Bartholomew 10 - The Hand of Justice

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Then we have Deschalers and Bottisham dead in suspicious circumstances, and Deschalers bequeathing his fortune to his niece, who just happens to have married Edward Mortimer,’ continued Bartholomew.

  ‘But they were betrothed before his exile,’ said Michael, turning his face towards the bright sun as he stretched his large limbs. ‘They have only done what their families originally intended, and I do not see their wedding as anything significant.’

  ‘I disagree. Originally, Julianna despised Edward so much that she considered Langelee a viable alternative.’ Bartholomew gestured to the barrel-shaped Master, who was steaming towards the gate, wearing his best Sunday hat and swinging his beefy arms. ‘Why did she change her mind?’

  ‘Because Edward is no longer a gangling, awkward boy. He is a man who knows his mind and who has an air of danger about him. Julianna seems to like that sort of thing, and I am not surprised she fell for his “charms”. But let us continue with our list of recent events and coincidences. We have Edward inheriting the murdered Deschalers’s wealth. And we have the murdered Deschalers involved in a conflict between rival mills.’

  ‘We should not forget the fact that Deschalers’s house was burgled the night he died, either,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I saw someone there, and so did Una.’

  ‘But what Una saw does not match your account,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘Her intruder left through the front door, while you chased yours through the back window. Una likes her wine, and we know she had some, because you treated her for a sore stomach the next day. But I do not think the burglary is important. The whole town was buzzing with the news of Deschalers’s death – including the forty felons who are repairing the Great Bridge – and no self-respecting thief would have passed up such a golden opportunity.’

  ‘Julianna would disagree. She believed the burglary was significant, because documents were rummaged through, even though nothing was stolen.’

  ‘How could she tell whether anything was stolen?’ argued Michael. ‘She did not live with her uncle, and was not in a position to know what valuables he happened to leave lying around that night.’

  Bartholomew wavered, not sure what to think. ‘What about the possibility that Deschalers made another will? Laying claim to that sort of document would be a strong motive for breaking into his house the moment he died.’

  ‘Edward and Julianna did not need to burgle Deschalers’s home looking for a will that disinherited them. They could have gone any time, quite openly. She was his niece and only kin.’

  ‘It would be useful to know the identity of Deschalers’s scribe,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He must have written the document in the first place, and will know if there is more than one will in existence.’

  ‘You are chasing clouds,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘Everyone knew – and expected – that Deschalers would leave all his money to Julianna. The deed was no surprise to anyone.’

  Bartholomew supposed he was right, but thought it unwise to dismiss the burglary until they were certain it was irrelevant. He turned his mind back to their list of odd coincidences. ‘Edward told Thomas to take the mill dispute to the King – on learning that the Millers’ Society intended to burn Mortimer’s Mill to the ground – and then they secured the services of Gonville’s lawyers to represent them. Bottisham was one of those clerks, but then he was murdered.’

  ‘Or he committed suicide,’ said Michael. ‘The most likely explanation is still that Bottisham and Deschalers met, one killed the other and then took his own life in a fit of remorse. It was our original conclusion, if you recall.’

  ‘But we deduced that when we trusted what Bernarde told us. Now we are not so sure, because we have caught him out in lies. We cannot discount the possibility that Bernarde killed the Mortimers’ lawyer first, then murdered the man who is related to the Mortimers by marriage and who spoke out against burning his rival’s mill.’

  ‘True,’ admitted Michael. ‘Although I really did believe Bernarde’s boy when he corroborated his father’s story about the various thumps in the engines. But Bernarde is not our only suspect. We know Thomas Mortimer does not hesitate to kill – he dispatched Lenne with callous abandon. He is a drunkard, and it would not surprise me to learn that he had committed the murders in a fit of wine-fuelled rage.’

  ‘Why? Even wine-fuelled rage needs something to set it off.’

  ‘He may have slaughtered Deschalers and Bottisham without knowing what he was doing, so his family dumped the bodies in the King’s Mill to throw us off the scent – to protect him.’

  Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I think Bottisham and Deschalers were killed where they were found. And a nail in the palate is not something that happens by chance. Both Deschalers and Bottisham were killed with ruthless efficiency, and I am not sure Thomas possesses the clarity of mind to carry out such a task. Besides, his involvement leaves your theory with an awkward question: why would he be in the King’s Mill in the middle of the night?’

  ‘We do not know what Bottisham and Deschalers were doing there, either,’ Michael pointed out. He sighed heavily. ‘We have answers to virtually none of our questions. However, I recommend keeping an open mind as far as all our suspects are concerned. And speaking of open minds, I have not discounted the possibility that Bess is involved, either.’

  ‘I tried to catch her out once or twice, to see whether her rambling wits are carefully cultivated to fool us. But I have not succeeded.’

  ‘That may mean she is just more clever than you,’ said Michael bluntly. ‘She is still the person most likely to have killed Bosel.’

  Bartholomew was uncertain. ‘She had a fortune in gold, but someone took it from her in exchange for information she never received. Do you really think a cunning manipulator would blithely hand over all her money, in return for nothing but vague promises and lies?’

  ‘And finally, we have Warde,’ said Michael, declining to acknowledge that the physician might have a point. ‘One of the King’s Commissioners. Rougham denies sending him the Water of Snails, but Warde received and drank it, and now the Commission is down to three members. Warde had taken it upon himself to put the Mortimers’ side of the argument – since Bernarde and Lavenham were out to represent their own interests. That means one of the Millers’ Society might have had him killed.’

  ‘You think Warde was murdered?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘But the claim of foul play was just Rougham being unpleasant towards me. There is no evidence to suggest he was wrongfully killed.’

  ‘No evidence yet,’ corrected Michael. ‘But again, we shall keep open minds. I do not believe in sinister coincidences, and you said yourself that Warde’s cough should not have killed him. But something did. You may be right, and Warde’s heart may have failed from the effort of continual hacking. Or perhaps he had a natural aversion to Water of Snails – which you tell me contains powerful herbs, as well as boiled garden pests.’

  ‘Or Lavenham made a mistake with his ingredients, or Rougham in his instructions. There is no end to the possibilities, and I do not see how we will ever learn the truth.’

  ‘Lavenham,’ mused Michael, his eyes gleaming, so that he looked like a fatter, younger version of his grandmother. ‘The apothecary who made up the potion, who is also a member of the Millers’ Society, and who has a vested interest in ridding himself of a pro-Mortimer Commissioner.’

  ‘Master Thorpe also refuses to accept the Millers’ Society’s side of the dispute without demur,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘He agreed to remain neutral, while Warde put the Mortimers’ case. If you are right about what happened to Warde, then you should warn Master Thorpe to be on his guard against mysterious potions sent from the apothecary.’

  ‘I already have,’ replied Michael. ‘Not that he needed to be told. He knows that to be appointed a Commissioner in this particular case is a dangerous business.’

  On a day of rest, when labour was forbidden at Michaelhouse, Bartholomew found himself at a loose end later that morning.
Usually he would have worked on his treatise on fevers, with the window shutters closed so that the rigorist William could not see what he was doing. But such covert activities were difficult now he no longer had a chamber to himself. Redmeadow would have turned a blind eye, but the same could not be said for Quenhyth. When the student caught his teacher breaking the College’s rules, his disapproving shuffles made concentration impossible, so Bartholomew was usually forced to abandon his writings.

  Quenhyth and Redmeadow were at home that morning, and all Bartholomew’s attempts to send them on errands or out for walks failed. Quenhyth sat on a bench with a religious tract on his knees – the only kind of reading allowed – and chattered about his family, his home in Chepe, and the new cloak his father had promised to send him. Redmeadow dozed on Bartholomew’s bed.

  ‘He has been stealing my ink again,’ Quenhyth said to Bartholomew in a whisper, nodding his head at his roommate. ‘More than half of it had gone when I checked it this morning.’

  ‘I did not,’ said Redmeadow indignantly, showing he had not been asleep after all. ‘You left the lid off, and it evaporates.’

  ‘Not true!’ cried Quenhyth.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ demanded Redmeadow, coming off the bed in a lunge, and advancing menacingly. Quenhyth scampered away from him.

