The Cup of Ghosts

Chapter 1

‘Oh dies irae, dies illa.’ So the sequence from the mass for the dead proclaims: ‘Oh day of wrath, day of mourning.’ I shall never forget my day of wrath, my day of mourning: Thursday 12 October 1307. I was about twenty years of age, apprenticed to Uncle Reginald. I’d journeyed from our small farm near Bretigny to Paris with fervent aspirations of becoming a physician and an apothecary. My uncle, a gruff old soldier, one of the two men I’ve ever loved, the father who replaced the one who disappeared when I was a child, took me into his care. He lavished upon me all the love and affection Tobit did on Sarah. A true gentlemen, a perfect knight in every way, Uncle Reginald was a man of deep prayer and piety. He fasted three times a week and always went to Notre Dame, late on Friday evenings, to place a pure wax candle before the Statue of the Virgin. He would kneel on the paving stones and stare up at the face of the lady he called his Chatelaine. Uncle Reginald was a man of few words, of moderate temper and sober dress. He was a saint in a world of sinners. He always thought I’d be the same. However, my early time with him was only an introduction to a life steeped in every type of villainy cooked in hell.

You must remember, before I narrate, what has happened, how the world has changed since my youth. War now rages from the Middle Sea all through France and the northern states. The Great Pestilence has made itself felt; a towering yellow skeleton, armed with a sharp scythe, has culled the flower of our people. Asmodeus, the foulest of demons, the Lord of Disease, has arrived amongst us. Cities lie empty, their streets strewn with the rotting, putrid dead. The symptoms are always the same: the curse of the bubo beneath the armpit, the body on fire as the stomach vomits black and yellow bile. The smouldering funeral pyres have become symbols of our age. The sky is blackened by smoke, whilst the sweet fertile earth is polluted, yawning to receive our myriad dead.

In my youth, the faculty of medicine at the University of Paris was like a dog, hair all raised, teeth bared, jaws snarling against women who practised medicine, but it had yet to bite. Later it did, at the time of the great killing in England, the Year of Our Lord 1322, when it prosecuted Jacqueline Felicie for practising as a physician without medical training. Felicie declared, supported by evidence and witnesses, that she had cured people where licensed graduates had failed. She also maintained (and I have read her defence) how women preferred to be treated by one of their own kind. ‘It is better and more appropriate,’ Felicie argued, ‘that a wise and sagacious woman, skilled in the practice of physic, should visit another woman to examine her and to investigate the hidden secrets of her being, rather than a man.’ Poor Felicie, her defence did not hold. In my youth it was different. I was protected. Uncle Reginald was a high-ranking Templar. He was also a skilled surgeon and physician who had practised his art in Outremer, the Holy Land of Palestine. He had been at the siege of Acre and campaigned in the hot lands around the Middle Sea. He had also experienced the healing arts of the Moors, Saracens and other followers of Mahomet. Oh, the Queen of Heaven and Raphael the Great Archangel Healer be my witnesses, Uncle Reginald was a physician sans pareil, skilled and cunning, a true magister — a master of his art.

Do not be misled by the legends of the Temple, the allegations of sodomy and sacred rites. True, the Templars had their secrets, they possessed the likeness of the face of our Saviour as well as his burial shroud, but they truly were men of this earthly city: bankers, warriors, and above all, physicians. They venerated the Virgin Mother Mary and extolled women more than other men did. Uncle Reginald was much influenced by the followers of St Francis, especially the Liberian Anthony of Padua, who praised our sex and would say no ill word against us.

Uncle Reginald was a Physician-general, a supervisor of the Temple hospitals in Paris, and that was where my education began. ‘You want to drink at the fountain of knowledge,’ he thundered, ‘then so ye shall!’ My studies were highly disciplined. Uncle Reginald would make me translate a passage from Latin into the common patois then into Norman French before rendering it back into Latin. He’d give me a list of herbs, their proper names, powers and effects, then take the list away and test me rigorously. He taught me the gift of tongues and how to imitate the correct meaning. Above all, he taught me medicine. I became his apprentice as he moved from hospital to hospital, from one sick chamber to another. I’d stare, watch, observe, remember and recite: these were his axioms. ‘Mathilde,’ he would wave his finger, staring at me with lowered brows above piercing eyes, ‘we physicians cannot heal; we can only try to prevent as well as offer some relief. Remember what you see. Observe, always observe, study carefully, define the problem and propose, if you can, a solution.’

Uncle Reginald was critical of the claims of other physicians. He bitterly attacked Lanfranc of Milan’s Science of Surgery and openly mocked physicians’ obsessions with urine, faecal matter and purgation. He was appreciative of the Arab commentators Averroes and Avicenna, deeply interested in Galen and, above all, in the writings of Bernard de Gordon of Montpellier, whose Regimen Sanitatis he would swear by. Uncle Reginald was fascinated by the beat of the blood in the wrist or throat, the odour of his patients, their eyes, tongue and the texture of their skin. ‘Observe,’ he would bark, ‘examine, then reflect.’ He was pessimistic on what he could achieve and was always downcast if he felt tumours or lumps within the body. On herbs and potions, however, he was most skilled, arguing that that was one field of knowledge where he could both sow and reap the harvest. I became equally proficient in the mixture and effects of different plants: what proportion should be given, what results expected.

