Bartholomew 12 - The Tarnished Chalice

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘He was holding it when I caught him,’ objected Eleanor. ‘He had taken it from Simon’s bag and it was cradled in his hands. Everyone else was in the chapel, so it looked suspicious, to say the least. And I acknowledge that this fraternity was dedicated to the chalice, but it was not selfless. Simon wanted it presented at a ceremony that would glorify him, and Flaxfleete intended to present an ostentatious reliquary at the same time. It was wrong.’

  ‘I know how you killed Flaxfleete,’ said Michael. ‘The keg was not poisoned when it sat by the door of the Swan, as we assumed, but when it was still in the cellar. The inn is owned by Christiana, so she can come and go as she pleases.’

  Bartholomew’s legs were beginning to shake from standing at an awkward angle, and he shifted his weight. The roof creaked, and he had a sudden memory of Michael leaning against the sapling in the Gilbertines’ garden when he was interrogating Chapman. He wondered whether he could bring down the roof. But then he and Michael would die, too. So would Spayne, who had said nothing since his sister’s murder, and who sat with his eyes glazed in helpless shock.

  ‘You might have killed the entire Guild,’ Michael went on. ‘Although when you poisoned Herl’s ale – also in the Swan – you were more careful.’

  ‘All for St Hugh,’ said Eleanor. ‘I am weary of evil men, but no matter how many I dispatch, there are always more to take their places. I started with the sinister Canon Hodelston, during the plague—’

  ‘Lungspee said Hodelston’s death took the feud to a new level of violence,’ interrupted Michael accusingly. ‘And I suppose next on your list was Fat William, who died eating oysters.’

  ‘Fat William was a glutton who ate food designated for the poor, but he was not the second or even the third. However, I have learned all I need from you now. It is time to end this.’

  ‘We are going to set a fire,’ chirped Hugh. ‘And you will all die in it.’

  ‘St Hugh would be appalled by what you have done in his name,’ said Michael. ‘It is time to stop.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Eleanor. ‘Not as long as my saint’s city is infested with sinners. Shoot them, Hugh. Michael first.’

  Hugh raised his bow and Bartholomew saw he could not fail to miss. He leaned as hard as he could on the post. There was a low groan.

  ‘The roof!’ cried Spayne, in a voice that cracked with tension and distress. ‘Do not lean on the brace – the ceiling will cave in!’

  Bartholomew pushed harder and beams began to sag.

  ‘Stop!’ screamed Eleanor. ‘Hugh! Shoot him!’

  Hugh was more interested in ducking away from the clumps of plaster that were dropping around him. He dropped his bow and scampered this way and that, like a rat in a cage. With a bellow of fury, Christiana dived for the weapon and snatched it up herself. Summoning every last ounce of his strength, Bartholomew shoved the pillar until it popped out of its holdings and crashed to the floor. It dragged him with it, so Christiana’s shot went wide.

  ‘Run!’ he yelled to Michael, trying to free himself.

  The monk leapt to his feet as timbers fell.

  ‘You are a fool!’ said Eleanor to Bartholomew, standing immobile among the chaos. ‘Tonight, Christiana and I were going to tell you where we think you will find Matilde. We know you love her – your determination to find her is too strong for mere friendship.’

  Bartholomew ignored her as he struggled to free himself. She staggered as a piece of plaster struck her, and the physician raised his arm to protect his head as chunks of stone began to rain down. She dropped to her knees, blood streaming from her scalp, while Christiana hurled the bow at the monk and aimed for the door. Michael reached for the old lady with his bound hands, intending to drag her outside, but she snatched up a long splinter of wood and threatened to stab him with it.

  ‘I will not be exiled to some remote convent when all I have done is obey the saint’s will.’

  ‘Get up!’ yelled Michael, backing away and turning to Bartholomew. He hauled ineffectually on the dagger that pinned the physician’s tunic to the fallen support. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘You killed my sister,’ said Spayne to Christiana, blocking her path. His hands and feet were still tied, but when she tried to duck past him, he launched himself forward and knocked her over with his body. She cried out in pain when she fell on her own dagger, and gazed in horror at the blood that stained her hand. Bartholomew could not see whether it was a superficial wound or a mortal one.

