The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Why are you so convinced he’s not like that?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Look at him! His sole ambition was to get to be a warrior, working for the King. That doesn’t take brains, does it? No, I’d expect that sort of devious plot to come from the kind of man who’d get to be a master of the Freedom of the city.’

  ‘Oh! You think it must have been Henry, then? Why not Joel or someone else?’

  ‘I do not say it wasn’t,’ Simon frowned. ‘But I think the murderer could reckon it was Henry, and might have killed him for that reason.’

  ‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘So who else should we suspect? We know of William and Joel.’

  ‘And this fellow Thomas,’ Simon pointed out. ‘He would seem a likely candidate – especially as he was guilty enough to leave the city in the first place, and now since his return all those who could have known him have died. First Henry, now Nicholas.’

  ‘And we have heard that Udo was angry about being refused the right to marry Julia Potell,’ Baldwin recalled. ‘It is possible, I suppose, that the friar was a witness to Henry’s murder by Udo, and then Udo was forced to return to remove him too, although …’

  ‘Yes, Baldwin?’ Simon asked after a moment or two, but his friend shook his head.

  ‘Nothing.’ Baldwin could not confess to his strange loathing for the Charnel Chapel. There was something bad about the place, he felt. And surely that had coloured his judgement. ‘I only think that the murder of the Chaunter could have something to do with this. Why else would Henry have been left in the Charnel Chapel, and why should Nicholas have been killed there, his body later moved …’

  ‘Putting the body near the Cathedral would shove all the blame and suspicion onto Thomas,’ Simon said musingly. ‘It would be a shrewd move to distract us towards him.’

  ‘Perhaps it would,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘So we have to consider William, Joel and Thomas because they were all involved in the original attack,’ Simon concluded. ‘And Udo because he had his own motives … Right! What shall we do now, Baldwin? Should we report to the Dean first?’

  ‘All we have is speculation, so no, let’s go to Joel first.’

  ‘You don’t want to see Sir Peregrine, do you?’ Simon grinned.

  ‘He would see me choose between the Lord Hugh de Courtenay and the King,’ Baldwin protested, ‘and I will not. I have enough allegiances already: my family first, my King second.’

  ‘Sir Peregrine will try to persuade you otherwise?’

  ‘Sir Peregrine is a loyal servant of Lord Hugh. He sees the King as a spendthrift and wastrel who will plunge the country into chaos if he is not restrained. The last few times I have seen him, he was trying to forge alliances against the King with the Marcher Lords, but now that they have been destroyed and the rebel leaders killed or exiled, I do not know what he plans. All I do know is, I do not wish to be thrown into a new plot against the King. He has shown his disdain for convention when he captures traitors. I’ll have no part in that.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Simon said. ‘Still, we’ll have to see Sir Peregrine at some point. I think that we should go now.’

  Baldwin grunted but did not argue further. He knew that Simon was correct, but Sir Peregrine was the sort of knight who could put a man in danger’s path unintentionally, and a man who was forced into confrontation with the King was likely to pay for his temerity with his life, his possessions, his lands, everything. Baldwin did not value his own life too highly, but he did value his manor, and the fact that it represented the only means of support he could leave for his wife and daughter. He would not risk them.

  Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple smiled as the Keeper and his friend entered the Dean’s hall. Dean Alfred was talking quietly to Stephen and Matthew, studying their rolls of accounts, and he waved to Simon and Baldwin, motioning towards Sir Peregrine and the jug of wine.

  Sir Peregrine sipped from his mazer, then rose to offer his hand to both. ‘Sir Baldwin, it is a delight to see you again. And Bailiff Puttock, I am pleased to see you looking so well. I have heard from the Dean that you both undertook a pilgrimage. I congratulate you on the success of your journey. You must tell me all about it.’

  The Bailiff did look well, in fact, Sir Peregrine thought, slimmer and with his face bronzed from the sun, although there was a new reticence about him. Still, that was to be expected. Sir Baldwin would have warned him off.

