Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (23 page)

‘Let me tell you, Mathilde,’ again that high-pitched laugh, ‘a story from Bearn about a haunted house. A man called Raoul de Castro Negro thought there was a hidden treasure in his house just within the main gateway at Bearn. He employed two magicians to cast a spell and find this treasure. What exactly they did, and whether they found any treasure, I do not know.’ Gaveston blinked. ‘But after that, they left. Now Raoul had a servant called Julian Sarnene, who returned to the house. Shortly afterwards Sarnene was found in the town square claiming he was blind and unable to hear. He remained ill and disabled for some weeks, but just before Easter he indicated he wanted to be taken to a local shrine. Some friends helped him to travel there by donkey. They arrived at the shrine on the Wednesday of Holy Week and Julian prayed before the statues of the Blessed Virgin and St Anthony. At the hour of compline his hearing was restored. The next day, after the mass of the Lord’s Supper, his sight returned as well. Fully restored, he went back to Bearn. Now, of course, all this was hailed as a miracle and Julian was summoned to the bishop’s court, where he told a strange tale. He claimed he had entered his master’s house after the magicians had gone and found it full of strange birds and animals, including three horses with horns like goats, emitting fire from their mouths and backsides. On them, facing the tails, sat three fearsome men with clubs. Julian said he was utterly terrified and tried to make the sign of the cross but one of the beasts restrained his hand. He attempted to pray but fled back into the town square where he was found. What do you think of such a story, Mathilde?’

‘What happened to Raoul?’

Gaveston pulled a face. ‘He fled. The Inquisition were hunting him for consulting magicians. So, what do you think of Julian’s story?’

‘I don’t know,’ I confessed.

‘I asked a question, wise woman.’ Gaveston grasped my shoulders, his grip so hard I winced. Isabella protested and Gaveston released his hand.

‘Please,’ his voice turned beseeching, ‘as a woman who has studied potions and powders.’

‘Some would allege it was witchcraft,’ I replied. ‘Others that the man was healed by God’s kind courtesy and boundless mercy, as well as the intervention of the Blessed Virgin and St Anthony.’

‘Or?’

The silence in the chamber grew oppressive.

‘I’d be more prudent myself,’ I conceded. ‘There are certain potions, wild fruit, the juice of mushrooms, not to mention the oil from the skin of a toad. These can create magical fantasies, nightmarish dreams; hence the story about witches who claim to fly, or the visions of madmen, or saints,’ I added.

‘And the physical symptoms?’ Gaveston asked. ‘The blindness, the deafness?’

‘They too would follow.’ I picked up my wine goblet. ‘It’s no different from this.’ I swilled the wine around the cup. ‘Wine can create illusions and dreams. Its effects on the body are well known. What is true of the fruit of the grape is true of other plants.’

‘But what do you believe, Mathilde, magic or scientia?’

‘Scientia,’ I replied quickly. ‘All natural causes must be removed before any others can be put forward as an explanation.’

‘Good, good.’ Gaveston leaned back on the chair. ‘I thought you would say that.’

The sombre atmosphere, however, did not lift. Gaveston rose, studied the hour candle burning on its spigot in the corner and went to the door. From the conversation I gathered Sandewic had been replaced by two of Gaveston’s Irish retainers, mercenaries wearing the livery of the scarlet eagle.

‘Come in, do come in.’ Gaveston welcomed the notary Jean de Clauvelin into the chamber, inviting him over to the fifth chair. He made him sit down, filled a goblet to the brim with rich claret and pulled across a silver trancher so de Clauvelin could eat the leftovers. Isabella looked surprised. Edward sat, chin in hands. De Clauvelin attempted to bow and scrape but the king gestured to the chair, murmuring that this was not the occasion for courtesies. Gaveston sat close to the overwrought notary, picked up a piece of meat, dipped it into a bowl of sauce and thrust it into de Clauvelin’s mouth.

‘Jean, Jean!’ Gaveston declared brusquely. ‘I am so glad you are in attendance.’

‘Your grace, it was a great honour to be included in my lady’s retinue . . .’

‘Of course, of course.’ Gaveston refilled de Clauvelin’s goblet. ‘I need words with you, sir, regarding the Abbey of St Jean des Vignes, or rather its abbot, who is indebted to me for certain sums. I need your advice, now . . .’

