The Darkening Glass

Chapter 1

By the spring of 1312, my mistress Queen Isabella was on the verge of full ripeness. Sixteen summers old, she had matured rich and fertile, a fairy-tale Queen from the romances she so ardently read. A beautiful woman, tall, willowy and slender, her face as perfect as an angel, with lustrous blonde hair, rose-kissed lips and eyes that could dazzle with life. Strange eyes, light blue and sloe-shaped, a legacy from her Navarrese mother. Isabella presided over a court in chaos. The great earls were in fierce rebellion against Gaveston, the king’s favourite, who had been created Earl of Cornwall and placed at the right hand of the power. Gaveston’s banner, a gorgeous red eagle, its wings spread, constantly fluttered over the English court and sparked the flames of civil war. The great earls assembled in this church or that, hands extended, to swear the most sacred of oaths that Gaveston’s banner and coat of arms must be reversed, torn and ground into the dust. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, cousin of the king, and the other Great Lords whistled up their levies and, with banners displayed, marched on London, only to find that the king and his hen-groper — as the great earls mockingly called Gaveston — had fled north to the fastness of York. King, queen, favourite and their households sheltered at the Franciscan friary opposite St Mary’s on Hetergate, which lay between Castlegate and the river Ouse. The Franciscan house was a splendid sprawling complex of buildings around a stately church with a lofty bell tower. I still recall its nave and sanctuary, places of hallowed light, with their altars to the Resurrection and the Trinity, all shrouded in the glow from a thousand tapers. How can I forget, when that house of God soon became the haunt of murder? Most of the royal servitors lay quartered in other establishments, stretching from Bootham Bar to Fishergate; my mistress and I, however, occupied the Arcella chambers above the main cloister garden of the friary.

Isabella had changed, and so had I. A few years older than the queen, I was now recognised as a lady of the inner household, the queen’s own chamber; in fact, its only member. Others gossiped that I was Isabella’s shadow, with my long pale face and mousy hair. True, I was, I am, no beauty, though Demontaigu always claimed my eyes were clear and merry, my face an ivory pale, with lips meant for kissing. Flatterer! An honourable man; was it just a lovely lie? I was the queen’s physician, adviser and clerk. I attended meetings of the king’s chamber council. Sometimes Gaveston and even the king would ask my voice on certain matters. My relationship with the queen had certainly deepened: in public her lady and handmaid, in private the closest of kin. My duties were not only in the kitchen and spicery but generally in the household, whether it be the scullery, the hanaper or the great wardrobe. I was Isabella’s trusted domicella, in charge of the jewel chests and the great coffers containing her robes. I paid messengers like John de Moigne, presented the high altar of the Franciscan chapel with cloths of gold, supervised the purchase of five hundred Galloway pears, a great delicacy much loved by the queen, together with Gruyere cheese, which her father sent from Paris along with a spate of advice on how she should behave, especially towards Gaveston, the king’s favourite. Gaveston, pretty-faced, with a dagger-like wit! What was Isabella’s relationship with the king’s minion? Many have asked me. To be true, it’s still a mystery, even now, tens of years later. I can only suspect the truth, not demonstrate it. In public or in private, be it courtyard or secret chamber, they acted like sweet cousins, with soft words and pretty compliments towards each other. I detected no tension between king and queen, or between Gaveston and Isabella, at least not until that fateful Easter.

In the February of 1312, the favourite’s wife, that little mouse, the sanctimonious and ever pious Margaret de Clare, gave birth to a girl child. Six weeks later, Isabella announced to a delighted court that she too was expecting a child. I had known this since the Feast of the Epiphany. I advised the queen that she was to be a mother: her courses had stopped for at least three months, whilst the swelling of her stomach and thighs and the tenderness of her breasts confirmed this. Isabella suffered slight sickness in the early hours. I begged her not to take any potion except a little camomile sprinkled in pure water, boiled then left to cool. In truth, she had come into her own. She proclaimed that the child would be a boy, a future king. Edward was beside himself with pleasure, for the heralded proclamation confirmed his own virility and put paid to the filthy rumours that he was nothing better than a capon nestling with his lover Gaveston. Of course, the curious ask if there was any truth in such scandalous rumours. I can only answer on what I perceived. In my eyes, Gaveston was the king’s brother, sister, mother and father. Edward was a lonely man, and he pined for Gaveston as a man would for the staples of life.