‘We must be humble,’ Uncle Reginald argued, ‘and recognise our limitations. Herbs are our weapons, the arrows in our quiver, the one thing we can control; that, and the cleanliness of what we do. Mathilde,’ he would lecture as he walked up and down some chamber, ‘the cause of infection I do not know, but its effects are all around us. So wash your hands, clean a wound, apply a pure poultice, and always remember that dirt and death walk hand in hand.’

For eight years that was my life, my being, my very soul; from its first blossoming to the full ripening. Uncle Reginald! Whether I trotted beside him down a row of beds or was sent like some herald into the city to buy this or that. Other young women married, but my life was Uncle Reginald. God rest him. God knows, I have spent most my life, at least in physic, obeying him.

My life, at least with Uncle Reginald, ended as I have said on Thursday 12 October 1307, when Philip of France, Philip ‘Le Bel’, he of the light blue eyes and silver hair, struck like a hawk and destroyed the Temple. My uncle and I had been visiting a farm the Temple owned just outside Paris, the fields around it being rich in herbs. We unexpectedly returned to the city. My uncle decided to stay in a small tavern close to the Porte de St Denis. From its cobbled yard I could see the soaring gallows of Montfaucon and the red-tiled roof of the Filles de Dieu, the Good Sisters, who always gave the condemned criminals, hustled up to be hanged from the great gibbet above its deep pit, a final cup of wine. On that heinous day my uncle acted like a man condemned to those gallows. He was troubled, agitated and ordered me to keep close in my chamber just beneath the eaves of the old tavern.

I, of course, was desperate to return to Paris: a farmer’s daughter, I had become bored with the beauties of nature, its open fields, lonely meadows, brooding granges, rat-infested barns and silent, twisting track-ways. I was only too pleased to forsake them all and plunge into the city of Paris, as eagerly as any miser would a horde of silver coins. I’d grown to love the city, with its various markets: the Place Mordare for bread, the Grand Chatelet for meat, Saint Germain for sausages, the Petit Pont for flour and eggs, the great herb market on the quayside of the Ile de Cite, or Le Marche aux Innocents where you could buy anything you wanted. Noise and gaiety were my constant companions. People shoving and pushing, whispering and shouting:

‘Dieu vous garde!’

‘Je vous salue!’

I’d been my uncle’s messenger to this place or that, coursing like a hare through the city. By my twentieth summer I was still fascinated by the chestnut-sellers from Normandy, the cheese-hawkers, the plump apple-sellers with cheeks as red as the fruit they sold. My uncle had taught me all about the tricks of the market. Innkeepers and wine merchants who mixed water with wine, or bad wine with good. Women who thinned their milk and, to make their cheeses look richer and heavier, soaked them in broth. Drapers who laid their cloths out on the night grass so in the morning they weighed heavier. Butchers who soaked their meat or fish-mongers who used pig’s blood to redden the gills of stale and discoloured fish. Clothiers who had one yardstick for selling and another for buying. He also advised me to be wary about those who sold goods in dark streets to deceive the unsuspecting, and made me memorise all I learnt and observed about the city I loved. Each trade had its quarter. Apothecaries in the Cite. Parchment-sellers, scribes, laminators and book-sellers in the Latin Quarter. Money-changers and goldsmiths on the Grand Pont. Bankers near the Rue Saint Martin and mercers in the Rue Saint Denis. The colour and hurly-burly of city life never seemed to die. Richly brocaded burgesses sweeping down to picnic by the Seine. Knights in half-armour riding by on fine palfreys or noble chargers. Lavishly dressed gallants posing with falcons and sparrowhawks on their wrists. It was like visiting a church and going from one wall painting to the next. So much to see! I took to it with all the vigour and curiosity of youth.

I loved the city! I was well protected. My future ran like a broad, clear thoroughfare before me. When I wasn’t at my studies or in the hospital, I’d wander from quarter to quarter, observing the beggars in the church doors or by the bridges; the peasants coming in from the country with their carts and wheel-barrows; the artisans and craftsmen shouting and gesticulating from behind their stalls; the wandering jongleurs, monks and friars in their dark gowns and pointed hoods; the canons of the cathedral with all their pomp and ceremony; the ermine-clad professors of the Sorbonne and their motley retinues of students and scholars. Royal couriers beat their way through the crowd with their white wands of office. Heralds in resplendent tabards, trumpets lifted, shrilled out harsh music to draw the attention of the crowds before a proclamation was read out. Harness jingled like bells as nobles from their great houses rode down past the bridges and gates of the city to hunt in the fields beyond. Ladies lounged in their litters, taking the air. Judges in their bright scarlet, surrounded by royal men-at-arms, processed down to the law courts. Pilgrims off to Saint Genevieve or Notre Dame chanted their prayers or sang sweet hymns. Prisoners, manacles held fast, were driven under the whip to the Grand Chatelet. Clerks and scribes scurried along to the great palace and castle of the Ile where Philip ruled France as a hawk does its field, ever-watchful, ever-menacing.

