An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  'By what right do you ask about my family?' Tulyet demanded belligerently.

  Bartholomew was nonplussed. People usually expected him to ask them how they were, and he wondered if Tulyet had had an argument with his wife. He changed the subject and began to tell him about finding the dead woman that morning. Tulyet leapt to his feet in dismay.

  'Another woman, you say? Dead, like the others, with her throat cut?'

  Bartholomew nodded and waited for the Sheriff to calm himself before continuing.

  'She must have been killed and placed in Nicholas's coffin about a month ago. The Chancellor and his clerks saw the body in the chapel the night before his funeral.

  Father Cuthbert says the coffin was sealed before the church was locked for the night, because Nicholas was to be buried the next morning. His body must have been removed and the woman's put there instead.'

  'But why?' said Tulyet, shaking his head slowly. 'I do not understand why.'

  'Nor I,' said Bartholomew. "I cannot believe that whoever put her there could have anticipated that Nicholas would be exhumed at a later stage. I think her body was intended to be found before the burial for some reason.'

  'The murderer intended her to be found in Nicholas's coffin?' Tulyet rubbed at the sparse beard on his chin.

  'That makes sense. His other victims have been left in places where they would be found — including your College, Doctor.'

  'There was something else,' said Bartholomew. 'There was a goat mask on the body.'

  Tulyet gaped at him. 'A goat mask? Are you jesting with me?'

  Bartholomew shook his head. Tulyet stared out of the door across to where his men were practising sword drills half-heartedly in the fading daylight.

  'Well,' he said, standing abruptly. 'I can think of no reason for that. It is odd, I suppose. But stranger things have happened.'

  Not much stranger, thought Bartholomew, surprised by Tulyet's dismissal of the desecration. He found himself wondering whether Tulyet was really as initially shocked by the revelation as he appeared to be. He changed the subject yet again.

  'Have you noticed a common element to the deaths of these women?' he asked. 'Has a mark or a sign been left to identify their deaths as the work of one person?'

  He wanted to know whether the first victim, Hilde, had had a circle on her foot.

  'Oh yes,' said Tulyet, bringing cold eyes to bear on him.

  'Cut throats and no shoes. Signature enough, would you not say?'

  'Have you noticed anything else?' persisted Bartholomew.

  Tulyet regarded him suspiciously. 'What sort of thing did you have in mind, Doctor?' he asked softly, disconcerting Bartholomew with his icy stare.

  'Nothing specific,' Bartholomew lied badly. He wished he had not attempted to question Tulyet. He should have left it to Michael, who was more skilled at investigative techniques than him. He recalled the rumours that Michael, de Belem and Stanmore had told him, that the Sheriff was not investigating the deaths as carefully as he might, and began to wonder whether there might be a more sinister reason for his inactivity.

  Tulyet moved closer to him, fingering a small dagger he wore at his belt. 'Are you hiding information from us, Doctor?' he asked menacingly. 'Have you learned something about this while you have been after the Chancellor's business?'

  Bartholomew inwardly cursed both de Wetherset for sending him on this errand when the clerks seemed to have been spreading news of their investigation all over the town, and his own inabilities to mislead people convincingly. Michael would not be experiencing difficulties now, and neither would de Wetherset. He shook his head and rose to leave. Tulyet forced him to sit back down again. Bartholomew glanced out of the open door. He could overpower Tulyet as easily as he could a child, for the man was slight and Bartholomew was far stronger, but he would never be able to escape across the bailey and through the gate-house without being stopped by Tulyet's men. Tulyet had been watching him, and shouted for two guards to stand by the door.

  'You are right, Doctor,' he said, drawing his dagger and playing with it. 'If you were to run, you would never leave the Castle alive. I could arrest you now and question you until you tell me what I want to know, or you can volunteer the information. Which is it to be?'

