The Lost Abbot: 19 (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Bartholomew curiously.

  ‘Because we have irrefutable evidence – namely that he was born in the year of Magna Carta. He remembers his mother telling him so, you see.’

  It was not Bartholomew’s idea of ‘irrefutable evidence’, but he followed Inges up the stairs to where Kirwell had been provided with a bedchamber all to himself. Someone was singing a ballad in a lilting tenor, so beautifully that Bartholomew stopped to listen. Inges had no such compunction, however, and barged in without ceremony.

  ‘Very nice, Appletre,’ he said briskly and in a manner that suggested it was time for the precentor to leave. ‘It was good of you to come.’

  ‘It is my pleasure,’ replied the precentor amiably. ‘Although I suspect I did more to send Kirwell to sleep than to entertain him.’

  Kirwell lay in bed, wizened, concave-headed and entirely bald. Appletre was right to say that he had fallen asleep, for he snapped into wakefulness at Inges’s interruption, revealing rheumy eyes that were almost white. However, Bartholomew thought that while he might well be ninety, or even a hundred, he was certainly no more.

  ‘Here is the physician, Kirwell,’ announced Inges. ‘We brought him to you first, so keep him for as long as you like. The rest of us are happy to wait.’

  ‘I will come back later, then,’ said a figure who had been sitting quietly in the shadows. It was the young chaplain Trentham. He was blinking drowsily, suggesting that Appletre’s singing had had a soporific effect on him, too.

  ‘Please do,’ said Inges. ‘And then I shall finish telling you about my first day as abbey steward, when I was obliged to confront a vicious killer.’

  ‘On your first day?’ asked Appletre, wide-eyed. ‘That sounds nasty.’

  ‘It was,’ agreed Inges. ‘The culprit was a man who discovered his wife in bed with a shepherd. He fastened his hands around her throat and slowly wrung the life out of her.’

  ‘Oh,’ gulped Appletre, raising a hand to his own neck. ‘I have nightmares about that – someone doing something awful to my throat. Singing is my only skill, and without my voice, I would be useless. In fact, I would rather die than live without music.’

  ‘If someone strangled me, I would want it done vigorously,’ confided Inges. ‘Not like the man with his wife, which took an age. It is more merciful to grab one’s victim and finish him with one brief but powerful squeeze. There would be no pain and—’

  ‘Stop!’ cried Appletre, putting his hands over his ears. ‘Such a discussion is hardly appropriate in front of saints, physicians and priests – or precentors, for that matter.’

  ‘It is only idle chatter,’ shrugged Inges. ‘But we should not waste Doctor Bartholomew’s time, because he has a lot to do today. Thank you for coming, Appletre. You, too, Trentham. Kirwell enjoys these weekly sessions very much.’

  Inges accompanied the priest and the precentor out, leaving Bartholomew alone with the patient. Kirwell turned his opaque eyes in the physician’s direction.

  ‘How much longer?’ he asked in a low voice.

  Bartholomew sat next to him. ‘How much longer until what?’

  ‘Until I die,’ whispered the old man. ‘I am weary of life and want to sleep in my grave.’

  ‘That is not a question I can answer.’

  ‘I am tired of lying here while folk prod and gawp at me. The attention was fun to start with, but now I have had enough. So how much longer?’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?’

  ‘Yes, you can give me a potion that will ease me painlessly into death.’

  ‘Other than that,’ said Bartholomew.

  Kirwell scowled. ‘Are you following Inges’s orders? Has he instructed you not to rob his hospital of its main source of income?’

  ‘He did not need to – physicians are not in the habit of dispatching people.’

  Kirwell went on bitterly. ‘He sees me as too valuable to die. But I can barely recite my offices these days – I keep falling asleep halfway through them. I am no kind of priest now.’

  Bartholomew regarded him thoughtfully. ‘I attended the abbey school here, but I do not recall hearing about you. Yet you would have been ancient then – if you really are a hundred and forty-three, of course.’

  ‘Well, you should have paid more attention,’ sniffed Kirwell. ‘Because I have been a bedesman ever since Lawrence de Oxforde was hanged, which was long before you would have been learning your letters. Do you not know my story?’

