A Masterly Murder хмб-6

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘It might spice things up a little,’ said Michael, green eyes gleaming as he contemplated the intrigues of such a situation.

  ‘It would not,’ said Bartholomew firmly, replacing the jar of salve in his bag and washing his hands. ‘William does not have the intellect to embark on the kind of clever plotting you enjoy – he is more of a fists man.’

  Michael laughed. ‘You are right. But you have missed your chance to enthral your students with lurid descriptions of bile, phlegm and blood this morning, Matt, because the porter will ring the bell for the midday meal soon. Hurry up, or there will be nothing left.’

  He had shot from the storeroom and was crossing the courtyard to be first at the table, before Bartholomew could reply. The physician smiled at the fat monk’s greed, finished tidying his chamber, and followed at a more sedate pace. He shivered as he walked across the yard to the hall. A bitter north wind blew, bringing with it the promise of yet more rain, and perhaps even snow. He had just reached the porch when Cynric, his book-bearer, came hurrying towards him, shouting to catch his attention.

  ‘You had better come with me, boy,’ said Cynric breathlessly. ‘I have just found Justus dead near Dame Nichol’s Hythe, on the river.’

  ‘You mean the Justus who is John Runham’s book-bearer?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. Justus had served dinner at high table only the previous evening. ‘How did he die? Did he drown?’

  Cynric looked uncomfortable. ‘It is not for me to say – you are the physician. But come quickly before the poor man’s corpse attracts a crowd of gawking onlookers.’

  Bartholomew followed him out of the College and down the lane to the ramshackle line of jetties that lined the river bank. They turned right along the towpath, and headed for the last pier in the row, known as Dame Nichol’s Hythe. Dame Nichol was long since dead, and the sturdy wharf she had financed was now in a sorry state. Its timber pillars were rotting and unsafe, and huge gaps in its planking threatened to deposit anyone standing on it into the sluggish brown waters of the River Cam below. The bank behind was little more than a midden, cluttered with discarded crates, broken barrels and scraps of unwanted clothing, and the fetid mud was impregnated with human and animal waste. The whole area stank of decaying, wet wood and sewage.

  In the summer, the wharves – even Dame Nichol’s – were hives of activity, with barges from France and the Low Countries arriving daily, loaded with all manner of exotic goods, as well as the more mundane wool, grain and stone for building. In the winter, however, the colourful bustle of the tiny docks all but ceased, and that day only a few shabbily dressed bargemen laboured in the chill wind, slowly and listlessly removing peat faggots from a leaking flat-bottomed skiff. Two gulls watched Bartholomew and Cynric with sharp yellow eyes, waiting for them to be gone so that they could resume their scavenging for the discarded fish entrails and eel heads that lay festering and rank in the sticky muck of the towpath.

  Cynric’s fears that Justus’s body would attract hordes of intrigued townsfolk were unfounded: the toiling bargemen – and even the birds – were not interested in it. Life was hard for many people following the Great Pestilence that had swept across the country, and it was not uncommon for desperate souls to end it all in the murky depths of the river. Justus lay disregarded and uncared for amid the scrubby weeds and filth, no more popular or remarkable in death than he had been in life.

  Justus had been the servant of a Michaelhouse Fellow called John Runham, although Bartholomew had always been under the impression that they did not like each other. He could understand why: Runham was smug, condescending and arrogant; Justus was self-absorbed and dismal.

  ‘I found him when I came to buy peat for the College fires,’ explained Cynric. ‘I noticed a stray dog sniffing around, and when I came to see what it had discovered, I saw Justus. At least, I assume it is Justus. He is wearing that horrible tunic Justus always donned when he was not working.’

  Cynric had a point about the corpse’s identity. The bizarrely patterned garment of which Justus had been so fond was all that could be immediately identified, because a thick leather wineskin had been pulled over the body’s head and then tied tight under the chin with twine. Bartholomew crouched down and undid it, noting it had been knotted at the front in the imperfect, haphazard way he would expect from a suicide. He drew it off, hearing Cynric’s soft intake of breath as he saw the dark, swollen features of the dead book-bearer.

