Bartholomew 07 - An Order for Death

by Susanna GREGORY

Heytesbury blew out his cheeks in another scented sigh. ‘Something must have happened to make him act so. Perhaps those two farms and the church have suddenly become profitable, and he no longer wishes to part with them.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Or perhaps he learned that you lied to him about Faricius.’

  Heytesbury regarded him uneasily. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When we first met you claimed the “other business” you had in Cambridge was seeing one of our scholars with a view to enticing him to Oxford. That scholar was Faricius.’

  Heytesbury raised his eyebrows. ‘True. But I never lied about it. I said he was “unsuitable”, if I recall correctly. He was unsuitable: he was dead.’

  ‘But he was obviously not dead when you first met him.’

  ‘No,’ said Heytesbury. He rummaged in his scrip and tore a piece of gum mastic from his ever-ready packet; even in the darkness Bartholomew saw the pale stain it left on his fingers. ‘I had heard of his excellent mind, and I sought him out because it would have been an honour to teach him.’

  ‘Then why did you not tell us this straight away?’

  ‘Why should I?’ asked Heytesbury. ‘What would you have thought if I had revealed that the one person I had spoken to in Cambridge had been murdered within a couple of days? It might have put my arrangements with Michael at risk.’

  ‘You may have done that simply by keeping quiet about it,’ said Bartholomew maliciously, gratified to see the Oxford man blanch. Heytesbury seemed about to protest his innocence again, but Bartholomew turned his attention to Yolande. ‘Did you wash Brother Timothy’s cloak recently?’

  Yolande nodded. ‘It was filthy with muck from walking along the High Street. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Did the dye come out?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Yolande’s world-weary face became ugly with anger. ‘It certainly did not, and you can keep that sort of tale to yourself! I will not have the likes of you accusing me of damaging the clothes I wash.’

  ‘I was only asking,’ protested Bartholomew. ‘It may have been made of inferior cloth or coloured with cheap dye that did not stay.’

  ‘Well, it was not,’ said Yolande firmly. ‘That cloak was returned to Brother Timothy just as black as when he gave it to me, and a whole lot cleaner. Agatha taught me not to use hot water on black garments for exactly that reason.’

  She grabbed the agitated Heytesbury and flounced off with him down the High Street, leaving Bartholomew frowning after her thoughtfully. So, Timothy had lied about the cloak. He wondered whether he should tell Michael immediately, so that they could act on the information that night. But Bartholomew suspected that the monk would be unwilling to listen to any more accusations regarding Timothy. Reluctantly, because he wanted the whole business done with as soon as possible, he conceded that it would still be best to follow Cynric’s advice, and launch a raid on Timothy’s room during the Easter vigil the following night.

  ‘I have that document,’ said Heytesbury, pulling away from Yolande and calling back up the High Street to Bartholomew. ‘My lawyer has read it with care, and I am ready to sign it now.’

  Bartholomew waved a hand in acknowledgement, and looked around for Cynric, who was still hidden in the dense shadows at the side of the road.

  ‘I will sign it tomorrow,’ Heytesbury shouted again, as he was hauled away by a huffy Yolande. ‘Tell Brother Michael I will sign whatever he likes first thing in the morning.’

  Cynric, who emerged from the shadows as soon as Heytesbury and Yolande had gone, chuckled to himself. ‘This will please the good Brother. Michael tried all manner of tricks to make Heytesbury sign, but the one that worked was when he acted as though he no longer cared whether the business was concluded or not.’

  Bartholomew tapped gently on Matilde’s door, then backed away hastily when he heard voices murmuring within. Appalled that he had been so thoughtless as to assume she would be alone and that he might be about to intrude on something he preferred not to think about, he began to move away. The door was opened, and Matilde peered out.

  ‘Matthew?’ she called, peering around her into the darkness. ‘Is that you? I have been waiting for you all evening. You said you would come.’

  Reluctantly, Bartholomew stepped out of the shadows and Cynric followed him into the neat, pleasant room where Matilde entertained her guests. It was a lovely chamber, and always smelled of clean woollen rugs and the herbs that she added to the logs that burned on the fire. A golden light filled every corner, softened by the subdued colours of the wall hangings. Down-filled cushions were scattered artistically on the benches and chairs, while a large bowl of nuts and fruit stood in the centre of a polished oak table.

