‘It was an accident,’ said Stoate harshly. ‘These things happen in medicine. I suppose I should not have left him once I had made the incision, but I had not wanted to attend him in the first place. Grosnold had found Unwin sick and shaking, and was concerned. He ordered me to bleed him, and Grosnold is not a man easily refused.’
‘You made an incision in Unwin, and then left him unattended?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘What were you thinking of? That is one of the grossest cases of negligence I have ever heard!’
‘He said he would be all right,’ protested Stoate uneasily. ‘When I came back – only moments later – he was stone dead and there was blood all over the ground. What else could I do but try to disguise his death? I moved him into the church – fortunately for me, most of the blood in his body had already leaked out, and so it was not as messy as it could have been-and made his death appear to be a murder by stabbing him and taking his purse.’
‘Grosnold ordered you to bleed Unwin?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘What was he doing back in Grundisburgh after his spectacular departure across the village green?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Stoate, casting yet another anxious glance at the sky. ‘I try not to become involved in the sinister affairs of the lords of the manor around here. They are not men to be trusted.’
‘Unlike the physicians,’ muttered Michael. He shook his head in wonderment. ‘So, Eltisley really did see Grosnold with Unwin in the churchyard. But he was not holding Unwin’s arm in a threatening manner as we all assumed; he was being solicitous, because Unwin’s nervousness was making him unwell. Grosnold even sent for a physician to bleed him, and was doubtless “surreptitious” because Unwin told him Matt would not approve of phlebotomy.’
Stoate nodded. ‘I was summoned because Unwin told him that Bartholomew would refuse. If only I had refused, too! Then none of this would have happened.’
‘But why did Grosnold deny speaking to Unwin if he had nothing to hide?’ asked Bartholomew.
Stoate shrugged. ‘All I know is that he instructed me to say nothing about his meeting with Unwin. He gave me five marks for my silence. It seemed a good deal: I would say nothing about his role, therefore he would say nothing about mine.’
‘So, what happened to Mistress Freeman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘She did not die of a slit throat; she died from eating the mussels that were scattered all over her floor. As did Norys.’
‘The mussels killed her?’ asked Stoate in astonishment. ‘They were tainted?’
‘Were they a gift from you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To ensure she was at home when you came to kill her, and make it appear as though Norys had done it?’
Stoate gave a humourless laugh. ‘Yes, they were a gift from me, and yes, they were to ensure she was home when I called. The plan was to share them with her, and then to convince her that it had been Norys we had seen together, running from the church.’
‘But you saw no one running from the church,’ said Michael. ‘The cloaked figure was you.’
‘I did see someone,’ said Stoate earnestly. ‘Everything I have told you is the truth, except the length of the cloak. I did speak to Mistress Freeman by the ford – Norys was not with her, and she told me that he had gone to fetch her shawl, because the evening was turning chilly – and we did see someone running out of the church. And whoever it was was rubbing his eyes.’
‘Why lie about the length of the cloak?’
^Because the one I wore that night was short, very like that which I saw on the person running from the church. I realised that I needed to create confusion, if I did not want other witnesses to say the short-cloaked figure was me. So, I said he wore a long one.’
‘So the cloaked figure you saw with Mistress Freeman was just someone who had innocently stumbled on the body you had deposited in the church, and who had fled lest he be accused of a murder he did not commit?’ asked Michael. ‘Two people ran from the church that day wearing cloaks – you and this other person?’
‘So it would appear. But neither of us fled unnoticed: several people saw us – as your colleague Father William discovered when he practised his nasty Inquisition techniques on the village – and some may well have seen me, not the other person.’
He was right, thought Bartholomew. Some of the villagers William had browbeaten had claimed to have seen a man in a short cloak, not a long one: they had seen Stoate, the real killer of Unwin.
‘But why were you wearing a cloak at all?’ he asked, still puzzled. ‘It was hot that day.’
