Read The Chapel of Bones: (Knights Templar 18) for Free Online Page A

waiting until that terrible moment when a crack of light appeared in the door to the Cathedral and the men poured out.
    And now that moment had returned to haunt him, for he knew that his life couldn’t last much longer, and when he went to God, he wanted no risk of rejection just because he had once aided one man against another. By St Peter’s beard, this was a mess!
    ‘Is it the German? Is that why you’re worried?’
    He could hear the concern in her voice, but he had no power to ease it. Udo Germeyne’s threat was a real one: Germeyne could certainly cause havoc with their finances. The man had every right, too, Henry thought, scowling at the mazer. ‘That bastard! He thought he could pull the wool over my eyes, did he?’ he snarled.
    ‘I don’t think Master Udo tried anything of the sort, Husband,’ Mabilla said soothingly. ‘You’ve been drinking too much.’
    ‘Not him, woman! That ox’s arse Joel. He fobs me off with ballocksed frames, and when a customer comes and takes a tumble, he leaves me in the shit.’
    ‘I am sure Joel didn’t mean anything of the sort. Have you told him about the fall?’
    ‘Not yet. Haven’t had a chance.’ Henry belched, reaching for the jug and topping up his mazer.
    ‘Then tomorrow, when you are sober, go and speak to him. Joel has been one of your oldest friends, hasn’t he? Talk to him and see what he has to say. I am sure he’d not want you to be unhappy. He’s supplied you for donkey’s years.’
    ‘He won’t any more,’ Henry declared stoutly. He stood and lifted his mazer, declaiming, ‘Here I state that I’ll go to any other damned joiner in the city rather than him!’
    ‘Oh!’ his wife exclaimed. ‘If you’re in that sort of a mood, I’ll have done with you. Let me know when you’re sober again, and I’ll speak to you then.’
    He watched as she raised her hands and dropped them again in despair, then she flounced heavily from the room, her gorgeous crimson skirts flaring.
    The sight was enough to bring a smile to his face. His Mabilla still loved him, and she was a woman any man could love in return. She looked barely forty – five-and-forty at most. Still had that soft, pale flesh that a man associates with a much younger woman. There was none of the harshness of old age on her, nor the pain or lines of fear. No, she was a delicious woman still. God, but he was lucky to have her. They’d married more or less despite her parents, who weren’t sure that this young saddler, who so recently had been an apprentice, was going to be a powerful enough figure to protect their daughter, but he’d shown them! Yeah, he’d shown them.
    First he had saved his money carefully, rarely getting into the normal occupations of apprentices and vomiting or pissing his money away on wine and ale. No, Henry had a plan even then. He wanted to be a wealthy fellow in his own right, and everything he did was aimed at that one target. He made saddles from the finest materials and presented the very best workmanship to those who could afford it. While others spent their days knocking together cheap stuff to make workaday equipment that a modest fellow could afford, Henry concentrated on buying in the most elegant decorative pieces, beautiful ironwork from the best smiths, enamels from old Jack in the High Street, silken threads and soft padding. Hissaddles gained a reputation for being the most comfortable, distinctive examples of his craft; works of loveliness as well as function. His reputation had grown as had his purse, and soon everyone who had a pair of pennies to rub together wanted one of his saddles.
    And now all that was at risk because of bloody Joel Lytell.
    Stephen, Treasurer of the Cathedral, stood staring at the body with a feeling of revulsion. The victim had been so cruelly disfigured by the lump of stone, it was hard to see that the upper part of the torso had once belonged to a man.
    ‘The mason should not have died,’ Stephen said. He had been