‘And?’ I asked.
‘Watch,’ she replied.
I thought of Gaveston locked up in Scarborough Castle.
‘And the king?’
‘He cannot be in Scarborough,’ Isabella replied wearily, ‘not held fast, cut off from his kingdom. Edward must go south and try to raise support, seek loans from the London merchants. I. .’ She paused, turning slightly, a gesture that betrayed her own unease. I understood what was going to happen.
‘Scarborough will be definitely besieged, won’t it?’ I asked. ‘The king does not want himself, or you, at the behest of the earls.’
‘And?’ Isabella asked.
‘Someone may have to treat with the earls. Someone who will be acceptable to them.’ I smiled thinly. ‘Like Stephen Dunheved, the Dominican, and me, domicella reginae camerae — a lady of the queen’s chamber — trusted and privy to royal business.’
‘Yes, Mathilde.’
‘And the Beaumonts,’ I added bitterly, ‘with a foot in either camp, as I am sure they have.’
‘Yes,’ Isabella murmured. ‘Slippery as eels, twisting and turning, my sweet cousins constantly looking for their own advantage.’
‘Could the Beaumonts have acted the traitor at Tynemouth?’ I asked.
‘Possibly. You told me about that cloth and button displaying their livery found near the trap door to the charnel house. The Beaumonts weave their own dark designs.’
‘Why should they betray you to the Scots?’
‘I don’t know.’ Isabella half smiled. ‘Perhaps to impress Bruce, to attract his attention, to gain favour with him. The Beaumont estates in Scotland are prosperous: fertile crop fields, good meadowland, dense forests and streams rich with salmon.’
‘And the Aquilae?’ I asked. ‘Could the Beaumonts be responsible for their deaths?’
‘Mathilde, if he wanted to, Henry Beaumont could put Judas to shame. Yes, they gather around the throne. They fawn and flatter both the king and Gaveston, but in the end, the Beaumonts have only one cause: themselves.’
‘But why should they kill the Aquilae?’
‘To weaken Gaveston. To prepare him for death. Is that not the way of those who plot assassination? To first remove the guards?’
‘Quis custodiet custodes?’ I quoted Juvenal’s famous jibe. ‘Who shall guard the guards?’
‘So true.’ Isabella stepped closer. Her face, framed by a white wimple, looked truly beautiful, her skin translucent, those eyes a deeper blue, sensuous red lips slightly parted. ‘I have closely studied my husband, Mathilde. I know his soul. He is lonely, vulnerable. His mother Eleanor died when he was still a child. The old king was too busy slaughtering the Scots or plotting against my father to care for him. There’s a great emptiness in my husband’s heart. I don’t think I will ever fill it. Gaveston might. So why shouldn’t the Beaumonts remove Gaveston? But first, as in chess, the pawns must be cleared, then the castles, bishops, kings and queens become even more vulnerable.’
‘So,’ I replied, ‘the Aquilae are removed, slain one by one in a mocking way. The assassins creep closer to Gaveston. It could be the Beaumonts. They must view him as a nuisance, a gross distraction to their ambitions. .’
‘Better still,’ Isabella pressed a finger against my lips, ‘better still, Mathilde, if Gaveston goes, who will replace him in the king’s affections? The Beaumonts? Is that what they dream of?’ She paused. ‘God knows,’ she added drily, ‘my sweet cousins couldn’t really care except for whatever is good for them.’ She looked away, lips moving soundlessly, then nodded at me and swept out of the chamber.
The preparations immediately ensued for Gaveston’s departure for Scarborough. The king’s clerks truly believed the earls had spies in York, even in the friary itself, and their main fear was that once Gaveston left, the Great Lords might send a comitatus to intercept him. Accordingly, where possible, our preparations were hidden, hurried and secret. I did have words with Demontaigu about what the queen had told me. He immediately agreed with what she’d said.
‘Everybody wants Gaveston to go,’ he murmured.
‘Except the king?’
‘Except the king!’ Demontaigu’s voice was rich with sarcasm.
I stretched out and ran a finger around his lips. ‘The king?’ I queried. ‘Has the king tired of Gaveston?’
‘Think, Mathilde! For four years the Crown has been dominated by Gaveston. Has Edward, since the day of his father’s death, been given one moment’s peace? Has he been allowed to exercise true power? Look at what’s happened to him, chased about his realm and threatened. At times he is no better than some felon before the shire court, put to the horn as an outlaw. Edward must be seething with anger, but he must also be exhausted. Now,’ Demontaigu spread his hands, ‘life has swept on. Four years a king, Edward faces problems in Scotland and France. At Westminster the Commons demand to meet him. The Lords Spiritual have their own list of grievances. They ask why the king doesn’t settle and live on his own? His wife, a young, beautiful woman, is now enceinte, hopefully with a male child. I’m not saying his grace wills Gaveston evil. Edward may just want a little peace for himself.’
Long after Demontaigu left, his bleak description of the king remained with me.
Rosselin and Middleton also came to see me. I visited the priory’s scriptorium, a gracious, elegant chamber, its fragrance so precious to me: pressed vellum, neatly scrubbed, ink, sandstone and calfskin bindings. I found it comforting to walk along the polished floor and peer over the shoulder of some brother as he copied a manuscript or decorated a book of hours with beautiful miniature pictures that shone like jewels. I glimpsed Dunheved standing near the unbound manuscripts, all filed neatly in their pigeonhole shelves. He explained how he was searching for a copy of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo — Why God Became Man — and returned to his scrutiny. I smiled to hide my own surprise, then felt guilty; after all, Dunheved belonged to an order famous for its learning in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge. He was more than just a preacher, and I idly wondered in what branch of the trivium or quadrivium he was interested. Lost in such thoughts, I left the scriptorium. Rosselin and Middleton were waiting for me in the small cloister beyond. They rose and blocked my path. Rosselin raised a hand, palm extended in a gesture of peace.
‘Mathilde, we do not wish to alarm you, but the deaths of our comrades Lanercost, Leygrave and Kennington, have they been forgotten?’
‘Has your master forgotten them?’ I retorted.
‘His mind is all a muddle,’ Rosselin declared.
‘He is faced with a sea of cares.’ Middleton’s boyish face under his shaven pate was anxious and concerned. A set of Ave beads hung round his neck; he fingered these as if for protection.
‘So your master is not concerned,’ I replied, ‘but you are? Take great care, sirs, I have warned you. Whoever killed your comrades may also have singled you out for death.’
‘We heed your warnings,’ Middleton whispered, ‘but mistress, how can we truly protect ourselves when we do not know the enemy?’
‘And neither do I, sir. If I did, I would tell you!’
‘One thing we have found.’ Rosselin stared around as if some eavesdropper might be lurking. ‘One thing we have found,’ he repeated, ‘is that the day Leygrave was killed, a Franciscan, certainly a man garbed in the brown robes of the order, was seen slipping out through the Galilee Porch of the friary church.’
‘But that could have been anyone,’ I replied. ‘This friary is full of brothers going about their business.’
‘No, no.’ Rosselin shook his head. ‘The lay brother who was killed, Brother Eusebius? He told Father Prior that when he entered the church that morning to sound the Angelus, it was empty. Then he heard a sound, turned and glimpsed a figure, not walking like one of the brothers, but darting fleetingly like a shadow through the door of the Galilee Porch.’