The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Don’t you ever dare to creep up on me like that again, you little shite! Sweet Christ, it’s enough to give a man a heart-attack! You prickle! What did you think you were doing?’

  ‘I wanted to ask if I should make a start on that new saddle for Master Ralph, sir?’

  ‘When I want you to do something, I’ll tell you. Get out of my sight! Just go and clear up the workshop. I’ll bet you’ve left it in a sodding mess again, haven’t you? Go and clean it all, and I’ll come and inspect it. You leave the bloody saddle to me!’

  ‘I was only trying—’

  ‘Shut up! By God’s Honour, one more word out of you, and I swear I’ll take a strap to your arse! I’ve never done it before, but so help me, I could beat you to death just now and not give a damn! I’ll bet it was you who used green wood to make the frame for Henry, wasn’t it? I ought to kick your backside all the way around the outer walls of the city for that, you cretin! Go on, get out!’

  Vince scampered off as quickly as he could until he reached the relative seclusion of the workroom, and only then did he turn and stare back the way he had come in bafflement.

  Joel had never beaten him, nor even threatened to. And as for the green wood used in the frame – well, Vince wouldn’t have used that if Joel himself hadn’t told him to.

  Henry was lucky: he could buy in a saddle frame from Joel quite cheaply, add some leather to it, fit it out with the choicest decorations, carve and print and paint the leatherwork, and make a vast profit when he sold it. For Joel, though, there wasn’t enough money per frame. He couldn’t live on that. So instead, he had taken to making cheap frames to sell to some of the other saddlers, the men who were closer to the thin line between legality and illegality. He had Vince manufacture many cheap frames for them.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  He couldn’t have made a mistake and sold a green wood frame to Henry, could he? The lad winced at the thought. Christ in heaven, if he’d done that, and his saddle frame had broken, he wouldn’t be surprised if his apprenticeship was about to come to a sudden end.

  For the Dean, it was a welcome relief to see the tall, dark-haired knight in his Close. He hurried over to Baldwin’s side. ‘Sir Baldwin, I am so glad to – ah – see you again. It has been – um – far too long. Yes, far too long. Now, may I offer you some hospitality? A little of my – ah – store of wine, some bread and cheese?’

  ‘Dean, that would be most welcome,’ Baldwin said, and the two fell into step as they crossed the Close towards the Dean’s residence. ‘Where is the body? May I see it?’

  ‘It’s in the chapel where it was found. Poor soul. I think it is too late to go and see him now, surely,’ the Dean said, glancing up at the sky. ‘Come and eat and we can discuss what we should do.’

  ‘He was murdered in a chapel?’ Baldwin exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. Whoever killed him committed a dreadful act, polluting a holy chapel like that. It shall have to be reconsecrated.’

  ‘Can you tell me what has happened?’

  ‘Hmm. Let us wait until we reach my house. All I need tell you is that the body was found in the Charnel Chapel. I have left it there until the Coroner may come to view it. There are guards about the body, of course.’

  ‘So you will not contest the right of the Coroner to view?’ Baldwin asked innocently.

  The Dean gave him a mild smile which didn’t fool Baldwin for a moment. The knight was quite certain that the Dean had one of the brightest minds in the whole Chapter. Whereas other canons tended to be entirely devoted to their studies, their praying, or their bellies, Dean Alfred was a different man. Used to power, he knew that the most effective means of getting things done as he wished was by ensuring that there were as few interruptions as possible; that meant removing all potential causes of dispute with the city. He was above all a devious, intelligent politician.

  ‘I didn’t think that the last Coroner would choose to make an enemy of me, and yet he was strangely – ah – determined to impose his will upon me.’

  ‘He was a good man,’ Baldwin sighed. ‘He’ll be missed.’

  ‘Aye. I feel you are right. His widow has left the city – did you hear? No? She didn’t come from here originally, and she has gone to Sidmouth, where her brother lives.’

  ‘Simon too lives on the coast now,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘Really? And what does he do there?’

