THE REAL JOAN OF ARC?
Watts - History mysteries 1996
The story of Joan of Arc re-told with facts on Mediaeval Europe

Death under the tree

Three men meet in a tavern and drink their ale. Let's call the men Tom, Dick and Harry. News comes to the inn of yet another old friend dead from plague. The three decide that they will have to flee the town and live deep in the forest till the plague has gone.

In fear and panic they run on for miles until they reach a lonely wood - no food, no drink no money in their purses.
"This Black Death's an evil thing," Tom says.
"It is!" his friends agree.
"If I meet up with this chap Death . . . I'll kill him!" Harry boasts.
And at that moment, through the trees, a shadowy figure wanders by. A faceless figure in a hooded cloak. He looked like Death himself. With voice as harsh as grating bones the figure whispers, "You will find Death underneath that tree."
The men laugh nervously. They start to dig and come across a box. Tom takes his knife and forces up the lid. But, as he lifts the knife to strike at Death, he stops - he blinks - he drops the knife.
The box is full of gold.
The happy men decide to celebrate. "Go to the nearest town and buy us wine and bread," the bully Harry orders Dick.
The grumbling Dick goes off to find some plague-free town. Then Tom and Harry gloat about their gold. "We're rich!" the happy Harry sighs.
"Ah, yes, but we'll be richer still if we take old Dicks gold. We'll share it out between us two!"
"We can't do that! He'll kill us if we take his gold," the frowning Harry mumbles.
"He can't kill us," Tom says with gold glints in his eyes. "Not if we kill the fat fool first!"
And that's what they decide. They lie in wait for Dick with daggers drawn. "Hi, lads! I'm back!" their old friend cries. "I've brought the wine . . . you don't need knives to sup your wine, so put them down . . . hey . . . what you at!" he cries. And then he cries no more.
"Here, pass the wine," the trembling Tom says and he gulps it down.
"He was our friend," the heartless Harry nods and takes a deep, deep drink.
"That's wine tastes off," a tortured Tom says as clutches at his burning gut. He falls face down upon the grass beneath the tree.
"You're right!" his blood-soaked friend says and he gasps, "The fiend has poisoned this here wine so he could rob us of our gold!" he says before he falls, dead, by the other two.
And from the shadows of the trees a grey-cloaked figure wanders out. The faceless form just stretches out a bony hand and gathers up the gold. A grinning skull looks down, as cold as Death himself and says," I warned the fools that Death lay underneath that tree."