A Bone of Contention

by Susanna GREGORY

  When the mason arrived, Bartholomew handed him the small box that contained the money Wilson had given him for the tomb. The mason opened the box and shook his head, clicking his tongue.

  'Three years ago this would have bought something really fancy, but since the plague everything costs more — tools, wages… Even with the stone already bought, I can only do you something fairly plain.'

  'Really?' said Bartholomew, his spirits lifting. 'Master Wilson wanted an effigy of himself with a dozen angels, carved in the black marble and picked out in gold.'

  The mason sucked in his breath and shook his head.

  'Not with this money. I could do you a cross with some nice knots at the corners.'

  'That sounds reasonable,' said Bartholomew and a deal was struck. He did not know whether to feel relieved that the hideous structure Wilson had desired would not now spoil the delicate contours of the church, or guilt that his intransigence had meant that Wilson's tomb-money had so devalued.

  As he pondered, Michael sought him out, his face sombre. 'Mistress Fletcher died yesterday,' he said. He squeezed Bartholomew's shoulder and then went to sit on the bed. 'I went to her when word came that she was failing. She had fallen into a deep sleep in the afternoon and did not wake before she died some hours later. There was nothing you could have done and she would not have known whether you were there or not.'

  Bartholomew looked away and said nothing. They sat in silence for a while. Michael played with the wooden cross around his neck, and Bartholomew stared out of the window into the sunny yard. He watched some chickens pecking about in the dirt and saw Deynman chase a hungry-looking dog away from them. Deynman spied Bartholomew gazing out of his window and waved cheerily. Absently, Bartholomew waved back.

  'Damn Bigod!' he said in a low voice. 'I promised her I would be there.'

  Michael did not reply. Bartholomew stood up, knocking something from the window-sill as he did so. As he stooped to retrieve it, he saw it was the candle he had been looking for the night he and Michael had been attacked.

  Pangs of guilt assailed him when he remembered thinking that Gray might have taken it. He replaced it on the shelf, wondering who had moved it in the first place. Cynric, perhaps, when he was cleaning.

  Michael stood, too. 'I am going to talk to Tulyet about your notion of persuading Lydgate to look at the ring on Thorpe's skeleton,' he said. He raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. 'We have Kenzie murdered; a recently dead hand claimed to be a relic; riots possible every night and we do not know why; your raped and murdered prostitute; the attack against you in the night; and the child's skeleton. All unsolved mysteries, and I can think of no way forward with any of them. Tulyet will help us because he is as baffled as we are and I can think of nothing else to do.'

  Bartholomew picked up his bag. 'I had planned to sit with Mistress Fletcher and watch Godwinsson at the same time. The French students were bound to go in or out sooner or later and I was going to follow them and question them about Joanna.'

  'Forget them for now,' said Michael. 'We know where to find them.' He hesitated, then sat again, fiddling with the wooden cross that hung round his neck. Bartholomew waited, sensing the monk had something to say. He put the Galen in his bag, then perched on the edge of the table. Michael gave a heavy sigh.

  'Two days ago, when you were indisposed, I went to see Master Bigod of Maud's Hostel. He denies totally the charge that it was he who attacked us in the street. I asked to see Will at Valence Marie but was told he was visiting a sick sister in Fen Ditton, and had been gone since the night the relic was found. Then I went to Godwinsson and, in the company of Guy Heppel, put the fear of God into Huw, their steward, and that scullion Saul Potter who you said kicked you. Do you know what I discovered?'

  Bartholomew shook his head, setting his bag down on the table while he listened to Michael.

  'Nothing!' spat Michael in disgust. 'Not even the tiniest scrap of information. Huw and Saul Potter claim they spent the evening cleaning silver, and went to bed by eight o'clock. I collared other Godwinsson servants, and they confirmed that the hostel was locked up and everyone was asleep long before the church clock struck nine. It was past midnight before we were attacked.' He turned to the physician. 'Are you certain that it was Will, Huw, Saul Potter and Bigod you recognised?'

  Bartholomew thought back to the attack: Huw swearing at him in Welsh, Saul Potter's piggy eyes glittering as Bartholomew had torn away his hood, and Bigod demanding to know where something was.

  'I injured one as we fell — his hand broke,' he said, the memory dim. 'Did any of the men you spoke to have injuries? What about Will from Valence Marie?

  Perhaps he left Cambridge to hide the fact that he was wounded.'