  Bartholomew thought quickly. He had come to Tulyet with the intention of telling him the little he knew about the murders of the women — the circle on their feet and its possible link to the guilds, the link between the goat in the coffin and witchcraft, and the fact that the murders of the women might somehow be related to Nicholas of York. But now he had doubts. How could he be sure that Tulyet was not a member of one of the guilds that dabbled in black magic? His reaction to the goat had been odd, to say the least. Perhaps he already knew who the killer was, but his hands were tied because of his membership of a guild. From what Bartholomew understood of guilds, Tulyet would be unlikely and unwilling to arrest a fellow member.

  'I know nothing more than what I have told you, except,' Bartholomew said, trying to quell his tumbling thoughts, 'that I wondered whether the other dead women might have been marked in some way. Perhaps with something from a goat, like the mask on the woman we found this morning.' He convinced himself he was telling Tulyet the truth. He knew very little, and was merely guessing at the tenuous links between the murders, witchcraft, the guilds, and the University.

  'What nonsense are you speaking?' said Tulyet angrily.

  'You saw four of the victims yourself. Did you notice a goat attached to them?' "I did not say it would be a whole goat,' said Bartholomew testily, 'and you asked me what I knew, and I am telling you. I am only trying to ascertain whether there was something common to all victims that might give some clue as to the murderer's identity.'

  'Well, your suggestion is ludicrous,' said Tulyet. He replaced his dagger in its sheath and leaned close to Bartholomew. "I will let you go this time, Doctor.

  But you will report to me anything that you discover about the deaths of the whores while you investigate the body in the chest. If I think for a moment that you are withholding information from me, I will issue a warrant for your immediate arrest, and no amount of protesting and whining from your University will be able to help you.'

  Bartholomew rose, not particularly unsettled by Tulvet's threat. The Sheriff was underestimating the combined power of the University and the Church. His arrest would be considered a flouting of the University's rights to be dealt with under Canon law, and the Sheriff would have no option but to release him once University and Church swung into operation. This protection was exactly the reason why most University scholars took minor orders.

  Tulyet shadowed him out of the Castle, and Bartholomew was aware that he was watched until he was out of sight.

  He deliberately dawdled, stopping on the Great Bridge to see how much more of its stone had been stolen since the last time he looked. If the Sheriff had time to waste on trying to make him feel uncomfortable, let him waste it, he thought, leaning his elbows on the handrail and peering down at the swirling water below.

  Later, back at Michaelhouse, he told Michael what had happened.

  'I will tell de Wetherset and the Bishop,' said the fat monk. 'They will not countenance your arrest. Tulyet must either have a very inflated idea of his own powers, or what you said must have rattled him.'

  'But why?' said Bartholomew. 'Is he connected? Is that why he has made so little progress in catching the killer?'

  Michael thought for a while. 'It is possible,' he said, 'and I am even more prepared to think so because I do not like the man. I wonder why he reacted so oddly at the mention of the goat mask.'

  'Perhaps he is a member of one of the guilds that is connected to witchcraft,' said Bartholomew. 'I have been told that the Devil is supposed to appear in the form of a goat/ 'Yes. Cloven feet and horns,' said Michael. 'Like the painting of the Devil devouring souls on the wall of our church.'

  Bartholomew thought about the painting. Depictions of hell and purgatory were
common in all the town's churches. No wonder people like Father Cuthbert and Nicholas joined guilds that denounced sin so vehemently, if they thought they would end up like some of the characters in the paintings. But equally, why would others risk that to become members of covens? 'I am going to Ely tomorrow,' said Michael, i want that spare set of keys, and I must report what we have discovered to my Lord the Bishop.'

  'Ask him about witchcraft,' said Bartholomew.

  Michael looked amused. 'Now why do you think a Benedictine bishop would know such things?' he said, humour twinkling in his green eyes.

  'Because any Bishop that did not make himself familiar with potential threats to his peace would be a fool,' said Bartholomew. 'I am sure your Bishop will have clerks who will be able to furnish you with a good deal of information if you were to ask.'

  Michael stood and cracked his knuckles. 'Time for something to eat before bed,' he said. 'I may be in Ely for several days, so be careful. I will warn de Wetherset of Tulyet's threat to you. You can talk to Froissart's family, or Janetta of Lincoln, if they deign to appear.

