Guido, in fact, was still pallid-faced and weak. He leaned against the bolsters with Agnes on his left, the queen dowager sitting on the bed feeding him broth. She welcomed me with the sanctimonious expression she had developed to such perfection. Agnes looked solemn, lower lip jutting out, lost in her own thoughts. Guido stretched out his hand and grasped mine.
‘Mathilde, the physicians came to bleed me. No.’ He let go of my hand. ‘I refused. Mathilde, what poison was it? Have you discovered?’
‘I don’t know. Some herb or flower with a perfumed smell. I’ve consulted the leech books, but as you know, different powders can smell the same.’
‘Henbane, foxglove, belladonna,’ he held his stomach, ‘it could have been any of those. Thank God for you, Mathilde. I remember now,’ he smiled, ‘sitting down at Gaveston’s chair. I had not taken my wine; his water glass looked full and untouched.’
‘Didn’t the odour alarm you?’
‘No, no, I took a deep draught. True, I smelt the perfume,’ he shrugged, ‘of flowers, or herbs. I thought it was a fragrance from the feast. I’m recovering, Mathilde, still weak but I wish to thank you, as well as beg you,’ he licked his lips, ‘to discover what the poison was.’ He leaned back against the bolsters. ‘Her grace thinks I may not have been the intended victim but the Lord Gaveston-’
‘Never mind that,’ the queen dowager interjected. ‘Once you’ve recovered, we shall all, including Agnes, go on pilgrimage to give thanks to the Lord’s Precious Blood at Hailes Abbey. Do you know, Mathilde, the Abbey itself. .’
I fled that sick-chamber as soon as I could and hastened along to Isabella’s quarters. In the waiting hall clustered servants and men-at-arms; Ap Ythel’s archers sober-dressed in their dull brown and green livery compared to the flame-haired members of Gaveston’s Irish mercenaries, with thier flamboyant garb and long hair. All these gathered in window alcoves, enclosures and entrances or just squatted on the ground with their backs to the wall, eating, drinking and dicing, waiting either to be called for some task or to be relieved of their duty. The passageway leading down to the queen’s chamber was guarded by a cluster of household knight in half-armour, swords drawn, resplendent in their blue and gold livery. I stared round, looking for the messenger, and glimpsed a grey-haired man, his high-heeled boots mud splattered, the hood of his green cloak pushed back to reveal weatherbeaten skin, deep-set eyes and a neatly clipped beard and moustache. The kindly face was familiar. I went towards him. He glimpsed me, smiled and rose. I remembered Raoul Foucher, a neighbour of my parents’ farm near Bretigny, a landowner and trader in skins and leather goods, a righteous man who often visited my mother. We clasped hands and exchanged the kiss of peace. Raoul, beneath all the pleasantries, was anxious to speak alone. I took him beyond the bar, and one of the royal knights escorted us down the passageway to sit on the quilted seats in a deep window enclosure. I asked Raoul if he needed something to eat or drink. He just grasped my hand.
‘Mathilde de Clairebon.’ He spoke slowly, as if I’d forgotten my own patois. ‘Mathilde, it is good to see you. The guards told me how close you are to the queen.’ He winked. ‘You always were clever, Mathilde. Now listen. I am in London only one day. I must return to Dover by the end of the week when the cog La Cinquieme returns from Wissant. I have brought no letter from your mother; she thought that might be dangerous. No, no,’ he shook his head, ‘your mother is well. She sends her love. Like all of us she is getting older, but my sons help on the farm. All was quiet.’ He shrugged. ‘Season followed season. No one knew where you’d gone after the arrest of your uncle and the chaos in Paris. It was the same out in the country-side. Templar houses and properties were seized and ransacked, their communities arrested and carted off to prison. Tales became common about the torture, degradation and cruel execution of Templars. Royal proclamations described them as sons of Satan, sodomites, idolaters, heretics and warlocks. Few people believed such lies. This was a matter for the king, his lust for gold, his greed for power.’ He paused. ‘You sent a message to your mother that you were safe, yes?’
I nodded.
‘No one believed the stories about men like your uncle, but we considered that a matter for the Great Ones of the land. I never thought your mother was in any danger until last month. Groups of horsemen, black-garbed mercenaries called Noctales, appeared in Bretigny. They proclaimed they were there to hunt down fugitive Templars, though according to common knowledge, very few had escaped. To put it bluntly, Mathilde, for at least ten days, using royal warrants, the Noctacles requisitioned your mother’s farm.’ He let go of my hands and rubbed his face. ‘The experience was not pleasant. You know the law: royal troops, armed with writs of purveyance, can quarter on any chateau, village or farm.’
‘My mother wasn’t hurt?’
‘No. I went down there. The Noctales were bully boys, the dregs of the slums. They helped themselves to food and wine, roistering and sleeping in the stables and barns. I did my best. I objected, asking why Catherine de Clairebon should be their sole host.’
‘Was their leader Alexander of Lisbon?’
Raoul pulled a face. ‘No, the leader of these crows was a Burgundian called La Maru. He was, is, I think, a defrocked cleric. He was different from the rest, cold-eyed with a weasel soul. He rejected my plea, saying I should complain to the king at the Louvre or, if I wanted to, Mathilde de Clairebon sheltering amongst the Goddams at Westminster. I understood from your mother that La Maru made this reference time and again before he left, promising they might well return before midsummer.’
I tried to control my fears. Raoul knew, I knew, my mother knew, and so did Marigny, the root cause of such abuse, hence that unfinished threat in the abbey gardens. I was being punished, warned through my mother because of my hostility towards Philip and his minions from hell. I questioned Raoul most closely but he could say no more. Perhaps he was being kind and wished to save me from the litany of petty cruelties and indignities inflicted upon my mother. He was nervous, anxious to be gone from such strange surroundings. I told him to wait, hurried to my own chamber and brought from my precious store two small purses of silver coins. I explained that one was for him, the other for my mother. He refused. I still thrust both into his hands, and begged him to reassure her of my love and tell her that I was well but, for the moment, could not return to France as it would be too dangerous. He listened carefully, promised me he would do all he could and left.
Un bon homme, Monsieur Foucher. I have a special Book of Hours, once beautiful, its vellum cover now tattered, aged with use, stained and frayed. At the back, like any good bedeswoman or chancery priest, I have a list of those souls I pray for. People who did what they could when there were so many reasons why they should pass by on the other side. Raoul is one of these. After he left, I fled to my own chamber and crouched in the corner, staring at the light pouring through the lancet window. I sat huddled, seething with fear, hate, revenge and a deep, cloying sense of despair. When would this all end? I stared at the bleak crucifix and prayed for an end to my heart bubbling like a cauldron, full to the brim with disorderly, dangerous humours. My gaze wandered to a triptych of St Anne, mother of the Virgin, bending over her precious child. I prayed to her even as I recognised the words of Augustine: how demons can cloak themselves in thick, moist bodies such as steam from a pot or foul gases from a marsh. Did such demons prowl now, wrapped and wafted in the perfumes of this palace, drifting along its corridors and galleries, sliding like a mist, searching for the gaps and crevices in the armour of my soul? I prayed to St Anne and breathed in deeply. Images of my mother floated through my mind. I’d always been closer to my father than to her. I believed I was more the expression of her love for him than the object of her love. Nevertheless, the ties of the womb are the strongest. I wept for how her gentleness must have suffered at the hands of the Noctales. God forgive me, I seethed with hate for Marigny, Alexander of Lisbon and La Maru.