  Eleanor turned to him in anguish. ‘I have chosen to die here, but you must save her. You see, we did not write our list – it is in her head. You must take her with you if you want to find happiness.’

  Bartholomew finally ripped his tunic free and headed for Christiana, but before he could reach her, she disappeared under a billowing cloud of debris that drove him backwards. The air was full of thick, choking dust.

  ‘Matt!’ screamed Michael, who had gained the door. ‘The whole thing is going to fall!’

  ‘They do not know where Matilde went,’ said Spayne hoarsely. Bartholomew spun around and saw the mayor’s legs were trapped under a massive beam. It was too heavy to move, and he was going to die in the collapsing building. ‘No one does, except me. I am the only person she ever told about a friend in a certain city. I am sure she will be there now.’

  ‘Come away, Matt!’ howled Michael.

  Spayne had used Christiana’s dagger to free his hands. ‘I will tell you my secret if you help me escape. If you refuse, I will throw this blade, and you will not reach the door alive.’

  Bartholomew hauled on the beam with all his might, but knew it would not have budged had he been ten men. He glanced up and saw the sky through holes in the ceiling. A tile crashed into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Dizzily, he put his hands around the wood again, barely aware of what he was doing.

  ‘It is hopeless,’ said Spayne, his voice cracking with despair. ‘All right, come closer. I will tell you what you want to know, but only if you promise to tell Matilde I still love her.’

  Bartholomew nodded, willing to agree to anything.

  ‘She is … ’ began Spayne. ‘No! For the love of God, no!’

  His head jerked back as an arrow slapped into his throat. Bartholomew gazed at Spayne in shocked disbelief, then turned to see Cynric at the door, a bow in his hand. The book-bearer clambered across the wreckage and grabbed Bartholomew’s arm. There was another groan, and more timbers dropped

  Bartholomew jerked away, appalled that Cynric should be the instrument that had destroyed his last hope. ‘He was going to tell me where to find Matilde!’

  ‘He had a dagger,’ said Cynric, fighting his way across the wreckage and dragging the physician with him. ‘He was going to stab you as soon as you leaned close enough to hear what he was saying.’

  Bartholomew shook his head, feeling numb. ‘He was—’

  There was another groan from above. Cynric shot through the door, pulling Bartholomew after him. With a tremendous crash, the last of the roof gave way and collapsed in a billow of snow and tiles.

  EPILOGUE

  The day of the installation was bright and clear. Michael, Suttone and de Wetherset made their oaths of canonical obedience to Gynewell in the Bishop’s Palace, then went outside to join the magnificent procession that was to walk to the cathedral for the formal ceremony. There was some jostling and confusion among the participating dignitaries and officials – the number of people involved was considerable, and protocol and rank needed to be scrupulously observed – but eventually, everyone was in his designated place, and the bells began to ring in a jubilant, discordant jangle.

  ‘What shall we do about the Hugh Chalice?’ asked Gynewell, while they waited for the choir to line up. ‘In all the excitement following the deaths of Dame Eleanor, Lady Christiana and the Spaynes, I clean forgot about it. Simon was going to donate it to the cathedral today, but obviously he is in no position to do that now.’

  ‘I have some bad news,’ said
de Wetherset. ‘I spent a good deal of time with all twenty-two of the cups you retrieved, but none is the genuine item. They are all fakes.’

  ‘How do you know?’ demanded Suttone. ‘What tests did you perform?’

  ‘I can tell by their feel,’ replied de Wetherset loftily. ‘I cannot explain it any better than that. I just sense, with all my heart, that none of these goblets is the Hugh Chalice.’

  ‘Then you are wrong,’ said the dean. He held up a tarnished vessel, although Bartholomew had no idea whether it was one he had seen before. ‘I also subjected the cups to rigorous examination, and I sense – with all my heart – that this is the real one.’

  ‘How?’ asked de Wetherset, startled. ‘Because it is the only one I do not desire to own myself,’ explained the dean. ‘I am content to see it stand on the High Altar, whereas while I feel obliged to take the others to the crypt.’

