The Crooked Spire

by Chris Nickson

  ‘It’ll serve you well to keep a civil tongue in your head, carpenter,’ the man said.

  John smiled. ‘When I’m talking to my betters, you mean?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  ‘When that happens, I’ll do it.’ He smiled. ‘But you’re not my better.’

  Hugo frowned. ‘You don’t think so, carpenter?’ He spat after the last word.

  ‘Your master’s brother asked me to be the steward of one of his manors.’

  ‘Then your master’s a fool.’

  John shrugged. ‘Possibly, but at least he’ll have an honest man as his steward.’

  ‘You seem intent on accusing me.’

  ‘You seem intent on trying to kill me for it,’ John said calmly.

  Hugo raised his eyebrows. ‘More accusations, carpenter?’ He glanced over at Walter. ‘Are you listening, boy? I might take your friend to the law for the slander he’s spouting.’

  ‘I’m sure your master would like that,’ John said, his voice calm and steady. ‘His name read would out in another court. You came looking for me, so you must have a reason.’

  ‘I’m offering you a last chance, carpenter. You seem to think that the oak from the manor shouldn’t be used on the church.’

  ‘It can be used,’ he said. ‘Just not yet. It needs two years or more to dry out.’

  ‘The master carpenter disagrees. Who do you think knows more?’

  ‘The one who’s not being paid to lie.’

  ‘And yet another accusation.’ Hugo shook his head sadly.

  ‘Seasoned oak fetches a pretty price, steward. Is that what the diocese believes it’s bought?’

  ‘By the time that wood is used it will be dry. Ask the master carpenter.’

  ‘And should I jingle his purse to see how much you’ve paid him to say that?’ John wondered. ‘Perhaps your master doesn’t know what you’re doing with the trees he owns.’

  ‘My master trusts me,’ Hugo said haughtily.

  ‘He’d hardly be the first man to trust and be cheated.’ John shrugged. ‘I daresay your coffer’s full. How many manors do you run for him?’

  ‘Three,’ Hugo answered proudly.

  ‘Ample chance for profit there. It would be interesting to see how he’d react to a letter saying what his steward was doing in his name.’

  ‘You can write, carpenter?’ Hugo smiled, his mouth twisted. ‘You’re a man of many talents.’

  ‘My master has a clerk.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Hugo moved his arm to his sword.

  ‘I don’t threaten,’ he said quietly. ‘You must be a very fearful man, steward.’

  Hugo laughed. ‘Me? Who should scare me? You?’

  ‘Why else would you send men twice to kill me?’

  The steward cocked his head. ‘Who claims that I have?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You want to blacken my character completely, don’t you? I’d advise you to think before you speak – about everything.’

  ‘Before you silence me?’ John asked wryly.

  Hugo shook his head. ‘No one would listen to a carpenter.’

  ‘Perhaps you should pray that’s true.’

  ‘I could kill you myself, out here, right now. And the boy. Who do you think would care? What do you think your coroner would do?’

  John said nothing for a long while, listening to birds cry in the woods up on the hill. Finally he stared at the steward. ‘The men you sent couldn’t kill me. What makes you think you could do the job? It might be you who ends up a corpse.’

  Hugo showed his teeth. ‘Then you’d have to answer to my master. People know I’ve come looking for you today. And my master is a powerful man.’

  ‘Powerful enough to be accused of cheating the church?’

  ‘Powerful enough to crush you and your master if he needs to.’

  John knew it was true; he’d learned that much from the coroner. But he wasn’t going to be cowed by words and warnings.

  ‘You’d still be a dead man.’

  ‘I’d wait for you in purgatory, carpenter. You’d be joining me soon enough.’ He gathered up the reins. ‘I’ve said what I came to say.’ He offered a small, mocking salute, turned the horse and rode away.

  ‘What did he mean, John?’ Walter asked after the figure had crested the hill and disappeared. ‘What was he saying?’

