Mediaeval Mystery Fiction

July 1346. The Hundred Years' War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground. Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, mace and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crécy.

1348. The Black Death enters England through the port of Melcombe; the people of the county start to die in the thousands. In the demesne of Develish, Lady Anne takes control of her people's future, chooses a bastard slave, Thaddeus Thurkell, to act as her steward, and together they decide to quarantine Develish by bringing the serfs inside the walls. With this sudden overturning of the accepted social order, where serfs exist only to serve their lords, conflicts soon arise....

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford. A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes.

Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot.

This story is set at the end of the 10th century and charts the journey of a young warrior, whose father, Bersi, is killed during a raid on Wessex. Sven Bersisson has to grow up quickly and to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sweyn Skull Taker, his uncle, becomes his foster father and they raid Wessex and Frankia, where the young warrior becomes a man. King Sweyn Forkbeard, the king of Denmark, uses their clan to help in his dream of defeating the Norwegians and then taking the throne of England.

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy' of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world, he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods.

Late summer, 1270. Although the Simon de Montfort rebellion is over, the smell of death still hangs over the land. In the small priory of Tyndal, the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevraud long for a return to routine. Their hopes are dashed, however, when the young and inexperienced Eleanor of Wynethorpe is appointed their new prioress. Only a day after her arrival, a brutally murdered monk is found in the cloister gardens, and Brother Thomas, a young priest with a troubled past, arrives to bring her a more personal grief.

Accused of treason and stripped of his knighthood, Crispin Guest has survived on the gritty streets of London by reinventing himself as The Tracker, an investigator for hire who can locate lost objects and uncover secrets. When the merchant Nicholas Walcote hires Guest to investigate his young wife Philippa for adultery, he discovers an underground world of danger and dirty dealings. Philippa is indeed hiding something—but she's not the only one. Walcote himself is rumored to possess a holy relic so powerful that some would even kill for it.

Oxford, late summer, 1353. On hearing that his cousin is short-handed for the harvest, Nicholas Elyot takes a group of friends back to the family farm to help. When a deer hunt in Wychwood ends in tragedy, suspicion is directed toward the huntsman, a boyhood friend of Nicholas. But the victim has made many other enemies, any one of whom could have shot the fatal arrow. Can Nicholas uncover the real killer before it is too late?

Salisbury, 1226. A mysterious poacher claims to be a long-lost heir - to a man found crushed by his own cart wheel. Ela Longespée is determined to find the truth, even though the king has coldly appointed another sheriff in her place. Ela takes pity on the man - an injured knight who once saved her husband’s life - and convinces the sheriff to release him from jail while she investigates. Will it turn out to be a deadly mistake?

England, 1351. The Pestilence has ravaged the land. Villages lie abandoned but for crows and corpses. Highways are patrolled by marauders and murderers. In these dark and dangerous times, the wise keep to themselves. But Gerard Fox cannot afford to be wise. The young knight has been robbed of his ancestral home, his family name tarnished. To regain his lands and reputation, he sets forth to petition the one man who can restore them. Fate places Fox on the wrong road at the wrong time as he hurtles towards a chance encounter.

Oxford, Autumn 1353. St. Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France. Yet the earnings from the fair, granted to the Priory of St. Frideswide centuries before, are resented by the town, and resentment can turn to violence. Under the unscrupulous Prior de Hungerford, even more trouble is brewing.

Salisbury, 1226. A young pregnant woman is found tangled in reeds in the river Avon, her identity a mystery. Grieving widow Ela Longespée is determined to succeed her husband as sheriff of Salisbury, and quickly takes charge of the investigation. She soon finds herself in the thick of a neighborhood scandal and a struggle to maintain her authority. With multiple suspects, can she identify the true killer?

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

The Monastery at Whitby is ruled over by the powerful and independent Abbess Hild. But when she needs someone to confide in, she turns to the honest warmth of her friend Fridgyth, the half-pagan herb-wife. A divisive and life-altering decision taken at the Great Synod is swiftly overshadowed as the monastery is ravaged by a deadly plague. As she tends the sick, Fridgyth starts to suspect that not all the deaths are natural. Despite Hild's stern warnings "not to meddle" she sets out to investigate.

Oxford, Spring - 1354. When the series of accidents to the building of the chapel at Queen’s College begin, they do not appear a cause for concern, but they grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured. Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is discovered that an intruder has reached the college by way of his garden. When Jordain Brinkylsworth’s youngest student goes missing, it seems at first that his disappearance is unconnected, yet he is one of the ‘poor boys’ supported by Queen’s. Surely this serious and studious boy cannot be responsible for the troubles?

When Nicholas Elyot and his friends set out to spend the Christmas season in the country, they are prepared for a hard journey in winter. They are also wary of violence on the road, for these are troubled times after the Great Pestilence, when bands of dispossessed and desperate men roam the countryside of England. It is not surprising, therefore, when the troubadours hired to provide entertainment at Leighton Manor are attacked in Wychwood. Yet why should this group draw the attention of outlaws, who are searching for something? Is one of the troubadours not quite what he seems?

In the winter of 1271, death stalks the corridors of Wynethorpe Castle on the Welsh border. When the Grim Reaper touches the beloved grandson of the castle lord, Baron Adam sends for his daughter, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal, and her subinfirmarian, Sister Anne, to save the child with their prayers and healing talents. Escorting them to the remote fortress is Brother Thomas, an unwilling monk fighting his private demons.

When the novice Emma Thorgold goes missing from Godstow Abbey in the summer of 1353, the hunt is on throughout the Oxfordshire countryside. Bookseller Nicholas Elyot and scholar Jordain Brinkylsworth are anxious to help the girl, but her stepfather has other intentions. Why is he so determined to shut her away for life? Or worse? And will she be found unharmed?