I loved to sit in the garden or wander through the chapeclass="underline" so peaceful, so ordinary and unpretentious, yet soon to be the haunt of murder. As for the rest of my time, I had left most of my potions and medicines with the queen’s household, but the castle had a leech, a little old woman who constantly talked to herself, a veritable fountain of knowledge about what was best for an open wound, the disturbance of belly humours or rheums in the nose. Once I persuaded her that I was no threat, she chattered like a sparrow on a branch, especially about her own remedies, poultices and potions. In truth, such women are easily scoffed at, but she was very skilled and knowledgeable, particularly about mushrooms, so dangerous she said, that she’d never eaten one in her life. She was also a source of gossip about the castle. From her I learnt how Constable Warde believed Scarborough could not be defended against an army, whilst his levies openly grumbled about having to defend a Gascon upstart.
God forgive me, I forget that old woman’s name, yet I learnt so much from her about medicines from local plants and the various spells and incantations used in their application. At first I wondered if she was a witch. On one occasion her lined face creased into a smile, and she grasped my arm and leaned closer.
‘I watch your eyes, mistress, they are as clear as glass. You know, and I know, that no spell or incantation can cure anything. A prayer to the good Lord or His Blessed Mother is potent, but you see, mistress,’ she winked, ‘our patients don’t know that! They think spells work. Have you noticed, mistress, how, if the mood of your patients grows benevolent, they are more easily cured?’
I certainly remember laughing at that. On another occasion she made a very strange remark, one that caught my attention. I had been full of questions; now she asked hers. One morning I went down for some dried moss mixed with curdled milk for a cut on my hand. I wanted it cleaned and kept free of pus; the old woman gladly obliged. We sat at the corner of the table, my sleeve pulled back. She carefully washed the wound and applied the mixture with the flat blade of a knife purified in the flame of a candle. I thanked her and offered to pay. She grasped my fingers and peered closely at me.
‘Mistress,’ she whispered, ‘physic has its own mysteries, but not as bewildering as the affairs of man. Why has his grace the king in all his wisdom sent Lord Gaveston to shelter here?’
‘This castle is fortified,’ I replied. ‘There’s the cove where ships may anchor. Lord Gaveston can withstand a siege. If he doesn’t, he can always take ship and flee abroad.’
The old woman bowed her head, laughed softly to herself then glanced up.
‘But how did they know that?’
‘Mistress,’ I pleaded, ‘don’t play riddles with me. What are you saying?’
‘I have lived here for over seventy summers, and I can assure you, mistress, that never once has his grace the king ever visited here, and certainly not Lord Gaveston. So why should they come to a castle they’ve never visited? I go down to the town. Rumours mill as flies over a turd. The great earls are coming,’ she gestured with her hand towards the window, ‘and as for ships. .’ She laughed. ‘Mistress, the cove down there is a haven for pirates, be they English or Fleming, from Hainault or France. Even if a ship came in, God knows whether it would be allowed to leave, and if it did, whether it would be safe.’
The leech had placed her finger on a problem that gnawed at my own heart. Why here? Why the castle of Scarborough? Demontaigu, for all his years as a warrior, was mystified, as was Lord Henry Beaumont, who could, and often did, provide a litany of countless places where Gaveston would have been safer. The old woman tapped the side of her nose and winked.
‘Does his grace the king wish Lord Gaveston to be taken?’ She chewed the corner of her lip. ‘God knows, mistress, I have said enough. Now, as for this cut. .’
She wouldn’t be questioned further, though what she said reflected the gossip of the kitchen, buttery and refectory. Dunheved, that great collector of gossip, wandering the castle talking to this person or that, offered his own solution.
‘Perhaps it’s not the castle,’ he murmured, smiling. ‘Perhaps it’s the harbour. If Gaveston does flee to foreign parts, it will not be aboard a king’s ship but a pirate vessel, someone who could slip in and out and take him safely away without attracting the attention of other ships.’
Yet in the end that was only one problem amongst many. For the rest, Gaveston insisted on holding his chamber councils, but these were mere chatter. We could only wait. The great earls threatened a siege, but Gaveston confidently informed us that his grace the king would raise levies and pin the enemy between his royal army and the castle walls. We had to be patient. Such was Gaveston’s hope. He was living in a fool’s world. No news came from either king or queen. To distract myself further, I worked in the castle’s kitchens: busy, noisy places with ham, sausage, rope and game birds hanging from the rafters to be smoked and dried. The spit boys invariably needed help to collect and dry the bavins or bundles of hazelwood rods for the long ovens in the castle bakery. I always rose early to help in such ordinary tasks. I loved the misty coolness, the promise of a full sun, the light blue sky. The smells from the kitchen were mouth-watering, as Gaveston still insisted on delicacies for his table. Bakeries have always delighted me. The fragrance of freshly baked bread provoked bittersweet memories of those happy, innocent days in Paris when I raced along the Rue des Cordeliers on tasks for my uncle whilst the oven boys prepared their first batches for the day.
I would say my morning prayers in that delightful little garden and wait for the chaplain, a fussy grey-haired priest, to prepare the chapel for morning mass. Sometimes Dunheved and Demontaigu would join me, though usually the Dominican and my beloved Templar priest celebrated mass in their own chambers. On one occasion Dunheved remarked how little Gaveston fell to his prayers, and asked if it was true that his mother had been a witch. I simply smiled and said I did not know, voicing my own anxiety about Gaveston’s foolery and the king’s stupidity. Oh yes, I remember all those things: that homely chapel with its delicate paintings and its lovely garden; the morning tasks in the bakery and kitchen. I remember them because that was when and where the horrors began again.
It must have been about six days after our arrival in the castle. I was in the buttery chamber when Dunheved came hastening in, his black and white gown flapping in the strong morning breeze.