A Bone of Contention хмб-3

by Susanna GREGORY

  Next to her, Sheriff Tulyet struggled to maintain a suitably sombre expression, while his infant son howled furiously, unsettled by the din. Only Master Kenyngham seemed unaffected, smiling benignly and tapping his hand so out of time with the choir that Bartholomew wondered if he were hearing the same piece.

  To take his mind off the racket, Bartholomew looked at the space that had been cleared for Master Wilson’s tomb. The mason had said the whole contraption would be ready before the end of autumn, when Wilson’s mouldering corpse could be removed from its temporary grave – recently desecrated by Bartholomew – and laid to its final rest under his black marble slab. The notion of exhuming the body of a man who had perished in the plague bothered the physician. Some scholars believed that the pestilence had come from graves in the Orient, and Bartholomew had no desire to unleash again the sickness that took one in every three people across Europe. He decided that he would exhume the grave alone, wearing gloves and mask, to reduce the chances of another outbreak. Anyone who felt so inclined could come later and pay their respects – although he could not imagine that the unpopular, smug Master Wilson would have many mourners lining up at his grave.

  When the long Latin mass was over, the scholars walked back to Michaelhouse and prepared to greet their guests in the courtyard. There was a pleasant breeze – although it had blown the bed-cover hiding the stable askew – and the sun shone brightly. Agatha’s voice could be heard ranting in the kitchens, almost drowned out by the church bells. The gates were flung open and the guests began to arrive.

  One of the first was Eleanor Tyler, who flounced across the courtyard, looking around her speculatively.

  She looked lovely, Bartholomew thought, dressed in an emerald-green dress with her smooth, brown hair bound in plaits and knotted at the back of her head. She beamed at Bartholomew and took his arm. Her face fell somewhat when she saw a patched shirt-sleeve poking from under his gown.

  ‘I thought you were all supposed to be wearing your best clothes,’ she said, disappointed.

  ‘These are my best clothes,’ protested Bartholomew. ‘And they are clean.’

  ‘Clean,’ echoed Eleanor uncertainly, apparently preferring grimy finery to laundered rags. But her attention was already elsewhere. ‘Why is there a bed-cover on that old wall?’ she asked, pointing to Bartholomew and William’s handiwork. ‘If it is being washed, you might have taken it in before your guests arrived.’

  ‘Your choir put their hearts and souls into that anthem by Simon Tunstede,’ remarked Bartholomew as Michael came to stand next to him. ‘It must have been heard fifteen miles away in Ely Cathedral.’

  Michael winced. ‘More like sixty miles away in Westminster Abbey! Once their blood is up, there is no stopping those people. My only compensation is that my guest, the Prior of Barnwell, told me he thought it was exquisite.’

  ‘But he is stone deaf,’ said Bartholomew, startled. ‘He cannot even hear the bells of his chapel any more.’

  ‘Well, he heard my choir,’ said Michael. ‘Here he comes. You must excuse me, Madam.’ He bowed elegantly to Eleanor, lingering over her hand rather longer than was necessary.

  Eleanor’s indignation at the monk’s behaviour was deflected by the magnificent spectacle of the arrival of Sheriff Tulyet and the Mayor, both resplendent in scarlet cloaks lined with the softest fur, despite the warmth of the day. Sensibly, Tulyet relinquished his to a servant, but the Mayor knew he looked good and apparently decided that sweating profusely was a small price to pay for cutting so fine a figure. Master Kenyngham approached, smiling beatifically, and introduced himself to Eleanor, asking her if she were a relative of Bartholomew’s.

  At that moment, Bartholomew spotted his sister and her husband, and excused himself from Eleanor’s vivid, and not entirely accurate, description of how Bartholomew had saved her on the night of the riot. Kenyngham, Bartholomew noted, was looking increasingly horrified; he hoped Eleanor’s account of the violence that night would not spoil the gentle, peace-loving Master’s day.

  ‘Matt!’ said Edith Stanmore, coming to greet him with outstretched arms. ‘Are you fully recovered? Sam Gray tells me your stars are still poorly aligned.’

