An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  Several large bowls of incense were dotted about, adding to the general overpowering odour.

  'I am surprised you need to lock this,' said Bartholomew hoarsely, his eyes watering. 'I would think the smell alone would be deterrent enough.'

  De Wetherset ignored him and pulled the sheet off the coffin in which the woman lay. Bartholomew was again filled with compassion for her. He made a cursory examination of the wound on her throat he had seen that morning, and looked again in vain for a circle on the sole of her foot. Lifting the simple gown of pale blue, he inspected her body for other wounds, but found nothing. Her dress, home-made and like a hundred others in the town, would not help to identify her, and her face meant nothing to Bartholomew. He suggested giving a description of her to Richard Tulyet to see whether he had been told of some person missing over the last month.

  'This makes five,' said de Wetherset, dismissing his suggestion with a contemptuous wave of his hand. 'Five prostitutes dead.'

  'We do not know she was a prostitute,' said Bartholomew. 'And Frances de Belem was not a prostitute either.'

  De Wetherset made an impatient gesture. 'They were all killed by wounds to the throat, and she, like the others, is barefoot. How much of a coincidence is that?'

  Father Cuthbert peered over Bartholomew's shoulder.

  'What happened to her hair?'

  Bartholomew looked at the wispy strands attached to the woman's head and shrugged. 'I suppose hair falls out when the skin rots. Or perhaps she had an illness which made her hair thin.'

  'Then she will be easy for Tulyet to identify,' said de Wetherset. 'There cannot be many bald women in Cambridge.'

  'I know some women who have used powerful caustics on their hair to dye it, and I have been called to treat the infections they cause,' said Bartholomew thoughtfully.

  'Once the scalp has healed, the hair does not always grow again, and they need to wear veils and wimples.'

  'Really?' queried de Wetherset with morbid fascination.

  'How curious. The King's grandmother, Queen Isabella, always wears a wimple. I wonder if she is bald, too.'

  Bartholomew stared at the woman in the coffin. Who was she? Had she been killed by the three men who had been in Michaelhouse's orchard two nights before? Or was there more than one group of maniacs in the town?

  Seven deaths — the five women, the friar and Froissart, plus Nicholas and Buckley missing. Were they dead too?

  Or were they the murderers? 'Did you see Nicholas dead?' asked Bartholomew.

  De Wetherset looked momentarily taken aback by the question, and then understanding dawned in his eyes. 'Yes,' he said. 'I saw him here in the church, although I must confess I did not poke and prod at his body as I have watched you do to corpses. A vigil was kept for him by the other clerks the day before his funeral. Then his coffin was sealed and left in the church overnight, and he was buried the following morning.' He turned to Cuthbert, who nodded his agreement with de Wetherset's account.

  'So, he must have been taken from his coffin that night,' said Bartholomew, 'and replaced with the dead woman wearing the mask.'

  De Wetherset swallowed hard. 'Do you think Nicholas may not have been dead after all?' he said. 'That he might have killed the woman and put her in the coffin that was intended for him?'

  Bartholomew shrugged non-committally. 'It is possible,' he said. 'But how? You say the coffin was sealed the night before his funeral, so how did he get out to kill a woman and put her in his coffin? And why was she wearing the mask?'

  'Perhaps she came to let him out,' said de Wetherset, 'and he killed her so that there would be a body in his coffin the next day when we came to bury it.'

  'That seems unlikely,' said Bartholomew. 'Why would a woman take such a risk? Was your clerk the kind of man to conceive such an elaborate plot, and then kill?'

  De Wetherset shook his head firmly. 'No. Nicholas was a good man. He would never commit murder.'

  Bartholomew remained doubtful, knowing that extreme events might drive the meekest of men to the most violent of acts. Perhaps one of the covens had come to the church to perform some diabolical ceremony over Nicholas's body and had exchanged his body for hers, although Bartholomew could think of nothing that might be gained from such an action. He drew the sheet over her, covering her from sight. Cuthbert shuddered.

  'Now will you look at the mask?' asked de Wetherset.

