Bartholomew twisted away, unwilling to admit that he did not have one, but that his bag contained several surgical knives, and he did not imagine Marmaduke capable of besting him and the book-bearer at the same time. He did not let himself think that Marmaduke was clearly no stranger to combat if he had overpowered as competent and seasoned a warrior as Cynric.
He powered into the door of St Mary ad Valvas with his shoulder, hoping it was rotten enough to splinter, because he possessed neither the skill nor the patience to pick the lock. But the door was not secured at all, and he found himself staggering, hopelessly off balance, as he flew inside. And then he sagged in dismay. The church was empty.
St Mary ad Valvas was calm and still after the hectic com motion outside. A few bedraggled pigeons cooed in the fractured roof, and rain splattered from a broken gutter on to the chancel floor, but it was otherwise silent. It seemed more dank and dismal than ever in the cold, grey light of early morning, and it reeked of decay and mildew.
‘Where is he?’ Bartholomew whispered, as the monk caught up. ‘Where would Marmaduke have taken Cynric? I have no idea where he lives. How do we find out?’
‘His house is near St Sampson’s,’ replied Michael tartly. ‘And I checked it while you were messing about in dead-ended alleys. Neither he nor Cynric were there.’
‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew, grateful that one of them was still capable of thinking rationally.
Michael pushed past him, and began to inspect the church more carefully, while Bartholomew slumped against a wall, his mind filled with tortured images of Cynric waiting for rescue that would never come.
‘He was here,’ called the monk suddenly. ‘Look!’
He had reached the fallen screen that divided nave from chancel, and was pointing at one of the pillars. Cynric had evidently been made to sit at its base: there was a slight indentation in the moss that grew at the bottom, but more importantly, he had managed to take a piece of chalky stone and scratch three letters on it, spelling the first part of his name.
‘And here is one of the abbey’s spades,’ said Michael, rubbing at a design that had been embossed on the wood of the handle. ‘It is soiled, so he was digging for something. But what?’
Bartholomew climbed over the splintered mass of the rood, and entered the chancel. He stopped in shock when he saw that the plague mound had been disturbed – the floor was littered with lumps of rock and scattered earth. The stench of decay was stronger than it had been, too.
‘Did Cynric do this?’ breathed Michael, recoiling in horror. ‘Why would he—’
‘What are you doing?’
Both scholars jumped, and they spun around to see Ellis standing behind them. The sub-chanter had lost his pattens, and his fine shoes were covered in mud. His lips glistened in the gloom.
‘Have you seen Marmaduke today?’ asked Bartholomew urgently. ‘Or Cynric?’
‘You should not be in here,’ said Ellis, ignoring the questions. ‘It is not safe with all this rain. The roof is unstable, and the additional weight of sodden timbers might cause it to collapse.’
‘Marmaduke,’ prompted Bartholomew.
‘He was in the minster during the night,’ replied Ellis, eyeing them with suspicion. ‘I am not sure why, because he usually prefers the more modest surroundings of St Sampson’s. What is that awful stench? It cannot be the plague grave, surely? Not after all this time.’
Bartholomew stared at the mound. Ellis was right: the smell could not be attributable to the victims who had been buried there ten years before, and who were now no more than bones. Moreover, he was fairly sure the odour did not derive exclusively from the dead pig and cats, either.
‘There must be another body in there!’ he exclaimed in understanding. ‘Cynric—’
‘It cannot be Cynric,’ interrupted Michael quickly. ‘He has not been missing long enough.’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew impatiently. ‘Cynric was digging here. Wy mentioned Marmaduke and the plague pit …’
He scrambled up the heap quickly and began to haul away pieces of stone with his hands, not caring that they ripped his fingernails and grazed his skin. Under the slabs was soil, soft and sticky from the rain.
‘Stop!’ cried Ellis in horror. ‘There are victims of the pestilence inside that!’
‘This is what Cynric was doing when Marmaduke found him,’ gasped Bartholomew, grabbing the spade and hacking away the packed earth. ‘He—’
‘Then he had no business,’ snapped Ellis. ‘It might release the Death into York a second time. Come down at once, or I shall summon the minster guards and have you arrested.’
