An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  'Not true,' said Michael. The town has given a special dispensation for the taverns to open on Sundays during the Fair. Otherwise what do you think all these visiting merchants, traders, and itinerants will do, wandering the streets with nowhere to go? If the taverns were closed, they would form gangs and roam the streets looking for trouble. The town council was wise when it ignored the pious whinings of the clerics and granted licences for the taverns to open on Sundays until the Fair is over.'

  Bartholomew glanced up and saw a figure coming towards them, his head bowed against the spitting rain.

  Michael saw him too, and hailed him.

  'Master de Belem!'

  The merchant looked up, his eyes glazed and his face sallow. His thick, dark hair was straggly and he looked thinner and older than when Bartholomew had last seen him. He glanced up and down the street carefully, and then back at the scholars.

  "I must talk to you, but not here. Where can we meet?'

  The garden at the rear of the Brazen George,' said Michael before Bartholomew could stop him. 'It is secluded and the landlord will respect our privacy/ The merchant nodded quickly. 'Go there now and I will follow in a few minutes. I do not want anyone to know that we have been together.'

  Michael gave Bartholomew a triumphant look and led the way to the tavern. He stopped at the small stable next door to it, pretending to admire the horses.

  When he was certain no beadles were watching, he shot down a small passageway and let himself into a tiny garden. The bower would be pleasant on a sunny day: it had high lime-washed walls over which vines crept, and two or three small tables were set among rambling roses. But it was raining, and as the wind blew, great drops of water splattered down from the leaves.

  Bartholomew sighed and pulled his hood further over his head, looking for a spot that might be more sheltered.

  Within moments, the landlord came out, wiping his hands on a stained apron, and not at all surprised to see them.

  'Brother Michael! Welcome! What can I fetch for you?'

  Two goblets of your excellent French wine, some chicken, some of that fine white bread, cinnamon toast, and the use of your garden for some private business.'

  The landlord spread his hands. 'If only I could, Brother, but white flour is not to be had at any cost, and we have no bread. But there is chicken and wine, and you are welcome to the garden for your private business.'

  Michael looked disappointed, but nodded his agreement.

  The landlord hurried away to do his bidding.

  Bartholomew was surprised that the monk would break the University's rules so flagrantly. 'From that, I assume this is not your first visit?'

  Michael beamed and led him over to a table under some trees where they were at least sheltered from the wind, if not the rain. De Belem slipped through the door, latching it carefully behind him.

  "I am sorry for the secrecy, but it is for your own safety.

  I am a marked man, and it would do you no good to be seen with me,' he said, as he came to join them at the wet table.

  'Marked by whom?' asked Bartholomew.

  "I do not know,' he said, putting his elbows on the table and resting his face in his hands. 'But they have already killed my daughter.'

  ' How do you know that?' asked Bartholomew curiously.

  De Belem raised his head. 'Allow me to explain. After my wife was taken by the Death, I lost my faith. Half the monks and priests in the land were taken, and I thought if God would not protect His own, why would He bother with me? I said as much to one of my colleagues, and a few days later I received an invitation to attend a meeting of the Guild of Purification. I did not know what it entailed, but I went because I was disillusioned and lonely. The Honourable Guild of Dyers was full of bickering because of a shift in the balance of power after the plague, and I felt I would have nothing to lose by joining another organisation.'

  He paused and looked up into the swaying branches above. Bartholomew said nothing. Stanmore had already told him that de Belem was a member of the Guild of Purification.

  The guild pays allegiance to Satan,' de Belem continued. 'You are scholars, so you know Lucifer's story. He was an angel and was cast out of Heaven.

  His halo fell to his feet, and so our symbol is a circle — his fallen halo.'

  Michael pursed his lips, and the three men were silent while the landlord brought the chicken and wine. De Belem huddled inside his hood. Discreetly, the landlord kept his eyes fixed on the food, and did not attempt to look at de Belem, leaving Bartholomew to wonder how many other such meetings Michael had conducted on his premises.

