A Bone of Contention (21 page)

'The ring,' mused Bartholomew. He felt around in his pocket, and pulled out the broken one he had found at Godwinsson. Ts this Kenzie's ring, do you think? Did he lose it when he was skulking around Godwinsson waiting for Dominica to appear? Or is Kenzie's ring now adorning the severed hand in Valence Marie?'

Michael swilled the dregs of the wine around in the bottom of his cup before draining it in a gulp. 'We could ask the Scottish lads to have a look at the one at Valence Marie,' he said. 'They might recognise it.'

'Would that be wise? Can we trust them not to start some rumour that Kenzie's severed limb is in Valence Marie? Then we might really have a problem on our hands. So to speak.'

'They might have a point,' said Michael.

Bartholomew shook his head firmly. 'Impossible. First, Kenzie's hands were not big enough to be the one at Valence Marie — believe me, I would have noticed if someone of Kenzie's height had hands the size of that skeleton's: it would have looked bizarre to say the least.

Second, Kenzie was not wearing his ring when he was killed — he was asking Werbergh and Edred if they had it before he died.'

'Perhaps he found it after he had his conversation with Werbergh and Edred, and was wearing it when he was murdered,' said Michael with a shrug.

'I suppose he might,' said Bardiolomew after a moment, 'although there is the ring I found in Godwinsson. That might have been the one Kenzie lost.'

Michael made an impatient click with his tongue. 'The ring you found is probably nothing to do with all this. It might have been in that derelict shed for weeks — even months — before you picked it up. There could be all sorts of explanations as to why it was there — not least of which was that it was thrown away precisely because it is broken. When I looked out of the window, I saw a scullion emptying waste there. The whole yard is probably a repository for rubbish.'

'It certainly smelled that way,' said Bartholomew, grimacing. 'But regardless of whether Kenzie did or did not have his ring when he died, the hand at Valence Marie does not belong to him. I will stake my reputation on it.'

'Well now,' said Michael, regarding his friend with an amused gleam in his eye. 'It is not often you are so absolutely unshakeable over the deductions you make from corpses. You usually insist on a degree of leeway in your interpretations. So, I suppose I will have to believe you. But I am not the issue here — the David's students are. And we have a problem: the David's lads are the only ones who might recognise the ring as Kenzie's, and yet we cannot risk them identifying it as his, because a riot would follow for certain.'

'Dominica would recognise it if, as Kenzie's friends suppose, it was a gift from her,' said Bartholomew.

Michael wrinkled his nose disdainfully at the notion.

'And how would we get the permission of her parents to let her come?' he said.

The sun went behind a cloud briefly, cooling the room for an instant, before emerging again and beating down relentlessly on the dried beaten earth of the courtyard.

Bartholomew leaned forward and thought. 'Let us assume she did give Kenzie the ring,' he said. 'Where would she have got it from? I doubt she had the money to go out and buy it herself. Therefore, she must have owned it already — it had probably been given to her by her parents. I am certain that Lydgate and his wife know exactly what jewellery their daughter owns, especially valuable pieces. If Lydgate or Cecily go to see this hand, they might recognise the ring.'

'That is even more outrageous,' said Michael. 'You are even less likely to get Lydgate to view this hand than his daughter. He would refuse outright if we asked.

Sensible Cecily, meanwhile, has not yet returned to her husband, and if she has any intelligence at all, she never will. And not only that, neither of them knows that Kenzie was their daughter's lover, remember?'

Bartholomew was thoughtful for a moment. 'Your last point is irrelevant — it does not matter whether they know the identity of Dominica's lover or not for them to be able to identify the ring.'

'Your point is irrelevant,' Michael flashed back. 'Even if Lydgate can identify the ring as Dominica's, he would not tell us about it. And, as I said, sweet Cecily is still away.

Lydgate has not exactly been scouring the countryside for his loving spouse; I have the feeling that he is as relieved to be apart from her as she, doubtless, is happy to be away from him.'

'I cannot make any sense out of all this, but one thing is patently clear.' Bartholomew fiddled with the laces on his shirt. 'If the ring on Valence Marie's relic really is the one that Kenzie lost — and I do not believe he miraculously found it after speaking with the Godwinsson friars only to die without it a few hours later — then the link between Kenzie and the fraud relating to this relic is beyond question.'