I was impatient to visit these city sights again. I couldn’t understand my uncle’s harshness. He towered over me in the tap room of that tavern, grasping me by the shoulder, pushing me towards the stairs.

‘Go up to your chamber, girl!’

He very rarely called me that. It was always ‘Mathilde’, or ‘ma fille’. Uncle Reginald’s face looked strained, a haunted look in his eyes, he kept glancing over his shoulder towards the door.

‘What’s the matter, sir?’ I demanded.

‘Nothing,’ he whispered, then he quoted a line from the Gospels: ‘Tenebrae facta. Darkness fell.’ I recognise that phrase now, the description given to the night Judas left to betray Christ. Again, I tried to reason. I was hoping to go into the city, perhaps visit one of the taverns near the hospital, mix with the scholars, dance a jig or indulge in some other revelry. My uncle lifted his hand and glared at me.

‘I have never struck you. I will if you do not obey my order. Go to your chamber, small as it is, rat-eaten and mouse-gnawed, it’s the safest place for you. Stay there until I come.’

I hurried up the stairs, my feet drumming on the wooden steps. I pulled aside the battered door and flung myself into the chamber, blinking furiously, trying to quell the tears of fury stinging my eyes. The chamber was narrow and dirty though the bed was comfortable, its sheets clean — my uncle would insist on that — whilst the servant who brought my food up had covered it with a wooden bowl against the mice which scurried in the corners. Cobwebs hung like sheets from the rafters. I moved to the window, a small wooden casement door filled with horn, and pushed it open. At least I could look out over the city. The sky was a dullish grey, a cold wind had risen. It was that dying time as autumn fades and winter with icy touch makes its presence felt. The room was cold. I closed the window and noticed the wine just within the door, a battered pewter pot next to a small bowl. I filled the bowl to the brim and drank quickly, then went across and lay on the bed.

When my uncle shook me awake, it was dark. He was leaning over me, face close to mine.

‘Get up,’ he urged. ‘Get up now.’

I was almost dragged to my feet. My uncle had brought my cloak and belt with a dagger in its wooden scabbard. He made me wrap the belt about me. I protested. I said I needed to visit the latrine. He laughed strangely and pushed me out of the chamber down the stairs. By the time I reached the bottom, I’d clasped the cloak securely. The cold night air woke me roughly. My uncle thrust a piece of parchment and a bag of coins into my hands, then gestured frantically towards the narrow gate leading to the alleyway beyond. A cresset torch lashed to a pole, thrust into the soft mud between the cobbles, provided some light for the ostlers and grooms flitting like ghosts across the yard. I turned. Uncle stood concealed half in the shadows. At last, in the flickering flame of that torch, I glimpsed his terror. He’d aged, his face was drawn and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed. He kept muttering to himself, wary of a door closing, a dog barking or strangers slipping through the darkness. He took my hand and pressed it against the bag of jingling coins.

‘You are to go now, Mathilde.’

‘Why, Uncle?’

‘Don’t ask.’ He moved his face closer. ‘For the love of God, Mathilde, don’t ask, just go. Take what I have given you. The gate of Saint Denis is still open. You are to enter the city. Make your way to the house of Simon de Vitry near the Grand Pont. You know him; I’ve sent you on errands to his house. He’s a cloth merchant, a banker and a man I trust. Do exactly what he tells you.’ He pushed me towards the gate, thrusting me into the alleyway.

‘Go, go,’ he hissed through the darkness. ‘Go now, Mathilde, before they come.’

Something about his tone, those words. . I caught his terror. He flapped his hands, a gesture I had never seen him make, indicating that I must run. I wanted to stay, discover who ‘they’ were. Something about him, just standing there in the poor light, the torch spluttering behind him, the way his shoulders hunched, his hands flapping like the wings of a pinioned bird. . I turned and slipped into the shadows.

Eternity has passed since that hideous night but I remember it well. I ran blindly through the streets, tears stinging my eyes. On the one hand, like any young woman, I had a grievance against my uncle; my resentment festered. Yet I’d caught the smell of terror, the rank odour of fear, and I wondered what was to happen. I recall stopping on the corner of a square. Above me a statue of the patron saint of that quarter gazed blindly down in the light of the candle burning beneath it. I stared back and tried to recall what had happened that day. We’d arrived at the tavern early that morning. Uncle had left me, gone into the city and returned a stranger; that’s right, his manner had changed, distracted, agitated, bribing the landlord for this or that. One thing I did notice: he’d removed his Templar ring and any other sign that he belonged to that order.

