Death of a Scholar: The Twentieth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘I thought I had,’ replied Richard shortly. ‘I put it on a fire at the bottom of the garden, but the flames must have gone out, and she found it – unscathed – when she went for a walk last week.’

  ‘I see.’ Bartholomew was unimpressed to learn that Richard could not even be trusted to incinerate a box properly. Doubtless, he had been too keen to return to his drunken friends.

  ‘I tried to take it from her,’ Richard went on. ‘But all that did was give her the idea that there was something in it of interest.’

  Bartholomew was thoughtful. ‘In Weasenham’s shop the other day, you said you knew what you were doing. I thought you meant with the stationer’s wife, but you meant something else entirely. But you don’t know, Richard. You have everything wrong.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Richard tightly. ‘I might have been unaware of the way my father conducted his affairs – I am not interested in cloth, so we never discussed it. But I do know it was not his choice to break the law. Evil people corrupted him, and when he tried to extricate himself from their vile clutches, they poisoned him. A friend in London told me all about it.’

  ‘Oswald was not poisoned,’ said Bartholomew, and outlined everything that Meryfeld had told him, concluding with, ‘So your friend was lying.’

  ‘In other words, your vengeance on the town you think led Oswald astray is woefully misplaced,’ said Michael. ‘I cannot imagine how you, an experienced lawyer, can have been so scandalously credulous.’

  Richard gazed at them. ‘So he was not murdered?’ he asked in a voice that had lost its arrogance. ‘And he was more likely to have defrauded others than been cheated himself?’

  Michael gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘The person has not been born who could deceive Oswald Stanmore. He was the most astute businessman the town has ever seen, and it is common knowledge that he was ruthless, calculating and devious.’

  ‘Not all the time, of course,’ added Bartholomew kindly. ‘And he never preyed on the weak, the poor or the vulnerable.’

  ‘Who was the friend who spun you this yarn?’ asked Michael. ‘Uyten?’

  Richard nodded and looked away. ‘So he took advantage of my grief? That was a low trick.’

  ‘If you want him brought to justice, you had better tell us exactly what he told you to do,’ said Michael briskly. ‘Come on, man. Time is passing, and we cannot afford to waste it.’

  Richard’s face was white. ‘To recruit as many men as possible, and bring them here to create a rumpus. It was easy: London is full of lads who are game for fun. I brought about twenty, but they invited their own companions, so there are probably in excess of fifty of us here now, plus a lot more who heard about Winwick through us, and came of their own volition to try their luck in winning a place.’

  ‘Who funded all this mischief?’ demanded Michael.

  ‘I did.’ Richard’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘That is to say I paid for a lot of them to get here. I was told that they would be given places at Winwick when they arrived, but Illesy will only accept wealthy applicants, so there are a lot of disappointed paupers wandering around…’

  ‘Where did you find all this money?’

  ‘My inheritance – avenging Father seemed a good way to use it.’ Richard’s shock slowly turned to anger. ‘Damn Uyten! I will make him pay for this.’

  ‘No, you will not,’ said Michael firmly. ‘You have done enough harm. Leave him to me.’

  ‘You?’ Richard had regained his composure and the hubris was back. ‘He has outwitted you at every turn, and there is no reason to assume that anything will change. But I am a patient man, Brother. Cambridge will not hold Uyten for ever, and when he slithers back to London I shall be waiting for him.’

  ‘London?’ pounced Michael. ‘You are leaving?’

  ‘There is nothing for me here now. I shall go today.’

  ‘What about your Fellowship at Winwick Hall?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘One has been offered, but for more money than I am willing to pay. It proves what I have suspected from the start – that the Provost and his Fellows do not want me, they want my fortune. But they will not have it. I can think of a hundred better ways to spend it.’

  ‘Then let us hope that they do not all involve drink and fickle friends,’ muttered Michael, watching him stalk away.

  CHAPTER 16

  The streets were more uneasy than ever as Bartholomew and Michael resumed their journey to Winwick Hall. The groups of students, matriculands and townsmen were larger and more heavily armed, and Michael’s beadles had given up ordering scholars home: instead they were concentrating on trying to keep the factions apart. The wind did not help. It gusted fiercely, sending leaves, twigs and rubbish cartwheeling along the road, and people were obliged to shout to make themselves heard. Yells were misinterpreted as threats or insults, and offence was quickly taken.

