'My Lords,' he said slowly, drawing deep gulps of air. 'There is a traitor amongst us.' He jabbed at the table top. 'Here in Westminster, a traitor, a spy who tells the French everything, our secrets, our plans, our designs. The Saint Christopher has undoubtedly been caught and sunk and one of our most valuable spies, a man many of you know well, a high-ranking clerk in the Exchequer, Nicholas Poer, has been murdered in Paris.' Edward stopped and the council stirred itself, there were exclamations, groans, mutters and curses. 'Poer,' Edward continued, 'was taken out of the Seine. He had been stitched alive into a sack and drowned like an unwanted cat. Someone, someone here might have informed the French about him for Poer was too clever to let slip his disguise and be caught. The same is true of the Saint Christopher. Philip IV, God damn him, must have been informed of its mission to collect reports from our spies in Gascony. God only knows what has happened to them!'

Edward stared dully around the chamber, a pretence while he plotted his words and studied the faces of his councillors. One of them was a traitor. But who? Robert Winchelsea, his sainted Archbishop of Canterbury? A prelate of the church? Edward did not trust the man, an upstart, a sanctimonious clerk, a shallow man who always supported noble causes. On the King's left, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Edward stared at his brother's thin white face framed by long, black hair. He felt a touch of compassion whenever he studied his brother. Edmund had always been sickly and looked permanently ill with his slightly withered arm and cruel, distorted right shoulder. An accident at birth, or so they said. Yet, Edward had heard the stories about Edmund really being the first born, Henry Ill's eldest son but overlooked because of his disabilities, the crown passing to his stronger, more acceptable brother? Lies! Edward knew the truth but often wondered if his brother did. Edmund had been in charge of Gascony yet he had quietly surrendered it to the French, tricked, outmanoeuvred, making his name and the crown of England a laughing-stock in Europe.