Death's Dark Valley

by Paul Doherty

Genres: Historical Fiction; Medieval; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

1311. Murder and mayhem prowl the highways and coffin paths of Medieval England....

Hugh Corbett returns in the 20th gripping mystery in Paul Doherty's ever-popular series. If you love the historical mysteries of C. J. Sansom, E. M. Powell and Bernard Cornwell you will love this.

It is four years since the death of King Edward I, but his reign of terror has cast long shadows over the kingdom. At Holyrood Abbey, sheltered in the depths of the Welsh march, the old king's former bodyguards protect his secret relics and watch over a mysterious prisoner who is kept in the abbey's dungeon.

But their peaceful existence is shattered when Abbot Henry is poisoned.

Summoned to Holyrood, Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, finds the fortress in chaos. Brothers Anselm and Richard have been brutally slain by nails driven deep into their skulls.

No one knows who could be behind the gruesome killings and the news attracts the attention of two unwanted guests: the sinister Marcher Lord Mortimer and King Philip of France's devious envoy De Craon.

As more mysterious deaths occur, and a violent snow storm sweeps through the valley, Corbett must act quickly to identify the malevolent demon who has risen from hell to turn the abbey into a house of murder....

Release date: July 11, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 238

Sample

The cliffs of Caerwent, the Welsh March, autumn 1300

The attack on the caves, deep, dark, gaping holes that peppered the steep rocky face of the cliffs of Caerwent, was ferocious and bloody. Edward, king of England, had swept into the Valley of Shadows along the Welsh March with fire and sword. He was fighting for himself, his heir and the future of his kingdom. He had personally decided to lead this chevauchée and had summoned up his war host, including his comitatus, his personal bodyguard, the Knights of the Swan. All these warriors were bachelors, single men who had renounced the love of a woman, or so they claimed, in order to support body and soul, day and night, in peace and in war their beloved master the king as long as he lived and after his death.

The war band had poured into the valley to destroy the rebels and their adherents, the minions of the Black Chesters, a coven of witches, warlocks and magicians dedicated to their own dark god of anarchy. This army of wolfsheads and traitors had retreated along the valley floor to the soaring face of Caerwent. The caves there stretched deep, whilst the narrow, twisting goat paths that wound up to them could easily be defended by bowmen and slingers. The rebels had barricaded the mouth of each cavern, creating a collection of small fortresses, making it almost impossible to attack. If the besiegers loosed fire arrows, even scorching bundles hurled by catapults, the defenders simply withdrew deeper into the caves to wait until the fire storm passed. If the king’s men-at-arms, hobelars and archers attempted to climb the pathways, they made themselves vulnerable, easy targets for enemy bowmen.

Autumn had come to the valley, and already its greenery was fading in a shock of gold and red, whilst the clouded skies and the threat of snow made the situation of the besiegers even more precarious. Edward was determined to change all this. He and his comitatus, led by its principal knight, Henry Maltravers, swiftly surveyed the situation, then dispatched hunters into the deep forests either side of the valley. They brought back a local man, who openly declared that he was not with the rebels and that he knew of a secret path deep in the trees on the right flank. Edward listened carefully as the man described how this pathway, broad enough for horses and war carts, led to the top of the cliffs.

Marching quietly, boots, hooves and wheels cleverly clogged, the war band reached the summit. There, Edward launched his attack. His engineers, led by Maltravers, constructed makeshift yet sturdy pulleys, winches, hoists and cranes, using the wheels of the war carts. The carts themselves were protected by rows of sharpened poles, pierced along one side: these had lancets for archers and spearmen as well as a narrow door for men-at-arms to pass through, making them formidable fighting platforms. The carts were crammed with archers and hobelars, the latter armed with long, hooked halberds; each cart was then lowered down the face of the cliff to seal off the cave mouths one by one.

