‘There won’t be many customers yet,’ mine host muttered.
‘Do you have another key?’ Demontaigu asked.
‘Yes, yes.’ Mine Host hurried away. He went into the kitchen, came out and, ignoring us, went straight up the stairs by himself. We heard a crashing, faint oaths, then he returned.
‘I cannot!’ He shook his head. ‘Master Lascelles must have drawn across the bolts, but come . . .’
He led us through the kitchen, past tables swimming in blood, chopped vegetables, pieces of gristle and meat, and out into the broad gardens. Few flowers yet blossomed there. The air was rich from the compost that coated the soil. The garden could be entered by a wicket gate at either side. Mine Host hurried to one of these, put his fingers to his lips and whistled. He was joined by three of his ostlers. A brief conversation ensued, then one of them crossed the garden and returned with a long siege ladder, a pole with rungs on either side. This was laid securely against the brickwork under the fourth window and one of the ostlers, encouraged by my promise of a reward, climbed gingerly up. He pulled at the shutter; it wouldn’t open, so he shouted down for further guidance. Mine Host breathed in deeply and closed his eyes.
‘May Michael and all his angels help us,’ he whispered. ‘You see, mistress, the door is locked and bolted – it would take a battering ram to clear it of its hinges. Sometimes this does happen. We have had travellers, particularly pilgrims, die on us and we have to gain entry from outside. The shutters cover a window that is broad, beyond it a leather curtain to keep out draughts.’ He shouted at the ostler to come down. He did so, nimble as a squirrel. Mine Host returned to the kitchens and brought back a long, thin cutting knife. He gave careful instructions to the ostler, who went back up the ladder, wedged the knife between the shutters, prised open the bar beyond and, with a yell of triumph, pulled back the wooden slats and climbed in.
A short while later he leaned his head out.
‘Nothing!’ he yelled. ‘Nothing at all, come and see.’
We hurried back inside and up the staircase. By the time we reached the chamber, the door was flung open. We went in. The chamber looked unoccupied; the key still hung in the inside lock. I glanced around. A large room, neatly furnished, with a bed, chests, coffers, an aumbry, table and stool. I walked across to the lavarium. The water looked clean, the napkin unruffled. I sat on the bed and studied every inch of that room: the polished wooden floor with its thin turkey rugs of dark blue, the clothes pegs on the wall either side of the door. Mine Host was equally bemused. He sat down on the stool and stared around.
‘It is as if he was never here,’ he whispered. ‘And yet . . .’
‘And yet what?’ I asked.
‘Master Lascelles arrived late yesterday afternoon. He stabled his horse in a yard not far from here. He left his saddle there but brought his saddlebags, belt and cloak. He seemed personable enough. He paid half a mark, hired this chamber and went upstairs. A little later he came down, sat at the common table, broke his hunger on bread, cheese and ham with a pot of ale, then returned to his room.’ He lifted a hand, walked to the door and shouted a name.
I heard a pattering on the gallery outside. A tousle-haired boy clad in smoke-stained rags, his coal-spotted face shining with oil, came hurtling into the chamber. He stopped abruptly and gazed around.
‘This is Spit Boy,’ Mine Host announced, ‘also our messenger.’ He winked at me. ‘Spit Boy knows every corner and runnel in the ward, aye and beyond!’ He chattered at the boy in the patois of the slums. Spit Boy, arms rigid either side of him, replied in a sing-song voice.
Demontaigu, who had been studying the door, moved silently across to inspect the window embrasure deep in the wall and the shutters now flung wide open. He hoisted himself up and looked out. Mine Host gestured at Spit Boy to remain quiet and turned back to me.
‘Master Lascelles came here,’ he declared. ‘He hired this chamber and brought in his saddlebags and war belt. He came down to eat but also hired Spit Boy to deliver a message to Sister Alvena.’ Mine Host now mumbled so quickly that I had to ask him to repeat it.
‘The Domus Iucundarum – the House of Pleasures,’ he whispered as if everyone in the neighbourhood were eavesdropping. ‘It is a brothel, a rather exclusive one, to the north of Lothbury not far from All Hallows in the Walls, between Walbrook stream and the Austin Friars.’
‘And?’ I asked.
