by Paul Doherty
‘Passion, Uncle.’
‘Good, and the second?’
‘Logic,’ I’d smile.
Sweet Mother Mary, even now, years later, the tears still brim. In that sombre February the ghost of Reginald de Deyncourt came to dominate my soul more and more. Perhaps it was the arrival of Demontaigu, what Isabella called the change in the sea, or perhaps like a swordsman I wanted to step out of the shadows to confront my foes. I returned to my journals, writing down in my cramped cipher everything I could remember: that morning outside the death house, the struggle on the steps in Canterbury and, most importantly, pushing open Monsieur de Vitry’s door. I added the petty details of those particular days – what I ate, what I saw – to serve as pricks to my memory. I followed the art of physic, concentrating precisely on what I witnessed, experienced and reflected upon. Time and again I returned to the massacre at de Vitry’s mansion. On that day I had killed a man. I was shocked, I had fled, so my soul was agitated. I recalled entering the merchant’s house. I fastened on one fact: the main door had been open, off the latch, not bolted. Why? The assassin could have killed and left but, surely, he’d have barred the front door and fled through some window to keep the murders secret as long as possible? Was that it? Did the killer overlook that? Or, and I was growing certain about this, had I forestalled him? Had I entered that house before he could turn the key and draw bolts? Surely a killer would seal the door lest someone come in behind him as I did? In my mind’s eye I was standing in the hallway, looking round at the shadowy recesses, the small chambers leading off. Had the assassin been lurking there as I entered? But if so, why had he not attacked me? I asked the same questions of Demontaigu; he too was puzzled.
‘Yes, yes,’ he’d whisper when we met in some corner of the Castle on the Hoop. ‘De Vitry’s death lies at the heart of all this mystery. What happened on that day may be the key. So,’ he added, ‘what would I have done if I’d been the assassin?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I would have locked that door behind me. Yes, Mathilde, that’s what I would have done. Why didn’t he?’
As it was, I could not meet Demontaigu often. The Tower was a narrow, close place and I did not know whom I could trust. Nevertheless, I was pleased he was a fully indentured clerk of Isabella’s household, receiving robes and wages every quarter beginning Easter next. He’d sealed agreements with that plump and vivacious controller, a high-ranking English clerk from the Court of King’s Bench, William de Boudon, a man who later played his own important role in the affairs of Isabella, but that is not for now.
De Boudon liked Demontaigu and often used him, so in the Tower I tried to keep my distance. On one thing both Isabella and I had been resolute. Demontaigu was not to strike at Marigny or any of the French party, which would only endanger her and me. Hand on the Gospels, he vowed to obey. Marigny would be left unscathed, though Demontaigu added the ominous phrase ‘for as long as he remained in England’.
By the third week of February 1308, the Tower had become the centre of the English court by both day and night, holy days and weekdays, all taken up with the preparations for the coronation. Baquelle scurried backwards and forwards full of his own importance, openly delighted that the king had decided that he and Casales would be Knights of the Sanctuary for the coronation. Both men, clad in full plate armour covered with the royal livery, would stand in especially erected open pavilions at the side of the sanctuary steps during the ceremony. The carpenters, Baquelle assured us excitedly, were already constructing the heavy-beamed pavilions in the transepts of the abbey; these would later be moved and decorated with greenery and winter roses. Baquelle and Casales also acted as Isabella’s military escort when Marigny and his coven visited the Tower for formal presentation to the princess. On such occasions, at Isabella’s order, I absented myself, as did Demontaigu, though one morning, standing with me on the parapet walk, he pointed out a black-haired, sharp-featured knight in Marigny’s retinue.
‘Alexander of Lisbon,’ he murmured; he turned his back to stare out over the crenellated walls and I gazed down at the Portuguese knight who had become, and would remain, the bane of my beloved’s life. Even then, just the way he walked reminded me of a Tower raven, with his jerky, sinister stride, head slightly bent as if searching the ground for something.
Isabella, as usual, received her father’s ministers only to quarrel again over the appointment of a physician to her household as well as other sensitive matters.
‘He forgets himself,’ she declared once Marigny had left. ‘This is not the Ile de France. Monsieur de Marigny is beginning to realise the full truth of the phrase “as the father, so the daughter”. I heard a curious story,’ she continued, ‘I’ve already asked Demontaigu but he cannot help. That Portuguese knight, Alexander of Lisbon? He has licence from my husband to hunt down subjects of the King of France, Templars, hiding in this kingdom. Apparently he has been busy along the south-west coast.’