  Otherwise, do nothing until I return with orders from the Bishop.'

  Bartholomew watched him amble across the courtyard to the kitchen. He heard an angry screech as he was evidently caught raiding by Agatha, and then the College was silent. Only the richest fellows and students of Michaelhouse could afford to buy candles in the summer, and so once the sun had set and the light became too poor for reading, most scholars usually slept or talked. Here and there groups of students sat or stood chatting in the dark, and the sound of raised voices from the conclave indicated that the Franciscans were engaged in one of their endless debates about the nature of heresy.

  One of the groups outside comprised Cray, Bulbeck, and Deynman, and Bartholomew smiled as he heard Bulbeck, in exasperated tones, repeating the essence of Bartholomew's lecture on Dioscorides. Deynman mumbled outrageous answers to Bulbeck's testing questions, which made Cray laugh. The light was fading fast, and Bartholomew turned to go to his own room before it became too dark to see what he was doing. He undressed and lay on the hard bed, kicking off the rough woollen blanket because the night was humid.

  He closed his eyes and then opened them again as he heard a sound outside the open shutters of his window.

  A lamp was shining through it, but it was the monstrous shape on the far wall that made him start from the bed with a cry of horror. A great horned head was silhouetted there: the head of a goat. He swallowed hard and crept to the window, trying not to look at the foul shadow on the wall as it swayed back and forth.

  He stared in disbelief at the sight of Michael and Cynric kneeling on the ground shaking with suppressed mirth.

  Michael held a lamp, while Cynric made figures on the wall with his hands. They saw Bartholomew and stood up, roaring with laughter.

  'Agatha showed us how to do it,' Michael said, gasping for breath. 'Oh, Matt! You should see your face!'

  'Agatha told you to do that to me?' said Bartholomew incredulously.

  'Oh, lord, no!' said Michael. 'She would rip our heads off if she thought we had dared to play a practical joke on her favourite Fellow. She has a fire lit to cook the potage for tomorrow's breakfast, and she was showing Cynric how to make the shapes of different animals with his hands. She showed him a goat, and I could not resist the temptation to try it on you,' he said.

  Cynric grinned. 'It worked wonderfully, eh lad?' he said, beginning to laugh again.

  Bartholomew leaned his elbows on the window-sill, and shook his head at them, beginning to see the humour of it, despite his still-pounding heart. 'That was a rotten thing to do,' he said, but without rancour. 'Now I will never get to sleep.'

  Still chuckling, Cynric took the lamp back to the kitchen, watched curiously by Bartholomew's students still talking in the courtyard. Michael reached through the window and punched Bartholomew playfully before returning to his own room on the floor above.

  Bartholomew could hear his heavy footsteps moving about, and his voice as he related his prank to his two Benedictine room-mates. He heard them laugh and smiled despite himself. He would think of some way to pay Michael back, and Cynric too. He went to lie back down on his bed, and after a moment got up and closed the shutters, disregarding the stuffiness. Satisfied, he felt himself sliding off into sleep. At the fringes of his mind, he was aware that the meeting of the coven at St John Zachary was planned for that night and that he had intended to ask Stanmore about it. But it was late, Bartholomew's day had been a long and trying one, and he was already falling into a deep sleep.

  7

  After the frenzied events of the last three days, Bartholomew was grateful for a respite while Michael went to Ely. He drilled his students relentlessly, and when at noon on Friday the College bell chimed to indicate the end of lectures for the day, his students heaved a corporate sigh of relief and prepared to spend the rest of the day recuperating from the shock of being made to work so hard.

  The porter had a message asking him to visit the miller at Newnham village half a mile away. He had a hasty meal of thin barley soup flavoured with bacon rinds and some unripe pears, and set off. He walked upstream along the river path, muddy and slippery from the rain of the day before. The river itself ran fast and grey-brown, and Bartholomew saw a drowned sheep that had obviously strayed too close to the edge and fallen in.

