Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts

by Paul Doherty

  Philip’s anger at the delay was obvious, royal messengers being sent out almost by the hour to seek out the English party. At last the news arrived. Edward of England had been delayed but he had left Dover, he had arrived at Wissant and was hastening with all speed towards Boulogne. The bells of the city rang out to greet him as Isabella and I went up on to the walls to watch his approach. A mass of brilliant banners announced his arrival. I glimpsed the golden leopards of England against a scarlet background, a swirl of riders, cloaks flying, soldiers and knights dressed in the royal livery all clustered round a horseman resplendent in scarlet and silver, his golden hair clear for all to see. Edward of England had arrived! A forest of pavilions grew up round the town, every available chamber and garret was taken, even the porches and gateways of churches and taverns as the great ones assembled with their retinues. The English had wisely camped in and around the town of Montreuil. From there Edward led a delegation into Boulogne to treat with his future father-in-law over Gascony and other vexed questions. There was no formal meeting with Isabella; protocol and etiquette demanded that Edward keep his distance from his intended bride.

  Casales, Sandewic and Baquelle provided juicy morsels of gossip about the proceedings. Relations between the two kings remained as frosty as the weather. Edward had agreed to suppress the Templars, being more vexed by the demands of his own leading earls regarding Gaveston. These he had ignored, even appointing Gaveston, fully invested as the Earl of Cornwall, as regent during the royal absence. Of course, we weren’t satisfied until we’d studied the English king when he visited Philip. Isabella and I seized secret vantage points to achieve this. Edward II was over six foot tall, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted with the long legs of a born horseman and the wiry arms of a swordsman. He was handsome-faced, slightly olive-skinned, a strong contrast to his golden hair and neatly clipped fair beard and moustache. He had heavy-lidded blue eyes, the right one slightly drooping as if he distrusted the world, an impression heightened by the wry grimace of his mouth. He walked quickly, hands swinging, carrying himself arrogantly, yet when he relaxed he appeared to be courteous in the extreme. A weathercock of a man! I watched him closely; even from those few glimpses at the start of my life, I gathered Edward was changeable. He’d pat a servant on the back but, if the mood took him, lash out with fist or foot and hurl a litany of abuse. He had a carrying voice and a commanding presence. A man of nervous energy who shouted at his grooms to take care of the horses, gazing round as if expecting some French bowman or assassin to be lurking nearby.

  Edward was apparently eager to finish the wedding celebrations and leave. He did little honour to Philip or the French king’s feelings, complaining bitterly about the cold, the loneliness of Boulogne and the need to return to England to deal with pressing business at Westminster. According to Sandewic, Edward advanced the argument that he’d come to France, he’d marry Isabella, do homage for Gascony, suppress the Temple, so what else did Philip want? Of course, the source of his distress was the growing crisis in London between Gaveston and the earls, led by the king’s cousin Thomas of Lancaster. This group of barons, who would come to dominate all our lives, were also hostile to a French marriage. They openly demanded their king ignore all such revelry, summon a new army and march north to deal with the Scots, who were launching raids across the northern march. On one thing all the earls agreed: Gaveston was to be exiled. According to Casales he was no more than a Gascon squire who’d been created a premier earl, and now the great earls had to gnaw their knuckles as Gaveston reigned supreme.

  All these observations and news swirled around us as Isabella prepared for her wedding at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Boulogne, where the Archbishop of Narbonne, together with other leading ecclesiastics, would celebrate her betrothal and nuptial mass. On the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, 25 January 1308, Isabella, resplendent in a silver gown of pure silk, a white gauze veil held in place on her head by a circlet of finest gold, met her royal bridegroom, garbed in robes of blue, scarlet and gold, at the door of Notre Dame to exchange vows. The princess looked and acted the part of the Grande Dame from the romances she so avidly read. I was not allowed near her, being herded into the cathedral porch with other retainers, whilst the princess was escorted up the church by leading ladies from the courts of Europe. The nuptial mass was celebrated, the powerful voices of the cathedral canons singing the melodious plainchant refrains whilst Isabella and Edward knelt on splendid prie-dieus before the high altar, half-hidden by the clouds of incense streaming out of the many censers. Once the Archbishop of Narbonne had sung the ‘Ite Missa Est’, king and royal bride walked hand in hand down past the choir and into the nave to receive the applause of the aristocratic congregation. Afterwards they proceeded out on to the steps to be acclaimed by the crowds, whilst fresh choirs carolled ‘Laus Honor et Gloria Vobis’ followed by a hymn to ‘Isabella Regina Anglorum’, even though she had yet to be crowned.

