‘I ask you again,’ Philip said. ‘Or it’s back to the wheel. I do not wish that, Monsieur Roulles, I want you to tell us the secret.’
‘But, if you know what it is,’ Roulles gasped as his lips bubbled blood, ‘it is no longer a secret. You do know it, Philip of France.’
The king leaned across the table and smacked him with the back of his hand. The amethyst ring he wore gouged the prisoner’s cheek.
‘The secret?’ he repeated. ‘And, if you tell me it, I’ll tell you one.’
Roulles attempted to smile. Like a dreamer he kept going in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was back in Oxford. At others he was in a tavern singing a carol with friends and the snow was falling outside. Or King Edward was walking arm-in-arm with him through the rose gardens of Westminster.
‘Do you know Pancius Cantrone?’ Philip asked.
Roulles jerked.
‘You must know him,’ Philip insisted. ‘And the scandalous tittle-tattle he depicts as the truth.’
‘I know of no such man.’
‘Come, come, Master Roulles. Let me refresh your memory. Monsieur Malvoisin, before he died in a most unfortunate boating accident, believed he had learned certain secrets.’
‘It’s the truth!’ the prisoner blurted, fighting a wave of nausea. He must not collapse; if he could only ignore the pain!
‘No, no, Monsieur Malvoisin shared this gossip with Signor Cantrone. Somehow or other you discovered it.’
Roulles kept his head down.
‘You are going to die,’ Philip continued remorselessly. ‘Either quickly or at the end of a rope in my orchard.’
Roulles refused to reply.
‘What was the secret?’ Philip insisted. ‘Is that why your master sent you to Paris?’ Philip nodded to one of the torturers, who yanked back Roulles’ head. ‘Lord Henry Fitzalan is dead,’ he declared. ‘Killed by an arrow to the heart. And as for Signor Cantrone. Well, Seigneur Amaury de Craon is now within breathing distance of him. Or perhaps you’ll take comfort that the secrets you discovered have been despatched to England. That pedlar, the chapman, the tinker, the trader, what’s his name? Ah yes, Malsherdes. You think Malsherdes reached Boulogne and took ship to England?’
Roulles tried to concentrate. Despite the agony in mind and body, he thought of little Malsherdes and his pack pony going along the cobbled streets of Paris and out into the countryside.
‘You drank with him, didn’t you?’ Philip continued. ‘At an auberge on the Fontainebleau road. Two of you there in the corner, whispering away like children. Malsherdes left.’ Philip paused. ‘You can have some more wine. Take as much as you wish.’ He waited until the prisoner’s mouth was full. ‘Malsherdes is dead. My men caught him out in the countryside, a quiet place.’
Roulles coughed and spluttered the wine he had drunk. Philip, as gentle as a mother, patted his lips with the blood-soaked napkin.
‘However, Malsherdes was faster than we thought. He’d lit a fire for himself. Before we could stop him, your letters were burned, so my men burned him!’
Roulles forced a grin. ‘Then you know as much as I do, Philip of France.’
The king leaned back in his throne-like chair and, cocking his head, he half-listened to the songbird imprisoned in a silver cage hanging from the branches of a cherry tree. From another part of the palace he heard the bray of trumpets and realised it must be time for the midday prayer. He was wasting his time here. He nodded to the torturers.
‘Take him out! Hang him!’
Roulles was dragged to his feet and bundled out. Philip fastidiously wiped the blood from the goblet’s brim and sipped at it. He was glad Fitzalan was dead. There would be no more letters, no hints of blackmail. But Cantrone? Would de Craon kill him? Philip couldn’t care less. What was one man’s death in the great design? However, he must not give offence to Edward of England! Would Cantrone, whom he would have loved to hang alongside Roulles, bargain with his secret? Or flee? If he bargained, how much trouble would he cause? What scandal would Edward’s agents here in Paris or in Avignon fan with their tongues? Philip looked towards the door. Did de Craon have a hand in Fitzalan’s death? Had he taken his orders too literally? Philip rubbed the side of his face. He must go and pray, must petition his sainted ancestor Louis that Cantrone’s path, and that of the meddlesome clerk Corbett, never crossed.
