Dark Queen Waiting Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Titles by Paul Doherty

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Historical Note

  Historical Characters

  Prologue: ‘oh Day of Wrath, oh Day of Mourning!’

  Part One: ‘See What Fear Man’s Bosom Rendeth’

  Part Two: ‘See Fulfilled The Angel’s Warning!’

  Part Three: ‘oh What Fear Man’s Bosom Rendeth’

  Part Four: ‘Nature’s Struck And Earth Is Quaking’

  Part Five: ‘Wondrous Sound the Trumpets Ringeth!’

  Part Six: ‘lo! the Book Exactly Worded, Wherein All Hath Been Recorded’

  Part Seven: ‘Then Shall Judgement Be Awarded’

  Author’s Note

  A selection of titles by Paul Doherty

  The Margaret Beaufort mysteries

  DARK QUEEN RISING *

  DARK QUEEN WAITING *

  The Brother Athelstan mysteries

  THE ANGER OF GOD

  BY MURDER’S BRIGHT LIGHT

  THE HOUSE OF CROWS

  THE ASSASSIN’S RIDDLE

  THE DEVIL’S DOMAIN

  THE FIELD OF BLOOD

  THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS

  BLOODSTONE *

  THE STRAW MEN *

  CANDLE FLAME *

  THE BOOK OF FIRES *

  THE HERALD OF HELL *

  THE GREAT REVOLT *

  A PILGRIMAGE TO MURDER *

  THE MANSIONS OF MURDER *

  THE GODLESS *

  The Canterbury Tales mysteries

  AN ANCIENT EVIL

  A TAPESTRY OF MURDERS

  A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

  GHOSTLY MURDERS

  THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

  A HAUNT OF MURDER

  THE MIDNIGHT MAN *

  * available from Severn House

  DARK QUEEN WAITING

  Paul Doherty

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2019

  in Great Britain and 2020 in the USA by

  Crème de la Crime an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather Redmond.

  The right of Paul Doherty to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-127-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-656-2 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0354-0 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To my very good friend Linda Gerrish.

  Many thanks for all your support and help

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  By October 1471 the House of York was supreme. Edward IV seized the reins of power and held them tightly. The Yorkist cause was triumphant in both London and the kingdom beyond. However, tensions still remained. Bitter rivalries surfaced as other dark forces emerged. Edward of York could trumpet his success claiming the House of Lancaster was vanquished but that was not the full truth. Edward’s own court was divided by deep factions which could in a matter of days spill into bloody, prolonged conflict, especially the rivalry between Edward’s two brothers Richard Duke of Gloucester and George Duke of Clarence.

  Nor was the Lancastrian cause totally annihilated, its leading claimant Henry Tudor had successfully escaped from England to be given safe shelter by Duke Francis of Brittany. From there young Henry and his uncle Jasper Tudor could watch events unfold both at home and abroad. More importantly, the Tudor exiles knew that they had the total and utter support of Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, mother of the young Prince Henry. Margaret played a dangerous game. She smiled and bowed to her Yorkist masters but, with the assistance of her two henchmen Reginald Bray and Christopher Urswicke, Margaret plotted to bring the House of York crashing down so her own son could be crowned as the rightful King at Westminster …

  HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

  House of York

  Richard Duke of York and his wife Cecily, Duchess of York, ‘the Rose of Raby’.

  Parents of:

  Edward (later King Edward IV),

  George of Clarence,

  Richard Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III).

  House of Lancaster

  Henry VI,

  Henry’s wife Margaret of Anjou and their son Prince Edward.

  House of Tudor

  Edmund Tudor, first husband of Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, and half-brother to Henry VI of England. Edmund’s father Owain had married Katherine of Valois, French princess and widow of King Henry V, father of Henry VI.

  Jasper Tudor, Edmund’s brother, kinsman to Henry Tudor (later Henry VII).

  House of Margaret Beaufort

  Margaret Countess of Richmond, married first to Edmund Tudor, then Sir Henry Stafford and finally Lord Thomas Stanley.

  Reginald Bray, Margaret’s principal steward and controller of her household.

  Christopher Urswicke, Margaret Beaufort’s personal clerk and leading henchman.

  The verses quoted before each part are from the poem ‘Dies Irae’ (The Day of Death), written by the Franciscan Thomas di Celano.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Oh Day of Wrath, Oh Day of Mourning!’