  That idea made Sir Peregrine smile wolfishly as he took his seat again. The two were clever enough. Certainly Sir Baldwin was remarkably quick. Some reckoned he could see through a man’s eyes into his very soul, and he was rumoured to be one of the most respected Keepers in the whole of Devon and Cornwall. Still, he didn’t look so bright today. His eyes were duller, his posture a little stooped, as though he was feeling his age. No matter, he’d be an excellent ally for Lord Hugh, if Sir Peregrine could win him over.

  There would be another war sooner or later, and there was no telling how many would die. The King’s friend, Despenser, grew ever more voracious in his rape of the kingdom. The bastard had sewn up government to his benefit. No one could speak to the King without Despenser’s approval, which meant paying him. Now it was impossible for any man who had been robbed by Despenser to win justice, because the Despenser refused to allow them to plead their case before the King.

  This situation had been going on for years, but the mood of the country was growing restless. The man was a tyrant, and his reign could not last for ever. Since the Battle of Boroughbridge, at which the forces of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the King’s cousin, had been entirely destroyed, the knights who had been in his party chased through the kingdom and, when captured, slaughtered, their bodies separated and sent to all points to be displayed as the limbs of traitors, people had said little. There was nothing to be done against an all-powerful King, especially one who was prepared to wallow in the blood of his enemies; but now that the Despenser was ravaging all territories, he had succeeded in uniting the realm against the King. Even those who had not yet been on the receiving end of the Despenser’s anger and demands for their lands or wealth, knew that it could only be a matter of time.

  ‘Have you viewed the bodies, Sir Peregrine?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘I have seen that of the saddler. Unfortunately, the friar’s body has been removed. I shall have to visit the Friary to see that. They insisted on burying him on their own lands. And the mason has been buried, too.’

  ‘Mason?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Saul: the man we told you of. A rock fell on him while Thomas was up on the scaffold,’ Dean Alfred explained. ‘He was – um – squashed. A horrible sight. We could have his remains exhumed, of course,’ he said, glancing at the Coroner, ‘but it seems a little drastic. There were many witnesses, and all said it was an accident. Nothing was stolen from the man, and there was no suggestion that anyone had anything but praise for him. He never started an argument or any – ah – form of dispute. Never had a fight.’

  ‘Who was there when the rock fell?’

  ‘My Warden of the new Fabric here was on the scaffolding,’ the Dean smiled. ‘But he hardly knew poor Saul, did you?’

  Vicar Matthew shook his head. ‘It was a straightforward accident. Thomas was taking the walls down, and one stone fell. It utterly crushed Saul. But there was no reason for Thomas to want to see Saul killed. And he has displayed the most clear and unambiguous proofs of his sadness to have caused the death.’

  ‘That is true,’ the Dean verified.

  ‘Was it the falling rock that so damaged Thomas’s hands?’ Baldwin asked curiously, thinking of the linen wrapped about each of the man’s palms.

  ‘Yes. The rope stripped the flesh from his hands when he tried to stop it falling,’ said the Dean.

  ‘So he was holding a rope? It must have been a restraining rope,’ Baldwin mused.

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew said. ‘It was to stop the rock from swinging, and in order to be able to pull it away from the wall as it desce
nded.’

  ‘I shall have to see what sort of fine his burial too will require,’ Sir Peregrine said with a smile.

  ‘You must only recently have been made Coroner?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘Oh, yes. I was offered the chance of this job earlier in the summer. My predecessor died – but I understand you were there?’

  In a flash, Baldwin saw Sir Roger de Gidleigh’s face as the crossbow bolt slammed into his spine, the expression that burst across his face as he began to die. ‘Yes,’ he said more gravely.

  Sir Peregrine saw how his face grew still, and regretted his levity. Fortunately the Dean also noticed, and asked Simon whether they had learned anything about the two murders. Sir Peregrine sat back and concentrated as Simon told of all they had heard.

  ‘It seems that there are many who would have sought to kill the saddler, then,’ he said when Simon was finished. ‘And as many who’d like to see the friar dead.’

