Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (33 page)

As she paced up and down, drinking the watered wine I’d prepared with a heavy mix of camomile, I told her what I had discovered. She agreed that Baquelle’s death was no accident, an ominous augury for her coronation. Two more members of Edward’s secret council had been threatened and one killed in what could only be described as suspicious circumstances.

Casales had delivered the news to the king and his favourite, leaning over their throne-like chairs, whispering fiercely. Isabella stopped her pacing and, clutching the cup, glared down at me.

‘That stopped the revelry, Mathilde. Oh yes, Edward and Gaveston were openly shocked and surprised. Do you know,’ she leaned down, ‘for the first time I smelt their fear. Think of that, Mathilde, as you dream.’

We slept late that morning. Isabella was preparing to attend another banquet in the Painted Chamber when we were disturbed by furious knocking at the doors and the exclamations and cries of maids and pages in the presence chamber. I hastened out. Demontaigu was pushing his way through, hair and face soaked with the snow which still clung to its cloak.

‘Mathilde,’ he wiped the wet from his face, ‘Mathilde, it’s Sandewic, he’s ill, he is dying!’

I did not stop for anything but dressed quickly. Shrouding myself in a thick robe and carrying a copy of Isabella’s seal, I followed Demontaigu out through the snow-frosted palace grounds to King Steps and the waiting barge flying Sandewic’s colours. A clay-cold journey under lowering skies, along a swollen, sullen river with a wintry wind nipping the flesh. I huddled in the stern with the boatmen bending over the oars, sombre figures taking us through the shifting mist. Once we passed under the narrow arches of London Bridge, the waters thundering dully, Demontaigu told me how he’d gone to the Tower to collect and pack certain items. Apparently Sandewic had returned early from the coronation, clearly unwell, and had worsened during the night.

We arrived at the mist-wrapped Tower, hurrying up steps, along gulleys, through gateways dark as a wolf’s mouth to the constable’s quarters in the central donjon. A small outer chamber led into the inner one, a place of disarray with chests and coffers open, weapons, cloaks, belts and baldrics lying about. Braziers glowed but their scented smell could not disguise the reek of a deadly sickness. Servants milled about. A friar from the Carmelites was already praying by the bed whilst the Tower leech, a balding, grey-faced man, could do nothing except pucker his lips, shake his head and flap his hands.

Sandewic lay on the great bed, head against the bolsters. He already had the look of a dead man. I noticed how the little gifts I had given him over the last few weeks were in places of honour around the small crucifix on the table to the right of his bed. The table on the other side was covered with the small glazed phials and pots I’d used for his medicines. I was immediately surprised at how many there were. Sandewic recognised me, those old eyes still glaring furiously as if he could face down death itself. He spoke slowly, his breath coming haltingly. He talked about great pain, of iced water in his flesh; his facial muscles seemed to be stiffening and he muttered how he could not feel his limbs. From him and the leech I gathered the symptoms had begun shortly after he had retired, a tingling burning of the tongue, throat and face, followed by nausea, vomiting and a strange pricking of the skin. He pointed to a goblet by the bed, the cup was almost drained, the rich claret dregs dry. I sniffed at it and detected the acrid smell of a potion. I hurried to the other side of the bed and picked up the various jars, most of them empty. As I searched, I turned cold with my own numbing fear: there were far too many jars! The nearest one, sealed with a blob of broken wax, was half full. I sniffed it, put it back, sat on the edge of the bed, bowed my head and sobbed quietly, shoulders shaking. Sandewic had been poisoned! Wolfsbane, or monkshood, is noxious, highly deadly, especially its roots and leaves. I recognised both the smell and the symptoms. I had treated similar cases in Paris where peasants had eaten the tuberous routes of the plant believing they were radishes.

