A Bone of Contention

by Susanna GREGORY

  They were silent for a while, listening to the beadles in the street outside calling out the curfew, and, in the distance, the excited yells and shouts of people who were apparently enjoying some kind of celebration. The garden was dark, and the taverner had provided them with a lantern that they shared with hundreds of insects.

  Michael flapped them away from his wine.

  'I had a letter last week,' began Bartholomew casually.

  'Philippa, to whom I was betrothed, has married someone else.'

  Michael was taken aback. Philippa had been the sister of a former room-mate of Bartholomew's, and had become betrothed to the physician after the plague. Some time ago, Philippa had declared herself bored with life in Cambridge and, seduced by the descriptions of fairs, pageants and feasts in her brother's letters, had set off to sample the delights of London. Three months had stretched to six, and Michael realised he had not seen Bartholomew's attractive fiancйe since early summer of the previous year. The monk had not given her long absence a second thought. Neither had Bartholomew, apparently.

  'Perhaps, since neither of you made the effort to visit the other during the time she was away, this would not have been a marriage made in heaven,' said the monk carefully, uncertain of his friend's feelings on the matter.

  'You would not want to end up as a couple like the dreadful Lydgates.'

  Bartholomew studied him in the darkness. 'I suppose not. Philippa married a merchant. She wrote that, at first, she thought that she would not mind being the wife of an impoverished physician, but realised that in time she might come to resent it. Then she said I would have taken rich patients to please her, and we both would have been unhappy.'

  'You always paid more attention to your patients than to her,' said Michael, thinking in retrospect that Bartholomew might well have had a lucky escape. 'I cannot say I am surprised by her decision.'

  'Well, I was!' said Bartholomew earnestly. 'I did not expect her to shun me quite so suddenly.'

  'She has been gone more than a year; that is hardly sudden,' Michael pointed out practically. 'Women are like good wines, Matt. They need to be treated with care and attention — not abandoned until you are ready for a drink.'

  Despite his melancholy mood, Bartholomew smiled at Michael's blunt analogy. 'And what would you know of women, monk?'

  'More than you, physician,' replied Michael complacently.

  'I know, for example, that since she was betrothed to you, it is illegal for her to wed another.

  You could take her to court.'

  Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. 'And what would that achieve? I would acquire a wife who despised me on two counts: my poverty, and the fact that I wrenched her away from the husband of her choice.'

  Michael shrugged. 'Then it is best you put the whole affair from your mind. And anyway, if you had married, you would have had to give up your Fellowship at Michaelhouse and your teaching. You like teaching, and you are good at it. Think of what you have gained, not what you have lost.'

  'I would have lost the opportunity to investigate murders,' said Bartholomew morosely. 'And the chance to meet such charming people as the Lydgates, Edred and Werbergh.'

  Michael chuckled. 'Such characters are not exclusive to the University, Matt. You would have encountered people just like them elsewhere, too. You might even have had to be pleasant to them, if they were your patients and you wanted them to pay you.'

  Bartholomew grimaced with distaste at the notion. 'I miss her,' he persisted. 'I lie awake at night and wonder whether I will ever see her again.'

  Michael eyed him soberly. 'So that is why you have been looking so heavy-eyed over the last few days. But if you do see her again, Matt, she will be someone else's wife and unavailable to you, so put such thoughts out of your mind. Perhaps you should consider becoming a monk, like me.'

  'How would that help?' asked Bartholomew listlessly.

  'It would make matters worse. At least now I am not committing a sin by thinking about women. If 1 were a monk, I would never be away from my confessor.'

  'Oh really, Matt!' said Michael in an amused voice.

  'What odd ideas you have sometimes! You are capable of great discretion, and that should be sufficient to allow you to choose your secular pastimes as and when you please.

  A monastic vocation would suit you very well.'

  Bartholomew regarded him askance, wondering what kind of monk would offer ajilted lover that kind of advice.

  He took another sip of the excellent ale, and pondered whether he would ever know Michael well enough not to be surprised by some of his opinions and behaviour.

  Michael took a noisy slurp of wine, and refilled his cup from the jug on the table. He stretched and yawned.

