An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  'What?' said Michael. 'Do you think Harling is the killer?'

  Bartholomew spread his hands. 'Why not? We have little enough evidence, but it can be made to fit to him. First, he is a self-confessed member of a coven, whatever his motive for joining. Second, he would have had a good deal to gain if Buckley had not returned to reclaim his position, so why should he not be in league with de Belem to keep Buckley out of the way? Third, I do not like him!'

  'Oh, Matt!' said Michael, exasperated. 'That is no evidence at all! I do not like him either, but he says he joined the guild after Buckley's disappearance, and I hardly think de Belem would be so foolish as to trust him immediately with the information that he had the previous Vice-Chancellor as prisoner in his house!'

  They walked in silence until Bartholomew saw the large figure of Father Cuthbert puffing towards them.

  Although the day was not yet hot, Cuthbert's face was glistening with sweat and dark patches stained his gown from his exertions.

  'Good morning,' said Cuthbert breathlessly, drawing up for a welcome pause. "I have been out visiting before the sun gets too hot. Have you heard the news? Another murder at the Barnwell Gate, the same as the others.'

  'How do you know it was the same as the others?' asked Bartholomew. He saw Michael's glance of disbelief and tried to pull himself together. Now he was suspecting everyone! There was no way the cumbersome Father Cuthbert would be able to catch a nimble prostitute.

  'Master Jonstan told me,' said Cuthbert. "I have been to visit him. He has not been himself since the death of his mother.'

  'His mother died?' said Bartholomew. 'We had not heard. I am sorry to hear that. He talked about her a lot'

  'Yes, they were close,' said Cuthbert. 'But it was as well she died. She was bed-ridden for many years.'

  He ambled off, waving cheerily, and Bartholomew turned to watch him as he stopped to talk to a group of dirty children playing with an ancient hoop from a barrel.

  'No,' said Michael, firmly taking his arm and pulling at him to resume walking. 'Not Father Cuthbert. He is too old and too fat, and you are clutching at straws.'

  Bartholomew stopped abruptly and took a fistful of Michael's habit. 'Not Father Cuthbert,' he said, his mind whirling. 'Alric Jonstan.'

  Michael stared at him, eyes narrowed, and pulled absently at a stray strand of hair. 'Jonstan told Cuthbert the murder was the same as the others, but how would he know?' he began slowly. He shook Bartholomew's hand from his robe impatiently. 'It does not fit, Matt!

  Jonstan lives near the Barnwell Gate and probably heard the alarm when the body was found and went to see. As Proctor, he probably saw the other victims.'

  'His mother!' exclaimed Bartholomew suddenly.

  'When Jonstan sprained his ankle, he said his mother would look after him. Cuthbert just said she was bed-ridden.'

  'He probably said that so you would not worry about him,' said Michael.

  'Father?' yelled Bartholomew, running after the fat priest. 'When did Master Jonstan's mother die?'

  Cuthbert turned, surprised at Bartholomew's tense face and the question out of the blue. He scratched one of his chins and thought. 'Mistress Jonstan passed away… four, perhaps five weeks ago Bartholomew sped back to Michael. 'Come on!' he cried.

  Michael lunged at him. 'His mother died four weeks ago? So what?'

  Bartholomew struggled to free his tabard from Michael's grip. 'He was talking about her as if she were still alive last week. The man is unhinged.'

  'Grief does things to people other than make them into murderers,' said Michael, gently maintaining his hold on his friend's clothes. 'Matt, you cannot go charging into Jonstan's home and accuse him of committing these foul crimes with the evidence you have. It is all circumstantial.'

  'Think!' said Bartholomew, exasperated. 'Tulyet'smen patrolled the streets and so did the Proctors and their beadles. Jonstan was out in the dark quite legitimately about University business. He would become familiar with others who regularly stole around in the night- the prostitutes, over whom he had no jurisdiction because they are not members of the University. I am willing to wager anything that the murders were committed on days when it was Jonstan's turn to do night patrol.

  For heaven's sake, Michael!' he yelled, 'Sybilla saw the Proctor and his men the night of Isobel's murder.'

  Michael began to waver. 'But what about the Guild of the Holy Trinity…?'

