Hugh Corbett 15 - The Waxman Murders Read online

  THE WAXMAN MURDERS

  PAUL DOHERTY

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2006 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 as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  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.

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

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

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 5042 1

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London

  NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachettelivre.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Letter to the Reader

  About the Author

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Author’s Note

  History has always fascinated me. I see my stories as a time machine. I want to intrigue you with a murderous mystery and a tangled plot, but I also want you to experience what it was like to slip along the shadow-thronged alleyways of medieval London; to enter a soaringly majestic cathedral but then walk out and glimpse the gruesome execution scaffolds rising high on the other side of the square. In my novels you will sit in the oaken stalls of a gothic abbey and hear the glorious psalms of plain chant even as you glimpse white, sinister gargoyle faces peering out at you from deep cowls and hoods. Or there again, you may ride out in a chariot as it thunders across the Redlands of Ancient Egypt or leave the sunlight and golden warmth of the Nile as you enter the marble coldness of a pyramid’s deadly maze. Smells and sounds, sights and spectacles will be conjured up to catch your imagination and so create times and places now long gone. You will march to Jerusalem with the first Crusaders or enter the Colosseum of Rome, where the sand sparkles like gold and the crowds bay for the blood of some gladiator. Of course, if you wish, you can always return to the lush dark greenness of medieval England and take your seat in some tavern along the ancient moon-washed road to Canterbury and listen to some ghostly tale which chills the heart . . . my books will take you there then safely bring you back!

  The periods that have piqued my interest and about which I have written are many and varied. I hope you enjoy the read and would love to hear your thoughts – I always appreciate any feedback from readers. Visit my publisher’s website here: www.headline.co.uk and find out more. You may also visit my website: www.paulcdoherty.com or email me on: [email protected].

  Paul Doherty

  About the Author

  Paul Doherty is one of the most prolific, and lauded, authors of historical mysteries in the world today. His expertise in all areas of history is illustrated in the many series that he writes about, from the Mathilde of Westminster series, set at the court of Edward II, to the Amerotke series, set in Ancient Egypt. Amongst his most memorable creations are Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan and Roger Shallot.

  Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough. 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 and lives with his wife and family near Epping Forest.

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Mathilde of Westminster

  THE CUP OF GHOSTS

  THE POISON MAIDEN

  THE DARKENING GLASS

  Sir Roger Shallot

  THE WHITE ROSE MURDERS

  THE POISONED CHALICE

  THE GRAIL MURDERS

  A BROOD OF VIPERS

  THE GALLOWS MURDERS

  THE RELIC MURDERS

  Templar

  THE TEMPLAR

  THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN

  Mahu (The Akhenaten trilogy)

  AN EVIL SPIRIT OUT OF THE WEST

  THE SEASON OF THE HYAENA

  THE YEAR OF THE COBRA

  Canterbury Tales by Night

  AN ANCIENT EVIL

  A TAPESTRY OF MURDERS

  A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

  GHOSTLY MURDERS

  THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

  A HAUNT OF MURDER

  Egyptian Mysteries

  THE MASK OF RA

  THE HORUS KILLINGS

  THE ANUBIS SLAYINGS

  THE SLAYERS OF SETH

  THE ASSASSINS OF ISIS

  THE POISONER OF PTAH

  THE SPIES OF SOBECK

  Constantine the Great

  DOMINA

  MURDER IMPERIAL

  THE SONG OF THE GLADIATOR

  THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

  MURDER’S IMMORTAL MASK

  Hugh Corbett

  SATAN IN ST MARY’S

  THE 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 DEMON ARCHER

  THE TREASON OF THE GHOSTS

  CORPSE CANDLE

  THE MAGICIAN’S DEATH

  THE WAXMAN MURDERS

  NIGHTSHADE

  THE MYSTERIUM

  Standalone Titles

  THE ROSE DEMON

  THE HAUNTING

  THE SOUL SLAYER

  THE PLAGUE LORD

  THE DEATH OF A KING

  PRINCE DRAKULYA

  THE LORD COUNT DRAKULYA

  THE FATE OF PRINCES

  DOVE AMONGST THE HAWKS

  THE MASKED MAN

  As Vanessa Alexander

  THE LOVE KNOT

  OF LOVE AND WAR

  THE LOVING CUP

  Kathryn Swinbrooke (as C L Grace)

  SHRINE OF MURDERS

  EYE OF GOD

  MERCHANT OF DEATH

  BOOK OF SHADOWS

  SAINTLY MURDERS

  MAZE OF MURDERS

  FEAST OF POISONS

  Nicholas Segalla (as Ann Dukthas)

  A TIME FOR THE DEATH OF A KING

  THE PRINCE LOST TO TIME

  THE TIME OF MURDER AT MAYERLING

  IN THE TIME OF THE POISONED QUEEN

  Mysteries of Alexander the Great (as Anna Apostolou)

  A MURDER IN MACEDON

  A MURDER IN THEBES

  Alexander the Great

  THE HOUSE OF DEATH

  THE GODLESS MAN

  THE GATES OF HELL

  Matthew Jankyn (as P C Doherty)

