An Historical murder/mystery set in England in the year 1610.
England. The year is 1610. The idyllic calm of a sleepy village has been ripped apart. The bodies of local children have been discovered, ritually mutilated in local woods. The villagers believe it is the work of witches, unknown souls that could be living amongst them in their very own community.
They look to the village minister for guidance and out of desperation he in turn seeks the help of Master Wayland and his brutish companion Samuel Bolton, both ruthless members of the mysterious Order of St Michael.
To help them in their task Master Wayland employs the services of some reluctant highwaymen, the Cooper brothers. Along the way they meet fierce resistance from the village squire, who seeks to settle an old score, and interference from the devious local magistrate. They decide to call on other, specialist members of the Order for help.
It is then that their unseen enemy reveals his name, Baphomet.
Master Wayland realises that he is dealing with an insane, sadistic killer and he has no idea who he or she is?
Excerpt
PROLOGUE. ENGLAND 1596.
The little girl closed the door quietly behind her, trying not to let the latch click too loudly.
‘Where are they? Where’s he hidden them?’she whispered to herself, as she leaned against the wall of the upstairs passageway. Her father had left early that morning to collect rents from his tenants in Worcester. As soon as he was gone she began her search, upstairs. She was quite sure that he wouldn’t have hidden her presents down stairs.
The door latch of the next room silently fell into place.
‘Well, they’re not in the guest room.’ she said, pausing a moment to listen for any sign that she had disturbed the house keeper. Not that she should worry; Mistress Barker was as deaf as a post. She smiled to herself as she remembered her father’s quip about the old woman.She lifted her skirts and padded across the cold oak floor stopping at her father’s room. Carefully she lifted the latch and pushed the door open, just enough for her to quickly step inside.
Whilst she stood looking around the room she could feel a prickle of excitement on the back of her neck. She wasn’t usually allowed in here.
Her father’s room looked dark and cold, as the curtains had only been opened wide enough to allow a thin sliver of daylight to cut through the gloom. Normally she didn’t like the dark, but on this occasion she was determined to find the hidden presents. She had never managed to find them before, father was just too clever.
She quickly ran across the room and pulled open the heavy curtains.
‘That’s better!’
When she glanced around the room, she was surprised to see that it was quite Spartan in its furnishings. Apart from a modestly sized four poster bed, with a crimson, velveteen canopy, the only other items in the room were an oak desk with a high backed chair and a large linen chest.
Her small feet made gentle slapping sounds on the bare floor as she hurried over to the linen chest at the end of the bed. On the top was a bowl of old lavender flowers, which had long ago lost their scent. She lifted it off and placed it carefully on the bed. Slowly, she opened the chest. Her delicate features twisted into an uncomfortable grimace, just in case squeaking hinges announced her curiosity to the household. The room stayed silent as the lid flopped back against the bed and she breathed a sigh of relief. Eagerly she looked inside and was disappointed to see that there was just a pile of neatly folded sheets and nothing else.
Once she had closed the chest and replaced the bowl, she turned towards the desk. On the top sat her father’s bible, a huge leather bound tome, that was always locked from prying eyes by a large brass clasp. She had always liked the intricate swirls of the strange pattern on the cover. She remembered that he had once shown her where the day of her birth had been recorded. He had sadly refused to show her the entry for her mother’s death. She still didn’t understand why.
Shortly after, she left the room, closing the door behind her. She stood by the wall and glanced down the passageway. There were only two doors left. The door to her room and the door that led up into the attic.
‘Mmm, I’ve looked in my room,’ she said to herself, ‘but I’m sure father wouldn’t hide them in there anyway.’
Before creeping down passage she stopped and listened again for a few moments. The house remained quiet.
Reluctantly, she started walking towards the attic door. She had never been allowed up into the attic before. ‘There’s nothing up there for a little girl,’ he would say to her.