And my place in all this? Well, it was not all leisurely strolls along closed walks; sitting in a carrel enjoying the rich smell of roses from the cloister garden; riding in a litter or astride some gentle palfrey as the royal cavalcade, under a forest of brilliant banners and pennants, moved from one palace to another. So how can I describe it? It’s like looking back down a torchlit passageway where the shadows dance and the light picks out certain gleaming objects to catch the eye. Or like breasting a hill, when your gaze sweeps the horizon, searching for a spire or the crenellated battlements of a tower. So it was looking back at that Easter of 1312, when the Saviour’s Resurrection was greeted with a clash of steel as swords and daggers were unsheathed, banners unfurled and war horses harnessed for battle. The great earls, the lords of Lancaster, Warwick, Pembroke and Hereford, began the hunt. Edward might be king, Isabella might be pregnant, the French might be threatening Gascony, the Wolf Pope, Philip’s creature Clement V, might nestle in Avignon and hurl imprecations against the great Templar order, but the chaos and crisis in England only deepened, more specks against the darkening glass. Gaveston was marked for the slaughter. In the last four years he had been exiled, judged and condemned. He and the king, however, remained obdurate, bargaining for a place in the sun. In the end, negotiations in shady porticoes and flower-filled alcoves, with their consequent indentures, promises, proclamations and schedules, all proved fruitless. Gaveston’s status was to be settled by the sword.

We waited at York whilst a host of scurriers and messengers galloped the length and breadth of the kingdom as Edward and Gaveston sought support. So desperate were they that Gaveston even sent one of his Aquilae into Scotland to treat secretly with Robert the Bruce, the Scottish rebel, whose ragged troops had overrun most of Edward’s castles and fortresses and now threatened the northern marches. Scottish raiding parties drove like daggers through the soft meadowlands south of the great wall. I pause in my writing and stare at the word ‘Aquilae’, the name given to Gaveston’s squires, his trusted henchmen and household guard. Yes, there were five in number: Philip Leygrave, Robert Kennington, Geoffrey Lanercost, Nicholas Middleton and John Rosselin. All of mixed parentage: English fathers and Gascon mothers. Men-at-arms trained in war, the Aquilae reminded me of lurcher hounds, ready to hunt at their master’s whistle. Handsome young men, swaggering in their short jerkins, cambric shirts and tight hose, yet deadly all the same, despite their foppish ways, curled coiffed hair, painted eyes and fastidious manners. They strutted about in their long high-heeled boots of ox-blood Cordova, yet the war-belts slung like a woman’s girdle around their slim waists carried dagger, poignard and sword, expertly sheathed and ready to be drawn. They boasted Gaveston’s arms, especially the blood-red spread-eagle. They lounged and settled outside his chamber, bejewelled fingers not far from dagger hilts. They called themselves the Aquilae Petri, ‘Peter’s Eagles’, and others responded by playing further on the Latin tag, as aquilae petri was also the name given to a precious jewel. Edward’s favourite jester, a dwarf clad in Lincoln green from head to toe, like Robin of the Hood, teased them with that, so what began as a slight insult was eventually accepted as a compliment.

It was one of these Gemstones, Geoffrey Lanercost, who had been sent north of the border to treat with Bruce. God knows what madcap scheme the king had dreamed up. Scottish help against his own earls? A refuge for Gaveston? In return for what? Recognition of Bruce’s claims? Isabella prayed that it remained a secret. If the great seigneurs of the kingdom could prove that Edward was ready to surrender their estates in Scotland for his Gascon hen-groper, then all of England would betray him. Such fey schemes didn’t concern me. Isabella’s well-being did.

On that afternoon in Easter week, I sat in the cloister of the Franciscan house. My mistress was sleeping. Bertrand Demontaigu and I, with other members of the secret Templar coven, planned to go out and meet some of their brethren fresh from Scotland. We were to assemble at Devil’s Hollow, a deserted farmstead out in the moors, well beyond the bar and gates of York. The friary had fallen silent. April in all its trimness was making itself felt in bursts of greenery and brilliantly coloured flowers. A shadow fell across me. I glanced up. Brother Stephen Dunheved, Dominican confessor to both the king and, quite lately, Isabella, stood staring down at me. From the very beginning Dunheved was a strange one, with his neat tonsure, smooth, round, olive-coloured face, gentle eyes and soft mouth above a slightly jutting jaw. A wolf disguised as a lamb! The way he held his head betrayed the fanaticism burning like a firebrand in his devious soul.

‘Benedicite, mea filia.’ Dunheved threaded his Ave beads through soft, plump fingers.

‘Benedicite, Pater,’ I replied. Dunheved sat down next to me as he always did, as if we were fellow conspirators. He then turned to whisper in my ear, his breath hot against my face.

‘Are you at peace, Mathilde?’

‘I was, Brother!’

He smiled, patted my hand then glanced around.

I recalled how this Dominican often sought me out. He pointed at the stout riding boots peeping from beneath my kirtle.

‘You are travelling? Her grace is sending you. .?’

‘Her grace is resting,’ I interrupted. ‘I wish to God I could.’

‘Will this ever end, Mathilde?’ Dunheved lifted his Ave beads and gestured at the Pity, a carving of the Virgin, the crucified Christ lying across her lap; above them both soared an empty black cross. ‘The Resurrection,’ he breathed. ‘Mathilde de Clairebon, Mathilde de Ferrers,’ he smiled, ‘or have you taken the title now usually given to you: Mathilde of Westminster? Ah well.’ He didn’t wait for an answer; he rarely did.

