The Cup of Ghosts

Chapter 11

A short while later, with the Welshman full of questions about what had happened earlier in the day, we left the Tower and made our way down to the Prospect of Whitby.

The tavern stood on a corner of an alleyway looking out on to the quayside and the grim three-branched scaffold from which hung the corpses of river pirates. According to placards fastened to their lifeless hands, the three thieves had robbed the Church of St Botolph’s in Billingsgate of a pyx and two candlesticks. They’d been hanged at dawn and swung eerily in the stiff breeze, creaking and twisting on their oiled ropes. I stared at them, thinking about Gaston, and walked into the spacious tap room. It was a pleasant, welcoming place with a low ceiling, its timber beams blackened with smoke from which hung hams, cheeses and freshly baked bread in wire cages. A communal trestle-board dominated the room, stretching from the barrels on either side of the counters to the far wall; other small tables stood within the window enclosures. The floor was cleanly swept and strewn with supple green rushes, the air rich and savoury from a leg of pork, basted with juices, roasting above the fire. A tap boy, I have good reason to remember him, tousle-haired and gap-toothed, waved me to a table. Ap Ythel stood at the doorway, staring curiously in. I ignored the boy and went across to the counter where the tavern-master, a beanpole of a man almost covered by a heavy leather apron, was filling tankards for fishermen who’d just sold their day’s catch. I asked about Master Arnaud the bowyer and said I’d return at the hour of vespers. The taverner looked at me and glanced heavenwards.

‘Bordeaux!’ he exclaimed. ‘The best Bordeaux? Of course we have it, mistress, do come and see a tun.’ He held a hand up. ‘Unbroached, fresh from Gascony, come, come, your lady will be pleased!’

I had no choice but to follow him into the back of the tavern and down the cellar steps. All the time he kept chattering about ‘the best of Bordeaux’. He reached the bottom, threw open the cellar door and ushered me in. I waited whilst he lit tallow candles in their lantern horns.

‘Smugglers used this,’ he explained, moving a mock barrel to reveal the door behind. He knocked, the door opened and Demontaigu stepped out. The tavern-master bowed and left the cellar. The Templar moved into the dim pool of light.

‘I knew you’d come,’ he murmured. ‘I told Master Thomas to bring you down here immediately. Ah well, Gaston is taken, he’d shaven his head so I did not recognise him.’ Demontaigu’s eyes searched my face. ‘We came so close.’

I told him how Gaston was acting frenetic, witless, that he wanted the Consolamentum and would look for the cross when he was hanged at noon the following day.

‘He wants to be shriven,’ Demontaigu replied, ‘God help him. He’s acting the fool so as not to be questioned. Look, when you go back,’ he urged, ‘send him a message, that you’ll find him a crucifix. Gaston will understand.’

‘And here?’ I asked. ‘You are safe?’

‘The tavern-master’s son was a Templar squire in Bordeaux; he is no Judas man.’ Demontaigu walked up the cellar and brought back a small cask; the seal on the bung proclaimed it to be Bordeaux, from a vineyard close to St Sardos. ‘Give this to your mistress.’

‘She knows what you meant,’ I replied, taking the cask, ‘when you asked me to reflect like a nun: you want to do the same as me, shelter in her household.’

I looked at him so earnestly, Demontaigu laughed and kissed me on the brow.

‘I am a priest, Mathilde, yet you look at me. .’ He shook his head. ‘Tell your mistress I will be her loyal clerk; I’ll be true to her as long as she is true to me.’ He kissed my brow again. ‘Go, Mathilde, and do not come back here tomorrow.’

Of course I ignored him. I returned to the Tower nervous and agitated. If Demontaigu wanted to be present at the hanging, that might make him vulnerable. Isabella agreed. Demontaigu could enter her household as a clerk, but he would have to survive the dangers of the hanging day. If Marigny and the others suspected the truth, if they, like Sandewic, began to believe the assassin was not the idiot he pretended, the Secreti and the Noctales would swarm like ants.