  Bartholomew raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘I am perfectly well, Edith.’ He fixed his brother-in-law with a look of reproval. ‘And I have no need of Cynric following me everywhere I go.’

  Stanmore had the grace to look sheepish. ‘This is Mistress Horner,’ he said, turning to gesture towards an elderly woman who stood behind him. Mistress Horner was crook-backed and thin, wearing a dowdy, russet dress that hung loosely from her hunched figure. A starched, white wimple framed her wind-burned face, although her features were shaded by a peculiar floppy hat. A clawed, gloved hand clutched a walking stick, although she did not seem to be particularly unsteady on her feet.

  Bartholomew had not seen her before and assumed she must be someone’s dowager aunt, wheeled out from some musty attic for a day of entertainment. He bowed politely to her, disconcerted by the way she was staring at him.

  Stanmore caught sight of the Mayor standing nearby, and was away without further ado to accost him and doubtless discuss some business arrangement or other. Edith was watching her brother with evident amusement.

  ‘You have met Mistress Horner before,’ she said, her eyes twinkling with laughter.

  ‘I have?’ asked Bartholomew, who was certain he had not. He looked closer and his mouth fell open in shock.

  ‘Matilde!’

  ‘Shh!’ said Matilde, exchanging a look of merriment with Edith. ‘I did not go to all this trouble so that you could reveal my disguise in the first few moments. What do you think?’

  She smiled up at him, revealing small, perfectly white teeth in a face that had evidently been stained with something to make her skin look leathery, while carefully painted black lines served as wrinkles. Bartholomew was not sure what he thought; there was no time anyway because Eleanor had arrived to reclaim him, and the bell was chiming to summon the scholars of Michaelhouse and their guests into the hall for the Feast. His heart thudded painfully as he escorted Eleanor and Mistress Horner through the porch, in the way that it had not done since he was a gawky youth who had taken a fancy to one of the kitchen maids at his school. He heard his sister informing Eleanor, who was not much interested, that Mistress Horner was a distant relative.

  When they reached the stairs, Eleanor grew impatient with Mistress Horner’s stately progress, and danced on ahead, eyes open wide at the borrowed tapestries that hung round the walls of Michaelhouse’s hall, and at the yellow flicker of several hundred candles – the shutters were firmly closed to block out the daylight, although why Michaelhouse should think its guests preferred to swelter in an airless room to dining in a pleasant breeze, Bartholomew could not imagine. On the high table, the College silver was displayed, polished to a bright gleam by Cynric the night before. Bartholomew solicitously assisted his elderly guest towards it, alarmed when Father William stepped forward to help. Matilde, however, was completely unflustered and accepted the friar’s help with a gracious smile that she somehow managed to make appear toothless.

  Despite the fact that there were perhaps four times as many people dining in College than usual, only one additional table had been hired for the occasion. The scholars and their guests were crammed uncomfortably close together, particularly given that the day was already hot, and hundreds of smoking candles did not make matters any easier. Squashed between Eleanor on the one side and Matilde on the other, Bartholomew felt himself growing faint, partly from the temperature, but mainly from anticipating what would happen if Matilde’s make-up should begin to melt off, or Eleanor Tyler display some of the indiscretion that his friends seemed to find so distasteful. He reached for his goblet of wine with an unsteady hand and took a hefty swallow.

  Next to Eleanor the misogynistic Father William did the same, sweat standing out on his brow as he tried to make himself smaller to avoid physical contact with her.


  Father Kenyngham stood to say grace, which was perhaps longer than it might have been and was frequently punctuated by agitated sighs from behind the serving screen, where Agatha was aware that the food was spoiling.

  And then the meal was underway. The first course arrived, comprising a selection of poultry dishes.

  Eleanor clung to Bartholomew’s arm and chattered incessantly, making it difficult for him to eat anything at all. Father William was sharing a platter with the voluptuous wife of a merchant that Father Aidan had invited, and was gulping at his wine as his agitation rose with the temperature of the room. Bartholomew could only imagine that the College steward, who decided who sat where, must have fallen foul of William’s quick tongue at some point, and had managed his own peculiar revenge with the seating arrangements. Meanwhile Roger Alcote, another Fellow who deplored young women, was chatting merrily to the venerable Mistress Horner and was confiding all kinds of secrets.

