Murder by the Book (51 page)

‘We might have solved these mysteries much sooner had we realised that there were two completely separate conspiracies. First, Browne killing Rolee, Teversham and Kente to put scholars off libraries, and murdering Coslaye because he had failed to dispatch him at the Convocation. And second, Bonabes arriving in Cambridge and recruiting
scholars to build him a weapon – Walkelate, Northwood, Vale, the London brothers and Jorz.’

‘And recruiting mercenaries to raid the town,’ added Bartholomew. ‘Aided by Dunning and Frevill. And by Coslaye, too – Agatha’s nephew did see him, as he claimed.’

‘Dick said yesterday that he has caught the last of the mercenaries. Several told him that it was Frevill who murdered Adam, so justice was served when Ayera killed him outside King’s Hall.’

They were silent for a while, Bartholomew watching the priest talking to Julitta and Holm, and Michael thinking about the plots they had exposed. Julitta was listening intently, but Holm looked bored, as if he wished the rite were over so that he could do something more interesting instead. Then the priest began to chant the sacred words that would bind the couple together for the rest of their lives, and Bartholomew wondered what it was about love that made people so blind. He turned away, directing his mind back to their mysteries so as to block it out.

‘Browne must have been insane to think that a few peculiar deaths would keep us from books,’ he said. ‘This is a University, and we are scholars. Deaths in libraries will not stop us from reading.’

Michael laughed softly. ‘Some of us are scholars. Langelee is not, or he would have refrained from writing obscenities in Apollodorus’s
Poliorcetica
. Apparently, he was trying to research wildfire for Ayera, and grew frustrated when his reading did not tell him what he wanted to know. But let us think of happier things. Your students’ disputations, for example.’

Bartholomew smiled. ‘They did better than I expected.’

‘They performed magnificently, thanks to your tyranny in the classroom. However, you might consider being a little more gentle on the next batch. And if you have any
affection for Julitta, incidentally, you will stop this farce of a marriage. The priest has not reached the vows yet.’

‘How am I to do that?’ asked Bartholomew, tiredly.

‘By telling her the truth about Holm. It would be a kindness. She deserves better.’

‘She will never forgive me if I make a scene on her wedding day. And he is the town’s only surgeon – I am obliged to work with him.’

‘Clippesby is so sure she will be miserable that he tried to persuade the priest not to conduct the ceremony. Unfortunately, he took the rat to support his case, so the man declined to listen.’

Bartholomew looked at Julitta, and for a moment considered doing what Michael suggested, but then she turned to Holm and gave a smile of such blazing happiness that his resolve crumbled.

‘I cannot. And even if I did, she would spend the rest of her life wondering what she has lost. As I do with Matilde.’

‘Very well, but you will come to regret your faintheartedness. Bitterly, I think. Still, one good thing came out of all this unpleasantness.’

‘A new Junior Proctor?’ A volunteer, inspired by the service Michael had performed for the country, had stepped forward as the beadles were helping Tulyet to round up the last few mercenaries.

‘Well, yes,’ said Michael. ‘But I was thinking of something else.’

‘You were?’ Bartholomew could not think of anything.

‘The Common Library is a pile of smoking rubble,’ said Michael with a wicked grin. ‘Julitta offered to fund another, but I persuaded her against it.’

‘But a central repository for books is a
good
idea.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Michael. ‘Incidentally, Holm told me
yesterday that he will be so wealthy after his marriage today that he need never pick up a surgical blade again. You will have to return to your old ways of sawing and stitching.’

‘Really?’ Bartholomew smiled suddenly. ‘Then perhaps you are right: something good
has
come out of this affair!’

Two months later, Rouen

It had been a scorching hot day, and the evening air smelled of burnt earth and parched vegetation. Two men stood together in a quiet grove, within sight of the mighty cathedral. Bonabes, his burned face still swathed in bandages, felt a surge of excitement.

