The Chapel of Bones

Chapter Nine

Baldwin had made his journey with a joy-filled heart, glad to be out and working again. It felt so good to ride the muddy roadways, smell the fresh, damp soil, feel the warmth of the sun on his flank, the sensation of swaying with his rounsey as the massive beast moved with him — and yes, to be away from the petulance and confusion of married life.

He rode down the road south to Thorverton, and here was tempted to cross the river at a convenient ford and approach Exeter from the north, but he changed his mind when he saw the Exe. He hadn’t realised how full the river had become recently, and the sight of the broad floodplain told how foolish he would be to try to cross so far north. In preference he headed south to Brampford Speke. Here the river was a little lower, and he could test it, but he wasn’t happy with the angry, grey look of it, nor with the fast-flowing waters, and continued south and west.

The River Creedy was less engorged when he reached that, and he decided to follow the road that led west of the Exe and approach Exeter by the great multi-arched bridge that led to Exe Island and the city beyond. With this in mind, he clattered through the Creedy and on. With his delays at the rivers, it was well past noon by the time he breasted the last hill and could see the bridge ahead.

Exeter’s bridge was a wonderful feat. Before this great stone thoroughfare with its eighteen arches had been constructed, there was only a wooden footbridge, so Baldwin had heard, which had been appallingly dangerous in winter, and which only permitted people on foot. Carts and horses must take their luck with the ford. In summer this ford was safe enough, but the river had a very powerful current which would often wash travellers away. So Nicholas Gervase and his son built the bridge with funds which they raised from the county, and when Nicholas died, sadly before the bridge was completed, they buried his body in the Church of St Edmund on the eastern end of the bridge.

The structure was massive, and Baldwin always rather enjoyed riding so far up above the river on the sixteen-feet-wide roadway. Today the waters swirled angrily about the pillars below, however, and he was uncomfortably reminded that only solid rock, placed there with human intelligence, was keeping him up. He had never understood why an arch should support a great weight over its gaping emptiness, and now, peering over the side of the bridge, he felt a faint queasiness at the sight of the roiling water. He swallowed hastily and continued on his way.

Having almost reached the city, he wondered again about the Dean’s message. A man had died; his body found lying somewhere in the Cathedral’s Close. He was not a member of the clergy, so Baldwin assumed that the death could be a cause of some embarrassment — still, he wondered why the Dean should have asked him to come and look into the matter. Surely there must be a new Coroner by now?

As he reached the eastern end of the bridge the stench was foul, due to the tanners’ yards on Exe Island; Baldwin spurred his mount onwards to be past it. The skins were left in the sun, soaked in urine in order to remove the hairs, and in the next stage, the leather was left soaking in vats filled with a mixture of bird droppings or dogshit. How any man could wish to become a tanner was quite beyond Baldwin, other than the fact that there was always a demand for leather.

When he looked over towards the nearest works, he saw in among the great vats and pots, a large man with a bow. The fellow stopped, crouching slightly, and then nocked an arrow and drew it smoothly. He paused, his muscles straining, and then released the arrow. As Baldwin watched, it shot off swiftly up towards the river, and the man relaxed. He trotted off after his arrow, and Baldwin saw him pick it up. It had passed almost completely through a large rat. The fellow jerked his hand, and the rat was flung from the arrow, over the fletchings, and into the river. It sank, leaving only a small swirl of crimson. He slowly made his way back towards the bridge.

Baldwin nodded to the man, who acknowledged him with a cheery wave. ‘A good shot, Master.’

‘Aye, well, a man has to keep them down.’

Baldwin stopped and rested his forearms on the crupper of his saddle. ‘It’s been very wet.’

The man nodded seriously. ‘Miserable weather. Makes the rats all come out, otherwise they’d drown in their tunnels. If I killed one each minute of the day, I couldn’t get rid of them all. There are thousands down here.’

‘They are foul creatures.’

The tanner grimaced. ‘My wife used to hate them.’

‘She died?’

‘Many years ago. She fell under a horse — a proud clerk rode her down. He apologised and helped pay for a nurse to look after my boy, but it didn’t bring her back. Miss her every day,’ he added, staring away up river.

Baldwin was struck by his attitude. There was a stoical sadness about him, like a man with a grim understanding of grief who must yet continue with life. He might recognise his loss, but he must accommodate it, not allow it to colour his entire existence.

With the odour of faeces strong in his nostrils, Baldwin chose to ride on. Offering the man a respectful ‘Godspeed, friend,’ he trotted on. It was with relief that he saw the great square tower of the West Gate appearing before him. He trotted past the church and all the works on Exe Island and hurried up to the gate where he acknowledged the surly-looking porter, before continuing on his way towards the Cathedral Close.

Reaching the entrance to the Fissand Gate, he felt a sudden sinking sensation. The last time he had been here, it was at the time of the Christmas celebrations, and he had been in the company not only of Simon Puttock, his old friend, but also the Coroner, Roger de Gidleigh. Roger was dead now, and Baldwin regretted his passing. The man had been a good, sturdy investigator, as tenacious as Baldwin could have wished. His death was a sad loss, and not only to Roger’s wife. Baldwin missed him.

He swallowed, cleared his throat, and spurred his mount onwards. At the gate itself, he beckoned the porter and swung himself from his saddle. ‘I’m here to see the Dean. Tell him Sir Baldwin has arrived.’

Mabilla closed her eyes against the headache that threatened, so it seemed, to make her head explode into shards of red-hot bone. It was hard to believe that Henry really was dead: the man who had been the rock of her life, who had protected her, who had given her three children, only one of whom had survived.

