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The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan

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

THE FIELD OF BLOOD

THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS

THE NIGHTINGALE GALLERY

Being the First of the Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan

Paul Doherty

Dedication

In memory of Eric

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The old king was dying. The wind snatched up the rumour and carried it along the Thames. Boatmen whispered about it and the fat-bellied sea-going barges took the rumour further along the coast. Edward was failing; the great, blond-haired conqueror of France, the new Alexander in the West, was dying. Too late for those who had incurred his displeasure, their straggled-haired, blood-caked heads spiked over the gateway of London Bridge, marble white cheeks turning black as the ravens dug for juicier morsels.

The great king, or great bastard depending on your perspective, was reluctantly allowing the spirit to seep from his ageing, smelly body. The court had moved to Richmond in the early summer of 1377 as the winds swung south-west, blowing hard and hot from the dry deserts around the Middle Sea. The plague had appeared in London, men and women dropping as the buboes swelled in their armpits and, bellies distended, they spat out their life’s blood. The king was frightened as Death, assassin-like, crept into his court.

Edward braved it well. He tried to paint his sallow face and kept his mouth closed to hide his crumbling, blackened teeth. He dressed in silver and white taffeta trimmed with gold and primped his once golden hair, even though it hung in straggly, sweaty wisps to his bony shoulders. But Death was not appeased. The heat and evil humours from the river wrapped their cloying fingers around his decaying body, and still the king refused to give in. Had he not smashed the armies of France at Crécy and Poitiers? And taken their king captive to ride behind him as he, like a new Caesar, returned to London to glory in his prowess?

Edward sat on cushions in one of his great withdrawing chambers, refusing food and physic. A priest came scuttling round the walls like a small, black spider, a Job’s comforter if there ever was one.

‘Your Grace,’ he insisted, ‘you must go to bed.’

Edward turned like an old fox, his lips, twisted by a stroke, curled in displeasure.

‘Go away, little man,’ he hissed. ‘Death will never take me!’

He stayed where he was, staring at his finger where the coronation ring, once so deeply embedded in his flesh, had recently been sawn off. His marriage to the kingdom was dead. He had held the sceptre for fifty years and now must hand it over to another.