Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (25 page)

“Sir, you do not know my wife.” I said nothing more, but bit my tongue and held my jaw clenched shut. I was sure that if it did move I would drive my fist into Grymbaud’s face, which I did not think would help my cause. So instead I glared at the undersheriff and waited, my muscles tense and the hairs prickling on the back of my neck, while the man drank more of his ale.

At length he set his mug down, noticed my expression and spoke again. “Perhaps not your wife, though. She was of help when Berwyk was stabbed. And she did seem a person of sense, rare in such an attractive woman.” For a brief moment I wondered if the undersheriff was married, and decided that, if he was, the union must not be a happy one. “We will keep searching for her,” Grymbaud continued, “although if the lymers found nothing I doubt anything else will manifest. I am sorry.”

“As am I,” I retorted and turned on my heels and left Oxford Castle, pacing down Castle Street and back toward the bulk of Northgate, wanting to put as much space between myself and Grymbaud as I could. As I walked down the crowded, muddy street I heard the noise of the street hawkers, the townsfolk about their business and I dodged a pig rooting in a pile of refuse by a narrow side alley. My stomach turned at the crowded mayhem that passed for town life, and I feared I would retch.

Or perhaps my panic rose from the fear that I would never see my wife again. I could smell the terror from the sweat on my skin, and I hopelessly admitted to myself that I did not know where else to search, or what to do to find Mariota. My actions seemed futile, my search as blind as the alley I had just passed.

I cursed the Lord of the Isles and his son under my breath, fluently, in Gaelic. If it were not for him, both Mariota and myself would have been peacefully home on Islay. She would never have dressed as a man, never have attended medical lectures. She would have been safe.
As safe as you’ve kept her in the past
, an inner voice mockingly told me, and I cursed again, even more eloquently. For it was true that Mariota had often been in danger, and neither she nor I seemed to learn from it at all, at all.

As this last bitter realization sank in, I raised my head and looked about me. I had been walking without thought through the town but discovered I had now reached High Street. The shop of Adam Bookman stood not so distant. Perhaps, since I was so close, I might stop by and speak with his wife, as I had originally intended before my fury took ahold of me.

As I walked up the street a woman looked out from the open shutters of Adam Bookman’s shop, behind the street display of books, parchment and ink. She was young, with a thin face, a pinched look about her mouth and fair-lashed eyes, now red-rimmed. A few strands of pale hair escaped from a tidy coif, and I guessed her to be Adam Bookman’s wife.

I had not met her before. Which might be a good thing, as she could not immediately blame me for her husband’s imprisonment. I wrapped my
brat
a bit closer about my shoulders, feeling the chill in the air as the faint Oxford sun disappeared behind a cloud, and approached the shop.

“May I be of help?” the woman asked.

I picked up a book, a fair copy of
Sir Orfeo
. I opened it and looked at the story, a fine-looking tale of knights and their ladies. On some other day it would have intrigued me. I closed the book and looked at the woman. “I am not seeking books, today, Mistress. I need some information.”

“Oh?” Mistress Bookman gave me a guarded look.

“Yesterday a young student bought some parchment and ink from you. A young lad, with reddish hair.”

“Yes, I remember the boy. What of it?”

“What did he purchase, exactly?”

“What is it to you?”

“The lad was accosted this morning and badly hurt.”

“It’s nothing to me if students brawl. They are always at blows over something or another.”

“This was not a student brawl, Mistress. The lad was attacked by someone who hit him from behind.” I exaggerated a bit. “He lies near dead now.”

“Well, I am sorry to hear of it. He was a well-spoken boy and had better manners than many. Respectful, and thanked me for his purchase. But what has all that to do with me?”

“Could you not tell me what the lad bought?”

“Yes, but it was nothing of import. Some old parchments and ink. The cheapest ink I had. Soot ink, not gall.”

“He is not a rich lad. What of the parchments he bought? Were they used?”

“Yes, they were from an old pile my husband had bought from one of the colleges.”

“They were written on?”

“It’s little enough work to clean them.”

“Have you any left, or did the lad buy all of them?”

“There are some. You wish to see them?”

I nodded assent and the woman disappeared in the interior of the shop, then returned a few moments later with a pile of parchments.

