Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

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.