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

by Susanna Gregory

  De Wetherset looked supremely uncomfortable in Michael’s chair, behind Michael’s desk and with Michael’s rugs under his plump feet. Aynton was behind him, beaming as usual. The Commissary was immaculately dressed, right down to a fresh white bandage on his wrist – not one of Bartholomew’s, which meant he had gone to a different physician for his follow-up appointment. His boots gleamed, although not even the herculean efforts of his servant could disguise their ugliness or the marks caused by his fall at the Spital.

  ‘I knew you would understand,’ said de Wetherset in relief, when the monk wished him well in his new domain, although Heltisle, who had followed, glowered furiously. ‘A Chancellor cannot expect to be taken seriously if he operates from a cupboard at the back of the church while his Senior Proctor sits in splendour at the front.’

  Michael grinned wolfishly. ‘It does not matter to me who works where. Now, why did you want to see me, Chancellor? Or would you rather have your consultation with Matt first?’

  ‘My stomach, Bartholomew,’ said de Wetherset piteously. ‘It roils again, and I need more of the remedy you gave me last time.’

  ‘Nerves,’ Bartholomew said, pulling some from his bag and handing it over. ‘Arising from fear of how the Senior Proctor might react at being displaced.’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ agreed de Wetherset with a wry smile. ‘But to business. How are the wounded in the friary? Should we expect more deaths?’

  Bartholomew kept his reply brief when he saw that neither the Chancellor nor his deputy were very interested. Only Aynton was concerned, and announced his intention to visit the injured in their sickbeds, where he would caution them against future bad behaviour.

  ‘Of course, none of it would have happened if the town had stayed away from the butts,’ said de Wetherset, when the Commissary had finished babbling. ‘It was our turn to use them, and they should have respected that.’

  ‘They did it because you invaded their practice the night before,’ said Bartholomew tartly.

  ‘I hope you do not suggest that the skirmish was our fault,’ said Heltisle indignantly. ‘We are innocent victims in this unseemly affair.’

  ‘We are,’ agreed de Wetherset. ‘However, I am sure Michael and I can work together to ensure it does not happen again. We want no more trouble with the town.’

  ‘The best way to achieve that is to present culprits for some of the crimes that have been committed against us,’ said Heltisle curtly. ‘Unfortunately, the Senior Proctor is incapable of catching them.’

  ‘Because I was ordered to leave it to Aynton,’ Michael reminded him. ‘Ergo, the failure cannot be laid at my feet. However, I have continued to mull the matter over in my mind, and I was on my way to confront one culprit when you dragged me here.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Aynton keenly. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘You will be the first to know when an arrest is made,’ lied Michael. ‘However, as I am here, perhaps you will tell me what you saw and heard at the butts last night.’

  De Wetherset raised his hands apologetically. ‘It was dark, and I was more concerned with staying away from jostling townies. I knew the contestants had gone to assess the targets, but I assumed they were all back when the order came to send off the next volley. I did not see who called it.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Heltisle. ‘But I heard it, and I can tell you with confidence that it was a townsman. For a start, it was in English, and what scholar demeans himself by using the common tongue?’

  ‘You were there?’ asked Bartholomew suspiciously. ‘You are our best archer, but neither you nor your students could be found when the town issued the challenge. Ergo, you were not at the butts at that point.’

  Heltisle regarded him with dislike. ‘We were on our way home, but raced back when we heard about the contest. So I am able to say with total conviction that the order to shoot came from the town.’

  ‘I am not so sure,’ demurred Aynton. ‘The yell was in the vernacular, but I thought it had a French inflection.’

  ‘I hope you are mistaken, Commissary,’ gulped de Wetherset. ‘Because if not, your testimony might lead some folk to think that the culprit is a scholar.’

  ‘We are not the only ones who speak French,’ said Aynton. ‘Have you not heard about the spies in the Spital? It seems you two did not hire lunatics to act as your proxies in the call to arms, but members of the Dauphin’s army!’

  Heltisle gaped his horror. ‘If that is true, I want my money back! I do not mind giving charity to a lunatic’s orphan, but I will not have it used to coddle some French brat.’