“Here they are. Do you wish to purchase them?”

I examined the sheets. Covered with Latin writing, the parchments looked similar to the ones Donald and I had purchased here a few weeks earlier, the parchments that had been stolen from our lodging. Although these did not look to be the same exact sheets.

“Where did you get these?”

Mistress Bookman shrugged her shoulders. “My husband procured them. I am not sure from where. He had them put away, but times are hard. My husband is now held in the castle.”

I nodded. “I had heard that. I am sorry for it.”

“He is innocent. He did not stab that master.”

I said nothing, and eventually the woman turned back to the parchments. “I thought to sell them and get the lot of them out of here.”

“Well, I shall buy these remaining ones, if I may.”

Mistress Bookman agreed, and we settled on a price. I gathered up the sheets and prepared to go. “Has anyone else been seeking these?” I asked as I bundled the sheets into my scrip.

“My husband’s business is that of a stationer, sir,” Mistress Bookman returned. “I sell a fair number of old parchments. Students are always seeking them, to clean and reuse.” So it seemed the answer to that question was yes.

“Who else has purchased them?” I persisted, badgering the woman. “That you remember?”

Mistress Bookman pursed her lips as she thought. “Students, the most of them were. Poor students, looking to reuse the sheets.”

“And did you sell many to them?”

“No, for I just found them yesterday. My husband had tucked them away under a pile of other manuscripts. But there be no reason they can’t be sold and be of some good to me. I have children to feed.”

I felt a moment of guilt that her man might go to the scaffold for the death of Berwyk, if he indeed had not committed the crime. He swore he was innocent, but any murderer would lie to save himself.

“Could you describe the folk that bought them? Please?”

“Well, that red-haired boy. The one you said had been assaulted. He bought the most. And a yellow-haired student, with a short red-haired man, he bought a few sheets.”

“Anyone else?”

Mistress Bookman shook her head in the negative. “That was all. As I said, I just found them yesterday.”

I gave the woman some extra farthings for her trouble and her memory, sheepishly glad she had not connected me with her husband’s arrest, and left the stationer’s thinking over this new information. The fair lad and red-haired man could well have been Delacey and his bum-boy Richard. As I walked down the crowded street I passed Brother Eusebius coming from the opposite direction.

I turned, buying a pie from a vendor, and stood in the shadows of an overhanging building watching him as he approached the stationer’s shop. Too far from me to hear the conversation, I saw Mistress Bookman shake her head as she spoke with the master. She disappeared into the shop and returned a bit later with a bottle of ink and some quills. I watched Eusebius pay her and turn back up the street.

I dropped most of my uneaten pie on the ground, where a dog snatched it up to the frustrated cries of a one-legged beggar who was not fast enough to grab it. Eusebius had just passed me and I fell in step close behind him, following him as he passed School Street and then turned up Catte Street walking north to Smithgate. I quickened my steps and caught up with him a bit further up the way.

“Brother Eusebius,” I greeted him.

Eusebius turned and looked at me with an odd absentminded glare, as if I had just interrupted some priceless and fleeting jewel of philosophical thought.

“Ah yes, Muirteach.” He blinked those odd protuberant blue eyes at me. “From the north,” he added, whether for his own edification or mine I did not know. “What brings you into town this day?”

“I am seeking my wife,” I replied curtly.

“Oh yes, the medical woman. Who vanished.”

“Yes, that would be my wife. Do you know aught of such things?”

Eusebius shook his head. “I am but a poor scholar, a seeker after arcane knowledge. I regret that I know nothing of your wife.”

Well, I had not really thought he knew anything. It had been a wild throw, and it had missed. “Did you hear about young Anthony? The red-haired student from Lincolnshire?”

“What of him?”

“The poor lad was attacked this morning on his way to the early lectures.”

“A sad and lawless act. What happened to the boy? Is he dead?”

“He survived and will doubtless be aright within a few days.”

“Young boys have tough skulls.” Eusebius looked distracted a moment. “Well, I regret I know nothing of your wife. I must away, I have been called elsewhere.”

“We are walking the same direction, no doubt. Are you not headed toward the old hall?”

