Bartholomew 11 - The Mark Of A Murderer

by Susanna GREGORY

  There was a hiss and a thud. Eu gasped as the arrow struck him in the chest. He gazed down at it in disbelief, then looked up at Wormynghalle before toppling backwards. There was a splash as he hit the water and sank out of sight. Neither Abergavenny nor Polmorva made any attempt to retrieve the body, while Duraunt began to pray in a frail, weak voice. Meanwhile, Eu’s executioner snatched another missile from her quiver and set it in the bow before anyone could do more than stare in horror.

  ‘Who will be next?’ she asked, backing away, so she would have plenty of time to notch another arrow, if necessary. ‘Abergavenny?’

  The Welshman said nothing, but clutched harder at Duraunt. Bartholomew had assumed it was to keep the old man’s head above the water, but now he realised Duraunt was being used as a shield. Duraunt, already resigned to his fate, looked as if he did not care.

  ‘Now move,’ said Wormynghalle to Michael. ‘Hurry, or I shall shoot you where you stand, and you will have no chance of life at all.’

  ‘We have none anyway,’ said Polmorva piteously, as Michael sat, very slowly, on the cistern wall and lifted the first of his large legs over it again. ‘The Archbishop’s parade will go on for hours, and every man, woman and child will be watching it. Even if someone does walk along the towpath, he will not hear us, because of the trumpets and shouting.’

  Wormynghalle shrugged. ‘A small chance is better than none.’

  ‘You said you could do no more in Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew, looking at the cold eyes glittering over the veil. He felt sick when the last piece of the puzzle fell into place: he had finally recognised them. ‘But you are not talking about murder. You are talking about your scholarly work.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she snapped.

  ‘Joan,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘You are not Alyce Weasenham. You are Joan Wormynghalle.’

  ‘You know her?’ asked Michael, astounded, moving his leg across the wall as slowly as he could.

  ‘It does not matter,’ she said, scowling at Bartholomew.

  ‘She is King’s Hall’s best scholar,’ said Bartholomew, hoping to draw her into conversation and give them more time, although he was not sure what he could do with it. ‘She will make a name for herself at the greatest universities in the world.’

  ‘She is a scholar?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘But she is a woman!’

  ‘Exactly!’ snapped Joan, rounding on the monk and leaving her brother to cover Bartholomew. ‘You think that because I am a woman I am incapable of rational thought? Well, I am not, and some of my mathematical theories have been very well received by my peers.’

  ‘Then why do this?’ asked Bartholomew reasonably. ‘You are as good as a man – better than most – and your prospects are endless. Why jeopardise them?’

  ‘I am jeopardising nothing. You are the only one who knows my secret, and you will not live to tell it. I shall return to Oxford today, and secure myself a Fellowship at a new College – Balliol this time, I think – and later I shall move to Salerno. As I told you before, as long as I am transient, and do not allow anyone to know me too well, I can continue this life indefinitely.’

  ‘It is all she has ever wanted,’ said her brother. ‘And I like to see her happy. She tried a term at Oxford last year, to see if she could carry it off, and was so successful that she decided to come here. As you saw for yourself, she is very convincing.’

  ‘I am confused,’ said Michael. ‘Is this John Wormynghalle of King’s Hall, wearing a kirtle to disguise himself as a woman? Or does Joan Wormynghalle dress like a man?’ He frowned. ‘And perhaps more importantly, have we just deduced that he . . . she is our killer?’

  ‘I should have guessed you two were related,’ said Bartholomew, angry with himself for not seeing something so transparently obvious. ‘I should not have fallen for your tale of choosing the name of a wealthy Oxford merchant who you thought would never visit Cambridge. You simply changed your Christian name – John for Joan.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Joan coldly. She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘But how did you recognise me? I thought my disguises were good.’

  ‘Your eyelashes,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘And I am a physician, well able to tell the difference.’

  Joan sneered at him. ‘Hardly! It took a grab before you were able to work it out.’

  ‘It could only happen in King’s Hall,’ muttered Michael, poised over the water but not making the final jump. ‘They accept anyone with money, and now it transpires that they even take females.’