  They had reached the Dean’s house, and now the Dean stood aside to permit Baldwin to enter.

  ‘He is the representative of the Abbot at Dartmouth. It is a terrible job, from what he has told me. He dreaded being sent there in the first place, because he was so comfortable with the moors and the ways of the mad devils who live up there, the tinners. I had always thought him so sensible a fellow, too. Yet when he was told that the Abbot would prefer him to go to Dartmouth, I don’t think Simon realised just how confused and difficult the new task would be.’

  ‘Is it so – ah – terrible?’

  Baldwin threw him a sideways look. ‘The traitor.’

  ‘Oh!’

  There was no need to say more. As both knew, no one could afford to pass comment on the recent events in London. The King’s spies might be listening. Yet the whole country knew that the King’s household was living in fear. The Lord Marcher, Roger Mortimer, who had been captured as a traitor for raising arms against Edward after a glittering career in his service, had been thrown into a cell in the Tower of London. Astonishingly, as soon as the sentence of death which was to have been passed on him became known, he was rescued.

  Baldwin had no idea how he could have made his escape, but escape he had, and the King’s men were panicked. Messengers were sent to all corners of the realm from Kirkham, where the King was staying when he heard the news. A small host rode to the ports with Ireland, where Mortimer had allies, while all other ports were instructed to check all men trying to leave the shores. That was the first set of instructions. More recently, Baldwin had heard that there were clear signs that the man had escaped and fled the kingdom, passing into France or some similar land.

  This could have been cause for celebration in the King’s household, were it not for the fact that Mortimer was reckoned the King’s own best General. If Mortimer could summon a force about his banner, thousands of Englishmen would probably rally to his cry. And there were many disaffected men in Europe waiting for just such a call. Men who had been deprived of their livelihood by the King – or, rather, as Baldwin knew, by his friends, the Despensers.

  ‘I think that there are many issues for Simon in a good port like Dartmouth,’ Baldwin murmured. ‘Both to guard against men who would leave the country, and to prevent others from entering.’

  ‘Hmm, I see. Well, at least you are here,’ the Dean said as he grabbed his black tunic and hoisted it up over his lap before sitting. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  A servant entered and brought wine and bread with some cheeses. Only when he was gone did the Dean look at Baldwin seriously again.

  ‘Well, Sir Knight, this is a pretty mess which I have had arrive before me. I am not sure what to do about it.’

  The Dean was a lean, ascetic-looking man, once he allowed that habitual expression of amiable confusion and his bumbling manner to drop. This was a man in control of vast estates, as well as one of the largest building projects in the country and many hundreds of men. The Bishop was theoretically in charge, but Bishop Walter was a politician, and he spent most of his time with the King. No, it was the Dean who dealt with all day-to-day matters.

  ‘Who was the murdered man?’ asked Baldwin, cutting some cheese. ‘Was he to do with the Cathedral?’

  ‘No. He was a saddler.’

  ‘And he was found in the Charnel Chapel? How was he killed?’

  ‘Stabbed. Anyone can find a knife during a dispute.’

  Baldwin nodded. ‘And you think that might be what happened?’

  ‘It’s the only explanation I can think of.’

  ‘When was he found?’
/>
  ‘Last thing at night. The porters had locked their gates, and an Annuellar happened to notice that the door to the chapel was open. He tried it, found the body, and called for help.’

  ‘Did anyone see the saddler enter the Close? You have many gates here.’

  ‘Janekyn up at the Fissand Gate reckons he might have seen the man enter, but he must see hundreds every day. He couldn’t swear to Henry having passed him yesterday.’

  Baldwin ruminatively chewed at a piece of dry bread. ‘There appears little for me to go on. If a tradesman is murdered, any number of men could have killed him – a fellow who felt that he had been unreasonable in a negotiation, a man who wanted to remove a competitor, perhaps a simple cutpurse whose theft went wrong … the possibilities are endless. I don’t honestly know that I can be of much aid.’