Matilda Beaumont, a woman of the valley, who had stayed clear of the rebels and their retreat to the caves, watched the attack from the shelter of a densely clustered copse. She knew that she had some part to play in the bloody tragedy taking place. Nevertheless, standing amongst the trees in a dark green robe and hood that aided her concealment, she accepted that there was nothing she could do but pray that her beloved Edmund Fitzroy, as he called himself, would escape unscathed from the unfolding horror. She watched, heart in mouth, as the attack grew more ferocious and bloody. All the terrors of hell seemed to have engulfed the cliffs of Caerwent. The rows of war carts closed up against the caves. Arrows and fire shafts were loosed. A sheer blizzard swept through the mouth of each cavern to scorch, wound and kill those sheltering within. Smoke and flame erupted. Spear, arrow and slingshot shattered flesh and smashed bone. Sharp steel gashed and grated, the blood gushing out like rainfall. Matilda could also see the hobelars, their halberds piercing individual rebels as fishermen would lance a pike. They would then drag their victims to the mouth of the cave, and send them hurtling down to the rocks below.

The attack had started just before first light. By noon, it was clear that the battle was over. The remaining cave dwellers surrendered and were forced to descend the steep goat paths. The wounded, the old and the young found this difficult. Matilda watched further bodies fall and bounce against the side of the cliff before being shattered on the jagged stones below. The surviving prisoners, men, women and children, were herded like cattle at the foot of the cliff and made to face a long table. Behind this, in a throne-like chair, sat Edward of England. The king, grey-faced, grey-bearded and resplendent in his half-armour, was intent on delivering judgement. On either side of him ranged the Knights of the Swan in their distinctive royal colours as well as their own personal insignia, a pure white swan with wings extended.

Yet this was no place of beauty. Matilda, who had crept forward as close as she could, felt she had passed through the gates of hell into some chilling nightmare. The stretch of land beneath the cliffs was transformed into a rough, murky prison, full of fear and filth. A court had been set up and the old king was determined on punishment. All able-bodied male prisoners were condemned in rapid succession. Once sentence was passed, they were forced to stand on barrels and carts, anything that could be used. Nooses were fastened around their necks, the other end of the rope looped over the branches of the trees that bordered the rocky escarpment. The footrests of these makeshift gallows were then callously kicked away so the victims dangled and kicked as they slowly choked to death.

Eventually there was a respite in the slaughter. Peering closer, Matilda watched the Knights of the Swan moving amongst the herd of prisoners clustered before the king. Certain individuals, young boys and girls, were picked out and led from the execution ground. Two of the prisoners tried to resist; both women were stabbed and hacked. Their heart-chilling screams proved too much for Matilda; she had seen enough! She turned and fled blindly from that demon-haunted place.

Burgh by Sands, the Scottish border, July 1307

The sky itself was full of foreboding. Black clouds – war clouds, as the chroniclers described them – had swept in over the storm-tossed Irish Sea. The winds were sharp and cruel, despite the fact that it was high summer. Burgh by Sands dominated the highways north to Scotland and south to the crashing, thrashing sea. During the day, unusual sights were noted: the disappearance of the sun and a murky blood-red moon rising at night. Heaven, or hell, depending on your perspective, was proclaiming its message. Edward, the first of that name since the Conquest, was dying.

God’s own warrior realised that the summons had been served to present his soul to divine justice. Lying on his cot bed in the silken pavilion set up in the centre of his camp, Edward threaded Ave beads through his stubby, chapped fingers while he half listened to the patter of the priests and their verbal appeals to the Almighty to spare this great prince. If He chose not to, then He should at least cleanse the king’s soul before he passed to judgement.

Edward, his iron-grey hair matted with sweat, leant back against the bolsters, his craggy, lined face set in a mask of indifference, as befitted a warrior when confronting the final enemy. Nevertheless, his fertile brain and impetuous heart concentrated on matters spiritual as much as they did on the temporal. He knew he was dying. But what then? Who would be waiting for him? A host of demons, savage creatures, dreadful apparitions? Would hell disgorge its hideous hordes to plague his soul as the preachers would have him believe? Or would the ghosts of all those slain, with eyes sewn up and mouths filled with blood, crowd around?

De Montfort, Edward’s mortal enemy, had been killed at Evesham by a lance thrust through his throat. The king’s chosen paladins, the Knights of the Swan, had crowded around the lifeless corpse and hacked off his hands and feet; his genitals were sliced off and stuffed into the gaping mouth of his severed head, while the rest of his butchered flesh was fed to the camp dogs. Would de Montfort come to remonstrate with the king? Would he be accompanied by Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn’s brother, executed in Shrewsbury for raising a revolt in Wales and other horrid crimes? Because of his treason, Dafydd had been dragged through the city by a horse’s tail to the scaffold. Once there, he was hanged alive for his killings. Next, as the royal herald proclaimed, for having committed his crimes during Holy Week, he was disembowelled, his entrails burnt before his eyes. Lastly, for having sought the king of England’s death, his body was quartered and the bloody parts dispatched for public view to the four corners of the kingdom, his severed head being displayed in London on a spike next to that of his brother. Perhaps the ghosts of the Welsh princes would be joined by others, such as William Wallace, torn apart by the executioners in Smithfield. Oh yes, the dead might gather in their thousands!

