Mathilde 02 - The Poison Maiden Read Free Page A

conscience unbending as iron. He intended to kill me, yet to whom could I appeal? Who would defend me?
    Before Vespers that very evening, I stole round to the anker-hold. Rahomer was standing at the ledge, hacking at his teeth with a toothpick. His surprise and consternation at my abrupt appearance were both his judge and jury. I gabbled about how unwell I felt. Rahomer smiled, nodded understandingly and added that perhaps I should retire. I did, but not to my chamber. I returned to Isabella’s tomb. I leaned against the statues carved on its side and whispered my terrors and fears. I do not dread death; it is just that my confession must be made before I go. I crouched there in the shadows and waited for the reply. It came, Isabella’s voice echoing through my soul.
    ‘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