Paul Doherty: The Darkening Glass

‘We must go.’ He gestured.

I joined him and the others in the stable yard. Cowled and cloaked, they looked like a group of monks preparing to go on pilgrimage, though their dark and sombre attire hid weapons, whilst from the saddle horns on their horses hung arbalests and battle axes. These were once Templars, but now, by royal and papal decree, they were outlaws and wolf’s-heads. Those who’d survived capture had moved north, and had entered into secret negotiations with Robert the Bruce. They wanted sanctuary and refuge with the Scottish war-leader, who had the grace and good sense to welcome these battle-hardened warriors. Jewels, records and other movables of those Templar houses that had escaped forfeiture had already been dispatched across the northern march for safe keeping. Five Templar serjeants had recently been sent into Scotland with more chests and coffers. Demontaigu and the rest were to meet these men out on the moors at Devil’s Hollow and find out what reception had been accorded before leading them back into York. Nothing was done in writing, as Bruce had been publicly judged a traitor to the English crown. Despite Gaveston’s own secret negotiations with the Scots, anyone convicted of treating with the Bruce would suffer the full rigours of the law for treason, being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Demontaigu had explained all this to me. I was to accompany them, as I carried warrants under the privy and secret seals allowing safe passage wherever I wished. The former Templars had come to the friary and were now ready to go. They greeted me with grunts and nods. I recognised a few: Simon Estivet, acting grand master in England after William de la More’s imprisonment in Canterbury; next to him, Ausel the Irishman, who liked to exaggerate what he called his Celtic charm and temperament. In truth a killer to the bone, Ausel was dedicated to revenge for what the Templars had suffered. Because of Demontaigu, as well as my status with the queen, I was not so much accepted as tolerated by these hunted men. Ausel was the only one to greet me by name and courteously helped me with the stirrups of my horse. To break the tense, sombre mood, he swung himself into the saddle and immediately insisted on proclaiming a bawdy story about a monastery near Clontarf outside Dublin, where the monks could fly and their abbot could only summon them back by beating the bare round bottoms of novice nuns. The story provoked some laughter. Ausel scrutinised me for blushes. I tartly informed him that lechery at the English court was as common as his stories. He laughed and pushed his horse ahead.

I rode alongside Demontaigu, who was lost in his own thoughts. I left him to it as we passed under the friary gatehouse, turning right along King’s Staith, which would take us to the bridge across the Ouse on to Micklegate Bar. The day had promised rich sunshine, but now this was beginning to fade. Nevertheless, the good citizens of York, powerful burgesses with baggy cheeks as soft as clay, accompanied by their harsh-faced, barrel-bottomed wives, were parading in all their fineries. A thin, stinking mist seeped in from the Ouse, carrying the stench of tar, salt, pickle and dried fish. Such smells mingled with the rich odours from the pie shops, bakeries and smithies as well as the shabby stalls offering a range of food to those who worked along the river and its quayside. A busy, motley throng of the living and the dead, for it was early afternoon, and funeral parties carrying staves, candles and tawdry banners escorted coffins from the river down to the various churches where the death watch would be kept until the final requiem mass the following morning. The track-ways were clogged with mud and ordure drying hard under the sun. All of York seemed to have emptied itself on to the streets. A surge of people of every type and rank, busily intent on reaching the markets or simply strolling in the not so fresh air, enjoying the sun after winter’s bleak blackness.

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.