Paul Doherty - The Gallows Murders

We scurried back to our chambers. Like good little boys, we changed and went down to the hall or, should I say, one of the halls in the inner keep. A magnificent occasion. The room was lit by so many candles you'd think it was daytime: their flames dazzled the gold and silver plate stacked high on shelves and chests around the room. Pure woollen carpets with silk fringes covered the floor. The best Flemish tapestries hung on the walls. Silver and gilt vases full of blooming red roses filled the air with their perfume. (Another sign of Henry's madness. He was so determined to stamp out the White Rose of York, every bloody building had red roses carved in the ceilings or walls. Henry had six craftsmen skilled in carving them. Mind you, one of the funny things about the Great Beast's palaces were his changing wives. He would be carried away in such a flood of affection, he'd insist that the initials of himself and his current queen be placed everywhere. He had six queens! So many he became tired of changing initials. I thought it was particularly amusing that his last queen, sharp-faced Catherine Parr, had the same name as his first. If he had chosen a line of queens with the same name, he would have saved himself a lot of money.)

The supper party that night was not one of Henry's great banquets but a small, intimate affair. The King, of course, had his table on a dais, with a large, throne-like chair in the centre, under a white silk canopy adorned with red roses. Wolsey and some of his cronies sat alongside him. Benjamin and I sat at one of the two tables just below this. Nonetheless, Henry liked his feasting and this occasion was as glorious as any. The plate was of heavy gold or silver, the tablecloths white satin. The meats – venison, boar, swan – were all professionally cooked in tasty, rich sauces, and followed by delicious confectionery, cakes, custards and trifles, whilst the wine flowed like water.

I confess I was in a foul mood. I don't like being treated like a dog. I was also still trembling after my escape from that wolf, so I drank deeply. After 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.

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 heart fluttering and my wits racing. After that they brought a tub of grease, rancid and foul-smelling. I was daubed with this from head to toe. A pair of roughly fashioned sandals were thrust on my feet and I was covered from head to toe with deer-skin. I tried to make a run for it but they caught and held me fast, tying my ankles and wrists together. At last they were finished and stood back, admiring their handiwork.

'One of the strangest beasts I have ever seen,' a huntsman remarked.

'I wonder,' one of them commented, ‘how long it will be able to run for? Mind you-' he came closer and dabbed some more grease on my face – We can always mount his head beside a boar's!' The joking stopped as a massive figure swept through a doorway and strode across the cobbles. It was the Great Beast himself) dressed in his Robin Hood garb, lincoln green, with a silly bonnet which had a white swan's feather clasped to it on his head. He came closer and peered at me. 'Master Shallot, you should hang for what you said!' 'Some of us hang, some of us don't,' I replied cheerfully.

The King spread his lips in a grimace but the fury boiled in bis eyes.

Today we hunt: not the deer or the boar, but those who should know their place and keep a still tongue in their head. Open your mouth, Master Shallot.'