Hill of Bones

by The Medieval Murderers

  Hill of BONES

  Also by The Medieval Murderers

  The Tainted Relic

  Sword of Shame

  House of Shadows

  The Lost Prophecies

  King Arthur’s Bones

  The Sacred Stone

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2011

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © The Medieval Murderers, 2011

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of The Medieval Murderers to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-0-85720-425-7

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-85720-426-4

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85720-428-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

  The Medieval Murderers dedicate this book to our agent, Dot Lumley, who has steered us through seven books now. She has done it with patience as we talk and correspond endlessly with each other in order to settle storylines. She has done it with attention to detail, pointing out our errors and omissions. Moreover she has done it with a kindness and enthusiasm that has been difficult to imagine anyone else emulating. Thank you from all of us. We are Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight, Karen Maitland, Ian Morson, and CJ Sansom.

  The Medieval Murderers

  A small group of historical mystery writers, all members of the Crime Writers’ Association, who promote their work by giving informal talks and discussions at libraries, bookshops and literary festivals.

  Bernard Knight is a former Home Office pathologist and professor of forensic medicine who has been publishing novels, non-fiction, radio and television drama and documentaries for more than forty years. He writes the highly regarded Crowner John series of historical mysteries, based on the first coroner for Devon in the twelfth century.

  Ian Morson is the author of an acclaimed series of historical mysteries featuring the thirteenth-century Oxford-based detective, William Falconer, and a brand-new series featuring Venetian crime solver, Nick Zuliani.

  Philip Gooden is the author of the Nick Revill series, a sequence of historical mysteries set in Elizabethan and Jacobean London, during the time of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The latest titles are Sleep of Death and Death of Kings. He also writes 19th century mysteries, most recently The Durham Deception, as well as non-fiction books on language. Philip was chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association in 2007–8.

  Susanna Gregory is the author of the Matthew Bartholomew series of mystery novels, set in fourteenth-century Cambridge. In addition, she writes a series set in Restoration London, featuring Thomas Chaloner; the most recent book is A Murder on London Bridge. She also writes historical mysteries under the name of ‘Simon Beaufort’.

  Karen Maitland’s novel Company of Liars, a dark mystery thriller set at the time of the Black Death, was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award 2010. Her latest medieval thriller is The Gallows Curse, a tale of treachery and sin during the brutal reign of King John.

  The Programme

  Prologue – In which Philip Gooden relates how two young brothers from Somerset travel to join King Arthur’s forces in a final battle against the Saxon invaders.

  Act One – In which Susanna Gregory describes how Sir Symon Cole and his wife Gwenllian are ordered by King John to investigate the suspicious death of Bath Abbey’s unpopular prior.

  Act Two – In which Bernard Knight records how treasures from Bath Abbey are stolen and a how a cat-catcher and a royal steward help a luckless lay-brother to avoid a hanging.

  Act Three – In which Karen Maitland tells how the mysterious survivor of a shipwreck flees to Solsbury Hill to escape his nemesis, only to find himself unwittingly embroiled in a plot of treachery and treason.

  Act Four – In which Philip Gooden recounts how Nick Revill arrives in Bath with the touring players and swiftly finds himself persuaded to impersonate a dying man’s son and comes into possession of a dangerous secret.

  Act Five – In which Ian Morson describes how Joe Malinferno and his companion, Doll Pocket, find themselves in Bath escaping Joe’s dalliance with the Cato Street Conspirators. Unfortunately, the threads of Radical agitation follow them, and they are faced with solving a murder which casts a shadow over a very senior member of the royal family.

  Epilogue – In which Bernard Knight reveals an unexpected ending when police and archaeologists investigate the top of Solsbury Hill.

  Prologue

  I

  Geraint watched the lizard basking in the sun on the tiled floor. Its head was canted towards where Geraint sat a few feet away on the grassy slope. The creature was so still it might have been carved out of stone apart from the tiny pulse that throbbed on the underside of its silver-grey neck.

  The lizard, about the length of a man’s hand, was crouching above a fish with a great mouth and with water spouting from the top of its head. The lizard was directly over the gaping mouth. Geraint amused himself with the idea of the lizard’s surprise if the fish were to come to sudden life and swallow it down in a single gulp. Geraint knew the fish could not come to life, of course, since it was made up of countless little tiles that were coloured red and blue and green and silver.

  Shifting his gaze without moving his head, Geraint looked across the rest of the ornamented floor, beyond the lizard and the great fish. It lay bare to the sky but was edged with random blocks of stone, the remains of the walls to the chamber. Beyond were the outlines of other rooms and even fragments of columns. The house had been built on a ledge of land on a hillside. It looked out on a circle of hills and a town below in the valley basin. Geraint wondered how the inhabitants of the villa had defended themselves, isolated, far from other habitations. Perhaps they had not needed to.

