Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (16 page)

Anthony was carrying the jug. Donald felt it beneath his dignity to do so and Crispin, who more and more minded me of a stoat, had managed not to be involved. Suddenly I saw Anthony stumble as he kicked a stone in the road. He recovered himself but then set the jug down.

“What is it?” I asked, stopping. Donald and Crispin were far ahead and seemed not to have noticed Anthony’s fall. “Are you all right? Is the jug too heavy for you?”

“No, I’m managing it well enough. It’s just this—look.”

Anthony picked up something that glimmered. “It was under the stone. It’s pretty.”

It was a pewter medal on a broken chain, similar to a pilgrim’s badge, but with a bail so it could be worn around the neck. The design was a curious one, of the pious pelican feeding her young.

“It is indeed. Well, you are the finder so that means it is yours. What will you do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” Anthony muttered and thrust it into his pouch. He picked up the jug and we followed Donald and Crispin back to the widow’s.

Later, after the noon meal, we heard noisy uproar from the city walls, and the sound of excited running in Canditch. Then I heard the front door slam. The boys had disappeared before I could stop them. I swore and looked in Donald’s room. It was empty, as was the wine jug on the floor, and Donald’s sword was gone. I swore again and started out after them. All I needed was for the son of the Lord of the Isles to get himself killed in an Oxford riot.

There was a crowd of students headed into the town and I followed them, looking for the three boys as I rushed along, jostled by others. The crowd grew thicker at the intersection of Northgate and High streets and reached its height at a small chapel on a corner. The chapel, surrounded by townsfolk, seemed to be afire; smoke was drifting out of the thatch on the roof. I saw the undersheriff and some of his men pushing townsfolk back from the door. A chain of men had formed with water buckets, ineffectually trying to put out the fire.

“What’s happening?” I asked a student next to me, as we were both elbowed aside by some burly graduate students.

“A fight started. There were some university men that ran inside, but some townsfolk trapped them in there and set fire to the roof.”

“Who was in the chapel?” I looked frantically through the crowd for my charge while my heart pounded rapidly.

“Some Balliol men, I heard.”

“Are they out?”

“I think so. The undersheriff and his men came and put a stop to it. They’re bastards.” The student spat. “All these townsfolk are. Stupid fools.”

I caught a glimpse of Donald on the other side of the crowd and some of the tightness in my chest began to ease. I headed toward him. The crowd began to disperse, urged on by Grymbaud and his assistants, although more men were pressed into the water chain. Mostly townsfolk, but I saw a few students as well. The smoke decreased, and I saw Anthony’s red head in the line.

I spied Phillip Woode, Master Delacey and Brother Eusebius, looking somewhat dazed, outside the chapel as I went over and spoke to Donald. “You are well?”

Donald shrugged. “I was in no danger, Muirteach. You’re worse than a nursemaid.”

I ignored his last comment. Grymbaud saw me and motioned me toward him.

“Stay here,” I told Donald. “I’ll return directly.”

Donald ignored me and followed me over to the undersheriff.

“I’m glad to see you, Muirteach. This is a bad thing.”

“It looks as though the fire is under control. And it seems no one was seriously hurt.”

“Aye, I’ve arrested the cordwainer for arson. We’ve witnesses that saw him set the roof afire.”

“What of the other men involved? Jakeson, and the rest of them?”

“It’ll do no good to have half the town arrested. I’ve let them go for now.”

“So all’s well.”

The undersheriff looked grave and I got the feeling all was not as well as it seemed. “Come inside, Muirteach.”

A brawny guard stood at the front of the chapel. He let us pass but kept Donald outside, to my relief. I followed Grymbaud in. The chapel was dark and smelled of a thick smoke that stung my eyes and caught in my throat.

“What is it?” I managed to ask the undersheriff as he walked toward the interior of the chapel. I felt a sinking feeling in my guts as I followed the man.

“Here.”

I looked and as my eyes adjusted to the smoky dimness saw a form lying behind the rood screen. I followed the undersheriff closer and recognized the bulk as a body, wearing the dark robes of a college master.

“Who is it?”

Grymbaud rolled the body over. My throat clenched as I saw the white face of Master Berwyk.

“What happened?”

“He looks to have been stabbed. Here, on the backside, is a wound.” Even in the dimness, I could see the spreading stickiness of blood on Berwyk’s garments.

