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regime.’ He snorted. ‘As loyal as a dog is to the hand that feeds it. I hope you know what you are doing, Walter. If the King’s condition does not improve Brother Alric’s fate will be as nothing compared with yours.’
    I watched as the guard came to attention and saluted before following de Saye smartly out of the room. I wasn’t too worried by Samson’s words. I was confident that Joseph’s potion would work and the King would recover in a day or two and then the whole royal circus would up sticks and be gone, de Saye with them. He had shown himself to be someone who took pleasure in the suffering of others and was therefore to be avoided. That would not be difficult since there would be no reason for our paths to cross again. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind, convinced that whatever the reason for his hostility it had nothing to do with me personally. But I was wrong in this as I was to be in so many things in the coming days, for there was indeed a particular reason for de Saye’s dislike of me and it would be a while before I found out the truth of it.

Chapter 5
    A FOOTBALL MATCH
    Looking back now with forty years’ hindsight, it is easy to see how the clues pointing to the impending disaster were steadily mounting although at the time there was nothing obvious to connect them. I doubt, for instance, if anyone would have thought the King’s ailment had anything to do with it for it had the air of farce about it. Those of us who had been witness to the bedroom scene kept to the official line that he was suffering from fatigue as we were bound by oath so to do, but frankly if any of King Philip’s spies truly were about they must have been laughing up their conspiratorial sleeves.
    For once John’s well-known fondness for his bed actually worked in our favour since incredulous eyebrows were raised and knowing winks exchanged. After a few days even Abbot Samson was beginning to find the reports of the King’s progress embarrassingly implausible and eventually he gave up, leaving it to poor old Prior Robert to impart the daily bulletin. Since I heard no more from my lord de Saye, I presumed the King’s condition at least had not worsened. Still, we all prayed sincerely for the King’s speedy return to health if only to see the back of him and his entourage. But the King seemed in no hurry to go despite the undoubted pressing needs of his government. I could not help but reflect that this was one more aspect of John’s personality that contrasted with that of both his whirlwind father and his firebrand brother. Henry and Richard had both kept hold of their vast possessions by being – or seeming to be - everywhere at all times. In that respect John had more in common with another of his forebears, Ethelred called Unready, who through indecision and timorousness lost his kingdom to King Cnut of Denmark. Some wag even went so far as to suggest a new soubriquet for John himself: Not so much Lackland as Lackaday .
    This dithering was very frustrating as Earl William’s security arrangements severely restricted movement. I felt this more than most of my brother monks as I was accustomed to passing freely between abbey and town in the pursuance of my medical ministry. I had patients that needed my urgent attention but instead I had to spend much of my new enforced leisure time in either study or preparation of various potions for use when I eventually did manage to get out and about again. There comes a point when reducing yet another solution of pig bile to paste begins to lose its novelty value. By the time the King’s health had fully recovered I should have collected enough magpie beaks to cure every case of toothache in the Liberty.
    I did, however, have one new patient I was able to see. After I’d left the King’s bedchamber I’d gone down to the kitchens to see how Brother Alric was faring - the brother so badly mistreated by de Saye’s lout of a guard. No bones broken, God be thanked, but