  ‘Not quite as many,’ Simon said. ‘There were many who’d like both to die, from the frame-maker Joel to the King’s corrodian William; but the saddlemaker had others who’d have liked to see him dead – the German, Udo, for example.’

  ‘There may well be many more, too,’ the Dean said. It was a proof of how deeply he was considering the matter that his speech was unaffected by stammering. ‘The Treasurer, Stephen, remembers that time. He was here. It was before my arrival, of course, but I have heard that there was great dissension within the Cathedral.’

  ‘We should talk to Stephen to see which of the men still in the Cathedral were here at that time,’ Simon suggested. ‘We could then question them to see who else had a motive to kill these two.’

  ‘You think that’ll help?’ Sir Peregrine said. He leaned forward, cupping his mazer in his two hands. ‘If they are guilty of wishing Henry Potell and Friar Nicholas dead, they will hardly tell you. And most of them in any case would declare themselves wholeheartedly behind the Bishop, will they not? How could they admit they were once willing to stand against a Bishop and hope that the present incumbent would not come to hear of it?’

  ‘We are a different – ah – Chapter now, Sir Peregrine,’ the Dean smiled. ‘Such things do not concern us any more. No, we prefer to see disputes openly aired and discussed. The old ways of bottling up arguments and then causing friction are gone for ever. We will not see them return.’

  Sir Peregrine felt the Dean’s eyes upon him and nodded graciously. ‘I am glad to hear it, Dean. We’ll speak to the Treasurer. While we wait, would it be possible for you to ask that the man who dropped the rock on the mason’s head be called here? I should like to speak to this clumsy fellow.’

  ‘Why? It was an accident. Many saw what happened.’

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t another murder! In any case, I have to assess the deodand and ensure that it was not in truth a deliberate killing.’

  The Dean was about to speak when he shrugged and called for his steward.

  ‘The poor fellow will probably be in a tavern somewhere at this time of day,’ he said when the servant had rushed from the room. ‘He will likely be very tired, so please do not be too hard on him.’

  ‘I shall try not to delay the building schedule, Dean,’ Sir Peregrine said.

  They chatted of other matters while they waited for the steward to return, but when he did, alone, Sir Peregrine was not unduly surprised. As the Dean had said, the man was probably drinking off a tiring day in the nearest tavern. ‘He’s left for the night?’

  ‘Dean, I am afraid Thomas has fled,’ the steward told him. ‘The Master Mason tells me that all his tools are gone too.’

  Baldwin shot a bitter look at Simon. ‘We should have questioned him more closely!’

  ‘I commanded that he should be watched,’ the Dean said with a frigid calmness.

  ‘The guards say that he looked as though he was going to escape through the Fissand Gate, but he saw them and ran back towards his hut. They thought he’d changed his mind. He didn’t leave by another gate. They asked.’

  The Coroner leaped to his feet. ‘Show me this man’s room!’ he snapped to the steward and hurried from the room with him. Simon and Baldwin gave their thanks to the Dean, and followed him.

  ‘So, Sir Baldwin,’ the Coroner called over his shoulder as he threw open the door to the Close. ‘It seems our killer might have been in the Cathedral after all! Even if he was only a mason, he would be able to kill with ease inside the precinct. And now he is trying to escape the city, since he knows we are on his trail.’

  Peter, the acting Prior at St Nicholas, was sitting at his desk in his hall at the Priory when the rough knocking on his door woke him from a reverie.

  Sitting here, he had suddenly imagined what it would be like to actually be recognised as Prior. If only he could take that position, and with it enjoy the power and influence it brought, he could work through to the end of his days with satisfaction. He would have achieved something quite fine. It would be enough to satisfy him.

  The post was not all-powerful, but with an accommodating and compliant Abbot at Battle, and he and the new Abbot had always been reasonably close, there was every possibility that he might be able to wield a free hand. That would certainly be his hope. And then, what a life he would have! To be master of a Priory like this in a major city was to be the ruler of a small, self-contained principality. He would have complete control.