  De Wetherset was equally appalled, but not about the money. ‘Are you saying that one of these French spies came to the butts with the express purpose of making us and the town turn on each other?’ he asked in a hoarse, shocked voice. ‘And we obliged him with a riot?’

  Aynton nodded. ‘Perhaps in revenge for his five countrymen being stabbed and burned.’

  Bartholomew and Michael took their leave as the triumvirate began to debate the matter among themselves.

  ‘Personally, I think Aynton yelled the order to shoot,’ said Michael, once he and Bartholomew were out of earshot, ‘and he accuses the peregrini to throw us off his scent. But his claim is outrageous, because not even Delacroix would take such a risk.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Bartholomew soberly. ‘It was dark and crowded, so none of us would have recognised him. Moreover, Aynton was right about one thing – setting us at each other’s throats would be an excellent way to avenge his murdered friends.’

  ‘I suppose it would,’ conceded Michael unhappily.

  Outside in the street, they met Warden Shropham from King’s Hall, who had come to discuss funeral arrangements for his two dead scholars. He was a shy, diffident man, who was not really capable of controlling the arrogant young men under his command, which explained why his College was nearly always involved when trouble erupted. Feeling he should be there when the Warden spoke to de Wetherset, Michael accompanied him back inside the church. Bartholomew went, too.

  ‘De Wetherset is in there?’ whispered Shropham when Michael indicated which door he should open. ‘But that is your office, Brother!’

  ‘Heltisle decided to make some changes,’ said Michael, speaking without inflection.

  Shropham made an exasperated sound. ‘It was a bad day for the University when he was appointed. Do not let him best you, Brother – we shall all be the losers if you do.’

  He opened the office door and walked inside, leaving Michael smugly gratified at the expression of support from the head of a powerful College.

  ‘We have been discussing your deceased students, Shropham,’ de Wetherset told the Warden kindly. ‘And we have agreed that the University will pay for their tombs – two very grand ones.’

  Shropham looked pained. ‘I would rather not draw attention to the fact that they died fighting, if you do not mind – their families would be mortified.’ His grimace deepened. ‘I still cannot believe that you kept everyone at the butts once the townsfolk began to show up. If you had sent us home, Bruges and Smith would still be alive.’

  ‘You blame us for last night?’ demanded Heltisle indignantly. ‘How dare you!’

  De Wetherset sighed. ‘But he is right, Heltisle – it was a poor decision. I assumed the beadles would keep the peace, but I was wrong to place my trust in a body of men who are townsmen at heart.’

  Michael’s jaw dropped. ‘My beadles did their best – and they are loyal to a man.’

  ‘Although the same cannot be said of the ones Heltisle hired,’ put in Bartholomew, who had tended enough injured beadles to know who had done his duty and who had not. ‘Most fled at the first sign of violence, and the ones who stayed were more interested in exacerbating the problem than ending it.’

  ‘I am glad you are leaving at the end of term,’ said Heltisle coldly. ‘It will spare me the inconvenience of asking you to resign. I will not tolerate insolence from inferiors.’

  ‘
Even though he speaks the truth?’ asked Shropham. ‘Because I saw these men myself – they were useless.’

  Heltisle indicated Michael. ‘Then he should have trained them properly.’

  Michael shot him a contemptuous look before turning back to Shropham. ‘Do you know who called for the archers to shoot? Could you see him from where you stood?’

  Shropham shook his head. ‘I wish I had, because I should like to see him face justice. It is ultimately his fault that Bruges and Smith died.’

  ‘Bruges was stabbed with this,’ said Michael, producing the dagger. ‘Is it familiar?’

  ‘We scholars do not demean ourselves with weapons,’ declared Heltisle before Shropham could reply. ‘Of course, if it were a pen—’ He picked up a metal one from the table, and turned it over lovingly in his fingers. ‘Well, we can identify those at once.’

  Bartholomew was not about to let him get away with so brazen a lie. ‘You had the only perfect score at the butts last night and you once told us that you are handy with a sword. Ergo, you do demean yourself with weapons.’

  Heltisle regarded him with dislike. ‘Skills I acquired before I devoted my life to scholarship, not that it is any of your business.’

