A Bone of Contention (9 page)

'What are you saying, Brother?' asked Bartholomew coldly, not liking the way in which the pale-faced friar was trying to ingratiate himself by taletelling.

Werbergh began to talk quickly again, Bartholomew's hostility making him more nervous than ever. 'Mistress and Master Lydgate are not the loving couple they seem, and she prefers younger scholars to his company.'

'What has this to do with where you were last night?' asked Bartholomew, making no attempt to hide his disgust at the friar's transparent obsequiousness. Any fool could see that relations between the Lydgates were far from rosy, and Bartholomew resented Werbergh's attempt to distract him from his inquiries by plying him with malicious gossip. Mistress Lydgate could seduce all the young scholars she pleased, and it would be none of Bartholomew's business — unless she set her sights on any of his own students, but they were all perfectly capable of looking after themselves in that quarter, probably far more so than Bartholomew would be.

The student shook his head miserably, his attempt to distract Bartholomew in tatters. 'I escorted Mistress Lydgate to her house and then followed the other students here. It was already getting dark, so most of us went to bed.'

'And what of Edred? Where was he?'

Werbergh licked dry lips. 'I did not notice where he was. We do not go everywhere together, you know,' he added with a spark of defiance. 'But I have been with other people from the moment we returned from our quarrel with the Scots until now. You can check.'

'Do you have any idea why we mightbe askingyou this?' asked Bartholomew, watching the student carefully.

Werbergh shook his head, but two pink spots appeared on his cheeks, and the way in which his eyes deliberately sought and held Bartholomew's was more indicative of guilt than honesty.

'It is surely against the rules of your Order to lie?' said Bartholomew softly.

Werbergh's eyes became glassy, and the redness increased. 'Yes,' he said finally, tearing his gaze away, and studying his sandalled feet instead. 'I can guess why you are asking me these questions. But I was afraid such an admission might make you assume my guilt. You think Edred and I may have stolen his ring.'

'Ring?' echoed Bartholomew, taken off-guard.

Werbergh looked at him with an expression of one who has played cat-and-mouse for long enough. 'The Scottish student's ring,' he said wearily. 'He was waiting for us when we came out of compline. He accused us of stealing his ring while we were pushing at each other in the High Street.' He paused for a moment, oblivious to Bartholomew's confusion. 'He was very upset; I almost felt sorry for him. We professed our innocence, and he left quietly.' He looked up and met Bartholomew's eyes a second time, but this time with truthfulness. 'That is why you have come, is it not? Because he has accused us of stealing his nasty ring?'

'It is not,' said Bartholomew. 'James Kenzie was murdered last night. And if what you say is true, you may have been the last ones to see him alive, with the exception of his killer.'

Blood drained from Werbergh's face, leaving him suddenly white and reeling. Bartholomew, genuinely concerned that the friar might faint, took his elbow and sat him on a chest. Werbergh stared ahead of him blankly for a moment, before looking up at Bartholomew with eyes that were glazed with shock.

'You would not jest with me on such a matter?' he asked in a whisper. He studied Bartholomew's face. 'No.

Of course you would not. What can I tell you? The Scot had been waiting in the churchyard, and he beckoned Edred and me to one side. Mistress Lydgate saw, I think.

He sounded more hopeful that we might give his ring back to him, than angry that we might have stolen it.

When we denied having it, he left. As I said, I felt almost sorry for him, even though he was so offensive earlier. He was alone — at least, I saw no one with him.

I did not see anyone following him when he left.' He screwed up his face in what Bartholomew assumed was a genuine attempt to remember anything that might help.

Eventually, he shrugged, and shook his head. 'That is all I can recall, I am afraid. We had a stupid argument in the street, but I did not wish any of the David's men dead because of it.'

The solar door flung open and Michael stalked out, the Lydgates and Edred, whose face was tearstained, on his heels. Bartholomew bowed to Mistress Lydgate, and followed Michael, leaving Werbergh to make good his escape from his Principal by scuttling off in the other direction. Bartholomew was aware that Lydgate was pursuing him and Michael along the corridor and down the stairs to the front door, but was surprised to find his shoulder in a grip that was so firm it was almost painful. He spun round quickly so that Lydgate was forced to let go.

'I resent this intrusion into my affairs, Bartholomew,' said Lydgate in a low hiss. 'I have connections in the University. If I find you have been meddling in things that are not your concern, you will live to regret it.'

