The Cup of Ghosts

Chapter 4

We rose and had reached the door of the chapel when the alarm was raised; a hunter’s horn wailed, a funereal sound, proclaiming chilling news. Other horns took up the call. Along the gallery outside pinpricks of light appeared, and the crash of doors being flung open shattered the silence. A royal serjeant-at-arms came running in through a postern door leading from one of the courtyards. He’d lost his helmet, the chainmail coif pulled close around his head, dark red cloak trailing. He stopped when he saw us and, staring wide-eyed, raised the horn to give another blast. Isabella told him to be quiet as the entire palace was now aroused. She curtly demanded the cause of the disturbance. The soldier, breathless, simply pointed, then led us back into the courtyard, now ablaze with lantern flame. Retainers and soldiers gathered in a pool of torchlight around a body sprawled in an ugly, crooked fashion on the paving stones. I forced my way through, Isabella shouting orders that others stand aside, and I crouched before the corpse of Sir Hugh Pourte. The merchant prince was clothed only in a nightgown, now pulled high over white bony knees; his eyes were open and glazed in death, and his nose, mouth and ears were blood-splattered. He’d twisted his neck, which hung eerily loose like that of a dead chicken. His flesh was still warm, the muscles supple — death had been most recent.

‘Regardez.’ The harsh Navarrene accent of one of the soldiers caught my attention. I looked up at the palace wall: on the third tier, about nine yards above us, the great window casement had been opened.

‘Et la, et la!’

I followed his direction. Under the window was ranged a series of rusty iron brackets driven into the grey ragstone wall to secure ladders placed there so masons, carpenters and glaziers could carry out repairs. From one of these, glinting in the torchlight, hung a thick gold chain last seen around Pourte’s neck at the banquet the night before. Had Pourte dropped this, tried to retrieve it and fallen?

‘Mathilde! Mathilde!’ Isabella’s voice stilled the clamour. I too heard the dull thuds and faint shouts from within the palace. Isabella had retreated into a circle of men-at-arms; she was gesturing with her hand that I investigate the noise.

I hastened back into the palace. By then I knew my way. Pages were now lighting more torches. The galleries were full of spluttering lights and moving shadows; shouts echoed to the clatter of arms and the sound of running feet. I went up the stairs to the third gallery. It was long and narrow, with doors on either side; soldiers and servants thronged, some still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Soldiers clustered round one of the doors. I recognised Casales and the olive-skinned clerk Rossaleti amongst the black shapes in the torchlight; they were forcing a door which, as I hastened down, snapped back on its hinges. Now I was Isabella’s dame de la chambre, but to those men clustering in that room I was simply a serving wench, of no more importance than the rodents which ran screeching and squealing from their presence.

Pourte’s chamber was large. I could make out a four-poster bed with its curtains pulled closed; the rest was dark, as the cold night air pouring through the open casement window had snuffed out the candles. Casales and the others, chattering in English, lit some candles and immediately checked certain sealed caskets, ignoring those chests with their lids thrown back. Casales sifted through parchments on the table; from the tone of his voice he believed Pourte’s death was an accident. None of the caskets or baskets from the secret chancery of England had been tampered with. Nothing was missing. They then clustered round the window; from their cries and shouts I gathered they’d glimpsed the golden chain. Marigny and others now stood in the doorway, reluctant to trespass into the chamber of an English envoy. Rossaleti invited them in and, in Norman French, quickly explained how it must have been an accident. Had they been roused by Pourte’s fall? Marigny asked. Rossaleti explained how he, Casales and Nogaret had been deep in conversation in des Plaisans’ chancery office when the alarm had been raised. They’d hurried up and forced the door. It had been locked and bolted, the key still inside; when they broke it down, this was what they had found. Rossaleti pointed to the window and the small stool beneath it. He explained how Pourte must have gone to the window to take the night air, dropped his chain, leaned over to recover it and fallen to his death. Nods of approval and grunts of assent greeted this. Rossaleti then turned abruptly, as if aware of my presence, and glared fiercely at me. I bowed quickly and left.

By now, the princess had returned to her own chamber. Servants, roused by the commotion, were cleaning the gallery where Philippe had vomited. The sullen-faced serjeant had returned to his post, the red welt on his cheek and his hostile glare clear testimony of Isabella’s fury at his earlier desertion.

