The White Rose murders

Chapter 9

I entered Dover at nightfall just as the sky darkened and rain began to beat down on my plumed cap. I stayed in a flea-ridden inn whilst outside the sea began to seethe and boil under a sudden black storm. By dawn the weather had abated though the sea was still angry, its surface broken into dark ridges and furrows by a " treacherously high wind. A sloop took me out to the ship which dipped and rose wildly in the harbour. Oh, God, it looked pitifully small and flimsy! I spent the day riding, or rather bucking, at anchor, the only time in my life I really wanted to die.

The next day the idiot of a captain decided to make a run for the open sea. I gave up. I stayed in the darkness vomiting as the ship veered wildly through the troughs of high waves. I prayed to every saint I knew and, when I reached Harfleur, spent a great deal of my time resting in a seaside tavern. After a few days my condition improved, the weather changed dramatically, and I made my way across the cultivated, fertile fields of Normandy. A week's journey to the Porte of St Denis and into Paris. At first the city entranced me: the spacious meadows and dark green woods near the walls; the windmills, chateaux and palaces being swiftly built in the new Italianate style with their facades of grey stone, high arched windows and elegant columns.

My knowledge of French was rather better than Benjamin knew. I soon found my way around both the broad boulevards and reeking, rat-infested alleyways. Now Paris is a city which seethes like a hissing snake.

It is full of intrigue, subtle plots, and traders who could cheat a beggar out of his skin. My store of money began to dwindle but at last I found Le Coq d'Or, a dingy, two-storey building which stood at the mouth of one of the runnels on the far side of the Grand Pont opposite the elaborately carved Notre Dame Cathedral.

The landlord was a snot-nosed, weak-eyed character with greasy, spiked hair and a face as pitted as the track which ran past his dingy tavern. I took a garret there, posing as an English student from the halls of Cambridge. It was the sort of place where you are accepted for what you claim to be, your worth depending on how much gold or silver you have in your purse. After two or three days I bought the landlord a carafe of his own wine – the mean-mouthed varlet picked a costly, unsealed jar, not the usual watery vinegar he served most of his customers – and asked him about Selkirk. The fellow gave me a world-weary look and shook his head.

'I cannot remember everybody, Monsieur.' A piece of silver jogged his memory. 'Ah, yes,' he answered, breathing wine fumes into my face. 'The Scottish doctor – thin as a beanpole with untidy red hair. He and his stupid verses!' The fellow shrugged. 'He was here for a while. But then other Goddams [This is what the French used to call us English] came and took him away.'

'What did Selkirk do?' I asked. 'I mean, before his arrest.'

The landlord made a face. 'He stayed in his room, he went out.. .'

I fidgeted angrily and the fellow licked his lips.

'I think he went to St Denis,' he continued. 'To the abbey there. Or to Notre Dame.' He brought a dirty finger up to his lips. 'He was always carrying a casket, a battered, tattered thing which he guarded with his life.'

'What was it?'

'I don't know.'

'The English who came for him, did they find the casket?'

'No, I don't think so. They ransacked his room and were angry because they couldn't find anything. Selkirk laughed at them, jumping up and down here in the taproom. Some of the things he said made no sense so they gave him a crack across the head and took him away. That was the last I saw of him.'

I could make no further headway with the landlord so I made enquiries amongst the other customers: a beggar who whined for alms inside the doorway and a greasy-haired knave, but they only repeated what the landlord had said. The only clue (and one I ignored at the time), was Selkirk's interest in the Abbey of St Denis to the north of the city. I was planning to go there when my descent into the horrors began.

Now, Moodie had given me a package. Of course, I had opened it and found nothing more than a piece of costly silk, blood-red and fringed at each end. A sort of sash for some lady to wear round her smooth, soft-skinned waist. It gave off a fragrant smell which stirred my memory though I could not place it. Anyway, bored by my stay at Le Coq d'Or I decided to go to the shop under the Sign of the Pestle in the Rue des Moines and leave Moodie's present there.

[Yes, yes, my little chaplain is correct. He has pursed his sour lips and guessed my true intentions: if I had not been so bored, I would have sold it. I wish to God I had!]