  Meanwhile, Shropham had taken the dagger from Michael and was studying it carefully. He had been a soldier before turning to academia, although Bartholomew found it difficult to believe that such a meek, sensitive man had once been a warrior of some repute.

  ‘It is French,’ he said, handing it back. ‘From around Rouen, to be precise. I had one myself once, but most are sold to local men. You should find out who hails from that region and ask them about it.’

  ‘So there you are, Brother,’ said Heltisle. ‘Run along and do as you are told, while the rest of us decide how best to honour King’s Hall’s martyred scholars.’

  Michael bowed and took his leave, while Bartholomew marvelled at his self-control – he would not have allowed himself to be dismissed so insultingly by the likes of Heltisle.

  ‘The peregrini hail from near Rouen,’ the physician said, once they were outside. ‘And the Jacquerie was strong in that region . . .’

  ‘So the daggers may belong to them,’ surmised Michael. ‘Aynton was right to suggest they might have ignited last night’s trouble with an order to shoot. And we were right to consider the possibility of a falling-out among them that saw the Girards murdered.’

  ‘If so, we can never interrogate them about it, because they have gone. Will you still speak to Alice? I doubt she has connections to Rouen.’

  ‘Even if she is not the killer, we cannot have nuns from my Order waylaying knights and urging them to kill people. We shall speak to her first, then see what Amphelisa can tell us about daggers made near Rouen.’

  ‘We have already shown her the one that killed the Girards. She did not recognise it.’

  Michael’s expression was sober. ‘That was before Shropham told us where it was made. Perhaps she will recognise it when confronted with the truth. After all, it would not be the first time she has lied to us.’

  In the event, Bartholomew and Michael were spared a trek to St Radegund’s, because Sister Alice was walking along the high street. She was with Prioress Joan and Magistra Katherine, talking animatedly, although neither was listening to what she was saying. Katherine’s distant expression suggested her thoughts were on some lofty theological matter, while Joan was more interested in the fine horse that Shropham had left tethered outside the church.

  ‘Good,’ said Michael, homing in on them. ‘I want a word with you.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Joan, alarm suffusing her homely features. ‘Why? Not because of Dusty? What has happened to him? Tell me, Brother!’

  ‘He is quite well,’ Michael assured her, raising his hands to quell her rising agitation, while Katherine smirked, amused that her Prioress’s first concern should be for an animal. ‘And perfectly content with Cynric.’

  Joan sagged in relief. ‘Is it about that dagger then? I have been mulling the matter over, and it occurs to me that I did not see it here, but at home. Obviously, we do not have that sort of thing in the convent, so now I wonder whether I spotted it in Winchelsea . . .’

  ‘We went there after it was attacked, if you recall,’ said Katherine. ‘To offer comfort to the survivors and to help them bury their dead.’

  ‘But I cannot be certain,’ finished Joan unhappily. ‘I am sorry to be such a worthless lump, but my brain refuses to yield its secrets.’

  ‘Keep trying, if you please,’ said Michael, disappointed. ‘It is important. However, it was not you we wanted to corner – it is Alice.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Alice, scratching her elbow. ‘Why? I have nothing to say to you. Besides, we are busy. The Carmelite Prior was so impressed by Magistra Katherine’s grasp of nominalism that he offered to show us his collection of books on the subject.’

  ‘To show me his books,’ corrected Katherine crisply, ‘while Joan is to be given a tour of his stables. You are invited to neither.’

  Alice sniffed huffily. ‘I do not want to see smelly old books and horses anyway.’

  ‘No?’ asked Katherine archly. ‘Then why have you foisted yourself on us?’

  ‘Because the streets are uneasy after last night’s chaos,’ retorted Alice, ‘and there is safety in numbers. If anyone else had been available, I would have chosen them instead.’

  ‘Of course you would,’ said Katherine, before glancing around with a shudder. ‘My brother always said this town is like a pustule, waiting to burst. He is right! I heard there are more than a dozen dead and countless injured.’

  ‘But no horses harmed, thank God,’ said Joan, crossing herself before glaring at Michael. ‘Although I understand Dusty was ridden into the thick of it.’

  ‘He behaved impeccably,’ Michael informed her, unabashed. ‘You would have been proud. Indeed, it is largely due to him that the death toll was not higher.’