  ‘Well, it is Justus right enough,’ said Cynric grimly. ‘I would recognise those big yellow teeth anywhere. Did he kill himself?’

  ‘It looks that way,’ said Bartholomew, inspecting the wineskin. It was a coarse, watertight sack, designed to hold cheap brews for those not able to afford the better wines that came in casks. Because the bag had been sealed with resin to make it leak-proof, it was also air-proof, and once the rope had been tightened around the neck, it had suffocated the wearer.

  ‘Justus was never a contented man,’ said Cynric, regarding his fellow book-bearer pityingly. ‘He was always complaining about something. And he envied me my happiness with Rachel.’ He gave a sudden and inappropriate grin. ‘Married life is a fine thing, boy. You should try it.’

  ‘Perhaps I will one day,’ said Bartholomew vaguely, unwilling to indulge in such a discussion when one of the College servants lay dead at his feet. ‘But first, I want to be certain that Justus killed himself, and that no one gave him a helping hand into the next world.’

  ‘But why would anyone do that?’ asked Cynric, surprised. ‘He had nothing worth stealing, because he spent all he earned on wine or ale. None of his clothes are missing as far as I can see, and here is his dagger – not a very valuable item, but one that would have been stolen had he been murdered for his possessions.’

  Bartholomew inspected the dead man in more detail, checking for signs that Justus might have been involved in a struggle. He examined the man’s hands, but they were unmarked and the fingernails showed no evidence that he had clawed at an assailant. Ignoring an exclamation of disgust from Cynric, Bartholomew sniffed cautiously at Justus’s mouth, and detected the pungently sweet odour of alcohol – far stronger than he would have expected had the smell come simply from Justus having a wineskin over his head for a few hours.

  The front-tied knot on the bag, plus the fact that Justus had probably been in his cups when he had died, suggested to Bartholomew that the servant had drunk himself into a state of gloom and had chosen suffocation with the wineskin as a reasonably easy death. Justus was seldom without wine to hand, so it was not inconceivable that he should choose such a method to dispatch himself. And, as Cynric had pointed out, Justus was a naturally miserable man who was given to moods of black despair.

  Poor Justus, he thought, sitting back on his heels and gazing down at the contorted features that lay in the mud in front of him. Life as book-bearer to a demanding and ill-tempered master like John Runham could not have been especially pleasant, but Bartholomew had not imagined it was bad enough to drive a man to suicide. He wondered what aspect of Justus’s existence had caused him to end his life in such a pathetic way and to select as unsavoury and grimy a spot as Dame Nichol’s Hythe in which to do it.

  While Cynric went to summon porters to carry Justus’s body to St Michael’s Church, and to report what had happened to Brother Michael, who as Senior Proctor would need to give a verdict on the sudden death of a University servant, Bartholomew waited, gazing down at the body that lay in front of him.

  It was damp from dew, and stiff, suggesting that it had been there for some hours. Bartholomew supposed that serving dinner at Michaelhouse the evening before had been one of the last things Justus had done. He racked his brains, trying to recall whether Justus had seemed more morose than usual, but the book-bearer was so habitually sullen that Bartholomew was not sure whether he would have noticed anyway.

  It was not long before Michael arrived, bustling importantly along the river bank, and more breathless than he should have been from the shor
t walk from his College.

  ‘Suicide?’ he panted, scratching his bad arm. ‘I am not surprised. Justus was a morose beggar, and was always moaning about something. I have never met a more gloom-ridden man – and that includes all the Franciscans in my acquaintance! Well? When did he do it?’

  ‘I cannot tell specifically, but probably last night.’

  ‘He served us dinner last night,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘And shortly after that I saw him leave Michaelhouse with a full wineskin dangling from one hand. Could I have been the last person to see him alive?’

  ‘Possibly,’ replied Bartholomew, sorry that he had not been aware of the extent of Justus’s misery before it had led to such irreversible measures. The community of scholars and servants at Michaelhouse was not large, and someone should have noticed Justus’s sufferings and tried to help.

