An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  'What are you talking about?' said Bartholomew. 'What was me?' "I should have guessed!'

  'Guessed what?' Bartholomew was becoming exasperated.

  He released Hesselwell and watched as Cynric pulled the terrified scholar to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his arm. Hesselwell stood with his shoulders bowed and his tabard covered in dirt and flakes of rotten wood from the floor.

  'What were you doing here?' asked Bartholomew, brushing off his own tabard. 'What were you looking for?'

  Hesselwell tried to pull himself together, his eyes flicking over Bartholomew as though assessing whether he was armed. "I wanted to know if the blood was real,'

  Hesselwell said. 'Or if it was dye.'

  'You are a member of the Guild of the Coming?' asked Bartholomew, Hesselwell's actions suddenly making sense to him.

  Hesselwell looked at him askance. 'You know I am,' he said.

  'Why would I know?' asked Bartholomew, confused again. His flash of illumination was to be short-lived, it seemed.

  'Because you are the high priest!' Hesselwell said, taking a deep breath and meeting Bartholomew's eyes.

  "It makes sense to me now. You are always out at night; you dabble with poisons and potions; and your students say you are a heretic. You are the high priest,' he repeated.

  'You gave me this,' he said, holding up a small glass phial.

  'And even then I did not guess.'

  Speechless, Bartholomew tore his gaze away from Hesselwell to look at the phial. It was, without question, one of the ones he used to dispense medicines, and it even had a small scrap of parchment wrapped around it with instructions for its use in his handwriting. Trying to bring his whirling thoughts into order, he reached out for the bottle.

  Hesselwell misunderstood Bartholomew's expression of bewilderment for one of indecision, and the hand with the phial whipped behind his back. "I could be of help to you,' he said slyly. 'No one else need know of this. After all, I have served you well, why should I not continue?'

  'What are you talking about?' said Bartholomew, his skin beginning to crawl. If Hesselwell thought he was the high priest, did others too? Hesselwell leaned towards him and lowered his voice.

  "I was successful in my warning of Brother Michael,' he said.

  Bartholomew circled the altar to try to give himself time to bring his thoughts into order. So Hesselwell had put the goat's head on Michael's bed: it had been a Michaelhouse scholar all along. It explained how the intruder had known which room Michael slept in, and how he had known when the monk had returned from Ely. Michael was usually a light sleeper, but his long ride had probably tired him, which was why he had not woken when Hesselwell had entered his room.

  He continued to edge around the altar as he tried to recall Hesselwell's reaction to Walter's poisoning. He had been standing with Father Aidan, and Bartholomew distinctly remembered their shocked faces. Unless he was possessed of an outstanding talent for deception, Hesselwell had been as horrified by Walter's brush with death as had the other Fellows.

  'You almost killed the porter,' said Bartholomew carefully, watching him.

  That was not my fault,' said Hesselwell, his eyes desperate in his pale face. 'You left me the bottle of wine with instructions to give it to Walter without drawing suspicion to myself. You did not tell me it contained a virulent poison, only that it would make Walter sleep.' "I am no high priest,' Bartholomew said to Hesselwell wearily. 'Your reasoning is flawed, Master Hesselwell. I am out at night usually because I am seeing patients; I dabble with poisons and potions because I am a physician and they are the tools of my trade; and some of my students think I am a heretic because they do not understand what I teach them. Not only that, but I know Walter sleeps on duty, and would have had no need to send him into a drugged slumber.'

  Hesselwell gazed at him, nonplussed. 'Well, what are you then? Are you from the Guild of Purification?'

  Bartholomew shook his head and Hesselwell sagged in Gynric's grip.

  'What are you going to do? Who will you tell?' His eyes were pleading.

  "I will tell the Master about your unholy alliance, and it will be up to him to decide what to do,' said Bartholomew.

  'They will kill me!' cried Hesselwell. 'Please! You do not know their strength!' He looked so frightened that Bartholomew almost felt sorry for him. 'Will you tell him after sunset?' Hesselwell pleaded, wringing his hands together. Bartholomew squinted at the sky.

