Witness of Bones

by Leonard Tourney

  The company stopped in front of the church where Matthew was helped down by one of the officers and led into the church through a side door and from there into the nave. Hopwood and Motherwell were there to greet them, along with another man he had never seen before. This man was small but sinewy, with sharp hawklike features. He had a patch over his left eye; the right, slightly enlarged, stared boldly at Matthew as though the two men had met before. Matthew was sure they had not. He would not have forgotten that face, that eye.

  Hopwood profusely welcomed the others, as though their coming to the church was a personal honor. He seemed to ignore Matthew’s presence deliberately, and Matthew wondered if the young cleric was in on the plot and might feel guilty for his complicity. Hopwood said he had something to do about the church and excused himself. Buck and the officer remained at the rear of the nave while Stearforth escorted Matthew forward.

  “Now he’ll show us where he hid the body,” he said, clinching Matthew’s arm to signal that he was not to respond to this.

  They passed up the church aisle and toward a door where the stairs to the belfry were. Matthew thought he was to be taken to the place of the murder again but before the stairs they turned and went out of the building into a parcel of the churchyard out of sight of the pilgrims. The burial plots edged up against the church itself and there was only a

  narrow walkway between the crosses and other monuments. They followed a stone path to the other side of the building until Matthew could see the street again and the faces of the pilgrims peering through the fence and then he saw a low structure ahead of him that he surmised to be a mausoleum, but it turned out to be the charnel house.

  This gloomy structure was a half-cellar whose roof was only five or six feet above ground. It was situated in the far comer of the roughly rectangular churchyard at the farthest distance from the church itself. Above the door was a frieze ornately decorated with images of skulls and crossed bones and other emblems of frail mortality. Motherwell, who had been following with Harking hurried ahead to unlock the door.

  Matthew was led down a half dozen steps into a long, low-ceilinged room. A putrid odor assaulted his nostrils and made him draw back, but Stearforth pushed him onward. The odor was noticed and commented on by the other men as well and Bendlowes remarked that if those within were not dead when they were brought there they should be dead by now by the very stench.

  Behind Matthew, Bendlowes asked if a lantern or torch might be needed, but Motherwell assured them their eyes would adjust soon and they would see as much as they desired.

  The charnel house consisted of a single, long crypt with a slightly arched ceiling. There was a long central aisle on each side of which shelves had been built. These were ladden with a disorder of gray and yellowed bones, lying every which way, with skulls thrown against shanks, feet and hands, so that one wishing to reconstruct a body from its bony frame would have been at a loss to know where to begin. The odor of death being as strong as it was, Bendlowes and Harking put handkerchiefs to their noses. The one-eyed man had turned deathly pale. Only Motherwell seemed unaffected by the stench, and he seemed to take a perverse delight in his immunity, moving vigorously about the chamber as though he were a busy host, anxious for his

  guests’ comfort. Manacled still, Matthew could do nothing but endure in silence, but he prayed that his stay in this habitation of bones would be short for he felt such a stirring in his stomach that he thought at any moment he would retch.

  “I hope to God this won’t take long, Stearforth,” Bend-lowes said.

  “Only so long as needful for you to witness where the body lay after it was taken up,” Stearforth said, stopping at the very end of the room before one of the shelves. “We’ll handle the rest. Then you gentlemen can go to breakfast.”

  “If we have stomach for it,” said Harking. “I’d as leave take your word that Stock showed you the place.”

  “Oh, no,” said Stearforth. “It’s imperative that everything be done in good order. You and Master Bendlowes shall bear witness that Stock showed you the place himself, that you saw the body removed to the coffin. Most important, that the body is indeed Christopher Poole’s.”

  “I don’t know that I would recognize him—not as he is now,” the magistrate said.

  “Never mind,” Stearforth said. “You’ll recognize him, never fear. Who else could it be, but Poole? Unless, of course, you give credence to the story of his resurrection.”