  'It is getting late,' he said. 'We should be considering Godwinsson Hostel and its shady inhabitants, not discussing your sinful desires for another man's wife. Lydgate, Cecily, Werbergh and Edred — what an unpleasant group of people to be gathered under one roof.'

  'Two roofs,' said Bartholomew, forcing his thoughts away from Philippa. 'I forgot to ask about Kenzie's lover, Dominica. Did you?'

  'I learned a little,' said Michael. 'But what did your nasty little friar tell you?'

  Michael listened with growing interest as Bartholomew repeated his conversation with Werbergh, and gave a low whistle when he had finished.

  'Well,' he said, 'one of them is lying. Edred's story coincides with Werbergh's until after compline. Then he says he walked back to the hostel in the company of Werbergh, but makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate.'

  'Well, he would not,' said Bartholomew. 'He could scarcely claim his Principal's wife as an alibi with her sitting there and likely to denounce him as a liar. But neither story fits,'he continued thoughtfully. 'If Werbergh offered his arm to Mistress Lydgate, and Edred claims that he returned to the hostel with Werbergh, then all three must have been together. Edred makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate, while Werbergh makes no mention of Edred.

  Mistress Lydgate must surely have noted that it was she and not Edred who walked with Werbergh back to the hostel. Something is not right here, Brother.'

  He could hear the rasp of Michael's nails against his whiskers as he scratched his chin in the darkness. 'And Edred did not mention Kenzie asking for his ring, even after I told him the lad had been murdered, and that I would appreciate any information he might have. I had a feeling he was not being honest with me.'

  'Either Edred is remarkably stupid not to guess that Werbergh would tell me about meeting Kenzie, or it did not happen,' reasoned Bartholomew. 'Or Edred is hiding evidence of what he considers a minor incident, because he is involved in one that is more serious. I am inclined to believe Werbergh was generally truthful, which means that Edred is the one telling lies.'

  'Edred and Cecily Lydgate both,' said Michael thoughtfully.

  'If Werbergh is telling the truth and he walked home to Godwinsson with Cecily, then why did she not denounce Edred as a liar when he claimed he was with Werbergh? Something untoward is going on in that hostel. Give me the honest poverty at David's any day over the thin veneer of civilisation at Godwinsson.'

  'So what about Dominica?' asked Bartholomew. 'What did you manage to find out about her?'

  'Very little, I'm afraid,' said Michael. 'Only that on the night of Kenzie's murder she was staying with relatives much against her will if I read correctly the set chin and determined looks of Mistress Lydgate the elder. Dominica is still with them. Which means that wherever Kenzie went last night, it was not Dominica's room, because she was not there.'

  'Not necessarily,' said Bartholomew watching the bats flit around the garden. 'Perhaps that is exactly where he went, expecting to find her.'

  'And instead found an angry father and a dragon of a mother,' said Michael. 'Which means that they killed him, and dumped his body in the Ditch to avoid suspicion falling on them.'

  'That seems too easy,' said Bartholomew. 'There is something not right about all this.'

  '
Why should it not be easy?' asked Michael with a shrug.

  'The Lydgates are hardly over-endowed with intelligence, and neither is Edred if he could not come up with a better story than the one he spun me — knowing that Werbergh would not support his alibi if pressed for the truth.'

  Bartholomew sighed. 'I suppose you are right, but we cannot do anything about it, because we have no proof.

  All we know is that lies have been told.' He stood, feeling suddenly chilly in the cool night air. 'Perhaps the evidence we need will appear tomorrow. Lord save us! What was that?'

  A tremendous crash, followed by yells and screams, shook the ground and made the leaves on the trees tremble.

  Flickers of orange light danced in the street outside, and the shouting suddenly increased dramatically.

  The landlord of the Brazen George came hurrying into the garden, his face tight with fear.

  'I know you do not like to be disturbed, Brother,' he said apologetically, 'but I thought you should know: the students are rioting. They have tied ropes to Master Burney's workshop and hauled the whole thing down.

  Now they are trying to set it on fire.'

