> a woman whose husband, a skilled mason, is killed in an accident in the cathedral where he is working: she receives no compensation, and she and her two children are instantly reduced to beggary.
> all the other beggars and homeless and starving people in a badly misgoverned land
A Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puttock Mystery
Exeter, England, 1323
Roger Mortimer, the Lord Marcher, "the traitor", has escaped and is in France. The country is ruled by the King's friends, the Despensers: all those they victimise and antagonise are potential allies of Mortimer (who had been "the King's best general") should he invade the country.
No man can trust his neighbour.
Against this background, a mason dies in Exeter Cathedral in what looks like an accident. Then another death occurs within the cathedral precincts when a local citizen, a wealthy saddler, is murdered. Is there any connection between these two deaths? Or between them and what took place right there on the site now known as the chapel of bones forty years earlier? For in 1283, Walter de Leechelade, the cathedral chaunter, had been murdered and other men had died both in the attack and in a vain attempt to defend him, and many of those who were young men then and took part in the assassination still live in the town and others who left have recently returned.
Sir Baldwin, whose relationship with his wife has not been easy since his return from Santiago de Compostela (see The Templar's Penance), is not his usual confident, blustery self, but, with the help of his friend, the bailiff, Simon Puttock, he succeeds of course in sorting it all out even after being himself gravely wounded by a mystery archer.
It is a difficult book to get into as the changes of viewpoint come fast and furious, and I have to say that if I hadn't previously read and enjoyed other books in the series I would have given up when I discovered that the four-page List of Characters (surely unnecessary in a well-written book?) did not include "Thomas", who is the viewpoint character (indeed virtually the only character) during the first section - the first four pages - of Chapter One.
However, there are compensations, such as the wonderful relationship that develops between this Thomas and Sara, the widow of the dead mason. And also the depiction of the contrast between the building of the great cathedral and people dying of starvation at its doors for instance the riot that occurs when the cathedral authorities start handing out crusts and all those at the front of the queue get trampled.
They began hauling bodies aside. Some were still breathing, and these they set apart, but the dead were the larger group, and it was easy to see why. They were all malnourished, the children with rickets, the adults with the yellow or grey skin that spoke of illness and hunger.
It was when he pulled the fourth body from that obscene mound that he found Saul's wife, poor Sara.
Stick with it. Once you get into it, you won't be able to put it down.
