Bartholomew 11 - The Mark Of A Murderer

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew glanced at the monk askance, thinking he would present no mean challenge to a set of teeth himself. ‘I do not understand why Clippesby should want to attack these people.’

  ‘We will not agree about Clippesby, so let us leave him for now and look at the other links between our town and Oxford.’

  ‘Polmorva,’ said Bartholomew immediately. ‘He declined to let Rougham see Okehamptone, so it is clear he is involved in some sinister way.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Michael. ‘But there is also you. You attended Merton College, and you have a previous acquaintance with Duraunt and Polmorva. Indeed, you know Polmorva well enough to have made an enemy of him. He hates you, and you would like to see him indicted for murder.’

  ‘Only if he is guilty. I would not conspire to convict an innocent man.’

  Michael shook his head despairingly. ‘I have failed miserably in my training of you, if you decline to use the opportunities that come your way to strike blows at ancient adversaries.’

  ‘Shall we confront Polmorva with our conclusions?’ asked Bartholomew, ignoring the monk’s levity – if levity it was. ‘We may be able to gauge whether we are close to a solution.’

  ‘We have not been able to gauge anything so far, and I think we should wait until we have more than a bag of unfounded speculations. Besides, we may just frighten our culprit – be he Polmorva or someone else – and cause him to flee, or even to kill again.’ Michael sighed, and turned his mind to other matters. ‘You should visit Stourbridge today and tell Clippesby he is going on a journey. He will certainly object, and I do not want a scene when my beadles arrive to escort him away on Monday.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Bartholomew in distaste. ‘It was not my idea. You do it.’

  ‘You are his physician. You must make him understand that this is the only way we can resolve the matter without harming him or compromising the College. The alternative is for him to throw himself on the mercy of the judicial system, and I do not think he should do that.’

  ‘No, he should not,’ agreed Bartholomew bitterly. ‘He will be found guilty just because he is different. Our society is intolerant of those who do not conform, no matter how inane the rules.’ He was thinking not only of Clippesby, but of Joan Wormynghalle.

  ‘We are talking about murder here, Matt,’ said Michael sternly. ‘And they are not just simple murders, either, but ones that show a violent hatred towards the victims. You saw those corpses, and witnessed the savagery with which they had been defiled. I am sorry for Clippesby, but if he did these terrible things, then I do not want him in my town. Supposing he was to take against Matilde for losing that silver dog? How would you feel if she was his next victim?’

  Bartholomew could think of nothing to say.

  Bartholomew was deeply unhappy with the whole affair regarding Clippesby, and postponed his visit for as long as possible. It was with a heavy heart that he set out for Stourbridge the following day, immediately after the Trinity Sunday mass. It was a glorious morning, with birds singing shrill and sweet, the sun warm on his face, and a pleasant breeze wafting the scent of flowers and clean earth towards him. He returned the greetings of people he knew, many of whom were out enjoying the new glories of their freshly cleaned town. Folk were delighted by the changes, superficial though they were, and talk of the impending Visitation was on everyone’s lips.

  Bartholomew heard little of their excited babble, and felt burdened by the knowledge of what he was about to do. He walked slowly, although he knew it would only prolong the agony. He tried to tell himself that the Dominican would be well cared for in Rougham’s remote retreat, and that they were lucky the Gonville man was prepared to spend his own money looking after an ailing colleague. But this did not blunt the knowledge that imprisonment was a very cruel thing to do to a free spirit like Clippesby.

  Eventually he arrived at the hospital, where he spent longer than necessary talking to Brother Paul and examining two other inmates. When he could defer his unpleasant duty no longer, he walked to the house where Clippesby was installed, and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. The friar’s cell was at the end of a corridor, and comprised a small room with a single window. The window had stone mullions that were less than the length of a man’s hand apart, so it was impossible to squeeze between them and escape; the door was secured by a hefty bar placed between two iron wall loops, and a substantial lock. The key to the lock was on a hook outside the door, unreachable by the inmate, but conveniently accessible to anyone bringing food.