‘He is right, Matt,’ said Michael uncomfortably, sure the physician had lost his wits. ‘The last thing we need is another outbreak of the disease. That will certainly not help Cynric.’
Bartholomew ignored them both, his breath coming in sharp bursts as he intensified his efforts, certain he was about to discover a clue that would tell him where Marmaduke had taken his friend.
‘Enough!’ commanded Ellis, irate enough to clamber up the pile after him. ‘You have no right to disturb the dead.’
‘Someone is buried in here,’ rasped Bartholomew. ‘It is—’
‘Of course someone is buried,’ snarled Ellis, reaching out to drag him away. Bartholomew jigged free. ‘The whole thing is a tomb!’
‘The plague dead will be skeletons.’ Struggling to stay out of grabbing distance and dig at the same time, Bartholomew managed to expose a leg. He fought not to gag as the stench of putrefaction rose around him. ‘Look! This is much more recent – no more than a few weeks. It is why there has always been such a rank odour here.’
‘From the animals!’ shouted Ellis, lunging again. ‘The Dean keeps asking the vergers to remove them, but they pretend to forget. I do not blame them: toting maggot-ridden pigs and cats is—’
‘I suspect they were brought here at the same time as this man,’ interrupted Bartholomew, scrambling to where the corpse’s head should be. ‘To disguise any odour emanating from him.’
‘This is nonsense!’ yelled Ellis. He tried to drag the physician away, but Michael seized the hem of his cloak and yanked him back. ‘Your behaviour is disgraceful. I will see you fined so heavily that you will beg me to take Huntington, to pay the price of—’
‘There!’ said Bartholomew, stepping aside suddenly. He had exposed the face of a man who had possessed a shock of thick grey hair, although its time in the mound had turned it filthy and tangled. The skin was dark with decay, but not enough to make him unrecognisable to anyone who had known him in life.
‘Cotyngham!’ exclaimed Ellis in astonishment. ‘What in God’s name is he doing here? He is supposed to be in the Franciscan Priory.’
There was silence after Ellis’s blurted announcement. In the distance, bells rang, but it was not a time when offices should be said, so Bartholomew could only suppose they were sounding an alarm. Perhaps the tide had started to surge, and people were being warned to head for higher ground. Would St Mary ad Valvas be safe, or would its crumbling walls be swept away by the encroaching waters?
‘It cannot be Cotyngham,’ said Michael. ‘He escaped from the friary two nights ago, but Matt says this fellow has been dead for weeks.’
‘It is Cotyngham,’ said Ellis shakily. ‘I recognise his hair and the ring on his finger.’
‘Then who was staying with the Franciscans?’ asked Michael.
‘An imposter,’ said Bartholomew heavily. ‘It makes perfect sense now. But never mind this. We need to look for Cynric.’
‘Look where?’ demanded Michael. ‘This is a vast city, and we have no idea where to begin. Our best chance of helping him is to assess what we know of Cotyngham – Cynric was excavating him when he was captured, so understanding what brought him here in the first place may point us in the right direction.’
Bartholomew was unconvinced, but took a deep breath to calm himself, and began to speak. ‘When Cotyngham was first taken ill, Fournays orde
red him kept in isolation – we were allowed in, but only because Stayndrop was beginning to accept that seclusion was not working.’
‘And because you are a physician,’ added Michael, while Ellis looked from one to the other in confusion. ‘But we had never met Cotyngham, so were not in a position to know whether it was him or not. Stayndrop also admitted to knowing him only slightly, while Fournays told you that he did not know him at all.’
‘I thought there was something odd about the case from the start,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘When we first saw him, “Cotyngham” was blank-eyed and drooling, but his heart was racing. Now I know why: the imposter was terrified that he was about to be unmasked.’
‘We were the first visitors Stayndrop had allowed in. His fear was understandable.’
