The Peacock's Cry

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‘You hanged four men yesterday at the Sycamores, Sir Hugh?’

‘No, Your Grace. I hanged four outlaws, wolfsheads, on the gallows close to the crossroads known as the Sycamores. In fact I hanged five such criminals, although one of them was already dead. I killed him when he tried to escape. I thought he should join his fellow malignants in death as he had been with them in life.’

‘We passed their naked corpses dangling by the neck. We only counted four.’

‘First, Your Grace, they weren’t naked when I hanged them, but times are hard. I suspect they were stripped before their flesh turned cold. As for the fifth corpse, well, as you know, wandering magicians and cunning men like to sell the various parts of a hanged man for medicinal purposes, though,’ Corbett added wryly, ‘I’ve never purchased such a thing myself.’

Edward, King of England, scratched his nose and stared at his companion, Piers Gaveston, whom he called his ‘beloved brother’. Indeed, the king loved Gaveston so much, he had created him Earl of Cornwall, married him to a royal princess and appointed him leader of the Council. Because of Gaveston, Edward had told the great earls of the kingdom, led by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the king’s own cousin, to go hang themselves, as he would never give up his Gascon favourite. The great nobles thought otherwise and they fiercely resented being ignored, both publicly and in private, in preference to Gaveston. Wiping the sweat from his face, Edward wondered how much of this was known to the man he and Piers were visiting, or had this enigmatic manor lord cut himself off from all gossip of the court?

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