‘We are being crucified now, but when will the green shoots of our passion bear fruit?’ He edged closer. ‘Mathilde,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘advise the queen. Tell her to persuade the king that my lord Gaveston must go into exile.’

‘It’s finished,’ I retorted without thinking. ‘The king is tired of demands. He does not want the likes of Lancaster and Pembroke dictating what is to happen.’

‘Then consummatum est,’ the Dominican whispered. ‘Is that what you are saying, Mathilde? Who will defend us if civil war breaks out? I thought I’d left my soldiering days behind! I am God’s priest now, not His squire.’ He paused as the bells clanged in the high tower of the church. ‘Slightly askew,’ he murmured.

‘What is?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, nothing!’ he replied, and patted me once again on the hand.

I turned and studied this enigmatic Dominican: the high cheekbones, the wary eyes, the firm chin, neatly shaved, the dimple in his right cheek. A man, I thought at the time, who saw his will as God’s and rested serene in that final judgement. A soul very much at peace with himself, determined on his course. Dunheved gathered his black and white robes more tightly around him. He fingered the cord around his waist, moving to the three knots representing his solemn vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Then he murmured something about God’s will being done, rose and pattered away. I watched him leave. A man to be kept under careful scrutiny, I reflected. A conviction that lasted for at least fifteen years after that fatal Easter of 1312.

‘Mathilde, Mathilde!’

I glanced around. Demontaigu, cloaked, booted and spurred, stood in the doorway leading off from the cloisters to the chapter house.

‘We must go.’ He gestured.

I joined him and the others in the stable yard. Cowled and cloaked, they looked like a group of monks preparing to go on pilgrimage, though their dark and sombre attire hid weapons, whilst from the saddle horns on their horses hung arbalests and battle axes. These were once Templars, but now, by royal and papal decree, they were outlaws and wolf’s-heads. Those who’d survived capture had moved north, and had entered into secret negotiations with Robert the Bruce. They wanted sanctuary and refuge with the Scottish war-leader, who had the grace and good sense to welcome these battle-hardened warriors. Jewels, records and other movables of those Templar houses that had escaped forfeiture had already been dispatched across the northern march for safe keeping. Five Templar serjeants had recently been sent into Scotland with more chests and coffers. Demontaigu and the rest were to meet these men out on the moors at Devil’s Hollow and find out what reception had been accorded before leading them back into York. Nothing was done in writing, as Bruce had been publicly judged a traitor to the English crown. Despite Gaveston’s own secret negotiations with the Scots, anyone convicted of treating with the Bruce would suffer the full rigours of the law for treason, being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Demontaigu had explained all this to me. I was to accompany them, as I carried warrants under the privy and secret seals allowing safe passage wherever I wished. The former Templars had come to the friary and were now ready to go. They greeted me with grunts and nods. I recognised a few: Simon Estivet, acting grand master in England after William de la More’s imprisonment in Canterbury; next to him, Ausel the Irishman, who liked to exaggerate what he called his Celtic charm and temperament. In truth a killer to the bone, Ausel was dedicated to revenge for what the Templars had suffered. Because of Demontaigu, as well as my status with the queen, I was not so much accepted as tolerated by these hunted men. Ausel was the only one to greet me by name and courteously helped me with the stirrups of my horse. To break the tense, sombre mood, he swung himself into the saddle and immediately insisted on proclaiming a bawdy story about a monastery near Clontarf outside Dublin, where the monks could fly and their abbot could only summon them back by beating the bare round bottoms of novice nuns. The story provoked some laughter. Ausel scrutinised me for blushes. I tartly informed him that lechery at the English court was as common as his stories. He laughed and pushed his horse ahead.

I rode alongside Demontaigu, who was lost in his own thoughts. I left him to it as we passed under the friary gatehouse, turning right along King’s Staith, which would take us to the bridge across the Ouse on to Micklegate Bar. The day had promised rich sunshine, but now this was beginning to fade. Nevertheless, the good citizens of York, powerful burgesses with baggy cheeks as soft as clay, accompanied by their harsh-faced, barrel-bottomed wives, were parading in all their fineries. A thin, stinking mist seeped in from the Ouse, carrying the stench of tar, salt, pickle and dried fish. Such smells mingled with the rich odours from the pie shops, bakeries and smithies as well as the shabby stalls offering a range of food to those who worked along the river and its quayside. A busy, motley throng of the living and the dead, for it was early afternoon, and funeral parties carrying staves, candles and tawdry banners escorted coffins from the river down to the various churches where the death watch would be kept until the final requiem mass the following morning. The track-ways were clogged with mud and ordure drying hard under the sun. All of York seemed to have emptied itself on to the streets. A surge of people of every type and rank, busily intent on reaching the markets or simply strolling in the not so fresh air, enjoying the sun after winter’s bleak blackness.