  Bartholomew looked at him in surprise. 'What can I tell you about that? You can see as well as I what it is.'

  'You are always thorough when you look at corpses,' said de Wetherset, 'and if you are as thorough with the mask, you might uncover some clue I have overlooked.'

  Bartholomew trailed reluctantly after him into the small charnel house in the churchyard and looked down at the mask. In the bright light of day, it was a miserable thing, poorly carved and cheaply painted.

  But the horns and the top of the skull were real, which Bartholomew had not realised before.

  'The horns probably came from the butchers' market/ he said. 'And as for the mask, I have seen nothing like it before, and I cannot tell you where it came from. It must belong to one of the covens.'

  'Covens?' said de Wetherset suspiciously. 'What do you mean?'

  Bartholomew repeated the information Stanmore had given him, while de Wetherset narrowed his eyes.

  'So you know about that,' he said. Bartholomew shot him an irritable glance. De Wetherset was not surprised by the information because he had known all along.

  What else was he keeping from them? 'Do you know about the Guild of the Holy Trinity too?'

  'That is not a coven, is it?' asked Bartholomew, confused.

  'Indeed not,' said de Wetherset. 'It is a group of people who are dedicated to stamping out sin and evil lest the plague come again. They are the antithesis of the Guild of the Coming and the Guild of Purification, or whatever blasphemous names these covens have chosen for themselves.'

  'Could the Guild of the Holy Trinity be responsible for the murders?' asked Bartholomew. 'People who believe that prostitution is one of the sins that brought the plague? Do you know who is a member? What about Master Jonstan? He seems opposed to prostitution.'

  'So am I,' said de Wetherset. 'But I am not a member of the Guild of the Holy Trinity, and neither is Jonstan.

  But Cuthbert is, and so was Nicholas.'

  Bartholomew chewed on his lip, trying to understand.

  'So Nicholas was in a guild that is known for its antagonism to the prostitutes. A month ago he died, but in his coffin is found not Nicholas, but a murdered woman.'

  'Yes,' said de Wetherset, studying Bartholomew intently. 'Curious, is it not? I can see you are thinking that Nicholas might be the killer, freed from his coffin and stalking the town. But I am more inclined to believe that the disappearance of his body is the work of the covens, perhaps because he took an active stance against them. Perhaps they worked some sort of vile spell to bring him from his eternal rest.' "I do not believe the dead can walk, Master de W'etherset,' said Bartholomew, 'and we should not allow that rumour to escape, or the town will revolt for certain if they think our dead clerks are killing their women.

  Perhaps Nicholas's body was stolen as you suggest. But the mask is the problem. Why go to the trouble of leaving this poor woman wearing the mask unless she was meant to be found — meant to be seen like this?'

  De Wetherset looked appalled. 'Are you saying that someone knew we would exhume Nicholas?' he said.

  Bartholomew spread his hands. 'Not necessarily. Perhaps the mask and the woman's body were meant to be found before he was buried, or even during the funeral seremony. I do not know. But why would anyone go to such trouble unless it was meant to be seen by others?'

  'It could just be a person with a fevered brain,' said de Wetherset.

  'Well, that goes without saying,' said Bartholomew drily, 'but I still think whoever did it intended his work to be found.'

  De Wetherset shuddered again. "I do not like being near
this thing. Come with me back to my hostel and have something to eat. Have you ever been to Physwick Hostel?' Bartholomew shook his head and de Wetherset gave him a sidelong glance. 'I find it odd that Cambridge is small in some ways — one can never walk anywhere without seeing someone one knows — and yet you have never been inside Physwick, even though our gate lies almost opposite yours!'

  Bartholomew smiled. It was not so odd. Hostels and Colleges were very competitive, and scholars were generally discouraged from wandering from one to the other.

  Less than a month before, students from one hostel had attacked those from another, and the result had been a violent fight. And only the previous week Alcote had tried to fine some unfortunate who had been caught dining in St Thomas's Hostel until the Master had intervened.

  He thought the Chancellor must know this, but perhaps he was making desultory conversation to take his mind away from the unpleasant events of the day.