The next day I left the Tower, again accompanied by the Welsh captain, now accustomed to such duties. He gave me all the gossip. Apparently Isabella had sent the prisoner a crucifix the previous evening. Early that morning a summary court comprising of Sandewic, Casales and Baquelle had been appointed by the king as justices exercising the full powers of Oyer and Terminer. The court had sat in St Peter’s ad Vincula but the prisoner had refused to plead; he’d gibbered and moaned before starting his wild dance. He did not deny the attempt on Marigny so he was condemned and handed over to Casales for punishment.

As the Welshman and I left, the execution was already underway. The prisoner had been dragged up from the dungeons, stripped of his ragged brown robe and, wearing only a loincloth, securely fastened to a hurdle attached to a carthorse. The poor man was then dragged on his back across the cobbles of the Tower yard, out through the Lion Gate and into the streets towards St Katharine’s Wharf. The executioner led the horse, as his assistant, dressed in black, followed behind. A good crowd gathered, the news of the execution being proclaimed by heralds. Marigny and his coterie were present on a specially erected scaffold draped with cloths. They had come to witness retribution. By the time the prisoner reached the gallows he had already paid in full, his back being cruelly shredded and bloodied by the cobbles. Nevertheless, he was shown no mercy, but released and pushed up the gallows steps, a filthy, bent figure still pretending to be mad.

I scrutinised the crowd. I could not see Demontaigu, but I glimpsed the tap boy from the Prospect, and around him hooded figures. Casales, his injured arm dangling by his side, was supervising the grisly business of the execution, standing at the foot of the scaffold shouting orders up at the executioner now bestriding the gallows’ arms. I glanced across at the royal enclosure. Gaveston had joined Marigny and was leaning against the rail watching proceedings intently. The prisoner reached the top of the ladder and half turned to gaze out over the crowd. The hangman fitted the noose around his neck. Casales made a sign, a roll of drums and a blare of trumpets created an expectant silence. This was when the condemned man could shout his last words. Casales bellowed that the prisoner was witless, and was about to give the sign for another drum roll and the removal of the ladder when the prisoner raised his head and, leaning against the scaffold, hands bound behind him, shouted out:

‘Good citizens!’

Casales, surprised, stepped back.

‘Good citizens,’ the prisoner repeated.

I glanced around; a pole with a crucifix lashed to it was being lifted up into the air and a strong voice intoned:

‘We adore thee, Oh Christ, and we praise thee.’

The reply from the prisoner was equally lucid:

‘Because by thy Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’

The exchange took the onlookers by surprise.

‘Brothers,’ the prisoner shouted, ‘can I have absolution?’ He immediately began to recite an Act of Contrition, whilst from the crowd echoed that clear, strong voice I’d come to know and love, ringing back the words of absolution.

‘Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti’ — I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father. .

Casales, now beside himself with curiosity, walked away from the foot of the ladder; a soldier handed him a crossbow, already primed. Marigny and his party, equally startled, were staring out across the sea of faces whose mood, fickle as ever, had turned in a wave of sympathy for the prisoner. Casales recovered himself. I watched the soldiers milling around the scaffold; memories pricked my soul only to swirl away in the excitement and fear brimming in my heart. Gaston was making his final confession, the Consolamentum, whilst absolution was being cried back across the crowd. Casales, God be thanked, at least waited for that to finish. He then made the sign; the executioner’s assistant quickly moved the ladder and the prisoner began his macabre dance, twisting and turning on the end of the rope, hideous to watch.

Suddenly the tap boy I’d glimpsed in the tavern came hurtling out of the crowd; the soldiers were facing the other way, and no one stopped him as he leapt on to the prisoner’s legs, pulling him down. The soldiers went to drag him off, but the crowd roared: ‘Let him be! Let him be!’

The soldiers stepped back, and Casales shouted an order to leave the boy alone. Even from where I stood I heard the final gasps as the prisoner hung motionless whilst the boy raced away to be lost in the crowd. I immediately returned to the Tower and reported all to my mistress.

