Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (32 page)

‘Mistress?’ Rossaleti, a leather pannier over his shoulders, was staring curiously at me, admiring my gold gown. He lightly touched the veil around my head. ‘Mathilde, you look the maiden fair.’ I broke from my reverie and thanked him.

Casales came across. We waited for the princess to join us and continued up the stairs where de Boudon and other household officials were waiting to welcome us. A strange candlelit evening followed, with the solemn chanting of vespers and compline by the Black Monk choir at Westminster echoing across the palace grounds; an unsettling evening, of hasty meals and the noise and chatter of excited retainers preparing for the morrow.

The coronation day dawned clear and fair, the bells of the abbey provoking a dramatic response from the nearby belfries of St Stephen’s and St Margaret’s, all echoing along the fogbound river to be answered by St Paul’s and the bells of over a hundred other city churches. We had risen long before dawn, gathering for the solemn vesting in the small hall. Edward, assisted by Gaveston, dressed in scarlet cloth of gold and black leggings but remained shoeless, as did Isabella, clad in her coronation robes beneath a billowing mantle of embroidered silk lined with ermine; on her head a crimson velvet cap adorned with Venetian gold and pearls. To the joyous sound of fife, tambour and dulcimer, Edward and Isabella processed along the coarsely woven blue carpet which stretched from Westminster Hall to the abbey church, walking beneath a brilliant canopy, its staves being borne by Casales, Sandewic (looking grey with exhaustion), Baquelle and one of the barons of the Cinque Ports. I walked behind in sombre dress, keeping to the edge of the carpet along which followed the leading barons of the kingdom: William Marshall bearing the king’s gilded spurs; Hereford, the royal sceptre crowned with a cross; Henry of Lancaster, the royal rod surmounted by a dove; and the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln and Warwick, the three royal swords. Other lords, both spiritual and temporal, followed, then, after a considerable pause, Gaveston, dressed in gorgeous purple and silver, proud as a peacock, accorded the prestigious honour of being crown-bearer.

At the high altar the king and queen offered a pound of gold in the form of a statue of Edward the Confessor. The choir and sanctuary blazed with the light of hundreds of torches and candles which dazzled in the rich glow of the thickly embroidered tapestries covering walls, pillars, lecterns, chairs and tables. At either side of the steps leading up to the choir and sanctuary stood the great oaken pavilions decorated with embroidered cloths, winter roses and greenery. Casales, his helmet between his feet, stood in the one on the left, Baquelle on the right. They looked out on to an abbey nave packed with visiting dignitaries, the principal ones clustering up the steps to witness the coronation, which was carried through to the blaze of trumpets, heady gusts of incense and the roar of the acclamation ‘Fiat, Fiat, Vivat Rex’, followed by the antiphon ‘Unxerunt Salamonem’ – ‘They Anointed Solomon’. Bishop Woodlock of Worcester performed the holy unction. The king himself lowered the crowns, first onto his head then on to Isabella’s. She acted serenely throughout the proceedings, lips and eyes crinkled in happiness, a faint smile brightening her face, a vision of joy amidst the grim muttering which permeated the coronation. The anger of the earls ran high against the honour and precedence accorded to Gaveston, who not only held the crown but was given the special privilege of fixing one of the royal spurs to the king’s buskined foot. Beneath the chanting and the acclamations rose a low chorus of protest from a sea of angry, hot-eyed noblemen whose fingers kept falling to empty scabbards; in other circumstances daggers and swords would have been drawn. Who says the future cannot be predicted by signs and omens? The coronation of Edward II was the herald for the disasters to follow: a day of anger, resentment, jealousy, arrogance and finally murder.

The coronation ended. The royal party and its entourage were processing down the nave when the acclamations and singing were drowned by a violent crash behind us, followed by piercing screams and shouts. The earl marshal signalled us to continue but Isabella caught my eye and indicated that I should go back to investigate the cause of the rising clamour. A great crowd was gathering to the right of the sanctuary steps. Clouds of dust now mingled with the drifting tendrils of candle smoke and incense. Above the crowds I glimpsed a tangle of timbers, twisted greenery and cloths. People were pressing in. A woman, Baquelle’s wife, was screaming hysterically. Rossaleti summoned men-at-arms to force a way through the dignitaries, black-robed monks and soldiers. Already Casales and Sandewic were pulling at the heavy timbers but there was nothing to be done. The entire wooden pavilion housing Baquelle had splintered and collapsed. Its side-walls had tumbled outwards, and the heavy oaken beams across the top, some two yards above Baquelle’s head, had crashed down, crushing the hapless knight in his armour, burying him under their massed weight. Only a hand stuck forlornly out.