We left King’s Staith because of the crush, going along an alleyway on to a broad paved thoroughfare, which proved just as frenetic, clogged with carts, barrows and litters as well as traders of every kind, eager to pluck at your sleeve or catch your eye. Tinkers and tailors, the bars above their stalls displaying their products, shouted against the calls and cries of furriers, goldsmiths, hempen sellers, butchers and fruiterers. Beggars pleaded, stretching out their battered ladles for coins. A swarm of beadles and bailiffs tried to impose order amongst unlicensed pedlars with horn and staff. These nimble-witted traders simply packed up their wares and moved to any free space between houses, doorways, the steps of churches or the backs of carts. Peasants and farmers, heads shaded by straw hats, offered hens, piglets and ducks, ‘all fresh and lively for sale’. We had to muffle our mouths and noses as the stink from the runnels and sewers grew offensive, the refuse piles and offerings from the sewer pots being cooked to ripeness under the sun. Little wonder they call Satan lord of the latrines! I took some comfort that in such chaos no one would pay us special attention. Indeed, the royal city of York seemed totally oblivious to the growing confrontation between the king and his leading earls, being more concerned with selling a collection of buttons for a farthing or a litter of piglets for a quarter of a mark. York was immersed in commerce to the exclusion of everything. The citizens even jostled the coped priests who carried the viaticum to the sick. The glow of hallowed candles, the tinkle of bells and the smoke of burning incense did little to smooth the priests’ path through the turbulent crowd, who were more interested in challenging a relic seller offering a wing from a seraphim or the nail from the big toe of the Trinity. York was living proof that ‘love does much, but money does everything’.

We finally crossed the bridge, going along Micklegate to the Bar, its lofty crenellations decorated with the tarred severed heads of Scottish rebels. These grisly relics stared blindly down at the great stocks on either side packed full of miscreants, their heads and faces plastered with horse dung and honey. Eventually we passed through the yawning gateway, following the road leading to Tadcaster, which was crowded with carts, plodding peasants, wandering friars, preachers and story-tellers. One of these, desperate to solicit custom, had stopped on the steps of a crumbling wayside cross to proclaim that verse from Isaiah: ‘I said in the midst of my days, I should go through the portals of hell.’ Little did we realise how true that was of us! We journeyed on for a little while, pausing whilst Ausel checked the map he had drawn. Demontaigu pulled the muffler from his mouth, leaned over and apologised for being withdrawn. He explained the urgency of what we were doing.

‘The serjeants will bring us news out of Scotland. They met Bruce personally; soon, Mathilde, we’ll have sanctuary.’

My heart skipped a beat, as it always did at the prospect of his departure.

‘No, no!’ Demontaigu recognised my fear. ‘No, ma doucette.’ He smiled. ‘I shall not be going into Scotland with the rest. My duties keep me here with you in England. I am well pleased,’ he added impishly, ‘to keep both eye and ear open to what is happening.’

I was about to reply when Ausel called out at us to follow, and we cantered on to what our companions called ‘the great wastelands of Yorkshire’, empty, bleak moors still recovering from the great burning by the Conqueror hundreds of years before. A wild, lonely place, a tapestry of shifting colour: greens of many hues; gold and black; the occasional dash of purple where sprouts of wild heather burst up through the grass. Gathering clouds blacked out the sun. The sky became swiftly overcast. We moved across the rain-misted landscape through stubborn gorse and tough heather, our garrons choosing their steps wisely. An eerie land with ancient rocks darker than iron. Above us wild birds shrieked like lost souls against the wind. We trooped in silence for a while through a dense copse of gnarled trees, then began to climb. I felt deeply uneasy. Perhaps it was the contrast between the noisy, turbulent city and this place of utter, miserable silence, which harboured its own grisly secrets.

We breasted the rise and stared down at a scene from hell. Devil’s Hollow was a broad, deep-bowled basin in that rough landscape. At its centre rose the ruins of an old house built of grey moor-stone, its thatched roof long gone. Around it stood stunted trees, probably the relic of some ancient forest where the murderous pagan gods used to shelter. The poet writes: ‘Who paints a rose cannot paint its fragrant soul.’ That also applies to those who describe demons; they cannot summon up the true terrors of hell, which was what Devil’s Hollow had become. The ancient cottar’s place lay silent, but from the branches of the nearby trees hung five corpses. The scene was cruel and hard. We rode swiftly down, dismounted and searched around. We found traces of battle: the ground had been scuffed by many horsemen, and the blood-splattered grass was littered with grim straps of leather, armour and a broken dagger. There was nothing else. No horses, no baggage, nothing but those five corpses, their eyes gouged out, dressed solely in jerkins and hose, feet bare, their bodies swaying slightly in the breeze, the branches creaking under their weight. Some had died before they were hanged. Horrid blue-black wounds to the chests and guts; their mangled mouths and shattered skulls told their own macabre tale. Certain places reek of terrible evil. Devil’s Hollow certainly did. The way the ground abruptly dipped, the abandoned cottar’s house of rough stone and those gnarled trees rich with their grisly fruit.

