Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts (15 page)

The days were short and dark, bitterly cold, so we kept to our chambers. Every day was purgatory, with Pelet trying to act the perfect, gentle knight towards both of us. Never once did such a fair face hide such a foul heart; a traitor, a coward, a Judas incarnate. Isabella, however, openly favoured him, and as the days passed, I wondered if she’d remembered her vow. Casales and Rossaleti now became constant visitors to the princess’s chambers, yet as the negotiations flagged, their courtesies sounded more hollow. Isabella, who discussed the matter secretly with me, seized her opportunity when the two men shared wine in her chamber just before vespers on Laetare Sunday in Advent.

‘My lord,’ Isabella, cloaked in furs before the fire, stretched out a delicate hand towards the flames, ‘tell me plainly about your king. He protests great love for me, yet—’

‘My lady,’ Casales intervened, ‘Edward of England—’

‘I know,’ Isabella merrily interrupted, ‘is a stark, fair bachelor standing over six feet, well proportioned, of goodly features. His hair is golden, his eyes are blue, his face comely to the eye. A skilled horseman, a warrior bloodied in the wars of Scotland, a true knight. He loves his friends and is much given to hunting.’ Isabella parodied the nasal twang of a nun breathlessly reciting a well-known litany. ‘But if he loves me, why does he delay? Is not our marriage a matter of papal decree, of solemn treaty between our countries, so why this tarrying? What is the real reason? What manner of man is my future husband?’

Rossaleti nervously cleaned his mouth with his tongue and glanced away, the consummate courtier, the skilled scribe. Casales was much different: a solitary, brooding man, very conscious of his injury, quick-tempered, nevertheless astute enough to understand Isabella’s impatience. He smiled, coughed and opened his mouth to reply. Isabella, sitting to his right, leaned over and touched him gently on the arm.

‘Please,’ she begged, ‘no more fanciful phrases or courtly courtesies.’

Casales sighed and stretched in his chair. He was dressed in a loose shirt and hose under a thick military cloak; on the floor beside him lay his war-belt. Being an accredited envoy, he was one of the few allowed to carry arms in the royal presence.

‘My seigneur the king,’ he began carefully, ‘well, I have known him as long as I have the Lord Gaveston.’ He glanced at Rossaleti and brought a finger to his lips, a sign that he was speaking
in secreto, sub sigillo silentii
– in secret, under the seal of silence.

‘As the father, so the son,’ Casales continued wearily, ‘or sometimes the opposite.
Mon seigneur
was only a child when his beloved mother Eleanor of Castile died. The present king’s father loved her passionately. After her death, when her corpse was brought south to London for burial at Westminster, the old king built a splendid cross at every place the cortège rested.’ He glanced quickly at Isabella. ‘I tell this to show Edward’s abiding passion for his first wife. When Eleanor was alive, the English court was filled with music. After she died,’ he grimaced, ‘the music stopped. The only time I remember the old king asking for minstrels was to distract his mood when his physicians had to let blood.’

‘He loved her so much?’ Isabella whispered.

‘Oh yes,’ Casales agreed. ‘Edward the First was a man of iron, of fiery temper; he almost killed a servant who hurt a favourite falcon. The royal birds were the only things he loved after his wife died. When they fell ill, he even sent wax replicas of them to the shrine of the Blessed Thomas of Canterbury to seek a cure. It’s a pity, my lady, he didn’t love his heir half as much. Prince Edward was raised by himself in a palace at King’s Langley in Hertfordshire. A lonely boy, he was left to his own pursuits, his pet camel and leopard, or sailing along the river with his bargemaster Abscalom. Friendships with the sons of servants flourished; the prince often became involved in their rustic pursuits, ignoring the code of arms or the discipline of the horn book. He grew like some neglected plant. By the time the king, his father, realised this, it was too late; the child begets the man. Prince Edward was lonely. He entertained strange fancies and created a mythical brother.’ Casales ignored Isabella’s sharp gasp.

‘My lord,’ I asked, ‘he has brothers?’

