their knees, myself included, as Edward and Gaveston came striding across, Father Prior hurrying behind them.
Dunheved finished his ministrations. He murmured about changing his vestments and hastily left. Both king and favourite had apparently dressed hurriedly in long purple velvet sleeveless robes over shirt and hose, their feet pushed into soft buskins. They slipped and slithered on the muck-strewn yard. Both men were unshaven, hair bedraggled, their eyes bleary as if they’d spent the previous evening deep in their cups. Gaveston crouched beside the corpse. He moved Lanercost’s head and fingered the ghastly bruises on the face, neck, chest and legs. I had already concluded that Lanercost must have fallen sheer from the tower and hit the sloping roof of the church before tumbling over for the second long fall to the ground. Gaveston stretched across and tipped me under the chin; tears brimmed his eyes.
‘A fall?’ he asked.
‘Presumably, my lord.’
‘Presumably!’ Gaveston sneered. ‘Or murder, or suicide? I suppose I will have to accept whatever that coxcomb of a coroner Ingelram Berenger decides.’
I stared back. I shared the same low opinion of Berenger as he did but I had the sense to keep a still tongue in my head. The king’s coroner was the king’s coroner; he would do what he had to and so would I.
‘My lord,’ I whispered, ‘can you tell me why Lanercost should be in the bell tower?’
Gaveston glanced up. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t talked to him for the last two days.’
Gaveston could be a liar, but I sensed he was telling the truth. Yet there was something else, a look of guilt mingled with his compassion. As if to avoid my scrutiny, he returned to the corpse. I got to my feet. Two knight bannerets from the king’s chamber arrived, fully harnessed and armoured, as if the Scots had attacked, to disperse the crowd. The morning was chi
lly after a long night’s rain. Lay brothers had wheeled fiery braziers into the great yard. The charcoal crackled noisily, the sparks flying up. A bell tolled deep in the friary. Oveners from a nearby bakery drifted across whilst I studied the mangled corpse of that young man who’d fallen, been pushed or jumped. Gaveston rose to his feet. I caught a look of profound sadness in those beautiful eyes, lips twisted as he fought back his grief. I sensed the Gascon’s deep desolation. Here he was, ‘the king’s own brother’, Earl of Cornwall, royal favourite, yet he was hiding deep in a Franciscan friary in York. Nevertheless, even here he wasn’t safe. I had no proof, just a suspicion that murder had followed Lanercost into that tower and sent him whirling to his death. Gaveston sensed the same. Three years ago he had been cock of the walk, Lord of Westminster, a man who could bring anyone down, but now even his own squires were not safe. Isabella was correct: the glass was darkening. God knows what the future held!
A scurrier came hurrying across. He knelt on the rain-soaked cobbles before the king and whispered his message.
‘My lord.’ Edward stepped closer, one ringed hand extended to grasp his favourite. ‘Peter, my brother.’ His voice carried an urgency. ‘Other matters await; we have news from the south. Mathilde, ma coeur.’ Edward’s face grew soft, smiling, full of that lazy charm that could so easily disarm you. ‘For me, Mathilde,’ he whispered. He fumbled in the wallet beneath his coat, drew out a small cast of the secret seal and handed it to me. ‘Your licence. Search, Mathilde, find the truth behind this. Now, Peter . . .’
Gaveston crouched down again. He pressed his lips against Lanercost’s blood-splattered hair, a mother’s kiss. He stroked the side of the dead man’s face, smiled tearfully up at me, rose and followed the king across the yard. Father Prior agreed to have Lanercost’s corpse taken to the corpse house. I slipped the wax seal into my gown pocket and walked back into the church. As far as I could see, the nave stretching up to the sanctuary was deserted. Isabella and her companions must have left by the coffin door. I walked deeper into the darkness and stared round. An ancient, hallowed place, the shadows lurking in the corner ready to creep out once the light faded. The incensed air was full of memories of plainchant, bells and the sacred words of the mass. All now lay deathly quiet. Battered statues of angels and saints, their faces bathed in candle-glow, stared stonily down at me. Gargoyles grimaced through the gloom. I closed my eyes. Earlier today Lanercost came into this church. He walked across into the gloomy recess and up those tower steps to the belfry. Why? Did he feel guilty at his brother’s murder and committed suicide? Or had he been enticed in, trapped and hurled to his death? But why should someone murder Lanercost, one of the Aquilae Petri? I started. The squeak and slither of mice scurrying in the shadowed light echoed eerily.
‘Good morrow, Mistress Mathilde.’
I whirled round, hand to my mouth, as the Beaumonts sauntered out from the gloomy corner where the baptismal font stood. All three were swathed in rich green cloaks. I realised they must have been meeting secretly in that deserted nook of the church.
‘My lords, my lady.’ I bowed, using courtesy to mask my alarm.
‘We were here in the church.’ Henry pulled the muffler down from across his mouth.
‘Of course you were, my lord. Praying?’
‘We all must pray, Mathilde.’
‘Some more than others, my lord?’
