The Poison Maiden

Chapter 3

‘Who is Chapeleys?’ Guido asked.

‘Sir,’ Demontaigu gestured back at the door, ‘I must ask you to return. You too, Mistress Agnes. This concerns me. A man sheltering in my chamber has died. Mathilde, Ingleram Berenger has asked for you to attend.’ Demontaigu didn’t wait for an answer, but spun on his heel.

I made my apologies to Guido and Agnes and hurried after him.

‘Bertrand?’ I asked. ‘Ingleram Berenger, he is a physician, the royal coroner.’

‘Precisely!’ Demontaigu snapped. ‘He did not ask for you, but I need you, Mathilde. Come, you’ll see.’

It was a freezing cold evening, a stark contrast to the warm splendour of the Grande Chambre. Once we’d left Burgundy Hall, Demontaigu guided me by the elbow down needle-thin alleyways, across derelict gardens and deserted yards, dark as a devil’s mouth except for the flickering torches of the men-at-arms hurrying before us. In the far distance, on the corner of a building, I glimpsed torchlight and the glitter of armoured men. I soon realised it was the outside of Demontaigu’s chamber. I drew closer and glimpsed Chapeleys hanging by his neck from the window-door, open above him. An eerie, sinister scene. The corpse hung slack about a yard from the ground, arms and legs swaying slightly as if the man was still alive. I reckoned the drop from the window-door was at least another two. At first glance, to all intents and purposes, Chapeleys had opened that small window-door and, with one end of the escape rope clasped to that ring in the wall, fashioned a noose with the other, slipped this over his head and stepped into eternal night. The men-at-arms staring up at the corpse let us through. I peered at the grisly scene. Chapeleys was still wearing his oxhide boots. In the murky gloom I could not make out his face. Ingelram Berenger, a plump, white-whiskered, fussy little man, came bustling forward, mopping his face with a napkin taken from the banquet.

‘Master Bertrand,’ he blustered, ‘a guard found this.’ He gestured at the corpse. ‘A hanging! Suicide! God knows why it happened.’ He rubbed his stomach. ‘Not a night for such hideous scenes.’

‘You’ve not entered my chamber?’ Demontaigu asked.

‘Of course not.’

‘It should be locked and bolted from the inside,’ Demontaigu murmured. ‘Master-at-arms,’ he turned to one of the soldiers, ‘bring a ladder. I will go up from the outside and unlock the door; you can join me there.’

The master-at-arms brought a long pole-ladder. Demontaigu insisted that for the moment the corpse be left. He laid the ladder against the palace wall and climbed up. Master Berenger left two of the men-at-arms on guard whilst we hurried round into the building and up the gloomy, freezing staircase. By the time we reached his chamber, Demontaigu had opened the door. He ushered us in.

‘Locked and bolted from the inside,’ he whispered to me.

I glanced quickly round. Nothing looked as if it had been disturbed. The drapes on the bed were slightly creased. The empty platter and goblet still stood on the table. I glimpsed the chancery pouch and hurried across to where it lay on the floor between the chair and the still gleaming charcoal brazier. I pulled back the flaps. It was empty. I glanced at the brazier and noticed the charred scraps of parchment littering the top coals. Chapeleys had apparently burnt whatever he’d brought. There was no sign of any struggle. The cup and platter smelled untainted. The lock and bolts on the door were untouched. I examined the ring in the wall. The thick hempen rope was securely tied to it. The bolts and bars of the wooden door looked unmarked, with no sign of force.

Berenger stood in deep conversation with Demontaigu. The king’s coroner eyed me darkly when he learnt who I was. In the end, however, he seemed satisfied with what Demontaigu had said and became very dismissive.

‘A highly nervous man,’ he declared. ‘Master Chapeleys’ humours must have been deeply agitated and disturbed by all these present troubles. He must have taken his own life.’ He shrugged. ‘God knows what Holy Mother Church will say about that.’ The fat coroner spread his hands, clearly anxious to return to the festivities. ‘There is little more I can say or do,’ he pleaded. ‘Perhaps. .’

Demontaigu offered to take care of the corpse. Berenger was only too pleased to agree and promptly disappeared. Demontaigu ordered the men-at-arms to go back to the corpse and guard it. Once the chamber was cleared, he bolted the door.

‘Nothing,’ he exclaimed, gesturing around, ‘nothing untoward.’

‘Except the contents of his chancery bag have been burnt.’

