A Bone of Contention хмб-3

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘So, did you dress as a grandmother to save your reputation, or mine?’ he asked, turning away from the chaos to look at Matilde.

  ‘Both,’ she said. ‘But mainly yours. It was your sister’s idea, actually, although of course her husband knows nothing about it. He thinks I am some distant cousin you invited, and lost interest in me as soon as he learned I had nothing to sell and didn’t want to buy anything.’

  Bartholomew laughed, then raised an arm to protect her as Father William, now describing some fight in which he had emerged victorious, snatched up a candlestick and began to wave it in the air, splattering wax everywhere and landing the voluptuous merchant’s wife on his other side a painful crack on the back of the neck.

  ‘And so I managed to escape from those evildoers, stealing back all my friary’s sacred relics to protect them from pagan hands,’ he finished grandly, slumping back down into his chair.

  ‘You escaped from these heathens with all the relics?’ asked Eleanor, impressed. ‘All alone, and with no weapon other than a small stick and your own cunning?’

  ‘And the hand of God,’ added William, as an afterthought.

  He wiped the sweat from his face with the edge of the tablecloth. ‘The relics are now safe in Salamanca Cathedral. We later returned to the village and charged everyone with heresy.’

  ‘The whole village?’ asked Eleanor, eyes wide and round. ‘What happened?’

  William seized the candlestick again and lurched to his feet. ‘There was a fight, of course, but I was ready for them!’

  The merchant’s wife received another crack on the head as William girded himself up for action. Before he could do any more damage, Bartholomew wrested the object from him and he and Cynric escorted him, none too willingly, to his room. The fresh air seemed to sober the friar somewhat.

  ‘That damned medicine of yours,’ he muttered. ‘You gave me too much of it.’

  Bartholomew looked sharply at the friar. ‘Did you take all that I left on the table? You were supposed to have saved some of it for later.’

  ‘Then you should have told me so,’ growled William, trying to free his arm from Cynric to walk unattended. ‘It was powerful stuff.’

  ‘So was the wine,’ remarked Bartholomew. As soon as the friar was on his bed, he began to snore. Bartholomew turned him on his side and left a bucket next to the bed, certain he would need it later.

  Meanwhile, back in the hall, Bartholomew’s place had been taken by Sam Gray who was deep in conversation with Eleanor. When the physician offered to walk her home, she waved him away impatiently, and turned her attention back to Gray.

  ‘I will see her home,’ Gray volunteered, far more readily than he agreed to do most things. He proffered an arm to Eleanor, who took it with a predatory grin. Side by side, they picked their way across fallen guests, scraps of food and empty bottles, and left the hall.

  ‘Eleanor will be safe enough with him,’ said Matilde, seeing Bartholomew’s look of concern. ‘It is still daylight outside and she is a woman well able to take care of herself.’

  ‘Then, perhaps I can escort you home.’

  ‘No, Matthew. The sisters will be waiting to hear all about this Feast, and they will want to see me in my disguise. I shall go to them now, so that they have my tale before they start work tonight.’

  ‘Why are they so interested?’

  ‘Why should they not be? These men, who lie in drunken heaps, are the great and good of the town, who use us for their pleasures on the one hand, but who are quick to condemn us on the other. The sisters will enjoy hearing about how they have debased themselves. My only regret is that I have no suitable words with which to describe the choir.’

  ‘I could think of some,’ said Bartholomew, looking across to where a few of them were carousing near the screen. Whether they were still singing, or simply yelling to make themselves heard, he could not decide.

  ‘Thank you again,’ she said, touching him on the arm. ‘You will be busy tomorrow, dealing with all these sore heads and sick stomachs, so go to bed early.’

  With this sound advice, she took her leave, making her way carefully across the yard and out of the gates, a curious figure whose matronly attire and walking stick contrasted oddly with her lithe, upright posture and graceful steps.

  Bartholomew heaved a sigh of relief, aware that a combination of good luck, Matilde’s ingenuity and strong wine had extricated him from his delicate situation with no damage done. Wearily, still smiling about the spectacle William had made of himself, Bartholomew headed for his room.