  ‘I hear you have had little success in discovering the killer of that poor student – James Kenzie,’ said Eleanor, almost shouting over the cacophony of raised voices. She coughed as smoke from a cheap candle wafted into her face when a servant hurried by bearing yet more dishes of food.

  ‘We have had no success in finding the murderers of Kenzie, the skeleton in the Ditch, or the prostitute, Joanna,’ said Bartholomew, taking a tentative bite of something that might have been chicken. It was sufficiently salty that it made him reach immediately for his wine cup.

  Further down the table Father William did the same, although, unlike Bartholomew, the friar finished his meat, along with another two cups of wine to wash it down.

  Bartholomew was concerned, knowing that wine reacted badly with poppy juice, as he had warned that morning.

  So much for William’s claim that he only needed to be told something once, thought the physician. He tried to attract the friar’s attention, but then became aware that Eleanor had released his arm and was regarding him in a none-too-friendly manner.

  ‘Why are you bothering with this whore?’ she demanded, loud enough to draw a shocked gasp from Alcote, two seats away. ‘No one in the town cares about her, so why should you?’

  ‘I feel she was badly used,’ said Bartholomew, surprised by the venom her voice.

  ‘So were the other eight people who were killed in the riot, but none of them has a personal crusader searching for their killers.’

  ‘But they all had someone who cared about them at their funerals,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Joanna had no one.’

  ‘That was probably because she was unpopular,’ said Eleanor coldly.

  ‘Did you know her then?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

  ‘Of course not! She was a whore!’

  Bartholomew glanced uneasily at Matilde, but if she was paying any attention to Eleanor, she did not show it.

  Her head was turned in polite attention towards Roger Alcote, who had recovered from his shock at the mention of whores and was informing her, in considerable detail, about the cost of silver on the black market. Bartholomew wondered how Alcote knew about such matters, but realised that Alcote was not the wealthiest of Michaelhouse’s Fellows for nothing.

  ‘You must desist with this ridiculous investigation,’ Eleanor announced firmly. ‘This harlot’s killer is long gone and you will only waste your time. Not only that, but think how it looks for a man of your standing and reputation to be fussing about a prostitute!’

  ‘Because she was a prostitute does not give someone the right to kill her,’ reasoned Bartholomew quietly.

  ‘No, it does not, but you are wrong in applying yourself so diligendy to her case. Why can you not look into whose cart crushed that poor potter instead – he was a good man and well-liked. Or what about the scholars who were slain? That friar from Godwinsson, for example.’

  ‘I do not think I will be able to make much progress with Joanna’s murder anyway, ‘ said Bartholomew in a placatory tone, reluctant to discuss the matter with Eleanor if she was going to be hostile. It was none of her business and she had no right to be telling him what he could or could not do in his spare time. ‘I have discovered nothing at all, except that the two Frenchmen from Godwinsson are the most likely suspects, and they are never at home.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ asked Eleanor in horror. She dropped her voice to a whisper when Alcote leaned forward to gaze disapprovingly at her. ‘My mother killed their friend to save you! Have you not considered that your prying might force them to reveal her as the killer? And then she will be hanged, and it will be all your fault!’

  She had a point. Eleanor had already told him that the French students had often pestered her while she sat outside to sew, and the surviving pair would know exactly who had killed their friend. In fact, Mistress Tyler was probably fortunate that they had not retaliated in some way already, although the fact that the students had told all and sundry that they were attacked by a crowd of well-armed townsmen seemed to indicate that they were prepared to overlook the matter in the interests of appearances.

  ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘And as I said, I think there is little more I can do anyway.’

  Eleanor gazed at him sombrely for a moment, before turning her attention to the portion of roast pheasant in front of her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, as she ripped the bird’s legs off. ‘But we should not spoil this wonderful occasion by quarrelling, Matt. Pass me some of that red stuff. No, not wine, addle-brain! That berry sauce.’ She took a mouthful, and quickly grabbed her goblet. ‘Pepper, flavoured mildly with berries!’ she pronounced, fanning her mouth with her hand. That is spicy stuff!’

