The house was crammed with people, although it was difficult to tell precisely how many, because night had fallen, and Isnard only had one small lamp, which had been turned low.
‘Are you hurt?’ Bartholomew asked, a little testily, because he had risked life and limb by racing through streets that were slick with ice. ‘Or ill?’
‘No, I have information to impart,’ replied Isnard grandly. ‘I would have called Brother Michael, as it concerns him really. But I did not think he would come.’
‘He would not,’ agreed Gundrede. ‘Not after what happened at singing practice.’
Isnard was a long-term member of the Michaelhouse Choir, and had adopted a very proprietary attitude towards it. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Bartholomew saw that most of the people in the room were basses, along with a smattering of tenors and a few women who should not have been permitted to join an all-male chorus. They went in disguise, and although Michael was perfectly capable of identifying false beards and horsehair moustaches, he never had the heart to turn them away.
‘It was his own fault,’ said the bargeman stiffly. ‘He should not be leaving us. I can lead the music, of course, but who will bring the food?’
‘I shall miss him, too.’ Bartholomew spoke gently, because Isnard’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘But he has been waiting for this opportunity for years. Would you keep him from it?’
‘Of course we would!’ cried Isnard, distressed. ‘We need him. And what happened earlier was just a mark of our affection. It was not our fault that he ended up covered in feathers.’
Bartholomew thought it best not to ask.
‘So we decided to tell you our news instead,’ said Gundrede. ‘And you can pass it on. Our first nugget is about Thelnetham the Gilbertine.’
‘He used to be at Michaelhouse,’ said Isnard, as if he thought Bartholomew might have forgotten. ‘And he is always very rude about our singing. However, we do not speak out of malice, but so that Brother Michael will know what sort of man he is.’
Bartholomew did not want to hear it. The choir members were very touchy about criticism, and Thelnetham had always been one of their more vocal detractors. He started to tell them to keep their gossip to themselves, but Gundrede overrode him.
‘He eats slugs,’ he declared. ‘He hunts for them under cover of darkness.’
Bartholomew was so taken aback that for several moments he could think of nothing to say. ‘How do you know?’ he asked eventually.
‘Because we have seen him,’ replied Isnard. ‘And do not say he was just looking for something he had lost, because I saw him near the Trumpington road, Gundrede noticed him by the Great Bridge and Marjory spotted him by St Clement’s.’
‘I did,’ said Marjory, a woman of indeterminate age who sold dubious remedies and charms from her little house in the Jewry, and made no bones about the fact that she considered Christianity to be a very inferior religion when compared to her own.
‘Besides, if he had been searching for mislaid objects, he would have done it in daylight,’ Gundrede went on. ‘He was eating slugs, and that is all there is to it. And if Michael will not take any notice of what we say, then we shall make it public ourselves.’
‘Please do not,’ begged Bartholomew, suspecting the trio had not been sober when they had drawn these particular conclusions. The fastidious Thelnetham was the last man on Earth to have anything to do with slugs, but his detractors would capitalise on the tale anyway, and it might destroy his chances of being elected, which was hardly fair. ‘Michael will look into it.’
‘Good,’ said Isnard. ‘But he must do it soon.’
‘You can tell him we are not thieves either,’ said Gundrede sourly. ‘He thinks I made off with the lead on Gonville’s chapel, just because I used to be a metalsmith. However, I rarely bother with that sort of work these days, so he can keep his nasty opinions to himself.’
‘And I do not ferry stolen goods about on my barges,’ declared Isnard. ‘Besides, those tomb-makers are probably lying about what they claim has been stolen. But sit down and have a drink, Doctor. You look tired, and we have some lovely French claret— Ouch!’
Gundrede had kicked him under the table, and it did not take a genius to guess why: the cask had been imported illegally, almost certainly on one of Isnard’s boats. Bartholomew began to back out, unwilling to consume contraband wine lest Tulyet or one of his men chose that particular evening to pay Isnard a visit.
‘I have to see Edith,’ he said, blurting the first excuse that entered his head. ‘To ask her about progress on Oswald’s tomb.’