  Bartholomew stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that Matilde’s visitors, who sat side by side on a bench with goblets of wine in their hands, were none other than Tysilia and Eve Wasteneys of St Radegund’s Convent. Bartholomew’s stomach lurched. Had they learned that the portly Mistress Horner and the slender prostitute were one and the same? Had they come to do Matilde harm for attempting to spy on them?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, quite rudely.

  ‘I might ask you the same question,’ retorted Eve, surprised by his hostility. ‘We are women visiting a woman for sensible advice. You are a man visiting a woman at a time that is not seemly.’

  ‘It is hardly seemly for a pair of nuns to be out so late, either,’ retorted Bartholomew. ‘But I am a physician, and I am often called out at night.’

  ‘Has Mistress Matilde summoned you, then?’ asked Eve archly. ‘She does not look in dire need of a physician to me.’

  ‘Why visit Matilde at night, when you could come in the day?’ countered Bartholomew.

  ‘Dame Martyn said we had to come in the dark because we could not be seen visiting a whore in broad daylight,’ supplied Tysilia helpfully. ‘She also said—’

  ‘Our business with Mistress Matilde is nothing to do with you,’ interrupted Eve, giving Tysilia a none too subtle dig in the ribs with her elbow to silence her. She stood up and made a gracious curtsy to Matilde, casting a sour glance at Bartholomew as she did so. ‘We should go. I would not wish our presence to deprive you of company this evening.’

  She headed towards the door, although Tysilia clearly had no intention of leaving. She remained seated, so that Eve was obliged to walk back again and grab her by the hand.

  ‘No!’ Tysilia cried, trying to free herself. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘I am sure you do,’ muttered Eve, tugging harder. ‘But we must return to the convent.’

  ‘Matilde is the leader of the town’s whores,’ Tysilia announced to Bartholomew, resisting the older woman and attempting to sit again. ‘She knows everything about them. Mistress Horner, that fat woman who was staying with us, told Eve all about Matilde, and said we should come to see her with our problem.’

  ‘What problem?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘I am sure Mistress Horner did not mean you to come to see me in the dark, though,’ said Matilde reasonably. ‘It is not safe for women to be unaccompanied at night.’

  ‘Whores wander the streets alone,’ said Tysilia brightly. ‘In the dark, too.’

  ‘No,’ said Matilde quietly. ‘They do not. They used to, but it was dangerous. These days, most of them gather their clients from taverns or more public places.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Tysilia, fascinated. She turned to Eve with pleading eyes. ‘Can we go to a tavern? Tonight?’

  Even Eve’s composure began to slip at this brazen request, while Matilde was startled into a laugh. Bartholomew studied Tysilia carefully. Her eyes were bright and shiny, but he still could not read the emptiness behind them. Most of her conversation was vacuous, but she had asked directly about the progress of the murder enquiry on two separate occasions, and had pointed out that Walcote was likely to have been killed by more than one person. He realised he was as unable to fathom her now as he had been on their first meeting.

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sp; ‘No, we cannot tarry at an inn,’ said Eve sharply, reclaiming Tysilia’s wrist and dragging her towards the door. ‘It is time for us to go home.’

  ‘Perhaps Cynric would accompany you,’ suggested Matilde. ‘As I said, it is not wise for women to be out alone so late, especially once you leave the town. The Barnwell Causeway is a lonely and desolate place.’

  Eve looked grateful, and Bartholomew had the impression that the nocturnal mission had not been her idea, and that something had happened that had called for desperate measures. Once they had left, and Tysilia’s demands to be taken to an inn immediately had faded into the night, Matilde closed the door with a grin.

  ‘Tysilia is pregnant again,’ she said. ‘Eve wanted me to tell her the name of a midwife who would end it, but I told her that was not the sort of thing the sisters know.’

  Bartholomew was horrified and unconvinced. ‘That is just an excuse! Do you not think it odd that they just happen to visit you the moment you leave the convent? They know what you have been doing.’