  ‘I think he’s a very scared man.’

  ‘Why?’ The boy looked confused. ‘He didn’t seem very scared to me.’

  He took the staff back from the lad. ‘Not everything’s always as it seems. Do you still want to walk?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Walter told him. ‘But why do you think he was frightened?’

  ‘He was offering me a last chance to keep quiet about the wood.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered thoughtfully. ‘He’s worried that people might start to listen.’

  ‘What are you going to do, then? Are you going to stop?’

  John smiled. ‘I’m going to speak even louder. Come on, we can make it to Dronfield and back before the light goes.’

  • • •

  He sat on his bed, sipping at the mug of ale. He could hear Martha moving restlessly in the solar above, reluctant to sleep for the dreams and worries that would come when she closed her eyes. For all her strong words he had seen the flickers of fear in her gaze and the way her hands shook. She had hidden them quickly, but he had noticed.

  None of Hugo’s words had terrified him. The man dressed like he had money but underneath he was no different from a carpenter. He was just a man who’d allowed his greed to go too far and who was trying to protect himself. He’d hoped to intimidate with his threats, but all that lay behind them was emptiness. And now Hugo knew he was going to be the coroner’s steward he had to be more careful. Henry might have important friends but his brother still exercised some power in Chesterfield.

  He’d told Walter he would speak louder. It sounded fine when it fell from his lips, but who else could he tell? Who would listen, who would care? He rubbed a hand over the rough bristles of his chin. In truth he had no idea what he could do. He needed proof or testimony and that would be difficult to find.

  He sat for a full hour, the shutters open to let in the moonlight. The steward wouldn’t send any more men, at least for now. He would wait, bide his time to see what the carpenter did. Finally, John placed the mug on the floor and slipped under the blanket. He felt safe enough for the present but he still kept the knife under the pillow.

  • • •

  Katherine was full of questions, sitting with him as he worked, ignoring the girls playing in the hall and other woman who simply sat in her chair and stared blankly at the world.

  ‘Walter thought he was going to try and kill you.’

  ‘I told your brother to run, but he wouldn’t. He insisted on staying with me. There’s bravery in that lad.’

  ‘He looks up to you, John. He’d defend you to the death if he had to,’ she told him.

  ‘Praise God it didn’t come to that.’ He pointed across the floor. ‘Can you hand me that nail?’

  She bent to pick it up. ‘Walter said you thought Hugo was scared, but he didn’t know why. Was he?’ she asked carefully. ‘Or were you just trying to comfort my brother?’

  He put down the hammer. ‘No, he’s scared, right enough. He wouldn’t have taken the trouble to find me otherwise. And he wouldn’t have been all bombast and threats.’

  Katherine pursed her mouth in thought. ‘That doesn’t sound like fear.’

  ‘If he’d really wanted to, he could have killed us both yesterday. He had a sword, he had a horse: we couldn’t have outrun him. He’s sent men out twice to try and murder me and my luck has held. What he was really saying was that if I did nothing, he would do nothing.’

  ‘A truce?’

  He considered the word, frowning. ‘A stalemate, more like.’

  ‘Are you going to do what he w
ants?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Can you trust him?’

  ‘Probably not,’ he grinned. ‘But if that’s what he chooses, I’m ready for him.’ He patted the knife tucked into its sheath.

  ‘John, please, don’t sound so cocksure,’ she begged quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She was right; it had been a stupid, vain remark. He could die as easily as anyone else and it would do good to remember that. He glanced down at his good arm, tensing the muscle and imagining the life gone from it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

  ‘What can you do to bring this Hugo down?’ Katherine asked.

  He gave a long, sad sigh. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been puzzling over it. Someone who’d testify against him or some proof. But who’d be willing to do that?’

  She smiled at him. ‘I have faith in you.’

  ‘More than I do myself sometimes.’ He brightened. ‘But for the present I still have plenty to keep me busy here. That’s work enough for now.’