‘She should have hired a mason from London to do it,’ said Gundrede, his voice thick with disapproval. ‘That Petit is a worthless rogue, and Lakenham is no better.’
Bartholomew took another step towards the door, but Isnard moved to stop him. ‘We have more to tell you yet, Doctor. And if you want something to occupy your hands while we talk, we can provide you with plenty of interesting ailments. Marjory has a rash, for a start.’
‘Here,’ said Marjory, baring her arm with a flourish. Bartholomew had treated it before, but it had taken a new and intriguing turn since he had last seen it. He sat.
‘Moleyns,’ hissed Isnard. ‘We have information about him, too. None of us saw who killed him, as we have said before, but—’
‘Wait!’ cried Gundrede. ‘We need assurances first.’ He turned to Bartholomew. ‘You must promise that Sheriff Tulyet will never know who told you. We could be hanged.’
‘He cannot betray us,’ declared Isnard confidently. ‘He is bound by oaths of discretion. Cynric told me so, when I asked him to find out what odd affliction made Chancellor Tynkell so different from the rest of us. He says physicians can never reveal their patients’ secrets.’
‘About your ailments,’ clarified Bartholomew quickly. ‘Not about anything else.’
‘Well, you are tending an ailment now,’ said Marjory, indicating her arm. ‘So we are covered. And someone must pass what we know to the appropriate authorities.’
‘Moleyns got out of the castle at night,’ blurted Isnard, before Bartholomew could demur. ‘And he wandered around the town … doing business. Tell him, Gundrede.’
The metalsmith obliged. ‘Moleyns charmed his “friends” – those who fluttered around him in the hope that he would write something nice about them to the King – into confiding where they kept their money. Then he hired us … I mean he hired burglars to get it for him.’
Bartholomew was thoughtful. He knew for a fact that being imprisoned had not stopped Moleyns from stealing, because Principal Haye and the Mayor had both lost purses to his sticky fingers. And Moleyns had enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in the castle, even though most of his estates had been confiscated. He recalled the felon as he had been when he had needed the services of a physician – smug, sly and deceitful, certainly the kind of man to beguile the gullible into telling him about their precious hoards.
‘So he escaped from the castle and came to tell you which houses to burgle?’ he asked, wanting to be sure he had understood them correctly.
‘Told accomplices which houses to burgle,’ corrected Gundrede, while all around there were a lot of earnestly nodding heads.
‘So it is you … I mean Moleyns, who has been stealing the tomb-makers’ supplies?’
‘No,’ snapped Gundrede angrily. ‘I just told you – we had nothing to do with that. Moleyns was interested in money – coins, which could be spent on food, wine and clothes. He was not in a position to filch heavy items for resale in distant cities.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Isnard. ‘However, the point of all this is that Moleyns’ death marks the end of a lucrative arrangement, and we are very sorry about it. Which means that no townsman killed him, so you should look to a scholar as the culprit.’
‘Were any University men involved in this … operation?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘Not that we are aware,’ replied Isnard. ‘Although we were not party to his every
move. No one was, not even his wife and lawyer.’
‘Master Lyng might have been in league with him, though,’ mused Marjory. ‘When Moleyns fell off his horse, Lyng was the first to reach him, and I saw them whispering. I was too far away to hear what was being said, but Lyng nodded.’
‘Nodded how?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering if the felon had muttered something to provoke a fatal attack. ‘Angrily? Amiably? Urgently?’
‘It was too dark to tell, and then other folk surged forward and hid them from view. Lyng did not stay long, though – he was gone before you managed to fight to the front, Doctor.’
‘They might have been discussing Moleyns’ next exploit, I suppose,’ conceded Isnard, ‘although that would have been risky in front of so many flapping ears.’
‘Tynkell, Moleyns and Lyng,’ sighed Marjory. ‘They certainly had secrets!’
‘Do you know what they were?’ asked Bartholomew hopefully.
Marjory shrugged and looked away, giving the impression that she did, but was unwilling to say in front of an audience. He supposed he would have to corner her when she was alone.
