Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

As the Welshman and I left, the execution was already underway. The prisoner had been dragged up from the dungeons, stripped of his ragged brown robe and, wearing only a loincloth, securely fastened to a hurdle attached to a carthorse. The poor man was then dragged on his back across the cobbles of the Tower yard, out through the Lion Gate and into the streets towards St Katharine’s Wharf. The executioner led the horse, as his assistant, dressed in black, followed behind. A good crowd gathered, the news of the execution being proclaimed by heralds. Marigny and his coterie were present on a specially erected scaffold draped with cloths. They had come to witness retribution. By the time the prisoner reached the gallows he had already paid in full, his back being cruelly shredded and bloodied by the cobbles. Nevertheless, he was shown no mercy, but released and pushed up the gallows steps, a filthy, bent figure still pretending to be mad.

I scrutinised the crowd. I could not see Demontaigu, but I glimpsed the tap boy from the Prospect, and around him hooded figures. Casales, his injured arm dangling by his side, was supervising the grisly business of the execution, standing at the foot of the scaffold shouting orders up at the executioner now bestriding the gallows’ arms. I glanced across at the royal enclosure. Gaveston had joined Marigny and was leaning against the rail watching proceedings intently. The prisoner reached the top of the ladder and half turned to gaze out over the crowd. The hangman fitted the noose around his neck. Casales made a sign, a roll of drums and a blare of trumpets created an expectant silence. This was when the condemned man could shout his last words. Casales bellowed that the prisoner was witless, and was about to give the sign for another drum roll and the removal of the ladder when the prisoner raised his head and, leaning against the scaffold, hands bound behind him, shouted out:

‘Good citizens!’

Casales, surprised, stepped back.

‘Good citizens,’ the prisoner repeated.

I glanced around; a pole with a crucifix lashed to it was being lifted up into the air and a strong voice intoned:

‘We adore thee, Oh Christ, and we praise thee.’

The reply from the prisoner was equally lucid:

‘Because by thy Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’

The exchange took the onlookers by surprise.

‘Brothers,’ the prisoner shouted, ‘can I have absolution?’ He immediately began to recite an Act of Contrition, whilst from the crowd echoed that clear, strong voice I’d come to know and love, ringing back the words of absolution.

‘ Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti ’ — I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father. .

Casales, now beside himself with curiosity, walked away from the foot of the ladder; a soldier handed him a crossbow, already primed. Marigny and his party, equally startled, were staring out across the sea of faces whose mood, fickle as ever, had turned in a wave of sympathy for the prisoner. Casales recovered himself. I watched the soldiers milling around the scaffold; memories pricked my soul only to swirl away in the excitement and fear brimming in my heart. Gaston was making his final confession, the Consolamentum, whilst absolution was being cried back across the crowd. Casales, God be thanked, at least waited for that to finish. He then made the sign; the executioner’s assistant quickly moved the ladder and the prisoner began his macabre dance, twisting and turning on the end of the rope, hideous to watch.

Suddenly the tap boy I’d glimpsed in the tavern came hurtling out of the crowd; the soldiers were facing the other way, and no one stopped him as he leapt on to the prisoner’s legs, pulling him down. The soldiers went to drag him off, but the crowd roared: ‘Let him be! Let him be!’

The soldiers stepped back, and Casales shouted an order to leave the boy alone. Even from where I stood I heard the final gasps as the prisoner hung motionless whilst the boy raced away to be lost in the crowd. I immediately returned to the Tower and reported all to my mistress.

‘He deserved a better death,’ she commented and filled two goblets with fresh apple juice. She sipped from hers swaying from side to side as if listening to some distant music. ‘Soon, Mathilde, we shall be away from here. I shall be queen and the storm will gather.’ She saluted me with her cup. ‘My father’s secret desires, and my husband’s, will reveal themselves in all their sinister colours. Only then, Mathilde, can we join the dance, but for the moment. .’ she sighed and, chewing her lip, stared hard at me, ‘we’ll act like young ladies all overcome by what is happening.’

We acted that role during those busy days, with clerks and clerics rehearsing the coronation ceremony and describing the ‘Ordo’ from the Liber Regalis . Isabella was also organising her household. Once crowned, she would move to Westminster Palace and assume all the status, duties and honours of Edward’s queen even though the future was uncertain, as the rumours seeping in from the city were highly unpleasant. The great earls were now meeting openly at tournaments, reiterating their demands that a parliament be called, Gaveston be exiled and the king ‘take true counsel’ from those born to give it. The French added to these demands; broadsheets and letters dictated by Marigny, still furious at the assassination attempt, were nailed to church doors and the Great Cross in St Paul’s churchyard. These documents proclaimed that anyone who supported Gaveston would be Philip of France’s mortal enemy. The leading bishops intervened to mediate and arrange a ‘love day’ so that Edward and his earls could meet at St Paul’s to discuss and resolve their mutual grievances in a sealed pact before the coronation.

Edward rejected all these approaches. He issued writs under the privy seal from his chancery room in the Tower declaring any such meetings hostile to him, treasonable and a threat to his rights. The King ordered the great earls to disperse their retinues and not bring them within five miles of the bars and city gates of London. At the same time more royal troops arrived, swelling the garrison at the Tower — so many they had to camp out on the lonely wastelands to the north. Battle barges patrolled the river and cogs fitted with all the armour of war gathered in the mouth of the Thames. Meanwhile Edward and Gaveston feasted in the Tower, or went hunting in the forests and woods around. They openly ignored Isabella, though both men sent her secret messages and tokens of their love on almost a daily basis.

Casales brought us the news. He paced up and down the queen’s chamber nursing his mangled wrist, describing the growing crisis with increasing foreboding. Rossaleti, now so quiet and reserved, would sit at the chancery desk nodding in solemn agreement. Isabella remained unperturbed. She reminded me of a cat, watching and listening attentively. She was waiting for that turn of the sea, the opening which would allow her, as she put it, the opportunity to test her claws. I was equally determined, just as resolute.

Old Sandewic continued to watch me carefully. The cold weather and onerous duties weakened his health. I renewed the phials of vervain and other potions to relieve his symptoms, advising caution that he did not take too much. I should have been more prudent about what he actually drank. The constable seemed deeply touched by my care and attention, responding with little gifts. He boasted openly of what he called my prowess in physic. Much to Isabella’s amusement, the garrison, its soldiers, servants, wives and families, started to present themselves on a daily basis in the inner ward for help and assistance. Sandewic, God assoil him, opened the stores and provided powders and dried herbs, even dispatching messengers to buy more from the city apothecaries. The ailments were, in the main, mild. I never forgot Uncle Reginald’s aphorism, that his patients usually healed themselves despite the best efforts of their physician.