The Nightingale Gallery

general who had taken the banners of England across the Pyrenees into Navarre but came back with nothing except a disease which rotted his body away. AH gone! His son was gone.
    They brought back the proclamations about the succession back and the king knew he was dying. Seals were attached. He was leaving. His retainers melted away. 'Is there no faith left in Israel?' Edward whispered. The palace at Sheen became a mausoleum. The king was left to lie in his own sweat and dirt, alone except for Alice Perrers, his mistress. She swept into the death chamber, her fingers fretted with gold wire, her rich red dress engraved with precious stones. She, with her blandishing tongue and beautiful face, who cared for no one because no one cared for her, sat beside her dying lord and lover, hungrily watching him. The king woke from a dream and saw her hard black eyes and voluptuous lips.
    'My Lady Sun,' he whispered.
    Perrers smiled, her white teeth gleaming as she remembered how she had ridden in cloth of gold up Cheap- side, her head held high, her ears closed to the shouts of "Whore!", "Bawd!" and "Harlot!" Now she sat near the king, like a lioness watching her prey. An old Franciscan priest, John Hoccleve, came in but Perrers hissed and drove him out. The king closed his eyes. His breathing was shallow; a dreadful rattle had begun in his throat. Perrers waited no longer but stripped him of whatever finery he had left and fled.
    The old Franciscan came back, grasping the king's hand, holding a crucifix up before the fading eyes. He intoned the Dies Irae and when he reached the verse "And what shall I, frail man, be pleading; When the just are mercy needing?" the king opened his eyes.
    'Do you wish absolution?' Hoccleve whispered.
    'Ah, Jesu!' the king muttered back, and weakly pressed the Franciscan's hand.
    'I therefore absolve you…' the priest said, '… from your sins in the name of…' he continued, his voice growing louder as the death rattle sounded in the king's throat like the beat of a tambour. The king turned, his eyes open. One last gasp and his soul went out into the darkness. Hoccleve finished his prayer and looked down at the grey, emaciated face, remembering the golden days when the king had walked in all his glory. He bowed his head, pressing his brow into the dead king's hand, and wept for the sheer waste of it all. A few hours later in Westminster Palace, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and eldest living son of the dead king, sat alone before a great, hooded fireplace. He squatted, jerkin open, legs apart, letting the flames of the heated logs warm the chill in his thighs and crotch. The duke had heard the news as he returned from hunting, drenched to the skin after a sudden storm. His father was dead and he was regent but not king. John groaned to himself, clenching a bejewelled fist. He should be king, a man born to the crown with claims to the thrones of Castille, France, Scotland and England. And the only obstacle in his path? A golden-haired ten-year-old boy, his nephew, Richard of Bordeaux, son of Gaunt's elder brother, the feared and fearsome Black Prince.
    'A heartbeat away!' Gaunt murmured. Only a short breath between him and the diadem of the Confessor. Gaunt stretched his great frame, his muscled body cracking and straining at the fury within. Regent but not king! Yet the land needed a firm ruler. The French were plundering the southern coats. The Scots were massing on the northern borders. The peasants were surly, demanding an end to incessant taxation. And the Commons, led by their speaker, were abusive and strident when they met in the chapel of St Stephen's at Westminster. Gaunt stroked his neatly barbered moustache and beard. Could he take the step? Would he? He chewed his lip and considered the possibilities. His younger brothers would resist. The great lords of the council, backed by the soft but powerful bishops, would take up arms and call down heaven's anger on him. And Richard – pale-faced, blue-eyed Richard – what would happen to him? Gaunt shivered. He remembered the old prophecy – that when the old cat died, the mice must not rejoice for the new kitten would grow into an even more dreadful monster!
    Gaunt, who feared nothing, admitted his silent, grave- faced nephew held special terrors for him, as if the age-old eyes in that ten-year-old face read and understood his most secret thoughts. The Commons, too, would watch him and Gaunt had been careless. He had tried to raise