  Bartholomew was shocked by the change two days had wrought on Michaelhouse’s Master of Music and Astronomy. Clippesby’s face was grey, and his hair was greasy and unkempt. He did not turn when Bartholomew opened the door, and did not react at all when told the news that he was soon to be moved to a distant place, where he would never see friends or family again. Bartholomew shook his arm, to try to gain his attention, but Clippesby simply continued to gaze through the window at the green fields beyond, and would not speak. Finally, Bartholomew secured the door behind him, and walked back to Cambridge feeling even more miserable than he had on the way out.

  He spent the afternoon trying to concentrate on his treatise on fevers, a text that had already reached prodigious dimensions. Writing it usually relaxed him and, although College rules forbade any kind of work other than religious on the Sabbath, he felt the treatise was more pleasure than labour; he often spent his leisure hours scribbling down his ideas, ranging from fevers’ symptoms and manifestations, to their treatment and how to avoid them. But even agues could not exorcise Clippesby from his mind, and he was grateful for even the smallest interruption that day.

  He spent an hour helping Deynman with ‘difficult’ spellings, giving the student his entire attention on a matter he normally would have delegated to one of his teaching assistants. Then he joined in a lively debate among William’s Franciscans, which focused on the work of the great Dominican known simply as Perscrutator. William was predictably frenzied in his claims that the Dominican Order never produced good scholars, although he was unable to refute any of Perscrutator’s arguments pertaining to the definition of the elements. A large number of Fellows, students and commoners turned out to listen to the debate, although most were far more interested in William’s rabid antics than in understanding Perscrutator’s complex expositions.

  At the evening meal, Bartholomew was pleased to note that Michael was as good as his word and ate only a modest portion of meat and a mere three pieces of bread. All vegetables, green or otherwise, were politely declined. That evening, when the sun was setting, sending rays of gold and red to play over the honey-coloured stone of Michaelhouse, Bartholomew wandered into the orchard, where there was a fallen apple tree that provided a comfortable seat for those wanting peace and silence.

  He sat and stretched his legs in front of him, hoping Edith had reached London safely, and that her son was as delighted to see her as she expected. He thought about Matilde, and recalled her laughing at something he had said; he wondered whether she was smiling now, finding Rougham equally amusing. He considered visiting her, to ask the question that had been on his lips so many times that week, but was still not in the mood to propose in front of an audience. However, even the prospect of married life with Matilde could not take his mind off Clippesby, and his thoughts soon returned to dwell on the dull hopelessness he had seen in the Dominican’s eyes.

  He decided solitude was not what he needed, so went to the kitchens instead. These were off limits to scholars, because they were the domain of the formidable Agatha; but Agatha liked Bartholomew, and seldom ordered him to leave if he wanted company, or if he simply wanted to sit in the College’s warmest room. He was surprised when he entered the steamy, fat- and yeast-scented chamber to find not only Michael, but Langelee, too. Agatha was in her great wicker throne by the hearth, sewing in the fading light that filtered through the windows. The Master reclined on a bench, playing with his new astrolabe, while Michael perched on a st
ool by the fire. Bartholomew was not impressed to see him devouring oatcakes thickly smeared with salted lard.

  ‘I was hungry,’ said the monk defensively when he saw the physician’s disapproving gaze. ‘And anyway, these are only oatcakes. They will not make me fat.’

  ‘The white grease will, though,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Especially in that kind of quantity.’

  ‘We were talking about Clippesby,’ said Michael, changing the subject as he rammed one of the oatcakes defiantly into his mouth. ‘I confided all our suspicions to Langelee and Agatha – along with what your medical colleague in Norfolk has agreed to do for us.’ He looked hard at his friend, to tell him that Rougham’s role in the affair had not been revealed.

  ‘I cannot believe Clippesby would do such terrible things,’ said Agatha unhappily. ‘He is a gentle man, not a killer. Tell them, Matthew.’

  ‘I have,’ said Bartholomew, flopping on a stool next to Michael and taking one of the oatcakes. The fat was so generously applied that he thought he might be sick, and put it back half eaten. ‘But no one will listen to me.’

