Isabella rose and took a key from a chain around her neck. Kneeling down, she removed the Turkey rug and, using a thin knife, prised loose a block in the wooden floor. Stretching down she took out a small coffer, which she opened. She grinned mischievously at me.
‘Only Maria knew where this was hidden.’
‘And where is Maria now?’
‘Gone away.’ Isabella laughed. ‘She’ll never come back. Here, this is for you.’ She handed across a small scroll, its seal broken. I immediately recognised the script of de Vitry, the distinctive sweep of the quill. I’d seen enough in his chancery office to recognise it. I unrolled the scroll. The date at the top was inscribed a day before he was murdered. It was written in the cipher de Vitry and I had learnt from Uncle Reginald, in which the Greek alphabet is transposed by a series of even numbers and the last letter, omega, is translated into French as A.
‘You were gone.’ Isabella answered my stare. ‘I too, Mathilde, protect myself. All letters to my household are delivered directly to me, remember that.’
She leaned forward excitedly. ‘What does it say?’
‘My assailant,’ I replied hotly, ‘told you to stay in your chambers with your embroidery.’
She stamped her foot and made a rude sound with her lips.
‘What does it say, Mathilde?’
I hid my annoyance at her intervention and walked across to the small chancery desk; with Isabella standing over me, I translated the message.
‘La Rue des Ecrivains — above the sign of Ananias. Trust him if you have to! If he is gone, if God’s will for you is manifest, you will find him above the Palfrey in Seething Lane off Paternoster Row in the city of London.’
‘What does this mean?’ Isabella asked.
‘It means, my lady,’ I turned and looked at her, ‘that de Vitry reflected and wondered if I was safe here. I suspect he felt guilty. He was a good man. He sent me this as further help, whilst all the time it was he who needed assistance.’
Isabella leaned over, her lips brushing my ear as if we were lovers. ‘We don’t need him, Mathilde, always remember that. We are, as your assailant said, here in our chambers with what he calls our embroidery. God willing, Mathilde, you and I will weave something which people, including my father, will always remember. Never forget that!’ She spoke with such passion; spots of anger appeared high in her cheeks, and her blue eyes glared furiously. I’d never seen her like that before; I had still failed to realise the deep well of resentment in that young woman. Ignored and abused, she was weaving her own web of revenge, eager to carry it out. That is what I want to tell you. I must describe it as I would emerging symptoms or the converging of the planets to move logically in sequence; I must depict truthfully what we felt, what we saw, what we did at a particular time. I am determined not to appear arrogant, as if I could predict what was to happen. Hindsight makes wise men of us all and only a fool, or a liar, subscribes to such wisdom.
We spent the rest of the morning preparing for Casales and Rossaleti. The princess was now being treated as a person in her own right, and when we moved down to her father’s council chamber, only a royal scribe, a pallid-faced old man, joined us. Isabella sat at the top of the table in a high-backed chair, I on her left, Casales and Rossaleti to her right. The scribe perched at the end of the table, pen poised above the ink pot, ready to take memoranda, to report back to his masters everything that was said. I stared round the council chamber. A plain, stark room, its plaster a dull white with paintings on the wall showing scenes from the life of Christ. At the far end hung a huge crucifix; at the other was a dais and a row of writing carrels where royal scribes could sit and be summoned by their masters if they needed them. The ceiling was beamed like a barn. The more I sat there, the more I wondered if it was pretence. Was this some sort of tableau, a court masque for Philip, Marigny or one of the Secreti to observe? Isabella, dressed ever so demurely, certainly behaved herself.
‘You’ve asked to see me, sirs?’ The princess, following court protocol, began the discussions. The scribe waited, pen poised. Rossaleti replied with the usual pleasantries. I studied both men. Casales was a tough professional soldier, a knight who’d journeyed far and fought in many battles. His hair was cropped short, his lean shaven face showing the scars of his years on campaign. He kept his severed wrist in its sheath of leather hidden beneath the table. He had the look of an ascetic: deep-set eyes under thick brows, a pointed nose, thin lips. The only relief in such a hard face was the dimple on his chin. In many ways Casales reminded me of some of the Templars. He was dressed simply in a green cote-hardie over a black jerkin and hose. He wore no jewellery except for a silver chain round his neck, a gift, so he told me later, from his long-dead mother. He was a professional fighter, so he found it difficult to stay still, his left hand constantly tapping the table. Only once did he glance at me, but again he betrayed no sign of recognition and I breathed an Ave in relief. Casales spoke courtly French and I gathered he was a close confidant and a leading henchman of the English favourite Lord Peter Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall. Casales explained he was half Gascon himself and had served Lord Peter both in Gascony and in England. He and Rossaleti had spent months in Westminster, meeting over the intended marriage, and a firm friendship had developed between the two envoys.
Rossaleti nodded understandingly while Casales spoke. Sitting opposite, I could see that Rossaleti, garbed in black like a Benedictine monk, was not as young as I had thought. He looked to be from Italy or the sun-rich provinces of the south, a handsome, almost girlish face with dark eyes and olive skin, but this was offset by the deep furrows in his cheeks. He was a man always on the verge of smiling with ever-shifting eyes which stared curiously at you as if weighing your secret worth. Rossaleti was King Philip’s man body and soul, and yet, at the time, I took to him. I tried to ignore the heavy gold ring emblazoned with the Capetian arms on the middle finger of his right hand which constantly moved, touching the Ave beads around his neck. Rossaleti, soft spoken, would intervene every so often to guide the conversation to its true purpose. How the marriage between Isabella and Edward of England might be a matter of dispute, yet the English king’s love and personal regard for his betrothed was unsullied. In other words, both men were proclaiming that Isabella was not to be offended; the hostile stance adopted by the English king was only a matter of politic.
Isabella listened attentively to their courtly speeches and replied in kind. Down the table the scribe’s pen scratched the parchment. I recall jumping at a harsh sound from one of the windows behind me. I glanced round and glimpsed the shape of a raven pecking at the hardened glass. Isabella smiled at this and brought her speech to a close, trailing her pretty white fingers across her forehead. My mistress then expressed her deep condolences at the death of Sir Hugh Pourte. Casales nodded.
‘Our visit,’ he smiled crookedly, ‘has been much marred by tragedy. One of my clerks, Matthew of Crokendon, was found stabbed in the Cemetery of the Innocents, no one knows by whom. He was last seen leaving a tavern with a wench, a whore, but no one can recall her.’
I set my face like flint as Casales proceeded to discuss the removal of Sir Hugh Pourte’s corpse back to England. Isabella, her features schooled, listened attentively and offered her help. Only when Master Crokendon was mentioned again did those angelically innocent blue eyes shift quickly to me, a look of mock sorrow on her face.
At the end of the meeting the scribe asked if the white wine and doucettes should be served. Isabella shook her head and rose quickly. I followed. My mind seethed like a bubbling cauldron with images of Narrow Face spitting blood, falling against the charnel house wall, and my uncle being thrust up the gallows ladder to the waiting noose. In truth I was frightened, but Isabella touched me comfortingly, a swift caress across the wrist as I followed her to the door.