The Gallows Murders

Henry's interminable banquets, there was always singing, dancing and card-playing. Sometimes the King liked to regale us all with stories. On that particular night he had the past in his mind. He talked tearfully of his mother and even spoke eloquently of his own father. He patted the hand of his dumpy wife Catherine and recalled his elder brother Arthur who had died so young. The fat Beast lolled in his chair, playing with the gold tassels on the arm.
    'So long ago,' he crowed self-pityingly. 'So many shadows, so many regrets.'
    A chilling silence greeted his words. A few guests looked sly-eyed at poor Catherine of Aragon, who'd failed to produce a living son.
    'Fourteen years,' the beast went on. 'Since my glorious father's death and my accession.'
    'Yet many more to come,' a brown-nosed flatterer cried out. 'Sire, you are only in your thirty-first year!'
    The King's fat face creased into a smile. He nodded imperceptibly, acknowledging the plaudits of his flattering courtiers. "The sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of your father's reign.' Norris, one of the King's oldest cronies, was shouting, dramatically extolling the date of the Great Beast's birth.
    Now the good Lord knows what got into me: wherever the Great Beast was concerned, I always put a foot wrong. Perhaps his treatment of me in the chapel had violated Shallot's one and only virtue: I don't like being bullied.
    'Aye,' I cried, my belly full of wine, the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. Six, six, six; the sign of the Great Beast in the Book of the Apocalypse!'
    The banqueting chamber fell so quiet, you could have heard a fly fart. Henry glowered down the hall. My master put his face in his hands; even Wolsey raised his napkin to his mouth and gazed fearfully at me.
    The King lifted a hand. "Music, let the dancing begin: tomorrow we hunt!' He glared murderously at me: the Great Beast was about to strike.

Chapter 7
    I went to bed as drunk as a bishop. All I could recall was Benjamin taking me upstairs, laying me down on the bed and looking nervously at me. ‘Roger!' he hissed. 'What on earth made you say that?'
    'Devil's bollocks!' I muttered back. 'It's the truth.' And, crossing my arms. I slipped into a wine-drenched sleep.
    My awakening was not so graceful. The sun had not yet risen when royal huntsmen, cowled and hooded and carrying torches, burst into our chamber. Benjamin sprang from his bed, but one of them pressed a dagger against his cheek.
    'Stay where you are, Master Daunbey,' he warned. ‘Your beloved Uncle sends a message. If it were not for you -' he pointed to where I hung, half-dazed, between the arms of two burly verderers – 'Master Shallot would swing from the highest gallows in the castle for his crime of lese-majesty.'
    Do you know the bastard was right? I had committed misprision of treason by casting a public slur on the King's date of birth. However, in doing so (and the good Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to behold), my jest was to unlock the dreadful bloody puzzle which confronted Benjamin and myself.
    However, at five o'clock in the morning, when I was cold, terrified, and my head still thick with wine fumes, I really didn't give a damn. I still believed I was going to hang. I thought of pleading. I opened my mouth as they thrust me out of the chamber, locking the door behind me, but one of the huntsmen smacked me in the teeth. I could see he was not open to reason, so I hung listless as they carted me downstairs, along empty galleries and into one of the castle's great stableyards. Nearby were the royal kennels, and the blood-curdling howls of the hunting dogs awoke strange fears in my soul. It was that eerie time between night and day. The sky was clear, but only a light-reddish hue indicated where the sun was about to rise. The huntsmen gathered round me like a group of leather-garbed devils. A few of them were grinning. One or two looked sadly at me, the rest worked like professional mercenaries: they had a task to do and they would do it. I was stripped of every article of clothing: that's the last I saw of my Italian silk shirt, fine Flemish hose and expensive linen undergarments. (Take Shallot's advice. Never sleep in your clothes. So, when the bastards come to collect you in the early hours, they can't steal your under-garments.)
    I tried to object. A huntsman smacked me across the mouth with his leather gauntlet, so I shut up. I was doused under a pump; the cold water sent my