She reached the door and stopped, knowing full well it was locked. When she looked up she saw that the key was still where it had always been, hanging from a nail, high up on the door frame. Whilst she had been growing up in the house, the key had always been out of reach, but soon she would be seven years old and she had grown taller.
Standing on the tips of her toes she stretched her arm up and tried to grab it. She grinned broadly as her fingers brushed the tip, spinning
it around on the nail. She tried again, with a little jump. This time the key spun around several times before circling off the end of the nail and clattering loudly to the floor.
She immediately froze, waiting for a shout of alarm or the sound of heavy foot steps on the stairs. Her heart pounded in her narrow chest, clammy hands trembling at her sides. She stood motionless for what seemed like hours.
She waited for a few more moments, just to make sure, before bending down and picking up the key. Without looking behind her, she pushed it into the lock and turned. It turned easily enough, with only a dull click as reward. Then she hesitated, before turning the handle and pushing the door open, the enormity of the situation was finally dawning on her. She had never been into this part of the house before, it had always been forbidden.
She stood silently, at the bottom of the short flight of stairs, looking up into the gloom. The actual task of finding her hidden birthday presents had long been forgotten. This was her chance to dispel the ghosts of her childhood curiosity, mere fascination had given way to cold dread. Slowly she started to climb the stairs, being careful not to put all her weight on any steps that might creak.
When she reached the top, the stairs opened out into a dark, cavernous attic room. It was dimly lit by a small dirty window, high in the wall at one end, which allowed in a few thin
rays of light. She wrinkled her nose at the damp, musty smell.
At first glance the room looked empty. All she could see through the darkness were bare floor boards. Then she saw something at the far end of the room, in one of the corners.
She started to walk, cautiously, across the room. Tiny dust motes floated aimlessly around her, as she momentarily broke the pale beam of light. When she neared the far corner of the room, she could see that the mysterious shape was a large casket.
When she finally reached the casket she
stopped and knelt down. Gently, she ran her hand over the smooth polished surface of the lid. Her small fingers traced around her father’s gold inlaid initials that had been beautifully carved into the wood.
She started opening the lid and was relieved to find that it wasn’t locked. Opening it as far as it would go and being careful not to let it fall back against the wall, she peered inside.
‘Oh bother! It’s empty,’ she mumbled,
frustration washing over her.
Feeling dejected, she reached over to close the lid. Suddenly something caught her eye and she stopped.
At the bottom of the casket she could just see a small pile of folded cloth. She reached in and touched the cloth. It felt smooth and light in her fingers, like nothing she had ever felt before. When she lifted it out and held it up she saw that it was a robe. She stared spellbound as the black material glistened in the dull light.
As she was about to put the robe back into the casket, she noticed something else at the bottom.
She leaned in closer to see what it was and gasped. Lying in the bottom of the casket was a large knife.
Fear gave way to curiosity and she reached in. Her fingers closed around the handle and it felt cold. Slowly, she lifted it out. It was heavier than she expected. She could see that the blade was razor sharp by the way light glinted off the edge. Then she noticed something else, the strange symbols that were etched along the length of the blade. She recognised one of them in particular.
‘That’s the same as the shape on father’s bible,’she said quietly.
Suddenly there was a noise behind her and she stopped. Icy beads of sweat rolled down her back. She could feel the silence thumping in her ears as she listened. Then she jumped as she heard a cold familiar voice behind her.
‘Put the knife back inside the casket and close the lid.’
Tears of fright appeared at the corners of her eyes. Her hands began to shake uncontrollably.
She placed the knife back inside the casket and closed the lid. Then she stood up and slowly turned round to face the direction of the voice.
‘You know it is forbidden to be here, do you not?’
‘I’m sorry father.’ Her answer was no more than a whisper as she started to cry.
CHAPTER 1. ENGLAND 1610.
The dull quiet of the dawn was interrupted when Jasper hawked and spat on the ground. As he stumbled along the track he pulled a sour expression and then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat.
