by Alys Clare
Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Alys Clare from Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Postscript
Author’s Note
Footnotes
Recent Titles by Alys Clare from Severn House
The Hawkenlye Series
THE PATHS OF THE AIR
THE JOYS OF MY LIFE
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE
THE WINTER KING
A SHADOWED EVIL
THE DEVIL’S CUP
The Aelf Fen Series
OUT OF THE DAWN LIGHT
MIST OVER THE WATER
MUSIC OF THE DISTANT STARS
THE WAY BETWEEN THE WORLDS
LAND OF THE SILVER DRAGON
BLOOD OF THE SOUTH
THE NIGHT WANDERER
THE DEVIL’S CUP
A Hawkenlye Mystery
Alys Clare
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
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This eBook edition first published in 2017 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD
Copyright © 2017 by Alys Clare.
The right of Alys Clare to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8710-8 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-818-7 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-882-7 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
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Dedicated to everyone who has come along for all or part of Josse and Helewise’s seventeen-book journey; I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.
PROLOGUE
Summer 1130
They had punished him.
Some bastard fellow brother must have found out he’d gone absent without leave, and retribution had fallen on him with a heavy hand. Literally, for the first part of the punishment had been a beating. Even as that bloody sadist of a monk was laying on the lash, though, he’d consoled himself with the thought that they’d have beaten him twice as hard and for twice as long if they had known what else he’d done.
It would have been worth it, though. Almost.
But the beating hadn’t been the end of it. Now here he was out in the blazing heat, cursing, soaked in sweat, exhausted, dehydrated, mouth so dry he couldn’t have swallowed even had he had anything to swallow, and he was digging holes. Every time he swung the pick to break up the bone-dry, rock-hard ground, it felt as if his lashed back was on fire.
This was the second part of his punishment, and he had been sent out to dig burial pits. Under the stern and ever-vigilant eye of one of the toughest sergeants he’d ever met – and that was saying something – he was working alongside other miscreants, swinging the pick, digging, shovelling, sunrise to sunset, to extend the charnel house where they put the dead. Fifty or more corpses, every bloody day, so that sometimes he wondered how they’d manage to keep ahead of demand.
His years with the Hospitallers were a long tale of disobedience and retribution, for he was not good at taking orders. He’d had far worse punishments than this; once he’d been shut up in the terrible punishment cell for over a week, unable to lie down, unable even to stretch out legs and arms simultaneously. He’d never confessed it to those who stood in authority over him, but that one had almost driven him to the ultimate sin. Only, clever monks that they were, there was nothing in the minuscule, airless, lightless cell, stinking and haunted by other men’s agony and despair, with which he could have finished himself off.
They had never found out what he was really like. He had joined the Order in a great hurry and as a last resort, paying his way in with a chest of stolen money, on the run from men who desperately sought his blood. With some justification, since he had just committed brutal murder.
Today, though, he was feeling happy again. Or he would, once the work was over, for it was the last day of his punishment.
The tormenting, terrible hours went on. Around noon, when the tiny, white-hot disc of the sun was at its height, the sergeants brought out water – not enough, never enough – and permitted the punishment detail a short break in the shade. Then it was back to work, and the labour seemed even worse than before by contrast.
As the weary day at last approached its end, his pick struck something hard. With a sigh, he laid down his tool and, leaning right into the deep trench, began to poke around with his fingers. The soil here was clay, and prone to breaking up into huge, cracked lumps, heavy and unwieldy; quite often large pieces of rock were deeply embedded in it. When the edge of the pick or spade caught against one of these rocks, the painful jarring shock ran right up the arms and into the shoulders and back. The rocks were usually stuck fast, and the only way to get them out was to work them free with painful, blistered, raw fingers.
Quite soon he realized that what his spade had struck was no rock. Intrigued, he hastened to get it out of the imprisoning clay. It was filthy, naturally, and at first he didn’t understand what it was that lay so heavy in his hands. He gave it a shake. He looked more closely. Then a smile spread across his lean face. Maybe this punishment hadn’t been such a misfortune after all.
He straightened up, a hand to his back as if easing aching muscles. His eyes roamed swiftly around the whole area, but nobody was looking his way. Diving back into the trench, he re-buried his find. When, a short time later, the signal came for the end of work, he made sure to leave a small mark beside the trench, just in case he didn’t manage to memorize its location.
Not that there was much fear of that.