‘And?’ I asked.
‘Demontaigu said there was a close link between the Templars and the great abbey at Glastonbury, but that none of his brothers would hide there. A Frenchman in those lonely parts, he alleges, would place himself in great danger. So why should Alexander be travelling through such a desolate region in the depth of winter?’
Such remarks had to be ignored with the busy routine of our days. Casales and Baquelle, our constant visitors, brought in cloth of gold and silver, velvets and satins for Isabella to choose from, together with livery, hangings and banners for others in the Tower who would take part in the festivities and ceremonies. At the same time more soldiers arrived, including the Kernia, Irish Kerns, mercenaries loyal to Gaveston whom they worshipped as a great seigneur; these swarmed through the outer wards of the Tower despite Sandewic’s strictures. The old constable openly grumbled at their wild ways as well as why the king and his favourite needed such mercenaries. Sandewic’s health was certainly failing. I dared not give him further medicines but hoped that once the coronation was past and spring arrived, his health would improve. Sandewic, however, was more concerned about the old bear Woden, who was sickening and refusing his food. Isabella petitioned her husband to have Sandewic released from some of his duties, so a younger man, John de Cromwell, was appointed as lieutenant. The old constable simply became more determined, even spending time supervising the wall paintings in his beloved Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula; he wanted these to be finished before the king left the Tower.
The coronation day approached. Extra seating was erected in Westminster Abbey, triumphal arches in the streets were hung with tapestries and banners whilst the thoroughfares along which the king and queen would pass were cleaned and gravelled. On 23 February, the merchant princes of the city, their barges decked and trimmed with the banners of their mysteries, came up the Thames and joined the king and queen for their coronation rituals in the Chapel of St John the Evangelist. On the morning of the 24th, Edward and Isabella left the fortress for Westminster; a mist-strewn, icicle-hung dawn with lowering leaden clouds and drifting snowflakes. In such bleak weather Isabella glowed like a tongue of flame, dressed in gorgeous robes of gold and silver made from twenty-three yards of precious cloth, all edged and decorated with ermine and overlaid with mother-of-pearl lace. She and I sat in a litter lined with white satin and trimmed with gold damask, drawn by two handsome mules decorated with gleaming harnesses. Above us billowed an exquisitely embroidered canopy of state; alongside marched men-at-arms in livery of scarlet damask.
We left by the Lion Gate and made our ceremonial progress to Westminster. Pageants and displays were staged along the main streets. A tableau of roses and lilies at Gracechurch; near Cornhill a pageant of the virtuous queen; in Cheapside choirs gathered around the beautiful Eleanor Cross to sing Isabella’s praises, whilst the city clerk presented her with a purse of a thousand gold marks. Scholars from St Paul’s made pretty speeches comparing Isabella to the strong and virtuous women from the Bible. Everywhere the brilliantly coloured crowd gaped and cheered from
balconies, windows and doorways, all festooned with cloths, mantles and standards displaying every device and colour.
At Temple Bar the city council formally bade us farewell. We proceeded along the Royal Way into the precincts of Westminster, a small city in itself with its mansions, stone houses and thatched cottages. Here lived legions of carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, whitesmiths, jewellers, armourers, bakers and fleshers, as well as those who served in the various departments of the royal household: pantry, buttery, spices, chandlery, wardrobe and kitchen. As in the city, the streets and houses were hung with crimson and scarlet cloth. Along its winding lanes and streets were more staged pageants, allegories and mysteries about fair maidens and giants, angels and devils. Trestle tables groaned with food whilst the conduits splashed out red and white wine. We journeyed into the inner bailey of the palace with its beautiful gabled houses of carved timber, plastered fronts and painted windows, all gleaming with frost and overshadowed by the Great Hall and the soaring glory of St Stephen’s Chapel which, at the time, had not yet been finished.
