The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18) by Michael Jecks

waist, on her breasts, how his arms felt as they pulled her towards him in one of his great hugs – and found that all these memories and more were already fading. He was gone: the staunch defender of her and their children was dead, and there was nothing she could do to change the fact.
    Elias looked terrible today. The rain was abating somewhat, and in the feeble light, she could see that his face had a sickly tinge to it, and she sighed as she mixed the greens into her bowl for pottage. He needed more sustenance – meat and eggs, not a weak broth of Good King Henry, Alexanders, some peas and a handful of beans. It wasn’t enough to keep a lad together.
    She would go to the Priory again and see if she could beg some food. A rich fishmonger had died, so she had heard, andpart of his bequest was a great donation of food from the gate of the Priory of St Nicholas, bread and fish from the Almoner. If she could get a little fish and bread, it would make all the difference to her boys. They needed their food so desperately. She would go and plead with the Almoner.
    Nicholas was already out. He had visited a church to preach, but the priest had refused him entry, and Nicholas was left to kick his heels outside. Rather than do that, he decided to go and have another look at the Cathedral. A keen urge prompted him to take a look at the Charnel Chapel, even though the rain was still falling steadily. It didn’t bother Nicholas much. He was used to all weathers.
    It was a strange little building. Dedicated to St Edward the Confessor, because it was built in honour of King Edward I who had come to hear the trials after the murder, Nicholas thought it a peculiar place. Of course, all cemeteries had the same problem: if the religious establishment had been there for a while, when new bodies were ready to be interred, the pit-digger would keep coming up with old bones, and where should one store them? Bones took so long to rot down compared with flesh and blood. The favoured route was to put up a little chapel like this with a large storeroom beneath in which the bones could be installed, while above prayers were said for all the poor dead.
    This was an innovation since Nicholas’s departure. When he had lived in the Cathedral’s grounds, he had truly lived
here
, on the spot where the chapel now stood, when this place had been the home of Walter de Lecchelade, the Chaunter.
    No one had said what had happened to the old house. Presumably it was an accident: a fire had razed it to the ground, or a supporting beam had collapsed. It was of no importance.The place was only a building, when all was said and done, whereas this little chapel was significant. It protected people, giving a shelter to their remains while annuellars prayed for their souls.
    It was as likely that after Walter’s murder the Chapter decided to remove the memory by eradicating his house. And they honoured the King while so doing.
    Naming it after King Edward was fair, Nicholas considered. After all, if it weren’t for him, the guilty might never have been punished.
    This was the first chance he’d had to take stock of the Cathedral since he had arrived, and now he studied the place with interest.
    When he was living with the Chaunter, he had been prone to walking about the works, and he had been fascinated by the way that the workmen had gone about their tasks. Of course in those days they were working on the eastern range of the Cathedral, whereas now that end was completed and the men were attacking the nave and western front, bringing it up to the same height as the rest. It meant that scaffolding and equipment were standing apparently all higgledy-piggledy about the main entranceway. Also, the masons, smiths and carpenters had brought all their tools so as to have them closer to where the work was being conducted.
    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