Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'Oh, by his voice – talked through his nose. And by his ridiculous, foppish dress’ said the innkeeper scornfully. 'Showing his knees, if you can believe it.' 'I can indeed’ I muttered.

'And then there came a crashing and banging, which we tried to ignore, as we pride ourselves, sir, on our discretion. But then came laughter and then nothing, and we forgot about the noise until next morning, when the chambermaid found him.'

'Found Horst…' I said, an image forming in my mind. I tried to drive it out, but it would not go.

'Found your friend dead on the bed, all cut up. I have never seen the like. There was blood everywhere – oh, sir, I do beg your pardon’ he said quickly, and poured me more wine. 'In our business one does endure the occasional death on the premises, but from apoplexies or fevers. Never-' 'And the Venetian?' I broke in.

'Vanished. Gone out the window, most likely. It would not have been hard.' 'And everything was gone? All Horst's belongings?'

'His bag was emptied and there were clothes strewn all over. But we only found clothes. No other effects, no papers, no…' 'No money.'

'Quite. And so we did not know what to do. The holy brothers minister to the dead in our city, and they were called. He will be lying in their house.' 'Oh, Christ’ I said, rubbing my hot but tearless eyes. 'He would have been buried in a nameless pit, would he not?'

'And so thank the merciful Lord that his friend has come to save him from that’ said the innkeeper hurriedly.

He took me up to the room, but I saw nothing but a bare bed-frame and clean flagstones that reeked of lye. The walls had been freshly whitewashed, and the place had nothing to tell me. I looked at Horst's clothes, but indeed that was all that had been left. In a daze, I picked out a tunic and some leggings, things that I remembered him wearing, to clothe his corpse for burial, and told the innkeeper to give the rest to the poor. Then he led me through the noise and life of market day to the monastery of the black monks who had taken care of my friend. A friendly, ruddy-faced brother – not at all what I had expected, in truth, for to work with the dead has always seemed to me a dark and lonely vocation – met us at the door and led us through white cloisters to a long room lined with marble-topped plinths, perhaps ten or twelve of them. All were empty save one, and on that one lay a long shape draped with a sheet of white linen.

Horst was dead all right, although as one so often finds oneself doing when confronted with such an obvious fact, I found myself checking for signs of life. But his skin was waxen and his lips were already drawing back into the yellow grin of death. His throat had been cut, which must have been the fatal blow, but I supposed he must have fought his murderer, for he bore many other wounds: a long slash across his brow, and punctures next to his breast-bone and in his belly. His hands were also cut, and the bones were showing through the butchered skin of his palms.

You are merchants?' the brother was asking. I nodded, swallowing down my rising gorge. 'So many robberies, I am afraid’ he said almost apologetically. "These are troubled times.'

'Many robberies, good brother, but murders?' I asked. The monk stroked his tonsured scalp absently.

'Murders, yes, of course. Those who love His Holiness are assassinated by the followers of the emperor, and, one has to admit, vice versa’

'This is the emperor's city,' put in the innkeeper, with a certain pride.

'As I said, troubled times,' the monk said diplomatically. 'But a killing like this, for the sake of robbery?' He scratched his head again. ‘I will admit, I was surprised.'

'And yet you see many corpses,' I said, curious despite the confusion of my grief.

'Such is the calling of this house,' he replied, bowing his head. It was a show of piety, but I thought that the monk was a practical more than a holy man, and a good one, at that. Yes, indeed we see the dead. I said these were troubled times, but, my son, look about you! I have seen every table in use, and more poor souls stretched out on the floor. Wars, and plague – the Lord sees fit to keep us busy. But, come to that, I have not often seen a thief go at his victim in this manner. He fought back, your friend: one can see from the hands.'

I nodded, sickened. Well, there was nothing more to be done. I thanked the brother, paid for a handsome burial for poor Horst and left a donation for the house and, for the sake of appearances, bought a mass for Horst's soul, although I was sure the beneficiary would not have approved. Then, business being done, I turned back to the corpse. He had been my friend, this man. Nay, we had been companions. We had drunk together, worked side by side and shared our tales and hopes through long watches at sea. With what patience he had taught me, his clumsy, clay-footed friend, how to ride! And now I must remember him thus, laid out like meat upon a butcher's stall. For the sake of propriety I crossed myself, then, in the manner of the Cormaran, I bent to kiss his cold lips goodbye. And as I leaned down I saw, in the corner of his mouth, pasted to the grey skin by a dab of dried spittle, a scrap of parchment. I made to smooth his face and picked it off with my thumbnail, gave my kiss and walked out past carven skulls and murals of dancing bones.

So I did not tarry in Foligno – not even long enough for lunch, for I could not have faced it – and set off instead up the Ravenna Road, up into the high mountains. Night found me bedding down in a verminous hostelry in some nameless hamlet, feeling alone and with a chill upon my soul, for I had planned to have Horst for company, and now I would never see him again. Then – and only then, by the light of a stinking tallow candle – could I bring myself to look at whatever I had taken from my friend's dead lips. It was not parchment, but paper, white paper, a piece no bigger than a fingernail, but on it there still remained a few strokes of ink, and though these had run, I could make out a 'c' and an V. An idea flared in my confused mind, and with a tremble of excitement I pulled out the Captain's letter to me. If truth be told, I could not say yea or nay that the characters matched, for Horst's were all but washed away. But they were similar enough to my eye to set my hand a-tremble. Horst had died in the act of destroying a letter from the Captain.

And so I read my own letter again. There was the warning against Venetians, of which Horst must have been well aware. There again the order to join Gilles at Ancona. I rubbed my eyes in frustration, for I had not slept properly for two days and my head was pounding. What should I do? It seemed to me that the value of this commission was negated by Horst's death, and in that case I should hurry to Venice, to warn the Captain. But that would be to disobey his command. I wondered if Horst had kept his attacker from reading his letter, and what papers the Venetian had taken from his body. I thought about this as hard as I could, although my skull felt as though it were caught in the pincers of a huge crab.

In his scribble to me Horst had said only that he had been sent to divert me to Ancona, whence he too was speeding. Would he have had papers from the Captain to Gilles? Most likely, and now the enemy, whoever he might be, must have them, for Horst could not have bolted the lot. But again, Horst's last meal: surely, in extremis, he would have sought to destroy the most important letter? I had to hope so. Christ. Everything was turning to stink and ruin beneath my feet, treacherous as a Dartmoor quagmire. Two men dead in as many nights, and all for what? For the enrichment of a ridiculous boy-king? Or for… I thought of the list Michael Scotus had given me. Valueless, the Captain had called the things that were named there. And yet how many men had died since I had first heard them spoken of? Fulk and Gautier, Giovanni, and now Horst. I could place a value upon them.