‘Chapeleys may have done that himself when he decided to take his own life. The door was locked and bolted.’ Demontaigu shook his head. ‘I cannot believe anything else. Chapeleys was under strict instruction not to open that door to anyone but ourselves or someone. .’

‘When you left him?’

‘I brought some wine and a platter.’ Demontaigu sighed. ‘I scarcely talked to him, then I left for the chancery office. I did some work there and went direct to Burgundy Hall.’

‘And Berenger?’

‘I told him Chapeleys was a clerk much agitated by the present crisis. A man, perhaps, given to morbid thoughts.’

‘Everything indicates suicide,’ I agreed, ‘yet we know that is not true. Chapeleys was truly frightened but he wanted to live.’ I walked over to the writing table. The quill pens had recently been used. The inkpot was unstoppered. I searched the chancery bag again but it was empty. I went down on my hands and knees. Chapeleys was a clerk. He would write and perhaps reject what he’d written. I was proved correct. Under the table near the far leg lay a twisted piece of parchment. I picked this up, smoothed it out and glimpsed the scrolled letters. I slipped it into the velveteen purse on my belt. Demontaigu hurried across but I held a finger to my lips and gestured at the door.

‘Not now. Let’s first tend to the corpse.’

Demontaigu went across to the window-door and shouted at the men-at-arms to be ready. He then told me to help him hold the rope. He sliced this expertly, took the strain and gently lowered the corpse. The soldiers, using the ladder, grasped the body and laid it out on the cobbles below. A macabre sight! The cadaver sprawled on its back. In the shifting pool of torchlight, Chapeleys’ white face seemed to stare up at me in reproach. I diverted myself by re-examining the knot in the noose which the soldiers passed to us.

‘A clerk’s doing,’ I murmured. ‘As they fasten the twine of a pouch containing a bundle of manuscripts, twice tied, the ends slipped back through the knot.’ I rose and scrutinised the chamber once more.

‘Nothing out of place.’ Demontaigu voiced my thoughts.

‘And that is the refrain the assassin wants us to repeat,’ I replied.

We left the chamber and joined the men-at-arms, who carried the corpse across the palace grounds into the mortuary chapel of St Margaret’s, the parish church of those who lived and served in the palace. The Keeper of the Death House was waiting. He merrily welcomed, as he put it, his new guest into the Chamber of the Dead: a long, barn-like structure lying between the corpse door of St Margaret’s and God’s Acre, the parish cemetery. The walls inside gleamed with lime-wash, studded here and there with black crosses. The carefully scrubbed floor, set with pavestones, was strewn with crisp, freshly cut rushes. Mortuary tables, neatly arranged in three long rows, stretched from the door to the far wall. Most of these were, in the words of the keeper, a lay brother from the abbey, occupied by his special guests.

‘It’s the gallows, you see,’ he intoned mournfully. ‘They have to be cleared before the great feast, felons and villains! All quiet now, washed and anointed, ready for God.’

Chapeleys’ corpse was laid on a table near the door. The men-at-arms were eager to be gone from such a gruesome place; it reeked of death and decay despite the pots of crushed herbs and boats of smoking incense placed on sills and ledges. Demontaigu also asked the keeper to withdraw. The lay brother would have objected, but the silver coin I drew from my purse and the promise of some lady bread and meat, the leftovers from the lavish royal banquet, sent him scrambling through the door, which he slammed noisily behind him.

We turned to Chapeleys. In the light of the oil lamps and guttering wall torches, his face had a livid hue, eyes popping, tongue jutting out of his protuberant mouth, the skin a hideous, mottled colour. Demontaigu crossed himself, leaned over and whispered the words of absolution into the dead man’s ear. Afterwards, with a phial of oil he must have taken from his chamber, he swiftly anointed Chapeleys from forehead to feet whilst whispering the solemn invocation to St Michael and all the angels to come out and meet the dead man’s soul. We then stripped the corpse down to its pathetic soiled linen undershirt and drawers. I carefully examined the flesh for bruises and cuts but could detect none. No binding or force to the fingers, hands or wrists could be traced; nothing but that deep, broad purple-red weal round Chapeleys’ throat and the slight contusion behind the right ear where the knot had been fastened. I studied the discarded noose I’d brought with me; the slipknot was expertly done, still tight and hard. I searched amongst the dead clerk’s possessions. His wallet held a few coins which I left on the mortuary table. The dagger was still in its sheath and slipped easily in and out. I sat down on a stool and stared in exasperation at Demontaigu, now covering the corpse with a death cloth.

