For the Love of Old Bones by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: mystery, religious, historical, SSC
Publisher: Michael Jecks Partnership
Published: 2012-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

They were all waiting outside under the suspicious gaze of a watchman who held his wooden staff like a man keen to show his expertise. No one would dare to run away.

Not that there was much point, Baldwin reminded himself. There was nowhere to run to for people whose business and livelihood were tied up with Crediton. However, all the neighbours must be kept until they had been attached – made to pay a surety that guaranteed that they would attend the Justice’s court when he next appeared. All of them would be fined anyway, because any man who lived near a murder was taxed for the infringement of the King’s Peace, which was why the men shuffled resentfully.

‘You have sent for the Coroner?’ Baldwin asked Tanner quietly.

‘Yes. The messenger left at the same time as the man sent to fetch you.’

‘Good. So we need not keep these folk too long, hopefully,’ Baldwin said. ‘Although the dull-witted fool may take his time.’

‘He usually does,’ Tanner growled.

Both knew the Coroner. Sir Roger of Gidleigh had been a useful ally in Baldwin’s previous investigations, but he had been thrown from his horse earlier in the summer and confined to his bed, a shrunken, twisted reminder of his previous hale and powerful self. In his place had been installed Sir Gilbert of Axminster.

Compared with Sir Roger, Sir Gilbert was a weakly and insipid youth. Sir Gilbert had never taken part in a battle, nor had he earned his rank from proving his honour or courage. No, he had become a knight under the ridiculous law by which any man who owned an estate worth more than £40 each year could be compelled to take up knighthood; it led to cretins like Sir Gilbert wearing the golden spurs, Baldwin thought contemptuously. Feeble-minded doddypolls who were scarcely capable of lacing their enamelled sword-belts. And once knighted, Sir Gilbert’s puerile sense of humour and effeminate manner had led to his advancement to Coroner. With a King such as Edward II, who preferred favourites like Piers Gaveston and the appalling Hugh Despenser to his own wife, it was no surprise that men like Sir Gilbert found senior posts.

It hurt Baldwin particularly because he had been a ‘Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon’, a Knight Templar, who had risked his life in the hell-hole of Acre in 1291 as that great city fell to the Saracen hordes. The Templars had been honourable, devoted monks who had taken the threefold oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience, and yet they had been slaughtered for personal gain. The French King had coveted their wealth, so he unleashed a storm of impossible accusations against them, having them arrested and then burned at the stake like heretics, all because he wanted their money.

That was the prick that drove Baldwin to investigate crimes: he had been the victim of persecution; he had suffered from the lies of politicians; he knew how difficult it was to deny the claims of bigots. All made him determined to protect others who suffered from injustice.

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