A Bone of Contention (29 page)

'But even if Thomas is innocent of Dominica's death, I fear him still,' said Cecily, her expression a curious mixture of defiance and unease. 'How can I be sure that you will not tell Thomas where 1 am?'

'Why would I? I do not like him.'

'You do not like me either.'

That was certainly true. 'But if I informed your husband of your whereabouts, you could have your own revenge by telling Bigod that I overheard part of his conversation.'

She nodded, appreciating his point. 'So, we have a bargain, she said. 'I allow you to leave unmolested and keep from Master Bigod that you were hiding here, while you do not tell anyone where I am, and will investigate the death of my daughter. It seems evenly balanced, would you not saw?'

Bartholomew agreed cautiously. 'Evenly enough. But when I return to Michaelhouse, I will write a letter to Thomas Lydgate telling him of our conversation and of your whereabouts. I will seal it, and leave it with a trusted friend with orders that in the event of my unexplained death or disappearance, it is to be given to him.'

Anger glittered in her eyes for a moment and then was gone. She nodded, begrudgingly accepting his wariness.

'Then be careful, Doctor Bartholomew. Do not disappear or die in your investigations. Although I am well hidden here, there is only one way out, and I do not relish the idea of being trapped in this dungeon if Thomas were to discover my whereabouts.'

'Nor would I,' said Bartholomew with a shudder. 'What an unpleasant place. Could Bigod not have found you somewhere more conducive?'

Cecily looked away, and Bartholomew detected an unsteadiness in her voice when she spoke. 'I wondered whether he might allow me to share the chamber he has on the upper floor but he insists this one is safer for me.

I am grateful for his help but I sense I am more of a hindrance to him than a welcome guest. I am not sure I would have fled to him had I known he would recommend I stay here. It reminds me too much of Dominica.'

Personally, Bartholomew would have asked Bigod to lend him some money and left the area for good had he been in Cecily's position, but he imagined she was probably afraid to stray too far from the place where she had lived all her life. Bartholomew was unusual in that he had travelled quite extensively: most people did not if they could help it, considering it an unnecessary risk.

Cecily looked at the open trapdoor in the floor and gave a short, bitter laugh. 'This place was never intended to be a prison, you know. Before this house came into the possession of the Bigod family, it was owned by Jewish merchants. They built this secret chamber during the events that led to their expulsion in 1290, intending it to be a refuge if they were ever attacked. But it has become a prison now. First for Dominica and now for me. And both, ultimately, because of Thomas.'

One part of Bartholomew's mind had been listening for sounds from the hall above. It had been silent for some time now. Cecily saw him glance up at the trapdoor, and nodded.

'On Sundays, the old lady likes a tour of her manor.

The entire household is obliged to be in attendance and the whole affair might take several hours. Go now, ‹ Bartholomew. To the north of the house, behind the stable, you will find a path that leads to the river without passing through the village. Wait! Take this!'

She held out her hand. A silver ring lay there, with a blue-green stone. He looked at her bewildered. How many of these things were there? 'There were two,' she said, as if reading his thoughts.

'Lover's rings and identical, except for the size.' She gave a wry smile. 'I am not a fool, Bartholomew. I know why Dominica claimed she lost one ring and clung so dearly to the other. And you mentioned that Master Bigod may have been looking for a ring — perhaps Thomas asked him to look for the one Dominica says she lost.' She dropped the ring in Bartholomew's palm. 'I took that from her the night I sent her here. I have worn it since her murder.

Take it. It might help you find the foul beast who killed her — perhaps this lover of hers that she went to such extremes to conceal from us. Who knows? Perhaps he may be foolish enough to wear her ring still, and now you will be able to recognise it from its fellow.'

Bartholomew put the ring into one of the pouches in his medicine bag. fie climbed the ladder, and opened the trapdoor a crack. Cecily waited below. She was right: the hall was abandoned. He clambered out, and helped her lo follow. In the gloom, he glimpsed her face, white and shiny with tears. She looked away, embarrassed. He left her behind the service screen and slipped stealthily across the hall towards the door.