  Later in the afternoon, as darkness drew in, the feasting and banqueting took place in the royal mansion hastily refurbished for the occasion. I did not attend. Court protocol and etiquette demanded that during her first marriage days, Isabella could only be waited upon by women of the royal blood who had witnessed the nuptials and the consequent royal bedding. I kept to my lodgings in the nearby old bishop’s palace, accepting, like my companions, the remains of the feasts: scraps of venison, pork, beef, fish, half-eaten manchet loaves, bruised fruit and jugs of wine of every variety.

  Isabella did not ignore me. She sent a small purse filled with English silver and a piece of parchment on which a forget-me-not flower was carefully inscribed. More importantly, Sandewic came into his own. He was now Custos, knight-keeper of the princess’s household. She was the centre of the English court so her retinue was embraced by the English king’s peace. During the wedding days Sandewic used the opportunity to bring in an escort of Welsh archers, little wiry, dark-faced men who spoke a tongue I could not understand. They were clothed in Sandewic’s livery, a white lion rampant on a green background, they carried longbows of yew with wicked-looking stabbing knives dangling from rings on their belts and quivers of yard-long shafts strapped to their backs. These archers guarded and patrolled the bishop’s palace, cheerful men who loved to drink and sing the haunting songs of their country. They were most vigilant and careful, demanding that the servants who brought my food first taste it before they allowed them through. Oh yes, those days marked a sharp shift in the seasons! I too was now in the power of England.

  Casales and Rossaleti also recognised their tasks were changing. Rossaleti prepared himself to carry Isabella’s secret and privy seals though she quietly vowed that only she and I would seal what she and I should only know. A distance grew up between Casales and Rossaleti; they were no longer envoys but members of different households. Baquelle came into his own, being specially charged with organising the English departure from Boulogne to the nearby port of Wissant. Of course Sandewic gave me the news about the banquets and feasts hosted by the various courtiers with their flowery speeches and empty promises. He also took me out through the dreary mizzle of a Norman winter to view the sights.

  Boulogne was a town transformed; banners, streamers, brightly coloured ribbons flapped everywhere alongside the fleur-de-lis of France and the leopards of England. Bishops, nobles, haughty ladies, high-ranking clerics, swaggering mice-eyed retainers tricked out in their glorious attire of ermine, brocade, satin silks, linen from the looms of Flanders and goldwork from Cologne. Sleek horses of every type, sumpters, destriers, palfreys and cobs, clattered across the frost-glazed cobbles. In the fields outside town the war-pennants fluttered and glowed in the bursts of weak sunshine. The might of Europe, garbed in the armour of Liege and Limoges, Damascus, Milan, London and Toledo, had come to do mock battle in the lists, those great tournaments and tourneys organised in Isabella’s honour. The frozen meadows outside the town walls were transformed by a host of standards all displaying their exotic insignia: wolves, wy
verns, leopards, dragons, fire-breathing salamanders, suns and moons, wheat sheaves, fabulous birds, charging boars, rampant lions, crouching dogs, all parted per pale or per fesse, per cross or bend sinister. All these emblems were painted in the colours of heraldry, azure, gules, sable, vert, purple and argent. In the centre of this city of silken pavilions stood the lists, where knights in plate armour, helmets carved in terrifying shapes and surmounted by brilliantly coloured plumes, charged, lances splintering, shields buckling. As one joust finished another began to the blast of trumpet and horn, the air riven with the clash of steel, the thunder of hooves and the heralds shouting, ‘Lessez les aler, lessez les aler, les bons chevaliers!’ Pages and squires clustered round the heroes who’d survived the battling of the last few days, all intent on winning the golden crown. I quoted the lines of a troubadour:

  Speech does not comfort me,

  I am in harmony with war,

  Nor do I hold or believe any other religion.

  Casales, who accompanied Sandewic and myself, seethed with humiliation at not being able to participate. He laughingly mocked my criticisms but Sandewic looped his arm through mine and nodded.

