Rustle of Silk

Alys Clare

Description

The First Gabriel Taverner mystery. Devon, 1607. Gabriel Taverner, former ship's surgeon turned country physician, is called to examine a rotting body found impaled on a blade. Identifying the corpse seems a hopeless task and the death is declared a suicide. But Gabriel is not satisfied and re-examines the body - making the first of a series of shocking discoveries that will lead him deep into the dark underbelly of the lucrative silk trade. As he investigates, Gabriel realises that not only was the death a murder - but even worse, he had a personal connection with the corpse.

Sujets

• Devon

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 03 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786895042
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Alys Clare is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Harris,who studied archaeology at the University of Kent.Elizabeth also writes the much-loved Hawkenlye andAelf Fen series. A Rustle of Silk is the first in hergripping Gabriel Taverner series.
Also by Alys Clare
The Gabriel Taverner Mysteries
A Rustle of Silk

The Hawkenlye Series
The Paths of the Air The Joys of My Life The Rose of the World The Song of the Nightingale The Winter King A Shadowed Evil
The Norman Aelf Fen Series
Out of The Dawn Light Mist Over the Water Music of the Distant Stars The Way Between the Worlds Land of the Silver Dragon Blood of the South the Night Wanderer



First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2019 by Black Thorn, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2019 by Black Thorn
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada
First published in 2016 by Severn House Publishers Ltd, Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
blackthornbooks.com
Copyright © Alys Clare, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidentsare either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 479 3 eISBN 978 1 8689 504 2
CONTENTS
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Postscript
PART ONE
ONE
April 1603
S o, Doctor Gabriel, we re to get that Scots Mary s lad, just like they predicted, Sallie said. She had her back to me, her wide rump swaying to the rhythm of her vigorous polishing of the sideboard.
Very slowly and quietly, I bent forward and banged my head several times on the gleaming surface of my oak table. It was at least the fifth remark of this sort that my housekeeper had made since she came into my study to tidy up , as she would have it. I had been hoping to have a peaceful morning of hard work - I had so much to learn - but I wasn t going to be allowed that dubious pleasure until I had made some sort of response.
Yes, I agreed.
It wasn t much of a reply, but even the single word was sufficient to open the gates and allow Sallie s spring tide of garrulousness to surge forth.
Well, like I ve said all along, it s a mystery to me, she began, stopping her polishing as suddenly as if she d been turned to stone and, leaning her backside comfortably against my table, fixing me with a stern look. Twenty-five years back, and the Queen - God rest her - was sending the order to have the young fellow s mother s head cut off! Not that I blame her for that, mind, she added hurriedly - the late Queen Elizabeth had been her idol. Now she s named this green boy as her successor! What are we to make of it, Doctor?
She had taken to referring to me thus. While it is perfectly correct - the reward for three of the most mentally demanding years of my life - nevertheless, I wished she wouldn t. I sounded like a stranger to myself.
I gathered my thoughts to form an answer. James can hardly be described as a boy, I said mildly, since he is thirty-seven years old, and if by green you mean inexperienced, he s not that either since he s already King of Scotland and has been for thirty years and more. Besides, I added, trying to sound as if I was firmly concluding the conversation, he is the only male blood relation that the late Queen had.
Elizabeth had said, so the tale went, who but a prince should follow a prince? Enigmatic right to the end, those close to her had interpreted her meaning correctly - or so we all supposed - and now James VI of Scotland was to become James I of England, and our new monarch. How he would make out, attempting to fill the huge boots of his charismatic, infuriating, powerful, feeble, contradictory, loved, hated predecessor, we waited, in some trepidation, to discover.
Sallie was still chattering on, and now we were far down the tunnel of memory and back in the golden days of Queen Elizabeth, when Gloriana had been worshipped as a red-haired goddess whose dainty feet danced the Volta while her shrewd, clever brain - she was, after all, her father s child - plotted ceaselessly, ruthlessly and, for the most part, efficiently.
I stopped listening.