Had Lydgate overheard them talking about the burning of the tithe barn, Bartholomew wondered, as he met Lydgate's hostile glower with a cool stare of his own?

Or was he merely referring to the rather insalubrious connection of two of his students with a murder victim? 'Leave well alone, Bartholomew,' Lydgate whispered with quiet menace when Bartholomew did not answer, and pushed the physician roughly towards the door.

Bartholomew slithered out of his grip, and thrust Lydgate away from him. The two stared at each other for a long moment of undisguised mutual loathing, before Bartholomew turned on his heel and strode after Michael.

Lydgate watched him go and then closed the door. He leaned against the wall and his eyes narrowed into hard, vicious slits.

In a small, secluded garden behind the Brazen George tavern later that evening, Michael sat at a wooden table with a large goblet of fine red wine in front of him, and watched Bartholomew pace back and forth in the gloom. The physician's hard-soled shoes tapped on the flagstones of the yard, and he tugged impatiently at his sleeve when it snagged on a thorn of one of the rose bushes that added their heavy scent to the still air of the night.

'We should not be here, Michael. You are a proctor and a monk. It would not be good for you to be seen in a tavern, especially drinking, and even more especially on a Sunday.'

Michael leaned back against the wall, where the stones still held the warmth of the day. 'We will not be disturbed, and, for your information, I conduct a good deal of business here on behalf of the University and the Bishop.'

Bartholomew gave a huge sigh, and came to sit next to Michael on the bench. He took a sip of the ale Michael had bought him, and then another. 'This ale is not sour!' he exclaimed in surprise. He peered into the heavy pewter goblet, and realised the beer was clear enough to allow him to see the bottom.

Michael laughed. 'There are advantages to conducting business outside Michaelhouse.' He sipped appreciatively at his rich red wine. 'You should venture out more, Matt. You have become far too used to that foul concoction brewed at Michaelhouse for your own good health.'

They were silent for a while, listening to the beadles in the street outside calling out the curfew, and, in the distance, the excited yells and shouts of people who were apparently enjoying some kind of celebration. The garden was dark, and the taverner had provided them with a lantern that they shared with hundreds of insects.

Michael flapped them away from his wine.

'I had a letter last week,' began Bartholomew casually.

'Philippa, to whom I was betrothed, has married someone else.'

Michael was taken aback. Philippa had been the sister of a former room-mate of Bartholomew's, and had become betrothed to the physician after the plague. Some time ago, Philippa had declared herself bored with life in Cambridge and, seduced by the descriptions of fairs, pageants and feasts in her brother's letters, had set off to sample the delights of London. Three months had stretched to six, and Michael realised he had not seen Bartholomew's attractive fiancйe since early summer of the previous year. The monk had not given her long absence a second thought. Neither had Bartholomew, apparently.

'Perhaps, since neither of you made the effort to visit the other during the time she was away, this would not have been a marriage made in heaven,' said the monk carefully, uncertain of his friend's feelings on the matter.

'You would not want to end up as a couple like the dreadful Lydgates.'

Bartholomew studied him in the darkness. 'I suppose not. Philippa married a merchant. She wrote that, at first, she thought that she would not mind being the wife of an impoverished physician, but realised that in time she might come to resent it. Then she said I would have taken rich patients to please her, and we both would have been unhappy.'

'You always paid more attention to your patients than to her,' said Michael, thinking in retrospect that Bartholomew might well have had a lucky escape. 'I cannot say I am surprised by her decision.'

'Well, I was!' said Bartholomew earnestly. 'I did not expect her to shun me quite so suddenly.'

'She has been gone more than a year; that is hardly sudden,' Michael pointed out practically. 'Women are like good wines, Matt. They need to be treated with care and attention — not abandoned until you are ready for a drink.'

Despite his melancholy mood, Bartholomew smiled at Michael's blunt analogy. 'And what would you know of women, monk?'

'More than you, physician,' replied Michael complacently.

'I know, for example, that since she was betrothed to you, it is illegal for her to wed another.

You could take her to court.'

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. 'And what would that achieve? I would acquire a wife who despised me on two counts: my poverty, and the fact that I wrenched her away from the husband of her choice.'

