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A tap on the door roused me from my reverie. A pageboy, hair all tousled, pushed his cheeky face through.

‘Mademoiselle Mathilde, you must come, the queen waits for you.’

I rose to my feet, straightened my dress and hurried after him into the gallery. The queen was in her own private chamber. She was sitting on the edge of her hung bed, its gorgeous tapestries bundled back over the rods above her. She was dressed in a linen shift gathered high at the neck, her feet pushed into silver-gold slippers, her long hair hanging free down to her shoulders. She was humming to herself as she arranged the playing cards Marigny had brought her from France, sorting them into sections: hearts, trefoils, pikes and squares. She sat as if immersed in this, unaware of anything else as I closed the door behind me. By then I knew her. Isabella was at her most dangerous when she looked the most innocent!

‘What is wrong, Mathilde? You’ve been back some time, I understand? Yet you did not hurry to see your mistress.’ She gestured at a stool close to the bed. I sat down and told her everything that had happened. She kept playing with the cards and, after I had finished, continued to arrange them into sets of four.

‘Do you know, Mathilde,’ she gathered one set into her hand and clenched them tightly, ‘while you were gone, I went across to the abbey; the good brothers, I understand, are preparing for their head-shearing. Anyway, I examined the misericords, the carvings beneath the stalls where the monks sit. Grotesque scenes! A witch riding a cat, a man fighting a dog, a mock bishop, Samson tearing a lion’s jaws, and next to that, a jackal devouring a disinterred corpse. I wondered, Mathilde, do such paintings reflect the humours of our tangled souls? Let us forget about our problems here.’ She stared at me with those icy blue eyes, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. ‘Your poor mother, Mathilde, what shall we do about her?’ She threw the cards on the bed and lifted a finger. ‘I shall certainly write to my father. What I don’t want is to be like Herod in that play we are preparing for Easter. You remember?’

I nodded, though I scarcely did. Isabella had a love of such mummery and liked nothing better than to hire players and watch their comic antics. She was a keen reader of their texts and had learnt some of the lines, which she would mouth with the leading characters.

Isabella closed her eyes. ‘Remember Herod’s line? “Out, out, out! I stamp. I stare. I look about! I rant! I rage! Now I am mad. The brat of Bethlehem? He shall be dead.”’

‘Mistress?’ I queried.

‘Mathilde,’ Isabella opened her eyes, ‘we must not rant and shout but sit and watch. This is the waiting time. We must be subtle, as full as trickery as our opponents. So, let us think, then let us prepare. .’

Two days later my mistress, clothed in shimmering cloth of gold, her chair of state strewn with blue silk tapestries boasting the gorgeous lilies of France, invited Enguerrand de Marigny and Alexander of Lisbon to share sweet wines from Spain and honey-coated cakes. The ostensible reason was to thank the Portuguese for accepting Gaveston’s offer of battle as well as commiserate with him for injuries received. Isabella, the perfect minx, her hair and beautiful face framed by a snow-white wimple, a gold circlet round her head, had issued the invitation and received the Lord Satan and his imp, as she called them, in her inner chamber. Marigny, of course, dared not refuse. Moreover, he was full of curiosity as well as diplomatic questions about whether Isabella was enceinte. He came clad in the dark, rich robes of a lawyer, except for a froth of white around his throat and wrists; rings glittered on his fingers; around his neck was a silver chain carrying a large gold fleurde-lis — a sign that he enjoyed his royal master’s personal favour. Alexander was clothed in the usual black cotehardie and leggings, a white cambric shirt beneath. He looked unaffected by his fall except for mild purple bruising on the right side of his face, a sprain to his wrist and a slight limp. Both were ingratiating to my mistress. I was ignored. The Lord Fox, his sharp, pointed features frozen in a smile, red hair combed and coiffed, darting green eyes full of malice, did glance sharply at me; his thin lips twisted in a smile before he returned all adoringly to my mistress with a litany of false flatteries. Alexander of Lisbon, dark face smouldering, tried to ape such subtle deceit but found it more difficult.

I served goblets of sweet wines and silver dishes of sweetmeats and frumentaries. My mistress was a born actor, playing the part, the gracious queen, the gentle hostess. I recalled those accounts I had drawn up for the plays to be staged at Easter: ‘Pontius Pilate paid five shillings. Demons one shilling and fourpence. The man who imitated a cock crowing, fourpence. The drapers who acted the end of the world, three shillings. The person who kept the fire at hell’s mouth, fourpence.’ I reflected on these as I watched my mistress closely. She was acting. She saw everything as a play: the various parts were assigned, the roles to be played, and she had to deliver her lines. She was a mistress of the moment, the dramatic change, the subtle tone. She allowed Marigny to treat her as if she was some infant babbling away, then abruptly put her goblet down and leaned back in her chair.

‘My Lord Marigny, tell my father I may not be enceinte. I deeply regret, but perhaps I will not bear a child, at least this year.’

Marigny’s eyes fluttered. He slurped noisily at the goblet and glanced sharply at me as if wondering whether this had been a trap all along.

‘I wish now,’ Isabella’s voice became hard, ‘to move to another matter. Alexander of Lisbon, are you enjoying that wine?’

‘Yes, your grace.’

‘Do you know it is poisoned?’

The Portuguese almost dropped the goblet but grasped it in time. Marigny leaned forward, hand extended; Isabella fluttered her fingers and he quickly withdrew.

‘Your grace,’ the Portuguese gabbled, ‘you are joking?’

‘Think, sir,’ Isabella continued, ‘Mathilde here poured the wine. She distilled a concoction in yours.’ She sipped from her own goblet. ‘Do you feel the effects, an irritation in your stomach?’

Alexander of Lisbon’s dark face creased in concern. He licked his lips and put the goblet down.

‘Your grace would not poison me?’

‘Why not?’ Isabella retorted.

Marigny sat, eyes darting from Isabella to me then back again.

‘Your grace, what is this? I am your father’s envoy.’

‘So you are, Monsieur Marigny. You wage war against my husband and his favourite, as do I, you know that.’ Isabella smoothed over the lie. ‘You bring this man here to do your bidding. Is that not so, Alexander of Lisbon?’

The Portuguese nodded. He was now clutching his stomach, staring agitatedly at my mistress.

‘I think we should talk about Mathilde, Monsieur Marigny,’ Isabella continued. ‘You are her enemy. She is yours. We both know the reason why. Last month, Alexander of Lisbon, your men, under a Burgundian named La Maru, were quartered in her mother’s farm: Catherine de Clairebon of Bretigny, do you remember that? Swiftly now, and I might tell you how to heal yourself.’

Alexander of Lisbon nodded quickly.

‘That must stop,’ Isabella said quietly. ‘Do you understand me, Monsieur Marigny? That shall stop! You, sir, if you have dealings with Mathilde de Clairebon, deal solely with her, like two warriors in a list, but her mother, an ageing widow — surely, sir, the rules of combat exclude her?’

Marigny half smiled. ‘And my companion,’ he asked, ‘Alexander of Lisbon? Is he to fall ill like Master Guido, to vomit and retch? How would your husband explain that? What does that say of you, mistress?’