by Paul Doherty
‘Lovely lads, Colum!’ she called across.
They were all dressed in hose pushed into boots and dark leather jerkins over ragged, stained shirts. They were well armed, sword belts strapped round their waists or across their shoulders; arbalests and crossbows leaned against the outside wall of the house. Colum took Kathryn’s hand, chattering to the leader.
‘Our four prisoners are inside,’ he explained. ‘The men took a chicken and roasted it. They have been well fed and looked after.’
‘What we have to do,’ Kathryn declared, ‘we must do quickly. Ask them all to be brought out.’
Colum issued the orders; a short while later Father John, Thurston, and Gurnell, with Eleanora following, were led out of the house.
‘I object,’ Gurnell stepped forward, ‘to being arraigned like a prisoner.’
‘You are not prisoners,’ Colum intervened. ‘You are free to go – except you, Mistress Eleanora!’ He pointed a finger. ‘By the King’s commission to execute justice, both high and low, in the city of Canterbury and the shire of Kent, I arrest you for the murder of Sir Walter Maltravers, Edward Mawsby your erstwhile accomplice, the maid known as Veronica and the retainer known as Hockley. You shall also be impeached and accused of high treason in that you deviously and maliciously plotted against the King’s commission . . .’
Eleanora gave a scream and, from somewhere, produced a knife. Grey cloak billowing out, she lunged at Kathryn. Her three companions were too shocked to move but the Irishman standing on Kathryn’s right was faster still. He moved, gliding to his left, one hand knocking away Eleanora’s knife, the other delivering a punch to her midriff which sent her staggering back, clutching her stomach. She collapsed on the ground, gagging for breath, and was immediately hustled to her feet, her pain being ignored as two of Colum’s retainers bound her wrists. Kathryn was shocked by the change: no longer olive-skinned and pretty, Eleanora, despite her pain, lunged forward again, her eyes black pools of hatred, her mouth muttering wordless curses.
‘You are guilty,’ Kathryn said softly, stepping forward. ‘Your mistress has confessed to everything, your former life, your kinsman slain at Towton, the way you enticed Mawsby and then killed him.’
Kathryn gazed calmly into the hate-filled eyes. She felt no pang of remorse. All she could remember was poor Veronica floating face down in that mere, the agonised grief of her father, the brutality of Hockley’s death and that sinister attack upon her. Kathryn glimpsed the gold rose on the silver chain still hanging around Eleanora’s neck. She felt like snatching it away, but thought differently and withdrew her hand. In sharp, succinct sentences Kathryn described the accusations levelled against lady Elizabeth. How she had not challenged them but had confirmed her proof by taking her own life. At this Eleanora threw back her head, screamed at the sky and then launched into a further tirade of abuse.
‘You’ll face the King’s justice,’ Kathryn interrupted.
‘I cannot believe this,’ Gurnell broke in.
Kathryn glanced at the other members of the household. Thurston was sitting on the ground, head in his hands. Father John stood speechless, staring at some point further down the trackway.
‘I cannot believe this.’
Gurnell made to step forward but one of Colum’s retainers pushed him back. Eleanora began to curse again and one of her captors put his hand across her mouth. She struggled, then fell silent, her body sagging between the two men holding her.
‘Take her away,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Hand her over to the sheriff’s men.’
Eleanora was pushed away. Just near the doorway she struggled, glanced back over her shoulder and screamed a curse before being dragged into the darkness beyond. Kathryn suddenly felt weary. She wanted to be away from here.
‘Master Gurnell, Father John, Master Thurston, you are free to go.’
Their horses were led forward and Kathryn was helped to mount. She gathered up the reins.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke.’ Father John came and caught the bridle of her horse. He stared up at her, his eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ll go back to Ingoldby Hall, I’ll say prayers over her corpse. Afterwards I’ll be gone to a place where no hurt comes, the silent cloisters and some sort of peace.’
‘Good fortune, Father.’
He still held the bridle of her horse.
‘When I first met you, Mistress Swinbrooke, I thought you were most comely. Now, looking at you, I recall a verse from Isaiah about the anger of God bursting forth like fire.’ He let go of her bridle and stepped back. ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, I just never realised the vengeance of God could come with a smiling face.’
Father John sketched a blessing in the air and followed Gurnell back into the house.
