What do you do when everyone is a suspect? Paul Doherty writes a medieval mystery shrouded in secrets in The Book of Shadows, the fourth novel to feature physician and sleuth Kathryn Swinbrooke. Perfect for fans of Susanna Gregory and Michael Jecks. The year is 1471. Shortly after the murderous takeover of the throne by Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, blackmailers thrive by challenging detractors of the new king. The ugliest threat to the people of Canterbury is the magus Tenebrae, who controls the Book of Shadows - a grimoire of spells and magic containing secrets about the dead and the living. When Tenebrae is murdered, physician and apothecary Kathryn Swinbrooke is summoned to solve the crime, or else risk the transfer of her love, Colum Murtagh, far away to London. However, the secrets stretch all the way to the King and Queen themselves, and everyone is a suspect - especially Tenebrae's last visitors, a nervous group of goldsmiths from London. Tenebrae is dead but the Book of Shadows still exerts his power, and its new owners will die for it. As the suspects fall victim, one by one, to violent deaths, Swinbrooke most solve the mystery before the Book of Shadows closes on them all. What readers are saying about The Book of Shadows : 'The sense of menace, depth of characterization and interesting cast of characters make this book, and the series, a brilliant read' ' Twists and turns throughout [with] interesting, colourful characters ' ' Excellent story, couldn't put it down. Kept me guessing right to the end'
Release date:
June 6, 2013
Publisher:
Headline
Print pages:
157
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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
Tenebrae, the great magus or warlock, sat in his velveteen-draped chamber in his house on Black Griffin Lane. Although within
walking distance of many churches and the Priory of the Friars of the Sack, Tenebrae was not interested in the religion practised
by the good citizens and burgesses of Canterbury. Not for him the Mass, the body and blood of Christ elevated by the priest
before the crucifix. Nor would Tenebrae join those devout pilgrims who, now spring had come, flooded into Canterbury. They
would make their way to the great cathedral to mount the steps on their knees to the Lady Chapel and pray before the blissful
bones of Saint Thomas à Becket.
Tenebrae believed in other, darker gods. His world was filled with goblins and sprites, for he had carefully studied the secret
lore of the ancients. Tenebrae lifted the mask from his smooth, shaven face and peered around. All was dark. He preferred
it that way. Ever since he was a child, skulking in the alleys of Cheapside in London, Tenebrae preferred the shadows, hence
his name. He did not want to feel the sun nor did he want others to look on his face with its cloven lip and balding dome,
or those eyes, which frightened children and chilled the heart of those who caught his gaze. Light blue they were, like slivers of ice, ill-matching
in the soft, creamy folds of his hairless face. Tenebrae shifted his dark cloak on which pentancles and other signs of the
zodiac were sewn. He heard a sound and his head rolled round, scrutinising the long chamber carefully. Everything was in order.
The two doors, the entrance and the exit, which only could be opened from the inside, were firmly closed and locked. In the
light of the solitary candle, which was fashioned out of wax and contained the fat of a hanged man, the floorboards, painted
a glossy black, gleamed and shimmered. The velvet drapes on the wall hung solid. Tenebrae stared up at the ceiling and studied
carefully the picture of the goat of Mendes, red and garish, with terrible horns and the gleaming eyes of a panther.
Tenebrae pronounced himself satisfied but he remained seated, cross-legged in the middle of the magic circle he had drawn.
He opened the Book of Shadows, the grimoire of Honorius, that great magician of Roman times. The book was bound in human skin,
ornamented with red gemstones and demonic seals and, when shut fast, held secure by clasps fashioned out of the skull of a
lapwing. Tenebrae studied the yellowing pages and the strange cramped writing. He leaned over and pulled the great candlestick
closer. He smiled, a mere puckering of his strange lips; then the smile died. He paused in his reading as he heard a sound
from the street pilgrims thronging below.
‘Fools,’ he murmured.
He stroked the pages of the grimoire: here was true knowledge!
He spoke to the darkness. ‘Why go and pray in front of a sarcophagus containing mouldy bones or pay good silver to gaze in
awe at the rags of some mouldering monk three hundred years dead?’
Tenebrae recalled his mother, her devout mumblings, her constant visits to churches and faithful obedience to priests. Much
good it did her, Tenebrae reflected. She had died of the plague and her son, left to his own devices, had been drawn into darker circles. He had become a student greedy for the ancient knowledge,
ambitious to become a Lord of the Crossroads, a magus, a warlock. Had he not studied the secret knowledge of the Templars
and gone to Spain to divine the mysteries of the Cabala? And then to Rome and, finally, Paris where, by skill and sheer ruthlessness,
he had become a Great Master of the coven and the proud possessor of the grimoire of Honorius.