  ‘I should – ah – be most grateful if you could look into the matter nonetheless,’ Dean Alfred said. ‘This body was found on Cathedral land. I don’t want a Coroner to come blundering about my Close, accusing all and sundry of murder, without my trying to discover the truth first.’

  ‘I should be pleased to do all I can to help the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral,’ Baldwin said with an inclination of his head.

  ‘Thank you. It would be an unpleasant thing, to have a heavy-booted Coroner galumphing about the place,’ the Dean mused, picking at a chip on his cup. ‘They are – um – rarely conducive to prayer, in my experience.’

  William made his way back from the Talbot Inn to the Priory, slipping on a small turd at the entrance to an alley as he cut through towards Water Beer.

  ‘Damn all brats,’ he muttered, scraping it off, and had to stand still a moment while the shaking overtook him.

  He hadn’t always been like this. When he had first gone into battles, he had been scared. Of course he had! No one without a brain could first enter the fray without appreciating his danger. It was one thing to stand face to face with some bastard whose sole desire was to shove an eight-pound lump of sharp metal into your face when you were alone in a road or field, and quite another when the two of you were yelling and screaming at each other with thousands of others on either side. It was only worse when arrows and crossbow bolts rained down on you from the sky, and the roar of massed destriers’ hooves could be felt through the thin leather of your boots and you wondered whether the fuckers were behind you or in front, and you didn’t care, you couldn’t take your eyes off the wanker in front, because as soon as you did, his sword would open you up like a salmon being gutted.

  War wasn’t fun. Will could talk a good story, but at the end of it all, a winner was the man who ideally lost marginally fewer men who were still capable of chasing after the enemy and slashing and cutting them to pieces as they tried to flee the field. That side was the winner. And to them went the spoils – which were usually a couple of boxes of coin, which would go nowhere towards satisfying warriors who’d lost their mates in the last mêlée.

  Still, after a while, when Will got to be in charge of a small force, it became safer, and anyway, he got used to it all. And it was fun. And Christ’s Balls, it was a good life. All that time in taverns and alehouses and pillaged halls, drinking until everyone was fit to burst. Yes, those were times worth living for. There was nothing like it. The rush as you realised that your side was victor again, the thrill of finding the wine and the women and taking them both until you were sated; that was living, boys. That was life.

  He’d had many good times, and even when there was a disaster, he’d invariably managed to be safe from real danger. The only time he’d been close to harm was when the Queen had been left to her own devices, and the Scots had invaded again, sneaking round behind the King’s men and threatening to cut off their defeat.

  Will had been with the King during that campaign in the summer after Boroughbridge. For some reason, Edward II, who was intelligent and brave enough in his own right, was an abject failure whenever he tried to attack the Scots. Will couldn’t understand it at all. Still, there it was. When Edward was flushed with his success at Boroughbridge, and all thought he couldn’t fail so long as he had his men at his side, just then, the Scots surprised him at Blackhow Moor, and the King and his favourite fled. Isabella, Edward’s wife, was deserted at the Abbey at Tynemouth, and she had to make her own way past the Bruce’s men to escape. Luckily, Will had been there with her, and he had been able to join her on her boat which threaded its way past the blockading Flemish craft there to support the Scots.

  The Queen lost two of her ladies-in-waiting during that flight. It was a sore grief to her, and Will saw her weeping over them long into the night, but that was nothing compared to what might have happened had they been captured. When Edward I, the King’s father, had invaded Scotland, he captured the Bruce’s sister and his mistress. Both were held in wooden cages for three years, on the walls of Roxburgh and Berwick Castles. Isabella knew, as well as any of the men and women with her, the sort of fate she could expect, were she to be captured by the Bruce. At the very least she would be humiliated and shamed.

  William knew that she had seen how little her husband cared for or about her during that flight. That he made no effort to save her was shameful, and it proved to her beyond doubt that her man considered her as nothing more important to him than a chest of gold with which to buy influence. She was, after all, the daughter of a French King.

