Mathild 03 - The Darkening Glass

by Paul Doherty

  We left King’s Staith because of the crush, going along an alleyway on to a broad paved thoroughfare, which proved just as frenetic, clogged with carts, barrows and litters as well as traders of every kind, eager to pluck at your sleeve or catch your eye. Tinkers and tailors, the bars above their stalls displaying their products, shouted against the calls and cries of furriers, goldsmiths, hempen sellers, butchers and fruiterers. Beggars pleaded, stretching out their battered ladles for coins. A swarm of beadles and bailiffs tried to impose order amongst unlicensed pedlars with horn and staff. These nimble-witted traders simply packed up their wares and moved to any free space between houses, doorways, the steps of churches or the backs of carts. Peasants and farmers, heads shaded by straw hats, offered hens, piglets and ducks, ‘all fresh and lively for sale’. We had to muffle our mouths and noses as the stink from the runnels and sewers grew offensive, the refuse piles and offerings from the sewer pots being cooked to ripeness under the sun. Little wonder they call Satan lord of the latrines! I took some comfort that in such chaos no one would pay us special attention. Indeed, the royal city of York seemed totally oblivious to the growing confrontation between the king and his leading earls, being more concerned with selling a collection of buttons for a farthing or a litter of piglets for a quarter of a mark. York was immersed in commerce to the exclusion of everything. The citizens even jostled the coped priests who carried the viaticum to the sick. The glow of hallowed candles, the tinkle of bells and the smoke of burning incense did little to smooth the priests’ path through the turbulent crowd, who were more interested in challenging a relic seller offering a wing from a seraphim or the nail from the big toe of the Trinity. York was living proof that ‘love does much, but money does everything’.

  We finally crossed the bridge, going along Micklegate to the Bar, its lofty crenellations decorated with the tarred severed heads of Scottish rebels. These grisly relics stared blindly down at the great stocks on either side packed full of miscreants, their heads and faces plastered with horse dung and honey. Eventually we passed through the yawning gateway, following the road leading to Tadcaster, which was crowded with carts, plodding peasants, wandering friars, preachers and story-tellers. One of these, desperate to solicit custom, had stopped on the steps of a crumbling wayside cross to proclaim that verse from Isaiah: ‘I said in the midst of my days, I should go through the portals of hell.’ Little did we realise how true that was of us! We journeyed on for a little while, pausing whilst Ausel checked the map he had drawn. Demontaigu pulled the muffler from his mouth, leaned over and apologised for being withdrawn. He explained the urgency of what we were doing.

  ‘The serjeants will bring us news out of Scotland. They met Bruce personally; soon, Mathilde, we’ll have sanctuary.’

  My heart skipped a beat, as it always did at the prospect of his departure.

  ‘No, no!’ Demontaigu recognised my fear. ‘No, ma doucette.’ He smiled. ‘I shall not be going into Scotland with the rest. My duties keep me here with you in England. I am well pleased,’ he added impishly, ‘to keep both eye and ear open to what is happening.’

  I was about to reply when Ausel called out at us to follow, and we cantered on to what our companions called ‘the great wastelands of Yorkshire’, empty, bleak moors still recovering from the great burning by the Conqueror hundreds of years before. A wild, lonely place, a tapestry of shifting colour: greens of many hues; gold and black; the occasional dash of purple where sprouts of wild heather burst up through the grass. Gathering clouds blacked out the sun. The sky became swiftly overcast. We moved across the rain-misted landscape through stubborn gorse and tough heather, our garrons choosing their steps wisely. An eerie land with ancient rocks darker than iron. Above us wild birds shrieked like lost souls against the wind. We trooped in silence for a while through a dense copse of gnarled trees, then began to climb. I felt deeply uneasy. Perhaps it was the contrast between the noisy, turbulent city and this place of utter, miserable silence, which harboured its own grisly secrets.