‘So how did Moleyns leave the castle?’ he asked, tactfully changing the subject. ‘Dick Tulyet does not usually let prisoners stroll in and out as they please.’
‘It has a sally port,’ explained Gundrede. ‘And guards who like wine. It was a simple matter to unlock a few doors while the Sheriff and his more trustworthy officers slept.’
The notion that Moleyns had been breaking the law under the Sheriff’s nose had unnerved Bartholomew, but he dared not tell Tulyet about it himself: the Sheriff would demand to know the source of such alarming intelligence, and he was not very good at lying. He decided to visit his sister, in the hope that her calm company would allow his thoughts to settle, after which he might be able to devise a way to pass on the information without getting anyone executed.
She lived in a handsome mansion on Milne Street, from which she ran her dead husband’s cloth business. It was a profitable venture, although less so than when Stanmore had been alive. There were two reasons for this. First, because Edith preferred her transactions to be legitimate; and second, because she had taken it upon herself to champion Cambridge’s fallen women. She had employed them to work in her dyeworks at one point, which had brought her a whole raft of trouble; then she had arranged for them to produce ready-made academic tabards. Although considerably cheaper than bespoke ones, they did not sell very well, because many scholars disliked wearing garments that had been put together by prostitutes.
Milne Street was an important thoroughfare in its own right. It boasted not only several large merchants’ houses, but two Colleges, the Carmelite Friary and the Church of St John Zachary. One College – Trinity Hall – was in the process of building itself a massive new dormitory, and workmen could still be seen swarming industriously over the complex web of scaffolding that encased it. Each held a lantern, so the whole structure was alive with purposefully bobbing lights.
The dormitory was causing a good deal of resentment in the town, because it stuck much further out into the road than had been agreed at the planning stage. But Trinity Hall desperately needed the space, and stubbornly ignored the complaints of those who objected to a huge building sprawled halfway across a public highway.
Bartholomew entered Edith’s house, breathing in deeply of the comfortingly familiar aroma of spices, beeswax and wood-smoke. His sister was in her solar, a pleasantly airy room with embroidered cushions, a huge fire in the hearth, and tapestries on the wall.
‘I am going to dismiss Petit if he does not work on Oswald’s tomb tomorrow,’ she declared. ‘I want it finished now, not in a decade. But you look troubled, Matt. What is wrong?’
Bartholomew was not about to tell her the truth, because she would guess in an instant who had gossiped to him about Moleyns. ‘I do not like hunting killers,’ he said instead.
Edith smiled. ‘Then take comfort in the fact that it will be the last time. Michael will go to Rochester to become a bishop, and you will marry Matilde. The University will have to find someone else to solve its crimes.’
Bartholomew experienced a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he recalled the decision he would soon have to make. Surely it should not be this difficult? And why did his heart not sing when he thought about Matilde, as it had in the past? Did it mean his love for her had grown cold? Or was it just the prospect of a major life change that so terrified him?
‘I am not sure about Matilde,’ he said unhappily.
‘Why not?’ asked Edith gently. ‘It is what you have wanted for years.’
‘Quite – for years. It has been too long, and we may not like what the other has become.’
‘Oh, she will like you,’ predicted Edith confidently. ‘And you need someone to make you smile, so do not dismiss her out of pride or fear. As Oswald always said, if something is worth having, it is worth the wait. Except tombs, of course. They need to be finished when they were promised.’
When Bartholomew left Edith’s house, he was still not ready to tell Tulyet about Moleyns. His spirits were low, as they often were on evenings when it was dark and cold, and the houses he passed were shut up tight against the weather. Lights spilled from a few, which served to make him feel excluded, and he quickened his pace, keen to be home. He passed St John Zachary, which looked pretty with candles shining through its stained-glass windows, and on impulse he went inside, feeling a sudden urge to pray for Oswald’s soul.
He opened the door and heard voices within – the dissipated Vicar Frisby was talking to Thelnetham and Nicholas. The Gilbertine had added a length of puce silk, which he wore like a scarf, to his array of colourful accessories. The shade contrasted pleasingly with his purple brooch, and Bartholomew found himself thinking that Matilde would appreciate his sense of style. Or perhaps she would disapprove, given that canons were supposed to resist such vanities, and she was a devout woman. The fact that he was uncertain told him yet again that he no longer knew her as he once had.