  “I certainly do not,” said Harking firmly, looking as though the very idea he should believe was more repugnant to him than the stench of decay.

  Matthew noticed that against a wall an open coffin had been stood on end, as though its occupant had just been discarded in the rubble of bones. The wood was new, raw, still smelling of the tree. Matthew felt that something portentous was about to happen, and that he was at the center of it. He glanced around him and saw that the other men were rather pale looking. Even Motherwell seemed more subdued. There were a great number of bones in the chamber. He imagined what a gathering there would be at the resurrection, when these departed spirits should collect their mortal parts. A man could be trampled to death in the rush.

  “This is where he hid the body,” Stearforth said, pointing

  to a shelf so heaped with yellowed bones that Matthew wondered that the wood frame could support the burden. “He showed us yesterday. We left it where it lay so that you could see for yourself.”

  “Well, let’s be done with this business quickly,” Bend-lowes said, his voice muffled by his handkerchief.

  Stearforth nodded to Motherwell, who took a rusty shaft that was propped against the wall and began to dislodge a mass of skulls and other bones to uncover a cerecloth draped figure beneath. He untied the cord that covered the body.

  Everyone now drew near to see the face, even Matthew, whose curiosity was more powerful than his revulsion. Matthew had seen many a corpse in his time and a few well ripened in decay, but Poole’s body was remarkably preserved for one a whole year dead. As for the face itself, it was a scholar’s face, or perhaps a saint’s—ascetic, strong featured, almost handsome. Matthew could understand why Poole’s flock might have readily believed in his prophesy. The eye sockets were sunken deeply, figuring forth the skull beneath the thin layer of flesh. The prominent forehead of the man was slightly mottled, but the flesh of the hollow cheeks and the well-shaped lips were as white and smooth as alabaster. He might have been as young as thirty for the smoothness of his face. The torture and starvation that had taken his life were not reflected in the untroubled countenance, and only the odor of the body refuted the belief that Poole had died yesterday, quietly in his sleep with a conscience as untroubled as a child’s.

  “Look, sirs,” Stearforth said, in a witty tone that seemed more forced than usual, ‘and tell me if this isn’t our resurrected saint himself. But if in the resurrection we all stink so, who could wish for the company of the saints?”

  No one smiled or offered a retort. Bendlowes made the sign of the cross and turned his head away. “Yes, that’s Poole all right. Now let’s get out of here.”

  But Stearforth insisted that Harking agree on the identification.

  “It is Poole, as God is my judge,” Harking said.

  Stearforth smiled slightly, looking relieved. “Master Buck remains in the church with documents affirming the same, which if you gentleman will be pleased to go in, they can be signed.”

  Bendlowes and Harking started for the door immediately. Matthew was led out by Stearforth while Motherwell and the one-eyed man stayed behind. Matthew could not imagine the next step in these devious proceedings; he was too relieved to have this step over and done. It was a hideous thing to disturb a corpse, even if he was a Papist. Almost as hideous as blaming an innocent man for the disturbance.

  The pilgrims, many mothers with small children, were forbidden entrance to the churchyard, but someone had tied a red cloth to the fence rail directly opposite where Poole’s grave
was thought to be, and it was to this spot that the pilgrims waited to come to stare, cross themselves, and then give way to others. Joan, dressed in her old woman’s disguise as before, and Morgan, who had shaved his beard and declared no one would recognize him without it, waited an hour to reach the coveted position only to find there was little to see beyond the headstones. Poole’s grave, she had been told, had only been honored with a simple cross as a monument and could barely be distinguished from the score of other crosses and oblong markers in the general vicinity. The earth had been filled in, by order of the authorities, not wishing to further what they considered a fraudulent claim. There was some discussion among the pilgrims as to which stone was the priest’s.

  Joan was waiting for their third pass of the morning, hoping for a view of Motherwell, when Morgan drew Joan’s attention from the churchyard to the little band of horsemen approaching from the lower end of the street. “I think that’s Stearforth in the lead.”

