Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

‘We’ll say it was an accident,’ he mumbled.

‘But it wasn’t,’ I accused. ‘When these pavilions were lying down in the transepts someone must have attacked both of them, cutting the glue and sawing through the joist. The light in the transepts is poor. The malefactor must have been working on Casales’ when he was disturbed and left, but Baquelle’s was fatally weakened. The joists were cut. After it was raised and decorated, Sir John Baquelle took up his post. He was a large man in heavy armour; he’d move around, lean and sit. The weakened roof eventually snapped and fell in, crushing his skull. Casales was also meant to suffer the same fate.’

‘It wasn’t us,’ the man pleaded. ‘It wasn’t us! The oak was of the finest, the joist and gaps matching, we cannot be blamed.’

I stared around the gloomy abbey. The candles had guttered; only a few still glowed. The winter’s day was drawing in, the darkness gathering; so easy, I reflected, during the days before the coronation, for someone to slip through the gloom with a saw or razor-sharp blade and weaken the roofs of both pavilions. And who would notice? Even when it collapsed, all eyes were on the sanctuary. Both men had apparently been marked down for death. A God-given sign during the king’s coronation that all was not well, that the power of heaven did not rest on our prince. Such damage could easily be done in this place of dappled light. .

‘Mathilde, Mathilde!’ Casales and Rossaleti, cloaks billowing out, were striding up the nave. Casales described what was happening in the Great Hall; how the coronation banquet had been spoilt by the tragic death of Baquelle, whilst some of the earls had left before the first course had even been served. He stepped into the faint pool of candlelight, Rossaleti like a shadow behind him; both stared down at the wooden pavilion.

‘What is the matter, Mathilde?’

I told Casales precisely what I had discovered. The knight examined the pavilion for himself, kicked the side of it and, moving quickly, seized the master craftsman by his jerkin, pulling him close. The man, terrified, spluttered his innocence.

‘Let him go,’ I declared wearily. ‘They did what they were ordered to. They have nothing to do with what killed Baquelle and what could have killed you.’

‘I wonder.’ Casales released the hapless man, pushing him away. ‘I did wonder, just after the king and queen left the sanctuary. I sat down and felt the wood shudder and creak, then I heard the crash as Baquelle’s collapsed. How, Mathilde, how?’

‘My lord,’ the master craftsman was eager to establish his innocence and that of his colleagues, ‘we fashioned these pavilions but they were stored in the transepts until this morning. The abbey was open with all the preparations. Look how it is, even now, so dark anyone could have done that damage, for mischief, as an evil jape. .’

Casales waved him away, staring across at the tangled mess before spinning on his heel and striding back down the nave. He stopped halfway and turned.

‘Her grace the queen,’ he called, ‘says you need not join her. Marigny and the rest are bloated with hate at my lord Gaveston’s pre-eminence; she said it’s best if you stay. .’

I did so, returning to our quarters and sleeping fitfully in my clothes until the early hours, when Isabella, accompanied by her ladies, returned heavy-eyed, sick in stomach with muscles aching. I helped her undress. She stood in a shift before the weakening fire, running her hands through her mass of golden hair. I thought she would sleep, but she said her blood was still racing, her mind teeming with the events of the day. She described how the coronation banquet had turned into a mockery, the death of Baquelle hovering like a harbinger from hell over the feast. Matters were worsened by the chaos in the kitchens. Cooks, scullions and servants had been distracted by the disaster so the food had been cold and ill served. The great earls, their pride offended, had glowered and left whilst the French openly complained about the pre-eminence of Gaveston in his purple and silver-buttoned robes, sitting at the king’s right in preference to Isabella. Edward had openly cosseted Gaveston, blatantly ignoring Isabella. For the first time I caught her anger and irritation that the great game had gone too far.

As she paced up and down, drinking the watered wine I’d prepared with a heavy mix of camomile, I told her what I had discovered. She agreed that Baquelle’s death was no accident, an ominous augury for her coronation. Two more members of Edward’s secret council had been threatened and one killed in what could only be described as suspicious circumstances.

Casales had delivered the news to the king and his favourite, leaning over their throne-like chairs, whispering fiercely. Isabella stopped her pacing and, clutching the cup, glared down at me.

‘That stopped the revelry, Mathilde. Oh yes, Edward and Gaveston were openly shocked and surprised. Do you know,’ she leaned down, ‘for the first time I smelt their fear. Think of that, Mathilde, as you dream.’

We slept late that morning. Isabella was preparing to attend another banquet in the Painted Chamber when we were disturbed by furious knocking at the doors and the exclamations and cries of maids and pages in the presence chamber. I hastened out. Demontaigu was pushing his way through, hair and face soaked with the snow which still clung to its cloak.

‘Mathilde,’ he wiped the wet from his face, ‘Mathilde, it’s Sandewic, he’s ill, he is dying!’

I did not stop for anything but dressed quickly. Shrouding myself in a thick robe and carrying a copy of Isabella’s seal, I followed Demontaigu out through the snow-frosted palace grounds to King Steps and the waiting barge flying Sandewic’s colours. A clay-cold journey under lowering skies, along a swollen, sullen river with a wintry wind nipping the flesh. I huddled in the stern with the boatmen bending over the oars, sombre figures taking us through the shifting mist. Once we passed under the narrow arches of London Bridge, the waters thundering dully, Demontaigu told me how he’d gone to the Tower to collect and pack certain items. Apparently Sandewic had returned early from the coronation, clearly unwell, and had worsened during the night.

We arrived at the mist-wrapped Tower, hurrying up steps, along gulleys, through gateways dark as a wolf’s mouth to the constable’s quarters in the central donjon. A small outer chamber led into the inner one, a place of disarray with chests and coffers open, weapons, cloaks, belts and baldrics lying about. Braziers glowed but their scented smell could not disguise the reek of a deadly sickness. Servants milled about. A friar from the Carmelites was already praying by the bed whilst the Tower leech, a balding, grey-faced man, could do nothing except pucker his lips, shake his head and flap his hands.

Sandewic lay on the great bed, head against the bolsters. He already had the look of a dead man. I noticed how the little gifts I had given him over the last few weeks were in places of honour around the small crucifix on the table to the right of his bed. The table on the other side was covered with the small glazed phials and pots I’d used for his medicines. I was immediately surprised at how many there were. Sandewic recognised me, those old eyes still glaring furiously as if he could face down death itself. He spoke slowly, his breath coming haltingly. He talked about great pain, of iced water in his flesh; his facial muscles seemed to be stiffening and he muttered how he could not feel his limbs. From him and the leech I gathered the symptoms had begun shortly after he had retired, a tingling burning of the tongue, throat and face, followed by nausea, vomiting and a strange pricking of the skin. He pointed to a goblet by the bed, the cup was almost drained, the rich claret dregs dry. I sniffed at it and detected the acrid smell of a potion. I hurried to the other side of the bed and picked up the various jars, most of them empty. As I searched, I turned cold with my own numbing fear: there were far too many jars! The nearest one, sealed with a blob of broken wax, was half full. I sniffed it, put it back, sat on the edge of the bed, bowed my head and sobbed quietly, shoulders shaking. Sandewic had been poisoned! Wolfsbane, or monkshood, is noxious, highly deadly, especially its roots and leaves. I recognised both the smell and the symptoms. I had treated similar cases in Paris where peasants had eaten the tuberous routes of the plant believing they were radishes.