The Devil's Hunt (A Medieval Mystery Featuring Hugh Corbett) Read online

  THE DEVIL'S HUNT

  PAUL DOHERTY

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 1996 P. C. Doherty

  The right of P. C. Doherty to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 5037 7

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

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  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachettelivre.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Letter to the Reader

  About the Author

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Author’s Note

  History has always fascinated me. I see my stories as a time machine. I want to intrigue you with a murderous mystery and a tangled plot, but I also want you to experience what it was like to slip along the shadow-thronged alleyways of medieval London; to enter a soaringly majestic cathedral but then walk out and glimpse the gruesome execution scaffolds rising high on the other side of the square. In my novels you will sit in the oaken stalls of a gothic abbey and hear the glorious psalms of plain chant even as you glimpse white, sinister gargoyle faces peering out at you from deep cowls and hoods. Or there again, you may ride out in a chariot as it thunders across the Redlands of Ancient Egypt or leave the sunlight and golden warmth of the Nile as you enter the marble coldness of a pyramid’s deadly maze. Smells and sounds, sights and spectacles will be conjured up to catch your imagination and so create times and places now long gone. You will march to Jerusalem with the first Crusaders or enter the Colosseum of Rome, where the sand sparkles like gold and the crowds bay for the blood of some gladiator. Of course, if you wish, you can always return to the lush dark greenness of medieval England and take your seat in some tavern along the ancient moon-washed road to Canterbury and listen to some ghostly tale which chills the heart . . . my books will take you there then safely bring you back!

  The periods that have piqued my interest and about which I have written are many and varied. I hope you enjoy the read and would love to hear your thoughts – I always appreciate any feedback from readers. Visit my publisher’s website here: www.headline.co.uk and find out more. You may also visit my website: www.paulcdoherty.com or email me on: [email protected].

  Paul Doherty

  About the Author

  Paul Doherty is one of the most prolific, and lauded, authors of historical mysteries in the world today. His expertise in all areas of history is illustrated in the many series that he writes about, from the Mathilde of Westminster series, set at the court of Edward II, to the Amerotke series, set in Ancient Egypt. Amongst his most memorable creations are Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan and Roger Shallot.

  Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough. He studied history at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate at Oxford for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now headmaster of a school in north-east London and lives with his wife and family near Epping Forest.

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Mathilde of Westminster

  THE CUP OF GHOSTS

  THE POISON MAIDEN

  THE DARKENING GLASS

  Sir Roger Shallot

  THE WHITE ROSE MURDERS

  THE POISONED CHALICE

  THE GRAIL MURDERS

  A BROOD OF VIPERS

  THE GALLOWS MURDERS

  THE RELIC MURDERS

  Templar

  THE TEMPLAR

  THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN

  Mahu (The Akhenaten trilogy)

  AN EVIL SPIRIT OUT OF THE WEST

  THE SEASON OF THE HYAENA

  THE YEAR OF THE COBRA

  Canterbury Tales by Night

  AN ANCIENT EVIL

  A TAPESTRY OF MURDERS

  A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

  GHOSTLY MURDERS

  THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

  A HAUNT OF MURDER

  Egyptian Mysteries

  THE MASK OF RA

  THE HORUS KILLINGS

  THE ANUBIS SLAYINGS

  THE SLAYERS OF SETH

  THE ASSASSINS OF ISIS

  THE POISONER OF PTAH

  THE SPIES OF SOBECK

  Constantine the Great

  DOMINA

  MURDER IMPERIAL

  THE SONG OF THE GLADIATOR

  THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

  MURDER’S IMMORTAL MASK

  Hugh Corbett

  SATAN IN ST MARY’S

  THE CROWN IN DARKNESS

  SPY IN CHANCERY

  THE ANGEL OF DEATH

  THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

  MURDER WEARS A COWL

  THE ASSASSIN IN THE GREENWOOD

  THE SONG OF A DARK ANGEL

  SATAN’S FIRE

  THE DEVIL’S HUNT

  THE DEMON ARCHER

  THE TREASON OF THE GHOSTS

  CORPSE CANDLE

  THE MAGICIAN’S DEATH

  THE WAXMAN MURDERS

  NIGHTSHADE

  THE MYSTERIUM

  Standalone Titles

  THE ROSE DEMON

  THE HAUNTING

  THE SOUL SLAYER

  THE PLAGUE LORD

  THE DEATH OF A KING

  PRINCE DRAKULYA

  THE LORD COUNT DRAKULYA

  THE FATE OF PRINCES

  DOVE AMONGST THE HAWKS

  THE MASKED MAN

  As Vanessa Alexander

  THE LOVE KNOT

  OF LOVE AND WAR

  THE LOVING CUP

  Kathryn Swinbrooke (as C L Grace)