Suddenly Sallie s eyes happened to light on the book lying open on my table. Belatedly I covered the illustration with a blank sheet of vellum, but Sallie s open mouth, and the fact that she stopped talking in mid-sentence, suggested the damage was done.
She gave me a very odd look, then, without another word, picked up her dusters, her broom and her beeswax and lavender polish, and swept out of the room. As her footsteps trotted away up the passage, I distinctly heard her loud, judgemental sniff.
I couldn t blame her for the reaction. I was studying the female reproductive system and even if Sallie might not be very good at reading the words, she would have understood the diagrams. I sighed. I d have to find a way of making it right with her, or else I would suffer a week of my least favourite foods served up, half cold like as not, for my supper.
Resolutely I dragged my thoughts away from King James, Sallie and the prospect of seven days of pallid and unappetizing meals featuring salt cod, and applied myself to my studies.
I have spent the greater part of my life at sea, latterly as a ship s surgeon. Land-bound these six years, I had hoped to set up as a sawbones, barber surgeon - whatever you prefer to call it - in Plymouth, the closest busy town to my home. The numerous existing sawbones and barber surgeons, however, had other ideas. Medicine being all that I knew, all that I could do or wanted to do, hurriedly I reviewed my options, and made the difficult decision to go to London and gain a qualification as a physician. I achieved my aim - just about - and now I was trying to establish my practice.
Which was why, that sunny morning in early April, I was studying the female body. My life on board the late Queen s ships had taught me a great deal, and I knew as much as any surgeon about broken limbs, amputation, sewing up deep wounds, preventing infection in the lashed back of a flogged sailor, how to recognize a variety of diseases and do what I could for the poor sufferer, how to treat the wide variety of injuries to which men on a sailing ship were prone. But my life at sea had left a vast gap in my knowledge and experience: I knew next to nothing about women. My recent years of training had naturally gone some way towards redressing the balance, although I knew I still had a long way to go. Since a doctor could scarcely call himself by the name if his expertise only extended to half the human race - not even that, for I also had yet to experience at first hand the mysteries of most of the wide range of childhood maladies - I was determined to study as hard as I must until I felt fully confident.
The bright day passed. I worked on, my concentration so intense that I was only vaguely aware of goings-on around me. The sweet smells of spring floated in through the open study window, briefly interrupted by a richer, riper and less fragrant aroma as Tock, the dim-witted lad who carries out the more straightforward of the outdoor tasks, carted another load of dung out to the vegetable patch. Dipping my quill into the ink horn yet again, I paused briefly: Tock needed someone brighter to order his days, and Samuel, most reliable of men and equipped with an inexhaustible fund of patience when it comes to Tock, had gone to market. Tock is willing and he has strong arms and broad shoulders, but he is totally lacking in initiative. Order him to take a load of dung from the midden to the vegetable garden and he ll do just that: take one load. Then, unless somebody notices, he ll sit beside the empty cart gazing into space for the remainder of the daylight. I put down my quill, about to go outside and gently but firmly encourage Tock to go back for another load, but Sallie beat me to it. As I returned to my books, I heard her shrill voice screeching at him to get back to work as that dung wasn t going to grow legs and walk to the vegetable patch by itself.
I have no idea what Tock s real name is, and very possibly he hasn t either. He must have been orphaned young, and he first came to my family s notice when he began hanging around my grandfather s forge, blue-tipped hands spread to the warmth, refusing to go away even when various objects were hurled at him along with the imprecations. He d have been seven or eight then, filthy, lice-ridden, starving, clad in rags and with his bones standing out so that you could have traced his entire skeleton under the blotched and scabby skin. My grandmother took pity on the boy, and persuaded my grandfather to put him to work in the smithy. Tock would sit for hours, tapping a hammer against the huge old anvil and murmuring Tock . It was the only word he spoke - and tapping his hammer purposelessly on the anvil the only activity he did - for almost two years. But my grandparents refused to give up, and Tock has been with one or other member of the family ever since.
I heard Sallie come bustling back into the house and cross the hall below me, muttering not quite under her breath about being far too busy to worry about stup