Edward opened his heavy-lidded eyes and stared round at his personal bodyguard, kneeling on the coarse matting rolled out across the floor as a covering in the great royal pavilion. The Knights of the Swan were garbed in their usual gold-lined black jerkins and hooded cloaks, their personal escutcheon a long-necked white swan, its extended wings emblazoned with diamonds for all to see. Edward studied the faces of these men, knights of the body, comrades in arms. He wondered if the rumours were true. Did they truly serve him as celibate bachelors, or was it just that they were not attracted to ladies of the court, or indeed any women? Not for them the tales of chivalry, of Lancelot fighting for his Guinevere. Did these men have a love for each other more intense than any husband for his wife? Were they like David and Jonathan, those two warriors of ancient Israel, committed to each other in life and in death? Only God knew the truth. Yet they had sworn that if their king died, they would withdraw from public life and dedicate themselves only to the service of God and the memory of their old master. They would assume the rule of St Benedict and live the life of the black monks, observing vows of chastity and obedience.

‘Faithful servants,’ Edward whispered through dry, cracked lips, ‘keep troth in death as you have in life.’

‘Sire.’ The knights’ leader, Henry Maltravers, spoke up. ‘Sire,’ he repeated, ‘do not trouble yourself. We are here, as we always have been and always shall be.’

Edward nodded and sighed as he stared around the pavilion. Twenty of his most faithful comitatus were there. Once there had been thirty, but death had culled their ranks in so many ways. Reginald Berkley, trapped in a Scottish marsh, pierced to death by the lances of Robert Bruce’s horsemen. Walter Dakin, a master bowman, caught in a snowdrift in Wales and savaged by starving war dogs. Edward blinked. Wales! He really must have words with Maltravers.

He closed his eyes, his mind drifting down the galleries and passageways of the past. The doors were being opened. Memories burst through, his enemies and friends, long dead, making their presence felt. He hoped and prayed that his beloved Eleanor would be waiting for him. Surely she would forgive his great sins? His greatest love! She who was so lovely in face and form. Edward crossed himself. He had confessed his sin, his pride of the flesh, his passion to rule, to dominate. He just hoped Eleanor would understand.

He recalled that fateful day at Acre. He and his wife had joined the great crusade against Sultan Babyar. They had been sheltering deep in the fortress of Acre when Babyar’s emissary, who had been with them for days, asked to see Edward on a most private and confidential matter. Edward foolishly agreed, believing the interpreter accompanying him would be defence enough against any treachery. How wrong he had been. The emissary had drawn his curved dagger and lunged, killing the man with one swift slash to the throat. He had then turned on Edward, who managed to defend himself with a stool until he found his sword. He had killed his assailant, but not before the assassin had scored a deep wound in the king’s arm. Physicians were summoned to inspect both knife and wound, and immediately declared that the assassin’s blade had been thickly coated with a deadly poison, which must now be in the wound. Eleanor had hurried in. Learning what had happened, she had immediately sucked the poison from her husband’s wound, to the consternation of all. Eleanor his saviour, his dream queen!

Edward opened his eyes and pointed at Maltravers. ‘You still hold the dagger, the one I took from the assassin so many years ago?’

‘Of course, sire!’

‘Good. When you move to Holyrood, that must go with you in its casket. Eleanor would want that, she would insist. You must take it. You must keep it in a sacred place and in no other casket but where it is now.’

‘Sire,’ Maltravers replied, ‘do not trouble yourself. It will be done. But such matters must wait. Think of Scotland, think of Bruce.’

The king roused himself, pulling himself further up against the bolsters ‘You will keep your oath,’ he rasped. ‘You will continue the general advance against the Scottish traitors, even though my feckless son will not.’