  ‘It is like trying to control the sea,’ muttered Michael in despair. ‘Too many folk want mischief, and my beadles are too few to stop it. Perhaps Marjory Starre’s prediction about wind and death was right, Matt, and I shall be the great man for whom it blows.’

  He pointed to where another surly band was preparing to advance. Head pounding with tension, Bartholomew tugged out his childbirth forceps again, although it was the appearance of members of the Michaelhouse Choir that encouraged their would-be assailants to retreat, not the sight of his weapon.

  ‘What will happen to Richard?’ he asked in a low voice, as they began walking again.

  ‘We shall let him disappear to London,’ replied Michael, ‘but if he ever shows his face here again, the University will hold him to account for what he has done.’

  ‘I will warn him to stay away,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Poor Edith.’

  ‘She will—’ Michael stopped speaking as the Chancellor hurried up.

  ‘I have just had a message from John Winwick,’ Tynkell gasped. ‘He will arrive at noon.’

  ‘Then ride out and intercept him!’ cried Michael, horrified. ‘He cannot be here. If he sees us in such turmoil … well, suffice to say it will do us no good.’

  ‘I will try,’ gulped Tynkell. ‘But he is a determined man, and I am not sure I shall manage.’

  ‘Nor am I,’ muttered Michael, as Tynkell hurried away. ‘And for once I wish we had a Chancellor with more backbone.’ He narrowed his eyes against the wind as he squinted up the High Street. ‘Is that de Stannell? I thought he planned to spend the day cowering inside his castle. I wonder what has drawn him out.’

  ‘The gale has damaged the guildhall’s new roof,’ explained the deputy. ‘And I am needed to hire a ladder. Potmoor is terribly upset, as he paid for those tiles himself.’

  ‘Hire a ladder?’ echoed Michael in disbelief. ‘Surely you have more important matters to attend – like preventing riots in your town?’

  ‘The guildhall is important,’ snapped de Stannell, annoyed by the censure. ‘And the Sheriff of Cambridge-shire and Huntingdonshire knows his duty.’

  ‘You are not Sheriff! Dick Tulyet still holds that post, thank God.’

  ‘No, he does not.’ De Stannell’s smile was gloating. ‘If you had wanted him to remain in office, Brother, you should have exerted more control over your colleagues. I am Sheriff now, and I shall never let the University rule my town like he did.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Michael irritably.

  ‘He was beheaded last night in the Tower of London.’ De Stannell’s monkey-face blazed with gleeful spite. ‘As a punishment for allowing Michaelhouse to write treasonous words about the Keeper of the Privy Seal. I heard it in Weasenham’s shop not an hour ago.’

  ‘And you believe it?’ Bartholomew regarded him wonderingly, amazed that a royal official should have been taken in by so far-fetched a rumour.

  ‘Why should I not? I warned Tulyet that his fondness for scholars would end in trouble, and I was right. He should have crushed your University, not allowed it to flourish. I shall not make the s
ame mistake.’

  ‘Who told you this ridiculous story?’ asked Michael crossly. ‘Weasenham?’

  ‘No, Uyten from Winwick Hall,’ replied the deputy smugly. ‘And the tale is true, because the tract containing these seditious remarks is being copied by Weasenham’s scribes as I speak.’

  ‘You are a fool, de Stannell!’ said Michael in disgust. ‘First, how can Tulyet have been executed for something that is not yet fully in the public domain? Second, it takes a full day for news to travel between London and Cambridge, even with the fastest messengers. And third, being Sheriff of a place where such statements originate is not a capital offence. Can you not see that this is a scheme to cause trouble between us?’

  ‘I see nothing other than that Tulyet’s association with the University has brought about his downfall.’ De Stannell was clearly delighted by the prospect of being rid of his superior. ‘You should watch yourself, Brother. He was popular, and I imagine folk will hold any Michaelhouse scholar responsible for his fate, regardless of who actually wrote the words that lost him his head.’