'Hey!'

Bartholomew froze in horror as a group of men entered the hall. He ducked under one of the trestle-tables, but it was an inadequate hiding place at best, and his heart pounded against his ribs in anticipation of being dragged out. The men were not servants, but mercenaries, probably the ones who, according to Cecily, had been looking for him earlier.

'Just stop that!' came the voice again, loud in indignation as a conical helmet bounced on the floor. The speaker stooped to retrieve it, so close that Bartholomew was treated to a strong waft of his bad breath. It was all over now! It had to be!

A piercing scream tore through the air, and all eyes were drawn to the screen at the end of the hall. Bartholomew rubbed ran a hand through his hair wearily.

It had not taken Mistress Lydgate long to renege on their agreement. But what else could he have done? He could not have killed her in cold blood, and locking her in the underground chamber would only have given him a few hours at most until Bigod came to seek him out. Perhaps he should have done just that and fled Cambridge for London or York. Now he was about to be dispatched by Cecily instead — not by her own hand it was true, but the outcome would be the same.

The screamed petered out. 'A rat! A rat!' came a wavery voice.

The soldiers looked at each other and grinned or grimaced, depending on their tolerance.

'A rat!' muttered the one whose helmet had been knocked from his head. 'Blasted woman.'

'There it goes! After it!' Cecily screeched. 'Oafs! Catch it!'

With rebellious mutterings, the men shuffled in the direction she was pointing up the spiral stair, until the hall was empty. Bartholomew emerged, still shaking, from his hiding place and slipped out of the door. As he left, he raised his hand in a silent salute of thanks to Cecily, who gave him a weak smile, and followed the men up the stairs.

Outside, the yard was empty; Bartholomew easily found the path Cecily had told him to take. He forced his stiff legs into a trot, continuing to run until he reached the river. He splashed across it, his haste making him careless, so that he missed his footing on one of the slippery rocks in the river bed and fell. Coughing and choking, he regained his feet and continued across, grateful he did not have the copy of Galen in his bag as he had done for the past few days. The water was very cold and the path had led him to a deeper part of the river than where he had crossed that morning.

He scrambled up the opposite bank, and crashed through the undergrowth until he reached the path that led to Cambridge. He began to race along it, hoping that the vigorous movement would restore some warmth to his body, but then slowed. He should be more careful.

Bigod was also likely to use this path if he intended to return to town. Perhaps he was already on it, and Bartholomew had no wish to run into him. He stopped ' and listened intently, but heard nothing except for the dripping of leaves from the morning's rain, and the sott gurgle of the river. Cautiously, he began to move forward again, stopping every few steps to listen. Voices carried on the still air forced him to hide in the dripping undergrowth twice, but the only travellers on the path on a wet Sunday afternoon were three boys returning from a fishing trip, and a small party of friars bound for a retreat in the woods.

The light was beginning to fade when the high walls of Michaelhouse came into view. He tried the small back door that led into the orchard, but it was firmly barred.

The Master, wisely, was taking no chances of unwanted visitors in his grounds while the town was in such a ferment of unrest. Bartholomew knocked on the front gates to be allowed in, ignoring the interested attention of the day porters as he squelched across the yard to his room.

'Matt! Where have you been?' demanded Michael, standing up from where he had been reading at Bartholomew's table. 'What a state you are in! What have you been doing?'

'What are you doing here?' Bartholomew responded with a question of his own, slinging down his bag and beginning to remove his wet clothes.

'Waiting for you! What does it look like? Where were you?'

'Out walking,' said Bartholomew non-committally. He had not yet considered how he would tell Michael what he had discovered without breaking his promise to Cecily to keep her whereabouts a secret.

'Out swimming more like!' retorted Michael, looking at Bartholomew's sopping clothes and dripping hair. 'What have you been doing?'

Bartholomew swung round to face him, irritated by the monk's persistent prying. 'Do you think the Proctor should know the comings and goings of all?'