I watched the tableau with a growing sense of horror. Gaveston reminded me of a powerful cat playing with a mouse. De Clauvelin was overcome by the favourite’s chatter and grace, and failed to sense the anger seething in this powerful lord. Just the way Gaveston kept tearing at the meat, filling de Clauvelin’s goblet . . . Once the flagon was empty, he went across to the dresser table to refill it. De Clauvelin, flattered, gossiped about the abbey. Gaveston waited for the wine to take full effect, then rose to his feet, stepped behind de Clauvelin, and in the blink of an eye the garrotte string was looped over the notary’s head and wrapped fast around his throat. De Clauvelin dropped his goblet, half staggering to his feet, but Gaveston, face bright with angry glee, forced him back.

Isabella went to protest; Edward caught her with a restraining hand. The king sat fascinated, face slightly flushed, head to one side, watching de Clauvelin half choke. Gaveston bent down, pulling at the garrotte.

‘Jean de Clauvelin,’ he intoned with mock solemnity, ‘more rightly known as Julian Sarnene: you, sir, are an assassin, a cunning man from the town of Bearn in Gascony. You drank a potion and saw a vision. You claimed to fall into the hands of the powers of darkness, only to be cured. When the miracle was examined, my mother Agnes de Gaveston was asked by the local bishop for her advice.’ Gaveston pulled at the cord, then relaxed it. ‘She rejected your claims, mocked them and said it was nothing to do with Satan but depended on what you had eaten or drunk, whether you had taken any potion.’ Gaveston loosened the garrotte string a little more. ‘Your ploy to gain sympathy and raise money from an alleged miracle proved unsuccessful. Your whole story became suspect, your allegations against your former employer of dabbling in witchcraft not proven. You hoped to acquire his wealth, to be rewarded. Later, when my father, Arnaud de Gaveston, was away soldiering, you secretly denounced my mother as a witch to the Inquisition. There were many, envious and hateful, who were quick to believe you. You provided information about my mother’s knowledge of potions and herbs. My mother was truthful. She answered the questions, but in doing so condemned herself by rejecting stories of demons and miraculous cures and insisting that natural causes must be first examined. She was tried and burned. You were given silver and protection. You disappeared, only to resurrect as Jean de Clauvelin, lawyer and notary.’

Gaveston pressed his lips closer to Clauvelin’s ear.

‘I have hunted you, sir, high and low.
Mirabila dictu
– it is wonderful to say what you can discover as Earl of Cornwall, regent of England, close confidant of its king. Last year, when I was in France, I discovered your true name and hiding place.’

‘It’s not me, it’s not me!’ Clauvelin begged.

‘The Inquisition, near Carcassonne, says it is.’ Gaveston released the garrotte string completely, leaving his victim to sprawl in his chair. ‘The Inquisition are men of great detail,’ Gaveston continued. ‘You have a mole on the right of your neck.’ He seized de Clauvelin by his scrawny hair, tugging down the man’s high collar and twisting his head for us to see. ‘You also have a scar, an inch long, on the inside of your left arm.’ He took the notary’s arm, ripping back the sleeve of his jerkin, sending clasps and buttons scattering across the table, and turned the arm so we could glimpse the raised welt. Finally, one hand on de Clauvelin’s shoulder, Gaveston thrust his hand down the front of the notary’s jerkin and dragged up the metal cross on its copper chain. In the candlelight I glimpsed the embossed crucifix of the Inquisition. Gaveston ripped this from his neck and threw it on the table.

‘Given to everyone,’ he hissed, ‘who falls within the protection of the Domini Canes – the Dominicans, the Hounds of God, Sancta Inquisicio, the Holy Inquisition.’

De Clauvelin, pale-faced and drenched with sweat, leaned against the table.

‘They would not reveal . . .’ he gasped.

‘Oh yes they would,’ Gaveston scoffed, sitting down next to his victim. ‘Oh yes they did! Money and power, Monsieur Notary, are the two keys to any secret. You don’t deny it. Well, of course you don’t. You do remember, so many years ago, de Clauvelin, what, twenty-two?’ He pushed his face closer. ‘I was a mere babe. You thought I’d forget.’ He picked a crumb from the notary’s jerkin, brushing it tenderly. ‘I hunted you down, I searched France for you. The Abbot of St Jean des Vignes does owe me money; he did turn on you, didn’t he? He began to question you about certain rents which had disappeared, as well as the claims of a young woman about your forced attentions. You were only too willing to receive King Philip’s letter of appointment; he, of course, couldn’t give a fig about you!’

‘
Mon seigneur
,’ de Clauvelin bowed his head, hands outstretched towards the king, ‘mercy!’

Edward gazed back stony-eyed.

‘Soon you will sleep.’ Gaveston smiled, glancing across at me. ‘Monsieur Sarnene, I laced your wine with poppy juice, and when you awake, after your fall, you’ll be in hell!’ He picked up his own goblet. ‘
In infernum
,’ he chanted, satirising the office of the dead, ‘
diaboli te ducent
– into hell the demons will lead you.’

