The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18) (36 page)

‘So you thought the same as me?’ Simon said as they walked, his face wreathed in frowns.

To his secret pleasure, Baldwin’s expression had lost its haunted look. ‘If you mean,’ he demanded acerbically, ‘did I think that much of what that man said was true, then yes, I did.’

‘You know perfectly well that wasn’t what I meant,’ Simon said musingly. ‘I was thinking about the dead friar, Nicholas – the man who struck down poor Vince. If it’s true that someone there was disloyal, it must have been Nicholas – and someone killed him for it.’

‘You think that the whole affair could be due to a man who seeks revenge, all these years later?’ Baldwin queried.

‘It would make sense. The friar had struck down the only man there who was trying to warn the Chaunter. Surely
he
must have been the traitor.’

‘That would seem true enough,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but that hardly helps us. The two victims, Henry and Nicholas, seem to have nothing in common other than the fact that they were there in the Close that night. Henry was on the attacking side, and Nicholas on the side of the Chaunter …’

‘Baldwin, you are slow tonight,’ Simon said with a smile.
‘They were on
the same
side. That’s what I mean. I reckon Friar Nicholas was trying to shut Vincent up before the trap had been sprung; that was why he pulled out his dagger and silenced the poor fellow. And then the others, including Henry, attacked them.’

‘But the friar was nearly killed,’ Baldwin objected. ‘Surely no man would agree to those wounds on his face and body just to add verisimilitude to the story of his loyalty?’

Simon shrugged. ‘It was dark, they were in a mêlée, there was a racket of men shouting, weapons clashing … what else would you expect? Someone accidentally slashed at him, trying to hit someone else, and that was that. End of his good looks. If he was the cause of the Chaunter’s death, he deserved it.’

‘Perhaps so,’ Baldwin agreed. Yet he still wore a puzzled frown. ‘But who, in that case, could have wanted Henry dead?’

‘Could Henry have been the man who planned it?’ Simon wondered. ‘His wife might know. We could return and question her.’

‘I do not think that will be necessary. First let us go and speak to Joel once more. He might become more helpful when he hears that William has already spoken to us,’ Baldwin said.

‘In any case, Henry seems a likely man to have thought through the plan and left the hint that the Bishop was planning on using the Chaunter as a lure to draw the attack’s sting.’

‘Possibly, but it’s more likely to have been a man of action like our friend William.’

‘The man who took his opportunities,’ Simon said drily.

‘I did not warm to him either,’ Baldwin said. ‘My impression was that he was quite an astute fellow – he could be a good tactical commander of men in a battle.’

‘Perhaps, but what was he like when he was a lad? Cunning and quick-witted no doubt, but to invent a ruse like the one
used against the Chaunter would have taken more intelligence than he possessed,’ Simon said. ‘You know how people are: some will learn from experience, but others can imagine an outcome and put in place a plan to achieve it.’

‘Why are you so convinced he’s not like that?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Look at him! His sole ambition was to get to be a warrior, working for the King. That doesn’t take brains, does it? No, I’d expect that sort of devious plot to come from the kind of man who’d get to be a master of the Freedom of the city.’

‘Oh! You think it must have been Henry, then? Why not Joel or someone else?’

‘I do not say it wasn’t,’ Simon frowned. ‘But I think the murderer could reckon it was Henry, and might have killed him for that reason.’

‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘So who else should we suspect? We know of William and Joel.’

‘And this fellow Thomas,’ Simon pointed out. ‘He would seem a likely candidate – especially as he was guilty enough to leave the city in the first place, and now since his return all those who could have known him have died. First Henry, now Nicholas.’

‘And we have heard that Udo was angry about being refused the right to marry Julia Potell,’ Baldwin recalled. ‘It is possible, I suppose, that the friar was a witness to Henry’s murder by Udo, and then Udo was forced to return to remove him too, although …’

‘Yes, Baldwin?’ Simon asked after a moment or two, but his friend shook his head.

