Worcester, December 1145. Snow has dusted the frozen mud and filth of the streets, while the fringes of the city’s great artery, the River Severn, are beginning to freeze. Merchant Hamelin Isenmongere, apparently a benign and compassionate man from Gloucester, is found dead on the quayside, the side of his skull stove in by some heavy implement. No-one has a bad word to say about him. He was benevolent to the poor – including the child of the streets Godfilde (who will later play a significant part in the novel’s finale) – generous to the church, and dealt fairly with fellow traders in the city.
We are frequently reminded in this series that along with the turn of the seasons, and the implacable retreat and return of the sun, this was a society within which religious observance was deeply embedded. Early in the piece we are told that this is the third week of Advent. This season of the church’s year is a precious and significant time largely ignored these days, but one previously associated with great music and a sense of devotion.. A priest tells us that a woman, “did not come to Vespers, for her sons are still very small, but she came to Matins most days, and None sometimes.”
I am something of a lapsed Anglican and, of course, the religion of 12th century Worcester was the Roman Catholicism that was to endure for another four centuries, but the way in which the lives of rich and poor are underpinned by religious observances, both great and small is, somehow, comforting.
Readers of both authors may be surprised to find me likening Hawkswood to the great Noir writer Derek Raymond. The latter’s nameless sergeant, a relentless hunter of killers, does so as a service to the dead. Here, Bradecote, hunched over the body of a victim, whispers,
“A price will be paid for this, mistress.”
Like his twentieth century counterpart, Bradecote will avenge the dead, and he dedicates his labours to the lives – both noble and humble – that have been ended by acts of violence.
The English civil war of the 12th century smouldered – and occasionally burst into flames – for almost two decades. Stephen and Matilda were both grandchildren of William the Conqueror, and each claimed the throne. It has been in the background for all the Bradecote books, but here the question of dealings between noble supporters of the rival factions raises its head, causing Bradecote and his sergeants to tread very warily.
A particularly significant player in the civil war was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry 1st and a fervent supporter of Matilda, and the city of Gloucester is just under 30 miles downstream in the river from Worcester. I don’t know if the Norman French version of cherchez la femme differs significantly from the modern version, but Hamelin’s widow, the Lady Sybilla seems central to the story. How genuine is her grief for her murdered husband, and what is her relationship with the boatman Ragnaill of Duiblinn? Bradecote and Catchpoll eventually confirm that espionage is at the centre of the story, but not before there are more deaths.
Any assiduous historical novelist can do the technical research on the customs, sounds, smells, clothing and political structure of the period in which they set their story. Weaving all these details into a convincing tapestry is something else all together. This is where Sarah Hawkswood (top left) is in a class of her own. For three hundred pages or so, I lived and breathed the Worcester of December 1145, and the present day became just a shadow. Like any murder mystery, A Shroud of Snow is riven with death, but it ends beautifully, just days of the most important Nativity of all, with a birth. It will be published by Allison and Busby on 20th August. For reviews of earlier novels in the series, click the author image.