  We breasted the rise and stared down at a scene from hell. Devil’s Hollow was a broad, deep-bowled basin in that rough landscape. At its centre rose the ruins of an old house built of grey moor-stone, its thatched roof long gone. Around it stood stunted trees, probably the relic of some ancient forest where the murderous pagan gods used to shelter. The poet writes: ‘Who paints a rose cannot paint its fragrant soul.’ That also applies to those who describe demons; they cannot summon up the true terrors of hell, which was what Devil’s Hollow had become. The ancient cottar’s place lay silent, but from the branches of the nearby trees hung five corpses. The scene was cruel and hard. We rode swiftly down, dismounted and searched around. We found traces of battle: the ground had been scuffed by many horsemen, and the blood-splattered grass was littered with grim straps of leather, armour and a broken dagger. There was nothing else. No horses, no baggage, nothing but those five corpses, their eyes gouged out, dressed solely in jerkins and hose, feet bare, their bodies swaying slightly in the breeze, the branches creaking under their weight. Some had died before they were hanged. Horrid blue-black wounds to the chests and guts; their mangled mouths and shattered skulls told their own macabre tale. Certain places reek of terrible evil. Devil’s Hollow certainly did. The way the ground abruptly dipped, the abandoned cottar’s house of rough stone and those gnarled trees rich with their grisly fruit.

  I walked into the old cottage. It stank, fetid and sour, a dark cave of stone with a floor of beaten earth. Outside echoed the curses of my companions as they cut the corpses down. I searched the cottage but found nothing except the spent embers of a fire. A shadow darkened the door.

  ‘They are ready,’ Demontaigu declared. ‘God have mercy on them, Mathilde.’

  I went out. Estivet, a priest Templar, was crouching by a corpse, whispering the words of absolution into the dead man’s ear, in the hope that the living soul would gain some comfort on its journey towards the light.

  ‘Go forth, Christian soul.’ Estivet’s horror and anger at what had happened thrilled his words. ‘Go forth like a soldier to meet your God. May Michael and all his angels come forth to meet you. May you not fall into the hands of the enemy, the evil one, and so I absolve you from . . .’

  I waited until he had finished, then I inspected the corpses. Everything of value had been stripped off them: belts, buckles, boots, armour and weapons. Three had died in vicious hand-to-hand fighting, with deep, ugly wounds to the face, neck and chest. Two of them, in my judgement, had still been alive when hanged. All had been abused: noses slit as if they were felons, with the added indignity of having their eyes gouged out, and their gaping mouths stuffed with dirt and the excrement of wild animals, a blasphemous mockery of the viaticum. Ausel and the others were now in deep conversation, heatedly discussing what had happened. I stared down at the faces of the dead men, then up at the rim of the hollow. I could visualise how these Templars had been trapped and slaughtered.

  ‘Noctales!’ Ausel spat the word out.

  I nodded in agreement.

  ‘Scots?’ someone called.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Demontaigu snapped, face all pallid. ‘We have a treaty with them, they wouldn’t . . .’

  ‘Outlaws? Wolf’s-heads?’ another called.

  ‘No!’ I replied loudly. My companions were sorely frightened. So terrified they wanted to ignore the obvious menace: Alexander of Lisbon and his comitatus. A free company of murderers, specially commissioned by Clement V of Avignon and Philip of Paris to hunt down Templars and kill them. Edward of England, to his eternal shame, had also issued them licence under letters patent to pursue their quarry in England.

  Some of the Templars shook their heads, muttering at the opinion of a woman. I walked towards them.

  ‘These corpses are cold,’ I declared. ‘They were killed early today, perhaps just before dawn.’ I pointed to the rim of the hollow. ‘A safe place most times, but the Noctales ringed them in here and rode down. Your comrades were surp
rised and massacred. Well,’ I brushed the dust from my gloves, ‘that is what I think.’

  ‘But how did the Noctales know about them?’ Ausel asked. ‘Here, out in the wilderness?’

  A spate of answers greeted the question. Demontaigu took me by the shoulder and led me towards the cottage. Estivet joined us.

  ‘Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales: you are sure, Mathilde?’

  ‘Who else, Bertrand, for the love of God?’ I shivered. Such a gloomy place: those corpses lying sprawled on the barren earth, the tree branches twisting out as if waiting for fresher fruit, the edge of that hollow, its long grass bending gently in the breeze. Ravens screeched above us as they fought the strengthening winds. I wanted to be gone. Cold fear pricked my heart and twisted my stomach. ‘They may return,’ I whispered.

  ‘Not now.’ Demontaigu shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not in daylight: the land is too flat and open. They could not surprise us.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘Alexander of Lisbon must have learnt about this place and led his demons here before dawn. They did their bloody work and left. They’ll be long gone now.’

  I disagreed, but I did not wish to argue the point.