‘Who knew Chapeleys had arrived at Westminster?’

‘Nobody,’ he replied, ‘at least to our knowledge.’ He gathered up the dead man’s possessions in a bundle, came across, and stood over me. ‘Mathilde, I recognise the problems if it was murder. Who knew Chapeleys was in my chamber at Westminster? Who killed him? How so expertly, so quickly? How did the assassin get in that room, attack an armed man who would certainly have resisted, and overcome him so soundly, so expertly, with no sign of force or disturbance. He then arranged Chapeleys’ hanging and disappeared just as mysteriously. Chapeleys may have admitted him into the chamber, but why? He was frightened, under strict orders from us to be vigilant. And if he made a mistake why did he then not resist?’ Demontaigu paused at a knock on the door. The Keeper of the Dead shuffled in.

‘If he took life by his own hand,’ he murmured, gesturing at the corpse now covered in a shroud, ‘he cannot be buried in God’s Acre.’

‘Come, Brother.’ Demontaigu picked the coins up from the table. He went over and thrust them into the lay brother’s hands whilst placing Chapeleys’ meagre possessions at his feet. ‘If no one claims the corpse, and I doubt they will, these are yours. Why cause a fuss?’

‘How did he die?’ the keeper asked.

‘I do not know, Brother,’ I insisted. ‘That is the truth!’

‘When did he die?’

I glanced back at the corpse. The flesh was cold but the limbs were still soft. The freezing weather had drained the warm humours. The keeper’s question was pertinent. Had Chapeleys been killed before the feast or during it? Had someone from our banquet slipped away and carried out the dreadful act? But if so, how was it done? I simply shook my head.

‘Brother, I am unable to answer that.’

We were about to leave when there was a disturbance outside. The door was flung open and an irate Berenger strode into the chapel. Servants followed, carrying another corpse under a cloak. The keeper, clucking his tongue at how busy he’d become, hastily directed the bearers to an empty table. A grey-haired woman followed, sobbing uncontrollably; others entered, led by a young man who looked terror-stricken, his pimply white face sweating as he loudly protested his innocence. As the keeper went over to console the sobbing woman, Berenger shouted for silence. Something about the distraught woman caught at my heart; she reminded me of my own mother. I went across, pulled back the cloth and stared down at the corpse of a young woman dressed in a faded green gown. Long auburn hair hid her face, which tilted sideways. I pushed the hair back and stared at the horror: once comely, her face was the same livid hue as Chapeleys’, mottled and slightly swollen, eyes popping, tongue sticking out due to the garrotte string tied tightly round her soft white throat. I drew my own dagger and cut the cord; the corpse jerked as air was expelled and, for a heartbeat, silenced the clamour in the death house. Another young woman, black hair tied tightly back behind her head, lean, spiteful and full of anger, pushed her way through. She screamed accusations at the young man, who simply flailed his hands and shook his head. Once again Berenger shouted for silence.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘The dead woman is Rebecca Atte-Stowe.’ Berenger apparently decided to swallow his pride and speak to me. ‘She was a serving wench in the buttery and pantry.’ He gestured around at the clamour of accusation. ‘She was found as you have seen her, in a storeroom where the maids keep their aprons, caps and gloves for use in the kitchens. Anyway, she was to help with the feast but hadn’t been seen since the Vesper’s bell.’

I stared down at the corpse. ‘She must have disappeared shortly before the banquet began.’ I went over and pressed my hand against her face; the flesh was cold. I lifted an arm; it was still supple. ‘She’s probably been dead for some hours,’ I declared. I beckoned Berenger away from the shouting and crying. ‘What’s happening?’ I whispered. ‘That black-haired woman so full of fury?’

‘Anstritha, Rebecca’s friend. She maintains that Robert Atte-Gate, a groom from the stables, was sweet on Rebecca. Earlier today he and Rebecca quarrelled. .’ Berenger’s voice faded away as if he was already bored by the proceedings, more concerned that once again he’d been disturbed in his pleasures by sudden, mysterious death. I returned to the mortuary table and scrutinised the poor girl’s fingers. The clamour continued behind me, rising to screams and shouts.

‘It’s not me! I’ve done no crime!’

I whirled round. Robert, his face sweat-soaked, had retreated from the rest, drawing a dagger from his belt.

‘Put down your weapon!’ Berenger thundered, ‘To draw a dagger on a royal officer in the king’s own palace is treason. If you don’t hang for murder, you will for that!’