  It was soon after that war that Will had developed this strange malady. He’d been bled for it often enough, but still it would come back. It was a weakness that sometimes affected him when he had taken a shock. The first episode occurred after a brisk fight just before he boarded the ship with the Queen, when a mace caught him on the helm, and he was felled like an ox. Another man from his force found him and took him off to the boat, throwing him aboard, still stunned. It saved his life.

  But since then, and he assumed it was caused by that blow, he found that if he had a sudden shock, his heart started to race, his breath grew short, and his head felt light – dizzy. It was damned strange and inconvenient, but he must learn to cope with it.

  That had been the first motivation for him to consider leaving the King’s service. A warrior with such a handicap must surely die. There was no possibility of his surviving.

  Not if slipping on a child’s turd could make him feel so weakly.

  He bared his teeth and forced himself to carry on along the alley. Only a short while ago he had been a warrior who could instil fear into the heart of any opponent, but now he was just a sad old man, no good for anything.

  The alley stopped and he walked out into the street, along to North Gate Street, and thence to Carfoix. As twilight took over the city, it grew astonishingly dark between the tall houses, and he slipped again on half-seen obstacles. Soon, though, he was approaching the main entrance to the Priory. He should hurry, he knew, because the gate there would soon be closed and barred, and if the corrodian was not there, that was no concern of the gate-keeper.

  Hurrying his steps, Will found himself limping a little on his bad leg. He could see the open gateway, and was about to call out, when there was a tinny clatter to his side. As soon as his mind registered the noise, he had just enough energy to hurl himself sideways as the next arrow flew at his throat.

  He crashed to the ground, tasting the bile of fear once more, crawling to the relative safety of a rotten barrel and pulling his cloak about him. In a moment the street disappeared, and he was back on the miserable bogs of Scotland.

  In his ears he heard again the shrieks and agonised cries. Arrows wailed and hissed through the air, to strike flesh with a damp slap, or to pock at steel armour. Mail rattled and chinked, men fell, hiccuping or screaming, and William waited for the next bolt to strike him, pushing himself into the edge of the lane as though he could re-form his body to fit the cobbles and hide. Appalled, terrified, he expected to die, and he wasn’t ready!

  There were no more arrows. Only the rasp of his breath, the smell of terror in his sweat
and the sound of footsteps running away on the cobbles; and then, as the noise faded, so too did his petrification, and he found his soul swamped with vengeful rage.

  He would find this would-be assassin, no matter who it was, and he would see him sent to hell with as much anguish as one man could inflict upon another.

  Chapter Ten

  Simon awoke early enough, but his mind was fuzzy after the wine and ale of the night before, and he lay back in bed, his eyes resolutely shut, demanding that sleep should once more overtake him.

  Yesterday had been another day much like all the rest. He had woken, got up and dressed, walked to the hall to meet that pale reflection of a human, Andrew, and continued with his work.

  God’s Bones, but it was tedious. They added figures, checked the tallies of tolls taken compared with the ships that had come to dock, and more or less busied themselves with little problems all the long day. It was detailed, painstaking work, and Andrew was as meticulous as he could be.

  Halfway through the morning, Andrew looked up with a smile to hear the hail falling outside. ‘It sounds as if God is throwing His pebbles again, does it not? A terrible time to be out on the moors in this weather. Are you not glad to be indoors with a good fire roaring?’

  Simon could not speak. He had listened to the hail with the lifting spirits of a man who remembered that there was a real life out there, beyond the walls of this dreary chamber. He had crossed the moors more than a hundred times, often feeling those icy balls striking his face with the fruitless desperation of a toddler beating at an older sibling. Yes, sleet and hail and snow could grind a man down and put him in his grave, were he unlucky enough to succumb, but Simon thought of hail as only a mild threat. He knew all the places to which he might run in the event of the weather closing in, and all the safe paths which would lead him to a warm fire and spiced wine or ale.