Paul Doherty - The Poison Maiden

Once back at Westminster, I asked Demontaigu to accompany me to Burgundy Hall and immediately asked to see Isabella. She was entertaining leading aldermen of the city, resplendent in their scarlet robes. Only when they left could I see her alone. Demontaigu waited outside. Isabella looked magnificent in cloth of gold, her beautiful hair hidden under a white veil held in place by a green chaplet. She looked strangely at me as I knelt before her like a penitent waiting to be shriven. I clasped my hands, placed them in her lap and stared up at her. At first my words came haltingly, but I soon gained confidence. I told her everything I suspected, and what must be done. Now and again she would hold up her bejewelled fingers, ask me a question, then tell me to continue. When I had finished, she sat staring down at me and shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Impossible, yet probable,’ she whispered, then leaned forward and kissed me full on the lips. She took my face between her hands, pressing gently, staring into my eyes.

‘Mathilde, I have always seen you as my alter ego, my soul, my confidante. Do you remember the teachings of the school? If a hypothesis is true in part, then it is possible that it is true in all aspects. Well, let us test it.’ She asked me to summon Demontaigu and Ap Ythel to her chamber. When they arrived, she swore them to secrecy. Ap Ythel objected to this, saying his first duty was to the king. Isabella countered this. ‘No, sir, your first duty is to the Crown, and I am part of that. If what I say is the truth, then the king will be pleased. You are to search Burgundy Hall from its rafters to the cellars, every nook, every corner, every cranny. You must look for anything out of place, not just a weapon hidden away or a damaged bolt on a door, but anything where it should not be. Then come back and report to me.’

Once she had dismissed them, she sent a page boy for the supervisor of the king’s works, the clerk responsible for the cleaning of the latrines and cesspits. The man came all nervous and fell immediately to his knees. Isabella assured him all was well.

‘I have one question, sir. You must keep that and your answer confidential until I speak to my husband.’

The man swallowed hard, nodding vigorously.

‘What was the cause of the blockage to the latrines and sewers?’

The clerk shrugged and spread his hands. ‘Mistress, you know how narrow the runnels are; they become easily clogged. What is lying down there is rotting but bulky enough to create a blockage.’

‘And?’ Isabella asked imperiously. ‘What did you find? Sir, I do not wish a full description of what you dragged from the sewers and cesspits; just what caused the blockage, the foul smells in this palace.’

‘Simple enough, your grace,’ he replied quickly. ‘Cloth, coarse wool, some wire, hardened parchment-’

‘Except,’ I intervened, ‘surely it is rare for so many sewers and latrines to become blocked at the same time, unless they feed into the one pit?’

‘Yes, I did wonder about that,’ the clerk mumbled, ‘how different latrines became blocked at the same time, but there again, it can happen. Page boys, squires, maids,’ he smiled nervously at me, ‘they could do it deliberately. Now they are cleared and run clean, flushed with water.’

My mistress thanked and dismissed him. After he’d gone, she asked me to help her undress. Once finished, she stood on a turkey carpet in the centre of her chamber dressed only in a bed-robe, her long hair falling down almost to her shoulder blades. She looked older, her face drawn; the way her eyes kept moving from left to right to left betrayed her agitation, her nervousness at what she had to do.

‘Mathilde, it is best if you retire to your chamber. I wish to be alone.’

I bowed and left. Of course, I visited Guido, but he was now out of bed, dressed and shaved, his hair oiled and crimped. He explained how the queen dowager and her children had returned to their own quarters in the Old Palace. I asked him about Agnes. Guido raised his eyes heavenward.

‘My mistress sent her to Marigny on some errand; that was yesterday evening, and she has not returned. Why do you ask, Mathilde?’

I replied that I wished to speak to her, thanked him and left. He called after me how he hoped to visit me, as he would soon be joining the queen dowager. I returned to my own chamber, locked and bolted the door, prepared my chancery desk and started to write down my thoughts, this time more coherently, in a logical form, like a peritus in the chancery drawing up a bill of indictment.

Demontaigu and I had returned to Westminster as the bells rang the Angelus, so it was late afternoon before a page boy asked me to join my mistress in her chambers. She seemed more calm and poised.

‘Mathilde, we must wait upon Ap Ythel and Demontaigu. If they discover what we suspect, then I must approach the king, not you. It is my hour, my day. So tell me again.’

I did so, sitting opposite her as if telling a story, my words no longer stumbling. I had hardly finished when Ap Ythel and Demontaigu, dirt-marked, their clothing all stained, asked for an audience. Once the door was closed and both were seated on stools before the queen, Demontaigu glanced at Ap Ythel, who nodded.

‘Your grace, Mathilde, I must apologise. We found other weapons in the gardens, daggers and swords, but nothing else until we came to the cellars. In Burgundy Hall,’ Ap Ythel used his hands to demonstrate, ‘the cellars are dug deep and stretch virtually from one end of the building to the other. They are small rooms, each cut off by a jutting wall; they not only serve as storerooms, but also support the building above. Wine casks and other provisions are kept there. We found something else: bulging skins, sacks full of oil tied tightly at the neck, pushed behind barrels or wedged tightly into corners.’

I closed my eyes and murmured a prayer.

‘There was more,’ Ap Ythel continued. ‘Small casks of saltpetre, fire powder, your grace. I served with the late king four years ago when he besieged Stirling. I saw him use such oil and powder to crack the hardest stone.’

‘And these lie throughout the cellar?’ Isabella asked.

‘Yes, your grace. Once sworn to secrecy, the master of the stores, the cellarer, and the master of the pantry and the kitchen were questioned, but no one knew anything about these things. In fact, as we interrogated them, I could tell they were concerned. One candle, one torch. .’

‘And what would have happened?’ Isabella asked.

‘Burgundy Hall would have been turned into a roaring inferno,’ Demontaigu replied. ‘The oil and powder together with the dry wood, wine and other stores in the cellar would create a fire hotter than a furnace. Some of the hall is built of wood. The flames would simply roar up, bursting through one floor after another whilst draughts would sweep the fire the length of the building. Within a few heartbeats, your grace, and I do not exaggerate, Burgundy Hall would become hell on earth. I have seen such fires spread; it doesn’t wait, it actually leaps, the smoke itself can choke you.’

I stared at the tapestry on the wall: a gift to the queen from the scholars of St Paul’s. It described the legend of Medusa, who lived in the furthest extremes of Africa where the hot earth is burnt by fire at sunset. Medusa cradled her own severed head whilst from her neck swarmed hissing serpents, their flickering tongues spitting blood. Vipers hung loose around her body as those awful eyes in that severed head glared out. The picture caught my mood of horror.

‘They meant to kill us all,’ I whispered. ‘If that cellar was lighted at the dead of night, the fire would spread, and the king, my lord Gaveston. .’ I stared at Isabella. She sat, face hard, eyes bright with anger. ‘No one would have survived, or very few.’