The Mark of a Murderer (51 page)

‘We did not know how,’ said Eudo resentfully. ‘We tried holding the limb in the air, we hunted for leeches in the cistern,
but nothing worked. Meanwhile, Tulyet’s brat was watching everything.’

‘Dickon,’ mused Michael. ‘So, it was Chesterfelde’s death he saw – the splashing he mentioned was you searching for leeches,
not the sound of Hamecotes’s corpse being dropped down the well. He identified you as the killer, but was vague about the
victim.’

‘He shot me later,’ said Eudo resentfully. ‘Evil little tyke. I will put an end to his violent antics when I am reinstated
as tenant of Merton Hall. He will not spy on me again.’

‘
I
was not drunk,’ said Boltone. ‘Well, not very, and the brat cannot have me blamed for what happened to Chesterfelde.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Michael. ‘Exactly.’

‘Eudo frightened Chesterfelde with his fury over Duraunt’s inspection. It made him cut himself over-vigorously – to demonstrate
the extent of his kinship with us.’

‘He should not have used such a large dagger,’ said Eudo, sounding more indignant than sorry. ‘It was unwieldy and he was
clumsy from wine. He should have used my little knife instead.’

‘And then you tried to make the accident look like murder, by dumping his body in the hall with the dagger in his back,’ surmised
Michael. ‘His Oxford companions were all drunk, too, so they slept through the racket you must have made.’

‘Except Polmorva,’ said Eudo. ‘The others were all snoring but he saw what we were doing. He promised to say nothing, in return
for certain favours.’

‘It was Eudo’s idea,’ said Boltone bitterly, before Michael could ask what favours the sly scholar had demanded. ‘He said
if we left Chesterfelde’s body in their midst, the Oxford men would be blamed for his death, and we would not.’

‘Your only crimes are dishonesty and stupidity,’ said the monk, disgusted with them both. ‘You are innocent of murder, and
it was just unfortunate coincidence that someone used your cistern as a grave for Hamecotes, not knowing it was where you
kept your hoard.’

‘We
have
no hoard,’ insisted Eudo. ‘I keep telling you: we had nothing to do with that.’

‘You stole Matilde’s silver dog.’

‘I visited her for a remedy – my woman will not lie with me as long as she has female pains; I gave Alyce the cure, but she
still only has eyes for Ralph de Langelee – but I stole nothing from Matilde.’

Michael glanced at Weasenham, who sat scratching out his proclamations and weeping softly. ‘Go,’ the monk said to Eudo and
Boltone, pointing to the door. ‘Leave Cambridge while you can.’

‘I will not, and I will kill anyone who tries to make me,’ Eudo shouted, brandishing the crossbow in a way that made his prisoners
flinch in alarm. ‘No one saw you coming here – I watched you sneaking down the lane myself – and no one saw us, either. Therefore,
no one will know it was us who killed you.’ He looked pleased with his logic.

‘Weasenham will know,’ Michael pointed out. He rested a heavy forearm on one of the shelves and gave it a nudge to test its
stability. Bartholomew saw what he intended to do, and started to edge slowly along the bench towards him.

‘He will die, too,’ said Eudo coldly. ‘He has almost finished what he is writing, and we have no further need of his services.’

‘No!’ shrieked Weasenham. ‘You said I would live if I did what you asked. You promised!’

‘That was before
they
arrived,’ snapped Eudo. ‘I cannot release a witness to their deaths.’

‘I can keep secrets!’ howled Weasenham. ‘I have kept
the one about Bartholomew visiting Matilde. Ask Brother Michael. I have not breathed a word about that to anyone.’

‘Finish that document, and let us bring an end to this,’ said Eudo, unbarring the door to glance outside. Bartholomew saw
the streets were becoming busy, as people flocked towards the Market Square, and there was an atmosphere of excitement in
the rattle of many footsteps. He eased closer towards the shelves, gradually slipping down the slick surface of the bench,
and trying not to let Eudo see what he was doing. ‘We have one of those proclamations for every scholar, priest and clerk
in the town, and a copy is sure to reach the Archbishop. He will recognise the truth and will take our case before the King.’

‘He will not,’ said Michael scornfully. ‘And it will be obvious who killed Weasenham, since this parchment – covered in
his
writing – is to be distributed throughout the town. It is a ludicrous plan.’

‘You see?’ demanded Boltone of Eudo. ‘I told you it would not work.’

