Saintly Murders Read online

  SAINTLY MURDERS

  Paul Doherty

  Copyright © 2001 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.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2013

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

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 9565 1

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Letter to the Reader

  Epigraph

  About the Author

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  Dedication

  Historical Note

  List of Historical Characters

  The Prologues

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Author’s Note

  Letter to the Reader

  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 TUTANKHAMUN

  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

  To a marvelous and brave young lady,

  Lisa Monaghan

  of Kesh, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland,

  a brilliant student who died 23 December 2000;

  in loving memory

  ‘My theme is alwey oon, and evere was –

  Radix malorum est Cupiditas.’

  —Chaucer, ‘Prologue to The Pardoner’s Tale,’

  The Canterbury Tales

  In the Middle Ages women doctors continued to practise

  in the midst of wars and epidemics as they always had, for

  the simple reason that they were needed.

  – Kate Campbeffton Hurd-Mead,

  A History of Women in Medicine

  Historical Note

  By May 1471, the bloody civil war between the Houses of York and Lancaster had ended with Edward of York’s victory at Tewkesbury. The Lancastrian King, Henry VI, was later murdered in the Tower by Yorkist henchmen; and Edward of York, rejoicing in the regal title of Edward IV, assumed full power. Edward was supported by his beautiful wife, Elizabeth Woodville, and his two powerful brothers, George of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester, together with their gangs of henchmen. The Yorkist faction settled down to enjoy the fruits of peace, even though old grievances and hatreds still simmered and often surfaced.

  In France, the sly, shrewd Louis XI, ‘the Spider King,’ watched with trepidation the growing strength of his country’s old enemy. Louis was ever ready to interfere and check England’s ascendancy, whatever the cost . . .

  List of Historical Characters

  Henry VI: Henry of Lancaster, son of the great Henry V, regarded by some as a fool, by others as a saint, by a few as both. His weak, ineffectual rule led to vicious civil war between the Houses of York and Lancaster.

  Margaret of Anjou: French Queen of Henry VI and the real power behind the throne; her hopes of victory were finally quashed by two outstanding victories by the Yorkist forces at Barnet and Tewkesbury in the early months of 1471.

  Beaufort of Somerset: Leading Lancastrian general and politician; reputed lover of Margaret of Anjou, killed at Tewkesbury.

  Henry Tudor: Last remaining Lancastrian claimant. By 1473, in exile at the Courts of France and Brittany.

  Nicholas Faunte: Lancastrian Mayor of Canterbury; later captured and executed in his own city.

  THE HOUSE OF YORK

  Richard of York: Father of Edward IV. Richard’s overbounding ambition to become king led to the outbreak of hostilities between York and Lancaster. He was trapped and killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1461.

  Cecily of York (nee Neville): ‘The Rose of Raby’; widow of Richard of York; mother of Edward, Richard, and George of Clarence.

  Edward IV: Successful Yorkist general and later King.

  Edmund of Rutland: Edward’s brother, killed with the Duke of York at Wakefield.

  George of Clarence: The beautiful but treacherous brother of Edward IV; a prince who changed sides during the Civil War.

  Richard of Gloucester: Youngest brother of Edward IV; he played a leading part in the Yorkist victory of 1471.

  FRANCE

  Louis IX ‘The Spider King’: Responsible for the strengthening and centralisation of the French monarchy in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

  Jeanne d’Arc ‘La Pucelle’: The visionary leader of the French resistance to England till the English captured and burnt her at Rouen in 1431.

  ENGLISH POLITICIANS

  Thomas Bourchier: Aged Archbishop of Canterbury.

  William Hastings: Henchman to Edward IV.

  Francis Lovell: Henchman to Richard of Gloucester.

  The Prologues

  ‘O cursed synne of alle cursedness!

  O traytours homycide! O wikkedness!’

  —Chaucer, ‘The Pardoner’s Tale,’

  The Canterbury Tales

  Death had come for Roger Atworth, the former soldier now a member of the Friars of the Order of the Sack in Canterbury.

  ‘Oh, Jesus miserere!’ the old man murmured.