All had not been lost that terrible day in Cambridge, when the ridiculous Walkelate had lit his fire. The specially adapted ribauldequin had been destroyed, of course, its metal barrels melted unrecognisably in the heat, and Walkelate’s wildfire had also gone. But Bonabes had managed to snag two items before he had crawled to safety. One was Walkelate’s design for the weapon, and the other was the scrap of parchment containing the physicians’ formula for wildfire. Walkelate had taken his own recipe to the grave, of course, but Bonabes had the feeling that the compound contrived by the
medici
was better anyway.

After his escape, Bonabes had lain low for a while. He had expected Ruth to nurse him back to health, but she had turned her back on him when she had learned his real identity. So much for love! But she did not matter any more, because something far more important was about to take place. Bonabes had commissioned a French blacksmith to reconstruct Walkelate’s ribauldequin, and he had undertaken to mix the wildfire himself. Well, he had required a little help.

‘Are you sure we added enough rock oil?’ he asked of Gyseburne, who stood beside him.

‘Quite sure,’ replied the physician. ‘Your mixture looks identical to the stuff we created in Meryfeld’s garden all those months ago, although this is superior, because I added urine, which is highly combustible under the right circumstances.’

‘But you told me you could not remember a thing about that particular night,’ said Bonabes, rather accusingly. ‘If you had, I would not have had to waylay Bartholomew and Rougham.’

‘It all came back to me once we put the ingredients together,’ replied Gyseburne coolly.

‘Well, let us hope your memory is reliable.’ Bonabes pointed into the trees, where a shadowy figure was emerging. ‘Because the general is here, and I have promised him a miracle.’

‘And he shall have it. Are you sure he has enough money to pay me? If not, there are plenty of other commanders who will not baulk at the sum I have requested.’

‘Quite sure. How did you explain your absence from Cambridge, by the way?’

‘My mother needs me,’ said Gyseburne gravely. ‘And when I told him I was unsure how I would finance the journey, Matthew gave me the five marks he had won from Holm. It was guilt-money, of course, to apologise for the fact that a Michaelhouse scholar, namely Ayera, started a rumour that my mother is a witch.’

‘Weasenham told me.’ Bonabes glanced cautiously at the physician. ‘And is she?’

‘She likes to cast the occasional spell.’

‘I thought Bartholomew and the monk would guess that you were among the men who helped Walkelate,’ said Bonabes wonderingly. ‘I heard Michael had you high on his list of suspects.’

Gyseburne shrugged. ‘I think they were so appalled to
learn that Walkelate, Northwood, the London brothers, Vale and Jorz had been dabbling with wildfire that they could not bring themselves to think ill of any more colleagues. They never once asked me about it.’

‘Ayera was suspicious of you, though,’ said Bonabes. ‘I saw him watching you several times. Of course, I did not know he was Pelagia’s spy at the time, or I would have killed him.’

Gyseburne grimaced. ‘He unnerved me, so I told Bartholomew the tale about Langelee’s poisoned guests in York, placing the blame firmly on Ayera. I also told him that Ayera was one of your raiders.’

‘That was reckless! I was too wary of anyone to confide my plans, so he knew little to harm us, but it was a risk that should not have been taken.’

‘I had to protect myself,’ said Gyseburne sharply. ‘Besides, I have long been afraid that Ayera might know that it was
I
who exchanged garlic for lily of the valley all those years ago at Langelee’s house in York, and I felt the need to take precautions.’

‘I heard you gave up Willelmus, too.’

Gyseburne shrugged. ‘He was a low worm, and I distrusted him intensely. I could not kill him – he was a friar, and I have scruples about dispatching men of God – so I decided to let Tulyet do it for me. I was afraid that he might tell someone it was I who persuaded him to turn traitor, and not some fictitious juror.’

‘You almost died, too,’ observed Bonabes, watching the general approach and then glancing around again to ensure that all was ready. ‘Walkelate.’

Gyseburne nodded. ‘Yes, he certainly would have killed me, as he did his other helpmeets. It was fortunate that an excursion to see a patient in Girton put me out of harm’s reach that night. I—’

‘Is it ready?’ asked the newcomer, breaking brusquely into their conversation. As one of France’s highest-ranking military men, the general considered himself far too important to waste time with polite greetings.

