The Merchant of Death

by Paul Doherty

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

A disturbing murder unearths more questions than answers... Kathryn Swinbrooke returns for the third time in The Merchant of Death, Paul Doherty's gripping medieval mystery. Perfect for fans of Ellis Peters and Michael Jecks. It is nearly Christmas, and snowstorms have blanketed the city of 15th-century Canterbury. Physician Kathryn Swinbrooke and her cook Thomasina are busily preparing for the holiday, when terrible news arrives: The painter Richard Blunt has confessed to killing his young wife, along with two men who were dallying with her. Kathryn is disturbed by Blunt's serene demeanour, but before she can articulate her suspicions, another death captures her attention. A tax collector, Sir Reginald Erpingham, has been found dead in his room at the Wicker Man tavern, and the King's monies have been stolen. Kathryn quickly determines that the collector was murdered, perhaps by poison, and begins questioning the guests at the tavern. Meanwhile, there are patients to be cared for, a practice to build, and a household to maintain - but Kathryn must put aside these pleasant duties if she is to find the link between Richard Blunt and the strange events at the Wicker Man tavern. What readers are saying about The Merchant of Death : ' Exciting from start to finish with so many twists and turns ' ' A great romp through medieval England' 'A real page turner '

Release date: June 6, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 192

Sample

The snow came unexpectedly: thick grey clouds massed over England’s east coast, heavy and lowering, as if God himself had turned his hand against the earth. On the octave of the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, the snow began to bury the fields and trackways of Kent under thick carpets that hardened into ice. A cold northeasterly wind sprang up and whipped the snow into a fierce blizzard, cutting off hamlets, villages, outlying farms, even placing the King’s great city of Canterbury under siege. So heavy did the snow lie upon the turrets, towers and roofs of the cathedral, which housed the bones of the blissful martyr Thomas, that even the great bells could not be rung, lest the iron clappers send the snow hurtling onto the unwary below. Life in Canterbury was reduced to staying indoors and huddling round fires. No trader opened his booth. No tinker, whore or city beadle roamed the streets. Everyone shivered and prayed that the snow would lift by Yuletide and the celebration of Christ’s birth.

The monastic chroniclers of Christchurch blew on ice-cold fingers and quietly cursed the blue-green ink freezing in the inkstands. How could they describe these times? The insane and those who saw visions claimed the blizzard was a punishment sent by God because the world stank with the brimstone of hell and the odour of the devil’s dung. The scribes liked such phrases and entered their thoughts in the margins of the priory chronicle: how the evil ones now lit black wax candles and, in dark, dank places, seized maidens and imprisoned them in close narrow cells lit by the tallow fat from hanged corpses. If the truth be known, these monkish chroniclers loved to frighten both themselves and their readers, so they imagined another world, a topsy-turvy place in which hares chased dogs and amber-eyed, velvet-skinned panthers fled before deer. Animals with human hands on their backs prowled there as did red-striped dragons, bizarre creatures with serpentine necks twisted into a thousand unbreakable knots. Monkeys with the faces of nuns cavorted in the trees, their furry heads adorned with the horns of stags whilst armless men hunted fish with wings or scaly monsters with lizard snouts. The monkish chroniclers drew these nightmarish drawings to keep themselves amused whilst they stared out of the windows and wondered what this great, cold winter would bring.

At a crossroads miles beyond Canterbury, the Irishman Colum Murtagh, King’s Commissioner in Canterbury and Keeper of the King’s stables at Kingsmead, was in a nightmare of his own. He wrapped the freezing reins around his hands and stared bleakly across the frozen fields. The dray horses that pulled the cart on which he was sitting snorted in pain from the cold, which froze their hogged manes and clogged their eyes and muzzles. Colum looked despairingly over his shoulder at the provisions stacked in the cart, then turned to the wiry, usually smiling-faced ostler, Henry Frenland, who had accompanied him to the mills at Chilham.

‘We should never have left,’ Colum murmured. He pointed a finger at the horses. ‘They can take little more.’

Colum pulled the cowled hood closer round his head. His ears were freezing and the tip of his nose felt as if some invisible imp had grasped it with ice-cold pincers. Henry Frenland looked mournfully back.