Anstritha cackled with laughter. Robert lunged towards her but stumbled. The men-at-arms seized him and dragged him outside. Berenger declared he’d done more than his duty for one evening and followed. Anstritha, her face full of malicious glee, almost hopped to the door. The rest filed out, leaving Rebecca’s mother sobbing over the corpse. I went and put an arm around her shoulders.

‘What happened?’ I asked softly. ‘Do you really believe Robert murdered your daughter?’

‘No,’ she whispered through her tears.

I picked up the cut garrotte string, fine twine like that of catgut. ‘Nor do I,’ I murmured. ‘This is more the work of a skilled assassin than a stable boy, but why should your poor Rebecca be his victim?’

The mother could not answer that. Demontaigu and I gave some money to the keeper and left. We walked away from the Death House. I paused and stared up through the darkness, listening to the sounds of the night: the barking of a dog, the creak of a cart, the slamming of doors and the ringing of bells. I stared around. Here and there the blackness was pierced by lights flaring at windows or peeping through shutters.

‘Tomorrow,’ I whispered.

‘Tomorrow?’ Demontaigu asked.

‘Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,’ I quoted. ‘Bertrand, I am tired. My mind teems; it swerves and shifts without reason.’

Demontaigu escorted me back to Burgundy Hall, where the laughter and music showed the festivities were continuing. He kissed me on the brow, clasped my hands and whispered at me to join him for his Jesus mass. As he hurried away, he murmured something else.

‘Bertrand,’ I called. ‘What did you say?’

He turned and grinned. ‘You, Mathilde, are honey-sweet.’

I went through the gatehouse, past the guards, still enjoying the compliment as a chamberlain ushered me up the stairs, along the gallery to my mistress’ lodgings, a collection of chambers consisting of vestibule, antechamber, parlour and bedchamber. I was primly informed that the queen had retired but had been asking for me. Isabella was in her bedchamber, a dark-panelled room with heavy oaken furniture: tables, stools, aumbries and chests. The large bed was a stark contrast, brilliantly adorned with blue and gold drapes and coverlets fringed with silver. Isabella was sitting at a small table ringed in a glow of candle prickets with a chafing dish full of burning coals providing warmth. She was dressed simply in a white shift, shoulders and feet bare. I noticed the red scratch marks on her right arm; the skin looked irritated. She was more concerned in fashioning small images, using the candle flame to soften the wax, pushing it intently, decorating the figurines with scraps of cloth, parchment and small items of jewellery. I recognised the signs. Isabella was deeply agitated. She glanced up as I went to curtsy.

‘I have been looking for you, Mathilde. I had to tend to myself, though I did talk to Marie.’ She pushed back her hair.

I curtsied to hide my own agitation. Isabella was referring to a maid who had died some years ago but returned to have conversations with the queen whenever she was troubled.

‘Has Marie left?’ I asked. Isabella did not answer. She beckoned me forward. I excused myself, returned to the parlour and brought back a small pot of precious oleander. I sat on the stool beside her and, without bidding, treated the rash on her arm. Isabella watched me clean the skin and spread the paste.

‘I should add a little witch-hazel to the water you wash with,’ I murmured.

‘Never mind that,’ Isabella snapped.

I glanced up. My mistress had lost that girlish look. I glimpsed the mature woman she would be, long-faced, mouth set, eyes unwavering in their stare.

‘Where have you been, Mathilde? I needed you! I looked for you.’ She pinched my arm. ‘You did not tell me.’

‘I shall now.’ I described what had happened. At the mention of the Poison Maiden, Isabella picked up a waxen figure crowned with a piece of parchment, I recognised it as her father, a pinprick through its middle. She held it over a candle flame and began to pummel it with her fingers. After I’d finished speaking, she sat staring at the effigy.

‘I must tell his grace all this,’ she declared. ‘I am to join him later. Strange,’ she smiled at me, ‘only twice have I heard the Poison Maiden being mentioned: something my father said years ago, a chance comment, nothing else. .’

‘And the second?’

‘Stranger still, a remark my husband made at the banquet this evening. He asked me: “Isabella, are you the Poison Maiden?” then turned away laughing. Oh, by the way,’ Isabella picked up another wax image, ‘Marigny demanded to know why I retained you. Why I did not send you back to your mother at her farm near Bretigny.’

‘And?’ I kept my voice steady.

‘I told him that what I did was my own concern. My lord Gaveston overheard; he said you were a loyal subject of the English Crown whose favour you enjoyed.’

