The Relic Murders srs-6 Read online

  The Relic Murders

  ( sir Robert Shallot - 6 )

  Paul Doherty

  Paul Doherty

  The Relic Murders

  Prologue

  Oh, the bloody terrors of the night! Oh, Grim Death's dark shadow! How many times have I, Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor, risen from between my silken sheets, forsaking the warmth of those marvellous twins, Phoebe and Margot, leaving their luscious, marble-white limbs sprawled out in wine-soaked sleep? Lovely girls! My satin-skinned bedpans! How many times have I trotted across to my chamber, pulled back the drapes and stared out over a garden bathed in the light of a weeping moon? Oh, phantasm! Oh, horrors! Oh, the effect of too much claret! I have seen the demons dance in the moonbeams as motes in a shaft of sunlight! Oh, the night is the Devil's black book when I retreat to my cushioned chair and let my memories tumble out!

  In my soul's eye I sink down into the Valley of Death where eye-pecking ravens hover above rain-sodden, evil-smelling huts in which witches, beldames of Satan, sit mumping their knees against fires of pure ice. I travel on. In the midnight of that valley I meet the Lord Satan raking over the bones of long-dead men as a gardener gathers in the rotting leaves of autumn. Oh, believe me, I have seen the horrors and heard the chilling chimes at midnight! Corpses piled high like maggots caught cold in mouldy cheese! Rivers of blood splashing in torrents! Cities wrapped in the flames of hell which roar up to an implacable sky!

  It's always the same at night. I awaken as if some sanctus bell in my soul tolls away the hours, the minutes, and stirs me from my sleep. Oh, I fable not! I have seen visions which would curl your hair and turn you into Medusa. They come at night when my pillows become hard and sharp, as if stuffed with thistles. Like Hamlet or Macbeth, (oh, by the way, I had my hand in both those plays) I am forced to sit until Satan sweeps into my chamber.

  'Shallot!' he roars. 'A man should roast away, not wither up! Look at you, past your ninetieth year and stuffed by the physicians with oils and herbs like a cook would stuff a pudding!'

  The devil casts out his net of silver hooks, and dangles it before my eyes. On each hook hangs a memory of my life. And what a life! In my prime I was of medium stature and comely, with a clean-shaven face and curly, black hair and slight squint in one eye. A laughing face: a bubbling-hearted boy, full of pranks and subtle mischief! Sharp wits, faster legs and the most cowardly of hearts! I have been in all the great fights (well to the back!); in all the great pursuits (firmly in the centre!); and in many valiant retreats (at least ten good horse lengths in front of anyone else!). I have diced with kings, especially fat, blubbering Henry Tudor, that Prince of Darkness! The Mould warp prophesied by Merlin! The Great Beast! The blood-thirsty bastard! Henry the Horrible! Henry the Eighth and, if God is good, Henry the last! Mind you, he wasn't too bad. Well, once he was in his old age and his legs turned purple with ulcers and his mind became loose as a leaf in October. I could control him then. I used to push him, in his specially constructed chair, around the galleries of Whitehall. Sometimes, just for the fun of it, I'd take him to the top of some stairs and threaten to throw him down. Oh, he'd blubber! Oh, he'd plead with a wicked, devilish glare in those piggy eyes of his! So I'd change my mind and take him back to his chamber for comfits and a glass of wine. Afterwards he'd paw at my arm. 'Roger,' he'd hiss, 'Roger, my soul mate.'

  He would kiss me on the cheek and, when he'd fallen asleep, I'd wash the spot till the skin bleached. Within the hour, the fat turd would wake, screaming and yelling like a baby.

  'Light the candles! Light the candles, Roger!' he'd bawl. 'Look! Look in the corner! Can't you see them? The ghosts have come to plague my soul.'

  Corner! You'd need all of St Paul's Cathedral to harbour the ghosts waiting for Henry's soul. Gentle Thomas More, saintly Fisher, the monks of Charterhouse, the hundreds that old Jack of Norfolk hung along the Great North Road when he put down Aske's rebellion. And then my pretty ones. Anne Boleyn. Black-eyed Anne! Brave, wanton, as full of courage as a lion! Young Catherine Howard, plump and comely; soft of skin with a will of steel. Catherine of Aragon, dusky-faced, holy of mind and pure of heart. I talk of her soul rather than her physical organ – when they opened her body, her heart had shrivelled to black ash, Henry's doctors had pumped so much arsenic into her blood.

