Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

I am sure whatever you decide, Udo had thought to himself, you would not dispose of her lightly or cheaply!

And now, in the comfort of his hall, staring into the fire, his prized goblet of silver filled with wine in his hand, he knew the bargain. All living expenses for the mother to be paid, herself to keep the house in which she and Henry had lived for so long, and the threat of the court case to be dropped.

It was an expensive bargain, Udo told himself, pulling the corners of his mouth down. Very expensive. And yet as soon as the cost was named, as though she had been waiting at the door for her moment to enter, which no doubt she had, Julia walked into the room, and Udo felt as though the sun had suddenly landed on the ground before him. She was radiantly beautiful, even in her grief.

So! Udo was to become a married man.

Sara had stewed the meat with a handful of herbs and a little of the carefully hoarded salt she kept wrapped in a leather pouch. Every so often she glanced at the man at her table, wondering.

He was so vulnerable. It was curious: she was doubly bereaved, and yet he inspired a depth of sympathy as though his own pain and loss were incomparable. When he wept, she stared at him for a long while and then put her arms about his shoulders and rocked him gently, shushing him and remaining at his side until his terrible sobs eased. Then she kissed his forehead softly before preparing food. There was no need for words; both had needed and still needed comfort, and each had tacitly agreed to give it one to the other.

She hoped Saul wouldn’t object.

The supper was almost ready when she heard the rush of feet outside, and the door was thrown open. ‘Close it, Dan, it’s freezing.’

Her son didn’t move, but stood staring at Thomas. ‘That’s my dad’s stool!’

‘Thomas is tired,’ she said. ‘Look, he’s brought us meat! Do you want some?’

‘No! I don’t want anything from him !’

She stared. His face was streaked with dirt, clear lines where the tears had run during the day, but he wasn’t close to tears now. Instead there was a dreadful ferocity about him. ‘Danny, be calm,’ Sara entreated. She should have kept him here at home, not let him go out with his friends unwatched and unprotected. Something must have happened today to make him so angry. He sounded outraged just to see Thomas there in their home.

‘I’ll take nothing from him. Nothing!’ Dan cried. ‘He’s a murderer!’

Thomas’s head hung dejectedly. ‘I’d better leave.’

‘No, Thomas, please. Danny, he’s told me. It was a terrible thing, but a very long time ago …’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mother,’ Dan interrupted. ‘I’m talking about Daddy! That’s the man who killed him.’

Sara gaped, and turned to Thomas to ask him what her son meant, but as she did so, he rose quietly and walked to the door. He opened it.

‘No, you couldn’t have!’ she breathed, but even as she spoke, he turned to face her and she saw the terrible guilt in his eyes.

‘I didn’t mean to. It was an accident,’ he said. ‘I’d do anything to take his place.’ Then he turned and fled from the room.

Sara had only enough time to sit down on her stool before the waves of darkness overwhelmed her. Her remaining son stood resolutely at her side, preventing her falling. She heard him sniff once, felt one tear strike her on the face after falling from his eye, and then she sank into the blackness.

Baldwin stood in the calefactory as close to the roaring fire as he could, while the Annuellar took a seat at the wall. Looking at him, Baldwin thought that he should have been out in the fresh air, riding and practising with weapons, not spending all his life sitting in chilly rooms or cloisters, while his fingers froze, his pallor and spots increased and his natural humours were subjected to slow decay.

He had once been like this lad, he recalled with a sense of shock. In those days, Baldwin had been impressionable, wary of others, and confused. His older brother, Reynald, was to inherit the manor of Fursdon, and Baldwin had the option of following a cousin into the Church or making his own way in the world. When he had heard of the disasters in the Holy Lands and the way that the crusaders were being evicted from God’s kingdom, he had known that he must do what he could to help. Such, perhaps, was his destiny.

So he had taken ship and left from Devon’s coast, a callow youth who had little to lose. He was supremely confident in his abilities and in those of the other pilgrims at his side on that ship. They were Englishmen, knights and men-at-arms who could beat any force sent against them. The French may have succumbed to the heat and the fury of warfare in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but that meant nothing. If the German warriors had been beaten, it meant nothing. One good English pair of legs with a stout English arm to wield a sword, and a man could vanquish any enemy.

That was his opinion, and the opinion of all the others on the ship as it set sail, and there was nothing to alter their view as they passed the hazardous tongue of land that led into the Mediterranean. One of the sailors was an older man, with a wealth of experience, and he pointed out the sights, the places where the Moors had tried to launch invasions, and the places where the Christians had thrown them from their lands. When they passed a series of islands, he pointed out Cyprus, which Richard the Lionheart had taken when the the ruler, Isaac Ducas Comnenus, had tried to catch and ransom both King Richard and his sister. That rashness cost him dearly, because the wrathful King took the island by storm. There was nothing that a good English warrior couldn’t achieve.

And then — then they’d arrived at the hell that was Acre, the last Christian foothold in the Holy Land, and the mood of the warrior-pilgrims grew more thoughtful. Baldwin himself had not been scared at the sight. Not yet. He was still too foolish and inexperienced. So he stood at the forecastle of the ship and stared at the columns of foul black smoke rising from the devastated land and felt only pride that here he and the other English would show their mettle.

It was at Acre that Baldwin lost the foolishness of youth and became a man.

Looking at Paul, Baldwin saw himself again. In his mind’s eye he looked over the stinking, blackened corpses, their flesh desiccating in the awful heat, their fingers curling into claws, legs bending. Through the day, even when it was quiet, the sounds of creaking leather, the chinking of metal, could be heard as dead limbs tightened, pulling straps and mail into new postures. It was like listening to the armies of hell preparing to attack.

No, he would not have wanted to see this fellow put through the same appalling experience. And yet there was already a horror in his eyes. ‘Was this the first dead man you have seen?’ Baldwin asked him gently.

‘No, sir. I have seen my father. He was stabbed too. It was a long time ago, though.’

‘Yet a memory like that will remain with you.’

‘Yes,’ Paul said, and his eyes glanced away from Baldwin as the old pain was awakened. ‘I found him, you see. It was during the famine, seven years ago, and some men entered the house to steal any food they could find. My father was there, and he tried to stop them, but one held him and the others … well, they beat him with cudgels, and then they stabbed him and left him there. I was lucky they didn’t kill me too. So when I saw that man lying in the chapel, it made me remember, and I think I panicked a bit.’

‘It is not surprising. A grown man may be shocked to discover a corpse where he had expected none,’ Baldwin said understandingly. ‘What did you see from outside?’