by Paul Doherty
‘We lost eight in all. A lady-in-waiting, one of the squires and six of the queen’s household.’ The Dominican added that at least twice that number from the castle garrison had perished in our escape.
Isabella just sat, her face like that of a carved statue, hard eyes unblinking as she stared out across the sea. At Dunheved’s question, she answered that she was well, but then returned to her reverie, those blue eyes, sapphire hard. Afterwards she shared a jug of hippocras and a platter of sweetmeats with us. Rosselin and Middleton, who’d been busy attending to matters below deck, joined us. They looked shamefaced. I’d glimpsed them during the day going up and down the deck as well as at Dunheved’s mass. In truth, they confessed, they’d been as surprised and shocked by the furious battle on the beach as had The Wyvern’s master, a shaven-headed, cheery-faced seaman from the port of Hull. He declared how Rosselin and Middleton had wanted to go back to help them, but he had warned them that was futile. Nevertheless, the master had the sense to realise that something treacherous had happened: Isabella, Queen of England, had almost been captured by a Scottish raiding party.
Dunheved and I remained with the queen till late in the evening. She insisted on reciting the Vespers of that day. Afterwards we tried to engage her in conversation, but she simply shook her head, raising a finger to her lips.
‘Not now,’ she murmured, ‘not now, Mathilde, Brother Stephen. We must simply sit, wait and watch.’
We had no choice. The Wyvern had been turned into an infirmary as well as a ship prepared for battle. Its master was determined on one thing alone: to bring the queen out of hostile waters to a safe port. After a good night’s sailing, he met Isabella and declared that by sunset we would slip into the port of Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.
‘It’s a mere fishing village, but high on the cliffs stands a famous convent.’ He smiled. ‘I am sure the lady abbess will be welcoming and give you good housing.’
True to his word, late that afternoon The Wyvern slipped safely into the cove of Whitby. The queen insisted on immediate disembarkation. Boats took her and her household to the beach, a messenger being sent to alert the abbess of St Hilda’s. After a short while, a group of nuns in their dark blue habits, escorted by retainers from the abbey, whose majestic buildings we’d glimpsed from the sea, came down to conduct the queen up to lodgings being hastily prepared for her. A busy, exhausting time. I’d been so immersed in the dangers we’d escaped, I didn’t have time to reflect on anything. Only now did I realise how tired, frayed, dirty and dishevelled I must have looked.
For the next three days we rested and relaxed in spacious and very comfortable quarters provided for us at the abbey. A strange time, an island of peace between the horrors of leaving Tynemouth and the storm gathering around the throne of England. Days passed. Messengers left on the fastest mounts from the abbey stables. Squires and retainers were dispatched to the master of The Wyvern, which dipped its sails three times in honour of the Trinity and sailed out of Whitby. It returned a few days later, its master hurrying up to take secret council with the queen.
I was certainly pleased to be away from Tynemouth. St Hilda’s Abbey proved to be a fine resting place where Isabella could relax in beautiful surroundings, be it rich, oak-panelled chambers or luxuriant gardens and shady cloisters, especially as the weather had changed, one sun-filled day following the other. I became busy in the infirmary, assisting with the wounded, or helping in the dispensary filling pots and jars with various remedies. Demontaigu begged leave to be excused on his own secret business, as did the Aquilae Petri, who hired horses and thundered out to discover the whereabouts of their master. People came and went. Rumour was rife. Stories gathered as plentiful as fleas in a dog’s fur, but Isabella never showed her hand. She truly was schooled in the harsh, bloody conflicts of court. As a child she had been abused by her three brothers, and she’d acquired the patience of a waiting cat. She had a mind that teemed, yet openly she smiled and acted so graciously. She still seemed a little distant from me, as if absorbed in some secret problem she could not share. I tended to her. She allowed me to examine her and I was relieved to find that she and the child she carried had come through safe and unscathed. Isabella was that rare flower, elegantly beautiful and lissom but in fact hard and tough as the finest armour in the land. She was, both body and soul, in good spirit. True, her belly was much swollen and she suffered quietly the usual pains, aches and discomfort of being enceinte, but such petty problems did not concern her. She sat in her chamber dictating letters, closeted herself with Dunheved, walked out to meet the abbess and the good sisters or acted the bountiful seigneur in the grand refectory of the abbey. All this was a device, a shield carried before her, not only to protect her but behind which she could plot her own devious path. The queen was spinning her own web, watching and waiting.