  Bartholomew and Michael raced out into the street. The rickety structure, the upper floor of which had been Master Burney's tannery, now lay sprawled across the High Street with flames leaping all over it. Bartholomew knew that Burney, a widower since the plague, slept in the workshop, and started towards the roaring flames.

  Michael caught his arm and hauled him back.

  'If Burney was in there when it fell, you can do nothing for him now,' he choked, eyes watering from the smoke.

  Bartholomew saw that Michael was right: the searing heat from the flames was almost unbearable, even at that distance. He screwed up his eyes against the stinging fumes, and surveyed the wreckage. A tangle of limbs protruded from under a heap of smouldering plaster. Michael let out an appalled gasp and gripped Bartholomew's arm to point them out.

  'Mistress Starre's son,' Bartholomew shouted, recognising the huge frame of the simple-minded giant among the twisted remains. 'I heard he died recently.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'This building belongs to the Austin Canons of St John's Hospital,' Bartholomew yelled over the crackle of burning wood. 'They use the lower storey as a mortuary since they believe the smell from the tannery above will dispel the unhealthy miasma emanating from the corpses.

  The bodies you see were probably dead already — I know young Starre was.'

  'Does their theory hold any validity?' asked Michael before he could stop himself. They should not be considering medical matters now, but attempting to order the rioting students back to their hostels and colleges and if that failed, seek sanctuary somewhere before they became the victims of a town mob themselves. Fortunately for him, Bartholomew's attention was elsewhere.

  'The fire is spreading!' he yelled, and Michael looked to where he was gesticulating wildly, seeing smoke seeping from the roof of the house next door. Seconds later, there was another dull roar, and a bright tongue of flames shot out of one of the windows.

  'Mistress Tyler lives there with her daughters!' Bartholomew whispered, his horrified voice all but lost in the increasing rumble and crackle of the flames, greedy for the dry wood of the house.

  'No. She lives next door. And anyway, look,' said Michael, indicating behind him with a flick of his head.

  Bartholomew saw with relief the frightened faces of the Tyler family huddled against the wall of the Brazen George opposite, clutching what few belongings they had managed to grab as they fled for safety.

  Students were everywhere, flitting like bats in the dancing light of the flames in their dark tabards. Michael was shouting to them to put out the flames, but while some obeyed, others amused themselves by hurling missiles at the horn windows of the Brazen George. Townspeople, woken by the din, began to pour into the street, and small skirmishes began between them and the scholars. Backing up against the wall next to the terrified Tyler family, Bartholomew saw a group of apprentices kicking a student they had seized and knocked to the ground, while a short distance away, a group of University men were poking at a fat merchant and his wife with sharpened sticks.

  A group of three students ran past, shouting to each other in French, but one, seeing the pretty face of the eldest Tyler girl, called to his friends and they came back.

  They seized her arms, and were set to make off with her, the expressions on their faces making their intentions perfectly clear. Mistress Tyler ran to the defence of her daughter, but stopped short as one of them jabbed at her stomach with a knife.

  Bartholomew hit the student's arm as hard as he could, knocking the dagger from his hand, and wrenched the girl away from the others. With a quick exchange of grins, the French students advanced on him, drawing short swords from the arsenal they had secreted under their tabards.

  Bartholomew drew the small knife that he used for surgery from the medicine bag he always carried looped over his shoulder.

  Seeing the tiny weapon compared to their swords, the students began to ridicule it in poor English. While one's attention strayed to his friends, Bartholomew leapt at him, inflicting a minor wound on his arm. The student gave a yell of pain and outrage, forcing Bartholomew to jerk backwards as a sword whistled towards him in a savage arc. Suddenly, the students were not laughing or jeering, but in deadly earnest, and Bartholomew was aware of all three taking the stance of the trained fighter. He knew he would not win this battle, armed with a small knife against three men experienced in swordsmanship. And then what would happen to the Tyler women? 'Run!' he yelled to them, not taking his eyes off the circling Frenchmen.

