"De Montfort must be dead!, " he whispered to the brazier, "Killed at Evesham years ago. " The King stared into the blazing coals, the red flames reminding him of that fiery, murderous day among the green meadows and apple-strewn fields of Evesham some twenty years before. He and his troops had advanced against Simon with banners snapping and flapping in the breeze. The summer day had quickly died as a thunderstorm suddenly swept the skies, the crashing thunder and flashes of lightning drowning the pounding hooves of his mailed cavalry as they charged the small, trapped rebel army. Edward still remembered, from all the battles he had ever fought in, the moment of impact at Evesham as he crashed through Simon's troops, drenching his sword in rebel blood. At the end Simon had stood alone, fully clothed in mail armour, he bestrode the corpses of his fallen bodyguard, taunting the royal troops to close with him. Edward had sat and watched the rebel leader being overborne. At that precise moment the storm had suddenly ended and the rays of a thin sun caught the blood seeping through the gaps of Simon's armour, making it sparkle like cascading rubies. They hacked Simon's body to bits. Edward shuddered, slightly fearful at what he had ordered in the heat of battle, for he had instructed his men to feed the battered remains of Simon's corpse to a pack of starving wolfhounds. "Yes," Edward muttered. "Simon must be dead. "

The King stared round the deserted chamber. If Simon was dead, he thought despairingly, then his followers were certainly not, organizing covens, plotting to kill him by poison, dagger, sword, mace or arrow through assassins by day or night, at home or abroad. Abroad! Edward gazed into the darkness. He remembered Acre in Palestine where, some eight years after his victory at Evesham, he and his queen, Eleanor, were on crusade trying to impose unity amongst the petty principalities of Outremer. He had thought that at least there he would be safe but the assassins struck.