‘For God’s sake, man!’ Colum cursed. ‘What is the matter? You have been as miserable as sin since we left Chilham.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘I know. We are in the wilds of Kent; a blizzard is blowing, we are cut off and lost. Now, what shall we do? Go back or seek refuge at some farm?’ He shook his companion. ‘Henry!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are your wits fey? I should have left you at Kingsmead and brought Holbech.’

‘All things have their beginning,’ Frenland said sonorously as if totally oblivious to the driving snow, freezing cold or Murtagh’s questions.

Colum steadied the horses.

‘Henry, what is the matter?’

Frenland blinked and stared at Colum.

‘I am sorry, Master Murtagh,’ he stammered. ‘I am truly sorry.’

Colum Murtagh narrowed his eyes. ‘How long have you been with me, Frenland?’

‘Six months, Master.’

Colum nodded; he stared grimly at the snow-covered scaffold, its gibbet-irons empty, which stood next to the signpost at the crossroads.

‘That’s right,’ he murmured. ‘Six months.’

Frenland had been a good servitor, a man gentle with horses, hard-working, industrious, posing no trouble to anyone. No one knew where he came from. However, in the winter months of 1471, with the King’s army disbanded after the war against Lancaster, the country lanes were full of former soldiers and landless men seeking work.

‘You volunteered to come with me?’ Colum asked. ‘You are not frightened of the snow?’

Frenland shook his head. ‘No, Master, I am not.’

‘Well, I am,’ Colum replied. ‘I don’t know where on God’s earth we are; I’m freezing cold and the horses won’t take much more of this.’

As if to echo his fears the grey-white stillness was broken by a long-drawn-out howl.

‘A wolf,’ Frenland ventured.

Colum gripped the reins to hide his own fears.

‘That’s no bloody wolf!’ he hissed. ‘They are wild dogs, Henry.’

More howls shattered the silence.

‘They are hunting in packs,’ Colum said. ‘Mastiffs, more powerful than a wolf, strong as a bear. Animals who used to follow the armies, strays from farms pillaged during the civil war. They have now formed into packs, more dangerous than wolves. Come on!’ Colum clicked his tongue at the horses. ‘Cheer up, Henry. Have I ever told you the story about the fat abbot, the young maid, a pair of rosy-red lips and lily-white hands?’ He started as Frenland gripped the reins.

‘Master, I am sorry.’

‘What, in God’s name . . .!’

Frenland jumped down from the cart and spread his hands. ‘Master Murtagh, I am so sorry.’

‘For God’s sake, stop saying that!’ Colum roared. ‘What are you sorry about?’

Frenland began to back away. Colum just gaped in astonishment as the groom turned and began to run, stumbling and slipping on the snow back along the trackway.

‘Henry!’ he shouted. ‘Come back! For the love of God, man, you’ll die!’

Colum cursed as Frenland disappeared, hidden by the driving snow whilst, to his right, Colum heard the baying of the dogs.

‘I can’t go after him,’ Colum muttered. ‘I’ve got to find shelter.’ And, shaking the reins, he urged the great dray horses forward.

The snow was falling thicker. Colum, freezing, stared up at the sky; before him the cobbled track was quickly disappearing under the falling snow and the onset of evening whilst the howls of the dogs drew closer and closer.



In her house on Ottemelle Lane, Kathryn Swinbrooke, city physician, was also concerned about the snow, which had fallen all night and was now beginning to slide down the red-tiled roof of her house.

‘Thomasina,’ she called, going to the kitchen door. ‘Thomasina, be careful!’

‘Don’t worry,’ her old nurse replied from the garden. ‘It will take more than a fall of snow to frighten me.’

Kathryn heard a crash as more snow collapsed, followed by a juicy curse from Thomasina.

‘Don’t tempt God, Thomasina!’ Kathryn warned and stared out at the wild, white wilderness of what was once her garden: now all the herb banks and flowerbeds, even the stew pond, were blanketed by icy snow. The little benches were almost hidden whilst the two flowered arbours had been turned into white-coated tabernacles.

‘Thomasina, what are you doing?’ Kathryn’s voice rose, alarmed as a great pile of snow fell off the eaves.

‘The water butt’s frozen solid,’ Thomasina shouted back.

Kathryn closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Thomasina was taking out her pent-up fury, hammering the ice until it broke and sloshed in the huge, iron-hooped water cask. Kathryn walked back into the kitchen. The floor rushes were turning black and soggy so she hitched up her woollen gown and began to help her maid Agnes collect them, then carry them out into the garden.

