A Crowning Mercy. Bernard Cornwell

      A CROWNING MERCY

      BERNARD CORNWELL

      and

      SUSANNAH KELLS

Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain 1983

      Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2003

      Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover image © The Print Collector/Getty Images (scene); Shutterstock.com (texture)

      Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007168231

      Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780007289998

      Version: 2018-10-01

Dedication

       For Michael, Todd and Jill

      Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, The bed be blest that I lie on, Four angels to my bed, Four angels round my head, One to watch, and one to pray, And two to bear my soul away.

      Thomas Ady

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue 1633

Part One: The Seal of St Matthew

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part Two: The Seal of St Mark

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Part Three: The Seal of St Luke

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Part Four: The Gathering of the Seals

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31