The Death of a King

saying he had not when I remembered Edward specifically telling me at Windsor that the hunt for his father’s murderers was a job for others. “Yes,” I replied, “he might have mentioned something.”
    “Good!” Tweng exclaimed. “Then let me give you the details about Guerney.” He took a deep draught from the tankard I had placed on the table before him and settled back to talk. “Thomas Guerney and William Ockle were all judged regicides and traitors at the November parliament of 1330. Yet it is essential to realize that although Maltravers is associated with Edward II’s imprison ment, only Thomas Guerney and William Ockle, his valet, were specifically accused of the king’s murder. Indeed, my interest was always with Guerney, not Ockle, for where the former went, the latter was bound to follow. Be that as it may, Guerney was always regarded as the principal murderer.” Sir Thomas stopped to clear his throat before continuing, “In the summer of 1331, two Spanish merchants with connections at the English court recognized Guer-ney in Burgos and successfully petitioned King Alphonso of Spain to have him detained. They then informed our king, who began extradition proceedings, but before they were compiled, Guerney escaped. One of the king’s squires, a Spaniard named Egidius, was already in Spain, trying to persuade the authorities to deliver Guerney up. When he escaped, Egidius devoted all his energies to the pursuit. He failed to capture Guerney, but he did arrest two of the king’s guards at Berkeley, John Tully and Robert Linelle. These he took back to England and,” Sir Thomas paused to draw diagrams in the spilt pools of wine, “they were questioned.”
    I gathered from his pause that the fugitives had been tortured, which is contrary to common law. I realized that this was not the time for legal niceties and pressed him to continue.
    He told me that these two had been of little use, apart from further information regarding others of the king’s guards, all of whom were rounded up and questioned, although little came of it.
    “Then,” Sir Thomas continued a little more briskly, “on 16 January, 1333, I was with the king at York, when a report was brought in from William de Cornwall, one of the royal agents in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. According to this, Guerney had been seen there and the king immediately commissioned me to go to Naples to apprehend him. Preparations took about ten days and, accompanied by a small retinue, I sailed from Sandwich. We had good winds and docked at Genoa on 10 February. There the cog left us for active service in the Channel, while our party hired horses and travelled south to Naples.”
    “We arrived about the beginning of March and, having observed the usual protocol, John de la Haye, the seneschal of the town, handed Guerney over to us. I remember being shocked by his ragged appearance but, after a shave and a new set of clothes, he didn’t look too bad. I had met Guerney many times during the reign of Edward II. He was a cocky bastard then and he hadn’t changed. He said he was glad to be going back to England. Glad! I reproached him as a regicide, but he merely smiled and said he had news that would set all Europe by its ears. After that, he refused to speak about Edward’s death at Berkeley.”
    Sir Thomas turned and bellowed to the landlord to bring candles and ale. “Anyway,” he continued, “we set sail from Naples in the last week of March and landed at Couloures in Aragon on the east coast of Spain. I thought it best to cross northern Spain, through the Pyrenees, and so enter the English duchy of Gascony, rather than risk a perilous sea voyage up the Bay of Biscay. So, at Couloures, I hired mules and horses and also obtained the necessary passes to cross Aragon and Castile. Our journey was an uneventful one, until Guerney fell ill. Nothing serious at first, just gripes in the belly, but by the time we reached Bordeaux in Gascony, he was dead.” Tweng then broke off his narrative and stared hard at his thick, stubby fingers.
    “I know what you’re thinking, Master Beche. His death does seem very convenient and so it was judged at the time. There are stories that he was killed to protect certain people in England, not just the queen mother.” Sir Thomas looked at me intently. “There’s no foundations for such lies. I was especially charged by the king to look after Guerney and I took along two physicians just in case he did fall