Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

It was a typical Dartmouth morning in late September. The rain was coming in from the sea. He pulled his cloak more closely about his shoulders as he surveyed the ships sheltered in the harbour, the men loading or unloading cargo, the heavy bales of merchandise almost bending them double. Some carried spices, some dyes, others hauled on ropes operating the hoisting spars, lifting heavier goods, the barrels of wine and salt from the King’s French possessions. The port was a thrusting little township with its own charter, and the scurrying men down there at the waterfront proved that the town was thriving financially.

Which was all to the good, because that meant more money for his master, the Abbot of Tavistock.

It was many years since Simon had first joined the Abbot. He had previously worked at the Stannary castle at Lydford, acting as one of the bailiffs who struggled to keep the King’s Peace over his extensive forest of Dartmoor, preventing the tinminers from overrunning every spare field, diverting every stream, thieving whatever they could in order to win more tin from the peaty soil, or simply threatening to use their extensive rights to extort money from peasants and landowners alike. One of their favourite games was to say that they thought they might find tin under a farmer’s best piece of pasture; only desisting when offered a suitable bribe.

Those years had been his happiest ever. He had seen his daughter grow to gracious maturity; he had buried one son, Peterkin, but his wife had conceived and now he had another to carry on his name. Yes, his life at Lydford, while busy and at times taxing, had been very rewarding. Which was why he now suffered like this, he told himself ruefully.

‘God’s Ballocks!’ he muttered, and turned to stride along Upper Street until he came to an alleyway. Here he turned and trod over the slippery cobbles down to Lower Street, and along to the building where he could meet his clerk.

The room where his clerk awaited him was large, and the fire in the middle of the floor was inadequate for its task.

‘Oh, Bailiff! A miserable morning, isn’t it, sir?’

Andrew was a Dartmoor man too, but there was no similarity between them in either looks or temperament. Simon was powerfully built, his frame strong and hardened from regular travelling over the moors. He was only recently returned from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela with Baldwin; during which period he had lost much of his excess weight. In contrast, Andrew was chubby. He looked much younger than his sixty-odd summers, and still had the twinkling, innocent eye of a youth, whereas Simon’s expression was more commonly sceptical, having spent so many years listening to disputes and trying to resolve which of two arguing parties was telling the truth.

This clerk was born to write in his ledgers — and how he adored them! It was enough to drive Simon to distraction sometimes, the way that Andrew would smooth and clean each sheet before setting out his reeds methodically. He had been taught and raised as a novice in the Abbey, and his loyalty to Abbot Robert was not in doubt, but Simon wished that he could have had a more worldly-wise clerk instead of this stuffed tunic. He would have liked a man with whom he could dispute, who would have had new ideas and on whom Simon could have tested his own, but Andrew appeared content to be a servant, never offering advice or commenting on Simon’s decisions, merely sitting and scrawling his numbers and letters.

It was the latter which entranced him. Whereas Simon would admire a pretty woman, or sigh with contentment at the taste of a good wine, Andrew knew no pleasure other than forming perfect, identical figures. His numerals were regular in size and position, the addition always without fault, yet he strove constantly to improve. Simon could read and write, after his education at Crediton with the canons, but he saw these skills as means to an end. Records must be kept, and the only effective manner to store records was on rolls. But Simon didn’t like the idea of spending his entire life trying to make his letter ‘a’ more beautiful. If it was legible, that was enough. No, Simon was happier out in the open than sitting here in this draughty, smoke-filled cell with this pasty-faced, rotund clerk with his reeds and his inks.

‘This weather is nothing,’ Simon responded shortly, and then felt a wave of guilt wash over him at the hurt in Andrew’s eyes. The man was only doing his best to be sociable, yet Simon snapped at him like a drunkard kicking a puppy. Andrew was necessary, and he was going to remain with him whether Simon liked it or not.

He was silent a moment, seeking some means of repairing the damage, but then, irritable with himself, he knew he couldn’t. There wasn’t the understanding in him to be able to make Andrew a friend. He was a servant, nothing more. Simon beckoned the clerk and led the way outside and down to the harbour itself, all the way cursing his miserable fate in being sent here.

What really stuck in his craw was the fact that he was only here because his master had wanted to reward him.

Lady Jeanne de Furnshill was stoic when her husband announced that he was going to have to leave again. ‘It hardly feels as though you have been home at all, my love,’ she said quietly. ‘Richalda shall miss you. As shall I.’

‘Yes, well, I suppose it is a part of the duty of a knight in the King’s service,’ Baldwin said shortly. He looked at her and smiled with as much sincerity as he could manage. ‘My love, I will be home before long.’

‘I understand,’ Jeanne said, with complete honesty and a simultaneous shrivelling sensation inside her breast. She’d known the loss of love before, and now she was to face it again. Perhaps it was something wrong with her?

Her first husband had been a brute and bully; convinced that she was barren, his love for her turned into loathing, and with that, he started to beat her regularly. At the time, Jeanne had sworn to herself that she would never tolerate another husband who raised his fist to her. Of course, Baldwin had not shown any indication that he could do so yet there was a new coldness in his manner towards her, and she was sure that his love for her was fled.

Her sense of unease had been growing, and was confirmed when she joked about his interest in the pretty young peasant girl. His surly response then had shocked her, and she knew that things were no longer the same.

Rationally, she knew that ‘love’ was a commodity which was greatly overrated. A man like Baldwin would naturally find his feelings withering over time. It was perfectly normal for a man to seek younger, more exciting women when he had an opportunity. That was presumably the reason for his need to go to Exeter.

Yes, rationally she knew all this, and yet … she had thought that her man was different. She’d thought he still loved her.

He had only been home a matter of a few weeks. Before then, he and his friend Simon Puttock had been on a pilgrimage, during which they had encountered more dangers than Jeanne could have dreamed of. She had expected risks from sailing, from footpads, from the occasional burst of foul weather, but not all three — plus fevers, shipwreck and pirates as well.

When Baldwin returned, she felt as though her soul had been renewed, as if she had been waiting with her life suspended in his absence. She had missed him terribly, and when he walked in through their door, she threw down the tapestry on which she had been working, and hurled herself at him. She saw his eyes widen in surprise, then he staggered backwards as she thumped into him.

That evening had been wonderful. It was all but impossible to realise that he was truly home again, that she had him all to herself. He looked so happy, so brown, healthy, warm, kind and content, especially when he saw his daughter again, that Jeanne was entirely free from anxiety. Her man was home and she still possessed his love. There was nothing more that she desired. Nothing she could desire.