Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

The onset of winter ailments allowed me to observe, treat and learn. I dispensed ver juice for sores in the mouth, ivy juice for inflammation of the nose, pimpernel boiled in wine for the rheums and sweet almonds for earache. There were the usual cuts and scars to clean and treat; fractures to be fixed and contained, poultices applied. I advised on the need to be clean, and when complaints of sickness and looseness of the bowels increased, I examined the meat stores, salted and pickled for the winter, to discover some so soft and putrid they were alive with maggots. Sandewic was furious and the flesher responsible sat in the Tower stocks for a day with the filthy mess he’d sold tied around his neck, the rest being offered to passers-by to throw at him.

More importantly for me, Demontaigu entered Isabella’s household, slipping in easily without provoking any suspicions. Petitions had flooded in from many scribes and petty officials, clerks from the halls of Oxford and Cambridge, all seeking placements. Demontaigu was one of these. Armed with false papers, as indeed many applicants must have been, he presented himself before Casales, Sandewic and Rossaleti. He proved himself fluent in English, French, Castilian and Latin. He described himself as a soldier, a scholar who’d studied at Bologna and Ravenna, a Gascon by birth, who had wandered Europe and become proficient in the courtly hand, very skilled in the preparation and sealing of documents, who now wished to seek advancement in the royal service. Since going into hiding Demontaigu had given up using his father’s name, hiding behind his mother’s so he could mix truth and fable. When he was questioned, he acted respectful and courteous so the recommendation to Isabella to hire him was unreserved, Demontaigu was appointed as a Principal Clerk of the Red Wax in the Office of the Queen’s Wardrobe. I felt deeply comforted by his presence. Nevertheless, I acted on Isabella’s warning to walk prudently and allow the day-to-day workings of her household to draw him deeper in.

Demontaigu acted the part, being friends to all and allies to none in the petty factions and squabbling for precedence which constantly dominate any great household. When we did meet in some store room to make a tally or supervise the release of goods, we would talk and gossip in whispers. Demontaigu had changed; no longer concerned about his own situation, he seemed more fascinated about what happened to me. Oh Domine Jesu — it was he who prompted me to begin my own journals, written in cipher. I still have these today.

‘List,’ Demontaigu urged, ‘list what happens; they are the symptoms, Mathilde, look for the cause. In the end, all things drain to their logical conclusion; there must be, there will be, a solution to all this.’

I often reflected on that in the days before the coronation. I divided my time between assisting the princess, dispensing medicine and recalling the past. Demontaigu spoke the truth and spurred me into action. The shock and pain of the last few weeks were diminishing. Why should I stand like some pious novice and be attacked, threatened, cowed and bullied by the great ones? I could fight back. Uncle Reginald had been a hard taskmaster; he’d always insisted I keep a book of symptoms.

‘Write down,’ he’d order, ‘everything you observe about an ailment or a herb. Study what you record, reflect, look for a common pattern, and for changes which are not logical. Two things, Mathilde, rule your life: passion and logic. They are not contradictory, they complement each other.’ He would stroke my brow. ‘I love you, Mathilde, like a daughter, therefore I also want you close. So the first part of my statement is what?’

‘Passion, Uncle.’

‘Good, and the second?’

‘Logic,’ I’d smile.

Sweet Mother Mary, even now, years later, the tears still brim. In that sombre February the ghost of Reginald de Deyncourt came to dominate my soul more and more. Perhaps it was the arrival of Demontaigu, what Isabella called the change in the sea, or perhaps like a swordsman I wanted to step out of the shadows to confront my foes. I returned to my journals, writing down in my cramped cipher everything I could remember: that morning outside the death house, the struggle on the steps in Canterbury and, most importantly, pushing open Monsieur de Vitry’s door. I added the petty details of those particular days — what I ate, what I saw — to serve as pricks to my memory. I followed the art of physic, concentrating precisely on what I witnessed, experienced and reflected upon. Time and again I returned to the massacre at de Vitry’s mansion. On that day I had killed a man. I was shocked, I had fled, so my soul was agitated. I recalled entering the merchant’s house. I fastened on one fact: the main door had been open, off the latch, not bolted. Why? The assassin could have killed and left but, surely, he’d have barred the front door and fled through some window to keep the murders secret as long as possible? Was that it? Did the killer overlook that? Or, and I was growing certain about this, had I forestalled him? Had I entered that house before he could turn the key and draw bolts? Surely a killer would seal the door lest someone come in behind him as I did? In my mind’s eye I was standing in the hallway, looking round at the shadowy recesses, the small chambers leading off. Had the assassin been lurking there as I entered? But if so, why had he not attacked me? I asked the same questions of Demontaigu; he too was puzzled.

‘Yes, yes,’ he’d whisper when we met in some corner of the Castle on the Hoop. ‘De Vitry’s death lies at the heart of all this mystery. What happened on that day may be the key. So,’ he added, ‘what would I have done if I’d been the assassin?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I would have locked that door behind me. Yes, Mathilde, that’s what I would have done. Why didn’t he?’

As it was, I could not meet Demontaigu often. The Tower was a narrow, close place and I did not know whom I could trust. Nevertheless, I was pleased he was a fully indentured clerk of Isabella’s household, receiving robes and wages every quarter beginning Easter next. He’d sealed agreements with that plump and vivacious controller, a high-ranking English clerk from the Court of King’s Bench, William de Boudon, a man who later played his own important role in the affairs of Isabella, but that is not for now.

De Boudon liked Demontaigu and often used him, so in the Tower I tried to keep my distance. On one thing both Isabella and I had been resolute. Demontaigu was not to strike at Marigny or any of the French party, which would only endanger her and me. Hand on the Gospels, he vowed to obey. Marigny would be left unscathed, though Demontaigu added the ominous phrase ‘for as long as he remained in England’.

By the third week of February 1308, the Tower had become the centre of the English court by both day and night, holy days and weekdays, all taken up with the preparations for the coronation. Baquelle scurried backwards and forwards full of his own importance, openly delighted that the king had decided that he and Casales would be Knights of the Sanctuary for the coronation. Both men, clad in full plate armour covered with the royal livery, would stand in especially erected open pavilions at the side of the sanctuary steps during the ceremony. The carpenters, Baquelle assured us excitedly, were already constructing the heavy-beamed pavilions in the transepts of the abbey; these would later be moved and decorated with greenery and winter roses. Baquelle and Casales also acted as Isabella’s military escort when Marigny and his coven visited the Tower for formal presentation to the princess. On such occasions, at Isabella’s order, I absented myself, as did Demontaigu, though one morning, standing with me on the parapet walk, he pointed out a black-haired, sharp-featured knight in Marigny’s retinue.