Mathild 03 - The Darkening Glass

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Which makes you truly dangerous, Brother. No man is more sinister than when he decides that God has selected him to deal out death and judgement according to His whim. You can go,’ I continued. ‘The king will not know, but God knows. You, Brother, revelled in wielding the power of life and death. You have moved from strength to strength, exulting in what you do and what you have done. You walk a gorgeous path of power, or so you think, but those you murdered glide through the dusk either side of you. One day they will hold you to account.’

  ‘Mathilde,’ Dunheved smirked, ‘you should have been a religious.’

  ‘Like you, Brother?’

  Dunheved shrugged, mockingly blessed me and was gone.

  I walked back to the queen. She dismissed her squires and patted the seat next to her.

  ‘Mathilde. You do have questions? I know you are brimming with them. Did I know? Dunheved told me in confidence what he’d learnt from Lanercost. He said for me to watch, as God would punish the Aquilae. I did not really care.’ Isabella played with a ring on her finger. ‘I could not voice, even to you, my worst suspicions. Was Gaveston really plotting my destruction? Above all,’ tears brimmed in those beautiful eyes, ‘was my husband? I decided to resist, to turn the king’s heart from Gaveston and his coven.’

  ‘They admitted as much,’ I intervened. ‘Both Rosselin and Gaveston said you were more subtle than a serpent. Gaveston confessed I had saved him from great sin, namely your death and that of your unborn child. Rosselin and the rest also came to regret their plotting, but it was too late. They must have been mystified as to who was their hidden enemy. You? Gaveston? The king?’

  ‘My fears haunted me,’ Isabella murmured. ‘In the end it came down to power. Edward had to decide to save either himself, me and our child, or Gaveston. He made his choice.’

  ‘Your grace could have taken me into her confidence.’

  ‘What about?’ Isabella whispered. ‘That Dunheved was a killer? I only began to suspect him after Scarborough. For a while I thought Gaveston was killing his own. I became absorbed with him. I could not believe he would plot such wickedness; well, not till Tynemouth, and that was proof enough. I questioned Dunheved on his return from Warwick about whether he had had a hand in the death of the Aquilae. He denied it, blaming Gaveston. Dunheved will never admit his crimes, not to me or to the king. You he despises as some kitchen wench not worth bothering about. I did not really care for the Aquilae. After Tynemouth I was concerned only about my child. I confronted Edward.’ She turned blue eyes brimming with tears. ‘He did not deny that it was possible Gaveston might wish to hurt me.’

  ‘Did you threaten the king?’

  ‘Yes, Mathilde, I threatened the king my husband, the father of my child. I taunted him with the allegation that Gaveston knew about the changeling story. Was Gaveston, I screamed, blackmailing him? Edward remained silent.’ She sighed. ‘Now, as you know, French ships, alerted by the growing crisis, appeared off the coast. In Whitby I communicated with the seigneur of the flotilla; the master of the The Wyvern was my emissary. He brought letters from my father offering assistance. I responded that, if necessary, I would flee England on board a French ship.’

  ‘But you decided against that.’

  ‘Yes, Mathilde, I travelled to York. I pleaded with my husband to separate from Gaveston and allow him to go to Scarborough Castle. Anywhere, just away from us. I urged Dunheved to support me, and he did. I also told my husband that if Gaveston did not go into exile, I would.’

  She smiled at my surprise.

  ‘I threatened to take sanctuary in Holcombe church, then ask to be escorted to the nearest port to take ship to my county of Ponthieu. Once there, I would don widow’s weeds, enter a nunnery and claim that, until Gaveston left England, I had no husband.’

  ‘And Edward would have been publicly humiliated?’ I declared.

  ‘True,’ Isabella agreed. ‘Both I and his son would be beyond his power. What else could I do? Gaveston had been with us for four years, Mathilde.’ The queen’s lips grew tight, her words coming out in a hoarse whisper. ‘For four years I put up with his foolishness, his arrogance, his provocation of the earls. I let him wine and dine, dance and strut, but I watched his eyes. As I grew older, he began to resent me. He feigned great pleasure that I was pregnant, but he didn’t hide it so well. Lanercost’s confession to Dunheved simply confirmed my own deep suspicions. My husband was deeply shocked. Mathilde, his love for Gaveston never really threatened me, but when he saw it might . . .’

  ‘So the king let Gaveston go to his fate?’

  ‘Yes, Mathilde, you have it in one. I begged him to let God dispose. Edward grew more malleable after Tynemouth. To be truthful, he was also tired, eager for change, for a respite, wary of Gaveston’s growing obsession. In the end,’ Isabella pulled a face, ‘the king simply did nothing. He let events manifest God’s will.’