  Ah well, enough of Henry. I've also diced with other princes. Francis I rotting away with every known love disease under the sun – when he died the palace stank for weeks even though they scrubbed every ceiling, wall and floor. Catherine de Medici: wicked and wanton, the Queen of the Poison. Charles DC, who never made up his mind whether he was a man or a woman. Selim the sot: drunk on hashish, surrounded by his houris and, in the shadows, the stranglers ready to snuff out your life as easily as you would a candle flame. And what about Philip of Spain in his dark, gold-encrusted chambers of the Escorial? And we mustn't forget that mad bugger in Moscow, must we? Oh, I have seen the times and Satan knows it. But I am not afeared! Not me! Not Sir Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor, Knight of the Garter, Justice of the Peace. I give Satan as good as I get! I call him a bag pudding, an ice-brained, splay-footed gull. I make the sign of the fig with my little finger. I climb back into my bed and cuddle down between my two lovelies. So, you young men, remember, this: whatever nocturnal terrors come, there's nothing that a prayer, a spark of courage, a cup of wine and a lovely girl can't cure. I can't vouch for the first two but I certainly can for the last!

  In the morning, as now, when Phoebus rolls his chariot across the ancient sky… Lord, what a silly phrase! My little chaplain and secretary, that decayed dotard, wants me to use words like that! He sits squirming on his little cushions waiting for me to continue my memoirs. Every so often he interrupts to comment on my diction. Why? Because he's seen too many bloody plays, that's why! He tries to keep out of range of my ash cane – little does he know I have bought a longer one. I have seen his fat shoulders shake with mirth at some of my tales – he's soon recovered from his own tragedy, hasn't he? He was betrothed to a sweet girl, ready to become handfast at the church door. Oh yes, Shakespeare said love is blind and it must be when it comes to him. There, there now, he protests.

  'You are always name dropping,' he blurts out maliciously, envious of my friendship with sweet Will.

  Well, look who's talking! He's always on about God – indeed, listening to his sermons, you'd think that the good Lord had breakfast with him every day. But back to his beloved. Oh, what a tragedy! Oh,the heartbreak! Oh, I laughed till my sides hurt! You see his beloved lived some miles away: she was the daughter of a prosperous yeoman. My little chaplain asked me to write love letters to her and so I did. I admit, I helped myself to some of Shakespeare's sonnets but who really cares? Will often comes here to see me and, if you can't lend a friend a phrase or two, then what's the use of friendship? Anyway, these love notes were given to a young farmer to deliver at her door. But the strangest thing happened – she never wrote back! So my little chaplain plucks up courage and goes down to see her and – guess what? Oh, the perfidy! – his betrothed had married the farmer who delivered the messages. Mind you, his heart soon healed. When he met two sisters, one tall, the other short, he asked me to which one he should pay court. Keeping my face straight, I told him that he should go for the shorter girl.

  'Remember your philosophy,' I declared sonorously. 'When confronted with two evils, always choose the lesser.'

  Mind you, the girl was as innocent as a dove. Of tender years and sweet demeanour. Her mother, a prosperous tenant of mine, came all afeared to me because my chaplain had taken her daughter out for a stroll on a balmy summer's evening. The poor woman knows my chaplain. He doesn't get the straw on his clothing from helping out at harvest time! Indee
d, he spends more time in my hay loft than he does in the parish church.

  'Oh, please, Sir Roger,' the poor woman pleaded. 'Find out what your chaplain did to my daughter last night?'

  I had the girl brought by the captain of my guard to where I sit at the centre of my maze, protected by my two great wolfhounds.

  (Oh yes, I may well be past my ninety-fifth year but it is surprising how few people forgive and forget. The secret agents of every crowned head of Europe, and a few beyond its borders, would pay good gold to have my old head on the tip of a pike. But enough of that for the time being. Soon I’ll come to my story: about the orb of Charlemagne, about the Noctales, the Men of the Night, and old Shallot's desperate fight to stay alive in the blood-chilling days of Henry VIII.)

  Anyway, pleasant things first. The young girl was as sweet and brown as a nut. I sat her on a chair and gave her a silver piece. Tell me, my doucette,' I began. 'What did my chaplain teach you last night? Where did he take you?'

