Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts

by Paul Doherty

  Gaveston pressed his lips closer to Clauvelin’s ear.

  ‘I have hunted you, sir, high and low. Mirabila dictu – it is wonderful to say what you can discover as Earl of Cornwall, regent of England, close confidant of its king. Last year, when I was in France, I discovered your true name and hiding place.’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s not me!’ Clauvelin begged.

  ‘The Inquisition, near Carcassonne, says it is.’ Gaveston released the garrotte string completely, leaving his victim to sprawl in his chair. ‘The Inquisition are men of great detail,’ Gaveston continued. ‘You have a mole on the right of your neck.’ He seized de Clauvelin by his scrawny hair, tugging down the man’s high collar and twisting his head for us to see. ‘You also have a scar, an inch long, on the inside of your left arm.’ He took the notary’s arm, ripping back the sleeve of his jerkin, sending clasps and buttons scattering across the table, and turned the arm so we could glimpse the raised welt. Finally, one hand on de Clauvelin’s shoulder, Gaveston thrust his hand down the front of the notary’s jerkin and dragged up the metal cross on its copper chain. In the candlelight I glimpsed the embossed crucifix of the Inquisition. Gaveston ripped this from his neck and threw it on the table.

  ‘Given to everyone,’ he hissed, ‘who falls within the protection of the Domini Canes – the Dominicans, the Hounds of God, Sancta Inquisicio, the Holy Inquisition.’

  De Clauvelin, pale-faced and drenched with sweat, leaned against the table.

  ‘They would not reveal . . .’ he gasped.

  ‘Oh yes they would,’ Gaveston scoffed, sitting down next to his victim. ‘Oh yes they did! Money and power, Monsieur Notary, are the two keys to any secret. You don’t deny it. Well, of course you don’t. You do remember, so many years ago, de Clauvelin, what, twenty-two?’ He pushed his face closer. ‘I was a mere babe. You thought I’d forget.’ He picked a crumb from the notary’s jerkin, brushing it tenderly. ‘I hunted you down, I searched France for you. The Abbot of St Jean des Vignes does owe me money; he did turn on you, didn’t he? He began to question you about certain rents which had disappeared, as well as the claims of a young woman about your forced attentions. You were only too willing to receive King Philip’s letter of appointment; he, of course, couldn’t give a fig about you!’

  ‘Mon seigneur,’ de Clauvelin bowed his head, hands outstretched towards the king, ‘mercy!’

  Edward gazed back stony-eyed.

  ‘Soon you will sleep.’ Gaveston smiled, glancing across at me. ‘Monsieur Sarnene, I laced your wine with poppy juice, and when you awake, after your fall, you’ll be in hell!’ He picked up his own goblet. ‘In infernum,’ he chanted, satirising the office of the dead, ‘diaboli te ducent – into hell the demons will lead you.’

  De Clauvelin, coughing and spluttering, made to rise only to collapse against the table and fall to the floor. Gaveston sprang up.

  ‘So soon, so soon?’ He kicked de Clauvelin, who moaned but lay still. Edward also rose and joined him, and both viciously kicked the prostrate man with their booted feet.

  ‘Stop, my lords!’ Isabella begged, hands to her face. I sat cold with fear. Isabella shouted again. Both men paused, chests heaving, faces wet with sweat. Gaveston wiped his brow on the back of his hand.

  ‘He sent my mother to a hideous death. She was strapped to a pole in the town square at Bearn, brushwood piled high against her. The flames roared so high, the heat became so intense, the hangman could not get to her to give her the mercy death, to strangle her. They say her flesh bubbled like . . .’ His voice faltered and he looked away. Edward moved to comfort him. Gaveston picked up his goblet and threw the dregs of wine over the unconscious man.

  ‘He’ll die quickly, not like my mother!’ He kicked his victim again and looked beseechingly at me. ‘I had to do it now. He thought the world had forgotten, but I am not the world.’ He strode across the room and opened the door; his two assassins slipped in. Gaveston kicked the prostrate man.

  ‘There’s a narrow postern gate in the curtain wall. It’s used for throwing away slops and refuse. You’ll find the hinges oiled, take him and throw him out.’

  I closed my eyes and thought of de Clauvelin’s body falling down that sheer rocky abyss into the freezing, swirling sea.