  Bartholomew shook his head dismissively. 'That is irrelevant. All the other murders were committed in churchyards of the High Street, and now this one is committed at the Barnwell Gate, near Jonstan's home, from which he cannot move because he has a sprained ankle.'

  Michael relinquished his hold of Bartholomew's gown with a flourish. 'Have it your way. I remain sceptical. We will visit Master Jonstan. You can say you came to look at his foot, and that way, if we find you are wrong, we will at least have an excuse for being there.'

  They walked the short distance to the Barnwell Gate.

  Tulyet was still there, looking exhausted. He indicated a sheeted body in despair.

  "I thought we had it all worked out,' he said. 'And now this. Is there no bottom to this pit of wickedness?'

  'Have you rounded up any more of de Belem's followers?' asked Michael.

  'Oh, yes,' said Tulyet. 'My men started the moment we arrived. Primrose Alley had been used to garrison de Belem's mercenaries, and we discovered Gilbert's clothes and beard and a spare wig in one of the houses.

  There were red masks, too, and more black cloaks than you would believe. We also found him.' They looked to where he pointed. Against the wall of a house, an enormous man sat smiling up at the sun with a vacant grin, guarded by one of Tulyet's soldiers. He saw a black cat slink past and gurgled at it. Bartholomew went over to him and knelt down. The man beamed at him with an open mouth of poorly-formed teeth and then began to prod at a spot of mud on Bartholomew's tabard.

  'What's your name?' he asked.

  The man continued to prod at Bartholomew's tabard.

  'Be careful,' Tulyet warned. 'He is dangerous.'

  Bartholomew snapped his fingers near the man's ear, but there was no reaction. He put a hand under his chin and gently tipped his head back so he could look at his face. It was flat, and his tongue was too large for his mouth and lolled out. Bartholomew looked at the faint marks still on his hand from when he had been bitten in the orchard, and saw that they matched the man's asymmetrical teeth. He had unquestionably found his attacker. The man gurgled in panic, and Bartholomew let him go.

  "I think he is deaf, and I doubt he can speak. The poor man has the mind of a child. He was at Michaelhouse the night the gate burned, but I do not think he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Give him to the Austin Canons at the hospital, Master Tulyet. Perhaps they can find some simple tasks for him to do until he becomes too weak.'

  'Weak?' said Tulyet. 'He is as strong as an ox, as my men can attest!'

  'He is dying,' said Bartholomew. 'Listen to his breathing.

  I have seen this before in these people. Their chests do not develop normally and they are prone to infections.

  Perhaps he will recover this time, but I doubt he will the next. Let him go: he is a child.'

  Tulyet grimaced, but gave a curt order to the guard to escort the man to St John's Hospital. 'When we found him, he was tethered to a door frame with a simple knot that any five-year-old could have untied. You are doubtless right in that he was unaware of what he was doing. But I hope he is not dangerous.'

  Bartholomew shook his head. 'If he was violent to your men it was probably because they frightened him.

  Mistress Starre had such a son, but I assumed he had died when she did during the plague. He was probably cared for in Primrose Alley by neighbours, until de Belem and Gilbert came and used him for their own purposes.'

  'Who was the victim?' asked Michael, nodding at the sheeted figure being loaded onto a cart.

  'Sybilla, the ditcher's daughter,' said Tulyet. 'She wa
s identified by that woman over there.'

  Bartholomew stared in disbelief, and felt the blood pound in his head. He looked to where Matilde sat on the grass at the side of the road with her back to him.

  He walked over to her, feeling his legs turn weak from the shock, and sank down on the grass.

  'Why?' he asked.

  She turned a tear-stained face. 'She saw you ride off after de Belem and Janetta last night and heard Master Buckley telling the Sheriffs men that de Belem was the high priest. She thought she was safe. She said she was going to the Sheriffs house to tell him what she had seen so that she could be a witness for him. She was killed on her way there.'

  Bartholomew rubbed a hand across his face and stared at the cart containing Sybilla's body. She had jumped to the same conclusions that he had done, but for her they had proved fatal. He suddenly felt sick, as the exertions of the previous night's activities caught up with him.

  Matilde rested a hand on his arm. 'There was nothing you could do, Doctor. You were kind to her and I will never forget that.'