  Sunset was perhaps two hours away. "It will give me a chance to collect my belongings, and hire a fast horse.'

  He looked desperately from Bartholomew to Cynric.

  Bartholomew recalled the scholar's fright when he had first been apprehended in the church, and judged that he probably had very real grounds for his fear.

  Bartholomew nodded after a moment's thought. 'But you must tell me all you know.'

  Hesselwell looked wretched. 'They will kill me if I do.'

  'They will kill you if I tell,' said Bartholomew. The choice is yours.'

  Hesselwell glanced around him with furtive movements of his eyes. 'All right then,' he conceded wearily.

  'But you will give me until sunset?'

  Bartholomew nodded.

  'How do I know I can trust you?' asked Hesselwell.

  'You do not,' said Bartholomew. 'But you are not in a position to bargain.'

  Hesselwell thought again, and then started to speak.

  "I joined the Guild of the Coming when I first arrived in Cambridge. I was in a similar organisation in London because it brought me business — members of guilds tend to use the services of other members. I made enquiries, and was invited to join the Guild of the Coming.'

  So that explained the lawyer's rich clothes, thought Bartholomew, when everyone else's gowns were either cheap, torn, old, or all three.

  Hesselwell continued. 'All was well at first. There were occasional ceremonies and midnight meetings. Then, a month ago, our high priest disappeared, and another came to take his place. Things changed. There were more ceremonies, and they became frightening.'

  'What can you tell me about this new high priest?'

  Hesselwell shrugged. 'He, or one of his assistants, instructed me to perform certain duties for him, but I never saw his face. On one occasion, the smaller of his assistants told me to rub some mixture on the back gate of Michaelhouse so that it would burn. Another time, the high priest himself ordered me to keep watch for him while he went into our College the night after the de Belem girl died.'

  He hit his head suddenly with an open palm. 'Of course you could not be the high priest. It was you he fought in the orchard, and who almost unmasked him!

  He told us not to intervene, no matter what happened, but when I saw he was about to be unmasked, I shot one of the fire arrows at the gate to allow him to escape. If he were unmasked, I felt certain he would betray me, and so it was imperative I helped him, regardless of his order.'

  'Who was the other?' asked Cynric. 'The Devil?'

  Hesselwell shrugged again. "I have never seen him or any of the high priest's assistants — without a mask, and I do not know who any of them are, or where they come from.'

  'What else?' asked Bartholomew as Hesselwell lapsed into silence.

  'I almost killed Walter, and it was me who left the goat's head on Michael's bed.'

  'Why did he ask you to do that?' asked Cynric.

  'I do not know. He merely gave orders, and I followed without question. He terrifies me. And I do not know what he had in mind with the back gate either, and that black sticky solution. I wish to God I had not become embroiled in all this evil!'

  'What else did you do?' asked Bartholomew.

  'Just two things,' said Hesselwell. 'He wanted me to prowl the streets at night to look for the whore killer.

  I thought the high priest was the killer because he predicted their deaths: I can only assume he was taking precautions to protect himself, so that he could say he was not the killer by virtue of the fact that he sent members of
the coven to look for the real murderer.'

  'And the second thing?' asked Bartholomew, recalling vividly how Hesselwell had almost fallen asleep in the church. He was not surprised Hesselwell was sleepy, if he were teaching all day, and out in the streets at night.

  'With one of his assistants, I hid in the roof of the church and helped throw birds and bats down at the congregation. I had begun to be suspicious of some of the devices, and I think he decided to take me into his trust. He would know that once I was involved, I could never tell, for this makes me as guilty of the crimes as he is. And if I became a risk, he would simply kill me.'

  'But why do you go along with all this if you know it is a hoax?' asked Bartholomew.

  'Because I am afraid,' said Hesselwell. 'One member did question him, and was found a week later in the King's Ditch with his throat cut. And I believe the covens are not the ends in all this, but the means. They are aiming towards something bigger and more terrifying than I can imagine.'