  ‘Give out that he was walking on the parapet and had drunk too much wine.’ Gaveston clicked his tongue. ‘Say he slipped; who will question, who will care?’

  The two men removed the body. Gaveston started breathing deeply. He appeared self-satisfied, content, rubbing his stomach like a man who’d enjoyed a good meal.

  ‘Justice,’ Edward murmured.

  Gaveston collected the notary’s clasps, buttons and cross and threw them into the fire. He insisted on one final cup of wine. We sat and drank, the mood swiftly changing. De Clauvelin was forgotten, at least by them, and for the first time I wondered if Isabella and I had exchanged one prison for another. The princess made to leave. Both Gaveston and the king, now all courteous, walked us out into the gallery, which was filling with retainers and servants preparing for the king to retire. Gaveston’s chamber was further along. We entered it. I clutched the presents he had given us. I was tired, needful of silence, desperate for sleep. The favourite’s chamber was like an upturned treasure chest, with costly clothes and precious ornaments flung around. Both he and the king were now talking of their royal progress through Kent to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury and the jewel they were to present there. Gaveston wanted to show it to us, excited like a child about a gift he had prepared. I stared at the great bed, its pure linen sheets thrown back. On the floor beside it were hunting boots decorated with gilded spurs; in the far corner a hooded falcon on its perch, jesse bells ringing as it moved restlessly. I glimpsed a triptych hanging rather crookedly from a hook on the wall hastily put there when Gaveston had set up his household. I went across to put it straight and hid my surprise: the painting celebrated the martyrdom and glory of St Agnes; I had last seen it at de Vitry’s house. At first I thought it was a copy, but the slightly rusting hinges along the folds of the picture and the dark patches around its glowing edge convinced me it was the same I’d seen in Monsieur Simon’s house. So how had Gaveston acquired it? Noting my interest, the favourite sauntered across to describe his deep devotion to the saint who shared his mother’s name. Isabella heard this and hastily made a sign that we leave. I joined her; we both bowed to the king and Gaveston and withdrew.

  Once alone, Isabella declared she did not want to retire. She studied Gaveston’s gifts and wondered about the events of the evening.

  ‘They did the same as your father,’ I retorted, ‘a fine display of power and terror; which is why de Clauvelin was killed in our presence. They intend,’ I added, ‘to be the sole masters in their house.’

  Isabella pressed one of the sables against her cheek and smiled. ‘As do I, Mathilde, as do I!’

  We left Dover the next morning, a glorious cavalcade, the might of England. Edward cheerfully announced he had no intention whatsoever of waiting for his French guests and the sooner he returned to Westminster the better. The weather, I remember, had made one of those startling turns, as if nature itself wanted to greet England’s new queen: rain-washed, clear blue skies, a bright winter sun, the ground firm underfoot, the air bracing but not cutting. Edward and Gaveston moved to the head of the column with their retinue of dwarves and jesters, eager to hunt with hawk and falcon. They’d often break away from our line of march, cantering across the fields to fly their magnificent birds against herons, plover, anything which dared wing its way under God’s own heaven. Time and again I saw these predators loosed, wings beating as they fought the breezes to gain ascendancy, floating like dark angels against the blue before making their breathtaking, magnificent plunge.

  Both Isabella and I were ignored, as the great game had truly begun, though we had enough to distract ourselves. We rode palfreys, accompanied and protected by Sandewic, Casales, Rossaleti and Baquelle, who were eager to describe
the countryside we were passing through. Despite the severity of winter, the land had a softness unique to itself, so different from the bleak plains of Normandy. The countryside spread out like a carpet on either side, great open fields of iron-hard brown soil awaiting the sowing. Meadows and pastures for the great flocks of sheep, thick dense woods, dark copses with small hamlets nestling in the lee of a hill or some forest clearing. The poor are the same wherever they are, and they are always with us. The roads were busy with those searching for work as well as merchants, friars, tinkers and chapmen with their pack donkeys and sumpter ponies, carts and barrows all of whom had to hastily pull aside as the royal cortège approached. On one occasion we passed a troupe of moon people, perpetual travellers, with their brightly painted wagons, gaudy harness decorating their horses. They clustered together on the side of the road dressed in their garish clothes and cheap jewellery, offering trinkets for sale. Pilgrims going to and from Canterbury, Rochester, or Walsingham further to the north also thronged, Ave beads slung round their necks, pewter medallions pinned to their ragged cloaks. These lifted their hands and, as we all swept by, called down God’s blessing on Edward and his queen.

