About a dozen men stepped forward. Demontaigu hurried down the steps and had a word with Destivet and Ausel. They quickly agreed that the aged should leave first carrying the treasures, relics, documents and whatever else the Noctales wished to seize. I was going ask how they were going to get out when Demontaigu led me over into a corner. He and two others grasped the rusting key in a flagstone and lifted it up. A gush of cold foul air swept through the crypt.
‘You don’t think,’ Demontaigu whispered, ‘that we’d shelter here with no way out? This is an old church. The passage beneath runs close to St Bartholomew’s near Smithfield. Mathilde, I ask you to stay with me. We will be the last to leave, but if you are captured. .’ he grasped my hands, ‘stand on ceremony. Declare who you are. Demand that you be taken immediately back to the palace. But if God is good, that won’t happen.’
The crypt began to empty, the old ones first, with a small escort; some carried sacks, others coffers and chests. The steps leading down into the pit were crumbling and steep. Curses rang through the darkness. Cresset torches were hastily relit and handed down, Demontaigu shouting that some must be fixed into wall niches. By now I was aware that the nave above us was filling with men; it echoed with shouts, mailed foot-steps and the clash of armour. Eventually the Noctales reached the crypt door. It was tried and pushed, followed by silence, then I heard the sound of running feet and a hideous crashing. The Noctales had found a fallen log or an old bench and were using it as a battering ram. The door however was thick and stout, its hinges almost welded into the wood. Meanwhile the crypt emptied further. Archers and crossbowmen prepared, arrows lying on the ground beside each man’s right foot, one notched to the bow. Demontaigu took a small sack of oil, with which he doused the steps; then he piled whatever rubbish he could find against the crypt door.
I watched sweat-soaked, heart pounding, feeling at the same time hot and cold. The battering ram was now having an effect. The wood buckled. The door shivered. There was a great crash and the bottom half gave way. A figure slipped through, sword glinting. An arrow was loosed. The man screamed and slithered down the steps. Demontaigu threw a torch. The steps and rubbish piled against the door were engulfed in a sheet of flame. The Noctales were foolish. Some tried to jump through; those who did, slipped on the oil and were easy targets against the light for our crossbowmen and archers. The air now sang with the twang of bows and the whistle of arrows, followed by heart-jolting screams as each shaft found its target. Demontaigu, sword drawn, directed the bowmen as the Noctales, with cloaks and whatever else they could find, tried to douse the flames. Demontaigu ordered his men to withdraw; crossbowmen first, then the archers. The fire began to die down. Demontaigu urged some of the crossbowmen out down the secret passageway, followed by men-at-arms. The Noctales, however, were desperate, furious at being thwarted, eager to seize their prey. Three of them reached the bottom of the steps unscathed and rushed towards our remaining crossbowmen. One leapt, bringing his sword down with two hands, and cut through the arm of an archer as he fumbled for another shaft. The man collapsed screaming. The Noctales showed no mercy and immediately drove his sword straight into the archer’s throat before one of the Templars loosed a quarrel that took the attacker full in the side of the face. Pandemonium and chaos ensued. Shouts and screams, the clash of swords. Demontaigu’s line held firm. I was now in the centre of a V, which was retreating back to that life-giving tunnel. Demontaigu had first used whatever crossbowmen had remained. The archers were now told to mass and loose at the same time; their shower of arrows drove the Noctales back.
‘Enough!’ Demontaigu shouted. ‘Enough!’
Four or five master bowmen stayed, loosing shaft after shaft as the rest hurried down the steps. Demontaigu pushed me into the arms of one of his companions; looking up, I stared into the smiling face of Ausel.
‘What a fortunate night,’ he said. ‘A fight with the Noctales and the embrace of a beautiful woman.’ He laughed at his own mock chivalry and pushed me further down towards the steps. I was half carried into the darkness below. The tunnel was narrow, no more than two yards across, and about the same high. Ausel told me to watch my head and follow him. Behind me, the last men hurried through. In the glow of a torch I glimpsed Demontaigu pull the paving stone back into place. He poured oil on the steps and dropped the torch, fleeing after us as the flames leapt up. We stumbled and ran, gasping for breath, bodies sweat-soaked. I tried not to think as rats scurried by, squeaking stridently at being disturbed. At one point the tunnel branched to the left and right. Ausel paused, waiting for Demontaigu to catch up. He stared at certain markings on the wall and indicated we should take the left fork. No sounds echoed behind us. Demontaigu gaspingly informed us that the paving stone was intricately placed and not easily raised, whilst the fire would be deterrent enough, not to mention the prospect of arrows being loosed through the darkness.
At last the tunnel sloped upwards. I felt a flurry of cold night air and we were out into an old derelict cemetery lying to the north of Smithfield, bordering its great open meadows. In the distance I could see the gibbets and scaffolds of the execution ground lit by torches as carpenters worked late into the night for some execution the following morning. A grim, macabre scene. By then most of the Templars had escaped, scattering in every direction. Demontaigu explained that there would be little time for farewells but that they all knew how and when they would meet again. Dragging me by the arm, he skirted the common on to a track-way down to the lanes leading into the city. Only then did I became aware of how deep the darkness was. The rasping night air bit at me even as lantern horns at windows or slung on hooks outside doors glowed comfortingly. The final curfew had not yet tolled. The watch were not out. The streets were busy, especially near the fleshing yards where the taverns and alehouses still provided welcoming light and warmth. Demontaigu took me into one of these, hiring a table deep in the shadows. He ordered water and napkins, and we roughly cleaned ourselves whilst sharing a goblet of wine and a platter of bread. Demontaigu then leaned back, head against the wall, peering at me through half-opened eyes.
‘We never expected that,’ he murmured. ‘Those poor unfortunates at Newgate? Perhaps one of them was interrogated? They could only have discovered the Chapel of the Hanged from a Templar. . But come, mistress,’ he smiled, ‘let’s go hand in hand back to the palace and pretend that whatever happened today did not.’
Chapter 7
Even when such things had been carried out, neither true charity or peace remained.
Such advice was easily given yet hard to act upon. By the time we reached the main gate of Burgundy Hall and the welcoming faces of Ap Ythel and his archers, I felt exhausted. My legs were weak, my stomach queasy, eager to retch. Demontaigu gently kissed me good night and slipped away. Ap Ythel took me into the royal quarters, up the stairs, past chamberlains and servants hurrying here and there on various tasks. The smell was still fetid and rank. I commented on this. Ap Ythel shrugged apologetically.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘the drains and sewers, the latrines and garderobes will be cleaned.’ He gestured at servants laying out pots of crushed herbs. Sweet smoke curled from incense boats whilst the brazier coals had been heavily coated with aromatic powder. I knew Isabella was going to be busy that day meeting representatives of the French envoys, so I was surprised when a chamberlain insisted on taking me to the king’s chamber. Edward, Gaveston and Isabella were sitting before the fire, heating chestnuts on the coals and ladling out hot posset from a deep silver-engraved wassail bowl. All three turned as I came in, the chamberlain announcing in a carrying voice that I had just arrived. Edward and Gaveston were dressed as they had been early that day, the boots they’d kicked off thickly caked with mud. The king rose and came towards me. I would like to think that was courtesy, but I suspect he could tell from my face and the smuts of dirt on my cloak and kirtle that something had happened. He grasped my hands and gently kissed the fingertips, his eyes studying mine closely.