  He crossed the river at Small Bridges Street, paying a fee of one penny to use the two wooden bridges that spanned different branches of the meandering river. Once out of the town, peace prevailed. Larks twittered in the huge sky above him, and fields, neatly divided into ribbons, were rich with oats and barley. A man emerged from where he had been tending one field, and wielded a hoe at Bartholomew. Such was the shortage of crops that any farmer would need to guard his property well if he wished to feed his family or grow rich on the proceeds.

  The miller and his family sat outside the mill sharing some baked fish. The three children — of ten — who had survived the plague looked thin and hungry, while their father's mill stood silent. There were three mills in Cambridge, and the one at Newnham was by far the smallest and the most isolated. Business was poor for all of them, for the lack of crops meant that there was little for mills to grind. Bartholomew had seen the miller at the Fair offering ridiculously low prices for his labour.

  The family saw him coming and waved him over. The miller's wife held a child on her lap. Bartholomew, careful not to waken him, saw painfully thin limbs and a distended stomach that was full of nothing. The miller's wife said her milk had dried up, and the baby was unable to eat fish. She wanted him to bleed the baby, thinking that an excess of black bile might be making him sick from the fish, and offered him her last three pennies to do so.

  Why people believed bleeding would cure so much was beyond Bartholomew^ understanding. He sent one of the older children to buy bread and milk from a nearby farmer with the three pennies, and showed the mother how to feed the baby milk sops in small amounts so as not to make him sick. But what would happen when the bread and milk ran out next time? And what about the rest of the family, looking at the milk sops with envious eyes? Bartholomew vowed he would never complain about College bread again.

  Since it was a pleasant evening for a walk, and he was not expected back at Michaelhouse, he decided to visit his sister in Trumpington. He walked slowly, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the fresh, clean air of the countryside. Birds flitted from tree to tree, and at one point a deer trotted from the undergrowth across the path. Bartholomew stood still and watched as it nibbled delicately at a patch of grass. It suddenly became aware of him and stared intently until, unconcerned, it took a final mouthful of grass and disappeared unhurriedly into the dark scrub to the side of the path.

  As Bartholomew strolled through the gates to Edith's house, she came running to meet him, delighted at his unexpected visit. He followed her into the kitchen and sat at the great oak table while she fetched him cool ale and freshly baked pastries,
which made him think guiltily of the miller's child. Oswald Stanmore heard his wife's greetings from where he had been working in the solar, and came to join them. The kitchen was full of delicious smells, as meats roasted on spits in the fireplace. Edith had been picking rhubarb, and great mounds of it sat at one end of the kitchen table ready to be bottled.

  Edith, with many interludes for helpless laughter, told him about how the ploughman's geese had escaped and trapped the rector in his church for an entire afternoon.

  He told her about Michael's prank the night before, and she laughed until the tears rolled down her face.

  'Oh, Matt! To think you were frightened by such a trick! I used to make those shadows for you when you were a boy. Do you not remember?'

  Bartholomew had not told her about finding the goat mask in the coffin with the murdered woman, and was sure that she would not have been so dismissive of his gullibility had she known. She ruffled his hair as she had done when he was young and went to tend to her rhubarb, still smiling.

  He played a game of chess with Stanmore, which Stanmore won easily because Bartholomew became impatient and failed to concentrate, and then he strummed Edith's lute in the solar until the daylight began to fade. Stanmore offered to walk part of the way back with him, and they set off as the shadows lay long and dark across the Cambridge road, and the last red glow of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon.

  'Any news of who killed Will?' asked Bartholomew.

  Stan more shook his head angrily. 'Nothing! And Tulyet is worse than useless. I discovered that the attack was being discussed by men in the King's Head and, like a good citizen, I passed my information to Tulyet, who has refused to investigate.'

  'Refused?' said Bartholomew. 'Or merely did not initiate enquiries.'

  Stanmore shrugged. 'Pedant,' he said. 'He said he would consider the information, but my man in the King's Head said there have been no soldiers asking questions. For Will's sake, I regret bitterly sending the silk to London for dyeing. Now I have little choice but to use de Belem. Since his wife died of the plague, his work has become shoddy.'