An Unholy Alliance (15 page)

‘But if he were responsible, what would he have to fear when he knew the body was so well hidden?’ asked Michael.

Bartholomew thought for a moment. ‘Master de

Wetherset, you said Father Cuthbert has trouble finding people to ring the bells. Whoever put Froissart behind the bell frame knew that the chances of anyone going to the bell chamber to tend to the bells were remote. Why would the friar, a stranger to Cambridge, know that?’

De Wetherset grew exasperated. ‘You two do not agree with each other,’ he said. ‘You, Brother, maintain that logic dictates that the two deaths are connected, while you, Doctor Bartholomew, confound any ideas we suggest to link them.’

Bartholomew smiled. ‘Just because we cannot find the link here and now does not mean that it is not there. The evidence we have at the moment is just not sufficient to support any firm conclusions.’

De Wetherset sat heavily on the bench next to Michael and put his head in his hands. ‘Tell me what we do have,’

he said wearily.

Bartholomew sat on the chest before thinking better of it and moved to the window-seat. He quickly sorted out his jumbled thoughts and began to put them together.

‘Last Tuesday, Froissart killed his wife and claimed sanctuary in the church. He was locked in Tuesday night, but had gone by Wednesday morning. It is most likely he was killed in the church on Tuesday night, and his body hidden at the same time. Three days later, on Friday, the itinerant friar arrived. He spent time, ostensibly praying and preparing himself to continue his journey, but more probably learning the routine of the church. Now that suggests to me that he had not been here before, and so was not the murderer of Froissart.’

De Wetherset nodded slowly. ‘That is logical,’ he said.

‘Pray continue.’

Michael took up the analysis. ‘We do not know why the friar was here, but we know he was a careful man. He spent three days watching and learning, and obviously possessed some skill in opening locks without keys. On Sunday night, he hid in the church while the lay-brother locked up, and then made his way to the tower. He picked the locks on the chest and began to go through its contents. “The poison did not have an immediate effect, or he would not have been able to pick the third lock and open the lid. We do not know what happened next.

He may have had a seizure brought on by the poison and fallen into the chest, closing the lid at the same time. Or he may have been put in the box by another person.’

‘Perhaps the same person who killed Froissart,’ said Bartholomew. “I cannot imagine that the friar fell neatly into the chest and the lid closed of its own accord. I think it more likely that someone put him there.’ He paused for a moment and continued. ‘On the same night that the friar was preparing himself for his business in the tower, Evrard Buckley complained of stomach pains from a surfeit of eels, and retired early to bed. During the night, he removed the entire contents of his room through the window in King’s Hall and loaded them onto a cart. At some point, he or another person, was wounded, perhaps fatally, as is attested by the blood on the ground outside his window.’

‘We have forgotten Nicholas’s book,’ said Michael, gesturing to where the papers lay on the table near the window. ‘He died a month ago, and no one thought much about it until the friar was found dead on top of his manuscript.’

‘So, what we have left,’ said de Wetherset somewhat testily, ‘is a large number of unanswered questions. Who was the friar? What was he doing in the tower? Who put the poisoned lock on the chest? Was it intended to kill the friar or another? Who killed Froissart and why? Are the two deaths linked? Was Nicholas also murdered?

Where is my Vice-Chancellor? And did he kill Nicholas, Froissart, and the friar?’

He stood with a sigh. “I will have Froissart moved to the crypt. Gilbert will see to that. It might be most imprudent to let the murderer know his careful concealment has been uncovered, so I suggest we tell no one of this,’

he said.

‘But the Sheriff has a right to know,’ said Bartholomew, startled. ‘If Froissart is supposed to have murdered his wife, the Sheriff will be looking for him. We cannot keep such a matter to ourselves.’

“I said it would be most unwise to let the murderer know that we have discovered the body,’ snapped de Wetherset.

‘Supposing news of our discovery makes him kill again?

“The next victim might be one of us. “The townspeople complain bitterly that the Sheriff is dragging his feet in tracking down the killer of the town prostitutes. There is little point in revealing this matter to such a man.’

