Medieval Mystery

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. Now Eleanor must not only struggle to gain the respect of her terrified and resentful flock but also cope with violence, lust, and greed.

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. Death may be denied once in his quest for souls but never twice. Soon after the trio arrives, an important guest is murdered. The prioress' brother, bloody dagger in hand, stands over the corpse. All others may believe in his guilt, but Eleanor is convinced her brother is innocent. Outside her priory, in a world of armed men, Eleanor may have little authority, but she is determined to untangle the Gordian knot of thwarted passions and old resentments even if it means defying her father, a man with whom she longs to make peace. As passions rise with the winter wind and time runs short, Eleanor, Anne, and Thomas struggle to find the real killer.

As the autumn storms of 1271 ravage the East Anglian coast, Crowner Ralf finds the corpse of a brutally murdered soldier in the woods near Tyndal Priory. The dagger in the man's chest is engraved with a strange, cursive design, and the body is wrapped in a crusader's cloak. Was this the act of a member of the Assassin sect, or was the weapon meant to mislead? Ralf's decision to take the corpse to the priory for advice may be reasonable, but he is soon caught up in a maelstrom of conflict, both personal and political. The priory is deeply divided over whether to purchase a relic—a decision that endangers both Prioress Eleanor's leadership and the future of the hospital. Brother Thomas becomes a suspect in the murder, and Ralf must choose between loyalty to a friend and the demands of his brother, the sheriff. Meanwhile, the murderer watches and waits.

It is May 1272, and Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal, recovering from a near-fatal winter fever, journeys to Amesbury Priory to visit her aunt in time for the Feast of Saint Melor. Although Eleanor hopes to regain her strength in the midst of pleasant childhood memories, death reveals a most troublesome fondness for her company.A ghost now haunts Amesbury. Is it perhaps the spirit of a pregnant woman who drowned herself in the River Avon? But soon the specter turns murderous. A man is decapitated near the river where the grim figure walks, yet Sister Beatrice, Eleanor's aunt and acting prioress of Amesbury, shows an uncharacteristic hesitancy about taking charge of any investigation. As others apparently fall victim to the vengeful ghost, Eleanor struggles to put a human face on the restless spirit, and Brother Thomas, pursuing a secret mission for the church connected with the priory's famous psaltery, finds that his own demons have unexpectedly taken on a very human form. Corpses grow in number. Death dances with glee. All hope of sweet spring begins to die, and even love takes on a somber hue.

The summer of 1273 is peaceful for most of England, except in the village of Tyndal, where Martin the cooper has been poisoned at the local inn. Martin had plenty of enemies; the killer could be anyone. Prioress Eleanor grieves for her friend, the newly bereaved Crowner Ralf, and offers what help she can. But when her own problems multiply, Eleanor has good reason to regret her kindness. Her new anchoress terrifies her servants and welcomes visitors to her window at night. One of those visitors is Brother Thomas, a man the prioress secretly loves and whose loyalty to her as head of Tyndal Priory is now suspect. Bodies multiply. Suspects disappear. No one likes the direction the evidence is pointing, but God's justice must be rendered—even for the forsaken soul.

When one of her company falls ill on a return journey to Tyndal, Prioress Eleanor accepts lodging at a nearby manor. There, Master Stevyns's wife is having an affair with the groom, while a local widow acts more like the lady of the manor than the lady herself. The master's eldest son and spouse are obsessed with sin and heaven, while his youngest son, bound for the church, unexpectedly returns with more interest in lute playing than the priesthood. It is no surprise when someone's throat is cut, but the sheriff does all he can to avoid offending the family rather than seeking the real killer. When he arrests a servant, she herself is stabbed before she can either prove her innocence or be taken away for hanging. Eleanor must discover the dark secrets that have led to this string of killings before the murderer strikes again.

Baron Herbert's return from crusade should have been a joyous occasion. Instead, he grows increasingly morose, withdraws from his family, and refuses to share his wife's bed. When his sons begin to die in strange accidents, some ask whether Herbert harbors a dark sin for which God has cursed him. The baron suddenly sends for Sir Hugh of Wynethorpe, begging his friend to bring spiritual and secular healers but giving little explanation for the request. Worried about Herbert's descent into melancholy and the tragic deaths, Sir Hugh persuades his sister, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory, to accompany him as well as a respected physician, Master Gamel. Although he is pleased when the prioress brings her healer, Sister Anne, he is dismayed to find Brother Thomas included, a man he has reason to despise. Perhaps there is a malign presence at this storm-blasted castle, oddly named Doux et Dur. Tensions spark among family members and soon between those who came to help. Death's scythe harvests more victims, and it is not long before Ecclesiastes' grim words seem all too apt. But is there also a time to heal? This is the eighth in Royal's Medieval Mystery series.