I walked into the old cottage. It stank, fetid and sour, a dark cave of stone with a floor of beaten earth. Outside echoed the curses of my companions as they cut the corpses down. I searched the cottage but found nothing except the spent embers of a fire. A shadow darkened the door.

‘They are ready,’ Demontaigu declared. ‘God have mercy on them, Mathilde.’

I went out. Estivet, a priest Templar, was crouching by a corpse, whispering the words of absolution into the dead man’s ear, in the hope that the living soul would gain some comfort on its journey towards the light.

‘Go forth, Christian soul.’ Estivet’s horror and anger at what had happened thrilled his words. ‘Go forth like a soldier to meet your God. May Michael and all his angels come forth to meet you. May you not fall into the hands of the enemy, the evil one, and so I absolve you from. .’

I waited until he had finished, then I inspected the corpses. Everything of value had been stripped off them: belts, buckles, boots, armour and weapons. Three had died in vicious hand-to-hand fighting, with deep, ugly wounds to the face, neck and chest. Two of them, in my judgement, had still been alive when hanged. All had been abused: noses slit as if they were felons, with the added indignity of having their eyes gouged out, and their gaping mouths stuffed with dirt and the excrement of wild animals, a blasphemous mockery of the viaticum. Ausel and the others were now in deep conversation, heatedly discussing what had happened. I stared down at the faces of the dead men, then up at the rim of the hollow. I could visualise how these Templars had been trapped and slaughtered.

‘Noctales!’ Ausel spat the word out.

I nodded in agreement.

‘Scots?’ someone called.

‘Nonsense!’ Demontaigu snapped, face all pallid. ‘We have a treaty with them, they wouldn’t. .’

‘Outlaws? Wolf’s-heads?’ another called.

‘No!’ I replied loudly. My companions were sorely frightened. So terrified they wanted to ignore the obvious menace: Alexander of Lisbon and his comitatus. A free company of murderers, specially commissioned by Clement V of Avignon and Philip of Paris to hunt down Templars and kill them. Edward of England, to his eternal shame, had also issued them licence under letters patent to pursue their quarry in England.

Some of the Templars shook their heads, muttering at the opinion of a woman. I walked towards them.

‘These corpses are cold,’ I declared. ‘They were killed early today, perhaps just before dawn.’ I pointed to the rim of the hollow. ‘A safe place most times, but the Noctales ringed them in here and rode down. Your comrades were surprised and massacred. Well,’ I brushed the dust from my gloves, ‘that is what I think.’

‘But how did the Noctales know about them?’ Ausel asked. ‘Here, out in the wilderness?’

A spate of answers greeted the question. Demontaigu took me by the shoulder and led me towards the cottage. Estivet joined us.

‘Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales: you are sure, Mathilde?’

‘Who else, Bertrand, for the love of God?’ I shivered. Such a gloomy place: those corpses lying sprawled on the barren earth, the tree branches twisting out as if waiting for fresher fruit, the edge of that hollow, its long grass bending gently in the breeze. Ravens screeched above us as they fought the strengthening winds. I wanted to be gone. Cold fear pricked my heart and twisted my stomach. ‘They may return,’ I whispered.

‘Not now.’ Demontaigu shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not in daylight: the land is too flat and open. They could not surprise us.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘Alexander of Lisbon must have learnt about this place and led his demons here before dawn. They did their bloody work and left. They’ll be long gone now.’

I disagreed, but I did not wish to argue the point.

‘The corpses?’ I asked.

‘We’ll leave them here.’ Estivet called over one of his companions and gave him instructions. ‘I’ll pay the good brothers at the friary,’ he continued. ‘They’ll see it as an act of mercy and give them proper burial in the poor man’s lot in God’s Acre.’

‘This,’ Demontaigu gestured at the dead, ‘is finished. Their bodies are for the soil, their souls to God, but who betrayed us, Mathilde? Alexander of Lisbon must have been told how our men were coming out of Scotland. He must have been given the exact time and place those serjeants would arrive here, but how, who?’ he whispered hoarsely.

Ausel, seeing us deep in conversation, drifted across as the others carried the corpses into the cottage, cloaks being offered as shrouds, stones quickly collected to protect the dead from wild animals.

‘You are probably asking the same as we all do.’ Ausel’s usually laughing face was grim and his keen green eyes were cold and hard, while a nervous tic high in his right cheek muscle betrayed his simmering fury. ‘How did this happen, Demontaigu? The only people who knew were you, me and Estivet.’

‘And myself,’ I added, ‘but only two days ago. Demontaigu will swear to that.’

‘I do,’ Demontaigu murmured. He raised his hand to his companions and led us up the side of the hollow. We stood on the rim. I stared out across the patchwork landscape of heather, gorse, brambles, marsh, stagnant pools and the occasional copse of trees.

‘How did your companions know to come here?’ I asked.

‘Some of them were local men.’ Demontaigu replied.

‘Their names?’ I asked.

