Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Above all I need someone to confide in. I am getting bored with Marie. I am not too sure if I should take her to England. Now listen.’ She grasped my hand, and pulled me to my feet as if I was her dearest friend, linking her arm through mine. We walked to the casement window and stared down at the fountain; the water in its bowl was frozen hard, the carved stonework, representing a sea monster, had a gaping mouth and staring eyes. ‘If we do go to England, we have to cross the Narrow Seas,’ she murmured. ‘That’s dangerous. Now, Mathilde, give me your promise.’ She nipped my arm. ‘One day, when we trust each other, you will tell me who you really are. Until then,’ she patted my hand, ‘I’ll keep you safe.’

  We left her quarters to walk through the palace. For a while Isabella simply strolled around the galleries and hallways. She showed me the archives, the scriptorium, the library with its precious manuscripts, bound in leather and edged with gold, chained to their stands. All the time she chattered like a squirrel on a branch. I still could not decide whether she was artless or very cunning, a court lady or a girl whose wits had turned. We entered the grand hall. For a while we watched actors, tumblers, conjurors and animal trainers rehearse their tricks whilst being inspected by a chamberlain who was to decide on which revelry to choose for some feast. A bell tolled, so we went to the buttery, where Isabella sat like any serving wench, tapping the table, gossiping with the maids, whilst demanding that we be given freshly baked bread with honey and jugs of light ale. Afterwards we returned to Isabella’s chamber. Once there she ordered more food, this time a tray of spiced meats and a flagon of the richest Bordeaux. I was surprised, bearing in mind her tender age; nevertheless she filled both cups to the brim and swallowed a little of hers, before pushing it into my hands, her face all angry.

  ‘You’re a bitch!’ She pouted. ‘You’re lazy! You should have tasted it first.’

  I sipped from both cups and held them out for her to choose, and she snatched one from my hand. That was how the dance began. Where Princess Isabella went, I followed. Sometimes she would sit in the window seat, jabbing a needle at a piece of embroidery like any soldier would his sword at a straw man in the exercise yard. When she grew bored with this, she asked for musicians and skilfully accompanied them on the rebec, flute or harp. One thing was constant: Isabella’s love of books. I thank God for my own studies. Sometimes she would read the tales; other times I did whilst she acted certain parts. I was correct: Isabella was a mummer’s girl. She could slip from one role to another and mimic people as easily as a mirror reflects light. She was deeply intrigued by my knowledge of physic and herbs. Her courses had already begun and she suffered from the cramps. At first she refused my ministrations, but then agreed. She wanted me to examine her urine, but I quoted from the tract of Isaac Judaeus: ‘All urine is a filter of the blood and properly indicates two things, either an infection of the liver and veins, or an infection of the intestines and viscera. Of other things, it gives only indirect indications.’

  Isabella stared gape-mouthed, then burst out laughing. I thought she would strike me; instead she caressed my cheek.

  ‘You recite better than my father’s physicians.’

  I remained silent.

  ‘So, physician?’ She clutched her stomach in mock pain.

  ‘Southerwood,’ I replied, quoting from Abbot Strabo. ‘Its tops, flowers or seeds boiled is the correct remedy for cramp. Pliny recommends sage with wormwood.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Mugwort and camomile will help.’

  Apparently it did. Isabella’s interest in herbs and medicine quickened. She declared as much when she borrowed books from her father’s library. In truth, they were for me. I was grateful and, for the first time, read a fresh treatise of Bernard de Gordon, the physician from Montpellier, his De ingeniis curandorum Morborum. At the same time Isabella kept me well away from the other servants; if anyone came close, she would imperiously intervene and dismiss them. I was given my own chamber beside hers. A comfortable room with a soft bed, a brazier, sticks of furniture and a lavarium; there was even a coloured cloth tied to the wall and a black crucifix with an ivory figure of Christ writhing against it. The window was shuttered against the cold and beneath it was a quilted bench. I thought I would sleep apart from her, but on my first night, Isabella made it very clear that I was to lie on a palliasse, especially ordered from the stores, just inside her room.