‘When one wears yellow hose, one does not sit on grass,’ said Stoate impatiently. ‘I took my cloak with me to spread on the ground, so that the village boys would not jeer at a green-stained seat. Little did I know how useful it would be: it also allowed me to carry Unwin back to the church without traces of blood seeping on to my best clothes.’
Michael shook his head unhappily. ‘How do we know we can believe you? You have lied about everything else.’
‘I have lied about nothing, except the length of the cloak,’ said Stoate, most of his attention on the slowly brightening sky again. ‘You never asked me whether I killed Unwin, and you have never questioned me about Mistress Freeman.’
‘What about your medical qualifications, then?’ demanded Michael. ‘They are false.’
‘They are not. My father took me to Paris when I was fifteen, where I sat in a library and read Galen’s Tegni. Two years later we went to Bologna, where I found another library and read it again. So, you see, I have not lied to you about that either. I told you I studied medicine in Paris and Bologna, and I have.’
‘But that claim is grossly misleading,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘You know perfectly well that people will assume you mean you have studied properly, not just read a book that you could not have understood without also reading all the commentaries that go with it.’
‘I do extremely well as a physician,’ said Stoate smugly.
‘By giving foxglove to treat Tuddenham’s stomach disease?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘By dispensing a foul ointment of cat grease and crushed snails for burns? By prescribing a potion containing betony and pennyroyal to the pregnant Janelle without cautioning her how to use it?’
Stoate wiped a bead of sweat from his face with his forefinger. He slapped his hand back on to the weapon again as Bartholomew tensed, weighing up the chances of reaching Stoate before he could fire. Michael gave him an agonised look, sensing that Stoate’s nervousness might well lead him into shooting if Bartholomew gave the impression he was about to attack at any moment.
‘I lose very few patients,’ said Stoate coldly. ‘Which is more than can be said of you, from what you have told me about your practice in Cambridge.’
‘You will miss having a rich patient like Tuddenham,’ said Michael, worried that Bartholomew might start an argument that would goad the nervous physician into shooting at them.
‘I will not have him for much longer anyway,’ said Stoate. ‘Now is a good time to leave.’ He peered at the ground, trying to ascertain whether the dawn was sufficiently advanced for riding.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael, realising they were running out of time. Stoate would not spend a moment longer than necessary before he made his escape, and Michael sensed that Stoate intended to shoot him anyway, just so that he would not be followed. ‘Or have you left him a purge that will expel his soul from his body as well as his evil humours?’
Stoate pulled an unpleasant face at him, and declined to answer. He finished checking the ground and then squinted up at the sky, abruptly turning his attention to Michael when the monk raised a hand to scratch his head.
‘So what happened in Mistress Freeman’s house?’ asked Michael, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he tried to think of something to say to delay what he knew was inevitable. ‘You presented her with mussels. Then what?’
‘I thought she could cook them for us to eat together, while I worked to convince her that it was Norys who killed Unwin – just as
you believed.’
‘And when you arrived you found that she had shared her mussels with Norys instead,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You were lucky. You would have died, too, had you eaten them.’
Stoate shook his head, his eyes distant. ‘I had no idea what had happened – I will have a few strong words with that fishmonger when I next see him. There was no answer from her door, so I looked through the window, and there they were – Mistress Freeman and Norys, dead in each other’s arms. I was afraid I would be blamed, since people know I call on her from time to time, so I slashed her throat. I knew you would assume Norys did it.’
Seeing him distracted by his memories, Bartholomew slipped his hand in his medicine bag, groping for one of his surgical knives. He eased it up his sleeve, and quickly withdrew his hand.
‘But there was no blood, was there?’ he said. ‘Corpses do not bleed.’
‘I had forgotten that. I knew that someone like you would be suspicious of a slit throat with no blood, so I fetched some from the slaughterhouse. Everyone knew a pig had been killed there for Hamon, so I guessed there would be blood in the vat.’
‘But you used far too much of it,’ said Bartholomew.
‘I had to make it look convincing,’ said Stoate. ‘Then I took some old clothes, dipped them in the blood, wrapped them in a long cloak that I found in my attic – along with Unwin’s purse – and flung the whole lot on Norys’s roof, where I knew someone would see them.’