  ‘Norton admired your skill as an archer,’ recalled Bartholomew, thinking of another reason why he should have guessed her identity – there were not many bow-wielding females in Cambridge.

  ‘I am an excellent shot.’ She turned to Bartholomew, and seemed to soften slightly. ‘I am sorry, Matt. You were kind to me, not revealing my secret to men who would have seen me burned as a witch. But I have no choice but to dispatch you – if I want to continue my career, that is.’

  ‘I do not understand,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Polmorva says you killed Gonerby, which means you also killed Hamecotes and Okehamptone, since they died in an identical manner. I see why you killed Hamecotes: he was your room-mate and, although you said he was not observant, he would have had to be singularly dense not to have noticed he was sharing his chamber with a woman.’

  ‘He was not as nice about it as you were,’ said Joan. ‘He threatened to tell the Warden.’

  ‘Why did you take his body to King’s Hall after it had been in the cistern?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Because Hamecotes was killed with metal teeth,’ replied Bartholomew, when it looked as if Joan would bring an end to the discussion by forcing the monk into the water. It was conjecture, but he hoped that even if he were wrong, she would correct him and delay their deaths until he could think of an argument that might reprieve them. ‘She did not want us to associate Hamecotes’s murder with Gonerby’s, because that would reveal an Oxford connection – and a possible link to her and her brother.’

  ‘I did not anticipate Dodenho stumbling on him quite so soon,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I had plenty of time to bury him, and planned to let folk assume he had been killed by robbers on the Oxford road. I wash my clothes regularly at the end of the garden, and I have never seen Dodenho using that shed before, despite what I said to you later. It was a shock when he came screeching about his discovery.’

  ‘You forged letters from Hamecotes, claiming he had gone to Oxford,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He had been there for books before, so no one was surprised when he did it again. But I should have seen something sinister in that explanation long ago – especially after Duraunt told me that Merton never parts with its books.’

  ‘There was no need for you to hide Hamecotes from Tulyet,’ said Michael, trying to help Bartholomew occupy her with questions and observations. ‘We had already established a link between Gonerby and a Cambridge murder: Okehamptone’s. But you did not know that when you dragged a rotting corpse from here to King’s Hall; if you had, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble. So, why did you pick our poor town? Do you intend to set it alight with riots, and ensure our University’s suppression?’

  ‘Of course not,’ cried Joan, appalled. ‘It is not in my interests to see a school flounder, and I do not care whether the Archbishop builds his new College here or in Oxford. I know you think there is a plot to deprive both universities of his beneficence, but you are mistaken. The disturbances on St Scholastica’s Day had nothing to do with Islip and his money.’

  Michael nodded. ‘I imagine you started those because you wanted to kill Gonerby, and a riot provided the perfect diversion.’

  ‘His business was located near the Swindlestock Tavern, and a little civil disorder was a good way to disguise his murder,’ acknowledged Joan. Her brother made an impatient sound; he was becoming restless and wanted to be away.

  ‘How did you do it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Pay Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde to start a fight?’ A thought
occurred to him. ‘No, it was the Benedictine! Spryngheuse did not imagine him after all. He was you – another of your disguises. It makes sense now. You needed a screen to conceal Gonerby’s murder, and you knew Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde could be goaded into violence.’

  ‘I did not anticipate it would flare up quite so hotly,’ said Joan. ‘The town was like a tinderbox, and the affray was quickly out of control. I did not intend sixty scholars to die, but it is done and there is no going back. Chesterfelde was no problem, because he was a sanguine sort of man who pushed the whole matter from his mind, but Spryngheuse became obsessed by his Black Monk.’

  ‘So, you decided to hound him to suicide,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘Your brother helped you appear at times when the others would not see you, and you literally haunted him to death.’ He turned to Wormynghalle. ‘And the day he died, it was you who suggested Spryngheuse went for a walk in these gardens, knowing Joan would be waiting for him.’

  ‘He took little convincing to hang himself,’ said Joan, as if it did not matter. ‘I am good with logic and I told him he had no choice.’

  Wormynghalle looked uneasy, and Bartholomew recalled his curious behaviour during the requiem mass, when Eu had declared the spluttering candle to be a portent of doom. Wormynghalle, like many men, was superstitious. Bartholomew wondered whether he could use the tanner’s fears to his advantage.