‘Morseby, Thorpe, Rippenhale, Lanercost and Easterbury.’

‘Lanercost?’ I queried.

‘Yes, John Lanercost,’ Demontaigu agreed. ‘Why?’

‘Any relation or kin to one of the Aquilae Petri?’

‘The Gemstones?’ Demontaigu faced me squarely. ‘One of Gaveston’s creatures?’ He pulled a face. ‘Our Lanercost was an experienced squire, a serjeant. He was born in these parts. He might be related to Gaveston’s minion. Yes, yes.’ He blinked across the breeze. ‘Our man sheltered in a garret close to the Shambles in York. Lanercost organised sanctuary for others. Most Templars moved north. York is a good place to hide. What are you saying, Mathilde? That Lanercost told his kinsman, who informed Gaveston, who then betrayed them all to Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales?’

‘Impossible!’ I replied. ‘Templar power in England has been shattered. Everything worth seizing has been taken. Why should the king or Gaveston be interested in betraying harassed Templars to the Noctales?’ I turned away, uneasy, and stared across at a thick copse of wood, the path we’d taken from York snaking through it. I was about to look away when I started at a glint of steel.

‘Jesu miserere!’ I exclaimed, plucking at Demontaigu’s sleeve. I looked up at the sky, then back again: nothing. Yet. .

‘What it is?’ Demontaigu grasped my wrist.

I walked down into the shelter of the hollow, my abrupt departure attracting Ausel, who came hurrying over.

‘What is the matter?’ Demontaigu insisted.

‘Those trees.’ I waited until we’d walked a little deeper. ‘I am sure mailed men lurk there.’

‘No, no.’ Ausel shook his head.

‘Why not?’ I retorted. ‘I am not mad, Ausel, some maid calfing at the moon, full of fanciful notions that every bush is a bear. I am not hare-hearted; I know what I glimpsed. Who else would be hiding out here in the heathland?’

‘Mathilde is keen-eyed.’ Demontaigu, for all his doubts, believed me. ‘It’s logical. The Noctales must know we were coming here. They withdrew, waited and watched, just as they did when the others arrived here yesterday evening. A scout would alert them, and then they closed in.’

Demontaigu was convinced. He gestured back at the rim. ‘We could return and gape, but that would warn them. It’s best if we were gone from here as quickly as possible.’

‘Might they attack us here?’ I asked.

‘No.’ Demontaigu tightened the buckle on his belt. ‘We are too many, armed and ready. They hope we will take the same road back, then they will trap us. They’ll be waiting, all harnessed for war.’

I recalled the Noctales: a troop of killers, mercenaries, the scum from various cities, armed like men of war. They were accompanied by battle-dogs, great mastiffs with sharp teeth and crushing jaws, spiked collars around their muscle-thick necks. A swift riding horde of the sons of Cain.

‘We’ll warn the rest.’ Demontaigu pointed across the hollow. ‘It’s best if we return by different paths. Once we are off the moors and reach the villages, the Noctales will withdraw. They do not want any witnesses to their murderous slaughter.’

Demontaigu hastily summoned the others. He stilled protests and objections, declaring that swiftness not battle was their prayer for the hour. The group would leave, separate, seek out travelling merchant groups or the outlying villages, and meet again in York. It was quickly agreed. Estivet murmured a brief benediction and we all remounted to the heart-tingling jingle of harness, the creak of leather and the ominous slither of weapons being loosened in their sheaths. Estivet again murmured a blessing, to which Ausel spat out a curse that the tongues of demons would pierce the Noctales’ souls and they would grill in hell like bacon fat for all eternity. His sally provoked a few smiles. Hands were clasped, farewells made and we guided our horses out of the hollow and over the rim and scattered in a desperate, frenetic gallop.

Demontaigu and Ausel rode either side of me as we broke into a canter, streaming from the hollow in a thunder of hooves and flying dust. The stiff cold breeze whipped at my face. The ground beneath me became a blur, as did my two companions. My world was reduced to the thunder of our horses’ hooves, a deep sense of danger, the blood drumming in my ears, my throat narrowing as if to cut off its breath. I gripped the reins and murmured a prayer at the swift and dread turn of events. I had to remind myself that I was Domicella reginae, yet fleeing for my life across a wilderness as bleak as the souls who hunted me. Killers who would cut my throat only a few miles from the king’s own chamber. Eventually I calmed; I even wondered if I had been mistaken, then I heard the bell-like bark of great hunting dogs, a hollow, soul-searing sound that seemed to echo up from the caves of hell. Our horses began to slow, and we halted on the brow of a hill and turned. I caught my gasp of terror; it was not a time for the weak-hearted. Below us unfurled a scene from a nightmare. Men fleeing, swift shadows across the sun-dappled heath, whilst from the nearby woods streamed others, already breaking up as the hunting pack chose their quarry. More terrifying, before or alongside each cluster of horsemen, were those black racing shapes, the great war-hounds of the Noctales. Terror seized me. A group of four riders and a hound had already singled us out for pursuit. Demontaigu sat and stared, gauntleted fingers to his lips as if he might retch.