“Is he alive?”

Grymbaud shrugged, but just then we heard a groan.

“He’s alive—barely.”

“Let me send for my wife. She’s a physician, with experience in wounds and such matters.”

Grymbaud had no objection. He agreed it might be better than calling a physician from the college, and even sent an armed guard with the message to the Widow Tanner’s to escort Mariota back. While I waited for her I spoke with the undersheriff as we tried to make Berwyk a bit more comfortable. He had lost a great deal of blood and was not conscious. I prayed that Mariota would arrive soon.

“Do you think he was attacked outside, and ran in here for safety? Who was with him?”

From what Grymbaud had been able to learn, Berwyk, along with some other masters, had been walking down High Street when several townsfolk accosted the university men. There was an altercation, and the men had run in here for safety. “So probably he was stabbed outside the church and ran in here for sanctuary.”

“Who were the townsfolk involved?”

“We’ve already arrested the cordwainer for arson, and the mercer seems to have been in it. Also a bookseller. That tavern keeper was present as well, the same one whose daughter ran off.”

“Jakeson.”

“Aye, he’s the one.”

“Have they found the knife?”

Grymbaud shook his head no, and I watched his lips tighten.

“What of the other clerks in the church with him? Did they see anything?”

“We’ve yet to speak with them. There was a great deal of confusion.”

“Who were they?”

“That tall blonde master.”

“That would be Eusebius.”

The undersheriff nodded. “Aye. And Phillip Woode, and one other. The short little arrogant bastard.”

“Delacey?”

“Aye, that’s the one.”

“Well, they must know something of it, then. Why were they in town?”

“It seems they had come to check on something at one of the lecture halls, to see if it was safe. They heard a rumor it had been set afire.”

“Were they ambushed, then?”

Grymbaud shook his head, reminding me of a bear. “That does not seem to have been the way of it. They ran into the townsfolk on High Street and words were exchanged. Phillip Woode was accused by the cordwainer of molesting Jakeson’s daughter, and that set the whole thing off.”

“What a waste. Berwyk’s a good man.”

“And one of my townsfolk is close to being a murderer.”

Just then the door of the chapel creaked open, emitting a ray of light and with it the welcome form of my wife.

“We’re back here,” I called and took a deep breath. Surely Mariota could save the man.

Mariota examined the wound and bound it tightly to stop the bleeding. “He’s lost a great deal of blood and the wound is deep. It will be prone to fester. Is there an infirmary?”

“Best to take him to his college. Unless you could nurse him?” Grymbaud asked Mariota.

“He has a woman,” I put in, “that lives on Pennyfarthing Street. She would want to know of this, and she could nurse him. She is called Torvilda.” Grymbaud sent a messenger off to fetch Mistress Bonefey while Mariota sponged Berwyk’s face and gave him some tincture of poppy as he groaned. Even in the darkness of the chapel I could see how pale he was.

“Fetch a stretcher,” Grymbaud ordered after Torvilda arrived. Her face was nearly as white as her lover’s, after she saw him, but she readily agreed to nurse him at her house. It wasn’t long before she and Mariota departed, along with some of Grymbaud’s men to carry the stretcher and see them to Pennyfarthing Street. Which left me with the undersheriff again.

“We must speak to the other fellows he was with,” I said. “Perhaps one of them saw who knifed him.”

“Yes, and I’ll do some interrogation of my own,” Grymbaud replied, blinking a little as we emerged into the afternoon light. “In the meantime, let us not say how severely the master was injured. Pray God he pulls through. The last thing we need is another excuse for the clerks to attack the townsfolk.”

I agreed wholeheartedly.

The bucket team had dispersed, and Anthony, Crispin and Donald were not to be seen. Things seemed quiet enough in the town now, with the crowds scattered, but I began to see how deceptive this might be.

I tracked the boys down to a tavern where I saw them sitting at a table with Phillip Woode. The tavern keeper glowered at them and the other students that filled the room, but apparently the pennies the students paid outweighed other concerns. I joined Donald and the others and ordered a cider. The smoke of the chapel had left a scratchy roughness in my throat.

The boys pelted me with questions and I answered that Master Berwyk had been slightly injured but was recovering. Then I asked Phillip Woode what had transpired earlier that day. Phillip had a bruise on one cheek but otherwise seemed unharmed.