Tenebrae touched the broad platter before him: a black cock lay there, its throat severed, a bundle of pathetic feathers as
its life-blood poured out into the gold-encrusted bowl Tenebrae had held beneath its neck. The magus had made his prayers
to the Great Lord. He had fasted for three days to prepare his powers, to ask protection. Tenebrae was no charlatan. He did
not indulge in conjuring tricks. Could he not fill a house with the intangible darkness? Had he not in his own private temple
summoned up, at least in his mind’s eye, all forms of terrible spirits? Great devils in the shapes of horses with men’s faces,
lions’ teeth and hair like writhing serpents, crowned with circlets of gold, armoured with breastplates of cruel barbed iron?
Tenebrae ran his tongue over his blackening teeth. Had not the Archbishop of Toulouse said that around every great magus demons
gathered, a thousand on the right, ten thousand on the left? And had not the same cleric reckoned that over 133 million angels
had fallen with Lucifer from heaven? Tenebrae closed his eyes and began slowly to chant his praises to these secret, dark
lords. He closed the grimoire and, picking it up, stroked it carefully. Tomorrow he would be busy. The pilgrims would flock
to the cathedral but there were others who would come secretly here to have consultations with him. Everything was ready:
the stool where his visitors would sit was placed before the great table and, behind it, his throne-like chair. Tenebrae would
scatter the bones and draw aside the curtains of the future, his visitors would pay good gold for that. Some, the great ones,
would even pay more because Tenebrae was no fool. There were those high in the church who would like him investigated, arrested, put on trial for witchcraft. Tenebrae grinned;
they dare not. The magus had discovered how the powerful have two weaknesses: their ambition for the future and their secrets
from the past. Tenebrae always found the latter most useful. He had a network of friends and acquaintances, tittler-tattlers
at court, hangers-on, gossip collectors from the Great Council. Tenebrae would listen to these carefully, pore over this letter,
study a manuscript, sniff like some good hunting dog until the juicy morsels of scandal were dragged out. The magus would
then salt it away in his prodigious memory until he needed it, either for his own protection or greater profit.
Indeed, Tenebrae’s sacrifice this morning was an act of thanksgiving for the years that had been good to him. The civil wars
between York and Lancaster had led to the revelation of many secrets and scandals. Now that the House of York was in ascendancy,
and golden-haired Edward IV sat on the throne at Westminster, there were many nobles and merchants eager to conceal which
side they had supported in the recent civil war. Alongside these were bishops and priests, eager for enhancement, who had
broken their vows and the sanctity of their lives in order to outdo a rival. There were retainers who had betrayed their masters,
noble wives who had cuckolded their husbands.
Tenebrae had listened, sifting through all this information as a good apothecary would herbs and potions. The magus pursed
his lips in satisfaction. And so who could touch him? Did not even Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s queen, consult him? Had
she not called on Tenebrae’s powers to achieve what she wanted? Offering her white, satin body to the King so she could master
him in bed and thus control the Crown of England. In helping her, Tenebrae had found out a lot more about Elizabeth Woodville
and her husband.
The magus got to his feet, his bulky body swaying as like some priest with his breviary, he clasped the grimoire to his chest.
This was not only a Book of Shadows, but the keeper of secrets. He tapped the gold bowl with his foot and stared down at the rich,
dark red juice congealing there. He would clear the room and, tonight, break his fast on roast swan, carp cooked in spicy
sauces and goblets of wine. Tomorrow he would return here with his visitors, open the Book of Shadows, predict the future,
hint at the past and spin gold for himself.
Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England, rested in the pleasaunce, which her husband the King had specially built for her in
the lee of a small hill, which ran down from the palace of Sheen to the Thames. Elizabeth sat back in the small, flower-covered
arbour; the sun was unexpectedly strong and Elizabeth prided herself on the whiteness of her skin. ‘My Silver Rose!’ her hot-blooded
husband Edward whispered in her ear. ‘My jewel of great price!’ Elizabeth pulled down the white gauze veil in front of her
eyes and carefully stroked the sheer satin of her tawny dress. Behind her, on a garden seat, she could hear her ladies-in-waiting
giggling and whispering around the royal nurse holding baby Edward, her eldest son: Elizabeth’s final clasp over the affections
of her husband. The Queen studied the swans swimming serenely along the Thames like galleys of state. She admired the curve
of their necks, the sheer majesty of these great birds and recalled Edward’s promise that the appointment of a keeper of the
swans was within her power.
Elizabeth smiled and put her head back against the cushioned wall. Indeed, she had all the power in the realm. Edward the
King ruled England and she ruled Edward. Perhaps not in public when Edward sat enthroned but, in the boudoir, between the
sheets of their great four-poster bed, Edward was her slave and Elizabeth was determined to keep things that way. A year had
passed since the end of the civil war and she had come out of sanctuary in Westminster Abbey to receive the adulation of the
crowd and the loving embraces of her husband. Henry VI, the old Lancastrian king, was dead, his skull cloven in two whilst the holy fool prayed in his death chamber in the Tower of London. All the Lancastrians
were dead, except for thin-faced Henry Tudor, but he was a mere shadow against her sun.