  Michael glanced around at the insalubrious surroundings of Dame Nichol’s Hythe and gave a fastidious shudder. ‘He could have picked a better spot than this to spend his last moments on Earth.’

  ‘I imagine the quality of the scenery was not uppermost in his mind,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He probably saw this only as somewhere he would not be disturbed.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Few people wander here after dark. Well, it is obvious what happened: Justus came here alone last night intending to drink himself into oblivion, became overly despondent – as he often did when he was in his cups – and decided to do away with himself.’

  Bartholomew could see no reason to disagree with him. ‘The cord was fairly taut around his neck, but not so tight as to leave a mark. He must have knotted it there, and then slowly slipped into unconsciousness from lack of air. There is no damage to his hands, so he did not fight against it.’

  ‘And he is still in possession of his clothes and dagger, which suggests to me that he lay undisturbed until Cynric found him this morning,’ concluded Michael. ‘Poor man.’

  Cynric arrived with two porters and a stretcher, and Bartholomew and Michael began to walk back to Michaelhouse while the servants followed with the body. Bartholomew noticed that the corpse had been covered as an automatic mark of respect, although a filthy horse-blanket hastily snatched from the stable had been used. There would be little mourning for the book-bearer, and Bartholomew wondered whether any of his colleagues would even bother to attend his burial.

  ‘Come on, Matt,’ said Michael, taking his arm, and hauling him along with surprising speed for a man who looked so flabby. ‘We can still make the midday meal if we are quick! I was only able to grab a lump of bread before you sent for me.’

  ‘A missed meal will do you no harm,’ said Bartholomew, eyeing the monk’s substantial girth critically. ‘It might even prove beneficial. I do not think it can be healthy to be so fat.’

  ‘What nonsense you speak sometimes,’ said Michael scathingly. ‘Being a Master of Theology, the Senior Proctor, an adviser to the Bishop of Ely …’

  ‘Spy for the Bishop of Ely,’ corrected Bartholomew.

  ‘… and a Fellow of Michaelhouse is a tiring business, and I need all the sustenance I can lay my hands on. Anyway, how did you come by this ridiculous notion that well-built men are unhealthy? Even a half-wit can see that the people who are ill most frequently are those who do not have enough to eat. Nearly all your patients are skinny people with appetites like sparrows.’

  ‘But most of my patients are poor. The poor tend to be thinner than the rich, because they cannot afford the luxury of gluttony.’

  ‘Well, there you are then,’ said Michael triumphantly. ‘Everyone knows the poor are subject to more diseases than the rich, and you have just acknowledged that poor people are thin. Ergo, being thin makes you susceptible to a greater number of illnesses. You are a strange sort of physician, Matt, always flying in the face of logic to form your own peculiar theories. No wonder your medical colleagues are convinced you are a heretic.’

  ‘I do not have many medical colleagues left,’ said Bartholomew dismally. ‘Those who survived the plague have either died or moved on to more lucrative positions. Only Master Lynton from Peterhouse and Robin of Grantchester remain.’

  ‘You should not claim Robin of Grantchester as a colleague,’ advised Michael. ‘First, he is a surgeon, not a physician. And second, he kills more people than he saves. I hear he is going to amputate Master Saddler’s leg today, even though Saddler will gain more from a priest than a surgeon, from what I am told.’

  ‘Robin plans to operate?’ said Bartholomew, surprised. ‘Saddler will not survive if he does. Amputation might have saved him two weeks ago, but not now. Robin is a fool to try.’

  ‘He is a fool with three shillings in his pocket,’ said Michael. ‘He always collects payment in advance – if he did the honourable thing and only charged patients who lived, he would starve. And speaking of starving, there is the bell for the midday meal.’ He beamed happily, Justus and the unsavoury image of Cambridge’s surgeon firmly pushed from his mind as he anticipated happier things. ‘We are just in time.’

  Leaving the monk to hurry to his meal, Bartholomew went to wash in the basin of water that always stood on the floor of his room. It was a peculiarity of his that he always rinsed his hands after touching corpses, much to the disdainful amusement of his less fastidious colleagues. As he scrubbed them dry with a piece of sacking, he gazed out of his window.