‘Nothing.’ Baldwin could not confess to his strange loathing for the Charnel Chapel. There was something bad about the place, he felt. And surely that had coloured his judgement. ‘I
only think that the murder of the Chaunter could have something to do with this. Why else would Henry have been left in the Charnel Chapel, and why should Nicholas have been killed there, his body later moved …’

‘Putting the body near the Cathedral would shove all the blame and suspicion onto Thomas,’ Simon said musingly. ‘It would be a shrewd move to distract us towards him.’

‘Perhaps it would,’ Baldwin said.

‘So we have to consider William, Joel and Thomas because they were all involved in the original attack,’ Simon concluded. ‘And Udo because he had his own motives … Right! What shall we do now, Baldwin? Should we report to the Dean first?’

‘All we have is speculation, so no, let’s go to Joel first.’

‘You don’t want to see Sir Peregrine, do you?’ Simon grinned.

‘He would see me choose between the Lord Hugh de Courtenay and the King,’ Baldwin protested, ‘and I will not. I have enough allegiances already: my family first, my King second.’

‘Sir Peregrine will try to persuade you otherwise?’

‘Sir Peregrine is a loyal servant of Lord Hugh. He sees the King as a spendthrift and wastrel who will plunge the country into chaos if he is not restrained. The last few times I have seen him, he was trying to forge alliances against the King with the Marcher Lords, but now that they have been destroyed and the rebel leaders killed or exiled, I do not know what he plans. All I do know is, I do not wish to be thrown into a new plot against the King. He has shown his disdain for convention when he captures traitors. I’ll have no part in that.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Simon said. ‘Still, we’ll have to see Sir Peregrine at some point. I think that we should go now.’

Baldwin grunted but did not argue further. He knew that Simon was correct, but Sir Peregrine was the sort of knight who could put a man in danger’s path unintentionally, and a man who was forced into confrontation with the King was likely to pay for his temerity with his life, his possessions, his lands, everything. Baldwin did not value his own life too highly, but he did value his manor, and the fact that it represented the only means of support he could leave for his wife and daughter. He would not risk them.

Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple smiled as the Keeper and his friend entered the Dean’s hall. Dean Alfred was talking quietly to Stephen and Matthew, studying their rolls of accounts, and he waved to Simon and Baldwin, motioning towards Sir Peregrine and the jug of wine.

Sir Peregrine sipped from his mazer, then rose to offer his hand to both. ‘Sir Baldwin, it is a delight to see you again. And Bailiff Puttock, I am pleased to see you looking so well. I have heard from the Dean that you both undertook a pilgrimage. I congratulate you on the success of your journey. You must tell me all about it.’

The Bailiff did look well, in fact, Sir Peregrine thought, slimmer and with his face bronzed from the sun, although there was a new reticence about him. Still, that was to be expected. Sir Baldwin would have warned him off.

That idea made Sir Peregrine smile wolfishly as he took his seat again. The two were clever enough. Certainly Sir Baldwin was remarkably quick. Some reckoned he could see through a man’s eyes into his very soul, and he was rumoured to be one of the most respected Keepers in the whole of Devon and Cornwall. Still, he didn’t look so bright today. His eyes were duller, his posture a little stooped, as though he was feeling his
age. No matter, he’d be an excellent ally for Lord Hugh, if Sir Peregrine could win him over.

There would be another war sooner or later, and there was no telling how many would die. The King’s friend, Despenser, grew ever more voracious in his rape of the kingdom. The bastard had sewn up government to his benefit. No one could speak to the King without Despenser’s approval, which meant paying him. Now it was impossible for any man who had been robbed by Despenser to win justice, because the Despenser refused to allow them to plead their case before the King.

This situation had been going on for years, but the mood of the country was growing restless. The man was a tyrant, and his reign could not last for ever. Since the Battle of Boroughbridge, at which the forces of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the King’s cousin, had been entirely destroyed, the knights who had been in his party chased through the kingdom and, when captured, slaughtered, their bodies separated and sent to all points to be displayed as the limbs of traitors, people had said little. There was nothing to be done against an all-powerful King, especially one who was prepared to wallow in the blood of his enemies; but now that the Despenser was ravaging all territories, he had succeeded in uniting the realm against the King. Even those who had not yet been on the receiving end of the Despenser’s anger and demands for their lands or wealth, knew that it could only be a matter of time.