‘You’re late!’ the princess snapped as I closed the chamber door.

‘My lady, I am tired.’ I snuffed the candles and lay down on my own bed, pulling up the coverlet to hide my face. I felt sick and tired, hot with a clammy sweat; so much had happened, such a nightmare of a day.

‘Mathilde,’ Isabella’s voice was soft, ‘Mathilde, I missed you, I was frightened!’

‘My lady, let us go to sleep.’

‘What happened to the Englishman?’ Isabella mocked. ‘Did he try to fly?’

‘No, my lady, they claim he went to the window to take the air, dropped a golden chain, tried to recover it and fell to his death.’

‘But you don’t believe that, Mathilde, not you with those sharp eyes of yours. You remind me of a cat I used to have. It always knew where the mice holes were. It never approached, it simply sat far off and watched.’

‘My lady,’ I struggled up and leaned against the feather-filled bolsters, ‘I find it difficult to understand why Sir Hugh Pourte, who was in his nightshift, should be carrying a gold chain to a window. The man had drunk deeply, he was tired. The night air was bitterly cold. Why should he open the window so far? Why should he be clutching a gold chain? Moreover, and I will have to reflect on this, but if he stood on a stool and leaned out he still could not have retrieved it. Why didn’t he take a hook or a sword, something to loop back the chain?’

‘So he didn’t fly and he didn’t fall. Are you saying he was pushed?’

‘Perhaps, my lady.’ I closed my eyes and recalled that corpse lying so crookedly in the courtyard; the bruises on the side of the head, the broken neck, the blood seeping out from the skull like yolk from a cracked egg.

‘And yet you say the door was locked and bolted from within.’

‘My lady, who is Ralph Rossaleti?’

‘Ah. .’ The princess giggled. ‘He is our watchdog, Mathilde, one of Father’s senior clerks. He is going to carry my secret seal in England; what I write, he will know. He will be our adviser.’

‘A spy, my lady? Your father’s spy?’

‘We’ll see.’ Again Isabella’s voice had a lilting tone. ‘We are to meet him tomorrow, he and Sir John Casales. Perhaps you could ask your questions then. Mathilde?’

‘Yes, my lady?’

‘Do you ever pray?’

‘I try to.’

‘I do! I pray. I prayed to be delivered from my brothers. You’re an angel, Mathilde, an answer to my prayer.’

I lay back down again, pulled the coverlet up and drifted into a sleep full of nightmares: of dark figures dancing on the end of scaffold ropes, of faces staring at me from a haunted cart rumbling across a cobbled yard. When I woke, just before dawn, I was sweat-soaked and thick-headed. The princess was asleep, deeply so, perhaps relieved about the dangers she had been rescued from. I opened the chamber door; the serjeant had been replaced by two more. I went back inside and splashed water over my face from the lavarium. Drying my hands, I quickly dressed and went out into the palace, up the staircase and back to Hugh Pourte’s chamber.

The broken door now leaned against the wall. The chamber had been stripped of all its possessions. I crossed to the bed and pulled back the curtains; the bed had not been slept in. I looked around. Pourte had filled a goblet full of wine. I picked this up, sniffed and tasted: nothing but the best from Bordeaux. I walked to the window, stood on the stool, opened the casement and leaned out. I recalled Pourte’s height; even he could never have reached that chain, so why had he tried? Was he inebriated? If he had been killed beforehand, how did his assassin enter and leave his chamber when the door was locked and bolted from the inside? I went down on my knees like a dog examining the floor between the edge of a Turkey rug and the stool near the window. I used my fingers and found a rusty-red stain, scraping at it I picked it up, and sniffed it; it wasn’t wine, but blood. I crawled nearer to the window and found other drops, but nothing on the sill or ledge. This blood could have been the result of anything; was it even Pourte’s? Had he been assassinated and killed in his chamber by a blow to the back of his head, his neck broken, the casement opened and his corpse tossed out? If so, how had the killer escaped? I went back to the window, stood on the stool and looked over the sill. The assassin could have climbed up from outside but the window would have been closed as the night was bitterly cold. He ran the risk of being noticed, whilst it would have been both difficult and dangerous for anyone to climb up by themselves on a dark freezing night.