  SHRINE OF MURDERS

  EYE OF GOD

  MERCHANT OF DEATH

  BOOK OF SHADOWS

  SAINTLY MURDERS

  MAZE OF MURDERS

  FEAST OF POISONS

  Nicholas Segalla (as Ann Dukthas)

  A TIME FOR THE DEATH OF A KING

  THE PRINCE LOST TO TIME

  THE TIME OF MURDER AT MAYERLING

  IN THE TIME OF THE POISONED QUEEN

  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

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  ‘Teems with colour, energy and spills’ Time Out

  ‘Paul Doherty has a lively sense of history . . . evocative and lyrical descriptions’ New Statesman

  ‘Extensive and penetrating research coupled with a strong plot and bold characterisation. Loads of adventure and a dazzling evocation of the past’ Herald Sun, Melbourne

  ‘An opulent banquet to satisfy the most murderous appetite’ Northern Echo

  ‘As well as penning an exciting plot with vivid characters, Doherty excels at bringing the medieval period to life, with his detailed descriptions giving the reader a strong sense of place and time’ South Wales Argus

  To my ‘Beloveds’ Ekene, Ebele and Victor Jr and their parents Victor and Christine Ikwuemesi

  Prologue

  ‘Brutal, sudden death!’ Father Ambrose, Parson of Iffley church, had proclaimed, ‘Shall be sprung like a trap upon every man living upon the face of God’s earth.’

  Piers the plough boy, leaning against a pillar of the parish church, had listened to the sermon half dozing or casting lustful, hot-eyed stares at Edigha, the blacksmith’s daughter. Now, later that same Sunday, Piers was to have his heart’s desire. He’d met flaxen-haired Edigha beside the village well. They’d stolen out of the village, down the beaten track, past the gallows and into the field of ripe corn. Edigha had giggled and pulled at Piers’s hand.

  ‘I shouldn’t really go!’ she whispered, her blue eyes bright with merriment. ‘Father will expect me!’

  ‘Your father’s damping the ashes down in his forge,’ Piers retorted, grinning with a display of cracked teeth. ‘Whilst, Edigha my love, the flames in my belly burn hot for you.’ He said the words proudly, repeating what he’d heard the travelling minstrels say to a tavern wench in the Goat’s Head tavern after he’d come from ploughing the previous Monday. Piers’s short but eloquent speech had the desired effect. Edigha giggled again and trotted along beside him. Keeping their heads bowed, they moved through the sea of waving corn. Rabbits and mice, alarmed by their approach, scuttled for shelter, whilst above them wood pigeons fled like darts from the shadow of a hovering hawk. Piers stopped and looked up at them. For some strange reason he recalled Father Ambrose’s words: the hawk hung against the blue sky, motionless, waiting, watching, before its killing plunge. Piers shivered.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Edigha pressed herself against him. ‘Have the fires gone out?’ She wrapped her arms around his waist, slipping one hand down to brush his groin. ‘We have to be back by sunset,’ she whispered.

  Piers stared at the sun now setting in a glorious ball of fire, lighting up the sky with red-hot sparks. He turned, the breeze ruffling across his brow, and stared across at the small copse.

  ‘There’s something wrong,’ he whispered. ‘It’s so silent.’

  ‘You are frightening me,’ Edigha teased back yet she caught his mood. A tryst with Piers was what she had wanted but now, out here in the open, the corn swaying about her in the whispering wind, she was not so sure. She gazed across at the trees. It would be dark and cool in there, and her stomach jerked as she realised they would have to return the same way. If anyone saw them there would be teasing and whispering in the Goat’s Head and around the village well for weeks to come.

  ‘Can’t we go back by the trackway?’ she muttered.

  ‘We’d be seen.’ Piers grasped her hand.

  He made to run forward but then he recalled the ghoulish stories: Ralph, the reeve, standing in the tap room, a tankard in his hand, describing in hushed tones the severed corpses recently found in the woods around the city.

  ‘Bleeding like stuck pigs they were,’ Ralph had warned. ‘Blood bubbling out like wine from a broken jar: their heads wrapped by hair to the branches above.’ Ralph had shaken a warning finger. ‘It’s those bloody ne’er-do-wells!’ he ranted. ‘Those so-called scholars from the town with their airs and graces.’

  Everyone had nodded. Oxford was strange: a town with its own rights and privileges; with its own peculiar smells and sights. All towns were bad enough with their swaggering merchants and sharp-eyed traders but Oxford, with its scholars, many of them strangers from other parts and even from foreign countries across the seas, was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, or so Father Ambrose said. Whilst the scholars with their bird-like talk and gaudy raiment, were devils incarnate. Now and again some of them came out to Iffley, strutting like peacocks, their knives and swords pushed in their belts. They’d eye the girls and look for anything they could steal. Naturally these same students now took the blame for the hideous corpses found in the countryside around the city .

  ‘If they’re going to commit hideous murders,’ Bartholomew the miller had growled, ‘they should do it within their own walls.’