‘But you kept the relic,’ said Michael, removing it from his scrip and waving it at Stoate. ‘That was what told us who had really killed Unwin. It fell out of your bag when you tripped up the chancel steps in the dark, rushing to help Tuddenham when he was ill.’
In a lightning-quick movement, Stoate darted across the room and snatched it from Michael’s hand. He had the crossbow pointed at the monk again before Bartholomew could do more than let the knife slip from his sleeve into the palm of his hand.
‘I will sell this when I reach somewhere it will not be recognised,’ said Stoate, pleased. ‘What is it exactly? A lock of the Virgin’s hair?’
‘It is St Botolph’s beard,’ said Michael, shocked. ‘What kind of hair did you think our Blessed Virgin had, man?’
Stoate looked quickly at the sky, then glanced along the road. Bartholomew’s fingers tightened on the knife, trying not to think about what might happen if he missed, and if Stoate were startled or angered into firing the crossbow. Stoate, however, was no fool.
‘Sit still,’ he ordered sharply. ‘And put your hands in front of you, where I can see them.’
While Michael sighed and puffed at the indignity, Bartholomew shoved the knife under his leg, and rested his empty hands in his lap, cursing himself for hesitating when he should have hurled the weapon.
‘And what did you do with Norys’s body?’ asked Michael. ‘Pay three louts to bury it in Unwin’s grave for you?’
‘No,’ said Stoate, still watching Bartholomew for hints of trickery. ‘That had nothing to do with me. I left his body in the woods near Barchester, and I have no idea how he managed to arrive in Unwin’s tomb. I do not desecrate graves.’
‘Just the corpses that lie in them,’ said Bartholomew, seeing Stoate glance up at the sky once more. It was now quite pale, and Bartholomew could make out individual leaves on the trees. A good horseman would be able to make reasonable time, if he were careful. Stoate took a deep breath and tightened his finger on the trigger, while Bartholomew let one of his hands drop to the floor, easing it toward the knife that pressed into his leg.
‘But I killed no one,’ insisted Stoate. ‘Unwin, Mistress Freeman and Norys were accidents – as it seems to me you had already reasoned anyway.’
‘But what about the man hanging at Bond’s Corner?’ asked Michael, desperately playing for time. ‘Did you kill him? And what about Alcote, or was that an accident too?’
‘I know nothing about Alcote or any hanged men,’ said Stoate, glancing up at the sky for the last time. ‘Now, gentlemen, pleasant though your company has been, it is time for me to be on my way.’
Before Bartholomew could grab the knife, Stoate had pulled the trigger on the crossbow, aiming at Michael. There was a click that sounded sickeningly loud. With a sharp intake of breath, Bartholomew gazed at Michael in horror. Michael stared at Stoate, then gave a bellow of anger, struggling to stand while Stoate looked stupidly at the jammed mechanism on his weapon. Bartholomew snatched up his knife and hurled it before Stoate could recover his wits. The wicked little blade sliced cleanly through one of Stoate’s flowing sleeves, and impaled itself in the door jamb, vibrating with the force of the throw.
Startled into action, Stoate heaved the crossbow at Michael. There was a whir and a snap as the mechanism unfouled, and the bolt was loosed. Michael dropped to the floor with a howl of pain. Seeing the monk fall, Stoate darted out of the door, and Bartholomew heard something thump against it as it was blocked from the outside. Stomach churning, Bartholomew scrambled to Michael, who lay clutching his chest.
‘I am hit, Matt!’ he groaned. ‘Murdered by a physician!’
‘Where?’ shouted Bartholomew, searching frantically for a wound, but finding none. He heard a clatter of hooves outside as Stoate mounted his horse.
Michael’s hand fluttered weakly over his side, but Bartholomew could still see nothing, not even a tear in his habit where the quarrel had sliced through it. Then his shaking hands encountered something hard, and Michael gave a gasp. He pushed his hand down the front of Michael’s gown, anticipating some dreadful injury, but then saw the crossbow bolt embedded in the wall above his head. With a sigh of relief, he sat back on his heels, and rubbed a trembling hand through his hair. Michael regarded him with frightened eyes.