‘Have you viewed the bodies, Sir Peregrine?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘I have seen that of the saddler. Unfortunately, the friar’s body has been removed. I shall have to visit the Friary to see that. They insisted on burying him on their own lands. And the mason has been buried, too.’

‘Mason?’ Simon asked.

‘Saul: the man we told you of. A rock fell on him while Thomas was up on the scaffold,’ Dean Alfred explained. ‘He was – um – squashed. A horrible sight. We could have his remains exhumed, of course,’ he said, glancing at the Coroner, ‘but it seems a little drastic. There were many witnesses, and all said it was an accident. Nothing was stolen from the man, and there was no suggestion that anyone had anything but praise for him. He never started an argument or any – ah – form of dispute. Never had a fight.’

‘Who was there when the rock fell?’

‘My Warden of the new Fabric here was on the scaffolding,’ the Dean smiled. ‘But he hardly knew poor Saul, did you?’

Vicar Matthew shook his head. ‘It was a straightforward accident. Thomas was taking the walls down, and one stone fell. It utterly crushed Saul. But there was no reason for Thomas to want to see Saul killed. And he has displayed the most clear and unambiguous proofs of his sadness to have caused the death.’

‘That is true,’ the Dean verified.

‘Was it the falling rock that so damaged Thomas’s hands?’ Baldwin asked curiously, thinking of the linen wrapped about each of the man’s palms.

‘Yes. The rope stripped the flesh from his hands when he tried to stop it falling,’ said the Dean.

‘So he was holding a rope? It must have been a restraining rope,’ Baldwin mused.

‘Yes,’ Matthew said. ‘It was to stop the rock from swinging, and in order to be able to pull it away from the wall as it descended.’

‘I shall have to see what sort of fine his burial too will require,’ Sir Peregrine said with a smile.

‘You must only recently have been made Coroner?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘Oh, yes. I was offered the chance of this job earlier in the summer. My predecessor died – but I understand you were there?’

In a flash, Baldwin saw Sir Roger de Gidleigh’s face as the crossbow bolt slammed into his spine, the expression that burst across his face as he began to die. ‘Yes,’ he said more gravely.

Sir Peregrine saw how his face grew still, and regretted his levity. Fortunately the Dean also noticed, and asked Simon whether they had learned anything about the two murders. Sir Peregrine sat back and concentrated as Simon told of all they had heard.

‘It seems that there are many who would have sought to kill the saddler, then,’ he said when Simon was finished. ‘And as many who’d like to see the friar dead.’

‘Not quite as many,’ Simon said. ‘There were many who’d like both to die, from the frame-maker Joel to the King’s corrodian William; but the saddlemaker had others who’d have liked to see him dead – the German, Udo, for example.’

‘There may well be many more, too,’ the Dean said. It was a proof of how deeply he was considering the matter that his speech was unaffected by stammering. ‘The Treasurer, Stephen, remembers that time. He was here. It was before my arrival, of course, but I have heard that there was great dissension within the Cathedral.’

‘We should talk to Stephen to see which of the men still in the Cathedral were here at that time,’ Simon suggested. ‘We could then question them to see who else had a motive to kill these two.’

‘You think that’ll help?’ Sir Peregrine said. He leaned forward, cupping his mazer in his two hands. ‘If they are guilty
of wishing Henry Potell and Friar Nicholas dead, they will hardly tell you. And most of them in any case would declare themselves wholeheartedly behind the Bishop, will they not? How could they admit they were once willing to stand against a Bishop and hope that the present incumbent would not come to hear of it?’

‘We are a different – ah – Chapter now, Sir Peregrine,’ the Dean smiled. ‘Such things do not concern us any more. No, we prefer to see disputes openly aired and discussed. The old ways of bottling up arguments and then causing friction are gone for ever. We will not see them return.’