The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18)

by Michael Jecks

  Rising from all fours to squat, Baldwin sighed. There was no possibility of learning anything from this corpse. Too many men had been here over the last couple of days, probably first of all making sure that he was truly dead, more entering to gawp and speculate. He’d seen it all too often before at murder scenes; people couldn’t resist coming to see what had happened. All he could hope was that the man who found the body would be a more or less reliable witness. The body had been moved several times, probably, and Baldwin would like to know how the corpse had lain when it was first found. Looking at the way the man was lying now, he wondered if he had been like this, face down, feet pointing back to the door, head in the chapel itself.

  Time, he thought, to study the dead man, and he rolled the body over.

  He was perhaps six or seven years older than Baldwin himself, about sixty. His belly was proud proof of his wealth if nothing else. His stomach was well-rounded, and his jowls would have made a bloodhound jealous. For all his girth, he was not an unattractive fellow, from what Baldwin could see. Although his eyes had closed as though he was sleeping, Baldwin could see that his features were pleasingly regular and there were laughter lines at either eye, making him a cheerful companion. And yet there was also a set of wrinkles at the side of his mouth and at his forehead which spoke of recent worries. It was possible that Baldwin wouldn’t have seen these if he had studied the face in daylight, but here with the flickering yellow torch flame, the man’s face was thrown into stark relief. Clearly he had been worried about something before he died. Concern was etched onto his face like a pattern carved into leather.

  Baldwin stood, staring down at the dead man. He glanced at the novice with the torch, a slightly green-faced youth who appeared to be gazing with fascination at a point on the wall some feet above Baldwin’s head.

  ‘Sir Baldwin?’ the Dean called. ‘Have you – er – discovered anything?’

  Baldwin decided not to offer his observation that the man was certainly dead, and instead walked out to join the Dean.

  ‘He was definitely murdered. He could not have inflicted such a wound on himself with any ease.’

  ‘Of course he was murdered!’ snapped a voice.

  The Dean gave the speaker a rather irritated look. ‘You – um – remember our Treasurer, Sir Baldwin? This is Stephen.’

  ‘I recall you well, Master Treasurer,’ Baldwin said smoothly. He hadn’t liked the Treasurer on the previous occasions they had met, and saw no reason to alter his opinion now.

  ‘Did you learn anything useful in there?’ Stephen demanded.

  ‘I should like to talk to the First Finder,’ Baldwin said after a moment. ‘What sort of a man is he? A stable sort? Intelligent, or prey to fancy?’

  ‘It was a fellow called Paul. I do not think that he is – um – prone to fancy, no, although I have to admit that he is new to his role as annuellar. Perhaps he could be a little … ah … unreliable? We are fortunate, however, because he called for help as soon as he found the body, and the man who – um – went to him was Janekyn Beyvyn, our porter from the Fissand Gate. He is not prey to dark imaginings. A more sensible fellow you could not – ah – hope to meet.’

  ‘I am glad.’

  ‘Do you think you can learn who actually committed this terrible crime, though?’ Stephen blurted out. ‘It’s revolting to think of that poor soul’s corpse in there waiting until the blasted Coroner can be bothered to make his way here. The man responsible should be made to pay for this dreadful abomination. To slaughter a man in a holy chapel! It beggars belief!’

  ‘I agree,’ Baldwin said, but he felt, as he looked at the men before him, that he could not and should not deceive them. He sighed. ‘Yet I fear that even were Simon Puttock with me, this matter could prove to be beyond our powers of investigation. There is nothing in there to show who might have killed him. Perhaps I can learn more from the man’s family. Was he married?’

  ‘Yes, with a daughter, I fear,’ Dean Alfred said.

  Baldwin shook his head slowly. It was one of his constant fears that he would die too soon and not see his child Richalda grow to graceful maturity. All he hoped was that, should he die, she would at least hold fond memories of him. As would his widow. That thought suddenly sprang upon him, and he had a sense of complete loss, perhaps a recognition that he had already lost Jeanne’s love. The idea was appalling. ‘I …’

  ‘You are well, sir?’ the Dean asked solicitously. ‘You have blenched.’

  ‘I am fine,’ Baldwin stated firmly. ‘Very well, then I must speak to this novice and the porter you mentioned, and then, perhaps, you could have a man guide me to the widow?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I sent a messenger to Tavistock to ask the good Abbot whether he could release Simon for a few days to help me here,’ Baldwin started tentatively. ‘I do not suppose you have heard anything from Abbot Champeaux about that? A messenger could have arrived here by now, I should have thought.’

  ‘No, I have heard nothing. Ahm – perhaps someone will come here later today?’ the Dean said hopefully.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said. He glanced at the chapel a last time and unaccountably felt a shiver pass down his spine.

  A Charnel Chapel could hardly be thought of as a friendly, welcoming place: it was a storage area for those remains which would not naturally dissolve. The bones of many men and women lay inside there, under the ground, all higgledy-piggledy. It wasn’t surprising that the place should acquire a strange atmosphere all of its own. Of course Baldwin knew full well that he was not in the slightest fanciful, not like Simon; Baldwin was no romantic fool who heard ghosts and witches at every turn.