I found the Rue des Moines and entered the small apothecary's shop, but I was disappointed. There was no Madame Eglantine, only a garrulous old man who chattered like a magpie, took the package and said he would hand it over to the lady next time she visited the place. I told him who I was and where I was staying and then forgot the whole incident. Two days later I was in the taproom of Le Coq d'Or, the slattern beside me half drunk. She pressed up against me, her fingers tickling my codpiece though I knew she was after my purse. My hand was teasing her juicy shoulders and succulent breasts thrust out from a dirty, though very low-cut bodice. A call of nature interrupted my pleasure and I went out to the necessary house behind the tavern, nothing more than a hole in the ground enclosed by a shabby wooden palisade and a door which bolted from the inside. I was squatting there, contemplating my future, when suddenly the door burst open. Three figures, their faces muffled by cloaks and broad-brimmed hats, seized me and began to beat me as if I was some dog.

Now in life there is nothing more defenceless or ridiculous than a man with his pantaloons about his ankles, his shirt tail raised and his mind on other matters. The three ruffians pummelled me, banging my head against the wooden slats. Of course, I fought back like a veritable lion but my sword and dagger were in the garret and who in the tavern would listen to my screams?

Within a few minutes my body was one mass of bruises from head to toe. Two of the ruffians seized me, pushing me against the fence, and I could only gabble in horror as their leader drew a long, thin stiletto and pulled back my shirt to expose my throat. He said something in French about the shop and the Sign of the Pestle. I saw the evil light in his eyes and knew that so far they had only been playing with me: their real intent was to kill. I gave one more scream, I don't know for whom. Benjamin! My mother! My nurse! Wolsey! Anyone! The dagger moved closer, nicking part of my neck just under my left ear.

'I'm too young to die!' I screamed.

[I can see that little bastard of a chaplain laughing again. Does he think it's funny? Look, I'm no hero and, if you had your pants down and three ruffians bent on killing you, you'd bloody scream!]

I closed my eyes and suddenly the jakes door was thrust back and a veritable mountain of a man stood there. He roared in French at my three assailants, brandishing a huge club. They took one look at him and scampered over the fence as quickly as rats over the timbers of a sinking ship. I just slumped and sat down in the mud and dirt.

The Colossus squatted down next to me. I glimpsed a broad, cheery face, a bristling beard and moustache.

'Who are you?' I whispered.

The fellow stood up and I saw the long, brown gown of a Franciscan monk, the rough cord round his waist and the wooden crucifix slung on a piece of string round his neck.

'I am Brother Joachim,' he announced in a voice like thunder.

'You are a priest?'

'I am a Franciscan and a Maillotin.'

'A Franciscan I know. What's a Maillotin?' I mumbled through bloodied lips.

'Never you mind!'

He scooped me up in his great arms, barking at me to make myself presentable and half-carried me back into the taproom. On his orders the tapster broached a good cask of wine and brought across a bowl of water. Joachim cleaned my face, wiping dirt from the bruises whilst I greedily gulped the thick red claret. Perhaps I should have known there was something wrong; the taproom was strangely quiet, the slattern had disappeared and the landlord seemed too busy to care.

'Do you need any more help?' Joachim asked.

'No,' I muttered.

'Then I'll be off!' the friar boomed. 'I have to visit the shrine of the Blessed Dionysius.'

Despite my injuries, I gaped up at him.

'Dionysius?' I queried. 'Who is he?'

'St Denis, of course!' the friar joked back. 'I use the Latin name. You know the monastery?'

He shook my hand and strode out of the tavern. I never saw him again, the man who saved my life. (Do you know, until fat Henry crushed the monasteries, I always had a soft spot for Franciscans. Not just because of Joachim's kindness but that chance encounter put me on the road to solving Selkirk's riddles and the horrible murders they caused.) Once Joachim had gone, the landlord showed renewed interest in me. He came and stood over me, a mock-tragic expression on his face.

'Monsieur, you were attacked?'

'Oh, no,' I sarcastically retorted, 'just some French bravos welcoming me to this Godforsaken city!' I got up. 'I must go to my chamber.'

'Monsieur!' The villain stepped in front of me, two of the thugs he always kept in the tavern to crack the heads of noisy revellers now standing behind him.

'Monsieur, your room has been ransacked. By whom I do not know. Your baggage and silver, they have gone!'