  ‘I’ve seen enough of battle!’ he remarked as we walked away, gesturing with his head. ‘It is nothing like that.’

  By then it was the end of January, and the feasting and revelry were beginning to pall whilst the tournaments and tourneys had already led to the deaths of four young knights killed in a furious mêlée, a supposedly friendly joust between the courts of England and France.

  ‘It is time we were gone,’ Sandewic growled as we took off our cloaks in the buttery, warming our hands before the fire after our icy walk back from the tourney field. ‘The pot is beginning to bubble and the scum rises to coat it all,’ he added. ‘We should go before any real mischief is done.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Casales objected, gesturing at Rossaleti, who was busy at the table transcribing household lists. ‘We have enough provisions whilst never again will the courts of England and France meet.’

  ‘I don’t like weddings or nuptials. They harvest bitter memories for me,’ Rossaleti intoned mournfully. Without any invitation the clerk threw down the quill pen and began to describe his own early days as a Benedictine novice and how he realised that he was not fit to take solemn vows. He talked about his marriage and the tragic death of his beloved wife, speaking so wistfully that he stirred the memories of others. Casales described his wedding day and the death of his wife in childbirth, and the long arduous years since. Sandewic nodded sympathetically but lightened the mood by describing his own marriage of many years, its humour and companionship, though he grew sad with sorrow over his wife’s death and his frequent quarrels with his children. I sensed the deep sadness of these men who, in the words of Sandewic, had become ‘priests of politic’, giving up their own lives in the service of their king.

  Our mood was lightened by Baquelle’s arrival. Sandewic winked at me and put a finger to his lips, for Sir John needed little encouragement to sermonise us on his all-important marriage to the sister, as he kept telling us, of the most powerful wool merchant in England. The little knight, cheery-faced from the cold, was full of what he’d seen and who he’d talked to, determined on delivering a lengthy sermon about the different courts which had assembled. Sandewic ordered a cask of Bordeaux to be broached and cut Baquelle off in full flow by declaring that we were sitting as if visited by the Three Summoners of Doom: Sickness, Old Age and Death. He filled our cups with the heady claret, ordered Rossaleti to fetch his dulcimer and told us not to be faux et semblant at such a joyous time but to revel and carol with the best. Rossaleti brought his dulcimer in and Sandewic broke into a bawdy song about a knight, his lady and a cuckolding friar whose testicles the knight vowed he would enshrine in a hog’s turd. Sandewic had a powerful voice, as did Casales, and both roared out the filthy but very comic song as Rossaleti tried to pluck music on the dulcimer. Sandewic taught me the words and made me join in the singing till tears of laughter bubbled in my eyes. A warm, amicable afternoon to spite the hailing sleet and numbing drizzle outside, yet it is curious, isn’t it, looking back, how every torchlight creates its own host of shadows?

  On 2 February we celebrated the Feast of the Circumcision of the Christ Child. I crowded into the great cathedral of Notre Dame, standing between the baptismal font and the devil’s door through which Satan left every time a child was baptised. By craning my neck I could glimpse the great ones gathered in the choir stalls, but because of the heavy rood screen all I caught were flashes of colour. I composed myself to watch the ceremonial entry into the church of a young mother and her child seated on an ass in commemoration of the Virgin and Child coming out of Egypt. A choir carolled the well-known hymn ‘Orientis Partibus Advenitavit Asinus, Pulcher et Fortis’: ‘From the Eastern lands comes the donkey, beautiful and brave, well-fitted to bear his burden. Up donkey and sing.’ The subsequent mass, a vibrant, noisy assembly, marked the end of all the celebrations. During this the congregation imitated the braying of a donkey at the usual liturgical responses, as if both court and crowd were eager to seize this opportunity to offset the pompous, solemn liturgies of the previous days. Afterwards the great ones dined in the hall of the Maison du Roi.

