The Seal(127)

‘Men like you? Oh shut up, Astrologer!’ The King dismissed him and resumed his walk. ‘Don’t confound me with your double-talk! You are a useless creature and I am immune to your garbled nonsense these days! Besides, I find myself turning suspicious since I have been made aware of a conspiracy and I suspect you to have something to do with it.’

Iterius became watchful. Following behind his king he constructed his voice to have a ring of innocence. ‘Conspiracy . . . I?’

‘My brother Charles seeks the throne,’ the King said over his shoulder.

They had come upon a covered bridge that spanned a fast-flowing watercourse and they began to cross it. The wooden floor of it was covered with wet leaves and snow turned mud. Iterius untied the leather bag and held it ready should he need quick access to its contents.

‘My brother is not sharp-minded and his tongue wags in the wrong ears . . . Yours perhaps?’

‘I, sire? I am your most loyal . . . there is a bond between us . . .’

‘Yes, yes . . .’ he said in a sardonic tone, ‘and by what means does my loyal, bonded servant suggest I kill my brother without suspicion?’

Iterius held the bag in his hands; he gave a silent smile and said, ‘There is nothing so good as living poison, sire.’

‘Living?’

‘Snakes, lizards . . . Certain peculiar ones kill slowly or quickly . . .’ He grasped at the wriggling bag within his cloak.

‘Yes . . . in the bed . . . or the bath.’

‘Only I know where you might find them, sire.’

‘Perhaps you are still useful to me, Iterius?’

Iterius said quickly, ‘Yes, yes, sire, I am your servant! I understand you better than any man. I am all that you have. Without me nothing you have sought for shall be accomplished.’

Philip put a halt to his march. ‘All that I have?’

Iterius was taken unwares by his sovereign’s sudden pause, and only managed to prevent stumbling into the back of the King by overbalancing his body. He gave a pained yell as his crippled leg bent and the rest of him slipped out from under it and he fell heavily backwards. By virtue of the fall he loosened his grasp on the bag and its contents spilt out over his belly. In a heartbeat he felt the small bodies dash in various directions over him and then three stings, one on his neck, one on his face and one on his hand. He gave out another yell.

The King was looking down. The living creatures glinted briefly in the darkness and then disappeared into the night. Iterius lay in a state of horror, observing his folly with disbelief.

‘What was that?’

‘Lizards, sire.’

‘Poisonous ones?’

‘I assume so, sire.’

The King made a sound deep in his throat and the voice that issued from it was full of violent madness. ‘You are a profane heart!’ he laughed. Then in the manner of one who queries the price of bread, ‘Are you killed then?’

‘I think so, sire!’ the astrologer answered, a hotness in his belly radiating outwards to his arms and legs. His throat felt as if it were on fire and his tongue was dry and large. He tried to lick his lips and realised with a sense of horror that he could not find them.

The King sighed. ‘From your own treachery?’

Iterius held his breath and let it out. His mind began to fidget upon the possible outcome of his stupidity. And then he remembered this was not how he was meant to die. The King, he realised, must be destined to help him. Perhaps if he could be helped to his former apartment he could come up with an antidote. Perhaps.

A glimmer of hope shot up in the sea of his terror and then there was a noise behind them and he thought he saw the King make a gesture.

‘How shall you die, quickly or slowly?’

‘Slowly, sire.’ Iterius swallowed and terror flushed through him with a sigh. His head felt like an overcooked cabbage. ‘Quite slowly, I should think.’

‘You thought that I brought you here to kill you?’ the King was chastising him. ‘Is that not so?’

Iterius sat up a little and nodded, tears streaming from his eyes as a new realisation entered into him. ‘And you did not, sire?’

‘Supposing that at that moment, as I paused before the little trap, I had decided to spare you?’

The astrologer’s face looked full at Philip’s. A trap? Hidden in the bridge? A mantrap in the walk . . . leading down to the river or perhaps a pit . . . it would be a long way down to the bottom of it. He was filled with surprise turned steep horror. ‘Oh sire, yes, you were certainly going to spare me!’

The King looked down and Iterius thought he could see a look of concern. ‘After all, I am understood by you alone...’