Michael looked taken aback by his outburst, but then became angry himself. 'Walter said you left before dawn to go walking in the rain with no cloak. What do you expect me to think? We know about your badly aligned stars. I was worried.'

Bartholomew relented. 'I am sorry. I did not mean to cause trouble. But there is no need for all this concern, from you or anyone else. You are constantly demanding my expertise as the University's senior physician, so listen to me now — there is nothing wrong with me. Gray has never yet made the correct calculations for an astrological consultation — quite aside from the fact that he does not have the necessary information about me even to begin such a task. And you know I doubt the validity of astrological consultations, anyway. I cannot imagine why you are so ready to believe Gray over me.' He went to the water jug, but it had not been refilled that day. 'Where is Cynric?'

'Looking for you,' Michael said waspishly. 'And keep your voice down if you must hold such unorthodox views, or Father William will hear you, and then you will be in trouble.' He sat down again. 'Have you been looking into the death of that prostitute? I thought you may have gone to see Lady Matilde, but she said she has not seen you since yesterday, while the Tyler women complain bitterly that they have not set eyes on you since the night you were attacked. What have you been doing? You have certainly been up to more than a walk. Will you tell me?'

Bartholomew shook his head impatiently. He was tired and needed to think first, to work some sense into the jumble of information he had gathered before passing it to Michael. Such as the identity of the man whose voice was familiar, who had decreed that there will be a riot on Thursday.

'Then go to bed, Matt!' said Michael, throwing up his hands in exasperation. 'We will talk again in the morning.'

He left, and Bartholomew slipped his hand into his medicine bag, withdrawing the ring that Cecily Lydgate had given him. He looked at it for a moment, before feeling in the sleeve of his gown for the broken ring he had found at Godwinsson. He put them together. They were almost identical, except for the missing stone and the size. What did that tell him? That the light-fingered friar Edred had stolen Kenzie's ring and ground it under his heel in anger when he realised it belonged to his Principal's wife? That Kenzie had lost it while he waited in Godwinsson's shed like a moonstruck calf, hoping for a glimpse of his lover through the windows of her house?

That Kenzie had somehow found his ring, only to have it stolen again after his death, and placed on the skeletal hand at Valence Marie? But Werbergh had said that Kenzie had come to him and Edred to ask if they had it. Werbergh believed Edred had taken it, and the fact that Kenzie was prepared to risk a confrontation with the friars to ask for it led Bartholomew to deduce that he could not have been wearing it when he died.

Bartholomew rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and the time spent crouching in the chest had taken a greater toll on him than he realised. He washed away the smell of the river as best he could in the drop of water left from the morning, and lay down on the bed, huddling under the blankets. He was on the edge of sleep when he remembered he had left the rings on the table.

Reluctantly, he climbed out of bed, and dropped them both back into the sleeve of his gown. It was not an original hiding place but one that would have to do until he found a better one.

He was asleep within moments. Michael waited until his breathing became regular then stole back into the room. He smiled when he saw Bartholomew's gown had been moved slightly, and slipped his hand down inside the sleeve. It would not be the first time that his friend had used the wide sleeves of his scholar's gown to hide things. He froze as Bartholomew muttered something and stirred in his sleep, although Michael was not seriously worried about waking him. There were few who slept as heavily as the physician, even when he was not exhausted from a day's mysterious labours.

The rings glinted dimly silver in Michael's palm. He stopped himself from whistling. The broken one he had seen already and had dismissed as something of little importance. But it was important now, with a second, virtually identical, ring beside it. He looked to where Bartholomew slept and wondered how he had come to have it. He shrugged mentally letting the rings fall back inside Bartholomew's sleeve. He would ask him tomorrow, when he told him that there had been more trouble at Godwinsson Hostel that day, and that Brother Werbergh lay dead in St Andrew's Church.

In the parish church of St.Andrew, Werbergh lay on a trestle-table behind the altar. A tallow candle spluttered near his head, adding its own odour to the overpowering scent of cheap incense and death. Michael had been told that Werbergh's colleagues had agreed to undertake a vigil for him until his funeral the following day, but the church was deserted.

