A Bone of Contention хмб-3

by Susanna GREGORY

  Even with his accent and friar-like demeanour gone, Bartholomew felt the man still had a peculiarly saintly air about him.

  ‘You are wondering what made me change,’ he said, looking from one to the other of his captives. ‘I was loved by the people. My brother and sister adored me. And then my brother betrayed me. He stole the treasure I had collected for the poor and flaunted it by wearing it around the town. People thought I had given it to him and turned against me. I ran to the woman I had always liked best for sanctuary. But she betrayed me too. She told her betrothed where I was and he came to kill me.’

  ‘No!’ Cecily rose from where she had been sitting, uncomfortable and bedraggled, on the grass. ‘You know I did not betray you! I saw smoke coming from the barn and ran back to warn you, but it was already too late. I thought it was a terrible accident, not murder!’

  ‘But you did not try to look for me after the blaze,’ said d’Ambrey, with quiet reason. ‘You were quick to assume I was dead.’

  ‘But the barn was an inferno! ‘ wailed Cecily desperately, moving towards him, arms outstretched. ‘No one could have survived! Even the nails melted from the heat!’

  ‘And then you married the man who brought about my death,’ continued d’Ambrey relentlessly. ‘And you allowed him to bring up my daughter as his own child. You did not even keep the rings I gave you. Somehow one of them ended up on a shabby little student at my own hostel and I had to go to all manner of contortions to get it back to adorn my relic at Valence Marie.’

  ‘Dominica gave it to him,’ protested Cecily. ‘I kept both rings close to my heart for twenty-five years. I only gave one to Bartholomew recently because I thought he might be able to use it to catch Dominica’s killer.’

  ‘I did no such thing, father,’ said Dominica disdainfully. ‘She and Thomas Lydgate were far too mean to give me jewellery to dispense with as I pleased. She is lying!’

  ‘I think you did give it to Jamie, Dominica,’ said Ruthven uncertainly. ‘He said you did.’

  ‘My Dominica has no cause to lie,’ said d’Ambrey, somewhat rashly, since it was clear to everyone in the clearing that she had every reason to stretch the truth.

  Cecily gazed at her daughter in mute appeal, and Bartholomew found he could not watch.

  ‘Those rings belonged to my parents,’ said d’Ambrey sternly. ‘My father had them made to match my mother’s blue-green eyes. They are not baubles to be dispensed to any snotty-nosed scholar who wanted one, especially a lad like James Kenzie, who was so careless. First he let John steal it and then he lost the false one I replaced it with while he was brawling on the High Street.’

  ‘But I kept them safe!’ shrieked Cecily. ‘I did! Dominica stole them from me to give to her paramour!’

  D’Ambrey turned from her and made a quick gesture to Ruthven. There was a swish and a thump. Ruthven was reloading his crossbow with a new quarrel before the shocked Bartholomew could act. Cecily looked at d’Ambrey in horror, her hands clawing at the bolt that protruded from her chest. Her bulbous eyes popped out even further as she sank on to the grass.

  Bartholomew made to go towards her.

  ‘Leave her!’ d’Ambrey snapped, his gentle tones vanished. ‘She deserves to die.’

  Bartholomew looked at him in revulsion. ‘Why?’

  ‘She has served her purpose,’ said d’Ambrey with a shrug. ‘I only brought her into the plot at the last minute because she had hidden away her family jewels so well that neither Edred nor Dominica could find them. She kindly brought them – Dominica’s inheritance – a few moments ago, although they are a little fire-damaged. But I do not want her slowing us down when we leave tonight. We will need to move fast if we want to escape.’

  ‘I can give her something to ease the pain,’ said Bartholomew, reaching for his bag and flipping it open.

  ‘You will leave her alone,’ d’Ambrey repeated, looking inside the bag with interest. ‘You have my Galen, I see. A little late, perhaps, but I am pleased to have it back.’

  Before Bartholomew could reply, d’Ambrey had plucked the tome from the bag, and was sitting with it on his knees.

  He saw immediately where Gray had torn the covers away and shook his head slowly, fingering the damage with sadness in his face.

  ‘Is this the way scholars treat their books? Would you do this, eh, Ruthven?’

