Paul Doherty - The Darkening Glass

‘Mistress Mathilde. You cannot stay here. You cannot bring him here. This business is finished.’ He turned and walked back into the gatehouse even as I screamed abuse at him, begging him for the love of God and His Beloved Mother to show some pity for the dead.

‘Mistress,’ one of the shoemakers whispered, ‘we have done what we can; it is best if we take him back from where he came.’

They turned the cart round despite my protest. We were about to leave, go back through that alleyway Gaveston had been marched along to execution, when I heard my name called. I turned. Brother Alexander, dressed in his black and white robes, stood at the corner of a street; behind him was a cart driven by lay brothers from his house. The Dominican walked over, his face all smiles.

‘Mistress Mathilde, Mistress Mathilde.’

He helped me down from the shoemakers’ cart, and for a while just stood holding my hands, lips moving as he quietly recited the requiem.

‘My lord Gaveston’s corpse.’ He gestured at the cart. ‘You have it there. Mistress, you’ve kept your promise. You fulfilled your vow. We will now take it.’

I could not object. What could I do? Brother Alexander called across to his colleagues. Gaveston’s remains were transferred from the shoemakers to the Dominicans. The friar turned to me, lifted his hand, sketched a blessing in the air, then left. I watched the cart rattle away.

Brother Alexander was true to his word. The Dominicans, God bless them, took Gaveston’s mortal remains to their house at Oxford. Here they were washed, embalmed and rubbed with balsam, the head stitched back with silver twine, and placed in an open casket. If I remember correctly, it was two years before the king finally agreed to the burial of the embalmed corpse of the man he loved ‘beyond all others’.

I returned to Warwick Castle but was not allowed entry. A kindly chamberlain agreed to go to my chamber above the hall and brought down all my belongings. He even gave me a linen parcel of food and a small wineskin. I thanked him and took lodgings in a spacious tavern in the town. I used the gold and silver pieces stitched into a secret pocket on my belt to hire a well-furnished chamber. I also went out into the marketplace and bought some new clothes, for I felt dirty, soiled, polluted by what I’d seen. I returned to my chamber, stripped, washed, anointed my body and dressed.

Afterwards I took my old clothing in a bundle down to a beggar at the corner of an alleyway and thrust it into her hands. I stayed at the tavern three days, resting and eating. I gave the tavern master a coin to advise me who was staying there and where they were going. On the fourth day I met a group of wool merchants travelling to York; they kindly agreed that I could join their company.

Three days later I reached York and made my way to the Franciscan house. Father Prior made me welcome but assured me that the court, both king and queen, had now moved to the more grand furnishings of St Mary’s Abbey, though I was most welcome to stay in their guest house. Master Bertrand Demontaigu had also visited but was now absent on business elsewhere. The prior added that he was surprised at Demontaigu’s requests but had conceded to them in the hope that the mysterious deaths that had occurred in his friary church could be resolved. God bless those friars: they welcomed me as if I was their sister. I was given the most comfortable chamber and savoury food. The following morning Demontaigu returned.

We met in the same rose garden where Lanercost and all the other Aquilae had sprawled laughing and drinking when we brought the news about the massacre out on the moors. Now it seemed a lifetime away. The garden was silent, heavy with summer fragrance, a change from the stark bleakness of Scarborough, that horrid line of trees on Blacklow Hill, Gaveston’s corpse saturated in its own blood, the severed head of a once splendid earl lying in the undergrowth like a piece of pork on a flesher’s stall. I confided in Bertrand all the fears haunting my soul, the images and dreams, the phantasms and nightmares that plagued my mind. Bertrand sat on the turf seat beside me, clutching my hand, watching my face, very much like the confessor he was. Once I’d finished, he informed me of how the king was distraught at his favourite’s death yet strangely unwilling to move against the assassins of his beloved brother Gaveston. Rumours, Demontaigu confided, were flying as thick and fast as feathers in a hen coop.

‘God knows, Mathilde,’ he declared, ‘perhaps the king is secretly relieved that Gaveston is gone.’

Demontaigu then referred to other matters I’d asked him to investigate on his return to York. What he told me simply confirmed my own suspicions. He had visited the friary library and, much to the prior’s surprise, had taken the ‘man of straw’, as he put it, dressed in clothes, up to that lonely haunted belfry. He laughingly described what had then ensued, and as if in gentle mockery of his words, the great bells began to toll the call to Vespers. Demontaigu waited until they’d stopped.

‘You know the truth, Mathilde. Will you not tell me?’

‘Soon.’ I gently touched him on the cheek. ‘Soon I will, when these things done in the dark have been brought to light. Eventually they will, but in the meantime, Bertrand, for your sake and that of my mistress, it is best if silence is observed. Gaveston’s death has achieved little except to define where everyone stands. The pieces have moved on the chess board and they’ll move again. A period of calm will ensue,’ I murmured, ‘until the furies gather once more. In the meantime, I follow my mistress’ advice: video atque taceo — I watch and stay silent.’

Bertrand teased me for a while. He made me repeat the macabre details about Blacklow Hill. Perhaps he wanted to exorcise my soul as well as learn more about Gaveston and about the massacre of his Templar brethren out at Devil’s Hollow.

‘But that is not the root of this evil, is it, Mathilde?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘The malicious, murderous mischief plotted in Scotland is the cause of a great deal of what has happened since. The Beaumonts, God save them, were a mere irritation. They rightly suspected villainy was being planned but they thought it concerned their estates, that Edward was in some secret pact with Bruce to surrender all claims in Scotland. They were wrong. Gaveston was plotting greater villainy.’

‘And now you know the truth?’

‘Oh yes.’ I let go of his hands. ‘I wanted you back here and you have done what I asked.’ I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Trust me. I was no fair damsel in peril by land and sea. God knows, Warwick and the rest were courteous enough. They were just hawks who selected their quarry, Gaveston. They have made their kill. They are satisfied, at least for the moment. Our king is fickle. He will wait and watch, grieve and shout. He will hide his secret feelings because he will never let Gaveston’s death rest. Eventually he will remember me and summon me to account, but I shall simply tell him what he wants to hear. Now, Bertrand, is the time of danger. I must, in some secret form, allow the truth to emerge, and you must leave. I have sent urgent messages to her grace to meet me — God knows when she will reply.’

In the end, Isabella, as I suspected, replied swiftly. Bertrand and I had kissed and parted. The good brothers were gathering in their incense-filled choir stalls when Isabella, with little ceremony or advance warning, accompanied only by her few trusted squires, slipped into the friary. She looked radiant, dressed in dark blue with a silver cord around her bulging stomach, a jewelled cross on a silver chain about her neck, her face almost hidden by a thick gauze veil. We met, kissed and exchanged the courtesies in the prior’s parlour. Beside the queen stood Dunheved, his olive face a serene mask of contentment. He knew what had happened to Gaveston’s corpse and openly praised my diligence as a great act of mercy. I just stared coldly back. Isabella caught my glance but chattered on merrily as if I had just been on a courtesy visit or shopping for her in the nearby market. Only when we three were alone in that rose garden, with the light beginning to fade, the perfume from the flowers thickening the air, did she drop all pretence. Her Fideles , as she called her household squires, those same young men who had resolutely defended her at Tynemouth, sealed all entrances to the garden. Isabella sat on a turf seat so her back could rest against the flower-covered trellis; she lovingly rubbed her stomach, caressing the child within.