Paul Doherty: The Poison Maiden

‘Ever quick.’ He tugged on my hair again, then withdrew his hand. ‘Swift as a lurcher!’ he breathed. ‘I can see the traces of what you once were. Mother told me: your hair black as night, fair-skinned, tender-eyed, slender and willowy as a wand.’

‘Vanity of vanities,’ I mocked. ‘All things pass, sire.’

‘Then tell me, Mathilde,’ the king leaned closer so I could smell the fresh fragrance from his quilted jacket; his gold-ringed fingers edged towards my hands, the skin now dark and spotted like that of a toad, ‘tell me whom you trust.’

‘Put not your trust in princes,’ I quoted. ‘In mortal man in whom there is no help.’

The king drew back, amber eyes gleaming, lips whitespittled like those of an angry cat.

‘See,’ he quoted menacingly back, ‘they lie and wait for your life, powerful men band against you.’

‘I shall hide my face from them,’ I retorted, ‘and see what becomes of them, for they are a deceitful brood with no loyalty in them.’

‘Take your psalms, take your prayers!’ Edward taunted. ‘Go and wait for your God. Shelter in the shadow of Mother’s tomb, but remember, Mathilde, one day I will know the truth.’

‘What is truth?’ I smiled. ‘Pilate asked the same question, though he didn’t wait for an answer. In that way, perhaps,’ I taunted, ‘you do differ from him.’

‘I am no Pilate!’ he yelled. ‘No innocent blood sullies my hands.’

He would have struck me, but his gaze caught the gift, Isabella’s gift, I always wear: a silver brooch with a Celtic cross studded with gems that clasps my cloak. Edward’s clenched fist, his main de fer , hovered over me.

‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘I withdraw my love from you.’

He is so desperate to know the truth! Especially as he has wasted so many opportunities to discover it. He killed gentle Mortimer, gave him ‘a fair trial’, or so he proclaimed it: Mortimer was gagged throughout before being hanged at the elms overlooking Tyburn stream. Isabella never forgave her son for that, and Edward always regretted it. He could have learnt so much! My mistress certainly reminded him of that. For twenty-eight years she baited and taunted her ‘beloved son’ about her secrets. On her deathbed she deepened the murky, mysterious gloom by babbling feverishly about her life. She betrayed herself in words and phrases that flew like darts to sting the king’s pride.

I am old. I consider myself cunning. In truth, I can be as foolish as the next. I thought Edward would leave me buried alive in Grey Friars, for both I and the prior are solemnly bound by the king’s own writ. I am never to leave here. I was wrong. Edward is, if anything, his mother’s son, so any struggle with him is a l’outrance , to the death. In this case, mine. He decided that if he could not learn my secrets, perhaps he should close my mouth for ever so that no one else could either. So, back to that funeral of the man I killed. An anchorite arrived here, a self-proclaimed recluse, a hermit who called himself Rahomer. I was suspicious about him from the start. For fifty years I have dealt with the Judas coven, the traitors, the suborners, the perverters of the truth, spies of every countenance and kind. Despite Rahomer’s mildly ascetic looks, scrawny hair and watery eyes, I recognised the cuckoo in the nest. He did his best with his sanctimonious gaze, the prim set to his lips, his hands ever clutched in prayer. I am a physician; I study signs and symptoms. Rahomer was slender, a man who, by the colour and texture of his skin, the set of his teeth and the smoothness of his fingers, was a child more of this world than the next. The good brothers had no choice but to accept him. Anyone who came with letters close, confirmed by the secret seal of the king, carried complete royal approval for his arrival at Grey Friars.

Our pigeon-toed hermit made himself at home. He was granted the ancient anker-hold built into the south chancel wall of the priory church. It has two windows. The internal one overlooks the sanctuary; the other gazes out over God’s Acre with its decaying forest of crosses and headstones. Rahomer, dressed in brown and white like a pied friar, wandered everywhere, paternoster beads wrapped round his fingers. He proclaimed he was a lay brother dedicated to a stricter rule, so the Franciscans simply accepted him for what he pretended to be. Prior Stephen was different. From the occasional sharp glance at our sanctimonious toad’s pious gestures, Father Prior was not convinced. I certainly wasn’t. Now and again I drew Rahomer into conversation. I acted the witless old woman who wandered the friary eager to talk to anyone. I asked if he had ever read the Anciente Rewle , a spiritual reflection on the life of an anchorite. He replied that he had, but he stumbled over the words and his shifty eyes never met mine.

Now my chamber at Grey Friars is a cavernous, stark cell with crumbling stone walls, a stained raftered ceiling and a dusty floor covered with rushes. It stands off the small cloisters overlooking some wasteland, a deserted, quiet place. I would often sit near the cloister garth studying the grotesque faces of the gargoyles and wondering who they reminded me of. The good brothers were ever courteous. They left me alone. Master Rahomer did not. On occasions I’d return to find my papers had been disturbed. Someone had entered my chamber secretly, carefully sifting my belongings. I suspected, by mere logic, our self-proclaimed holy anchorite, so I brought him under closer scrutiny.

Rahomer was accustomed to receive visitors at the anker-hold window overlooking God’s Acre, men and women desperate for spiritual advice. They must have been, to consult that reed shaking in the wind. Ecclesiasticus is correct — pride and arrogance lie at the root of all sin. In my experience they are also the cause of many a spy being hanged. Master Rahomer concluded I was what I looked, a grey-haired, stooped old crone. Isn’t it strange how people dismiss the old as if they don’t even exist? He never reflected about me. I did about him. He had one constant visitor, a man garbed in brown fustian, obviously a royal clerk despite this clumsy disguise. Such intrusion I expected; murder I did not.

The anchorite arrived around the Feast of St Peter ad Vincula; by Michaelmas he was trying to kill me. Rahomer was a malicious soul, biding his time and striking silently. I eat in my own chamber; the refectorian leaves my food on a stone ledge outside. On that particular day I had attended solemn high mass. Afterwards I waited until the sanctuary was empty so I could approach Isabella’s tomb and talk to her, as is my custom, so I was delayed in my returning. When I did, I picked up the tray and studied the platter carefully. I have a horror of rats, a relic of the Great Pestilence as well as hideous imprisonment in a French dungeon. I recognised traces of my old enemy: the splayed five-clawed toes, the slight gnaw marks, the hard black pellets; my tray had certainly been visited by vermin. I was surprised: the refectorian always covered the platters with wooden lids, but on that occasion two of these were missing. I decided not to eat and left the food to be collected. I was about to enter my chamber when I heard a scuffling, a scrabbling in the far corner of the hollow-stone gallery leading down to the small cloisters. I plucked a walking cane from my chamber and went over to investigate. I poked and prodded. The scrabbling was repeated, followed by a hideous squealing, and a brown rat, thickset and furred, sped out of the shadows only to roll on its side, paws thrashing the air. It had been poisoned.

I returned to the tray. The bread and cheese had been left covered. I examined both but could detect no taint. The potage of meat and diced vegetables was cold. I sniffed the bowl, and immediately recognised an old acquaintance: the magnificent glistening purple monkshood. Its red berry smell conceals the most deadly poison, particularly the juice crushed from the roots and seeds. If consumed, monkshood scours the organs of the belly like a sharpened steel rasp. Master Rahomer, and I was sure it was he, had chosen well. What could I do? I am no pug-nosed brawler in a London runnel. My opponent had a soul as narrow as a coffin, hard black with malice, and a conscience unbending as iron. He intended to kill me, yet to whom could I appeal? Who would defend me?