  ‘But why?’ Father Ambrose had intervened. ‘I’ve heard that the corpses belonged to beggars. Some people claim they were used,’ his voice fell to a whisper, ‘for foul, Satanic rites.’

  ‘Piers! Piers!’

  The ploughboy broke from his reverie.

  Edigha was playing with the laces of her bodice and lust flared again in his belly.

  ‘Come on!’ he muttered thickly. He gently touched the generous swell of her breasts, his fingers fluttering down around the slim waist. He pulled her close. ‘You are so giving!’

  ‘I’ll be your wife, won’t I?’ Edigha enjoined, her blue eyes holding his. ‘You said so. I’ll be handfast as your wife. At the church door before All Hallows?’

  Piers stooped to kiss her but then jumped, his head snapping back as he looked up. A speck of blood splashed on his face, a feather drifted down: the hawk had plunged to make its kill. Piers didn’t wait any longer; Edigha might change her mind. They hurried on through the corn, stopping now and again to hug and kiss, Piers’s sweaty fingers scrabbling at Edigha’s bodice, tugging at the cords. At last they reached the edge of the wood and ran into its cool green darkness. Piers pulled Edigha down on top of him. She giggled and resisted, then broke free and ran on. Piers sighed. Girls always did that, turning their courting into huntsman’s bluff. Piers got up and chased after her, catching her in a small glade. He sighed with pleasure: her hair had broken loose and was hanging down, a mass of gold on either side of her red, sweaty face, her blue eyes were bright. He grasped her hand, pulling her to him, and they walked between the trees. He began to kiss her, relishing the sweet smell of her skin, licking at the sweat which laced her throat. Suddenly Edigha went rigid. She pushed him away and stepped back, staring at something behind him. Edigha’s face was white, her eyes screwed up, her mouth opening and closing in terror, whilst strange sounds gurgled from the back of her throat.

  ‘What is it, love? What is it?’

  She half raised her hand. Piers turned slowly as if he knew what he was going to see. At first he could see nothing untoward, but then he looked up. From an old oak tree a branch jutted out like a spear and, on its end, lashed by its hair to the branch, was a severed head. Piers took a step closer: the eyes were half-open, the grey cheeks sagging, the mouth gaped bloody like that of a slaughtered animal. The neck was cut and ragged, still caked with gore. Piers’s mouth went dry. His legs began to tremble. Edigha seized his hand, and they both turned and fled from the terror in the woods.

  In Sparrow Hall, near Turl Street in Oxford, Death had also sprung like a trap. Ascham the archivist knew he was going to die. He lay, his legs bent in pain, his mouth opening and shutting. He tried to force a scream but he knew it was useless. No one would hear; the doors and windows were closed. His death had come spinning through the air, the crossbow quarrel taking him full in the chest.

  Ascham knew he was dying. H
e could taste the iron, salty tang of blood gurgling at the back of his throat. Stabs of pain went through his body. He closed his eyes, whispering the words of the Confiteor, seeking God’s absolution: ‘Oh, my God, I am sincerely sorry for these and all the sins from my youth...’ His mind wandered even as his body trembled with pain. Images from the past came to him - his mother bending over him, the shouting of his brother, his early days in Oxford, jaunty, full of life. The girl he met and would have married, sad-eyed and moist-mouthed when he turned and walked away; Henry Braose; his great friend, scholar, soldier and founder of this very Sparrow Hall where he now lay dying. So much evil now! Resentment, fury and hatred. The Bellman proclaiming the Devil’s malice, trying to destroy everything Henry had built up.

  Ascham opened his eyes. The library was dark. He tried again to scream but the sound died on his lips. The candle, flickering under its metal cap on the table, shed a small pool of light and Ascham glimpsed the piece of parchment the assassin had tossed on to the table. Ascham realised what had brought about his death: he’d recognised the truth but he’d been stupid enough to allow his searches to be known. If only he had a pen! His hand grasped the wound bubbling in his chest. He wept and crawled painfully across the floor towards the table. He seized the parchment and, with his dying strength, carefully hauled himself up to etch out the letters - but the pool of light seemed to be dimming. He’d lost the feeling in his legs, which were stiffening, like bars of iron.

  ‘Enough,’ he whispered. ‘Ah, Jesus ...’

  Ascham closed his eyes, coughed and died as the blood bubbled on his lips.

  Chapter 1

  The outlaw standing in the gallows cart moved his head as the chafing rope gripped his neck. He hawked, spat and glared defiantly at Sir Hugh Corbett, former courier and clerk of the Secret Seal but still the powerful lord of the manor of Leighton in Essex. Beside Corbett was the man who had hunted him down, caught him and brought him to trial in Sir Hugh’s court: Ranulf-atte-Newgate, formerly Clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax, Corbett’s henchman, bailiff and chief steward. The outlaw licked his chapped lips and glared hatefully at Ranulf.