Iacobus Page 9
“Get in.”
As soon as Jonas and I had made ourselves comfortable, the carriage started to move again. Two women were waiting for us inside: One, the better dressed, with her face hidden behind the large hood of a cloak, was without a doubt the woman we wished to see. The other, a young lady who looked slightly like a servant, remained silent and intimidated next to her mistress in the corner of her seat.
“I would like to apologize for the obvious worry I have caused you,” I greeted her. “You mustn’t be afraid of me, my lady; I would never put you in danger.”
“I don’t know whether to believe you, Sir Born; the way in which your young friend gave me the letter was not the most appropriate. I have had to tell many lies to my Lady Matilda of Artois.”
“I’m sorry. We couldn’t find another way.”
Only three lights remained lit in Paris overnight; the one in the cemetery of the Innocents, in the Tower of Nesle and in the Grand Châtelet. Just then we passed by one of them, or another that was coincidently lit that night, and I could admire the face of Beatrice of Hirson. She was an older woman, about forty, although still very beautiful. Her eyes, a deep navy blue, had, without a doubt, an icy glare and when she later removed the hood and we were again illuminated by the light (we went around and around from the Barbeau Tower to the St. Paul postern, naturally passing by the Tower of Nesle several times), we saw that her hair was dyed red and she wore it in a bun with a hairnet embroidered with pearls.
“I’m sure you understand that I do not have much time. I left the palace by deceit and it would be inappropriate for anybody to see me going around Paris at this time of night.”
Beatrice of Hirson was certainly not a friendly woman nor very patient.
“I won’t keep you.”
It was a complicated matter; I didn’t know anything about that lady nor, as much as I had thought about it in light of my reports, did I have a vulnerable point in which to place her to my advantage. Unlike the miserable François or the unhappy Marie, Beatrice was not an ignorant person who could be trapped by a simple web of lies expertly seasoned with some superstitious fear or dazzling nobility, and even if she could, I couldn’t be sure of it. Therefore, my only option was to develop a moderately plausible theory in which she would feel slightly involved, so the expressions on her face, or better, the movements of her body — as we were traveling practically in the dark —, as well as her tone of voice would guide me through the dark labyrinth of truth. In this case, my only weapons were my intuition and a bit of ill will.
“You see, my lady, I am a physician and I belong to a medical school based in Toledo, in the kingdom of our King Alfonso XI of Castile. Recently, some strange documents fell into our hands — and I’m afraid I cannot tell you their origin, as there are many important Frankish knights involved —, which assured that your … friend, King Philip the Fair’s keeper of the seal, William of Nogaret,” this is where the first ruffling was heard from the material of Beatrice’s dress, “had died a terrible death, totally demented, amongst hideous screams and vomiting blood, and doubled up by some unbearable cramps that coiled through his body. Those documents were accompanied by a letter — whose stamps impressed even our most outstanding teachers —, asking us to confidentially ascertain the illness that had killed him and, if it wasn’t an illness, the type of poison the assassin had used.” Here there was a second ruffling of material, accompanied by a change of posture. “Don’t ask me, my lady, to whom the seals on the letter belonged to because it is not in your interest to know, due to your closeness to that person, nor in my interest to reveal it to you, being prudent and fulfilling my oath. But you see, neither we, nor the doctors from any other eminent schools that we have discretely consulted, have been able to name an ailment that provokes those symptoms and, as far as the poison … Not even our most expert herbalists — and I assure you, as I’m sure you will know, that Toledo not only has the most excellent doctors but also the most excellent pharmacopolæ —, have been able to determine the deadly substance. Which is why my school decided to send me to Paris to see whether I could gather any information that would help to adequately respond to the request of this person I mentioned earlier.”
Following my speech I was sure of two things: The first, which I had already suspected, is that Nogaret’s lover already suspected that there was something amiss in the death of the keeper of the seal, and two, that the thing that was amiss was related to a poison; ergo, Beatrice of Hirson knew something about the poison that had killed Nogaret.
“Well, Sir Born …,” said the lady in a flat tone. “And how can I help you? Everything you have said has greatly saddened and surprised me. I had no idea that he could have died poisoned, and much less that … someone powerful or important person from the French Court would be interested in revealing it.”
There was her weak point, her Achilles’ heel, the passable door!
“Oh, yes, my lady! And as I said before, someone very, very important.”
“Someone like the King?” she asked in an insecure voice.
“By God, Lady Beatrice, I made an oath!”
“Very well, I will not force you to go against your word, sir!” she said with little conviction. “But let’s imagine, just imagine, that it was the King,” her voice quivered again. “Why would he want to know such a thing after three years?”
“I can’t think of any reason. Perhaps you know better than I.”
She paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Let’s see …,” she said at last. “Who encouraged you to talk to me? Who gave you my name?”
“In one of the documents that arrived in Toledo, it stated that you were the first person to reach the chamber of the royal keeper of the seal when his screaming began and that you were by his side when he died. Which is why I thought that you could give me some details, something that, although you may think is insignificant, is vital for my work.”
“I have heard,” she began, still mortified by the identity of this ‘person’, “that the King was worried about certain rumors that both his father and William had died at the hands of the Knights Templar. Do you know the story?”