  In the evening, as darkness fell, Isabella returned to our lodgings escorted by a retinue of squires and pages with flaring torches and surrounded by a gaggle of leading noblewomen. These gathered in the courtyard as the princess dismounted from her palfrey. They crowded round her, wishing her well, leading her into the hallway. Isabella, pale with tiredness, stood with a false smile. When they had all departed, she grasped my hand and allowed me to lead her up to the bedchamber. She had the door bolted and locked, kicked off the heavy brocade slippers, loosened the ties and bows of her gowns, and left them lying on the floor. Then she picked up a coverlet from the bed, wrapped it round herself and crouched like a scullery wench before the brazier, warming her fingers. I gave her warm ale mixed with hops to soothe her and she grasped the goblet, drinking greedily before turning to me.

  ‘You will ask?’

  ‘You need not answer.’

  ‘Edward of England is kind and gentle, a courteous, chivalric knight.’ Isabella laughed. ‘He says he loves me and asked to see me naked. He showed me what he called bed wrestling and the troubadours prettify as lovemaking. Afterwards he entered me and hurt me; sometimes he liked to mount me as a stallion does a mare. Then he held me in his arms and kissed me.’ She spoke in a dry, flat tone, not hurt or wounded; the physical aspects of her first nuptials Isabella dismissed with a mere shrug.

  ‘Edward has moods, Mathilde. He never forgets an injury. He can be as attentive as a lovelorn squire but then he’ll sit staring into nothing, lips moving as if talking to himself. Mathilde,’ Isabella moved to face me fully, ‘I wonder if my husband Edward of England is slightly fey.’ She blinked, licked her lips and smiled brilliantly. ‘He hates my father. He detests the very sight of him, claiming that his own father and Philip of France richly deserved each other. When I told him I felt no different, Edward roared with laughter and hugged me tight. I told him about you, Mathilde.’ She put her goblet down and grasped my hand. ‘But not all about you. He said you are most welcome, his house will be yours, adding that we shall all plot against Philip. He loves that, Mathilde, to mock, to turn the world on its head. During the mass this morning he led the braying, laughing out loud like a schoolboy released from his horn book.’

  ‘And the Lord Gaveston?’

  Isabella wound together a few loose threads on the coverlet.

  ‘They are as one, Mathilde! Edward says Gaveston is his brother, his father, his sister and his mother.’

  ‘And his lover?’

  Isabella shook her head, not denying it, more bemused and bewildered.

  ‘We shall see,’ she breathed. ‘We shall see.’

  ‘And the deaths of Pourte and Wenlok?’

  ‘Edward remained tight-lipped about those.’ She
pulled the coverlet closer. ‘He did not seem pleased about either man, muttering that both had supported his marriage to me or, rather, the French marriage,’ she smiled, ‘as well as the arrest of the Templars, but opposed the advancement of Lord Gaveston. Did you know, Mathilde, Casales, Sandewic and Baquelle have the same mind on these matters? Edward still trusts them but does not like their views.’ Isabella stared into the fiery coals. ‘In the end Edward of England,’ she whispered, ‘could be a goat, a donkey, even a pig and I’d still dance on my back for him!’ She glared fiercely at me. ‘I am free, Mathilde, we are leaving! Now is our winter; soon the spring will come and I’ll sow the seeds for the future. We’ll watch them grow in summer and rejoice at harvest time!

  Isabella retired, crawling between the linen sheets, pulling the blankets over her head, while I drew the curtains of the bed about her. I sat for a while before the brazier, warming myself, half sleeping, as I reflected on what Isabella had said. One fact was emerging: Pourte, Wenlok, Casales, Sandewic and Baquelle were confidants of the king, and had all advised him not to advance Gaveston. I remembered what Isabella had said about her new husband. Could Edward be responsible for those two deaths? For dispatching those assassins? There again, I’d learnt that others in England were opposed to the French marriage; perhaps they had had a hand in the mischief? I realised I could make little sense of it. I recalled my visit to the Rue des Ecrivains, that strange empty chamber and the man who’d been sheltering there. He’d disappeared so quickly and was apparently waiting for me in England. Was he the same man I’d glimpsed in the Oriflamme tavern? Was he involved in these mysteries?

  I was about to retire when Sandewic and Casales arrived. I didn’t have the heart to dismiss them so I entertained them downstairs in the small parlour. One of the Welsh bowmen had built up the fire and served us some scraps from the buttery. Both men brought news. Tomorrow the English would leave Boulogne for Wissant. We were to be up before dawn. Outside I could already hear the porters and carters bringing out the wagons, checking the sumpter ponies.