I left the chamber and went down to the palace death house which stood at the end of a long path leading to one of the orchards. I opened the door and walked in. The death house contained a long row of wooden tables, some empty, others covered with dirty sheets. A rusting brazier, glowing with ash and strewn with herbs, did little to hide the reeking odour of death and decay. Along the whitewashed wall was a crude picture which brought alive Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones: stark depictions of skeletons thrusting up through the iron-grey soil. The brooding silence and those lumps of flesh under their dirty sheets provoked a deep unease. I pulled back one covering; an old man lay sprawled beneath. On the next table was Pourte. He’d been washed and smeared with some herbal oil. I examined his body; it was scarred and bruised, though nothing recent, except the purple-red bruise on the side of his face, the skull cracked like a shell and his neck as loose as a piece of slack rope. I scrutinised the corpse carefully and wondered again what had really happened. Why should Pourte be killed here, and by whom? Did his death concern me or Isabella, my mistress?

I walked out of the death house. The light was still murky, the wind shifting the mist into swirling wisps as if an army of ghosts was milling about. I was so absorbed with myself, I tripped over the halberd deliberately placed across the threshold. As I tumbled forward, a piece of coarse sacking, reeking of tar, was thrown over my head, and an arm, tight as a noose, went round my throat. The voice was slurred, nothing more than a hoarse whisper:

‘Mathilde, Mathilde, tell your mistress not to pry! Keep to your chambers and your embroidery!’

The grip tightened. I began to choke, then I was released and pushed violently forward. The grip had been so vice-like, the sacking wound so carefully around me, that by the time I had recovered and torn off the blindfold, my assailant had gone, and there was nothing but the mist, the smells of that open wasteland and the muted sounds of the palace coming to life. I picked myself up.

When I returned, Isabella was at her prie-dieu, dressed and gowned, demure as any convent novice. For a while I just stood leaning against the door, wondering who had attacked me and why. My throat and neck felt sore, my cheeks burned hot, my body was drenched in a clammy sweat. I took a deep breath, came up behind her and peered at the small, beautifully scripted book of hours she was reading from. The capital A of the prayer Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini — Our help is in the name of the Lord — was exquisitely painted, though the miniature itself made me smile: the painting showed a collection of ravens, bedecked like princes, being preached at by a cat garbed in the mitre and cope of a bishop.

Isabella turned sharply, eyes bright with mischief.

‘Master Rossaleti painted that. He’s a trained scribbler as well as a clerk. He was once a Benedictine monk.’ She chattered on. ‘Well, he was married once but his wife was crushed by a cart, so he became a clerk.’

‘So you know Rossaleti well, my lady?’

‘Of course; he was my tutor. He knows all the stories about Arthur and his knights.’

‘But you said he was a spy.’

‘It’s logical,’ Isabella laughed, getting to her feet. ‘Everyone in my household, apart from you, is a spy! The Secreti, the Secret Ones, Marigny’s coven, hover everywhere. Anyway, we have to meet Rossaleti and Casales just after noon.’ Her smile faded as she noticed the scuff marks on my face and neck, and her hand went out. ‘Oh Mathilde, what is wrong?’ She touched my chin gently, her blue eyes troubled. ‘Mathilde, what happened?’

I told her about my visit to the death house and the assault that ensued. Isabella sat down and listened, tapping her foot against a stool. When I’d finished, she picked at a thread on her cuff.

‘I do not know,’ she murmured, ‘why someone should attack you. Was it because of last night? Your visit to Pourte’s chamber or the death house?’ She shrugged. ‘Anyone could be responsible: Louis, one of the Secreti?’

She turned to the table and closed the book of hours. ‘Listen to the palace, Mathilde! We sit and hear the sounds. We see people go here and there but we don’t know the truth behind what is really happening. The same is true about you, about me. .’

I stared at this young woman, in many ways a mere cipher in her father’s plans, a child amongst adults, a dove amongst the hawks. Or was she? At times she betrayed a cunning and astuteness of which her father should have been proud.

‘The Templars, the massacre at de Vitry’s house, the death of the Englishman Pourte have one thing in common.’ She smiled. ‘Me!’ She pulled a face as I stared in puzzlement. ‘My father has to pay a huge dowry to the English, but his treasury is empty. The plunder of the Temple will fill it. De Vitry was one of his bankers. He negotiated on behalf of the Temple and other merchants, such as the Black and White Frescobaldi of Italy. De Vitry’s death,’ she nodded, ‘might be a blow to him!’

