The Relic Murders

Prologue
    Oh, the bloody terrors of the night! Oh, Grim Death's dark shadow! How many times have I, Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor, risen from between my silken sheets, forsaking the warmth of those marvellous twins, Phoebe and Margot, leaving their luscious, marble-white limbs sprawled out in wine-soaked sleep? Lovely girls! My satin-skinned bedpans! How many times have I trotted across to my chamber, pulled back the drapes and stared out over a garden bathed in the light of a weeping moon? Oh, phantasm! Oh, horrors! Oh, the effect of too much claret! I have seen the demons dance in the moonbeams as motes in a shaft of sunlight! Oh, the night is the Devil's black book when I retreat to my cushioned chair and let my memories tumble out!
    In my soul's eye I sink down into the Valley of Death where eye-pecking ravens hover above rain-sodden, evil-smelling huts in which witches, beldames of Satan, sit mumping their knees against fires of pure ice. I travel on. In the midnight of that valley I meet the Lord Satan raking over the bones of long-dead men as a gardener gathers in the rotting leaves of autumn. Oh, believe me, I have seen the horrors and heard the chilling chimes at midnight! Corpses piled high like maggots caught cold in mouldy cheese! Rivers of blood splashing in torrents! Cities wrapped in the flames of hell which roar up to an implacable sky!
    It's always the same at night. I awaken as if some sanctus bell in my soul tolls away the hours, the minutes, and stirs me from my sleep. Oh, I fable not! I have seen visions which would curl your hair and turn you into Medusa. They come at night when my pillows become hard and sharp, as if stuffed with thistles. Like Hamlet or Macbeth, (oh, by the way, I had my hand in both those plays) I am forced to sit until Satan sweeps into my chamber.
    'Shallot!' he roars. 'A man should roast away, not wither up! Look at you, past your ninetieth year and stuffed by the physicians with oils and herbs like a cook would stuff a pudding!'
    The devil casts out his net of silver hooks, and dangles it before my eyes. On each hook hangs a memory of my life. And what a life! In my prime I was of medium stature and comely, with a clean-shaven face and curly, black hair and slight squint in one eye. A laughing face: a bubbling-hearted boy, full of pranks and subtle mischief! Sharp wits, faster legs and the most cowardly of hearts! I have been in all the great fights (well to the back!); in all the great pursuits (firmly in the centre!); and in many valiant retreats (at least ten good horse lengths in front of anyone else!). I have diced with kings, especially fat, blubbering Henry Tudor, that Prince of Darkness! The Mould warp prophesied by Merlin! The Great Beast! The blood-thirsty bastard! Henry the Horrible! Henry the Eighth and, if God is good, Henry the last! Mind you, he wasn't too bad. Well, once he was in his old age and his legs turned purple with ulcers and his mind became loose as a leaf in October. I could control him then. I used to push him, in his specially constructed chair, around the galleries of Whitehall. Sometimes, just for the fun of it, I'd take him to the top of some stairs and threaten to throw him down. Oh, he'd blubber! Oh, he'd plead with a wicked, devilish glare in those piggy eyes of his! So I'd change my mind and take him back to his chamber for comfits and a glass of wine. Afterwards he'd paw at my arm. 'Roger,' he'd hiss, 'Roger, my soul mate.'
    He would kiss me on the cheek and, when he'd fallen asleep, I'd wash the spot till the skin bleached. Within the hour, the fat turd would wake, screaming and yelling like a baby.
    'Light the candles! Light the candles, Roger!' he'd bawl. 'Look! Look in the corner! Can't you see them? The ghosts have come to plague my soul.'
    Corner! You'd need all of St Paul's Cathedral to harbour the ghosts waiting for Henry's soul. Gentle Thomas More, saintly Fisher, the monks of Charterhouse, the hundreds that old Jack of Norfolk hung along the Great North Road when he put down Aske's rebellion. And then my pretty ones. Anne Boleyn. Black-eyed Anne! Brave, wanton, as full of courage as a lion! Young Catherine Howard, plump and comely; soft of skin with a will of steel. Catherine of Aragon, dusky-faced, holy of mind and pure of heart. I talk of her soul rather than her physical organ – when they opened her body, her heart had shrivelled to black ash, Henry's doctors had pumped so much arsenic into her blood.
    Ah well,