‘Or worse,’ said Michael. ‘Do not forget that Warde has already been murdered.’
‘God help us,’ muttered Tulyet. ‘So, who do you suspect of committing such a heinous act? Whoever it was deserves to hang, because the entire town might have been lost.’
‘I saw the Mortimer clan – including Edward and Thorpe – lurking around just before the alarm was raised,’ said Michael. ‘Not to mention two merchants who have a financial interest in the case – Morice and Cheney.’
‘And Paxtone and Wynewyk,’ said Bartholomew to himself. ‘I hope to God their suspicious behaviour has not extended to arson.’
‘So, you have no idea who might have started this mischief?’ said Tulyet. ‘Your suspects for the fire are essentially the same as your suspects for the murders of Warde, Deschalers and Bottisham?’
Michael nodded. ‘Our culprit is a clever man – or a lucky one – and left little in the way of clues.’
‘Poor Lavenham,’ said Tulyet, gazing at the mess of spars and hot, crumbling plaster that still smoked gently. ‘But I thought we were going to lose Gonville Hall, too, when the wind shifted. It was selfish of Morice to ask the Hand of Justice to do that, just to save his own property.’
He glared at the Mayor, who had sent a servant to fetch his wineskin and was enjoying a little liquid refreshment while he gawked at the destruction around him.
‘I do not think Morice had anything to do with the wind changing direction,’ said Michael, puzzled that Tulyet should think it should. ‘It happens all the time, quite naturally.’
‘But not usually at so opportune a moment,’ argued Tulyet. ‘I shall reserve judgement on the matter, personally. Many folk heard him praying, and his favour with the Hand is the talk of the town. How else do you think he stands unmolested, when so many folk are furious with him for not helping to quench the fire? They are afraid that if they attack him, the Hand will strike them down.’
‘Where are Lavenham and the other Commissioners?’ asked Bartholomew, changing the subject before the Michael and the Sheriff could begin a debate over the matter. He could see the monk was itching to tell Tulyet exactly what he thought of folk who believed the relic was responsible for events that had a perfectly rational explanation. ‘They escaped the inferno, I hope?’
‘I have not seen them,’ replied Tulyet. ‘But then I have not had time to stand around and look for people. I have been busy.’ He cast another venomous glower at Morice.
‘We all have,’ said Michael soothingly. ‘And tonight you must come to Michaelhouse, so we can exchange information about this case. I have a few things to tell you.’
‘I have very little to tell you,’ said Tulyet gloomily.
‘Arrive early,’ Michael went on. ‘We are having blood pudding and pig-brain pottage, followed by fried gooseberries – saved from last year, so they are a little sour and we have no sugar. Ensure you are punctual, because you will not want to miss it.’
‘Come to me instead,’ said Tulyet, trying to hide his revulsion. ‘My wife plans roasted lamb with rosemary and carrots for today. And I can ask her to make Lombard slices,’ he added, a little desperately, when Michael hesitated.
‘Very well,’ said Michael, sounding as though he was doing him a favour by accepting. Relieved by his narrow escape from a Michaelhouse repast, the Sheriff strode away to supervise the dumping of yet more water on the smouldering remains of Lavenham’s house. Fires had a nasty habit of rekindling, and Tulyet had no intention of allowing a second blaze to start.
Bartholomew started to laugh. ‘Agatha is cooking fish soup with cabbage this evening.’
‘I know,’ said Michael comfortably. ‘But I do not like cabbage, and Tulyet’s wife keeps a good table. Her Lombard slices are among the best in Cambridge. She says her secret is that she fries them in butter, rather than lard, and that she soaks her almonds overnight in wine.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, not very interested in recipes that had no known medical application. ‘But I am worried about the Commissioners – especially Master Thorpe. I would not like to think of him roasted in the fire with Lavenham and Bernarde.’
They watched the apothecary’s apprentices pick their way through the steaming, hissing rubble, hopping lightly so they did not burn their feet. One stood on an unstable timber, and it started to tilt. Bartholomew tensed, anticipating that he would bring the whole fragile structure down on top of him, but the fellow leapt away with impressive agility, and no harm was done.