‘He deserved a better death,’ she commented and filled two goblets with fresh apple juice. She sipped from hers swaying from side to side as if listening to some distant music. ‘Soon, Mathilde, we shall be away from here. I shall be queen and the storm will gather.’ She saluted me with her cup. ‘My father’s secret desires, and my husband’s, will reveal themselves in all their sinister colours. Only then, Mathilde, can we join the dance, but for the moment. .’ she sighed and, chewing her lip, stared hard at me, ‘we’ll act like young ladies all overcome by what is happening.’

We acted that role during those busy days, with clerks and clerics rehearsing the coronation ceremony and describing the ‘Ordo’ from the Liber Regalis. Isabella was also organising her household. Once crowned, she would move to Westminster Palace and assume all the status, duties and honours of Edward’s queen even though the future was uncertain, as the rumours seeping in from the city were highly unpleasant. The great earls were now meeting openly at tournaments, reiterating their demands that a parliament be called, Gaveston be exiled and the king ‘take true counsel’ from those born to give it. The French added to these demands; broadsheets and letters dictated by Marigny, still furious at the assassination attempt, were nailed to church doors and the Great Cross in St Paul’s churchyard. These documents proclaimed that anyone who supported Gaveston would be Philip of France’s mortal enemy. The leading bishops intervened to mediate and arrange a ‘love day’ so that Edward and his earls could meet at St Paul’s to discuss and resolve their mutual grievances in a sealed pact before the coronation.

Edward rejected all these approaches. He issued writs under the privy seal from his chancery room in the Tower declaring any such meetings hostile to him, treasonable and a threat to his rights. The King ordered the great earls to disperse their retinues and not bring them within five miles of the bars and city gates of London. At the same time more royal troops arrived, swelling the garrison at the Tower — so many they had to camp out on the lonely wastelands to the north. Battle barges patrolled the river and cogs fitted with all the armour of war gathered in the mouth of the Thames. Meanwhile Edward and Gaveston feasted in the Tower, or went hunting in the forests and woods around. They openly ignored Isabella, though both men sent her secret messages and tokens of their love on almost a daily basis.

Casales brought us the news. He paced up and down the queen’s chamber nursing his mangled wrist, describing the growing crisis with increasing foreboding. Rossaleti, now so quiet and reserved, would sit at the chancery desk nodding in solemn agreement. Isabella remained unperturbed. She reminded me of a cat, watching and listening attentively. She was waiting for that turn of the sea, the opening which would allow her, as she put it, the opportunity to test her claws. I was equally determined, just as resolute.

Old Sandewic continued to watch me carefully. The cold weather and onerous duties weakened his health. I renewed the phials of vervain and other potions to relieve his symptoms, advising caution that he did not take too much. I should have been more prudent about what he actually drank. The constable seemed deeply touched by my care and attention, responding with little gifts. He boasted openly of what he called my prowess in physic. Much to Isabella’s amusement, the garrison, its soldiers, servants, wives and families, started to present themselves on a daily basis in the inner ward for help and assistance. Sandewic, God assoil him, opened the stores and provided powders and dried herbs, even dispatching messengers to buy more from the city apothecaries. The ailments were, in the main, mild. I never forgot Uncle Reginald’s aphorism, that his patients usually healed themselves despite the best efforts of their physician.

The onset of winter ailments allowed me to observe, treat and learn. I dispensed ver juice for sores in the mouth, ivy juice for inflammation of the nose, pimpernel boiled in wine for the rheums and sweet almonds for earache. There were the usual cuts and scars to clean and treat; fractures to be fixed and contained, poultices applied. I advised on the need to be clean, and when complaints of sickness and looseness of the bowels increased, I examined the meat stores, salted and pickled for the winter, to discover some so soft and putrid they were alive with maggots. Sandewic was furious and the flesher responsible sat in the Tower stocks for a day with the filthy mess he’d sold tied around his neck, the rest being offered to passers-by to throw at him.