‘I am canvassing for votes,’ said Thelnetham. ‘Frisby has just promised to support me.’
‘On my kinsman’s recommendation,’ said Frisby, giving the little secretary an affectionate pat on the back that almost sent him flying. ‘I trust his judgement.’
‘Good,’ said Nicholas, hobbling on his lame leg to regain his balance. ‘Because only a fool would opt for anyone else. Even Suttone, I am sorry to say. He is a nice man, but his views on women … well! We cannot have a lecher as Chancellor.’
‘Did you hear the speech I gave in St Andrew’s Church today, Matthew?’ asked Thelnetham with one of the superior smiles that Bartholomew found so irritating. ‘It received a standing ovation. My rivals cannot match me for eloquence, and that is all there is to it.’
‘Lyng can,’ said Nicholas, earning himself a hurt scowl. ‘But he seems to have left town, which is stupid, as no one will want a Chancellor who disappears at critical junctures.’
‘Will you back me, Matthew?’ asked Thelnetham. ‘We were friends at Michaelhouse, and I always considered you the best of all its members.’
‘Thank you,’ said Bartholomew, although ‘friends’ was not how he would have described their relationship – there had been some serious antagonism, nearly all of it arising from the Gilbertine’s barbed tongue. ‘But I cannot vote against another Fellow.’
‘I was a Fellow,’ said Thelnetham reproachfully. ‘And if Langelee had reinstated me, as I requested, then I would have been Michael’s pet candidate. Not Suttone.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew, although he was sure that Michael would never have chosen Thelnetham, on the grounds that the Gilbertine was too intelligent to manipulate.
Thelnetham dropped his hectoring manner and became sincere. ‘I honestly believe that I can do some good, and I would like the opportunity to try. You know how seriously I take scholarship. I am the only one who will put it first – and it is why we are all her
e, after all.’
‘True,’ conceded Bartholomew. ‘But—’
‘Our University is more important than blinkered allegiances,’ interrupted Thelnetham earnestly. ‘And if I win, I will give Suttone a post to salvage his wounded pride.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Official Plague Monitor, perhaps, given that he is so obsessed with it.’
‘I have been Chancellor’s secretary for six years,’ said Nicholas quietly. ‘So I am better qualified than most to judge what is needed. And it is not Suttone.’
‘I am a lawyer, too,’ Thelnetham went on. ‘Which means I can handle complex legal matters. Suttone is a theologian, who has never run a College, let alone a University.’
They spoke convincingly, but Bartholomew’s hands were tied – College loyalty ran too deep in him, and Suttone was a better friend than Thelnetham would ever be. He settled for dispensing some helpful advice instead. He nodded to Thelnetham’s scarf.
‘That will lose you votes – it makes you appear rebellious and unsteady. And a manly stride, rather than a dainty mince, will give an impression of strength and purpose.’
Thelnetham sighed. ‘Nicholas says the same. I had hoped to run an honest campaign, where people see me as I am, but I suppose I had better yield to popular prejudice. It is a pity – I bought some lovely cerise hose this morning and was looking forward to showing them off.’
Frisby, who was taking a surreptitious swig from his wineskin, almost choked. ‘You do not want to be wearing pink stockings, man! People will think bad things.’
Bartholomew left them discussing it, and went to stand by Stanmore’s tomb, whispering the prayers that he hoped would shorten his kinsman’s sojourn in Purgatory. Then he left the church, eager now for the conclave fire. However, he had not taken many steps along Milne Street before he ran into Hopeman and his followers, who had been visiting the hostels along Water Lane. They clustered around him rather menacingly.
‘That sinful Lyng dares not show his face,’ Hopeman crowed. He held a lantern, which cast eerie shadows on his dark features and made him look sinister. ‘He knows he is no match for me. And Godrich is Satan’s spawn – I shall exorcise him if I see him out tonight.’
A Grave Concern: The Twenty Second Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew Book 22) Page 16