Ausel, however, leaned forward in the saddle, eyes narrowed, clicking his tongue.

‘Our garrons,’ he patted his horse’s neck, ‘are not as swift as theirs, but they are sturdier and more sure-footed. Those riders will never bring us to bay, which is why they have brought the dogs. They will close, panic our mounts and savage their legs. The dogs will bring us down. I’ve seen chieftains in Ireland do the same. Ah well.’ Ausel grasped the reins and pulled his horse round. ‘There is only one thing we can do.’

We continued our headlong gallop. Behind us the baying of the hound grew stronger as one of those long, sloping, ghastly shapes began to close. Ausel, however, led us on to a track-way that rose slightly between a marshy stagnant pool on our left and thick barbed gorse to our right. The moorland path was slightly off our general direction, but he urged us on up the track-way as it narrowed between two ancient, craggy outcrops of lichen-covered rock. We cantered through and down the path. Ausel reined in and dismounted, shouting at us to do likewise and demanding we prime the arbalests we carried. I fumbled with mine; Ausel collected it and Demontaigu’s, then waved us back. He crouched at a kneel, two arbalests beside him; the other he raised, pointing at the gap between those rocks. He was as calm and assured as any Brabantine mercenary. A loud howl rang out above the sound of drumming hooves. In a flurry of dust, the war-dog leapt between the rocks, ears flapping, huge jaws bared, a charging mass of muscular black flesh, terrible in its fearful beauty. It seemed unaware of Ausel; trained to pursue horses, it charged directly on. Ausel released the catch, and the squat barbed bolt whirred like some deadly bird. The hound, struck in his jaw, was maddened enough to carry on. Ausel raised the second arbalest, primed and ready. The hound rose in a leap. Again, the click of the catch. This time the bolt shattered the beast’s throat, yet still it hurtled on, its muscular body twisting to one side in a flurry of dust as it crashed into Ausel. Man and dog whirled in a dust cloud sprinkled with spurts of blood. They turned and rolled, Ausel’s war cry drowned by an ominous snarling, then it was over. The hound lay on its side. Ausel sprawled face down. I tried to shout, but my mouth was too dry. Then Ausel lifted his grinning, blood-splattered face and pulled himself up, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

‘No harm, no harm. Praise be to God.’ His smile faded. He gestured at the arbalests and ordered us to prime them again. Demontaigu had recovered. Only later did I learn about his deep fear of dogs after being attacked by one in his childhood. He gathered his crossbow and mine, our whole existence taken up by the threatening drumming of approaching hooves, and had a swift word with Ausel. Armed with arbalests, the two Templars separated just as the horsemen, cloaks billowing, breasted the rise, charging so furiously they had little time to realise what had happened. Ausel and Demontaigu knelt, crossbows up. The catches clicked and the bolts spun out, cutting the air to bring down the two leading riders. The ensuing chaos and confusion tipped a third out of his saddle as his horse reared in terror. The two Templars sped forward, sword and dagger out. Demontaigu was a skilled knight, but Ausel was a warrior born and bred, one of those men who knew no fear and relished the song of battle. The hunters became trapped in a lure of their own making. The three fallen riders were quickly dispatched with shrieks, groans and spurts of hot blood. The fourth, desperate to control his mount, turned to flee, but he was trapped on both sides, and dragged off his horse. Ausel, kneeling on his chest, roared as he plunged his dagger time and again into the man’s throat. Then he rose, staggered away and half crouched, staring strangely at Demontaigu, who moved along the corpses ensuring they were dead before whispering a requiem and sketching a blessing in the air. I walked over and stared down at one of the Noctales, his scarred face made uglier in death: the blood-spattered gaping lips, the blackening stumps of teeth.

‘You’ll kill no more!’ I whispered to him.

‘Go away!’ Ausel had snatched a battle axe from his saddle horn.

I stared around.

‘Their valuables?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to strip them. .?’

‘And what?’ Ausel sneered. ‘Sell them in York? No, I want Alexander of Lisbon to see what I’ve done. So go.’ He pointed back to our horses. ‘Demontaigu, take your lady away. What she doesn’t see she will not remember.’ He lifted himself up. ‘Hell has devoured these sinners like wolves devour sheep. Satan’s henchmen will fill their gaping mouths with molten lead. I wish to leave Lisbon fair warning that he too will melt like wax before the fire.’ He was almost talking to himself, his usually good-natured face tense and pallid.

