It was cold, freezing, despite the large, iron charcoal braziers which had been wheeled into the room. The wind battered the shutters on the horn-glazed windows, piercing the cracks and blowing cold blasts of air to waft and fan the flames of the candles and the oil in their sconce stones. The clerks sat, pens poised above the thick, silk-smooth parchment, they realised the King did not want his curses transcribed so they patiently waited, hoping their fingers would not lose their feeling or the ink freeze in their metal pots.

Edward had no such reservations, time and again, he brought his fists crashing down on the long wooden table.

'My Lords,' he bellowed. 'There is treason here, rank and foul as the contents of any sewer!'

'Your Grace,' Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, intervened quickly, hoping to calm the King. 'It would seem…'

'It would seem,' Edward harshly interrupted, 'My Lord of Canterbury, that the royal arse cannot fart without Philip IV of France knowing it!'

Winchelsea nodded, fully agreeing with the sentiment, though not with Edward's unique way of expressing it. The archbishop decided to remain silent, Edward's rages were becoming more frequent, the deaths of the beloved Queen Eleanor, his Chancellor and friend, Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells, had loosened dark forces in the King's soul. His blond hair and beard were streaked with white, that once bronzed skin now sallow and pulled in deep lines around the sharp blue eyes and thin-lipped mouth.

Winchelsea sipped from the cup of mulled wine and scowled, it had gone cold, the archbishop leaned back in his chair and heartily wished the King's anger would cool as quickly as his wine. At last the King quietened, he sat upright in his great, oak-carved chair at the top of the table, his be-ringed hands twisted into fists.