‘Where is Lavenham?’ Bartholomew called to him, after a scan of the onlookers who fringed the ruins told him the apothecary was still not among them. ‘And Isobel?’
‘We have not seen them since that meeting started,’ replied the apprentice. He grimaced. ‘You would think they would be here, would you not? Trying to salvage what they can, and not leaving the dirty work to us.’
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘You would.’
‘What will happen to us now?’ grumbled another lad, lifting a plank to look underneath. ‘How are we supposed to work with the premises gone? Does Lavenham have enough funds invested to buy another house, so we can start again? Or do we have to seek alternative employment?’
‘Let us hope not,’ said Bartholomew soberly.
Bartholomew wanted to go home to Michaelhouse, to wash the smoke and grime from his clothes and hair, but a nagging concern for Master Thorpe, Bernarde and Lavenham kept him on Milne Street and he became one of a small crowd that simply could not bring themselves to leave. He kept anticipating that sooner or later an apprentice would pick up a piece of ‘wood’ that was harder, denser and oilier than the others, and they would then know exactly what had happened to the Commissioners. Michael lost interest and wandered away. He had not been gone long before he returned.
‘Look who I found in St Mary the Great,’ he said, smiling as he indicated a soot-stained Master Thorpe. ‘Giving thanks for his deliverance.’
‘To God,’ said Thorpe firmly. ‘Not to the so-called Hand of Justice.’
‘I am glad to see you,’ said Bartholomew warmly, taking Thorpe’s hand. ‘I was worried you might have been trapped inside when the fire took hold.’
Thorpe smiled his pleasure that he should care. ‘I escaped by climbing through a window on an upper floor and jumping to safety. I shouted to Bernarde and Lavenham to follow, but the smoke was swirling around so thickly that I could not see whether they did. It is a grim business when a son hates his father so. Perhaps I was wrong to disown him when he returned with his King’s Pardon.’
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘You think your son set the fire?’
‘I saw him with Edward Mortimer, watching Bernarde and me as we entered Lavenham’s shop. Who else would want to harm us? Lavenham has no enemies, and neither does Bernarde.’
‘They do,’ said Bartholomew vehemently. ‘The Mortimer clan, for a start.’
‘And who leads the Mortimer clan these days?’ asked Thorpe archly. ‘It is not Thomas or Constantine. It is Edward. And Edward is my son’s friend.’
‘So, they thought they would strike two birds with one stone,’ mused Michael. ‘A hated father, and two Commissioners who were sure to argue against Mortimer’s Mill. How did the meeting go, or should I not ask?’
‘We had not reached a decision,’ said Thorpe wearily. ‘I wanted to set a date for a formal hearing, but Lavenham and Bernarde said the evidence was so clear cut that further enquiries were unnecessary. They wanted a verdict against Mortimer issued there and then.’
‘This is what happens when you appoint Commissioners who have a vested interest in the outcome,’ said Michael. ‘Any discussion is limited to repeated statements of “fact”.’
‘Since we were unable to agree, I said we should ask the King to appoint new Commissioners. Bernarde and Lavenham opposed that, of course.’
‘And then the fire started?’ asked Bartholomew.
Thorpe nodded. ‘The apprentices and Isobel had been sent awa
y for the afternoon so that they would not disturb us. The blaze was not a result of their carelessness, as Tulyet thinks. There were no workmen around, and there were no potions bubbling in the workshop. Our meeting took place in the solar upstairs, and I am sure the fire started directly below us.’
They all looked around when there was a shriek from one of the apprentices. Expecting that he had picked up timber that was too hot to hold, or had twisted an ankle in the shifting rubble, Bartholomew dashed towards him, hopping from foot to foot as the heat penetrated the soles of his boots. But pain had not caused the young man to scream. He pointed an unsteady finger into the wreckage, and the physician bent to inspect what he had found.
‘Well,’ he muttered, moving a piece of charred wood. ‘Someone did not escape the inferno.’
‘Who?’ asked Michael, leaning forward, but backing away hurriedly when he saw the misshapen figure huddled up with clenched fists and hairless head. ‘Is it Lavenham?’
‘It must be,’ said Thorpe grimly. ‘He must have lingered, to see whether he could save his shop. Now the crime is more serious than arson, Brother. It is murder. Even my slippery son will find himself unable to wriggle free from that charge again, and I shall see he does not – even if I have to ride to Westminster and petition the King myself.’