Demontaigu took me by the elbow and steered me further down the track-way, where our horses were hobbled. I went to look back but he almost pushed me into a small culvert between the straggling gorse. I sat down on a rock. Demontaigu collected his small wineskin and made me take a couple of mouthfuls, then we waited in silence. Sounds echoed from up the track-way. The terrors began to leave me. I grew aware of the wine taste in my mouth, how heavy my legs felt. The trees and bushes of the wastelands were bending under a breeze. I smelt a mingle of horse sweat, leather and the fragrance of wild flowers. A cormorant cried, to be answered by the raucous call of circling crows. Time passed. Demontaigu sat, eyes closed, mouth moving wordlessly in silent prayer. Ausel joined us. He’d used the clothes of one of the dead men as an apron. Now he tore these blood-soaked garments off and threw them into a bush.

‘I’m done,’ he murmured. ‘It’s finished.’

Demontaigu gathered the horses and we mounted. Ausel loudly announced that the Noctales would still be involved in their pursuit of the others. He proved correct. We rode safely out across the deserted heathland, reached a village and joined a line of carts taking produce to the Minster from one of its outlying farms. Ausel and Demontaigu rode ahead, talking quietly amongst themselves. I drifted gently into a half-sleep, shaken awake by the sounds around me. We reached Micklegate Bar, and went up its main thoroughfare and on to Ouse Bridge. Beggars clustered on the steps of St Michael’s chapel at the entrance to the bridge. One of these darted forward and grasped Ausel’s bridle, pleading for alms. I noticed how strong and muscular he was, his skin burnt dark by the sun of Outremer rather than the freezing wind of York. He was undoubtedly a Templar in disguise, passing on information. Ausel searched for a penny, tossed it at the mendicant then urged his horse on.

We stabled our mounts at The Road to Damascus, a stately pilgrims’ tavern fronted by a broad cobbled yard and flanked on either side by flower gardens. The tap room was highceilinged; no mush of dried reeds covered the floor; its black and yellow lozenge-shaped tiles were clean and polished. At the far end stood a long counter of burnished oak, gleaming in the light of pure oil lamps and beeswax candles. Barrels and buckets all ribbed with ash, hazel and iron lined one wall. Smoked ham hanging from the broad-beamed roof gave the room a pleasant tasty smell. We hired a table in an alcove with a small oriel window overlooking the garden. I remember such details well. The customers were a few guildsmen, wealthy travellers and pilgrims. Mine host wore a felt hat and a clean cloth apron with spotless white napkins crisscrossed over his chest. Around his muscular wrists hung two more to keep his fingers clean. He took our custom: stoups of ale, amber-glazed bowls of meat and vegetable broth, manchet loaves, still warm and wrapped in a linen cloth, as well as a small pot of butter. We cleaned our hands in the rosewater provided. Ausel quickly blessed the food. I went to talk, to break the silence, but Ausel leaned across. He still looked battle-crazed, eyes large and dark in his pale face.

‘The tongue,’ he whispered. ‘How small it is, yet a petty flame can consume a forest. The tongue,’ he continued, taking out his horn spoon, ‘is a whole wicked world in itself. It can infect the entire body with poison. It can catch fire from hell and set the world ablaze.’ His eyes were staring over my shoulder.

I turned. A hooded man had wandered over but then shifted away. We ate in silence. Ausel got up, nodded at me, patted Demontaigu on the shoulder and left.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Demontaigu lifted a finger to his lips. I glanced around. The hooded man had come drifting over again. I stared hard at this individual dressed in dark green buckram and short leather boots. The cowl he wore was deep; I could only glimpse pinched white features. He turned to face us squarely; shadow-rimmed eyes stared out from a ghost-white face.

‘Your friend has left?’ the hooded man murmured. ‘Has he gone looking for the Key of David?’

‘No, friend.’ Demontaigu lifted his stoup of ale in toast. ‘The Key is not needed. The Tabernacle of Solomon is gone!’

The hooded man startled. ‘Gone?’ The whisper was hoarse.

‘Destroyed,’ Demontaigu replied tersely, ‘out on the heathland.’

‘Then, friend,’ the hooded man lifted his hand, palm extended in peace, ‘I’ll be gone.’ And he slipped across the tap room and out through the door.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Roger Furnival,’ Demontaigu replied. ‘Outlaw, wolf’s-head, defrocked priest. He was to meet us here with our comrades out of Scotland. Now. .’ He shrugged.

‘And Ausel’s strange words about the tongue?’

‘Someone betrayed us, Mathilde, perhaps not intentionally. Ausel wants us to return and question Geoffrey Lanercost.’

He collected his gloves and made to rise.

‘Bertrand.’ I gripped his wrist. ‘Ausel, what did he do out there on the track-way?’

‘Ausel’s words are like silver from a furnace,’ Demontaigu whispered, ‘seven times refined. He has sworn terrible vengeance against Alexander of Lisbon.’

‘On the track-way?’ I insisted.

‘He severed the head of that war-dog and those of its four dead masters. He placed them along the track-way where it narrows between the outcrops.’ Demontaigu paused. He glanced pityingly at me from the corner of his eye. ‘A Celtic thing,’ he murmured. ‘He also removed their genitals and thrust them between their gaping dead lips. Ausel has sent warning to Lisbon that our fight is lutte a l’outrance — to the death. .’