  ‘The corpses?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll leave them here.’ Estivet called over one of his companions and gave him instructions. ‘I’ll pay the good brothers at the friary,’ he continued. ‘They’ll see it as an act of mercy and give them proper burial in the poor man’s lot in God’s Acre.’

  ‘This,’ Demontaigu gestured at the dead, ‘is finished. Their bodies are for the soil, their souls to God, but who betrayed us, Mathilde? Alexander of Lisbon must have been told how our men were coming out of Scotland. He must have been given the exact time and place those serjeants would arrive here, but how, who?’ he whispered hoarsely.

  Ausel, seeing us deep in conversation, drifted across as the others carried the corpses into the cottage, cloaks being offered as shrouds, stones quickly collected to protect the dead from wild animals.

  ‘You are probably asking the same as we all do.’ Ausel’s usually laughing face was grim and his keen green eyes were cold and hard, while a nervous tic high in his right cheek muscle betrayed his simmering fury. ‘How did this happen, Demontaigu? The only people who knew were you, me and Estivet.’

  ‘And myself,’ I added, ‘but only two days ago. Demontaigu will swear to that.’

  ‘I do,’ Demontaigu murmured. He raised his hand to his companions and led us up the side of the hollow. We stood on the rim. I stared out across the patchwork landscape of heather, gorse, brambles, marsh, stagnant pools and the occasional copse of trees.

  ‘How did your companions know to come here?’ I asked.

  ‘Some of them were local men.’ Demontaigu replied.

  ‘Their names?’ I asked.

  ‘Morseby, Thorpe, Rippenhale, Lanercost and Easterbury.’

  ‘Lanercost?’ I queried.

  ‘Yes, John Lanercost,’ Demontaigu agreed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Any relation or kin to one of the Aquilae Petri?’

  ‘The Gemstones?’ Demontaigu faced me squarely. ‘One of Gaveston’s creatures?’ He pulled a face. ‘Our Lanercost was an experienced squire, a serjeant. He was born in these parts. He might be related to Gaveston’s minion. Yes, yes.’ He blinked across the breeze. ‘Our man sheltered in a garret close to the Shambles in York. Lanercost organised sanctuary for others. Most Templars moved north. York is a good place to hide. What are you saying, Mathilde? That Lanercost told his kinsman, who informed Gaveston, who then betrayed them all to Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales?’

  ‘Impossible!’ I replied. ‘Templar power in England has been shattered. Everything worth seizing has been taken. Why should the king or Gaveston be interested in betraying harassed Templars to the Noctales?’ I turned away, uneasy, and stared across at a thick copse of wood, the path we’d taken from York snaking through it. I was about to look away when I started at a glint of steel.

  ‘Jesu miserere!’ I exclaimed, plucking at Demontaigu’s sleeve. I looked up at the sky, then back again: nothing. Yet . . .

  ‘What it is?’ Demontaigu grasped my wrist.

  I walked down into the shelter of the hollow, my abrupt departure attracting Ausel, who came hurrying over.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Demontaigu insisted.

  ‘Those trees.’ I waited until we’d walked a little deeper. ‘I am sure mailed men lurk there.’

  ‘No, no.’ Ausel shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’ I retorted. ‘I am not mad, Ausel, some maid calfing at the moon, full of fanciful notions that every bush is a bear. I am not hare-hearted; I know what I glimpsed. Who else would be hiding out here in the heathland?’

  ‘Mathilde is keen-eyed.’ Demontaigu, for all his doubts, believed me. ‘It’s logical. The Noctales must know we were coming here. They withdrew, waited and watched, just as they did when the others arrived here yesterday evening. A scout would alert them, and then they closed in.’

  Demontaigu was convinced. He gestured back at the rim. ‘We could return and gape, but that would warn them. It’s best if we were gone from here as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Might they attack us here?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Demontaigu tightened the buckle on his belt. ‘We are too many, armed and ready. They hope we will take the same road back, then they will trap us. They’ll be waiting, all harnessed for war.’

  I recalled the Noctales: a troop of killers, mercenaries, the scum from various cities, armed like men of war. They were accompanied by battle-dogs, great mastiffs with sharp teeth and crushing jaws, spiked collars around their muscle-thick necks. A swift riding horde of the sons of Cain.

  ‘We’ll warn the rest.’ Demontaigu pointed across the hollow. ‘It’s best if we return by different paths. Once we are off the moors and reach the villages, the Noctales will withdraw. They do not want any witnesses to their murderous slaughter.’