  Matilde shook her head. ‘I do not see how. However, I can assure you that it was not Mistress Horner who told them I was “the leader of the town’s whores”, as Tysilia put it. Mistress Horner never once mentioned Matilde.’

  Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, wishing that Matilde had never agreed to try to obtain information for Michael. ‘Then how did they know?’

  Matilde shrugged. ‘It is no secret that I run an unofficial guild for the sisters, and that I help them to organise themselves in a way that minimises the danger inherent in their profession. Perhaps Eve Wasteneys claimed Mistress Horner as a source of information to Tysilia, because she did not care to explain how else she knew. Mistress Horner has gone, and will never know what she is supposed to have said.’

  Bartholomew nodded. ‘You may be right. But if Tysilia is as clever as we think, then she may simply be telling you that she knows Mistress Horner is a fake. I do not like this at all, Matilde. I want you to go and stay with Edith tomorrow. You will be safe in Trumpington.’

  ‘With lecherous old Heytesbury prowling the house?’ exclaimed Matilde, laughing. ‘I do not think so, Matthew! I will be quite safe here. You ordered me out of the convent and I complied, but I will not be ordered anywhere else by you.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Bartholomew reluctantly. He felt in his bag and gave her the pendant he had reclaimed from Richard. ‘Here is the locket Tysilia stole from you.’

  ‘How did you find it? Did she give it to you?’

  ‘She gave it to Richard in return for helping her to escape from St Radegund’s.’

  Matilde chuckled. ‘So that is where all the nuns’ trinkets go. She gives them to various men in exchange for some undetermined help in the future. I actually heard her bargaining with William Heytesbury one night. He is her lover of the week. She seldom keeps them for longer than that; I think she is afraid they might do something dreadful, like try to hold a conversation with her, if they come to know her too well.’

  Bartholomew recalled that Tysilia had once said much the same to him herself. ‘Did Brother Timothy tell you about the lepers wanting your charity?’ he asked, wishing that the Junior Proctor did not know that Matilde had been helping Michael.

  She shook her head. ‘When was he supposed to come? I left the convent just before sunset.’

  ‘This afternoon,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He said he would tell you that the lepers desperately need the food that you sometimes send them.’

  Matilde nodded. ‘The Benedictines have been giving all their eggs and butter to the ailing Brother Adam this year. Janius has taken the lepers nothing for weeks now.’

  ‘Really,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully, recalling that Janius had walked with them to Barnwell the day Timothy had been appointed Junior Proctor. He had carried a basket that he said contained food for the lepers, which he had covered with a cloth, ostensibly to protect it from the rain. Why had he taken a long walk in the drizzle, when it had not been an errand of mercy that had called him? Had it been to drop Walcote’s purse near the Barnwell Priory for the eagle-eyed Sergeant Orwelle to find? Was that why he had placed the cloth over the basket, so that Bartholomew and Michael would not see that it was empty of provisions for the lepers?

  Bartholomew turned to Matilde. ‘I wish you would go to Trumpington, away from all this. I would feel happier knowing that you are safe.’

  She reached up and touched him gently on the cheek. ‘I know. And I appreciate your concern. You cannot know what a comforting thing it is to have a good friend in a place like this, where nothing is ever what it seems.’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you referring to Tysilia again?’

  Matilde shook her head slowly. ‘I do not know, Matthew. Perhaps we were wrong, and there is nothing more to that woman than an empty-headed wanton. She was certainly not feigning her pregnancy. I was surprised I had not noticed it before, given that it is so well advanced.’

  ‘It is true, then?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I thought it was an excuse to come to threaten you.’

  ‘She really is with child,’ Matilde repeated. ‘Her habit disguises the signs to a certain extent, but there is no question about it. Poor Eve. The convent will miss the money the Bishop pays to have Tysilia looked after.’

  ‘They have not looked after her very well if they have allowed her to become pregnant. It would serve them right if the Bishop took her away.’

  ‘I defy anyone else to have done better,’ said Matilde. ‘The woman is virtually uncontrollable and I wonder whether she is not so much cunning as deranged.’

