The Sanctuary Murders: The Twenty Fourth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew Book 24)

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘Then who remains on it?’ asked Michael. ‘I would say—’

  ‘Not tonight,’ interrupted Tulyet wearily. ‘I cannot think straight. We shall discuss it in the morning, by which time I will have questioned the ditcher, the miller and my two knights. Who knows? Perhaps one will confess, and we shall be spared the chore of pawing through all these facts, lies, claims and suppositions.’

  ‘Then meet us in the Brazen George,’ said Michael, naming his favourite tavern, a place where he was so regular a visitor that the landlord had set aside a chamber for his exclusive use. ‘You are right: our minds will be fresher tomorrow.’

  ‘I am not sure what to do about the peregrini,’ sighed Tulyet. ‘Instinct tells me to set guards, to prevent the surviving Jacques from spreading their poisonous message. But if I do, I may as well yell from the rooftops that the Spital holds a secret.’

  Michael agreed. ‘We should let Tangmer continue what he has been doing. It will only be for two more days, and then they will be gone. Do not worry about the rebels – Julien has promised to keep them under control.’

  ‘I hope he can be trusted,’ said Tulyet worriedly. ‘We do not need a popular uprising to add to our troubles. What will you do now, Brother?’

  ‘Matt and I will visit Sister Alice and demand to know why she neglected to mention visiting the Spital before the fire broke out. Then I must arrange for the nuns to move to St Radegund’s. After that, there is a rehearsal of the Marian Singers.’

  ‘I do not know them,’ said Tulyet politely. ‘Are they new?’

  ‘You do know them,’ countered Bartholomew wryly. ‘They were formerly known as the Michaelhouse Choir. However, as even speaking that name causes grown men to weep, Michael has decided to revamp their image.’

  The monk’s eyes narrowed. He was fiercely defensive of his talentless choristers, and hated any hint that they were less than perfect.

  Tulyet laughed. ‘You think naming them after the Blessed Virgin will make folk reconsider their opinions?’

  ‘I named them after the church where we practise,’ said the monk stiffly. ‘St Mary the Great is the only place large enough to hold us all these days.’

  Tulyet changed the subject, seeing it would be too easy to tread on sensitive toes. ‘Then you can speak to the ditcher and the miller. They sing bass, do they not?’

  Michael inclined his head. ‘But here we are at the Gilbertine Priory, where Sister Alice is staying. She has filched combs, commissioned stinking candles, and foisted her company on people who do not want it, so perhaps the Spital murders are just a case of unbridled spite, and we shall have our killer under lock and key tonight.’

  ‘I do not envy you the task of challenging her, Brother,’ said Tulyet. ‘I have met her twice: once when she informed me that Abbess Isabel aims to assassinate the King, and once when she claimed that Lyminster Priory cheats on its taxes. When I declined to act on either charge, she called me names I never expected to hear on the lips of a nun.’

  The Gilbertine Priory looked pretty in the early evening sunlight, and Bartholomew and Michael arrived to find the hospitable canons fussing over their guests with cordials and plates of little cakes. Alice was not there, but the nuns from Ickleton were, including their saintly Abbess, whose habit was so white it glowed. Needless to say, none were pleased to learn they were to be moved to a place that was already bursting at the seams.

  ‘But why should we go?’ demanded Isabel, her voice rather petulant for someone with aspirations of sainthood. ‘None of us are French and I like it here.’

  ‘I cannot risk it,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Please do as I ask.’

  ‘Very well,’ sighed Isabel with very ill grace. ‘Although it is foolish and unreasonable. However, you must find us a spot well away from Alice. We find her company irksome.’

  ‘Did she mention the Spital fire to you?’ asked Michael hopefully. ‘I know she went there the morning it happened.’

  ‘In the last forty-eight hours, she has uttered less than a dozen words to me,’ replied Isabel tartly, ‘none of which should have come from the mouth of a lady. She is so eaten up with bitterness that she is barely sane.’

  Bartholomew and Michael went to Alice’s room, and found her sitting at a table. She scrabbled to hide what she was doing when she saw them at the door, but Michael swooped forward and discovered that she had made a reasonable imitation of the Bishop’s seal and was busily forging letters from him. She was more angry than chagrined at being caught, and began to scratch her shoulder.

