Murder By The Book (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Gregory, Susanna

  Bartholomew regarded them uneasily. ‘It might be a trap, to lure you out and capture you. We talked about ransoms only yesterday, and a Sheriff’s will cost a fortune.’

  ‘We will be careful,’ promised Tulyet. ‘And I am not waiting here for them to do it again.’

  Bartholomew moved to the next victim, who had been shot in the neck. Fortunately, the arrow had missed the main blood vessels, although it would not be easy to remove the barb without compounding the damage, and he wondered whether Holm would be up to the task. The surgeon was still talking to Rougham, and now Meryfeld had joined them.

  ‘We shall need a table, a good lamp, plenty of hot water and strips of clean cloth,’ Bartholomew said to Tulyet. He glanced at the row of injured. ‘Holm has enough work to keep him busy all day.’

  ‘I want you to tend them, not him,’ said Tulyet, snapping his fingers at a passing servant to organise what was required. ‘They must have the best.’

  There was a clatter of hoofs as saddled horses were backed out of stables. Strapping on a broadsword, Tulyet ran towards them, beckoning to Cynric as he went. He mounted up and galloped out of the bailey without another word, his men and the book-bearer trailing behind him. Michael sketched a blessing after them, but Bartholomew kept his attention on the injured. The next soldier he inspected was dead, and the one after that had lost part of his hand.

  ‘Holm!’ he shouted, wondering what the surgeon thought he was doing. ‘Help me!’

  ‘I am in conference,’ Holm snapped irritably. ‘A scribe has had a seizure, and we are discussing how best to treat him.’

  Bartholomew saw a friar sitting on the ground at their feet, but did not think he deserved three medici while the rest of the injured were left with one.

  ‘This soldier has just bled to death,’ he yelled angrily. ‘He need not have done, had someone thought to bind his wound. He died while you were chatting!’

  ‘How dare you imply that I am to blame!’ Holm took several angry steps towards him.

  ‘What needs to be done?’ It was Gyseburne, breathing hard as he raced across the bailey. ‘We are all here now. Organise us, Matthew. You are the one with battlefield experience.’

  ‘I have battlefield experience,’ declared Holm indignantly. ‘I have saved many a life with—’

  ‘Then save some today,’ interrupted Bartholomew curtly. ‘See to this man. Gyseburne, tend the neck injury. Rougham, check my bandages are holding. Meryfeld, help me here.’

  Once given specific tasks to perform, the medici worked well together. There were two arrows to be removed, five broken limbs to set, seven serious wounds to suture, a head injury to monitor, and a host of lacerations and bruises to treat. It promised to be a very busy day.

  Although the castle was a hive of activity, with a lot of hectic coming and going, security had never been tighter, with every soldier armed to the teeth and archers stationed all along the walls. Tulyet’s office was hastily converted into a makeshift hospital, and it was there that Bartholomew sawed, stitched, severed and sliced. Holm assisted to start with, but was more hindrance than help, and the physician soon relegated him to the less serious cases. Holm complied with obvious relief, and it was clear that he had been well out of his depth.

  ‘No,’ said Rougham firmly, when Bartholomew asked him to take Holm’s place. ‘I do not consort with blood. You must assign me to those patients who have already stopped leaking.’

  ‘And I must leave you, I am afraid,’ said Meryfeld, rubbing his filthy hands together. ‘I have important business elsewhere.’

  Bartholomew watched him bustle away in dismay, wondering what sort of man abandoned his colleagues in a crisis.

  ‘It is the money,’ explained Gyseburne. ‘He knows that Tulyet will spend all available funds on catching these invaders, and so will not have enough to pay us for our work here today.’

  ‘You are right!’ cried Rougham in dismay. ‘I had not thought of that. Damn!’

  Gyseburne nodded to where Holm was struggling to wrap a sprained wrist, and lowered his voice. ‘I am unimpressed with our surgeon. I distrusted him the moment I met him – my mother always says you cannot trust a man with an overly pretty face – and his ineptitude today does nothing to make me revise my opinion. If he was at Poitiers, then I am the Pope!’