‘It
would
have done, if these scholars had not spoiled it,’ snarled Eudo. A thought occurred to him, and a wicked smile crossed his
face. ‘We will shoot them first, then set the shop alight. All anyone will find is charred corpses, and no one will ever know
what really happened.’

‘But murder, Eudo!’ whispered Boltone. ‘And the Proctor is a monk, a man of God.’

‘We have no choice. If you let them live, you will hang. Do you want to die just because you are too frightened to loose a
judicious arrow against men who put us in this situation in the first place?’

Boltone was obviously unhappy, but the increasing clamour in the street and its sense of urgency was beginning to rob him
of his common sense. He nodded reluctant agreement.

‘Good,’ said Eudo, flexing his fingers around his bow. ‘Then we must hurry, because we are running out of time. You shoot
Bartholomew and I will kill the monk. Then we will reload and dispatch Weasenham and Rougham, who are weaker and less likely
to stop us. Ready?’

As one, he and Boltone raised their weapons and pointed them at the scholars.

‘Now!’ shouted Michael, flinging himself backwards as hard as he could. Bartholomew did likewise, at the same instant that
Boltone released his quarrel. The physician heard a snap and something hit his chest before he fell. For a moment, he felt
nothing, then there was a dull throb. When he glanced down, his clothes were stained red, and he realised he had been hit.

Meanwhile, his and Michael’s combined weight had been more than the shelves could support. With a tearing groan, they came
away from their moorings and toppled, sending their contents skittering across the room. Bottles smashed, pens tapped on the
wooden floor, and parchments soared from their neat piles like birds, covering the shop with a carpet of cream. Eudo began
to reload, regarding first Michael and then Bartholomew with an expression of hatred, while Boltone was momentarily stunned
by a box that had struck his head.

‘Michael!’ Bartholomew gasped, knowing the monk could disarm Eudo if he moved fast enough. It took a moment or two to wind
a crossbow.

But Michael wallowed with agonising helplessness among the inkwells and scrolls, and seemed unable to climb to his feet. Bartholomew
was sharply reminded of Brother Thomas’s prediction that the monk’s obesity would bring about his friend’s death, and was
appalled it should come true quite so soon. He saw Boltone shake his head to clear it, then scramble towards the weapon he
had
dropped. The physician managed to reach it first, struggling to keep hold of it while the bailiff tried to snatch it back.

‘Michael!’ he yelled again, watching Eudo load his weapon with all the time in the world. But Michael only rolled this way
and that, like a landed fish among the sea of parchment.

Weasenham dived under a table with a petrified squeak, and it was left to Rougham to pick up a stone inkwell and lob it with
his failing strength. It hit Eudo square in the face, and felled him as cleanly as any arrow. Boltone gazed at his fallen
colleague in horrified disbelief, then abandoned his skirmish with Bartholomew to dart across the room, wrench open the door
and flee as fast as his legs could carry him. Weasenham emerged from under the table to grab Eudo’s weapon, but the man was
deeply insensible, and posed no further threat. Rougham appealed to Bartholomew.

‘I am feeling most unwell. Will you mix me a physic?’

‘Never mind you!’ shouted Michael furiously, finally upright. ‘What about Matt? He has been shot and is drenched in blood.’

‘Ink,’ said Rougham dismissively. ‘Weasenham threw it. He was actually aiming at Eudo and, since he missed his intended target,
I was obliged to hurl a pot myself. I always say that if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself, and this
is just a case in point.’

‘But I saw the bolt fly loose,’ said Michael, while Bartholomew regarded the mess on his best tabard in dismay. He doubted
it could be washed out.

‘It is lodged in the ceiling,’ said Weasenham, pointing with an unsteady finger. ‘Eudo is no better a marksman than I am,
it seems.’

‘Tend me, please, Bartholomew,’ begged Rougham. ‘Before Weasenham really does have a corpse in his shop.’

The stationer, relieved and grateful that he had escaped with his life, offered his own bed to the invalid, which was accepted
with poor grace – Rougham claimed he did not want to return to Gonville a few houses at a time. But he slept readily enough,
and Bartholomew thought he should be able to complete his journey the following day. Meanwhile, Michael went to summon beadles
to collect Eudo before the tenant regained his senses. He found Tulyet first, and they returned within moments. The Sheriff,
clad in his finest clothes, stepped carefully through the rainbow spillages that adorned Weasenham’s once-pristine floor.