  ‘I am afraid not.’

  ‘It began with his execution. I was praying by his grave the following day when there was a brilliant flash of light. It knocked me clean off my feet, and was declared miraculous by all who saw it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew. It did not sound very miraculous to him.

  ‘Afterwards, it was decided that I should live here at abbey expense. I was grateful, because my eyes were failing, and what use is a sightless cleric?’

  ‘What caused the light? The sun?’

  Kirwell grimaced. ‘You are a practical man who looks for rational explanations of God’s mysteries. But you are wrong to be sceptical, because my life changed in that moment. Before, I was a frightened man, lonely, poor and going blind. After, I was a bedesman with every comfort at my fingertips. That was a miracle.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bartholomew, his mind drifting to the people who were waiting to see him below. What manner of ailments would they present? Would any be new to him? Would the town’s apothecary be able to produce the complex remedies he might need to prescribe?

  ‘Oxforde gave me a prayer,’ Kirwell was saying. ‘One he composed the night before he was executed. I told him it was beautiful in an effort to touch his conscience, although it was actually rather trite. But he believed I was sincere, and he wrote it down for me.’

  ‘He could write?’ asked Bartholomew, pulling his mind away from medicine. He did not want to offend the old man by being inattentive.

  ‘Like you, he attended the abbey school. He promised that I would live long and happily, provided I never showed it to anyone else. I did not believe him, of course, and planned to sell it – some folk pay good prices for that sort of thing. But then that light flared over his tomb, so I decided to do as I was told. Within an hour, I was awarded my life of luxury.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, wondering where the story was going.

  ‘But a month ago, I decided that I had had enough, so I told my story to Abbot Robert. He said that if I gave him the prayer, I would be released from my wearisome life.’

  ‘Really?’ Bartholomew wondered what Robert had been thinking. It was hardly appropriate for an abbot to encourage superstition, especially in a fellow religious.

  Kirwell scowled. ‘I did as he suggested, but he is the one who is dead, while I still linger. It is not fair!’

  ‘I doubt Oxforde’s prayer is responsible for—’

  ‘Of course it is,’ declared Kirwell crossly. ‘I passed it to Robert two days before his fateful journey to Aurifabro, and now he is gone. But why him? He promised me death.’

  ‘I do not know,’ replied Bartholomew, when he saw that Kirwell expected an answer.

  ‘Damn you, then,’ whispered the old man. ‘Damn you to Hell!’

  His head dropped forward, and he began to drowse. Moving carefully, so as not to wake him, Bartholomew left.

  Prior Inges was waiting in the hall below. ‘Did he bless you? Or touch you in benediction? He has been a bit remiss in that direction of late, but he has always admired physicians.’

  Bartholomew did not like to say that he had been cursed. ‘Not exactly.’

  Inges looked disappointed. ‘Perhaps he will oblige you next time. Holy men can be unpredictable, as I am sure you know from your Clippesby.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Bartholomew gestured towards the door, where the line of people seemed to be longer than ever. ‘I should make a start if you want me to see everyone today.’

 
‘Not before you inspect our well,’ said Inges. ‘We cannot have it said that we provided a Bishop’s Commissioner with an inadequate tour. Especially as Joan went to some trouble to show you everything at St Thomas’s.’

  He grabbed Bartholomew’s sleeve and tugged him into the chapel. There were steps in one corner, leading down to a deep, stone-lined pool. The water was green and its surface rippled. Bartholomew put his hand in it, but withdrew it sharply. The spring was icy cold.

  ‘Now to business,’ said Inges. ‘As this is my hospital, you will give me half the fees you earn today. You will, of course, not charge my bedesmen: they will be seen for nothing. Do not worry about collecting the money – we shall do that before anyone is allowed in.’

  ‘What about those who cannot pay?’ asked Bartholomew in distaste.

  ‘They will not be admitted,’ replied Inges. ‘I cannot abide beggars.’

  Bartholomew moved towards the door. ‘Then I shall hold court in St Thomas’s—’

  ‘All right, all right. But they can only be seen when you have dealt with everyone else.’

