The Death of a King

sent from London was twenty shillings on 21 July, 1327. For a while, I wondered if the present Lord Berkeley could help me solve the mystery. But if his accounts could not help and he was only a lad of 16 when Edward II was murdered, I realized my questions would achieve little except to publicize my secret suspicions.
    I left the muniment room and joined Lord Berkeley in the great hall. My disappointment must have been evident but he was too courteous to pry and promised that as soon as I had eaten, his steward, Edmund Novile, would escort me to Gloucester to visit the royal tomb. Novile had been born in the Berkeley demesne and had risen through the domestic ranks to the position of chief steward, a rare achievement for a mere commoner. We left the castle after midday. A watery sun gleamed and glistened on the overnight snow which covered the countryside. As we let our horses amble along the track winding down to Gloucester, Novile forgot his shyness towards a stranger from the great city, and soon became loquacious, a mood I furthered with a mixture of subtle flattery and generous swigs from the wine-skin I carried.
    He assured me, his wine-laden breath rising in puffs, that he had been at Berkeley during the late king’s imprisonment and was glad when the dreadful business was over. “The castle,” he explained, “had crawled with Mortimer’s wild Welshmen while Guerney and the little hunchback, Ockle, had ruled like cocks in a barnyard. They had refused everyone entry to the base of the keep and threatened death to anyone who tried to enter it, especially after the Dunheved escapade.”
    I asked him how that band had managed to penetrate so deeply into the castle, but Novile muttered something about a surprise attack in the dead of night. Somehow, I received the distinct impression that he was sorry Dunheved had failed.
    “You know,” he added, wiping his mouth after another generous helping from my wine-skin, “that attack was a mysterious affair. I shared a girl with Pellet, the guard who was killed, so I asked Ockle if I could arrange his funeral. The man went pale with fury. He told me to mind my own business as Mortimer had ordered Pellet’s body to be kept in spirits for transportation back to his family in Bordeaux.”
    “Wasn’t that rather generous treatment for a Gascon mercenary?”
    Novile shrugged. “So I thought. But Guerney said that the Gascon had ‘connections.’ ”
    “Was the body sent?”
    “I don’t know,” Novile replied. “Ockle and Guerney increased their vigilance after Dunheved’s attack. I don’t really know what happened to Pellet’s body. Everything was so confused, hidden in a mist of secrecy. But I think it was sent back.”
    “What happened to the old woman who had been brought in to dress the corpse?” I asked. Novile said he didn’t know. He remembered Guerney bringing her to the castle and that was all. She probably disappeared, he added, once she had done her task and been suitably rewarded.
    He then lapsed into a filthy diatribe against Mortimer and Isabella, who had brought such dishonour to the Berkeley name. I let him ramble on as I analysed the information both he and his master had given. There were a number of facts I could pursue further. What became of the fighting monk Dunheved and his fellow conspirators? And why was Edward II’s corpse dressed by an old woman and not by court physicians?
    I was still pondering on these problems when we entered Gloucester. We passed through streets clogged with filthy mush, wary of the snow which cascaded from the sloping roofs. The city, so dependent on the surrounding countryside, was quiet. The streets were deserted except for the occasional, dirty beggar. We slowly made our way to the cathedral, whose magnificent spire must be the pride and glory of the countryside. We left our horses in the cathedral forecourt and walked through the icy slush to the great door. Just as I was about to enter, Novile tugged at my sleeve and pointed back to the middle of the great, empty square.
    “There,” he exclaimed, “right there! That’s where they put the king’s corpse.”
    “Did you see it?”
    Novile nodded. “It was laid out in a great coffin, resting on trestles covered with black velvet cloths. The body was dressed in a white shroud and the head covered with a wimple like that of a nun.”
    “You recognized him as King Edward?”
    “Of course,” Novile jibed. “His face was shaven but I had seen