Abruptly the murmured conversation between Isabella and the monk changed. Isabella was leaning over the table, speaking in Navarrese, a tongue she’d learnt from her mother and one she lapsed into whenever she was troubled or agitated. She was pushing across a second purse. The monk swiftly took this and handed over small pouches which disappeared into the voluminous pockets of Isabella’s robe. Again the monk spoke, this time not in whispered French but harsh Navarrese. Isabella replied just as quickly. I caught the phrase ‘Frater Marco’. The monk sketched a blessing. Isabella rose, bowed to the high altar and left.
We were halfway down the nave when Isabella paused. She pointed up to the hammer-beamed roof where the artist had fixed roundels depicting the serene faces of angels. She acted as if she was describing them to me.
‘Brother Marco is a Crutched Friar,’ she murmured. ‘He was once a member of my mother’s household. He too knows the God-given truth about the past. He is also a herbalist, a skilled one; he gives me certain powders.’
I caught my breath as Isabella’s strange blue eyes glanced sideways at me. ‘Poor Mother was tended to by three of my father’s physicians. Mathilde, I know the truth.’ Her voice grew fierce. ‘In the last two years all three have died with the cramps, a seizure or,’ she pulled a face, ‘something else?’ She hastily made the sign of the cross. ‘No one,’ she hissed, ‘will pray for their souls.’
‘And the fresh powders?’
‘Mathilde, Mathilde, we may not go to England. If not,’ she glared at me, ‘what protection do I have?’ She left the words hanging like a threat. She called out to the Genoese, and we left the church. Casales and Rossaleti helped us mount and we rode out of the enclosure. The Rue des Ecrivains was close by, a broad alleyway where the sellers of unscrubbed and untreated vellum, ink powders, pumice stones, leather bindings, seals and wax had their stalls and shops. A cluster of colourfully scrolled signs proclaimed the different merchandise available. A noisy, merry place thronged by scholars from the halls garbed in all kinds of tawdry finery, short cote-hardies, ragged cloaks, with cheap jewellery glittering on their fingers and wrists. The scholars jostled busily with apprentices in their sombre fustian. Street-walkers and whores lurked at the corners of alleyways and in doorways, waiting sly-eyed for custom.
Isabella’s arrival caused the entire street to be cleared. We stabled our horses in the courtyard of a spacious tavern, and Isabella busied herself as I slipped further down the street on the pretence of doing some errand. I found the sign of Ananias, hurried down the runnel beside it and up the rickety outside staircase, and knocked at the door at the top. Footsteps sounded, followed by the noise of chains being released and bolts being drawn. The door swung open, and a dwarf, garbed in dark brown, glared up at me, his small villainous face shrouded by a close-fitting hood. He reminded me of some malignant goblin.
‘Your business?’ his voice squeaked. He forced a smile at the coin I held up and waved me in. The chamber was strange, almost ghostly. It had been stripped of everything except a few items: a stool, a table and a bed with a straw mattress beneath a crucifix. It was clean and sweetly smelling. I brushed by the dwarf and walked into the centre of the room. Despite the grey chill outside, the chamber was warm and welcoming. I felt something strange even then, a presence pleasing to me. I walked over to the table and stared down at the circled imprints on the two sides and the one in the middle. Had this served as an altar? Was the man sheltering here a priest? But why celebrate the mass in a garret when there were churches on every corner? I wondered who he could be. I recalled the man I’d glimpsed in the Oriflamme, the one with the far-seeing gaze. He had been studying me but had then disappeared. A coincidence? A figment of my fevered mind? One of the Secreti following me through Paris? But why had be been looking at me so sadly? And why disappear?
‘He’s gone!’
I turned. The dwarf was staring greedily at the coin, one hand on the rough handle of the knife pushed into the shabby leather belt about his waist.
‘I mean no harm,’ I replied, walking back to stand over him. ‘I have men outside.’ The hand fell away, and I crouched down. ‘Who was here?’
‘A stranger, hair all shorn,’ the dwarf gabbled. ‘Solitary, close-faced, he hired this from the master, he came then he went, perhaps a scholar?’ He spread his hands. ‘He paid his rent and, three days ago, packed his panniers.’ He pointed to the wooden spigots driven into the wall. ‘Then he left.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who he was, why he left or where he’s gone.’
I handed the coin over and rejoined the princess’ party reassembling in the tavern courtyard. Isabella summoned me over to show a quiver of pens and some costly parchments she had purchased. As I examined these, I murmured what had happened. Isabella looked surprised, but shrugged and moved away to converse with Rossaleti. A short while later we left the city streets as the church bells rang for afternoon prayer. The bright, cold sunlight was quickly fading and the freezing air made us move briskly through the noisy streets. We crossed the river bridge, making our way through the mist-strewn parkland which surrounded the palace. Casales and Rossaleti, who had been describing to us the glories of Westminster, now moved to the front gossiping together, letting their horses find their way.
I glimpsed the black shapes flittering between the trees and bushes alongside the track-way just before the crossbow bolts tore through the air. One of the heralds screamed as a quarrel bit into his arm. Another volley clattered before we recovered and the black-garbed figures, swords drawn, swirled out of the trees. Their intended quarry seemed to be Casales, whose horse reared in fright, but that one-handed knight was a killer born and bred. He drew his sword in a flash of silver, turning his horse to meet his opponents, striking skilfully to the left and to the right. Our startled escorts recovered their wits and hastened to help, as did Rossaleti, driving his horse forward to protect Casales’ back. Our attackers faded away as quickly as they’d arrived, black figures fleeing like demons at the appearance of the Holy Rood. The serjeants-at-arms shouted for order, forbidding any pursuit, which would have been fruitless amongst close-packed trees with the mist thickening and the daylight fading. Casales and Rossaleti dismounted and turned over the corpses of four of their attackers. I urged my horse forward as Casales removed the hood and mask of one of the surviving assailants, who had received an ugly sword wound to the side of his neck. He was young, his unshaven face a tapestry of bruises and scars; some footpad from the slums. Rossaleti questioned him, but the man’s lips only bubbled blood, so the clerk, losing patience, drew his dagger and cut his throat.
He and Casales remounted. I remember Casales’ apparent fury at how such an attack, so close to the royal palace, had been aimed at him. No one dared to protest. Instead the Genoese lashed the feet of the dead attackers and dragged them behind us as we continued into the palace. The alarm was raised, and even the king and his coven of ministers hastened down to the courtyard. Casales kept his voice low, but from his face and the way Marigny and Nogaret were nodding their heads, he was developing his tale that Pourte’s death might also have been caused by the coven which had attacked us. King Philip himself examined the corpses before ordering them to be stripped, disfigured and gibbeted on the great gallows outside the palace gates.
Chapter 5
The Care of this wicked race is blind.
Isabella and I had little time to reflect or discuss what had happened. In preparation for her possible departure for England, the princess’s household had expanded to include more servants. Many of these I simply cannot remember. Reflecting on the past is like standing at the mouth of an alleyway eagerly waiting for someone, or something, to appear. You are aware of many others but your soul, your heart, your eyes search only for what you want. So it was with the people about the princess, porters, maids, soldiers, retainers. Moreover, I always avoided them, remembering the power of the Secreti as well as the popular adage that Judas always has a smiling face and kissing lips. I could trust no one.