Paul Doherty: The Poison Maiden

We left our barge at a grim-looking quayside and made our way under the massive Lion Gate, across drawbridges spanning a stinking moat and through the Barbican, which reeked of the animal smells from the royal menagerie. A close, narrow place, with blind walls and cobbled pathways, all under the watchful eyes of royal troops who manned the crenellations, towers and gatehouses. Time and again we were stopped as we proceeded deeper into the royal fortress. We crossed the outer bailey, busy with men-at-arms wheeling out and readying the great engines of war, the catapults and trebuchets a sure sign of troubled times. At the entrance of the inner bailey we met Sir John de Cromwell, the stone-faced constable. He was dressed in half-armour, clearly anxious about the crisis at Westminster but too politic to ask. He was the king’s officer, and he told us in a blunt, terse fashion how his task was to ensure that the Tower remained loyal to the Crown. He took us across the rain-sodden green, where huge ravens and hooded crows prodded at the ground with cruel yellow beaks, and up into the four-square Norman keep.

Langton’s chamber, a cavernous cell with a small antechamber, lay next to the Chapel of St John the Evangelist. It was well-furnished room with lancet windows, some shuttered, others screened with horn paper. Turkey rugs warmed the floor and large paintings hung on hooks to offset the grimness of the walls. One in particular caught my attention, The Parade of the Seven Vices led by Pride : a mighty bishop stood admiring himself in a mirror held up for him by a grotesque-faced horned demon. I wondered if Gaveston had insisted that the painting be placed prominently beside the good bishop’s bed. Langton himself looked unabashed by his imprisonment or his surroundings.

The room was stifling hot. A fire blazed in the hearth; braziers and chafing dishes crackled and spluttered. Langton, stretched out on the great bed, was dressed in a simple gown, a thick fur cloak over his shoulders, legs and feet already bared. He was impatient for treatment. Guido and I immediately scrutinised the angry-looking red ulcer. The open sore looked clean, with little infection. I recommended it be washed in salt and wine, then treated with crushed ale-hoof or ground ivory as well as powdered moss mixed with grains of dried milk. Guido, surprisingly, as physicians rarely concur, offered to prepare the recipe and asked the waiting Cromwell to bring the necessary ingredients from the Tower stores. I stood back and studied Langton. A burly, red-faced man with popping eyes and a codfish mouth, he had a swollen belly, fat, heavy thighs and short, muscular arms. I found it difficult to imagine him in episcopal robes. Yet for all his weight, he was quick and lithe in his movements. He turned and stared closely up at me, I caught the cunning in his soul, the scrutiny of a sharp, twisting mind.

‘You must be,’ he scratched his thinning grey hair, ‘Isabella the queen’s little shadow.’

The statement proved how much he knew about the doings of the court.

‘Give my most loyal greetings and rich blessings to your mistress, girl.’

‘I will, Father,’ I retorted. ‘As I give you hers and mine.’ Langton stared at me, threw his head back and laughed raucously. Then he flapped his heavy hands, beating the coverlet either side of him.

‘Very, very good,’ he chuckled. ‘Well, girl, let Master Guido do his business, although your soft touch,’ he leered at me, ‘would also be welcome.’

‘Master Guido’s hands are just as soft.’ I bowed and left Guido to his ministrations. Servants arrived with mortar and pestle, a bowl of hot water and phials of powder from the Tower stores. Guido tactfully walked me away.

‘My lord bishop believes in the natural order of things, Mathilde. You are young and female.’

‘If he wants,’ I whispered back, ‘I can go into London and secure the services of a sixty-year-old physician who might prescribe oleum cataellorum .’

Guido glanced quizzically at me.

‘Live cats boiled in olive oil,’ I murmured. ‘It won’t cure him, possibly kill him, but will keep his honour intact.’

Guido spluttered with laughter. I patted him gently on the shoulder and walked out of the antechamber. When we had first entered, I had noticed the clerk cowled and hunched at the chancery desk. He was still busy poring over some manuscripts in the light of capped candles. Demontaigu had placed his war belt on a stool nearby and apparently gone into the Chapel of St John. From the chamber behind me Langton’s voice bellowed at Guido. I was about to join Demontaigu when the hooded figure turned abruptly. A peaked white face peeped out of the hood, deep-set eyes and bony features dominated by a nose as hooked as a scythe.

‘Mistress,’ his lips hardly moved, ‘I understand you are from the king. I must go back with you.’ The words came more as a hiss than a whisper.

‘Must, sir?’ I drew closer, aware of my voice echoing. ‘Why must?’

‘My name is Chapeleys,’ the man gabbled. ‘I am a clerk.’ He glanced quickly at the chamber door, tilting his head towards Langton’s bellowing. ‘I am his clerk but I am no prisoner here. I must see the king. I have information.’

I gestured towards the other door. He followed me out into the gloomy recess.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why now?’

‘It is urgent,’ Chapeleys insisted. He drew so close I could smell his fear. ‘I am no prisoner,’ he repeated. ‘I can come and go as I wish. I must see the king.’

I glanced back at the half-open door; the glow of candlelight seemed to have followed us. I became acutely aware of the massy grey stone, the hollow, empty feel of that forbidding place. Chapeleys must have eavesdropped on my conversation with Langton and decided to seize his opportunity. The bishop was the king’s enemy, and therefore, by implication, mine. I glanced at Chapeleys’ peaked face.

‘Why are you so frightened?’

‘I have information,’ Chapeleys retorted. ‘His grace must know it.’

I pointed to the stairwell. ‘If you are free to go, monsieur, then go, take your cloak. You have money?’

Chapeleys replied that he had.

‘Go to the Palace of Westminster,’ I declared. ‘Let no one see you. You know St Benedict’s Chapel in the Old Palace?’

Chapeleys nodded.

‘Stay near the Lady Altar,’ I insisted. ‘I shall meet you there immediately on my return.’

Chapeleys scurried about, and a short while later hastened out cloaked and hooded. I glimpsed the poignard pushed into the sheath on his waist and the small leather chancery pouch that he raised before slipping down the stone staircase. I stood and listened. Langton was still bellowing at Guido. I walked into the Chapel of St John, lit by a host of candles glowing around the statue of the Evangelist. Their flickering light illuminated a grisly wall-painting of St John being boiled alive, though he emerged unscathed from his torments. Demontaigu was kneeling before the statue of the Evangelist, hands clasped, head down. I went over and joined him.

‘ Mon coeur .’ My hand brushed his.

‘How is Langton?’ He turned.

I shrugged. ‘Another fat shepherd bemoaning his lot.’

Demontaigu smiled. I quickly told him about Chapeleys. He put a finger to his lips and drew me deep into the shadows on the other side of the statue. For a while he just crouched staring into the darkness.

‘Mathilde,’ he turned, ‘you called me mon coeur ; so I am, as you are mine.’

‘Even though you are a priest?’ I teased, blinking back the tears.

‘What I am, Mathilde, is not what I feel. To be close to you is to be. .’ He paused.

‘Loved?’ I asked, aware of my question echoing around that cavernous chamber, its juddering light bringing the frescoes to life.