The Mark of a Murderer (2 page)

Meanwhile, the Mayor, seeing what happened to the Chancellor, decided the only way to resolve the situation was to make sure
the town won the fracas, so he exhorted his people to rise up against the scholars. A group of unarmed friars from University
Hall went down amid a flailing fury of sticks and spades; all six were killed within moments. News of the slaughter spread
like wildfire, and more scholars ran on to the streets with weapons. Croidon watched the unfolding massacre with open-mouthed
horror, while the monk who had started it all hid in a doorway, a smile of satisfaction stamped across his dour features.
Then he slipped away to complete his own business while chaos reigned.

Cambridge, May 1355

Only the merest sliver of moon was visible on the eve of the festival to celebrate Ascension Day. John Clippesby, the Dominican
Master of Music and Astronomy at the College of Michaelhouse, liked this soft, velvety darkness, because it meant he was less
likely to be seen, and he could sit quietly and listen to the sounds of the night without being disturbed.

He was glad to be away from the College, to escape from fat Brother Michael and his tediously fussy preparations for the following
day. Clippesby would not have minded if some of the arrangements had focused on the religious ceremonies, but the gluttonous
monk made no bones about the fact that his chief interest lay in the feast that was to follow the mass. Clippesby was tired
of hearing about the vast quantities of meat and wine that were to be consumed, and the number of Lombard slices that had
already been baked.

The Dominican often left his College at night. He disliked being obliged to spend too much time with his quarrelsome, earthly
minded colleagues, and preferred the more peaceful, honest company of animals. Like Clippesby himself, they were soft-footed
and silent, and together they witnessed all manner of happenings when people did not know the shadows held observant eyes.
Clippesby had already watched Father William sneak into the cellars to raid Michael’s wine, and he had seen a pair of Doctor
Bartholomew’s medical students climb over the College walls to enjoy an illicit assignation with some of the town’s prostitutes.

He walked along the High Street, stopping briefly to greet the University stationer’s mule, and then spent some time near
King’s Hall, admiring the bats. When his neck became stiff from craning to see their intricate aerial ballet, he made his
way towards All-Saints-in-the-Jewry. A cat regularly prowled in the church’s graveyard, and Clippesby enjoyed talking to her.
Sometimes, she talked back, and told him what she had seen as she hunted mice and rats. Clippesby knew his colleagues thought
he was insane because he conversed with animals, but he did not care – his furred and feathered friends invariably made a
lot more sense to him than the diatribes of his human companions.

He passed a row of houses that had been rebuilt after
their collapse the previous winter. The largest was occupied by a yellow dog called Edwardus Rex, named for the King; he graciously
shared his home with Yolande de Blaston, her husband Robert and their ten children. The Blastons were so desperate for money
to feed their ever-growing brood that Robert was only too pleased his wife was able to provide extra by selling her body to
other men, and saw nothing odd in her using the family home for such purposes. Clippesby did not hire her: he was a friar,
and he took his vows of chastity seriously. He edged behind the trees opposite the house, thinking it had been some time since
he had seen Edwardus and that he should enquire after his health. Edwardus barked, and Clippesby smiled.

But it was not Clippesby that Edwardus was acknowledging: it was someone else. Intrigued as always by the steady procession
of men who made their way to Yolande’s door during the secret hours of darkness, Clippesby waited to see who had an appointment
with her that night. He grimaced when he recognised a scholar he did not like, who regularly visited Yolande and who was a
hypocrite, because he condemned others for sins he committed himself. However, he knew there was no point in exposing the
man: Clippesby’s penchant for animals meant that most people considered him a lunatic, and few believed anything he said.

The scholar carried a package under his arm, which Clippesby knew from past observations contained marchpanes for Yolande’s
children; he supposed the gift eased the man’s conscience about cavorting with their mother while they and their father slept
upstairs. When Yolande opened the door to her suitor’s soft taps, Edwardus eased past her and began sniffing the parcel. The
scholar tried to kick him, but Edwardus had been hurt by the man before, and was ready to dodge out of the way. Then the dog
stiffened and started to growl.

