Paul Doherty: Prince of Darkness

Prince Edward nodded solemnly.

'Most interesting,' he commented. He smiled and stretched out a hand. 'Your silver, Piers.'

The Gascon, grumbling with rage, handed it over.

'Your Grace,' Gaveston muttered, 'let me kill the bastard!'

'No, Piers, not now. You will only alarm the hawks and spoil the hunt.' He stroked the Gascon's dark hair. 'Don't be a scold, Piers,' he whispered. 'You are becoming more like Father and the Lady Eleanor every day.'

The Lord Edward urged his horse forward as the prophet slipped off the road. Gaveston turned and, crooking a finger, summoned closer the captain of the guard.

'Kill the bastard!' he muttered. 'No, not now. But before he's a day older.'

The sun had hardly moved in the heavens when the mad prophet's body, his throat slashed from ear to ear, was dumped in a scum-rimmed marsh deep in the forest and sank without trace. An hour later the mercenary captain rejoined the royal party as they sat on their horses amongst the thick, rich weeds of a slow moving river. The soldier nodded at Gaveston, who winked back, smiled, and slipped the hood off the falcon which stirred restlessly on his wrist, the bells of its jesses tinkling a warning of the death it would bring to this soft, green darkness.

'Now I have drawn blood,' Gaveston muttered to himself, I can enjoy the hunt.'

He waited until the beaters roused a huge heron which broke cover and soared up above the trees. Gaveston lifted his wrist, stroked his favourite bird with the finger of his gauntlet and let it loose. The falcon, its dark wings spread like the angel of death, flew in pursuit; it rose high in the sky, paused, drifting on the late summer breeze, and then, wings back, plunged like an arrow. The falcon struck the heron with a high-pitched scream and a burst of feathers. The courtiers 'oohed' and clapped their hands but gasped as the old heron turned its long neck and, drawing back its head, plunged its daggered beak deep into the falcon's body. Gaveston watched, speechless, as the falcon fell in a bundle of blood-soaked feathers, whilst the heron swooped low to hide in the reeds.

'Quite extraordinary,' the Prince murmured. 'I have heard of it, but that's the first time I have seen it.' He nudged his favourite playfully. 'A warning, Piers,' he whispered. 'You aim too high! The Earldom of Cornwall and the premier place on my council – but not now!' He raised a finger to his lips. 'Not yet, Piers. Whatever would my father, not to mention the Lady Eleanor, say to that?'

Gaveston glared back, wondering once again if he had truly broken the hold of that bitch, Eleanor Belmont. Prince Edward looked away. Would Gaveston heed the warning? he wondered. Edward loved Piers more than life itself but dared not prefer him any higher. The Prince glanced sideways at his favourite: Gaveston had his ways but Edward knew his dark side. He had seen the small, yellow wax figures his paramour kept; one with a crown representing the king, the other with a little scarlet skirt, the colour of a whore, Gaveston's description of the Lady Eleanor Belmont. The prince stared into the darkness of die trees. So many secrets, so much tension! When would his father die? And, above all, when would the bitch Eleanor?

From a window high in Woodstock Palace Sir Amaury de Craon, spy, assassin and special envoy of his most sacred majesty. Philip IV of France, watched the Prince's hunting party return up the winding gravelled path of the palace. De Craon thought fleetingly of the Lady Eleanor as he studied the two figures riding so close together, ahead of everyone else, the Lord Edward and Gaveston, chatting like David and Jonathan coming home from a day's hunt De Craon glared down. Lady Eleanor he had not liked but Gaveston he could gladly murder.