  ‘So tell the Bishop about it,’ she challenged. ‘He has already stripped me of my post and treated me with callous contempt. What more can he do?’

  Michael read one of the counterfeit messages and started to laugh. ‘Abbess Isabel is unlikely to believe that he wants her to walk naked from the castle to St Mary the Great. Or that she is then to stand in the market square and pray for the French.’

  Alice scowled. ‘It is not—’

  ‘Just as the Sheriff did not believe that she wants to kill the King,’ Michael went on. ‘You make a fool of yourself with these ridiculous plots. It is time to stop.’

  Alice regarded him sullenly. ‘Why should I? I am the victim here and—’

  ‘Speaking of victims, we have witnesses who say you were in the Spital when five people died. What do you have to say about that?’

  ‘That I had nothing to do with it. I tried to pay my respects to Magistra Katherine and Prioress Joan, but they were too busy to receive me, so I left – before the blaze began. Next, I went to practise my lecture in an empty church, and I arrived at the conloquium later that afternoon. I told you all this yesterday.’

  ‘No, you did not,’ countered Michael. ‘You failed to mention the Spital at all.’

  Alice regarded him with dislike. ‘It slipped my mind. So what?’

  ‘Can you prove you left before the fire started?’ asked Michael, keeping his temper with difficulty. ‘Because you were seen arriving at the Spital, but no one mentioned you leaving.’

  ‘Is it my fault that your so-called witnesses are unobservant asses? However, if you want a culprit, look to Magistra Katherine. I imagine she claims she was reading, and thus has no alibi. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes,’ acknowledged Michael. ‘But—’

  ‘I saw her sneaking around in a very furtive manner,’ interrupted Alice. ‘So was that hulking Joan, who is too stupid to be a prioress. She is more interested in horses than her convent, and delegates nearly all her own duties to her nuns.’

  Bartholomew went to the window, well away from her, partly because her scratching was making him itch, but mostly because he was repelled by her malevolence. Moreover, one of Vice-Chancellor Heltisle’s patented metal pens lay on the table, and it was very sharp – he felt Alice was deranged enough to snatch it up and stab him with it.

  ‘Explain why you stole her comb.’ Michael raised a hand when Alice started to deny it. ‘You were seen.’

  Alice struggled to look nonchalant. ‘Perhaps I did pick it up, but only to look at – I never took it away. Joan is careless with her things, and probably mislaid it since.’

  ‘Even if that is true, there is no excuse for poking about among other nuns’ belongings.’

  ‘I was looking for a nose-cloth, if you must know. Joan always keeps a good supply in her bag.’ Alice smiled slyly. ‘If you do not believe me about the comb, then search this room right now. You will not find it.’

  The offer told them that she had hidden it somewhere they were unlikely to look, so they did not waste their time. Michael continued to bombard her with questions, but she stuck to her story: that she had visited the Spital the previous morning, but left when the nuns declined to receive her. She had seen or heard nothing suspicious near the shed, and was well away before the fire started.

  ‘Your culprit will be Magistra Katherine, Prioress Joan, one of their sanctimonious nuns, or a lunatic,’ she finished firmly. ‘Not one of them can be trusted. I, howe
ver, am entirely innocent.’

  They reached the Trumpington Gate, where Cynric was waiting to say that Bartholomew had a long list of patients waiting to see him. Bartholomew was pleased, as most lived some distance from the high street, so he would not be forced to listen to the Marian Singers massacre Michael’s beautiful compositions. He visited a potter near the Small Bridges, and was amazed when he could still hear the racket emanating from St Mary the Great.

  He took the long way around to his next patients – two elderly Breton scholars from Tyled Hostel, who were more interested in informing him that they had not voted for de Wetherset as Chancellor than explaining why they needed his services. Eventually, it transpired that they were suffering from a plethora of nervous complaints, all resulting from fear that they might be attacked for being French.