  THE WHYTE HARTE

  THE SERPENT AMONGST THE LILIES

  Non-fiction

  THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF TUTANKHAMU
N

  ISABELLA AND THE STRANGE DEATH OF EDWARD II

  ALEXANDER THE GREAT: THE DEATH OF A GOD

  THE GREAT CROWN JEWELS ROBBERY OF 1303

  THE SECRET LIFE OF ELIZABETH I

  THE DEATH OF THE RED KING

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  ‘Teems with colour, energy and spills’ Time Out

  ‘Paul Doherty has a lively sense of history . . . evocative and lyrical descriptions’ New Statesman

  ‘Extensive and penetrating research coupled with a strong plot and bold characterisation. Loads of adventure and a dazzling evocation of the past’ Herald Sun, Melbourne

  ‘An opulent banquet to satisfy the most murderous appetite’ Northern Echo

  ‘As well as penning an exciting plot with vivid characters, Doherty excels at bringing the medieval period to life, with his detailed descriptions giving the reader a strong sense of place and time’ South Wales Argus

  This book is dedicated to

  David and Jack Sullivan of

  ‘Birch Hall’, Coppice Row, Essex.

  Prologue

  Timeo est summersus in undis.

  I fear the dark waves break above him.

  Medieval lament

  The Feast of the Translation of St Edward the Confessor, 12 October 1300

  ‘From the horrors of the sea and its devouring monsters, Domine libera nos – Lord deliver us’ was a common prayer of those who used the sea lanes from the tip of Cornwall through the Narrow Seas and up to where the waves crashed like demons against the fang-tooth rocks off Farnborough Head. However, no sea monster was more feared than the great soaring, fat-bellied three-masted war cog The Waxman, with its jutting prow and high stern castle, fighting platforms and other instruments of war. The terrors of a night squall, the fury of devil-ridden winds, the horrors of the blackest storm and the monstrous soaring waves paled against the speed, savagery and ruthlessness of The Waxman, under its master Adam Blackstock, late citizen and burgess of the King’s city of Canterbury.

  The Waxman was well named; she would suddenly appear, then melt away, as if shrouded in some malevolent protective mist, only to reappear off the Humber, the mouth of the Thames, or prowling off Pevensey or one of the Cinque Ports. Her crew were regarded as fiends incarnate and their evil-looking cog a ship of the damned. Only recently The Waxman had taken a wine ship off Bordeaux, seized its precious cargo and valuables, then sunk the craft after hanging its captain and drowning the survivors of his crew. She had even attacked the warlike galleys of powerful Venice and, more importantly, the round-bellied cogs of the German merchants, the mighty Hanseatic league who had their own dock and quayside at the Steelyard in London.

  A year ago, around Lammas Day, Blackstock had won his greatest prize, a Hanseatic carrack, The Maid of Lubeck, with its cargo of furs and pelts. Even more precious had been that casket, carved out of whalebone, containing the Cloister Map being dispatched to Sir Walter Castledene, knight of Canterbury, providing precise details of a fabulous treasure trove between the Suffolk walks and the River Denham. The map had been drawn in cipher, but Blackstock was now preparing to take The Waxman up the River Orwell, past the Colvasse peninsula, to shelter in a tree-shrouded nook, near a ruined hermitage and its derelict chapel, St Simon of the Rocks. Here he could go ashore and meet his half-brother, Hubert Fitzurse, an educated man trained in the cloister school of St Augustine’s in Canterbury. Hubert had even gone to the halls of Cambridge before entering the Benedictine order, but that was all in the past, shadows of things which could have been. Now, on the Feast of the Translation of St Edward the Confessor, The Waxman was beating her way up the Essex coast towards Orwell for Blackstock’s meeting with his half-brother which might change both their lives.

  On that freezing October morning, with the clouds pressing down like an iron-grey pall, Adam Blackstock stood staring out across the mist-strewn sea. He was dressed in leather leggings pushed into fur-lined boots, a thick woollen cloak over his shirt and jerkin, the cowl of which was pulled up to protect his head and face against the icy, salted wind biting at his skin. Blackstock seemed unaware of the harsh weather, the straining, swaying ship, the swollen grey seas, the shriek of the gulls or that dreadful mist which seemed to cloak everything. He had ordered all lanterns to be lit and he felt safe enough; few craft would take to the seas in this weather, whilst The Waxman was well armed. Blackstock was busy dreaming about the past, speculating on the future and wondering how it would all end. If the Cloister Map was genuine, and Blackstock believed it was, then he and Hubert would become great and mighty men, perhaps even buy pardons from the King – what a change!

  Blackstock clung to the ropes of the rigging, letting his body sway with the surge of the sea tossing his ship backwards and forwards. He was used to that and betrayed no fear. Some people claimed he had a hangman’s face, dark and sombre, furrowed, with dead eyes and a sharp nose over bloodless lips. Others said the face reminded them of a monk, an ascetic, a man dedicated to the service of God and the love of his brethren. In truth Blackstock cared for no one apart from his beloved half-brother.

