Veil of Lies

Afterword

Why “Medieval Noir”?

There is something about the dark, the seamier side of things that attracts me. This is realized in the precise prose and staccato dialogue of such specialists as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Dorothy B. Hughes. Their fiction centered on a different slice of reality, one of starkness, harsh lighting, deep shadows, manly men with their own code of honor. And of course the women. Always in danger or always dangerous.

It seemed to me a perfect fit to drop a hard-boiled detective in the middle ages, even though the notion of a “private detective” was still centuries away. While there seemed to be a plethora of monks and nuns in the field of medieval mystery, my goal was to offer something different. I wanted to bring something darker and edgier to the genre. Here is a period rife with intrigue, codes of honor, mysterious doings, and dim, shadowy light. It screamed for a detective more like Sam Spade than Brother Cadfael.

A note on some details: Sheriff Simon Wynchecombe was in reality one of two sheriffs of London at that time (who could make up a name like that?). I also embroiled poor Crispin in all the fractured politics of Richard II’s reign. Though there were historical instances—very few—of degraded and disseised (forcibly dispossessed) knights, they were either executed or banished and generally not thrown into the degree of poverty that Crispin was. The fact that he is so depleted from what defined him—his wealth and status—makes for an interesting and sympathetic character: King Richard murders him without actually killing him. The irony—for those students of English history—is that the same fate eventually befalls King Richard himself when, seventeen years later, he is forced to abdicate and is subsequently murdered.

Was Richard really all that bad at the beginning of his reign? History tells us “no,” that he was, in fact, looked on as a shrewd young man and handled the Wat Tyler peasant revolt with aplomb. It was only later in his career that he allowed vanity and his many favorites to woo him to poor choices. Crispin, of course, sees the world through the eyes of Lancaster, the father figure in his life. And not unlike other recent political events where those in power are followed blindly—never mind the law or morality—we see how extreme loyalty can make even a discerning man like Crispin a little stupid. I have no doubt that as the series progresses, Crispin will see the error of his ways, but by then, Richard will begin to prove Crispin right.

Now about this story. Of course there was no “mob” as such in the fourteenth century, but the city states of Italy and the dukes and princes who ran them certainly could be considered “mob bosses.” Bernabò Visconti was a ruthless man, as ruthless as any Godfather, constantly at war with the pope and the city states of Florence, Venice, and Savoy. But ruthless men usually get their comeuppance, and Visconti got his…by his own family. He was captured and imprisoned by his nephew, whereupon he died in prison. Of natural causes? Who can say?

But I digress. Wasn’t this story about the cloth?

The Mandyllon or Mandillon or the Sudarium (facecloth) is an obscure relic, one that can never quite be distinguished from the present relics said to have the image of Christ. First mention of any kind of “veronica” came from apocryphal gospels and manuscripts, most notably Curia Sanitatis Tiberii and Acta Pilati. A veronica was mentioned as early as the second century, but the Veronica’s Veil legend associated with the Passion that we know today emerged out of the medieval need to connect legend and artifact.

Most of the Mandyllon’s saga was recounted in this novel and comes from an ecclesiastical history written in the fourth century by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea and a later sixth century tale told by Evagrius Scholasticus, an ecclesiastical historian. Many relic scholars believe it is the same cloth known as the “Veronica” that used to be housed in the Vatican in a shrine to St. Veronica. However, historians report that the “Veronica” might have been stolen from the St. Veronica chapel in 1600 when St. Peter’s was rebuilt, or that it somehow got “mislaid.” In 1608, the chapel in which the veil was housed was destroyed. Was it stolen at that time? In 1616, Pope Paul V forbade copies of the “Veronica” to be made. Was it because the original was gone? The eyes on the veil prior to this were opened, but after the events of 1608, all other copies show the figure with eyes closed. However, there is a “Veronica” that is displayed at St. Peter’s Basilica on Passion Sunday, the fifth Sunday of Lent. Is this the original or another copy? Some veil scholars believe the original veil from the Vatican ended up in a Capuchin friary in Manoppello, Italy, where, indeed, a veil arrived there at about the same time the veil was said to be mislaid. Pope Benedict XVI recently made a visit to the friary and viewed what many Catholics hold to be the Veronica’s Veil. Yet some even think the one in Manoppello is itself a copy. And still others believe the Mandyllon was the folded Shroud of Turin. Was this the Mandyllon? Was there ever a Mandyllon? Who knows?

Could the Mandyllon force you to tell the truth? Playing on the theme of vera icona—“true image”—it was my fiction that the veil would force you to reveal your true self.

In the meantime, Crispin and friends will return in another mystery of court intrigue and assassination plots in Serpent in the Thorns.