'However,' he continued, 'all that is in the future and there is a more immediate path I could follow. You are to go to England to confirm my daughter's betrothal, but you must insist that the Prince of Wales has no scandal attached to him. He is to remove from his person his favourite whore, Eleanor Belmont. Otherwise,' Philip gave one of his rare smiles, 'in the light of such scandal, I shall appeal to the Holy Father, the treaty will be null and void, and my troops will be all over Gascony within a week. Now the Prince may well agree to that – I hear he tires of the woman – in which case, a third path is open to me.'

Philip had risen, come round the table and whispered the most secret instructions in de Craon's ear. The French envoy remembered these now and smiled. Perhaps he should follow that path. He clenched his fists in excitement: if he did, he might settle scores, not only with Edward of England, the benighted Prince of Wales and his male bawd, Gaveston, but also with Master Hugh Corbett, de Craon's old rival and enemy.

Chapter 2

Hugh Corbett, senior clerk and master spy of Edward of England, was dreaming a dreadful dream. He was standing beneath the spreading branches of one of the elm trees which stood along the boundaries of Godstowe Priory in Oxfordshire. A late summer sun was shining but the air was silent, eerie, devoid of birdsong. Alongside him, from the branch of a nearby tree, hung a body, its neck broken, head to one side; it hung there like some ancient sacrifice or the Figure of Death from the Tarot. Corbett felt compelled to turn but found he could not. His gaze was fixed on the windows, like empty eye-sockets, of Godstowe Priory. He stirred. No sound broke the chill silence except the hollow screeching of cruel-eyed peacocks and, in faint cadence, the ghostly chanting of the nuns.