Paul Doherty - Prince of Darkness

Dame Frances rose, picked up the bucket and stopped, heart in mouth, at a sound outside. Was there someone watching her? Or was it just the wind rustling the leaves along the grass? Dame Frances walked towards the fire, muttering a short prayer that all would be well. She was still praying as she emptied the bucket over the logs. Her mumbles rose instantly to a terrifying scream as the flames jumped from the fire, ran along the hearth, and caught her robe. In a few seconds, Dame Frances was a blazing human torch.

Only a few miles away other actors in the macabre drama surrounding Lady Eleanor's death were taking up new roles and stances. In his velvet-lined chamber, Piers Gaveston lay under the great, silken canopy of his four-poster bed, chewing his lip and wondering what would happen next He trusted his spy in London. Corbett had been snooping there and seized a juicy morsel, first visiting his old friend at St Bartholomew's and then the poisoner in Faltour's Lane. Gaveston had ordered the apothecary to be killed. He knew too much, and besides Gaveston could not understand why Lady Eleanor had not died of those powders. The apothecary had assured him that anyone who took them would gradually weaken and die as if from natural causes. The apothecary had lied and Lady Eleanor had been murdered by other means. So what should he do next? Gaveston looked at the young page boy standing near him, a goblet of wine in his small white hands. The favourite sat up and grabbed the cup so hastily splashes of wine fell on his silken, multi-coloured hose. He rounded in anger, slapping the page across his sulky, girlish face.

'Get out!' he roared. 'Get out, until you learn how to serve a lord!'

The boy hurried away, rubbing his flaming cheek, as Gaveston sipped from the goblet If only Corbett had kept his long nose out of this God-forsaken business! The royal favourite gazed moodily around the chamber. He would not forget Corbett a man to be reckoned with. Should he make him a friend? Gaveston bit his lip. Perhaps, but that was for the future. The old King was now hurrying south and with him would come those grizzled warlords who followed like mastiffs at the royal heels. Gaveston knew how much they hated him. If only the old King would die! Gaveston would keep the Prince sweet until then. He would confess all, go on his knees, say he was the Prince's slave, buy him expensive presents… But when would the old King die?

Gaveston rose and went across to an old, ironbound chest taking a ring of keys from a gold chain which hung around his neck. He undid the three locks and swung back the lid. He took out the waxen figure which also contained straw and fat from a hanged man. It wore a silver chaplet round its head. Then he removed a bowl of incense and a black inverted cross. Squatting down on the floor like a peasant, Gaveston began the dark satanic ritual learnt from his mother for the total destruction of his enemies.

In another chamber in the same palace Seigneur Amaury de Craon was also preparing to change tack. His assassins were dead, Philip would not be pleased by that; the dwarfs had carried out many an assassination on behalf of the French King and their skills and expertise would be sorely missed. De Craon pondered the choices facing him. If old Edward died, if he was murdered, what would the gossips say then? Would they hint at patricide? That the young Prince, or Gaveston, or both, not only murdered hapless ladies in convents but even the Lord's anointed?

De Craon shifted in his chair uneasily. He had searched for this assassin by silent threat and bribery but so far had discovered nothing. King Philip had sent him a name wrung from the captured spy Tailler, but de Craon could find no trace of such a man. De Craon smiled grimly to himself: Tailler had been brave and, to the very last, had told nothing but ties. Perhaps the assassin's fictitious name was Tailler's final joke. The envoy cursed quietly to himself. If only Corbett had been elsewhere. All might now depend upon that interfering, extremely lucky, English clerk. Perhaps he might fail? Perhaps Philip's final plan, of finding and using the de Montfort assassin, could still succeed? Or should he, de Craon wondered, abandon this game, resume his official status and demand the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the Princess Isabella?

The rain was still falling as Corbett and his party reached London's Aldgate and made their way down through Poor Jewry, Mark Lane, and into Petty Wales near the Tower. They stabled their horses and hired a wherry at the Wool Quay. Maltote of course protested, but the two wizened boatmen only mocked his fears at having to go downriver.

'You only drown once!' they cried in unison. 'And it doesn't take long. If you fall in the water, just open your mouth and let the water gush in. You'll be amongst the angels within a few seconds!'

'Which is more than we could say for you!' Ranulf hotly declared, coming to the aid of the newfound victim of his dice games.

Corbett told them all to shut up. The boatmen cast off and rowed downriver past Billingsgate and Botolph's Wharf. The wherry shot under London Bridge where the water boiled between the closely built arches, the boatmen dipping their oars so the boats could squeeze by the starlings which protected them against the thick stone arches. Once they were through they all relaxed; the Thames was a cruel river but no more dangerous than in the seething cauldron under London Bridge.

The wherryman now took their boat midstream, past Dowgate, Queenshithe and the Fleet. The stench there was dreadful. The city refuse, the corpses of dogs, cats, beggars, lepers and even unwanted babies, were dumped in the Fleet ditch and, when the rains came, were washed down to the Thames. As they rounded the bend towards Westminster, Ranulf nudged Corbett and pointed to the near bank. Despite the thick refuse which bobbed and dipped on the river surface, water carriers were now filling their barrels full of Thames water to sell on the streets and alleyways of London. Corbett grinned wanly and nodded.

'Always drink wine or beer, Ranulf,' he murmured, then turned to the waterman. 'Is it true?' he asked.

'What?'

'That a sudden inrush of water will suffocate the breath immediately?'

'Oh, yes.' One of the boatmen grinned at a green-faced Maltote. 'Best way to die.'

Ranulf took up the argument as Corbett looked away and thought of old Dame Martha drowning in her bathwater.

At Westminster they disembarked at King's Steps, Corbett pulling the hood of his cloak over his head to avoid recognition by any of his colleagues in the Chancery or the Exchequer for he did not want to waste valuable time in idle chatter. He left Ranulf and Maltote to feed their faces in one of the many pie shops which stood just within the walls of the palace and pushed his way through the crowds, taking the path around the Great Hall to the buildings beyond. Here he crossed to one of the small outbuildings and, making his voice sound pompous, loudly demanded entrance in the King's name. A querulous voice told him to go and jump in the Thames so he knocked again and eventually the door swung open to reveal a tall, gaunt figure, dressed in a long robe of dyed brown fur. The man's face was pale, long and lined, his blue watery eyes squinted in the daylight. Corbett kept his hood up.

'Who are you?' the man demanded sharply.

Corbett pulled the hood back.

'Master Nigel Couville. I am a messenger from the King. He has decreed you are too old and senile for your post and I have been sent to replace you!'

The old man's gaunt face broke into a smile and his thin blue-veined hands clasped Corbett by the arms.

'You are as insulting as ever, Hugh,' he murmured. 'And as stupid! Come in. Unless you want us both soaked to the skin.'