  Bartholomew was inclined to believe he was right, and that the elaborate hoax of the covens was simply a front for something infinitely more sinister. Some aspects of the affair had been made clearer by Hesselwell's information, and others less so. Bartholomew understood now what had happened on the night that Walter was poisoned:

  Hesselwell had merely been following orders, and had not known why the bottle was to be given to Walter.

  Bartholomew's reasoning that the poisoning had been carried out by an outsider was, in effect, true, since it had come from the high priest.

  Hesselwell glanced up at the sun nervously.

  'One last question,' said Bartholomew. 'Why did the high priest give you that phial of medicine?'

  'I was nervous about opening the gate to him after Frances de Belem's death. I knew there were Proctors and beadles prowling. I was so nervous that he gave me the phial and said it would calm me and allow me to carry out his instructions. I was to give it back to him the same night, but in all the excitement, I forgot to give it, and he forgot to ask.' He smiled ruefully. 'And he was right to have given it to me, because I would not have had the presence of mind to shoot the fire arrow without its calming effects.'

  'Is that all?' asked Bartholomew.

  Hesselwell nodded. 'He asked about College gossip, but that is all. May I go?' Bartholomew nodded, and Hesselwell looked so relieved he reeled slightly.

  'One more thing,' he said as he followed them out of the church. Bartholomew looked at him. 'When I first came, I heard there were two guilds which were covens. No matter how hard I tried, I have never been able to find out about the Guild of Purification. People told me rumours about it — how it was powerful, and a rival to the Guild of the Coming — but I have never met a member of it, and to be honest, I am uncertain that it exists at all.'

  Cynric was disapproving that Bartholomew had allowed Hesselwell to make good his escape, and so was Michael when they told him.

  'He might come back and wreak all manner of havoc,' said the monk crossly. 'A self-confessed satanist and you let him go!'

  'He was terrified, Brother, and his escape will make no difference. What if he had been right and he was murdered? How would you feel then?'

  'He might have been able to tell us more about this high priest,' said Michael. 'He might have known what he was looking for in the orchard!'

  'He told us all he knew,' said Bartholomew wearily, scrubbing at his face. 'He was used by the high priest, and told virtually nothing in return.'

  'But he left that thing on my bed and you allowed him to go just like that!' said Michael, bristling with the injustice of the situation. 'He tried to murder Walter!'

  'He did not know the bottle was poisoned. He was told it contained a sleeping draught,' said Bartholomew.

  He held up the phial Hesselwell had given him. 'This is perhaps the most important clue we have. When we know what it is, I will know to which of my patients I gave it, and we will know the high priest.'

  Michael eyed it dubiously. 'But what if it is one of those common concoctions you give out to dozens of people, like betony and ginger oil?'

  Bartholomew shook his head. 'I use these phials for more powerful potions.' He took out the stopper and sniffed cautiously. He recognised the compound immediately: there was only one patient to whom he had recently prescribed this medicine! Stunned, he turned to Michael.

  'Master Buckley!' he exclaimed. 'He needs this strong draught when the hot weather makes his skin condition unbearable!'

  'Buckley the high priest?' said Michael, frowning in concentration. 'It is beginning to come together. But it is well past sunset. Go and tell the Master about Hesselwell and his evil doings. Do not give him more time than you have already promised to make good his escape.'

  Bartholomew began to walk across the courtyard to the Master's room when a man walked through the gate.

  He stopped dead in his tracks as Richard Tulyet the elder strode purposefully towards him. Bartholomew glanced up at the darkening sky as he did so. It seemed Hesselwell was to have more time still.

  'Doctor,' said Tulyet quietly. 'Is there somewhere I can talk with you and Brother Michael alone?'

  Cynric led the way to the conclave, and lit some candles, stolen from Alcole's personal supply that was secreted behind one of the wall hangings. Tulyet would say nothing until the Welshman had left, closing the door behind him.

  "I should have come to see you before now,' said Tulyet, facing Bartholomew and Michael in the flickering light, 'but I did not know whom I could trust.'