  ‘The evidence is there, plain for all to see,’ said Michael patiently. ‘I know this is an unpleasant – and even a painful – business, but we must be realistic. Occasionally, people change – they turn into something nasty, and Clippesby is a case in point. He has always been strange, and we have always been wary of him. We believed he was involved in something sinister during his first term at Michaelhouse – remember, Matt? – so we should not be surprised to learn now that his madness has transmuted itself into something dangerous with the passing of time.’

  ‘You will find you are wrong,’ warned Agatha. Bartholomew was surprised to see tears glittering in her small, pig-like eyes. He knew she was protective of all Michaelhouse’s scholars, but he had not appreciated how deeply she cared for the quiet Clippesby.

  ‘I do not see how,’ said Langelee. ‘There are too many arrows of circumstance pointing in his direction. If it were a case of one or two, I would be loath to send him away, too, but it is not. Some of our students are little more than children, Agatha, and we cannot risk their lives just because we want to believe in Clippesby’s innocence. It is our duty to protect them.’

  ‘We are lucky Matt has the contacts to arrange this solution,’ added Michael. ‘It is not unknown for Colleges to rid themselves of unwanted Fellows by murdering them, you know. I have investigated more than one case where a man has been killed because his colleagues did not like his scholarship, his religious ideas or his personality.’

  ‘It would be a lot less expensive,’ mused Langelee, looking as if he might consider such an option himself, should the need arise. Bartholomew was grateful Rougham had ensured it would not.

  ‘He will die if you lock him away from his animals,’ said Agatha tearfully.

  Langelee frowned, and then looked at Michael. ‘She is right. Are you sure there is no other way?’

  ‘None I can think of, but I am willing to entertain any ideas you have. You need to come up with something quickly, though, because he leaves first thing tomorrow morning. It is better that way.’

  ‘Better for whom?’ demanded Agatha. ‘For the Archbishop of Canterbury, so a lunatic will not assail his priestly eyes? For the University, because we can allow nothing to interfere with our plans to impress Islip, and risk him founding his new College elsewhere? For Michaelhouse, because we do not want the embarrassment of a Fellow who is unlike the rest of us? It is certainly not better for poor Clippesby, banished to the barren wastes of a foul and dangerous county.’

  ‘It is Norfolk, Agatha, not Armageddon,’ said Michael. ‘Norfolk.’

  ‘That is what I was talking about,’ snapped Agatha. ‘I know what that place is like. It is full of lunatics, lepers and heretics.’

  ‘Clippesby should feel at home, then,’ said Langelee, ignoring Michael’s indignant splutter. The monk, like many Cambridge scholars, hailed from Norfolk.

  ‘We will never know, will we?’ said Agatha in a voice that dripped with hostility. She stood, snatched the oatcakes from Michael, and took them to the pantry, her large hips swaying purposefully. The monk watched his repast disappear with dismay. Her voice echoed from the cool room that was used to store perishable foods. ‘After you have exiled him, we will never hear whether he is happy or sad, alive or dead.’

  ‘I will make enquiries,’ promised Bartholomew.

  ‘You had better,’ she said coldly, coming to re-occupy her chair. ‘Because I can make life very uncomfortable for scholars who do not please me.’ She gazed significantly at a pile of laundry, on the top of which sat Langelee’s cloak.

  ‘At last!’ the Master exclaimed. ‘I thought you had lost it, you kept it so long.’

  ‘Perhaps it is ready now, but perhaps it is not,’ retorted Agatha belligerently. She turned on Michael. ‘And do not come here expecting edible treats, either. There will be no more of those until you convince me that Clippesby is content and thriving. And I may decline to do the laundry for a while, too. That will bring you to your senses.’

  ‘The whole College will stink if no one has clean clothes,’ objected Langelee. ‘Within a month we will all smell like the Chancellor.’

  ‘You are lucky to have me,’ said Agatha sullenly. ‘I am the best laundress in Cambridge, and every Michaelhouse scholar clamours for my services. It is not like that at King’s Hall, where half of them do their own, lest their precious garments are ruined.’

