Michael Jecks: The Chapel of Bones

‘I was looking for Saul’s wife,’ he said, and as he spoke the last word, his voice died away. He looked at her silently for a moment.

She returned his gaze and gradually her smile disappeared. ‘Has something happened to my husband?’

‘Mistress, I wish I could …’ he croaked.

‘Is he dead?’ she demanded.

‘I … yes. I am sorry.’

She didn’t seem to hear; she made no movement for a moment, and then he saw her eyes roll upwards, and he had to leap to catch her as she fainted.

The saddler was drunk.

That fact was unarguable, and more than a little amusing, Henry reckoned, as he slumped back in his chair, blearily staring at the mazer on the table before him. With a burp, he smacked his lips and reached cautiously for the wine.

‘Husband, haven’t you already had enough?’

‘Enough? When there’s still a little more left in the jug, my dearest? Of course not!’ He chuckled to himself, repeating his words a couple of times to gain the fullest humorous benefit from them.

Mabilla’s face swam into focus at the other side of the table, and he waved a hand at her in a vague gesture of dismissal. ‘Woman, leave me in peace!’ he pleaded.

‘I will not leave you to ruin yourself and us,’ she stated flatly. ‘You are drunk again. This cannot continue, Husband.’

‘Don’t seek to rule me,’ he growled, but then his eyes popped open as she leaned across the table towards him.

‘And you don’t seek to tell me what I can and cannot do, Henry Potell!’

‘Am I not master in my own home!’

‘You need to ask me that? What is making you behave this way? You never used to get so drunk. Is it something serious?’

‘Oh, it’s serious, madam!’ he said, assaying a light giggle. It appeared to fall flat.

‘Henry Potell, you will ruin us all. That is very serious. I won’t have you destroy everything you’ve built up. What will you say to your daughter when you are dead in the gutter and she has no husband nor means to find one?’ Mabilla snapped.

Henry snatched the mazer before she could remove it, and defiantly lifted it in a mock salute before draining it once more. ‘She will be all right. So will you,’ he said thickly. ‘There’s enough money saved for you both.’

‘And what of you, my husband?’

Her tone was softer, he noticed, and was relieved that the spat was probably already over. ‘My love, I don’t know. Just now I can’t think straight.’

‘The wine won’t help you.’

‘It may not clear my head, but it eases the pain,’ he slurred.

‘What pain? Are you suffering?’

He looked at her, but couldn’t answer. The pain he had was a forty-year-old guilt, and he had never heard of a cure for that.

Vincent the apprentice joiner stretched his arms high over his head and yawned.

‘Oi! Get out here, will you, you lazy shite! It’s Master Ralph come to see his frame.’

Vincent grinned to hear his master speak like that. Master Joel Lytell always made a loud noise to let his customers feel that he was jumping to satisfy their every whim, and today was no different. When a customer appeared, Joel bawled at his apprentices without pause, determined to create the right impression.

Picking up the heavy demonstration frame, Vincent carried it out from the workshop into the main hall at the front of the building. There he found his master talking to a shortish figure, well-padded, with bright blue eyes and an easy, smiling appearance. Vincent had seen him before about the city. He was a physician known as Ralph of Malmesbury.

Vincent took the frame over to the two men, and set it on the tall bench which had been made to display this and other works for clients. Standing back, he watched as Joel led the man to the frame, pointing to the strengthening points, pulling at the joints to demonstrate how firm they were, and how sturdy the entire saddle would be.

‘I’m known as the best joiner in the city,’ Joel finished with pride.

‘Really? And I’m the King’s physician,’ Ralph said disdainfully.

‘I am! I build the frames for Master Henry, and no one can buy better than his saddles, master,’ Joel said with a hurt tone.

‘Ha ha! And you think that might be a recommendation? I’ve only just treated the last of his clients.’

Joel’s smile grew a little fixed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Udo the German’s saddle broke when he was testing it the first time, and he was thrown onto the cobbles. A terrible dislocation. Very unpleasant. So don’t tell me that selling your frames to Henry is any sort of endorsement! Christ’s Bones, maybe I oughtn’t to be here after all. I’d heard your equipment was better than that.’

‘Ah well, Master, I can assure you that my frames are the best in the city, and if one of Master Henry’s broke, no doubt he bought it in as a cheaper piece of work from someone else for a poorer quality saddle,’ Joel said smoothly. ‘Perhaps this Master Udo didn’t want to pay full price for one of Henry’s top quality saddles.’

‘I wonder. I’d want to know that the workmanship on this would be as good as it could be,’ the man said.

‘I would have my best man build it,’ Joel said.

Vincent preened himself. He knew he was the best joiner in the shop out of all the apprentices — probably better than Joel himself.

‘Hopefully not that little runt, then,’ Ralph said, peering at Vincent with a look of contempt on his face. ‘He doesn’t look like he could put a simple stool together!’

When Henry was young, he’d never have thought that the crime could affect him so much so late in life. Here he was, damn it, almost in his grave, and he’d hardly ever given a moment’s thought to the night when he’d trailed across the city with the others, huddled close to the Chapel of St Simon and St Jude, waiting until that terrible moment when a crack of light appeared in the door to the Cathedral and the men poured out.

And now that moment had returned to haunt him, for he knew that his life couldn’t last much longer, and when he went to God, he wanted no risk of rejection just because he had once aided one man against another. By St Peter’s beard, this was a mess!

‘Is it the German? Is that why you’re worried?’

He could hear the concern in her voice, but he had no power to ease it. Udo Germeyne’s threat was a real one: Germeyne could certainly cause havoc with their finances. The man had every right, too, Henry thought, scowling at the mazer. ‘That bastard! He thought he could pull the wool over my eyes, did he?’ he snarled.

‘I don’t think Master Udo tried anything of the sort, Husband,’ Mabilla said soothingly. ‘You’ve been drinking too much.’

‘Not him, woman! That ox’s arse Joel. He fobs me off with ballocksed frames, and when a customer comes and takes a tumble, he leaves me in the shit.’

‘I am sure Joel didn’t mean anything of the sort. Have you told him about the fall?’

‘Not yet. Haven’t had a chance.’ Henry belched, reaching for the jug and topping up his mazer.

‘Then tomorrow, when you are sober, go and speak to him. Joel has been one of your oldest friends, hasn’t he? Talk to him and see what he has to say. I am sure he’d not want you to be unhappy. He’s supplied you for donkey’s years.’

‘He won’t any more,’ Henry declared stoutly. He stood and lifted his mazer, declaiming, ‘Here I state that I’ll go to any other damned joiner in the city rather than him!’

‘Oh!’ his wife exclaimed. ‘If you’re in that sort of a mood, I’ll have done with you. Let me know when you’re sober again, and I’ll speak to you then.’

He watched as she raised her hands and dropped them again in despair, then she flounced heavily from the room, her gorgeous crimson skirts flaring.