‘Did you tell. .?’
‘Tell?’ he muttered. ‘I told no one.’ He broke free of my grip and strode away.
There was little more we could do. Demontaigu and I kissed in the shadows and went our separate ways. I rarely saw him over the next few days. He withdrew from the queen’s chancery with this excuse or that, busy with his brethren, or so I learnt later. Most of them had escaped the Noctales, but three of their companions simply vanished, never to be seen again. God have mercy on their poor souls. They must have been trapped and their corpses tossed into some peat bog. The other cadavers out in the hollow also disappeared, an act of malignant vindictiveness by Lisbon, who had used them as bait. Lanercost returned to ask Demontaigu about his brother’s corpse, and when he learnt the truth became even more sorrowful. Such tragedies, however, were drowned by other news. The great earls had mustered their troops, both foot and horse, moving slowly north. My mistress was rarely seen, being closeted with Edward and Gaveston. We would meet in the evening, when I would anxiously enquire of her health, but Isabella, though beautiful and graceful, was sturdy as an oak. Sixteen she was, of full height, sophisticated and elegant in all her mannerisms. Pregnancy had brought a fresh bloom to those blue eyes and that golden face; her hair seemed more like spun gold, and her body, when I bathed it, glowed with health. The queen’s abdomen grew swollen to ‘a slight thickness’, as she laughingly described it. She was more concerned at the dangers threatening. Only once did she lose her temper, snapping at me like an angry crow as she ranted about Edward’s fecklessness and Gaveston’s futile attempts to resist exile.
‘My lord Gaveston,’ Isabella whispered through clenched teeth as she sat on the edge of the great bed one evening, ‘should go once more on his travels and stay there. Now listen, Mathilde.’ She plucked at the gold-fringed tassels of the counterpane. ‘The earls will try to trap us. We must, at all times, be ready to flee.’
‘Your meetings with the king?’ I asked.
‘A dialogue with fools,’ Isabella retorted. ‘Schemes to bring the great earls to battle, to ally with the Scottish rebels, even. .’ She paused. ‘Yes, Edward has even asked my beloved father for troops from France. Nonsense!’ She waved a hand. ‘Mathilde, I am enceinte. I should be relaxing in flowery bowers at Sheen, Windsor or Westminster, not scuttling across the heathland like some rabbit darting from hole to hole.’ She glanced directly at me. ‘The glass is darkening; we must bring an end to this foolery.’
So she said it, that brief remark. The dice, cogged or not, had rolled and Isabella was committed. Little did I realise then how the game might end. Now my duties at the court were to advise and protect my mistress. Sometimes this involved sinister secrets and murderous shadows, but these swirled through a tangle of other ordinary matters that filled my days, for my mistress now ruled a great household. She was domina of extensive estates, be it the manors of Torpel and Upton in England or the county of Ponthieu in France. She presided over an exchequer, a chancery and accounts chambers. The great departments of her household were headed by royal clerks such as William Boudon, John de Fleet and Ebulo de Montibus. She employed three cooks, two apothecaries, a number of butlers, pantlers, spicerers and marshals of the hall, grooms for the stables, laundresses and washerwomen. The large coffers, chests and caskets of her household were crammed with precious items, be it the ring of St Dunstan or exquisite embroidered cloths from Flemish looms. Isabella owned falcons, lanniers, hawks, greyhounds and a string of horses: sumpter, palfreys and destriers. My task was not to get involved in petty details but to survey and assist as my mistress directed. I ensured that after Easter Sunday no fires were lit, that the hearths be cleared and decorated with garlands, whilst linen curtains were to be hung over windows to keep out the spring draughts. I kept a particularly sharp eye on the kitchen, buttery and spicery. The most serious threat to Isabella’s health was tainted food or practices. I insisted that all who served the queen above the Nef, that gorgeous gold salt-cellar carved in the shape of a ship, regularly clean and scrub both their hands and all vessels and cutlery intended for her table.
Other tasks outside the household also concerned me. The arrival of the court at the priory attracted a legion of beggars, some genuine, others counterfeit. They would cluster at the gates pleading for alms. I was responsible for disbursements of ‘queen’s bread’ and ‘queen’s pence’. I would often supervise such charity after the Angelus bell; other times I would delegate it to others. One beggar, however, caught my attention. He called himself ‘the Pilgrim from the Wastelands’, a grim, dark-featured, slender individual, easily noticeable because of his wild staring eyes and the birthmark on the right of his face, a large mulberry-coloured stain. He’d definitely been in Outremer under the scorching sun of Palestine, deep-voiced with a commanding presence. I glimpsed him on a number of occasions, especially as the queen’s almoner reported how the Pilgrim had the audacity to petition ‘to see the queen or one of her ilk’. Of course, he was refused. Other urgent business dominated our days, nevertheless I could not forget his pleading eyes and strident voice. However, at the time, I did not know what part he had to play in the murderous mystery play unfolding around us, whilst the busy routine of each day left little time for such petitions even to be considered.
Such ordinary tasks kept me busy for the first few days after my return from the moors, but that day had not been forgotten. A harvest of evil had been sown, and sin is a fertile shoot. My mistress and I were attending the Jesus mass in the friary church. We knelt on prie-dieus just within the rood screen. Brother Stephen Dunheved, resplendent in the robes of the Easter liturgy, was bringing the mass to an end. The tower bells were tolling; Dunheved was raising his hand in benediction. I was lost in my own thoughts, staring at the carved wooden statue of Judas used to hold twelve candles that were extinguished during Tenebrae on Maundy Thursday, a symbol of the Apostles’ desertion of Christ, when piercing screams from the cobbled yard outside carried through the church. Dunheved quickly finished his blessing. I glanced at the queen; she nodded and I joined the others who hurried through the corpse door out into the great courtyard that stretched alongside the church. Lanercost lay there in a tangle of cloak, boots sticking out, head eerily turned, skull shattered so that the blood seeped out in rivulets. A serjeant-at-arms came hurrying over. I ordered him to keep back the crowds while I approached the grisly scene. Of course Lanercost was dead, his neck broken, his skull smashed.
‘What happened?’ I stood up and walked away as Dunheved, who’d been informed about the incident, came hurrying out of the church still in his vestments, a phial of holy oils in his hands.
‘What happened?’ I repeated.
Dunheved was kneeling by the corpse, swiftly anointing the stricken man. I murmured a requiem and glanced around. A crowd was now gathering to gape at the corpse. Some were pointing to the top of the steepled bell tower built on the south side of the church. According to the serjeant, Lanercost had fallen from there. I glanced up. The tower rose sheer above me. Small arrow-slit windows on its sides, and in the bell chamber itself, two great oblong windows on each of the four walls. The bells had ceased tolling but the birds nesting in the tower still fluttered noisily. I glanced down at Lanercost. He was dressed in a brown cloak over shirt and hose; his boots were unspurred and he wore no war-belt. The serjeant-at-arms pushed back the crowds. I glanced over my shoulder, to where Isabella and two of her ladies-in-waiting clustered at the church door. The queen stared bleakly across. I quietly gestured with my hand that she should not approach. She nodded, turned and went back into the church. I abruptly realised then how my mistress’ mood had recently changed, to become more withdrawn and reflective. A trumpet sounded, a sharp, braying blast that brought everyone to their knees, myself included, as Edward and Gaveston came striding across, Father Prior hurrying behind them.