  ‘But now Gaveston is dead, the king may change?’

  ‘No, no,’ Isabella declared. ‘Edward takes great comfort from the thought that Gaveston wove his own fate. He recognises that, as he does the fact that I had no choice but to defend myself. So . . .’ She turned away.

  ‘And Dunheved?’ I asked.

  ‘Brother Stephen will no longer be my confessor, Mathilde. I never suspected he was a killer until I heard what happened in Scarborough and afterwards. I shall distance myself from him. He remains the king’s confidant. God knows, no action will be taken against him. Edward will simply not want to know. Moreover, the king will be eager to test his new freedom, rejoice in his power, exult that his lovely wife bears his heir. As for the future . . .’ She grasped my hand. ‘Mathilde, ma fille, finish your business here, then join me at the abbey early tomorrow after the Jesus mass. Let this matter rest.’

  Then she was gone, in a swirl of fragrant perfume, calling for her squires. I walked out of the rose garden into the darkened friary church so full of brooding memories, haunted by the ghosts of those slain. I made my way up to the lady chapel and lit tapers for those murdered souls and for my own beloveds. The flames danced against the darkness. I glanced up at the serene, beautifully carved face of the Virgin and intoned a poem my mother had taught me: Tu as mis au monde le Sauveur de l’Univers. Benie sois-tu, Marie . . .

  Ah well! Now sheltering here in another Franciscan house, I gaze down through the murk of years past. I glimpse in a glow of golden light the beloved faces of those long dead. I also see Dunheved’s. Oh, Brother Stephen Dunheved! We like to think of God’s justice as in some miracle play, shooting out like an arrow or flashing like a barb of lightning. Of judgement falling immediately. Of sentence being imposed swiftly. Life isn’t like that. Time creeps, and so does God’s judgement. Dunheved’s day of doom eventually arrived, as it did for all the others: Lancaster, Pembroke, Hereford and Warwick. The murdered dead caught up with Dunheved at Berkeley Castle some fifteen years after those hurling times at York. I was there when he was brought to judgement. My face was the last he saw before they bricked him up, sealing him into a living tomb, where his body now rots. But that was for the future, when the furies once again massed like black clouds, low and threatening, before God’s judgement lashed down like rain to wash away more of man’s sin.

  Author’s Note

  The events of this novel are closely based on fact and are described by contemporary chronicles, particularly the Vita Edwardi Secundi – The Life of Edward II. I analysed this period in my DPhil thesis on Isabella for Oxford University some thirty years ago, when this story first took root!

  • The development of medicine and its practice by women is well attested. Indeed, the role played by women in medicine flourished until it was declared illegal by the despotic Henry VIII in 1519.

  • The destruction of the Templar order occurred as described. Many accounts allege how Templars took refuge in Scotland and even played a decisive role in Bruce’s great victory over Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314.

  • Edward II and Gaveston did shel
ter in the north during the spring of 1312 and secretly negotiated with Bruce. Lancaster and the other earls did pursue them both. Isabella was trapped at Tynemouth and had to fight her way out. Some chroniclers place this in 1312, other 1323, and a few claim that such an escape occurred twice. Indeed, James Douglas, Bruce’s war leader, hatched other plots to seize Isabella throughout Scotland’s fierce guerrilla war against England.

  • The Beaumonts, I believe, are faithfully depicted here. For the next sixteen years they kept close to the Crown, eager to save their estates in Scotland. Isabella’s household book for 1311-12 still survives and depicts the Beaumonts as her close kin. Later on, the queen championed Louis to become Bishop of Durham.

  • Gaveston’s fall is accurately described. Something hideous occurred at Scarborough that forced him to surrender. The Life of Edward II claims he ran out of food, yet the castle had been well provisioned. Pembroke’s custody of him was benevolent, but we will never know if that earl’s hasty flight to visit his wife was contrived or a genuinely stupid mistake. Gaveston was seized and executed by Warwick and his allies, as described by Mathilde. Edward II’s reaction to his favourite’s death was strangely muted. He called Gaveston a fool, and only much later did he kindle his angry hatred against the earls, especially Lancaster. Isabella’s separation from her husband during the crisis was also very curious, bearing in mind that she was pregnant. Years later, in her struggle against Despencer, Isabella actually did flee to France and don widow’s weeds.

  • The Pilgrim from the Wastelands story – both the horrific physical clash between Edward I and his son and the story of Edward of Caernarvon being a changeling – is based on contemporary sources.

  • Finally, Brother Stephen Dunheved, the Dominican confessor to Edward II, was a real and very sinister figure, whose murderous intrigue was to play a prominent role in the murky, bloody politics of Edward II’s reign.

  Paul Doherty