  Yet he was aware of a curious shrinking sensation as he looked at the chapel, as though it was truly built upon death, and death would come here once more.

  Chapter Twelve

  The German should be with them some time soon. Mabilla took a deep breath and rubbed her temples.

  ‘Mother, this is the right thing to do,’ Julia said once more.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Mabilla responded testily. She looked at her daughter again and gave her a weak smile. ‘I am sorry – I know you are as sad as I am today, but it is so hard …’ She could feel the tears welling again on seeing her daughter: so tall, so elegant, and so terribly distraught, her eyes red from weeping. It was a testament to her beauty that the desperation and grief which so ravaged her features did not devour her attractiveness. In many eyes her terrible anguish only added to her appeal.

  They had both sat up late discussing their plight since the sudden shock of Henry’s murder. Their situation was doleful. Mabilla had gone through the ledgers with an experienced clerk whom Henry had oftentimes used before, and the result was not reassuring. Henry was owed a considerable sum from other members of the Freedom of Exeter, and Mabilla knew that she’d have to start implementing court proceedings to gather even a small part from most of these fellows.

  In the meantime, the house was their sole real asset, and the two women must shift for themselves in any way they might.

  ‘It’s the only way, Mother.’

  Mabilla closed her eyes. The shock of Henry’s death, followed so soon afterwards by the veiled threat in Will’s words, was almost more than she could bear. Will had been so malevolent in his manner and speech: that alone had convinced her that she and her daughter both urgently needed a protector.

  Seeing William had forced her to face the truth about the man. Will had been her lover many years ago, and even as she had accused him she had been aware of his masculinity – not because she wanted a lover straightaway, but because old attractions died hard. If she was honest, her accusation was not intended to provoke a confession – it was an invitation for him to deny his guilt.

  But his manner, his coarseness and brutal disinterest, revealed his true character. He was more than capable of murder; he had very likely killed her Henry.

  Julia saw the need for protection as clearly as she, and it only served to
make her determined to win Udo as a husband before it was too late and he found another woman to his liking.

  When her daughter was born, Mabilla had dreamed of the day when Julia would marry. She had thought of the dress, the gathering crowds at the church door, the admiring faces, the jealous mothers and daughters who bitterly saw that they had missed out on this splendid match because their daughters were not so beautiful as Julia. She had expected Henry to be there, with his wealth exhibited on every side; and now, here she was, plotting with her child to install Julia in the first available man’s house, in a financial arrangement to guarantee both of their futures. And such a short time, such a very short time, after poor Henry’s death, too. It was enough to start the tears springing again.

  ‘I am sure he will make me happy,’ Julia said confidently. At least Udo would save the two of them from ruination. ‘We must find a husband for me so that we can be safe.’

  Aye, her mother thought, and so that I can be safe from the man who said he used to love me and now threatens to murder me. And again her mind turned to Will, and to wondering whether he really had murdered her husband.

  ‘Oh, God! My poor Henry!’ she wailed suddenly, and fell to her knees, her face hidden in her hands.

  What should she do? What else could she do, other than sell her daughter?

  Sara was getting over it. She must: she had another son to think of. The bodies had been taken away to the church, and all waited there now for the Coroner’s arrival so that he could comment on the deaths, and when that had been done, her Elias could be buried.

  It was only three days ago, and yet it felt like a year of suffering. She’d hardly got used to the idea that she would never see Saul again, and now she must wait for the Coroner once more. Her poor Elias! Her darling little boy! All he did was try to find some food from the Priory, and he had paid for it with his life.

  She might have died too, had it not been for the kind mason. The man Thomas had appeared as though from nowhere again, and grabbed her from the dark sea which was gradually carrying her out on the tide towards death. At that moment, it had been a welcome journey, and his intervention unwelcome, but as soon as she began to breathe and could think, and realised that her son was in there somewhere too, needing to be rescued, the will to live had flooded her body. Then she had seen her little Elias’s ruined frame being picked from the mound of corpses, his eyes open but unfocused, his mouth slack, head dangling, his body crushed. It took one glance to see that he was dead.

  She had sunk to the ground with Elias in her lap, weeping and wailing, pulling her hair, mixing dust and ash from the ground in her long tresses, utterly bereft. It was only the feel of the hand on her shoulder that helped her to come to her senses. That and the words Thomas muttered: ‘Be strong, girl. It’s terrible, but you must be strong for your other boy. Think of him.’

  That gruff, sad voice had hauled her back from the edge of despair like a rope. She still had Dan. And he deserved to have her alive and whole to protect him as best she might. It would avail nothing, were she to die of misery and leave him alone in this cruel world.

  And so she had remained sitting there while the men about her, Thomas included, pulled bodies from the pile, gave them a cursory glance, and then either set them gently at the wall’s side to rest until they could be helped, or joined the larger pile ready for the Coroner to view before they might be interred.

