‘What is the meaning of this? You dare to threaten a man’s life here in the Cathedral Close, man? You will apologise to the Dean and Chapter of this holy place!’
‘I am leaving. It was not to upset you,’ Udo said with what hauteur he could muster.
‘Remember, fellow — I heard you threaten that man. All of us here did,’ the Annuellar said, waving a hand at the group nearby. ‘If any harm comes to Henry Potell, I shall see you brought to justice. I hope that is clear. You had best pray that he remains safe!’
Janekyn, the porter at Fissand Gate, heard the curfew bell with enormous relief. ‘At last,’ he grunted to himself, shoving the heavy doors closed and dropping the huge timber plank into place in its slots.
‘That’s it! You want some wine, Paul?’ he asked.
The young Annuellar from St Edward’s Chapel had arrived to help with the gates. As usual, he looked rather drawn, Janekyn thought. Maybe the fellow needed a break from his routines. He had the appearance of one who fasted too often and too rigorously. Janekyn often used to offer food and wine to the choristers who seemed to need it most, and tonight he was tempted to do the same for Paul.
Paul shook his head. ‘I’m off to the calefactory. It’s bitter tonight.’
‘’Tis cold enough to freeze the marrow in your bones while you live,’ Janekyn agreed.
Aye, it was ferociously cold, and the stars shining so merrily in the sky hinted that it wouldn’t get any warmer. The porter had often noticed that when the clouds were up there, they seemed to behave like a blanket over the world, keeping the area a little warmer, but that was a forlorn hope now.
‘Are you well?’ Janekyn asked gently as the Annuellar stood as though lost in thought.
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘What is it, then? Your face would curdle milk.’
‘Is it that obvious? Well, I’ll tell you. Earlier I saw the German arguing with Henry the Saddler. They were rowing about young Julia, I think.’
‘Udo wants her?’ Janekyn pulled the corners of his mouth down. ‘I can’t blame him. Who wouldn’t?’
‘When Henry parted from him, Udo said he’d ruin Henry — no, not that — he said he’d destroy him. I was quite angry to hear such words in the Close.’
‘Did Henry strike him or anything?’
‘No. He left soon afterwards, walking off with a friar — you know, that man with the terrible scars?’
Janekyn nodded slowly. That description fitted only one person.
As the youth left him, Janekyn finished the last of his chores. He set his brazier back in the middle of the floor, snuffed the three candles at his table, leaving only the one in his bone-windowed lantern, and tidied his room, unrolling his palliasse and spreading his blankets over it. He had a pottery vessel, which he now filled with hot water from the pot over his fire, stoppered it and put it amongst the bedding to keep it warm. Then he settled down with his last cup of wine, and sipped the hot drink.
He had consumed only half when there was a splattering of gravel at his door, and a hasty banging. ‘Jan, come quickly!’ shouted a voice.
Suspiciously he opened his door and peered outside. Recognising Paul, he demanded, ‘What are you doing back here?’
‘Help, Jan! Please come and help me!’
‘In God’s name, what is the matter, boy? I’m ready for my bed!’ Then his eyes widened as he saw the blood that clotted the boy’s hands and breast.
‘It’s Henry! He’s been murdered! Oh God, a murder in our Close! Jan, what can we do?’
Chapter Seven
Dean Alfred eyed the body unhappily. ‘Ahm — what was the man doing here, Stephen?’
‘If we knew that, Dean, we’d perhaps be able to guess why he was dead,’ the Treasurer commented with a degree of asperity.
‘But someone must have seen him come in. Who is he? He seems familiar.’
‘He’s the saddler from Smythen Street,’ Stephen said. He stared down at the body again, shaking his head. In God’s name, the last person who should be in a position of power was the Dean. If only the Bishop were here. The Dean had done well enough over the unpleasant matter of the murder of the glovemaker* some while ago, but this was a different affair, surely.
The Dean stepped delicately around the body. ‘My heavens, but it is cold in here, isn’t it? This — ah — Charnel Chapel makes a man think of death just by feeling the chill.’
Stephen glanced at him with distaste, then turned back to Janekyn. ‘Porter, the Annuellar found him here, did he?’
‘Yes, Treasurer. It was Paul here, wasn’t it, lad?’
The fellow was not an impressive sight, shivering in the doorway, but Stephen couldn’t fault him for that. He had been given the shock of his life when he found Henry’s body. ‘Tell me again what happened.’
‘I had helped Jan to lock and bar the gate, and was on my way to bed. It took me past the chapel here, and I saw that the door was ajar. I … I didn’t want to enter, sir.’
‘That is understandable,’ Stephen said drily. Not many would want to pass through the graveyard itself after dark and alone. No matter how often a man taught logic and common sense, local men would continue to believe the old superstitions; ghosts must wander about the world. The worst place was this charnel house with its concentration of mouldering bones. No doubt the older members of the Choir had been enthusiastically dinning terrible stories into all the others until they’d only go out at night in gangs of two or three. ‘Yet you did. Why?’
‘I thought that if someone had been in to steal the cross or plate, I should make sure that the Dean was told as soon as possible, sir.’
‘Most commendable,’ Stephen said. The fellow might be telling the truth at that. Or he might have gone in there to steal a gulp of Communion wine. It wasn’t unknown.
‘When I entered, I tripped over him, sir. It was dark and I just fell over him,’ Paul said, his eyes moving once more to the body which lay only a few feet from the doorway.
‘Quite — ah, yes,’ the Dean said at last. ‘Hmm. And that is how you got his blood on you?’
The Annuellar looked like he was going to be sick. ‘Yes.’
‘So how could this have happened?’ the Dean murmured to himself. ‘We shall have to investigate.’
‘The Coroner has been summoned, but I understand he is off at another death,’ Stephen said. ‘He may be away for a day or two.’
‘A sad loss,’ the Dean said.
There was no flicker of amusement on his face, but Stephen knew why his tone had such a depth of irony. The Dean and the new Coroner had never seen eye to eye. The Cathedral had its own rights and liberties, but the Coroner, who had been given his position to replace poor Sir Roger de Gidleigh, who had been killed during a rising early in the year, was ever trying to impose the King’s rules on the place. Issuing commands was no way to persuade the Dean that cooperation was to their mutual advantage.
‘Perhaps, then, we should be entitled to ask for assistance from another quarter,’ the Dean mused, and Stephen was struck, not for the first time, that when the Dean wished it, he could speak quite normally without his damned annoying hmms and hahs.
He eyed the Dean shrewdly. ‘What are you plotting, Dean?’
‘I plot nothing. I just — ah — wonder whether we ought to aid the good Coroner by asking for help from people who have already proved their use to the Church.’
‘You mean the Keeper.’
‘He did — um — help before,’ the Dean agreed.
When the call came, Sir Baldwin Furnshill was already in a foul mood, and the messenger who found him grooming his rounsey at the stableyard behind his little manor house was somewhat shocked by his reception. Baldwin was not by nature captious, but when the messenger arrived he was not his usual self.