Casales, stripped of most of his dress armour, imposed order, telling the men-at-arms to drive away the crowds. He hastily summoned a troop of workmen, who removed the heavy beams. Underneath sprawled Baquelle, his skull crushed, parts of his body armour digging deep into his flesh. The dead knight’s head and face were drenched in blood, his finery stained and torn. He was stripped of his armour and laid out on a palliasse brought from the abbey infirmary, a tangled, bruised and bloodied mass of flesh. A priest monk crouched over the corpse, swiftly anointing it, whispering into the dead man’s ear the shriving words of absolution. Other brothers tried to console Baquelle’s family. The corpse was hastily removed, the abbey emptied. The carpenters and craftsmen, agitated and worried, clustered to discuss what had happened. I glimpsed Demontaigu standing by a pillar, almost hidden in the half-light. He raised a hand and moved away. Rossaleti was asking Casales what had happened, but the knight just shook his head.

‘I was standing on guard,’ he declared. ‘The royal party left the sanctuary. Come!’ He included me in his invitation and led us across to his own oak pavilion. In size it was about a yard and half deep, its width was just over two yards and it stood about four yards high. A long rectangle of polished dried oak poles cut in two, it had a narrow cushioned seat at the back, the two sides and back being held most securely by flat wooden slats fastened inside. A master craftsman joined us and explained how the top poles were kept in place by joists reinforced with glue. Casales declared that, once the royal party had passed, Baquelle, exhausted from standing, must have sat down on the seat. He was dressed in plate armour and his weight, leaning against the back, must have caused the top to spring loose and collapse.

Rossaleti had his answer, so he left; Casales was equally impatient to go to seek an audience with the king to inform him of the news. I stayed. I’d glimpsed the suspicion in the master craftsman’s eyes as his colleagues had drifted away to whisper in the shadows. I had a few words with the master craftsman then went to pray in the Lady Chapel with its statue of the Virgin Queen holding the Divine Child, beneath that, in a jewelled case, the abbey’s great relic, a girdle cord once worn by Christ’s mother. I stared at that, half listening to the nave empty. I muttered an Ave but my mind drifted back to Monsieur de Vitry’s house. I heard the distant sounds of trumpets from the celebrations in the Great Hall where the feasting had already begun. I ignored them as I recalled that dire day, fleeing from my own killing. My eyes grew heavy.

‘Mistress, mistress?’ The master craftsman stood in the entrance to the Lady Chapel. I went out to meet him. He handed over a piece of wood. ‘An accident,’ he muttered. I studied the piece of wood, cut clean from the rest. ‘I did that, you see, mistress.’ The master craftsman kept out of the light. ‘The pavilion was fashioned out of oaken poles split down the middle. The rounded part faced the outside, the smooth and flat for the inside; long poles for the three sides, shorter ones for the top kept in place by joists, sprouting like the protruding fingers of a hand into the prepared spaces.’ He explained how the side poles were glued together and reinforced by oaken strips; the ones across the top depended only on the joists and glue as it had been important not to impose too much weight.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Some of the joists at the top must have snapped or slid out. Sir John, God rest him, was a heavy man in plate armour. If he sat down or leaned against the side, that might have weakened the structure. Mistress, those poles across the top are of heavy oak; once loosed, they would drop with all the power of a falling war club.’

‘How many joists were there?’ I asked. ‘Surely there must have been many? What, two on each pole, and there were four or five of those across the top.’

The man just shrugged and looked longingly over his shoulder at his comrades.

‘What was the cause?’ I asked softly.

‘Come and see.’ He took me back to the sanctuary steps. I must have been so absorbed with my own thoughts I hadn’t heard them lower the second pavilion, the one Casales had used. It now lay face down before the steps. The master craftsman brought a taper.

‘They were left over there,’ he explained, pointing across to the dark-shrouded transepts, ‘until this morning, then carried across here, erected and decorated. We thought it would be safe.’