‘And Pourte?’

‘Ah, the Englishman. Edward chose well. Both he and Casales are of the English royal council. I understand they speak for my marriage.’

I remembered the banquet the night before. Pourte and Casales did not really believe the message they had brought; that was why they had been chosen, to give as little offence to the French as possible. Both men had clearly been discomfited, having to argue a policy they did not believe in.

‘Webs within webs,’ I replied. ‘So why were de Vitry and Pourte murdered? Was it because of you, because of me?’ I did not wait for an answer. ‘Of course,’ I whispered, ‘there may be other reasons, whilst I was warned simply because I was caught prying.’

‘And there’s something else.’

Isabella rose and took a key from a chain around her neck. Kneeling down, she removed the Turkey rug and, using a thin knife, prised loose a block in the wooden floor. Stretching down she took out a small coffer, which she opened. She grinned mischievously at me.

‘Only Maria knew where this was hidden.’

‘And where is Maria now?’

‘Gone away.’ Isabella laughed. ‘She’ll never come back. Here, this is for you.’ She handed across a small scroll, its seal broken. I immediately recognised the script of de Vitry, the distinctive sweep of the quill. I’d seen enough in his chancery office to recognise it. I unrolled the scroll. The date at the top was inscribed a day before he was murdered. It was written in the cipher de Vitry and I had learnt from Uncle Reginald, in which the Greek alphabet is transposed by a series of even numbers and the last letter, omega, is translated into French as A.

‘You were gone.’ Isabella answered my stare. ‘I too, Mathilde, protect myself. All letters to my household are delivered directly to me, remember that.’

She leaned forward excitedly. ‘What does it say?’

‘My assailant,’ I replied hotly, ‘told you to stay in your chambers with your embroidery.’

She stamped her foot and made a rude sound with her lips.

‘What does it say, Mathilde?’

I hid my annoyance at her intervention and walked across to the small chancery desk; with Isabella standing over me, I translated the message.

‘La Rue des Ecrivains — above the sign of Ananias. Trust him if you have to! If he is gone, if God’s will for you is manifest, you will find him above the Palfrey in Seething Lane off Paternoster Row in the city of London.’

‘What does this mean?’ Isabella asked.

‘It means, my lady,’ I turned and looked at her, ‘that de Vitry reflected and wondered if I was safe here. I suspect he felt guilty. He was a good man. He sent me this as further help, whilst all the time it was he who needed assistance.’

Isabella leaned over, her lips brushing my ear as if we were lovers. ‘We don’t need him, Mathilde, always remember that. We are, as your assailant said, here in our chambers with what he calls our embroidery. God willing, Mathilde, you and I will weave something which people, including my father, will always remember. Never forget that!’ She spoke with such passion; spots of anger appeared high in her cheeks, and her blue eyes glared furiously. I’d never seen her like that before; I had still failed to realise the deep well of resentment in that young woman. Ignored and abused, she was weaving her own web of revenge, eager to carry it out. That is what I want to tell you. I must describe it as I would emerging symptoms or the converging of the planets to move logically in sequence; I must depict truthfully what we felt, what we saw, what we did at a particular time. I am determined not to appear arrogant, as if I could predict what was to happen. Hindsight makes wise men of us all and only a fool, or a liar, subscribes to such wisdom.

We spent the rest of the morning preparing for Casales and Rossaleti. The princess was now being treated as a person in her own right, and when we moved down to her father’s council chamber, only a royal scribe, a pallid-faced old man, joined us. Isabella sat at the top of the table in a high-backed chair, I on her left, Casales and Rossaleti to her right. The scribe perched at the end of the table, pen poised above the ink pot, ready to take memoranda, to report back to his masters everything that was said. I stared round the council chamber. A plain, stark room, its plaster a dull white with paintings on the wall showing scenes from the life of Christ. At the far end hung a huge crucifix; at the other was a dais and a row of writing carrels where royal scribes could sit and be summoned by their masters if they needed them. The ceiling was beamed like a barn. The more I sat there, the more I wondered if it was pretence. Was this some sort of tableau, a court masque for Philip, Marigny or one of the Secreti to observe? Isabella, dressed ever so demurely, certainly behaved herself.