  ‘Never mind him! What about our fees?’ asked Rougham. Then an acquisitive expression crossed his face. ‘But Willelmus is a Carmelite, and they are a wealthy Order. Do you think they will pay for a horoscope? He has recovered from his seizure now, but an analysis of his stars might prevent it from happening again.’

  Bartholomew glanced up from his work, and saw that the man who had commanded the attention of the three medici earlier was the White Friar who liked drawing chickens. He was sitting disconsolately on a bench, sipping wine. Once it had been established that Prior Etone would indeed pay for any course of treatment deemed necessary, Rougham volunteered to take him off Bartholomew’s hands by escorting him home and tendering some personal care. Overhearing, Holm abandoned his bandaging and hared after them, declaring that such a serious case would require surgical expertise as well as whatever Rougham had to offer.

  That left Gyseburne, whose contribution was to examine the urine of every patient. Surprisingly, some of his diagnoses were helpful, and when he saw his efforts were appreciated, he even agreed to hold the head of the man with the arrow in his neck while Bartholomew removed the missile, although he was careful to keep his eyes averted.

  It was dark before Bartholomew had done all he could. He sank wearily on to a stool, wiping his face with his sleeve. His clothes were soaked in blood, right down to his shoes, and he was exhausted. But he had the satisfaction of knowing that six men now had a fighting chance of survival, while another four might live if they did not develop fevers. Three more had died.

  Tulyet arrived shortly after nightfall, empty handed and dispirited. He immediately came to ask after his men, listening with a bowed head to the depressing tally.

  ‘They have been with me for years,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘When I find the villains who did this, I will hang every last one of them. No one kills my troops and lives to tell the tale.’

  ‘You caught one,’ said Gyseburne. ‘Will you hang him?’

  ‘Not yet. But I had better speak to him, to see whether a day in my dungeons has loosened his tongue. Come with me, Matt. I am less likely to run the bastard through if you are there.’

  Bartholomew stood to follow him to the Gatehouse, the basement of which served as a gaol, but Tulyet looked him up and down, and then grabbed a cloak that was lying on a bench.

  ‘Wear this. I do not want you sauntering around bespattered with gore; it will frighten the men. Of course, I may ask you to remove it when we reach our prisoner – you look like a torturer.’

  Bartholomew glanced down at himself, and saw the Sheriff’s point. He took the garment, and Tulyet led the way across the bailey and down some damp steps, nodding to a guard to unlock the door. It swung open to reveal a dismal little cell with damp walls and a filthy floor. The captive, who had the look of an old soldier about him, wore a boiled-leather jerkin, and his grey-brown hair was long and greasy. There was a dull, flat expression in his eyes, a combination of resignation and defiance.

  ‘Your name?’ asked Tulyet coldly.

  ‘Why? It will mean nothing to you.’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ agreed Tulyet. ‘But I would like it for my records nonetheless.’

  ‘Very well. Then I am Robert Ayce of Girton.’

  ‘Ayce,’ mused Tulyet. ‘I once knew a John Ayce. He provided the castle with eggs. He was murdered, if I recall correctly, some years ago.’

  The prisoner’s composure slipped a little. ‘Your memory commends you, My Lord. I thought you would have forgotten. John was my son.’

  ‘He was unlawfully killed by a fellow named William Hildersham,’ Tulyet went on, frowning as details returned to him. ‘He was tried by a secular jury, but
claimed benefit of clergy.’

  ‘Yes, Hildersham was a clerk,’ said Ayce bitterly. ‘He should have been hanged for murdering John, but just because he could read and write, he was passed to the Bishop for more lenient sentencing. But the Bishop lost him.’

  ‘Lost him?’ echoed Bartholomew, bemused.

  ‘He escaped from the priests who were taking him to Ely,’ explained Tulyet. ‘We searched, but a man can disappear into the Fens as if he had never been born. As I have learned today.’

  ‘You did not look very hard for Hildersham,’ said Ayce accusingly. ‘You should have found him.’

  ‘Yes, we should,’ acknowledged Tulyet. Then his face turned hard and icy. ‘But there are more pressing matters to discuss this evening. Why did you attack the castle?’

  Ayce shrugged. ‘I was not paid to ask questions, only to fight.’

  ‘Paid?’ pounced Tulyet. ‘You are a mercenary? Who hired you?’

  ‘They did not say, and I did not ask,’ replied Ayce insolently.