  ‘Stop it,’ ordered Bartholomew sharply. He had forgotten about Redmeadow’s fiery temper. ‘Sit down, both of you.’

  ‘You need to do something about Rougham,’ said Quenhyth, when Redmeadow was safely back on the bed. ‘He is accusing you of killing Warde, when it is obvious that he is the culprit.’

  ‘No one killed Warde,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He died from coughing.’

  ‘But Warde should not have died,’ pressed Quenhyth. ‘You said so yourself. And Rougham was the man who prescribed the very last medicine Warde swallowed. You should investigate him.’

  ‘You should,’ agreed Redmeadow. ‘He is not a nice man.’

  He and Quenhyth began a venomous discussion, listing Rougham’s various faults. Bartholomew tried to go back to his treatise, but it was no more possible to concentrate through their vicious character assassination than through Quenhyth’s disapproving sighs, and it was not long before he gave up and left. He met Michael in the yard. The monk had crumbs on his jowls, and his lips were oily from the lard-coated oatcakes he had been devouring with Agatha by the kitchen fire.

  ‘You have only just had breakfast,’ the physician said accusingly. He glanced down, and saw the monk had secured a handful of the greasy treats for later, too. ‘It is not good to eat all the time, Brother. You will create an imbalance of humours and give yourself stomach gripes, not to mention the fact that you are becoming corpulent. How will you chase errant students, when you cannot manage more than a waddle?’

  ‘I am not corpulent,’ said Michael, deeply offended. ‘I have large bones, as I have told you before. And I do not waddle.’

  ‘You have waddled since Christmas, and it is time to stop. You must adopt a more sensible dietary regime. Remember the seizure suffered by that fat monk in Ely last summer? Well, you will have one, too, if you continue as you are. I do not want you to die.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ snapped Michael testily, grabbing one of Bartholomew’s hands and slapping the oatcakes into it with such force that they crumbled into pieces. Walter’s cockerel immediately darted forward, to take advantage of the unexpected feast showering to the ground. ‘But do not pick on me because your students have driven you from your illicit labours.’

  ‘I am sorry, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, relenting. He knew the monk was right. ‘These last few days have been difficult, what with Isnard, Mistress Lenne, Bottisham and now Warde.’

  Michael accepted the apology with poor grace. ‘Perhaps we should take a walk to visit friends – Matilde, perhaps, or your brother-in-law. That may take my mind off my poor growling stomach.’

  ‘We will just walk,’ said Bartholomew, steering the monk towards the gate. It was customary to offer food and drink to visitors, and both Matilde and Stanmore kept well-stocked kitchens. The monk knew this perfectly well, just as he knew it would be discourteous to decline their hospitality.

  They strolled slowly, stopping to exchange greetings with colleagues and acquaintances. Eventually, they reached the Mill Pool, where both mills stood silent, and where Isnard’s neighbours had carried him to a bench outside his house, so he could watch the ducks quarrelling.

  ‘These birds are like the Mortimers,’ said the bargeman, as Bartholomew and Michael approached, not lifting his eyes from the feathered fracas in front of him. ‘They only care about themselves. I heard the family arranged for poor Master Warde to die, too.’

  ‘I doubt that was them,’ said Michael, sitting next to him. ‘The Millers’ Society are the ones who will benefit from Warde’s death, not the Mortimers. The Mortimers have just lost a Commissioner who was prepared to argue their point of view. Have you recovered from your foray to St Mary the Great with your new leg last Thursday?’

  ‘No,’ replied Isnard shortly. ‘The Doctor says I damaged the wound so badly that I am forbidden to attach my new limb until at least the summer. I should never have allowed Thomas Mortimer inside my house. I thought he had come to make amends, but instead he used me for his own purposes. He did not even pay for the ale we drank together – he purchased it with the money the Doctor gave me.’

  ‘Then what did you use to buy food and fuel?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘Paxtone gave me a penny. And so did Clippesby, although he claimed he delivered it on behalf of Bird, who was unable to come himself because of a “pressing appointment to discuss creation theology with the Master of Trinity Hall”.’ Isnard shook his head. ‘Clippesby spins his tales with such an honest face that I do not know whether he is a lunatic or a saint.’