Michael shrugged. 'Then it is best you put the whole affair from your mind. And anyway, if you had married, you would have had to give up your Fellowship at Michaelhouse and your teaching. You like teaching, and you are good at it. Think of what you have gained, not what you have lost.'

'I would have lost the opportunity to investigate murders,' said Bartholomew morosely. 'And the chance to meet such charming people as the Lydgates, Edred and Werbergh.'

Michael chuckled. 'Such characters are not exclusive to the University, Matt. You would have encountered people just like them elsewhere, too. You might even have had to be pleasant to them, if they were your patients and you wanted them to pay you.'

Bartholomew grimaced with distaste at the notion. 'I miss her,' he persisted. 'I lie awake at night and wonder whether I will ever see her again.'

Michael eyed him soberly. 'So that is why you have been looking so heavy-eyed over the last few days. But if you do see her again, Matt, she will be someone else's wife and unavailable to you, so put such thoughts out of your mind. Perhaps you should consider becoming a monk, like me.'

'How would that help?' asked Bartholomew listlessly.

'It would make matters worse. At least now I am not committing a sin by thinking about women. If 1 were a monk, I would never be away from my confessor.'

'Oh really, Matt!' said Michael in an amused voice.

'What odd ideas you have sometimes! You are capable of great discretion, and that should be sufficient to allow you to choose your secular pastimes as and when you please.

A monastic vocation would suit you very well.'

Bartholomew regarded him askance, wondering what kind of monk would offer ajilted lover that kind of advice.

He took another sip of the excellent ale, and pondered whether he would ever know Michael well enough not to be surprised by some of his opinions and behaviour.

Michael took a noisy slurp of wine, and refilled his cup from the jug on the table. He stretched and yawned.

'It is getting late,' he said. 'We should be considering Godwinsson Hostel and its shady inhabitants, not discussing your sinful desires for another man's wife. Lydgate, Cecily, Werbergh and Edred — what an unpleasant group of people to be gathered under one roof.'

'Two roofs,' said Bartholomew, forcing his thoughts away from Philippa. 'I forgot to ask about Kenzie's lover, Dominica. Did you?'

'I learned a little,' said Michael. 'But what did your nasty little friar tell you?'

Michael listened with growing interest as Bartholomew repeated his conversation with Werbergh, and gave a low whistle when he had finished.

'Well,' he said, 'one of them is lying. Edred's story coincides with Werbergh's until after compline. Then he says he walked back to the hostel in the company of Werbergh, but makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate.'

'Well, he would not,' said Bartholomew. 'He could scarcely claim his Principal's wife as an alibi with her sitting there and likely to denounce him as a liar. But neither story fits,'he continued thoughtfully. 'If Werbergh offered his arm to Mistress Lydgate, and Edred claims that he returned to the hostel with Werbergh, then all three must have been together. Edred makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate, while Werbergh makes no mention of Edred.

Mistress Lydgate must surely have noted that it was she and not Edred who walked with Werbergh back to the hostel. Something is not right here, Brother.'

He could hear the rasp of Michael's nails against his whiskers as he scratched his chin in the darkness. 'And Edred did not mention Kenzie asking for his ring, even after I told him the lad had been murdered, and that I would appreciate any information he might have. I had a feeling he was not being honest with me.'

'Either Edred is remarkably stupid not to guess that Werbergh would tell me about meeting Kenzie, or it did not happen,' reasoned Bartholomew. 'Or Edred is hiding evidence of what he considers a minor incident, because he is involved in one that is more serious. I am inclined to believe Werbergh was generally truthful, which means that Edred is the one telling lies.'

'Edred and Cecily Lydgate both,' said Michael thoughtfully.

'If Werbergh is telling the truth and he walked home to Godwinsson with Cecily, then why did she not denounce Edred as a liar when he claimed he was with Werbergh? Something untoward is going on in that hostel. Give me the honest poverty at David's any day over the thin veneer of civilisation at Godwinsson.'

'So what about Dominica?' asked Bartholomew. 'What did you manage to find out about her?'

'Very little, I'm afraid,' said Michael. 'Only that on the night of Kenzie's murder she was staying with relatives much against her will if I read correctly the set chin and determined looks of Mistress Lydgate the elder. Dominica is still with them. Which means that wherever Kenzie went last night, it was not Dominica's room, because she was not there.'