  He stared across at the light streaming under the narrow door. Death had slipped in like an assassin, scuttling padded feet down a gallery, striking quickly from the shadows of an alleyway. Death had sprung his trap. Atworth knew a great deal about suffering: the pains running across his chest and down the left side of his body were like a tocsin warning that he had only a short while to live. Atworth tried to move, but his legs, hands, and arms felt as if they were encased in lead. His mind wandered. What day of the week was it? He had lost all sense of time. He recalled the good brothers preparing to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, which came nine months before Christmas. Atworth coughed deep in his throat and licked the phlegm forming on the corner of his mouth. He wouldn’t see another Yuletide. He wouldn’t kneel in adoration before the crib, help decorate it with holly and ivy, and wonder, once again, if the bright red berries truly symbolised the blood of Christ. Atworth tried to concentrate. He knew enough about physic to recognise the symptoms of delirium tremens. Isn’t that how Brother Simon the infirmarian described it? His whole body was wracked with pain. His throat was dry. Atworth hadn’t even been able to eat the meagre scraps the mysterious cowled figure had brought him.

  ‘Who was it?’ Atworth murmured into the darkness. Yet what did it matter? He was going to die, and like a good soldier, he was prepared for that. He tried to recall the words of the death psalm, the ‘De Profundis.’ What was it now, Psalm 130?

  ‘“Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord!

  Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

  If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities . . .”’

  Atworth coughed. He tried to raise his head, but the effort was too much. He stared up into the gathering gloom. Guilt! Oh, Atworth felt guilty! He couldn’t stop the nightmares from pouring back, like black, fetid waters, souring his soul. They were nightmares of the days of his youth, of fighting in the Free Companies under a gold-and-red banner in northern France. It was a time of great plunder and rapine, whole villages put to the torch! Men, women, and children were cut down like lilies in the field.

  Roger Atworth shook his head. He recalled a young woman he had taken. Where was it now? Just north of the village of Agincourt, where King Henry had won his great victory. She had been fleeing, with a fardel or bundle over her shoulder, and stumbled into the clearing where Atworth and his men were resting. He had raped her, and so had his men before they let her go, a miserable, bleeding bundle of flesh scarred in mind, body, and soul.

  ‘Oh, Jesus miserere!’ Atworth pleaded for the mercy he so desperately needed and yet didn’t deserve. He and his men had been cursed for that. An old crone living in the forest had heard the girl’s screams and come hurrying to find out. The woman had stood on the edge of the clearing, her grey hair streaming down her shoulders, her old face vivid with disgust and fury. Even then Atworth had admired her courage. She had walked forward like some prophet of old, bony finger jabbing the air. At first she talked in a patois they didn’t understand, but then, surprisingly enough, she’d lapsed into English.

  ‘Cursed ye be,’ she’d shrieked, ‘in your eating and you
r drinking! Cursed be ye in your sleeping and waking! Cursed be ye in riding and walking! Cursed be ye in your lying down and getting up! Cursed be ye at the dawn and at the depth of night! Cursed be ye by my death!’

  Atworth closed his eyes. He recalled the incident as if it had happened only an hour ago. He had drawn his sword and driven it straight through the old woman’s belly, spiking her like he would a rabbit or a pig. Afterwards they’d hung her upside down from one of the outstretched branches of an elm tree. They’d all stood round and laughed at her vein-streaked, scrawny body dangling from the tree like an animal’s cadaver on a butcher’s stall. They had gathered their boots, saddled their horses, and left that blood-soaked corpse without a second glance. How had one of his men described Atworth? ‘A fiend who fears neither God nor man.’ Well, the old woman had been right. From that day on nothing had ever gone right. Two days later they had been ambushed by a group of German mercenaries, Lorrainers who had killed six of Atworth’s men and captured most of their plunder.

  Atworth opened his eyes; the pain had subsided. Perhaps someone would come to help. He strained, listening for a sound; the light coming under the door was now fading. No one would come! Atworth returned to his reverie. Every member of his troop had died a violent death, killed amongst the hedgerows and ditches of northern France. They had been taken up in the great disaster that had engulfed the English forces as the armies of France, led by that eerie Maid of Orleans, ‘La Pucelle,’ Jeanne d’Arc, had driven the Goddamns out of France. Atworth had been in the market place at Rouen when they’d burnt the maid. He had watched her thin, emaciated body bubble in the heat, yet her voice remained strong, praying aloud even as her waiflike face was hidden by the sheet of flame. And afterwards? Those sombre days in the castle at Rouen, bodyguard to Duchess Cecily of York, a bond had been forged there which lasted even now. Nothing had changed it, not even when Atworth was captured by the ruthless Vicomte de Sanglier, a young, Godless man. In de Sanglier Atworth had seen his own soul, and again, a bond had been formed, a chain forged and linked; it stretched across the years, and Sanglier still had his hand on it.