I heard a sound and glanced around. Archers dressed in the blue and gold royal livery, gleaming sallets on their heads, were gathering across the square, spilling out of the side streets. Knights in half-armour made their way out on snorting destriers, preceded by footmen carrying flambeaux. The air filled with the clatter of rasping hooves, the creak of leather, the jingle of harness. Beneath all this the ominous clatter of weapons, swords being unsheathed, shields being slung, orders rapped out. Dull, threatening sounds seeping through the smoky air like a foul mist. Across the square beggars had torched a bonfire of rubbish in front of a church. The leaping flames revealed the tympanum above the doorway; a vivid depiction of Christ coming on the Last Day, escorted by angels with fiery swords to repel the demon lords of the air. Christ the Judge seemed to be coming for me!

I ran like a whippet through the undergrowth, down lanes and runnels, the half-timbered houses leaning over as if conspiring to conceal the starlit sky. I slipped on a mound of dirt, drove away yapping mongrels, whining beggars and screeching cats. Jesus Miserere! I was innocent! I was a maid hurrying through the hideous runnels of Paris! A thousand nightmares lurked in the shadows, but knowledge inspires fear. I had no real experience, not then, of how vulnerable a woman truly is when protection is withdrawn. The sons of men are also the sons of Cain: ‘In hominum mundo, lupus homini lupus — in the world of men, man is wolf to man;’ but to women he is a ravening beast! True, some hearts sing a noble hymn, but it is often hidden beneath the raucous howling of the pack. On that night I was an innocent, fleeing miraculously through the pens of countless savage predators. Perhaps an unseen angel flew before me with a face of fire and a flaming sword. I was also young and I was armed. The dark shadows slipping out of doorways slunk back. An unnamed terror drove me on, lacing my face with sweat, soaking my body in its icy coldness.

Thank God I knew Paris! Twisting, turning like a hare, I reached La Rue des Moines leading down to the Grand Pont and the great stone-built house of Simon de Vitry, the mercer. It stood in its own grounds. The postern gate was open. I flung myself through, knocking aside the sleepy-eyed, ancient night porter. Across the grass I flew like a speeding arrow; the kitchen door was bolted. I ran around the side of the house, gasping and cursing, up the main steps, grasped the iron chain and pulled until the bell tolled like a tocsin through the house. The patter of running feet echoed faintly. In a window to my right a light flared as a candle-lantern was lit. Chains were dropped, bolts drawn, and the door swung open. I recognised Monsieur Simon. He gazed at me in surprise, then beckoned me in. I slipped through the door and gave way to my exhaustion, slumping down to the ground, fighting for breath. The merchant, a kindly man with the face of a genial monk, crouched next to me, pulling his winter robe close about. His breath smelt of wine, his fingers were cold, his eyes anxious.

‘What is the matter, Mathilde?’ he asked. ‘Are you in trouble? Were you attacked?’

I handed over the parchment my uncle had given me, but even as Monsieur Simon took it, I cursed my own stupidity. I wished I’d stopped and read it. The merchant walked across the hallway to where a solitary candle flared on a table beneath a picture of St Anthony exorcising demons. In the shifting light these fiends of hell sprang to life. Monsieur Simon picked the candle up and, turning his back on me, walked into his chancery. I glanced at the doorway, the light beneath it strengthened as more candles were lit. A short while later the merchant came back as agitated as I was, fingers fluttering, wetting his lips. He knelt down beside me.

‘Mathilde, ma petite, you must come, you must come.’ He half dragged me to my feet and pushed me across into the chancery. The piece of parchment was gone. Logs crackled in the sullen red heat of the fire. Whatever Uncle had written this merchant had destroyed. He sat me down in a chair and brought a jug of ale tasting musty and tangy, then roused his household, two servants and a maid, whilst the chancery clerk, his trusted steward, was brought into the room. I was asked to stay outside on a bench. The chancery door was locked and bolted. I heard whispers, raised voices, cupboards, coffers and chests being opened as if the merchant had abruptly decided to make a full tally of what he was owed. The clerk was dispatched into the night. Only then did Monsieur Simon, at least an hour after I had arrived, join me on the bench. He gazed at me strangely, as if weighing my worth.

‘You’d best come with me.’

The house was opulent, with a fine built-in staircase. He took me up past two furnished galleries to a fetid garret, very similar to the one at the tavern. He ushered me in and sat for a while on a stool staring sorrowfully at me.

‘What is the matter, monsieur?’ I asked.

‘What is your name?’ he replied.

‘Why, monsieur, you know my name. I am Mathilde, my uncle is-’

De Vitry sprang up and poked me in the shoulder.

‘You are no longer Mathilde de Ferrers,’ he said, ‘but Mathilde de Clairebon. You are my distant cousin. You come from Poitiers. You have some knowledge of books and physic. Your mother died recently so you came to work in my house, isn’t that correct?’

‘Monsieur Simon,’ I gasped, ‘what is this about? Why is my name being changed?’

He gestured vaguely towards the window.