'Hell's teeth!' I snarled but the landlord, the two thugs close to his shoulder, screamed his innocence. He peered closer at me and asked what an Englishman was doing in Paris.

'This Selkirk,' he jibed, 'were you his bum boy?'

[At the time I didn't know what he was talking about. I always was, and have been ever, a devoted admirer of the fairer sex, but after you have made the acquaintance of men like Christopher Marlowe, you really can't trust anyone. Oh, yes, I knew Marlowe the playwright and helped him stage his play Edward II. Poor Kit! A good poet but a bad spy. I was with him, you know, when he died. Stabbed to death in a tavern brawl over a pretty boy.]

Ah, well, I had to leave Le Coq d'Or and found myself penniless, freezing in a Paris alleyway without baggage or silver. I thought of going to St Denis, but to what use? More pressing was the need to find shelter, food and extra clothing. I thought of following Joachim but I felt tired, exhausted after my beating. Somehow, my visit to the Sign of the Pestle had caused the attack on me so I dared not go back there. I crouched in that alleyway and prayed for Benjamin to come.

Poor old Shallot! Alone in Paris, in a foreign city on the brink of winter, penniless, hungry, with not an item I could call my own except the clothes I stood up in. At first, I lived on my wits. I became a story-teller: painting my face, filching a gaudily embroidered robe and, not being versed in the French tongue, pretending I was a traveller lately returned from seeing the fables of India and Persia. I took a position on the edge of one of the bridges across the Seine and told, in halting fashion, stories about forests so high they pierced the clouds.

'These,' I cried, 'are inhabited by horned pygmies who move in herds, and who are old by the time they are seven!'

I earned a few sous so I became more fantastical, maintaining I had met Brahmins who killed themselves on funeral pyres; men with monkeys' heads and leopards' bodies; giants with only one eye and one foot who could run so fast they could only be caught if they fell asleep in the lap of a virgin. As the days passed, my wits sharpened and my command of the tongue improved, as did my stories. I had met Amazons who cried tears of gold, panthers which could fly, trees whose leaves were made of wood, snakes three hundred feet long with eyes of blazing sapphire.

At last both the sous and the stories ran out so I sold the cloak and gathered a few objects: bones, shards of pottery and the occasional rag. I became a professional relic-seller. The proud possessor of a fragment of the Infant Jesus's vest, a toy he had once played with (Benjamin would have been proud of that), and a hair from St Peter's beard which could cure the ague or a sore throat. I had the arm of Aaron and, when someone burnt that as a joke, changed my tale and said the ashes were from a fire over which the martyr of St Lawrence died. I earned a few sous but not enough. Paris was full of rogues, card-sharps, brigands, footpads, dice-coggers, pimps, ponces, horse-stealers, bruisers, coin-clippers -the true children of wing-heeled Mercury, the lying patron of thieves and politicians. In a word, the competition became too intense and, in the reeking runnels and smelly alleyways of Paris, I began to starve.

Now Paris may well be the inspiration of poets and troubadours but I don't remember it as the fabled Athens of the West. All I recollect is a grey, sombre sky and the dark Seine rushing under the bridges; tall, sharp-gabled houses which sprang up from the cobbles and leaned crazily together, storey thrust out above storey; the narrow, winding streets of the Latin Quarter; the pell-mell of ascending gables and tinted roof tiles, the gables of their lower storeys sculpted into fantastic shapes of warriors or exotic animals. Oh, yes, I got to know these well as I slunk past like a hungry fox in a deserted kitchen yard. Above me, the gaily painted signs of the taverns and food shops creaked in the wind and mocked my hunger. At each crossroads the stone fountains with their precious supply of water were guarded by men-at-arms. On one occasion I stopped to pray before the statue of a saint at a street corner and noticed the lamp burning before it. I stole the candle from its socket and sold it for a crust of bread and a stoup of water from an ale wife.

The fourth Sunday in Advent came and went. Benjamin had told me he would return to Le Coq d'Or; every morning and each evening I went there but no Benjamin. I cursed him for a fool. I tried to speak with the landlord but was driven off for what I seemed – a ragged, evil-smelling beggar. My mind, once sound as a bell, became muddled and confused. I thought I saw Selkirk and his damned doggerel tripped through my brain:

Three less than twelve should it be, Or the King, no prince engendered he!

[The vicar wipes away a tear. The bastard had better not be laughing!]