Hearing faltering steps, Mabilla groaned to herself. The very last thing she wanted right now was her daughter wandering about the room with her eyes all red and bleared with misery.

Seeing William hadn’t helped, either. The man seemed to think that now Henry was dead, he, Will, would be able to step in and claim her again.

‘Come on, girl! You wanted me before him, didn’t you? It was only when I left the city …’

‘You expect me to come to you as soon as you kill my husband?’

‘Mab! You don’t really think I’d do a thing like that? Just remember the good times we had before I went.’

‘When you deserted me, you mean. You wooed me enthusiastically, but when you bethought yourself well-enough acquainted with the King’s temper, you chose to fly off with him.’

‘What else would a man do?’ he demanded innocently, his hands outspread, palms uppermost in a gesture of openness. ‘It was a career for a man like me. I went there with the King’s father, who gave me money and honours. The new King even bought me my corrody, when I was too old to continue in his service with all my wounds. He respected my service to him and his father.’

‘And you left me all alone. You had sworn yourself to me, and when you’d had your fun, you sought other women. You went off with the King’s host and abandoned me. You didn’t care what happened, did you?’

‘I knew you’d be all right,’ he said, the twisted grin returning to his face as he sat back and studied her. ‘And you were, weren’t you?’

‘I was fortunate to marry a good, decent man,’ she said. ‘Henry …’ Her eyes filled with tears, and a lump appeared in her throat. A moment passed before she could continue in a low hiss, ‘And you killed him! You murdered my man, just so that you could try to claim my body again!’

‘I love you, Mab,’ he said, but then something glittered in his eyes that was nothing like love. ‘But don’t accuse me of things like murder in a public room. I won’t permit it, woman.’

‘You wanted me back, didn’t you? Thought I’d be a comfort to you in your old age.’

‘I’d like to be comforted by you,’ he grinned.

That was what made her stand and leave. It was that expression of his, as though nothing bad had happened. He didn’t — he couldn’t — understand her devastation. There was nothing malicious about it, it was just that he had no comprehension as to how others might feel.

Walking along the High Street afterwards, Mabilla had a sudden, terrible thought. She had to stop and grip an upright pole, panting as though she had run a great marathon. Will hadn’t denied killing her man. He had no sense of empathy with her, because to his mind, Henry was merely a body which had ceased breathing. To him, that was all other people were: animals that walked and talked. Equals or targets. There was nothing else in his simple world.

It was appalling. She was as sure as she could be that William had killed her man — and she wanted to denounce him, but daren’t. William had no feeling for others. He had killed her man, presumably hoping to win her back, but he would have no compunction in killing her or Julia, were he to view them as a possible threat.

And now she had accused him, that was exactly how he viewed her: as a threat.

Joel stood before his window and gazed out into the street.

Maud was out again, seeking for sweetmeats and other morsels to tempt his appetite. He could have told her not to bother, for there was nothing which could calm his spirit at the moment, but having her out of the house meant he could drop the mask for a while — the mask of a man who was in control and ready for anything. He was Joel the Joiner, in God’s name: Joel Lytell — a man of substance. Yet Maud could sense that he was worried and upset. Christ’s Cods, it’d take something dramatic to make him lose his love of wine and good foods, but since he’d heard of Henry’s murder, he’d had no appetite at all.

That ungodly bastard William! The murder had all his marks on it. Killing Henry in the Charnel where they had murdered the Chaunter just when Henry was going to confess his part in it … William couldn’t bear the thought that his crimes might be uncovered at long last. He was evil.

It was all because of that damned night so long ago, just as Henry had said. Forty years ago now. Joel had thought that the matter was all done and dusted. When they hanged the wrong men, it was plain as the nose on the hangman’s ugly face that the affair was over. The men in the Bishop’s gaol languished there for a while, but not overlong. And by the Fall of Acre, everyone had more important things to worry about. The Cathedral didn’t want to rake up old enmities when they had the news of Moors attacking and capturing the Holy Land. As though that weren’t enough, that appalling famine followed — when so many people died. Joel knew four families which had faded away and expired, the whole lot of them. The Pieman family in particular were sorely missed. Lovely little girls, they were. Four of them. And they all starved to death because Hal Pieman hadn’t any savings to rub together. The cost of flour and grain rose so sharply, Pieman was unable to buy the ingredients to make his pies, and his poor young family suffered. In the end he hanged himself. He was discovered the next morning by his apprentice. His children and wife were all dead by then. Someone reckoned that almost half the population of Exeter died.

No, so many lives had been lost, so much water had passed down the Exe, there was no reason to suspect that some silly arse might refresh people’s memories about those far-off times. Yet someone had. And now, Joel felt doubly threatened. There was the story about his part in the killings, and the fact of Henry’s death; if the matter of the broken saddle were to come to court now, it might well be against him that the German directed his ire. After all, it was the frame that broke. Joel’s frame.

‘Master?’

Joel didn’t hear the first calls. He was still standing before his window, unaware of the breeze that blew in and ruffled the tapestries and hangings. Such rustling and whispering of material was a constant feature of life in a pleasant little hall like this, just as the whistling and chattering of birds and other wild creatures was in a forest. Thus it was that when Vince spoke his name again, he was startled, and span on his heel, eyes wide with alarm. He was off-balance, and had to grab at a curtain to save his fall, and as soon as he had regained his posture, he bellowed at his apprentice.

‘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.