Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (29 page)

‘Could it be an invasion of England, conquest?’ I asked.

‘Too costly, too dangerous,’ Demontaigu replied as if to himself, ‘but look, I’m cold and hungry,’ he tapped me on the tip of my nose, ‘as you must be. The pursuit is cold, the Noctales will withdraw and I’m famished!’ He got to his feet. ‘I have business at the Tower today, so I will escort you back.’

‘What business?’ I asked, heart in mouth. ‘What business, sir?’

‘We have our spies in the French court and in their households.’ He walked to the door and paused. ‘Today, the Feast of St Callistus, Marigny, des Plaisans and Nogaret are going to the Tower to be received by the king. Last night I met one of my brothers, Gaston de Preux, from the preceptory of Dijon. He is hot-tempered, passionate and tired of being hunted. I tried to restrain him, but on this, he is adamant—’

‘Oh no!’ I exclaimed.

‘He will try to kill Marigny.’

I put my hand against the door and thought furiously about what I could remember. It was true! Isabella had mentioned Marigny’s visit, that we would certainly be busying ourselves elsewhere.

‘I could send a message to Casales.’

‘Ah yes, the one-handed warrior.’ Demontaigu smiled. ‘The old king much trusted him. He fought hard in Gascony, but no!’ Demontaigu tightened his war-belt. ‘If Casales or that old lion Sandewic are alerted, Marigny will know. Marigny can die – I want that too. It’s Gaston I worry about. I cautioned prudence, but Gaston’s heart is like his hair, fiery. If I can, I’ll stop him; we should wait for a better day.’

We left that gloomy Chapel of Dead Bones and made our way through the slums of Whitefriars. I felt tired, cold and ill at ease. Demontaigu seemed a warm presence around me, merry and composed. He told me there was nothing to fear. He reminded me that the Noctales did not have his description, adding that we could hide amongst the crowds, whilst I had my head and face carefully hooded. As we pushed our way through the throng, Demontaigu talked softly in French, asking me once again about Pourte and Wenlok’s deaths, the assault on Casales, the attacks on me in Paris and Canterbury. I answered and asked him what he would do for the future. His reply was enigmatic: that the safest place for him was near to me. I glanced at him questioningly. He laughed, clapped me on the shoulder and told me to meditate on that as a pious nun would on her psalter.

By then it was mid-morning, the mist had lifted, the sun was strong. The crowds in all their many colours busied about to shop, wander and gape. We left the Shambles, going down past St Mildred’s and St Michael’s church into Candlewick, then Eastcheap and Pudding Lane. Demontaigu murmured that he was pleased the crowds were even more packed here, people stopping to buy, to argue, to shout, to barter. Two fishwives from Billingsgate were delighting passers-by with a stream of obscenities as they argued over some difference. Portly burgesses tutted and shook their heads, eager to push their plump wives out of earshot of such abuse. A fiddler struck up a tune so that his tamed dog could dance, but the animal caught sight of a cat and set off in hot pursuit to guffaws of laughter. Beggars crawled, whining and importuning, showing their scars in the hope of charity. A Dominican friar, clad in black and white, tried to preach from the steps of a church about the horrors of purgatory. A fop in tight jerkin and hose shouted back that the Dominican should marry and know true pain! This provoked an argument with a group of whores which ended abruptly as the entire crowd scattered to allow through an execution cart with its portable gallows, a dreadful T-shape scaffold with corpses dangling on either end. Demontaigu studied it and turned away as if the sight reminded him of his own danger. He grasped me by the elbow, and we left the thoroughfare and entered the Green Solace tavern opposite St Boltoph’s church. The tap room was fairly deserted except for a few traders and chapmen sitting on the barrels around rough-hewn tables. The food was good, I remember that. Demontaigu insisted that we must eat and ordered strips of peppered beef, soft, freshly baked bread and jugs of ale. I broke my fast hungrily, glancing sly-eyed at this Templar priest lost in his own thoughts.

For a while we talked about physic and herbs. Demontaigu said he’d read a treatise on black harrow, or the Christmas rose, and quoted a leech book claiming that ‘a purgation of black harrow boar is good for mad and furious persons as well as for melancholy chills and heavy hearts’. I argued back though I secretly realised Demontaigu was only trying to divert me. When we’d finished eating, he leaned close, brushing the hair from my brow.

‘Listen, Mathilde, and listen well.’

