While he wandered about the Close, the rain stopped at last, and now there was a bright sun peeping between the rents of tattered clouds. Warmth began to return to him as his garments soaked up the heat, and he could smell the wet-dog odour as his woollen clothing steamed gently. It was a smell that spoke of comfort to come when he was dry, and he relished it.
There were so many men here, scurrying about like ants in the presence of this massive building. All no doubt knew what they were doing, but to Nicholas it looked as though they were all witless. There seemed to be no logic he could discern.
Walking closer, he saw men hauling on ropes, and he stopped to watch them. With his head and back so bent, it was hard to turn his head to gaze upwards, so he simply assumed that they were lifting something up to the wall and continued on his way.
‘Friar! Friar! Stop!’
Nicholas paused in the mud and moved his head this way and that, but couldn’t see the man who had called.
‘Please, stop there. A little while ago a man was squashed to death right there! Wait!’
‘If people want to talk, why do they conceal themselves?’ Nicholas muttered to himself as he waited. Soon a pair of legs appeared encased in the black of a clerk’s tunic, and Nicholas let his eyes ride slowly upwards. ‘Well?’
‘I … my God!’
Nicholas always felt a slightly perverse satisfaction when people first took in his appearance. The scar inflicted on him that night had ravaged what had before been rather good looks. His assailant had used a long-bladed weapon, perhaps a sword, or a very long knife; whichever it may have been, it had torn into his flesh at the temple, pierced his eye and ruined it, and then continued downwards, ripping away the flesh from cheek and jaw, opening the whole side of his mouth. He was told that when they found him that morning, the two annuellars on their way to prepare for the first of the day’s masses in honour of patrons and dead canons, the Bratton’s Mass, had come across the bodies and thought all must be dead. Nicholas himself had most of his head simply a mass of blood, and with all the exposed bone, they had thought he couldn’t survive, until one noticed that there was a bloody froth coming from around the wound. He was breathing.
‘My visage shocks you?’ Nicholas asked nastily.
‘Is it really you, Nicholas?’ the man gasped, and Nicholas peered up more closely.
‘Matthew?’
Henry heard the banging on his door soon after he had gone through to his counting room, and groaned inwardly. ‘Another damned fool asking for a saddle he can’t afford,’ he grunted as he listened for his bottler’s steps. Soon he heard the steps return, and he sat up a little more smartly in his chair. For all his cynicism, a man couldn’t afford to shun any client, especially when he was in the process of waiting to hear from a dissatisfied customer who might well sue him and ruin him utterly.
‘Master, it’s …’
The bottler was shoved from the doorway, and William entered, his face wreathed in smiles. ‘Master saddler, it’s good to be here again. Bottler, bring me a jug of wine, and one for your master,’ he added, prodding the man with his staff. He hopped over to a stool and sat, rubbing at his calf. ‘Fucking wound. You’d have thought fifteen years would see it off, but the bleeding thing comes back each winter. Hurts like a sodding burn under the skin. All because of a poleaxe some arse shoved at me when I was fighting a man on the stairs above me. I killed him slowly when I caught him, I can tell you! Ha! He squealed for a good three hours before I got bored!’
Henry surveyed him despairingly. ‘What do you want here, William? I’m very busy.’
‘Ach, God’s Balls, man, you’re always busy. I thought the idea of being a rich man in this city was, you could take more time off to enjoy yourself, eh? Well, this is your opportunity. I fancy getting lashed today. You can come and help me.’
‘I can’t just drop everything to go and drink with you!’ Henry protested. ‘I’ve got a business to run here.’
‘What’s the point of a fucking business if you can’t tell them all to poke themselves and have some fun?’ William asked reasonably. ‘Anyway, the market’s open and the bulls will be baited soon. We could go and have a drink at the alehouse on the corner, then on to the baiting pens for a wager or two, and back to …’
‘I cannot possibly. That is ridiculous.’
‘Why? You too grand to enjoy a drink with me any more?’ William asked, his grin broadening. ‘Time was, you were happy for a few cups of ale with me.’
‘I don’t have time for this,’ Henry muttered.
‘What’s the matter? Have you forgotten all the fun we used to have? Eh? Come on, grab a cotte and a hat and let’s go.’
The bottler returned with the wine and William slurped a half-cup in one gulp.
‘I can’t. I have work to do,’ Henry said, looking away.
‘There something wrong? Something wrong with me?’
Henry looked back quickly. He recognised that tone. It was the voice of the other William, the man who would draw steel and stab a man for an imagined insult. ‘No, old friend.’
‘Then what is it? You ashamed to be seen with me?’
Henry felt his shoulders sag. ‘Will, I am worried. A customer has threatened to sue me.’
‘Tell me who it is, and I’ll see he doesn’t,’ William said reasonably.
‘You can’t fix everything with cold steel!’ Henry blurted.
‘I don’t know anything you can’t,’ William smiled.
‘I’m still suffering from the night we killed the Chaunter. I feel such guilt … it is heavy on my soul.’
‘Him? Christ Jesus, that was such a long time ago,’ William exclaimed in genuine astonishment. ‘I haven’t counted the men I’ve killed since then. Why on earth does his death worry you?’
‘Because it was murder, Wilclass="underline" murder! We set upon him, we bribed others to help us, and we murdered him,’ Henry said wearily. ‘It was a foul deed.’
‘Pah! It was nothing.’
‘I am going to be dead soon, and before I die, I want to confess my crimes.’
William shrugged. Then he leaned forward, and the other grin was on his face again, the cold, dead grin of the murderer. ‘That’s fine; you do that. But don’t recall any other names, will you, Master Saddler? Because if I heard you were trying to fix me at the same time, I’d see if I could keep you screaming even longer than my record. Eh? You understand me? For you, a confession will hurt a bit, but for me, it could mean me being thrown out of the Priory. I don’t want to lose my corrody, Saddler. So keep my name out of anything like that. You understand me?’
John Coppe watched his friend the porter. They were at the gate again, and Janekyn was busying himself about the place, watching all those who were passing through, ever alert to the sight of known cutpurses or men or women of ill-fame who might enter either to rob or solicit for business.
Janekyn was a remarkably calm man. Sparing of words, he was nonetheless kindly, and to men like Coppe who had suffered in battles, he was generosity itself, always sharing his meagre supplies of food. Yet there was something about the friar which had unbalanced him. At the time Coppe had seen this, and decided that he wouldn’t probe and upset his friend, but that was some days ago now. Jan had had enough time to get over whatever it was that the fellow had said. Even so, Coppe was reluctant to broach the subject … but his fascination was being fed by the air of mystery.
‘You remember that friar? I saw him again earlier.’
‘Ah?’
‘Yes. Down there near the Charnel Chapel. He met up with one of the Treasurer’s clerks — the one in charge of the works.’ There was no response. ‘Come on, Jan, what’s the problem? He said something about there being a murder, and then you and him went all quiet. He asked whether you were a local man, said that was that then, and buggered off.’