Colum and Kathryn rode down back onto the trackway leading to the crossroads.
‘Is that how you see yourself?’ Colum abruptly asked. ‘The Vengeance of God?’
‘No.’ Kathryn pushed back her hood to catch the coolness of the early morning breeze. ‘Lady Elizabeth and Eleanora were daughters of Cain. I truly believe this, Colum: whatever evil we do,’ she pointed to the crows circling high in the sky, ‘flies like some bird of the night but always returns to haunt us. It’s just a matter of time and place and that’s a matter for God’s choosing. Our souls are like mansions, they have many rooms and the evil we do in them never leaves us.’
‘And the good?’ Colum joked.
Kathryn leaned across. ‘The good we do, Colum, also remains. I will never leave you my heart. Be assured of that!’
Author’s Note
This novel develops a number of very interesting themes. First, medieval medicine was perhaps more advanced than it is given credit for. Like today, quacks and charlatans flourished, but many physicians were keen observers and often diagnosed and, sometimes, even successfully made a prognosis of serious ailments. It is easy to assume that in the medieval ages the status of women was negligible and only succeeding centuries saw a gradual improvement in their general lot. This is certainly incorrect. One famous English historian has pointed out that women probably had more rights in 1300 than they had in 1900, whilst Chaucer’s description of the Wife of Bath shows a woman who could not only hold her own in a world of men but travelled all over Europe to the great shrines and was a shrewd businesswoman, ever ready to hold forth on the superiority of the gentler sex.
In this novel fiction corresponds with fact, and the quotation facing the title page summarises quite succinctly how women played a vital role as doctors, healers and apothecaries. Kathryn Swinbrooke may be fictional, but in 1322, the most famous doctor in London was Mathilda of Westminster; Cecily of Oxford was the royal physician to Edward III and his wife, Philippa of Hainault; and Gerard of Cremona’s work clearly describes women doctors during the medieval period. In England, particularly, where the medical faculties at the two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were relatively weak, women did serve as doctors and apothecaries, professions only in later centuries denied to them.
History does not move in a straight line but often in circles, and this certainly applies to medieval medicine. True, as today, there were charlatans ready to make a ‘quick shilling’ with so-called miraculous cures, but medieval doctors did possess considerable skill, particularly in their powers of observation and diagnosis. Some of their remedies, once dismissed as fanciful, are today, in both Europe and America regarded quite rightly as alternative medicine.
In the Middle Ages, particularly after the fall of Constantinople, relics such as the ‘Lacrima Christi’ were regarded with great awe and veneration. They were often not only costly in themselves but the source of revenue for cathedrals, churches and priories. Churchmen dreamed of supplementing their revenues with the discovery of a famous relic. Some of these were undoubtedly of great historical value, but to satisfy the hunger for relics, a bogus trade flourished and unscrupulous charlatans were ever ready to trick the gullible.
The fall of Constantinople did influence Western Europe; its borders
had been breached and the power of the Turks emerged as a major military threat. Constantinople was looted and some of its treasures and precious books disappeared. Others reemerged in the West and were a factor in the Renaissance both in Italy and Northern Europe.
A Maze of Murders also describes one of the most important effects of the vicious civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The Vendetta became a way of life. A very good example of this was De Vere, Earl of Oxford and a Lancastrian general who eventually defeated the Yorkists under Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. Edward IV realised that De Vere was an experienced and wily strategist; time and again he offered pardon and absolution for De Vere to return home. De Vere, however, could not be bought: he blamed York for the death of his own father and proclaimed that his struggle against York was ‘a l’outrance’ – to the death. Even when the Tudor dynasty was firmly established, Henry VIII was always wary of surviving Yorkist claimants. Margaret of Salisbury, Clarence’s daughter, despite her age, was despatched to the execution block, but the charges against her were spurious, her real guilt being her Yorkist blood.
Finally, A Maze of Murders presents the medieval method of investigating crime. There were no forensic departments. As the novel describes, even books on herbs were rare. Instead, lawyers and prosecutors would follow the same method of investigation as was used in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge. They would deploy a hypothesis and apply logic. Such a method lasted well into the nineteenth century and is still used today. Kathryn follows this method, looking for the flaw in an argument, a system of reasoning taken directly from medieval trials. The jury would finally decide to indict or dismiss on the force of such logic.