Paul Doherty: The Cup of Ghosts

‘If Sister Mathilde wishes to pray by the old queen’s tomb,’ he declared at a chapter meeting, ‘then she must be allowed to pray.’

I did so every day, round about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the church was empty and the good brothers never assembled to sing God’s praises. I’d crouch like a dog and press my cheek against the cold stone, running my hand over the carved sculpting. In my mind I went back to some lush garden or splendid chamber with lozenge-shaped floor tiles, decorated cloths on the wall, a fire roaring under the mantled hearth, and everywhere the cloying perfume of my mistress. I spoke to her dead as I did to her alive. She used to call me her Lady of Hell. I was the keeper of her dark secrets.

Anyway, I digress. Last summer I went to her tomb on the eve of the Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist. I recall gazing at a painting on the wall of the Good Thief at Golgotha, his bloody, tattered corpse hanging from the cross, his face twisted in agony, turning to speak to the Saviour, to beg for salvation. Beneath the cross stood the tormentors of Christ with the faces of apes and monkeys, an appropriate scene. I often felt like that Good Thief, but there again, sometimes I allow self-pity to consume me as fire does dry kindling.

On that summer afternoon I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the painting, those ape-like faces, the grimacing monkey mouths, the hanging body laced with blood.

‘I’ve seen so many corpses,’ I whispered. I cannot seal the door to the past. The distraction sprang out of the dark heart of a nightmare, a memory of Hereford, and Despenser hanging from the seventy-foot-high gallows; Isabella and Mortimer watching his final torments, eating and drinking, toasting each other with their looted goblets. Despenser’s corpse dangling like a doll, feet kicking the air; the executioner scaling the ladder to drag the half-dead man down to slit his stomach and rip off his testicles. Blood lapping out like water from a split cask as Despenser’s screams rang across the market square.

‘So much,’ I whispered. ‘So much.’ Then I heard her voice, as she used to talk, standing behind me, whispering as if we were lovers.

‘Cleanse yourself, Mathilde! Have your sins shriven, know some peace.’

I told Father Guardian this. He just laughed. He claimed the dead were too busy to bother with us. I should look into my own soul. He was talking to me near a fountain, its water splashing up. For some reason I lost my temper, the first time for years, certainly since coming to Grey Friars. I acted like a prisoner locked in a dark dungeon, throwing herself against the door, beating at the iron grille, desperate to get out. I sprang to my feet, striding up and down. Father Guardian grew perplexed.

‘What’s the matter, Mathilde?’

I crouched at his feet, grasping his bony knee, and stared fiercely at him, a look he’d never seen before. He’d forgotten I was once a player in Fortune’s Great Game. I have seen hot blood spurt! I have fought all my life in the press of the court or against furtive, silent assassins. He sketched a cross above my head.

‘What is the matter, Mathilde?’

‘What is the matter, Father Guardian?’ I replied hoarsely. ‘I shall tell you about her life, I shall confess my sins.’

Those old eyes brightened. I half rose and, pressing my lips against his ear, began my confession. The faint colour in that old face quickly drained; he drew away, gazing at me horrorstruck.

‘I would have to see the bishop,’ he murmured. ‘Such sins!’

‘Such sins, Father Guardian?’ I retorted. ‘What does scripture say? “If your sins be red like scarlet, I shall wash them white as wool”? Well, Father Guardian, my sins are many, of the deepest scarlet, like the sky on a summer’s evening or the red banners of war. I am steeped in villainy, Father Guardian. I am the Lady of Hell. I lived in the shadow of Isabella “La Belle”, the Jezebel, the She-Wolf, the Virago Ferrea.’

‘You must prepare yourself to receive the sacrament, examine your conscience,’ he retorted. ‘Be honest with yourself so you will be honest with God.’

By then I had recovered. I realised what I had said: that old man, on a cold stone seat near a fountain, had learnt more in those few precious moments than Edward, the king, would ever learn. Oh, others have tried. I have been offered bribes, lands, manors, even the marriage of some young man, a royal ward. I have always refused. I have met and loved the great love of my life. Moreover, I took an oath of secrecy to Isabella but, on reflection, I believe that oath has now been lifted; I am released from my obligation. On that day near the fountain I shuffled my sandalled feet and apologised for my temper. I promised Father Guardian how, as soon as Advent began, I would kneel in the shriving pew and confess all my sins. I joked how it would take a long time. Father Guardian glanced at me warily, shaking his head.

‘Sister Mathilde, honesty is short and brief. Confess who you are rather than what you did.’

During the subsequent weeks I often reflected on his words. The more I searched my soul, the more I realised he had not spoken the full truth. To understand what I have done, to realise who I truly was, or who I am, I would have to describe who Isabella was: the princess from some romance of Arthur who arrived in England at the age of thirteen to marry Edward of Caernarvon and unite England and France in an alliance of peace which would stretch to eternity. Oh, the folly of princes! Father Guardian allowed me the use of the scriptorium and the library. I began to write in a cipher, which could only be translated by me, a legacy from my days as a healer. The weeks turned into months. Summer went, autumn arrived in gorgeous profusion. The paths and gardens of Grey Friars became carpeted with leaves which gleamed like copper before the rains fell and turned them into a dirty mush which I had to clear, stack, dry and burn. I promised Father Guardian that once Advent came and the church was cleaned in preparation for the coming of the Christ Child, I would make my confession.

However, the Lord Satan had not forgotten me. On the Feast of St Luke, suddenly like a thief in the night, death caught Father Guardian. He was found in his bed, sprawled slightly to one side, mouth gaping, eyes hard, his soul long gone to God. I asked Father Bruno, the keeper of the scriptorium, a gentle, scholarly man with a stooped back and a face like that of a puzzled sparrow, if I could pay my own final respects. He agreed, so I knelt before Father Guardian’s corpse. I crossed myself and gabbled a prayer I’d learnt as a child, then closed my eyes. I made a promise, a vow to Father Guardian: I would still make my confession, but not to some priest I didn’t know, or one of the brothers, who would only recoil in horror. Father Guardian could sit on the other side of life’s veil and hear me out.

On that occasion, after watching his corpse, I rose and noticed a scrap of parchment lying on the writing carrel where Father Guardian used to sit and meditate over some book of hours. I listened intently. The lay brothers on guard outside were gossiping amongst themselves. I crossed swiftly to the desk and picked up the parchment. I immediately recognised Boethius, an extract from his Consolation of Philosophy : ‘My very strength, Fortune declares, this is my unchanging sport. I turn my wheel which spins the circle. I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom. Carry me to the top if you want but, on this condition, that you think it’s no unfairness, to sink when the rule of the game demands it.’ I smiled. Father Guardian had left this message just for me. I have been on Fortune’s fickle wheel, at bottom, top and around again. I have known the glories of victory and the bitter ashes of defeat.