Clippesby raced forward as fast as he could. He heard Edwardus’s furious yaps and the scholar’s exclamation of annoyance that
he should be disturbed as he was about to enjoy himself. Then Yolande screamed, and blood spurted from a gaping wound in the
scholar’s shoulder.

‘The wolf!’ Clippesby yelled. ‘It is the wolf!’

Cambridge, Pentecost 1355

Dawn was not far off. The half-dark of an early-June night was already fading to the silver greys of morning, and the Fen-edge
town was beginning to wake. Low voices could be heard along some of the streets as scholars and friars left their hostels
to attend prime, and an eager cockerel crowed its warning of impending day. Matthew Bartholomew, Master of Medicine and Fellow
of Michaelhouse, knew he had lingered too long in Matilde’s house and that he needed to be careful if he did not want to be
seen. He opened her door and looked cautiously in both directions, before slipping out and closing it softly behind him. Then
he strode briskly, aiming to put as much distance between him and his friend as possible. He knew exactly what people would
say if they saw him leaving the home of an unmarried woman – some would say a courtesan – at such an unseemly time.

He slowed when he emerged from the jumble of narrow alleys known as the Jewry and turned into the High Street. The elegant
premises of the University’s stationer stood opposite, and Bartholomew detected a flicker of movement behind a window. He
grimaced. If John Weasenham or his wife Alyce had spotted him, he was unlikely to keep his business private for long. Both
were unrepentant gossips, and the reputation of more than one scholar – innocent and otherwise – had been irrevocably tarnished
by their malicious tongues.

Once away from Weasenham’s shop, he began to relax. The High Street was one of the town’s main thoroughfares, and Bartholomew
was a busy physician with plenty of patients. Anyone who saw him now would assume he had been visiting one, and would never
imagine that he had spent the night with the leader of and spokeswoman for the town’s unofficial guild of prostitutes. The
University forbade contact between scholars and women, partly because it followed monastic rules and its Colleges and halls
were the exclusive domain of men, but also because prevention was better than cure: the Chancellor knew what would happen
if his scholars seduced town wives, daughters and sisters, so declaring the entire female population off limits was a sensible
way to suppress trouble before it began. However, rules could be broken, and even the prospect of heavy fines and imprisonment
did not deter some scholars from chancing their hands.

It was not far to Michaelhouse, where Bartholomew lived and worked, and the journey took no time at all when the streets were
quiet. When he reached St Michael’s Lane, he continued past his College’s front gates and aimed for a little-used door farther
along the alley. He had left it ajar the previous evening, intending to slip inside without being obliged to explain to the
night porter where he had been. He was startled and not very amused to find it locked. Puzzled, he gave it a good rattle in
the hope that it was only stuck, but he could see through the gaps in its wooden panels that a stout bar had been placed across
the other side.

He retraced his steps, wondering which of the students – or Fellows, for that matter – had crept out of the college the night
before and secured the door when he had returned. Or had someone simply noticed it unbarred during a nocturnal stroll in the
gardens and done the responsible thing? It was a nuisance: Bartholomew had been using
it for ten days now, and did not want to go to the trouble of devising another way to steal inside the College undetected.
He walked past the main gates a second time, and headed for nearby St Michael’s Church. All Michaelhouse men were obliged
to attend daily religious offices, and no one would question a scholar who began his devotions early – particularly at Pentecost,
which was a major festival. He wrestled with the temperamental latch on the porch door, then entered.

Although summer was in the air, it was cold inside St Michael’s. Its stone walls and floors oozed a damp chill that carried
echoes of winter, and Bartholomew shivered. He walked to the chancel and dropped to his knees, knowing he would not have long
to wait before his colleagues appeared. Smothering a yawn, he wondered how much longer he could survive such sleepless nights,
when his days were full of teaching and patients. He had fallen asleep at breakfast the previous morning, a mishap that had
not gone unnoticed by the Master. He was not entirely sure Ralph de Langelee had believed him when he claimed he had been
with a sick patient all night.