  No one at Michaelhouse was awake before sunrise, and the Franciscans, to a man, missed their pre-dawn offices.

  Father William looked gaunt and pale and roundly damned the perils of over-indulgence. Notwithstanding, he helped himself to a generous portion of oatmeal at breakfast, so Bartholomew supposed that he could not feel too ill.

  Before lectures started, Robin of Grantchester appeared at the gates, informing the scholars of Michaelhouse that he was prepared to offer them a collective discount on any leeching or bleeding that was required. No one took advantage of his generosity, although a number of Fellows and students availed themselves of Bartholomew’s services, which tended to be less painful, less expensive, and more likely to work. Unkindly, Bartholomew suggested that Robin should visit the Mayor, who was last seen being carried home in a litter, singing some bawdy song that, rumour had it, Sam Gray had taught him.

  Once teaching was finished, Bartholomew found he had a large number of patients to see. A few of them were people suffering the after-effects of the previous night’s excesses, but others were ill because food was scarce following the plague, and not everyone could afford to buy sufficient to keep them in good health.

  The irony of it did not escape the physician.

  Michael meanwhile, after a day’s break from his duties, announced that he was going to pay another visit to Godwinsson Hostel to try to wring more information from its students about their whereabouts at the time of Werbergh’s death. His previous attempt had proved unsuccessful because no one had been at home. Concerned for his friend entering what he considered to be a lion’s den, Bartholomew offered to accompany him but Michael waved him away saying that the physician might be more hindrance than help in view of Lydgate’s antipathy towards him. They walked together to the High Street and then parted, Michael heading towards Small Bridges Street, and Bartholomew to St Mary’s Church; where the Chancellor was paying for his greed over a large plate of sickly marchpanes the day before.

  It was late by the time Bartholomew had completed his rounds, and the evening was gold and red. He knew he should return to Michaelhouse, and send Gray to return the Galen to David’s Hostel that he had forgotten about the day before, but it was too pleasant an evening to be indoors. There were perhaps two hours of daylight left – time enough for him to walk to the river and still be back at Michaelhouse sufficiently early to send Gray to David’s with the book before curfew.

  He decided to visit two of the old men who lived near the wharves on the river. Both were prone to attacks of river fever and, despite Bartholomew’s repeated advice against drinking directly from the Cam’s unsavoury depths, they were set in their ways because they had been using the river as a source of drinking water since they were children, they saw no reason to change. They were old and each new bout of illness weakened them a little further, especially in the summer months. Bartholomew visited them regularly. He enjoyed sitting between them on the unstable bench outside their house, watching the river ooze past, and listening to tales of their pasts.

  A cool breeze was blowing in from the Fens and the setting sun bathed the river in a soft amber light.

  Even the hovels that stood in an uneven line behind Michaelhouse looked picturesque, their crude wattle- and-daub walls coloured pale russets and rich yellows in the late daylight.

  The two old men, Aethelbald and Dunstan, were sitting in their usual place, their backs against the flimsy wall o
f their house, and their dim-sighted eyes turned towards the wharves where a barge from Flanders was unloading.

  They greeted Bartholomew with warm enthusiasm and, as always, made room for him to sit between them on the bench that was never built to take the weight of three.

  Bartholomew sat cautiously, ever alert for the sharp crack that would pre-empt the three of them tumbling into the dust. There was nothing more than an ominous creak and, gradually, Bartholomew allowed himself to relax.

  They chatted for a while about nothing in particular.

  Aethelbald was recovering well from his last attack of river sickness, and both claimed that they were now only drinking from the well in Water Street. They told him about a fox that was stealing hens, that there were more flies now than when they were young, arid that one of Dunstan’s grandchildren was suffering the pangs of his first unrequited love.

  The two old men talked while Bartholomew listened.