‘The second time I saw him, he was breathless.’ Every fibre in Bartholomew’s body screamed at him to begin tearing the city apart, and it was not easy to talk calmly. ‘Probably because he had had to rush to don his disguise. I imagine these two incidents prompted his flight …’
Michael nodded. ‘It is one thing to lounge in isolation, comfortably housed and fed, but he was unwilling to risk himself once Stayndrop started admitting visitors. And it explains why Oustwyk saw a “Cotyngham” who was fleet-footed enough to give him the slip.’
‘So what does this tell us?’ asked Bartholomew, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘That Cotyngham died when Ellis and Cave visited him a month ago, and they buried him here? And then installed an imposter in the friary?’
‘No!’ cried Ellis, his face white. ‘Cotyngham was perfectly well when we left him.’
‘But Cave left part of his shoelace in Cotyngham’s chimney,’ snapped Bartholomew. ‘He must have been searching for the codicil …’ He faltered, thinking about what Jorden had claimed.
‘And Cotyngham would not have granted such a liberty if he was alive,’ said Michael quickly, unwilling to share that particular snippet of information with the sub-chanter just yet. ‘Ergo, Cave must have known that Cotyngham was dead.’
‘The lace may have been left after we had learned Cotyngham was ill,’ Ellis flashed back. ‘Cotyngham was not in a position to refuse permission then, either. You cannot use it to prove that Cave knew the man was dead. Or to prove that he killed him, lest you think to try.’
But Bartholomew disagreed. ‘You began proceedings to claim Huntington the moment Cotyngham was installed in the infirmary, at a point when there was no reason to assume he would not recover. The only logical explanation is that you knew he would never be in a position to resume his duties. Moreover, there is the testimony of Huntington’s villagers.’
‘What testimony?’ demanded Ellis uneasily.
‘They cleaned his cottage, because they said it smelled, yet Cotyngham kept it neat. I suspect the odour was from his corpse, moved shortly before they were informed that “Cotyngham” was in the infirmary.’ Anxiety for Cynric made Bartholomew brusque. ‘What did you do? Hire someone to impersonate him while you devised a plan that would exonerate you of murder?’
‘No!’ cried Ellis. ‘We have never—’
‘Wait,’ said Michael, cutting across him, and addressing Bartholomew. ‘Keeping Cotyngham secluded was a treatment recommended by Fournays.’
‘No,’ groaned Bartholomew, unwilling to go over old ground. ‘Fournays did not kill Cot—’
‘Hear me out! By his own admission, Fournays has scant experience with ailments of the mind. He was at a loss as to what to do. Then who should come along, to tell him about an uncle who had suffered a similar complaint, and who had been cured by being kept in isolation?’
‘Marmaduke!’ exclaimed Bartholomew.
‘Precisely. And Fournays acted on this advice, being a suggestible, malleable sort of fellow.’
Ellis shook his head in incomprehension. ‘Are you saying that Marmaduke killed Cotyngham and buried him here? And Cave is innocent?’
The relief in his voice was so apparent that Bartholomew regarded him closely. ‘That surprises you! You thought Cave was guilty.’
‘No,’ stated Ellis, although his eyes said otherwise.
Bartholomew pointed to the body in the mound. ‘This is murder, Sub-Chanter Ellis. Murder! You cannot conceal what you know about it.’
Ellis licked his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a mumble. ‘Cave said he had lost his purse in Huntington, and returned the next day to look for it. I confess I may have wondered since then whether he had done something to Cotyngham …’
‘And you told no one?’ demanded Michael.
Ellis spread his hands. ‘I had no proof, and he is one of my vicars. But once we learned that Cotyngham was in the infirmary, he was very vocal in urging me to claim Huntington at once …’
Bartholomew rounded angrily on Michael. ‘You said discussing Cotyngham would help us find Cynric, but all we have done is waste time.’
The monk nodded towards the body. ‘Examine him, and tell us exactly how he died.’
‘Why?’ exploded Bartholomew. ‘We already know that Cave killed—’
‘Cave is almost certainly irrelevant,’ Michael flared back. ‘Cynric was digging here when Marmaduke took him prisoner. Hence Marmaduke objected to what he was about to find, which tells us that Marmaduke knew what was buried. If you want to help Cynric, look at the body.’