‘You’ve asked to see me, sirs?’ The princess, following court protocol, began the discussions. The scribe waited, pen poised. Rossaleti replied with the usual pleasantries. I studied both men. Casales was a tough professional soldier, a knight who’d journeyed far and fought in many battles. His hair was cropped short, his lean shaven face showing the scars of his years on campaign. He kept his severed wrist in its sheath of leather hidden beneath the table. He had the look of an ascetic: deep-set eyes under thick brows, a pointed nose, thin lips. The only relief in such a hard face was the dimple on his chin. In many ways Casales reminded me of some of the Templars. He was dressed simply in a green cote-hardie over a black jerkin and hose. He wore no jewellery except for a silver chain round his neck, a gift, so he told me later, from his long-dead mother. He was a professional fighter, so he found it difficult to stay still, his left hand constantly tapping the table. Only once did he glance at me, but again he betrayed no sign of recognition and I breathed an Ave in relief. Casales spoke courtly French and I gathered he was a close confidant and a leading henchman of the English favourite Lord Peter Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall. Casales explained he was half Gascon himself and had served Lord Peter both in Gascony and in England. He and Rossaleti had spent months in Westminster, meeting over the intended marriage, and a firm friendship had developed between the two envoys.

Rossaleti nodded understandingly while Casales spoke. Sitting opposite, I could see that Rossaleti, garbed in black like a Benedictine monk, was not as young as I had thought. He looked to be from Italy or the sun-rich provinces of the south, a handsome, almost girlish face with dark eyes and olive skin, but this was offset by the deep furrows in his cheeks. He was a man always on the verge of smiling with ever-shifting eyes which stared curiously at you as if weighing your secret worth. Rossaleti was King Philip’s man body and soul, and yet, at the time, I took to him. I tried to ignore the heavy gold ring emblazoned with the Capetian arms on the middle finger of his right hand which constantly moved, touching the Ave beads around his neck. Rossaleti, soft spoken, would intervene every so often to guide the conversation to its true purpose. How the marriage between Isabella and Edward of England might be a matter of dispute, yet the English king’s love and personal regard for his betrothed was unsullied. In other words, both men were proclaiming that Isabella was not to be offended; the hostile stance adopted by the English king was only a matter of politic.

Isabella listened attentively to their courtly speeches and replied in kind. Down the table the scribe’s pen scratched the parchment. I recall jumping at a harsh sound from one of the windows behind me. I glanced round and glimpsed the shape of a raven pecking at the hardened glass. Isabella smiled at this and brought her speech to a close, trailing her pretty white fingers across her forehead. My mistress then expressed her deep condolences at the death of Sir Hugh Pourte. Casales nodded.

‘Our visit,’ he smiled crookedly, ‘has been much marred by tragedy. One of my clerks, Matthew of Crokendon, was found stabbed in the Cemetery of the Innocents, no one knows by whom. He was last seen leaving a tavern with a wench, a whore, but no one can recall her.’

I set my face like flint as Casales proceeded to discuss the removal of Sir Hugh Pourte’s corpse back to England. Isabella, her features schooled, listened attentively and offered her help. Only when Master Crokendon was mentioned again did those angelically innocent blue eyes shift quickly to me, a look of mock sorrow on her face.

At the end of the meeting the scribe asked if the white wine and doucettes should be served. Isabella shook her head and rose quickly. I followed. My mind seethed like a bubbling cauldron with images of Narrow Face spitting blood, falling against the charnel house wall, and my uncle being thrust up the gallows ladder to the waiting noose. In truth I was frightened, but Isabella touched me comfortingly, a swift caress across the wrist as I followed her to the door.

‘My lady?’

Isabella turned.

‘My lady,’ Casales scraped a bow, ‘I understand from your father that you are leaving on a visit to the city.’

‘Why yes,’ Isabella replied. ‘I have several purchases to make. I need to visit the markets. I must write to my betrothed. I need certain parchments.’ She gestured at the scribe hastily collecting his pens and papers. ‘I need to go to the Rue des Ecrivains.’

‘In which case, my lady,’ Casales scraped another elegant bow, ‘may we accompany you? My lord has asked me to describe to you what I can about England, London and Westminster.’ His voice took a teasing turn, and Isabella replied in kind. Casales again expressed a wish to join us, explaining that the sudden death of his colleague Sir Hugh Pourte must be mourned but that the tasks assigned to him by the King of England had to be carried through.