  As he stood at the rigging, Blackstock reflected like some monk in his stall on how it all had begun. His father had married twice. Hubert’s mother, a Fitzurse, had died in childbirth so Blackstock’s father had married a local girl, a wench from one of the outlying farms. Hubert was six years Adam’s senior, yet they’d spent their childhood, as their father often remarked, as if they were twins, peas from the same pod. From an early age Hubert had proved himself able with the horn book, a clever scholar, so he was sent to St Augustine’s Abbey to be taught by the Black Monks. When he returned home, however, he and Adam had enjoyed a veritable paradise of a childhood. Happy days fishing and boating along the River Stour, helping their father on the farm, journeys into Canterbury visiting Becket’s great shrine and attending the busy city fairs and markets. In 1272 their paradise had descended into nightmare. In that year old King Henry III had died, mumbling and feverish, at Westminster. His eldest son and heir, Edward, was on crusade in Outremer. In the absence of a strong ruler, the king’s peace had been violated in many cities and shires by marauding gangs of rifflers and robbers who attacked isolated manor houses to ransack and loot. The Blackstocks’ manor near Maison Dieu was one of these.

  On that fateful evening Blackstock’s father had come running up the stairs, forcing Adam out of an upper casement, virtually throwing him out on to the hay-filled cart below, shouting at him to flee and shelter in the nearby woods. A time of nightmare! Blackstock had hidden beneath a bush, watching his father being cut down, his mother and her maid raped before they too were killed, throats slit, bellies opened. Of John Brocare, his father’s kinsman, there was no sign. At the time Adam believed Brocare had also been murdered, his corpse consumed by the conflagration. The following morning, the sheriff’s men arrived to view the devastation and found Adam. Hubert had been in Canterbury at the time, sleeping with the other boys in the scholars’ dormitory at St Augustine’s. The brothers were taken to the Guildhall, where some grey-bearded, sombre-eyed man had told them the full extent of the tragedy. They’d sat in that dusty room and realised how their lives were to be drastically changed. ‘Sombre-eyes’, perched behind the table, stared at them sadly as he described how their home had been destroyed, their father and mother murdered, the corpses of other victims burnt beyond recognition. He explained how their parents would be buried in God’s acre at St Mildred’s, beneath the old yew tree where they’d first met at the giving of church-ales. He tried to soften the blow, but Blackstock, sitting beside Hubert and holding his hand, just stared at the mullioned window behind the old man’s head, watching the sun-motes dancing in the light piercing the thick glass. Afterwards, it was like a dream. The merchant had taken both boys downstairs, introducing them to other men who explained how their father had been not only a successful yeoman farmer but a member of the powerful Guild of Furriers and Skinners in the city, which meant that they had a solemn
duty of care towards both Hubert and his younger brother. Hubert seemed to understand and later explained it all to Adam, adding in halting sentences what was to happen in the future.

  The next morning they’d attended their parents’ requiem mass in St Mildred’s and watched both coffins, specially purchased by the Guild, being taken out to God’s acre to be buried. Wooden crosses were immediately thrust into the freshly dug mounds of earth. The Guildsmen solemnly promised that, within a year and a day, these would be replaced by marble crosses cut by the finest stonemasons. Adam didn’t care. All he could remember were his mother’s screams, the flames shooting up through the roof of the house and his father lying on the cobbles, legs kicking, clutching his stomach. He tried to explain all this to Hubert but his brother didn’t seem to understand; he would just stare, shake his head and press his fingers against Adam’s lips as a sign to keep silent.

  After that, they were like ships becalmed after a fierce storm. Hubert continued with his studies and proved himself to be an adept scholar in theology, philosophy, grammar and syntax, a young man with what one magister called ‘the gift of tongues’, not only the classics, Latin and Greek, but Norman French and German. Adam, in the mean time, had been apprenticed to the trade of a skinner and leatherer. He proved himself skilful but soon won a reputation for being distant and aloof, keeping himself to himself. The only person with whom he would relax was his brother on his infrequent visits back to the city from the halls of Cambridge. Hubert eventually entered the Benedictine order, while Adam became a tradesman in his own right, a citizen inheriting what was left of his father’s money and estate. Never once did he ever go back to the family manor farm, and through the Guild he salted money away with goldsmiths in the city.

  Adam always felt as if he was separate from the rest of mankind, even here on the ship; it was as if a great gulf yawned between himself and God’s other creatures. Now and again he had visited his parents’ graves in St Mildred’s but never once went inside the church. He found the mass and other ceremonies boring, and where possible he excused himself from the mysteries of the Guild: their annual ceremonies, parades, festivities, the offering of votive candles, what Adam secretly called ‘their empty mummery’ at the various churches in Canterbury or its great cathedral. On occasion he visited Becket’s magnificent shrine, but even then he was more interested in how much it was worth. He’d stare greedily at the great jewels gleaming in the gold sheeting and wondered how easy it would be to steal them.