  Michael strode away, unwilling to waste time listening to such rubbish, and Bartholomew followed. The wind chose that moment to hurl a mat of wet leaves into de Stannell’s face, and his indignant diatribe about unmannerly scholars dissolved into splutters.

  ‘So Uyten strikes again,’ said Bartholomew, torn between concern and disdain. ‘We will not survive to be excommunicated at this rate – we will be attacked and destroyed long before the King and the Pope read William’s stupid ramblings.’

  ‘It is an outrageous story,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘No one with wits will believe it.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the people who itch for a riot will not care whether it is true or not. Townsmen will feel justified in rising against the University, while scholars will feel justified in taking exception to such an outlandish claim.’

  ‘You are right,’ gulped Michael, breaking into a trot. ‘It may well provide the spark that sets us alight. Clever Uyten! Who would have thought he had it in him?’

  Bartholomew was glad when Michael dragged half a dozen beadles from their peace-keeping duties to accompany them to Winwick, anticipating an ambush at every step. They arrived to find the gates still off their hinges, and as Jekelyn had not been replaced, there was no one guarding the entrance. They entered unopposed and were astonished to find the yard deserted. In confusion they looked around, and Bartholomew noted that a buttress had collapsed. It lay in a heap, and the wind was now so strong that it sent some of the smaller pieces tumbling across the yard.

  ‘Uyten!’ he exclaimed, spotting a pale hand poking from under the debris, so ham-like it could belong to no one else. He raced towards it.

  ‘Oh, no!’ groaned Michael. ‘Yet again, we are to be deprived of answers.’

  They began hauling away debris. Fortunately for Uyten, the buttress was constructed of cheap rubble masonry – nothing heavier than lumps of damp mortar and small pieces of rock. If he had not suffocated, there was a chance that he was still alive. They grazed knuckles and tore fingernails in the frantic race to dig him out. The hand began to flap as they exposed an arm and then a shoulder, and ignoring Bartholomew’s pleas for care, Michael grabbed it and hauled with all his might. Uyten came free in an explosion of dust and gravel.

  ‘Help me,’ the student groaned, as Bartholomew knelt to examine him. ‘Illesy … he did this.’

  ‘Why would he mean you harm?’ asked Michael, watching Bartholomew take a bucket of water from one of the beadles and begin to rinse the filth from Uyten’s face.

  ‘Because I did not go to Ely as he ordered – I could not leave Winwick when the town felt so uneasy. You had better arrest him, Brother, before he kills anyone else.’

  ‘How did he cause you to be buried?’ Michael’s voice was thick with doubt. ‘Did he push the buttress over?’

  ‘Not that I saw.’ Uyten coughed when water went in his mouth. ‘But he is Provost. There is nothing he cannot organise.’

  ‘So where is he?’ Michael gestured at the deserted yard. ‘In fact, where is everyone?’

  ‘The students have gone?’ croaked Uyten, struggling to sit up. ‘The bastards! They could have dug me out first. They have been itching to join the fun outside for hours, but I have kept them in. I want them here to greet the founder when he arrives, you see.’

  ‘Where is Illesy?’ demanded Michael again.

  ‘Gone to the guildhall with his Fellows.’ Uyten began to pat himself all over to test for injuries. ‘Probably to consort with Potmoor and put some villainous plan into action.’

  ‘And what about your villainous plan? Let us start with the tale that Tulyet is beheaded.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Uyten sheepishly. ‘That was fast. Weasenham wastes no time.’

  ‘How could you have done such a thing?’ asked Bartholomew reproachfully. ‘Tulyet has a wife and child. How do you imagine they will feel when they hear this story?’

  Uyten waved a dismissive paw. ‘Dickon will not care. The boy is a monster.’

  There was a cut on one of his fingers, and as he peered worriedly at it, Bartholomew saw blisters on the palms of his hands, of the type that often appeared when some unaccustomed activity was undertaken. An activity like rowing.

  ‘It was you who paddled the boat up the King’s Ditch last night,’ he surmised. ‘You were not the one who collected the parcel from the tomb – that person was smaller.’

  With detached fascination, he watched Uyten’s ponderous mind sort through its options: deny the charge, bluster or own up. In the end, the lad settled for a scowl.