In the light of the taper I examined the top of the wooden pavilion. Nothing more than half-poles fitted in between the sides and the back. The master craftsman’s agitation increased. I grasped the taper, pushing it closer, and gasped in surprise. A gap was evident between the edges of the poles on the two sides as well as the back, wide enough for a knife or thin saw to cut. The glue had also been weakened, some of the joists pulled loose, the gouge marks around the sides clear to see. I whirled round, dropping the taper. The master craftsman glared panic-stricken back.

‘We’ll say it was an accident,’ he mumbled.

‘But it wasn’t,’ I accused. ‘When these pavilions were lying down in the transepts someone must have attacked both of them, cutting the glue and sawing through the joist. The light in the transepts is poor. The malefactor must have been working on Casales’ when he was disturbed and left, but Baquelle’s was fatally weakened. The joists were cut. After it was raised and decorated, Sir John Baquelle took up his post. He was a large man in heavy armour; he’d move around, lean and sit. The weakened roof eventually snapped and fell in, crushing his skull. Casales was also meant to suffer the same fate.’

‘It wasn’t us,’ the man pleaded. ‘It wasn’t us! The oak was of the finest, the joist and gaps matching, we cannot be blamed.’

I stared around the gloomy abbey. The candles had guttered; only a few still glowed. The winter’s day was drawing in, the darkness gathering; so easy, I reflected, during the days before the coronation, for someone to slip through the gloom with a saw or razor-sharp blade and weaken the roofs of both pavilions. And who would notice? Even when it collapsed, all eyes were on the sanctuary. Both men had apparently been marked down for death. A God-given sign during the king’s coronation that all was not well, that the power of heaven did not rest on our prince. Such damage could easily be done in this place of dappled light . . .

‘Mathilde, Mathilde!’ Casales and Rossaleti, cloaks billowing out, were striding up the nave. Casales described what was happening in the Great Hall; how the coronation banquet had been spoilt by the tragic death of Baquelle, whilst some of the earls had left before the first course had even been served. He stepped into the faint pool of candlelight, Rossaleti like a shadow behind him; both stared down at the wooden pavilion.

‘What is the matter, Mathilde?’

I told Casales precisely what I had discovered. The knight examined the pavilion for himself, kicked the side of it and, moving quickly, seized the master craftsman by his jerkin, pulling him close. The man, terrified, spluttered his innocence.

‘Let him go,’ I declared wearily. ‘They did what they were ordered to. They have nothing to do with what killed Baquelle and what could have killed you.’

‘I wonder.’ Casales released the hapless man, pushing him away. ‘I did wonder, just after the king and queen left the sanctuary. I sat down and felt the wood shudder and creak, then I heard the crash as Baquelle’s collapsed. How, Mathilde, how?’

‘My lord,’ the master craftsman was eager to establish his innocence and that of his colleagues, ‘we fashioned these pavilions but they were stored in the transepts until this morning. The abbey was open with all the preparations. Look how it is, even now, so dark anyone could have done that damage, for mischief, as an evil jape . . .’

Casales waved him away, staring across at the tangled mess before spinning on his heel and striding back down the nave. He stopped halfway and turned.

‘Her grace the queen,’ he called, ‘says you need not join her. Marigny and the rest are bloated with hate at my lord Gaveston’s pre-eminence; she said it’s best if you stay . . .’

I did so, returning to our quarters and sleeping fitfully in my clothes until the early hours, when Isabella, accompanied by her ladies, returned heavy-eyed, sick in stomach with muscles aching. I helped her undress. She stood in a shift before the weakening fire, running her hands through her mass of golden hair. I thought she would sleep, but she said her blood was still racing, her mind teeming with the events of the day. She described how the coronation banquet had turned into a mockery, the death of Baquelle hovering like a harbinger from hell over the feast. Matters were worsened by the chaos in the kitchens. Cooks, scullions and servants had been distracted by the disaster so the food had been cold and ill served. The great earls, their pride offended, had glowered and left whilst the French openly complained about the pre-eminence of Gaveston in his purple and silver-buttoned robes, sitting at the king’s right in preference to Isabella. Edward had openly cosseted Gaveston, blatantly ignoring Isabella. For the first time I caught her anger and irritation that the great game had gone too far.