Isabella would discuss little except to question me about Tynemouth, the Noctales, Lanercost’s death, my suspicions and what I saw and heard. She would only talk when she was ready, and on the last day of April, she decided she was. We met, Dunheved and myself, in the queen’s personal chamber, an octagonal room lavishly furnished with gleaming oak stools, a writing desk, a lavarium and high leather-backed chairs placed before the mantled hearth shaped in the form of a hood. Above this hung a brilliantly hued tapestry telling the miraculous story of Caedmon, a local cowherd who’d learnt to write the most elegant poetry. On either side of this, paintings picked out in red, gold and black described scenes from the life of St Hilda and other great saints of the northern shires. The heavy door was barred and locked. Its ox-blood-coloured leather drape had been rolled down, whilst the black and white lozenge-shaped tiles on the floor had been covered with thick rugs, as if the queen wanted to deaden all sound both within and without. The small oriel windows, gilded and painted with religious devices, coloured the light of the setting sun. Certainly a place for secrets and hushed council.
Isabella looked resplendent in a tawny-coloured gown of the costliest taffeta beneath a sleeveless coat of blue and gold. Silver slippers, laced with the softest lamb’s wool, were on her feet, a gauze veil over her hair, which hung down luxurious and thick. When we gathered, I noticed that a jewel-studded casket in which the queen kept her secretae litterae – secret letters – lay open, its lid thrown back. I recognised a letter, very recent, the vellum was still a fresh cream colour, carrying the purple seal of Philip of France’s secret chancery. I wondered when she’d received this and why she was being so enigmatic. For a while we clustered around the fire, the candles and oil lamps dancing shadows around the walls. Outside a growing silence as the sisters gathered in their chapel for meditation. The queen abruptly brought the courtesies to an end.
‘What do we have?’ Isabella’s voice crackled with anger. ‘By God’s good grace and no one else’s, we are now free of Tynemouth, well away from Scottish marauders and Flemish pirates. No, no, I am not ungrateful.’ She pinched my wrist. ‘Demontaigu and my squires did good service, but it should never have happened.’ Again she pinched my wrist. ‘Mathilde, the king and Gaveston now bathe in a pool dirtied by their own making. The Noctales have met with God’s justice, but the deaths of Lanercost, Leygrave and Kennington remain unresolved. More importantly, what did happen in Duckett’s Tower? Were Kennington and his guards removed as part of a plot against me?’
Isabella and Dunheved shared a glance, as if savouring some secret. I curbed my temper.
‘Plotting against your grace?’ I asked innocently. Isabella had kept me out of her secret council, so what could I say? The queen just smiled, tapped my wrist and leaned closer.
‘Of course a plot against me! If the good Lord hadn’t intervened, those Scots would have forced the main gate of Duckett’s Tower. Someone alerted them, not only to my presence but as to how I might escape, hence that furious assault on the beach.’
Again I bit my tongue. Isabella was talking as if reciting a speech, not so much searching for the truth as for what I might think.
‘Does your grace have news of Tynemouth?’ I asked.
‘Good news,’ Isabella replied. ‘The Castellan managed to hold the attackers and drive them back. The garrison made a good account of themselves. My fair cousins the Beaumonts survived unscathed and, I believe, will join us soon.’
‘God be thanked,’ Dunheved murmured. ‘But I ask your grace, can your noble cousins be . . .’ He paused.
‘Trusted?’ Isabella queried. ‘Brother Stephen, apart from the people in this chamber, I trust no one!’
‘And the treachery at Tynemouth?’ I asked.
‘In his letter,’ Isabella replied, ‘the Castellan apologised but admitted that a traitor would find it easy in that fog-bound castle to slip along the narrow runnels, damage a postern door and leave it vulnerable to those beyond.’