  Two days after I joined her service I met her three brothers. They sloped up the stairs like hunting dogs, padding along the gallery in their quilted jerkins and tight-fitting hose, feet pushed into pointed slippers, small jewelled cloaks clasped about their shoulders. I understood why the princess was so wary of them. All three were silver-haired demons. Louis was small, with the sharp, pointed features of a greyhound, ever-darting eyes and nervous gestures, particularly with the jewelled girdle around his waist. He looked at me only to dismiss me as you would a mongrel. Philippe was much taller, broader, with a nervous tic in his face and hooded eyes above a sharp nose and prim mouth. A man of violent temper and hot humours, a man I judged not to be crossed. Charles was stout, with a fat red face, his paunch already proclaiming his love of wine; every time I met him he was never far from a cup. They lounged in their sister’s room, legs stretched out like a pack of lurchers playing with some quarry before they killed it. They had high-pitched voices, arrogant and abrasive; gabbling like nasty geese. They seemed fascinated by their sister. They had their own ladies, their own separate households, yet they were constant visitors to Isabella’s quarters. They brought gifts, sweetmeats, a triptych depicting the martyrdom of St Denis, baubles and toys; even a ferret, though that was later killed by Charles’s pet greyhound.

  A sinister trio, dangerous men who tapped their dagger scabbards as they talked; they despised the servants and were cruel to their own retinues. All three swaggered into Isabella’s chamber like suitors for her hand, eager to see her yet rivals to each other. Isabella always received them elegantly but coldly. She would sit like a little snow queen from a romance, hands on her knees, face fixed in the same twisted smile. On one occasion Louis tried to grab her by the waist and pull her close. Isabella lunged like a spitting cat; even I was surprised at how swiftly the needle-thin stiletto appeared in her hand. She pressed this against her brother’s cheek. They continued their argument in whispers. Louis, nursing the slight prick on his face, stepped away. He muttered something to his brothers, and they all left laughing; only then did Philippe glance towards me, a sly smile on his angry face. They slammed the door behind them and began to tease and flirt with the ladies outside. Isabella sat down abruptly. Her mood changed, she was no longer imperious, but pallid-faced, tears trickling down her cheeks. I hastened over to kneel before her, but she patted the settle beside her. I never touched her. I never spoke. I simply sat while she put her head down, shoulders shaking, not raising her face until the tears had stopped.

  ‘Is it always like this, Mathilde?’ she murmured. ‘In every family? Do the brothers put their hands up their sisters’ gowns, clasp their necks and pinch their breasts? Do they, at the dead of night, steal between their sisters’ sheets?’ She blinked and bit her lip.

  ‘I just pray I’ll be gone, be away from here and never return!’ She patted my hand. ‘You’ll come with me.’ She smiled tearfully. ‘Mathilde the silent, though.’ Her smile disappeared. ‘As your heart grows older, it will come to sights much colder.’ She slipped a costly ring from her finger and pressed it into my hand. ‘Remember me! Remember my words!’

  In time I met Philip, the king, himself, booted and spurred from the hunt, striding up the stairs amongst his henchmen, Enguerrand de Marigny (ah, my red-haired enemy!), de Plaisans and Nogaret, those sly lawyers who had scandalised Christendom by ordering their servants to attack the previous pope, Boniface VIII, in the town of Anagni. They, too, scarcely gave me a second glance. They would later wish they had! I was summoned across and made to kneel at the king’s feet. He pushed his jewelled fing
ers hard against my mouth, then put his hand beneath my chin, forcing me to look up. I have heard many tales about Philip Le Bel. They’re all true! Philip’s face was like ivory, his hair silver; at a swift glance you’d think he was an albino. His eyes were clear blue, his touch icy, his manner cold. He stared at me without any change of expression, patted me on the head as if I were a dog and pushed me away.

