‘You are late.’ Isabella’s voice was soft and languorous. She and Gaveston were sitting so close I felt a pang of jealousy. These Great Ones also had their own secrets, part of their lives hidden from me.
‘All went well?’ Edward asked.
‘No, my lord,’ I replied wearily. I took off my cloak, curtsied towards my mistress and the king and almost stumbled towards the stool Gaveston pushed between himself and the queen. ‘No, my lord, all did not go well. Nor do I feel well.’ I slumped down before the fire and told them everything that had happened at the Secret of Solomon, our visit to the Domus Iucundarum, and the possibility that Pax-Bread was dead. All merriment faded. The king gnawed angrily on his thumb. Gaveston put his face in his hands. Isabella stared down at her lap, playing with the ring she had taken off, moving it round as if it was something living. I informed them about the attack on us, how I had been so shaken Demontaigu had taken me into a tavern to allow my tremors to pass, hence my agitation. Isabella looked sharply at me as if she did not believe that. The king, however, cursed quietly under his breath.
For a while they discussed the possibilities between themselves. I stared around, becoming aware of the rich blue, red and gold tapestries hanging on the wall; the gleaming polished furniture: the comfortable turkey rugs; the pewter, silver and gold jewel-encrusted pots, cups and jugs on an open shelved aumbry. The wealth and power of these two men were such a sharp contrast to the desperation and fear of that ghostly crypt and my fearful, frenetic departure from it. Memories remained. The door burning. The Noctales breaking in. Dark figures against the light. The whirr of arrows. The cries and shrieks of wounded men. Such a contrast! Edward and Gaveston now wished to be alone. Isabella and I returned to the queen’s quarters where, half-asleep, I almost limped to a settle in front of the fire.
‘Mathilde? Mathilde?’ Isabella shook me from my reverie. ‘Are you tired? You look very pale.’ She touched the sleeve of my kirtle, picking at a charred fragment then moving her finger to a stain of oil on the white cuff of one of my sleeves. She touched me lightly on the face. ‘Mathilde, your friends are mine, your enemies mine. I have left France. My father is my enemy; so are his envoys, his mercenaries. Yes,’ she plucked at the sleeveless gown over her tawny kirtle and spread her hands, ‘even my father’s sons, my own brothers. What Demontaigu was, what he is, poses no threat to me or mine.’ She sat down on a chair next to me. ‘Mathilde,’ she whispered hoarsely, and I glimpsed the fear in her light blue eyes. ‘Mathilde,’ she insisted, ‘we are pressed close here: either Edward concedes or we face great troubles. Have you heard the whispers? Some assert that not only Gaveston should go but the king also.’ She paused, breathing noisily. ‘If that comes about, Mathilde, what happens to us, to me, to you? My lord requires time. We have to play the great game, and play it well. Publicly I oppose my husband. Everyone, including my beloved aunt, continues to believe that. So tomorrow you must dine with her, provide some excuse, say I am not well, but,’ her hand fell to caress mine, ‘win time for my lord. Say whatever you have to to encourage the queen dowager to continue her negotiations with Winchelsea and the rest.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, whatever you have to! Now, come.’ She kicked off her slippers. ‘It is time we slept. My lord will not visit me tonight or invite me to share his bed. So stay with me, Mathilde, like the young women we could have been. We shall lie next to each other and whisper against the world. .’
The following morning, dressed in a snow-white wimple, a kirtle and a sleeveless gown of heaven blue, one of Isabella’s ermine-fringed cloaks wrapped about my shoulders, I presented myself to the queen dowager’s chamberlains in the King’s House, that ancient part of Westminster Palace overlooking the Old Yard. I arrived early, so confusion ensued as pages and servants gathered up the two young princes named after the places of their birth, Edmund of Woodstock and Thomas of Brotherton. Guido the Psalter and Agnes d’Albert supervised the infants’ departure with their nurses to the children’s chambers further down the gallery. Once the infants and their entourage had disappeared, Guido and Agnes returned and escorted me into the inner sanctum, where the queen dowager and Countess Margaret presided. They were dressed like peas from the same pod in red and gold cotehardies, dark fur mantles with costly linings about their shoulders loosely tied with silvertasselled cords and clasped with precious brooches. Both wore ridiculous-looking gold-coloured barbettes and fillets to hide their hair as if they were nuns in some convent rather than princesses of the blood. They were sitting close together, poring over a manuscript stretched out across a wooden frame. According to the queen dowager’s excited murmur, this was a monkish account of the discovery of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury.
‘Their bodies,’ she thrilled, ‘were wonderfully preserved. Mathilde, is that not miraculous?’
I said it was, a God-given sign. I tried not to catch Guido’s eye as he stood next to the queen dowager. One look from him showed me how both he and Agnes were bored to yawning with this constant description of relics. The queen dowager gathered us around the hearth. Madeira sack was served with sugared biscuits, and without any bidding, Margaret continued her description of holy relics, adding how she hoped one day to return to France to worship the Crown of Thorns that her saintly ancestor Louis had bought from Baldwin of Constantinople. Her babbled list also included the baby linen of the Son of God; the lance, sponge and chain of His Passion, a portion of a true cross, Moses’ rod, the skull of St John the Baptist, not to mention the platter Abraham used to feast the angels before they visited Sodom and Gomorrah. Guido intervened, wondering about whether the true cross had really been discovered.
‘No, no.’ The queen dowager waved a finger like a magister in the schools. ‘According to what I have read, St Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, found three crosses in a cellar forty-two feet in depth dug under Mount Calvary. These were the crosses on which Our Lord and the two thieves were crucified, but there was nothing to show which of the three was the true cross. So a dead body was laid on each. In two cases nothing happened, but when the corpse was placed on the third, it was immediately restored to life, and that’s how Helena knew she had found the true cross. It was made out of four trees,’ she continued breathlessly. ‘The portion from the earth to the cross is cypress, so the sweet smell might counteract the smell of a decaying body. The crosspiece is of palm, indicating the victory of Christ. The foot of the cross is fashioned from cedar, which is well preserved when in the earth, whilst the wooden inscription was of olive, signifying peace.’ Margaret paused. ‘Mathilde, where is her grace?’
I’d been sitting in front of the fire, my eyes growing heavy, still tired from the previous day’s excursions. As soon as Margaret asked her question I leaned forward and replied, God knows why, ‘Madam, I bring you good news. My lady does not feel well; she is suffering from sickness in the morning. In a word, my lady, the queen might be pregnant.’