  ‘A lunatic,’ answered Michael. ‘The Master of Trinity Hall knows nothing of creation theology.’

  Isnard regarded Bartholomew sombrely. ‘Are you sure about my leg? Only Mortimer said he saw it healed. If I went back to the Hand of Justice and asked it nicely, it might help me a second time …’

  ‘Mortimer was lying,’ said Bartholomew gently. ‘Severed limbs do not regrow. He knew it would take little to intoxicate you in your weakened condition, and he deliberately set out to deceive you. He wanted to stem the tide of ill feeling over what he did to you and Lenne.’

  ‘But Rougham said it was a miracle, too,’ said Isnard miserably.

  ‘Rougham is a fool,’ said Bartholomew, no longer caring whether he offended his rival physician. Rougham had done nothing but criticise him, upset his students and make silly diagnoses for days, and he was heartily sick of it.

  ‘Well, it made me happy for an hour,’ said Isnard with a sniff. He glanced up. ‘Here comes Master Lenne, old Lenne’s son. He arrived late last night from Thetford.’

  The younger Lenne had left Cambridge to become barber to the Cluniac monks at Thetford Priory some years before. He was a wiry man in his early forties, with thin hair and a perfect set of white teeth that looked as though they belonged in someone else’s head.

  ‘I owe you my thanks,’ Lenne said to Bartholomew. ‘You physicked my mother, but have not pestered her with demands for fees.’ He regarded Bartholomew’s shorn hair with a professional eye. ‘Did my father do that? I heard he was losing his touch, but I did not know he had sunk that low.’

  ‘It will grow,’ said Bartholomew shortly.

  ‘Eventually,’ said Lenne. He handed Bartholomew a gold coin. ‘This should be sufficient to see her through to the end. It cannot be long now.’

  ‘It will not,’ agreed Bartholomew bluntly. ‘She only waited this long because you were coming.’

  ‘Then I should go back to her,’ replied Lenne. He hesitated, then addressed Michael. ‘Isnard tells me Thomas Mortimer is not to be charged with my father’s murder? Is this true?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Michael. ‘There were no
witnesses to the accident, and—’

  ‘There was Bosel,’ interrupted the bargeman bitterly. ‘But Mortimer had him murdered, so he would not speak out. And there is me, but the lawyers say I do not count, because I am a victim. They claim they need independent witnesses to bring about a conviction.’

  ‘That cannot be right,’ said Lenne unhappily. ‘There is no such thing as an independent witness in a place like Cambridge, where everyone is bound by allegiances, alliances and agendas. Even the beggar will have had his own reasons for stepping forward.’

  ‘I am sure he did,’ muttered Michael. ‘And it would not surprise me to learn that he saw nothing of the accident. But I suspect it cost him his life nonetheless.’

  ‘The law is unjust,’ said Isnard softly. ‘Thomas should pay me for my injury, and he should pay Lenne for the loss of his father. But the law disagrees. Meanwhile, Thorpe and Edward are claiming compensation because they were ordered to abjure the realm. They were guilty, and everyone knows it, but the law says the town is to pay them. I heard it this morning.’

  ‘The King’s Bench has reached a decision about that?’ asked Michael. ‘Already?’

  Isnard nodded. ‘A messenger arrived from Westminster last night. The news is all over the town this morning, and people are furious – especially the merchants, who will be obliged to provide the lion’s share. The King’s clerks were quite clear about what was to happen.’

  ‘Bribery,’ said Lenne in a disgusted voice. ‘I heard these clerks were bribed to issue the compensation order – with promises of a percentage of whatever was raised. Needless to say, the sum to be paid to Thorpe and Edward is a large one.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ asked Michael uncertainly. It did not sound likely, even for England’s notoriously flexible legal system.

  ‘Yes,’ said Isnard bitterly. ‘I have nothing to do but sit here and listen to gossip. Godric of Ovyng Hostel – he is a nice lad – came and told me all about the letter Sheriff Tulyet had from these greedy Westminster clerks.’