  ‘You should not have left us a packet of nails. It was stupid. You have cost yourselves extra money, and another uncomfortable rumour into the bargain.’

  Michael regarded him with dislike. ‘You had better cleanse your soul with a full confession, because you are bound for a very dark place indeed. That head wound looks nasty. Does it hurt?’

  Alarm flashed in Uyten’s eyes as he raised a hand to his temple and it came away stained with blood. He gulped audibly. ‘Confession? You mean I am dying?’

  ‘It is time to make amends,’ said Michael. ‘But quickly. Time is short.’

  The colour drained from Uyten’s face, leaving him so white that Bartholomew was almost moved to pity. ‘I did not mean to embark on such wicked business. I swear it!’

  ‘Start with Fulbut,’ ordered Michael. ‘And do not think of lying, because we already know the truth. Jekelyn told us everything.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, did he? I knew he could not be trusted. He is a slippery—’

  ‘You hired Fulbut to shoot my Junior Proctor,’ interrupted Michael. ‘But when he reneged on the agreement to leave Cambridge, you sent Jekelyn to murder him, lest he broke his silence.’

  ‘Yes, but the orders came from Illesy. He does not have the courage to deal with me face to face, so he writes notes and gets poor blind Bon to deliver them. Bon thinks they are reading lists and lecture notes. Illesy does not work alone, though. He has help from the Guild.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Holm?’

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ gabbled Uyten, desperate to ingratiate. ‘Along with others. Richard Stanmore is easy to manipulate – a few careful words and he leapt at the chance to cause trouble. He thinks the town corrupted his father, although from what I understand, it was the other way around.’

  ‘How will having the town in flames benefit anyone?’ asked Michael, shooting Bartholomew a warning glance to prevent him from diverting the discussion by responding.

  ‘Simple – if the other Colleges are destroyed or weakened, Winwick can expand unfettered.’

  ‘I hardly think—’ began Bartholomew, seeing serious flaws in the plan.

  ‘Our founder wants it to be the biggest and best College in the country – a school of law founded by a lawyer, training men to rise to great power and influence. Illesy has a remit to do whatever is necessary to achieve it. He has been recruiting wealthy st
udents as fast as he can, and he hates the fact that the Guild holds the purse strings. Please believe none of this is my fault.’

  Bartholomew regarded him sceptically. ‘And what do you gain from all this?’

  ‘The founder promised to make me a prefect next year, and possibly even a Fellow.’ Uyten’s expression was bitter. ‘Then my family would have to acknowledge that I am no dunce.’

  ‘Oh, but I am afraid you are.’ Michael stood abruptly, and beckoned to his beadles. ‘He has told us all he knows. Take him away.’

  Uyten gaped at him. ‘Take me away? But you cannot cart a dying man around!’

  ‘You are not dying,’ said Bartholomew. ‘In fact, you are barely hurt at all. It will take more than a bit of rubble to make an end of a brawny lad like you.’

  ‘You mean you tricked me?’ cried Uyten, as the beadles pulled him to his feet. ‘I am not destined for Hell after all?’

  ‘I imagine you are – just not yet,’ replied Michael. ‘When I said you were bound for a dark place, I was referring to the proctors’ gaol. Did you misunderstand? How unfortunate.’

  ‘Nothing I said will stand in a court of law,’ shouted Uyten desperately. ‘My “confession” was obtained by deception. You made me think I was dying, and promised absolution!’

  ‘I promised nothing,’ said Michael coldly. ‘You were complicit in killing my Junior Proctor, and I could never pardon you for that.’ He looked around him. ‘But Illesy and his Fellows are reckless to have gone out today. What will happen to their College while you are in gaol and all the other students have disappeared to cause mischief?’

  ‘You cannot let any harm befall Winwick just because Illesy is an incompetent villain!’ cried Uyten, distressed. ‘Let me go, Brother. I will stay here and protect it. Please! Our founder will be broken-hearted if his College is damaged.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before embarking on this wild plan,’ said Michael, indicating that his beadles were to haul the lad away. Uyten howled and writhed furiously, and they were hard-pressed to subdue him. Michael turned to Bartholomew. ‘We need to find Illesy – fast.’