‘But who could communicate such a design to the Scots? The castle was besieged. No one could leave. Messengers were few and far between.’
‘The Templar Ausel could slip in and out unscathed,’ Isabella replied. ‘Why not someone else? Duckett’s Tower was our escape. The traitor could also have used it to alert the Scots. And,’ she added bitterly, ‘let us not forget those signals flashed from the castle walls.’
‘True,’ I murmured. ‘A Scottish force could have been brought into Duckett’s Tower, but it would have been dangerous. The tide can sweep in and cut off any escape, whilst once in the tower, the Scots would have had to clear it and then fight their way across to the Prior’s Lodgings. They might never have reached that and would certainly have been slaughtered in any retreat. The Castellan would have ensured that. Yes,’ I reasoned, ‘the Scots needed to bring you out of the castle, hence their attack. St Michael and all his angels be my witness, it was hideous treachery, but why? By whom?’ I glanced at Dunheved, who simply crossed himself and murmured his own prayer of thanksgiving.
‘By whom?’ I repeated and turned to the queen. She did not answer. ‘Did you fear such treachery, your grace? If so, why shelter at Tynemouth?’
‘What other choice did we have, Mathilde? Better than wandering lonely heathlands on the northern march. A secure fortress high on the cliffs overlooking the sea was safer than some deserted farmstead.’
I nodded in agreement.
‘And The Wyvern? Who ordered it to take station off Tynemouth?’
‘My husband, at my insistence.’
‘Why?’
‘Mathilde, I was fearful. I still am.’
‘About what?’
Isabella put her head down, rubbing her brow with her long white fingers. ‘I don’t really know. If I did, I could confront the danger.’
‘And your saintly father?’ I added with mock sweetness.
Isabella laughed girlishly behind her hand.
‘Why, Mathilde?’
‘Your grace,’ I retorted, ‘mischief bubbles in England. Your father could no more resist stirring it than a bird could flying.’
‘True, true.’ Isabella leaned back in her chair and glanced swiftly out of the corner of her eye at Dunheved, sitting on her left.
The psalmist says that the human heart is devious, and so it is: that one glance portrayed a secret alliance between the queen and the enigmatic Dominican. Yet at the time, what could I make of that? Dunheved was the guardian of her soul, the keeper of her secrets. Certainly my mood was tinged with jealousy. I thought I held that benefice, but time also has its own secrets, and only the passing of the years reveals the full truth. At the time I had no doubt that Isabella had been in contact with her father. I recalled the Castellan’s remark about French war-cogs being off the coast. I wondered if the master of The Wyvern had taken secret missives to them and returned with their reply. Hence that letter, so recently come from France, bearing Philip’s secret seal.
‘And his grace the king?’ I asked.
‘Fleet as the deer,’ Isabella remarked. ‘Once again he’s eluded his pursuers. My husband, his grace,’ she added sardonically, ‘is approaching York. We are to meet him there.’
‘And the earls?’
‘Retreated south of the Trent but vowing to return.’ Isabella shrugged. ‘It costs great treasure to keep troops in the field.’ She rose abruptly as a sign that our meeting was over. ‘Mathilde,’ she touched me lightly on the face, ‘as in chess, ma cherie, the pieces might return to their places but the game is not yet over.’
No, it certainly wasn’t! News came in like a blizzard of snow. Bruce’s force under his war-leader Douglas had retreated. Tynemouth was safe and secure. The Beaumonts were hurrying south and royal officials were now hunting down various carts and sumpter ponies laden with the queen’s household possessions. Most were saved. A few went missing, never to return. Thomas of Lancaster, the king’s cousin and the leading earl, sent letters to Isabella making it clear that his quarrel was with Lord Gaveston and not with her or the king. A pretty letter full of pious insincerities, but at least, as Isabella drily remarked, Lancaster offered to return some of her baggage seized along with the king’s at Novo Castro.