Sandewic’s fingers scrabbled at my back. I returned to the other side of the bed and gently questioned him. I think he knew that he’d been poisoned through trickery. In gasping whispers he informed me of the stoppered, sealed phials delivered to his quarters which he always believed came from me. He never knew who brought them. He confessed wryly that he’d even shared some of the medicines with old Woden the bear. I could only listen in horror as Sandewic described how, on his return the previous evening, he’d received a fresh small leather sack with a phial. He’d mixed its contents with his wine but fallen asleep; when he awoke he drank deeply. Despite the ravages of the poison now sweeping through his frame, those old, tired eyes smiled at me.

‘I am ancient, Mathilde,’ he whispered, ‘my time has come.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘Take the goblet as a leaving present; it was a gift from the old king to me, silver and pewter with a horseman carved on the side. See that justice is done. Go and pray for me in my chapel.’ He paused, fighting for breath. ‘Study my Cup of Ghosts, Mathilde, tell
mon seigneur
the king to study it also, to reflect on the past and not put his trust in other princes. Please . . .?’ He forced one more smile. ‘I must make my peace with God and man.’

I kissed him gently on the brow and left him to the Carmelite. I fled that chamber, going to sit at the foot of a pillar in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Turning my face to the wall, I wept bitterly at the cruel and devious way Sandewic had been trapped. Demontaigu joined me, squatting down in the shadows.

‘He’s gone,’ he whispered, ‘shriven and consoled. Mathilde, he was an old man.’

‘He was my friend,’ I replied through hot, stinging tears. ‘He trusted me. Some whoreson bastard saw what I was doing and fed him potions which he thought came from me. That’s why he kept thanking me. An old man,’ I drew up my knees, ‘who trusted me and my skill. He always had aches and pains; the assassin recognised this and used the same clay-coloured phials. It was as easy, and as wicked, as poisoning a child.’

I studied a faded wall painting, a scene from the Apocalypse, the Great Dragon sweeping stars from the sky with his horned tail.

‘Since Uncle Reginald was taken,’ I murmured, ‘and butchered, I have watched and waited without the power to respond.’ I pointed to the dragon. ‘Yet my opponent is like that, sweeping all he wants out of my life, without any pity, without any mercy.’

‘Have you closely studied the symptoms of this malaise?’

‘Now is not the time for casuistry, Master Bertrand,’ I retorted heatedly.

‘No.’ Demontaigu edged round to face me. ‘You talked of power, use yours. Why have all these men died? Pourte, Wenlok, Baquelle, Sandewic?’

‘And nearly Casales,’ I added. I told Demontaigu what I’d discovered the previous day.

‘And what do they all have in common?’ he insisted.

‘They are members of Edward’s secret council.’

‘And?’

‘They recommended that Edward marry Isabella, that he move against the Templars, that he keep the peace with Philip of France as well as his great earls.’

‘So they were of the peace party; what else?’

‘Pourte and Baquelle,’ I replied, ‘were leading merchant princes. They could rouse London, perhaps even control it.’

‘And Wenlok?’ Demontaigu asked.

‘He controlled the powerful Coronation Abbey of Westminster.’

‘And Sandewic?’

‘The Tower.’ I breathed in, feeling a tingling of excitement. ‘Whilst Casales is a leading knight of the royal household.’

‘Think!’ Demontaigu urged. ‘Winchelsea of Canterbury is still in exile, Bishop Langton of Coventry and Lichfield lies under house arrest. The king is bereft of good counsel.’

‘But what else?’ I retorted. ‘What else is there?’ I rose and walked to the door.

‘Think!’ Demontaigu repeated. ‘Mathilde, reflect.’

I placed my hand on the latch, blinking back my tears.

‘Don’t worry, Master Bertrand, if I can, I will think, I will plot.’

When I returned to the keep, Sandewic’s household were preparing for the lych-wake, the corpse ritual. They answered my questions. According to them Sandewic had, over the previous weeks, entertained both English and French courtiers and officials whilst a whole host of visitors kept coming and going. I asked for a list; Rossaleti was one of these. In truth, he was no different from the rest except for one thing. I had been Isabella’s messenger to Sandewic, so why had Rossaleti, a French clerk, Keeper of the Queen’s Seal, often visited the constable’s chambers?