  Joan turned to look. “God bless us, that’s Matthew behind him. See, he’s in manacles.”

  They left the line of pilgrims and crossed the street for a

  better view of the procession, Joan trying to restrain her urge to cry out and identify herself. How she longed to speak to Matthew, to touch him. Never in their married life had they been separated for such a stretch. How long had it been, a mere week? A month? It had seemed like a thousand years. But she dared not do what she was so powerfully inclined to do. Matthew was a close prisoner. The officers looked around them with watchful eyes. They would apprehend her if she left her place, showed too much curiosity, flung herself at them.

  But why was Matthew being brought to the church? She asked this of Morgan as they watched from their vantage point at the opposite side of the street.

  “I don’t know,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on Stear-forth. “Perhaps to bring the accused man back to the scene of his crime.”

  The mounted band tied the horses to a rail beside the church porch and went inside.

  “We’ve got to get inside the church,” she said. “I must know what’s happening.”

  “We’d be thrown out on our ears,” Morgan reminded her. They had seen two of the pilgrims attempt an entrance to the main door of the church earlier that day but with no success. It was as though St. Crispin’s was under siege with the newly appointed rector determined to repel all invaders.

  “There must be another entrance to the churchyard.” Joan said.

  “If there were, the pilgrims would have found it and the parson made it secure.”

  Joan caught a glimpse of some figures through the fence and thought she recognized Matthew among them. She crossed the street quickly. Matthew and the officers were away from the pilgrims now, farther along the street to the other side of the church building. Here, too, there were graves, but having not had the distinction of a resurrection, no one was paying attention to them.

  “Look,” she said, grabbing Morgan’s hand and drawing

  him to the pickets and straining her eyes to see. “That’s Matthew, and Stearforth. And Motherwell too.”

  “And my erstwhile first mate, if my eyes do not fail me,” Morgan said.

  It was Morgan’s turn to drag her. They moved quickly along the fence to a side lane that ran alongside the church. As they went, Joan caught glimpses of Matthew and the other men.

  “They’re going to the charnel house,” she exclaimed, more puzzled than ever. “That’s not where the murder was done. It was in the belfry.”

  Matthew and the others disappeared from view just as they rounded the next corner. Joan and Morgan found themselves in a narrow alley with the churchyard on one side and a wall of shabby tenements on the other. About fifty yards ahead the fence abutted against the charnel house and then continued on the far side.

  Morgan cautioned her to go stilly as they moved up to the wall. He was able to stand on his tiptoes and look inside the horizontal slits that ventilated the building, but to Joan he did not seem so much to be seeing as listening. He made another gesture of silence and she was forced to wait, although she was beside herself with curiosity and fear for her husband. Had they brought Matthew to that awful place to murder him as someone had murdered Stephen Graham?

  Morgan listened at the slit for some time, then turned to Joan.

  “They found the dead man’s body,” he whispered excitedly.

  “Which?”

  “Poole’s—the martyr’s.”

  “Have they hurt my husband?”

  Morgan shook his head. “They’re leaving now, all but Motherwell and Simkins. Your husband went with them. They claim he was showing them where he had hidden Poole’s body beneath the bones.”

  “Treacherous liars,” she said too loudly.

  Morgan reminded her of the need for silence. “We need to

  follow them—to see where Matthew is being taken now. He’s being returned—returned to wherever he was before. You follow. You’re less likely to be recognized. Even without my beard Stearforth may recognize me. I have a little business to settle here in the churchyard.”

  “But there’s two of them,” she said, fearful of what manner of business Morgan intended to settle.

  “I have surprise on my side,” he said. “That’s as good as another pair of hands.”

  In the charnel house Motherwell told Simkins he had a desperate need to make water and out of respect he would not do it on holy ground. Simkins gave his companion a skeptical, sidelong glance. “I suppose your desperate bladder means I must play undertaker to this moldering tub of Papistical guts.”