‘The wildfire is loaded, and all we need do is touch a flame to this fuse,’ said Bonabes. His heart thudded with excitement. This was the culmination of all he had worked for since that terrible day at Poitiers. It was his revenge on the English for the humiliation his country had suffered, and for the continued marauding of the Prince of Wales and his greedy rabble.

‘Then do it,’ said the general. Prudently, he took up station some distance away.

Bonabes’s hands were shaking as he took a taper and lowered the dancing flame to the ribauldequin. Beside him, he heard Gyseburne take a deep breath and hold it.

At first, nothing happened. Then there was a bright flash and a resounding boom. The general saw Gyseburne and Bonabes flung backwards like bundles of rags, and when the smoke cleared, the weapon was nothing but a mess of smoking, twisted barrels. The general approached cautiously, stepping carefully over the places where the grass burned. One of his men tried to stamp the flames out, but something sticky adhered to his boot, and then that too was blazing.

Incredibly, Bonabes was still alive – he had taken the precaution of wearing armour, which had protected him to a certain extent. Gyseburne had been killed instantly.

‘The recipe for wildfire,’ the general said urgently. ‘Where is it?’

It was clear that Bonabes did not understand what had happened. His hand moved weakly towards a sheaf of parchments. The general made a grab for them, but they were spotted with wildfire, and he jerked away. Aghast, he
watched flames consume them, teasing him with a tantalising glimpse of diagrams and formulae.

‘Tell me,’ he ordered urgently, grabbing Bonabes by the front of his tunic. ‘Quickly, before it is too late.’

But there was wildfire on Bonabes’s clothes, and he was far too dangerous to hold. The general let him drop back to the ground, assuming from the dazed expression in Bonabes’s eyes that the explosion had knocked him out of his wits. Disgusted, he walked back the way he had come, ignoring the screaming plight of the soldier who had been foolish enough to step on the wildfire. Perhaps it was just as well the secret was lost, he thought. Such weapons were hardly ethical.

Another shadow emerged from the trees when he had gone. She smiled her satisfaction: the dabs of molten lead she had put in the ribauldequin’s barrels had taken care of all her problems. The weapon was unrecognisable, and would rust into the ground eventually, while the formula for wildfire was safe from the French.

Bonabes was able to turn his head and look at her.

‘You followed me!’ he said softly, shocked but not surprised.

‘All the way from Cambridge,’ replied Dame Pelagia. ‘I admire your tenacity and courage, but I could not let you hand such a weapon to your masters. And there was Ayera to avenge.’

‘But you have not won everything,’ said Bonabes, forcing a note of triumph into his feeble voice. ‘You do not have the secret, either.’

‘No?’ asked Dame Pelagia softly, removing a scrap of parchment from her sleeve.

Although Oxford had a University library in the 1300s, Cambridge does not seem to have had one until the following century. There are references to an earlier central collection of books, perhaps stored in chests in Great St Mary’s (the University Church), or in one of the convents, but there appears to have been no specific building. The first purpose-built library (raised in the 1400s) was located in the complex still called the Old Schools, and there it remained until the twentieth century, when plans were laid to move it west of the river. In May 1934, the first books were carried to a new building designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which is still in use today.

The University Library is one of Britain’s copyright libraries, and a magnificent resource for research and learning. Its atmospheric jumble of tightly packed shelves, spacious reading rooms and echoing staircases are remembered affectionately by generations of students and Fellows, and as it is constantly expanding, will continue to be for generations to come.

Many people in
Murder by the Book
were real. The Dunning family was a powerful clan in Cambridge in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and several members were mayors and burgesses. They owned a pretty stone-built house, later named Merton Hall, which has survived the ages, and still forms part of St John’s College. The Tulyet family, including several Richards, was another town family of note, as were the Frevills.

The office of University Stationer was an important one, because this was the man charged with producing exemplars for students to hire. John de Weasenham held the office in 1361. He was born in 1328, and records show he was married. He would have hired scribes to produce his exemplars; they were known as
exemplarii
.

A scribe named Willelmus de Hildersham murdered one John Ayce of Girton in Cambridge on 7 February 1334; Ayce’s father was named Robert. Hildersham was arrested, but pleaded benefit of clergy, and was released into the care of the Church after the secular jury had found him guilty.