  ‘A City of Robbers, a den of thieves, the manor of murder and the haunt of lost souls.’ Such was the judgement of the Chronicler of St Paul’s who maintained the Annals of the City. A truly scathing description of London in the late October of the year of our Lord 1471. A keen observer of the foibles of his fellow citizens, especially the Lords of the Earth, the Chronicler had reviewed and stridently proclaimed his chilling conclusions. Certainly this was the season of murder and sudden death, as the great ones clashed at the ferocious battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury in the early summer of that same year. The city had also suffered the bloody violence of the age: the clash of sword against shield whilst the bray of war trumpets rang along London’s streets. Parts of the city had been burnt to the ground as the gorgeously embroidered standards and banners of both York and Lancaster fought their way through the columns of smoke which hung like clouds over the narrow, stinking streets. It truly was a fight to the death. King Edw
ard, York’s own champion, had passed the order ‘to spare the little ones of the earth and kill the leaders’ amongst their enemy. In the end, however, Death was the only victor. Corpses cluttered the alleyways. The remains of the dead littered the city streets, as common as leaves driven by the wind. Cadavers rotted in lay stalls, sewers, ditches, cellars, and all the other stinking, dark holes of the city.

  The different guilds tried to do their best. Men and women who belonged to fraternities such as ‘The Souls of the Dead’, ‘The Guild of the Hanged’ and ‘The Hope of the Faithful’ tried to provide decent burial. Great pits were dug in graveyards and along the great common beyond the city walls. Nevertheless, Death reigned supreme. Unburied corpses, bloated and ruptured, were stacked like slabs of unwanted meat in many city churchyards. Funeral pyres burned day and night, their fearful flames illuminating the sky, their black smoke curling along the arrow-thin runnels. The cadavers of the great ones, those lords defeated and killed by the power of York, were treated with a little more respect. However, this was only because Edward the King, along with his two brothers George of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester wanted to proclaim to all, both at home and abroad, that their enemies were truly dead. Accordingly, the corpses of the old Lancastrian King Henry VI, together with those of his principal commanders, were exposed in different churches for the good citizens to view. St Paul’s was commonly used for this macabre ceremony and the citizens turned up to queue, as they would for a mummers’ play or a Christmas masque. The corpse of King Henry was abruptly removed when it began to bleed, drenching the inside of his coffin and forcing the world to wonder what had truly happened to the old King during his sojourn in the Tower. Had he suffered an accident or been murdered at the dead of night? The Chronicler of St Paul’s dared not comment on that except to write, ‘that only God knew the truth so it was best to leave it at that’.

  Peace came at last though fraught with fresh dangers. The soldiers who fought for York and Lancaster were freed from their indentures. After the great Yorkist victories, there would be no more alarums in this shire or that. Some former soldiers took themselves off out of the city, tramping the winding lanes and coffin paths to seek employment or return to half-forgotten trades. Many former soldiers, however, stayed in London, and looked for mischief to replenish both purse and belly.

  Foremost amongst these was Otto Zeigler, a giant of a man with a fearsome reputation as a soldier in the service of York: a mercenary with a special hatred for the Welsh and the House of Tudor in particular. According to common report, Zeigler was the by-blow of a Breton woman and a Flemish merchant. Skilled in language, Zeigler was even more proficient in the use of arms and, since his youth, had donned the mailed jacket of the professional mercenary. Once the struggle between York and Lancaster subsided, rumour and gossip seeped like a mist into the city about the atrocities perpetrated in the shires after the great Yorkist triumphs. The cruel executions and hideous punishments inflicted became common knowledge, and people whispered that Zeigler had carried out the most gruesome tortures on those he captured. Zeigler also acquired a most fearsome reputation as a dagger man, a born street fighter, a reputation he cleverly exploited after he’d been dismissed from the royal array. Zeigler became a riffler, a member of one of those fearsome gangs which prowled the nightmare of London’s underworld. These street warriors were truly feared and, in some cases, protected and favoured by the city merchants, who used the rifflers for their own secret purposes. Zeigler soon won their attention as he fought his way through the ranks to become a captain of the Sangliers – the Wild Boars, a pack of cutthroats and murderers who sported the livery of a scarlet neckband. Zeigler, dressed in the garb of a Franciscan friar, a mark of respect to a priest who’d treated him kindly, the only soul who ever had, was often seen in the city swaggering through the markets to receive the bows and curtseys of those who should have known better.

  Nevertheless, despite all his arrogance, Zeigler sensed the dangers. If he was leader of the pack, then he had to ensure that when they hunted they caught their prey. Accordingly, Zeigler, his fat-shaven face glistening with sweat which also laced his bald, dome-like head, was delighted to hear reports of a treasure trove, a truly juicy plum, ripe for the plucking. Apparently there was a warehouse near Baynard’s Castle crammed with luxurious goods imported from the Baltic by the prosperous Philpot family of merchants. These included costly furs, precious woods, skilfully woven tapestries as well as chests full of vessels and other ornaments fashioned out of gold and silver and studded with the most precious stones.

  Zeigler’s appetite was whetted. The warehouse was undoubtedly secure, standing as it did in the garden of Philpot’s riverside mansion; a strong, one-storey, red-brick building with reinforced doors and shutters. Usually this warehouse stood empty. However, according to the reports Zeigler had received, Edmund Philpot had decided to store his treasure there before moving it in a well-guarded convoy to the Great Wardrobe, a truly formidable and fortified arca or strong room close to the Guildhall. Edmund Philpot was being cautious: the treasures he owned had been brought from a cog berthed at Queenhithe only a short distance from his mansion. However the journey to the Great Wardrobe was long, tortuous and fraught with all kinds of danger, so Philpot was waiting to muster a strong enough guard from the Guildhall.