I slept in graveyards or along the steps of the churches and woke hollow-eyed and sick with hunger to the oaths of the men-at-arms, the mocking jeers of cheapjacks and mountebanks, the clatter of hooves and the crazy jangle and flurry of hundreds of city bells. London reeks but Paris is much worse. The stench there is terrible; the alleys and streets caked with mud and shit, and made more pungent by other offal which smelt as if barrels of sulphur had been spilt along every alleyway.

I lived as a beggar, scrounging what I could, but then winter came, not only early but cruelly, one of the sharpest, coldest winters for decades. The roads became clogged and food in Paris began to run out. Even the fat ones, the lords of the soil, the truculent men-at-arms and the tight-waisted, square-bodied wives of the bourgeois, began to starve. The markets became empty and what food was left in Paris was prized more highly than gold. The old died first, the beggars and the maimed; they just froze as they leaned gasping against urine-stained walls. Then the babies, the young and the weak. Snow fell in constant sharp, white flurries. The Seine froze over and the nearby forests, usually a source of food, now gave birth to a new nightmare. Great, shaggy-haired, grey wolves banded together, left the frozen darkness of the trees and crossed the Seine in packs, to hunt in the suburbs. They attacked dogs and cats and savaged and maimed the crippled beggars. They even dug up graveyards, dragging out the freshly interred bodies. A curfew was imposed, archers armed with loaded arbalests patrolled the streets and thick webs of chains were dragged across the entrances to the main thoroughfares.

I thought I was safe. I was weak with hunger but I had a knife and I could still move round the city. Naturally, I heard the stories and one morning saw a bloody trail of gore where the wolves had attacked and dragged away an old beggar woman who used to squat on the corner of the Rue St Jacques. One night I was in an alleyway, nothing more than a narrow, darkened trackway. The night sky was brilliant and the stars seemed to wink like precious stones against the velvet darkness; the streets, carpeted by ice and hard snow, shimmered and glowed under the pale moonlight. I had fallen asleep, squatting behind a buttress of the church of St Nicholas long after curfew, my lips blue, my teeth chattering with the cold.

I cried out with the pain which seemed to turn my body from head to toe into one raw, open wound. For the hundredth time I cursed Benjamin and wondered desperately what had happened to him. I walked in a daze trying to keep warm as strange fantasies plagued my mind: Selkirk chanting in a field of white roses all stained by blood; my mother crouching on a step as she used to when I would play and run to her – but, when I drew closer, she was an old cripple, eyes open, face frozen blue. She just toppled over as I touched her.

I walked on, trying to keep warm. The streets were black, the cobbles rough beneath their carpet of ice and a bitter, cruel wind whipped the snow into sudden flurries. I saw a group walking towards me through the ashen darkness. They were leper women, unfortunates from the hospital of St Lazaire, a dozen withered, hideous creatures, embodying foulness and decay. They gathered their filthy, scant rags about them and screamed at me to go away, their putrid breath freezing on their blue lips. I wandered down the Rue de la Carbiere then I heard the first soul-searing howl: the wolves were back in Paris, hunting for whatever they could find.

The hairs on the nape of my neck tingled and my tired heart lurched with fear. I hurried on, slipping on the black ice, cursing and praying, hammering at the doors I passed but I was so cold I could hardly cry out. Again the howl, nearer, more drawn out, chilling the heart as well as the blood. I turned, like you do in a nightmare, and down the years the vision of terror I glimpsed still springs fresh in my mind. The long track wound behind me, past dark, high-gabled houses, the hard-packed snow winking in the ivory moonlight. At the far entrance of the street emerged one huge, horrible shape, dog-like, massive and sinister. It just stood there, then others came, massing in the darkness, ears pointed, high-tailed, the fur on their backs raised in awesome ruffs.

Lord, I screamed and ran, heart thudding, my throat so dry it constricted. I wanted to vomit and would have if my belly had not been so empty. I screamed: 'Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!’

I prayed, promising to give up wine, warm tits and marble white buttocks. (You can see how desperate I was!) Behind me the wolves howled as if sure of their prey and calling others to join them for their banquet of good English beef. I flew past barred doors and shuttered windows. Nothing but silence greeted my cries. As I hurried I heard the scrabbling patter of the wolves closing in. Another chilling howl and I could have sworn I smelt their hot, sour breath. [Oh, by the way, I have been chased by wolves on two occasions. A few years later in the ice-packed snow outside Moscovy, but nothing was as chilling as that short, desperate run in Paris.] I glimpsed the creaking sign of a tavern with two red apples. I screamed again.