Isabella and I were allocated quarters near the Painted Chamber with its gorgeous fresco telling the story of the Maccabees. Nevertheless, on our arrival that morning, amidst all that swirl of spectacle, trumpets blaring, horns blowing, standards and pennants clustered into a vivid cloud of colour, one memory, almost like a vision, caught my mind. It was as if the dead, the murdered, those souls cast out before their time, congregated about me, whispering at my soul to alert my heart. I was standing in the doorway of the small hall; across its tiled floor, built against the wall, was a set of stairs, polished to gleaming, stretching up into the darkness. An old porter carrying a coffer on his right shoulder was laboriously climbing up, his left hand holding the wall to keep his balance. Standing in that doorway I felt a shiver of fear, as if the cup of ghosts had spilled out its contents. The scene recalled my entering Monsieur de Vitry’s house, its door closing behind me and that servant lying half out of a chamber to my right. The old porter continued up the stairs even as a servant girl hurried down. I glanced around at the alcoves, recesses and corners. I felt as if I was seeing what the assassin had seen in de Vitry’s house during those first few heartbeats before he struck, yet I was overlooking something. I became engrossed. Demontaigu pushed by me, hurrying up the stairs with a hanaper of documents. I watched him go.
‘Mistress?’ Rossaleti, a leather pannier over his shoulders, was staring curiously at me, admiring my gold gown. He lightly touched the veil around my head. ‘Mathilde, you look the maiden fair.’ I broke from my reverie and thanked him.
Casales came across. We waited for the princess to join us and continued up the stairs where de Boudon and other household officials were waiting to welcome us. A strange candlelit evening followed, with the solemn chanting of vespers and compline by the Black Monk choir at Westminster echoing across the palace grounds; an unsettling evening, of hasty meals and the noise and chatter of excited retainers preparing for the morrow.
The coronation day dawned clear and fair, the bells of the abbey provoking a dramatic response from the nearby belfries of St Stephen’s and St Margaret’s, all echoing along the fogbound river to be answered by St Paul’s and the bells of over a hundred other city churches. We had risen long before dawn, gathering for the solemn vesting in the small hall. Edward, assisted by Gaveston, dressed in scarlet cloth of gold and black leggings but remained shoeless, as did Isabella, clad in her coronation robes beneath a billowing mantle of embroidered silk lined with ermine; on her head a crimson velvet cap adorned with Venetian gold and pearls. To the joyous sound of fife, tambour and dulcimer, Edward and Isabella processed along the coarsely woven blue carpet which stretched from Westminster Hall to the abbey church, walking beneath a brilliant canopy, its staves being borne by Casales, Sandewic (looking grey with exhaustion), Baquelle and one of the barons of the Cinque Ports. I walked behind in sombre dress, keeping to the edge of the carpet along which followed the leading barons of the kingdom: William Marshall bearing the king’s gilded spurs; Hereford, the royal sceptre crowned with a cross; Henry of Lancaster, the royal rod surmounted by a dove; and the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln and Warwick, the three royal swords. Other lords, both spiritual and temporal, followed, then, after a considerable pause, Gaveston, dressed in gorgeous purple and silver, proud as a peacock, accorded the prestigious honour of being crown-bearer.
At the high altar the king and queen offered a pound of gold in the form of a statue of Edward the Confessor. The choir and sanctuary blazed with the light of hundreds of torches and candles which dazzled in the rich glow of the thickly embroidered tapestries covering walls, pillars, lecterns, chairs and tables. At either side of the steps leading up to the choir and sanctuary stood the great oaken pavilions decorated with embroidered cloths, winter roses and greenery. Casales, his helmet between his feet, stood in the one on the left, Baquelle on the right. They looked out on to an abbey nave packed with visiting dignitaries, the principal ones clustering up the steps to witness the coronation, which was carried through to the blaze of trumpets, heady gusts of incense and the roar of the acclamation ‘Fiat, Fiat, Vivat Rex’, followed by the antiphon ‘Unxerunt Salamonem’ – ‘They Anointed Solomon’. Bishop Woodlock of Worcester performed the holy unction. The king himself lowered the crowns, first onto his head then on to Isabella’s. She acted serenely throughout the proceedings, lips and eyes crinkled in happiness, a faint smile brightening her face, a vision of joy amidst the grim muttering which permeated the coronation. The anger of the earls ran high against the honour and precedence accorded to Gaveston, who not only held the crown but was given the special privilege of fixing one of the royal spurs to the king’s buskined foot. Beneath the chanting and the acclamations rose a low chorus of protest from a sea of angry, hot-eyed noblemen whose fingers kept falling to empty scabbards; in other circumstances daggers and swords would have been drawn. Who says the future cannot be predicted by signs and omens? The coronation of Edward II was the herald for the disasters to follow: a day of anger, resentment, jealousy, arrogance and finally murder.