  Michael looked pained. 'Damn! Your memory has played us false! You told me originally that the man had broken his arm, not his hand, and you said Will had been holding me down, not fighting with you. I inflicted no broken bones — although I certainly bit someone fairly hard — and so Will cannot be in hiding to cover his wounds.'

  He banged his fist on the table in frustration. 'I wondered at the time whether you might not have been rambling. You were weaving all over the road like a drunk.

  When I went haring off to confront Bigod and the others, I had no idea your injury was so serious. Gray warned us you might lose some memory after he consulted your stars. I should have waited.'

  'Stars!' spat Bartholomew in disgust. 'I do remember Bigod, Huw, Saul Potter and Will there. Others too. The lightning lit up their faces.'

  Michael looked sceptical. 'How many were there?'

  Bartholomew thought, struggling with the blurred images that played in his mind. 'Will and two others fought with you, while Huw, Saul Potter and Bigod fought with me.'

  One of the Benedictines in the room above began to sing softly as Michael shook his head. 'Wrong again, Matt. Only two had been allocated to me; one sat on my back, while the other held my gown over my face and almost smothered me. But there were five men fighting you. I saw them. I had been taken by surprise and was knocked to the ground before I could react. You had more time to defend yourself and were able to fight harder. Do you remember any words they spoke?'

  For a brief moment, Bartholomew considered not answering, feeling foolish and vulnerable at his lapse in memory. 'I heard Huw speak in Welsh, and Bigod asked me where something was,' he said reluctantly.

  'I heard no Welsh,' said Michael, 'and I heard every word that was spoken, lying as I was immobilised. Damn!

  Should I apologise to Bigod for accusing him wrongly?

  The servants I do not care about but the Principal of a hostel is another matter.'

  'I am certain I saw those four,' persisted Bartholomew.

  'And I heard and felt the sharp crack of a bone breaking…"

  He stopped, aware that Michael was regarding him unconvinced.

  'I suspect I saw a good deal more than you, since I was pinned helplessly on the ground for several minutes while you fought,' said the monk. 'The faces of our attackers were very carefully concealed — I saw nothing.

  And I am sure they would not have left us alive had they the slightest suspicion that they might have been identified. Yet you claim to have recognised four of the seven. It must have been your imagination that led you to name Bigod, Will, Saul Potter and Huw. I can come up with no other explanation than that these were professional outlaws hired to collect something from you.'

  'But what?' asked Bartholomew, uncomfortable at the way in which Michael was so blithely dismissing his recollections. 'And why me, not you? You are just as deeply involved in all this business as me — perhaps more so, since you are the Senior Proctor.'

  'Perhaps it has nothing to do with "this business", as you put it,' said Michael. 'I have given the matter considerable thought. The attack was most definitely aimed at you, since you were the one who was lured out on the pretext of a medical emergency; I was merely incidental. No one knows you have that ring you found at Godwinsson,
except me, so it cannot be that — unless you were seen picking it up. The only answer I can come up with is that these men were hired by a patient of yours to get something…'

  'Such as what?' interrupted Bartholomew in disbelief.

  'Medicine? Most people know I prescribe medicine perfectly willingly and do not need to be ambushed for it." 'Perhaps you took something in lieu of payment that someone wants back,' suggested Michael. 'You are often given all manner of oddments when people have no money.'

  'Exactly! ' said Bartholomew. ' "Have no money." Which means that they also would not be able to afford to pay outlaws to get whatever it was back again. And I hardly think seedcakes, candle-stubs and the occasional pot of ink warrant such an elaborate attack. Anyway, as Gray will attest, I often overlook payment when a patient is in dire need.'

  'Yes, yes,' said Michael testily. 'But I can think of no other reason why you alone should be enticed out of college and searched for something. You have some rich patients — they are not all beggars.'

  'But they pay me with money,' said Bartholomew. 'And the motive for the attack was not theft, because neither of us was robbed.'

  Michael was becoming impatient. 'Perhaps your misaligned stars have led you to forget something obvious.

  Some transaction with a patient?'

  'I have not!' said Bartholomew angrily. 'And my stars are not misaligned!'

  A distant screech of raucous laughter from the kitchens spoke of the presence of Agatha. For a frightening instant, Bartholomew, who had heard the laugh often, thought that it sounded alien to him. Gray's physical diagnosis had been right: it was only to be expected that some of his faculties might be temporarily awry following a hefty blow to the head. Perhaps a clearer memory of the fight would emerge in time. Then again, perhaps it would not.