  ‘They manage their own washing because of cost,’ corrected Michael. ‘The King’s Hall laundress is outrageously expensive.’

  ‘Dodenho pays Wolf to do his, while Norton prefers to hire me,’ Agatha went on. ‘I charge him princely fees, but he makes no complaint. Meanwhile, Wormynghalle does his own, down by the wharves. I have seen him. He should not use the river for cleaning his clothes, though. It will make him reek.’

  ‘Wormynghalle does not reek,’ said Michael, starting to edge casually towards the pantry.

  ‘That is because you are used to Chancellor Tynkell,’ said Agatha. ‘He makes a cesspool smell like spring flowers.’

  ‘Wormynghalle probably does not want to hurt the laundress’s feelings by employing another washer-woman,’ Bartholomew said, in an attempt to explain the scholar’s odd behaviour in a way the others would understand, and so prevent rumours circulating about her. ‘He rinses his clothes somewhere that is not overlooked, so she will not see him and be offended.’

  Agatha regarded him beadily. ‘You had better not be getting ideas. I am the laundress around here, and I wash the clothes. I do a good job, and I will not have you demanding to do your own. It would not be proper, and I would not stand for it.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ said Michael ingratiatingly, taking another step towards the pantry. ‘I would never consider managing my own clothes – you always do it so splendidly.’

  Agatha looked pleased. ‘I do,’ she agreed immodestly. ‘I am the finest laundress in Cambridge.’

  ‘In England,’ gushed Michael. ‘In the world, even. But my innards ache with hunger, so I shall retire to my bed and pass a miserable night. Unless, of course, there are oatcakes available …?’

  ‘There might be,’ said Agatha imperiously. ‘Are you saying I am better even than the laundresses in the King’s household?’

  ‘There is no comparison,’ said Michael desperately.

  Agatha smiled in smug satisfaction. ‘Then perhaps one of you will write to the King on my behalf, and tell him I am willing to be of service – subject to him bringing his Court to Cambridge, of course. I would not like to move away.’

  ‘The oatcakes?’ whined Michael piteously.

  ‘They are for someone else,’ replied Agatha maliciously. ‘Matthew will collect them tomorrow morning and take them to Clippesby, to sustain the poor man on his journey to Hell.’

  When Bartholomew went to bed, he was restless and unsettled, and found sleep would not come. He tossed and turned for what felt lik
e hours before he finally dropped into a doze, but his dreams teemed with uncomfortable images of Clippesby. Deciding he would rather be doing something better than exhausting himself with nightmares, he rose, donned the hated yellow liripipe and left. Matilde would be asleep, and Rougham no longer needed his ministrations, but a patient called Isnard was happy for company at any hour. He had recently lost a leg, and enforced physical inactivity meant he slept little and was always grateful when visitors relieved his boredom. Intending to leave Michaelhouse through the back door and use the towpath, Bartholomew aimed for the orchard.

  He had not gone far when he became aware that he was not the only person out in the darkness. He glanced up at the sky, and gauged it was probably long past midnight: not a time when law-abiding scholars should be wandering around. He wondered whether it was a student, off to meet his paramour, and hoped it was not one of his own class. He had more than enough to worry about, without being concerned for errant students.

  The figure making his way through the fruit trees was large and burly. The only one of Bartholomew’s students with such a build was Falmeresham, and Bartholomew strained his eyes, trying to assess whether it was him. But it was too dark, and the person had taken the precaution of wrapping himself in a cloak with a hood that hid everything except his size. Bartholomew reflected. William and Langelee were also big men who owned long cloaks, and so was Michael. But the figure in the orchard was not quite vast enough to be Michael, and nor did it waddle.

  When the man reached the gate he removed the bar and laid it gently in the grass. He opened the door, and looked carefully in both directions before letting himself out. Bartholomew followed, and watched him reach the High Street, then turn left. The physician trotted after him, hoping it was late enough for Tulyet’s guards and Michael’s beadles to have eased their patrols, and that neither of them would be caught. The scholar ahead of him did not seem to be suffering from any such qualms, and his progress along the High Street towards the Jewry could best be described as brazen.