The Gallows Murders

left me alone. I returned to the tower, but the staircase to Benjamin's room was still heavily guarded. I decided not to exert my newfound authority, but at least I knew that my mysterious benefactor in the forest could not have been Benjamin. I went on to the kitchens, bullied some more meat and drink from a terrified cook, and roamed the palace once more.
    That particular day was important to me, not just because I had escaped Henry's wrath: it was also closely entwined with the bloody murders which puzzled Benjamin and myself. I must have been in the main keep, going along a wooden gallery, when I glimpsed a large framed picture at the end, mounted against the wooden panelling. It depicted the Great Beast's mother, Elizabeth of York. I went along and stared up at her beautiful, thin, ivory-white face, her famous golden hair tightly bound under a jewelled cap. Behind her, in the background, were pictures of her family: these were fairly indistinct, as the painting had gone dark with age and was covered with dust. (It just goes to show you the manners of the old Beast! He never cared for his father or his mother. When his commissioners under Cromwell began to destroy the abbeys and churches, Henry actually dug up his great-grandmother, leaving her coffin to be abused and rifled by any passing villain. Years later I intervened, and begged Elizabeth to have the remains properly coffined and reinterred.)
    I pulled up a stool and climbed up to clear away the dust for, in the background, playing in a field, were two young boys: Elizabeth's two brothers, the Princes in the Tower. I thought the picture might give me some clue, then the stool slipped and I fell against the wooden panelling. My nailing hand must have caught some secret lever, the panelling moved inwards, acting as a secret door. I looked around. No one was present so I went in. I jammed the stool between the door and the lintel lest it close and seal me in for ever.
    Inside was a small, musty chamber. Straining my eyes, I could make out a table, a chair and, in the far corner, a small truckle-bed. I stretched my hand out across the table. I grasped a thick, squat candle and, beside it, a tinder with flint. After a great deal of difficulty, I lit the candle and the chamber flared into light. God knows what I expected, but all I found was an earthernware pot, a few rags on the bed, a stained pewter jug and the remains of a cup which had apparently fallen from the table. Nevertheless, the chamber looked as if it had been occupied, though not recently. I blew the candle out, left the chamber, and quietly resealed the panelling.
    I was about to continue my wandering when I heard the faint sound of a hunting horn. I scurried back to the stable-yard, taking up position at the very spot where the King had last threatened me. I breathed in deeply to calm my thudding heart as the King and his cronies, spattered with mud and rather subdued, swept into the yard. Henry slid down from his horse and ordered the wounded verderer to the castle infirmary, and the corpses of his two great mastiffs to be laid out in the castle chapel. The Great Beast swaggered towards me; his cronies, faces tense, eyes watchful, crowded behind him. 'So, Shallot, you escape yet again?' ‘Yes, your Grace.' 'And how?' The Beast thrust his face towards me.
    I acted all coy and frightened, opening my mouth to reply, then closing it with a sigh.
    ‘You know what happened to my hounds?' the King barked. I shook my head fearfully. 'Or my verderer?' I began to sob.
    (Kit Marlowe once told me I would have made a fine actor. I could change my moods at the drop of a coin. Believe me, on that day at Windsor I was acting for my life!)
    I knelt on the cobbled yard before the Great Beast. A nice touch! Henry liked to see people abase themselves before his majesty. What is it?' Henry barked.
    ‘You’ll not believe me.' I grasped his boots and glanced up fearfully. What I saw, Your Grace, was most fearful! A vision from Hell.'
    Oh, my arrow struck its mark. Big, fat Henry! As superstitious as any gypsy. 'On your loyalty,' the Beast barked.
    'I was in the woods, Your Grace. I was running for my life, aware of how my clacking tongue and stupid wits had brought this sad fate about.' 'And?' Henry asked.
    'A rider came out of the trees. Oh, Your Grace, he was fearful. The horse was black as coal, its eyes like burning embers. The harness was ribbons of fire and the saddle was fashioned out of human skin.' I