  He found real joy in each of the tasks, however small. He could concentrate on them; let his hand work in the way God had intended, watching things take form as he used his tools.

  There would be ample to keep him busy on the manor; so the coroner had promised him, and he hoped it was true. That and all the hundred other things he’d need to learn would fill his days. There would be no time to think of other things, every hour of daylight would be filled.

  He rasped an awkward, sharp corner of metal on a hinge, rubbing away the rust to show the brightness underneath, working it until it was smooth and he could run his fingertip over it. He tested the door, checking it opened and closed as smoothly as it should, and then tightened up the screws for one final half-turn so they’d remain securely in place. He sat back, satisfied, picking up the mug and taking a long swig of ale. Another day and he’d be finished in the solar. For a moment he imagined Katherine up here in the evening, settling down in the bed with her two younger sisters, and he tried to picture her face as she slept, all the cares and responsibilities gone, a small, sweet smile on her face.

  He stood and gazed out of the unglazed window. He could just make out the top of the tower at the church, one of the timbers that poked out to the sky swaying in a gust of wind. Maybe Martha was right, maybe God truly did have a plan for him. He’d seen the broken arm as something awful, but perhaps there had been a divine hand behind it.

  He held each tool in turn in his left hand, wiping all the metal with the oiled cloth in his right before slipping them back into the satchel. The chisels were growing blunt; he’d need to use a whetstone on them soon, once he had two working arms again. If Walter was willing, it would be a good, useful task for the lad.

  He glanced around the room, making sure he’d put everything away and not left any tools. They were his fortune, although God knew the one time he had forgotten one, when Walter had come after him, it had saved his life. With a final glance he settled the satchel on his shoulder and eased his way down the stairs to the hall.

  Katherine was out somewhere, the girls gone with her. Only the old woman in the chair remained. As he passed her she raised her head. In a voice as ragged as a raven’s caw, she said, ‘You have a curse on you. The devil gave you that arm.’

  ‘Mistress,’ he began, not sure what to say to her. The woman’s face was agitated, her mouth moving but no more words coming out, her fingers drumming wildly on her lap. He moved closer to help, but she lashed out at him with her arm. Then her eyes closed and she seemed to fall asleep.

  He’d barely opened the door when the girls rushed in, laughing with delight over some little thing, followed by Katherine carrying a basket of wet linen, her face flushed from the walk up Soutergate from the river.

  ‘Your mother …’ he began, and saw her eyes widen. She dropped the basket and dashed in the door, kneeling by the chair, feeling the older woman’s brow and neck.

  ‘Mama,’ she said quietly, her voice desperate. ‘Mama.’

  ‘I’ll go for the apothecary,’ he offered. Katherine kept her fingers against the woman’s neck a few more moments, then lay her head against the woman’s breast. The girls stood hushed at the other end of the room, watching the scene, not understanding what was happening.

  ‘There’s no need.’ He walked over and placed his hand lightly against Katherine’s back, feeling the small shudders going through her, each one growing longer and deeper until the sobbing began. She clutched at her mother’s gown, bunching the material in her small fists. Her tears were flowing fast, her breathing was ragged.

  He motioned to the girls with his head. ‘Come on with me,’ he told them quietly. ‘Let’s leave your sister and your mother together for a little while.’

  Janette and Eleanor were a loud gaggle of questions as soon as they were out of the door, wondering what had happened and why their sister was weeping. Once they were in the house on Knifesmithgate, Martha coming through from the buttery, wiping her arms on a piece of linen, he sat them down on a bench and knelt in front of them.

  ‘Your mama’s died,’ he told them, looking each one in the eye, his voice as gentle as he could make it. He heard Martha’s swift intake of breath. ‘You know she wasn’t well, don’t you?’ They both nodded shyly, eyes wandering around the unfamiliar room. ‘She’s at peace now, she’ll be with God.’