Suddenly the door beneath the sign opened, a hand stretched out and pulled me in. I heard the crash of a body against the door, and angry snarling. Gasping for breath I looked round, noticing the low black beams, tawdry tables and thick, fat tallow candles, their rancid smell cloying my frozen nose and face. A stocky, red-faced fellow with hairy warts round his mouth grinned a gap-toothed smile, pulled open a shutter and let fly with a huge arbalest. I heard curses, the screaming yelps of the animals, then I fainted.

When I revived, Wart-Face (who introduced himself as Jean Capote) and his companion Claude Broussac, rat-faced with a pointed nose, greasy hair and the cheekiest eyes I have seen this side of Hell, were bending over me, forcing a cup of scalding posset between my lips. They introduced themselves as self-confessed leaders of the Maillotins, the French word for 'clubs', a secret society of the Parisian poor who attacked the rich and earned their name from the huge cudgels they carried. Brother Joachim, like many of the Franciscans, must have been one of these.

'You're not going to die,' Broussac said, his eyes dancing with mischief. 'We thought we'd denied the wolves a good meal. If we hadn't, we'd have tossed you back and perhaps saved some other unfortunate!'

I struggled up to show I wasn't wolf meat. Capote brought me a deep-bowled cup of heavy claret, heated it with a burning poker, and a dish of scalding meat, heavily spiced. I later learnt it was cat. They asked me a few questions and withdrew to grunt amongst themselves, then came back and welcomed me as one of them. God knows why they saved me. When I asked, they just laughed.

'We don't like wolves,' Broussac sneered, 'whether they be fouror two-legged. You're not French, are you?' he added.

'I'm English,' I replied. 'But I starve like any Frenchman!'

They laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. If I had lied, I'm sure they would have cut my throat. I swear this now [never mind the chaplain who is sitting there sneering at me], I saw more of Christ's love amongst the Maillotins than anywhere else on this earth. Their organisation was loose knit but they accepted anyone who swore the oath of secrecy and agreed to share things in common, which I promptly did. What we owned we stole and filched, not from the poor but the merchants, the lawyers, the fat and the rich. What we didn't eat ourselves, we shared; the most needy receiving the most, then a descending scale for everybody else.

I also began to plot my departure from Paris. Benjamin, I reasoned, must either have died of an illness or been killed. Now I would need silver to reach the coast and get across the Narrow Seas. Broussac once asked what I was doing in Paris, so I told him. He was fascinated by Selkirk's murder.

'There is a secret society,' he murmured, 'Englishmen who fled after your Richard III was killed at Bosworth. They have an emblem.' He screwed up his face so it seemed to hide behind his huge nose. Their emblem is an animal, a leopard? No, no, a white boar. Les Blancs Sangliers!'

At the time I didn't give a damn. In the winter of 1518 all I cared about was surviving and life was hard in Paris. Yuletide and Twelfth Night passed with only the occasional carols in church, for no one dared to go out at night. Mind you, every cloud had a silver lining. The brothels were free, the ladies of the night well rested and more than prepared to accept sustenance, a loaf or a jug of wine, instead of silver. I suppose I was happy enough. I never planned. (I always follow the Scriptures: 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.') I just wish I had practised what I preached! I was full to the gills of roasted cat, which is one of the reasons I can't stand the animals now. Whenever I see one I remember the "rancid smell of Broussac's stew pot and the gall rises in my throat.

[The silly chaplain is shaking his noddle.

'I would not eat cat,' he murmurs.

Yes, the little sod would. Believe me, when you are hungry, really hungry, so that your stomach clings to your backbone, nothing is more tasty than a succulent rat or a well-roasted leg of cat!]

I stayed with the Maillotins until spring came. The river thawed and barges of food began to reach the capital. The city provost and his marshals became more organised, clamping down more ruthlessly on the legion of thieves which flourished in the slums around the Rue Saint Antoine. Broussac and Capote refused to read the signs and so made their most dreadful mistake. One night, early in February 1518, the three of us were in a tavern called the Chariot, a cosy little ale house which stands on the corner of the Rue des Mineurs near the church of Saint Sulpice. We had eaten and drunk well, our gallows faces flushed with wine, our stupid mouths bawling out some raucous song and planning our next escapade.

