Free The Death of a King by Paul C. Doherty Page A

Yet, if the accepted story was to be discounted, how and with what could I replace it? The records had been exhausted and who else could help me? On my first night in Harwich I sat for hours listening to the sounds of the tavern as I tried to answer these questions. Finally, I drew up a list of all those who knew what had happened during Edward II’s imprisonment. I was forced to reduce it to a definite six. Edward himself, Mortimer, Guerney, Maltravers, Ockle and Isabella. But the latter was now unapproachable and the first two were dead, so that left the three murderers. According to the chronicle of St Paul, they had fled to the Low Countries, and then deeper into Germany. Only God knows what forsaken corner of the world shelters them, but finding at least one of them was my only hope. Sir Maurice Berkeley had remarked that Maltravers and Guerney were from Somerset, so I decided I would start there. I dropped all plans to return to London and began to negotiate a passage to one of the Somerset ports.
    After a fruitless week’s search, I eventually compounded with a master of a cog going only as far as Poole, in the shire of Dorset. The king’s war with France, so the master pointed out, had led to enemy raids, not only against English shipping in the Narrow Seas, but all along the south coast. Consequently, there had been a sharp reduction in sea-traffic and I should think myself lucky to find a passage at all. The cog, The Christopher, was a sturdy craft, owned by a company of merchants, who used it to bring wool from the Yorkshire dales to the south coast, before exporting it to the Low Countries. It had called at Harwich for fresh supplies and, within three days of paying my fee, The Christopher was scudding south under a brisk northwesterly.
    I was a little seasick at first, but soon I forgot it for once we sighted Dover, the entire atmosphere of the ship changed. The master constantly paced the poop, look-outs were doubled and the ship’s armament prepared in case of attack by the French. Once we were past Dover, the crew relaxed a little as the master brought his ship closer into shore, ready to bolt for harbour should an enemy ship be sighted. I joined the rest of the crew in carrying out their daily tasks, so at night I was too exhausted to think about my own problems. Four days after passing through the Dover Straits, we entered the Solent and the following evening sailed under Crawford Cliffs and into Poole Harbour.
    The master helped me disembark my horse and gear. I paid him an extra half mark as a bonus and bade him farewell. For safety’s sake, I decided to join a military convoy for the journey inland and so safely reached the town of Dorchester. I stayed there for two days, resting and drawing up a report to the king. Naturally, it differs greatly from what I am telling you. I only informed him of the mystery surrounding the Dunheved conspiracy, Mortimer’s refusal to hand Edward II’s body over to Westminster and the fact that the queen possessed the heart of the dead king. I did not mention my growing disbelief of the entire account of his father’s death, nor how close I had come to my own outside Castle Rising. I concluded by informing him of my intended visit to Somerset to learn something about the whereabouts of Guerney and Maltravers. I pointed out that I could discover nothing about them in the records and so hoped that there were rumours about their movements in their own native county. I couched the letter in as an obsequious fashion as possible to make them think I had taken Chandos’s warning to heart.
    I then sealed the letter and handed it over to the Mayor of Dorchester, who was going to a parliament at Westminster to answer another of the king’s interminable requests for more money for the French wars. The mayor had just received his brief from the town burgesses who had gathered in the great tap-room of the inn where I was staying. The mayor agreed to take the letter when I