  Such sights in the open fresh air were calming after the turbulence of the recent days. Our four companions described the countryside, its crops of wheat and rye as well as the fruits and vegetables, parsley, leek, cabbages and onions, plums, pears and apples, grown by the peasant farmers. I noticed how, unlike Normandy, there were few hedges, the different holdings being separated from each other by baulks of unploughed turf. These gave the land a strange, striped appearance though increasingly more harvest ground was being turned into pasture for sheep, English wool being in constant demand throughout Europe. As we passed their thatched-roof wattle-and-daub cottages, the peasants came hastening out to gape and cheer. The deeper we journeyed into Kent, however, the more prosperous the small villages became, their stone houses and churches seeming commonplace. These were usually grouped round some magnificent red-brick or honey-coloured stone manor hall with fine tiled roof, stacks to draw off the smoke, heavy oaken doors and windows full of mullioned glass.

  We were met at crossroads, parish boundaries and town gates by hosts of important officials, sheriffs, stewards, bailiffs, constables, dignitaries of church and state, all dressed in their grandeur, heavy chains of office slung round their necks. They offered gifts and protestations of loyalty which Isabella accepted, replying in a clear, carrying voice, sometimes lapsing into English, which she had so zealously, though secretly studied. Each place had striven to do its best. Gibbets had been cleared of strangled corpses, stocks emptied, the heads and severed limbs of traitors taken down from the town bars and gates to be replaced with armorial shields or broad coloured cloths. At night we rested in the guest houses of monasteries, priories and nunneries. During the day we would sometimes refresh ourselves at the spacious pilgrim taverns with their ornate welcoming signs and warm tap-rooms. There was very little time to think, let alone converse privately, and the further north we went the busier our cavalcade became. We crossed the gushing waters of the Medway, admired the soaring keep of Rochester Castle and finally lodged at St Augustine’s Priory in Canterbury, a mere walk from the cathedral and its spectacular shrine to St Thomas Becket, a mass of gold, silver and precious jewels. We visited the cathedral and prayed at the bottom of the steps; the screen before the shrine was raised so we could make our offerings of flowers, tapers and precious goods.

  We also met Isabella’s aunt, the Queen Dowager Margaret, widow of Edward I and sister of Philip IV. From the very beginning aunt and niece took an immediate dislike to each other. Queen Margaret was beautiful in a pallid way, sanctimonious and patronising, full of her own goodness and pious acts. A woman who had found religion and lost her heart, totally immersed in her sanctimonious passion to go on pilgrimage. She catalogued the different places Isabella must visit as queen, be it St Swithun’s at Worcester, the relics of Glastonbury or the Virgin’s House at Walsingham. She gossiped like a fishwife about herself until Isabella, stifling a yawn, thanked her ‘sweet aunt’. The queen dowager, however, was not so readily quietened. Isabella had to force a smile as Margaret perched in a window seat overlooking the cloister garth, describing her recent pilgrimage to view the phial of Christ’s Precious Blood at Hailes Abbey. The second woman we met was Margaret de Clare, the king’s niece and wife to Gaveston; a whey-faced, rather anxious young woman who kept touching the old-fashioned wimple around her face. She sat like a pious novice, hands in her lap, avidly listening to the queen dowager’s monotonous sermons on the different shrines; every so often the younger Margaret would nod in agreement and thrust her needle into a piece of tapestry.

  Once Isabella and I were alone in our chambers, the princess sat on the ground with her back to the door and laughed until the tears streamed down her face. She ripped off her head-dress, almost pushing it into her mouth to hide her merriment. At last she composed herself, picked up a napkin, wrapped it around her head and, with the most sanctimonious expression, eyes raised heavenwards, imitated both women, even down to Aunt Margaret’s ceaseless nasal homily.

  ‘Oh Mathilde, you must visit Chepstow and the priory there, you know the one, dedicated to the straw in the manger. It holds a turd dropped by the very ox which was there on the first Christmas night, whilst down the road, at the Nunnery of the Blessed Sheep, you can venerate the very foreskin of the shepherd boy who brought the baby lamb. They even have a leg of the same.’ Isabella’s eyes moved heavenwards. ‘Still with some scraps of meat on because the Holy Family ate the rest.’