‘Sit down, sit down, Mathilde.’ He went across, pulled the door firmly close and secured the bolts. He then brought his stool nearer, first placing a candle between us. He studied me with a mixture of anger and sadness, as if he wanted to help, yet resented my presence.

‘Mathilde, I will be like a bowman,’ he whispered. ‘I will fire the arrow as close as I can to the mark. There have been rumours for days, how King Philip of France wishes to move against the Order of the Temple-’

‘Impossible!’ I interrupted.

‘Listen, Mathilde.’ He tapped me gently on the cheek. ‘What your uncle discovered today is that tomorrow morning, every Templar in the Kingdom of France will be arrested on charges of practising sorcery, black magic, sodomy and God knows what else.’

‘Lies!’ I blustered back.

‘What the king wishes is what the king wants,’ Monsieur Simon replied. ‘There has been chatter amongst the bankers and the merchants for many a year about Philip’s treasuries being empty. He lusts after the gold and silver, the wealth, the lands, the granges, the barns, the pastures and the meadows of the Templars. He believes the order is a coven of witches and sorcerers, warlocks and wizards. He has petitioned Pope Clement V to suppress it, arrest its leaders, every knight, your uncle amongst them-’

I would have jumped to my feet but Monsieur Simon pushed me back.

‘No. Listen, Mathilde, to what I say. If this is true, if Philip of France has decided to destroy the Temple, your uncle and his companions, anyone who has anything to do with the Temple and wears its insignia, be they knight, serjeant, page, squire or maid, is under suspicion. You cannot help your uncle. By tomorrow nightfall he will be arrested. He may try to flee but he’ll be captured. The charges the Templars face are hideous.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Greed,’ Monsieur Simon replied. ‘Pure greed, the desire of a powerful king to plunder a rich order. Mathilde, about seven years ago, Philip of France wished to join the Temple order himself; he wished to become its Grand Master on the death of his wife.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They say Philip actually murdered his wife, Jeanne de Navarre, in order to secure this, to become a bachelor, a celibate, but the Templars refused him. Philip never forgives an injury or an insult. He also needs money. He doesn’t care how he obtains that money, or what lies he fashions.’

‘But the Pope?’ I gasped.

‘The Pope,’ Monsieur Simon grimaced, ‘the Pope, Bertrand De Got, Clement V, is Philip’s friend, sheltering in exile at Avignon! What do you think Clement V will say, especially when Philip offers him some of the plunder?’

‘But the other princes?’ I stammered. I knew a little of Templar affairs and recalled my uncle’s description of how the order owned houses from the wilds of Ireland to the borders of the icy lands in the East.

Monsieur Simon hunched his shoulders.

‘There is nothing like treasure, Mathilde, to turn a man’s heart!’

‘And me?’ I asked.

‘If you go out into that street, if you are recognised for what you are,’ he wagged a bony finger in my face, ‘you will be arrested. You are no longer Mathilde de Ferrers but Mathilde de Clairebon from the town of Poitiers, my distant poor kinswoman come to act as a maid in my house. Don’t betray me, Mathilde. Don’t put me and mine in danger, otherwise I will turn you over to the royal serjeants. They’ll manacle you, load you with chains and drag you to the Grand Chatelet or some other dungeon where you risk either being buried alive, or facing a mockery of a trial before being taken out to be hanged or burned.’ He chewed on his tongue. ‘I could still do that. There will be a reward, money offered to those who betray Templars or their kin, not many will escape Philip’s net.’

My hand dropped to the dagger in my belt.

‘Don’t threaten me!’ Monsieur Simon scoffed. ‘Your threats mean nothing to me. I have retainers. I have only,’ he fished under his robe and brought out a silver whistle on a gold chain, ‘to blow on this and your life will be over, as simple as snuffing out a candle. But I owe your uncle a favour. Many years ago he saved my life; since then he has always treated me honourably. I’m doing this for him, not for you. You are my prisoner. This chamber will become your world until I tell you the time of change has arrived.’

‘And my uncle?’

‘Believe me,’ Monsieur Simon replied, squinting his eyes, ‘if I could help your uncle I would. There is nothing I can do. Shall I tell you what I will do, Mathilde? What all the merchants and bankers of Paris will be doing tomorrow? They’ll be opening their ledgers and household books. They’ll be poring over their calculus. How much does the Temple order owe them? How much do they owe the Temple? They’ll find, like me, that they owed more than they were owed. So we’ll all keep silent. The king has removed a problem; if that’s what the king wants, then the king shall have it. The Templars have no friends! You have one friend, me. Now, Mathilde de Clairebon from Poitiers, do you understand? Do you understand?’ he repeated. ‘If you fail me, I shall betray you, as simply,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘as that!’

I was too terrified, too anxious, too surprised to object. I nodded dumbly and moved across to the bed, I lay down, turning my back to him, and I crossed my arms and drew my legs up as I did when I was a child, when the shadows on the far side of my bedchamber were really phantasms of the night waiting to pollute me. I heard him leave.

