The Medieval Murderers: The Lost Prophecies

The fourth book in the Medieval Murderers series, 2008

Prologue– In which Bernard Knight lays the foundation for the murderous tales that follow.

Act One– In which Bernard Knight’s Crowner John confounds a band of treasure-hunters.

Act Two– In which Ian Morson’s Nick Zuliani dices with death in a Russian blizzard.

Act Three– In which Michael Jecks’ Keeper Sir Baldwin and Bailiff Puttock investigate murder most foul in the abbey crypt.

Act Four– In which Susanna Gregory’s Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael become embroiled in a bloodthirsty college feud.

Act Five– In which Philip Gooden’s player Nick Revill receives a letter from a mysterious uncle.

Act Six– In which C. J. Sansom confronts the Day of Judgment.

The coast of Kerry, Ireland, October 574

In the early-morning light, the fisherman Guleesh ventured nervously from his hut above Banna Strand in the Bay of Ballyheigue. His wife watched him from the door-hole, one arm around her little daughter, the other holding a hand to her mouth in breathless anxiety.

All Souls’ Night had been full of omens, starting with a huge ring around a ruddy moon. When the orb had set, flickering curtains of green light weaved eerily in the sky to the north, rarely seen except as portents of some great disaster. As if this was not enough, silent lightning flashed for the rest of the night, unsettling the dogs and making them howl in company with a vixen that barked in the woods above the beach.

Now, thankfully, the dawn seemed quiet, with not a breath of wind. The sea lapped innocently along the miles of sand that faced the great western ocean that stretched out to the edge of the world. But this virgin strand was broken by a black dot at the water’s edge, directly below their mean dwelling.

It was this that had eventually enticed the reluctant Guleesh out of his house. With the tide only just turned from the ebb, he walked cautiously down across the wide expanse of sand, his bare feet marking the pristine surface as he went. His thin, careworn woman watched him as he reached what they both had thought was a coracle. All kinds of flotsam ended up on their beach and, if it were not for the eerie signs in the heavens the previous night, it would have caused none of these premonitions of unearthly happenings.

She saw Guleesh reach the object as it rocked gently on every new wavelet that hissed up the beach. He bent to peer inside, then straightened up and began waving to her like a man possessed, his arm beckoning her to come.

Commanding her daughter to stay by the cradle with her brother, a lusty boy of two months, the wife Deirdre ran down the line of her husband’s footprints, looking ahead uneasily at the strange lines of grey cloud that hung over the sea, where the Seven Hogs of the Magharee Islands broke the horizon. A dozen large jet-black ravens suddenly dropped from high in the sky and wheeled in a circle close over her head, cawing at her to hasten. As she came to the surf, which barely washed above her ankles, she saw that it was indeed a common coracle, a round tub of greased hides stretched over a wicker frame.

‘Look, wife, look inside!’ keened Guleesh, his voice taut with awe, as he lifted aside a rough-spun blanket. Deirdre steadied the rocking craft with one hand and looked down, her eyes round with wonder, as the guardian ravens strutted behind them.

Nestled on the blanket was a naked boy-baby, still with a few inches of birth-cord attached to his navel. Motherly compassion banished all fear, and she lifted the infant in his shawl and put him to her full breast. As she crooned into his ear while he sucked greedily, there was a long, low rumble of approving thunder from over the horizon and a single large wave came to speed the coracle up the beach.

Clonmacnois Abbey, Ireland, May 608

‘What is to become of him, Father Conan?’ The abbot’s voice was weary with despair as he contemplated the problem that had beset them now for the past eight months.

The aged bishop shook his head sadly. ‘The High Council feels that there is only one solution, Brother Alither. He has been chained now for a dozen weeks. It would be kinder to return him whence he came, rather than to leave him like this until he is claimed by God – or the devil!’

Alither, the abbot of Clonmacnois, shuddered at the prospect and tears appeared in his eyes, running down the grooves in his lined face. ‘But the man is but thirty-three years old, the same as Christ at his Passion!’ he groaned. ‘He has lived here almost all his life, since he was brought here as a mere babe.’

Conan shrugged, not without compassion but bowing to the inevitability of God’s will. ‘The High Council considers that he is possessed, and I cannot say that I disagree with them, though I have never actually set my eyes upon him.’

Alither shook his head in bewilderment. ‘You must see him for yourself; he is most comely. Apart from his affliction, he is perfectly sound in wind and limb.’

‘But it is not his earthly body that concerns us, brother. It is his mind and his soul, if he has one!’

The bishop picked up a thin book from the rough table at which he sat and brandished it at the abbot. ‘Is this the product of a Christian brother – or the ravings of the devil that lives within him?’

Conan opened the covers of wood covered with black leather that were bound over a thin sheaf of yellow parchment. He held it out towards the abbot and riffled the pages under Alither’s nose.

‘What demonical evil is this? Who in Ireland has ever seen the like of this before? Can you doubt that Satan had a hand in this?’

Alither had no need to look at it; he was only too familiar with the weird volume that, along with its author, had been the bane of his life for the past few months. Though the script was neat and regular, the content of the text was beyond comprehension.

‘Perfect Latin, beautifully penned!’ continued an exasperated Conan. ‘And what does it mean? Gibberish, blasphemous gibberish! Apparently claiming to foretell the future, blasphemously encroaching on God’s Holy Will, which has preordained every action until the end of time!’

The abbot nodded reluctantly. ‘It seems that way, bishop,’ he agreed sadly. ‘Compared with this, the Revelation of St John is crystal clear!’

Wearily, Conan dropped the book back on to the table. ‘Tell me again, before I cast my eyes upon him, how came this Brân to be here?’

Alither refilled the bishop’s mead cup from a small jug before replying.

They were seated in the bare room where the abbot slept, worked and prayed, one of a dozen wooden buildings clustered inside the palisade on a low gravel ridge on the banks of the great river.

‘He was named Brân, as the simple fisherfolk who found him were besieged by his namesake ravens as they rescued him from the beach – and Brân is well known as the son of a sea-god!’

With little effort he mixed pagan beliefs with his Christianity as he continued. ‘They took him straight to the abbey of Ard Fert, not two miles from where the babe was washed ashore. The women there cared for him for seven years, until he was brought up the Shannon to us here at Clonmacnois.’

Conan knew, as did every religious in Ireland, of the magical origins of this Brân. But as the years passed and the child grew first into a scholar, then a novice and finally a monk without any further manifestations of the Other World, it was forgotten for almost three decades.