He galloped up the hill, cobbles sparking where the flying hooves caught them. Up, up, and then, as he drew level with the hall, he wrenched the horse to a halt. There was a crack, a ripping sound, and suddenly he wasn’t in the saddle any more. Something had happened behind him — he couldn’t tell what, but suddenly all support had gone — and then he felt himself sliding sideways and backwards, over the horse’s backside. With a final despairing wail, he toppled, and had just enough good sense to throw out his arms and break his fall before his head slammed onto the cobbles.
The pain was instantaneous. A thrust of agony shot from his shoulder to his throat, and for an instant he thought he must be about to die, but then mercifully it abated somewhat, and he could pant cautiously, trying to keep his shoulder still.
‘Master! Are you all right?’
‘No thanks to you, verdammtes Idiot! Scheisse!’
‘Have you hurt your head?’ Henry asked with panic.
‘No, my shoulder. Call a physician, man! Your damned saddle could have killed me,’ Udo roared, and then winced. ‘My God! This is terrible.’
‘I’ll call the best doctor … and of course I’ll pay for him,’ Henry said miserably, bellowing for a servant.
‘You’ll pay for more than that!’ Udo swore.
So that was why he was here, broken in spirit and body in his hall when he should have been out adding to his treasure. He had been tempted by a maid; the temptation caused him to buy a saddle; and the saddle caused him to dislocate his shoulder.
The whole incident had cost him dearly.
When Prior Peter heard of the mason’s death, it served only to lighten his mood a little.
Peter was not unkind. He had no feelings of hatred or anger towards Saul. In fact, the man’s life or death were immaterial to him. A mason was a necessary fellow, no doubt, and useful when there were buildings which required his services, but any misfortune which happened to strike that damned Chapter was pleasing to Peter.
He heard of Saul’s death in the small open area south of St Nicholas’s Priory. The gatekeeper had sent a novice for him, and he inclined his head as he listened to the short lad. Peter was a tall man, grey of hair but with startlingly black eyebrows. His face was worn, and somewhat lugubrious, but there was a steely glint in his eyes that spoke of his intelligence. As he listened, the long fingers of his right hand tapped pensively on the wrist of his left — a strange mannerism which some whispered he had learned while in the Bishop’s gaol at the Cathedral. Peter neither knew nor cared what others said: it was merely a habit which he found comforting.
‘A man has been killed at the Cathedral? What of it?’ he enquired coolly.
‘Prior, he was a mason, and the man here, he wants to find the mason’s wife — to tell her he’s dead. Only no one knows where he lives.’
‘He doesn’t live any more,’ Peter said, his attention going to the little gate which led onto the High Street. The gatekeeper was there already, his hand resting on the door’s handle, and through the open way Peter could see the panicky face of the man sent to tell the wife that she was become a widow. ‘Tell him that I can’t help.’
The novice was quiet a moment, then, ‘May I ask the Almoner, Prior? He may know her.’
Peter glanced down at him dismissively. ‘If you wish, yes. Now leave me to consider.’
‘Yes, Prior,’ and he scampered away.
Peter continued walking around the open area. It had been his custom to walk about the Priory from the first moment he arrived here. Those years in the Bishop’s gaol — damn Quivil’s memory! — had made him feel uncomfortable in small rooms for any period. As soon as he was released, he had taken to walking, morning and afternoon, out in the open. It mattered not a whit whether it was raining, snowing, or the sun shining. All he knew was that he had a compulsion to go outside and breathe the clean air whenever he had an opportunity.
The boy had called him ‘Prior’. It was rather pleasant to be so addressed, although ‘my lord Prior’ would have been better. Alas, Peter wouldn’t ever be given that salutation.
All because of the evening so long ago when he had helped his companions to attack and kill the Chaunter. It was a grievous price he had paid since then. Some had been forced to suffer still more, and he honoured them, but others had survived, living out their years in comfort, without the penalties which Peter had endured. Even now some were rich merchants in this city, wallowing in their wealth like hogs in the mire. Repulsive people!
Peter had been looking at a successful career when disaster struck. He had thought that he would be able to move up the ranks of authority within the Cathedral, perhaps one day winning his own Bishopric, if he built enough support for himself along the way. There was no chance of that now. Since his punishment, when he had been thrown from the Cathedral’s Chapter by those hypocritical dogs the canons, he had been forced to renounce all possessions and income. He had been made a monk, had taken the vows, and sent to moulder at Battle Abbey, far from here. There he was expected to live a life of penance for the murder.
Penance, indeed! The other members of the Chapter well knew what was happening. It was the Bishop’s fault. Quivil had created the hatred and mistrust that had led to the Chaunter’s death, not Peter. Peter was simply one of those who responded to Bishop Quivil’s idiocy by removing his ally.
It was fortunate that he had been able to return here. Battle Abbey was a hideous place, and when he heard that there was a post here at its daughter house in Exeter, he had pressed to be allowed to return. He had been born here, he knew the area, he knew the air; fortunately his Abbot was an amiable, generous-hearted soul, who looked at the misery on Peter’s face and felt compassion. He agreed, and Peter was given leave. He would never have authority, but he was a good, reliable monk, and he could live out his days in the monastery outside whose walls he had played as a child.
And then the Abbot at Battle Abbey died. Prior Roger from St Nicholas’s Priory was chosen to rule the Abbey, and when he left Exeter, a new Prior was due to be selected. However, the election was contested, and as there was no clear winner, Abbot Roger asked Peter to caretake the role. So here he was in the position of full power, without the possibility of keeping it.
All because of the malicious treatment he’d been given by the Cathedral’s Chapter forty years ago, and their vindictive Bishop — may he rot in hell!
Chapter Two
Thomas was still feeling that odd juddering in his belly, as if a load of moths were fighting in there. Vicar Matthew had seen his shock, and gave him a little wine to calm his nerves after he’d helped Thomas down from the ruined scaffolding. However, Master Robert de Cantebrigge was entirely unsympathetic, even when he saw Thomas’s raw hands.
‘Look at him, you prick! You dropped a ton of rock on the poor bastard, and killed him! That’s criminal carelessness, that is!’
‘Christ’s Bones, Master, I didn’t mean it to happen … I don’t know what-’
‘You don’t seem to know sod all, do you?’ Robert spat. ‘You can call on Christ as much as you want, but it won’t bring back a bloody good mason, will it?’
‘Master, I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry, it was an accident.’
‘Oh no, it wasn’t, Tom. You killed him — it was sodding negligence, that’s what. Don’t try to get out of it that way. This was no bleeding accident, laddie — it was near as buggery pure sodding murder!’
The Master Mason was almost screaming at him, the spittle flying from his mouth, and Tom averted his head. Unwise move — for doing so made him catch sight of the corpse, and that in itself was enough to make a man heave. Sweet Jesus! Saul had no head left, no upper torso. The rock dropping a good thirty feet straight onto his head had completely removed every vestige of humanity above his belly. It was merely a repellent smudge of blood and flattened muscle, with a few yellowish cartilaginous lumps that made Tom want to puke. At one side he saw a single tooth, snapped off and not quite destroyed, but the rest of Saul’s face and features were gone. It was like a chalk picture smeared away with a damp cloth. That was all Saul was now: a smear.