'When we move out tomorrow to St Thomas's watering hole, let us tell a merry tale to instruct or amuse. But, at night,' his voice fell, 'let it be different.' He stared around the now quiet company. 'Let us tell a tale of mystery that will chill the blood, halt the heart and curl the locks upon our heads.'
From Paul Doherty's
"An Ellis Peters Memorial Anthology of Historical Crime" - a superb collection of short stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski.
When Alleyne's father is murdered in 1114, during the lawless times of the civil war, she does not know who she can trust. The old family friend, or the dangerous stranger her father sent to look after her, and who suspects that old family friend of being the murderer.
Alfred the Great is dying and Uhtred of Bebbanburg is called upon to defend the kingdom against yet another attack from the Danes and their allies while Alfred's heirs fight each other for the throne. Only Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed recognises his worth and his achievements - and repays him with her love.
Dame Frevisse is brought to London against her will but soon sets to work restoring order where Cardinal Beaufort and Frevisse's cousin, the Countess of Suffolk, have combined to create chaos and death.
A tale of Arthur and Guenevere, of Merlin, Morgan le Fay, Prince Modred and Sir Hugue de Beau Regard; and of Sir Hugue's daughter Fleur, whose life is no longer her own once Morgan and Modred's eyes light upon her.
As Queen Isabella and her lover Sir Roger Mortimer take over the kingdom from the deposed Edward II, Simon Puttock and Sir Baldwin de Furnshill find their services called on once again.
The fourth in the magical Aelf Fen mystery series. Lassair's studies under the wizard Gurdyman in Cambridge are interrupted when she has a recurrent power dream - "Come to me! I need you!"
In the midst of his fencing match with Philip the Fair's spies and assassins, Sir Hugh Corbett is sent to Nottingham to find out why the Earl of Locksley (aka Robin Hood) has returned to the Greenwood and who poisoned the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Another collection of short stories by "the Medieval Murderers", this one following a medieval mystery play with a curse upon it down through the centuries.
A motley group of medieval outsiders thrown together by fate try desperately to make their way north through plague-stricken England in a vain attempt to outrun the unoutrunnable: the Black Death.
We go back in time to when Fidelma left Rome in AD 664 and - in a new adventure set between two older ones - finds herself in the Abbey of Bobium surrounded by monks one or two of whom are certainly multiple murderers. The she is abducted by a war-lord who sells young women to slavers! Never a dull moment.
Roger the Chapman sets off on his rounds hoping for a little peace and quiet, some time to himself, but soon gets caught up in another murder, this one in a manor house house where the lady's death proves very convenient for the lord of the manor himself. And for several others.
Chevalier Galeran de Lesneven investigates the brutal slaying of a village beauty on what proves to have been her wedding night - though no one knew she was getting married! - and at the same time the nefarious goings-on at the Abbey of Jumieges.
