Hugh Corbett 13 - Corpse Candle

 
CORPSE CANDLE

 

 
PAUL DOHERTY

 
 
headline

Copyright © 2001 Paul Doherty

The right of Paul 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.

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.

First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

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

eISBN 978 0 7553 5040 7

This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London
NW1 3BH

Table of Contents

 

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 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.

‘
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 D. T. Driscoll

PRAEPARETUR ANIMUS CONTRA OMNIA
 
PREPARE YOUR SOUL FOR THE UNEXPECTED

 
SENECA

Shadows, black as pitch, cloaked the abbey of St Martin’s-in-the-Marsh which nestled amongst the fens of Lincolnshire. ‘A jewel on a green cushion’ was how one visitor described it. Others, who had experienced the marsh’s quagmires, treacherous byways and hidden traps, called the fens a place of wickedness. ‘The Sacristy of Hell’ was how one ancient historian described the deceitful morasses and water-logged fields of this wilderness. Of course, the abbey of St Martin’s, founded during the reign of the second Henry, was a hallowed place. Its buildings, and the divine services conducted within, had repelled back to Hell the demons who supposedly wandered such a desolate landscape.

St Martin’s had grown into a great abbey: its monks had drained the fens, creating meadow and pasture, plough land, fisheries, stew ponds, as well as building their lavish church, granaries, outhouses, infirmary, scriptorium and library. The abbey estates neighboured those of the Harcourt family. Sir Eustace Harcourt had founded St Martin’s after safely returning from a pilgrimage to Outremer where he had survived both the heat and the infidel to worship at the Holy Sepulchre.

Sir Eustace had ignored the legends about how the fens were haunted by the ghost of Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, a robber baron who, with his retinue of ruffians, had harassed the fen men, their towns and villages, and even plundered chapels and churches. Mandeville had died a violent death but, according to the locals, he was condemned for all eternity to haunt this place with his devilish retinue. Many claimed to have heard the rumble of their horses’ hooves and seen the black-garbed figures sweep through the night. It was an interesting legend but the good brothers of St Martin’s paid little heed to it, dismissing as preposterous the stories of ghastly horsemen who carried blood-red banners with a huge black ‘V’ in the centre, the personal escutcheon, or livery, of the demon Mandeville. True, some of the more sharp-eared brothers did whisper how, recently, when they met in the refectory at night, they had heard the shrill blast of a hunting horn, and claimed that some retainers of Lady Margaret Harcourt, a virtual recluse since her husband’s disappearance, had heard the same haunting blast. Hadn’t Sir Reginald, Lady Margaret’s former husband, and his cronies once galloped around the fens blowing hunting horns as some sort of madcap joke? Or was it someone else who’d gone out at night and pretended to be a ghostly horse-man? Perhaps, they concluded, a peasant had heard this story and decided to play a childish game?