It was late afternoon, the day's teaching was completed, and the students had been given their freedom. Orange rays slanted through the traceried windows making intricate patterns on the floor, although the eastern-facing altar end of the church was gloomy. Bartholomew picked up the candle so that he could see the body better, while Michael wedged himself into a semicircular niche that had been intended to hold a statue before the church-builders had run out of money.

Someone had been to considerable trouble to give Werbergh a modicum of dignity during his last hours above ground. His hair had been brushed and trimmed and his gown had been carefully cleaned. Bartholomew inspected the friar's hands and saw that they, too, had been meticulously washed and the nails scrubbed.

'Where was he found?' Bartholomew asked.

Michael regarded him in the dim light. 'Tell me what you discovered yesterday and I will tell you about Werbergh.'

Bartholomew dropped Werbergh's hand unceremoniously back on the table. 'I will be able to tell you little of any value if you do not provide me with the necessary details,' he said irritably. 'In which case, we are both wasting our time.'

Michael stood. 'I am sorry,' he said reluctantly. He gave a sudden grin, his small yellow teeth glinting in the candlelight. 'But it was worth a try.'

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows and returned his attention to Werbergh's body.

'He was found dead in the wood-shed in the yard of Godwinsson yesterday afternoon,' said Michael. 'Apparently, he had been looking for a piece of timber that he might be able to make into a portable writing table.

Huw, the Godwinsson steward, said he had been talking about the idea for some weeks. The shed is a precarious structure and collapsed on top of him while he was inside.'

Bartholomew thought of his own visit to the ramshackle shed in Godwinsson's back yard. It had definitely been unstable but he had not thought it might be dangerous, and certainly not dangerous enough to kill someone who went inside.

'When did you first see the body?'

'Lydgate sent word to the Chancellor as soon as it became clear that Werbergh was in the rubble. No one thought to look until he was missed some hours later.

Why do you ask?'

Bartholomew picked at the tallow that had melted on to the table. 'So, Werbergh has been dead for at least an entire day. I would expect the body to be suffer than it is, given the warm weather.'

Michael came to stand next to him as Bartholomew began a close inspection of the body. The physician ran his hands through Werbergh's hair, then held something he had retrieved between his thumb and forefinger.

Michael leaned forward to look but shook his head uncomprehendingly.

'It is a piece of dried river weed,' said Bartholomew, dropping it into Michael's outstretched palm. He forced his hands underneath the body while Michael looked increasingly mystified. Bartholomew explained.

'Feel here, Brother. The body is damp underneath.'

'It looks to me as though his friends may have washed his habit,' said Michael, indicating Werbergh's spotless robe. 'Perhaps they washed it in the river so it would be clean for his funeral. People do launder clothes there, you know, despite what you tell them about it.'

'Give me time,' said Bartholomew. 'I need to inspect the body without the robe. Can we do that? Will it give offence?'

'Oh, doubtless it will give offence,' said Michael airily, 'especially if you can show that our friar's death is not all it seems. Examine away, Matt, with the Senior Proctor's blessing, while the Senior Proctor himself will guard the door and deter prospective visitors. After all, there is no need to risk offending anyone if your findings are inconclusive.'

He ambled off to take up a station near the door, while Bartholomew began to remove Werbergh's robe.

The task was made difficult by the fact that the table was very narrow. Eventually though he completed his examination, put all back as he had found it and went to join Michael, slightly out of breath and hot from his exertions.

Michael was not at the door, but outside it, engaged in a furious altercation. Bartholomew shrank back into the shadows of the church as he recognised the belligerent tones of Thomas Lydgate, poor Werbergh's Principal.

Bartholomew had never heard him so angry, and, risking a glance out, saw the man's face was red with fury and his eyes were starting from his head. The physician in Bartholomew wanted to warn him to calm down before he had a fatal seizure, but he hung back, unwilling to become embroiled in the dispute.