Chapter 12

Later in the morning, as the bells of St Peter ad Vincula tolled for the Angelus, Casales arrived swathed in a heavy cloak. He’d come on the orders of the king to see the situation for himself. He viewed Sandewic’s corpse, stared gloomily at me and went out on to the steps overlooking the inner bailey.

‘Another death,’ he glanced over his shoulder, ‘Baquelle, Sandewic.’ He came and towered over me, nursing his maimed arm. ‘Was I also meant to die?’

‘Rossaleti,’ I demanded, ‘have you seen him?’

‘Was I too meant to die?’ he repeated.

‘Sir John,’ I shook my head, ‘I do not know.’

‘Well, to answer your question, I haven’t seen Rossaleti, and there’s the mystery, Mathilde. Westminster still sleeps but a French cog of war has arrived in the Thames and berthed at Queenshithe. It has come to collect Marigny and his coven. I’ll be glad to see the back of those. But as for Rossaleti,’ he swaggered down the steps, ‘I too am looking for him. I’ve certain questions I want to ask.’

I watched him go, then visited the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Its door was off the latch as the artist, who introduced himself as the painter of the Great Wonder at St Camillus Hospital on the Canterbury to Maidstone road, was busy finishing the last outlined charcoal sketches on the far wall. He was a veritable squirrel of a man with his popping black eyes and bulging cheeks under a shiny, balding pate. I apologised for not having yet seen the Great Wonder on the Maidstone road but exclaimed with admiration at the wall paintings in St Peter’s.

‘Poor Sir Ralph.’ The author of the Great Wonder shook his head. ‘He wanted to see this finished.’

I gently coaxed to him to explain the fresco, executed in an eye-catching red, brown, green and gold. As he did, I understood Sandewic’s absorption with this chapel, its stark sanctuary and brooding atmosphere. Sandewic was an old man who had lived during the reigns of King Edward’s father and grandfather; a man who must have also heard first hand about the troubles of King John, Edward’s great-grandfather. Time and again he had witnessed civil war rage in England between king and earls. More importantly, he knew about the French royal house dabbling their swords in the blood of his country. The frescos in St Peter ad Vincula depicted in great detail the events of 1225, eighty years previous, when Prince Louis of France invaded England in an attempt to usurp the throne of the young King Henry III. Louis had sailed up the Thames and actually occupied the Tower, setting up court and even proclaiming himself ‘Louis, by the Grace of God, King of England’. The frescos explained all this, as well as the bitter struggle which ensued. The author of the Great Wonder on the Maidstone road described how Sandewic had learnt all this from the
Flores Historarum
– The Flowers of History – the great chronicle at Westminster.

I studied those paintings carefully. Little wonder St Peter ad Vincula was Sandewic’s ‘Cup of Ghosts’. It held images not only of the past but also of a possible future. I was still deep in conversation with the author of the Great Wonder when Demontaigu entered the chapel, beckoning me over.

‘Rossaleti,’ he whispered. ‘He’s been found dead, his corpse dragged from the Thames. Casales sent a nuncius from Westminster; he believes Rossaleti was trying to reach the French cog of war.’

We left immediately and took a royal barge rowed by master oarsmen; these easily negotiated the rushing terrors between the arches of London Bridge, pulling swiftly through the chilly mist. We berthed at the King’s Steps and hurried up across the palace ground, still held fast in a hard hoar frost. Bells tolled and clanged. Monks flitted like ghosts along paths and corridors. Royal servitors hurried out of doors eager to complete tasks so they could return to the roaring fires within. We learnt that Rossaleti’s corpse, because of the celebrations in the palace, had been removed to the death table in the mortuary chapel. Accompanied by Demontaigu, I hurried across the abbey precincts, through the chilly cloisters and down past the chapter house, its statues, carvings and gargoyles glaring stonily down at me. Flambeaux fixed on holders provided light. As I passed the heavy door of the pyx chamber, I noticed what looked like a dirty cloth pinned against it.