  Joan was unappeased. ‘If there is so much as a scratch on him . . .’

  ‘There is not, and he enjoyed every moment – he is far more destrier than palfrey. Did I tell you that Bruges the Fleming declared him the finest warhorse that ever lived? Coming from King’s Hall, that was a compliment indeed.’

  ‘Bruges is from Flanders?’ asked Joan, surprised. ‘I assumed he was French. He spoke to me in that tongue – loudly and arrogantly – the other day, when he told me that he wanted to buy Dusty. It made passers-by glare at us, which was an uncomfortable experience.’

  ‘He will not do it again,’ said Bartholomew soberly. ‘He was among last night’s dead.’

  Joan gaped at him, but then recovered herself and murmured a prayer for his soul. ‘Yet I am astonished to learn he was rioting. I assumed he was more genteel, given that he had such good taste in horses.’

  ‘I do not know what you see in that ugly nag, Prioress,’ put in Alice unpleasantly. ‘Sometimes, I think you love him more than us, your Benedictine sisters.’

  ‘I do,’ said Joan baldly. ‘Especially after this conloquium, where I have learned that most are either blithering idiots, greedy opportunists or unrepentant whores.’ She regarded Alice in distaste. ‘And some are all three.’

  ‘I am none of those things,’ declared Alice angrily. ‘I am the victim of a witch-hunt by Abbess Isabel and the Bishop. I did nothing wrong.’

  ‘You made bad choices and you were caught,’ said Joan sternly. ‘Now you must either accept your fate with good grace or renounce your vows and follow some other vocation.’

  ‘As a warlock, perhaps,’ suggested Katherine. ‘Given that you know rather too much about maggoty march-panes, stinking candles and cursing spells.’

  ‘You malign me with these vile accusations,’ scowled Alice, although the truth was in her eyes. ‘I am innocent of—’

  ‘Speaking of vile accusations,’ interrupted Michael, ‘perhaps you will explain why you have been gossiping about spies in the Spital. And do not deny it, because Sir Norbert identified yo
u by your constant scratching.’

  Alice had been about to claw her arm again; Michael’s words made her drop her hand hastily. ‘But everyone is talking about the spies in the Spital. Why single me out for censure?’

  ‘Because you are the originator of the tale,’ said Michael harshly. ‘You discovered the “lunatics” were French – oldsters, women and children fleeing persecution from those they considered to be friends – and you urged Norbert to kill them.’

  ‘Did you?’ asked Katherine, regarding her in distaste. ‘And what would have happened to us during this slaughter? Or would our deaths have been an added bonus?’

  ‘I had no idea you were living with French spies until I heard it from Margery Starre last night,’ declared Alice. ‘Those rumours did not start with me.’

  ‘Look at this dagger,’ ordered Michael, holding it out to her. ‘It was used to kill Bruges. Others like it were employed on Paris, Bonet and the Girard family.’

  ‘But not by me,’ said Alice, barely glancing at it. ‘Do you really think that I, a weak woman, could plunge blades into the backs of strong and healthy men?’

  ‘How do you know they were stabbed in the back?’ pounced Bartholomew.

  Alice’s eyes glittered. ‘Because someone told me. I forget who.’

  ‘Margery, probably,’ muttered Katherine. ‘A witch, who is hardly suitable company for nuns. And it takes no great strength to drive a blade into someone from behind anyway, which I know, because the survivors at Winchelsea told me.’

  Alice sighed to show she was bored of the conversation. ‘Shall we talk about something more interesting, such as getting me reinstalled as Prioress at Ickleton?’

  Suddenly, Michael had had enough of her. ‘You are under arrest for the murders of Paris, Bonet, the Girards and Bruges,’ he said briskly. ‘And for spreading malicious rumours.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ sneered Alice. ‘Pick on the innocent nun again. Well, I have killed no one, although that might change if you persist with these ridiculous charges.’

  ‘Stop your whining – it is tedious beyond belief,’ snapped Joan, then turned to Michael, tapping the dagger with a thick forefinger. ‘This is similar to the other one you showed me, and the more I think about it, the more I suspect I did see its like in Winchelsea—’