A Bone of Contention

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew grinned, accepting Michael's caution. 'I know. But it would explain some of Bigod's actions — he is prepared to risk a good deal by offering Lydgate an alibi for the night of the riot. At the same time, he is willing to hide away the man's wife. And Werbergh told me the first time we visited Godwinsson that Cecily was more interested in students than in her husband.'

  'All right, then,' said Michael. 'Let us assume you are correct. But we are not finished with Bigod yet. The conversation you overheard in the basement at Chesterton shows he knows when there is to be a riot. Extending this logically, it can be assumed that he knew about the last riot too, which explains why Maud's students were all safely inside at a birthday party.'

  'Of course,' said Bartholomew. 'But the Godwinsson students were out, so it seems Lydgate was not party to Bigod's plans.'

  'Maybe,' said Michael. 'I wonder if these "two acts" that Matilde told you about were the murder of Lydgate's wayward daughter and her lover. Lydgate was out all night, after all, and we have not the faintest idea what he was up to when he was not standing over corpses with dripping daggers.'

  Bartholomew rubbed the back of" his head, becoming disheartened at the way every question answered seemed to pose ten more. 'But even Cecily has her doubts about Lydgate's role in the murder of Dominica. She is reluctant to believe he would kill the person he loved most.'

  'People do the most peculiar things for the most bizarre of motives, Matt,' said Michael in a superior tone of voice.

  'But one of the oddest aspects about this whole business is these damned rings. How did one of Whining Cecily's rings find its way on to the relic at Valence Marie? And I wonder who that other person was that you heard in the basement, the one whose voice you could not place. Have you considered who it might be? This is important.'

  'Not really,' said Bartholomew, closing his eyes as he recalled the clear tenor. 'It was familiar but I cannot place it at all.'

  'Was it someone from Valence Marie?' asked Michael to prompt him along. 'Father Eligius, perhaps. Or that fellow who looks like a toad — Master Dittone? Robert Bingham is ill with ague, so it cannot be him. Or one of the merchants, maybe?'

  Bartholomew racked his brains but the identity of the voice eluded him still. 'Cynric is a long time,' he said eventually, standing and looking out of the window.

  'Probably looking for a pallet bed,' said Michael, standing also. 'It is too late to do anything tonight. First thing in the morning, I suggest we talk to Mistress Tyler and see if we can discover the whereabouts of Joanna. Then, unpleasant though it might be, I must tackle Lydgate. I do not want you there but I will ask Richard Tulyet to accompany me. Perhaps afterwards, Mistress Lydgate will find it safe to come out of her self-inflicted imprisonment.'

  They walked across the courtyard together, Michael still speculating on Lydgate's guilt. Cynric had lit a candle in Bartholomew's room, and the light flickered yellow under the closed shutters. Bartholomew wondered why Cynric was wasting his only candle when he knew his way around perfectly well in the dark. As he turned to listen to Michael, he heard the faint groan of the chest in his room being opened. Michael stopped speaking as Bartholomew darted towards the door.

  His attention arrested by Edred's hands in the chest, Bartholomew did not see Cynric sprawled across the floor, until he fell headlong over him. He heard Michael yell, and Edred swear under his breath. Bartholomew struggled to his knees, his hands dark with the blood that flowed from the back of Cynric's skull. Blind fury dimmed his reasoning and he launched himself across the room at the friar with a howl of rage.

  Edred's hands came out of Bartholomew's storage chest holding a short sword. It was one Stanmore had given him many years ago that Bartholomew had forgotten he had.

  Edred swung at him with it, and only by dropping to one knee did the physician avoid the hacking blow aimed at his head. Edred swung again with a professionalism that suggested he had not always been in training for the priesthood. Bartholomew ducked a second time, rolling away until he came up against the wall.

  Edred came for him, his face pale and intent as he drew back his arm for the fatal plunge. His stroke wavered as something struck him hard on the side of the head, and Bartholomew saw shards of glass falling around him.

  Michael was not standing helplessly in the doorway like some dim-witted maiden but was hurling anything that came to hand at Edred.

  While the friar's attention strayed, Bartholomew leapt at him, catching him in a bear-like grip around the legs.