  At first I remained very nervous; worries about my mother (I dared not write to her), nightmares about Uncle Reginald and fears about my own safety plagued my sleep, but as the days passed, I began to relax. My chamber was comfortable. The princess never mentioned Marie. Instead she talked to me about everything. She knew all the chatter and gossip of the court. Which lady was unfaithful to her husband, who was in favour and who was out, all the time watching me, studying me carefully. One afternoon, shortly after I arrived, the princess sent me on an errand to the other side of the palace; I was to enquire about a stool she’d sent to the royal carpenters. I was on my way back when a young lady stepped out of the shadows just within a doorway.

  ‘Demoiselle Mathilde?’ My sleeve was plucked. I glanced at her. She had beautiful red hair framing an impudent face; her gown cut low, she moved closer in a fragrant gust of perfume.

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘I am from Monsieur Louis, the princess’s brother.’

  ‘I know who he is,’ I replied. She grasped my hand. I felt the small sack of coins.

  ‘Monsieur Louis would consider it a great favour if you could keep him informed about his sister’s moods.’

  I snatched my hand away; the purse fell to the floor.

  ‘If the princess’s brother wishes to know about his sister’s temperament, he should ask her directly. I bid you good day.’

  I was so immersed in what had happened, I became lost in the maze of galleries and passageways, so it took some time before I returned to the princess’s quarters. When I entered the chamber, I was surprised to see her seated in the high-backed chair before the fire, with the young lady I’d met on a stool beside her. As soon as I appeared, Isabella flicked her fingers. The lady rose, curtsied, grinned at me and swept out of the room.

  ‘Come, Mathilde.’ Isabella’s fingers fluttered. ‘Come here.’

  I sat on the footstool; she gently patted my hair.

  ‘You passed scrutiny, you can’t be bought! No, no, now listen, this is what I want you to do. You know the university quarter, how the different students from each kingdom are divided into nations? I want you to go to the English quarter. I want you to move amongst the students and the scholars, especially the clerks from the retinues of the English envoys. You are to discover all you can about my future husband, Edward of England!’ She paused. ‘All I know about him is what I’ve been told!’ She imitated the portentous tone of an envoy. ‘How courtly! How handsome.’ She winked. ‘I’ve yet to meet a man I can trust. Anyway, will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course, my lady.’

  ‘Good, Mathilde. I am aware, from what you’ve told me, that you know the city well, though how and why I’ve yet to learn. So . . .’ Isabella thrust a purse into my hand. ‘You refused that once,’ she smiled, ‘this time it’s yours! Buy them wine, Mathilde, let their tongues chatter. When you’ve finished, come back and tell me all you’ve learnt.’

  Strange, isn’t it? How we judge children? We betray our arrogance – small bodies must house small minds. It’s not true. Isabella was thirteen years of age but she had all the wisdom and cunning of a woman of threescore years and ten.

  I packed a set of panniers and left the palace the following day. It was good to be back in the city. Especially the Latin Quarter with its taverns, cook-shops, narrow streets, some cobbled, others not, the air rich with different fragrances and odours, the crowds colourful and jostling. I entered the quarter where the English nation lodged. Students in ragged gowns who lodged in narrow chambers were only too willing to escape to the great tap rooms and eating halls of the taverns. A noisy, colourful throng, young men full of the lust for life, quoting poetry, carrying a pet weasel or squirrel, arguing, fighting, dicing, chasing each other, constantly looking for a penny to profit or a woman to seduce. They rubbed shoulders with the tight-waisted, square-bodiced ladies of the town and ignored the moral warnings of the rope-girdled Franciscan in his earth-coloured robe who stood on a corner preaching against the lechery of the world. They played the rebec and the flute, sang songs of nonsense, crowned a dog as King of Revels and made a beggar with his clack dish lead him up and down the half-cobbled street. I had met a few English before; now I immersed myself in the company of these tail-wearers with their sardonic humour and harsh tongue. I became accepted and so closed with my quarry.