‘Half-brothers.’ Casales smiled at me. ‘The issue of the old king’s second wife, Margaret of France, my lady’s aunt; they are still mere babes. No, the prince wanted a brother, a companion. Forsaken by all, he grew to resent his father, and all this took flesh in Lord Peter Gaveston, who joined the royal household in Gascony. My lady, Gaveston was the brother the prince hungered for, his blood companion, playing Jonathan to Prince Edward’s David.’ He spread his hands. ‘As the scriptures say, “David’s love for Jonathan surpassed all others.”’ Casales drew a deep breath. ‘Prince Edward’s attachment to Gaveston deepened, they became one soul. The old king objected, but the prince was adamant. His father tried to punish and humiliate him but it made no difference. Prince Edward even asked his father to create Gaveston Earl of Cornwall. The old king, notorious for his furious rages, made even worse by an ulcerated leg, physically attacked his son, hitting and kicking him, screaming that he was a knave and that he heartily wished he could leave his crown to another. Gaveston was immediately exiled.’ Casales rubbed his face. ‘Once the old king died last July, Gaveston was recalled and ennobled, made Earl of Cornwall and married to the king’s niece, Margaret de Clare. The earls of Lincoln and Lancaster opposed such advancement of a commoner, a Gascon whose mother, allegedly, was a witch. But
mon seigneur
was obdurate. It is not just a matter of Gaveston, but of opposing the will of his dead father, be it Scotland, the oppression of his ministers—’

‘Or my marriage?’ Isabella interjected.

‘Yes, my lady,’ Casales confessed. ‘And now you have the truth of it. Whatever his father wanted Edward our king wishes to overturn, desperate to kick against the goad, so only God knows where it will lead.’ Casales turned to me, glancing narrow-eyed. ‘Have you ever been lonely, Mathilde? Do you know what it is to be by yourself?’

Of course I could have told the truth, but to these two men I was what I pretended to be, a lady-in-waiting,
dame de chambre
, a commoner much favoured by the princess. I realised what Casales was implying. He’d made his decision about me: I was a favourite of the princess and, therefore, must understand the importance of Gaveston. I hastily agreed, though I should have reflected more carefully on what he’d asked. Casales moved on, committed to telling the truth. He explained how Edward of England was lashing out against any who had opposed him during his youth. He specifically mentioned Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, former treasurer of the old king, who had tried to curb the prince’s expenditure. He had now been stripped of office and arrested.

‘And what do you think will happen?’ Isabella asked.

Casales raised his good hand.

‘
Mon seigneur
the king is a greyhound lithe and fast, he twists and turns. In refusing your marriage he taunts his father and yours, God forgive him. In this he is supported by Lord Gaveston, but in the end,’ Casales nodded at the casement window, ‘day dawns and dies, night falls, the passing of the hours cannot be stopped.’

‘Is that how you view my wedding?’ Isabella teased.

Casales sipped from his wine cup. He ignored my mistress’s question and made an admission, a startling one; I remember it well.

‘The old king,’ he said as if speaking to himself, ‘was a cold, freezing frost upon all our souls, hard of heart and iron of will.’ Casales raised his maimed wrist. ‘I was a member of his battle group at Falkirk when we defeated Wallace. My lady, forget the tales of gentle knights. In battle the soul becomes ferocious. At Falkirk I was surrounded by a party of Scots and dragged off my horse. I fought for my life and I lost my hand. A barber surgeon cleaned the stump, pouring boiling tar on the torn flesh. The old king passed me by; he paused, stared down and said I was fortunate. “Better men have lost more”: that was the old Edward of England; he could chill to the very marrow.’

Casales’ honesty, though refreshing, did not lighten our mood. Isabella wondered if Edward of England would face war rather than submit to the wishes of his father and hers. She said we would send a personal letter and a brooch from her jewellery box. Casales and Rossaleti were planning to spend Christmas at Westminster and were already preparing to leave for Wissant. Rossaleti, I remember, was greatly disquieted. He confided to both the princess and myself that he had a deep fear of rivers and seas, so for him a winter crossing of the Narrow Seas was one of the horrors of hell. Perhaps he had a premonition of his own death, which was more than Pelet did.

Two days after the meeting with Casales and Rossaleti, I began to suffer nausea and cramps in the belly, as did the princess. Her stomach, like mine, was strong, so I first thought this might be due to the malevolence of the princes, Louis and Philippe. That precious pair delighted in perpetrating malicious tricks such as putting a dead rat on a chair, leaving the dung of one of the palace lurchers outside our chambers or knocking aside a servant as he brought us food and drink. They were men with the narrow souls of spiteful boys. On the second day our symptoms increased, with heavy sweats and vomiting. By the morning of the third day, however, the infection began to diminish. Pelet was not so fortunate. He too was seized with violent cramps, shuddering under a ferocious chill. Isabella herself administered to him, as did a gaggle of royal physicians. I tried to intervene, but the princess brusquely ordered me away.