‘True.’ Lady Vesci smiled. She came forward and grasped my hands tightly as if in friendship. In truth she wanted me to stay. She pulled her face into a look of concern. ‘That poor squire, one of Gaveston’s henchmen?’ Her voice betrayed duplicity; she was in the same camp as Gaveston, but I doubted if she was his friend.
‘What happened?’ Louis asked in that sanctimonious voice some priests adopt, as if they consider the laity as witless as a flock of pigeons.
‘Domine,’ I replied, freeing my hands. ‘Lanercost apparently fell from the belfry.’
‘Why was he there?’ Louis whispered.
‘He did not tell me,’ I retorted. ‘I have yet to search, but surely, if you were in church, my lords, you must have seen him enter the bell tower?’
All three shook their heads in unison. On any other occasion I would have found it amusing, but the Beaumonts were never amusing, just dangerous in their vaulting ambition. I bowed.
‘I must go.’
‘My lady.’ Sir Henry moved closer, green eyes sharp and unsmiling. ‘Is my lord Gaveston secretly treating with the Scots?’
‘For all I know,’ I replied, ‘he could be treating with the lord Satan. He does not discuss such matters with me. I have other duties.’
‘So do we all.’ Henry smiled. ‘But . . .’ He just shrugged and gestured dismissively at me.
Again I bowed and walked over to the darkening recess leading to the door of the bell tower. I paused, my hand on the latch, then turned and glanced back. All three Beaumonts had followed me and were now standing close, scrutinising me carefully. I recalled certain information Isabella had given me. The Beaumonts were powerful lords north of the border. During the old king’s time they’d been given extensive estates, manor houses, castles, barns and granges. I realised why they were interested in Gaveston. If Edward settled with Bruce, what would happen to their estates?
‘I recognise your interest, my lord, about Gaveston and Scottish affairs, but that does not concern me.’
Henry shrugged. ‘One day, Mathilde, it might! My lord Gaveston’s hours are surely numbered. His grace the king cannot wander up and down the roads of this country like some witless pilgrim or hapless mendicant. He should be in the south, at Westminster.’
‘Then, my lord,’ I retorted, ‘that is a matter for you to tell him, not me. I bid you adieu.’
I pressed down the latch, the door swung open and I walked in. The stairwell was so dark I almost screamed at the shape that rose out of the gloom. I stepped back. The grey-garbed lay brother looked like a gargoyle come down from the wall: a long, thin, bony face, popping eyes, a mouth that never kept still and ears sticking out from the side of his head like the handles of a jug. He scratched his bald head.
‘My lady, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Again the mouth moved as if he was talking to himself.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, stepping closer.
‘Brother Eusebius. I am the bell man. I ring the bell of the church. I always do. I always have.’
‘So you know what’s happened?’ I asked. ‘Why did you not come out?’
‘I was frightened.’ The man’s voice trembled. ‘I was truly frightened, my lady. I did come out. I peered through the door. I saw the king and my lord Gaveston. I realised that the fallen man was one of theirs. They might suspect I had done something. I’m sorry.’
‘Hush now.’ I stretched out and touched one vein-streaked, spotted hand. ‘You are the bell-keeper, Brother Eusebius?’
‘No, the assistant bell-keeper.’ Eusebius gestured at the heavy, thick ropes that hung down. ‘I ring these before the Jesus mass.’ He smiled foolishly. ‘Peter and Paul we call the bells. I’m also,’ he declared, ‘keeper of the charnel house, which you can find in the transept. Look for the wall painting, the Harrowing of Hell.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘You are most welcome to come in. I have few visitors here.’
I closed the door and looked around. Eusebius’ chamber was really nothing more than a closet containing a pallet bed, a stool and a rickety table. A dingy, shabby place, its corners laced with dust-laden cobwebs. I gave him a coin; he chattered like a magpie, describing his duties. I peered up at the thick wooden flap pulled down to reveal a square opening in the middle of the roof for the ropes to hang through. Access was provided by a stout wooden ladder. The tower was ancient, a soaring four-sided edifice. The floors were of hard oak. Five levels in all, with the sixth serving as the belfry. Eusebius explained how the masons had dispensed with a stone floor as too unwiedly. I nodded in understanding. Such constructions were highly dangerous. Stone platforms were heavy and di
fficult to construct, and if one collapsed, the consequences would be hideous. He then described how he rang the Jesus bell, the bell at the end of mass and other peals, as well as the calls for Vespers and Compline. No, he shook his head as he used his foot to shove away a beer jug peeping from the beneath the cot bed, he did not live here, though he often used the tower to rest and meditate. He explained how earlier that morning he’d arrived just before mass, but had found nothing untoward. He had tolled the bell at the introit and the consecration, as well as to mark the final blessing. He’d kept the door open because he knew enough of the Latin rite to hear Brother Stephen (no, Eusebius assured me, he did not really know the Dominican) pronounce the ite missa est – the mass is ended. The tolling of Peter and Paul was coming to an end when he heard the screaming outside.