Now Broussac had an enemy – a Master Francois Ferrebourg, a priest, bachelor of arts, and pontifical notary. He occupied a house at the Sign of the Keg, a little further down the street opposite the convent church of the Order of Saint Cecily. Broussac, on our way home, stopped to jeer in at the lighted windows of Master Ferrebourg's office. Oh, God, I remember the scene well: the black street with its overhanging eaves and gables, the broad splash of light pouring across the cobbles from Ferrebourg's open window. Inside, his clerks sat toiling into the night over some urgent piece of business and Broussac, half-tipsy, taunted them, making rude gestures and spitting through the window. Now, we should have left it at that, but we were too drunk to run, whilst the clerks were sober and quick-witted. They left their writing desks and poured into the streets, led by Master Ferrebourg himself. The notary gave Broussac a vigorous shove which sent my companion sprawling into the open sewer. He picked himself up, roaring with rage, and, before I could stop him, whipped out his dagger and gave Master Ferrebourg a nasty gash across his chest whilst lifting the purse from his belt.

'Run, Shallot!' he screamed.

I was too drunk and, as Broussac disappeared into the darkness, Capote and myself were seized and held until the night watch arrived. Our thumbs were tied together and, in a clatter of arms and a tramp of archers, we were hustled into the dark archways of the Chatelet prison and thrown into a deep dungeon beneath the tower.

We were tried before the Provost of Paris the next morning. Capote, still drunk, farted and belched when the sentence was read out. I tried to reason with them but, in doing so, confessed I was English. My fate was sealed. We were condemned as two of the most troublesome blackguards within the liberties of Paris; rioters, burglars and assassins, hand in glove with some of the most desperate characters of the underworld. We were sentenced to hang the next morning at the gallows of Montfaucon. I tried to plead and argue but was only beaten for my pains and thrown down the steps back into my cell; the dungeon door, grating shut, was locked securely behind us.

Capote immediately fell asleep on the straw. I just sat staring into the darkness, hugging my knees. All I could see was Death, beckoning and grinning before me. In the thick, musty air of the dungeon I felt a creeping graveyard chill. Who would help me this time? The Parisians would scarcely spare a second thought for an Englishman and be only too pleased to see me twitch and shake at the end of a rope. I thought of Benjamin and Wolsey and cursed them. Couldn't they have done something? Made enquiries? Searched me out?

['Put not your trust in princes, Shallot!' my chaplain often quips. I rap the little hypocrite across the knuckles and tell him to keep writing.]

I spent the night before my intended execution listening to Capote's raucous songs. The fellow said he didn't give a fig about life so why should he fear death? He was still brazening it out the next morning when the Provost and his bodyguard of twelve mounted Serjeants and ten archers came to collect us. We were roped, hustled up the steps of the dungeon and into the freezing courtyard. The scarlet execution cart was waiting for us, the skulls of hanged men decorating each side. The Provost barked an order and the red-hooded executioner turned, wished us good morning, flicked his whip and urged the cart through the gates of the prison and on to the winding track down to Montfaucon.

We made a brief stop at the Convent of Les Filles de Dieu near the port of St Severin. Here the good sisters comforted us on our last journey with a manchet of bread and a cup of wine.

I chewed the bread and took the wine in one long gulp to control my trembling for I did not wish to disgrace myself. Capote was as raucous as ever, eyeing the sisters, cracking jokes with the executioner, telling the good prioress to have a second cup ready for the journey back. The provost then ordered us forward, the Serjeants going ahead, spurring a lane through the mob gathering to watch us die. I glimpsed Broussac, one hand down the bodice of some whore, the other holding a wine cup. He grinned and toasted me silently. I glared back at the bastard. If he had kept his mouth shut I would still be eating rancid meat and plotting my own way out of Paris.