  Edred tried to struggle free, dropping the sword as he staggered backwards. Michael continued his assault and Bartholomew could hear nothing but smashes and grunts.

  Suddenly, Edred collapsed.

  Bartholomew squirmed to free himself from Edred's weight. Michael came to his aid and hauled the unresisting friar to his feet. Edred's knees buckled and Michael allowed him to slide down the wall into a sitting position.

  Bartholomew scrambled across the floor to where Cynric lay.

  The Welshman's eyes were half open and a trickle of blood oozed from the wound on the back of his skull.

  Bartholomew cradled him in his lap, holding a cloth to staunch the bleeding.

  'So, I am to die from a coward's blow,' Cynric whispered, eyes seeking Bartholomew's face. 'Struck from behind in the dark.'

  'You will not die, my friend,' said Bartholomew. 'The wound is not fatal: I have had recent personal experience to support my claim.'

  Cynric grinned weakly at him and closed his eyes while Bartholomew bound the cut deftly with clean linen, praying it was not more serious than it appeared.

  'Matt!' came Michael's querulous voice from the other side of the room. Bartholomew glanced to where the monk knelt next to Edred.

  'I have killed him,' Michael whispered, his face white with shock. 'Edred is dying!'

  Bartholomew looked askance. 'He cannot be, Brother.

  You have just stunned him.'

  'He is dying!' insisted Michael, his voice rising in horror. 'Look at him!'

  Easing Cynric gently on to the floor, Bartholomew went to where Michael leaned over the prostrate friar. A white powder lightly dusted Edred's black robe and the smell of it caught in Bartholomew's nostril's sharply. The powder was on the friar's face too, it clung to the thin trail of blood that dribbled from a cut on his cheek and stuck around his lips. Bartholomew felt for a life-beat in the friar's neck and was startled to feel it rapid and faint.

  Puzzled, he prised open Edred's eyelids and saw that the pupils had contracted to black pinpricks and that his face and neck were covered in a sheen of sweat.

  'Do something, Matt!' said Michael desperately. 'Or I will have brought about his death! Me! A man of the cloth, who has forsworn violence!'

  The noise of the affray had disturbed those scholars whose rooms were nearby and they clustered around the door as Bartholomew examined Edred. Gray and Bulbeck were among them, and he ordered them to remove Cynric to his own room, away from the strange white powder that seemed to be killing Edred. He grabbed the pitcher of water that stood on the window-sill and washed the powder from the cut on Edred's face and from his mouth.

  The friar was beginning to struggle to breathe.

  'What is happening? What have you done?' Roger Alcote, still a little pale from the aftermath of the Founder's Feast, forced his way through the scholars watching at the doorway, and stood with his hands on his hips waiting for an answer.

  'I threw a jar,' said Michael shakily, backing away from where Edred was labouring to breathe. 'It struck him full in the face and broke, scattering that powder everywhere.' He turned on Bartholomew suddenly. 'What was it? Why do you keep such deadly poisons lying so readily to hand?'

  'I do not,' protested Bartholomew. He went to considerable trouble to keep the few poisons he used under lock and key in his storeroom. He shook his head in disbelief.

  'The powder is oleander, judging from its smell. I keep a small quantity locked in the chest in the storeroom but I used
the last of it several days ago.'

  'So where did it come from?'

  Bartholomew ignored Michael's question. More important at that moment was that he did not understand why Edred was reacting to the poison so violently. Edred's breathing was becoming increasingly shallow, and Bartholomew forced his fingers to the back of the friar's throat to make him vomit. He doubted whether it would help, since the oleander had also entered the friar's body through the cut in his head and had probably been inhaled when the jar had smashed, but he had to try. He dispatched Michael to fetch the charcoal mixture he had used successfully against oleander poisoning — although admittedly a very mild dose — in the past, and forced Edred to swallow it. But it was all to no avail. Bartholomew felt the friar's heartbeat become more and more rapid, and then erratic. He tried to ease him into positions where the student might be able to breathe more readily, but he was fighting a lost battle.

  'Matt! He is dying!' pleaded Michael. 'Do something else! Make him walk. Let me fetch eggs and vinegar.