“Everyone knows it, my lady. The Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, cursed the King, Pope Clement and your friend while he burnt alive. Maybe Philip the Long wishes to know the truth about his father’s death,” I said, indirectly admitting the identity of the mysterious character that so worried the lady.
“And he must really want to know, otherwise he wouldn’t have secretly sent letters and documents to the medical school in Toledo.”
“That’s right,” I agreed again, purposely increasing her angst. “And seeing as you have guessed, I will not lie to you. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that if, in addition to requesting these reports from us, he had requested another investigation.”
That night, the heart of Nogaret’s former lover kept jumping from the frying pan into the fire and from the fire into the frying pan. We had been talking for almost an hour in her carriage, and however big Paris may be, the sentinels of the wall would end up suspecting something if they kept seeing us pass by.
“Let’s make a deal, sire Galceran of Born. If I give you information to successfully conclude your report, could you swear on Our Lord Jesus Christ that you would exempt me from all responsibility and you would free my name of suspicion forever?”
“You killed him, my Lady Beatrice!” I exclaimed with much fuss, knowing that it wasn’t true.
“No, I didn’t kill him! I can swear as such before God! But I have suspicious grounds to suspect that they used me to kill him, and your presence here, and everything that you have told me, leads me to believe that the true assassins wanted to make me look guilty in the eyes of the King.”
“I swear to God, on the Blessed Virgin and on my own life,” I said, putting my hand on my heart, just in case she could see it, “that if it’s true that you didn’t kill him, my report will free you forever from any suspicion.”
“May Jesus Christ strike you down if you breach your oath,” she said gravely.
“I accept, my lady. And now tell me, as I’m sure that you don’t have much time left and I don’t want to leave you without knowing the truth.”
Beatrice of Hirson cleared her throat before beginning, and lifted the corner of the curtain on the door, glancing at the street which was as black as our carriage.
“You, good doctor, have no idea of the things that go on in the court, of the crimes, the ambitions and the fights for power that occur every day within the palace walls. William was a very intelligent man. He and the advisor Enguerrando of Marigny had the complete trust of King Philip IV and you could say that they governed the country. William and I had been lovers since the days of fighting with Boniface VIII, when he returned from Anagni, following the freeing of the Pope by the popular uprising. What times …! I was recently widowed and he was the most powerful man in the court,” she sighed melancholically. “Then came the Templar problems. William said that they must be overturned because they were a ‘rotten State within a healthy State’. It was actually him who organized the whole campaign against the Order, who captured Molay and who burnt him on the fire. That day …,” she paused for a moment, thinking. “On the day of Molay’s death he was sick with rage. ‘They’ll kill me, Beatrice’, he told me, totally convinced. ‘Those bastards will kill me. His Grand Master ordered it from the fire before dying, and you can be sure that I won’t live more than a year’. When the Pope died, the state of William’s health, his mental health, seriously deteriorated.”
“What happened to him?”
“He never slept. He spent every night awake working and seeing as he didn’t rest, he was always nervous and in a bad mood. He shouted at any little thing. He ordered that his food and drink be sampled by a servant, in front of him, so as he couldn’t be poisoned, and he never went out without the protection of a personal guard with twelve swords. The problems in the kingdom were also very serious at that time. There were many scandals in the court due to matters concerning embezzlement of the Treasure. The nobles, bourgeois and clergy opposed the King’s fiscal policy and there were dangerous alliances between Burgundy, Normandy and Languedoc. And as if that wasn’t enough, there were daily power clashes between the members of the royal family and to top it all off, the King was even more worried than William about Molay’s curse. Everything went wrong,” she sighed again. “In the end, on a night which I remember painfully, he told me that our friendship must end, that we couldn’t go on seeing each other, and, although I protested — something that a lady should never do, but I did —, there was nothing more I could say when he assured me that he didn’t love me and that he had found a new, younger friend.” A muffled sigh escaped from her throat. “I refused to believe it! I knew that the story about his new friend wasn’t true, that William only wanted to keep me safe by pushing me away from him, so the only thing I could do was go to ….”
And she fell silent.
“Who did you go to, my lady? Who?”
“I went to a witch who had provided many good services to my Lady Matilda in the past.”
“You went to see a witch …?” There was no limit to my amazement. “You?”
“Yes, a Jewish woman who lives in the ghetto, a woman skilled in the arts of magic who had previously worked for other ladies of the court.”
“And what did you ask of her?”
“I wanted something to help William, to calm his tormented nerves, something that would help him to sleep and that would make him come back to me.”
“And what did the witch give you?”
“First of all she wanted a candle from William’s room, and then she told me to ask Lady Matilda for a pinch of magic ash that has the supernatural power of attracting the devil.”
“How is that possible? The King’s mother-in-law has magic ashes that attract the devil?”
“They were ashes from the tongue of one of the Aunay brothers, although I assume you don’t know who I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“The Aunay brothers,” she sighed, “were the lovers of Jeanne and Blanche of Burgundy.”
“The wives of King Philip the Long and his brother Charles, the daughters of Matilda of Artois!”