  He returned his attention to the tiled floor, which showed a picture of the sea and its inhabitants but quite unlike any that Geraint had ever seen. There were creatures with swollen heads and many arms, and others whose foreparts were similar to birds, with beaks and claws, but whose hindquarters were those of fish. Among these monsters sailed small ships containing smaller men holding nets and spears.

  Closer to Geraint and riding out of the sea was a great bare-chested man or god, twenty times the size of the men in boats. He was in a chariot drawn by horses with scaly fins for tails. The face of the man-god – wise and vigorous – reminded Geraint of their leader, Arthur. He had seen Arthur astride a horse holding the reins in the same easy fashion as the man-god in the chariot. Arthur had even spoken to Geraint as he rode by. He had scarcely been able to look at him nor had he heard the leader’s words, his ears were buzzing so. But he knew the words were firm and, in their way, kindly. Kinder than he was used to hearing from Caradoc, for example.

  A rustling in the grass behind him did not cause him to look round – he already knew who it must be – but, instead, to flick his gaze back towards the lizard. But the lizard had gone. For an instant, Geraint wondered whether the creature had been swallowed up by the great spouting fish. But that could not
be, because the fish’s jaws were still gaping with hunger. And because, although the lizard was real, the fish was no more than an image.

  Someone clumped down the slope and clouted Geraint across the back of his head. He sighed and clambered to his feet. He turned to look at his brother, Caradoc, standing on the higher ground above. The sun was behind him so Geraint couldn’t see his brother’s expression but he sensed it was showing the usual mixture of irritation and impatience.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Caradoc. ‘We must be on our way. There’s no time to waste.’

  As if to show that his own time had not been wasted, Caradoc held up a cony by the hind legs.

  ‘Tribute,’ he said. ‘A contribution to supper. When we get there.’

  The dead animal swayed in the evening air, its white front speckled with blood. Further up the slope sat Caradoc’s dog, Cynric. It stared fixedly at the rabbit, but gave no sign of anger at being deprived of its prey.

  Geraint did not move. He thought of the much more valuable tribute he was bringing and his hand closed about the pouch that was attached to his belt. Then, as if to distract Caradoc from the gesture, he swept his arm over the mosaic sea-scene.

  ‘What happened to them?’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The ones who lived here. The Roman people who made these pictures.’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Caradoc in a tone that meant, ‘Who cares?’.

  ‘They left long before the time of our father’s father but their traces are all around us,’ said Geraint. He was thinking of other villas, in better condition, that they had passed on their journey up from the south. Not just villas, either, but terraces of land with strangled vines and neglected orchard plots. Now Geraint looked in the direction of the old town tucked into the fold of the river below. He knew this was Aquae Sulis. The upper parts of the buildings glowed in the evening sun but even while the brothers watched, the light dimmed and died as if an invisible hand were wiping it away. In reality it was only the sun slipping down behind a neighbouring hill but Geraint shivered.

  ‘Dreamer,’ said Caradoc. ‘And trust you to miss the only thing of value here.’

  He bent down and picked up a battered coin from the edge of the mosaic floor. It was true, Geraint had been so intent on the sea picture that he had overlooked the little tarnished disc. Then Caradoc swung away in a downhill direction, still holding the dead rabbit and skirting the remains of the villa, with its exposed floors and weather-beaten columns. Cynric leaped from a sitting position and bounded after him.

  Geraint paused for a moment longer. Perhaps it was the image of the sea on the floor that made him think of waves of people, waves of men, flowing across this land. Men who were of a different race from him. Men such as the ones who had built this villa on the outskirts of the town in the valley and then, in a time before his father’s father, abandoned it and withdrawn like the tide. Or perhaps they had not withdrawn at all but simply died out. Which came to the same thing.

  And now there were different waves of men from the east and north, fresh and fierce, Saxon barbarians, threatening this land with fire and slaughter. For years, they had advanced like the incoming tide but now there had come a chance to stem the tide, even to turn it back. The only chance perhaps, but a fair one under their leader, Arthur.

  He stood up and gazed across the valley towards the hills to the north-east. One hill stood slightly separate from the others and was distinguished by a flattened top. In the clear light of evening Geraint was able to see that the lines of the hill top looked too straight to be completely natural. There were few trees growing on the lower slopes and none at all on the upper, which meant that any approaching group would be easily seen. It reminded him of the great hill town in the south, near the village that he and Caradoc had come from. The town called Cadwy’s Fort, which Arthur used as his headquarters when he was in the region. The size of Cadwy’s, with its towering grassy flanks and deep defensive ditches surmounted by walls of pale stone, made Geraint think of the work of gods rather than mere men.

  The hill opposite where he stood was less imposing than Cadwy’s, but that it was occupied by men was not in doubt, for he now saw a thick column of black smoke rising from a point near the centre of the flattened top. Then other spirals of smoke sprang up, and carried on the breeze there came cries and screams, the scrape of metal on metal, the thud of blows. Geraint had never been in battle, never been close to the scene of battle, but he recognised this for what it was. Had he and Caradoc arrived too late? Was the decisive encounter already taking place?

