The Gallows Murders

walked the hot, musty streets, both Agrippa and Benjamin had become strangely silent. Even when I told them about Quicksilver: raving against his perfidy, threatening to hunt him down, they just shook their heads, lost in their own thoughts. At first I thought they were frightened but, as the barge moved mid-stream, Agrippa's rascals pulling at the oars, the good doctor stirred. He pointed to each bank.
    'How time goes!' he muttered softly. 'You know, Roger, I remember Claudius's legions trying to ford this river, when London was nothing more than mud-flats and wide stretches of moorland.'
    I looked at him strangely. Now and again Agrippa would make these slips and talk about events which had happened hundreds of years ago as if they had occurred that morning.
    They paid for it, mind you,' he continued. The river ran red with blood. The mud-banks further down were piled high with corpses, like faggots in a woodshed.' He put on his hat again and looked at me from under his brows. 'It will be scarlet once again!’ he declared, and pointed to the poles jutting out from London Bridge where the rooks and ravens fought over the severed heads of traitors. 'A time will come when all the horrors will appear.' 'Might it now?' Benjamin observed drily. ‘Why, what's the matter?' I asked. 'Show him, Dr Agrippa.'
    Agrippa fished in his pouch and drew out a small scroll of white parchment. 'Read that, Roger.'
    I undid the scarlet ribbon and stared curiously at the blue-green writing inscribed in an elegant hand. The first words made me laugh.
    To Henry Tudor calling himself King. I, Edward, by the grace of God King of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, do denounce thee as a traitor, a usurper and the son of a usurper, who seized my father's Crown and Sceptre.' I looked up. 'What is this?' I exclaimed. 'Read on.'
    ‘Now we know,' the letter continued, 'and it is a matter of public knowledge how your usurpation has been punished by God. What you possess will not be passed on to a son. We deem this punishment enough. We are content to bide our time and wait for God's intervention. However, until then, our royal estate must be maintained. What you hold, you do as steward for us. I therefore demand that a thousand gold crowns be deposited just within the west door of St Paul's Cathedral. This gold is to be left at the hour of Nones on the feast of St Dominic. If not, a proclamation publicising your shame will be nailed to St Paul's Cross on the feast of St Clare. Heed ye this warning! Given at the Tower under our seal on the feast of St Martha, the twenty-ninth of July 1523.' I tossed the letter back at Agrippa. ‘London is full of madcaps and such tomfoolery’ I declared.
    'Look at the foot of the letter,' Agrippa insisted, passing the parchment back.
    I did so and gaped. Now, as you may know, when a letter is signed and sealed by the King, it carries two seals. First his own, the signet, often in green wax; then it is passed to the Chancellor who impresses the Great Seal of the Kingdom in red. This letter was no different, except that the seals were not those of Henry VIII but of Edward V. This is impossible,' I whispered. They are forgeries.'
    Agrippa shook his head. ‘No, they are not. The vellum is the most expensive that can be bought in London. The ink is that used in the Royal Chancery, as is the wax. Those seals are no forgeries.'
    'But Edward the Fifth died,' I declared. 'He perished in the Tower some forty years ago.'
    Benjamin looked across at the river. He stared at a great, low-slung, Venetian galley as it came out from the quayside, its oars dipping and rising as it began to make its way down to the open sea. Around it, bum boats and wherries still bobbed, as the fishermen and poor people of London tried desperately to sell to this stately galley before it left.
    'It should be nonsense,' Benjamin declared slowly. 'On April the ninth, 1483, Edward the Fourth died here on the Thames whilst fishing.' He smiled and shrugged. 'Well, at least he collapsed and was taken back to one of his palaces, where he died. Now he left two sons: Edward, eleven years old, and Richard aged seven. The protectorate went to their uncle, Richard, Duke of York but, as you know, Richard usurped the throne and imprisoned his nephews in the Tower, from where they later disappeared. Two years later, in August 1485, Richard the Third was defeated and killed at Market Bosworth by the present King's father. Now all the evidence indicates that