Isabella could not refuse such pleasantry. She came back to the table gesturing at both men to sit, and asked the scribe to serve the wine and the plate of doucettes. Isabella was a mistress at that, skilled and adept in dealing with people. She soon drew Casales and Rossaleti into conversation about themselves, asking questions about Casales’ service in Scotland and other places. Afterwards she turned to Rossaleti, expressing her deep regret for the tragedies which had occurred in his life. Although she was only thirteen, Isabella was definitely her father’s daughter. She could, when she wished, be charming, kind, understanding, listening attentively, nodding at the appropriate places. Both men, experienced and skilled in their own affairs, chattered like children, but then, at the time, we were no different. Both my mistress and I had a great deal to learn. Only when the wine and sweet cakes were finished did Isabella point at the window, murmuring how the day was drawing and that we must leave soon. She welcomed them joining us, and a short while later we all left the palace.

It felt so strange, leaving the royal precinct, crossing the bridge into the city. Isabella and I, swathed in cloaks, rode palfreys, Casales and Rossaleti beside us. Our entire party was circled by a troop of mounted Genoese crossbowmen in their red and green livery, steel morions on their heads, their heavy arbalests strapped to their backs or hanging from saddle hooks. Heralds and trumpeters carrying their gleaming silver instruments and the blue and gold banners of the royal household went before us in their splendid tabards to keep back the crowds. The smells and the sounds of the city greeted me like a strengthening breeze, recalling all the memories of my long youth with Uncle Reginald. I tried not to reflect, even as I murmured the Requiem for him and Monsieur de Vitry. I owed both of them my life, so my deep debt to them would last for ever. Reflecting on Marigny’s speech at the banquet, I realised how both Uncle Reginald and de Vitry had surmised correctly. Anyone associated with the Templars, be he knight or hireling, had been swept up by Philip’s edict. If my uncle had not been so careful, and Monsieur de Vitry so generous, I would now be in a dungeon at the Chatelet or, perhaps, a corpse swinging on some rope from the public gallows. Such thoughts chilled me. I again vowed to act the part assigned to me: to pretend to the present, be fiercely loyal to the past and, if necessary, seize what opportunities the future offered to take justice and revenge.

I hitched my cloak closer about me, comforting myself with such thoughts, reins in one hand, the other gripping the high saddle horn. I stared out across the sea of faces: women in their veils and wimples, florid-cheeked merchants, the apple-sweet faces of children held up to see the spectacle of royalty passing, the lean white faces of cowled friars, the bleary eyes of the poor, all gathering to gape as the great ones processed into the city. Isabella whispered something to the serjeant-at-arms, the leader of our escort. The man looked surprised but shouted an order and our cavalcade swung off the main thoroughfare and down busy side streets. Houses loomed over us, their upper storeys leaning so close to each other they blocked out the sunlight. We passed darkened doorways which housed their own silent watchers, white-eyed beggars, garish whores, women with their children. Signs creaked eerily, the clatter and hubbub of the small workshops dying away as the craftsmen hurried to stare at our gorgeous procession. Only once did we stop, to allow passage to a shabby funeral procession preceded by boys swinging censers and a ragged friar holding a cross. The filth and stench of the runnels forced Isabella to use a spikenard, yet such smells, rank though they were, brought back memories of my joyful days as Uncle Reginald’s messenger in the city.

We debouched into a square where ointment- and perfume-sellers had their stalls, the sweetness of their produce doing something to mask the pungent odours of the gutters full of dirt and refuse. Across the square rose the sombre Church of the Forgotten Souls, surmounted by a dramatically carved tympanum of Christ harrowing hell. Casales and Rossaleti expressed surprise, but Isabella declared she wished to arrange masses for the soul of the dead Hugh Pourte. We entered the walled enclosure around the church. Casales said such charity wasn’t necessary but Isabella was already calling for a page to help her dismount. Escorted by two of the Genoese, we pushed open the iron-studded door and stepped into the candlelit darkness. Before us a long, ghostly nave swept up to a raised sanctuary where the high altar stood at the top of steep steps, a place of worship, of moving darkness with the sanctuary lamp gleaming like a beacon. Taper lights fluttered beneath shadow-wrapped statues. From the oratories on either side of the nave came the chanting of the requiem masses, their ghostly refrains drifting on the incense-laden air:

‘I John saw a new heaven and a new earth. .’

‘Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. .’

