Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

With the boy in tow, Udo set off down Cook Row and turned right, down the hill, towards Julia’s house.

It wasn’t far down that alley, he knew. The place was one of the larger shops, not like the cook’s, but at least twelve feet wide and a good fifteen deep. That was the difference between a cook and a saddler, he thought to himself. A saddler of Henry’s quality would always make good money, although it seemed as though Henry had not recently been quite so successful. Udo was adept at reading a man’s status in the city. It was a necessary skill for a foreigner, and to his eye, this place had been in need of maintenance for some little while.

The timbers had been limed, and the plaster covering the wattle and daub between the frames had been whitewashed, but that was plainly a long time ago. Now the building appeared to be in a state of disrepair. The whitewash hadn’t been renewed this year, and the timbers had darker patches where the damp had seeped beneath the lime. It was good oak, this wood, and would last many years, damp or no, but Udo knew that the appearance was all when it came to selling a property, and right now, this place was falling in value. It could hardly do anything else.

Udo felt certain, looking at the dilapidated building, that the women here must be delighted with his offer. He hardly need bother to honey his words. He was a man of wealth and status, and his desire to help them was untarnished with greed — it was based upon his desire for companionship, and the result would be a good education for his wife, and a home for her mother. Surely no impecunious women could turn down his generous offer — especially when she herself had asked him to come and visit her.

He glanced at the boy, who was eyeing the basket of cakes with more than mere professional interest, and then rapped sharply on the timbers with his stick before clipping the lad about the ear. ‘Keep your eyes and your fingers off those cakes, boy!’

Thomas had watched the men approach the Charnel Chapel. ‘Who’re they?’ he wondered.

Matthew was there with his roll and a reed. He glanced up from his calculations. ‘Hmm?’

Thomas pointed with his chin. ‘Them at the chapel. There’s the Dean and a couple of Chapter men, but who’s that knight?’

Matthew stared along the mess of the building site towards the little chapel. ‘Oh, him. He’s a friend of the Dean’s. When we had a murder here some little while ago, the Dean asked him to come and help discover the killer. I suppose he’s here for the same reason. That saddler’s still in the Charnel Chapel, you know. The Dean wouldn’t let us move the body until the Coroner had seen it.’ He sniffed distastefully. ‘I was surprised at that. Far better, I’d have thought, to bring the body out and store it somewhere else, and have the chapel reconsecrated. It is a great shame to have it polluted with shed blood in this way.’

‘Aye. Not pleasant for poor Henry Saddler, neither.’

‘You knew him?’ Matthew asked.

There was a sharpness in his tone which warned Thomas to be wary. ‘Who doesn’t get to know a man like him? He was famous for his workmanship, wasn’t he? It’s only a small city, when all’s said and done.’

‘I just wondered,’ Matthew said. ‘There was something about you …’

‘What?’ Thomas asked, feeling the ice settle at the pit of his stomach.

‘No, it’s nothing,’ Matthew said, but then he set his jaw. ‘It’s just that I had reason to hate him, you see. Henry was one of the men who attacked my master and killed him.’ He stared back at the chapel. ‘They nearly killed me too. So anyone would look on me as the murderer. I must be the clear candidate for guilt in their eyes.’

He faced Thomas once more, and the recognition which Thomas had feared for so long was in his eyes today. Yesterday there had been nothing, but now, Thomas knew, Matthew recalled him from all those years ago.

Thomas had fled this place, and when he returned, he knew that there was a risk that someone might have remembered him. He hadn’t thought that Matthew posed a risk, but poor wounded Nicholas had arrived here, and suddenly all Thomas’s careful attempts to disguise his voice and his features seemed pointless.

He had made it his task to ensure that he knew always when the friar was likely to be in the Cathedral Close, and then he avoided the place. He daren’t risk being seen by him, for Nick would be sure to denounce Thomas if he saw him. How could he not accuse him — the man who had so cruelly scarred him all those years ago and blighted his life?

Thomas found his eyes dragged back to the chapel. A man was hurrying away, and Thomas wondered where he was going in such a rush. That was the trouble with the body appearing there just as Nicholas returned to the city: it meant that men’s thoughts were once more on the evening nearly forty years ago, when the Chaunter was killed. It brought the events back to life, in some way. The fact of Henry’s body being discovered in the chapel had made Thomas’s life here dangerous. If he had a brain, he’d pack his tools tonight, and take to his heels. He’d always be able to find work, and he could maybe explain himself to the Master Mason. Robert de Cantebrigge was going to leave before long, to go and inspect another building site he was managing. Thomas could tell him that he was sick of this city and persuade his Master Mason to take him too, when he left. It would be the best answer.

Except he couldn’t. Beforehand he had had little feeling for this city. He’d been away too long to remember it with a child’s golden memory of delights and pleasures. Instead he had the one vision in his mind: his father’s body swaying in the breeze by the South Gate. That was no reason to remain here. Yet now he found he had another fetter that prevented his escape.

Sara. She had not yet recovered from the death of her husband and child, and Thomas felt a deep guilt that he hadn’t managed to ease her pain even slightly. He had given money, and he’d provided food, but that wasn’t enough. Whether he liked the fact or not, and in reality he hated it, he had a new responsibility in her. When he killed her husband, he caused the death of her son as well. Elias had died because he, like his mother, was desperate for food.

At least she still had the other son. Dan seemed a strong lad, from all Thomas had seen of him. Perhaps Dan would soon be able to find some form of work and help his mother. Then again, he might well leave her to her fate. Other boys did. And then what would happen to Sara? Thomas could guess all too easily. She’d a pleasing face and body, and if there was nothing else available, she would become just another member of the oldest profession.

Thomas didn’t want to see that. He wanted to make her smile again, give her back some self-respect and dignity. He would buy some more food with his money today and take it to her, he decided. It would be good to see her face light up at least for a short time.

It took a little while for Baldwin’s eyes to grow accustomed to the dim interior. ‘Dean, could you have a man bring me a lighted torch? It is very gloomy in here.’

While he waited, Baldwin studied the room with the door wide open. It felt like little more than a cell.

The body lay on the ground before him as soon as he had walked inside, and that fact gave him pause for thought. ‘Dean, do you know if anyone has touched the body? Could someone have moved it, for example?’

‘Not that I know of, no,’ the Dean replied. ‘Oh — ah — here’s a torch for you.’

Baldwin took the sputtering torch and held it aloft. Tutting, he called to the novice who had fetched the thing, and ordered him to hold it up while he investigated the man’s body.