Richard I (you may know him as Richard the Lionhearted) only lived to be 41 years old. If he really did everything they say he did—and by ‘they’ I mean Wikipedia—then he had a busy 41 years. He managed to put down revolts against his father, King Henry II. He had a major role in the third crusade, engineered by his father and Philip II of France. Somewhere in all this, Robin Hood was running around making mischief in Sherwood Forest, and pioneering the use of green tights.

But that’s not the fun part. No, the fun part comes in 1199, after he returns to Europe. Richard I is running around and fighting with the French (who, by his later years, weren’t getting along anymore with the English). Laying siege to one castle in particular, he notices a boy defending the walls of the castle with a frying pan and a crossbow. This amuses Richard. Wouldn’t it amuse you? Some kid skulking around the castle walls, batting down arrows with a griddle while taking potshots at an army who, presumably, is either about to kill him or take him prisoner?

Little does Richard know that this kid blames the king for the death of his father and two brothers. This is a kid with nothing to lose. The best possible outcome, with death or capture inevitable, is to kill the king.

So the king stands below the castle, amused and without his armor, and applauds the kid’s clownish bravery. In the medieval equivalent of the full-court basketball shot, the kid shoots Richard the Lionhearted in the shoulder with a crossbow as he’s standing there, hooting and hollering at the boy.

Richard doesn’t die right away. The gangrene gets him (presumably horribly and painfully) a couple of weeks later. In a moment of appreciation for the circumstances, Richard is said to have actually pardoned the boy, sending him on his way with 100 shillings. Nice shot, kid. Here’s a pouch of booty. Go buy your widowed mother something nice.

I don’t know if I buy that, but it’s kind of immaterial. The boy was flayed and hanged upon the death of the king by a mercenary named Mercadier. Mercadier was probably roguish and good-looking, by the cut of his name. He stormed the castle again after Richard died and killed everybody left standing after the last siege.

Having had his father and brothers killed already by the same army, I expect that none of this came as a surprise to the kid.

Why do I like stories like this? Incredibly grim? Horrible deaths? Flaying and hanging? I attribute part of it to my father, who spent my formative years singing folk songs which ended badly for their protagonists. At best, there was some revenge involved, but everybody died at the end—especially the just and the undeserving of death.

One story in particular stuck with me, and that was the song of “The Golden Vanity.” It’s the Peter, Paul, and Mary version of “The Sweet Trinity,” a nasty ballad of bravery and false promises. There are a few variants, so I’ll stick to the one I know. A ship is in danger of being taken by a Spanish galley. The cabin boy, the lowliest member of the crew, says “Hey, Captain! What will you give me if I swim over to the enemy ship, bore a hole in its side, and sink it?”

“Why, silver and gold!” says the captain, twirling his moustache. “And my fairest daughter’s hand in marriage! That would be awesome!”

The cabin boy does as he has promised but, not having the kind of upbringing I had, is surprised to find that the captain won’t let him back on the ship. The authority figure reneges on his promise. The boy is hoisted up by his shipmates, but dies on the deck, his heart broken and his view of the world seriously (but temporarily) broadened.

If the cabin boy were a little more like the French king-slayer, he would have gotten the agreement in writing first. Why? Because he already knows that happy endings are for chumps, and the best you can do is to wing the king in a Hail Mary crossbow shot.