  ‘They will be seen in the order in which they arrived.’

  Inges considered for a moment, then thrust out his hand. ‘Agreed. The hospital will still make plenty of money, which will show those witches at St Thomas’s that they are not the only ones who can generate a decent income for the abbey.’

  The terms having been negotiated, Bartholomew indicated that the first customer was to be shown in. It was a woman with a rash, and he lost count of how many people came after her, so when the last patient had been seen and sent on his way, he was surprised to see it was nearing dusk. He had been pleasantly impressed by Clippesby, who had proved himself invaluable, both by writing out instructions for the apothecary and by stopping Inges from cheating them.

  ‘Unfortunately, even after giving the apothecary everything we earned today, we still owe him eightpence for those who cannot afford their own remedies,’ the Dominican said as they walked through the marketplace, both grateful to stretch their legs after so long indoors. ‘Perhaps the abbey will pay. They are supposed to dispense alms, after all.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ replied Bartholomew tiredly. ‘Welbyrn is tight-fisted with—’

  ‘That woman,’ interrupted Clippesby. ‘She looks uncannily like Matilde.’

  Bartholomew followed the direction of the friar’s finger, and felt his stomach lurch. The lady in question was walking away from them, but her natural grace and the cut of her kirtle told him that she was Matilde! He stood rooted to the spot for a moment, then ran like fury. He dashed in front of a cart, causing the horse to rear in alarm, and collided with Spalling on the other side.

  ‘Have a care,’ the rebel cried, grabbing his arm. ‘It is not—’

  Bartholomew tore free, but the woman was gone. He raced as fast as he could to the end of the market, looking wildly up the alleys to the sides, but there was no sign of her. He set off up the main road, peering desperately into the open doors of the houses he passed, but was at last forced to concede defeat. He returned to Clippesby.

  ‘We must have been mistaken,’ said the Dominican. ‘Why would Matilde be here? If she were still … in the country, she would have contacted you.’

  The hesitation told Bartholomew that Clippesby was one of those who thought she was dead, killed by robbers on England’s dangerous highways, because no one could have vanished so completely and still be alive. The physician stubbornly refused to believe it, and liked to think that she had reached wherever she had been going and was living happily there.

  ‘It looked like her,’ he said, feeling foolish for haring off so abruptly.

  Clippesby smiled. ‘It did. But no harm is done, other than frightening that poor horse. I shall have a word with him tomorrow, to ensure that he knows it was not malicious.’

  Bartholomew was deeply unsettled. It was not the first time he thought he had seen Matilde since she had disappeared from his life, but it had not happened since he had met Julitta. His mind seething with emotions he could not begin to understand, he followed Clippesby back to the abbey.

  CHAPTER 4

  It took Bartholomew a long time to fall asleep that night, and when he did, his dreams teemed with confusing visions. He had loved Matilde for so many years that it had been unthinkable that anyone else should take her place, but then he had met Julitta. At first, the attraction had been that she reminded him of Matilde, but he had quickly come to love her for herself. Yet he had desperately wanted the woman he had spotted to be Matilde, so what did that say about the strength of his feelings for Julitta?

  He woke long before it was light the following morning and went outside, loath to disturb the others by lighting a candle to read. Although it was still dark, there were signs that it would be a pretty day – the sky was clear, the stars fading to softer pinpricks with the promise of dawn. He inhaled deeply of the scent of damp earth and summer flowers, aware that his agitation was, if anything, even greater than it had been the previous night. He began to wonder whether he would ever recover from the wound Matilde had inflicted.

  To take his mind off it, he walked to St Thomas’s Hospital, where he found Lady Lullington awake and grey with pain. She smiled gratefully when he prepared more medicine, and he knew she hoped it would stop her from waking again. When she slept, he returned to the guest house, but his colleagues were still asleep, and he did not feel like being inside anyway.

  As he leaned against the doorpost, trying not to think about Matilde and Julitta, he saw a shadow edging along the dormitory wall. It was moving in a way that could only be described as furtive, stopping every so often to ensure it was not being followed. When it emerged to cross the open space between the cloisters and the Abbey Gate, its silhouette was clearly visible, and Bartholomew was surprised to recognise Welbyrn’s hulking form.