‘We swear,’ Maltravers replied in a carrying voice, the other knights loudly affirming their leader’s oath. ‘We will fight the Bruce and oppose his power. We shall wage war sharp and cruel against him and his kind. If we do not, we shall withdraw from the court and this world. Sire, if you do not lead us, what else is there?’

‘As I have said before,’ Edward replied, ‘take Holyrood, close to Clun, a day’s march from Tewkesbury, deep in the Welsh March. It stands near the entrance to the Valley of Shadows, that place of great mystery.’

‘Of course, we know it well,’ Maltravers replied. ‘How can we forget the battle along the cliffs of Caerwent, ferocious and forbidding? My only consolation is that I was able to rescue my beloved squire Devizes. I—’

‘Make Holyrood a nest for the Knights of the Swan,’ Edward interrupted. ‘Create and develop an abbey dedicated to my memory and that of my beloved Eleanor. Pray for the Crown of England.’ He paused, gasping for breath, wincing at the pain and tightness around his chest, like a ribbon of steel cutting off his breath.

‘And Scotland, sire? You must order a general advance. Lord Pembroke is ready to unfurl your standard, display the royal banners to the Scottish rebels.’

The dying king seemed unaware of Maltravers’ question; he was now lost in his own wandering thoughts. ‘The casket.’ he murmured. ‘The casket that holds the dagger my beloved Eleanor saved me from?’

‘Sire, it is safe. You know it is.’

‘And the prisoner; that young man, God bless him?’

‘Masked and hidden away in special chambers at Caernarvon.’

‘If I die – when I die – he must be moved to more secure quarters.’

‘Of course, sire.’

‘And you and others of the Knights of the Swan are sworn to this?’

‘Sire, we have taken the most solemn oath, but more pressing matters await. Does my Lord Pembroke order a general advance?’

‘In a while, in a while.’

Edward stared around the pavilion. He trusted most of these men, yet he suspected some were weak, more accustomed to the luxuries of their silk-clad courts than the iron discipline of battle. He just prayed that Hugh Corbett would reach him in time. Corbett, his most trusted clerk. The one soul apart from Eleanor whom Edward knew lived in the truth and would never concede to the darkness. He wished Corbett was here, but his beloved clerk had withdrawn because of Edward’s lies and lack of trust, and that too was a sin the old king had confessed time and again. Eventually Edward had relented and sent the most carefully worded invitation to Corbett at his manor at Leighton, close to the great forest of Epping. Corbett had courteously replied that he would come, yet would he reach Burgh by Sands in time? If he did, Edward would discuss matters, confide what he knew, his doubts about some of these knights, but until then . . .

He beat his hands against the blankets. ‘And where’s my son?’

Silence answered his question. The old king felt a surge of rage against his feckless firstborn, more interested in his handsome lover Gaveston than anything else.

‘Listen,’ Edward drew himself up, ‘my son is not here, yet we march against the Scottish rebels. Henry Maltravers, you are a knight banneret, but you are also a master of wrought metal. In London you were, like your father, a member of the guild until you flocked to my standard against de Montfort. I knighted you, I gave you great honours.’

‘Hurling days, sire.’

‘Yes, they were,’ Edward breathed. ‘Now, Henry, I want you to fashion a great cauldron. Once I am dead and my soul gone to judgement, boil the flesh from my bones, put it in a casket and bury it beneath a slab of Purbeck marble at Westminster, next to my beloved Eleanor. My bones you must put in a chest, and whenever you march against the Scots, take it with you. Let those rebels know that in death, as in life, I am utterly opposed to them.’ He stopped, gasping for breath. ‘As for my son . . .’

The king felt a spasm of pain deep in his chest. He tried to breathe but could not, and fell back dead into the arms of Maltravers.

Holyrood Abbey, the Welsh March, November 1311

Brother Richard, former Knight of the Swan, a member of the old king’s comitatus of knight bannerets, braced himself against the crenellations of Raven Tower, one of the four that formed the soaring Eagle Donjon, the great forbidding keep at the centre of Holyrood Abbey, deep in the vastness of the Welsh March, at least a long day’s journey from the market town of Tewkesbury.

