Book description
Chaucer's pilgrims, quarrelling amongst themselves, are now in open
countryside enjoying the fresh spring weather as they progress slowly
towards Canterbury. A motley collection of travellers, they each have
their dark secrets, hidden passions and complex lives. As they shelter
in a tavern from a sudden April shower they choose the Man of Law to
narrate the next tale of fear and sinister dealings. In August 1358, the
Dowager Queen Isabella, mother of King Edward III, the 'She Wolf of
France', who betrayed and destroyed her husband because of her
adulterous infatuation for Roger Mortimer, lies dying of the pestilence
in the sombre fortress of Castle Rising, where her 'loving' son has kept
her incarcerated. According the Man of Law, Isabella dies and her body
is taken along the Mile End Road and laid to rest in Greyfriars next to
the mangled remains of her lover, who has paid dearly for his
presumption in loving a queen. Nevertheless, as in life so in death
Isabella causes intrigue, violence and murder. Nicholas Chirke, an
honest young lawyer, is brought in to investigate the strange events
following her death - and quickly finds himself at his wits' end trying
to resolve the mysteries before a great scandal unfolds. Paul Doherty
was born in Middlesbrough. He studied History at Liverpool and Oxford
Universities and obtained a doctorate for his thesis on Edward II and
Queen Isabella. He is now headmaster of a school in north-east London
and lives with his family in Essex.