'Not necessarily,' said Bartholomew watching the bats flit around the garden. 'Perhaps that is exactly where he went, expecting to find her.'

'And instead found an angry father and a dragon of a mother,' said Michael. 'Which means that they killed him, and dumped his body in the Ditch to avoid suspicion falling on them.'

'That seems too easy,' said Bartholomew. 'There is something not right about all this.'

'Why should it not be easy?' asked Michael with a shrug.

'The Lydgates are hardly over-endowed with intelligence, and neither is Edred if he could not come up with a better story than the one he spun me — knowing that Werbergh would not support his alibi if pressed for the truth.'

Bartholomew sighed. 'I suppose you are right, but we cannot do anything about it, because we have no proof.

All we know is that lies have been told.' He stood, feeling suddenly chilly in the cool night air. 'Perhaps the evidence we need will appear tomorrow. Lord save us! What was that?'

A tremendous crash, followed by yells and screams, shook the ground and made the leaves on the trees tremble.

Flickers of orange light danced in the street outside, and the shouting suddenly increased dramatically.

The landlord of the Brazen George came hurrying into the garden, his face tight with fear.

'I know you do not like to be disturbed, Brother,' he said apologetically, 'but I thought you should know: the students are rioting. They have tied ropes to Master Burney's workshop and hauled the whole thing down.

Now they are trying to set it on fire.'

Bartholomew and Michael raced out into the street. The rickety structure, the upper floor of which had been Master Burney's tannery, now lay sprawled across the High Street with flames leaping all over it. Bartholomew knew that Burney, a widower since the plague, slept in the workshop, and started towards the roaring flames.

Michael caught his arm and hauled him back.

'If Burney was in there when it fell, you can do nothing for him now,' he choked, eyes watering from the smoke.

Bartholomew saw that Michael was right: the searing heat from the flames was almost unbearable, even at that distance. He screwed up his eyes against the stinging fumes, and surveyed the wreckage. A tangle of limbs protruded from under a heap of smouldering plaster. Michael let out an appalled gasp and gripped Bartholomew's arm to point them out.

'Mistress Starre's son,' Bartholomew shouted, recognising the huge frame of the simple-minded giant among the twisted remains. 'I heard he died recently.'

'What are you talking about?'

'This building belongs to the Austin Canons of St John's Hospital,' Bartholomew yelled over the crackle of burning wood. 'They use the lower storey as a mortuary since they believe the smell from the tannery above will dispel the unhealthy miasma emanating from the corpses.

The bodies you see were probably dead already — I know young Starre was.'

'Does their theory hold any validity?' asked Michael before he could stop himself. They should not be considering medical matters now, but attempting to order the rioting students back to their hostels and colleges and if that failed, seek sanctuary somewhere before they became the victims of a town mob themselves. Fortunately for him, Bartholomew's attention was elsewhere.

'The fire is spreading!' he yelled, and Michael looked to where he was gesticulating wildly, seeing smoke seeping from the roof of the house next door. Seconds later, there was another dull roar, and a bright tongue of flames shot out of one of the windows.

'Mistress Tyler lives there with her daughters!' Bartholomew whispered, his horrified voice all but lost in the increasing rumble and crackle of the flames, greedy for the dry wood of the house.

'No. She lives next door. And anyway, look,' said Michael, indicating behind him with a flick of his head.

Bartholomew saw with relief the frightened faces of the Tyler family huddled against the wall of the Brazen George opposite, clutching what few belongings they had managed to grab as they fled for safety.

Students were everywhere, flitting like bats in the dancing light of the flames in their dark tabards. Michael was shouting to them to put out the flames, but while some obeyed, others amused themselves by hurling missiles at the horn windows of the Brazen George. Townspeople, woken by the din, began to pour into the street, and small skirmishes began between them and the scholars. Backing up against the wall next to the terrified Tyler family, Bartholomew saw a group of apprentices kicking a student they had seized and knocked to the ground, while a short distance away, a group of University men were poking at a fat merchant and his wife with sharpened sticks.

A group of three students ran past, shouting to each other in French, but one, seeing the pretty face of the eldest Tyler girl, called to his friends and they came back.

They seized her arms, and were set to make off with her, the expressions on their faces making their intentions perfectly clear. Mistress Tyler ran to the defence of her daughter, but stopped short as one of them jabbed at her stomach with a knife.