‘Why don’t I just throw them into the street?’ Agnes’s bright eyes stared at Kathryn. ‘Everyone else does.’

Kathryn finished tying a bundle of rushes together. She shook her head. ‘No, Agnes, the streets are clogged and the rushes make good compost for the garden. The snow will soak and rot them.’ She smiled. ‘And in the spring the flowers and herbs will be that little bit sweeter and stronger.’

Thomasina strode into the kitchen, her fat, friendly face red and sweaty after her exertions.

‘Bloody snow!’ she muttered. ‘Bloody water!’ She looked at the rushes being piled high. ‘And where’s that bloody Irishman? He should be here helping us clean the house. He lives here, doesn’t he?’

Kathryn picked up the bundle of rushes and grinned. ‘Colum Murtagh is our guest and our friend, Thomasina,’ she replied. ‘And don’t pretend you’re angry. You are as worried as I am.’

Thomasina crouched down and began to help Agnes with another pile of rushes.

‘He’s a fool,’ Thomasina groused. ‘He should have been back in Kingsmead yesterday. The snow is still falling.’ She looked up, her face now worried. ‘You’ve heard the rumours from Rawnose about the packs of wild dogs roaming the Weald of Kent?’

‘Those idle buggers, the King’s verderers!’ Thomasina said.

‘Don’t swear, Thomasina,’ Agnes cried reprovingly, echoing her mistress’s usual stricture at Thomasina’s profanity.

‘Those idle buggers, the King’s verderers,’ Thomasina repeated meaningfully, ‘should have done their job properly in the autumn and hunted the poor things down. Now they roam as wild as wolves whilst Master Murtagh is out there all by himself.’

‘No, Henry Frenland’s with him,’ Kathryn intervened, reassuring herself as well as everybody else.

Thomasina stood up and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I have been married three times,’ she declared, beginning her famous and well-worn speech. ‘And I have yet to meet a man with true courage. Master Murtagh’s retainers out at Kingsmead are, like the King’s verderers, idle buggers!’

Thomasina could have bitten out her tongue. Kathryn’s usual serene look had disappeared. The old nurse studied her mistress carefully. Kathryn looked untidy with no wimple or veil to cover her black hair, which was now pulled tightly back behind her head; dark circles ringed her eyes and her usual creamy complexion was pallid and sallow.

‘I am sorry,’ Thomasina said. ‘But yes, Mistress, I am worried for Colum. Why did he go out there?’

Kathryn picked up the sheaves of rushes and took them out to the garden. When she returned, Thomasina whispered to Agnes to continue with the task and went and took her mistress’s hand. She stared into Kathryn’s grey-green eyes, noting the furrows on her brow and round her mouth.

‘When you were small,’ Thomasina whispered, ‘I told you never to frown. Beautiful people always smile.’

Kathryn forced a grin. ‘I am worried, Thomasina. Colum had to go. The provender at the stables had run dangerously low whilst the merchants of Canterbury are charging too high a price.’

‘Another band of thieving buggers!’ Thomasina grumbled. She squeezed Kathryn’s hand. ‘But you know the Irishman! He’s been in greater danger and thrives on it.’ She smiled. ‘Most ragged-arsed Irishmen do! He’ll be back here before noon cursing and swearing, singing some song or, worse, quoting Chaucer to show he isn’t a bog Irishman. Now come on, this place is freezing.’

Under Thomasina’s coaxing, Kathryn threw herself into a frenzy of activity. The rushes were collected, bound and placed outside, the floor was swept and scrubbed. A blazing fire soon roared in the hearth; the charcoal braziers, standing in every corner, winked and crackled whilst Thomasina placed burning coals in chafing dishes round the house, carefully capped to prevent fire. Soon the kitchen, the small solarium beyond and Kathryn’s writing chancery glowed with warmth, sweet-smelling as summer as Kathryn placed small bags of herbs on hooks above the fire. Little Wuf, the blond-haired foundling whom Kathryn had taken into her home, came roaring downstairs pretending to be a knight; he screamed at Agnes that she be the princess and Thomasina the dragon. He was soon sent packing back to his own room. Agnes began to bake oatmeal cakes and a hot stew so they could break their fast, as Thomasina declared, in a truly Christian way.