‘And the Viper?’ I tried to curb my fear. Marigny’s reference to my mother, a widow on a lonely farm, was a brutal threat.

‘Oh, he just smiled in that nasty way of his and walked away.’ Isabella touched my cheek. ‘Don’t worry: they hunt more majestic prey — my husband.’ She picked up a piece of wax, warmed it over a candle flame and began to mould it. ‘They believe they can remove Gaveston but they are wrong, that is not the truth. Why is it, Mathilde, that people claim truth speeds like an arrow? Truth is more like a snake. It uncoils and slithers backwards and forwards. Or like a painting on a wall — it doesn’t come in one flow but drop by drop. Only after a while do you realise what is forming.’

‘Mistress?’

‘I’ll not speak in parables.’ She laughed. ‘The Great Lords and my father demand that Gaveston be put away, but Gaveston is not just my husband’s favourite; he is his home. Do you understand?’

I shook my head.

‘I’ve realised a truth!’ Isabella continued passionately. ‘I have been reflecting on it. Home is not a place, Mathilde; it’s more a hunger, here,’ she tapped her chest, ‘deep, deep in the recesses of the heart. It is a completion, a fullness, a peace. I have no home, Mathilde. Father sees me as a marriage pawn, as he did my mother. He never truly protected me against my brothers but let me float like a feather in the breeze or grass on the surface of a pool.’ She picked up an effigy and pressed the head. ‘I have no home. Edward has, and I envy him that. I understand his love for Gaveston. Gaveston is his father, mother, brother, sister, friend and lover. He is Edward’s reason for living. So the king and his favourite will fight to the death to protect what is theirs. God save me, I understand them! I’d do the same. Winchelsea and others of his coven believe I’m outraged. In truth,’ she let the wax fall from her hands, ‘I couldn’t care. Edward is a good lord. Gaveston respects me. Neither do me any hurt-’

‘But. .’ I interrupted. Isabella’s face turned fierce.

‘One day, Mathilde, I shall find my home, my resting place, and I shall never give it up, never!’ She touched her arm. ‘I thank you for your news. Now I must prepare myself.’ She rose and patted me on the shoulder. ‘I shall remember what you said.’

I helped Isabella anoint herself and dress. The hour candle had burnt another ring before the chamberlains arrived. Isabella, as beautiful as an angel, kissed me passionately on the cheek and swept out. I secured the door and doused all the candles except that which marked the hours and another on the table near the bed. I sat down and stared at it, reflecting on what Isabella had said. I fully agreed. My hatred for Philip and his coven sprang from their destruction of my home in Paris, their savage persecution of the Temple and the ghastly, humiliating execution of my dear uncle. Now they threatened what I had left: Isabella and Demontaigu were my new home. I doused the candle next to the bed and lay down, wondering when this, my new home, would be free of all danger.

The next morning Demontaigu celebrated his mass, long before the Prime bell tolled. I had slipped across the dark, freezing palace grounds and knocked at his chamber door. He had already prepared the altar. Once I arrived, he celebrated his low mass, reciting special prayers for the souls of Chapeleys and Rebecca Atte-Stowe. Afterwards, whilst he cleared the makeshift altar, I went down across the kitchen yard to beg bread, cheese, salted bacon and a jug of ale from a heavy-eyed cook. We broke our fast and returned to the mysteries confronting us. I sat at Demontaigu’s chancery desk. The cold seeped through the shutters, rain pattered against the horn-covered windows and the abbey bells pealed out announcing the day.

‘These problems concern us,’ I began. ‘Chapeleys was a high-ranking clerk in Langton’s household; that good bishop is important to the king. Chapeleys was desperate to share something with our royal master. He surrendered himself to our care but died in our custody, here, in your chamber. Berenger may wash his hands, but the King will not be pleased. So. .’

I dipped the sharpened quill into the ink and wrote as I spoke.

‘Primo: what did Chapeleys know? Secundo: why was he so frightened? Tertio: how did he truly die? Quarto: who, apart from us, knew he was here? Quinto: how could an assassin enter and leave through a door that remained locked and bolted from the inside whilst the window-door appears to have been opened only by the victim? Sexto: if his death was an assassin’s work, why did Chapeleys, still vigorous and armed, not resist? Septimo: if Chapeleys was under instruction to be careful about opening that door, as well as being so frightened, he would scarcely admit the assassin. So, and we now move back in the circle, how did the assassin gain entry and commit such an act, so swiftly, so quietly? Octavo: did Chapeleys burn the contents of his chancery bag or was that the work of the murderer?’

