Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

Casales’ honesty, though refreshing, did not lighten our mood. Isabella wondered if Edward of England would face war rather than submit to the wishes of his father and hers. She said we would send a personal letter and a brooch from her jewellery box. Casales and Rossaleti were planning to spend Christmas at Westminster and were already preparing to leave for Wissant. Rossaleti, I remember, was greatly disquieted. He confided to both the princess and myself that he had a deep fear of rivers and seas, so for him a winter crossing of the Narrow Seas was one of the horrors of hell. Perhaps he had a premonition of his own death, which was more than Pelet did.

Two days after the meeting with Casales and Rossaleti, I began to suffer nausea and cramps in the belly, as did the princess. Her stomach, like mine, was strong, so I first thought this might be due to the malevolence of the princes, Louis and Philippe. That precious pair delighted in perpetrating malicious tricks such as putting a dead rat on a chair, leaving the dung of one of the palace lurchers outside our chambers or knocking aside a servant as he brought us food and drink. They were men with the narrow souls of spiteful boys. On the second day our symptoms increased, with heavy sweats and vomiting. By the morning of the third day, however, the infection began to diminish. Pelet was not so fortunate. He too was seized with violent cramps, shuddering under a ferocious chill. Isabella herself administered to him, as did a gaggle of royal physicians. I tried to intervene, but the princess brusquely ordered me away.

In the end the good doctors were unable to help. They recommended poultices and potions to drain the malignance from the humours, but Pelet continued to weaken. He eventually lost consciousness and died within seven days of the onset of the infection. By then I was fully recovered. I felt no compassion for Pelet, especially when he ranted about shadows clustering around his bed. He lapsed into his native tongue of Langue d’Oc, screaming at the crucifix for mercy. ‘He who sows the tempest reaps the whirlwind’, or so Scripture would have us believe. Pelet was an assassin many times over. God wanted his soul for judgement. I could only stand and watch the effects of arsenic poisoning run their natural course. I thought it most fitting. After all, Uncle Reginald with his manuscripts was as much an authority on poisons and noxious potions as the Scriptures are on theology. A little arsenic may help the stomach, but too much and a powerful fever seizes its victim. That was Pelet’s fate. I recognised the symptoms, the good physicians didn’t. On reflection Isabella must have served us both something to sicken our humours, perhaps a little stone-crop or pepper mixed with heavy vinegar to create an illusion. The royal physicians, as is their custom, could only grasp their manuals and urine jars, shake their heads and moan about the fevers and agues of the day and congratulate Isabella and myself on our miraculous recovery.

Isabella acted the professional mourner. She placed the coins on Pelet’s eyes and lighted a taper before the rood screen in La Sainte Chapelle. Of course, Philip and his coterie may have suspected, but at the time arsenic was rare, whilst mine and Isabella’s sickness pointed to a sudden infection which Pelet couldn’t fight, a twist of fate, mere mischance. Isabella’s subterfuge was deception enough. She never uttered a word to me, and when I tried to speak, pressed her fingers against my lips.

‘Gone to God, Mathilde,’ she whispered, ‘to answer the cries of vengeance for spilling innocent blood.’

I couldn’t think of a more fitting epitaph. By then Casales and Rossaleti had left for England, but two days before Christmas, the very evening Pelet’s corpse was dispatched into the city for burial, a mud-spattered messenger thundered into the palace courtyard. The news he brought soon spread through the palace: Casales and Rossaleti were returning! On their way to Boulogne, near Montreuil, they had met three new English envoys, Sir Ralph Sandewic, constable of the Tower of London; Lord Walter Wenlok, Abbot of Westminster; and Sir John Baquelle, knight. These three had braved the freezing Narrow Seas to bring startling news. Edward of England had acceded to all the French demands. The marriage to Isabella would go ahead. The English king even named the place: the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Boulogne, in the county of Ponthieu, a strip of Normandy still under the rule of the English crown. The marriage would take place in the New Year, and certainly no later than the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, 25 January. The messenger carried a letter sealed by both Casales and Rossaleti summarising their news; this was proclaimed throughout the royal residence and again by Marigny at a splendid banquet hastily convened in the Fleur-de-lis Chamber at the centre of the palace.

The joy of Philip and his ministers was evident. No cost was spared. Musicians with rebec, tambour and viol played merry tunes, whilst jugglers, tumblers, clowns and jesters entertained the royal household. We all feasted on succulent venison and the juiciest flesh of fish fresh from the royal stew ponds, followed by beef and pork served in a wine-based sauce, thickened with capon meat and almonds and seasoned with cloves and sugar. A minstrel disguised as the Angel Gabriel sang a robust song dedicated to Isabella:

She stands in her satin gown,

If anyone touches her,

The gown rustles,

Eia —

She stands in her golden gown,

Her face like a rose and her mouth like a

flower,

Eia.

The object of all this merriment and rejoicing remained ivory-faced, blue eyes staring. She hardly drank at all but sat, lips moving wordlessly. Once the banquet was over and the king’s favourite lurchers had been allowed into the chamber, Isabella withdrew, gesturing at me to follow. She ordered the pages who carried the flambeaux to escort her to the small chapel she was accustomed to visit. Once inside she dismissed them, telling me to lock and bolt the door. The chapel was freezing cold, its brazier nothing more than a pile of ash and cinders. Isabella, ignoring my protests, took off her gown and robes. Dressed in nothing but her shift, she walked barefoot up to the sanctuary and prostrated herself about two yards before the rood screen. Stretched out on the ice-cold flagstones, she crept forward like a penitent crawling to kiss the cross on Good Friday and lay beneath the rood screen, arms extended, face down. I tried to cover her with my cloak, but she shrugged it off. I squatted at the foot of a pillar, the cold creeping up my own legs, the muscles of my back cramping in discomfort. Palace bells marked the passing hour, but still the princess lay as if asleep. Eventually she rose, dressed and smiled at me, pinching my cheek.

‘Mathilde, I have given thanks for my deliverance from hell. Now come,’ she teased, ‘tonight we pray, tomorrow we act all merry.’

Casales, Rossaleti and the other three English envoys arrived early on Christmas Eve bearing gifts and letters from Philip’s ‘sweet cousin’ the King of England. Isabella was ordered to meet them in the royal council chamber shortly after the Angelus. Casales and Rossaleti, however, still unshaven and ill-kempt after their hasty return, first attended her in her chamber to explain the status, power and purpose of the other three envoys. Both sat close to the hearth, muttering about the freezing weather and how it chilled their very bones, before describing the men Isabella would meet. Sandewic was an old soldier, Keeper of the Tower and Justice of Gaol-delivery at Newgate, the most foul prison in London and the last resting place of many outlaws. ‘He’s hanged more felons than I’ve drunk cups of wine,’ Casales exclaimed. ‘A royal bully-boy, an intimate friend of the old king, he loves that grim fortress the Tower of London; he regards it as his own personal fief. He even pays for the upkeep of its small chapel, St Peter Ad Vincula, from his own pocket. Sandewic is fierce,’ Casales continued, ‘the English crown’s man, body and soul! He once arrested a papal tax collector who’d vexed the old king; he took the tax collector’s money and told the fellow to be out of the kingdom within three days or he’d hang him from the Tower walls.’