  It was not that he found chickens, flies and adolescent crushes fascinating, but there was something timeless about their gossip that he found reassuring. Perhaps it was that what they told him was so unquestionably normal and that there were no hidden meanings or twists to their words. Their lives were simple and, if not honest, then at least their deceptions were obvious ones, and their motives clear – unlike the devious twisting and reasoning of the University community.

  Dunstan was chuckling about his grandson’s misfortunes in love because, apparently, the lady of his choice was a prostitute.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Bartholomew curiously.

  ‘Her name was Joanna,’ said Dunstan, still cackling.

  Bartholomew stared at him. ‘Joanna? But there is no prostitute in the town by that name!’

  The two men stared back, their laughter giving way to amused disbelief. ‘You seem very sure of that, Doctor,’ said Dunstan with a wink at his brother.

  Bartholomew was chagrined to feel himself flush. ‘I was told,’ he said lamely.

  Now it was Aethelbald’s turn to wink. ‘I’m sure you were, Doctor,’ he said.

  Dunstan saw Bartholomew’s expression and took pity on him. ‘She is not from these parts. She was visiting relatives here from Ely when she met my lad. She has gone back now.’

  ‘When did she go? What did she look like?’ asked Bartholomew, sitting straight-backed on the rickety bench, oblivious to the protesting cracks and groans of its flimsy legs.

  The brothers exchanged a look of surprise but answered his questions. ‘She went back the morning after the riot,’ said Dunstan, ‘She was a big lass with a good deal of thick yellow hair.’

  Fair hair, mused Bartholomew. Could Joanna have been the body he had seen in the castle after all?

  Was it Joanna that Cecily had seen dead at the feet of her husband, and not Dominica? He recalled his own experiences of mistaken identity that night in relation to Michael and winced. It was not easy to be certain in the dark, with only the flickering light of uncontrolled flames to act as a torch. Perhaps Cecily Lydgate had seen only fair hair and had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Which would mean that Michael had been right all along and that Dominica and the mysterious Joanna were different people.

  ‘Did you see her after the riot?’ Bartholomew asked.

  Dunstan shook his head. ‘Our lad had a message the morning after, bidding him farewell. That is how we came to know about it. She wrote our lad a note and he cannot read, so he had to bring it here because Aethelbald has some learning – providing the words are not too long, and they are all in English.’

  Aethelbald looked proud of himself, and explained that he had spent a year at the Glommery School next to King’s Hall and had learned his letters. Bartholomew’s thoughts tumbled in confusion. If Joanna, and not Dominica, had been killed during the riot, then why had there been no one except Bartholomew at her funeral service? What of the people she had come to the town to visit?

  As if reading his thoughts, Dunstan began telling him about the relatives Joanna had come to see.

  ‘It was that family on the High Street,’ he began unhelpfully.

  ‘That family of women,’ added Aethelbald. ‘A mother and three daughters.’

  For the second time in the space of a few minutes, Bartholomew gazed from one to the other of the brothers in bewilderment.

  ‘Mistress Tyler and her daughters?’

  Dunstan snapped his fingers triumphantly. ‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Agnes Tyler.’ He was silent for a moment, before he began to chuckle again. ‘And, although she said she was delighted to have a visit from her Ely niece, I know for a fact from Mistress Bowman that she did not take kindly to Joanna running some unofficial business from Agnes’s home!’

  The two old men howled with laughter, then returned to the business of the fox and the chickens, while Bartholomew’s thoughts whirled in confusion. Joanna had not been with the Tylers in the riot. Surely Mistress Tyler would not have left her inside the house? He chewed on his lower lip as he recalled the events of that night. He had offered to go back to oust looters from the Tyler home after the fire had died out, but Mistress Tyler had asked him to escort them to Jonas the Poisoner’s house instead. If Dunstan was right, then Joanna would still have been in Cambridge and had left the following morning.

  But if it had been Mistress Tyler’s niece that had been murdered, why were her aunt and cousins not at her funeral service? Was it because they did not know she was dead? But surely that was not possible? The names of the riot victims had been widely published and Tulyet had gone to some trouble to ensure the families of the dead were informed. And even if Mistress Tyler had believed Joanna had already left for Ely, the name Joanna on a list of town dead must surely have raised some question in her mind?

