The Death of a King

became silent, broken only by the sound of faint laughter and the clash of cups. Suddenly, there was a squeal and a thumping on the stairs, then the chamber door flung open and Michael the Scot walked through, carrying a struggling Mistress Launge. Without a word, he flung the woman on the great bed and began to unfasten the lacing of his breeches. Once stripped, he flung himself on to the unfortunate woman, his great hands thrusting under her petticoat while he buried his face into her long neck. I waited for a few seconds more, slipped from behind the arras and brought my club down on to the man’s head with a resounding thwack. He jerked, groaned and slipped unconscious to the floor. Mistress Launge sufficiently recovered herself to help me bind and gag the unconscious man and then drag him downstairs. I went outside and brought my horse from the rear of the house, and, having assured ourselves that all was quiet, we dragged the Scot out and bound him across my saddle. I whispered my farewells to the girl and promised that she would see neither me nor the Scot again.
    I then took the reins of my horse and headed for the place in the woods I had marked earlier in the day. It was about a mile from the track, a small moonlit clearing which fringed an evil-smelling marsh. I unhorsed my captive and, having spread-eagled him, lashed and pegged his hands and feet to the ground. He struggled to rise, but I kicked him between the legs and told him to keep quiet. He peered up at me. “Ah, it is the clerk,” he grunted. “Come for vengeance? Where’s Mistress Launge? Not here? Ah, well, there’ll be another day.”
    “For her and for me,” I replied, “there might be. You’re never going back and your queen, the French bitch, will have to find herself another mongrel.” In the light of the torch, I saw his fear. He struggled against the cords and gazed wildly into the surrounding darkness.
    “You’re not to slay me, Master Beche,” he gasped. “You’re a clerk, I’ll be missed.” My look must have only confirmed his fears and he began to shout at me in a mixture of pleas, oaths and threats which ended in a shriek as I drove my dagger into his hand.
    “Did you kill the girl in London?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “As a warning to you to leave the past alone.”
    “Is that why you attacked me?” I drove my dagger into his other hand.
    “Yes,” he shrieked.
    “And what about Edward II? Did you have anything to do with his death?”
    “No,” Again I pressed the dagger into the fleshy part of his right hand, causing him to shriek and writhe.
    “God is my witness,” he shouted, “but I know nothing. I only do what the queen orders.”
    “Did she order Guerney’s execution?” I asked.
    He nodded and quickly told me that in 1333 he was acting as Isabella’s spy at her son’s court. When the king heard that Guerney was in Naples, Isabella had ordered him to volunteer for service in the force sent out to apprehend him. Once Guerney was captured, he was to gain his confidence by promising Guerney the queen’s support and protection once he was back in England.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “To see what he knew.”
    “About what?”
    “Her husband’s death.”
    “Why was the queen so interested?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did you gain anything?”
    The Scot nodded. “Only a little. Guerney said he had news which would set all Christendom by its ears. When I pressed him for details, he merely smiled, although on one occasion he did say, ‘Kent was right; he knew all along.’ ”
    I made him repeat this and asked if there was anything else.
    “No,” the Scot replied. “I carried out Madam’s orders and began to lace his water with a poison she had given me. It was a rare Italian mixture, which only acted over a number of days. It led to cramps, pains and eventually a coma, from which the victim never awakes. I did that before we arrived at Boulogne, but that’s all I know. I swear it.” The man looked at me beseechingly, but I remembered Kate and drove my dagger straight into his heart.
    So, Richard, I have taken a life. Edmund Beche, the student who would vomit if he saw a dog go under a cart. Murder? It was self-defence, justice for Kate and peace for many others. He brought about his own death and I bear no scruples for doing what the public hangman gets paid to do more slowly.
    But the purpose of this letter is not to moralize. Once the body had stopped twitching, I loaded it with stones,