The sudden clank of the latch was loud in the otherwise silent church, and Bartholomew felt himself jerk awake. He scrubbed
hard at his eyes and took a deep breath as he stood, hoping he would not drop off during the service. The soft slap of leather
soles on flagstones heralded the arrival of his fellow scholars; they were led by Master Langelee, followed closely by the
Fellows. The students were behind them, while the commoners – men too old or infirm to teach, or visitors from other academic
institutions – brought up the rear. They arranged themselves into rows, and Bartholomew took his usual place between Brother
Michael and Father William.

‘Where have you been?’ demanded William in a low hiss. William was a Franciscan who taught theology, a large,
dirty man who had fanatical opinions about virtually everything. ‘You left shortly after dusk and have been gone ever since.’

His voice was indignant, as if Bartholomew’s absence was a personal affront, and the physician wondered whether it was he
who had barred the door. William was narrow minded and intolerant when it came to University rules, despite the fact that
he did not always heed them scrupulously himself.

‘Fever,’ he replied shortly. William had no right to question him: that was the Master’s prerogative – and Langelee was mercifully
accommodating when it came to the activities of a physician with a long list of needy customers. He encouraged Bartholomew
to treat the town’s poor, in the hope that this might induce some of them to spare Michaelhouse during the town’s frequent
and often highly destructive riots.

‘What kind of fever?’ asked William uneasily.

‘A serious one,’ replied Bartholomew pointedly, wishing the Franciscan would begin his prayers. He did not want to elaborate
on his story – and he certainly could not tell the truth.

‘Fatal?’ asked William, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve. His voice went from accusing to alarmed. ‘Is it the Death?
There are rumours that it is coming a second time. Not enough folk mended their wicked ways, and God is still angry with them.’

Bartholomew smiled despite his irritation, amused by the way that William did not consider himself one of those with ‘wicked
ways’. ‘It is not the plague.’

‘Then who has this fever? Anyone I know?’

‘A labourer – one of the men hired to clean the town for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Visitation next week.’ This was true:
he had indeed been summoned to tend one of the hollow-eyed peasants who worked all day for the
price of a meal. He had physicked the fellow before visiting Matilde.

‘I do not mingle with such folk,’ said William loftily – and wholly untruthfully, since meeting the poor was unavoidable in
a small town like Cambridge, and William was not a callous man, despite his pretensions of grandeur. ‘They are beneath the
dignity of the Keeper of the University Chest and Cambridge’s best theologian.’ Smugly proud of himself, he turned his attention
to his devotions.

‘That is not how
I
would describe him,’ muttered Brother Michael, who had been listening. ‘Well, he
is
the Keeper of the University Chest, but he is no more a theologian than is Matilde.’

Bartholomew glanced sharply at him, and could tell from the sly gleam in the monk’s eyes that more was known about his nocturnal
forays than he would have liked. The obese Benedictine held the post of the University’s Senior Proctor, and was responsible
for maintaining law and order among the scholars and a good deal more besides. He had a legion of beadles who patrolled the
streets, hunting out students who broke the University’s strict rules – and any academic caught in a tavern or fraternising
with women could expect a hefty fine. Bartholomew supposed that one of the beadles had spotted him visiting Matilde, and had
reported the transgression to Michael.

Bartholomew was not only Michael’s closest friend, but also his Corpse Examiner, which meant he was paid a fee to investigate
any sudden or unexpected deaths among members of the University or on University property. These occurred with distressing
frequency, because life in Cambridge – as in any town across the country – was fraught with danger. People were killed in
brawls; they had accidents with carts, horses and unstable buildings; they died from diseases, injuries and vagaries of the
weather; and sometimes they took their own lives. Bartholomew and
Michael explored them all, which meant that although any beadle would think twice about arresting Bartholomew for visiting
a woman, he would certainly not hesitate to tell the Senior Proctor about the event.