‘I think we can prove the fire was started deliberately,’ said Bartholomew, clambering over more scaly-black timbers to reach what had been Lavenham’s yard. ‘There was a huge pile of kindling here. I heard Isobel complaining about it when I visited their shop last week. Some of it has gone, and I am willing to wager it was used to light the fire.’
‘Would Thorpe and Edward have known about convenient sources of combustible material in Lavenham’s yard?’ asked Michael doubtfully. ‘Or are we jumping to unfounded conclusions?’
‘Perhaps Isobel and Lavenham argued about it in front of other customers, too,’ said Bartholomew, making his way back to the corpse again. ‘It was not a secret.’
‘Is there any way to prove that is Lavenham, Matt?’ asked Michael, still hanging back. ‘I know there is not much to go on – no clothes, no hair, no face, and not much in the way of anything else – but you have a way with these things, and we cannot ask Isobel to do it.’
‘It is not Lavenham,’ said Bartholomew, pulling the charred corpse to one side with great care, not liking the way bits flaked off and landed on his feet. He pointed at something near the body’s waist. ‘There is a lot of metal here – melted, but metal nonetheless. And who do you know who carries a good deal of metal on his belt?’
‘Keys?’ asked Michael. ‘Your melted metal is a bunch of keys? That means our corpse belongs to Bernarde, who was always jangling the things.’
‘Then where is Lavenham?’ asked Master Thorpe. ‘I do not know,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But not here, I think. We must search elsewhere for him.’
Bartholomew headed for the newly constructed lavatorium as soon as he reached Michaelhouse. Hurling his smoke-spoiled clothes into one corner, he scrubbed his bare skin with icy water. Michael joined him, but washed only those parts that were not covered by clothes. He declined to wet his hair, too, maintaining that it might bring on an ague. Instead he rubbed chalk powder into it, which he claimed would counteract the darkening effects of soot. He donned a fresh habit and handed the dirty one to Agatha, who said it needed no more than a good brushing and a day or two of airing in the latrines. Michael was pleased it did not need laundering, because there was always a danger the wool would shrink, and he claimed tight habits made him look fat.
Bartholomew felt better when he had changed into a tunic and leggings that did not stink of smoke. He scrubbed at his damp hair with a rag, while Michael doused himself liberally with rosewater in an attempt to mask the stench of burning that his careless ablutions had done little to remedy. The lavatorium began to smell like a brothel, and Bartholomew left, complaining that Michael’s perfumes were worse than the odour of cinders and ash.
‘Now what?’ asked Michael, making his way to his room to collect his spare cloak. ‘Shall we search for Lavenham ourselves, or shall we leave it to Dick Tulyet? It is suspicious that he should disappear quite so soon after a devastating fire destroyed his home and killed Bernarde. Should we be concerned for Isobel, do you think? Or will she be the mastermind behind this nasty business?’
‘She might,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘She seems more intelligent than her husband, and might well conceive of a plan to ensure the Commission found in favour of the mill she had invested in. But their house, their livelihood and Bernarde’s life seems a high price to pay for it.’
‘I have always been suspicious of Lavenham,’ said Michael. ‘He acts as though he understands very little of what goes on, but I am sure he knows more than we think. He had good reason to kill Bottisham – he was about to represent his rivals in the mill dispute. Meanwhile, Warde was a Commissioner prepared to listen to the Mortimers’ side of the quarrel. Lavenham might well be our killer.’
‘And Deschalers? Why would Lavenham kill him?’
‘Deschalers’s death was incidental. Lavenham followed Bottisham one night, intending to murder him. Bottisham went to the King’s Mill. When Deschalers, arriving to meet Bottisham, caught Lavenham red-handed, he was obliged to kill him, too.’
‘There is a flaw in your reasoning, Brother. Deschalers had the key to the mill, so he must have arrived at this meeting first, not Bottisham. Deschalers would not have stood by and watched Bottisham murdered without doing something.’
‘He was mortally ill,’ argued Michael. ‘Weak. He might have been too feeble to help Bottisham. But you are quibbling. The point is that this case has taken a new turn, and Lavenham is mysteriously missing. We should at least ask him why. Will you come with me to St Mary the Great?’