  That worked with Walter last year.' Without waiting for Bartholomew's reply, he thrust himself through the silent group of watching scholars at the door and they heard him puffing across the yard towards the kitchens.

  Bartholomew stood and turned to face them. 'It is too late.'

  'How did this happen?' asked Master Kenyngham, shocked. 'Who is he? And what is he doing in our College?'

  Bartholomew wondered how he could begin to explain, but at that moment Michael returned, his hands full of eggs and a pitcher of slopping vinegar. He sagged when he saw Edred's half-closed eyes and waxen face.

  'Is he dead?' he asked hoarsely.

  Bartholomew nodded. 'Oleander is a powerful poison.

  There was nothing I could do.'

  Alcote elbowed him out of the way to look at Edred. 'I wonder you ever have any patients, Matthew. You always seem to be losing them. First Mistress Fletcher, and now this friar.'

  Bartholomew flinched. While he had a better rate of success with his cures than most of his colleagues, he was only too aware that there were diseases and injuries when a patient's demise was inevitable, no matter what treatment he might attempt. Knowing that his skills and medicines were useless in such cases was the part of being a physician he found most difficult part to accept.

  'You did not even consult his stars,' Alcote was saying, kneeling next to the dead man, and preparing to give him last rites.

  'He had no time,' Kenyngham pointed out, rallying to Bartholomew's defence. 'It all happened rather quickly.

  And how could the man answer questions about his birth- date anyway, when he lay fighting for his last breath?'

  Alcote declined to answer, and traced vigorous crosses on Edred's forehead, mouth and chest. The sudden movement created a puff of the white dust and Alcote raised his hand to his mouth as he prepared to cough.

  Bartholomew leapt forward and dragged him away.

  'Wash your hands, Roger,' he said firmly. 'Or you will be discovering first-hand how my medical skills cannot save a man from poisoning.'

  Colour drained from Alcote's face and he scurried hastily from the room to act on Bartholomew's advice.

  Kenyngham ushered everyone out and closed the door behind him.

  'There is nothing more to see,' he said to the still-curious scholars. 'Go back to your chambers. Fathers William and Aidan will pray for this man's soul.' He watched them disperse to do his bidding and turned to Bartholomew. 'It is clearly not safe to be in your room with that white poison floating around, so we will deal with the friar's earthly remains in the morning when we can see what we are doing. '

  Bartholomew leaned against the door wearily, wondering what nasty turn the investigation would take next, and whether he and Michael would live to tell the tale. Meanwhile, Michael was trying to explain to Kenyngham what had happened. The placid Gilbertine listened patiently to Michael's brief summary of his inquiries into the death of Kenzie and the involvement of Lydgate, but refused to allow the monk to dwell too deeply on the details of Edred's death. He took the distressed Benedictine firmly by the shoulder.

  'No goodwill come of thinking about the matter before we have made a thorough examination of the facts. You did not seek to kill this man, Michael: it was an accident.

  And who can say that if you had not thrown the poison jar, this friar would not have slain Matthew? Or both of you? It seems to me he was bent upon some kind of mischief. It grieves me to see such evil in a man of the cloth, but if you are determined to be a proctor you must inure yourself to such matters.'

  It was sound advice, although Bartholomew was surprised to hear it from Kenyngham, a man whose gentleness and reluctance to believe ill of anyone sometimes proved a liability to his College.

  Kenyngham continued. 'It is too late and too dark to begin inquiries into this mysterious powder now.

  Sleep in Michael's room tonight, Matthew. I will send a porter to inform the Chancellor of what has happened immediately.'

  Bartholomew followed Michael up the creaking stairs.

  Michael was strangely subdued, and Bartholomew's mind whirled with questions as he lay under the coarse blankets of his borrowed bed. What had Edred been doing? Was his confession merely an excuse to get into the College to search Bartholomew's room? What was so important that he had been prepared to kill? And perhaps more important to his own peace of mind, why had Edred died so quickly and violently from his slight exposure to the oleander powder?