The coronation ended. The royal party and its entourage were processing down the nave when the acclamations and singing were drowned by a violent crash behind us, followed by piercing screams and shouts. The earl marshal signalled us to continue but Isabella caught my eye and indicated that I should go back to investigate the cause of the rising clamour. A great crowd was gathering to the right of the sanctuary steps. Clouds of dust now mingled with the drifting tendrils of candle smoke and incense. Above the crowds I glimpsed a tangle of timbers, twisted greenery and cloths. People were pressing in. A woman, Baquelle’s wife, was screaming hysterically. Rossaleti summoned men-at-arms to force a way through the dignitaries, black-robed monks and soldiers. Already Casales and Sandewic were pulling at the heavy timbers but there was nothing to be done. The entire wooden pavilion housing Baquelle had splintered and collapsed. Its side-walls had tumbled outwards, and the heavy oaken beams across the top, some two yards above Baquelle’s head, had crashed down, crushing the hapless knight in his armour, burying him under their massed weight. Only a hand stuck forlornly out.
Casales, stripped of most of his dress armour, imposed order, telling the men-at-arms to drive away the crowds. He hastily summoned a troop of workmen, who removed the heavy beams. Underneath sprawled Baquelle, his skull crushed, parts of his body armour digging deep into his flesh. The dead knight’s head and face were drenched in blood, his finery stained and torn. He was stripped of his armour and laid out on a palliasse brought from the abbey infirmary, a tangled, bruised and bloodied mass of flesh. A priest monk crouched over the corpse, swiftly anointing it, whispering into the dead man’s ear the shriving words of absolution. Other brothers tried to console Baquelle’s family. The corpse was hastily removed, the abbey emptied. The carpenters and craftsmen, agitated and worried, clustered to discuss what had happened. I glimpsed Demontaigu standing by a pillar, almost hidden in the half-
light. He raised a hand and moved away. Rossaleti was asking Casales what had happened, but the knight just shook his head.
‘I was standing on guard,’ he declared. ‘The royal party left the sanctuary. Come!’ He included me in his invitation and led us across to his own oak pavilion. In size it was about a yard and half deep, its width was just over two yards and it stood about four yards high. A long rectangle of polished dried oak poles cut in two, it had a narrow cushioned seat at the back, the two sides and back being held most securely by flat wooden slats fastened inside. A master craftsman joined us and explained how the top poles were kept in place by joists reinforced with glue. Casales declared that, once the royal party had passed, Baquelle, exhausted from standing, must have sat down on the seat. He was dressed in plate armour and his weight, leaning against the back, must have caused the top to spring loose and collapse.
Rossaleti had his answer, so he left; Casales was equally impatient to go to seek an audience with the king to inform him of the news. I stayed. I’d glimpsed the suspicion in the master craftsman’s eyes as his colleagues had drifted away to whisper in the shadows. I had a few words with the master craftsman then went to pray in the Lady Chapel with its statue of the Virgin Queen holding the Divine Child, beneath that, in a jewelled case, the abbey’s great relic, a girdle cord once worn by Christ’s mother. I stared at that, half listening to the nave empty. I muttered an Ave but my mind drifted back to Monsieur de Vitry’s house. I heard the distant sounds of trumpets from the celebrations in the Great Hall where the feasting had already begun. I ignored them as I recalled that dire day, fleeing from my own killing. My eyes grew heavy.
‘Mistress, mistress?’ The master craftsman stood in the entrance to the Lady Chapel. I went out to meet him. He handed over a piece of wood. ‘An accident,’ he muttered. I studied the piece of wood, cut clean from the rest. ‘I did that, you see, mistress.’ The master craftsman kept out of the light. ‘The pavilion was fashioned out of oaken poles split down the middle. The rounded part faced the outside, the smooth and flat for the inside; long poles for the three sides, shorter ones for the top kept in place by joists, sprouting like the protruding fingers of a hand into the prepared spaces.’ He explained how the side poles were glued together and reinforced by oaken strips; the ones across the top depended only on the joists and glue as it had been important not to impose too much weight.