Chapter 8
Philip would have been pleased at the agitation which now troubled Pancius Cantrone. Indeed, the French king would have prostrated himself in thanksgiving for, on that sunlit autumn afternoon, Pancius Cantrone had only a very short time to live. The Italian, of course, did not know his death was so close. He was just determined to flee England, to escape the French and not to allow the English Crown to use him as a pawn, a bargaining counter with Philip of France.
The Italian physician had visited St Hawisia’s priory. He had ostentatiously attended the young novice Sister Fidelis, whose knuckles had swollen up so her fingers looked as if they had been stung by bees. Cantrone had acted the role of professional physician. He’d examined the skin, felt the bone and, even though the young novice was embarrassed, carefully scrutinised her urine lest the swelling had been caused by a malignant disturbance in her body humours. Of course, Lady Madeleine had welcomed him and they had chatted quietly in her chamber, both before and after he had attended the young novice. Pancius Cantrone had then taken a little wine and some sweetmeats in the refectory before collecting his horse. Now he was riding back through the forest paths to Ashdown Manor.
The Italian physician kept his thick woollen cloak tightly around him. He even wore wool-lined gauntlets because, although the English said it was not yet winter, Cantrone felt cold. He hated these gloomy, wet forests and yearned for the lush valleys of Tuscany. Cantrone was determined to flee. He had come to England because Lord Henry had offered him protection. In return Cantrone had whispered the secrets he had learned from Monsieur Malvoisin. Now those secrets came back to haunt him as his horse found its way along the lonely forest paths. Sombre images plagued his mind: black-cowled monks, tapers in their hands, winding their way up a cathedral church; behind them a velvet-draped coffin resting on the shoulders of pall-bearers. The solemn chorus rising and falling like a distant wave with a sequence from the funeral mass. Outside the cathedral mailed horsemen milled about, controlling the crowds. Cantrone had been in that procession. He’d stood next to Malvoisin. They had watched the royal mourners bend over the wax effigy placed on top of the coffin. Roses had been placed there along with pure white lilies. Malvoisin could apparently stand it no longer. Standing by themselves, he’d turned and whispered, ‘Not an infection of the lung.’
‘What?’ Cantrone had asked.
‘Not an infection of the lung,’ Malvoisin had repeated, keeping his voice low, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, eyes glittering, rubicund face flushed with wine. ‘She was poisoned.’
Cantrone had gone cold but Malvoisin, cunning as ever, had chosen his moment.
‘You know that I speak the truth.’
His watery eyes had held those of Cantrone and the Italian physician had given way to the doubts seething within him. Afterwards, when the church was empty and the incense hung like a forgotten prayer, curling up towards the stone ceiling, Cantrone had taken Malvoisin aside.
‘If you repeat what you said,’ he whispered, ‘it’s the scaffold for both of us!’
Malvoisin, now sobering up, had glanced nervously around.
‘My duties are finished now,’ he’d declared. ‘I have had enough. It’s time for peace, a little quiet.’
Malvoisin had resigned his post in the household. The general expectation was that Cantrone would seek the vacant preferment, but the Italian had studied intrigue as well as physic. He had noticed the men who had followed him to a tavern or stood outside his house when darkness fell. Cantrone knew the signs like a good physician should. He’d packed his coffers and fled in the dead of night. First to Italy and then, by sea, to the English-held city of Bordeaux. Even there he had felt hunted; he was looking further afield when he had met Lord Henry Fitzalan. The English milord needed a physician and, impressed by Cantrone’s skill, had offered him a place in his household. Cantrone had quickly accepted. Weeks turned into months. Cantrone discovered Fitzalan was high in the English court, a trusted envoy to France. So, to make his own position more secure, Cantrone had revealed his own dark secrets. Lord Henry Fitzalan seemed delighted. Cantrone had come to trust him, the only person he had ever done in his long, suspicion-laden life. Fitzalan had used those secrets against the French, hinting at what he knew both at meetings and in letters.