‘Yes, master,’ I mocked.

‘I will leave you now. I shall go to the Tower by myself. If you are with me you might be recognised, they’ll know who I am, they’ll note my face, my description. If you wish to contact me, go to a tavern on St Katharine’s Wharf, close by the Tower, called the Prospect of Whitby. Tell the taverner that you seek Master Arnaud the bowyer, give the hour then leave. Do you understand?’

‘I can hear and I can speak,’ I retorted hotly, sad at heart that he was leaving.

‘Go now, Mathilde,’ Demontaigu murmured. ‘The way is clear. You are close to the Tower so no one will harm you. Keep that cowl over your head,’ he urged. ‘I shall follow.’

Biting back my retort, I went out into the street, following the directions Demontaigu had given me. I walked behind a group of serjeants of the coif returning from the court of common pleas at Westminster and followed these until I reached the alleyways leading down to the river. To all intents and purposes I was a maid dispatched on an errand. I had reached the approaches to the Tower when, close behind me, I heard the rising noise of the crowd. I glanced back; horsemen were making their way through the streets. Marigny! The blue and gold banners of France flapped in the breeze. The French cortège was moving down towards the Tower with all the majesty it could muster. I hurried on and joined the crowds clustering along the approaches to the Lion Gate. I glanced around, looking for Demontaigu, but there was no sign. I searched for the fiery-headed Gaston, but again, I couldn’t glimpse anything untoward. I could have walked on and showed myself to Sandewic and Casales waiting outside the main gate, but I wanted to stay. I was anxious for Demontaigu; even a little for Gaston de Preux, whom I’d never met. I also wanted to see what would happen, eager to witness Marigny and the others die. Vengeance, the blood feud, such fires do not start immediately; they are kindled, they rise and fall, they slumber but still they burn. I could watch Marigny be killed. I prayed that he, the arrogant hunter, would become the hunted.

At last they arrived, fleur-de-lis banners slapping the air, sunlight gleaming on armour and precious stones, surrounded by officials and men-at-arms, in all their gorgeous finery. The crowd surged closer. I glanced swiftly about at the chapped faces, the watering eyes, the blousy wantons from the quayside, dust-covered carpenters, ragged children dancing from foot to foot. I searched for the extraordinary: a relic-seller with a string of bones around his neck, his fleshy nose prodding the air like a hunting dog. A jackanapes from some house of fools in his tattered clothes; he had red hair, but he was vacuous-faced and empty-eyed. I glimpsed a young red-haired man pushing his way through the crowds, but he paused to whisper in a young maiden’s ear.

The French cavalcade, horses moving slowly, approached the Lion Gate. Casales and Sandewic, in their royal tabards of scarlet and gold with the snarling leopards of England, moved towards them. A friar of the sack, his shaven head gleaming in the sun, broke free of the crowd.

‘
Mon seigneur de Marigny, je vous apporte une lettre du roi
’ – my lord Marigny, I bring a letter from the king.

Marigny reined in in a clatter of hooves and dust. The friar approached, the piece of parchment held high, then lunged swiftly with his right hand, the dagger snaking up towards Marigny’s belly. Sandewic, who’d come forward to grasp the reins, moved even quicker, pushing Marigny’s mount towards the assassin. The horse, already startled, clattered sideways, knocking the assassin to the ground. Immediately Marigny’s party were surrounded by English men-at-arms. Casales was screaming at others to move forward to form a ring. A horn sounded. Welsh archers poured through the Lion Gate, bows strung. The crowd, startled by this sudden assault, abruptly scattered. I walked forward. A rough serjeant-at-arms seized my shoulder. I shrugged him off and showed him Isabella’s personal seal, then hurried on through the gateway. Marigny’s party had galloped ahead into the inner ward, which was now in chaos as horses reared, men shouted, gates were hastily shut, portcullis winched stridently down. I kept away from the throng. Marigny wasn’t hurt, but was clearly furious. Still mounted, he was shouting in French at Casales. Sandewic was ordering more men forward up on to the battlements. I glimpsed the assassin being led down to a dungeon beneath one of the towers. I slipped through the chaos and went up past the guards to Isabella’s chamber. She was standing peering out of a window, its small door-casement opened. She whirled around as I entered and immediately dismissed the pages who were laying lawns of linen on the bed for her to inspect. The princess bolted the door behind them, face flushed, eyes gleaming.

