Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

That he was right to fear the citizens was vindicated, just at that very moment. We heard shouts of anger, the clash of weapons, a howl of rage. Then, over the battered ruins of the riverside fortification, was thrown a head. Ghastly and bleeding though it was, twisted into a grimace of fury and fear, we recognised the face and beard of Lord Scales. Advised of the hatred the people of London now bore him he hail attempted to row himself in a skiff, upriver to Westminster Abbey where he hoped to achieve sanctuary. Apparently, under certain complicated rules compounded by these people's superstitious beliefs regarding holy places, even convicted criminals can escape arrest by entering the chancel of a church. Once inside, their bodies are judged to be inviolate.

Anyway, sundry watermen of the Thames, men whose trade it is to ferry people and goods both across and up and down the stream, recognised him and guessed his plan. They dragged him from his tiny boat, took him to the steps of what is called the Traitors' Gate, for through it traitors are brought to the Tower by boat for execution, and there stabbed and beat him to death before chopping off his head.

I am not sorry he has gone, though I would not have wished him so harsh a departure.

Next day, the eighteenth of july, by their reckoning, Shiva knows what by ours, and we are back in Alderman Dawtrey's house on the corner of the street they call East Cheap. Now that Lord Scales has gone, the Yorkists here are in control and we are identified with the Yorkists, the vintner and his emotional wife are all over us, insisting we should stay until we can find lodgings of our own. They have also kept safe the the goods we hail left unsold, and we still have a fair quantity of gold and jewellery hidden about us, so one way and another our fortunes are well mended.

But there is more than this to tell you. Yesterday, apparently, though no one told us and we were suffering for most of the time from the last hours of the bombardment of the Tower, the Yorkist army returned, having won a great victory ewer the Queen's army at a town called Northampton, where they also took the King prisoner. The King has been lodged in the Bishop's Palace close to Baynard's Castle, which is where the Yorkists stay, a fortification close to Lud's Gate, now a palace. The King, who is frequently disturbed in his head, is quite content to be guided by the Yorkist lords.

All that now remains is for the Duke of York to return from Ireland and assume the reins of government in the name of the King, but in effect on his own account. The thing is, cousin, and I may have mentioned this before, these people have an irrational reverence for a crowned and anointed king, believing superstitiously that to do one harm is to invite the curse of their god. So, although this king is the grandson of a usurper who arranged, so everyone agrees, the death of his rightful king, nevertheless, this one old before his time and subject to grievous fits of madness, is still reckoned to be touched with a sort of holiness, a sanctity.

Finally, a wonderful piece of good fortune: Ali ben Quatar Mayeen was with this Yorkist host, in the company of a Franciscan brother called Peter Marcus, an intelligent and open-minded person tor an Ingerlonder. Ali still has with him the two kurundam crystals I entrusted to him. I'm not sure of what use they are since they are far too valuable to be sold or bartered, but no doubt their time will come. At all events it's good to have him with us again and he seems to be none the worse for his adventures.

The Buddhist monk who left Gove with us seems to have disappeared, as has the fakir. Well, they were just hangers-on, but I feel a certain responsibility for them and I don't like to think of them wandering about this barbarous island on their own.

News just in. These wars are not over yet. The Queen escaped after Northampton and is rumoured to be in Scotland raising an army. Even in Ingerlond she still has many adherents amongst the nobility. They fear to lose the huge gains in land, fortune and position they made under her protection, and also they fear the revenge of Yorkists whose families have suffered at their hands. No doubt we shall see more military activity and learn more from it.

The worst is that we have moved no nearer to finding my brother Jehani, though Brother Peter thinks he may have heard of a person answering his description. However, he advises caution in our attempt to find him. He is almost certainly in the company and under the protection of a secret group called the Brothers of the Free Spirit who are known to preach a free society and look towards a heavenly city on earth where all are free, well fed, equal and happy. Sounds like Vijayanagara. However, to hold to such beliefs is considered heresy and sedition and punishable by a protracted and painful death.

There is a ship in the port of London, chartered by the mercers and bound for Jezair, which the Ingerlonders call Alger, on the north coast of Africa. Alderman Dawtrey has arranged for the master to take this letter thus far. Well, it's a step in the right direction, and who knows?, it might get through to you.

Your affectionate cousin and servant.

Prince Harihara Raya Kurteishi

Dear Cousin

What joy, what bliss! Through what adventures and vicissitudes I suppose we shall never know your letter, sent to me in answer to the one I sent to you from Calais nine months ago, has reached me. It was handed to me this morning by the mate of a cog that had just come in with barrels of a drink they call sack from Jerez in Spain, now in the hands of the Christians but still trading with the Arab port of Motril south of Granada. It has done our hearts immense good to know that four months ago at any rate all was well with you and the City of Victory, that indeed your new Bedu cavalry have had some success over the squadrons of the Bahmani sultans. We are glad, too, to learn that the extensive building programme you had planned before we left is now in hand and going well, and that the dispute with medical practitioners over free public health care has been resolved. Enlightened self-interest usually works.

Since my first letter got through to you I must now assume that the later ones will do so too, so I shall not bore you with a recapitulation of these (though I shall ask Anish to provide a brief summary, just in case) but will instead bring you up to date with what has happened since I wrote to you a month after the summer solstice. Well, the answer for the first couple of months is – not a lot. The seventh, eighth and ninth months would undoubtedly, in this generally rainsoaked and wretched island, be the best for martial enterprises, since the sun achieves a certain warmth and, even after rain, dries the ground quite quickly. However, there is an abundance of new food in the land, first pulses and roots, then grain and fruit, and fodder for animals and the common people are loath to turn out for their lords and indeed many lords are loath to ask them to.

The reason is clear once you realise that these three months provide, in a sudden rich harvest, the food off which the whole nation will feed for the rest of the year, and what is left ungathered will rot in the fields, creating shortages in the coming winter. So although we received a steady trickle of news that the Queen was first in Scotland and then in the north of Ingerlond raising a large army, she made no move on us, and this perhaps because this army was a figment, an unborn entity, a series of promises which, now, in the month they call October, are about to be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, here in the south in London, not much has happened of importance either, until the last two weeks or so. The interim was filled with festivity and celebration on the part of Warwick, Fauconberg, Salisbury, March and the rest, much time spent in their absurd tournaments and even more in their absurd mode of hunting, which, as Ali warned us, really does consist of pursuing animals – yes, even foxes – across the countryside on horseback with dogs! When I suggested to these magnates that a more civilised way of proceeding would be to station themselves on the side of a valley with crossbows and have their followers drive previously corralled quarries in front of them within range of their engines, I was laughed at outright – even though I was prepared to use my crossbows to demonstrate what I meant! I know you disapprove of hunting of any sort but you must concede that my method is more civilised than that employed by these Inglysshe.