The Grail Murders Read online

  The Grail Murders

  Series: Sir Roger Shallot [3]

  Published: 1994

  Tags: Historical Novel

  Historical Novelttt

  * * *

  SUMMARY:

  In 1522 the rogue Roger Shallot and his sober-sided master Benjamin Daunbey are sent for by Cardinal Wolsey. Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, has been arrested for treason and Benjamin and Roger are made to witness his bloody execution. The true reason for Buckingham's downfall soon becomes apparent: he was searching at Templecombe Manor and Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset for two precious relics the Holy Grail and Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur. Benjamin and Shallot are ordered to Templecombe, accompanied by the leaders of King Henry VIII's dreaded secret service, the Agentes in Rebus, to find these relics for the King. They must pit their wits against the Templars, a secret organisation plotting against the Tudors of which Buckingham may have been a part and who may still have a member of their society close to the crown. The difficulties wily Shallot running true to his boast of possessing the fastest legs and quickest wits in Christendom has to face soon make their presence felt: a duel, blackmail, the curses of a witch, the grisly hand of glory, decapitated heads, mysterious fires and silent murder in the eerie Templar chapel. This novel was previously published under the pseudonym Michael Clynes.

  Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough and educated at Woodcote Hall. He studied History at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate at Oxford for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now Headmaster of a school in North-East London.

  Acclaim for Sir Roger Shallot's journals

  'Lively historical whodunnit. . . Shallot himself is a splendid braggart, a Tudor Flashman' The Times

  'Set in a fascinating period of English history ... Sir Roger Shallot [is] a colourful and likeable rogue . . . plenty of swashbuckling and intrigue' Liverpool Daily Post

  'Cleverly-twisting tale of murder and mayhem' Brighton Evening Argus

  Also by Paul Doherty and available from Headline

  The Journals of Roger Shallot The White Rose Murders The Poisoned Chalice

  A Brood of Vipers The Gailows Murders The Relic Murders

  Ancient Egyptian mysteries The Mask of Ra The Horus Killings The Anubis Slayings

  The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan The Nightingale Gallery The House of the Red Slayer Murder Most Holy The Anger of God By Murder's Bright Light The House of Crows The Assassin's Riddle The Devil's Domain

  Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries Satan in St Mary's Crown in Darkness

  Spy in Chancery The Angel of Death The Prince of Darkness Murder Wears a Cowl The Assassin in the Greenwood The Song of a Dark Angel Satan's Fire The Devil's Hunt The Treason of the Ghosts

  The Canterbury Tales of murder and mystery An Ancient Evil Being the Knight's Tale A Tapestry of Murders Being the Man of Law's Tale A Tournament of Murders Being the Franklin's Tale Ghostly Murders Being the Priest's Tale

  The Grail Murders

  Paul Doherty

  Copyright © 1993 Paul Doherty

  The right of Paul Doherty to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 1993 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  First published in paperback in 1994 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  10987654

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance lo real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 0 7472 4263 1

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham pic. Chatham. Kent

  HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING A division of Hodder Headline PLC 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  graph-definition>

  www.hodderheadline.co.uk

  Niall Harrington - in memory of the many conversations we had about whodunnits.

  Historical Personages Mentioned in this Text

  Richard III - the last Yorkist king, called The Usurper or Pretender. He was defeated by Henry Tudor at Market Bosworth in August 1485. He was the wearer of the White Rose.

  Henry Tudor - The Welshman, The Great Miser, the victor of Bosworth, founder of the Tudor dynasty and father of Henry VIII. He died in 1509.

  Arthur - Henry Tudor's first born. He died young and the crown went to his brother Henry.

  Henry VIII - Bluff King Hal, The Great Killer, The Great Beast, Fat Harry, The Great Bastard. A king who had six wives and a string of mistresses. He is The Mould warp or The Dark One, as prophesied by Merlin.

  Catherine ofAragon - a Spanish princess, Henry VHI's first wife and mother of Mary Tudor.

  Anne Boleyn - daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn. Second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth Tudor.

  Bessie Blount - one of the more dazzling of Henry VIII's mistresses.

  Mary Tudor - daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, nicknamed Bloody Mary because of her persecution of Protestants.

  Elizabeth I - Queen of England, supposed daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, nicknamed The Virgin Queen though Shallot claims to have had a son by her.

  Catherine Howard - Henry VHTs fifth wife. Executed for her extramarital affairs.

  Francis I - King of France, brilliant, dazzling and sex mad.

  Will Shakespeare - English playwright.

  Christopher Marlowe - English playwright and spy, killed in a tavern brawl.

  Richard Tunstall - Bishop of London.

  Thomas Wolsey - son of an Ipswich butcher, he went to Oxford and embarked upon a brilliant career. He became Cardinal, Archbishop and First Minister of Henry VIII.

  Suleiman the Magnificent - Turkish Emperor.

  Mary, Queen of Scots - grand-daughter of Margaret Tudor and mother of James I of England and VI Scotland.

  Henry Darnley - her husband.

  James Bothwell - Mary's lover.

