Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

‘Perhaps,’ Matthew said, and brought a sleeve over his face again. ‘But I could hardly admit what I’d done. Bishop Quivil would have had me thrown into gaol and left there to rot, just like he did with John Pycot. I only ever sought to serve the Cathedral, nothing more.’

‘And committed murder to protect yourself.’

Matthew sobbed again, head fallen forward, shoulders jerking spasmodically. For several paces he couldn’t speak, and Simon was tempted to pull the long leash that bound his hands, but that would only yank the man off his feet and lead to another delay. Simon had no wish to pull him all the way to Exeter, and then present him to the Dean with the skin flayed from elbows and knees. Better to take the journey more slowly. Still, he was losing his patience rapidly, and he was about to ask the fellow to hurry, since Simon wanted to return to Exeter before old age saw off his friend Baldwin rather than the Vicar’s own arrow, when Matthew started to talk again.

‘It was terrible. My guilt is so clear and unequivocal, and I feel the shame of it every moment of every day. I cannot even confess properly! I tried to. I spoke to Paul at the Charnel, but I couldn’t say the actual words, and when he caught wind of my crime, he said I must speak to one of the Dignitaries, not to him. He meant the Treasurer, of course. Stephen is my master. But how could I tell him, after all he had done for me, thinking that I …’

‘That you were honourable,’ Simon sneered.

‘Not just that. Oh, how could you understand? You’re just a Bailiff. You don’t have the faintest idea what life is like in a cathedral or canonical church.’

Simon was again tempted to pull on the rein, but quashed the urge. ‘You lived a life of falsehood because of the crime of your youth, and you hid that crime for forty years, taking all the advantages you could along the way, until at last you found that someone knew the truth — and then you killed him. Poor Henry knew what you’d done, did he?’

‘No! I had nothing to do with his death, nor that of Nicholas.’

‘Of course not!’ Simon grinned disbelievingly.

‘I didn’t! But to my shame, I did kill the mason.’

‘You say you murdered Saul?’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt him. What, do you think you can aim a rock from the top of a wall and hit a man tens of feet below you? Don’t be stupid!’

His sudden vehemence surprised Simon into silence.

‘No, that was an accident. Anyway, I was talking about Stephen, not Henry. He was the last person I could confess to: at first because I thought he believed me to be the embodiment of reliability and honour, and to tell him that I had deceived him would have hurt more than his mere pride, it would have devastated him and left him bereft.’

‘You rate yourself highly, Vicar.’

‘You don’t understand! Stephen is too old to continue for long in his post, he is desperate to retire, and I am the only man who can keep control of the Fabric Rolls and see to it that the Cathedral maintains its progress. We have to make sure that the place survives and that the rebuilding is continued. My God! Do you have even the faintest conception of the amount of work involved in getting this sort of project completed? It is likely to take another fifty years to see it to fruition. That means four generations of canons since the work began. It is not some frivolous, ephemeral undertaking that can be started in a moment and idly set down a short while later. This is a crucial part of God’s work. We have to see it through as best we can, each of us, and if the right man for a specific task is there, he must take up his responsibility. If there were another who could do the job so well as me, I would bow to him, and Stephen could hear my confession today — but there is no one!’

‘Someone will be found,’ Simon said. ‘No man is indispensable.’

It was the tanner who had picked up on Matthew’s words, though. ‘You said you couldn’t tell him “at first”. What changed, Vicar?’

‘Eh?’

‘He’s right,’ Simon said. ‘You said you couldn’t tell Stephen initially. What changed?’

‘He was another who was involved in the attack on the Chaunter,’ Matthew sighed. ‘He told me — and that meant I couldn’t possibly tell him about my guilt. Look, all through our time together, he has brought me up with him, teaching me all he knows, giving me a good living, protecting me from the politics of the Cathedral Close … should I then, could I, go to him and tell him that his belief in me was all wrong?’

Simon frowned. ‘He gave you honours and advancement through your life because he thought you were a man of integrity. Then, you learned that he had been guilty himself … I do not understand. Why should he not know that you too were guilty?’

‘Because to a man like him, that would mean that the whole of his life had been in vain. He had tried to help me in order to expiate his own guilt. I was a symbol of his reparation, as significant to him as the Charnel Chapel was to John Pycot. How could I demolish his lifetime’s act? I was there to take over from him; if he learned of my crime, he would see no means of continuing the rebuilding with me, and that must mean that the project would fail!’

‘So you preferred to conceal your crime more effectively by murdering the saddler and Friar Nicholas and trying to kill my friend Baldwin,’ Simon said nastily.

‘No!’

Simon jerked the reins. ‘And now you’ll have to pay the price in full, Vicar, because we’ll see you convicted in the Chapter’s court!’

It was late afternoon by the time that Simon and his little group had reached the Bear Gate again, and they trotted into the Cathedral Close before leaving their mounts with a pair of grooms who promised to see that the horses would be well looked after and the Dean’s taken to his private stables.

‘So, Matthew. You’ve caused enough trouble already,’ Simon said coldly. ‘You can come with me now and see the Dean.’

‘So there he is at last!’

Simon turned to see Thomas striding towards him. ‘Hold on, Thomas! This fellow’s coming to the Dean with me now. We’ll see what Dean Alfred decides to do with him.’

‘I have little interest in him. I just wanted to see his face one last time, to see what a man looks like who’s lived a lie for so many years,’ Thomas said sadly. ‘If there’s someone I want to see punished, it’s William. He was the one who had my father killed.’

‘Then come with us and hear what Matthew has to say,’ Simon suggested, and they marched their prisoner along the Close, out to the Dean’s house and inside to his hall, Wymond trooping along in their wake, his bow still in his hand.

The old tanner was feeling oddly disconsolate. After the excitement of haring off after this cleric, he had the sense that there was something amiss. He couldn’t go home; not yet. There was some sort of unfinished business here, he felt, and he had to try to resolve it while he could. Perhaps this man’s confession would make sense of Vincent’s death on that black night in 1283.

Still, at least he had avenged his brother in some small way. His speed in capturing Matthew was deeply satisfying, although he’d have preferred to have killed the man on the spot, rather than see some protracted punishment. There was nothing that the Dean could do which would repay the debt so speedily as an arrow, so he’d thought.

It was only when he had the barbed tip aimed at Matthew’s neck that he realised he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t fire.

All his life he had wanted to hate the men in the black garb of the Cathedral, because they represented the ones who had destroyed his brother, and later, his wife. It was they who had set up his Vincent and had him slaughtered in front of the Cathedral doors. If not for them, Vince might still be here now.