  De Wetherset weighed it in one hand, then the other. ‘I suppose it may have a certain something,’ he conceded eventually. ‘Although, as an instrument of St Hugh myself, I expected the sensation to be a good deal stronger.’

  ‘Perhaps the saint has abandoned you,’ said Suttone unkindly. ‘He does not want you to stand as University Chancellor against a Suttone, and this is a sign of his displeasure.’

  ‘It is tin,’ said Bartholomew, watching Michael take the cup from the spluttering de Wetherset. ‘I thought the real one was supposed to be silver.’

  ‘Details, Matt, details,’ said Michael. ‘If the dean says it is holy, then that is good enough for me.’ He passed it to Suttone.

  ‘It is holy,’ declared Suttone, although he was no more qualified to make such a proclamation than Michael. ‘This is the real one, without the shadow of a doubt!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Choirmaster Bautre, eager to please the Michaelhouse scholars because they had exposed Claypole’s role in the murders, thus ridding Bautre himself of the man who was plotting to overthrow him. ‘I can see the holiness radiating from it.’

  ‘So can I,’ said John sombrely. ‘Our dean speaks the truth.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gynewell, pleased. ‘But none of you has answered my question: what shall we do with it? I have no idea who owns legal title. Does it belong to the Old Temple in London? The Geddynge priest who bought it from Shirlok? Are we actually entitled to display it in the cathedral?’

  ‘I think so,’ said the dean. ‘And if anyone else lays claim to it, then I swear, by all I hold holy, that I will bring it back again by any means possible. It belongs here. I feel it.’

  ‘It can be a part of the procession, then,’ said Bautre. ‘One of my lads can carry it, holding it aloft all the way through the ceremony. It will be an arduous task, so I shall allot it to Hugh – the first of many such duties he will have to endure as penance for listening to bad advice from Dame Eleanor.’

  ‘Putting a holy thing in the hands of such a person might see him struck down,’ said Suttone uneasily. ‘I would not like my day marred by an effusion of blood.’

  ‘I would not mind,’ said Michael venomously. ‘It would be divine justice, and I do not see why he should escape unscathed while his co-conspirators lie dead. It was clever of Dame Eleanor to leave that document claiming full responsibility, and maintaining Hugh was not present at any murder, but it was unwise. She wanted to leave Lincoln a better place, but she has unleashed a devil in it.’

  ‘Let John carry the Hugh Chalice,’ suggested Suttone, after a moment during which everyone looked sombre. ‘He is an upright fellow, and I intend to make him my Vicar Choral.’

  ‘You are too late,’ said Michael smugly, while John looked suitably modest. ‘I have invited him to be my deputy, and he has accepted. You must find another.’

  ‘You cannot have Bautre, either,’ gloated de Wetherset. ‘He is mine.’

  The dean smiled suddenly. ‘This business may have been unpleasant, but it has rid me of some very turbulent priests.

  Tetford, Aylmer and Ravenser are dead, Claypole is in prison. We shall have a staff worthy of this fine cathedral yet.’

  Suttone pouted sulkily. ‘You two were securing yourselves Vicars Choral when you should have been praying, like me. Dame Eleanor was right: this is a corrupt place.’

  ‘Not as corrupt at Cambridge,’ said the dean indignantly. ‘And it was there that this business began. De Wetherset was telling me about it yesterday.’

  De Wetherset shrugged when everyone looked at him. ‘You all know that Miller, Lora and Langar died in that riot the other night, and that Master Quarrel of the Swan has been elected head of a new Commonalty, which includes guildsmen. Well, now their black shadows have gone, I am free to reveal what I recall of the incident twenty years ago.’

  ‘You mean about the carts in the bailey?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘And the box that you—’

  ‘No,’ said de Wetherset sharply. ‘I refer to the trial. Shirlok told the truth when he named those ten people as his accomplices, and everyone knew it. Why do you think they left Cambridge immediately after? Not because they were shamed by the accusations, but because an arrangement was made.’

  ‘What sort of arrangement?’ asked Michael icily, angry that there was still information that had been kept from him.

  ‘One whereby they would leave Cambridgeshire if they were acquitted.’

