Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (10 page)

Once we’d returned to the princess’s private quarters, Isabella abruptly grew tired, which I recognised as a symptom of deep anxiety, a fever of the mind. I poured her some apple juice mixed with a heavy infusion of camomile and made her drink. She lay down on her bed, bringing up her knees, curling like a child as I pulled the cloak over her. Later in the afternoon a finely caparisoned herald came knocking on the door. He announced that His Grace the King would, just after vespers, entertain the English envoys in the White Chamber of the palace; the princess must attend.

Isabella woke up refreshed. I informed her about the royal summons and her mood abruptly changed. She chattered about what she would wear and spent the rest of the afternoon preparing herself, servants and valets being summoned up with jugs and tubs of boiling water. Isabella stripped and washed herself. She perfumed and anointed her body, allowing me to dress her in linen undergarments, purple hose and a beautiful silver dress, high at the neck, with an ornamental veil set on her head bound by a gold braid and studded with gems. She opened her jewellery casket, slipping on rings, silver bracelets and an exquisite pectoral set with rubies and sapphires. She preened herself in front of the sheet of polished metal which served as a mirror, looking at me from the corner of her eye and laughing.

‘Now you, Mathilde.’ Isabella was generous. She never referred to her earlier symptoms, before she’d fallen asleep, as she made me wash, helping me to anoint and perfume myself, choosing clothes for me to wear. A page was dispatched to her father saying that Mathilde, Isabella’s
dame de chambre
, would be accompanying her to the banquet. As the bells of St Chapelle tolled for vespers we made our way down to the White Chamber: a small gleaming hall, with pure white-painted walls covered with hangings, its windows of thick glass decorated with the heraldic devices and armorial insignia of the Capets, the royal house of France. The polished floor reflected the light of sconce-torches and that of a myriad of candles spiked on a wheel which had been lowered to provide even more light. A fire leapt merrily in a cavernous mantled hearth. Part of the hall had been cordoned off with huge screens decorated with sumptuous tapestries in blue, red and gold depicting the romance of the Knights of the Swan and their assault on the Castle of Love. Other cloths bore beautiful roundels in vigorous colours showing the Six Labours of the Year.

The king, his ministers and three sons stood before the huge hearth; on each pillar of this an elaborately carved woodwose glared into the screened-off area as if resenting the wealth on display along the three tables. Isabella swept forward to be greeted. I was ignored. The king and his entourage moved around her. They all looked magnificent in their blue and white velvet suits; brooches, rings and chains of office sparkling in the light. I stood at the corner of the screen. Prince Philippe was glowering, lips moving wordlessly as he half listened to the sottish Charles. I did not wish to catch their eye, so I studied the three strangers. The nearest was dressed in the dark robes of a royal clerk; he had a smooth olive-skinned face under night-black hair swept back and tied in a queue. The other two were English, clearly having some difficulty in understanding the swift conversation in courtly Norman French. One was slightly hidden; the other was a lean beanpole of a man with sour face and sour eyes: Sir Hugh Pourte, merchant prince of London. His companion moved into the circle of light and I froze: Sir John Casales, a handsome, vigorous man with the face of a born soldier, harsh and lean, keen-eyed, firm-mouthed, his greying hair cropped close. He was dressed simply but elegantly in a dark green cote-hardie over a black velvet jerkin and hose of the same colour; his Spanish riding boots, their soft leather gleaming in the firelight, gave more than a hint of the military man.

I stood, watched and remembered. Sir John Casales, his right hand cut off by the Scots at the Battle of Falkirk. He had visited my uncle, but that had been years ago. I quietly prayed to the Virgin that he would not recognise me. Casales’ eyes, sharp as a fox, shifted towards me then looked away. It had been years since we met, and even then I’d been standing in my uncle’s shadow. I comforted myself with the thought that to a man like Casales, I was nothing more than another servant.

The conversation around the hearth was muted. Sir Hugh Pourte seemed distinctly sour; Casales acted more agitated: the courtier-knight shuffled his booted feet and stared around the hall; apparently what he was listening to was most unfavourable. King Philip himself had grown slightly red-faced, and eventually he turned away and signalled to his retainers; heralds in their gorgeous tabards lifted trumpets and shrilled a blast, the sign that the feasting was to begin.