More importantly for me, Demontaigu entered Isabella’s household, slipping in easily without provoking any suspicions. Petitions had flooded in from many scribes and petty officials, clerks from the halls of Oxford and Cambridge, all seeking placements. Demontaigu was one of these. Armed with false papers, as indeed many applicants must have been, he presented himself before Casales, Sandewic and Rossaleti. He proved himself fluent in English, French, Castilian and Latin. He described himself as a soldier, a scholar who’d studied at Bologna and Ravenna, a Gascon by birth, who had wandered Europe and become proficient in the courtly hand, very skilled in the preparation and sealing of documents, who now wished to seek advancement in the royal service. Since going into hiding Demontaigu had given up using his father’s name, hiding behind his mother’s so he could mix truth and fable. When he was questioned, he acted respectful and courteous so the recommendation to Isabella to hire him was unreserved, Demontaigu was appointed as a Principal Clerk of the Red Wax in the Office of the Queen’s Wardrobe. I felt deeply comforted by his presence. Nevertheless, I acted on Isabella’s warning to walk prudently and allow the day-to-day workings of her household to draw him deeper in.

Demontaigu acted the part, being friends to all and allies to none in the petty factions and squabbling for precedence which constantly dominate any great household. When we did meet in some store room to make a tally or supervise the release of goods, we would talk and gossip in whispers. Demontaigu had changed; no longer concerned about his own situation, he seemed more fascinated about what happened to me. Oh Domine Jesu — it was he who prompted me to begin my own journals, written in cipher. I still have these today.

‘List,’ Demontaigu urged, ‘list what happens; they are the symptoms, Mathilde, look for the cause. In the end, all things drain to their logical conclusion; there must be, there will be, a solution to all this.’

I often reflected on that in the days before the coronation. I divided my time between assisting the princess, dispensing medicine and recalling the past. Demontaigu spoke the truth and spurred me into action. The shock and pain of the last few weeks were diminishing. Why should I stand like some pious novice and be attacked, threatened, cowed and bullied by the great ones? I could fight back. Uncle Reginald had been a hard taskmaster; he’d always insisted I keep a book of symptoms.

‘Write down,’ he’d order, ‘everything you observe about an ailment or a herb. Study what you record, reflect, look for a common pattern, and for changes which are not logical. Two things, Mathilde, rule your life: passion and logic. They are not contradictory, they complement each other.’ He would stroke my brow. ‘I love you, Mathilde, like a daughter, therefore I also want you close. So the first part of my statement is what?’

‘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 24^th, 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.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Some of the joists at the top must have snapped or slid out. Sir John, God rest him, was a heavy man in plate armour. If he sat down or leaned against the side, that might have weakened the structure. Mistress, those poles across the top are of heavy oak; once loosed, they would drop with all the power of a falling war club.’

‘How many joists were there?’ I asked. ‘Surely there must have been many? What, two on each pole, and there were four or five of those across the top.’

The man just shrugged and looked longingly over his shoulder at his comrades.

‘What was the cause?’ I asked softly.

‘Come and see.’ He took me back to the sanctuary steps. I must have been so absorbed with my own thoughts I hadn’t heard them lower the second pavilion, the one Casales had used. It now lay face down before the steps. The master craftsman brought a taper.

‘They were left over there,’ he explained, pointing across to the dark-shrouded transepts, ‘until this morning, then carried across here, erected and decorated. We thought it would be safe.’

In the light of the taper I examined the top of the wooden pavilion. Nothing more than half-poles fitted in between the sides and the back. The master craftsman’s agitation increased. I grasped the taper, pushing it closer, and gasped in surprise. A gap was evident between the edges of the poles on the two sides as well as the back, wide enough for a knife or thin saw to cut. The glue had also been weakened, some of the joists pulled loose, the gouge marks around the sides clear to see. I whirled round, dropping the taper. The master craftsman glared panic-stricken back.