“We were at the college, looking at some manuscripts, and a messenger came to the door, saying that the Balliol lecture hall on School Street was in flames. So we grabbed our swords and went to see.” He stopped speaking and took a drink from his mug of wine, then shrugged. “When we arrived, there was nothing to be seen out of the ordinary. It was odd.”

“Who brought the message?”

“A young student, Eusebius said. I did not see the lad myself.”

“So you were on School Street,” I prompted.

“Yes, and then we walked back, down High Street. We all thought the matter strange. It was there we saw Master Jakeson and the others. The cordwainer was there and that bookseller, the one we visited. I made the mistake of asking Master Jakeson if he’d heard anything of his daughter.”

“The last I heard, she’d run off with the chapman.”

“That’s what he told me. But then things got ugly, and more townsfolk gathered, and he wanted to know what reason I had to ask after Jonetta. It got out of control quickly. I think Delacey threatened them with the courts and more fines, and none of them liked that. Grymbaud’s men were nowhere in sight and someone threw a rock. There was fighting, but eventually we ran. We were greatly outnumbered.”

“Did you see who knifed Master Berwyk?”

Phillip shook his head. “Let’s get some more wine,” he said, and signaled the tavern girl, who approached with alacrity. She did not seem to share her father’s distrust of students. At least, I assumed the owner was her father, but the lass eavesdropped shamelessly as she took our order for more wine. “No, I did not see,” Phillip answered as the girl delivered a new pitcher of her father’s cheapest vintage. “It was all confusion for a time.”

“When you reached the chapel, did Berwyk complain of his wound?”

“Not a word. But soon after that we smelled the smoke, so he must have had other things to occupy his mind, as we all did. We could have been trapped like rats and burnt to death.” He shuddered, drank deeply and set his cup down.

“Apparently the cordwainer’s been arrested for arson,” I observed.

“He’ll face a steep fine, or other punishment. Since the riots twenty years ago, they’ve been strict about these disturbances,” Phillip said. “As they should be.”

“Perhaps it was all a ruse to get you into the town. People are upset about Ivo’s arrest; they might well decide to take it out on Balliol masters.”

Phillip shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Who do you suppose knifed Master Berwyk?”

“Some cursed townsman.”

“Did he have any enemies?”

“I don’t know. Ask him. You said he was not sorely injured.” Phillip looked puzzled. “Berwyk is generally well liked.”

“He claimed the bookseller had his copy of the
Isagoge
—the one Clarkson had stolen and pledged. Berwyk claimed Adam Bookman refused to redeem it to him.”

“That’s no reason for the bookseller to knife him. Rather the opposite. Berwyk told me he was paying the fee to redeem the book. And Bookman wanted a lot for it—what was it Ralph told me, seven shillings? Now Bookman’s lost that money.”

“But he still has the
Isagoge
. It’s a rare text.”

“Yes, and valuable.”

“Still, no one saw the bookseller near Berwyk.”

“It was chaos, there was a great deal of pushing and jostling. Bookman was in the front of the crowd. I suppose he could have knifed Ralph Berwyk.”

We left the tavern soon after that and walked back to Northgate together. We met with no trouble on that trip.

When I arrived home Mariota had sent a message. She would stay the night at Torvilda’s to help tend Master Berwyk. He sounded in a bad way and, worried, I set out again in the dusk after eating a hasty supper with Donald. As I left the house, the sound of Donald’s lute drifted out through the shuttered window and made the walk through the darkening streets to Torvilda’s house less onerous in comparison.

I arrived to find Master Berwyk still unconscious. He seemed to be running a fever and Torvilda was sponging him with something while Mariota mixed a draught over the fire. An older woman sat anxiously in the chamber, fingering her beads and murmuring prayers. I guessed her to be Berwyk’s aunt.

The room was lit by a tallow candle, which gave off a somewhat rank odor that mingled with the sharp scent of vinegar from the compresses and wood smoke from Torvilda’s hearth. I recognized yarrow and willow bark among the piles of herbs on the table. The tabby cat and her kittens, their eyes now open, still resided in the box by the hearth. There was no sign of the lodgers Justin and Vortigen, although the door to the other room they rented was closed. Mariota looked up and seemed glad to see me, but Torvilda did not take her eyes from her patient.