‘Spit Boy simply took a message to Sister Alvena and returned. He informed Master Lascelles that Sister Alvena would meet him after the Compline bell.’ Mine Host touched his lips. ‘I saw him leave all hooded and gowned like a friar, a very expensive gown if I remember, lined with costly ermine. His cloak was open, he was armed with sword and dagger and he carried his saddlebags. He said very little to me or Spit Boy. About three hours later he returned. I certainly remember that cowl and hood. By then the taproom was very busy. He shouted greetings and went up the stairs.’ Mine Host shook his head in wonderment. ‘He couldn’t have fled.’ He waved towards the window. ‘That’s broad enough but it’s a long jump to the garden below. The shutters were closed, the door locked and bolted from the inside. Nevertheless, he is gone and taken everything with him.’
‘Do you know where he stabled his horse?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know where he came from?’
Mine Host shook his head. ‘Or where he was going,’ he added mournfully.
‘And the chambers either side?’
‘Empty, mistress! Once Lent is finished, business will grow brisk.’
‘Did you notice anything? Untoward strangers, unexplained mishaps?’
Again the shake of the head. ‘Mistress, I saw him arrive back from his pleasures.’ The taverner got to his feet. ‘After that, nothing, a true mystery. Perhaps a ghost, a visitation from some demon?’
I could already see the story forming, one he’d sell to his many customers.
‘I have business to attend to.’ He snapped his fingers at Spit Boy and both strode out of the chamber. He came hurrying back.
‘If you wish to eat, I can serve a delicious beef broth with freshly baked maslin bread.’
I accepted, and Mine Host left, closing the door gently behind him. Demontaigu and I inspected every inch of that room. To all intents and purposes no one had stayed there. The squat candle had burnt, but everything else was undisturbed: the bed, the lavarium, the chests and coffers. The door, as I thought, was thick and heavy, its lock and bolts undisturbed. The window deep in the wall, about two feet across and the same in length, was shielded by a leather draught-catcher. The shutters beyond were fixed in a wooden frame, their hinges of the stoutest leather. The shutter on the right held a bar; this would swing down to rest in an iron clasp on the left one. A small gap peeped between the shutters, broad enough to insert a blade. I recalled Mine Host’s words about gaining access to a chamber where a guest had died. I peered through the window; there was no ledge below or on either side. The drop was sheer, precipitous, whilst the windows to the chambers on the right and left were a considerable distance away. No one could have gained access by any ledge or foothold. So what had happened to Pax-Bread and his belongings? I sat on the edge of the bed, Demontaigu on a stool. He questioned me about Pax-Bread and why he was so important.
I told him succinctly what the king and Gaveston had said earlier that day. Demontaigu heard me out. He asked me to repeat precisely Edward’s words about the Templars and the possibility that the French were bartering for their total destruction. He was deeply disturbed. He’d been quiet ever since we left Westminster. I held my peace as a servant brought the food and ale, but once she’d gone, I gently teased him about why he looked so worried. He explained how we were to meet the Templars, at least those who still remained in London, later that day and how Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales, because the king was besieged in Westminster, were free to cast their net far and wide.
‘As for the possibility that Edward might agree to the destruction of the Temple in return for Philip’s support of Gaveston . . .’ Demontaigu, visibly agitated, put down the lump of bread he was eating. He looked so woebegone, I regretted telling him.
‘Friend?’ I knelt beside him. ‘You are deeply worried?’
Demontaigu opened his mouth to speak, but shook his head and took a mouthful of ale.
‘I am,’ he confessed wearily, ‘cut to the heart. Mathilde, you’ve simply described how dangerous it has all become. I also received bad news this morning. Five of our brothers have been taken up and placed in Newgate. One is an old man well past his sixtieth summer. There is talk amongst the brethren,’ he mused, ‘that we should withdraw into the northern shires, even seek sanctuary with Bruce in Scotland.’
I caught my breath. He stroked my hair gently.
‘I will stay here, Mathilde. Tonight I might advise the rest that they should go, but this business: Pax-Bread, or Lascelles . . . He comes here, then disappears out of a locked room, a man with his baggage, no trace of him!’ Demontaigu sighed and got to his feet. ‘Mathilde, we’ve spent enough time here. Let me surprise you.’ He smiled. ‘Have you ever visited a brothel?’
‘Just Philip of France’s court,’ I retorted.
‘Ah well.’ Demontaigu walked to the door. ‘This will not be so wicked.’