'You have no right!' Lydgate was yelling. 'The man is dead! Can you not leave him in peace even for his last few hours above ground?'

'Like your students have done, you mean?' asked Michael innocently. 'The ones you told me would keep a vigil over him until tomorrow?'

Lydgate's immediate reply was lost in his outraged spluttering, and Bartholomew smiled to himself, uncharitably gratified to see this unpleasant man lost for words.

'If I hear that you have let that witless physician near him, I will complain in the strongest possible terms to the Chancellor and the Bishop.' Lydgate managed to grate his words out and Bartholomew imagined his huge hands clenching and unclenching in his fury. 'I will see you both dismissed from the University!'

'Why should you object so strongly to Doctor Bartholomew examining your student's body, Master Lydgate?' asked Michael sweetly. 'You have no reason to fear such an examination, surely?'

Once again came the sounds of near-speechless anger.

'There are rumours that he is not himself,' Lydgate managed eventually. 'I would not wish his feebleminded ramblings to throw any kind of slur on my hostel!'

'Can a slur be thrown, or should it be cast?' Michael mused. Bartholomew smiled again, knowing that Michael was deliberately antagonising Lydgate. 'But regardless of grammatical niceties, Master Lydgate, I can assure you that my colleague is no more witless than you are.'

Bartholomew grimaced, while Lydgate appeared to be uncertain whether Michael was insulting him or not. He broke off the conversation abruptly and pushed past Michael towards the door. Bartholomew edged behind one of the smooth, round pillars and waited until Lydgate had stormed through the church to the altar before slipping out to join Michael. Michael took his arm and hurried him to a little-used alley so that no one would see them emerge from the churchyard.

'So, you think I am as witless as Lydgate, do you?' said Bartholomew, casting a reproachful glance at the fat Benedictine.

'Do not be ridiculous, Matt,' Michael replied. 'Lydgate is a paragon of wit compared to you.' He roared with laughter, while Bartholomew frowned, wondering whedier there was anyone left in Cambridge who was not intimately acquainted with the alignment of his stars — even Lydgate seemed to know all about them. Michael saw his expression and his laughter died away.

'Witless or not, I would sooner trust your judgement than that of any other man I know,' he said with sudden seriousness. 'Even that of the Bishop. And as for your stars, I have far more reason to trust your judgement in matters of physic than Gray. If you say you are well, why should I doubt you?'

Bartholomew smiled reluctantly. Michael continued.

'So I am inclined also to believe you over the matter of the identities of our attackers, despite my reservations the day before yesterday when you gave me answers that I thought conflicted with what you had said earlier. What you say makes no sense, but that is no reason to assume you were mistaken. We will just have to do more serious thinking.'

Bartholomew was more relieved than he would have thought possible. Some of his irritability began to dissipate and he found himself better able to concentrate on Werbergh.

'So,' said Michael cheerily, 'tell me what your witless mind has seen that the genius of Lydgate has sought to hide.'

'The evidence is crystal clear,' began Bartholomew. 'I judge, from the leakiness and swelling of the body, that.

Werbergh has been dead not since yesterday morning, but a day or two earlier. He probably died on Friday night or Saturday morning. At some point, he was immersed in water, although he did not die from drowning. His robe is still damp, the skin is slightly bloated which is consistent with his body being in water after death, and in the hair on one arm I found more river weed. Although there are marks on the body that are consistent with the shed collapsing on him, the fatal wound was a blow to the; back of the head — like Joanna, Kenzie, and possibly the skeleton of the child.'

Michael's face was grave. 'You believe Werbergh was murdered then?'

'Well, it was certainly not suicide.'

'Could the wound have been caused by the falling shed? 'It could,' said Bartholomew, 'but in this case it was-not.

There is no doubt that the shed collapsed, or more: likely was arranged to fall, on Werbergh: there are wounds; where slivers of wood can be found, but they were inflicted ' some time after he died. The injury to the back of his head was caused by something smooth and hard — the pommel of a sword perhaps, or some other metal object — and has no traces of wood in it. Had that wound been caused by the falling shed, I think it would have contained splinters, given the fact that the timber was so rotten.'