  As he looked from Sybilla's body to Matilde's grieving face, Bartholomew's despair began to turn to anger. He stood slowly.

  'Do you know which house belongs to Master Jonstan, the Proctor?' he asked softly.

  Matilde stood with him. 'Yes. It is a two-storey house with a green door on Shoemaker Row. Why do you want to see him? He will not help you for our sakes. He was always calling us whores and bawds. Each morning, he would prop his bed-ridden mother near the window so that she could yell abuse at us as we walked past her house.'

  'They did not like prostitutes?' asked Bartholomew.

  He thought of when they had drunk ale with Jonstan at the Fair and he had told them his belief that the plague would return if people did not amend their sinful ways.

  'Few people do,' said Matilde. 'At least not openly.

  But Master Jonstan is perhaps one of our most hostile opponents.'

  Bartholomew waited to hear no more. Leaving Matilde staring after him, startled, he raced across the road and made for Shoemaker Row. He ignored the shouts of Michael and Tulyet behind him and ran harder, almost falling as he collided with a cart carrying vegetables to the Fair. He leapt over the fence surrounding Holy Trinity Church and tore across the churchyard, bounding over tombstones and knocking over a pardoner selling his wares on the church steps. When he emerged in Shoemaker Row, he pulled up, shaking off the angry hands of the pardoner who had followed him.

  Then he saw the house, near the lower end of the street. He set off again at a run and pounded on the door of Jonstan's house. There was no answer and the shutters were firmly closed. Bartholomew grabbed one and shook it as hard as he could, drawing the attention of several passers-by, who stopped to watch what he was doing.

  'Try the back door, love,' said an elderly woman kindly. 'He never uses the front door now his mother has gone.'

  Bartholomew muttered his thanks and shot around the side of the house to where a wooden gate led into a small yard. Finding the gate locked, Bartholomew stood back and gave it a solid kick that almost took it off its hinges. He heard shouting in the lane and guessed that Michael and Tulyet had followed him.

  The yard was deserted so Bartholomew went to the door at the back of the house. He grabbed the handle and pushed hard with his shoulder, expecting that to be locked too, and was surprised to find himself hurtle through it into Jonstan's kitchen. The Proctor was there, sitting at the table eating some oatmeal, his injured foot propped in front of him. He looked taken aback at Bartholomew's sudden entry, his blue eyes even more saueer-like than usual.

  Behind Bartholomew, Michael elbowed his way in, his large face red with exertion and his breath coming in great gasps.

  'Matt has come to see to your foot,' he said, his chest heaving.

  "I have not!' retorted Bartholomew. He was across the kitchen in a single stride. 'So, you could not walk to the High Street last night!' he said, seizing the front of Jonstan's tabard and wrenching him from the chair. 'And you had to kill Sybilla here, where it was not so far for you to go. You were lucky, were you not, Jonstan? Most of the prostitutes have been off the streets for the past two days, but then Sybilla appeared.' "I have no idea what you are talking about,' said Jonstan. He appealed to Michael with Tulyet behind him. 'He has gone insane!'

  Bartholomew dropped Jonstan back into his chair.

  'Where are your bloodstained clothes, Jonstan?' he said. He began to look around the kitchen. 'I have seen the bodies of your victims. You must have been covered in blood when you came home. What were you wearing?' He grabbed a bucket and upended its contents onto the floor, and then began to open the doors to the cupboards.

  Jonstan rose unsteadily to his feet, favouring his injured ankle. 'Stop him!' he said to Tulyet. 'He cannot barge into my home and start going through my possessions!

  Arrest him! Brother, he is your friend. Stop him before I decide to press charges!'

  Tulyet took hold of Bartholomew's shoulder, but was shaken off angrily. Michael made a half-hearted attempt to stop his friend as he went towards the small scullery.

  Jonstan limped across the floor after Bartholomew.

  'Stop!' he almost screamed. 'You have no right!'

  Bartholomew grabbed something and pushed it into Jonstan's face. It was a bloodstained hose. 'What is this?' he snarled.

  Jonstan's face was an unhealthy colour. "I cut myself,' he said. "I was going to wash that this afternoon.'

