Mathilde 01 - The Cup of Ghosts Read Free

you did.’
    During the subsequent weeks I often reflected on his words. The more I searched my soul, the more I realised he had not spoken the full truth. To understand what I have done, to realise who I truly was, or who I am, I would have to describe who Isabella was: the princess from some romance of Arthur who arrived in England at the age of thirteen to marry Edward of Caernarvon and unite England and France in an alliance of peace which would stretch to eternity. Oh, the folly of princes! Father Guardian allowed me the use of the scriptorium and the library. I began to write in a cipher, which could only be translated by me, a legacy from my days as a healer. The weeks turned into months. Summer went, autumn arrived in gorgeous profusion. The paths and gardens of Grey Friars became carpeted with leaves which gleamed like copper before the rains fell and turned them into a dirty mush which I had to clear, stack, dry and burn. I promised Father Guardian that once Advent came and the church was cleaned in preparation for the coming of the Christ Child, I would make my confession.
    However, the Lord Satan had not forgotten me. On the Feast of St Luke, suddenly like a thief in the night, death caught Father Guardian. He was found in his bed, sprawled slightly to one side, mouth gaping, eyes hard, his soul long gone to God. I asked Father Bruno, the keeper of the scriptorium, a gentle, scholarly man with a stooped back and a face like that of a puzzled sparrow, if I could pay my own final respects. He agreed, so I knelt before Father Guardian’s corpse. I crossed myself and gabbled a prayer I’d learnt as a child, then closed my eyes. I made a promise, a vow to Father Guardian: I would still make my confession, but not to some priest I didn’t know, or one of the brothers, who would only recoil in horror. Father Guardian could sit on the other side of life’s veil and hear me out.
    On that occasion, after watching his corpse, I rose and noticed a scrap of parchment lying on the writing carrel where Father Guardian used to sit and meditate over some book of hours. I listened intently. The lay brothers on guard outside were gossiping amongst themselves. I crossed swiftly to the desk and picked up the parchment. I immediately recognised Boethius, an extract from his Consolation of Philosophy : ‘My very strength, Fortune declares, this is my unchanging sport. I turn my wheel which spins the circle. I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom. Carry me to the top if you want but, on this condition, that you think it’s no unfairness, to sink when the rule of the game demands it.’ I smiled. Father Guardian had left this message just for me. I have been on Fortune’s fickle wheel, at bottom, top and around again. I have known the glories of victory and the bitter ashes of defeat.
    Now Father Guardian had always been good to me, giving me pennies or a silver piece. I had carefully hidden these away. A serving boy I trusted, for a bribe, went to the scribblers and parchment sellers in Cheapside. He brought back rolls of vellum, ink, sharpened quills, a pumice stone, and sand to dry the ink, everything a clerk of the chancery or scribe in a muniment room would need. I will keep my vow in the dark hours of the night. I will buy more candles and light them to write my story and that of Isabella, who controlled the Wheel of Fortune and sent it spinning so that kings and princes, lords and ladies, the mighty and the great crashed to earth whilst others were lifted high in exaltation. I will write about the other great love of my life, the study of physic. Father Guardian knew of my art and skill, but I refused to practise it even though he showed me the friary library. I have done with study. I have read the books, be it those of Islam such as Haly Abbas’ Complete Book of the Medical Art , those of the ancients such as Dioscorides’ Herbarium . Galen’s Therapeutics , Caelius’ De Medicina , or