The next morning when I woke up, my door was locked and bolted. I couldn’t leave so I became Monsieur Simon’s prisoner. The chamber must have been used as a cell before. It boasted a small cubicle built into the outside wall with its own latrine, a jakes pot over a narrow gully. After two days the stench grew so offensive the steward brought up pails of rainwater to clean it.

Monsieur Simon also brought me food, some clothes and a psalter, as well as a copy of Joinville’s Chronicle of the Crusades. He refused to tell me what was happening in Paris.

Weeks passed. Looking out of the window, an arrow slit aperture, I watched the frost harden, the trees shed their leaves. One night Monsieur Simon came to see me. He asked how I was, said my imprisonment would soon be over and that tomorrow morning he would take me out. I was roused before dawn. The room was freezing cold, the small charcoal brazier had long smoked itself to ash and the candles had guttered to blackened wicks.

‘Quick, quick.’ Monsieur Simon gestured. ‘Quick, quick, come!’

I dressed swiftly. The merchant gave me a heavy robe with a deep cowled hood.

‘Wear that,’ he ordered.

We went down the stairs and broke our fast in the scullery on a bowl of steaming oatmeal and some watered ale served by the sleepy-eyed maid. We left the house, slipping into the alleyway. I recalled the night I fled here. Now the streets were fairly deserted. I glimpsed certain images as we hurried along. A cowled Capuchin priest, preceded by little boys swinging a lantern and ringing a bell, carried the viaticum in a pyx to someone at death’s door. Beggars cried for alms. Cripples slouched on the icy steps of churches, clacking-dishes out, pale, pinched faces pleading for mercy. A group of roisterers staggered by, bellies full of ale, mouths spitting curses. A prostitute in a tawny gown, an orange wig on her balding head, shouted abuse from a doorway. Monsieur Simon, grasping my arm, hurried me on. Every so often he would pause to ensure the hood and cowl were pulled close over my head. We entered the main thoroughfare. Doors were opening, stalls being laid out. The stench was rich, a mixture of saltpetre strewn to cover the odours from emptied cesspots, and piles of rotting vegetables heaped in corners.

‘Monsieur Simon,’ I murmured, ‘where are we going?’

‘Shut up,’ he urged. ‘Keep your face hidden.’

We turned and twisted. Eventually I recognised the thoroughfare leading down to Montfaucon, the execution place, the slaughteryard of Paris. Crowds were already thronging. Monsieur Simon approached the men-at-arms guarding the path. He whispered to a serjeant, coins changed hands, and we were allowed a place close to the road. I could see the entrance to the Maison des Filles de Dieu. The good nuns were already clustered on the steps, goblets of wine in their hands. Somewhere close, a beggar boy chanted a death carol, ‘La mort de vie’, his dirge deepening my sombre mood.

The crowds grew quickly, more people spilling out on to the thoroughfare, eager to catch a glimpse of what was going to happen. The blast of a trumpet cut through the morning air, followed by the dull beat of the tambours. I strained my neck, peering over the guards. The heralds came first in their blue and silver tabards, trumpets blowing, drums rattling; behind them lines of men-at-arms, steel helmets glistening. A company of royal archers followed, leading the execution carts, the hangman and his assistants dressed in black leather tunics, red masks concealing their faces. The tumbril they sat in was full of their torture implements as well as the ladders, ropes, and chains used to hang their victims. This was followed by another cart. Six grey figures huddled there. I found it difficult to breathe, my heart racing, stomach lurching. I wanted to be sick. I knew who was in that cart! It approached slowly, wheels creaking, the oxen pulling it being guided by a red-masked executioner who kept cutting the air with his whip. The cart drew alongside. I slipped through the guards and, like others, grabbed the side of the tumbril as if I enjoyed studying the faces of men about to die. They all looked the same, dressed in soiled robes, feet bare, their faces masks of injuries, bruises, welts and cuts, beards and hair a tangled mess. They reeked of the prison, the filth and mud they had squatted in for weeks.

‘Monsieur,’ I gasped. A man inside the cart lifted his face and I gazed into Uncle Reginald’s eyes. They were dulled; his nose was strangely twisted and swollen; a bruise on his right cheek had blossomed purple and ripe.

‘Uncle,’ I whispered.

He shook his head. ‘Vengeance is mine, said the Lord,’ he hissed. ‘Remember that, Mathilde, vengeance is His.’ I caught the foul stench of his body then, with surprising strength, he pushed me away as if I was a tormentor. I staggered back. Monsieur Simon caught me by the arm and pulled me away. I stood and watched the execution carts reach the gibbet of Montfaucon soaring above the deep pit beneath. The executioners scrambled like monkeys up the ladders. The ropes were fixed, the nooses hung. Once ready, the prisoners were hustled from the cart and up the ladders. These were taken away and the bodies danced in the air, as the victims, strangling in their nooses, fought for breath. I felt ice cold, as if all my blood, all my humours had frozen. I can’t remember how Uncle died. All I saw were six men perform that danse macabre, before falling silent, heads down, feet slightly swinging, as death gave them blessed relief.