  'Show me where you cut yourself, Master Jonstan,' said Bartholomew, clenching his fists to stop them from grabbing the Proctor by the throat.

  "I will do no such thing. I am a Proctor of the University and you are under my jurisdiction. Brother, take your colleague back to his College and lock him away where he can do no more harm,' said Jonstan, pushing Michael towards Bartholomew.

  Bartholomew wrenched the doors open on another cupboard and rummaged inside. He held up an assortment of women's shoes. The victims Bartholomew had seen had their shoes removed so that the little circle could be painted on their feet.

  'Where did you get these?' he demanded, hurling one at Jonstan.

  'They belong to my mother, not that it is any of your business,' said Jonstan.

  Bartholomew continued his prowling and bent to retrieve another article of clothing from where it had been hurled into a corner. He held it up so that Michael and Tulyet could see the huge dark blotches that stained Jonstan's tabard.

  "I told you I cut myself,' said Jonstan. 'You go too far, Doctor. Leave my house at once!'

  'Show me the cut that produced this much blood, and I will leave,' said Bartholomew.

  Tulyet looked from the bloodstained tabard to Jonstan and began to move towards him. Jonstan made a sudden dive into the scullery, slamming the door closed, locking Michael and Tulyet in the kitchen. He turned to Bartholomew and brandished a knife coated thickly with clotting blood. He lunged towards Bartholomew, who countered his blow with a small stool he had grabbed.

  One of the legs bounced to the floor and Bartholomew began to back away.

  'Harlot-lover! 'Jonstan hissed. "I knowhowyou visit that filthy Matilde, and I know how you secreted the ditcher's daughter away, thinking to keep her from me!'

  A great crash shook the kitchen door as Michael and Tulyet began to batter it down. Jonstan ignored it.

  'My mother warned me about men who go with whores,' he said, limping closer to Bartholomew. 'And she told me the Death would come again as long as we did not learn from our sins and continued to allow the whores to roam.'

  There was another crash from the kitchen door.

  Jonstan darted forward and made a feint to his right with the knife. Bartholomew swung wildly with the stool, and remembered that Jonstan was well trained in hand-to-hand fighting. He was not a Proctor, prowling the streets at night for miscreant scholars, for nothing.

  He had doubtless wrestled many a reluctant student back to his lodgings. Before he realised what was happening, Ba
rtholomew felt one arm bent painfully behind him and saw the knife flash at the same time that there was a third crash from the locked door. He saw the hinges begin to give, as he squirmed sideways using every ounce of his strength. Jonstan's knife stabbed harmlessly into his bag. Jonstan wrenched it free but did not relinquish his hold on Bartholomew's arm.

  As the door flung open, Jonstan calmly held the knife to Bartholomew's throat and smiled at Michael and Tulyet. They stopped dead. Bartholomew began to struggle, but Jonstan merely pressed the knife more firmly to his throat.

  'This is a sharp knife, gentlemen,' he said. "I have reason to know.'

  'Let him go, Alric,' said Michael softly. 'You cannot escape now.'

  'He is a lover of whores,' said Jonstan again. 'And that is not appropriate behaviour for a scholar. I am a Proctor and it is my duty to see that he does not do it again. My mother would not be pleased to hear that I had let him escape.'

  'Your mother is dead,' said Michael, He began to move towards Jonstan, but stopped as he lifted the knife, preparing to strike.

  'Stay back! My mother is upstairs. She will come down soon to see what all this noise is about. She will not be pleased to see what you have done to her door.'

  Bartholomew felt Jonstan grip him tighter still. He saw that Jonstan was sufficiently unbalanced that if Michael or Tulyet made a move towards him, he would not hesitate to kill. Gritting his teeth against the ache in his arm, Bartholomew began to undo the strap on his medical bag. -.'Why did you kill all those women?' asked Tulyet, seeing what Bartholomew was doing and trying to buy him time.

  'My mother told me to,'Jonstan replied.

  'That is not possible,' said Tulyet. 'Your mother died before the first of your victims was killed.' "I told you, she is upstairs,' said Jonstan with exaggerated patience.

  Bartholomew had his hand inside the bag and began to feel around.

  'Were you a member of one of the guilds?' asked Michael, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Jonstan's face so he would not betray what Bartholomew was doing.