  Thomas More - humanist, scholar, Minister of Henry VHI, later executed for opposing Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

  Edward VI - son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, a sickly boy who died young.

  Catherine de Medici - Italian princess. Married Henry II, King Francis I's son. She dominated France after her husband's death: a subtle intriguer, nicknamed Madame Serpent.

  Francis Walsingham - Elizabeth I's spy master.

  William and Robert Cecil - Elizabeth I's Chief Ministers.

  Edward Stafford - Duke of Buckingham, powerful nobleman, executed by Henry VIII.

  Thomas Cromwell - Henry's able successor to Wolsey until he, too, fell from power and was executed.

  Michael Nostradamus - seer and necromancer, often used by Catherine de Medici.

  Prologue

  Murder has marked us all as Cain's children: Cain who when the earth was young slew his brother with the jawbone of an ass and hid in the forest until God hunted him out, grasped his head and gave him the assassin's mark. We must be his children, mustn't we? If Cain, the son of Adam, is father to us all, then we must all bear his mark.

  I see my chaplain sniffing as if he has smelt something foul: his prim lips are pursed, that cherry nose wrinkled. The trouble with him is his nose is too near his codpiece! Never trust short-legged men - the gap between their brain and their buttocks is too close for comfort.

  Ah, well, so we are all Cain's children. In fairness, I must
confess that's not an original thought. Michael Nostradamus, Catherine de Medici's fortune-teller, once told me that whilst I was hiding in Paris from a group of assassins who wanted to take my head but, as I keep saying, that's another story.

  A strange man, Nostradamus! In his secret chamber at the Castle Blois he had a famous mirror. If you looked into it, you could see the future. Catherine de Medici, voluptuous, murderous Catherine - Madame Serpent as I call her - used to spend days staring into it.

  Nostradamus also claimed he had dreams which foretold the future: demons who appeared to him at night, their black eyes filled with blood, huge scrolls in their fists, the

  written records of the sins of men from the first day to the last. Nostradamus said they kept unrolling these scrolls and there was no end to them. No end to the terrible and bloody murders of men.

  I agree with him for Murder has haunted my life and still plagues my dreams. Oh no, I am not an assassin myself but I have spent my life tracking them down. Now I, too, have the same dreams as Nostradamus: strange, merciless devils, faces twisted with rage, teeth showing over their lips. They belong to the blackest darkness for they are the lost souls of murderers.

  The other night these spirits woke me just after the last snowfall which cloaked the fields in thick white clouds. I sat up in my four-poster bed, pulled back the curtains and gazed through the great oriel window which stares out over the lawns in front of my house. The moon shone ghostly white, the stars gleamed like silver wings in the heavens. On either side of me Phoebe and her sister Margot snored in their soft, warm plumpness. (A marvellous way to keep warm in the depths of winter!) I stared over the lawns, thinking of my past, and saw the black shadow move like some great bat. I knew it was the Lord Satan's precursor.

  (My chaplain is laughing. The little sod had better be careful! 'More like wine fumes,' he sniggers. If he is not careful, I'll grab the cushions from beneath his bum. Oh, yes, I will and my homunculus, my little dwarf of a chaplain, shall feel hard wood under his buttocks.)

  I did see the shadows come, the nightmare men, ghosts from my past.

  The next morning the stranger arrived, travelling through the deep snow bearing letters and warrants allowing him access to Sir Roger Shallot, Privy Councillor, Knight of the Bath, Knight of the Garter, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Array, Marshall of the Order of St Michael. (A gentleman who styled himself Tsar of all the Russias, a homicidal bastard if ever there was one, gave me that.)

  I met the stranger in my secret chamber behind the arras in the great hall. The captain of my guard stood beside me, his sword drawn, for though I am now well past my ninetieth year, old Shallot still has his enemies. The secret agents of many a crowned head still seek a reward for cutting my throat and letting my life-juice spill out. So you have to be careful when you approach me.

  This man was: he stopped at the great gates leading to my estates. If he had entered without permission, my great Irish wolfhounds would have torn him to pieces and, if they hadn't, the jolly boys who serve in my troop of mercenaries would have strung him up from the nearest branch.

  Anyway, I met him in my secret chamber, the only light coming from the braziers of glowing charcoal and the pure wax candles whose flames darted long and strong against the darkness. Enough light glowed for me to see him but not enough to reveal the coffers, chests, sealed packets and padlocked boxes full of old Shallot's papers, the legacy of a murderous past, which stand around the walls.

  The fellow looked nondescript, old and balding, his skin the colour of darkened leather, but I liked his eyes, clear and bright. They reminded me of my old master, Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to that fat slob Cardinal Wolsey, in whose service we both toiled for many a year.

  My visitor sat for a while and stared at me.

  'You don't remember me?' he said.

  His English was perfect though tinged with a slight accent.

  'Sweet Lord!' I answered. 'Must I remember everybody?'

  I looked at the warrants he'd brought, lying on the desk in front of me, bearing the seals of that lovely lass Elizabeth of England. Green-eyed Elizabeth, Boleyn's daughter. (I don't say Henry VIII's. That fat bastard. The Great Killer couldn't create any life. I know who Elizabeth's father really was but I'm not telling you. Well, at least not now. Perhaps some other time.)