  ‘Spryngheuse was an insignificant worm,’ called Polmorva, doing his part to prolong the discussion when Bartholomew and Michael fell silent. ‘Even Duraunt tired of him when he became too big a drain on his poppy juice. It is easy to procure enough for one man’s needs, but not two. Eh, Duraunt?’

  The elderly scholar’s eyes remained closed, but his prayers became more fervent. Bartholomew was disappointed in his old teacher – for his lies as much as his dependence on soporifics.

  ‘Eudo helped, albeit unintentionally, by killing Chesterfelde,’ said Joan. ‘And then, when Spryngheuse learned that a man was attacked while wearing his cloak, it was the last straw. Justice was served with his death – his and Chesterfelde’s – because it was their fault that the chaos escalated. I only wanted Gonerby dead.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did he discover you were a woman when you were at Merton?’

  ‘You are missing a vital piece of information,’ called Polmorva. His eyes showed fear, although his voice was steady. ‘The Wormynghalles marry well when they can – as Eu said, they are ambitious.’

  Bartholomew gazed at Joan, recalling the name of the murdered merchant’s wife. ‘You are Joan Gonerby? But it was she who insisted the burgesses came to catch her husband’s killer. Why would you do that, if you were the one who dispatched him in the first place?’

  ‘To rid me of a man who blocked my election as Mayor, and who damaged my business,’ replied the tanner. ‘And because he interfered with her ambition to study, by threatening to expose her.’

  ‘I see,’ muttered Abergavenny, still keeping Duraunt between him and the bows. ‘Gonerby refused to buy your skins to make his parchment, did he?’

  ‘I understand why you accused Matt of Gonerby’s murder,’ said Michael to Wormynghalle. ‘You were trying to confuse me with wild charges and irrational statements of dislike. It was you who said Gonerby was killed with a sword, rather than teeth, too. And you, alone of the merchants, did not want me to look for Gonerby’s killer – you were afraid I might find her.’

  ‘As he lay wounded, Gonerby heard Joan advising someone – probably her brother – that she was going to Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he passed the information to the men who found him dying. Wormynghalle’s presence was no coincidence, of course: he was there to prevent Gonerby from saying anything incriminating. But why involve Eu and Abergavenny in this hunt?’

  ‘To lure them to a distant town where they, too, would die,’ said Wormynghalle, pleased with himself. ‘Like Gonerby, they were going to vote against my election as Mayor, and their removal will see me win.’ He raised his bow, and Bartholomew saw he was impatient to use it.

  ‘So, you killed Gonerby to rid yourself of a tiresome husband and an annoying business rival,’ gabbled Michael. ‘Hamecotes was murdered because he discovered you were a woman, and Spryngheuse because he was unstable. But what about Okehamptone?’

  Bartholomew scratched around for the few facts he knew about the scribe’s death. Duraunt’s prayers had petered out, and Polmorva seemed to have abandoned his delaying tactics. Abergavenny was exhausted from keeping himself and Duraunt above water, while Michael was trying not to reveal the depth of his own terror. Bartholomew saw he was on his own in keeping Joan and her brother occupied until he could conceive of a way to best them. He hoped something would occur to him soon, because he sensed he would not keep them gloating over their successes for much longer.

  ‘It was you who claimed Okehamptone’s fever came from bad water on the journey from Oxford,’ he said to Wormynghalle. ‘It was also your liripipe that hid the fatal wound. You said he had borrowed it, and that you did not want it back – not because it had adorned a corpse, but because it continued to conceal the gash in his throat.’

  Wormynghalle addressed his sister. ‘I told you strangling was a better way to kill. They would never have deduced all this if you had used a more conventional method of execution.’

  Joan shrugged.

  ‘It was you who refused to let Rougham see his friend, too,’ Bartholomew continued. ‘He said the door was answered by someone with fine clothes and a haughty manner, and we assumed it was Polmorva. But that description applies equally to you.’

  ‘I turned no one away,’ said Polmorva, sounding surprised.

  ‘Everyone drank heavily the night Okehamptone died,’ continued Bartholomew, wishing Michael would help, because he could not talk and devise an escape at the same time. ‘Of wine you bought.’