  In the dull, metallic light of November, the College looked stark and comfortless. With the exception of the hall and conclave, none of the windows had glass, and the scholars were faced with two choices: to close the shutters and have a room that was cold and dark, or leave them open for one that was very cold but light enough to see in. To compound the problem, Michaelhouse only provided fuel for fires in the communal rooms, not for individual chambers. Some scholars could afford to buy their own wood, but Bartholomew, with nothing but his Fellow’s salary of four marks a year, could not. His training as a physician might have made him rich, but he found it more satisfying to treat the diseases and ailments of the poor, than to dispense purges and astrological advice to the wealthy. The fees paid by the few who could recompense him for his services only just covered the expenses incurred in providing for his less affluent clients.

  He finished drying his hands and walked outside to the courtyard. The College was looking decidedly shabbier than it had done a year before, and parts were in desperate need of maintenance. Michaelhouse’s founder had originally intended the yard to be cobbled, but somehow this had never transpired, and the rectangular patch of land enclosed by the hall, conclave and kitchens at one end, the porters’ lodge and a sturdy wall at the other, and flanked by two opposing ranges of rooms where the scholars lived, was little more than a square of churned-up mud, the treacherous slickness of which was legendary throughout the town.

  The hall itself was a handsome building, and had once been the home of a wealthy merchant called Roger Buttetourte. Buttetourte had used only the best materials, and his mansion had been built to last. The same was not true of the accommodation ranges, however. Michael’s room, which was above Bartholomew’s, had such a large hole in the roof that his students complained the moon shone through it and kept them awake. Bartholomew’s own chamber had walls that ran dark with mildew, while the plaster fell away in rotten clumps, exposing the damp stones underneath.

  Bartholomew picked his way across the quagmire of the yard, and climbed the steep spiral staircase that led to the hall. It had been a long time since breakfast, and, like Michael, the other scholars were hungry, so Bartholomew found he was the last to arrive. The high table, where the Fellows sat, was on a dais at the south end of the hall, while at right angles to it were two long trestle tables for the students and commoners. Every scholar was already at his place, standing behind the benches with his hands clasped in front of him as he waited for Master Kenyngham to say grace.

  Beaming benignly, the Master waited until the physician reached his seat, while Michael sighed impatiently, his eyes fixed on the f
reshly baked bread. Bartholomew’s students nudged each other and grinned; their teacher’s absent-mindedness when he was engaged in medical matters often meant he was late for meals and it had become something of a joke with them.

  As Bartholomew came to stand between Michael and Father William, he saw that two seats, which had been empty since a pair of Fellows had left to take up posts in Westminster Abbey, were occupied. He realised that the newcomers must be their successors, and studied them with interest.

  One was the Dominican friar whom Master Kenyngham had mentioned the previous evening. He had a pale face and hair that stood up in a peculiar comb around the edge of his tonsure, and there was a fanatical gleam in his eyes. Bartholomew felt his heart sink. Here was no compliant cleric who would turn a deaf ear to the insults hurled at him and his Order by the belligerent Franciscan Father William, and the physician sensed that it would not be long before the two men found something to argue about.

  The other newcomer wore the white robes of a Carmelite, and Bartholomew’s spirits sank even further. Even if the Dominican and the Franciscan managed a truce, one of them would be bound to initiate some kind of dispute with the Carmelite. There were several Orders of mendicant friars in Cambridge, each of which loathed the others, and Michaelhouse had now managed to appoint representatives from three of them. He supposed he should be grateful that Kenyngham, who was a Gilbertine, and Michael, who was a Benedictine monk, usually remained aloof from the unseemly rows in which the others engaged with such fervour.

  But the Carmelite, unlike the Dominican, did not look like the kind of man who enjoyed dissent. He was short and round, with a cheery red face that was creased with laughter lines. He smiled at Bartholomew when he saw he was being assessed, and Bartholomew smiled back, liking the merry twinkle in the man’s eyes and the fact that he was not too overawed by Michaelhouse’s formality to acknowledge a new colleague with a gesture of friendliness.