‘What if it were ever discovered that we kept such a matter secret?’ said Bartholomew, unconvinced. ‘The townspeople would have every right to be angry with the University, and relations between us and the town are strained as it is. There would be a riot!’

‘The only way they would find out would be if you were to reveal it to them,’ said de Wetherset coldly. ‘And I am sure I need not worry on that score. Anyway, I imagine the killer would be more likely to strike at those who are seen to be investigating his crime if it were to become common knowledge Froissart has been found: you and Brother Michael.’

‘Not if we turn the whole matter over to the Sheriff.’

Bartholomew looked at Michael for support, but the monk looked studiously out of the window and would not meet his eye.

De Wetherset continued. “I want you to question

Froissart’s family to see if they know anything, and I want you to examine Nicholas’s body before dawn tomorrow.

I have already obtained the necessary licences.’

He opened the door and left without another word.

His footsteps were heavy and, despite his belligerence to Bartholomew, attested to his growing despondency about the events of the past few days. Bartholomew and Michael followed him, Bartholomew still angry, and they saw him giving instructions to Gilbert about the removal of Froissart.

‘More lies and deceit,’ said Bartholomew bitterly, watching de Wetherset walking away with an arm

across Gilbert’s shoulders. ‘Why did you not come to my defence?’

‘Because you were wrong,’ said Michael. ‘De Wetherset said that the Sheriff is conducting a less than competent investigation into the deaths of the women, and that is true. The townspeople are talking of little else. Why should we alert the murderer of Froissart that we have uncovered his carefully concealed victim by revealing it to the Sheriff? I do not see that it would do any good, and it might do a great deal of harm.’

‘But perhaps one of the reasons the investigation is slow is because half the Sheriffs men are hunting Froissart, whom we know is dead. If we tell him that he need not look for Froissart, he will have more resources with which to hunt the killer of the prostitutes,’ argued Bartholomew.

Michael shook his head.‘The Sheriff s problem is more deeply seated than manpower,’ he said. He shook himself suddenly. ‘Come, Matt! It is cold in here. You cannot reveal what you know to the Sheriff without contravening de Wetherset’s orders, so do not even think about it. Let us put it from our minds and concentrate on the matter in hand.’

‘So, what shall we do first?’ said Bartholomew, walking with relief out of the cold church and into the hot sunshine outside. He brushed feathers from his gown and stretched stiffly.

‘Back to College,’ said Michael. ‘You stink of that dead man, and it would not be tactful to question his family until you have changed. And anyway, I am hungry and you have students waiting for you.’

At Michaelhouse, Bartholomew washed and changed, giving his dirty clothes to the disapproving laundress.

“I cannot imagine what you have been up to these last few days,’ Agatha grumbled. ‘Filthy clothes, ripped shirts. You should know better at your age, Matthew.’

Bartholomew grinned at her as she pushed him out of the door. She watched him cross the yard towards the hall and allowed herself a rare smile. Agatha was fond of the physician, who had cured her of a painful foot that had been the bane of her life for years. She looked down at the dirty clothes and her smile faded: she hoped he was not doing anything dangerous.

She saw Gray and Deynman strolling across the yard and yelled at them in stentorian tones. ‘Your master is waiting for you! He is a busy man and cannot be waiting around all day for you to wander into his lectures when you please!’

Gray and Deynman broke into a run and made for

the conclave, where Bartholomew had already begun his lecture. He glanced at them, but said nothing as they hurriedly found seats and tried to bring their breathing under control. Bartholomew noted with satisfaction that the whole class was attentive, and when he sprung questions on them, they at least did not seem startled.

Some even gave him the correct answers.

The time passed quickly, and soon the bell was

ringing to announce lectures were over for the day.

Bartholomew was surprised that the students listened to his final comments and did not immediately try to leave for the meal in the hall as they usually did. He stopped his pacing across the fireplace to address them.

‘Tomorrow we must look again at diseases of the

mouth. You may consider toothache to be an unimportant affliction, but it can make the patient’s life a living hell. A toothache might be indicative of abscesses in the jaws, which can occasionally prove fatal to some people, by poisoning the blood. If I am late, I want you to consider dosages of different compounds that you might give to children who have painful swellings of the face, and what the possible causes of such swellings might be.’