In the end the good doctors were unable to help. They recommended poultices and potions to drain the malignance from the humours, but Pelet continued to weaken. He eventually lost consciousness and died within seven days of the onset of the infection. By then I was fully recovered. I felt no compassion for Pelet, especially when he ranted about shadows clustering around his bed. He lapsed into his native tongue of Langue d’Oc, screaming at the crucifix for mercy. ‘He who sows the tempest reaps the whirlwind’, or so Scripture would have us believe. Pelet was an assassin many times over. God wanted his soul for judgement. I could only stand and watch the effects of arsenic poisoning run their natural course. I thought it most fitting. After all, Uncle Reginald with his manuscripts was as much an authority on poisons and noxious potions as the Scriptures are on theology. A little arsenic may help the stomach, but too much and a powerful fever seizes its victim. That was Pelet’s fate. I recognised the symptoms, the good physicians didn’t. On reflection Isabella must have served us both something to sicken our humours, perhaps a little stone-crop or pepper mixed with heavy vinegar to create an illusion. The royal physicians, as is their custom, could only grasp their manuals and urine jars, shake their heads and moan about the fevers and agues of the day and congratulate Isabella and myself on our miraculous recovery.

Isabella acted the professional mourner. She placed the coins on Pelet’s eyes and lighted a taper before the rood screen in La Sainte Chapelle. Of course, Philip and his coterie may have suspected, but at the time arsenic was rare, whilst mine and Isabella’s sickness pointed to a sudden infection which Pelet couldn’t fight, a twist of fate, mere mischance. Isabella’s subterfuge was deception enough. She never uttered a word to me, and when I tried to speak, pressed her fingers against my lips.

‘Gone to God, Mathilde,’ she whispered, ‘to answer the cries of vengeance for spilling innocent blood.’

I couldn’t think of a more fitting epitaph. By then Casales and Rossaleti had left for England, but two days before Christmas, the very evening Pelet’s corpse was dispatched into the city for burial, a mud-spattered messenger thundered into the palace courtyard. The news he brought soon spread through the palace: Casales and Rossaleti were returning! On their way to Boulogne, near Montreuil, they had met three new English envoys, Sir Ralph Sandewic, constable of the Tower of London; Lord Walter Wenlok, Abbot of Westminster; and Sir John Baquelle, knight. These three had braved the freezing Narrow Seas to bring startling news. Edward of England had acceded to all the French demands. The marriage to Isabella would go ahead. The English king even named the place: the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Boulogne, in the county of Ponthieu, a strip of Normandy still under the rule of the English crown. The marriage would take place in the New Year, and certainly no later than the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, 25 January. The messenger carried a letter sealed by both Casales and Rossaleti summarising their news; this was proclaimed throughout the royal residence and again by Marigny at a splendid banquet hastily convened in the Fleur-de-lis Chamber at the centre of the palace.

The joy of Philip and his ministers was evident. No cost was spared. Musicians with rebec, tambour and viol played merry tunes, whilst jugglers, tumblers, clowns and jesters entertained the royal household. We all feasted on succulent venison and the juiciest flesh of fish fresh from the royal stew ponds, followed by beef and pork served in a wine-based sauce, thickened with capon meat and almonds and seasoned with cloves and sugar. A minstrel disguised as the Angel Gabriel sang a robust song dedicated to Isabella:

The object of all this merriment and rejoicing remained ivory-faced, blue eyes staring. She hardly drank at all but sat, lips moving wordlessly. Once the banquet was over and the king’s favourite lurchers had been allowed into the chamber, Isabella withdrew, gesturing at me to follow. She ordered the pages who carried the flambeaux to escort her to the small chapel she was accustomed to visit. Once inside she dismissed them, telling me to lock and bolt the door. The chapel was freezing cold, its brazier nothing more than a pile of ash and cinders. Isabella, ignoring my protests, took off her gown and robes. Dressed in nothing but her shift, she walked barefoot up to the sanctuary and prostrated herself about two yards before the rood screen. Stretched out on the ice-cold flagstones, she crept forward like a penitent crawling to kiss the cross on Good Friday and lay beneath the rood screen, arms extended, face down. I tried to cover her with my cloak, but she shrugged it off. I squatted at the foot of a pillar, the cold creeping up my own legs, the muscles of my back cramping in discomfort. Palace bells marked the passing hour, but still the princess lay as if asleep. Eventually she rose, dressed and smiled at me, pinching my cheek.