De Craon sucked in his breath, trying to calm his rage, and stared up at the sky. The day was now drawing to a close. A slight chilly wind snapped and fluttered the banners carried in front of the Prince. De Craon shivered and pulled his cloak tightly about him: with his sharp, pointed features, russet hair and goatee beard, the Frenchman looked like some inquisitive fox watching his prey approach. Great God, he fumed, how he hated Gaveston! The Gascon was no more than the son of a jumped up yeoman farmer and a witch from the English province of Gascony; indeed, a convicted witch who had been burnt alive, chained to a barrel in the middle of Bordeaux marketplace. What should he do about Gaveston? de Craon wondered for the umpteenth time. Before he had left Paris his master, Philip IV, had taken de Craon into his velvet-draped, secret chamber in the Louvre Palace and explained his mission. They'd sat at a table, bare except for the candle flickering in its stand.

'Always remember, de Craon,' the French King had remarked, 'the Duchy of Gascony is in the hands of Edward of England. By rights it should be in mine!' Philip had grasped the candlestick. 'It nearly was,' he continued, 'but His Holiness the Pope intervened. Now Edward has Gascony and I have a peace treaty.'

De Craon had watched Philip closely.

'However,' his master hissed, 'I intend to have Gascony, the peace treaty, and much more. According to the Holy Father's dictate, Edward I of England was to marry my sister and he is welcome to her, but his feckless Prince of Wales is to wed my beloved daughter, once she is old enough for this marriage to take place. Now, if that happens, one day my grandson will sit on the throne of England whilst another becomes Duke of Gascony. So, in time, that province and perhaps England itself will be absorbed under the French crown.' Philip had paused, licking his bloodless lips.

'However,' he continued, 'all that is in the future and there is a more immediate path I could follow. You are to go to England to confirm my daughter's betrothal, but you must insist that the Prince of Wales has no scandal attached to him. He is to remove from his person his favourite whore, Eleanor Belmont. Otherwise,' Philip gave one of his rare smiles, 'in the light of such scandal, I shall appeal to the Holy Father, the treaty will be null and void, and my troops will be all over Gascony within a week. Now the Prince may well agree to that – I hear he tires of the woman – in which case, a third path is open to me.'

Philip had risen, come round the table and whispered the most secret instructions in de Craon's ear. The French envoy remembered these now and smiled. Perhaps he should follow that path. He clenched his fists in excitement: if he did, he might settle scores, not only with Edward of England, the benighted Prince of Wales and his male bawd, Gaveston, but also with Master Hugh Corbett, de Craon's old rival and enemy.

Hugh Corbett, senior clerk and master spy of Edward of England, was dreaming a dreadful dream. He was standing beneath the spreading branches of one of the elm trees which stood along the boundaries of Godstowe Priory in Oxfordshire. A late summer sun was shining but the air was silent, eerie, devoid of birdsong. Alongside him, from the branch of a nearby tree, hung a body, its neck broken, head to one side; it hung there like some ancient sacrifice or the Figure of Death from the Tarot. Corbett felt compelled to turn but found he could not. His gaze was fixed on the windows, like empty eye-sockets, of Godstowe Priory. He stirred. No sound broke the chill silence except the hollow screeching of cruel-eyed peacocks and, in faint cadence, the ghostly chanting of the nuns.

In his nightmare Corbett walked across a lush green lawn, the shadows behind forcing him on. No sign of life was apparent as he crossed the gravel path up to the great door of the nunnery; unlatched, half-open, he pushed this aside and entered the cold, dark house. A guttering row of candles, their flickering flames filling the silent hall with dancing shadows, formed a path leading to the bottom of steep stone stairs. There, as if sleeping, lay the body of a young woman, her face half-averted, one pale ivory cheek peeping out from under the hood pulled over her head. Corbett walked softly across, knelt and turned the body over, the young woman's arms flapped like the wings of a fallen bird. He pushed back the hood, expecting to see the face of Eleanor Belmont, former mistress of the Lord Edward, but silently screamed in horror, the dead, ice-cold features belonged to his wife, Maeve. Above him, in the far darkness of the house, a low mocking laugh greeted his discovery but, as he jumped up, Corbett awoke, soaked in sweat, in his own bed chamber in the Manor of Leighton.