  Like many of the men there, Thomas was crying as he joined in this terrible task. Those who were helped to the wall to sit upright were all in the topmost layers of bodies. As the men released them from the press, they began to find fewer and fewer who were still breathing. So many were dead, that they had to start a second pile for all the corpses. The crowd had shoved forwards on a wide front, and when people began to fall, they collapsed from the front, up to six deep in places, where those behind had tried to clamber over the bodies in front in order to escape the terror, only to fall and be smothered in their turn by others. Now this long line of three-and-forty people was being broken into a series of smaller piles.

  Thomas couldn’t remain until the finish. When he was sure that there were no more people living in that hideous mound, he walked to Sara and helped her up. They took Elias back along the roadway which she had entered all those hours before, buoyed with the hope of a filled belly at last, and Thomas led the way to the Church of St John Bow, where he asked the shocked-looking priest whether they could carry her child into the church. The priest nodded his head, his own eyes full of tears. They carried Elias into the church and set him down gently before the altar. Elias was the first body there.

  Recalling those moments, Sara wiped her eyes. He had been a rock to her, this Thomas. She was sure that he must be a kind man. Since the disaster, he had appeared with food and drink for her each day, and she had forced herself to eat under his sternly compassionate eye, reminding herself that she had to remain strong to protect Dan.

  The older boy had taken the news of his brother’s death badly. He had sworn aloud to hear that Elias was dead, and his anger had not been assuaged when Thomas tried to calm him. His words were directed at Thomas, but Sara knew that his true rage was targeted at himself. He was the master of the family, and he had failed his brother; it should have been him, Danny, in that queue, not his mother and his feeble sibling.

  She was expecting the tentative knock when the light was starting to fade. The masons and labourers worked longer hours in the summer, but when the sun dipped earlier, they were allowed to have a shorter day, although the Cathedral reduced their pay accordingly. Thomas always came here as soon as he stopped work, and usually brought either food he had saved from the Cathedral’s contribution – because all the workers were entitled to their own supply of ale and bread at the Cathedral’s expense – or, if that wasn’t available, he’d buy more food for her and Dan on his way to them.

  He was a generous-hearted man, she thought. When she was at her lowest ebb, he was there to collect her and renew her spirits. He had certainly saved her life that day outside the Priory, and since then he had kept her and Dan fed.

  Yes, it was him. He stood in the doorway when she pulled it open, his bearded face smiling apprehensively, as though he half-expected her to launch herself at him and tear him to pieces. She had the impression that if she were to attack him, he would do nothing to protect himself.

  It was a weird idea. She was nothing to him, just as he should be nothing to her – but she could feel a tie between them. Just as he must have accepted responsibility for her in some way for saving her life, likewise, she was ready to accept his presents. Perhaps it was nothing more than the kindness of a co-labourer and mason for the widow of another. She knew that there were little clubs which allocated a sum of money to cover the funeral expenses of the less fortunate workers who died at the Cathedral so that their families shouldn’t have to suffer that expense just as they were coming to terms with their grief; but sadly she also knew that Saul had never invested in such a fund. If the other masons knew of her plight, maybe they had thrown some money into a cap to help her, and since Thomas knew her slightly, after bringing her the news of her darling Saul’s death, perhaps they thought his face would be more acceptable to her.

  Looking up at him now, she reckoned that if that was their thinking, they were right. She liked his rough, untended beard with the grey flecks and sandyish hairs about his bottom lip. It was a perfect frame for his kind eyes, which watched her always with that faint hint of anxiety, as though he was convinced she’d show him the door the instant he began to speak to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said as she took in the sight of the food he held in his arms. He smiled as though relieved to note her welcoming tone, and then she gestured him inside, taking the items from his arms and setting them on the table.

  ‘Dan not here?’ he asked as she almost pushed him down into a seat.

  ‘No, he’s gone out. A friend called for him.’

  Sara was fascinated by Thomas’s
changing expressions. It was hard to read any emotion in his face. His mouth could smile without affecting his eyes, yet sometimes she saw that his eyes were laughing, although his mouth was set in a firm, pursed line. Although she had no intention of dishonouring her husband’s memory, she found herself attracted to this powerful, big-hearted man.

  ‘You are too kind to me,’ she breathed as she discovered a slab of meat, dripping with blood. It was only very rarely that she and her husband had been able to afford meat, and the sight of this made her belly rumble alarmingly.

  He looked away with embarrassment. She put the meat into her cooking pot, added water from the bucket and set it over the fire to stew. Neither spoke for what seemed a very long time, and then she looked up and found his eyes upon her. There was an infinite sadness in his face, and she set her head to one side with sympathy flowing through her veins. She said gently, ‘Tell me what upsets you so much, Thomas.’

  He looked away. ‘I was just thinking – I never had a wife nor children, and I realise how much I’ve missed.’

  ‘It’s not all easy,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you hate your family.’

  ‘I don’t believe that of you. You loved your man, didn’t you? And his children.’

  She could feel the tears begin again. The mere mention of Saul and Elias could make her throat constrict. ‘I never regretted marrying him,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘You are fortunate.’

  ‘Did you never want to settle with a woman of your own?’

  ‘There were women I admired from a distance, but when I set out on my trade, I never stayed long enough in one place to settle down. By the time I had slowed down enough to appreciate what I was missing, it was too late. I was too old. Look at me! A wrinkled husk of a man with little to recommend me.’