We dined magnificently on venison and boar, roasted and basted with juices. The king announced, from where he sat in the centre of the middle table, that the meat was fresh straight from the forest of Fontainebleau, brought down by himself. Philip’s love of hunting, be it of beast or man, was famous. The main course was followed by a cockatrice of chicken and pork, apricots and oranges from Valence, all served on tables covered in glistening white samite cloths and decorated with plates, jugs, cups and goblets of silver and gold embroidered with gems and stamped with the royal arms. Philip sat enthroned like a silver lion, aware of his power; on either side of him ranged the English envoys. I sat at the end on one of the side tables, Isabella to my left. She’d acted the part, moving amongst the men like some well-trained nun, her lovely face framed by a shimmering veil over that beautiful golden hair. She kept her face impassive even as she sat down, then her eyes changed and I caught the glint of mischief. She leaned over as if to move a cup. ‘Mathilde,’ she whispered, ‘this will be most amusing.’

For the first part of the meal the royal musicians in the nearby gallery, decorated with banners and pennants displaying the Capetian arms, played soft music. A young chorister sang a blood-tingling song: ‘I fled to the forest and I have loved its secret places.’ The wine jugs were passed round, the hum of conversation grew, Philip, like a skilled lawyer, guiding his guests to what he really wanted to discuss. He made a flourish with his hands at the serjeant-at-arms commanding the heralds beyond the screens; three trumpet blasts shrilled, the sign for the hall to be cleared of all servants and retainers, even the musicians from the gallery and the guards near the door. I watched this royal tableau develop. Philip remained impassive as a statue, silver hair falling to his shoulders, blue eyes crinkled in a false smile, his smooth-shaven face glowing like alabaster. Further down the table sat his minions. Marigny, slender, red-haired and sharp-faced, with hooded eyes and a sharp pointed nose. Nogaret the lawyer, an ever-smiling bag of fat, blond hair shorn close to his head, a cynical face with eyes which regarded the world with contempt. Des Plaisans, Nogaret’s alter ego, a lawyer with the ugly face of a mastiff, jutting jaw, thick-lipped, eyes ever darting. These men had killed my uncle, yet I was not ready, skilled enough, to retaliate.

I’d seen enough death that day: Narrow Face slumped against the wall, de Vitry and his household soaking in their own blood. I wondered then if I was petrified, turned to stone like a child who survives a massacre and cannot comprehend what has happened. Looking back, I know different. I have fought in battles, in bloody mêlées. I have also talked to soldiers. I understand what they mean by the phrase ‘ice in the blood’: a mysterious determination to remain calm, a belief that the death of one enemy does not mean you are safe from the others. In that White Chamber so many, many years ago, God assoil me, I was like that. My time had not yet come. I was still on the edge of the crowd, watching events move slowly to their climax.

Whilst the hall was cleared, the king sat, hands to his face, now and again glancing to his right and left at the English envoys. Pourte sat slouched; the wine had not improved his sour disposition. Casales was leaning forward, holding his goblet above the table.

‘My lords,’ Marigny must have caught his master’s glance, ‘we must return to the vexed matter of the Templars, heretics, sodomites—’

‘Not proved,’ Pourte barked back, ‘not proved, sir. That is a matter for our sovereign lord and the justices of the king’s Bench at Westminster.’

‘But they are criminals!’ Marigny retorted in a high-pitched voice.

I sat and listened as that demon incarnate spewed out his filth. How 134 out of the 138 Templars arrested in Paris, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, Geoffrey de Charney, the Preceptor of Normandy, and Jean de la Tour, Treasurer of the Paris Temple, not to mention the ploughmen, shepherds, blacksmiths, carpenters and stewards to the number of 1,500 had been dispatched to stinking dungeons and torture halls. In the main, they’d all confessed. I also heard the names of the traitors, former Templars expelled from the order, men Uncle Reginald had mentioned over a goblet of wine: Esquin de Floriens, prior of Montfaucon, and Bernard Pelet, names that will always live with the infamy of their accusations, the spilled-out vomit of evil souls. How the Templars were devoted to the devil. How they proclaimed that Christ was a false prophet, justly punished for his sins. How initiates of the Temple were commanded to spit, trample, even urinate on the crucified Christ. They also had to kiss the Templar who received them into the order on the mouth, navel, buttocks . . . even the penis. Marigny described how the Templars were devoted to Baphomet, the demon who appeared in the form of a cat, or skull or head with three faces.