Bartholomew had reached the door before accepting that Michael might have a point, and that Cotyngham might hold clues to help Cynric. He hurried back to the plaque mound, scraped the rest of the soil from the corpse, and crouched next to it. This time, Ellis was silent. The physician’s hands shook as he reached out to touch Cotyngham, a combination of cold and strain.
‘It is difficult to tell after so much time,’ he said at last. ‘But his skull is broken. Had he been alive when it happened, the wound would certainly have killed him.’
‘Good,’ said Michael encouragingly. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing else!’ cried Bartholomew in despair. ‘He has been dead too long.’
‘Easy,’ said Michael. ‘Remember that you are helping Cynric by doing this. Now take a deep breath, and look again.’
Bartholomew did as he was told, struggling to quell his rising panic. He stared at Cotyngham, but his thoughts were full of what Marmaduke might be doing to his old friend while they squandered precious moments. Suddenly something occurred to him, although it was nothing to give him any comfort.
‘Marmaduke!’ he whispered. He gazed at Michael with a stricken expression. ‘We know he can use a bow, because he had one during the riot outside Holy Trinity. And if he is familiar enough with this church to take Cynric prisoner here, then there is nothing to say that he is not the archer who shot Sir William.’
‘It is possible,’ conceded Michael. ‘Moreover, he told us himself that his eyesight is poor, and we have considered from the start that the culprit might not have been aiming at William, but at you – a scholar from the College that intends to have Huntington from the vicars.’
‘No!’ cried Ellis angrily. ‘If Marmaduke did try to kill Bartholomew, it was not on our orders. Besides, when we first met you, we thought Bartholomew was a servant, because he was hatless. We did not know he was a scholar until later.’
‘Hats!’ exclaimed Bartholomew, as understanding dawned. ‘The first time we met Dalfeld, he was livid because his hat and cloak had been stolen …’
‘You think the intended target was Dalfeld now?’ asked Michael in confusion.
‘Bartholomew and Dalfeld are the same height, and both have black curly hair,’ mused Ellis. ‘Moreover, although Dalfeld is usually elegant, his gipon was stained and ripped that day, because a robber had pushed him over. I can see how they might have been mistaken from a distance, especially by a man with bad eyesight, and when visibility was poor because of the rain.’
‘I had no hat and was carrying my cloak because Cave had lobbed dirt at me,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It made a mess, so Sir William told me to take it off. My tun
ic was travel stained – it might have appeared muddy from afar.’
Michael was thoughtful. ‘I suppose it is possible that Marmaduke was expecting Dalfeld to come from the direction of the abbey, so when he saw you with William—’
‘He made a mistake,’ finished Bartholomew. ‘Or rather, two mistakes: he identified the wrong victim, and he overestimated his skill. It was windy that day, and neither the bow he stole from the city butts nor the hen-feather arrow were of decent quality. All this affected his aim.’
‘And we found the remains of bread and cheese,’ mused Michael. ‘Exactly the kind of meal that might be eaten by an ex-priest without much money – and left by a man who had waited some time for his victim to appear. I was never happy with Langelee’s contention that the would-be assassin might have enjoyed a hurried meal.’
‘But why would Marmaduke want to kill Dalfeld?’ asked Ellis, then he rubbed his chin and answered the question himself. ‘Recently, Dalfeld has been saying that there was more to Marmaduke’s defrocking than the peddling of false relics. And he has a point: the Church does not usually oust members for that sort of crime.’
‘So why did it happen?’ asked Michael, while Bartholomew made an agitated sound that said he thought the discussion irrelevant to Cynric.
Ellis shrugged. ‘Probably because he irritated Zouche’s other executors over his obsession with the chantry – he kept pestering them about it. They were powerful men, and I suspect some of them encouraged Thoresby to defrock him, so they would have an excuse to ignore his nagging. But this cannot be a reason for Marmaduke wanting Dalfeld dead. Dalfeld is not an executor.’
‘Listen!’ Bartholomew cocked his head suddenly. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’ asked Michael. ‘There is nothing—’
‘A crash.’ Bartholomew looked around wildly. ‘It came from below us. Is there a crypt?’
Mystery in the Minster: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew) Page 31