'I do not deny that,' said Michael. 'It is the nature of the link that eludes me.'

Both were silent as they reconsidered the few facts they had, until Bartholomew stood, and began to drag on his tabard.

'In all the excitement of finding that disgusting hand, we forgot the reason why we were at Valence Marie in the first place,' he said. 'We still need to talk to the French students about the rape and murder of Joanna.'

'We have managed to make enemies of the Principals of Godwinsson and Valence Marie both,' said Michael. 'I doubt very much if Thorpe will cooperate with you. He will assume you are still trying to prove his relic a fake — and after our experience earlier, I would be happier if you stayed well away from Valence Marie and their nasty bones.'

Bartholomew hesitated, recalling vividly the unmistakeably hostile atmosphere at Valence Marie. After a moment, he brightened. 'You are right about Thorpe, but there are others. One of the Fellows there is Father Eligius, and he is one of my patients. We have always been on friendly terms. He will help me if I ask.'

Michael eyed him dubiously. 'I know Eligius, too, and he looked to me like one of those most convinced of the hand's authenticity. He appeared positively fanatical. I cannot see that he would help you if he thought the outcome might be the discovery that the relic is a fake regardless of your motives for asking the questions. And I cannot see him abandoning loyalty to his fellow members of College to allow you to prove some of them committed murder.'

'I will try anyway,' said Bartholomew, picking up his bag from the floor. He slipped the Galen into it so he would have something to read if Eligius kept him waiting. 'I have patients to see. I can try Eligius afterwards.'

'Try if you must,' said Michael, leaning back on the bed and closing his eyes, 'but be careful. I would go with you, but it is too hot, I am tired from patrolling last night, and I have no reason to believe you will be successful in discovering the murderer of this woman.'

Bartholomew shrugged off Michael's apathy and left the College for the High Street. Two of the more seriously injured riot victims still needed his attention, and he wanted to see Mistress Fletcher, one of the first people he had treated in Cambridge, now dying of a disease of the lungs despite all his efforts. He tapped lightly on her door and climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the upper chamber where she lay in her bed. Her husband and two sons sat with her, one strumming aimlessly on a badly tuned rebec. They stood as Bartholomew entered and Fletcher moved towards him.

'Please, Doctor,' he said. He gestured at his wife lying on the bed, her breathing a papery rustle. 'She needs to be bled.'

Bartholomew experienced a familiar feeling of exasperation at the mention of bleeding. It was an argument he had had with many of his patients, most of whom believed bleeding would cure virtually anything.

He looked down at the sick woman with compassion, and his resolve hardened. She was dying anyway and invasive treatments now would merely serve to make her last few days miserable. He had brought a strong pain-killer that would help her through to the end without too much discomfort. He sent one of her sons for a cup of watered wine then crumbled the strong powder into it. Kneeling next to her, he helped her sip it until she had drunk it all. She lay back, the potion already easing the pain in her chest, and smiled gratefully.

'We could call Robin of Grantchester,' said Fletcher.

'He bleeds people for a penny, and applies leeches for two pennies.'

'It is very cheap,' added one of her sons hopefully.

'I am sure it is,' said Bartholomew, determined that the unsanitary surgeon would never set his blood-encrusted hands on poor Mistress Fletcher while he had breath in his body to prevent it.

The sick woman made a weak gesture and her husband bent to hear her. 'Please let Doctor Bartholomew treat me as he sees fit. He has already eased my chest. I want no leeches and no bleeding.'

Her husband stood again, awkwardly. 'I am sorry,' he said to Bartholomew. 'But this is difficult for us. I would do anything to give her a little more time.'

'She does not want it,' said Bartholomew gently. 'Not like this.'

Fletcher gazed down at his wife and said nothing.

Seeing his patient asleep, her breathing less laboured than it had been, Bartholomew took his leave.

The street was almost as deserted as it had been the previous night: there were few who cared to venture out into the burning heat of the mid-afternoon sun. After only a short distance, the tickle of perspiration begin to prick at Bartholomew's back and he felt uncomfortably hot. He removed the tabard and shoved it into his bag. Guy Heppel could fine him for not wearing it, but the comfort of shirtsleeves would be worth it.