  When Bartholomew awoke the next morning, the room was unfamiliar. The wooden ceiling was brightly painted and the bed was lumpy. He raised himself on one elbow, and in a rush the events of the previous night came back to him. Michael snored softly in his own bed, while Gray was on another, his tawny hair poking out from under the blanket. Gray had been concerned that some of the oleander might have landed on Bartholomew and had insisted on staying with him to be on hand lest he began to show symptoms of poisoning. After all, he had added, his blue eyes wide, Master Lynton and Father Philius had full classes already, so who would teach him and his friends medicine if Bartholomew were to die? Trying not to disturb them, Bartholomew stood up as quietly as he could.

  Michael, a light sleeper, woke immediately.

  Bartholomew pointed to the lightening sky. 'It is time for us to be about our business,' he whispered. 'We have a lot to do today, and there may be a riot tonight.'

  Michael swung his large legs off the bed and sat up with a yawn.

  Their voices woke Gray, who uncurled himself and watched Bartholomew. 'I will don a mask and gloves and clean the poison from your room,' he offered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  Bartholomew thanked him. 'But do not let Deynman help — he is not to be trusted around poisons for his own safety. Ask Tom Bulbeck to assist you. I suppose someone will arrange for Edred to be returned to Godwinsson today?'

  Michael shook his head. 'The Master heard from de Wetherset last night after you were asleep. He recommends that Edred be buried discreetly in St Mary's churchyard. He is afraid that the death of a scholar in a college other than his own might start another riot, and I believe he is right. I do not trust Lydgate to be sensible about this and so he shall not be told. Not yet, anyway.

  Master Kenyngham will call a meeting of all our scholars this morning and order that last night's events are not to be discussed outside Michaelhouse. He will appeal to their sense of College loyalty in dangerous times, and I am sure they will comply.'

  'But what did Edred want?' asked Bartholomew, his bewilderment of the night before surging back to him.

  'What do I have that causes people to search my room — three times now — and lure us out in the depths of the night to attack us?'

  'Medicines? Poisons?' suggested Gray, who had been listening with interest to their conversation.

  'I have nothing that Jonas the Poisoner, Father Philius or Hugh Lynton do not have,' said Bartholomew, 'not to mention the infirmarians at Barnwell Priory and the Hospital of St John's.'<
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  'The rings in your sleeve?' asked Michael, ignoring Gray's look of incomprehension.

  Bartholomew shook his head. 'Edred saw me take the broken ring from my sleeve in the kitchen. Why bother to look in my room when he knew where they were?'

  'Do you have letters from anyone, or documents?' said Gray, racking his brains.

  'Not that I can think of,' said Bartholomew. 'I have records of the treatments given to patients and of medicines dispensed. But these cannot be important to anyone but me.'

  'Whatever it was, Edred was prepared to kill for it,' said Michael. 'And he died for it. Are you certain it was the oleander that killed him?' Bartholomew saw the silent appeal in his friend's eyes and looked away.

  'I am afraid so. He was most definitely poisoned, and I am sure the white powder that coated him was oleander from one of the jars you threw. His symptoms matched those usual in such cases, although Edred succumbed very rapidly to the poison's effects.'

  'But why do you need such a foul powder?' cried Michael, suddenly agitated. 'You are a physician, not a poisoner! And you are usually so careful with toxins.

  Why did you leave this one lying so readily to hand?'

  'I use a diluted form of oleander for treating leprosy,' said Bartholomew. 'It works better on some forms of the disease than other potions. But it is a very diluted form and, as I said last night, I used the last of it several days ago.'

  'You ordered more oleander from Jonas the Poisoner before your stars became so sadly aligned,' said Gray helpfully-'It came yesterday while you were out. I could not lock it in the storeroom because you were out with the key, so I put it on the shelf in your chamber so it would not be lying around too obviously. But it was powerful stuff, this oleander — much more so than the stuff you usually use. It seems to me that this friar died more quickly than he would have done had he been killed with your normal-strength powder.'

  At his words, Bartholomew's stomach started to churn with a sudden, vile realisation. He sat down abruptly and looked up at Michael with horrified eyes. 'The Tyler family!' he said in a whisper. 'They are related to Jonas's wife!'