Demontaigu also returned, slipping into the abbey late one afternoon. I met him in St Aidan’s rose garden, though he refused to talk there. Instead we left by the Antioch Gate, moving down the steep cliff path on to the rough cobbled streets of the little fishing hamlet. He seemed to know his way and took me into the Root of David, a merchant’s tavern on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the craggy seashore. A pleasant enough place, I remember it well. The tap room was divided by barriers to form little closets, each furnished with ale-benches either side of a table. The room smelt fragrantly of grilled fish and almonds and the food we ordered, venison broiled in wine, black pepper and cinnamon, was delicious, as was the ale brewed in the house at the back. Demontaigu washed his hands in herb-laced water and ate hungrily whilst listening intently to my news. Once I’d finished, he mopped his mouth with a napkin and moved the candle closer. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face tired and drawn. He pushed the candle a little nearer, searching my face as I did his.
‘Mathilde, we have been now together for four years. We are reaching a path that is about to divide. I came to Isabella’s household as a Templar in hiding. People now know who I really am. You must realise that I might flee, must flee at a moment’s notice.’
I nodded.
‘Even more so now.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The Templar order in England and Wales has been ruined, not one stone left upon another. As you know, those Templars who weren’t taken up went into hiding. Philip’s agents hunted us through France, Hainault, Flanders, even beyond the Rhine, but in Scotland we are safe. Bruce has created a haven, a sanctuary for us. Templars from England, Wales and Ireland have fled there, as well as others from France, Castile, Aragon, Italy and the Rhineland states. These are men, Mathilde, who’ve been persecuted for years. They’ve heard the most gruesome tales about what has happened to their brethren in the dungeons of the Louvre and elsewhere in Philip’s kingdom. Men broken on the rack, bodies twisted, strung from scaffolds, burnt and scalded, limbs amputated, eyes gouged out, ears cut off.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But I am telling you what you know. The Templars have a blood feud not only with Philip and his ministers but with his family, and that includes our queen. Now the Templars have gathered in Scotland, their hearts full of anger, their ears crammed with hideous stories. They want vengeance.’ Demontaigu paused. ‘Bruce sent two forces south. The first was under James Douglas, a skilled and ruthless fighter—’
‘And the other was under Estivet, leader of the Templars?’ I suggested.
Demontaigu nodded in agreement.
‘Estivet’s force numbered about two to three hundred men, swollen by Scottish Templars and those in Bruce’s own army sympathetic to our cause. They made swift march. No one opposed them, not out there on the moorlands, following secret paths with copses and woods to hide in. You could ride for a day and not meet anyone. Estivet and his host had one desire: to search out the Noctales, bring them to battle and utterly destroy
them. We knew the Noctales were garrisoned at Tynemouth. Ausel volunteered to act the false guide and Alexander of Lisbon, a coward, rose to the bait.’
‘They were massacred?’ I asked.
‘Every one of them, except the man who was allowed to escape, to take the grim tidings back to Tynemouth. Alexander of Lisbon and the Noctales were cut to pieces. No one was shown quarter, their corpses tossed into bogs and marshes, their harness, weapons, armour and horses taken for our use, never to be seen again. Amongst the Templar host in Scotland there is great rejoicing. Philip of France of course will be furious.’
‘Did the Templars play any role in the attack on the queen at Tynemouth?’
‘No!’ Demontaigu replied quickly. ‘Ausel would not agree to that. I met him. He still lurks in England with an eye to any other mischief he might cause. He took the most sacred oath a Templar can, on the Cross and Face of Christ, that the Templars had nothing to do with the attack on the queen. However,’ Demontaigu leaned across the table, his voice falling to a murmur, ‘Mathilde, stories at the Scottish court talk of Gaveston having some control over the king. Other clacking tongues whisper that the attack on Tynemouth was to capture the queen and hold her hostage.’
‘As a bargain counter with her husband?’
‘Of course.’
‘And the traitor?’
‘No one really knows. The Beaumonts were mentioned.’
‘Impossible!’ I retorted. ‘They are the queen’s kinsmen; they’d be disgraced . . .’
‘Listen, Mathilde, when it comes to treasure and lands, no one can be trusted. Some English lords with extensive estates in Scotland have joined Bruce’s standard, so why shouldn’t the Beaumonts?’