‘Mathilde, Mathilde, where have you been? What happened?’

I sat and told her, heads close, whispering against eavesdroppers. She listened intently, though distracted by what was going on outside. When I had finished, she expressed her deep regret at Marigny’s narrow escape but said she would act the hypocrite and send him her good wishes. She seemed more concerned with Demontaigu and what he might know, and asked me to repeat what he’d told me to meditate on, ‘as a pious nun would on her psalter’.

‘He can hide here,’ she declared. ‘He’ll be safe. I’m establishing my household. Whatever he really is can be hidden here. He is knowledgeable in Latin and speaks French and English fluently; he can be my clerk.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Oh, that would gladden my heart, but Mathilde, the assassin? Find out if he was Gaston, see what can be done. Go to that tavern, the Prospect of Whitby, and find . . .’ She paused as Casales knocked and entered. He bowed at Isabella and winked at me.

‘My lady, Mathilde must have told you the news.
Mon seigneur
Marigny was attacked; he is unscathed but angry.’

‘And the assassin, sir?’

‘A madman, your grace. He calls himself Architophel the Archangel, sent by he-who-dwells-in silence to slay the kings of the earth. He believes Marigny is the King of England.’

‘Not yet,’ Isabella retorted.

‘He is in the dungeons, dancing and singing,’ Casales continued. ‘He is witless but he’ll still hang. Mathilde, you have been in the city? You should walk carefully with such fools around. Ah well, we shall all have to . . . Your grace,’ he hurried on, ‘the coronation is to be proclaimed for the twenty-fifth of February. That’s my reason for coming here.
Mon seigneur
the king has ordered me and Rossaleti to ensure everything you need; until then, your grace, as is the custom . . .’

Casales explained how both Isabella and Edward would have stay within the Tower apartments. I half listened as I wondered about the assassin and who he really might be. Once Casales had left, Isabella told me what I should do, and I returned to the inner ward. Lord Marigny and the great ones had been taken up to see the king, but the courtyard was full of their retainers eating from the victuals the constable had laid out on trestle tables. Eventually Sandewic came stumbling out of a doorway. He caught sight of me and hurried across.

‘Mathilde, Ap Ythel returned, he waited, but when he went up the stairs of that house you were gone, so he returned here. I was anxious.’ He pulled his beaver hat further down on his head. ‘I told no one you’d left but,’ he chattered on, ‘you’ve heard the news? Good, good,’ he murmured, brushing aside any answer. ‘A man touched by the moon, Mathilde, mad and leaping like a March hare. Oh, by the way, I thank you for your potions; they gladden this old frame.’ The constable gossiped on, but that’s the rub, isn’t it? The hidden importance of words. The slip between what the tongue says, the ear hears and the heart understands. Words come back like ghosts to haunt you, but at the time there is little you can do about it. I was all eager to make my request; I was anxious, distracted. Sandewic was of a similar mood, pleased at my safe return yet his mind was elsewhere, so much so I had to repeat my request.

‘You want to see the prisoner?’ Sandewic glanced at me in disbelief.

‘My mistress has demanded it. Her grace wishes to assure herself that this madman is what he acts to be.’

‘Could he be any other?’

‘Sir Ralph,’ I replied, ‘that is why I wish to see him.’

The constable bit his thumb, head moving from side to side. ‘Oh, follow me,’ he grumbled.

We crossed the inner ward, through a doorway of the Wakefield Tower and down the dirt-strewn steps lit by cresset torches. The assassin was confined to a small cell with a grille high in the door. Sandewic opened this and placed a torch in its holder. The prisoner lay crouched in a corner, his brown robe all ragged, his face bruised and filthy, eyes gleaming through the dirt. As soon as Sandewic closed the door behind us, the man leapt to his feet, manacles jangling. He stretched out as far as the chains would allow, then began to dance a fool’s jig, leaping up and down, slapping the green-slimed walls before staggering back. He sang some moonstruck song about the fields during the time of bat-flight before sinking to his knees, joining his hands and muttering a garbled version of the Paternoster.

‘Insane,’ Sandewic growled. ‘Moonstruck, out of his wits, but
mon seigneur
the king has judged him. He is to hang tomorrow just before noon on the common gallows at St Katharine’s Wharf.’

The madman’s head came up; just for a heartbeat I saw the shift in his eyes.