  English envoys had arrived in Paris to negotiate with Philip. Of course their clerks and scribes, after the long day’s business was done, were eager for mischief amongst the English nation. I began to frequent a tavern, the Oriflamme, with a spacious tap room, not too clean; the rushes on the floor often squelched under my boots whilst some of the odours were definitely unsavoury. Nevertheless, this was where the English clerks congregated. At first they were sly-eyed and tight-lipped, but it’s wonderful what a flask of wine, a game of dice, joyful banter and a shared song can change. True, they were full of their own importance. They gave away no secrets; after all, these were clerks of the chancery, trained at their universities of Oxford or Cambridge in all fields of law and duplicity. What I wanted was not their secrets, only the chatter of the court, and they were most willing to share it. I rented a narrow garret with no window except a hole dug through the wall covered by a piece of hardened cloth. With Isabella’s silver it was easy to pose as the daughter of a French lawyer waiting for her father to join her from Dijon. If you pretend to act the mummer’s part, and retain the mask, the world, in the main, will believe you. Once they’d downed their cups and filled their bellies, the clerks regaled me (acting very much the innocent lady) with stories about the English court, especially the rise of Monsieur Gaveston, the king’s favourite, to the earldom of Cornwall.

  ‘Oh yes.’ One of them winked at me, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Earl of Cornwall Gaveston now is, bosom friend of the king, who calls him his dear brother.’

  ‘And the other great lords accept this?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  They chattered on, explaining how Edward of England had no desire to arrest the Templars in his kingdom, whilst he had little inclination for travelling to France, marrying the French king’s daughter or fulfilling the treaty’s obligations.

  ‘If he doesn’t,’ one narrow-faced clerk muttered, ‘there’ll be war and no more journeys to Paris. At least,’ he smiled in a fine display of cracked teeth, ‘until a new peace treaty is signed.’ He put his cup down.

  ‘And there’s the secret . . .’

  Chapter 3

  The fraud of Rulers prevails,

  Peace is trodden underfoot.

  ‘A Song of the Times’, 1272-1307

  Narrow Face, all pimpled and sweaty, stared at me, his half-open mouth slobbering food. He was trying to look cunning but, like all such men, he was stupid. He looked me up and down as if I was some mare at Smithfield Market, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His companions had turned away; some were already arguing about whose dice they should use in the cracked cup, the others were distracted by one of those travelling players who’d appeared in the tavern doorway dressed in black, with the white outline of a skeleton gaudily painted over. He brought his own stool, stood on it and began to intone one of those tearful dirges about death:

  When my eyes mist,

  And my hair hisses,

  And my nose grows cold,

  And my tongue does fold,

  And my strength slacken,

  And my lips blacken.

  And my mouth gaping . . .

  The students took up the refrain of this travelling English mountebank, probably some scholar from the English quarter trying to earn a cr
ust. I was about to turn back when I glimpsed that face which was to haunt me all my life, serene and smooth under grey-dashed hair. It was the eyes which drew me, with their far-seeing gaze. The man was studying me intently. Someone moved between us and, when he passed, the man with the far-seeing gaze had disappeared. I felt the sharp edge of the table press against me. Narrow Face had lurched to his feet, leaning drunkenly across, grinning in a sickening display of yellow teeth.

  ‘Would you like to know the secret, ma jolie?’

  ‘Of course,’ I simpered and, a short while later, I found myself strolling arm in arm with Narrow Face through the nearby cemetery of L’Eglise des Innocents. It was a macabre place, overlooked by the gleaming casements of large merchant houses and entered through a huge porch in a double gateway. Just inside the cemetery was a shrine to St Valery, patron of cures for ailments of the groin. Narrow Face sniggered and pointed out the crude wax penises hanging alongside the shrine. That clerk of the red wax, a member of the King of England’s privy chamber, as I later found out, preened himself showing off his knowledge, pointing out the different stalls and booths selling tawdry trinkets, ribbons and disused clothes. He bowed mockingly at a brace of filles de joie who went tottering past on their stiffened pattens, faces gaudy, hair all dyed, hitching up their skirts to display well-turned ankles.