That evening, he was officially released from his punishment – not without a lengthy lecture on the evils of going absent without leave and a brief homily on how great and generous was the Lord God, who forgave his sinful children again and again – and sent back to his unit. He ate his supper, ref
using to allow himself to fall upon the food as he so badly wanted to. It didn’t do to reveal weakness, even to his fellow soldiers, and he always played down how deeply he was affected by the punishments. Then, when they had settled down in the long dormitory and the cacophony of snoring told him the others were all asleep, he crept out.
The burial field looked different by night. To his surprise, he felt a shiver of fear. He crushed it with ruthless determination. Keeping to the shadows, he made his soft-footed way to the trench where he had been working earlier. Just as he had anticipated, he found it readily; it was as if its location had been graven on his mind. It was a matter of moments to dig down in the broken-up clay and release his treasure. And then he was out of the trench, off and away, silently crowing at how easy it had been, wanting to shout his contempt for the world to the lonely night.
But he was not alone.
Others had been watching his movements, patiently waiting for their opportunity. He had committed an outrage and, although they had witnessed every day of his punishment, they understood that it must surely be the retribution for a lesser crime. The Knights Hospitallers were disciplinarians and their rule was strict; surely a beating and a few days of digging pits was not sufficient penalty for what this man had done?
It didn’t really matter, for they planned their own revenge.
As the Hospitaller hurried away from the burial field, swiftly getting into the concealing shelter of a dark, sunken little alley stinking of sewage, they quietly set off after him. Just as he was about to re-enter the city and return to the safety of the patrolled areas within its walls, they jumped him.
There were three of them: a middle-aged man, his son and his nephew. All three were heavily built and strong; all three were fired with the hot blood of righteous anger. The nephew held the Hospitaller’s arms behind him while the father – most affected of all – punched him repeatedly, breaking his nose, splitting his lips and cracking a rib. But the Hospitaller was a fit man, and a soldier; he fought back, managing to free himself from the nephew’s grip and landing some telling blows of his own.
All four men were shouting, panting, gasping and, quite soon, howling in pain. Although they were some distance from the city walls, a guard heard them and came hurrying out to investigate.
The violence intensified. It was as if some external force was egging them on; as if an intelligence full of malice was watching with savage glee and hissing Go on! Go on! Damaging blows turned to killing blows, and soon the nephew, the guard and the Hospitaller lay dead and bleeding on the still-warm earth.
The older man bent briefly over his nephew, muttering a prayer and touching the bloody, pulped face with a tender hand. Then he stood up and glanced at his son, eyebrows raised in silent query. The son shrugged. ‘I’m all right,’ he hissed through mashed lips, spitting out a broken tooth. He glanced at his dead cousin, and a spasm of pain crossed his bloody face.
The father knelt down by the dead knight. ‘May as well see if he has anything worth taking,’ he said. He patted down the body, quickly coming across the treasure. He extracted it from inside the dead man’s tunic, looked at it briefly, smiled grimly and hid it inside his robe. Then, an arm round his son to help him along, they slipped quietly away.
The treasure had been above ground for under an hour and already it had claimed three lives.
This was how it began.
The later history of the treasure was a long tale of betrayal and death. A part of it came into the possession of a prince who, wanting to win the heart of the beautiful woman he adored, had it melted down and incorporated into a rich and heavy ring of stranded silver and gold. She agreed to marry him and for a time they were happy. But on her finger the bright, white metal of the ring silently and constantly worked its malice, and she betrayed her devoted husband with his charming and handsome best friend. The husband found out, slaughtered his wife and his best friend in a torment of sexual jealousy, and then took his own life.
Some of the treasure came into the possession of a rich merchant. He used it to oust a bunch of desperate, homeless beggars from the ruins of an old building, for he had purchased the land with the intention of constructing for himself a grand and opulent mansion. But not long after he took up residence, the earth shook in a violent quake, bringing down the glorious new house on top of the merchant, his wife, his daughter and his newborn grandchild.
Other men acquired elements of the treasure, by fair means or foul. But the method of acquisition made no difference, for the treasure itself carried a taint. Always it was the same story: initial delight at taking possession of something valuable at a bargain price, the employment of the new-found wealth for something close to the owner’s heart, followed sooner or later by violent and frequently painful death.
That is the way with tainted objects.
ONE
Autumn 1216
A foreign army had invaded England.