  Yet the investigation into that idiot saddler’s death was enough to bring the matter of Chaunter de Lecchelade back to everyone’s minds, and then he’d be without a chance yet again. There was no possibility of his being able to survive the renewal of interest in all that. He’d be ruined.

  He had just reached this conclusion when the knock came, and it explained his harshness of voice and manner as he recognised his corrodian. ‘What is it, William?’

  ‘That’s no way to welcome an honoured guest in your Priory, is it?’

  Peter eyed him like a King watching a poisoner in his kitchens. ‘You may be honoured by others, but to me you are only a man I used to know, who made his way in the world by dishonesty.’

  ‘Not dishonesty … just judicious use of the truth,’ William said. ‘But you and I need to talk.’

  ‘Those two have rattled you?’

  ‘They know more than I’d have guessed,’ William nodded. ‘They know about all of us. I suppose Joel told them. It means we’re in trouble. It’s likely to get out, unless we can shut them up somehow.’

  ‘And how would you propose to do that?’ Peter asked. ‘Perhaps quieten everything by slaughtering the pair of them? That would certainly stop all investigations in their tracks.’

  ‘Yes, it might,’ William smiled.

  Peter was about to snap at him when he realised that William was being honest. Speaking carefully, he said, ‘I do not think that their deaths would succeed in stopping all debate. In fact, I feel that it might lead people to associate these recent deaths with that of de Lecchelade.’

  ‘It may be a risk worth taking. Whoever comes afterwards to look into things will be likely to find an easier target than us. He could be more easily manipulated than these two.’

  ‘You didn’t think that you could persuade the Keeper and Bailiff to leave the matter?’

  ‘No. They’re committed to finding a killer.’

  ‘Which means you’ll not be able to remain here. Not if it becomes known that you helped kill de Lecchelade and then benefited from his death by throwing the blame onto de Porta and the gate-keeper of the South Gate. That wouldn’t reflect well on you, would it?’

  William looked at him but now the smile was wiped from his face like chalk from a board. ‘It would not reflect well on a Prior either, if it came to be widely known that he was a convicted murderer.’

  ‘All know of me, William. I submitted to the Church’s justice and was exiled for many years.’

  ‘Aye. And now you’re back and want this Priory all to yourself, don’t you?’

  Peter made a
dismissive gesture. ‘I will never have it. That much is clear, and I have grown accustomed to the end of my ambitions. Nay, I shall remain here as a monk and pass on the power to my replacement and successor.’

  ‘I won’t leave! Not without a good fight first,’ William swore.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Peter demanded. ‘I won’t have you committing bloodshed, Will. You are a corrodian now, man. You must not bring the name of this place into disrepute.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t let anyone know it’s anything to do with the Priory, don’t you worry, Peter,’ William said. ‘But I won’t stand by and see my place here put at risk by these damned inquisitive fools. No one will take my pension from me!’

  Simon reminded himself of the strange coincidence of the man’s name and age, and wondered if it was in fact a mere quirk of fate. The mason had been surly and suspicious when they spoke to him. To learn that he had been responsible for another death, although it was apparently an accident, was still more curious. One coincidence was possible, but adding together the facts that a man like him had been involved with Joel and Henry all those years before, that he had been in the area when the friar had been murdered, and had even been seen talking to him, and the fact that he sounded like an Exonian even though he denied it, all added up to a suspicious chain of evidence, especially now that he had apparently fled the city.

  ‘Did anyone see him go?’ he asked when he reached Sir Peregrine and the steward at a small shack in the workmen’s little shanty town.

  The steward shook his head. He was a small, birdlike man with very bright brown eyes. ‘No. The guard sent to stop him didn’t see him go. About here, all those I’ve asked said they thought he was still here, but no one’s seen him since mid-afternoon.’

  The room in which he had lived was a rude hovel knocked up by a carpenter with little time for fripperies. It had plain beech walls that once had been lime-washed, a rough shingle roof of chestnut, and little by way of decoration. One stool, without even a table to sit at, and a wooden bench on which to lay his palliasse were the sole concessions to a man’s comfort. It was a sad, bare little chamber.