‘I gotta stop drinking that stuff,’ he said, ‘I can’t feel me mouth and me ‘eads ringin.’
‘You gob on my foot Jasper Cotter an I’ll be ringin’ yer ‘ead an all,’ grunted Dag, the shorter and stockier of the two men. ‘You gotta learn to control yourself when you’re drinking Simon Hawkins’s ale, you bloody idiot!’
The two men had set off for work early that morning, making their way into Cowley Wood, just north of the village of Honeybourne.
They worked for the local Squire, cutting wood, game keeping and any other general labouring tasks he thought they were capable of.
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, trudging along the deserted path that divided the fields, the taller man spoke.
‘What you got yer ass in yer ‘ands for, anyway?’ Jasper asked rubbing his head, whilst looking at his companion.
Dag let the silence linger, content to listen to the sound of their boots scuffing the ground.
‘I ‘aint’, he answered eventually and then looked away, ‘I just think that tavern is a right shithole. I don’t know why we go in there.’
‘Where? The Black Dog?’ Jasper said sounding puzzled, his lanky frame almost tripping over as he slipped, stepping in a rut on the muddy track.
‘That’s where we were last night, wern’t it yer daft lump!’ Dag replied, becoming irritated. He shifted the weight of the bow saw on his wide shoulders. ‘Now drop the questions! It doesn’t matter.’ He felt embarrassed and quickened his pace, putting some distance between them. But as they started to enter the woods, Jasper caught up with him.
‘I know what it is!’ he said with a look of realisation on his dirty face, ‘Sarah! You were trying to have a crack at her last night, but Daniel got there first!’ Jasper saw the look on his friend’s face and suddenly realised he had gone too far.
‘Bastard blacksmith! I bloody hate him!’ Dag seethed, causing the younger man to flinch.
‘Anyway, I said bloody drop it. We got work to do and these fucking trees don’t cut ‘em selves down’. He stormed ahead again causing Jasper to hurry to keep up.
They followed the winding track deep into the wood until they got to a clearing. Once they had stopped Dag slipped the huge bow saw off his shoulder and leaned it against a stacked pile of sawn tree trunks, the evidence of the previous day’s labour. He pushed his hands into the small of his back, to try and ease the nagging pain that he seemed to get more often than he used to.
Jasper sat down on a tree stump and breathed out loudly, cradling his head in his hands. Dag looked at him and shook his head and smiled, his mood lightening a little. He had known the younger man since they were children, both of them growing up in the village. Together they had been the cause of all manner of mischief, sharing a camaraderie that was known and admired amongst the other children. In a word they were inseparable, which is how Jasper had found work. The Squire had been reluctant to take the younger man on at first. But Dag, who was regarded as the sensible one of the pair, felt quite protective towards Jasper and managed to persuade him otherwise.
‘How’s yer ‘ead?’ he said calmly, looking up and surveying the tree line. ‘Any better?’ There was no answer. ‘I said how’s….’ He glanced down and saw that Jasper’s face was frozen in a mask of utter terror. ‘What is it?...eh what yer seen?’ He looked up sharply and followed Jasper’s gaze.
The colour instantly drained from his face. He felt unable to move or speak and the only sound he could hear, over the cawing of the crows, was Jasper being violently sick on the ground behind him.
First Place Winner in historical fiction in the Purple Dragonfly Awards for excellence in children's literature, and named a U.P. Notable Classic.
Feel like you are in the moment nearly 100 years ago with a young girl, daughter of Finnish immigr
Third Book in Five Book Series - Southern Swallow - a tale of 12th Century China. Li K'ai-men becomes entangled in an intrigue that becomes his undoing.
Ireland 1947. Seven weeks of relentless snow. Guard Eamon Foley is searching for a missing child.
At Toby Appleyard’s farm, he discovers the kitchen littered with dead cats. And the skeletal remains of a woman. Upstairs, Toby is dead in his bed.
