Like many of the men there, Thomas was crying as he joined in this terrible task. Those who were helped to the wall to sit upright were all in the topmost layers of bodies. As the men released them from the press, they began to find fewer and fewer who were still breathing. So many were dead, that they had to start a second pile for all the corpses. The crowd had shoved forwards on a wide front, and when people began to fall, they collapsed from the front, up to six deep in places, where those behind had tried to clamber over the bodies in front in order to escape the terror, only to fall and be smothered in their turn by others. Now this long line of three-and-forty people was being broken into a series of smaller piles.
Thomas couldn’t remain until the finish. When he was sure that there were no more people living in that hideous mound, he walked to Sara and helped her up. They took Elias back along the roadway which she had entered all those hours before, buoyed with the hope of a filled belly at last, and Thomas led the way to the Church of St John Bow, where he asked the shocked-looking priest whether they could carry her child into the church. The priest nodded his head, his own eyes full of tears. They carried Elias into the church and set him down gently before the altar. Elias was the first body there.
Recalling those moments, Sara wiped her eyes. He had been a rock to her, this Thomas. She was sure that he must be a kind man. Since the disaster, he had appeared with food and drink for her each day, and she had forced herself to eat under his sternly compassionate eye, reminding herself that she had to remain strong to protect Dan.
The older boy had taken the news of his brother’s death badly. He had sworn aloud to hear that Elias was dead, and his anger had not been assuaged when Thomas tried to calm him. His words were directed at Thomas, but Sara knew that his true rage was targeted at himself. He was the master of the family, and he had failed his brother; it should have been him, Danny, in that queue, not his mother and his feeble sibling.
She was expecting the tentative knock when the light was starting to fade. The masons and labourers worked longer hours in the summer, but when the sun dipped earlier, they were allowed to have a shorter day, although the Cathedral reduced their pay accordingly. Thomas always came here as soon as he stopped work, and usually brought either food he had saved from the Cathedral’s contribution — because all the workers were entitled to their own supply of ale and bread at the Cathedral’s expense — or, if that wasn’t available, he’d buy more food for her and Dan on his way to them.
He was a generous-hearted man, she thought. When she was at her lowest ebb, he was there to collect her and renew her spirits. He had certainly saved her life that day outside the Priory, and since then he had kept her and Dan fed.
Yes, it was him. He stood in the doorway when she pulled it open, his bearded face smiling apprehensively, as though he half-expected her to launch herself at him and tear him to pieces. She had the impression that if she were to attack him, he would do nothing to protect himself.
It was a weird idea. She was nothing to him, just as he should be nothing to her — but she could feel a tie between them. Just as he must have accepted responsibility for her in some way for saving her life, likewise, she was ready to accept his presents. Perhaps it was nothing more than the kindness of a co-labourer and mason for the widow of another. She knew that there were little clubs which allocated a sum of money to cover the funeral expenses of the less fortunate workers who died at the Cathedral so that their families shouldn’t have to suffer that expense just as they were coming to terms with their grief; but sadly she also knew that Saul had never invested in such a fund. If the other masons knew of her plight, maybe they had thrown some money into a cap to help her, and since Thomas knew her slightly, after bringing her the news of her darling Saul’s death, perhaps they thought his face would be more acceptable to her.
Looking up at him now, she reckoned that if that was their thinking, they were right. She liked his rough, untended beard with the grey flecks and sandyish hairs about his bottom lip. It was a perfect frame for his kind eyes, which watched her always with that faint hint of anxiety, as though he was convinced she’d show him the door the instant he began to speak to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said as she took in the sight of the food he held in his arms. He smiled as though relieved to note her welcoming tone, and then she gestured him inside, taking the items from his arms and setting them on the table.
‘Dan not here?’ he asked as she almost pushed him down into a seat.
‘No, he’s gone out. A friend called for him.’
Sara was fascinated by Thomas’s changing expressions. It was hard to read any emotion in his face. His mouth could smile without affecting his eyes, yet sometimes she saw that his eyes were laughing, although his mouth was set in a firm, pursed line. Although she had no intention of dishonouring her husband’s memory, she found herself attracted to this powerful, big-hearted man.
‘You are too kind to me,’ she breathed as she discovered a slab of meat, dripping with blood. It was only very rarely that she and her husband had been able to afford meat, and the sight of this made her belly rumble alarmingly.
He looked away with embarrassment. She put the meat into her cooking pot, added water from the bucket and set it over the fire to stew. Neither spoke for what seemed a very long time, and then she looked up and found his eyes upon her. There was an infinite sadness in his face, and she set her head to one side with sympathy flowing through her veins. She said gently, ‘Tell me what upsets you so much, Thomas.’
He looked away. ‘I was just thinking — I never had a wife nor children, and I realise how much I’ve missed.’
‘It’s not all easy,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you hate your family.’
‘I don’t believe that of you. You loved your man, didn’t you? And his children.’
She could feel the tears begin again. The mere mention of Saul and Elias could make her throat constrict. ‘I never regretted marrying him,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘You are fortunate.’
‘Did you never want to settle with a woman of your own?’
‘There were women I admired from a distance, but when I set out on my trade, I never stayed long enough in one place to settle down. By the time I had slowed down enough to appreciate what I was missing, it was too late. I was too old. Look at me! A wrinkled husk of a man with little to recommend me.’
‘There’s enough. You have a good soul.’
He looked away again at that.
‘Your voice,’ she said after a moment. ‘You sound like the men of this city. Did you use to live here?’
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘But I had to leave.’
‘Why?’
His head drooped, and he glanced at her from under his brows. ‘Many years ago, when I was a wild youth, I got into a fight. A man died. Then because of one man lying, someone else was captured for the murder, and he was executed. He died for what I’d done.’
‘That’s terrible! So you felt so sorry to know that an innocent man had died, that you left?’
‘The innocent man was my father,’ Thomas said, and his shoulders began to leave with silent sobs. It was the first time he had ever spoken of his guilt, but now his life was changing again. Matthew was sure to spread news of his presence.
After all, Thomas had helped kill Matthew’s companions, and almost killed Matthew himself.
Baldwin had spent the afternoon uselessly waiting to speak to the Annuellar Paul who found the body, but Paul’s canon had several duties for him that day and the lad couldn’t be found until it was almost time for Vespers.
Baldwin caught up with him as the fellow walked towards the Cathedral. ‘Paul? I must speak to you,’ he said.
The Annuellar was tall and lanky, with a mop of tallow-coloured hair and a pasty face which showed off an explosion of acne to best advantage. He shot a look at his canon, a short, thickset man with a glowering demeanour. ‘May I just speak to this-’