He gave them an absent smile, his mind already busy making up such a list, and left. His students heaved a corporate sigh of relief.

‘Another day survived!’ said Gray, blowing out his cheeks and looking at the others.

‘He is only trying to help us learn,’ said Bulbeck defensively. ‘He wants us to pass our disputations, and he wants us to become good physicians.’

Brother Boniface spat. ‘He is teaching us contrary to the will of God. Why does he not teach us how to bleed patients? Why does he insist that we must always have a diagnosis? Some things are not meant to be known by man.’

‘He does not believe that bleeding is beneficial,’ said Gray. ‘He told me that charlatans bleed patients when they do not know what else to do.’

Boniface snorted in derision. ‘His teaching is heretical, and I do not like it. Give me a bottle of leeches and I could cure anything!’

Bulbeck laughed. ‘Then tell Doctor Bartholomew that leeching is a cure for toothache in his lecture tomorrow,’

he said.

Because Bartholomew had to see a patient, Michael went alone to hunt down the family of Marius Froissart. He asked the clerks in the church, but none of them knew where Froissart had lived. Somewhat irritably, he began to walk up Cambridge’s only hill to the Castle to ask the Sheriff. The Sheriff had been called when Froissart had claimed sanctuary. Froissart could not, of course, be taken from the sanctuary of the church, but he had been questioned.

By the time Michael arrived, puffing and swearing at his enforced exercise, he was hot and crabby. He marched up to the Castle gate-house and pounded

on the door. A lantern-jawed sergeant asked him his business, and Michael demanded an audience with the Sheriff. He was led across the bailey towards the round keep that stood on the motte. It was a grey, forbidding structure, and Michael felt hemmed in by the towering curtain walls and crenellated towers.

In the bailey a few soldiers practised sword-play in a half-hearted manner, while a larger group were gathered in the shade of the gate-house to play dice. Before the plague, the bailey had always seemed full of soldiers, but there were distinctly fewer now. Michael followed the-sergeant up wide spiral stairs to the second floor. As he took a seat in an antechamber, raised voices drifted from the Sheriffs office.

‘But when?’ roared a voice that Michael recognised as Stanmore’s. The sergeant glanced uneasily at Michael but said nothing. There was a mumble from within as the Sheriff answered.

‘But that is simply unacceptable!’ responded Stanmore.

Michael stood and ambled closer to the door in an attempt to overhear the Sheriff s part of the conversation, but was almost knocked off his feet as the door was flung open and Stanmore stormed out. He saw Michael but was too furious to speak as he left. Before the sergeant could stop him, Michael strolled nonchalantly through the door Stanmore had left open.

The Sheriff stood behind a table, breathing heavily and clenching his fists. He glared at Michael, who smiled back benevolently.

‘Master Tulyet,’ said Michael, sitting down. ‘How is your father, the Mayor?’

‘My father is no longer Mayor,’ growled Tulyet. He was a small man with wispy fair hair and a beard that was so blond it was all but invisible.

‘Then how are you? How is your investigation of the whore murders?’ asked Michael, knowing instinctively he would touch a raw nerve.

‘That is the King’s business and none of yours,’ Tulyet snapped. Michael saw the Sheriffs hands tremble when he picked up his cup to drink, and when he put it back down again, there were clammy fingerprints smeared on the pewter.

‘Have you traced that other murderer yet? What was his name? Froissart,’ probed Michael, leaning back in the creaking chair.

Tulyet glared at him. ‘He escaped sanctuary,’ he said through gritted teeth. “I warned the guards that he might try, but they said they did not see him. I suppose they would not when they were asleep.’

‘Who was it that he had killed?’ asked Michael. ‘A woman? And now a woman-killer stalks the night streets of Cambridge?’

‘Marius Froissart is not the killer of the whores!’ said Tulyet, exasperated. ‘You believe that Froissart is the killer and that I lost him. Well, he is not the killer!

Froissart did not even have the sense to confess to the murder of his wife, even though a witness saw him commit the crime! He could not have the intelligence to outwit me over the whore murders.’

‘Oh? Who saw him commit the crime?’ asked Michael with interest.