Monsieur Simon dragged me away, pushing me ahead of him back down the streets to his house. When we reached it, he took me into his comfortable solar. Tapestries and paintings adorned the walls, its floorboards, polished to gleaming, were covered with thick Turkey rugs, whilst a fire roared in the mantled hearth. He led me to a stool, brought me a cup of posset and sat next to me, shaking his head, whispering under his breath. I allowed my body to thaw even as I tried to curb the rage boiling within me.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I have told you why. Philip of France lusts after the wealth of the Templars. The knights themselves he does not need. They all face charges of sorcery, wizardry, sodomy, idolatry, as well as crimes I’ve never even heard of!’

He let me stay near the fire most of that morning. I remember studying the triptych on the wall which celebrated the martyrdom and glory of St Agnes. Strange, isn’t it, how God works His secret purposes? I would see that painting again in a place I least expected. For the rest I warmed myself and wept. I wept for what I had seen and for what I had lost. I wept for my uncle and raged at Philip of France. My anger didn’t subside; I just grew weary. Monsieur Simon called his steward and maid. They brought up a chair and the good merchant moved me, like a mother would her child, to huddle there, shrouding me in a woollen robe. Afterwards he crouched beside me, whispering his warnings. How I was to keep my name changed and do exactly what he said.

‘And what is that?’ I asked sleepily, wearily. I recognised the goodness of this man; hard-headed, sharp and acquisitive, nevertheless Monsieur Simon had kept his promise to my uncle.

‘The best place to hide you,’ the mercer’s face creased into a smile, ‘is where no one will look: the royal household! I have friends. I have, how can I put it, people who owe me money. In return for a favour, such debts will be cancelled.’ He paused. ‘You must leave France, Mathilde, and never return. It’s best for both of us.’

‘But how?’ I stirred in my chair, my sleepiness forgotten, the pain of seeing my uncle hang now dulled by the drugged wine this merchant had given me. ‘How can I leave France, where do I go? My life is here. My mother is little more than a peasant woman.’ I laughed. ‘What help can she provide? What assistance can you give, Monsieur Simon?’

‘Listen now.’ He brought the stool closer. ‘As I said, the best place for you to hide is the one place they will never look, the royal household. No, no, listen.’ He lifted a hand. ‘I know members of the retinue of Charles de Valois, the king’s brother. I will discharge their debts in return for a favour. You know Edward of England?’

I shrugged. ‘A warrior king,’ I replied. ‘My uncle talked of his wars against the Welsh somewhere to the west and against the Scots in the north.’

‘A warrior king,’ Monsieur Simon agreed. ‘I have met Edward of England on many an occasion as I have. .’ He paused, as if checking himself. ‘Anyway, many years ago, during the reign of Pope Boniface VIII, Edward of England was trapped by Philip of France. Gascony, the great wine fields around Bordeaux, still belonged to the English. Philip, through trickery, occupied it. Edward, busy in his own wars, had to swear to Pope Boniface that his eldest son, also named Edward, would marry Philip’s infant daughter Isabella. At the same time Edward of England, a widower, agreed to marry Philip’s whey-faced, pale-skinned sister Margaret; that marriage went ahead, a treaty was sealed and Gascony was restored to the English. Edward of England, however, did not wish to marry what he calls his Prince of Wales, his heir apparent, to a French princess. Do you know why?’

I shook my head.

‘Philip of France dreams other dreams,’ Monsieur Simon whispered. ‘That one day he will become the new Charlemagne of Europe. He has three sons, Louis, Philippe and Charles. He has married them, or he intends to marry them, to the heiresses of Burgundy so as to take that rich land back within the fiefdom of the crown of France. The same is true of Gascony. In the marriage treaty Philip has stipulated that one grandson will sit on the throne of the Confessor at Westminster; another will become Duke of Gascony. You see the plan, sooner or later, preferably sooner rather than later: Gascony will be brought under Philip’s rule, while he will control his grandson the English heir, first through the marriage of Isabella and secondly because any fruit of that union will be his kinsman.’ Monsieur Simon spread his hands. ‘Peter Dubois, Philip’s own lawyer, has seen France’s future, a kingdom with natural borders: the sea in the west, mountains to the south, the Rhine to the east.’

‘And the northern principalities?’ I asked. ‘Flanders, Brabant, Hainault?’

‘Weak,’ Monsieur Simon retorted. ‘To be taken by conquest. Only Philip found to his cost that it is not as easy as he thinks.’

I nodded in agreement. Five years earlier, France’s finest armies, its massed chivalry, had been humiliatingly defeated by Flemish pikemen at Courtrai.