  'Oh, he bought me some sweetmeats,' the little joy replied. 'And took me by the river bank.' Oh dear, I thought. 'And what did you do there?' I asked. 'He took me by the hand.' 'And what did you do?' 'I laughed.' 'And then what?' 'He touched me on the breast.' 'And what did you do?' 'I laughed,' she replied, eyelids all a flutter. 'And then?' 'He touched me on the knee.' 'And what did you do?' I asked. 'I laughed!'

  Now the conversation went on like this for a few minutes until I stopped and said, 'Sweet one, why did you laugh every time my chaplain touched you?'

  'Because the sweetmeats were hidden in the pocket of my cloak all the time.'

  Innocent she was and simple so I gave my chaplain strict instructions to keep her that way. He should be cautious of marriage. Lust and love go hand in hand and both can wither like apples on a branch. Only the other day I was riding down a lane behind a funeral cortege: some poor woman's coffin being carried to the parish grave. The procession passed a tavern where a man sat drinking cheerfully from his tankard. As the coffin passed, I saw him put down his blackjack of ale, doff his cap and go down on his knees. Much touched by this, I rode up.

  'Kind sir,' I said, leaning down from my horse. 'You show great respect for the dead?'

  The fellow, bleary-eyed, red-faced, his nose burning like a coal in hell, just smiled back.

  'Why, Lord Roger,' he slurred. 'It's the least I can do after forty years of marriage to her!'

  Oh, I see my chaplain shake with laughter. The little noddle! The little sweet bag! My little marmoset!

  'Come on. Come on.' He turns in his chair, quill poised. 'Sir Roger,' he expostulates. 'The Queen waits for the next extract of your memoirs.'

  He is referring, of course, to Elizabeth – lovely girl, beauteous queen, my lover, my helpmate, mother of my son, apple of my heart.

  Ah well, I suppose he's right. Here, as I sit in my chamber, perched on my gold stuffed cushions, at my ease, in the centre of my manor, I can revel in its wealth. A veritable palace with its bright red bricks, its master joints picked out in black and white; its galleries of flint chequer work. Within, the rooms are decorated with cloth of gold and ermine hangings, the works of great master painters, tapestries of silk, chests stuffed full of silver and gold pots. My shelves are lined with Italian Majolica, Delft from the Low Countries, Spanish lustre ware. No rushes cover my floor but polished Flemish tiles, and my windows are filled with green leaded mullioned glass. Warm stoves heat my kitchens and butteries whilst water is brought in along pure elm pipes. Oh, I lead a life of luxury, but it wasn't always like that. Time's hand draws back the curtain of the past I sneak a look down the gloomy, vaulted passageway of history, lined with skulls and laced with the blood of those I ate and drank and, God forgive me, sometimes slept with. I must speak clearly so my words do not come out like some tangled chain: in doing so, I'll exorcise the ghosts of my salad days when I was green in judgement yet had such horrors to face.

  I do not have to walk far down the long, dusty passageway of time before I meet Murder squatting there, his silver skin laced with scarlet blood, his body riven by gashed stabs, face black and full of gore, eyeballs protruding further out than they should in a living man. He has that basilisk stare, ghastly, gasping like a strangled man. His hair is upstanding, his nostrils flared with struggling, his hands stretched out like someone tugging for life. That's Murder! I met him many a time in those turbulent days of Henry VIH when I and my great friend, tall, dark, angel-faced Benjamin Daunbey, nephew of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, were hired to hunt subtle murderers and crafty assassins. Let time be my witness, none of these was more cunning, more artful, more deceitful than those who planned to steal the Orb of Charlemagne and nearly sent old Roger to a watery grave. I cannot remain silent. Murder, though it has no tongue, will speak and I am duty bound to recall it. At Michaelmas the queen will come again. She will hear Mass secretly in my hidden chamber and, afterwards, sit at my table to drink claret and pluck at golden capon. Great Elizabeth will lean across and tweak my cheek.

  'Come, Roger,' she'll whisper. 'Bring me the next chapter of your memoirs. Let me see those times again!'

  And she will! Murder beckons me down time's sombre gallery, back into the golden, sun-filled, bloody autumn days of 1523 when King Henry, that murderous imp, still ruled England and Cardinal Wolsey, his brain teeming more than a boxful of vipers, tried to rule the king.

