Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

The messenger had arrived as she was finishing her breakfast, and Jeanne had instantly sent a man to tell Edgar. Once Baldwin’s sergeant in the Templars, Edgar had been his most loyal servant ever since, and even though he was himself married now, he yet looked on his master as his first responsibility, and Jeanne was pleased to have the lean, wiry man at her side on the ride here, and to know that he was with Baldwin to protect him in case of another attack. Edgar would not permit any man to harm his lord.

But seeing Baldwin like this was terrifying. He was not so obviously knocked about as he had been after the tournament last year, but he was clearly very weak, and Jeanne prayed that he would not suffer from one of those terrible fevers which could kill stronger and younger men than he.

‘Be strong, my love,’ she murmured, and she was startled to see that his eyes were filled with tears. He said nothing, but his grasp was almost savage, as though he was holding on to her in the same desperate, fearful way that he was holding on to life.

Simon was soon back, Paul with him carrying a large pot of warmed water and some towels. Paul set it near Baldwin, while Edgar stood nearby, his sword still in his hand and a half-smile on his face that showed he was ready to use it.

‘Jeanne,’ Simon said in a low voice. ‘Has he said anything?’

‘I’m not dead yet,’ Baldwin murmured with a trace of astringency in his tone.

‘I just wondered … who could have wanted to fire that shot at you?’

‘A murderer, clearly. Perhaps the murderer. Until we catch him, I won’t know,’ Baldwin said hoarsely.

‘Why should someone have wanted to aim an arrow at you?’ Jeanne whispered, dabbing at his brow with her cloth.

‘Because I was getting too close to learning who the culprit is.’

Simon fretted, ‘But I can’t for the life of me think what we have heard that could have hinted at the killer.’

‘No,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but I think that you should go over it all, because this man is plainly determined.’

Edgar shifted near the doorway. ‘Whoever it is, we’ll find him, Sir Baldwin.’

‘We need his confession first,’ Baldwin said, his voice little more than a whisper now. ‘I don’t want you executing people without being sure of their guilt, Edgar, no matter how angry you are to see me like this.’

‘When I find who did this, I will see him punished,’ Edgar said imperturbably.

‘I do not care for any of this,’ Jeanne said, gently untying the bandages at Baldwin’s breast. ‘All I care about is your return to health, my love.’

Wymond had not enjoyed a restful night. He had left his son snoring at the table as evening turned to night, packed his bow and some arrows into his blanket, and set off into the gloom. He walked down to the Friary, then round their new wall to the fields near the Holloway. There he crossed over the river and found himself a seat on a hillock of turf.

He often came down here when he had to think. Bless his Vince, but the lad’s inane chatter about other apprentices and the gossip at the joiner’s shop was enough to make a man’s brains turn to shit in his skull. No, Wymond needed to reflect, not sit in his house drinking wine until he fell over. Vince was not mature enough to be able to comfort a man like Wymond, who was nearly sixty.

It was the other Vincent whom Wymond needed: Vincent his brother, the boy who’d protected him as they grew, the kind companion who taught Wymond everything he knew, who used to chuckle at him when he hurt himself and somehow make the pain go away, the one who would always praise his triumphs. He was the person who, more than any other, showed him what it was to be a man. And then, just as he was entering adulthood, Wymond lost him. Some crazed bastard at the Cathedral took him away for ever.

Seeing a movement, he slowly unrolled his blanket, then gazed about him nonchalantly. There was no one on the road, and he took his old bow, stepping between the stave and the string. With the stave at his back, he reached up and pulled the upper portion over his shoulder, sliding the string up along it until it met the horn notch. He stepped out, took a quick look about him again, and selected an arrow. It had a tiny barb, this, ideal for small game. A last glance all around, and then he quickly nocked the arrow to the string, pulled it back so that the point of the barb lay just where the two ears forked up, and then gradually allowed his fingers to release. There was the familiar jolt to his arms, the single thrumming tone, and the fletchings scorched over his knuckle. He remained there a moment, his arms unmoving, until he saw the ears slam backwards, and then he let the bow down. Stepping inside the string, he quickly released it from the notches, allowed it to straighten, and wrapped it in his blanket again. Only then did he walk along the grassy pasture to the far end, counting his paces as he went. As he thought: a good fifty yards.

The rabbit sat transfixed, the arrow’s fletching protruding from the side of its head, while the barb had gone straight through and into the earth behind. He pulled the rabbit from the fletchings, then took some grass to wipe the arrow and pulled it free from the ground, replacing it with the others.

The shock of the massive yard-long arrow penetrating its head had killed the rabbit instantly, and when he snapped its neck it was purely a precaution. He squatted and took out his little skinning dagger, paunching the cony and pulling out the entrails. He set these down with the head, and skinned it quickly, slipping his hand in between the pelt and the muscles and loosening it all about the body, cutting off the paws and slipping the skin over the little stumpy tail. Then he wrapped the body in a sheet of linen, and made his way to the river again.

He knew a little place where the river bent and where there was a short stretch of sandy beach; up above it lay a sheltered spot with a cosy little hollow. When they were lads, he and Vincent had used to come here to play, pretending to be outlaws. They would kill a rabbit, bring it here and cook it for their supper, sharing alike. Once they had stayed out all night when Vincent was debating with himself whether he should take up the post offered to him by the Bishop. He had not wanted to take it, knowing that it would alter his relationship with his family for ever, but in the end he had little choice. None of them did. A job at the Cathedral meant education, and that meant money. He could help them all if he won that.

So that was perhaps their last night together. The following morning, Vincent had left home and gone up to the Cathedral, and suddenly Wymond saw less of him. It was, in large part, the end of his childhood.

Now, as the light faded, he gathered up twigs and branches, and when he had a decent pile, he began to strike sparks from his flint and dagger. Soon wisps of smoke rose from the bonfire, and he settled back to wait.

It was a perfect evening. The soil was warm from the day’s heat, the water rippled merrily, and the dying sun painted the trees and grasses with a golden hue. He jointed and cooked his rabbit, skewered on sharpened sticks over his fire, then sat back in the curve of the hollow, and let the warmth of his fire soothe his memories.

In his mind he saw the happy young face of his brother, then the broken, bloody body after that terrible night in 1283. He saw his dear wife’s face, lit up and excited when she realised that she was pregnant, and then he saw her ruined body after the horse had knocked her down. The subsequent fever had taken her life, leaving him with his second Vincent, squealing and bawling in the corner.

These scenes were all so close, he felt he could hear little Vince’s bawling again; he could smell the herbs and blood on his wife’s body; he could touch Vincent’s icy corpse.