Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

‘Come along, then!’ Simon ordered.

Stephen hunched his shoulders. He had refused to discuss the matter in the open Close, and had instead invited Simon to his own hall. Now he stood near the new fire in his hearth, gazing at the flames and wondering how to begin. While he hesitated, Thomas stood near Simon, lounging with his thumbs hooked in his belt. He looked every bit the labouring mason that he was, and although Stephen knew that he himself paid Thomas’s wages, he felt unaccountably threatened by the man’s presence here in his hall. More so than the Bailiff.

‘It was before you were born, I dare say, Bailiff. I was a young novice, not yet old enough to take up responsibility for my own congregation, but with a voice that had broken. It was — it is — difficult for a fellow of that sort of age to move further up in the Church. One must be fortunate. I was lucky, I thought, because I had always had a propensity for numbers.’

Simon tried not to let his face show his revulsion at this thought. The idea of Andrew came unbidden into his mind, and he wondered fleetingly whether all clerks who liked playing with numbers were similarly prone to crime.

Stephen continued. ‘The Treasurer was an engaging man. He was interested in me, and in all that the Cathedral could do to further the rebuilding works. It was largely due to my mentor, Treasurer John, that the Cathedral was placed on a strong financial basis. So when he began to help me and prove his desire to teach me all he could, I was flattered. I wanted to help him in return.

‘He knew how to teach. If a fellow was confused about numbers and how to add or subtract, he would show infinite patience and kindness. He rarely if ever had need to resort to the strap or the birch, because we all respected him.

‘Anyway, when the Bishop arrived, we all saw the difference in him. The Bishop took an unreasonable dislike to him, and would keep on at him all the time. The Chapter itself took the matter in hand, and at the first opportunity, they elected John to be their Dean.

‘It drove the Bishop into a rage the like of which I have never seen before. The Bishop believed that men of the Church should not simply acquire riches, but should deal out such benefices as were won fairly and equitably. He felt that the Treasurer already had funds aplenty, and refused to let him take more. He insisted that Treasurer John should give up much of his wealth. The Treasurer refused, and so started the festering war that was to cause such bitterness and hatred.

‘There were letters to the Pope, letters to the Archbishop, threats, shouts, rattling of weaponry … it was an awful time. And at the end of it, it grew obvious that one or the other man must go. I was in league with most of the Chapter when I chose the side of the Treasurer. We did not like this foreign upstart telling us what to do and when we could do it. We wanted a local man, a good fellow like the kindly Treasurer John. And so, when it was decided that we should destroy the Bishop’s man, it was not a sudden decision by a small minority of people, but a firm resolution by all Treasurer John’s allies. Me included.

‘We laid an ambush after Matins, and when he came out, we killed him. That, I thought, was that. But no, now it is all coming back to haunt us.’

‘Who was there with you?’

‘Thomas there,’ the Treasurer grunted, motioning towards the mason loitering at his wall. ‘Myself, two vicars long dead, some townsfolk. I don’t know how many exactly.’

‘I know of Joel Lytell and Henry. Henry is dead and Joel has been badly beaten. Who would have done that? Were there any survivors among the Chaunter’s men other than Nicholas?’

‘There was Matthew, of course. Why?’

‘Because so far Henry is dead — he helped in the attack — and so is Nicholas. I’ve already heard that someone told the Chaunter that he need not fear the ambush because the Bishop had been informed and had gathered together a force to catch all the assailants. But there was no such force. Whoever told that tale to the Chaunter was playing a cruel trick — and it worked. I am wondering whether Nicholas was the traitor.’

‘I should not be surprised. I have heard similar stories, and I think that it is possible, although I’d have thought that the murders could have been committed for another reason. We killed the Chaunter forty years ago, Bailiff. Why should someone hold a grudge for so long? Why set out to do these things only now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Simon admitted. ‘But I will find out.’

Thomas said slowly, ‘I remember another novice.’

‘There were many of them?’ Simon asked.

‘Aye. Many enough on both sides. I myself attacked one whom I’d always called my friend,’ Thomas said. He experienced the shame, but felt he had to admit to his crime. ‘It was I who struck poor Nick. He’d always been my friend, but that night we were all mad, I think. I struck and struck at him in a fury, just because he was opposed to my Dean. And then Peter came up from-’

‘Peter? Yes, Peter was there,’ Stephen said suddenly. ‘He might know something. He’s the Prior of St Nicholas’s now.’

Simon was still eyeing Thomas. ‘You said last night you were the man who so injured the friar?’

‘Yes. And my God, how I regretted it afterwards. I used to go to my church and apologise for it at every Mass afterwards, begging forgiveness. I confessed my sin to my priest, but he only said that a man who sided with the Bishop was clearly as good as an excommunicate and refused to give me a penance. I felt that very sorely … and then I saw how God punished me.’

‘How, Thomas?’

Thomas had a vision of bodies swinging hideously in the twilight. ‘He executed my father.’

Vince left the meal feeling sickly, wondering what had become of his father.

Yesterday, they had eaten and drunk themselves into a comfortable drowsiness after a meal, and his father had told him again all the stories he recalled of Vince’s uncle, how decent and kind he had been, how honourable. It was dull, but Vince sat and listened, knowing that this constant repetition was his father’s only means of exorcising the demon within him. His brother had been accused of taking part in a murder and had been denounced as traitor to his master. Now all Wymond could do was relive the good parts of Vincent’s life as though by doing so he would somehow overwhelm all the lies.

It was that which had made his father renounce the city itself, Vince knew. That was why he was aghast when Vince told him he intended living in Exeter itself. ‘You can live here with me, boy, you don’t have to go up there. You can’t trust folk in a place like that. They lie to each other, and if you’re on the side of one man, his enemies will invent stories to insult you.’

But he had been adamant, and now he felt sure that it had been the right thing to do at the time, although now he wondered whether he could continue, knowing that Joel his master had taken part in the murder of the men in the Close.

His father had been dreadfully shocked by the revelation, he saw. That was why he stayed there through the afternoon when he should have returned to his master’s workshop. He was worried about Wymond.

But there is something strange about older men. Those who have drunk strong cider and ale all their lives can sometimes drink more even than a young apprentice. Where Vince had intended to drink his father into another drunken sleep, he found last night that his eyes were growing heavy, his limbs incapable. He was laughing more than he ought, while his old man was resting back on his bench, eyes bright. At some point, Wymond picked up his bow and began to wax the string, protecting it from the wet by putting a thin coating of beeswax on it. Then there was a light oil which he used to buff the bow’s wood. It was a simple yew bow, his, but Vince knew that it could propel a steel-tipped arrow through a half-inch-thick plank of oak. A fearful weapon, Vince couldn’t even draw it to shoot one of his father’s clothyard arrows.