  Ruthven came to peer over d’Ambrey’s shoulder, looking at the torn cover. ‘Was this where the documents were hidden?’ he asked.

  D’Ambrey nodded. ‘I tried several times to get this back,’ he said to Bartholomew. ‘But if I sent someone to search your room, you would have it in your bag, and when I waylaid you on the High Street, you had left it in your room. And then, when I simply asked you for it, you offered to return it immediately!’

  ‘My father wrote that book,’ said Ruthven with pride.

  ‘What was his name?’ asked Michael.

  ‘No one you would know, Brother,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘Just a scholar I helped many years ago. You should empathise, Doctor, for he was a man whose revolutionary medical ideas gave rise to an accusation of heresy. I gave him money to flee to Scotland to safety. He remembered me, unlike so many, and told his son, already a student here, to help me in my revenge against the town.’

  ‘It seems you have engineered quite a plot against the town, Master d’Ambrey,’ said Michael, knowing that as soon as d’Ambrey grew tired of them, he and Bartholomew would go the same way as Cecily. They had to try to keep him talking until Tulyet arrived. ‘Perhaps you would care to entertain us with the details.’

  D’Ambrey looked pleased. ‘Shall I start at the beginning, then?’ he asked sweetly. At Michael’s nod, he settled himself comfortably and beamed around at his audience. ‘Well, to take you back twenty-five years, I fled the burning barn and sought safety near the river. I was not the only abandoned soul that night. A lad named Norbert was also fleeing that horrible little village. We joined forces and lived rough for several days. He told me what you had done for him and it did much to cheer me, Bartholomew. We exchanged our plans of revenge me on the town, him on the village – and he confided his plans to become an archer at Dover Castle.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Bartholomew suddenly, an uneasy feeling uncoiling in his stomach. ‘It was you! You killed Norbert! It was his skeleton we found in the Ditch after all!’

  He gazed, horrified, at d’Ambrey, who smiled back at him, unperturbed by his distress. ‘I am afraid you are right. But it was all a dreadful mistake. You see, one night, Norbert disappeared, and I assumed that he had gone to fetch soldiers. I was desperate to stop him and caught him near the Ditch where my brother had died. I slipped up behind him and stoved in his skull with a stone. He had just enough breath, before he died, to tell me that he was going to burgle a house to steal me a new cloak for our journey south together. I have been sorry about Norbert ever since,’ he finished, looking wistfully at the crushed grass at his feet.

  Bartholomew felt sick. The messages he had received had been forged by d’Ambrey, and the copies in the back of the book kept so he would not forget the lies told.

  Bartholomew had released Norbert from Trumpington, only for him to fall into the hands of a murderer.

  D’Ambrey’s eyes were guilelessly wide. ‘I sent Bartholomew letters – signed with the name of Norbert’s sister so as not to get him into trouble with his family so that he would not fret about the welfare of his young friend. It was a simple act of kindness.’

  Bartholomew gazed at him with renewed awe. Such dishonesty surely could not be considered kindness? He wondered afresh at d’Ambrey’s sanity. The man sat, still dressed in his friar’s habit, smiling benevolently down at them like a beloved old grandfather. Yet he had ordered Cecily’s brutal murder without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘And you needed somewhere to hide these letters,’ said Michael. ‘Where better than the Galen? The book was never used by David’s students because none of them were studying medicine. It would have
been difficult to hide them otherwise – hostels are notorious for their lack of privacy.’

  D’Ambrey nodded. ‘You have it, Brother. Scholars are naturally curious and I did not want them poking about in my belongings and finding the letters. The Galen was a perfect hiding place until Radbeche lent it to you! But we digress.’ He gave a huge sigh, and continued.

  ‘It was my intention that Norbert’s skeleton should be dredged from the Ditch and revered as mine at Valence Marie, assuming it had not washed away. But, ironically, it was you who prevented that, Doctor, by saying it was too small.’

  ‘How could you know your brother’s skeleton would not be dredged up?’ asked Michael. ‘Or his and Norbert’s?’

  ‘The Ditch was in flood the night my brother died,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘His body was washed a long way downstream. When I killed Norbert, the Ditch was low. The water did not cover him, and so I buried him in the mud at the bottom.’