Casales and Pourte shook their heads in disbelief. Casales glanced quickly at me but showed no recognition. I did not care; I seethed with rage. I knew the Temple. I recognised these allegations for what they truly were: the horrid spilling of nasty, narrow souls. Satan and all his lords of the air had swept up to dine in that ghostly chamber with its tapestries and statues, silver pots and golden goblets, and his banners and pennants had been unfurled as the Templars, God’s good men, were hunted to their deaths. Pourte objected and referred to stories about Templars being tortured with the strappado or their feet being basted with animal fat and placed in front of a roaring fire until their bones fell out.

‘Such men,’ he commented, ‘would confess to anything.’

I drank noisily from my goblet and glanced away. Isabella was watching me curiously, a faint smile on her lips. She knew! I placed the goblet down. Marigny was moving the conversation towards the intended nuptials of the princess. All eyes turned to her. Again Pourte began to voice objections. How he and Casales believed the marriage was in the best interests of the English crown but his seigneur, the king, did not. Marigny silkily pointed out that French troops were massing on the borders of English-held Gascony, whilst wasn’t Edward of England facing war in Scotland against the redoubtable Robert de Bruce? At this moment Bruce was the French king’s enemy, but there again, matters might change. Casales intervened; the negotiations flowed back and forth like water in a millpond; the rest of us were ignored.

The king’s sons had drunk deeply and were glancing hot-eyed at their sister. Isabella sensed this, signalled to me and rose, bowing to her father, who flicked his fingers as a sign she might retire. Everyone else either rose or staggered to their feet. Isabella curtsied to them all and, followed by me, swept out of the hall up to our own chambers. She remained silent and severe even when we were alone with a serjeant-at-arms on guard outside. I lit more candles and tapers and helped her to undress. She kept on her shift, covering that with a fleur-de-lis cloak, and sat on a high-backed chair, turning to look through the window casement.

‘Mathilde,’ she whispered, ‘lock the door.’ I hastened to obey, but when I tried to turn the heavy key it would not move, whilst the bolts at top and bottom seemed rusted hard.

‘My lady,’ I gasped.

‘Look out of the door,’ she ordered. I did so. The gallery outside was deserted. No serjeant-at-arms; only shadows dancing in the lantern light, silent except for the creak of wood and the scurrying of mice. I stood listening to the faint sounds of the palace.

‘They will come.’ Isabella’s voice grew vibrant. ‘They will come tonight, Mathilde!’

I stared down the gallery, wondering what to do.

‘We can’t flee.’ Isabella spoke my thoughts. ‘There is nowhere to go.’

I stood indecisive until I recalled Simon de Vitry’s house; pushing open the door, the sprawled corpses, those crossbow bolts embedded deep in their flesh. I flew down the gallery.

‘Mathilde!’ I heard Isabella cry out; she must have thought I was fleeing. At the end of the gallery stood an unlocked aumbry containing arms: bows and arrows, poles and spears, and what I was looking for, a small arbalest. Even as I grasped it and the quiver of quarrels, I wondered if the assassin who’d slipped into de Vitry’s house had had something similar: small crossbows, perhaps two or three already primed in a sack. I ran back down the gallery, throwing myself through the half-opened door, then slammed it shut and leaned against it. Sweat soaked me. Isabella, still seated on the chair, watched me intently. I pointed at the narrow cot bed I slept in, then primed the arbalest, sliding a quarrel in, winching back the cord.

‘You’ve done that before, Mathilde?’ Isabella murmured.

‘My uncle.’ I paused. ‘Yes.’ I smiled bleakly. ‘I used to go hunting, as I will tonight.’

Isabella rose from her chair and climbed into bed.

I went round the chamber, extinguishing the candles, then lay down on the cot. I listened to the noise of the palace and heard a creak along the gallery outside. The door opened, and two figures slipped in. They ignored me and raced across the chamber. The light was poor but I could make out the shapes; Louis and Philippe had come to abuse their sister. No guard stood outside; no attempt was made to stop them. Louis threw himself onto the bed. I heard Isabella’s stifled screams as his hand went across her mouth. I slid from the cot bed; Philippe turned. I brought up the arbalest, aimed and loosed, immediately putting another quarrel in the slot and winding back the cord. The first bolt smacked into the wall beside the princess’s bed almost hitting the window.