  ‘I should have noticed that,’ said Polmorva feebly. ‘Every time the tanner provided wine, someone died. But why kill Okehamptone?’

  ‘He overheard us talking the night he arrived in Cambridge,’ replied Joan. ‘He promised to say nothing, but we killed him anyway, just to be sure. While I disguised the wound on his body, my brother gave the meddlesome Rougham a good fright. He fled to Norfolk, I hear.’

  ‘Is that why you attacked me at Stourbridge?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To make sure I did not reveal your secret, even though I gave you my word that I would not?’

  ‘Men break oaths all the time,’ said Joan. ‘Eu and Abergavenny swore to avenge my husband’s death, but were happy to forget their pledge once he was dead. None of you can be trusted.’

  ‘These teeth,’ said Bartholomew, removing them from his bag. ‘How did you come by them?’

  ‘I gave them to my predecessor at Merton,’ said Duraunt, barely audible. ‘He used them for years, but he died recently. Then I kept them in my room, but one of my students stole them.’

  ‘You,’ said Bartholomew to Joan. ‘You studied in Merton – you took them.’

  ‘They fascinate me,’ admitted Joan. ‘And I knew no one would guess I had killed my husband if I used the fangs to dispatch him. But they disappeared from my chamber this morning, and I wondered where they had gone. It was you, was it?’

  ‘No,’ said Bartholomew, wondering how Clippesby had managed to do it without being seen.

  ‘Well, give them back,’ ordered Joan. ‘Be careful when you toss them over. I keep them very sharp.’

  Bartholomew pulled back his arm and hurled them into the trees as hard as he could. Joan pursed her lips in annoyance.

  ‘It does not matter,’ said Wormynghalle. ‘We have completed our business here, and it is time to return to a more civilised city. Now, jump in the water, monk.’

  Michael began to slide with infinite slowness into the cistern. His face was as white as snow, but he refused to submit to the indignity of begging for his life. When he had gone, Bartholomew looked from Joan to her brother in despair. He suspected he could
overpower the tanner, who was overly confident, but Joan was a different proposition. She had approached the problem of loose ends with the same precision she applied to her studies, and would never risk her safety by exercising mercy.

  ‘Eudo,’ he blurted, desperately trying to think of some way to delay the inevitable. ‘You told him what to write in his proclamation. You chose carefully, so something in it would be certain to incite unrest.’

  Joan gave a tight smile. ‘I only want the beadles and the Sheriff distracted until we have left. We probably do not need a diversion with the Visitation, but there is no point in being careless.’

  ‘Joan,’ Bartholomew began. ‘I—’

  ‘No more talk,’ said Wormynghalle, pulling back his arm as he aimed his arrow.

  Bartholomew willed himself to keep his eyes open and fixed on the man who would kill him. Neither Wormynghalle nor Joan showed remorse or distaste for what they were about to do, and he supposed it was such coldblooded ruthlessness that had allowed their family to prosper so abruptly.

  ‘Spryngheuse’s soul will never let you rest,’ he shouted, resorting to desperate tactics. ‘He is there, in the trees, watching you sell your soul to the Devil.’

  Joan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Wormynghalle paled, and his bow wavered. Then there was a loud crack, and he toppled backwards. Without waiting to see how or why, Bartholomew launched himself at Joan, wrenching the weapon from her hands while she watched her brother stagger. She saw instantly that Bartholomew would overpower her with his superior strength, so she abandoned her attempts to retrieve the bow, and grabbed a knife from her belt. She stabbed wildly, and the physician leapt away. With a gasp of horror, he lost his balance and toppled into the cistern, bowling over Michael, who was halfway out.

  For a moment, Bartholomew’s eyes and ears were full of water. Then he surfaced, gagging and choking. He looked around, anticipating that the lid would be slammed down and he and the others would drown. The level of water was now so high that the heads of anyone inside would be forced under as soon as it dropped, and he braced himself for a final ducking as Joan completed her work. But the hatch remained open, and he was aware of someone thrusting him roughly out of the way to reach the rectangle of light that represented air and life. It was Polmorva, kicking and punching others in his determination to escape.