Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

A short while later Casales and Rossaleti joined us. The scribe brought in a sheaf of documents, wax and Isabella’s personal seal together with pen-quills and capped pots of dark blue ink. Already the number of petitions to her was growing. Licences to go abroad, pardons for crimes, remission of debts, exemptions from military service as well as pleas for legal assistance, be it against wrongful arrest or vexatious prosecution. Isabella sat at her chancery table sealing the hot wax or writing the phrase le roi le veut — the king wishes it — as Edward had conceded that his new wife could respond to petitions, whilst he would confirm whatever she granted. As she busied herself with these clerical tasks, Casales returned to teaching us both English. I had learnt a little with Uncle Reginald; Isabella had schooled herself. Casales now instructed us further at the king’s behest, teaching us poems like ‘Sumer is-i-cumen’, ‘The Ancient Rewle’ and even some of the bawdy songs so favoured by Londoners. He included the rather difficult words from a song composed, so he claimed, during the reign of the old king ‘A Song of the Times’, a bitter, stinging attack on corruption. I still remember some of the words:

False and lither is this londe, as each day we may see.

Therein is both hate and that ever it will be.

A strange choice, but Casales, who composed his own poems, claimed it caught the spirit of the English tongue.

Both our companions had certainly changed since our arrival in England. Rossaleti was quieter, lost in his own thoughts. He’d look at me, dark eyes full of sorrow, gnawing his lip like a man who wanted to speak but had decided to keep his own counsel. Casales was brusque but more forthcoming. On that particular day he pleaded with Isabella to advise her husband to be more prudent and listen to his councillors. He waited until Rossaleti left and became even more forthright.

‘Lord Gaveston,’ Casales walked to the door, opened it and quickly glanced into the darkened stairwell, ‘Lord Gaveston,’ he repeated, closing the door and coming back, ‘must be exiled. The French court is grumbling, the great earls have issued writs of arrays summoning out their retainers, the Scottish harass the northern marches, and you’ve heard the latest news?’

‘What?’ Isabella turned sharply in the chancery chair.

‘The coronation? Tonight the king’s council discuss the date but it will undoubtedly be the twenty-fifth of February. According to the Ordo of the Liber Regalis only a premier earl may carry the crown to the high altar, but on this occasion it will be-’

‘Gaveston?’ I asked.

‘Gaveston,’ Casales agreed. ‘Clad like a king all in purple.’

Later that afternoon Edward and Gaveston, both dressed in loose jerkins, shirts and hose, cloaks wrapped about them against the cold, sauntered across to our mansion. They acted like boys released from the schoolroom, teasing each other over a pet monkey which had stolen one of Gaveston’s jewels then bitten one of his lap dogs. When Sandewic joined us they turned the teasing on him and Isabella, and despite the presence of our visitors Edward inveighed bitterly against the leading earls. Gaveston was a born mimic and the king bawled with laughter as his favourite imitated different noblemen, giving them all nicknames. Gaveston even went down on all fours, barking loudly, mocking Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whom he’d dubbed ‘The Black Dog of Arden’. Afterwards, as we played dice, Isabella tried to raise the question of the coronation, but Edward deftly turned this aside, drawing his dagger and accusing his favourite of using cogged dice. At dusk both men left, followed by Casales, leaving Sandewic, who sat with a thunderous expression on his face.

‘Tonight,’ he went towards the door, slapping his gauntlets against his hand, ‘we’ll meet, we’ll talk, but nothing will change.’ He paused, wincing at the pain in his thigh.

I insisted he stay and made him confess that the pains from the rheums in his muscles were growing worse. I prescribed some mugwort for a poultice and Abbot Strabo’s cure for the pains, the flower of southernwood, quite a precious herb. I had a small portion of it, ground, boiled and strained, and gave him two phials, warning him the taste would be very bitter so he should mix it with wine, to which Sandewic replied that he liked such cures. Once I’d finished I made my own request of him, something I’d determined on during the day, to which Isabella had already agreed. I first swore Sandewic to secrecy, then asked for an escort to accompany me into the city the following day. Sandewic looked surprised but declared it would be best if the escort was one man so we could slip out of the Tower unnoticed. He offered the captain of his own archers, a Welshman I’d met in Paris, a redoubtable, tough-faced character named Owain Ap Ythel, and I accepted.

We left just after dawn the following day, a bitterly frosty morning, the ground slippery underfoot. Ap Ythel came armed except for his helmet. Beneath his hooded cloak he wore a war-belt with sword and dagger and carried an arbalest, the pouch of bolts fastened to his belt. I’d taken a dagger, pushing it into the sheath on my waistband. Sandewic himself let us out from the postern gate and we made our way out of the Tower, through stinking, needle-thin alleyways and on to the broad thoroughfare leading into the city. I was determined to visit Seething Lane and discover who that mysterious person was and if he could help in our present sea of troubles. The Welshman whispered that we could always take a barge from the quayside, but I had not forgotten Paris and did not wish to go swimming again.

We made good progress. The frost had hardened the slime and mud on the cobbles whilst the sewer channels, which cut like ribbons down the street, were thickly frozen. The city bells were ringing for prime but the market horns had yet to herald the start of trading so the shops and stalls remained shuttered. Lanterns and candles glowed at windows. The different-coloured signs creaked in the morning breeze. It was so reminiscent of Paris: the smells, that feeling of expectancy before the day begins. The wards’ scavengers and rakers were out to clear away the refuse, their great carts moving slowly down the street under banners hung out in preparation for the coronation. Dogs barked and yelped. City bailiffs, in the blue and mustard livery of the corporation, were busy stalking a pig caught wandering from its yard, a strict violation of civic ordinances. Other officials, armed with staves and halberds, were collecting the nightwalkers, strumpets, drunkards and other violators of the curfew, marshalling them into line, fettering their hands before herding them up to Cheapside and the great prison cage on top of the conduit. Beggars shivered on corners. Luckless whores called out vainly from darkened doorways or the mouths of runnels. Fritterers, the sellers of second-hand clothing, were already laying out their makeshift stalls, trying to attract the attention of workmen in their shabby cloaks and hures, caps of shaggy fustian, who were making their way noisily across the cobbles in their wooden pattens shod with iron against the slime-strewn ice.

I had told Ap Ythel where we were going. He knew the city well and advised me to stay on the broad thoroughfares and not become lost in the alleys and runnels, the haunt and hunting ground of rifflers, battlers and other violent felons. We hurried up Cornhill then into Cheapside, which was fairly deserted except for the noisy prison cage. In the stocks a hapless baker sat fastened, shivering despite the pan of charcoal pushed beneath his legs by his anxious family. The placard round his neck warned against such tradesmen putting tablets of iron in their loaves to weigh them more heavily. On one occasion I became breathless and unsteady on my feet, my wits playing tricks on me. I felt, for a heartbeat, that I was not in London but Paris, hurrying through the alleys on some errand for Uncle Reginald. Ap Ythel noticed this and insisted we stop at a cookshop which had opened early to attract workmen with the sweet smell of its baked bread and tasty pies.