‘Mathilde, ma petite, I cannot defend you now. Nobody can, except yourself. This man will kill you, so strike first, strike hard!’
I went into God’s Acre and harvested a yew tree, its needles soft and fat, the berries shining red. I mixed up a paste. The following morning I stood by the priory postern gate and bought a bowl of sweetmeats from a baker taking a tray down to a nearby tavern. I mixed in the yew paste and left the bowl on the anker-hold ledge as a gift from some visitor or pilgrim. Rahomer ate it before Nones. He was ill before Vespers and dead before Matins the following morning. Sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world. To all intents and purposes Rahomer died of a falling sickness, a sudden failure of the heart. His corpse was dressed for burial and placed under a purple drape on a funeral trestle before the great rood screen. Father Prior sang the requiem mass and delivered that sermon. I listened to it scrupulously and helped shoulder Rahomer’s corpse out to be buried in the poor man’s plot. One day I will join him there, though at God’s invitation, not the king’s. I wondered if I should ask Father Prior to send a copy of his funeral homily to the court, but decided against it. You don’t cast pearls before swine!
Three days later Father Prior summoned me to a meeting in his wood-panelled chamber. I sat on a faldstool, aware of the faces of angels, saints and demons staring down at me from the paintings, frescoes and triptychs that decorated his parlour. He sat in a window seat, threading Ave beads through his fingers, a youngish-looking man, certainly a good one. I, Mathilde of Westminster, have, in the words of the old proverb, ‘lain down with wolves and woke howling’. I can recognise a wolf when I see one! Father Prior, however, was a good shepherd; he was truly concerned for me. He referred obliquely to the sudden death of Master Rahomer. I rose, walked over and pressed my fingers against his lips. He looked startled.
‘Father Stephen,’ I begged, ‘please do not ask about him. What you don’t know cannot harm you.’
He gently removed my hand. ‘Be careful, Mathilde. Tomorrow, the Feast of St Dionysius, Magister Theobald, Advocatus Regis, one of the king’s most skilled lawyers, a priest of the Royal Chapel, is coming here to question you.’
‘Father,’ I stepped back and smiled, ‘he’ll not be the first.’
Magister Theobald swept into Grey Friars shortly after the Jesus mass. He demanded to see me in my own chamber with its thick walls and narrow windows; an eavesdropper would certainly have found it difficult to listen in. He was a porky man, with a balding head, his plump face shining with oil from the ripe fruits of good living. An urbane, cynical soul with pebble-black eyes and sensuous jutting lips under a sharp, hooked nose. He settled himself on the great chair that Father Prior had provided, while I, like some sinner come to judgement, perched on a cushioned footstool. He was arrogant, so I waited. A man deeply impressed by himself, Master Theobald had only one uncertainty: why someone as important as himself had been chosen to question someone like me. He soon discovered the reason.
‘Magister,’ I began, ‘why are you here? Why do you want to question me? On what authority?’
‘My child. .’
‘I’m not your child.’
‘My daughter. .’
‘I’m certainly not that, Magister, nor your sister, nor your mother.’
‘Mistress. .’ Magister Theobald breathed in deeply, nostrils flaring, eyes rounded. ‘According to the law-’
‘According to canon law,’ I interrupted, ‘this is church land. I am a relict in a priory of the Franciscan order.’
‘Why are you a recluse, Mathilde?’ Theobald shifted his ground.
‘Because I chose to be. Do you want to hear my confession?’
‘Why, Mathilde, are you in God’s grace?’
‘If I am, I ask God to keep me there. If I am not, I ask him to return me there. Do you want to hear my confession?’
Magister Theobald moved uneasily. He became more formal.
‘You are Mathilde de Clairebon, born near Bretigny?’
‘You know I am.’
‘You joined your uncle, Sir Reginald de Deynecourt, senior preceptor in the Order of the Temple. He was a physician general in Paris?’
‘You know that too.’
‘You acquired whatever medical knowledge you have-’
‘You make it sound like an insult!’
‘You did not attend a faculty of medicine?’
‘My knowledge of medicine is as great as any practitioner. It is based on observation and treatment.’ I smiled. ‘Take yourself, Magister Theobald. You like claret, hence the vein streaks in your nose and cheeks. You sit uneasy on cushions and wince slightly when you move: piles? The veins in your arse are extended. You have difficulty at the stool. You should drink more water and eat fresh fruit and vegetables not smothered in some rich sauce. You have wax in your right ear and sometimes the catarrh, hence you find it difficult to hear. You act as if you are confident, yet if so, why are your fingernails so frayed? What do you want me to tell you, Magister? How juice extracted from a bucket full of snails covered in treacle and hung over a basin during the night will cure a sore throat?’ I laughed. ‘There are practitioners of physic who would recommend that. Or if you have the gout, take a young puppy all of one colour, cut him in half and lay one side hot, the flesh steaming, against the soreness? Or a field mouse, skinned and made into a small pie, then eaten, its warm skin bound against the throat for nine days, will cure a cough? I can distil such a potion, though the cure will kill.’
Magister Theobald held up a hand. ‘Mistress, you were in Paris when Philip le Bel destroyed the Templars?’
‘Yes.’
‘He destroyed your uncle?’
‘Of course. I had to flee. My uncle thought the safest place was in the household of Philip IV’s daughter Isabella. She was about to travel to England to marry her betrothed, Edward, Prince of Wales.’
‘Were you safe?’
‘Philip and his coven, Marigny, Nogaret and Plaisans, overlooked me until it was too late.’
‘And you,’ Magister Theobald pointed a finger, ‘you waged war against them?’
‘I had no choice, as I would against any man who threatened me.’
Magister Theobald pursed his lips at that.
‘Do you believe the Templar curse?’
I stared back.
‘Were you not helped by a former Templar?’ Magister Theobald stared down at the small scrolls half concealed by the folds of his robe. ‘Ah yes, that’s his name: Bertrand Demontaigu — the priest-knight.’
I caught my breath. Just the mention of his name by another made me start.
‘You loved him?’
‘Yes,’ I replied slowly. ‘I say that because he is now beyond all temporal power.’
‘He was a priest?’
‘I loved him, Magister. Where is the sin, the crime in that?’ I leaned forward. ‘Have you ever loved, I mean truly loved?’
‘I am a priest.’
‘Where in scripture does it say that that stops you from loving?’
‘A scholar,’ Magister Theobald mocked. ‘Mathilde, you should have entered religion!’
‘I never left it.’
‘Taken vows.’
‘I have, as solemn as any sworn by you.’
‘Mathilde, Mathilde.’ Magister Theobald rose to his feet and walked across to stand over me. ‘Why do you not speak to the king?’
‘Is that why you are here, Magister, to learn what I know? To urge me to confess?’