‘But Philip still dreams on.’ Monsieur Simon was talking as if to himself. ‘Edward of England died last July near the Scottish border, still determined to bring that kingdom under his rule. His heir apparent, the Prince of Wales, Edward of Caernarvon, is not of the same mould as his father; he’s a courtier, a poet. He broke off the war with Scotland and hastened south to the fleshpots of London and the loving embraces of his close friend Peter Gaveston, a Gascon, the son of a witch or so they say. Whatever the truth, young Edward loves Gaveston more than anyone in the world.’

‘Yet he is to be married to Isabella?’

‘Two problems have flourished like weeds.’ Monsieur Simon winked at me. ‘Edward of Caernarvon refuses to believe the allegations against the Templars.’

My heart warmed to this prince I’d never met.

‘That came as a surprise to Philip,’ Monsieur Simon whispered. ‘But the second was an even greater insult. Edward of Caernarvon seems, how can I put it, most unwilling to fulfil the obligations of the treaty and marry Philip’s daughter Isabella.’

‘And what has that to do with me?’

‘Oh, everything.’ Monsieur Simon stared down at the floor, lost in his own thoughts. ‘I know that,’ he whispered. ‘Truly I do, the machinations of princes. In the end,’ he lifted his head, ‘Edward of Caernarvon is a weakling. He is playing games. Sooner or later he will succumb to Philip’s demands. The Templars of England will be arrested, the order destroyed. More importantly, Edward of Caernarvon will do what Philip of France says. He will marry Isabella, either in France or in England, but that marriage will take place. Now I’ve been to that mist-strewn island with its rough-tongued people. Philip of France wishes to organise a household for his young daughter, to accompany her to England. In many ways it will mean exile for life. As you can imagine, Mathilde, very few are eager to join her.’

‘And I am to go with her?’

The merchant tapped me gently on the cheek.

‘It’s the safest place for you. The persecution of the Templars will continue. Philip will ask for lists to be drawn up. It’s only a matter of time before some sharp-eyed lawyer, scrutinising such lists, wonders where your uncle’s niece Mathilde de Ferrers disappeared to. They will want you. You’ve just reached your twentieth year; more importantly, you’re associated with the Temple, however lowly your status might be. Marigny and other royal ministers will interrogate you. Do you hold any of its wealth? Do you know where any is hidden? Do you know the whereabouts of other Templars? Did you carry any messages? Do you have any information? Mathilde, your uncle was a high-ranking officer; you are valuable. You could be used, tortured to provide false evidence. Oh, don’t worry, searches will be made, but by then, God willing, you’ll be gone.’

‘To England?’ I gasped. ‘With the Princess Isabella?’ I pulled myself up in my chair and, try as I might, I couldn’t stop the shivering, as if suffering from a sudden attack of the ague. The logs crackled, flames burst out, sparks rose, black dust floated up. The voices in the house sounded hollow. I was standing at a crossroads. I could, if I wanted, get up from that chair, step out from that house and return to my mother’s farm. Yet I would only bring the terror with me. When the royal serjeants came, they wouldn’t care about a solitary woman or her daughter too stupid enough not to flee.

Monsieur Simon seized my wrist; surprisingly strong, he squeezed tightly.

‘That is all I can do for you, Mathilde. To stay here is dangerous. To return to your mother even more of a hazard. You’ve seen enough of Paris, Mathilde! Do you want to become a beggar, join the Coquillards roaming the Latin Quarter? Waiting for the day when you’ll be arrested for a brawl, some crime or felony? You too will take the cart to Montfaucon. Or will some pimp seize you as his whore? I must have your decision, yes or no?’

I’d rolled the dice. I’d made my choice. ‘I have to go,’ I whispered. ‘And the only way is what you describe.’

‘Good.’ Monsieur Simon heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Tomorrow morning you leave.’ Then he added in a mysterious whisper, ‘Before my next guest arrives.’

I was roused before dawn. Servants clattered up the stairs with pails of hot water, followed by others carrying Monsieur Simon’s heavy tub. I was told to strip, to wash carefully and dress in the sombre clothes Monsieur Simon had brought: blue hose, soft leather boots from Spain, linen undergarments, a dark blue gown with a waistband which had a concealed fold for a dagger and a ring for my hand.

‘A gift,’ Monsieur Simon explained.

Finally a heavy dark-brown cloak fastened round the neck with a silver clasp. Monsieur Simon also provided a money belt with little pouches sewn along the edge, each crammed with silver coins.

‘I would like to say this is also a gift from me.’ He shook his head. ‘The wealth was your uncle’s. You have it now. I can give you nothing else. Remember, you are Mathilde de Clairebon, distant kinsman of Monsieur Simon de Vitry. Look,’ he urged, coming up close and peering up at me, ‘I’ve studied you, Mathilde. You have a ready ear and a quick tongue!’ He smiled. ‘Your knowledge of physic, herbs and potions is truly remarkable. Your uncle also told me you know Italian, you can speak the Norman French of the court; it’s only a matter of time before you study English, learn their customs, adopt their ways.’

‘What will I be?’

‘What the Princess Isabella decides. You will be introduced as a demoiselle de chambre.’