‘What for?’ asked Bartholomew, who longed to lie down and rest. He was desperately tired, physically and mentally, and wanted time to allow the weariness to drain from his muscles.
‘For two reasons,’ replied Michael. ‘First, Redmeadow is in your room and is waving at you in a way that suggests he wants some text or other explained. You will have no peace there. And second, I want to ensure the Hand of Justice has not attracted some large and hostile post-fire crowd that might cause mischief when darkness falls.’
Reluctantly, Bartholomew followed the monk up St Michael’s Lane and on to the High Street. The sweet aroma of roses wafted around them as they walked, almost, but not quite, masking the stench of sewage from a blocked drain and the sickly-sweet reek of a dead cat that had been tossed on top of a roof, possibly by the cart that had killed it. Bartholomew started to think about Thomas Mortimer and his reckless driving, and wondered whether Lenne had returned to Thetford now that his mother had been buried.
The town had an atmosphere of unease that was so apparent, it was almost physical. People looked around warily, and the yelling that had accompanied the fire, had dropped to whispers and low voices. The High Street was unusually quiet, with only the rattle of carts and the thump of horses’ hoofs on compressed manure breaking the silence.
‘I do not like this,’ muttered Michael, unnerved. ‘It feels as if something is about to happen.’
‘It is odd,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But there are no apprentices or students massing on street corners, so it does not seem that folk are spoiling for a fight.’
‘But there is an aura,’ declared Michael, gazing around him.
‘Meaning what?’ asked Bartholomew sceptically.
‘Meaning that I shall have every one of my beadles on duty tonight, and that any scholar seen on the streets after dusk can expect to be detained in my cells until morning. I shall recommend that Dick takes similar steps with the townsfolk.’
‘Do you think it is something to do with the Hand of Justice?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I do not mean literally, since we both know it is no more holy than that rosewater you hurled all over yourself. I mean do you think people might be waiting for it to do so
mething?’
‘Such as what? Sprout wings and wend its way to Heaven in front of our sinful eyes? Burst free from the tower in a spray of stone and mortar, and slap anyone who has committed a crime? It will have its work cut out for it, if it intends to do that. It will be busy from now until dawn.’
‘Jest if you will, Brother, but what we think is irrelevant. It is what its followers believe that is important now.’
The small crowd that was usually present outside the University Church had swelled to a gathering of impressive size, just as Michael had predicted. Most folk were kneeling or standing quietly with bowed heads, and the mood was more reverent than threatening. Michael tended to disapprove of any large assembly when the sun was about to go down, but there was little he could do about this one – people had a right to pray where they liked, and no one was actually doing anything wrong. Even the pickpockets had ceased trading for the day, and were sitting harmlessly in the churchyard.
The two scholars eased through them, careful not to jostle anyone who might take offence, and entered the church’s shady interior. This, too, was full, and a number of people knelt on the flagstones or leaned against the sturdy pillars of the nave. A mass was in progress, led by Chancellor Tynkell, and the High Altar was bathed in a golden light from dozens of candles. The aroma of cheap incense that wafted along the aisles competed valiantly with the stink of Michael’s rosewater. William, who had been near the back of the nave, spotted the monk and hurried to join him, religious devotions forgotten.
‘Have you heard?’ he asked without preamble. ‘Thomas Mortimer is dead.’
‘Dead?’ asked Bartholomew, shocked as he listened to the Franciscan friar’s bald pronouncement. ‘But I saw him not long ago, loitering in Milne Street while the Commissioners met.’
‘Well, he is in the Lady Chapel now. Come and see for yourself.’
He headed towards the sumptuously decorated chapel before either of his colleagues could ask further questions. A couple of Mortimer cousins loitered at the entrance, but they stood aside and allowed the three scholars to enter. Bartholomew was surprised to find the oratory full. Virtually all the Mortimer clan and their womenfolk were present; only those with small children had been left at home. At the front, Constantine was kneeling before a hastily erected bier on which lay a body. The pendulous ale-drinker’s gut rising under the covering sheet could be no one’s but Thomas’s.
Bartholomew 10 - The Hand of Justice Page 44