  ‘And then you went to Dover,’ said Bartholomew, unsteadily.

  ‘I did indeed,’ said d’Ambrey, ‘I went in pursuit of my fleeing household – as did the three burgesses from the town. It was easy to follow them, and I disguised myself as a travelling priest.’

  Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair. ‘And I suppose it was you who started the fire in which all those people died, your household included.’

  D’Ambrey smiled. ‘It was nothing,’ he said modestly. ‘An oven left burning in a baker’s shop when it should have been doused for the night; a specially prepared pie that would ensure my household slept through any alarms that might have been raised before the fire was underway.’

  ‘Dozens of innocent people died in that blaze,’ said Bartholomew, appalled, ‘not just members of your household.’

  ‘It could not be helped,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘And I am sure you will understand my need for revenge after what had happened to me.’

  ‘But how did you manage to make the burgesses believe that your brother was among the casualties?’ asked Michael. ‘His body was never recovered.’

  ‘Never recovered?’ queried d’Ambrey. ‘On what grounds do you base such an assumption? Believe me, my brother’s body lies in the grave that is marked with his name. I could not allow it to be found when all believed it was me who had died in the Ditch that day. Norbert helped me search for it and, when I assumed my disguise as a priest, I hid it in the portable altar I carried on my cart.’

  ‘And then you left his body for the burgesses to find after the fire,’ said Bartholomew.

  ‘Exactly. I had to disguise the wound in his throat, but that was easy enough with all that falling timber. The whole affair was expertly brought to a satisfactory conclusion. I even heard later that the worthy burgesses were suspected of starting the fire themselves,’ he added with a chuckle.

  ‘But how could you know that the Ditch would be dredged at such an opportune time?’ asked Michael, shifting uncomfortably on the sodden ground.

  ‘Think!’ said d’Ambrey with chiding patience. ‘It was mainly Thorpe who set the scheme in motion in the first place: Will mentioned the money that might be made if the relics of Simon d’Ambrey were to be found by Valence Marie. Thorpe needed little encouragement once that seed was sown. I wonder what happened to that hand…’

  He thought for a moment before resuming. ‘I returned here two months ago and secured myself a place at David’s. Ruthven’s father sent a letter of recommendation, along with the name of a friar – recently deceased – whose identity I could assume. It was an excellent idea. After all, who would suspect an elderly Scottish friar? Any lapses in my theological knowledge would merely be put down to my nationality.’

  Ruthven looked at him sharply and fingered his crossbow.

  But d’Ambrey was oblivious to Ruthven’s patriotic ire and continued with his tale.

  ‘I had settled in nicely by the time term had started; I had secured the help of people who owed me favours: Will, Henry and Jacob, who now work at Valence Marie, Huw and Saul Potter of Godwinsson, even Master Bigod of Maud’s owes me a small favour – you see, I once loaned him the money to pay a hag to rid one of his mistresses of an unwanted child. Bigod was always one for the women, as Cecily will attest.’

  He flung a disparaging glance at the writhing woman on the ground.

  ‘You were right, Matt!’ whispered Michael, as d’Ambrey stood to peer through the trees for signs of Huw returning with news of the lost relic. ‘Cecily and Bigod were lovers! I do not know which one I feel more sorry for!’

  So Bigod, like Lydgate, was being blackmailed, thought Bartholomew, watching d’Ambrey resettle himself on the tree stump with his Galen. That Bigod spoke of Dominica’s death in the Chesterton basement, however, suggested that he was not party to that part of the plot.

  ‘I sent Master Lydgate little notes,’ continued d’Ambrey, ‘reminding him that he had fired the tithe barn and hinting about my death. He was meant to be terrified that I had returned from the dead to haunt him. But he, foolish man, did not have sufficient imagination, and settled for a more practical explanation. He thought you were sending them, Doctor. How he justified belief in such a sudden and uncharacteristic move on your part, I cannot imagine. But Lydgate was not a man to allow reason to interfere with his prejudices.’

  He fell silent, and the only sounds were the slight swish of wind in the trees, the drip of rain on leaves.