‘We’ll say it was an accident,’ he mumbled.

‘But it wasn’t,’ I accused. ‘When these pavilions were lying down in the transepts someone must have attacked both of them, cutting the glue and sawing through the joist. The light in the transepts is poor. The malefactor must have been working on Casales’ when he was disturbed and left, but Baquelle’s was fatally weakened. The joists were cut. After it was raised and decorated, Sir John Baquelle took up his post. He was a large man in heavy armour; he’d move around, lean and sit. The weakened roof eventually snapped and fell in, crushing his skull. Casales was also meant to suffer the same fate.’

‘It wasn’t us,’ the man pleaded. ‘It wasn’t us! The oak was of the finest, the joist and gaps matching, we cannot be blamed.’

I stared around the gloomy abbey. The candles had guttered; only a few still glowed. The winter’s day was drawing in, the darkness gathering; so easy, I reflected, during the days before the coronation, for someone to slip through the gloom with a saw or razor-sharp blade and weaken the roofs of both pavilions. And who would notice? Even when it collapsed, all eyes were on the sanctuary. Both men had apparently been marked down for death. A God-given sign during the king’s coronation that all was not well, that the power of heaven did not rest on our prince. Such damage could easily be done in this place of dappled light. .

‘Mathilde, Mathilde!’ Casales and Rossaleti, cloaks billowing out, were striding up the nave. Casales described what was happening in the Great Hall; how the coronation banquet had been spoilt by the tragic death of Baquelle, whilst some of the earls had left before the first course had even been served. He stepped into the faint pool of candlelight, Rossaleti like a shadow behind him; both stared down at the wooden pavilion.

‘What is the matter, Mathilde?’

I told Casales precisely what I had discovered. The knight examined the pavilion for himself, kicked the side of it and, moving quickly, seized the master craftsman by his jerkin, pulling him close. The man, terrified, spluttered his innocence.

‘Let him go,’ I declared wearily. ‘They did what they were ordered to. They have nothing to do with what killed Baquelle and what could have killed you.’

‘I wonder.’ Casales released the hapless man, pushing him away. ‘I did wonder, just after the king and queen left the sanctuary. I sat down and felt the wood shudder and creak, then I heard the crash as Baquelle’s collapsed. How, Mathilde, how?’

‘My lord,’ the master craftsman was eager to establish his innocence and that of his colleagues, ‘we fashioned these pavilions but they were stored in the transepts until this morning. The abbey was open with all the preparations. Look how it is, even now, so dark anyone could have done that damage, for mischief, as an evil jape. .’

Casales waved him away, staring across at the tangled mess before spinning on his heel and striding back down the nave. He stopped halfway and turned.

‘Her grace the queen,’ he called, ‘says you need not join her. Marigny and the rest are bloated with hate at my lord Gaveston’s pre-eminence; she said it’s best if you stay. .’

I did so, returning to our quarters and sleeping fitfully in my clothes until the early hours, when Isabella, accompanied by her ladies, returned heavy-eyed, sick in stomach with muscles aching. I helped her undress. She stood in a shift before the weakening fire, running her hands through her mass of golden hair. I thought she would sleep, but she said her blood was still racing, her mind teeming with the events of the day. She described how the coronation banquet had turned into a mockery, the death of Baquelle hovering like a harbinger from hell over the feast. Matters were worsened by the chaos in the kitchens. Cooks, scullions and servants had been distracted by the disaster so the food had been cold and ill served. The great earls, their pride offended, had glowered and left whilst the French openly complained about the pre-eminence of Gaveston in his purple and silver-buttoned robes, sitting at the king’s right in preference to Isabella. Edward had openly cosseted Gaveston, blatantly ignoring Isabella. For the first time I caught her anger and irritation that the great game had gone too far.