Michael scratched at his cheek with dirty fingernails, his face thoughtful. 'Well, this explains all too clearly why Lydgate did not want you to examine Werbergh.

Few would know these signs, or think to look for them, if the death appeared to be an accident.'

'Do you think Lydgate killed him?' asked Bartholomew.

'His actions are certainly not those of an innocent man.'

'They most assuredly are not,' agreed Michael. 'But if we try to report our findings to the Chancellor now, Lydgate will claim you are incompetent to judge because of your unfavourable stars.' He resumed scratching his cheek again. 'So, we will keep this knowledge to ourselves.

And thinking he has managed to fool us might lead the killer — whether it is Lydgate or someone else — into making a mistake. I spoke to the Godwinsson scholars yesterday and all had alibis for the alleged time of Werbergh's death, but now we need to know what they were all doing on Friday night, not Sunday.'

'Kenzie first and now Werbergh,' said Bartholomew. 'I wonder where those Scottish lads were on Friday night.

Perhaps they grew tired of waiting for justice and took it into their own hands to avenge Kenzie's death.'

True,' said Michael, nodding slowly as he ran through the possibilities in his mind. 'Since Master Lydgate seems to have an aversion to you, I will go alone to chat informally to the scholars of Godwinsson, to see if I can find out what was afoot on Friday night. Meanwhile, how would you like to visit David's to see how our Scottish friends are?'

Bartholomew shrugged assent. Michael rubbed his hands together and then clapped Bartholomew on the back. 'We will outwit whoever is responsible for these crimes, my friend, you and I together.'

Despite the cooler weather of the last two days, David's Hostel was stifling. The shutters were thrown open but the narrow windows at the front of the house allowed little air to circulate: the large windows at the back allowed the sun to pour in but faced the wrong direction to catch the breeze. Bartholomew imagined that the decrepit building, although unhealthily hot in the summer, would j be bitterly cold in the winter.

Meadowman, the David's steward, showed Bartholomew into the large room that served as the hostel's hall, while Fyvie hurried away to fetch the Principal. Davy Grahame and Ruthven were seated at the table with a large tome in front of them, while the older Grahame played lilting melodies on a small pipe in a corner with one or two other students.} Through the window, Bartholomew could see the brother of the student who had been ill. He was stripped to the waist and was splashing around happily with a brush and a bucket of water. From the envious eyes of some of the others, Bartholomew could see that cleaning the yard and escaping from academic studies was regarded more as a privilege than a chore. Ivo the scullion clattered about noisily in the kitchen as usual, and Meadowman went back to polishing the hostel pewter.

Robert of Stirling, the brother of the student cleaning the yard, rose when he saw Bartholomew and began fumbling in the scrip tied around his waist. Shyly he offered Bartholomew a silver coin, muttering that it was for the medicine he had been given. Bartholomew, who could not recall whether he had been paid or not, waved the money away with a shake of his head. The student pocketed his coin again hurriedly, giving Bartholomew a quick grin.

'Have you found Jamie's murderer yet?' he asked, the smile fading.

Bartholomew was aware that, although no one had moved, everyone in the room was listening for his answer.

'Not yet,' he said. What more could he say? They were really no further forward than they had been when he and Michael had first imparted the news of Kenzie's death to his friends several days before. And now there was a second death, similar to the first.

He looked up as Father Andrew entered. The friar's benign face was slightly splattered with ink, and his hands were black with it. He noticed Bartholomew's gaze and smiled apologetically.

'I am having problems with a new batch of quills,' he explained in his soft, lilting voice. 'I am a theologian, Doctor, and I am afraid such practical matters as cutting quills elude me.'

Bartholomew returned his smile, and Andrew perched on a stool next to him, clasping his stained hands together.

'Ivo!' he called to the noisy scullion. 'We have visitors, boy! Meadowman, can you not give Ivo a task he might complete more quietly?' He turned to Bartholomew.