  De Belem continued when the landlord had left. The religious, or,' he said, casting a rueful glance at Michael, ' the irreligious side of it held little appeal for me. But these people were united in a common bond of friendship and belief. It is difficult to explain, but I felt a fellowship with them that I had not felt since before the Death. I was even made the Grand Master.'

  'You are the Grand Master of the Guild of Purification?' said Bartholomew, stunned. Michael looked at him with round, doleful eyes, as though he found the mere mention of satanic dealings offensive to his vocation.

  "I was,' continued de Belem. 'Not now. In fact, I am no longer even a member, although it is too late to make a difference.'

  He paused before continuing.

  'I imagine you might think that someone from the Guild of Purification might have killed Frances, but I know that it is not so. Whatever you might believe about us, we do not kill or make sacrifices of living things. Like any other guilds, we join together for fellowship. The difference, perhaps, is that we speak as we feel, and have no priests to warn us of the fires of hell and to look ever for heresy.'

  Bartholomew thought about the Franciscans at Michaelhouse, and their obsession with heresy, and did not wonder that some people were attracted to such an organisation. Michael appeared shocked.

  De Belem continued. 'We met in disused churches, but did them no harm. The Guild of the Coming is perhaps a little more ritualistic than the Guild of Purification, but we do not kill: the deaths of those women and Frances were nothing to do with us. Someone else is responsible.'

  'Like who?' asked Michael.

  'Like the fanatics in the Guild of the Holy Trinity,' said de Belem. 'They are always railing about how the Death was brought by sinners like prostitutes and greedy merchants.'

  'What makes you think they killed Frances?' asked Bartholomew.

  ' Because I was sent a note telling me that Frances would be murdered because I was a member of a coven,' said de Belem in a whisper.

  'Do you still have it?' asked Michael.

  De Belem shook his head. 'It so distressed me, I threw it in the fire. I was foolish. If I had kept it, we might have been able to glean clues as to the identity of her killer.'

  'But why did you not tell me of this note before?' asked Bartholomew. 'Such as when you asked me to investigate Frances's murder.'

  De Belem closed his eyes. "I simply did not think of it until after you left. You must recall you had brought devastating news, and I was not thinking clearly/ 'Do you think notes were sent to the families of the other women?' asked Bartholomew. He had been assuming that the murders of the women were random killings, but de Belem's information suggested there might be a pattern to them. If there were a pattern, they might yet be able to solve the mystery.

  "I do not know. Frances and Isobel were the only ones who meant something to me.'

  Isobel?' said Michael, through a mouthful of chicken.

  The whore?'

  Bartholomew kicked him under the table. De Belem turned sad eyes on Michael. 'A whore, yes, if you would.

  She came to my house twice every week and left before first light so Frances would not know. I should have insisted that she stayed until it was light that day.

  Isobel's life should have been worth more to me than my reputation with a wild daughter.'

  Bartholomew leaned his folded arms on the table and stu
died the wet wood, thinking about what de Belem had told them. He was saying that at least two of the murders had been attacks against the satanists, deliberate assassinations intended to strike at specific people. He thought back to what Stanmore had told him the night he had gone to Trumpington: that he thought Richard Tulyet the elder might be a member of the Guild of the Coming.

  'Did you tell the Sheriff about the note you received?' he asked.

  De Belem nodded. 'He said he would look into it, but of course he found nothing.'

  'Will you tell us the names of the other members of the guild so we might question them?'

  A faint smile crossed de Belem's face. "I cannot. It might put them at risk. The two guilds are innocent of the murders, and this maniac must be brought to justice. Tulyet is worthless, and you are my only hope of seeing Frances and Isobel avenged. If the guilds were the murderers, Frances and Isobel would be here now, and we would not be talking.'

  The rain became heavier, and de Belem glanced up at the iron-grey clouds.

  "I must go. I have been here too long already.' He stood slowly, rain dripping from his hair where it was not covered by his hood. He knelt quickly and awkwardly for Michael's benediction, slipped across the tiny garden, unlatched the gate, and was gone.

