The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

She ran her hands over his chest and felt the cord beneath his shirt. She traced it down with her fingertips to the bulge of what felt like a leather pouch. Joan slid her knife from her belt. It would be easier to cut the cloth than to try to drag the pouch up under his clothes.

‘Spare me, I beg you!’

Joan started so violently that her legs shot from under her and she found herself sitting in the shallow icy water.

The man on the cross ran his tongue over parched lips and his voice, when he spoke again, was cracked and hoarse. ‘Almighty God has brought me safe through the storm and raging seas. His curse will be upon you if you harm me now, for I am under His protection.’

Joan could scarcely take in what he was saying for the sheer amazement of his being alive. He turned his head towards her, and now that his eyes were opened she saw that they were a brilliant green, like the first flush of grass in spring.

The bell in the parish church began to toll, calling the villagers to prime. Joan suddenly remembered that this was the morning of Good Friday, the day Christ had hung on the Cross. And now, here, right in front of her, was a man who might have been the statue of Christ sprung to life. With a look of wonderment dawning in her eyes, Joan struggled to her feet. Heedless of her sodden skirts she began to run as fast as her old legs would carry her, stumbling back towards the main beach and the other villagers.

‘A miracle! A miracle. It’s our Lord. He has returned!’

Godfrey pressed his ear closer to the door of the royal chamber where his master, King Henry VI of England, slept, dressed and these days even ate, if you could call the meagre amount he consumed ‘eating’. Godfrey was sure his master was alone, he usually was. Even the Queen seldom entered his chamber and would wait patiently in her own apartments for him to visit her, but those visits too had become less frequent of late. Godfrey, his head hard against the wood, strained to listen. On the King’s orders, he had kept guard outside the door this past hour and had admitted no one. Yet now he could hear voices inside.

Henry had retired to meditate and pray, something he did several times a day, a practice that was growing more frequent, much to the mockery of the Court, but His Majesty was resigned to being interrupted. He would never send his ministers away with an angry word, but that only made them despise him the more. A gentle, meek, forgiving king was no king at all.

The voice was rising inside the chamber, shouting and raging. The words were pouring out too hysterically for Godfrey to distinguish them, but it was Henry’s voice, he was sure it was, though he’d never heard it raised like this.

Godfrey hesitated, his fingers gripping the metal ring of the door handle. Should he enter, despite the King’s orders?

‘No, no, have mercy!’ The voice was shrieking in fear.

Someone was surely threatening the King’s life. An assassin must have crept into the chamber and hidden there, one of Richard of York’s men, maybe even Richard himself. Henry would never offer any resistance if attacked, but even if he tried, his efforts would be as useless as an infant’s, for he refused to practise any form of fighting.

Godfrey snatched his fingers from the handle and backed a few paces away into the shelter of a doorway. If this was an attempt to murder the King, he certainly wasn’t going to prevent it. He shrank into the shadows and waited. But there was no sound of violence coming from the small chamber, no furniture overturning, no one came running out.

Taking a deep breath, Godfrey crept back towards the solid oak door. Someone was still talking, but the tone was low and dull now.

‘Sire, are you in need of assistance?’

He called out to warn of his approach to anyone who might be with the King. He did not want a dagger intended for the royal heart to be plunged into his own.

Receiving no reply, Godfrey turned the handle and made to enter, but the door would not move more than an inch. He put his shoulder to it and shoved; slowly it grated open just far enough for him to look through the gap. The chamber appeared empty save for Henry himself, who was crouched beside his bed, muttering under his breath as if he was praying. The bedcovers were crumpled and half tumbling off the bed. A small wooden table had been wedged against the door. Godfrey gave a violent shove and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

‘Sire?’

Henry was hugging his long black coat tightly across his chest, like a beggar on a cold winter’s day. He slowly raised his head. His tight black cap, the one he always wore, made him seem more pale and haggard than usual.

‘Shall I fetch the Queen, sire?’ Then seeing the look of incomprehension on Henry’s face, Godfrey added, ‘Margaret, sire, your wife, shall I send for her?’

Henry adored her and when he was in one of his reclusive moods only Margaret could coax him out of his chamber.

‘I saw a face,’ Henry said. He pointed across the chamber.

Godfrey crossed to the casement. On such a bitter day the gardens below were almost deserted, save for two gardeners tidying up the fallen twigs and branches after the storm.

‘Not the window, in there. That!’ Henry gesticulated wildly at an object on the floor just as Godfrey stumbled over it.

He stooped and retrieved it. It was a silver mirror, perfectly circular and about the breadth of a man’s hand. The reflective surface was set in a silver frame gilded with gold and decorated with rubies and pearls. Godfrey knew it well. It had once been a gift from King Richard II of England to Henry’s maternal grandfather, Charles VI of France. Now it belonged to Henry. But normally it rested on a stand.

He peered about. The stand was lying smashed in three pieces in the corner of the room. He glanced at the King, who was staring at the mirror with an expression of horror in his eyes, as if Godfrey was holding up a severed head.

‘Sire, it was just your own face you saw reflected in the mirror. Sometimes if I catch a glimpse of myself unawares, I am startled-’

‘No, no!’ Henry waved his hands agitatedly. ‘It was not my face… it was my grandfather’s face staring out at me.’

‘Some say you favour your grandfather in appearance,’ Godfrey replied cautiously. He could not think what else Henry meant.

‘It was Charles’s face, I tell you… the face of my grandfather, watching me. Look in the mirror. Look! Can’t you see him in there?’

Godfrey struggled to think of a diplomatic answer that would not suggest that he thought his master was a raving lunatic. ‘Sire, a little diversion might dispel these phantasms – some dancing, perhaps, or music. You should not spend so much time alone.’

‘Dancing is a sin, don’t you know that? And it is sin my grandfather is trying to warn me of. I must meditate upon the mirror. I have to pray! I have to pray!’

Godfrey looked down at the object he still held. On the reverse of the mirror was a scene engraved on gilded copper. The figures were set on a background of translucent red enamel and depicted the murder of St Thomas Becket by the knights in Canterbury Cathedral. Godfrey grimaced. Staring at that bloody murder for hours on end was enough to addle anyone’s wits.

‘Majesty, the stand is broken. Shall I not send it to a craftsman to be mended? Then when it’s returned, if the mirror distresses you, you might bestow it as a gift on-’

He staggered backwards as the King leaped to his feet, snatching the mirror from his hands and sending him reeling.

‘I must not let it out of my sight. My grandfather is trapped in that mirror and I must release him. I have to help him, don’t you see? I must help him.’ He clutched the mirror to his chest, rocking back and forth like a child cradling a precious toy.