  His next call took him past the butts. This was bordered by the Franciscan Priory to the north, the Barnwell Gate in the south, the main road to the west and the filthy King’s Ditch to the east. It comprised a long, flat field with a mound, like an inverted ditch, at the far end. The mound was the height of a man and was topped with targets – circular boards with coloured rings. A line in the grass marked where the archers stood to shoot.

  It was Wednesday, so it was the University’s turn to use the ground, and as darkness had fallen, it was lit with torches. Night was not the best time for such an activity, but the daylight hours were too precious – to working men and University teachers – to lose to warfare, so practices had to be held each evening.

  The University’s sessions were meant to be supervised by the Junior Proctor, but Theophilis had left Beadle Meadowman to write the attendees’ names in a ledger and ensure an orderly queue, while he joined the Michaelhouse men at the line. The students were trying to listen to Cynric, but Theophilis kept interrupting, and when they stepped up to the mark, most of their arrows flew wide. Cynric turned and stamped away in disgust.

  ‘That stupid Theophilis!’ he hissed as he passed Bartholomew. ‘He keeps interfering, and now our boys are worse than when we started. He has undone all my good work.’

  ‘Come and shoot, Matthew,’ Theophilis called, his hissing voice distinctly unsettling in the gloom. ‘Or you will be marked as absent.’

  ‘I have patients,’ Bartholomew called back, pleased to have an excuse.

  ‘And I have documents to read, teaching to prepare, and lecture schedules to organise,’ retorted Theophilis. ‘But the King issued an edict, and I am not so arrogant as to ignore it.’

  Inwardly fuming – both at the wasted time and the public rebuke – Bartholomew marched up to the line, grabbed a bow and sent ten arrows flying towards the targets. As he did not aim properly, most went wide, although four hit the mark, showing that he had not forgotten everything he had learned at Poitiers. He handed the weapon back without a word and went on his way, pausing only to ensure that his name was in the register.

  He visited two customers near the castle, and was just crossing the Great Bridge on his way home when he met Tulyet hurrying in the opposite direction.

  ‘I have been looking everywhere for you, Matt! Poor old Wyse is dead. Will you look at him? It seems he fell in a ditch and drowned. As it is a Wednesday, he was probably drunk.’

  Will Wyse was a familiar figure in Cambridge. He eked a meagre living from selling firewood, and would have starved but for the generosity of the Franciscans, who gave him alms every Wednesday. He always celebrated his weekly windfall by spending exactly one quarter of it on ale in the Griffin tavern.

  Tulyet led Bartholomew across the river, then a short way along the Chesterton road, to where the unfortunately named Pierre Sauvage stood guard over Wyse’s body. Sauvage handed Bartholomew a lamp, and the physician saw that Wyse had apparently stumbled, so that his head had ended up in the ditch at the side of the road. The rest of the body was dry. Bartholomew knelt to examine it more closely.

  ‘An accident?’ asked Tulyet, watching him. ‘A fall while he was in his cups?’

  ‘He was murdered,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘You see that blood on the back of his head? It is where someone hit him from behind. The blow only stunned him, but his assailant dragged him here, dropped him so his face was in the water, and left him to drown.’

  Tulyet gaped at him. ‘Murdered? But who would want to kill Wyse?’

  ‘Someone who wanted his money,’ predicted Sauvage. ‘Everyone knows he had some on a Wednesday, and that he always staggered home along this road after the Griffin.’

  ‘But his purse is still on his belt,’ countered Tulyet.

  ‘Perhaps the culprit was also drunk,’ shrugged Sauvage, ‘but sobered up fast and ran away when he realised what he had done.’

  Tulyet shook his head in disgust. ‘Carry the body to St Giles’s, then go to the Griffin and see what his friends can tell you. Perhaps there was a drunken spat. Take Sergeant Orwel – he is good at prising answers from reluctant witnesses.’

  ‘He is at choir practice,’ said Sauvage. ‘But he should be finished by the time I have taken Wyse to the church. Of course, no townsman did this. We would never risk the wrath of the Franciscans – they were fond of Wyse and will be furious when they find out what has happened to him. It will be the work of a University man.’

  Bartholomew blinked. ‘What evidence do you have to say such a thing?’