  Demontaigu hastily summoned the others. He stilled protests and objections, declaring that swiftness not battle was their prayer for the hour. The group would leave, separate, seek out travelling merchant groups or the outlying villages, and meet again in York. It was quickly agreed. Estivet murmured a brief benediction and we all remounted to the heart-tingling jingle of harness, the creak of leather and the ominous slither of weapons being loosened in their sheaths. Estivet again murmured a blessing, to which Ausel spat out a curse that the tongues of demons would pierce the Noctales’ souls and they would grill in hell like bacon fat for all eternity. His sally provoked a few smiles. Hands were clasped, farewells made and we guided our horses out of the hollow and over the rim and scattered in a desperate, frenetic gallop.

  Demontaigu and Ausel rode either side of me as we broke into a canter, streaming from the hollow in a thunder of hooves and flying dust. The stiff cold breeze whipped at my face. The ground beneath me became a blur, as did my two companions. My world was reduced to the thunder of our horses’ hooves, a deep sense of danger, the blood drumming in my ears, my throat narrowing as if to cut off its breath. I gripped the reins and murmured a prayer at the swift and dread turn of events. I had to remind myself that I was Domicella reginae, yet fleeing for my life across a wilderness as bleak as the souls who hunted me. Killers who would cut my throat only a few miles from the king’s own chamber. Eventually I calmed; I even wondered if I had been mistaken, then I heard the bell-like bark of great hunting dogs, a hollow, soul-searing sound that seemed to echo up from the caves of hell. Our horses began to slow, and we halted on the brow of a hill and turned. I caught my gasp of terror; it was not a time for the weak-hearted. Below us unfurled a scene from a nightmare. Men fleeing, swift shadows across the sun-dappled heath, whilst from the nearby woods streamed others, already breaking up as the hunting pack chose their quarry. More terrifying, before or alongside each cluster of horsemen, were those black racing shapes, the great war-hounds of the Noctales. Terror seized me. A group of four riders and a hound had already si
ngled us out for pursuit. Demontaigu sat and stared, gauntleted fingers to his lips as if he might retch.

  Ausel, however, leaned forward in the saddle, eyes narrowed, clicking his tongue.

  ‘Our garrons,’ he patted his horse’s neck, ‘are not as swift as theirs, but they are sturdier and more sure-footed. Those riders will never bring us to bay, which is why they have brought the dogs. They will close, panic our mounts and savage their legs. The dogs will bring us down. I’ve seen chieftains in Ireland do the same. Ah well.’ Ausel grasped the reins and pulled his horse round. ‘There is only one thing we can do.’

  We continued our headlong gallop. Behind us the baying of the hound grew stronger as one of those long, sloping, ghastly shapes began to close. Ausel, however, led us on to a track-way that rose slightly between a marshy stagnant pool on our left and thick barbed gorse to our right. The moorland path was slightly off our general direction, but he urged us on up the track-way as it narrowed between two ancient, craggy outcrops of lichen-covered rock. We cantered through and down the path. Ausel reined in and dismounted, shouting at us to do likewise and demanding we prime the arbalests we carried. I fumbled with mine; Ausel collected it and Demontaigu’s, then waved us back. He crouched at a kneel, two arbalests beside him; the other he raised, pointing at the gap between those rocks. He was as calm and assured as any Brabantine mercenary. A loud howl rang out above the sound of drumming hooves. In a flurry of dust, the war-dog leapt between the rocks, ears flapping, huge jaws bared, a charging mass of muscular black flesh, terrible in its fearful beauty. It seemed unaware of Ausel; trained to pursue horses, it charged directly on. Ausel released the catch, and the squat barbed bolt whirred like some deadly bird. The hound, struck in his jaw, was maddened enough to carry on. Ausel raised the second arbalest, primed and ready. The hound rose in a leap. Again, the click of the catch. This time the bolt shattered the beast’s throat, yet still it hurtled on, its muscular body twisting to one side in a flurry of dust as it crashed into Ausel. Man and dog whirled in a dust cloud sprinkled with spurts of blood. They turned and rolled, Ausel’s war cry drowned by an ominous snarling, then it was over. The hound lay on its side. Ausel sprawled face down. I tried to shout, but my mouth was too dry. Then Ausel lifted his grinning, blood-splattered face and pulled himself up, brushing the dirt off his clothes.