After visiting the two riot victims, Bartholomew walked towards Valence Marie, hoping to waylay Father Eligius as he left Valence Marie to attend terce at St Botolph's Church. Bartholomew was subdued because of his helplessness in treating Mistress Fletcher. He wondered what it was that caused wasting sicknesses in the chest and how they could be prevented. The more patients he saw and experience he gained, the more he realised how little he knew; the lack of knowledge depressed him.

When Father Eligius told him Valence Marie's French students had left that morning for London, Bartholomew grew even more dispirited. He walked past the town boundary, making his way across the meadows that led down to the river behind the Church of St Peter-without Trumpington Gate. Reaching a cluster of oak trees, he stopped, dropped his bag, and sat with his back against one of the sturdy trunks. He squinted up into the branches, where the breeze played lazily with green leaves beginning to turn yellow. It was cooler in the meadow than in the town and the air smelled cleaner. It was also peaceful, with just the occasional raucous screech from a pair of jays that lived in one of the oaks and distant high-pitched chatter from children playing in the river to break the silence.

He thought about Kenzie, a young Scot who had had the misfortune to fall in love with a woman whose father would never accept him, and who was forced to keep his relationship secret. So who had killed him? Was it Dominica's angry father? Was it her mother? Since it did not take a great feat of strength to brain a man from behind, Bartholomew knew that a woman could have slain Kenzie as easily as a man. Perhaps Cecily's guilt was the real reason for her sudden flight from home.

Were the killers the friars from Godwinsson, who were the last people known to have seen Kenzie alive? Was his death a random killing by someone intent on theft? And if so, was it Kenzie's ring that adorned Valence Marie's relic? But why had the two French students been ushered out of Godwinsson when Michael had asked to speak to them? Perhaps they were the murderers, and not the friars at all.

And what of poor Joanna? She had been buried at dawn that morning in a cheap coffin paid for by the town, like the other town victims of the riot. Bartholomew had attended the funerals after mass at St Michael's, but he had been the only mourner for Joanna. While the family and friends of the other victims stood around the graves in St Botolph's churchyard, Bartholomew had stood alone, watching the verger shovel dry earth on top of Joanna.

He wondered whether her friends and family even knew that she was dead. If no one had cared enough to attend her funeral, certainly no one cared enough to avenge her murder. Michael had said it was none of the University's affair, and anyway, the University was not in the business of hunting down its students for a crime on a victim that no one claimed; and Tulyet had neither the time nor the manpower.

Bartholomew stretched his legs out in front of him, and closed his eyes. Godwinsson, David's, Valence Marie and Maud's. All four seemed to be interconnected somehow with the murders of Kenzie or Joanna. And the dead child? Somehow he had been overlooked in all this. He had been buried the day before, his bones bundled up in a dirty sheet and thrust into a shallow grave in St Bene't's churchyard. A small mound of brown earth marked the site now, but in a few weeks it would be gone, and he would be forgotten again, just as he had been all those years before.

That thought brought a picture of Norbert into his mind, and Bartholomew smiled. It had been his only serious act of disobedience in Stanmore's household but one that he still felt was just. Did Lydgate know that Bartholomew had finally revealed his long-kept secret?

Although the crime was twenty-five years old, there were still many who would remember it, and the hunt that had taken place for Norbert the following day. Bartholomew winced. That had been an unpleasant day for him, wondering whether vengeful villagers would return with Norbert captive to reveal who had let him escape.

Bartholomew wondered what he should do next. Should he follow the advice of Michael and Tulyet, and forget Joanna? The French students at Valence Marie had gone, so the only way forward was for him to talk to the two at Godwinsson. He knew their names and their faces, which meant he would not have to ask to see them through Lydgate. He stood up and reached for his bag, determining upon a course of action. The ailing Mistress Fletcher lived close enough to Godwinsson to allow Bartholomew to be nearby a good deal without arousing suspicion. He could even see Godwinsson from the windows on her upper floor. Starting tomorrow, he decided he would stay with Mistress Fletcher until he saw the Frenchmen leave, then follow until they reached a convenient place for him to confront them.