  ‘First, Wyse was old and frail, so posed no threat to a puny book-man,’ began Sauvage, suggesting he had given the matter some serious thought while he had been guarding the body. ‘Second, the culprit was clever, like all you lot, so he killed his victim in a place where no one would see. And third, scholars hate the sight of blood, which is why Wyse was drowned rather than stabbed.’

  ‘That is not evidence,’ said Bartholomew impatiently. ‘It is conjecture. There is nothing to suggest that a scholar did this. Indeed, I would say the Sheriff has the right of it, and Wyse died as a result of a disagreement with his friends.’

  ‘Well, you are wrong,’ stated Sauvage resolutely. ‘You wait and see.’

  While Bartholomew visited patients, Michael organised an escort for the nuns, then went to St Mary the Great, his mind full of the music he would teach that evening. There was a Jubilate by Tunstede, followed by a Gloria he had composed himself, and finally some motets for the next matriculation ceremony. De Wetherset had vetoed the Marian Singers taking part in such an auspicious occasion, but Michael was not about to let a mere Chancellor interfere with his plans, and continued to rehearse so as to be ready for it.

  He entered the nave and looked around in astonishment, sure half the town had turned out to sing. He experienced a stab of alarm that there would not be enough post-practice food. As it was, they were obliged to share cups – one between three.

  Of course, it was his own fault that the choir had grown so huge. He had always known that some of its members were women, and had never been deceived by the horsehair beards and charcoal moustaches. However, he had recently been rash enough to say there was no reason why a choir should consist solely of men, at which point the disguises were abandoned and women arrived in droves. Feeding everyone was an ever-increasing challenge.

  He looked fondly at the many familiar faces. There were a host of beadles, Isnard the bargeman and Verious the ditcher, although Michael was less pleased to see Sergeant Orwel among the throng. Orwel was a hard-bitten, vicious, bad-tempered veteran of Poitiers, who had been the cause of several spats between scholars and townsfolk. Michael had never understood why Tulyet continued to employ him, unless it was for his ability to intimidate.

  However, the moment Orwel began to sing, Michael forgot his antipathy: the sergeant transpired to be an unexpectedly pure, clear alto. Outside, passers-by were astounded to hear a haunting quartet, sung by Michael, Orwel, Isnard and Verious.

  Afterwards, over the free bread and ale, Michael cornered the witnesses he hoped would have insights into the fire. Unfortunately, the miller had been hurrying to unload his wares lest close proximit
y to lunatics turned him insane himself, so had noticed nothing useful. Disappointed, Michael went in search of Verious, who he found sitting with Isnard and Orwel.

  ‘Terrible business about the Spital,’ said Isnard conversationally. ‘We heard forty lunatics were roasted alive.’

  Michael marvelled at the power of rumour. ‘There were not—’

  ‘It was that dolphin and his rabble,’ growled Verious. ‘They did it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael worriedly. Had the ditcher guessed the truth when he had been at the Spital and shared the secret with his dubious friends? If so, the peregrini would have to leave at once, before hotheads from the town and the University organised an assault.

  ‘The dolphin came up the river from the coast,’ explained the ditcher darkly. ‘Looting and burning as he went. Our soldiers guard the gates, so he dared not invade the town, but the Spital is isolated. The Frenchies saw it and seized their chance. Poor lunatics!’

  ‘I think the Sheriff would have noticed an enemy army rampaging about the countryside,’ said Michael drily. ‘However, someone burned a shed with six people inside it, and I intend to find the culprit. You were in the Spital yesterday, Verious – did you notice anything unusual?’

  The ditcher swelled with importance as everyone looked expectantly at him. ‘I saw the lunatics doing what lunatics do – swaying and gibbering.’

  ‘But did you see anyone near the shed?’ pressed Michael. ‘Or go near it yourself?’

  Verious grimaced. ‘No, because them Tangmer cousins would not leave me alone. Every time I tried to slip away to have a nose around, one would stop me. It meant I saw nothing very interesting.’

  ‘I spotted two of Tangmer’s madmen in the town the day before the fire,’ put in Isnard helpfully. ‘They were chatting to Sir Leger and Sir Norbert, who addressed one as Master Girard. Was he among the dead?’