  Zeigler paid well for such information; what he learned seemed to be the truth. Sir Edmund had tried to keep the garden warehouse a secret. The merchant certainly did not wish to attract attention to what he had arranged, paying only two of his bailiffs to guard his treasure trove both day and night. Zeigler made his decision. He and his henchman Joachim chose a dozen of their cohort, secured a war barge and prepared to seize what Zeigler called ‘a prize for the taking’.

  On the eve of the feast of St Erconwald’s, long after the vesper bell had tolled and the great candles and lanterns been lit in the soaring steeples of the city churches, Zeigler led his coven down to a deserted Dowgate quayside and boarded the waiting war barge. Zeigler had chosen well. Six of his coven had worked on the river; these now acted as oarsmen and the barge was soon untied and made to depart. Zeigler, standing in the prow, stared into the freezing cold mist now spreading across the river, blinding the view and deadening all sound.

  ‘We are truly blessed with a night like this,’ Zeigler whispered to his henchman Joachim. ‘We will slip like ghosts along the river.’ Zeigler, pleased with himself, gazed around. The Thames was deathly quiet. The nearby quayside empty, nothing but the constant horde of hump-backed rats foraging for food whilst trying to avoid the feral cats which hunted them. The mist shifted and Zeigler glimpsed ‘Death’s Own Gibbet’, as the river people called it, a monstrous, six-branched gallows used by the city sheriffs to hang river pirates and other such malefactors. Thankfully, it was now empty of its rotting fruits. Nevertheless, the stark, soaring, sinister column was a chilling sight.

  Once again, Zeigler reflected on the information he’d been given. Apparently one of Philpot’s own clerks had stumbled into a tavern, much the worse for drink, and sat muttering about the busy day he’d spent organising an inventory for Sir Edmund’s chancery. Deep in his cups, unaware of the true identity of Joachim who sat drinking close by, the clerk had referred to the garden warehouse and all it contained. At first Zeigler couldn’t believe his ears; nevertheless he led a pack of wolves and they had to be fed. He and Joachim could always hold their own but, if they successfully plundered that warehouse, they’d be rich and free of all danger.

  Zeigler scratched the side of his head, wiping away the spray as the tillerman whispered instructions and the barge surged forward, battling the strong pull of the river. Zeigler tapped the pommel of his sword, there would be no turning back. Fortune had cast her dice and they were committed. Zeigler half closed his eyes as he quietly cursed the House of York who’d employed him as a captain of mercenaries in their struggle but, once they were done, had dismissed the likes of Zeigler to fend for themselves. Times were hard.
Winter had arrived. Last summer’s harvest had not been good. Food was scarce, prices were rising. During his service as a mercenary, Zeigler could help himself to what he wanted. Now he had been turned out, it was different.

  After London had been pillaged and looted, Edward of York had moved to crush all opposition and impose his own peace. The scaffolds and gibbets were busy and Zeigler’s concern for himself had only deepened. He needed treasure, gold and silver coin to buy sustenance for himself and the pack he led. There were already grumblings amongst the Sangliers and Joachim had warned that they would not be the first riffler leaders to be assassinated. Zeigler had to establish himself as a successful freebooter. Philpot’s warehouse and the treasure it contained would undoubtedly make him a prince amongst thieves. He recognised the risks but the dangers of doing nothing were even greater.

  ‘We are almost there,’ Grimwood, the sharp-eyed lookout, whispered hoarsely. ‘Turn the barge in.’

  The oarsmen, on the direction of the tillerman, did so. The river mist shifted and the barge slid gently along the jetty. Ropes were fastened tight. Zeigler and his gang put on their visors and pulled deep hoods over their heads. They grasped weapons, silently disembarked and made their way forward towards the lanternhorn glowing on the post of the water-gate leading into the garden of Philpot’s mansion. Zeigler and his coven were grateful for the cloying mist which closed in about them, though they were wary of slipping as a fall into the freezing-cold river would be fatal.

  They reached the gate. Zeigler pressed against it and could not believe his good fortune. The gate had not been barred, bolted or locked from within. A costly mistake! They pushed the gate open onto the pebble-crammed path which wound by flower, herb and spice plots all tinged white by the constant frosts. Lights glowed from the rear of the stately mansion. The rifflers edged forward; the soles of their boots had been wrapped in soft leather cloths to deaden all sound. Nevertheless, they moved cautiously. Zeigler lifted a hand. The rifflers paused, staring through the dark at the two guards sitting in a roughly built bothy before the warehouse: both men were warming their hands before a weak fire.