  'Oh, Lord, Michael,' said Bartholomew, when the door had been closed again. 'Now what? Do you believe him?'

  Michael, who had been sufficiently interested by de Belem's words to stop eating, wiped the grease from his mouth with his sleeve. 'His claims are possible,' he answered. "I am inclined to believe de Belem that his guild is not responsible. After all, he lost his daughter and his woman.'

  'But who was in the orchard the night after Frances's murder?' asked Bartholomew.

  Michael scratched his head. "It all makes little sense,' he said.

  'Unless,' said Bartholomew, watching a bird swoop onto the table to peck up crumbs from Michael's food, 'de Belem speaks only for the Guild of Purification, of which he was a member. Oswald told me the two guilds were rivals. I think de Belem is underestimating the power of the Guild of the Coming, especially if the Tulyets are involved. I also think his grief might be influencing his reasoning. Perhaps he feels guilty that his loved ones have died because he is a satanist, and is trying to convince himself it is not his fault. If the Guild of the Holy Trinity is antagonistic enough towards satanism to murder, they would not be leaving satanic regalia on people's beds. I still believe the Guild of the Coming left the goat mask in Nicholas's coffin and the head for you.'

  Michael rubbed some crumbs across the table idly as he thought. 'You could be right,' he said. "It would be too easy to dismiss the covens from our enquiries. And de Belem can only have knowledge of his own guild, not that of his rivals. I suggest we treat Master de Belem's information with scepticism.'

  He turned back to the remains of his meal, and Bartholomew, chewing on a bacon rind that flavoured the chicken, began to mull over the evidence yet again.

  If Isobel made regular visits to de Belem at night, it would have been simple for the murderer to lie in wait for her. Did Frances also have a regular time when she slipped out of the house to meet her lover? But why Michaelhouse? Was she meeting her lover there, the scholar, as Brother Alban had claimed? Perhaps it was her lover who had killed her.

  And what had Frances meant when she had said her killer was not a man? He drew circles on the wet table with his finger, lost in thought. She must have glimpsed her killer wearing a mask — either a red hood like the man in the orchard, or one of a goat's head like the dead woman in Nicholas's coffin. He wondered whether the killer was from Michaelhouse, but reasoned that was unlikely. The three people he had seen in the orchard were leaving after their search, not returning to their rooms, and he and Michael had already established that an insider would not have needed to drug Walter to go about his business at night because he would have known Walter slept on duty. What had the murderer lost in the orchard? If it were the Guild of the Coming who were committing the murders, then it must have been they who had attacked him and set the College gate afire.

  But Sybilla was certain that one man had killed Isobel.

  And was Nicholas of York still alive somewhere as the mastermind behind all this? It was odd that the first murder coincided with his death. Was it he who left the goat's head in Michael's room to warn him away?

  And what of the friar? Was he a member of the Guild of Purification killed by the Guild of the Coming, or perhaps a member of the fanatic Guild of the Holy Trinity rifling through the University history seeking out details of the covens? But Bartholomew and Michael had already shown that he was a stranger to the town and was unfamiliar with the daily rituals of St Mary's Church.

  Perhaps they should go back to the chest, and see whether there were any other documents there that related to these guilds which might explain why the deaths in St Mary's Church seemed to be connected to the murders of the women.

  And where was Buckley? And why had Janetta and Froissart's family gone to ground? Bartholomew felt his head begin to reel. As soon as he felt he was beginning to make some progress, he merely raised more questions. He wondered suddenly how his students were proceeding. He should be with them, helping to train them to be good physicians, not sitting in beer gardens in the rain being warned against becoming involved in something that seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment. He stood abruptly.

  ' I can see only one way forward,' said Michael, following him out. 'We must spy on the Guild of the Coming at All Saints' tonight and see what we can discover.'

  Bartholomew turned his face to the falling rain, feeling it cool his face. "I am tempted to go to the Chancellor and turn everything over to him. We are scholars, not witch hunters. And anyway,' he added wryly, 'it is Sunday.'