  Bartholomew knew exactly how he felt, but said nothing.

  'You were right when you said I was a member of the Guild of the Coming, and you were right when you said I had been at All Saints' Church two nights ago.'

  He shuddered. "I joined the Guild because the Death took my three daughters and all my grandchildren. The Church said that only those who sinned would die, but I lived and the children died. I realised the Church had lied to me, and I wanted nothing more to do with it. The Guild of the Coming offered answers that made much more sense than the mumblings of drunken priests safe in their pulpits. Sorry, Brother, but that is how it seemed.'

  His story was similar to de Belem's, and it seemed that the fears the Bishop had voiced to Bartholomew before the plague were realised: that the people would turn from the Church after the Death struck, and there would be insufficient priests and friars to prevent it.

  Tulyet continued.

  'All was well at first, and I even introduced my family to the guild. But a month ago things began to change. A new high priest came to us, very different from Nicholas.'

  'Nicholas?' said Michael in astonishment. 'Nicholas of York, the clerk at St Mary's?'

  Tulyet nodded. 'Only I knew his identity, but he died this last month, and it cannot matter that I tell you now.

  After he died, we thought to elect one of our members as our leader, but even as we raised our hands to vote, the new high priest arrived in a puff of thick black smoke.

  He said he had been sent by the Devil to lead us.'

  Thick black smoke, thought Bartholomew. Smouldering grass mixed with tar, perhaps, and blown around the high priest by bellows operated by his accomplices? 'Then the guild changed. Our ceremonies became frightening, full of blood and evil conjurings. I wanted to take my family away, but I was told that if I did, they would die. The high priest said the murders in the town were the Devil claiming his own. My wife is old, and I sometimes visited a certain young lady. Fritha. She was the second girl to die.'

  He put his head in his hands while Michael and Bartholomew exchanged glances.

  'The new high priest asked questions, too,' Tulyet continued. 'He wanted to know about town politics, my business as a tailor, and with whom I traded.'

  The high priest had questioned Hesselwell too, thought Bartholomew, about Michaelhouse.

  'Do you know who the high priest is?' asked Bartholomew gently.

  Tulyet raised his head, his eyes haunted. 'No.
None of us do. But I have a terrible fear of who it might be.'

  'Is that why you have come?' asked Bartholomew. 'To tell us who you think it is?'

  Tulyet nodded. "I do not know who else I can tell, and I must do something. He is going to claim another victim!' He took a deep breath. 'The high priest is Sir Reginald de Belem.'

  'De Belem!' exclaimed Michael. 'But that cannot be.

  Frances was his daughter. He would not have killed his own daughter!' Or Isobel, the woman who visited him on certain nights, was his clearly unspoken thought.

  And de Belem was the high priest of the Guild of Purification anyway, Bartholomew thought, or so he claimed. Hesselwell had said he did not believe the Guild of Purification existed — but it would have been an easy matter to put about rumours of meetings, and to splash blood on the altar of St John Zachary's Church occasionally. And Stanmore had said there were only five people at the last meeting- perhaps the high priest of the Guild of the Coming and a few trusted helpers attending a meeting, the only purpose of which was to maintain the illusion that the Guild of Purification existed.

  Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair. But they had already surmised that it was Gilbert who had killed Nicholas, so how did all this tie together? And the medicine the high priest gave to Hesselwell belonged to Buckley. Was there more than one high priest in all this business, just as there might be more than one killer of the women? Was it Buckley, Gilbert, or de Belem in the orchard with Hesselwell and the big man? Who was in the roof with Hesselwell, throwing birds and bats down at the coven? And why had de Belem told Bartholomew he was grand master of the Guild of Purification if no such organisation existed?

  Tulyet gnawed at his lip. "I have been over this again and again, but all the evidence points to de Belem. I am certain he is the high priest'

  'We thought it might be your son,' said Michael bluntly.

  'Richard?' said Tulyet, aghast. 'Why would you think that?'

  'Because he has made no attempt to catch the killer of these women, and because he has thwarted the efforts of others to do so,' said Michael.