  Ruthven cocked his crossbow at Michael who was trying to make himself comfortable on the ground, while Dominica, bored by the narration, moved away to talk to Ivo. Horribly aware that as soon as they failed to keep d’Ambrey amused, Ruthven would be ordered to kill them, Bartholomew desperately searched for something to say.

  ‘We know about your two acts,’ he said. ‘Faking the death of Dominica and producing a hand for the relic.’

  ‘So, Matilde did betray me,’ he said sadly. ‘That cannot go unpunished.’

  Bartholomew’s stomach churned and he was furious at himself. Putting Matilde in danger was not what he had intended! ‘She told us nothing! We reasoned it all out for ourselves!’

  ‘I do not think so, Doctor. You simply do not have the cunning and clarity of mind to best me. No one does.’

  He frowned down at the soggy Galen. ‘So, Eleanor Tyler was right after all about that harlot. She told me she was not to be trusted.’

  ‘Where is Eleanor?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘Far away by now, I should think. Dominica needed to escape and what better way than by using Mistress Tyler’s harlot niece?’

  ‘Why did Mistress Tyler allow herself to become involved in this mess of lies and spite?’ asked Bartholomew, not sure that he really wanted to know the answer.

  ‘I was told you had a liking for her daughters, although you would have been kinder to have concentrated your efforts on just one of them rather than two. But Mistress Tyler helped me because she has a dark secret that I concealed for her many years ago.’

  ‘What dark secret?’ asked Michael, interested.

  ‘Mistress Tyler killed her first husband,’ said d’Ambrey casually. ‘It was an accident, you understand. The cooking pot simply fell from her hand on to his head. But it was after months of abuse, and the man was a brute. I hired a physician to say that he died of a fever. So she is indebted to me. Her second husband was a good man and the father of her three girls. He died quite naturally during the plague I understand – no cooking pots involved there.’

  ‘Did you help Mistress Tyler because you felt her crime had a just cause, or so that you could blackmail her later?’ asked Bartholomew coldly.

  D’Ambrey’s smile faded and his eyes became hard. ‘You are arrogant, Doctor, just as Lydgate said you were. For your information, I knew Mistress Tyler and her first husband and I judged for myself which was the victim.’

  ‘That is arrogant!’ exclaimed Bartholomew. ‘On what authority do you presume to act as judge over your fellow men?’

  There was a tense silence, and even Cecily desisted
with her soft moans. Bartholomew thought he had gone too far and had tipped this unstable man across the thin boundary from sanity. He caught Michael’s agonised look from the corner of his eye.

  D’Ambrey’s smile returned, and there was an almost audible sigh of relief from all in the clearing. From the tension of d’Ambrey’s associates, Bartholomew judged that displays of temper were probably not unknown from this seemingly gentle man.

  ‘I instructed Mistress Tyler to ensure Joanna remained indoors after the riot had started. She was simply to take her daughters and spend the night with her relatives. It was foolish of those French boys to have attacked Eleanor first, but it was even more foolish of the Tylers to have embarked on a friendship with you, given that you were obsessed with Joanna’s death.’

  ‘Did they know what you planned to do to Joanna?’ asked Michael.

  D’Ambrey shook his head. ‘I simply told them to slip Joanna a little something from Uncle Jonas’s store to make her sleep, and that she would be removed from their house never to bother them again. Of course, they were unsettled by the idea, but they soon saw sense when I pointed out that the alternative would be Mistress Tyler hanged for her husband’s murder, and her daughters left unprotected.’

  ‘Did you tell them to leave the town?’ asked Bartholomew shakily.

  ‘I did not, although what else could they have done, especially after foolish Eleanor sought to solve matters by trying to poison you? Silly child! Had she succeeded, Brother Michael would never have let the matter rest until he had discovered the truth and that, of course, would have been dangerous to me. I was relieved when they fled.’

  Bartholomew took a deep breath, feeling the sweat prick at his back despite the chill of the rain. ‘The second: riot was different from the first,’ he said, changing the subject with some relief. Despite the fact that he had already guessed that Eleanor had sent him the poison, he did not want to dwell on the matter.

  ‘Godwinsson was to be destroyed,’ said Michael, seizing on the opportunity to launch d’Ambrey into explaining another part of his plan, and thus buy them more time.