  'I must wash my hands first,' Bartholomew said, thinking of his examination of the woman's decomposing body.

  'What for?' asked de Wetherset, perturbed. 'They look clean enough to me. Wipe them off on your tabard.'

  Bartholomew gave him a bemused glance. He knew his insistence on washing his hands after seeing every patient was regarded with amusement in the town, but surely, even someone as adverse to washing as the Chancellor could see that hands needed to be cleaned after touching corpses! He hoped the Chancellor's standards of hygiene did not extend to the Physwick Hostel kitchens.

  They walked outside into the sunshine, and Bartholomew saw the Chancellor glance to where Nicholas of York's grave had been. As they walked past, de Wetherset stopped and peered at something.

  'What is that?' he muttered, inching closer.

  'My bag!' exclaimed Bartholomew in delight. 'The one that was stolen in the alley the other day.'

  He picked it up and looked inside. It appeared to be exactly as it had been before it had been stolen. His tabard was there, rolled up and stuffed on top of his medicines and instruments. His notebooks were there too, containing records of patients he had seen and what dosages of various potions he had given them. Nervously, he looked in the side pouch where the strong medicines were, and heaved a sigh of relief that they appeared unmolested.

  'You know what this means?' said de Wetherset in a low whisper, his face solemn. 'It means that whoever stole your bag also knows that something went on at this grave this morning. Why else would they leave it here to be found?'

  Bartholomew's elation at getting his precious bag back evaporated at the implications of de Wetherset's comments. He was probably right.Janetta of Lincoln must be involved in all this. She was linked to Froissart, and she was present when Bartholomew's bag had been stolen.

  Did she watch them exhume the grave that morning from her secret path? There was too much coincidence for it to be mere chance.

  'I would discard any potions in that bag,' said de Wetherset, eyeing it suspiciously. 'Who knows what they might have been exchanged for? You might end up killing one of your patients. Are there any locks on it that may now have poisoned devices?' he asked.

  Bartholomew turned the bag over in his hands. It looked the same, and he was pleased to have it back.

  The one Father Aidan had lent him did not have the same feel to it, and Bartholomew could never find what he wanted. Nevertheless, de Wetherset was right, and he decided not only to discard the medicines, but to test some of them too.

  He and de Wetherset strolled the short distance to Physwick Hostel, a small, half-timbered building opposite Michaelhouse. Bartholomew saw Alcote watching him enter, but assumed the Senior Fellow could not object to Bartholomew accepting an invitation from the University's Chancellor, even if he were from another College.

  Bartholomew's insistence on washing his hands was met with some amusement by de Wetherset's colleagues, which Bartholomew accepted with weary resignation. He knew most of the men of Physwick from standing opposite them in church. Richard Harling nodded coolly towards him, and continued a debate on canon law with another lawyer. Alricjonstan was there, and greeted Bartholomew warmly. He seemed to have recovered from his morning excursion, although he was pale and his eyes seemed red and tired.

  The ale at Physwick was far superior to that at Michaelhouse, and was clear and fresh. The bread, however, was the same: grainy and made with inferior flour. There was some cheese too, but that had been left in the sun and was hard and dry, and sat in a rancid yellow puddle.

  They discussed the advantages and failings of the Cambridge examination system for a while, and then Jonstan began to chat to Bartholomew about his duties as junior Proctor. Next to him, de Wetherset and Harling talked about a guild meeting that was to be held the following day. Bartholomew listened to them while appearing to be paying close attention to Jonstan's some what tedious account of the Proctor's statutory responsibilities. They were discussing a proposed meeting of the Guild of the Purification, and from what Hailing was telling de Wetherset, trouble was expected.

  'You recall what happened last time,' he said. 'The following day, St John Zachary's Church was full of spent torches and someone had drawn a sign on the altar in what looked to be blood.'

  Bartholomew listened intently, strands of the mystery twining together in his mind. The goat mask on the woman in Nicholas's grave was clearly a demonic device, which might mean that the murders of the other women were also connected to witchcraft. The large man in the orchard who had bitten him had worn a red mask, obviously a satanic trapping.