  He closed his eyes, seeing again the events of that night: students and townsmen running back and forth, shouting and brandishing weapons; Master Burney’s workshop alive with flames and the fire spreading to the Tyler home nearby; Mistress Tyler saying there were looters in the house after the French students’ attack had been thwarted. Bartholomew had not seen or heard the looters: he only had Mistress Tyler’s word that they had been in her house. And then he thought about the house when Michael and he had recovered from the attack; it had been pleasant, clean and fresh-smelling, and the furniture was of good quality and well kept. There was no evidence that the room had been ill-used or damaged by fire.

  He felt sick as the implications began to dawn on him.

  Had Mistress Tyler left Joanna in the house deliberately, to be at the mercies of the supposed looters? Did that explain why she wanted him to escort her to Jonas’s house – even though the family had already shown they were more than capable of looking after themselves, and his presence would not make a significant difference to their chances – to keep him from knowing Joanna was still in the house? And did it explain why Eleanor had been so keen to dissuade him from his investigations when he had told her that he was looking for Joanna’s killer during the Feast?

  Also, the night he and Michael were attacked, Agnes Tyler had invited them into her house as an act of charity without knowing who they were. Would she have invited them so readily had she known, aware that any signs of looters in the house only a few nights before were essentially invisible? When Eleanor had invited him to eat with them the day after the riot, he had been taken to the garden, not to the house itself. Or was it simply that the Tylers had been to some trouble to eradicate quickly any signs of what must have been an unpleasant episode in their lives?

  Slowly, feeling that the frail bench was beginning to give way under their combined weight, he stood to take, his leave of the old men. He walked slowly back along the river bank in the gathering gloom, aware that the curfew bell must have already sounded because the path was virtually empty. His thoughts were an uncontrolled jumble of questions and he tried to sort them out into a logical sequence. First and foremost was the revelation that Joanna had existed, while Bartholomew had wrongly assumed that she was
Dominica. Second was that Matilde had been certain that Joanna had not been a prostitute, which had misled him: Joanna had not been a prostitute who lived in Cambridge.

  He rubbed at his temples as he considered something else. Eleanor Tyler had seen Bartholomew talking in the street with Matilde and had chided him for it. What had she said? That Matilde was not to be trusted, and that she revealed the secrets of her clients. At the time, he had been disturbed more by the slur to Matilde than by what she might have meant. Eleanor’s was an extreme reaction but one he had put down to the natural dislike of prostitutes held by many people. But in the light of what he had just learned from Dunstan and Aethelbald, it could mean that she had guessed that he might be asking about Joanna, and wanted to ensure that any information given to him by Matilde would be disregarded.

  Matilde had also told him that the riots had been started to hide two acts. Perhaps one of the acts was, the murder of Joanna – getting rid of the unwelcome visitor that had been bringing shame to Mistress Tyler’s respectable household.

  He raised his eyes heavenward at this notion. Now he was being ridiculous! How could Mistress Tyler possibly have the influence, funds or knowledge to start riots? And surely it was not necessary to start a riot merely to be rid of Joanna? Why not simply send her home to Ely?

  All Dunstan’s information had done was to muddy already murky waters. Now Bartholomew did not even know whether Dominica was alive or not, whereas before he had been certain she had been dead. But he was sure Lydgate had been at the grave. Why? Had he, like Cecily, mistaken Joanna for Dominica in the dark? Was his graveside visit to atone for a life taken by mistake?

  The shadow of a cat (or was it a fox?) flitting across the path brought him out of his reverie. He realised that he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he had walked past the bottom of St Michael’s Lane and was passing through the land that ran to St John’s Hospital. With an impatient shake of his head, he turned to retrace his steps, quickly now, for the daylight was fading fast, and he did not wish to be caught outside the College by the Sheriffs men or the beadles without a valid excuse.