  He felt confused and dizzy and almost sank down on the ground. When he looked again at the flattened hill, its top was placid and the pillars of smoke had vanished. In his ears there rang no sound except birdsong. Geraint was familiar with these moments, which overcame him occasionally. He had told no one of them, except one person.

  Geraint blinked and followed his brother downhill towards the town in the valley. It was an open evening on the edge of midsummer. Threads of innocent white smoke wavered from the encampments set around the town of Aquae Sulis. The distance and the fading light made it impossible to judge numbers. You would scarcely know that there was an army camped about the town. You would not know that there was another army on the march in this direction.

  Caradoc and Geraint crossed the lower-lying meadows, where the ground was soft underfoot and the breeze rippled through willows and rows of poplars. Geraint said nothing of the battle-scene he had witnessed on the opposite hill top. Either it had happened in the past, in which case there was nothing to be done about it, or – and this was more likely – it was still to come. The question was, would the battle take place in Geraint’s presence? Was he one of the fighters? Was his own voice among the screams and cries he had heard? Or Caradoc’s?

  As they drew nearer to the encampments, with Caradoc still in the lead and the dog off to one side on some mission of its own, they could smell distant wood smoke and roasting meat, could hear a whinnying horse. It seemed to Geraint that his brother knew exactly where he was going, he walked with such confidence. Then Caradoc halted. He was standing on the edge of a marshy, reed-fringed stretch of water. They might have been able to wade through it, but beyond the reeds was a faster-flowing current, which caught up all the light remaining in the sky. Geraint realised that this must be the Abona. From their vantage point up in the hills the course of the river down here had been concealed. Now it was going to require a detour before they could reach the encampments or the town.

  ‘There must be a crossing point further along,’ said Caradoc, gesturing towards the west. ‘There must be a ford.’

  How much further along? thought Geraint. He saw the pair of them blundering about in the gathering dark, their nostrils tickled by the smells from the other side of the river and their eyes distracted by the twinkle of fires. He suddenly felt hungry. Caradoc whistled for Cynric and the black shape came crashing through the long grass.

  Distracted by the return of the dog, neither brother noticed the small boat sliding noiselessly out of the reeds. When they did, Caradoc dropped the dead rabbit and his hand jumped to his sword hilt. Geraint tensed and Cynric growled. The occupant of the boat had seen them before they were aware of him. He was a lean and wrinkled man – quite old, to Geraint’s eyes – and he was crouching in the centre of the boat, which was about half as broad as it was long. He was pushing himself towards the bank with one hand but there was a paddle resting across his knees.

  ‘I had my eye on you as you came across the meadows,’ said the boatman.

  ‘Where is the crossing place?’ said Caradoc.

  The boatman did not answer until, with a final flick of his wrist, he caused his craft to crunch softly into the mud and reeds a few feet from where Caradoc and Geraint were standing.

  ‘Over there, but you will not reach it this side of night,’ he said, jerking his head in the direction of the now vanished sun.

  �
��We are here to join Arthur’s host,’ said Caradoc.

  The boatman cleared his throat and spat into the water. Evidently he was not impressed. ‘Is Arthur here?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Caradoc with a confidence that was based more on belief than knowledge.

  The boatman cast his eyes up and down the length of the brothers as if assessing their fitness as warriors. Geraint was conscious that he cut a boyish figure but his brother now, Caradoc, he had more bone and sinew on him.

  ‘You will carry us over,’ said Caradoc.

  ‘And you will pay what?’

  ‘We are here to fight our common enemy,’ said Geraint, speaking for the first time. ‘The Saxon horde.’

  ‘Oh, that enemy,’ said the boatman. He flexed his arms and the oval boat rocked in the water. ‘What are your names?’

  ‘I am Caradoc and this is my brother, Geraint.’

  ‘And I am Brennus,’ said the boatman. He had a high-pitched voice, disagreeable. Geraint was reminded of an ungreased axle on a cart. ‘Talking of enemies, mine are the cold in winter and the hunger and thirst all the time. You’ve got something to drink?’

  ‘The dregs of some water only,’ said Caradoc, ‘warm and stale from being carried all day.’

  The boatman laughed, an odd sound like the squeak of some water bird.

  ‘You must surely be carrying something of value,’ he said. Instinctively, Geraint’s hand tightened on the pouch, which was fixed to his belt across from his sword. Despite the growing gloom, he could have sworn that Brennus the boatman observed this slight gesture.

  Caradoc retrieved the coin he’d picked up from the villa floor. He held it towards the boatman.

  ‘This will more than do,’ he said. ‘It’s a coin from the old days and it is silver. You can have it if you ferry us both across. And the dog.’

  ‘The dog will swim behind us. You can’t have a dog in a small boat like this on account of the balance,’ said Brennus, stretching out a sinewy arm and waggling his hand to illustrate his point. He gathered a coil of rope from the bottom of the boat. ‘Here. Tie a stick to this and throw it out when we are afloat. The dog will seize hold of the stick.’