  Motherwell smiled. “Well, sir, that is what Master Stearforth is paying you for, isn’t it? Marry, sir, a laborer is worth his hire, as I think you once said yourself on the occasion of our planting Poole’s corpse here the first time.”

  “What is it to be done with him?”

  “Pull him out from his second grave that he may have a third and rest in peace at last,” said Motherwell over his shoulder. “The coffin’s against the wall and ready. When the martyr’s snug, nail it shut. I’ll be back and we’ll load it in the cart together.”

  Simkins cursed when Motherwell was gone. He might have expected to be left with the dirty work himself, knowing Motherwell for the knavish villain he was. Fate had dealt him a hard blow. He hadn’t deserved it, to his own way of thinking. He realized that he had fallen very low since his recent days as first mate of the Plover. His need for money had driven him to take orders from the likes of Motherwell. It had driven him to a charnel house, which he regarded with a kind of sick dread, and now he must lay hands upon a rotting corpse. Thanks be to God the corpse was dressed so he need not touch the wormy flesh itself.

  He walked to the open door of the building, took a deep breath of the purer air, and then returned to finish the work assigned him. He grabbed the staff and began to push away the bones under which Poole’s body had been buried. The rattle of the bones and his intense concentration on the labor at hand caused him not to notice that he was no longer alone.

  When out of the corner of his eye he saw someone in the doorway he thought it was Stearforth come back. But Motherwell was shorter and stouter than his visitor. Still, there was something familiar about the man—the way he stood, his powerful upper body, and his eyes. And in the way he said nothing, but just stood there watching him from the doorway, as though he were waiting for Simkins to speak first.

  And then Simkins saw through the absence of beard.

  “Morgan!” Simkins gasped. He backed to the far wall confused and fearful. He stood next to the coffin, holding the staff out in front of him to ward off what he had taken to be a ghost.

  “In the flesh, Simkins.”

  “But I thought—”

  “I warrant you did, but you see now the case is otherwise.”

  “I’m not alone here,” Simkins said, his voice shaking a little. “The sexton will return presently.”

  “No fear. Our business will be concluded b
y then,” Morgan said, who was now standing so close to Simkins that Simkins could feel his breath in his face and knew surely that this was no ghost confronting him.

  Motherwell had to go to the privy at the other of the churchyard to relieve himself, which he did with no little pain in his nether organ. He knew he must have some disorder there for so much pain to be caused, but had no faith in medicine and so endured it and the stink of the privy for a little while, hoping that when he returned Simkins would have Poole’s body put in the coffin and the both of them could go some-

  where for a drink. Motherwell didn’t like Simkins, but he preferred not to drink alone and such mischief as all this has always stimulated his thirst.

  When he returned to the charnel house he found the coffin on the floor and the lid nailed shut, but Simkins gone. Motherwell cursed. “I suppose he thinks I’m to lug this mess to the cart myself,” he mumbled aloud.

  He walked out to the churchyard and looked around, thinking Simkins might have come up out of the charnel house for a breath of air, but there was no living thing among the stones and so he went back down and did the work himself. Motherwell was past fifty years, but he had hefted many a coffin in his time, although usually to the churchyard rather than away from it. The idea amused him a little and made him forget his resentment of Simkins, who having fled before his work was fully done, should not now be paid in full. Since Motherwell had been commissioned to be paymaster in that regard, he felt fully justified in keeping the money Stearforth had given him for himself.

  Joan was hard put to keep up with the riders, who rode as fast through the streets as their narrowness and human congestion would allow, with one of the officers riding in the forefront and crying out “Make way, queen’s business.” Speed was more difficult for her. No one was willing to accommodate a lone woman on foot; of the horses it was different; people had a healthy fear of being trampled, if not prevailed upon to give way to lawful authority.