The Cup of Ghosts

What we have here is, in effect, the first volume of a life of Mathilde of Westminster, most sought-after physician in London during the years when Princess Isabella of France reigned supreme in England, first as Edward's Queen and then as Queen and Regent with Mortimer at her side.

Like Isabella, Mathilde was French - the niece of a senior French Knight Templar. After the destruction of the Templars, when everyone remotely associated with the Order was in hiding, an old friend of Mathilde's uncle found her a place (it was where he thought she would be safest!) right in the heart of the palace of King Philip himself. She became a lady-in-waiting to Princess Isabella.

It was as such, and by now Isabella's only confidante, that she accompanied her to London.

But murders and assassinations were occurring all around them with ominous regularity. Who was responsible, who was giving the orders? Was it Philip, in France, working through his secreti to stir up more trouble? Was it Edward, now Isabella's husband, in England - Edward, who loved to pretend and for whom nothing was as it seemed? And what part was Peter (Piers) Gaveston playing in all this?

This is Doherty at his best, on a character - Isabella - who seems to have fascinated him all his life. The last time he touched on her, in A Tapestry of Murders, it was to deal with her death as an old woman living under house-arrest in Norfolk. Now, though, he has given himself much more scope: at the end of this book the pieces are set out on the board but play has really yet to begin.

I often say that I am looking forward to the next volume in a series, and when I say it I mean it; but I have never before said that I cannot wait for the next volume. I find myself lying in bed imagining what happens to Mathilde and Isabella next! I am ready to write it myself!

I also want to remark that in this book, Doherty takes on (for the first time, so far as I know) the role of the female protagonist, wrining in the First Person as Mathilde. It is something I myself have attempted in my Mariana books, where I have found it both limiting and liberating: he does it superbly.