As she paced up and down, drinking the watered wine I’d prepared with a heavy mix of camomile, I told her what I had discovered. She agreed that Baquelle’s death was no accident, an ominous augury for her coronation. Two more members of Edward’s secret council had been threatened and one killed in what could only be described as suspicious circumstances.

Casales had delivered the news to the king and his favourite, leaning over their throne-like chairs, whispering fiercely. Isabella stopped her pacing and, clutching the cup, glared down at me.

‘That stopped the revelry, Mathilde. Oh yes, Edward and Gaveston were openly shocked and surprised. Do you know,’ she leaned down, ‘for the first time I smelt their fear. Think of that, Mathilde, as you dream.’

We slept late that morning. Isabella was preparing to attend another banquet in the Painted Chamber when we were disturbed by furious knocking at the doors and the exclamations and cries of maids and pages in the presence chamber. I hastened out. Demontaigu was pushing his way through, hair and face soaked with the snow which still clung to its cloak.

‘Mathilde,’ he wiped the wet from his face, ‘Mathilde, it’s Sandewic, he’s ill, he is dying!’

I did not stop for anything but dressed quickly. Shrouding myself in a thick robe and carrying a copy of Isabella’s seal, I followed Demontaigu out through the snow-frosted palace grounds to King Steps and the waiting barge flying Sandewic’s colours. A clay-cold journey under lowering skies, along a swollen, sullen river with a wintry wind nipping the flesh. I huddled in the stern with the boatmen bending over the oars, sombre figures taking us through the shifting mist. Once we passed under the narrow arches of London Bridge, the waters thundering dully, Demontaigu told me how he’d gone to the Tower to collect and pack certain items. Apparently Sandewic had returned early from the coronation, clearly unwell, and had worsened during the night.

We arrived at the mist-wrapped Tower, hurrying up steps, along gulleys, through gateways dark as a wolf’s mouth to the constable’s quarters in the central donjon. A small outer chamber led into the inner one, a place of disarray with chests and coffers open, weapons, cloaks, belts and baldrics lying about. Braziers glowed but their scented smell could not disguise the reek of a deadly sickness. Servants milled about. A friar from the Carmelites was already praying by the bed whilst the Tower leech, a balding, grey-faced man, could do nothing except pucker his lips, shake his head and flap his hands.

Sandewic lay on the great bed, head against the bolsters. He already had the look of a dead man. I noticed how the little gifts I had given him over the last few weeks were in places of honour around the small crucifix on the table to the right of his bed. The table on the other side was covered with the small glazed phials and pots I’d used for his medicines. I was immediately surprised at how many there were. Sandewic recognised me, those old eyes still glaring furiously as if he could face down death itself. He spoke slowly, his breath coming haltingly. He talked about great pain, of iced water in his flesh; his facial muscles seemed to be stiffening and he muttered how he could not feel his limbs. From him and the leech I gathered the symptoms had begun shortly after he had retired, a tingling burning of the tongue, throat and face, followed by nausea, vomiting and a strange pricking of the skin. He pointed to a goblet by the bed, the cup was almost drained, the rich claret dregs dry. I sniffed at it and detected the acrid smell of a potion. I hurried to the other side of the bed and picked up the various jars, most of them empty. As I searched, I turned cold with my own numbing fear: there were far too many jars! The nearest one, sealed with a blob of broken wax, was half full. I sniffed it, put it back, sat on the edge of the bed, bowed my head and sobbed quietly, shoulders shaking. Sandewic had been poisoned! Wolfsbane, or monkshood, is noxious, highly deadly, especially its roots and leaves. I recognised both the smell and the symptoms. I had treated similar cases in Paris where peasants had eaten the tuberous routes of the plant believing they were radishes.

Sandewic’s fingers scrabbled at my back. I returned to the other side of the bed and gently questioned him. I think he knew that he’d been poisoned through trickery. In gasping whispers he informed me of the stoppered, sealed phials delivered to his quarters which he always believed came from me. He never knew who brought them. He confessed wryly that he’d even shared some of the medicines with old Woden the bear. I could only listen in horror as Sandewic described how, on his return the previous evening, he’d received a fresh small leather sack with a phial. He’d mixed its contents with his wine but fallen asleep; when he awoke he drank deeply. Despite the ravages of the poison now sweeping through his frame, those old, tired eyes smiled at me.

