Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

We were met at crossroads, parish boundaries and town gates by hosts of important officials, sheriffs, stewards, bailiffs, constables, dignitaries of church and state, all dressed in their grandeur, heavy chains of office slung round their necks. They offered gifts and protestations of loyalty which Isabella accepted, replying in a clear, carrying voice, sometimes lapsing into English, which she had so zealously, though secretly studied. Each place had striven to do its best. Gibbets had been cleared of strangled corpses, stocks emptied, the heads and severed limbs of traitors taken down from the town bars and gates to be replaced with armorial shields or broad coloured cloths. At night we rested in the guest houses of monasteries, priories and nunneries. During the day we would sometimes refresh ourselves at the spacious pilgrim taverns with their ornate welcoming signs and warm tap-rooms. There was very little time to think, let alone converse privately, and the further north we went the busier our cavalcade became. We crossed the gushing waters of the Medway, admired the soaring keep of Rochester Castle and finally lodged at St Augustine’s Priory in Canterbury, a mere walk from the cathedral and its spectacular shrine to St Thomas Becket, a mass of gold, silver and precious jewels. We visited the cathedral and prayed at the bottom of the steps; the screen before the shrine was raised so we could make our offerings of flowers, tapers and precious goods.

We also met Isabella’s aunt, the Queen Dowager Margaret, widow of Edward I and sister of Philip IV. From the very beginning aunt and niece took an immediate dislike to each other. Queen Margaret was beautiful in a pallid way, sanctimonious and patronising, full of her own goodness and pious acts. A woman who had found religion and lost her heart, totally immersed in her sanctimonious passion to go on pilgrimage. She catalogued the different places Isabella must visit as queen, be it St Swithun’s at Worcester, the relics of Glastonbury or the Virgin’s House at Walsingham. She gossiped like a fishwife about herself until Isabella, stifling a yawn, thanked her ‘sweet aunt’. The queen dowager, however, was not so readily quietened. Isabella had to force a smile as Margaret perched in a window seat overlooking the cloister garth, describing her recent pilgrimage to view the phial of Christ’s Precious Blood at Hailes Abbey. The second woman we met was Margaret de Clare, the king’s niece and wife to Gaveston; a whey-faced, rather anxious young woman who kept touching the old-fashioned wimple around her face. She sat like a pious novice, hands in her lap, avidly listening to the queen dowager’s monotonous sermons on the different shrines; every so often the younger Margaret would nod in agreement and thrust her needle into a piece of tapestry.

Once Isabella and I were alone in our chambers, the princess sat on the ground with her back to the door and laughed until the tears streamed down her face. She ripped off her head-dress, almost pushing it into her mouth to hide her merriment. At last she composed herself, picked up a napkin, wrapped it around her head and, with the most sanctimonious expression, eyes raised heavenwards, imitated both women, even down to Aunt Margaret’s ceaseless nasal homily.

‘Oh Mathilde, you must visit Chepstow and the priory there, you know the one, dedicated to the straw in the manger. It holds a turd dropped by the very ox which was there on the first Christmas night, whilst down the road, at the Nunnery of the Blessed Sheep, you can venerate the very foreskin of the shepherd boy who brought the baby lamb. They even have a leg of the same.’ Isabella’s eyes moved heavenwards. ‘Still with some scraps of meat on because the Holy Family ate the rest.’

She burst out laughing and, getting to her feet, solemnly processed up and down the spacious guest room listing the most extraordinary relics which Aunt Margaret could collect: the Christ Child’s first napkin, a splinter from Joseph’s work bench, a feather from an angel, a broken thimble belonging to the Virgin Mary. At last she paused, throwing the napkin to the ground.

‘Pious bitch!’ she muttered. ‘So holy she should be dead! Oh, don’t be shocked, Mathilde.’ Isabella shook her fist at the door. ‘Aunt Margaret spies for her brother. If Margaret the Pious has her way, Father will know everything before it happens.’ She waved a finger at me. ‘I must remember that.’ She filled two pewter tankards to the brim with the ale the good brothers had served and sat on a quilted stool staring up at me.

‘Well, well, Mathilde, what do you think we are? Two sparrows who have fallen off the ledge into the path of a cat?’

‘My lady, your grace, do you love mon seigneur your husband?’

Isabella pursed her lips and shrugged. ‘Answer my question, Mathilde.’

‘Yes!’ I replied bluntly. ‘We are two sparrows who have fallen into the path of a cat. Edward of England and his favourite are certainly not priests at prayer; we have to walk slowly and very carefully. They have shown their true nature.’

‘Which is?’

‘They will brook no opposition. Obey them and all will be well. Object or resist the will of the king and anything is possible, which, my lady,’ I settled on a bench, ‘might include the murders of Sir Hugh Pourte and Lord Wenlok.’

On our journey from Dover I had reflected on that possibility. There was the Council of England and a small inner coven, the Secretum Concilum, the Secret Council, staffed by the likes of Casales, Sandewic and Baquelle as well as those two men so recently killed. Both offered advice which displeased Edward and Gaveston. I shared this conclusion with my mistress, adding that the members of the Secret Council could be under threat, being removed one by one.

‘By whom?’ Isabella asked.

‘Your grace, I cannot answer that.’

We stayed at the Priory of St Augustine for some time, waiting to welcome the French party: Philip’s two brothers, the Counts of Valois and Evreux; Marigny, Nogaret, des Plaisans and the three royal princes. Two days after we arrived, these swept into the priory courtyard, a gorgeous cavalcade under their blue and gold banners, to be greeted by Edward and Gaveston. The usual banquets and feastings followed in the priory or the cathedral buildings. Once again Isabella was surrounded by the ladies of the court and I was excluded. The princess was certainly at the behest of ‘that green-eyed Reynard’, her nick name for Marigny, who, during mass the morning after his arrival, stared malevolently at me as he and the rest processed slowly out of church. I was relieved to be excluded from all their jostling malice, whilst Isabella eagerly recounted the details of what happened. How Edward publicly paid more attention to Gaveston than he did to his ‘beloved wife’, the royal favourite openly wearing some of the jewels Philip had given to Isabella. The French, of course, objected, and relations between the two courts grew increasingly strained.

I was content to be away from the hurly-burly of meetings, feasts and courtly sessions. Casales, Sandewic, Rossaleti and Baquelle, when they could, joined me in the spacious parlour of the guest house or accompanied me through the priory herbarium, where I discussed the names and properties of the various plants. Sandewic, in particular, showed interest. He was still full of praise for the physic I had given him. He and the rest had no choice but to listen as I explained how the priory possessed a number of gardens: the cloister garden with grass and flowers growing around the holy water stoup in the centre; the cemetery garden with its fruit and blossom trees; the kitchen garden and the infirmary or physic garden to the north of the priory. The latter boasted sixteen parallel beds, well dug and tended, all separated by sanded paths, the herb plots deliberately sited to catch the sun. A pleasant place, even on a winter’s day. The fragrance of the plants still sweetened the air despite the small pentile coverings the physic-master, Brother Ambrose, had placed over them as protection against the elements. That old Benedictine was truly a man in love with God’s creation, responsible for both the physic garden and the infirmary. He always joined us with a battered copy of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica under his arm; little wonder that, after an hour of listening to the infirmarian’s lecture on the virtues of feverfew, my companions soon absented themselves.