‘Is it a mortal wound?’ he whispered.
‘You fell on your purse,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The quarrel missed you altogether. You are only bruised. That will teach you to carry so much gold.’
Michael sat up and prodded himself carefully. ‘Stoate is escaping!’ he exclaimed, when a quick examination convinced him he was unharmed.
He scrambled to his feet and joined Bartholomew at the barred door, jostling the physician out of the way to hit it with a tremendous crash that ripped the entire frame from the wall. Bartholomew raced out into the road to see Stoate disappearing round the corner in a thunder of hooves.
‘You will never catch him!’ yelled Michael as Bartholomew began to give chase. I am going to Tuddenham.’
In the distance Michael spotted Cynric, who had been searching for them. He shouted for the Welshman to follow Bartholomew, while he ran in the opposite direction to fetch help.
Bartholomew tore down the path Stoate had taken, running as hard as he could. As he rounded the corner, he could see the horse in front of him, galloping down the narrow track with its saddle bags bouncing behind it, and Stoate clinging on for dear life. Bartholomew ran harder, feeling the blood pound in his head and his lungs pump as though they would burst. Stoate turned another bend, and Bartholomew shot after him, hurling his medicine bag away when it threatened to slow him down. When he rounded the next corner, Stoate was out of sight. It was hopeless – he could never catch a horse on foot. Gradually, he stopped, breath sobbing in his chest as he fought for air.
‘He is long gone,’ said Cynric, appearing beside him, panting hard. ‘He will be in Ipswich before we can organise a chase, and then he will be on a ship bound for France or the Low Countries.’ He kicked at the ground furiously. ‘That damned Eltisley! Stoate would not have escaped if he had not damaged my bow.’
‘What has Stoate done to warrant shooting him down in cold blood?’ came Eltisley’s smooth voice from behind them. Bartholomew and Cynric spun round, and saw the landlord standing there with a bow of his own, flanked by three of his sullen customers, who looked a good deal more proficient with their weapons than he did.
‘You will not catch him on foot,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that Eltisley meant to help arrest a kill
er and a desecrator of corpses.
‘I have no intention of catching him at all,’ said Eltisley softly. ‘It is you I want.’
Chapter 12
ELTISLEY SCRATCHED HIS BLISTERED FACE – STILL smeared with Stoate’s paste of crushed snails and mint in cat grease – with his free hand, and jabbed his sword into the small of Bartholomew’s back to make him walk faster. It was still not fully light, and Eltisley and three friends – those Bartholomew had seen hunched sullenly over their ale in the Half Moon – had directed Bartholomew and Cynric away from the village on a path that led west. Cynric had been stripped of his arsenal, and Bartholomew had no weapons anyway, not even the surgical knives that he carried in his medicine bag, which was now lying in the bushes on the Ipswich road. Eltisley bragged to his men about how he had the foresight to damage Cynric’s bow with one of his potions.
‘Do you have any of your medicine for blisters?’ he queried, scrubbing vigorously at a cheek that was red and running. ‘That remedy Stoate suggested does not seem to be working.’
‘You can ask him for another,’ said Bartholomew, ‘when you meet your partner in crime later.’
‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ said Eltisley. ‘I have no partner-and if I did, I would not choose a physician. Whatever caused Stoate to flee the village has nothing to do with me.’
‘He killed Unwin,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He opened a vein and allowed him to bleed to death.’
‘That was careless,’ said Eltisley. ‘So Norys did not kill the friar, as everyone believes? It was Stoate? Well, I never! But do you have any of your lotion or not? My burns are itching and driving me to distraction.’
‘No, but I imagined you would have a remedy of your own,’ Bartholomew said, hoping that Eltisley would use one of his evil concoctions and make himself ill.
‘All my potions were destroyed with the Half Moon. It is a dreadful loss to the village.’
A Wicked Deed Page 43
