A Haunt of Murder by P.C. Doherty

The Nightime tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims continue with the Clerk's Tale. Ralph Mortimer is a clerk in the Castle of Sir John Grasse, and his lady, Anne. Ralph is in love with Beatrice Arrowner, a daughter of the town Innkeeper, and on a lovely May Day, she meets with him and several other of the castle's residents for a feast.

During the feast, Ralph tells them that he is searching for an artifact, the Cross of Brythnoth, a fantastic gold and silver cross possessed by a previous lord of the castle. Brythnoth lost a fight against invading soldiers, but before his final battle, he sent his page to give the cross to his lady. The page ran from the scene of the battle, and was later killed, but he did not possess the cross. And so it disappeared into the mists of history, but Ralph is convinced that he can find where the cross is hidden.

As day turns to night, the feasters make plans to continue, but when Beatrice follows Ralph up onto the battlements of the Castle, someone pushes her off the walkway, killing her. Instead of immediately travelling to Heaven, though, she wonders why she appears to still be in the castle. She wanders through the castle grounds, seeing visions of dark knights and snarling, growling black dogs. In the village she encounters two men. One is a smiling, blue-eyed, golden-haired man who tells her not to be afraid. The other is Crispin, who tries to get her to take revenge on the one who killed her.

Beatrice falls somewhat under Crispin's sway, but her compassion for the souls of others, trapped as she is, makes Crispin abandon her. Later, she encounters a woman named Clothilde, who does the same. But again, Beatrice's compassion for others makes her alone, and when the Blonde-haired man appears again, he calls himself Brother Anthony, and warns her away from both Crispin and Clothilde. They are the same person, and are demons, meant to lure her from the path of good. He also warns her to look out for their master, another demon called the Minstrel Man who will soon be drawn to the area and to her.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Ralph mourns his lost love and comes to realize that the death of Beatrice had something to do with Ralph's own boasts about being able to find the Cross of Brythnoth. But who could have so callously tried to kill him? As Ralph investigates, he must deal with the priest, who feels that the castle has become the focus of dark forces, and the murder of the King's Tax Collector. All around them, the countryside seems to be rising up against the forces of Law and the King. Can Ralph and Sir John keep the land around the castle safe and keep the peasants from rising in revolt? As the bodies mount up and the evil spreads, only the newly dead Beatrice, and Ralph, the man she loved, might be able to avert the evil rising around them and retrieve Brythnoth's Crucifix. But can they do it before the peasants rise and swamp the land they loved?

A very spooky but effective tale. Half of it is told from the perspective of Beatrice, who as a dead spirit can see the other spirits that infect and inhabit all of these places. Ralph isn't able to see her, but sometimes he can sense her spirit near or smell her perfume. But is it really Beatrice he's feeling and sensing? We don't find out until the end of the book. And how is he able to know what Beatrice saw and knew? Again, we must wait until the end of the book for that.

Aside from the spooky atmosphere of the book, the mysteries are well-described. Ralph slowly arrives at the answer to the problem, and it becomes clear that there is a traitor in the castle. But who? I can say that Crispin/Clothilde and his/her/it/their later guises do mirror the malefactors at the castle, and it's quickly becoming clear that, in the wider universe of the meta-story that ties all the tales together, very few of the Pilgrims *didn't* know each other before the whole thing started in some way, As Ralph, the clerk, knew the Knight and his son/page from the ending of the Brythnoth's Crucifix quest.

I love how P.C. Doherty is able to tie so many of these characters together, and provide such interesting tales of murder, ghosts and dark doings for these mysteries based around the Canterbury Tales. It's an interesting idea, playing with characters already established by Chaucer and making sure each tale fits the teller. Amazing and interesting, and firmly set in the middle ages, this book and indeed, the whole series, are sure to delight. Highly recommended.