Once they had eaten, Kathryn went up to her own chamber to change. She closed the bedroom door behind her and flopped down on the great four-poster bed, pulling the woollen coverlet around her. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked across at the hour candle. She wasn’t too sure of the time: the candle had gone out and the grey lowering skies seemed to have shortened the time between night and day whilst the heavy snowfalls had silenced the bells of the cathedral and city churches which marked the hours of the day. Was it noon, she wondered?

‘Oh, Irishman,’ she whispered. ‘Where are you?’

She lay back on her pillow, closed her eyes and thought of the vast wildness of Kent: its great open fields and winding trackways. For a short while she dozed, tossing and turning, plagued by a wild nightmare of Colum freezing to death in his cart or being attacked and savaged by some rabid, red-eyed hound. She woke an hour later. From the kitchen she could hear the chatter of Agnes and Thomasina. She threw back the coverlet and went to the door, half opened it and listened. Still no sign or sound of Colum. She slipped along the gallery and opened the door to his chamber. Inside it was dark and cold with the window shuttered. Kathryn took a candle, lit it from a brazier and put it back on its iron spigot. She stared round the room. ‘A soldier’s chamber’ she always called it and, despite her offers, that’s the way Colum wanted it kept: woollen rugs on the floor, a simple cot bed and an iron-bound coffer, which Colum always kept locked, the keys slung round his neck. On the wall, next to leather saddlebags, hung Colum’s great war belt. Kathryn glimpsed this and her stomach lurched.

‘You should have taken that,’ she whispered.

But then she remembered the crossbow Colum carried and tried to calm her anxieties. She walked across the room which smelt of horse and leather and stared down at the table beside Colum’s bed. She picked up the battered wooden statue of the Virgin and Child. Despite its age, the wear and tear of the years, the Virgin’s smile was still serene as she stared down at the babe in her arms. Feeling slightly guilty, Kathryn put this back and stared at the colourful Celtic cross hanging from a nail above the bed.

‘They are the only things my mother gave me,’ Colum had once told her, ‘Because they were the only things she had. They have been with me everywhere, Kathryn; in camp or in my chamber when I was the King’s marshal.’

Kathryn leaned across, touched the crucifix and closed her eyes.

‘Come back safe,’ she prayed. ‘You stupid Irishman, just come back!’

She walked to the foot of the bed and crouched down beside the coffer. What did Colum keep in there? Kathryn wondered, then smiled as she remembered one of Thomasina’s many proverbs: ‘Curiosity killed the cat!’

‘Aye,’ Kathryn murmured. ‘And satisfaction made it fat!’

She went back to blow the candle out and glimpsed the roll of parchment next to the leather-covered book on the shelf at the side of the door. Kathryn took the roll of vellum down, undid the red cord and read the cramped writing: Colum’s collection of stories of ancient Eire, about Cuculhain, Maeve and the fairy land of Tirnaog. She put it back next to the copy of Chaucer’s works which she had bought for Colum as a Midsummer present. Kathryn blew the candle out.

‘You’re becoming maudlin, Swinbrooke,’ she mocked herself. ‘The Irishman will come back. He’ll start teasing and I’ll wish he was away again.’

Kathryn returned briskly to her own chamber where she washed and changed. She heard a rap on the door and quickly slipped on a pair of soft buskins, wondering who would brave the elements to call so early. She quietly prayed it was not some emergency. Then a man’s voice rang out.

‘Colum!’ She hurried out of the room to the top of the stairs only to recognise the mellow tones of Simon Luberon, the pompous but kindly clerk of the city council. She hastily ran down the stairs. Luberon was sitting in front of the fire, his cowl and hood thrown back, his fat fingers stretched out to the flames. He rose as Kathryn entered, his merry, fat face alive with pleasure. Luberon would never admit it, but he had a secret liking, even passion, for this serene, dark-haired physician.

‘Kathryn.’ He held his hands out, then self-consciously slipped them up the voluminous sleeves of his cloak. ‘I had better not touch you,’ he laughed, coming forward. ‘My hands are freezing.’

Kathryn grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him lightly on each ice-covered cheek.

‘Simon, don’t you have any gloves?’

The little clerk shifted from one foot to another.

‘. . .