Crown in Darkness

but sturdy-looking garrons or mountain ponies. They each carried a shield, lance and dagger, and seemed eager to use them. Corbett suspected that they would have preferred to cut his throat. He did not understand their strange, rough language, though their leader, a smooth-shaven young man with eyes as hard as flint, understood French and carefully studied the letters and writs Corbett and his escort carried, before allowing them to pass into his strange, wildly beautiful country.
    The north of England had been a new experience to Corbett who had served in Edward's armies in France and Wales, but Scotland was something different. Quieter, more lonely, beautiful yet menacing. He had observed it carefully as he travelled into Edinburgh. Vast forests of pine, dark and forbidding, where boar and wolf ruled; wide wastes of lonely, haunting moor, bogs, mountains and lakes covered the land. In England, the old Roman highways, sometimes much broken but their foundations still solid, spread out from London to form the main routes for travel. In Scotland, apart from the King's Highway, the Via Regis, there were few roads, only beaten tracks. Corbett had found it difficult to reach the royal burgh of Edinburgh and, when he did, bitterly wondered if it had been worth the effort. Perched on its craggy plateau, its grim fortress a mile separate from the abbey of Holy Rood, Edinburgh had been cold, dank and uninviting. Corbett and his escort had gone direct to the castle to present their credentials and were brusquely sent back to be housed in the cold, bleak, whitewashed cells of the abbey's guesthouse.
    He had wasted two days before writing this letter and was reluctant to continue it for, after seven weeks of travel, he still had little news for his master. He had met the leader of King Edward's special embassy to the Scottish court, John Benstede, chaplain to Edward I, who had extended to Corbett the warmest of greetings. Corbett had liked him; he knew Benstede by reputation as a cleric fanatically loyal to Kind Edward who entrusted him with the most delicate, diplomatic missions. Benstede had a keen lawyer's brain, belied by his rosy, cherubic face, snow-white hair and rubicund figure. Thankfully, he had accepted without question Corbett's explanation that Burnell had sent him because of the crisis at the Scottish court.
    Corbett rose, wrapped his cloak about him and walked slowly round the bare, bleak room. Burnell had summoned him to Westminster at the end of March and blundy announced that, because of the sudden and mysterious death of King Alexander III of Scotland, Corbett was to travel to Edinburgh and ascertain the true cause of the Scottish King's death. Corbett had cursed, cried, pleaded and begged, but Burnell was adamant. The Chancellor had sat impervious behind his great desk and quietly ticked off on his white, plump, bejewelled fingers, the reasons he had chosen him; Corbett was a trained Chancery clerk, an expert in legal affairs, young enough (was he not in his thirty-sixth year?) to withstand the rigours of a journey. Corbett had war experience, fighting for King Edward in Wales and, Burnell added quietly, Corbett had already, shown that he could be entrusted with secret business and confidential matters. Corbett had reluctantly agreed and so Burnell handed over letters of introduction for the Scottish court and to Benstede, Edward's special envoy to Edinburgh.
    Corbett stopped pacing round the room, slumped on to the stool and crouched over the small, red-hot brazier to warm his chilled fingers. Then had come the strange part for Burnell had made it quite clear that Corbett was his special emissary, not the King's. He was to report only to the Chancellor, and certainly not to the King or Benstede. No one was to know why Corbett was really in Scodand. He was to write direct to Burnell and only use as envoys the members of the escort who accompanied him into Scotland. Corbett had asked the reason why but Burnell had brusquely dismissed him.
    Corbett picked up the pen again and began to write. 'I have met Benstede and he has told me a litte of what is happening in Scodand. On the evening of 18th March, King Alexander III was feasting with his court at Edinburgh Castle, (Benstede himself was there). Alexander suddenly announced that, despite the fierce storm raging outside, he intended to ride to his manor at Kinghorn where his new queen, the French princess, Yolande, was awaiting him. Alexander III of Scotland,