“Exactly. The Aunay brothers were burnt alive for having been lovers of the Queen and her sister. Upon the witch’s request, my Lady Matilda collected the half burnt tongue of one of the brothers from the fire, and then reduced it to ashes to use it to conjure the devil. It seems that those ashes are very powerful and make the Evil One grant everything that is asked of him. My Lady Matilda gave me a pinch, and that, along with the candle from William’s room, is what I took to the witch. She told me to come by the next day, that she would give me the candle containing the spell and that all I had to do was put it back in its place and wait for it to work.”
“And that is exactly what you did.”
“Yes, but unfortunately, that same night, William died.”
Beatrice of Hirson began to cry uncontrollably. Her servant held out a handkerchief to dry her eyes but she ignored it. She was a woman hardened by a thousand battles, no less dangerous than any combat between enemy armies but, three years after his death, the memory of the man she had loved still made her cry like a love-struck maiden. Undoubtedly, the poison that had killed Nogaret was hidden in the candle. Due to the fact that it had not been ingested but rather burnt, perhaps it was some sulphuric compound, a gaseous mercury derivative but I wasn’t sure; I needed to look at a book about poisons and antidotes or, better yet, I needed to speak to the witch herself.
“Do you think that the witch gave you a poisoned candle?”
“Of course. I would be willing to swear on it.”
“And why didn’t you report it? Why didn’t you tell the truth?”
“Do you really think that anyone would have believed me? No wonder you come from a kingdom as barbaric as Castile. Listen, good doctor, pay careful attention to what I am about to say. The person who killed William was the same person who gave me the ashes. And may God forgive me for what I have just said!”
“Matilda of Artois?”
“Enough!” she shouted, “this conversation is over! I won’t say another word. You’ve got what you wanted. I hope that you abide by the holy oath that you made on your life before God and before the Blessed Virgin.”
Beatrice of Hirson was wrong; I didn’t have everything I wanted. Despite the long journey to get to this point, I still didn’t have any evidence to give to His Holiness with respect to the deaths that I had been sent to investigate. The possibilities of finding a trace of the Arab doctors from Avignon and of the free peasants from Rouen were non-existent but that Jewish woman did exist, she was somewhere in the ghetto, and, of course, she had known Nogaret’s killers.
“I will, my lady, don’t worry. But I need something else, just a bit more information to be able to resolve this enigma and free you from any accusation forever. Tell me the name of the witch and where she lives.”
“On one more condition,” replied Beatrice. “That you don’t tell her it was I who sent you. If you tell her, Lady Matilda will know first thing in the morning and it could trigger a series of events that could put your life in danger. Don’t ever forget the power of Matilda of Artois! For her, life only has one purpose: to see her future grandsons crowned as kings of France. For that to happen she could be capable of …. For that to happen she has been and is capable of anything.”
“Don’t worry about that, Lady Beatrice. I know that you don’t know me well enough to trust me, although you have, and I know that you are only counting on my oath to live peacefully from now on. Well, know that I also swear that I will not mention your name when I am with the witch and I don’t want you to lose even an hour of sleep worrying about what I have told you: I will never say a word, and neither will my young companion.”
“Thank you, sire Galceran. I hope tha
t you keep your word, that’s all.”
She banged her hand on the roof of the carriage and it stopped in the middle of the night.
“The name, Lady Beatrice, the name of the witch,” I urged her, seeing that Jonas and I were to get out.”
“Ah, yes! Sara, her name is Sara. She lives in what remains of the Jewish quarter following the expulsion, in the silversmiths’ street. Ask for her. Everyone knows her.”
“Moments later the carriage pulled away from us, leaving us abandoned in the middle of Quai des Celestins. It must have been an hour or an hour and a half before midnight, and it was bitterly cold.
“Let’s go back to the inn, sire,” pleaded Jonas, chattering his teeth. “I’m cold, I’m hungry and I’m tired.”
“Well, I’m sorry, boy, but it will be a bit longer before you warm yourself before the fire, have dinner and lie on your cot,” I told him, using the same order in which he had presented his needs. “First of all we’re going to the Jewish quarter, and I’m afraid that it’s going to be a very long night.”
He looked at me wide-eyed. “To the Jewish quarter?”
I couldn’t see any differences between the clean, narrow and aromatic streets (cinnamon, oregano, cloves) of the Parisian ghetto and the Castilian aljamas that I had known in my youth, or even the calls of Aragon and Mallorca that I had visited during my childhood. We walked under the light of the bluish moon, completely lost between rows of huts jammed together, most of them uninhabited, hoping that sooner or later someone would come to a door or window so as we could ask where Sara the witch lived. The Jews had been thrown out of all the kingdoms of France in 1306 but there were always groups who returned to adapt to the new conditions.
Just after passing the crumbling synagogue on our right, as we were approaching what looked to be the real heart of the Jewish quarters, we came across an old man who was coming out of a crumbling house and who gave us a terrified look.
“Blessed be the Lord forever, amen,” I said to him in Hebrew. This verse of psalm 89 is like a ritual greeting amongst Jews, a way of recognition which the old man instantly welcomed with pleasure.