The summer of 1276 at Tyndal Priory is peaceful-until Kenelm's corpse is found floating in the millpond. When Brother Thomas concludes that the murder occurred on priory grounds, Prioress Eleanor and Crowner Ralf swiftly agree to help each other solve the crime. The murder victim, a newcomer, was disliked in Tyndal village, and no one there wants one of their own hanged for the deed. Fingers quickly point to a Jewish family, refugees under the relocation provisions of King Edward's Statute of Jewry. As riots loom and threats mount against the family, Eleanor and Ralf have little time before popular opinion rules the murder solved. Did Jacob ben Asser kill the man, or was it Gwydo, a new lay brother with an unknown past? These questions are difficult enough, but when Gytha, the prioress' maid, joins the suspect list, the inquiry takes an even more troubling turn. Murder investigations are always grim, but this one grows as ominous as a North Sea storm. Once again, Prioress Eleanor jousts with the Prince of Darkness for the sake of justice, but this time even she wonders if unmasking the killer is a mission she wants to undertake.

In the spring of 1277, Prioress Eleanor goes on a pilgrimage to a famous East Anglian shrine. There are rumors that King Edward may also visit the shrine soon to seek God's blessing for his invasion of Wales. Lurking in this sacred place, however, is an assassin hoping to murder a king. Soon after Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas arrive, a nun falls to her death from the priory bell tower. Brother Thomas finds the body, and the pair quickly grasp that this nun's death was not an accident. The circumstances point to murder, but this slaying is further tainted with treason. Among the pilgrims, merchants, and religious, too many betray an interest in this death-including a canny street child. At least one of them is most certainly a killer. Can Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas succeed in exposing the assassin, or will they also fall victim to the one who has made a covenant with hell?

It is the autumn of 1278. The harvest is in. The air is crisp. Dusty summer breathes a last sigh before the dark seasons arrive.For Prioress Eleanor, dark times arrive early in Norfolk. The head of her order, Abbess Isabeau, has sent Father Etienne Davoir from their headquarters in France to inspect all aspects of Tyndal Priory, from its morals to its roofs. Surely the abbess would not have chosen her own brother for this rare and thorough investigation unless the cause was serious and she had reason to fear intervention from Rome. Prioress Eleanor knows something is terribly amiss.The situation turns calamitous when Davoir's sick clerk dies from a potion sent by Sister Anne, Tyndal's sub-infirmarian. Is Sister Anne guilty of simple incompetence-or murder? Or, Davoir asks, did Prioress Eleanor order the death to frighten him away before he discovered the truth behind accusations that she is unfit for her position?When Davoir himself is threatened, the priest roars for justice. Even expectant father Crowner Ralf, the local representative of the king's justice, has lost all objectivity. The most likely suspects are Anne, the woman Ralf once loved, the prioress he respects, and the Tyndal monk, Thomas, who is his closest friend. Who among the French and English assembled at Tyndal has succumbed to Satan's lullaby?

A royal birth, a nobleman's death, and a scarlet woman's murder. In March 1279 Edward I takes a break from hammering the Welsh and bearing down on England's Jews to vacation in Gloucestershire. The royal party breaks the journey at Woodstock Manor. There, one life begins as the queen gives birth to a daughter and one draws to an end as apoplexy fells Baron Adam Wynethorpe. Hastening to the baron's deathbed is his eldest son, Hugh, a veteran of Edward's Crusades who can't shake off the battle horrors he has witnessed. The baron's daughter, Prioress Eleanor, has already arrived to tend to her father, bringing along her subinfirmarian, Sister Anne, and the monk Brother Thomas. Awaiting Hugh is his illegitimate son, Richard, a youth filled with rebellion-and a secret. The royal manor is packed with troubling guests, including a sinister priest, an elderly Jewish mother mourning a son hanged for the treason of coin-clipping, contentious and greedy courtiers, and a lusty wife engaged with more than one lover. Quite soon, the wife is found hanged. Prioress Eleanor and Sister Anne persuade the high sheriff of Berkshire that Mistress Hawis' death was not a suicide. In fact, many at the manor had reason to wish Hawis dead. And one of the suspects is Richard. In her twelfth novel, Royal once again "amplifies and deepens her series characters in the service of a clever plot that elevates her work to the top rank of historical mystery writers," as Publishers Weekly said in a starred review of Satan's Lullaby, the eleventh in a series recommended by Sharon Kay Penman and favorably compared to Ellis Peters' Cadfael books.