Brother Richard loved to come up here and survey this abbey fortress. The donjon lay at the centre of impressive fortifications, protected by an inner wall with a fighting ledge for defenders, its only entrance being through a heavily fortified gateway. Beyond the inner bailey stretched the new abbey, a spacious square of elegant buildings surrounding the principal church and cloisters. The latter was two storeys high and housed the various offices – chancery, exchequer, library, scriptorium, infirmary, kitchen, buttery – as well as chambers and cells for the community. Stables, hog pens, cattle sheds, kennels and similar outhouses stood some distance from the cloisters, separated by the broad abbey gardens, rich in herb banks and flower plots. In turn this outer bailey was defended by a lofty square curtain wall with crenellations taller than a man and broad fighting ledges. Postern gates were built into the four walls, and the main entrance was truly formidable, protected by iron-shielded gates, portcullis, and murder holes that pierced the ceiling of the cavernous gatehouse. This sombre vaulted chamber housed the machinery to lower the drawbridge across a wide, very deep moat, served by underground springs.

Holyrood was a truly impregnable abbey fortress, and Brother Richard rejoiced in its sheer magnificence. After all, he and his colleague Anselm had been controllers of the King’s Works, royal surveyors and masons who had played a major part in the building and development of this hallowed place. They had also been instrumental in finding the abbey’s strategic location here at the mouth of the deepest valley along the Welsh March.

Brother Richard narrowed his eyes and stared across at the soaring sides of the valley. Both slopes were covered by densely clustered ancient copses and woods, rich in game as well as water, timber and all the other necessities the community might need. He stood and drank in the breathtaking scene. The road towards the valley mouth was broad, but it soon sharply narrowed, almost becoming lost in the undergrowth and trees that grew close and thick, reducing the road to a mere trackway through what seemed to be a veritable sea of dark greenery.

Not everyone liked the valley. Some called it the Valley of Shadows, others the Valley of Tears. A few described it as the Valley of Gehenna, a place of perpetual shadow, a title that evoked the ravine outside Jerusalem where the Final Judgement would take place. Brother Richard did not fully know the reasons for such sombre titles. Nevertheless, as he conceded to Father Abbot, the valley had acquired a sinister reputation. Local lore maintained that a bloody massacre had taken place during the ancient pagan days. That gruesome sacrifices had been staged, human beings being bound on stone altars and offered to the dark lords of the air, the ground beneath soaked by the blood of hundreds of innocent victims. Of course, there was also that truly bloody battle some eleven years ago, in which Brother Richard and others had so fiercely participated. A gruesome conflict that had ended in merciless slaughter. It had taken place at the far end of the valley, along the cliffs of Caerwent.

Brother Richard blinked and crossed himself. It was best to forget a day of such utter terror. Like his companions, he now believed that the very sacredness of this place had expunged all such abominations, making both the valley and its entrance hallowed and holy. The abbey church housed the risen Christ’s body and blood. It also contained valuable relics such as the assassin’s dagger used against Richard’s former royal master and now reserved in a most exquisitely jewelled casket above the high altar. Holyrood was supposed to be a place full of God’s own harmony. Yet hideous crimes had been perpetrated in this sacred sanctuary; what one of the brothers called ‘the abomination of desolation’, as described by the prophet Daniel, who had looked into the visions of the night.

The first victim of such horror had been Father Abbot himself, who now lay grievously sick in his bedchamber in Falcon Tower. He was fully convinced that someone had tried to poison him. At least he had survived, unlike Brother Anselm, a former Knight of the Swan, who had been cruelly murdered in a macabre fashion, a thick, heavy nail driven into his forehead. Who would perpetrate such an outrage? Why and how? The victim had been a veteran swordsman, skilled in dagger play. Nevertheless, he had been found stretched out in his chamber, glassy-eyed, with no sign of a struggle or resistance. Prior Jude had reported this at a chapter meeting and no one could understand it. Brother Crispin, the infirmarian, who had dressed the corpse for burial, had examined the wound most carefully and wondered how any assailant could draw so close to carry out such a hideous crime. Surely Anselm would have fought back, raised the hue and cry?

Brother Richard had mourned deeply for his former comrade, who had played such a vital role in the construction and development of Holyrood. The two of them had been the architects and knew all the great secrets this abbey housed, both above and below ground. Secrets shared with no one else. They had revelled in what they had achieved and what they knew.

During the last few years, Holyrood had been a place to enjoy the comforts of this life whilst looking forward to those of the next. Now the mood of the abb. . .