  Was this the clue he needed to tie it all together?

  Perhaps he would see whether Stanmore had learned anything else. Then they needed to find Froissart's family and Janetta of Lincoln. The reappearance of his bag told him that Janetta was most definitely in Cambridge, despite the claims of de Wetherset's clerks that they could not trace her. Should he try to seek for her himself? But she would know Bartholomew wanted to see her, and if she did not want to see him, nothing would be served by him risking his safety to go in search of her.

  Of course, another thing he could do would be to talk to some of the friends of the women who had been killed. Some of them might have some indication of who the killer might be. Perhaps they were unwilling to talk to Tulyet, whose men were, after all, the ones who arrested them if they were caught touting for business on the town's streets. He decided he would ask Sybilla.

  She was the only prostitute he was aware he knew, and Sybilla had been the one to find Isobel.

  And there was another thing: Frances de Belem had been killed in Michaelhouse grounds, but Physwick Hostel was a mere stone's throw away. He looked around at the men sitting with him at High Table de Wetherset, Harling, and Jonstan. All high-ranking and well-respected University men, but was one of them the lover of Frances de Belem? Bartholomew reconsidered them: de Wetherset, stocky with pig-like features; Harling with his greased black hair and bad complexion; Jonstan with his odd tonsure and long teeth. Could she have fallen for any of these men?

  He would not have thought so, but Edith, his sister, frequently told him he did not understand women, and misjudged their likes and dislikes.

  He became aware that Jonstan had asked him a question and was awaiting an answer, beaming affably, his large blue eyes curious. Bartholomew was embarrassed and reluctant to reveal to the pleasant Jonstan that he had not been listening to a word he had said.

  'Oh, yes,' he said, smiling and hoping it was the expected response.

  Jonstan looked puzzled, but shrugged. 'That is what my mother always told me,' he said, 'but I have never yet met a physician who agreed with her until now. I must encourage her to eat more of them.'

  Oh lord! thought Bartholomew. I hope whatever it is does not make her sick!

  After leaving Physwick Hostel, Bartholomew, on the Chancellor's orders, went to the Castle to talk to Richard Tulyet about discovering another victim of the killer. De Wetherset could not conceal two bodies from the Sheriff, and reluctantly conceded tha
t he was obliged to tell him that the killer had claimed another.

  De Wetherset repeated his previous instruction that the — death of Froissart should not be made known to the Sheriff, lest it should somehow lead the killer to strike again.

  Bartholomew was shown into the same office in the keep that Michael had visited the previous day. At first, Tulyet refused to speak to Bartholomew, shouting angrily that he had better things to do than gossip with idle scholars. Bartholomew asked the sergeant to inform him that another victim had been found, and was escorted begrudgingly into Tulyet's office.

  Bartholomew could tell in an instant that Michael had antagonised Tulyet, and he was irritated with his friend.

  If the killer were to be tracked down, they would work a lot more efficiently by co-operating, than by bickering and playing power games.

  He tried to begin the interview on a positive note by asking Tulyet about his wife and baby. When Tulyet's baby was born, it was a strange yellow colour. The midwife sniffed imperiously and announced that it suffered from an excess of yellow bile and should be bled to relieve it of a dangerous imbalance of humours. Bleeding was usually the province of barber-surgeons, but, since the plague, there was only the unsavoury Robin of Grantchester, and Bartholomew had been called in his place.

  Bartholomew had declined to bleed the baby, and had prescribed a wet nurse and a mild concoction of feverfew, comfrey, and camomile to relieve its fever and bring healing sleep. Employing a wet nurse allowed the mother to rest, and both child and mother began to recover rapidly, despite the midwife's dire predictions. But when Bartholomew examined the mother afterwards, he found a wound from the birth that would mean she was unlikely to have another child. The last time he saw them, both had been happy and healthy, and Bartholomew saw with pleasure that neither required his sendees any longer.

  Tulyet sat behind a large table, writing, and looked up with open hostility when Bartholomew asked after his child.