Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

I did, but I shook my head, only to receive another slap, this time softer, on my face.

‘You’re not a very good liar, Mathilde. You will be, if you serve me and live in my household. You do know what I am talking about?’

She turned, cocking her head slightly as if listening to her invisible companion. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

‘Shall I tell you something, Mathilde? Marie has changed her mind. She thinks she likes you, and so do I.’ She began to sing softly under her breath, a Goliard hymn, a wandering scholar’s filthy song. I wondered who could have taught her that.

‘Can I trust you, Mathilde?’

‘With your life?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ She pouted. ‘Can I trust you?’

‘Of course, madame, I am your servant.’

‘Of course you are,’ she mimicked, eyes dancing with merriment. ‘I told a lie. They are frightened of me! They want me to leave and I want to go. Mathilde, have you heard the stories? How my father may have poisoned my mother? That’s what the gossips claim. Father heard a servant girl repeat it; she was burned and her lover was hanged in Father’s apple orchard. He claimed they were guilty of treason, but why should he burn a girl and hang a boy because of rumour and malicious gossip? Anyway,’ she continued, ‘they’ll be glad to see me leave here. They’re frightened, you know.’

‘What of?’ I asked.

‘Ah, you’ll see. Virgo intacta,’ she murmured. ‘I am supposed to go to Edward virgo intacta.’

‘Of course you are, your grace,’ I hastily replied, just wishing I could get up from my knees.

‘You may sit beside me now.’ The order came so swiftly, I wondered if she knew exactly what I was thinking and who I really was. I sat down beside her. She edged closer, pressing her body against me. I felt her warmth and realised she must have a jar of heated coals beneath her cloak to fend off the cold.

‘You see, Mathilde, no one really wants to come with me to England. Father has chosen the ladies for my retinue as well as the servants for my household. Most of them will be his spies and dutifully report back. I told him that I wanted servants I could trust, people not from the court. Father, of course, has had his way, so he’s become too bored, or too busy, to deal with it. Uncle Charles said he would do what he could. He mentioned you. Anyway, you are a change!’

Again she turned away to talk to the invisible Marie, chattering away in a language I couldn’t understand. She glanced back at me.

‘You’re wondering what tongue I’m using. Well, I will tell you, it’s a language only Marie and I understand.’

‘How long has Marie been with you?’

‘Oh, as long as I remember. I was telling you why they are frightened, my brothers and my father? Well, for the last two years my brothers have come into my bedchamber. Oh yes they do.’ She nudged me playfully. ‘They slide between the sheets and fondle my body; even Father, when he wishes to embrace me, puts his hands where he should not. I know that, Mathilde, because of Ursula; she was an old lady-in-waiting, one of my mother’s people, dark of skin, with a sour disposition but a keen eye and an even sharper tongue.’

‘And what happened to Ursula?’

‘She protested. She objected to what she had seen and became angry with my brother Louis. Anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘a week later Ursula fell down some steps and broke her neck. They buried her in the poor man’s plot in the cemetery, the one the soldiers use, as no one claimed her body. She had no relatives here.’

The two knights remained huddled in the corner, lost in their own conversation, no longer bothered about me or the princess they were supposed to be guarding.

‘Yes, they are frightened,’ Isabella repeated. ‘They don’t want me to tell Edward what has happened. Can you imagine, Mathilde, if the new King of England, that lusty warrior, discovered I had shared my bed with my own brothers, where we’d played tumble games? He’d object. He’d write to the Holy Father in Avignon. I have sworn an oath to my father and my brothers to keep silent on that matter, provided I have my way in certain things; one of them is you, Mathilde. You will sleep at the door of my chamber.’ She rose to her feet and thrust the small heated pot she brought from beneath her cloak into my hands.

‘Warm yourself and come, follow me.’

We entered the palace, and climbed a wooden staircase. The princess’s chambers stood along a small gallery, three rooms in all: a main chamber, flanked by a waiting room and another for stores. The gallery was of polished wood, panelling along one wall and against the outer one deep window seats overlooking the fountain courtyard. Ladies-in-waiting were sitting there muffled against the cold, warming themselves over chafing dishes, pretending to be busy with embroidery; of course they had been watching us all the time. They rose as the princess approached. One hastened forward and grasped her by the hand, exclaiming loudly how cold her mistress felt. The princess shrugged this off and dismissed them. She swept into her own chamber. I followed.

‘Close the door,’ the princess called out over her shoulder. I put down the warming pot and hastened to obey.

‘Pull the bolts at top and bottom,’ she continued. ‘So no one can disturb us.’

I did so. Isabella turned, unfastened her cloak and let it fall. She was dressed in a blood-red woollen gown edged with ermine, fastened at the neck by a silver cord. Before I could protest, she undid this, easing the gown over her shoulders to fall at her feet. She then removed her kirtle, and her undergarments, until she stood naked before me, a young woman’s body, breasts already sprouting, hips widening. She turned, spreading out her hands.

‘Demoiselle Mathilde, this is what I will take to Edward of England. Now it’s time for something warmer.’

She redressed in woollen undergarments, quickly putting on a blue and silver gown, taking a pelisse from a peg on the wall to wrap about her shoulders. I was so embarrassed at her actions I glanced round the chamber, at the bed drapes, the Turkey rugs, the glorious coloured arras and tapestries resting against the pink-painted plaster. Above me hung a wooden chandelier; it carried six candles and could be lowered by a rope to shed greater light. Across the room stood a small writing desk and high-backed chair. The desk was covered with pieces of parchment and quills. Around the chamber ranged chests, some sealed and locked, others, with their lids thrown back, from which spilled precious cloth, brocaded clothing, belts, books, all the possessions of a rich, spoilt, pampered girl. Well, that was my first impression. I was yet to realise how Isabella could have performed in any mummers’ play, shifting from mood to mood, sometimes a child, at others a young woman. Now and again she’d act the innocent until her face assumed a cunning look as if she was calculating everything, weighing all she saw and heard in the balance. Whatever Marie had told her, Isabella had seemed to greet me as if I was a long-lost servant, as if we had known each other for years. Now she walked across and sat on the high-backed chair before the writing desk. She snapped her fingers, gesturing at a quilted stool in the corner.

‘Bring that over here, Mathilde, sit next to me.’

I did so, and Isabella rubbed her hands. ‘I’m cold.’ She pointed to the wheeled brazier just inside the door, the charcoal spluttering, small tendrils of smoke escaping, mingling with the perfume of sweet powders sprinkled on top. ‘Bring that across, Mathilde’. I hurried to do so. Once I had taken my seat, she gestured at another table where there was a jug of fruit juice and two goblets.

‘Fill both, one for you and one for me.’ So the game continued as she sent me hither and thither around the room, for this or that. Eventually she tired and turned to face me, once again swinging her legs, as if wondering whether to kick me or not.