It wasn’t exactly an invasion, for Prince Louis the Lion of France was in the country by invitation. A fair proportion of England’s subjects wanted him there and, heartily sick of King John, the rebel barons had offered his crown to Philip of France’s son.
On 22 May 1216, Prince Louis landed at Sandwich. John had prepared his defences and believed himself ready to throw off the threat, but a storm blew up and scattered his ships. The barons who were still loyal to him, unhappy about trusting the mercenary forces, which were pretty much all John had left, advised retreat, and John agreed. Unchallenged, Louis blasted his way through Kent, to be greeted in London on the second of June by a huge, cheering crowd.
Other lords and leaders whose realms were closer to home had also finally had enough of King John and were preparing to act. The barons in the north had invited the King of the Scots, Alexander II, to take control of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland and, in Wales, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth – already referring to himself as prince – had embarked upon a series of raids whose main purpose was the taking of English-held castles. John faced enemies on three fronts and, as if that was not enough, many of his people – and not only the barons – were in favour of a change of monarch.
But not all of them: there was a forceful, vocal and well-organized element who remained loyal to John and were hugely opposed to replacing him.
Especially with a prince of France.
The south and the south-east were bearing the brunt of the conflict against Louis and his army. Already one particular place was becoming renowned for its fierce and effective resistance, and this was the Great Wealden Forest. A large part of Louis’s force was besieging Dover Castle; fairly pointlessly, since the utter impregnability of the great fortress was making the siege much more demoralizing for the invaders than the inhabitants. The remainder of his army in the south faced a band of rebels whose leader was reputed to be William of Kensham, a former bailiff who was resolutely loyal to the monarch. Willikin of the Weald, as he was commonly known, had gathered together a group of like-minded bowmen. So effective were they at getting under the invaders’ skin and generally upsetting the smooth running of Louis’s campaign that John himself was moved to send his thanks.
There were other loyal supporters of the beleaguered King within the wide, untamed area of the forest. Tucked away in the House in the Woods, Josse d’Acquin had long ago announced to his large family and his modest household that he would remain the King’s man unto death. He had felt, in this time of deep division between the people of England, that it was only fair to state his position unequivocally.
‘Prince Louis is very close,’ he had said to the kin and the household he had summoned to his hall soon after the French prince had landed. ‘Every man and woman here has the right to decide for him or herself who to support, and, the dear Lord knows, King John has done little in the course of his turbulent reign to win his subjects’ loyalty. For myself—’ he had paused, staring round at the familiar faces of his wife, his adopted son, his own son and daughter, Helewise’s sons and the
ir families and the very welcome recent addition – ‘for myself, I have known the King since he was a lad. I can’t say I have always approved of what he’s done, but nevertheless I find that I retain a deep affection for my wayward monarch and I will not act against him.’ He heard one or two murmurs. He saw Leofgar’s wife Rohaise give her husband a swift look, narrow eyebrows drawn down in a frown. Ah, he thought. ‘While I will think none the less of anyone who does not feel the same, I must tell you now that I cannot condone any action taken against the King.’ He paused again, for this was proving very painful. ‘If any of you are compelled by your conscience to undertake such action, then I ask you not to do so under this roof.’ He glanced up at the strong old beams supporting his beloved home. Then, once again letting his eyes roam across his audience, he said quietly, ‘I will not allow this strife within my country to penetrate and threaten the security and the peace of my own hearth.’
It was rare for Josse to lay down the law to his family and his household. As he walked swiftly out of the hall, he had left behind him a stunned silence.
That had been three months ago. Now, as the autumn drew on, the lines of division had become very clear.
There had been little doubt that Ninian, Josse’s adopted son and the child of his lost love Joanna, would support the King. It was a secret known to very few people, but Ninian was John’s half-brother. Their paths had crossed once, and the events of that day had, for a time, meant that the King had put a price on Ninian’s head.1 That had not been enough, however, to turn Ninian into a rebel; on the contrary, it seemed to Josse that, despite everything, the encounter had left the young man with a strange respect for John. Perhaps, Josse thought, it was true what the old wives said and blood really was thicker than water.
Now, Ninian headed a band of fighters as ruthlessly efficient as Willikin’s bowmen; possibly more efficient, since, knowing the forest and its ways so very well, Ninian had been able to instruct his group in how to move around unobserved and undetected. It was as if, Josse had once reflected with an untypical fancifulness, the forest recognized one of its own and gave Ninian a helping hand.