‘So,’ he said, watching his men haul Eudo away. ‘You deliver me a pair of thieves, but no killer.’

‘A
pair
of thieves?’ asked Michael. ‘You caught Boltone?’

‘He ran right into my arms. He was covered in blood – just like you, Matt. Are you hurt?’

‘My best red ink,’ said Weasenham sadly, gazing at Bartholomew’s tabard as though he was contemplating wringing it out to
see what he could salvage. ‘What a waste! You will not get it off, either, and Agatha will be furious. Do not tell her it
happened in my shop. I do not want her storming in and waving her sword at
my
throat.’

‘How do you know she has a sword?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘I have seen it. She thinks she can slip past my house unseen when she goes to her lover, but she cannot. I know the way she
walks, even when she wears Langelee’s cloak.’

‘My cloak?’ came a familiar voice from the doorway. It was Michaelhouse’s Master, and Alyce Weasenham was behind him. ‘Why
would Agatha wear my cloak?’

‘Where have you been?’ Weasenham demanded of Alyce. ‘You said you would only be gone an hour, and you have been away all night.’

Langelee had the grace to blush, but Alyce began a
convoluted tale about being caught in a spring shower, taking shelter in a church, and then waking to find herself locked
in.

‘I have only just been released,’ she concluded defiantly, while Tulyet raised laconic eyebrows and Michael sniggered.

‘It is true,’ said Langelee, gallantly stepping in to defend her virtue. ‘We did indeed pass the . . .’ He trailed off as
Alyce shot him a withering glance.

‘
We?
’ asked Weasenham immediately. ‘You mean you were with her?’

‘Fortunately, yes,’ said Langelee, brazening it out. ‘I was able to reassure her that she would be reunited with you at first
light, or she may have become hysterical.’

Alyce did not look like the kind of person who would lose her wits about being shut in a church, but no one said anything,
and there was a short, uncomfortable silence. Then Langelee muttered something about being wanted at Michaelhouse, and escaped
while he was still able.

‘I needed you last night, Alyce,’ said Weasenham reproachfully. ‘I have been held hostage for hours, and I kept expecting
you to come and rescue me. In the end Michael, Bartholomew and Rougham obliged, although they made a dreadful mess as they
did so.’

Alyce gazed around her. ‘This will not impress the Archbishop, and the word is that he is less than a mile outside the town.
He will be here at any moment.’

‘That is true,’ said Tulyet, moving towards the door. ‘And we still have a great deal to do. The Visitation will have to take
place with this killer on the loose, because I do not think Eudo and Boltone are our culprits. They are not clever enough.’

‘No,’ agreed Michael. ‘They were with Chesterfelde when he died, and tried to have the Oxford men blamed
for it, but they did not kill Hamecotes, Gonerby or Okehamptone, and nor did they frighten Spryngheuse into taking his own
life. Our list of suspects is growing shorter.’

‘Who is still on it?’ asked Tulyet.

‘Polmorva, Duraunt and the merchants,’ said Michael. ‘And some of the Fellows from King’s Hall – Norton, Wolf and Dodenho,
whose silver astrolabe ended up in Eudo’s hoard.’

‘I have no idea what happened to that,’ mused Weasenham. ‘It was a pretty thing, so I put it in my chest upstairs, but . .
.’ He realised what he had just admitted in front of the Sheriff and the Senior Proctor, and the colour drained from his face
yet again. Bartholomew felt sorry for him: he was not having a good morning.

‘You swore you had handed
all
your findings to me,’ said Tulyet sternly. ‘Now you confess that you kept certain articles?’

‘Only the astrolabe,’ protested Weasenham, horrified at himself. ‘And only briefly – I do not have it now. Alyce thinks one
of our customers must have made off with it.’

Tulyet grimaced in disgust, then turned to Michael. ‘Who else have you eliminated from your enquiries, other than Eudo and
Boltone?’

‘Clippesby. He was with Matt when one attack took place, so he is in the clear.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Tulyet. ‘Brother Paul sent me a message saying he escaped last night.’

‘I have no idea,’ said Michael.

‘Well, you should find him as soon as possible,’ advised Tulyet. ‘Personally, I believe we are not looking for a single killer,
but a man who uses others to help him. It is the only way he could have perpetrated all these evil deeds, and you may find
Clippesby is his accomplice.’

‘I do not think so,’ said Bartholomew, although he was aware of an uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Surely, Clippesby could not be guilty after all they had been through?