  'Why should the Queen,' I asked, 'give you these warrants?'

  The man shrugged and leaned closer. The captain of my guard put his sword gently on the fellow's shoulder as a warning that he was close enough.

  'Who are you?' I demanded.

  The man unhitched his cloak, revealing the blood-red gown and white six-pointed cross of the Knights of St John, commonly known as the Hospitallers. I sighed and smiled.

  ‘As I said,' my guest continued, 'you do not remember me, Sir Roger. I am John de Coligny, knight hospitaller, bailiff in that Order, but I was born on the manor of Templecombe in Somerset.'

  Oh, sweet Lord! I just sat and stared at him as the memories came rushing back: overcast skies and the snow-laden trees and meadows of Somerset. Flames roaring round a bed. A maddened horse dragging its rider, pounding him to death. And the icy cold water of that lake as Benjamin and I fought against a most cruel assassin. I let the tears roll down my face.

  'Sir Roger.' Coligny paused. 'I did not mean to upset you. Her Majesty the Queen said you would understand the need for secrecy. I am a Catholic and, by all rights, should suffer the supreme penalty for even setting foot in England. I have come to repay a debt, to fulfil a vow.'

  He loosened his doublet and brought out a small stained leather pouch tied by a cord round his neck.

  Oh, bitter-sweet memories! I knew what was coming but could only stare with tear-filled eyes at the small amethyst ring the fellow pushed across the desk.

  'I was a child,' Coligny continued, 'only a babe-in-arms when you gave that to my mother. She always spoke of your kindness and courage.'

  Do you know, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Here was someone paying homage to my courage! Me, Roger Shallot, who in his time was the swiftest runner in Christendom - and, believe me, I always proved it. When swords were drawn and blood was spilt, old Shallot, to quote my friend Will Shakespeare, was 'like a greyhound in the slips', ready to charge - always the other way. I picked up the ring and gazed at its brilliant sparkle.

  'So long ago,' I murmured. 'So many horrible deaths. Such terrible murders.'

  I lapsed into a reverie and de Coligny withdrew.

  I later feasted him for a day, revelling in his praise and adulation, then I rewarded him well, furnished him with safe conducts to Dover and watched him leave. His coming was a sign. A grim reminder of the past. He could praise my courage but old Shallot knows the truth: the past is a pack of lies. My dreams would taunt me. The nightmare men would come.

  At first I ignored them but last night when I awoke, one hand on Phoebe's tits, the other on Margot's, I stared through the oriel window at the shadows crawling across the thick-capped snow and knew I would have to continue my memoirs. If I didn't the dreams would grow worse. It was time to start again.

  I had drunk three cups of rich red claret and snuggled up between Phoebe and Margot. (Lovely lasses but violently jealous of each other.) We played a little game and I fell asleep. I don't know whether it was a dream or a vision but I found myself, face pressed against the oriel window, staring out into the darkness.

  An animal skull appeared, moving through the air, hovering just beyond the glass. Then a knight dressed in the robes of a Templar, black-faced with a scarlet helm, on its crown writhing snakes tearing into the rotting belly of a chicken. In the knight's hands was a decapitated grey head with bandaged eyes, covered with a seething mass of insects.

  Other visions came. They crowded round, so intense, so pressing, I screamed myself awake. I couldn't go back to sleep until Phoebe and Margot had brought me a cup of sack and performed the dance they had learnt at last May Day's mummer's play.

  So here we are.
Because it's winter I am not sitting at the centre of my maze but in my secret chamber, wrapped in rugs in my high-backed throne. On one side a jug of claret and a deep-bowled cup, on the other my black ash rod just in case my chaplain mocks too much. You see, this little sod thinks that I dream it all up. He thinks I drink too much wine and that I am a consummate liar. If I am, I am no different from people of his ilk, as he knows to his cost. Oh, yes, I know my chaplain's little sins. I see him steal glances at young Phoebe's rounded thighs or Margot's generous tits. I have heard the stories about how he likes to take young ladies into the hay loft of one of my barns. He must think I am as stupid as he looks! After all, a hay loft on a warm summer's evening is not the ideal place to instruct some buxom wench. Or, on second thoughts, perhaps it depends on what the instruction's about!

  I think my chaplain is jealous of me. He prides himself on being a fine orator, able to give a pithy sermon. Two years ago he was invited up to court to dispute certain theological matters before Her Majesty the Queen. I forget the details - something about the existence of angels.

  A venerable bishop began the debate and did quite well. He kept me awake for at least five minutes. Apparently, the old boy chattered on for an hour. I awoke just as he left the pulpit then it was my chaplain's turn.

  I was sitting next to Elizabeth. I nudged her and declared in a loud stage whisper for all to hear, 'Here comes counsel for the other side.' A subtle joke, only the Queen and I realised its true significance, and she couldn't stop laughing. My chaplain gave his oration whilst the rest of his brother clerics just glared at me. When it was all finished, some elderly, snivelling bishop came over to me.

  'It's easy to mock, Sir Roger,' he cried. 'But could you give a sermon?'