De Clauvelin, coughing and spluttering, made to rise only to collapse against the table and fall to the floor. Gaveston sprang up.

‘So soon, so soon?’ He kicked de Clauvelin, who moaned but lay still. Edward also rose and joined him, and both viciously kicked the prostrate man with their booted feet.

‘Stop, my lords!’ Isabella begged, hands to her face. I sat cold with fear. Isabella shouted again. Both men paused, chests heaving, faces wet with sweat. Gaveston wiped his brow on the back of his hand.

‘He sent my mother to a hideous death. She was strapped to a pole in the town square at Bearn, brushwood piled high against her. The flames roared so high, the heat became so intense, the hangman could not get to her to give her the mercy death, to strangle her. They say her flesh bubbled like . . .’ His voice faltered and he looked away. Edward moved to comfort him. Gaveston picked up his goblet and threw the dregs of wine over the unconscious man.

‘He’ll die quickly, not like my mother!’ He kicked his victim again and looked beseechingly at me. ‘I had to do it now. He thought the world had forgotten, but I am not the world.’ He strode across the room and opened the door; his two assassins slipped in. Gaveston kicked the prostrate man.

‘There’s a narrow postern gate in the curtain wall. It’s used for throwing away slops and refuse. You’ll find the hinges oiled, take him and throw him out.’

I closed my eyes and thought of de Clauvelin’s body falling down that sheer rocky abyss into the freezing, swirling sea.

‘Give out that he was walking on the parapet and had drunk too much wine.’ Gaveston clicked his tongue. ‘Say he slipped; who will question, who will care?’

The two men removed the body. Gaveston started breathing deeply. He appeared self-satisfied, content, rubbing his stomach like a man who’d enjoyed a good meal.

‘Justice,’ Edward murmured.

Gaveston collected the notary’s clasps, buttons and cross and threw them into the fire. He insisted on one final cup of wine. We sat and drank, the mood swiftly changing. De Clauvelin was forgotten, at least by them, and for the first time I wondered if Isabella and I had exchanged one prison for another. The princess made to leave. Both Gaveston and the king, now all courteous, walked us out into the gallery, which was filling with retainers and servants preparing for the king to retire. Gaveston’s chamber was further along. We entered it. I clutched the presents he had given us. I was tired, needful of silence, desperate for sleep. The favourite’s chamber was like an upturned treasure chest, with costly clothes and precious ornaments flung around. Both he and the king were now talking of their royal progress through Kent to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury and the jewel they were to present there. Gaveston wanted to show it to us, excited like a child about a gift he had prepared. I stared at the great bed, its pure linen sheets thrown back. On the floor beside it were hunting boots decorated with gilded spurs; in the far corner a hooded falcon on its perch, jesse bells ringing as it moved restlessly. I glimpsed a triptych hanging rather crookedly from a hook on the wall hastily put there when Gaveston had set up his household. I went across to put it straight and hid my surprise: the painting celebrated the martyrdom and glory of St Agnes; I had last seen it at de Vitry’s house. At first I thought it was a copy, but the slightly rusting hinges along the folds of the picture and the dark patches around its glowing edge convinced me it was the same I’d seen in Monsieur Simon’s house. So how had Gaveston acquired it? Noting my interest, the favourite sauntered across to describe his deep devotion to the saint who shared his mother’s name. Isabella heard this and hastily made a sign that we leave. I joined her; we both bowed to the king and Gaveston and withdrew.

Once alone, Isabella declared she did not want to retire. She studied Gaveston’s gifts and wondered about the events of the evening.

‘They did the same as your father,’ I retorted, ‘a fine display of power and terror; which is why de Clauvelin was killed in our presence. They intend,’ I added, ‘to be the sole masters in their house.’

Isabella pressed one of the sables against her cheek and smiled. ‘As do I, Mathilde, as do I!’

We left Dover the next morning, a glorious cavalcade, the might of England. Edward cheerfully announced he had no intention whatsoever of waiting for his French guests and the sooner he returned to Westminster the better. The weather, I remember, had made one of those startling turns, as if nature itself wanted to greet England’s new queen: rain-washed, clear blue skies, a bright winter sun, the ground firm underfoot, the air bracing but not cutting. Edward and Gaveston moved to the head of the column with their retinue of dwarves and jesters, eager to hunt with hawk and falcon. They’d often break away from our line of march, cantering across the fields to fly their magnificent birds against herons, plover, anything which dared wing its way under God’s own heaven. Time and again I saw these predators loosed, wings beating as they fought the breezes to gain ascendancy, floating like dark angels against the blue before making their breathtaking, magnificent plunge.