Eusebius swallowed a moment and I watched his Adam’s apple move on his scrawny neck. “Indeed. That is where I was headed.”

“I’ll accompany you. I seek Master Delacey, and am thinking he might be found there.”

“I believe he has a lecture at Sexte. In town.”

“Perhaps he does. Or he may be tutoring.” I thought sarcastically of poor Dickon. “Still, I shall accompany you to Balliol to seek him there.”

When we reached the hall the new gatekeeper let us in with a surly look. This man did not look as though he would be amenable to opening the gate for drunken graduate students after hours. He was a burly man, with thick dark brows over piggy brown eyes and several days’ growth of dark beard on his face, clad in a russet overkirtle and hood. I had not seen him before.

“Where did he come from?” I asked Eusebius.

“I am not sure,” the master answered. “This is his first day, I believe. I do not recollect seeing him before.”

I privately thought that perhaps Eusebius had just neglected to notice the man but said nothing.

We entered the old hall, and Eusebius excused himself and went to his chamber, while I went in search of Delacey. The man was not within his chamber and I saw no sign of his catamite either. Somewhat disheartened, I turned to leave and nearly ran into Phillip Woode on the landing.

Phillip was clearly excited, somewhat flushed. “Muirteach—I just heard of the poor lad Anthony.”

“Who told you?’

“The students in my later lecture this morning could speak of little else. Will the boy be all right?”

“Yes, he is alert and able to speak some. I’m thinking the lad will do well enough.”

“That is a blessing.” Phillip crossed himself. “There has been too much violence of late.”

“Where are you off to?”

“I just returned from my lecture,” said Phillip as he followed me down the narrow staircase. “I could do with a bite to eat. And you? What brings you here?”

“I thought to find Delacey here.”

Phillip laughed. “The man hasn’t looked me in the face since I saw him last night. He scuttled sidewise by me like some loathsome crab this morning on the stairs. I’m sure he’s in fear that we will denounce him. We should watch our backs, you know.”

“Aye. Perhaps we should take care. Do you think Delacey killed Clarkson and Berwyk?”

“It is indeed a powerful reason to kill. If Clarkson knew of his liaison, it would put an end to his chances for preferment. Delacey is nothing if not ambitious. And Berwyk could well have known of it also.”

“Well, Grymbaud claims he’ll set a watch on the man.”

“That’s good. If Delacey doesn’t knife us first.” Woode laughed without much mirth. “Or perhaps the men on his tail will see him do it and he’ll hang for our murders at the least.” He threw his cloak over his cotehardie. “Are you hungry, Muirteach? I’m going into town to get a bit to eat.”

I had no appetite and did not regret having thrown away that pie. But I did not know where to search or where to go. “Aye, I’ll accompany you,” I heard myself say. “And perhaps then seek out Delacey.”

“What are you wanting him for?”

I told him of the parchment and how Mistress Bookman had said that DeVyse had purchased some of the pages the previous day.

“It might be nothing,” Phillip mused. “Perhaps the lad just needed some old parchment.”

“Perhaps.” I pulled one of the pieces I had purchased from my scrip and looked at it. The sheet had the same crabbed hand on it as the sheets we had found earlier.

“Do you think these are palimpsests as well?” asked Phillip.

“I do not know. They look similar. After we eat I’ll take it back to the widow’s, check on Anthony and perhaps the lads will clean them and see. No doubt Crispin will be happy to do so, looking for more naked women.”

Phillip laughed and this time the sound was happier. “I’ve no doubt of that.”

We left Balliol yard, passing the new gatekeeper.

“Who’s your friend?” I asked Phillip. “The new man?”

Phillip raised his eyebrows. “I’ve no idea. My guess is Delacey hired him. From where, I don’t know. The Boccardo, most likely. He is called Hodge.”

We made our way into the town, passing through the dark length of the Northgate tunnel that ran under the Boccardo, the town gaol where thieves and such were imprisoned. I spared a thought for Adam Bookman and Ivo, both held at the castle for the more serious crime of murder. The assizes were to be held in four days, and their fates would be decided. I thought of old Ivo’s bent frame as I had last seen him in his cell and I shuddered violently.