  But the Tyler women had not managed to live unmolested on the High Street, with no menfolk to care for them since the plague, by being passive. Seeing Bartholomew's predicament they swung into action. The eldest hurled handfuls of sand and dust from the ground, aiming for the Frenchmen's eyes, while the mother and two younger daughters pelted them with offal and muck from a pile at the side of the road.

  Bartholomew staggered backwards as one student, a hand upraised to protect his face from the barrage of missiles, lunged forwards. As Bartholomew stumbled, his foot slipped on some of the offal that the Tylers were hurling, and he had to twist sideways to avoid the stabbing sword that drew sparks from the ground as it struck. He continued to roll, so that he crashed into the legs of the second swordsman, and sent him sprawling to the ground. The third had dropped his weapon, and was rubbing at his eyes, where one of the handfuls of dust had taken a direct hit.

  The second Frenchman grabbed Bartholomew around the neck, preventing him from rising. Bartholomew, struggling desperately to prise the arm away from his throat as he felt it begin to cut off his breath, realised that he had dropped his knife. The first student, his hand still raised to protect his eyes, advanced on the physician smiling evilly, assured that his quarry would now be easily dispatched. Bartholomew lunged forward with every ounce of his strength, and succeeded in breaking the hold that had pinned him to the ground.

  He scrambled to his feet, but found himself up against a wall with nowhere to move. The two Frenchmen moved apart by unspoken agreement, effectively eliminating any chance of escape.

  Without warning, one of them dropped to his knees, his sword falling from his hand as he scrabbled at his back. His face wore an expression of shock that would have been comical in other circumstances. Then he pitched forward, and Bartholomew saw his own knife firmly embedded between the man's shoulder-blades, and Mistress Tyler standing behind him, her face white with shock and anger.

  The third Frenchman, his eyes raw from the dust he had rubbed from them, called for the other one to come away, his voice becoming more urgent when he perceived their friend's fate. The student ignored him, and advanced on Bartholomew, his sword whistling in a series of hacking sweeps. Bartholomew, seeing defence was useless, dived at him when he was off-balance from a particularly vigorous thrust. Both men fell to the grou
nd in a frenzy of flailing arms and legs, and Bartholomew's hands fumbled for the Frenchman's throat. Ignoring the pounding of fists on his chest and arms, he began to squeeze as hard as he could.

  He was dimly aware of the other man coming to his friend's rescue, and heard the Tylers renew their assault on him with any missiles they could find. There was a heavy thud as he fell. The student Bartholomew held was almost unconscious now, and Bartholomew forced himself to release him. The man flopped on to his side, concerned only with dragging sweet air down his bruised throat, while his friend crawled towards him.

  Breathing heavily himself, Bartholomew grabbed Mistress Tyler's arm and hauled her from the street into the small alley that ran down the side of the Brazen George, trusting the daughters would follow. In the comparative peace, the five of them regained their breath, the girls holding on to each other for comfort. Mistress Tyler was the first to recover, while Bartholomew leaned against a tall fence, hoping he would not disgrace himself by being the only one to allow his shaking legs to deposit him on the ground.

  Although Oswald Stanmore had been to some trouble to teach his young brother-in-law the rudiments of sword play, archery and boxing, Bartholomew had not taken easily or happily to such training, preferring to seek out the company of Trumpington's rector, and ply him with an endless barrage of questions about natural philosophy and logic. Occasionally, however, Bartholomew wished he had paid more attention to Stanmore's lessons — the learning he had acquired over the years would not save him from a sword thrust, and Cambridge seemed to be growing ever more dangerous, with murders and riots at every turn.

  He winced as a student friar tore past the top of their alleyway, screaming like an infidel. Students and townsfolk alike ran this way and that, most in small groups for safety. Distant yells indicated that the riot was spreading to other parts of the town, and the dark night sky was glowing orange in at least two places, suggesting that fires were not confined to the High Street. Several riderless horses galloped by, adding to the mayhem. Bartholomew wondered how the Sheriff would manage to control such widespread disorder with troops that had been sorely depleted during the plague and never replaced. Bravely, Mistress Tyler seized on a brief lull in the chaos to peer into the High Street, starting backwards when a shower of sparks danced across the road towards her.