  Bartholomew did not know what to think. He stayed for a while, drinking wine and listening to her stories about convent life until he felt himself begin to fall asleep. Cynric’s sudden appearance at the door as he was about to walk home almost made him jump out of his skin, and he was not sure whether to be relieved or more confused to learn that the two nuns had gone directly back to St Radegund’s and had not stopped at taverns or to meet any accomplices. When he reached Michaelhouse, he washed quickly and dived between his cold, damp bed-covers, his mind still whirling with questions as an exhausted sleep finally claimed him.

  Chapter 12

  THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS EASTER SATURDAY, AND Bartholomew attended the obligatory services in the church, ate his meals and worked on his treatise on fevers, trying not to dwell on what he planned to do that night. As evening approached, the clouds thinned, so that flashes of golden sun started to break through them. By dusk, they had fragmented to the point where there were only a few banks left, each one tinged salmon pink as the sun began to set. Cheered by the sight of a clear sky after so many overcast days, Bartholomew wandered into the orchard, and watched the bright orange globe sink behind the trees at the bottom of the garden. The clouds seemed more vividly painted than he had ever seen them before; they glowed amber and scarlet, before fading to the shade of dull embers and then to a misty purple as darkness fell.

  He walked back to his room, lit a candle and worked a little longer. The bell rang for the evening meal, and he picked at the unwholesome mess of over-boiled cabbage and under-cooked beans without much appetite. The students were in a state of barely suppressed excitement, because it was the last day of Lent and the following morning would see all the miserable restrictions lifted. When he found part of a dead worm in the shredded cabbage that was heaped on his trencher, Bartholomew began to long for the end of Lent, too.

  Michael sat next to him, crowing triumphantly over the fact that Heytesbury had finally signed his document, somewhat unexpectedly, and that the nominalist would leave Cambridge the following day. Father William was of the opinion that Heytesbury should leave before he had given his lecture, because he did not believe that the Oxford man would be able to resist talking about nominalism. Bartholomew hoped William was wrong, certain that if one philosophical tenet passed Heytesbury’s lips, the man was likely to be lynched by rabid realists waiting for just such an opportunity.

&nbs
p; While Michael tried to inveigle himself an invitation to consume another barrel of Langelee’s excellent wine, Bartholomew returned to his room and dressed for his pending raid on Brother Timothy’s quarters. He donned thick black leggings, a dark woollen jerkin, and shoes that were easier to climb in than his winter boots. He was reaching for one of his surgical knives, in case he needed to use force to prise open a window, when Cynric slipped into his chamber.

  ‘Are you ready?’ the Welshman asked. ‘If we can have this finished in less than two hours, I will still be able to go to the Easter vigil. Ely Hall is only a stone’s throw from St Mary’s Church.’

  ‘You plan to come with me?’ asked Bartholomew, pleased. ‘You believe that Timothy and Janius are the killers?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Cynric bluntly. ‘But I do not want you to do this alone. I was hoping that the delay I recommended yesterday would make you see sense, but I can tell from the expression on your face that you intend to go ahead with this foolery.’

  ‘It is not foolery,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Tonight we will see a pair of murderers revealed.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Cynric. ‘Well, come on, then. I do not want to be breaking into other people’s property all night. It is too cold.’

  It felt odd to be gliding through the darkness with Cynric moving like a ghost in front of him. Bartholomew and Cynric had shared many such nocturnal adventures, which Bartholomew was sure the Welshman had enjoyed a lot more than he had, but the physician’s life had been blissfully free of them for several months. A familiar uneasiness settled in his stomach, and he found his hands were shaking, although whether it was as a result of the cold of the starlit night or from anticipation, he could not say.

  He followed Cynric along the High Street, where everything was in complete darkness, except for one house where the cries of a baby indicated a sleepless night for the hapless parents. A dog howled in the distance, like a wolf, and the sound sent shivers down Bartholomew’s spine. He glanced up at the sky: the stars glittered and twinkled so brightly that he could make out the outlines of the road and the ditches below, even though the moon was temporarily hidden behind a lone cloud.