  She burst out laughing and, getting to her feet, solemnly processed up and down the spacious guest room listing the most extraordinary relics which Aunt Margaret could collect: the Christ Child’s first napkin, a splinter from Joseph’s work bench, a feather from an angel, a broken thimble belonging to the Virgin Mary. At last she paused, throwing the napkin to the ground.

  ‘Pious bitch!’ she muttered. ‘So holy she should be dead! Oh, don’t be shocked, Mathilde.’ Isabella shook her fist at the door. ‘Aunt Margaret spies for her brother. If Margaret the Pious has her way, Father will know everything before it happens.’ She waved a finger at me. ‘I must remember that.’ She filled two pewter tankards to the brim with the ale the good brothers had served and sat on a quilted stool staring up at me.

  ‘Well, well, Mathilde, what do you think we are? Two sparrows who have fallen off the ledge into the path of a cat?’

  ‘My lady, your grace, do you love mon seigneur your husband?’

  Isabella pursed her lips and shrugged. ‘Answer my question, Mathilde.’

  ‘Yes!’ I replied bluntly. ‘We are two sparrows who have fallen into the path of a cat. Edward of England and his favourite are certainly not priests at prayer; we have to walk slowly and very carefully. They have shown their true nature.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘They will brook no opposition. Obey them and all will be well. Object or resist the will of the king and anything is possible, which, my lady,’ I settled on a bench, ‘might include the murders of Sir Hugh Pourte and Lord Wenlok.’

  On our journey from Dover I had reflected on that possibility. There was the Council of England and a small inner coven, the Secretum Concilum, the Secret Council, staffed by the likes of Casales, Sandewic and Baquelle as well as those two men so recently killed. Both offered advice which displeased Edward and Gaveston. I shared this conclusion with my mistress, adding that the members of the Secret Council could be under threat, being removed one by one.

  ‘By whom?’ Isabella asked.

  ‘Your grace, I cannot answer that.’

  Chapter 9

  All friendship and kindness have disappeared.

  ‘A Song of the Times’, 1272-1307

  We stayed at the Priory of St Augustine for some time, waiting to welcome the French party: Philip’s two brothers, the Counts of Valois and Evreux; Marigny, Nogaret, des Plaisans and the three royal pr
inces. Two days after we arrived, these swept into the priory courtyard, a gorgeous cavalcade under their blue and gold banners, to be greeted by Edward and Gaveston. The usual banquets and feastings followed in the priory or the cathedral buildings. Once again Isabella was surrounded by the ladies of the court and I was excluded. The princess was certainly at the behest of ‘that green-eyed Reynard’, her nick name for Marigny, who, during mass the morning after his arrival, stared malevolently at me as he and the rest processed slowly out of church. I was relieved to be excluded from all their jostling malice, whilst Isabella eagerly recounted the details of what happened. How Edward publicly paid more attention to Gaveston than he did to his ‘beloved wife’, the royal favourite openly wearing some of the jewels Philip had given to Isabella. The French, of course, objected, and relations between the two courts grew increasingly strained.

  I was content to be away from the hurly-burly of meetings, feasts and courtly sessions. Casales, Sandewic, Rossaleti and Baquelle, when they could, joined me in the spacious parlour of the guest house or accompanied me through the priory herbarium, where I discussed the names and properties of the various plants. Sandewic, in particular, showed interest. He was still full of praise for the physic I had given him. He and the rest had no choice but to listen as I explained how the priory possessed a number of gardens: the cloister garden with grass and flowers growing around the holy water stoup in the centre; the cemetery garden with its fruit and blossom trees; the kitchen garden and the infirmary or physic garden to the north of the priory. The latter boasted sixteen parallel beds, well dug and tended, all separated by sanded paths, the herb plots deliberately sited to catch the sun. A pleasant place, even on a winter’s day. The fragrance of the plants still sweetened the air despite the small pentile coverings the physic-master, Brother Ambrose, had placed over them as protection against the elements. That old Benedictine was truly a man in love with God’s creation, responsible for both the physic garden and the infirmary. He always joined us with a battered copy of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica under his arm; little wonder that, after an hour of listening to the infirmarian’s lecture on the virtues of feverfew, my companions soon absented themselves.