‘I cannot answer any of those questions,’ Demontaigu replied. He had pushed forward a prie-dieu and was kneeling on it as if before an altar. I raised my hand in mock absolution. ‘And the scrap of parchment?’ he added. ‘That is the only thing we discovered here.’

I took the twisted piece of parchment from my wallet and studied it.

‘Very little here,’ I said, and handed it over. ‘Nothing but two entries: what looks like an unfinished word, “basil”, probably basilisk, the mythical beast, a dragon-like creature with deadly stare and breath; and a circle surmounted by a cross with the letter “P” in the middle and the Latin words, seven letters in all, sub pede — underfoot.’

‘Scribblings,’ Demontaigu mused, getting to his feet. ‘Chapeleys must have sat here thinking what he would say to the king and wrote down those entries, but he was distracted. He didn’t burn it, he threw it on the floor. Yet surely, if he was about to commit suicide, he would have destroyed that with any other documents he carried? No!’ he concluded. ‘He must have been murdered. He must have been sitting here scribbling, wondering when we would return. He heard a knock on the door and answered it. He must have been reassured he was safe, but what happened then?’

For a while we discussed the problem until the abbey bells marked the passing hours.

‘Bertrand,’ I picked up my cloak and swung it around my shoulders, ‘my mistress is with the king. She will attend mass in the Chapel Royal, break her fast with him, then return to her chambers. I must be there.’

‘Later,’ Demontaigu asked, ‘at Vespers time, you will accompany me to the Chapel of the Hanged?’

‘If I can,’ I smiled, ‘though God knows what this day will bring.’

I left Demontaigu’s chamber and made my way back to Burgundy Hall. Guards were clustered at the gateway, talking heatedly with two women and a man. I recognised Rebecca’s mother from the previous evening. As soon as she saw me, she ran forward and grasped my arm.

‘Come, come, mistress,’ she declared, and introduced the other two, an old white-haired man and woman, wiping the tears from their leathery faces on the backs of dirt-grained hands, their clothes all ragged and threadbare. ‘These are Robert’s parents. We have come to beg a favour, all three of us,’ the woman continued. ‘My daughter is dead, foully murdered, but mistress, I would swear on the Gospels that Robert is innocent. I ask you to intercede for him, please.’

I patted her on the shoulder and went across to Ap Ythel, captain of the royal guard.

‘Has her grace returned?’

The Welshman took off his helmet and wiped the drizzle from his face.

‘No,’ he replied, nodding at the supplicants. ‘They have been here some time, demanding to see you.’

‘Where is their son lodged?’ I asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘Probably in the Old Palace gatehouse; that is where they keep prisoners.’

I stared up. The clouds were breaking under a strengthening breeze. Somewhere a bird sang, a sweet sound evoking memories of my mother’s farm.

‘I could send one of my men with you.’ The captain of the guard pushed back his chainmail coif. I felt sorry for the supplicants. Isabella would be some time, so I accepted the captain’s kind offer and, using the queen’s seal, gained entry to the soaring gatehouse and the dungeons below. Robert’s was a dark, fetid cell, its straw black with slime. Huge cobwebs festooned the walls; the only light seeped through a barred lancet window high in the wall. Robert squatted, loaded with chains. He hardly moved, just lifted his head and moaned. The men-at-arms had not been gentle. Bruises had bloomed a deep purple around his mouth and on the side of his head. I crouched down beside him.

‘Robert, listen,’ I whispered. ‘You will not hang. What happened?’

‘Nothing!’ He shook the chains. ‘Nothing at all! An ordinary day! We quarrelled as we always did, then Rebecca left. The next thing I knew was the alarm being raised after her corpse was discovered.’ He sobbed for a while, then pushed himself up. ‘I’m innocent, mistress, but what’s the use? I drew a knife on Berenger, he’ll see me hang.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Once outside, I asked Rebecca’s mother to take me to where the corpse had been found. As we hurried through the drizzle, I caught the tension from the men-at-arms and archers deployed in yards and baileys. The stables were busy. Farriers hammered at the forge. Grooms trotted out destriers. Saddlers were busy with tangled harness. Knight bannerets, Edward’s own personal retainers, were everywhere supervising matters. I asked one of the men-at-arms, a Welshman, what the matter was. He just pulled a face and muttered how there were rumours that the Lords might launch a sortie to seize Gaveston.

‘If that happens,’ he murmured, ‘there’ll be swordplay and bloodshed enough, mistress.’