  It was none of his business, but Bartholomew followed anyway, curious as to why his old tutor should feel the need to skulk around his own abbey. Welbyrn unbarred the gate and threaded through the silent streets until he reached Westgate, and it did not take Bartholomew long to surmise that he was aiming for St Leonard’s Hospital. Once there, the treasurer glanced around carefully before unlocking the door and slinking over the threshold.

  As he could hardly pursue Welbyrn inside, Bartholomew continued walking, but he did not go far before retracing his steps – it was hardly sensible to wander along the Torpe road alone, given what had happened to the Abbot and Pyk. He had just drawn level with the hospital again when a shape appeared with an unholy screech that made him leap in fright.

  ‘I am a tiger!’ It was Simon the cowherd, hands splayed to look like claws. ‘I shall tear you limb from limb.’

  ‘God’s teeth!’ swore Bartholomew, taking a deep breath to control his thudding heart. He forced a smile. ‘It is cold out here, Simon. Let me take you back inside.’

  ‘I will eat your bones,’ raved Simon, although he was unresisting as Bartholomew guided him towards the door. ‘And suck out your brains. Oxforde knew me as a tiger. I saw him in his golden grave when I was a youth. So did Kirwell.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ said Bartholomew, speaking softly to calm him. Simon would wake the other bedesmen if he continued to holler.

  ‘It was yesterday,’ declared Simon. ‘Ask my cattle. Do you know my cattle? They have all gone now, but I still know their names. Daisy, Clover, Nettle … I am a tiger!’

  Bartholomew put his finger to his lips as he guided the cowherd upstairs to an empty bed, where he carefully tucked him in. The old man closed his eyes and was instantly asleep.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Inges, making Bartholomew start a second time by speaking at his shoulder. ‘Welbyrn must have forgotten to lock the door again.’

  ‘How long has Simon been a resident here?’ asked Bartholomew, following Inges out of the dormitory and out on to a landing, where they could talk without disturbing the others.

  ‘About ten years, when
his madness reached the point where he was no longer able to work. There are those who blame Oxforde for his lunacy, but the truth is that Simon was fey-witted long before he witnessed the blinding light in St Thomas’s cemetery.’

  ‘Kirwell was knocked from his feet – or so he said.’

  ‘He was, and a number of folk saw it happen. It was the morning after Oxforde’s execution. Can you can cure Simon, by the way? Pyk said it was impossible.’

  ‘Pyk was right. You are doing all that can be done already – treating Simon with kindness, and ensuring that his needs are met.’

  ‘He is no trouble.’ Inges led the way down the stairs to the chapel. ‘I like a tiger in the house, anyway – it keeps those damned bedeswomen out. Hey, you!’

  The last words were delivered in a stentorian bellow that had the slumbering residents upstairs whimpering in alarm. Welbyrn, who had been in the process of sneaking through the chapel door, stopped dead in his tracks, and Bartholomew did not think he had ever seen a more furtive expression. Inges stalked towards him.

  ‘You damned fool!’ the Prior snapped. ‘You have done it again.’

  ‘Do not address me in that insolent manner,’ snarled Welbyrn, masking his discomfiture with aggression. ‘I am Brother Treasurer to you.’

  ‘You left the door unlocked and Simon escaped, Brother Treasurer.’ Inges’s tone was acidic. ‘For the third time this month.’

  ‘Not me,’ claimed Welbyrn, although the guilty flash in his eyes suggested otherwise. ‘I saw the door ajar as I was passing and came to investigate. Someone else must have done it.’

  ‘Passing on the way to where?’ demanded Inges. ‘There is nothing else on this road except Torpe, and I am sure you were not going there at this time of day. Simon might have reached the town if Doctor Bartholomew had not stopped him. And the last time that happened, he came home covered in honey and we had to pay the bill.’

  ‘How is he?’ enquired Welbyrn, transparently changing the subject. ‘Any better?’

  ‘No,’ said Inges shortly. ‘Why do you keep asking? He is incurably insane. Pyk declared him so, and Doctor Bartholomew agrees.’