Isabella swept down the nave towards the mercy seat, where a monk sat like the Angel of Doom behind a high table. The Genoese bowmen wandered off to view a painting near the gallery porch. Isabella paused, plucking at my cuff.

‘I come here,’ she whispered, ‘to have masses said for my murdered mother. I shall now pay for one for Hugh Pourte.’ She opened her hand to show three silver coins, ‘and one for your uncle.’ Isabella crossed herself and continued on to the mercy seat, a cushioned bench with a high back. We sat down. The monk opposite, his face half hidden by a deep hood, picked up his pen and opened the casket ledger before him. On either side of this two candles poured pools of light. The monk did not greet us, but immediately consulted the calendar of saints and inscribed the three masses for the names Isabella whispered. She was careful about my uncle, only whispering, ‘Lord Reginald.’ The monk murmured in reply, arranging the masses for certain days, and indicating in which of the oratories they would be celebrated. Isabella took little note of this; we would never be able to attend them. In a whisper that monk of death, the Recorder of Forgotten Souls, provided other details, talking softly to us as if he was delivering absolution for our sins.

I became distracted by the arras hung over the screen behind the monk, its scenes brought to life by the glowing candles. The arras proclaimed a vision of purgatory, with souls in every posture of physical torture, suspended by meat hooks driven through their jaws, tongues and groins frozen hard in ice or boiling in bubbling vats of liquid metal like fish in hot oil. A clever device! It must have forced all visitors to this church to concentrate on the Last Four Things, their own meeting with death and what secret sins they were guilty of. The painting showed how the promiscuous had fire burning between their legs whilst drunkards were forced to drink scalding vermin. It did make me wonder about the love of Jesus and the fate of Uncle Reginald. Such a man, surely, had suffered all his purgatory in the dungeons of the Chatelet. And, if Christ was good and God was compassionate, Lord Reginald would be welcomed into paradise without suffering such pains.

Abruptly the murmured conversation between Isabella and the monk changed. Isabella was leaning over the table, speaking in Navarrese, a tongue she’d learnt from her mother and one she lapsed into whenever she was troubled or agitated. She was pushing across a second purse. The monk swiftly took this and handed over small pouches which disappeared into the voluminous pockets of Isabella’s robe. Again the monk spoke, this time not in whispered French but harsh Navarrese. Isabella replied just as quickly. I caught the phrase ‘Frater Marco’. The monk sketched a blessing. Isabella rose, bowed to the high altar and left.

We were halfway down the nave when Isabella paused. She pointed up to the hammer-beamed roof where the artist had fixed roundels depicting the serene faces of angels. She acted as if she was describing them to me.

‘Brother Marco is a Crutched Friar,’ she murmured. ‘He was once a member of my mother’s household. He too knows the God-given truth about the past. He is also a herbalist, a skilled one; he gives me certain powders.’

I caught my breath as Isabella’s strange blue eyes glanced sideways at me. ‘Poor Mother was tended to by three of my father’s physicians. Mathilde, I know the truth.’ Her voice grew fierce. ‘In the last two years all three have died with the cramps, a seizure or,’ she pulled a face, ‘something else?’ She hastily made the sign of the cross. ‘No one,’ she hissed, ‘will pray for their souls.’

‘And the fresh powders?’

‘Mathilde, Mathilde, we may not go to England. If not,’ she glared at me, ‘what protection do I have?’ She left the words hanging like a threat. She called out to the Genoese, and we left the church. Casales and Rossaleti helped us mount and we rode out of the enclosure. The Rue des Ecrivains was close by, a broad alleyway where the sellers of unscrubbed and untreated vellum, ink powders, pumice stones, leather bindings, seals and wax had their stalls and shops. A cluster of colourfully scrolled signs proclaimed the different merchandise available. A noisy, merry place thronged by scholars from the halls garbed in all kinds of tawdry finery, short cote-hardies, ragged cloaks, with cheap jewellery glittering on their fingers and wrists. The scholars jostled busily with apprentices in their sombre fustian. Street-walkers and whores lurked at the corners of alleyways and in doorways, waiting sly-eyed for custom.