‘I am ancient, Mathilde,’ he whispered, ‘my time has come.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘Take the goblet as a leaving present; it was a gift from the old king to me, silver and pewter with a horseman carved on the side. See that justice is done. Go and pray for me in my chapel.’ He paused, fighting for breath. ‘Study my Cup of Ghosts, Mathilde, tell mon seigneur the king to study it also, to reflect on the past and not put his trust in other princes. Please. .?’ He forced one more smile. ‘I must make my peace with God and man.’

I kissed him gently on the brow and left him to the Carmelite. I fled that chamber, going to sit at the foot of a pillar in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Turning my face to the wall, I wept bitterly at the cruel and devious way Sandewic had been trapped. Demontaigu joined me, squatting down in the shadows.

‘He’s gone,’ he whispered, ‘shriven and consoled. Mathilde, he was an old man.’

‘He was my friend,’ I replied through hot, stinging tears. ‘He trusted me. Some whoreson bastard saw what I was doing and fed him potions which he thought came from me. That’s why he kept thanking me. An old man,’ I drew up my knees, ‘who trusted me and my skill. He always had aches and pains; the assassin recognised this and used the same clay-coloured phials. It was as easy, and as wicked, as poisoning a child.’

I studied a faded wall painting, a scene from the Apocalypse, the Great Dragon sweeping stars from the sky with his horned tail.

‘Since Uncle Reginald was taken,’ I murmured, ‘and butchered, I have watched and waited without the power to respond.’ I pointed to the dragon. ‘Yet my opponent is like that, sweeping all he wants out of my life, without any pity, without any mercy.’

‘Have you closely studied the symptoms of this malaise?’

‘Now is not the time for casuistry, Master Bertrand,’ I retorted heatedly.

‘No.’ Demontaigu edged round to face me. ‘You talked of power, use yours. Why have all these men died? Pourte, Wenlok, Baquelle, Sandewic?’

‘And nearly Casales,’ I added. I told Demontaigu what I’d discovered the previous day.

‘And what do they all have in common?’ he insisted.

‘They are members of Edward’s secret council.’

‘And?’

‘They recommended that Edward marry Isabella, that he move against the Templars, that he keep the peace with Philip of France as well as his great earls.’

‘So they were of the peace party; what else?’

‘Pourte and Baquelle,’ I replied, ‘were leading merchant princes. They could rouse London, perhaps even control it.’

‘And Wenlok?’ Demontaigu asked.

‘He controlled the powerful Coronation Abbey of Westminster.’

‘And Sandewic?’

‘The Tower.’ I breathed in, feeling a tingling of excitement. ‘Whilst Casales is a leading knight of the royal household.’

‘Think!’ Demontaigu urged. ‘Winchelsea of Canterbury is still in exile, Bishop Langton of Coventry and Lichfield lies under house arrest. The king is bereft of good counsel.’

‘But what else?’ I retorted. ‘What else is there?’ I rose and walked to the door.

‘Think!’ Demontaigu repeated. ‘Mathilde, reflect.’

I placed my hand on the latch, blinking back my tears.

‘Don’t worry, Master Bertrand, if I can, I will think, I will plot.’

When I returned to the keep, Sandewic’s household were preparing for the lych-wake, the corpse ritual. They answered my questions. According to them Sandewic had, over the previous weeks, entertained both English and French courtiers and officials whilst a whole host of visitors kept coming and going. I asked for a list; Rossaleti was one of these. In truth, he was no different from the rest except for one thing. I had been Isabella’s messenger to Sandewic, so why had Rossaleti, a French clerk, Keeper of the Queen’s Seal, often visited the constable’s chambers?