  ‘How?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘The trial was in front of a jury, and—’

  ‘And juries are made up of men,’ interrupted de Wetherset. ‘Men can be bribed. The first jury comprised Miller’s friends and relations, but Shirlok recognised them and exercised his right to object. So, Langar was obliged to find replacements. They had to be folk who could be bribed, which is more difficult than you might imagine – people are afraid of being caught.’

  ‘And you think Lincoln has problems!’ breathed Bresley.

  ‘Not all the jurors were tainted,’ de Wetherset went on. He addressed Bartholomew. ‘Your brother-in-law’s ethics are somewhat fluid, but they do not stretch to corruption on that scale. However, eight of the twelve – including Morice and Deschalers the grocer – agreed to return a verdict of not guilty.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Miller paid them, just as he has been offering “tokens of his affection” to Sheriff Lungspee here.’

  ‘It was not Miller,’ said de Wetherset. ‘It was his brother, Simon.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

  De Wetherset nodded. ‘Yes I am. I even know why. You have already ascertained that Aylmer sold the Hugh Chalice to Geddynge for twenty shillings. However, it was not Shirlok who stole it from Geddynge and gave it to Lora to sell again: it was Simon. Miller had commissioned Shirlok to do it, but Simon did not trust him, so he did it himself.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael, shaking his head. ‘Simon wanted the Hugh Chalice to be in Lincoln so much that he carved one on his body. He would never have passed it to Lora to sell a second time. Besides, he would have told us as he lay on his deathbed.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully. ‘He admitted his involvement in various plots, but not once did he acknowledge doing anything felonious. His “confession” only went so far.’

  ‘He did want the cup in Lincoln,’ agreed de Wetherset.

  ‘However, do not forget that he hailed from a criminal family, and was more than happy to make a profit along the way. He confessed it all one night, when we were drunk together in his Holy Cross house. I doubt he remembered our têteà-tête the next morning. In fact, I doubt he remembered his crime when he was sober at all – I think he probably pushed it into the deepest recesses of his mind.’

  ‘I suppose his suppression of these memories might explain why he was such a convincing liar,’ said Michael doubtfully. ‘Why did you not mention this sooner?’

  ‘And have Miller come after me?’ asked de Wetherset scornfully. ‘Do not be an ass! But to return to our drunken heart-to-heart, Simon described how he gave the chalice to Lora to sell, and then he brag
ged about how he had expected to steal it back again.’

  Bartholomew understood what had happened. ‘Unfortunately for him, Shirlok was arrested on a different set of charges and named Lora as a regular handler of his stolen goods. Even more unfortunately, Lora happened to have the Hugh Chalice in her possession at the time. Simon’s simple plan to make a few shillings had gone disastrously wrong. So, of course he needed to hire a corrupt jury to acquit him.’

  ‘Why did he arrange for all ten appellees to be released?’ asked Suttone. ‘Why not just himself?’

  ‘Now that would have looked suspicious,’ said de Wetherset. ‘And he could not leave his brother to hang, anyway. Langar obliged him by appointing malleable jurors, but added a proviso: they would have to leave the county afterwards. That was self-interest on Langar’s part – he was afraid that if any of the felons bragged about evading justice, then he would hang, too. And besides, he had plans of his own – to leave his clerking post and rise to power on the backs of loutish men.’

  Michael sighed irritably. ‘You should have told me this before, regardless of the risk to yourself. I might have solved the case in half the time – and perhaps even saved some of the lives lost.’

  ‘Well, it is over now,’ said Gynewell, before de Wetherset could object to the reproof. ‘And virtually all these wicked men are dead. I expect the Devil is devouring their souls as we speak.’

  He did a curious jigging dance, banging his crosier on the ground. Cynric watched expectantly, and Bartholomew recalled that the book-bearer had predicted the bishop would explode in a puff of red smoke that morning. He edged away, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire.

  ‘I am sorry about what happened to Christiana, Michael,’ he said in an undertone, as the others moved away. Since her death, the monk had spent all his time either at the cathedral preparing for the installation, or sitting quietly in St Katherine’s Chapel. There had been no opportunity to talk. ‘I know you were growing fond of her.’