At last we reached the gibbet and, if you should wish to see a vision of Hell before death, go to Montfaucon. A hideous place! A flat, oblong mound fifteen feet high, about thirty feet wide and forty feet long, it stands like some horrible pimple outside Paris on the road to Saint Denis. On three sides of this mound there is a colonnade on a raised platform comprising sixteen evenly spaced square pillars of unhewn stone, each thirty-two feet high, linked together at the top by heavy beams with ropes and chains hanging from them at short intervals. You could hang a small village there. In the centre of the platform gapes an immense lime pit covered by a grating which is used for the disposal of the hanged after they have been gibbeted. (Did you know in summer the gallants take their doxies out there for a picnic? Imagine, wine and pastries under the swinging corpses of the damned!)

When I arrived, Montfaucon seemed to have been busy. At least fifteen crow-pecked corpses, slimed by their own decay, swung from the end of creaking ropes. By now my courage had failed and I had to be helped up the steep, wooden steps, the executioner's assistants whispering that if I made a good show they would make sure I would choke for no more than ten minutes. Behind me the cart creaked away and the executioners busied themselves with the ropes. I glimpsed Capote beside me, now quiet. The thick hempen cords were slung round our necks; a dusty-robed priest appeared as if from nowhere to recite in a precise voice the last prayer for the dying. The provost came to the edge of the scaffold, unrolled a parchment and read the sentences of death. The noose was tightened and I was pushed up a ladder.

'Don't be nervous,' the executioner grinned. 'At least you don't have to go down it again!'

I gazed out wildly over the crowds.

'Not now,' I whispered. 'Surely, not now!'

The ladder was turned, I heard a voice cry out: 'Not that one!'

But I was already choking as the noose tightened around my throat. I heard a terrible pounding in my ears, my heart thudding like a drum, my stomach lurching as I swung on the end of the rope. I turned and twisted. Capote was also dancing in the air. I couldn't breathe, the pain in the back of my head was so intense, then suddenly blackness.

I revived as I felt myself go hurtling through the air and crashed down on to the wooden planks of the scaffold. The noose round my neck was loosened, I retched and vomited. Beside me crouched the provost, looking concerned.

'You are still with us, Master Shallot?'

I retched again, on to his robe, a suitable thanks to the hard-faced bastard. He squirmed in distaste.

'A pardon, Shallot.' He thrust the small scroll under my nose. 'Someone still loves you!'

The provost made a sign. Two of the archers picked me up under the armpits and hustled me down the steps of the scaffold. I glanced at Capote, still dangling, choking out his life. I saw a sea of faces and heard the boos and catcalls of the crowd, cheated of their sport. A serjeant-at-arms, wearing the royal arms of France on his tabard, gestured to the archers to hoist me into the saddle of a horse whose reins he held.

Hell's teeth, I can hardly remember the rest! A bumpy, shaky ride back across Paris. I thought I was being taken to the prison but instead found myself outside the door of Le Coq d'Or. The serjeant-at-arms, hidden behind the guard of his conical helmet, dragged me down and pushed me into a chamber where a candle glowed in the darkness. I smelt the sour odour of sweaty robes and noticed a brazier of gleaming charcoal had been rolled in. I was shoved down on the bed, the soldier left and the slattern bustled in with a small manchet loaf and a goblet of wine. She watched me eat for a while, mumbled something and left. I nearly choked on the bread; my neck and throat seemed to be ringed by a cruel vice. Stars danced before my eyes and I kept shaking with fear at my latest brush with death. Surely you understand? One minute dangling on the end of a rope; the next a reprieve, a bumpy ride through Paris, followed by the sweetest bread and most fragrant wine I had tasted for months.

[Ever since Montfaucon I have always dreaded executions. I mean, sometimes, as Lord of the Manor, I have to order one but my court is well known for its leniency. Of course, I pay the price. At night my fields are more alive with poachers than rabbits. I will grant the most hardened criminal a reprieve rather than see him hang. The chaplain is nodding his little, bald head. Of course, the idiot now understands the reason for my mercy. He probably thought I had a soft heart. Well, he learns something every day, including why I can never bear anything tight round my throat. Even the touch of smoothest silk reawakens the horrors of my journey to Montfaucon.]

Anyway, back to Le Coq d'Or where I lay on the truckle bed and drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke Benjamin was leaning over me, his eyes bright in a face more pallid than usual.

'Roger, I have returned.'

'Of course, you have, you bloody idiot! Just in time!' I snarled. 'Where in Hell's name have you been?'