  Michael looked sharply at him. 'Are you giving up?

  Are you going to let evil men tell us what we can and cannot do in our own town?'

  Bartholomew closed his eyes. 'How did we become embroiled in all this, Michael?' he asked softly. "I can make no sense at all of the information we have, and the more we learn, the less clear everything becomes.

  I do not mind telling you that I find the whole business frightening.' "I share your fears, but I also think that we will be in danger whether we continue to investigate or not.

  Everything we do will be held suspect from now on, and whoever left the head for me knows what we are doing. I believe the only way we will ever be safe is to unravel this mystery and unmask its villains. And you owe it to Frances de Belem, who might have been your wife had you not chosen another path/ Michael saw his friend's hesitation and added firmly, Tonight we will go to watch this coven meet at All Saints'.'

  'Is there no other way?' groaned Bartholomew, shifting uncomfortably in his sopping cloak. 'Perhaps we should just go straight to Tulyet/ 'And say what?' demanded Michael. 'Ask him which member of his guild is murdering the town's whores? Is it his father or just one of his friends? Come on, Matt!

  We would get nowhere there, and the last time we took him on, I ended up in bed with a dead animal, and you were threatened with imprisonment in the Castle dungeons.'

  'Will you tell de Wetherset what we intend to do?' said Bartholomew. Then at least someone will know the truth if we are caught and disappear, like Buckley and Nicholas. And ask him if Master Jonstan will come too. This is more in his line of duty than ours.'

  'We will not be caught,' said Michael. 'Not with Cynric with us. Asking for Jonstan is a good idea, although I think I will request that the Chancellor does not reveal his plans to Harling. I do not trust that man.'

  As Bartholomew and Michael walked home together, the rain became harder, the wind blowing it horizontally in hazy sheets. Bartholomew shivered and pulled his cloak closer round him. The High Street became a river of mud, and water oozed out of the drains and collected in the pot-holes and ruts. The streets were deserted, everyone either at home or in the noisy taverns. Passing St Mary's churchyard, Bartholomew saw
something move out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and peered forward, clutching at Michael's sleeve.

  There is someone at Nicholas's grave,' he whispered.

  Michael stiffened, and together they crept forward.

  'Who is it?' breathed Michael. Bartholomew peered through the rain. It was a man of medium height dressed in a priest's robe that was too large. As they inched forward, the man spun round, and seeing them coming, turned and fled. Bartholomew tore after him, leaping over the tombstones and mounds of grass. The man skidded in the mud and almost fell. Bartholomew lunged forward and grabbed a handful of his gown, but lost his balance as the man knocked his hand away. As he scrabbled to regain his footing, the man rushed past him, heading diagonally away from where Michael stood.

  As Bartholomew scrambled to his feet, he saw Michael dive full-length towards the fleeing man and gain a hold on the hem of his gown. The man was stopped dead in mid-stride. In an effort made great by terror, he tried to run again, tearing free from Michael. Bartholomew saw him reach the High Street and turn left towards the Trumpington Gate.

  Robes billowing, the man began to gain speed down the empty street, Bartholomew in hot pursuit. Bartholomew began to gain on him. And then disaster struck. A heavy cart carrying kegs of beer pulled ponderously out of Bene't Street. The man skipped to one side, skidded in the mud, regained his balance and ran on. But Bartholomew collided heavily with the cart. The horse, panicked by the sudden movement, reared and kicked.

  One of the kegs fell from the cart and smashed, and Bartholomew went sprawling into the mud.

  He covered his head with his hands, hearing the horse's hooves thudding into the ground next to him, and tried to scramble away, but the mud was too slippery. Just as he was certain his head would be smashed by the horse's flailing hooves, one of his arms was seized, and he was hauled away with such force that he thought it had been yanked from its socket. Hooves pounded the spot where he had been moments earlier.

  Next to him, Michael leaned up against the wall of a house and gasped for breath, while the carter began to regain control of his horse. Bartholomew sat shakily on the ground and watched the man he had been chasing disappear up the High Street.