  ‘You are in a dire predicament,’ said Tulyet, after a pause during which it was clear he was struggling to control his temper. ‘Yet I am willing to concede certain favours – a visit from a loved one, perhaps. But only if you answer my questions. Why did you join these raiders?’

  ‘Why should I not?’ asked Ayce, shrugging again. ‘I have never liked Cambridge. But it is late and I am tired. If you are going to hang me tomorrow, I want my last night to myself.’

  ‘You will not hang tomorrow,’ said Tulyet softly.

  Ayce’s composure slipped a second time. ‘What? But I am a rebel. Of course I will hang!’

  Bartholomew stared at him, weighing the weary hopelessness in the man’s eyes and the injudiciously taunting remarks. ‘You want to die,’ he said in understanding. ‘You will not risk Hell by committing suicide, so you are hoping that someone else will take your life—’

  ‘Lies!’ snarled Ayce, although Bartholomew could see that he was right. ‘You know nothing about me!’

  ‘I shall keep you alive for as long as it suits me,’ said Tulyet, turning on his heel and stalking out. ‘Perhaps for years. Sleep on that, Robert Ayce.’

  At that point, Ayce’s equanimity broke, and he began to howl curses and threats.

  ‘It seems I managed to capture the one man in that nasty little army who cannot be bribed with his life,’ said Tulyet bitterly, as he walked up the steps. ‘Luck was not with me today.’

  It was impossible for Bartholomew to leave so many vulnerable patients that night, so he stayed at the castle. He slept for an hour around midnight, when Gyseburne relieved him, but then there was a crisis with the man who had been shot in the neck, and it was dawn before matters quietened again.

  He had just ensured that everyone was resting comfortably when he heard footsteps. It was Holm, and he had brought visitors: Dunning and Julitta were at his side, while Weasenham, Ruth and Bonabes brought up the rear. Dunning and Bonabes wore swords, although the Exemplarius’s was ancient, and looked as if it had been dragged out of some long-forgotten store.

  ‘Dunning and his daughters insisted on viewing my handiwork,’ said Holm in response to Bartholomew’s questioning glance, waving a casual hand towards the more serious cases with a proprietary air, even though he had been nowhere near them the previous day. ‘And Bonabes is here to protect us all, should the invaders strike again.’

  ‘My father taught me how to wield a blade,’ explained Bonabes. Then he regarded the weapon anxiously. ‘However, it has been many years since—’

  ‘So you have said, to the point of tedium,’ interrupted Holm rudely. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘How are my patients? I hope they all survived the night?’

  ‘God’s teeth!’ exclaimed Dunning, leaping backwards when he saw Bartholomew’s clothes. ‘What in God’s name have you been doing?’

  ‘I imagine blood is inevitable when dealing with battle wounds, Father,’ said Ruth dryly.

  ‘I never make a mess when I perform,’ declared Holm. He smiled engagingly at Julitta. ‘I have always found it is better to leave a patient’s blood inside his body, where it belongs.’

  ‘If you really think that, then why do you practise phlebotomy?’ asked Bartholomew, tired enough to be confrontational.

  ‘Every respectable medical authority says that bloodletting is beneficial to health,’ replied Holm shortly. ‘And only maverick eccentrics claim otherwise. Besides, it is carefully controlled, and bowls are to hand. There is no wild splattering, such as I saw yesterday.’

  ‘Will they all live?’ asked Julitta, looking around with gentle compassion.

  ‘They have a good chance now,’ replied Holm, before Bartholomew could speak. ‘It is a good thing I was here, because Cambridge could not have managed this crisis without a surgeon.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Bonabes, humour flashing in his dark eyes. ‘I imagine your arrival in the town will be celebrated on Easter Day for many years to come. Just as they will celebrate having a dependable old warrior like me to protect them.’

  Holm either did not hear or chose to ignore him, and sailed away to inspect the injured, resting his hand on their foreheads to test for fevers, and poking at their dressings. They seemed reassured by the presence of another medicus, and as their well-being was his prime concern, Bartholomew resisted the urge to send him packing. Dunning went with him, and did even more to aid their recovery by pressing coins into their hands.