Isabella’s arrival caused the entire street to be cleared. We stabled our horses in the courtyard of a spacious tavern, and Isabella busied herself as I slipped further down the street on the pretence of doing some errand. I found the sign of Ananias, hurried down the runnel beside it and up the rickety outside staircase, and knocked at the door at the top. Footsteps sounded, followed by the noise of chains being released and bolts being drawn. The door swung open, and a dwarf, garbed in dark brown, glared up at me, his small villainous face shrouded by a close-fitting hood. He reminded me of some malignant goblin.

‘Your business?’ his voice squeaked. He forced a smile at the coin I held up and waved me in. The chamber was strange, almost ghostly. It had been stripped of everything except a few items: a stool, a table and a bed with a straw mattress beneath a crucifix. It was clean and sweetly smelling. I brushed by the dwarf and walked into the centre of the room. Despite the grey chill outside, the chamber was warm and welcoming. I felt something strange even then, a presence pleasing to me. I walked over to the table and stared down at the circled imprints on the two sides and the one in the middle. Had this served as an altar? Was the man sheltering here a priest? But why celebrate the mass in a garret when there were churches on every corner? I wondered who he could be. I recalled the man I’d glimpsed in the Oriflamme, the one with the far-seeing gaze. He had been studying me but had then disappeared. A coincidence? A figment of my fevered mind? One of the Secreti following me through Paris? But why had be been looking at me so sadly? And why disappear?

‘He’s gone!’

I turned. The dwarf was staring greedily at the coin, one hand on the rough handle of the knife pushed into the shabby leather belt about his waist.

‘I mean no harm,’ I replied, walking back to stand over him. ‘I have men outside.’ The hand fell away, and I crouched down. ‘Who was here?’

‘A stranger, hair all shorn,’ the dwarf gabbled. ‘Solitary, close-faced, he hired this from the master, he came then he went, perhaps a scholar?’ He spread his hands. ‘He paid his rent and, three days ago, packed his panniers.’ He pointed to the wooden spigots driven into the wall. ‘Then he left.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who he was, why he left or where he’s gone.’

I handed the coin over and rejoined the princess’ party reassembling in the tavern courtyard. Isabella summoned me over to show a quiver of pens and some costly parchments she had purchased. As I examined these, I murmured what had happened. Isabella looked surprised, but shrugged and moved away to converse with Rossaleti. A short while later we left the city streets as the church bells rang for afternoon prayer. The bright, cold sunlight was quickly fading and the freezing air made us move briskly through the noisy streets. We crossed the river bridge, making our way through the mist-strewn parkland which surrounded the palace. Casales and Rossaleti, who had been describing to us the glories of Westminster, now moved to the front gossiping together, letting their horses find their way.

I glimpsed the black shapes flittering between the trees and bushes alongside the track-way just before the crossbow bolts tore through the air. One of the heralds screamed as a quarrel bit into his arm. Another volley clattered before we recovered and the black-garbed figures, swords drawn, swirled out of the trees. Their intended quarry seemed to be Casales, whose horse reared in fright, but that one-handed knight was a killer born and bred. He drew his sword in a flash of silver, turning his horse to meet his opponents, striking skilfully to the left and to the right. Our startled escorts recovered their wits and hastened to help, as did Rossaleti, driving his horse forward to protect Casales’ back. Our attackers faded away as quickly as they’d arrived, black figures fleeing like demons at the appearance of the Holy Rood. The serjeants-at-arms shouted for order, forbidding any pursuit, which would have been fruitless amongst close-packed trees with the mist thickening and the daylight fading. Casales and Rossaleti dismounted and turned over the corpses of four of their attackers. I urged my horse forward as Casales removed the hood and mask of one of the surviving assailants, who had received an ugly sword wound to the side of his neck. He was young, his unshaven face a tapestry of bruises and scars; some footpad from the slums. Rossaleti questioned him, but the man’s lips only bubbled blood, so the clerk, losing patience, drew his dagger and cut his throat.

He and Casales remounted. I remember Casales’ apparent fury at how such an attack, so close to the royal palace, had been aimed at him. No one dared to protest. Instead the Genoese lashed the feet of the dead attackers and dragged them behind us as we continued into the palace. The alarm was raised, and even the king and his coven of ministers hastened down to the courtyard. Casales kept his voice low, but from his face and the way Marigny and Nogaret were nodding their heads, he was developing his tale that Pourte’s death might also have been caused by the coven which had attacked us. King Philip himself examined the corpses before ordering them to be stripped, disfigured and gibbeted on the great gallows outside the palace gates.