  Father William evidently thought so too, for Cynric stepped forward to refill his cup three times in quick succession. By the time the second course arrived, the friar was distinctly red in the face, and was considerably more relaxed than he had been when the Feast had begun.

  ‘I advised you to drink no wine, Father,’ Bartholomew whispered to him behind Eleanor, who was giving her entire attention to stripping the pheasant to the bone with her teeth. ‘It does not mix well with the medicine you took.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said William expansively. ‘I feel in excellent health. Try some of this meat, Matthew, lad. I do not have the faintest idea what it is, but what does that matter, eh?’

  He elbowed Eleanor hard in the ribs and Bartholomew regarded him aghast. The Franciscan slapped a generous portion of something grey on top of the mountain of gnawed bones on her trencher, and then peered at it shortsightedly.

  ‘That should probably do you,’ he said finally. ‘Put some flesh on you, eh?’

  He gave her another nudge and burst into giggles.

  Amused, Eleanor grinned at him, and he slapped his hand on her knee, roaring with laughter. Bartholomew groaned.

  ‘Cynric! Do not give him any more to drink. Fetch him some water.’

  ‘I told you this morning, I do not approve of water,’ bellowed William jovially. ‘Bring me wine, Cynric and bring it quickly! Now, Mistress, I do not believe I have seen you in our congregation very often. I hope you are not bound for the old fires and brimstone of hell, eh?’

  William would have fires and brimstone in his stomach the next day if he did not moderate his wine consumption, Bartholomew thought, astonished as the friar brought his face close to Eleanor’s and began to regale her with a tale of how he had once sought out heretics in the south of Spain. It was not a pleasant story, nor one that was appropriate for such an occasion, but Eleanor was spellbound, her food forgotten as she listened to the Franciscan’s account of what amounted to wholesale slaughter in the name of God.

  As dessert was being served, Bartholomew noticed that Father William had not been the only one who had drunk too much too quickly. Alcote, next to Matilde, had the silly, fixed grin on his face that told all those who knew him that he was on the verge of being insensible. With relief, Bartholomew was able to give Matilde his full attention.

  Like the physician, she had eaten and d
runk little, and was one of the few people left in the hall in full control of her faculties. She watched the guests and scholars around her with delight, laughing when the Mayor’s fine hat fell into his custard because he was trying to maul Edith Stanmore who sat across the table from him, and enthralled by the way Michael’s choir went from appalling to diabolical as they became steadily more intoxicated. When one of the tenors passed out, taking a section of the altos down with him, she turned to Bartholomew with tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, Matthew! I do not think I have laughed so much in years! Thank you for inviting me. I was uncertain about coming at first – after all, a feast in a University institution attended by a crowd of debauched, drunken men, is not really an occasion respectable women should attend – but now I am glad I came. The sisters will love hearing about all this!’

  It was ironic, Bartholomew thought, that one of the most auspicious occasions in the University calendar should be seen in terms as a source of mirth for the town’s prostitutes. But looking around him, it was difficult to argue with her. Alcote had finally slipped into oblivion, and was asleep in his chair with his mouth open. Father Aidan, Bartholomew was certain, had his hand somewhere it should not have been on the person of the St Radegund’s Convent cellarer who sat next to him. Michael, virtually the only one in the hall still eating, was choking on his food, and was being pounded on the back by a trio of young ladies. Father Kenyngham had blocked out the racket around him and was contentedly reading a book. William was on his feet, unsteadily miming out some nasty detail about his days in the Inquisition while Eleanor listened agog and in the body of the hall, scholars and guests alike were roaring drunk or on the verge of passing out.

  Those that were still able were beginning to leave. Edith gave Bartholomew and Matilde a nod before she picked her way out of the hall, followed by Oswald Stanmore who walked with the unnatural care of those who have over-imbibed. Judging from Edith’s black expression, her husband was not in her good graces for enjoying the wine and carelessly abandoning her to the unwanted attentions of the Mayor. Bartholomew would not have wanted to be in Stanmore’s shoes the following morning.