  ‘Why don’t the pair of you come with me?’ Martha told the girls, holding her hands out to them. ‘Let’s see what we can find in the garden, shall we?’ She glanced back over her shoulder, offering him a small, pained smile.

  Death was a woman’s time, he thought. For the grief and the wailing, for the washing and preparing of the body, for all the emotions and the sadness. He could go and sit with Katherine, but she needed this time alone. He could help Martha with the girls, but she’d be much better without him around. He poured a mug of ale and stood by the table. ‘You have a curse on you’ she had said. Her last words, the first he’d ever heard her utter and dark ones, coming from a place no one else could see.

  • • •

  They held the funeral two days later. Martha and some of the other goodwives had helped ready the corpse, washing it and dressing it in the long linen winding sheet. John marked out the boards for the coffin and cut them with Walter’s help, showing the boy how to nail them together, nodding his approval as the boy worked. He stood at the graveside between Walter, his face fixed ahead, his gaze empty, and Katherine, her eyes rimmed red. Martha had charge of Janette and Eleanor, holding onto their hands and whispering in their ears. A few others attended, giving their responses to the priest as a bitter wind swept through the churchyard, the laughter and chatter of the workmen a backdrop to everything.

  He hung back when others went to drop small handfuls down on the wood. She wasn’t his family; he hadn’t known her at all. When everyone had finished, Katherine knelt, picked up a clod and placed it in his hand. ‘Please,’ she said, her words so soft that the breeze threatened to whip them away, ‘you were with her when she died.’

  He stepped forward, holding out his hand and crumbling the dirt through his fingers, watching it fall before turning and walking to the others. As they passed through the lychgate he looked back to see the gravediggers already at work, a flagon of ale sitting on the ground beside them.

  • • •

  For two days he stayed away from the house on Saltergate. He wanted to give them time to mourn, to find a little peace in their new lives. He barely left the house, moving from bench to stool to bed, wandering in the garden, unable to settle or rest properly. At night his dreams were full of the woman’s face as her eyes closed, her final words filling him. In the mornings and at night he prayed for her troubled soul, hoping she had finally found grace.

  On the third day he knocked on the door, finding Katherine with no smile of welcome, but with half-moon smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes. He drew her close, holding her as she cried, feeling her grab at him until the
tears had all passed.

  There was a pall of sorrow over the place. The girls played some silent, private game, one of them going into the garden and returning with a flower that she arranged carefully with the others, before the other girl did the same.

  He went out to the cookhouse, the fire there warm after the crispness of the morning. Like every other place in the house, it needed work. Katherine had followed him, watching him as he settled chisel against wood, delicately shaving off a corner and feeling the smoothness of the wood.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she begged. ‘Please. Something pleasant.’

  He leaned back and started to speak, telling her of York, of the magnificence of the Minster, the way the streets were so crowded that each journey from one end of the city to the other took a full hour. He described the houses in the Shambles there, the way each storey jettied out over the one below it, until at the top a man could reach out and shake hands with his neighbour across the street. Her face began to lighten and the sadness clear from her eyes as he recalled the priests and friars who populated the place, some venal, some holy, and the churches scattered like stars all across the city.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said finally, giving him a wan smile. ‘I feel like there’s been too long without any joy in the house.’

  ‘How’s Walter?’

  ‘He went and worked after the funeral. He’s been gone every day, coming home late and not saying much. Even the girls have been quiet. I know their game has something to do with mother, but they won’t tell me what.’

  ‘Death’s a hard lesson when you’re young,’ he said, remembering his own childhood. ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I look after them all, the way I always do.’ She opened her mouth to say more, shook her head, then asked, ‘You love this work, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye,’ he agreed. ‘There’ll be plenty of it at the manor, too, from what the coroner’s told me.’

  ‘You’ve made up your mind, then?’

  ‘It’s too late in the year to take to the roads and start looking for anything else. No one will be building during the winter. Besides,’ he added with a small sigh, ‘the idea of a home’s becoming more appealing.’