  Chapter 1

  After that bloody business at the Tower in the summer of 1523, Benjamin Daunbey and I, now released from the services of Cardinal Wolsey, returned to our manor outside Ipswich. Benjamin took over the management of the estate and the running of the school he had set up for the ungrateful, snotty-nosed imps from the nearby village. I, of course, true to my nature, returned to villainy as smoothly as a duck takes to water. I was bred for villainy. I was reared on it. People shouldn't really object. I am not an evil man. I just like mischief as a cat does cream. 'Ill met by moonlight!' You could wager your last farthing that I was. When Benjamin slept, I'd quietly slip out to meet young Lucy Witherspoon. She was a comely wench who worked some time in the White Harte tavern and, at others, as a chamber maid for the Poppleton household across the valley. I have mentioned these Poppletons before: spawns of Satan! The family was dominated by a woman I called the Great Mouth, Isabella Poppleton, and her cantankerous, flint-faced sons led by Edmund. She hated me and I reciprocated in kind. May her lips rot off!

  Now Lucy and I would spend those early, balmy autumn nights lying in the cool grass beside the river. Lucy was a lovely lass who, when I cradled her in my arms, would whisper, 'My cup overflows with happiness!' It was a quotation she'd learnt from the wall of the parish church. She said it always tickled her fancy and, I suppose, I did the same. When she left, with my sweet words ringing in her ears and a silver piece in her purse, I'd stay to pick mushrooms, herbs and plants. I still had a deep, abiding desire to be a great physician and make my fortune with miraculous cures. I'd always be back by dawn, sleeping like an angel in my bed, and would awake later in the day to wash, shave, dress and plot fresh mischief.

  Benjamin. Well, I loved Benjamin deeply – a scholar, a swordsman and a gentle soul – but a slight coldness had grown up between us. The cause (isn't it always?) was a woman: the marvellous Miranda, daughter of Under-sheriff Pelleter in the city of London. Oh, what a tangled web, the eternal triangle! Benjamin loved Miranda: Miranda loved Benjamin: Roger loved Miranda: Roger loved Benjamin: Benjamin loved Roger. However, here's the rub! Here's the soreness! Here's the canker in my soul, the hatred in my heart! Miranda did not love Roger!

  My little secretary sniggers. The scurvy knave says love's not a triangle. If he's not careful I'll take my sword, prick his bum and take him down to the crossroads to my triangular gallows. What does he know of love? The little tick brain! The want wit! Monsieur Muckwater! Triangles, squares, rectangles? Love knows no shape. Whatever, I loved Miranda. I loved her hair, her eyes, her mouth, her body, her soul, her spirit. Oh, she was kind: 'Good Roger,' she called m
e. 'My dear friend.' But Miranda's eyes hungered only for Benjamin. And here's the second rub. Old Roger Shallot, by some nimble footwork, by playing the counterfeit-man, by devious trickery and subtle wit, had arranged for 'dear' Benjamin to be sent on an embassy to Italy, whilst I, poor Roger, was to stay at home looking after the farm. However, when the time was ripe, I'd foray into London to lay siege to Miranda's heart. Oh villainy! But can you blame me for loving? I, whom few people loved, had a heart bursting with that sweet fragrance and all of it was centred upon Miranda.

  Now Benjamin may have been a scholar but he was no dullard. He spent his days preparing to leave, drawing up instructions, yet I would catch him watching me with his dark, soulful eyes.

  'You'll not go to London?' Benjamin declared one afternoon when I was helping him place clothing in a chest.

  Now I am a born liar but I couldn't lie to Benjamin. 'Sometimes, master,' I replied, turning away. 'And you'll not see Miranda?'

  'Master, master!' I knelt down to buckle up some saddlebags, deciding to make light of it. 'You've heard, master, the story about Lord Hudson?' 'No.'

  'Our good king sent him on an embassy to Spain. The old lord did not trust his young, fresh-faced wife so he locked a chastity belt about her and gave the key to his best friend. Well-' I threaded the strap through the buckle. 'Lord Hudson was at Dover, about to climb into a wherry boat to take him out to the waiting ship, when a messenger arrived from his best friend.' I got to my feet, keeping my back to Benjamin. 'He delivered a note,' I continued. 'Lord Hudson opened it. Inside was the key with a message: "WRONG KEY".'

  My laughter was cut short by a prick of steel just beneath my left ear. 'Turn round, Roger.'

  I did so. My master was standing, his duelling sword only a few inches away from my eyes, but it wasn't the sharp point which frightened me. (There are some things more terrifying to even old Shallot than cold steel.) Benjamin's face was white with fury. No gentle eyes now or kind, smiling mouth but a mask, fierce and hard. 'Master!' I stepped back. Benjamin followed me. 'Master!' I protested.