Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

‘Soft,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘like your flesh beneath.’ He pressed his groin against me. I flinched at his fetid breath. ‘You are one of the Secreti!’ he accused. ‘One of the gargoyles, one of King Philip’s legion of spies. Well, I’ll have my pleasure first.’ He pressed the tip of the dagger harder as he pushed up my skirt.

‘Please, please!’ I begged, trying to distract him.

He laughed, lost in his own intended pleasure. I drew the Italian dagger from my own waistband, and as he pressed against me, one hand scrabbling at the points of his hose, I thrust deep, hard, into his left side up towards the heart. The shock and the pain sent him staggering back at a half-crouch, mouth open, coughing up his life blood. He lurched towards me. I moved quickly along the charnel house wall, which he hit, striking his head, before collapsing to the ground.

I fled the Cemetery of the Innocents out on to the busy cobbled streets. Strange sights and sounds confused me, bells clanged, faces under wimples gaped in surprise, beggars scowled shrouded in their hoods, a pig nosed at the bloated corpse of a cat, a blind child clattered with his stick, a mastiff howled, hair raised, teeth snarling. I fled down an alleyway. An apothecary sign creaking in the breeze caught my glance. I remembered Uncle, his kindly eyes and gentle, soothing voice. I crouched in the narrow doorway of the shop, fighting for breath, wiping away the sweat. Narrow Face’s death was one thing, but the chatter he brought also frightened me. If it was no longer a rumour, if Isabella did not travel to England, what hope for me?

I calmed myself. I had to return to Simon de Vitry; he would know what to do. I approached the merchant’s house avoiding the postern gate, I went up to the main door; it was off the latch. I opened it, stepped into the vestibule and was greeted by the horrors. A few paces away the manservant lay in a pool of his own blood, a crossbow quarrel firmly dug into his back; the clerk lay half out of the small chamber the merchant had first taken me to. At the bottom of the stairs the maid sprawled face down. She had taken a bolt in the chest, and the blood billowed out in a pool beneath her. I distinctly remember the balustrade was blood-free but I noticed a blur of blood high on the white plastered wall. I was so shocked by the horror of it all, I simply stared around this place of sudden death. I went back to the front door, pulling across the bolt, and gazed at the three corpses, all taken by surprise. Death had swept them into his net, suddenly, abruptly. I went across, gingerly edging round the pools of blood, and felt the skin of each corpse. They were not yet cold, the blood still congealing. I climbed the staircase, past the maid’s corpse, trying not to look at her staring eyes, shocked in death. I studied the bloodstain on the plaster and shook my head in surprise, then looked back at the servant girl’s corpse. She lay sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, slightly turned over; the crossbow bolt must have thudded into her and she had fallen forward, the blood splattering down her front on to the stairs. So how had the plaster been stained? Unless the assassin had moved the corpse then tried to climb the stairs, but he would have followed the same route as me, holding on to the balustrade, which was blood-free. I continued up.

Monsieur Simon de Vitry lay on the small gallery just beneath a diptych showing Lazarus summoned from his tomb. The merchant was still wearing his nightgown, his flesh not yet cold. I reasoned that the assassin must have struck shortly before I came, then fled. I stepped over de Vitry’s corpse and entered his small bedchamber; its chests and coffers had been wrenched opened, papers and parchments tossed about. I examined the ground carefully, looking at the stains. How many assassins had there been? All I could find was one bootprint. I looked back down the stairs; the windows were unshuttered, probably the last act by the servant girl before she was surprised by this devil’s ambush.

I know nothing of the humours of the mind. Narrow Face’s death may have unsettled me, but now I felt cold, detached and determined, my blood beat steady, my breath calm. I felt as if I was watching some village masque or a miracle play on the green. I was to observe what the actors said, listen to their chants, but not be part of their drama. I was in great danger in that house, but I wanted to know why Monsieur de Vitry, who had helped me so much, had been slaughtered. If the hue and cry were raised, ‘ Au secours! ’ or ‘ Aidez moi ’ were shouted, I could end my days being buried in the air, swinging off the platform at Montfaucon. However, only one thought remained. Uncle Reginald had helped me and he was dead; this man had helped me, now he was murdered.

I went back into the bedchamber, where coins were spilt out on the floor. Precious items, statues and silver candle-holders had not been stolen, the pretence of robbery had not even been invoked as the reason. One killer, one assassin, callous and arrogant, had struck as sure as a cock on a dung-hill. He must have felt protected. I recalled Narrow Face’s words about the Secreti, the agents of Marigny, Philip’s dark shadow. Philippe, Isabella’s brother, turning to stare at me with that twisted smile on his face. Had Simon de Vitry been murdered because of me?

I returned to the vestibule, increasingly aware of the harsh, brooding silence. I glimpsed a picture of the crucified Christ, his eyes staring out of a haggard face at this scene of reeking, hell-spawned malice and evil. I murmured the ‘Benedicite’ and looked down at the servant, the crossbow bolt embedded so deep into his back. He must have known his murderer. He must have opened the door, inviting him in before turning to lead him up to the merchant’s bedchamber. Was it someone important? Someone dispatched by Philip or Marigny? Certainly a person this household trusted. I walked across to the clerk’s corpse. The quarrel which had killed him was different from that used against the servant. Yet I could only detect one bootprint, not two. How could the assassin have acted so quickly? I closed my eyes, imagining a man carrying a sack containing arbalests, small crossbows neatly primed, taking one out then another, dropping the sack as he walked quickly across the hall. The maid tripping down the stairs, another quarrel loosed, but why that bloodstain so high on the wall?

Sounds from the streets outside echoed eerily. The chanting dirge from a funeral procession, a hired poet interspersing each verse with a poem about death. I recall a line: ‘I lie wounded in the shroud’; it aptly described what was happening to me. The stink of the charnel house and cemetery appeared to have followed me here. I glanced round once more, crossed myself and slipped into the street. I returned hastily to the palace. Strange how life changes! I now carried a royal seal. The guards and serjeants-at-arms scarcely gave me a second glance. I entered the royal quarters and found the princess in the fountain courtyard. She sat head bowed, golden hair tumbling about her. She was dressed simply in a tawny gown and cloak, muttering quietly to herself. I walked across and went to kneel. She glanced over her shoulder.

‘Mathilde, come here.’

I joined her on the bench. She looked up, blue eyes enlarged in her ivory-pale face. She had a linen parcel folded in her lap which she now covered with her hands.

‘They have arrived,’ she whispered, ‘the envoys from England, Sir Hugh Pourte and Sir John Casales. They are here about the marriage. They say it will not proceed.’ She freed one hand and clasped mine.

‘I must escape, Mathilde! What shall we do?’

I clutched her fingers, cold as a sliver of ice. She did not resist as I undid the linen parcel I took from her lap. Inside lay four wax figures smeared with blood and dung. Each wore a tiny paper crown, all four were pierced by a vicious-looking bodkin.