Paul Doherty - The Darkening Glass

‘His grace,’ the favourite chose his words carefully, ‘now realises that we are trapped here in the north. Our couriers report how the earls completely control the roads south as well as all bridges and river crossings.’

‘So no help can come north.’ Henry Beaumont stated the obvious. He undid the cloth button of his cloak, which displayed the royal heraldic device he was so proud of: silver lilies on a green background. He threw off the cloak, revealing a costly green jerkin underneath, then shook his shoulders and gestured at the door. ‘We have no troops. Only Ap Ythel and his Welsh archers, our own retinues and whatever local levies we can summon.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Gaveston’s half-whisper was a chilling indictment of Edward’s incompetence. He’d locked himself in York and could summon no troops; little wonder he had to tolerate mercenaries such as the Noctales, turn a blind eye to massacre and murder and ignore the death of Lanercost. I had been so immersed in my own troubles that only then did the real danger besetting the Crown and my mistress seep in like a river, swollen with rain, that abruptly rises and breaks its banks. Edward was not only a fugitive in his own kingdom but in grave danger of losing his crown.

‘No help out of France?’ Lady Vesci murmured.

Edward just shook his head.

‘And Scotland?’ Dunheved asked.

‘To even treat with them is dangerous and treasonable,’ Beaumont bellowed. ‘So what is to be done?’

‘Your grace.’ Dunheved rose, pushing back his chair. ‘I beg you,’ the Dominican had a powerful preacher’s voice, ‘as confessor to both your grace and the queen, I can come to only one conclusion. My lord Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall, should he not leave the kingdom for a while, shelter well away from the king?’

‘You mean exile, Brother Stephen?’ Edward glared at the Dominican. ‘For what purpose? How can I be king yet allow my subjects to dictate who sits at my council board?’

No one dared answer him. Edward’s rages were sudden and furious. I glanced at Isabella. She sat motionless, still playing with that ring, lost in her own thoughts.

‘I have,’ Gaveston stirred in his chair, ‘ordered Scarborough Castle on the coast to be provisioned and fortified. It’s only a short journey to the east.’ He paused as Dunheved quietly clapped his hands in approval. Sic tempora — such are the times! Scarborough! A place of refuge! Oh, so true are the words of the psalmist: My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts, yea, even as high as heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above yours! Gaveston had unwittingly chosen the stage for the rest of that murderous charade to be played out. At the time, however, the prospect of refuge in a castle was seized on by the Beaumonts as a compromise. Scarborough, so we thought, could be easily defended. More importantly, it boasted a small port, and if Gaveston changed his mind, it was an ideal place from which to slip into exile.

The favourite then moved to the question of supplies for the journey to the coast. He was explaining how he would use his own henchmen, the Aquilae, to scour the roads to Scarborough when the harmony of the friary was shattered by the clanging of the tocsin, a constant tolling of the church bells. Edward sprang to his feet, shouting for Ap Ythel. The Welsh captain and his company threw open the door and thronged into the chamber, swords already drawn. Beaumont yelled for his own war-harness to be brought, while his brother Louis quickly donned a stole, a sign that he was a cleric and carried no sword. For a while we thought that Lancaster and the earls had, through forced marches, secretly slipped into York and reached the friary. The parlour became a scene of shouting and mayhem. Only my mistress remained seated; she’d taken ivory and mother-of-pearl Ave beads out of her purse and was sifting them carefully through her fingers. I went and crouched by her chair. She smiled down at me and gently stroked my head.

‘My lady, you are silent?’

‘ Video atque taceo ,’ she murmured. ‘I watch and keep silent, as will you, Mathilde. Watch!’ A hand bell, raucously rung, stilled the clamour in the parlour. A young Franciscan, gasping for breath, forced himself through the crowd to kneel before the king, who stood, arms outstretched, as Ap Ythel strapped on the royal sword-belt.

‘Your grace.’ The friar spoke in the local patois, then changed to Norman French. ‘Your grace, there is no danger, but,’ he lifted his head, ‘one of my lord Gaveston’s squires, Master Leygrave, he’s been found in the same way. .’

The rest of his statement was drowned by shouts of consternation. Gaveston undid his own sword-belt and sat down on his chair, fingers to his lips like a frightened child. Edward glanced at me and gestured with his head to leave.

‘Go,’ Isabella hissed, not lifting her face. ‘Go, Mathilde! Vide atque tace — watch and keep silent!’

Escorted by a dark-faced Ap Ythel and three of his archers, all dressed in their leather breastplates, faces almost hidden by their deep cowls, I left the prior’s parlour. We went down hollow-sounding galleries, across the garden plots into the great yard or bailey, its cobbles sparkling in the rain. A crowd had gathered. The three Aquilae clustered around Leygrave’s corpse which was sprawled grotesquely, the blood from his cracked head mingling with the muddy rain. I forced my way through. Leygrave lay almost in the same spot as Lanercost. I glanced quickly up at the tower, those ominous windows. .

‘Mistress.’ Brother Eusebius shuffled forward. ‘I rang the Angelus bell, I recited the prayer: Angelus Domini annuntiavit Mariae — the Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary-’

‘Yes, yes,’ I interrupted.

‘Well, I had reached the seventh toll,’ he squinted up at the sky, ‘and the screaming began outside.’

‘We were close by,’ Rosselin added. ‘In fact we were looking for Philip; he’d been with us when we broke our fast, then left.’

Rosselin’s hair and face were soaked with rain, his leather jerkin and those of his two companions drenched black by the downpour. They were agitated, frightened men. They’d donned their war-belts, though, like Lanercost, Leygrave hadn’t.

‘Where,’ I asked, thanking Eusebius with a nod of my head, ‘are his sword and dagger?’

‘God knows.’ Rosselin abruptly got to his feet.

He and the others were expressing their fear by yelling at the curious to stand back. Dunheved came bustling through, stole around his neck, a jar of holy oils in his hand. I let him administer extreme unction over the corpse and stared back towards the church. Demontaigu stood in the doorway. I beckoned him over as Brother Eusebius whispered hoarsely in my ear, ‘They were the ones!’

‘What?’ I asked.

The lay brother pointed a bony finger across to the main door leading into the yard, where the Beaumonts sheltered against the rain.

‘What did they do?’ I asked.

‘Talked to the dead man.’

‘You mean Leygrave?’ I drew closer, aware of Dunheved’s voice murmuring the absolution.

‘No, the other one, the first to fly like an eagle.’

I glanced at Eusebius’ foolish face and realised his wits were sharper than had first appeared.

‘Saw them speaking to him, the morning he fell,’ Eusebius added, ‘out in the apple orchard.’ His voice grew hoarser. ‘Sees a lot, does Brother Eusebius, and for some coins, he could tell you much more.’ Then he scuttled away.

Dunheved finished his anointing, then he rose, smiled and hurried off. The Aquilae clustered around the battered corpse. I inspected it carefully: a gruesome mass of bruises and shattered bones, cracks to the skull and ghastly wounds disfiguring his face. One arm was no more than a coil of thick hardening flesh, his right leg horribly twisted.