The Death of a King

body. My hair was full of dirt and my hands, so used to the tender work of the Chancery, were sore and chapped. When the stars began to disappear, I judged it was time to leave. I covered my tunnel with planks and then replaced the surface sods I had so carefully removed. After that, I stripped, wiped my body with some wet rags and, dressed in my usual robes with a hood covering my head, I walked back to the inn for food and sleep.
    By now, Richard, you must have realized that I intend to break into Edward II’s tomb. I do not believe it is sacrilege; the real desecration took place seventeen years ago when Isabella and her paramour duped Lords, Church and Commons by staging a mockery of a royal funeral. I needed to open the tomb, not only to expose their sacrilege, but to silence a nagging doubt behind the king’s motives in ordering this inquiry.
    The tunnelling took two exhausting weeks and suffered many setbacks. Sometimes the tunnel collapsed and, on one occasion, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a fear that the earth would close in on me and stop my breath. Time and time again the dead met me, the eyeless skulls and the empty skeletons of the countless bodies buried in the soil through which I ploughed. I prayed that Christ would understand my desecration, but the empty eye-sockets, glaring at me in the light of my small flint light, made me dread the work I had begun. Sometimes, as I returned to the inn, I felt as if these disturbed dead pattered beside me to fill my dreams with haunting nightmares.
    My growing paleness, coupled with the strange hours I kept, eventually aroused the suspicions of the landlord. I only silenced him with the king’s warrant and a handful of silver. Nevertheless, I wished my business was over. So far, my labours have gone undisturbed, as graveyards are left well alone, even in daylight. Yet I was weary and tired and becoming anxious at my growing mounds of rubble. I was also afraid that my frequent purchases of planks and sacking might arouse curiosity. If I was caught, I could expect little mercy. Grave-robber or witch, whatever the verdict, I would surely hang and the king, who knew nothing of what I was doing, could never save me. Twelve days after beginning my work, I was beneath the cathedral wall. The tunnel I had dug was now about the height and width of one prostrate man. I had used a guide rope to ensure it ran straight, but I had met so many obstacles and the light was so poor that I strongly suspected that I had gone off course. Nevertheless, I was pleased with my work which I had planned on what I had learned in the Forest of Dean, as well as my meagre military knowledge about the mining of castle walls. After another week’s work, I managed to wriggle under the curtain wall and began to hack at the sandy soil beneath the cathedral flag-stones. The morning I thought I should have reached the tomb still found me digging, and so I decided to tunnel to my left. Another night passed and, at last, I found what I was looking for—a tunnel similar to the one I had dug. I managed to clear the loose rubble away until I reached solid rock. I pushed my torch towards this, almost singeing my face, to find a man-made wall of dullish red brick. I probed the section directly facing me and loosened enough bricks to clear a small passage. Once through, I emptied my pouch into my lap, found a flint and lit the two rush-lights I had brought. I knew I was in some form of cavern for, despite the heavy mustiness which cloyed my throat, I could feel space on every side of me. The rush-lights flared to reveal a small chamber, a complete square with walls of brick about two yards high. Above this lay the flagstones of the cathedral and the gorgeous memorial to King Edward II, and, on the floor, directly in the centre of the chamber I had entered lay a long oaken chest. It was about four feet high and about the same across. I fixed the rush-lights in two of the sockets on either side of it and I was not surprised to find the lid easy to move, though it creaked as I pushed it aside.
    A sharp acrid smell forced me to cough and it was some time before I lifted one of the rush-lights. It showed a crumbling, wooden, lidless coffin, lined with the remnants of fur and samite and covered with the shards of a white, gauze-like material. Beneath this lay a skeleton, the body perfectly straight, though the skull was askew like the head of a hanged man. Praying softly, I removed the gauze to examine