Beneath her gauze veil Elizabeth’s face hardened. The present and the future held no terrors for her. But the past? The Queen
chewed on carmine painted lips, her amber-coloured eyes snapping in anger. In matters of war and statecraft, Edward of England
was as magnificent as he was in bed, but in the affairs of the heart, he was indiscreet. Elizabeth had her secrets and so
did the King; the Queen was now determined to discover what these secrets were whilst keeping a firm grip on those matters
she wished to hide.
‘What does Tenebrae know?’ she murmured.
Elizabeth recalled the pasty white face of the great necromancer. Those blue eyes, so light they gave his gaze a milky look
like that of some old, blind but dangerous cat Elizabeth had glimpsed in the Tower menagerie. She stirred restlessly, picked
up the jewel-encrusted goblet of hippocras and sipped carefully.
‘Your Grace!’
Elizabeth lifted her gauze veil and smiled brilliantly at the young man who had appeared so silently in front of her.
‘Good morning, Theobald. I was thinking of cats. You move as silently and dangerously as they do.’
The white-faced, dark-haired young man bowed imperceptibly.
‘I am Your Grace’s most faithful servant.’
‘So you are, Theobald Foliot.’
She studied Foliot’s long, narrow face, the eyes that never seemed to blink, bloodless lips above a square jaw, his hair cropped
close to his head. He was dressed in a velvet jerkin of blue murrey with matching hose. The belt slung round his narrow waist
carried dagger and sword. She watched him beat one leather glove against his hand. When he went to kneel, Elizabeth smiled
and patted the seat beside her.
‘Sit down, Theobald.’
‘Your Grace is most kind.’
‘Your Grace could be even kinder.’ Elizabeth glanced sideways at him. ‘You, Theobald, are my principal clerk.’ She leaned
towards him. ‘Tell me, now, Theobald, when was the last time you went on pilgrimage to Canterbury?’
In his opulent chamber that overlooked Saint Ragadon’s Hospice, Peter Talbot sat on the edge of his canopied bed, listening
to the sounds from the street below. Small, thickset, with balding head and florid face, Talbot had a reputation as a shrewd
and ruthless wool merchant with fingers in more pies than even the parish gossips knew. He had built up a trade which spanned
the Narrow Seas, investing in banking, as well as procuring loans to the new king at Westminster. He should have been riding
high but, on that morning of the Feast of Saint Florian, Peter Talbot was worried. He rubbed his face in his hands and stared
down at the tip of his polished leather boots specially imported from Cordova. The words of the gospel ran through his mind.
‘What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world yet lose his immortal soul?’ Am I losing my soul, Talbot wondered? Why
did he have this feeling of unease, a premonition of danger, of dark terrors lurking in the shadows? He was a leading burgess
of the city; a man personally known to the King. However, since that incident with the witch, Talbot’s life had changed, and
over something so simple! The merchant owned cottages in the parish of Hackington across the River Stour, a useful source
of ready cash. One of his tenants had defaulted and Talbot’s young wife, impetuous as ever and with a quick eye to a profit,
had turned the tenant out and leased the cottage to another.
‘She shouldn’t have done that,’ Talbot muttered to himself. ‘Isabella should have consulted with me!’
The first he knew about it had been the previous Sunday when they had attended Mass in Saint Alphage’s church. Talbot had
been standing in the porch when a grimy-faced old woman, her stick tapping the flagstones, had crawled like a spider into
the church. She’d stopped before him, hand outstretched.
‘Cursed be you!’ she shrieked. ‘Fat lord of the soil though you fly as high as the eagle you shall be brought as low as hell!’
Talbot had just stared in stupefaction, but then his brother Robert had told him that the old woman was Mathilda Sempler,
a self-confessed witch and the former tenant of one of his cottages. Robert had laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry,’ he brayed in his trumpet-like voice. ‘You are not frightened of some silly, old bitch, an evil-smelling crone!’
Isabella, her fair face flushed, eyes hot with anger, lips curled with disdain, had stood behind Robert nodding in agreement.
‘You can’t put her back!’ Isabella had almost spat the words out. ‘She wasn’t paying her rent. The cottage has been leased
to another.’ She’d tossed her head and glared furiously at her husband. ‘Surely you won’t contradict me?’
Talbot had reluctantly agreed. The old crone had slithered away. He had forgotten about the incident until the curse, written
in blood on the skin of an ass, had been found pinned to his front. . .
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