  ‘I hope you were not making sport of my fiancé, Bonabes,’ said Julitta quietly. ‘He has every right to be proud of his achievements.’

  ‘Well, someone needs to be,’ said Weasenham nastily. ‘Because his colleagues are not: Rougham told me that he was more menace than help yesterday.’

  ‘That is because Rougham is jealous of him,’ said Julitta stiffly. ‘So he told lies.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Bonabes soothingly. ‘Holm is a lot nicer than Rougham, after all.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Bartholomew was surprised enough to voice the thought aloud.

  Julitta’s eyes narrowed, and Bartholomew wished he had managed to hold his tongue: the last thing he wanted was to annoy her. She inclined her head rather coolly, and went to where Holm was talking to a man with a broken leg.

  ‘She adores him,’ said Ruth, watching her go. ‘And he knows exactly how to charm her, of course. I am glad she is happy, but I wish she saw him more clearly. She will be disappointed when she learns he is only human, like the rest of us.’

  ‘I will make her see it,’ offered Weasenham eagerly. ‘I have soured more than one happy union in the past, and will be more than pleased to do it again. Just give the word, and I shall begin.’

  ‘No!’ said Ruth sharply. Then she softened. ‘I appreciate your offer, husband, but your interference is likely to raise him even further in her estimation. I must think of another way.’

  ‘Then do not leave it too long,’ advised Weasenham. ‘The nuptials are in less than three weeks.’

  Bartholomew left the sickroom after a while, to escape Holm’s self-important drone. He stood in the bailey, watching the castle’s occupants rise and go about their duties. It was still not fully light, although at least a dozen cockerels were crowing, and two cows lowed impatiently, to say they were ready for milking. The atmosphere was tense among the human occupants: they spoke in whispers, and even the smallest stable boy carried a dagger. After a while, Dunning came to stand next to him.

  ‘That sickroom reeks,’ he said in distaste. ‘Blood, vomit, urine and strong medicine. Horrible!’

  Bartholomew nodded, although it was a smell he barely noticed any more.

  ‘Julitta has decided to nurse these fellows, because some of them said that a woman about the place made them feel better,’ Dunning went on. Bartholomew regarded him in surprise. ‘I begged her to reconsider, but she is a lass who knows her own mind. Ruth has offered to help, too.’

  Weasenham and Holm joined them, both bristling with indignation. ‘
Who will assist me in my shop if Ruth stays here?’ demanded the stationer angrily. ‘I have already lost Adam and the London brothers. Now I am to lose Ruth, too. Well, thank God for Bonabes. He will not desert me.’

  ‘I say we leave them to it,’ suggested Holm sulkily. ‘They will soon learn not to waste their time on dying men.’

  ‘Dying men?’ asked Dunning. ‘But you just told them all that they were going to get better.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ explained Holm silkily. ‘All medici say that – it is the only way people will let us get anywhere near them. My dear old father always said that to be a surgeon, you need not a sharp knife and a steady hand, but a silver tongue.’

  Bartholomew, disgusted and irritated in equal measure, watched Holm and Weasenham walk away. Dunning lingered, chatting about the Feast of Corpus Christi, and how it was even more important to make it a day to remember now, as morale in the town would be low.

  ‘I spent the entire night rethinking the pageant, making changes in the light of yesterday’s raid,’ he confided. ‘Julitta, Ruth and Weasenham helped – none of us went to bed. And Holm longed to join us, of course, but he was here all night, tending the wounded. Just as he did at Poitiers.’

  Bartholomew said nothing, but Holm had disappeared long before sunset the previous evening, and had not shown his face again until he had accompanied his entourage shortly before. He could only suppose that the surgeon had lied to secure himself a good night’s sleep. He itched to say so to Dunning – along with the fact that if Holm had indeed tended the injured at Poitiers, they would have been Frenchmen, and almost certainly only after he had fled to a safe distance – but it would have sounded like sour grapes, so he held his tongue.

  ‘I am not very impressed with Tulyet,’ said Dunning idly. ‘He virtually invited those villains to attack, with his lax security and his cavalier attitude to essential repairs.’

  ‘That is untrue,’ objected Bartholomew, dragging his thoughts from Holm’s penchant for fabrication to defend his friend. ‘No one could have predicted what happened.’