We left the chamber and went down to the taproom. I instructed Mine Host that if he discovered anything new he should let me, Mathilde de Clairebon, know as soon as possible. I would lavishly reward both him and Spit Boy for any information sent to the Palace of Westminster. He assured me he would and we left.
A strange journey. I was still intrigued about what had happened to Pax-Bread, as well as concerned about what Demontaigu had told me. In many ways the conclusion he and his colleagues had reached was logical. If Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales were given a free hand in London and elsewhere, the only place of refuge was amongst Edward’s enemies in Scotland. Yet I had to steel myself to the present dangers. The day was drawing on. Most people had retired to the alehouses and cook shops for a potage of vegetables, peas and cabbage washed down with cheap ale. Because of the terrors that were to occur later that day, I remember certain glimpses, vivid memories: the various colours of people’s clothes, black and white, blue and white, red and mustard; a fop wearing a quilted jacket and hose with a strange contrast of tint throughout like something glimpsed in a dream. I was on guard for danger, the sudden movement, a dagger in a hand. I kept my eyes on clothes rather than faces and I realised how people’s wealth and status were determined by the girdle around their waist, be it wool, leather, linen, garnished with copper, iron, steel or, in the case of the very rich, gold or silver. Other memories come floating back. A butcher was slaughtering a pig because it had been found wandering where it shouldn’t have been. Two dogs darted in, eager to lap the blood, only to be driven off with kicks and blows. On the corner of Wood Street, bailiffs were putting five bakers into the stocks for selling underweight loaves; across the lane, a prostitute lifted her skirt and called raucously at a group of gallants swaggering by. A friar was also trying to seek the young men’s attention by attacking the way they dressed.
‘Ye proud gallants, cold and heartless,’ he thundered, ‘with your high caps witless, and your short gowns frithless, are bringing this land to great heaviness.’
He kept repeating the refrain so the words, like the tune of a carol, dinned in my own memory, as did the friar’s sombre warning how in hell, ‘those who dress lavishly will be tormented by demons dressed in the same apparel they flaunted during life’.
On occasion Demontaigu would stop. We were not taking the direct route to Lothbury but going along those narrow lanes towards Cripplegate. Demontaigu would pause and enter the taprooms of various taverns – the Roebuck, the Spread Eagle, the Whirl, the Jackanapes – where comrades of his order were sheltering, disguised as beggars, tinkers, chapmen or, on occasion, even as lepers or Bedlamites. Outside the Glowing Worm, I was approached by a herb wife who offered me some parsley and thyme. I shook my head and smiled, but she drew closer. She was not so much interested in selling herbs as in seeking my attention for a narrow-faced man sheltering in a doorway further down the street: in truth a pimp and his whore seeking fresh flesh for their trade. Demontaigu came out of the tavern, took one look at the woman, glanced down the street and drove both off with curses.
‘I am sorry,’ he apologised. ‘But that was my last visit. Come.’
We went up Gutter Lane, past Bakewell Hall into Lothbury and across the Great Common dotted here and there with stately houses, their towered roofs and occasional glass-filled windows glinting above high stone curtain-walls. Demontaigu took direction from a chapman who smiled at his enquiry but pointed to a track-way winding through a thick copse of trees.
‘The path to pleasure,’ he joked, then pointed at me. ‘But why go there with a merry handful so close?’
Demontaigu laughed. I blushed. We made our way down across the wasteland, the soil and grass slippery underfoot. A group of boys with their lurchers appeared, eager to raise a hare; the shouting and barking dinned our ears as we entered the silent copse, to be greeted by strange cooking smells. A group of Moon People sheltered in the trees; they were busy baking in hot ash small birds, skinned hedgehog and squirrel, which a dark-faced woman offered us for a penny a piece. The smell was foul. I gave her a coin but refused the food, pinching my nostrils even as Demontaigu teased me how he’d eaten such fare when fighting in France. The woman, apparently a bawdy basket, followed us along the path shouting in a language I could not understand. A man slipped out of the trees carrying a club, approaching us as if we’d insulted the woman. Demontaigu half drew his sword and both the bawdy basket and her protector promptly disappeared. At last the trees thinned. The track-way branched on to a lane leading up to a red-brick wall with a smartly painted blue gate boasting a black cross above the grille high in the wood. Demontaigu asked for Isabella and Gaveston’s seals. He approached the gate and pulled hard on the chain hanging from the bell-cote. The grille opened. Demontaigu held up the seals.