  But Bartholomew knew that his stars had nothing to do with the fact that his memories were dim. Ironically, it seemed as though his reluctant adherence to teaching traditional medicine would backfire on him, if Gray was telling all and sundry that his master's stars augured ill. People would treat anything he said with scepticism until he, or better yet, Gray, showed that his stars were back in a favourable position. He almost wished he had been discussing trepanation rather than astrology, after all.

  Bartholomew was torn between doubt and frustration for Michael's dilemma. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain that the men he had named were their attackers, but the details remained hazy. He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

  'You should rest,' said Michael, watching him. 'And I must go to see Tulyet.'

  Checking that the Galen was in his bag, Bartholomew followed Michael out of his room. He felt claustrophobic in the College, and wanted to be somewhere alone and quiet, like the meadows behind St Peter-without Trumpington Gate. Ignoring Michael's silent glances of disapproval that his advice about resting was being so wilfully dismissed, Bartholomew walked purposefully across the courtyard, and up St Michael's Lane. Less decisively, he wandered along the High Street and began to notice things he had not seen before: there was a carved pig on one of the timbers of Physwick Hostel; one of the trees in St Michael's churchyard was taller than the tower; Guy Heppel had a faint birthmark on one side of his neck.

  'I am delighted to see you up and about,1 breathed the Junior Proctor, sidling up to him. He rubbed his hands up and down his gown in his curious way. 'I was most concerned to hear your stars are so unfavourable.'

  'Thank you,' said Bartholomew shortly. 'But I can assure you that they are becoming more favourable by the hour.'

  Heppel looked surprised at his vehemence. 'I am glad to hear it. I was hoping to have my astrological consultation from you soon. My chest is a little better with that angelica you gave me, but now I have a stiffness in my knees. I almost went to Father Philius at Gonville Hall when you were ill — I am told he does an adequate job — but now you are well again, I am glad I waited.

  Brother Michael informs me you are by far the best man in Cambridge for stars.'

  Bartholomew's eyes narrowed and he walked away, leaving Heppel somewhat bewildered. He had not gone far when he saw Matilde. She approached him shyly and smiled with genuine pleasure.

  'Agatha told me you were better,' she said. 'I was worried.'

  'My stars are badly aligned, apparently,' he said, turning to glower at the retreating figure of Guy Heppel, who was still rubbing his hands up and down the sides of his gown.

  'They have certainly put you in an ill-humour,' she said wryly. 'Or was that the doing of the Junior Proctor?'

  'It was the doing of Brother Michael, telling people I am good at astrological consultations. If he spreads that tale around, I shall never be able to do any work.'

  Matilde smiled. 'Then you should tell Heppel that his stars will augur well if he devotes himself to music, and persuade him to join Michael's choir. Heppel sings like a scalded cat and it will serve Michael right.'

  Bartholomew regarded her doubtfully. 'Are you sure a scalded cat would not serve to improve Michael's choir? I cannot imagine it could be any worse than it is. It used to be quite good but he has not spent the time needed on it because of his extra duties as Senior Proctor. '

  'Time has nothing to do with it, Matthew. It is not lack of practice that has made the choir what it is, but Michael's policy of providing bread and ale after each rehearsal. For many folk, it provides the only decent meal they have in a week.'

  'I wondered why so many people were so keen to join,' said Bartholomew. 'I knew it had nothing to do with their appreciation for music.'

  'Even so, I am looking forward to hearing it on Tuesday.'

  She looked at him anxiously. 'Unless you have changed your mind, or you feel too unwell, that is.'

  'No, of course not,' he said quickly, although his predicament with his two guests had completely slipped his mind. He forced himself to smile. 'Just remember to bring something to stuff in your ears.'

  After he had left Matilde, he met Oswald Stanmore, who asked whether his stars had improved. Bartholomew regarded him coolly and silently cursed Gray's enthusiasm for the subject. Puzzled by the uncharacteristic unfriendliness, Stanmore changed the subject and told him about a fight in Milne Street the night before between the miller's apprentices and students from Valence Marie.

  Bartholomew barely listened, preoccupied with how he might neutralise Gray's diagnosis. Stanmore put up his hands in a gesture of exasperation when he saw his brother-in-law was not paying him any attention, and let him go. The merchant then strode to the small building where his seamstress worked. She was there talking to Cynric, who had been courting her slowly and shyly for more than a year. Stanmore beckoned him over, and within moments Cynric was slipping along Milne Street behind Bartholomew.

  The sun was hot but not nearly as strong as it had been.

  White, fluffy clouds drifted across the sky affording temporary relief and there was a breeze that was still relatively free of odours from the river. Bartholomew continued to walk, acknowledging the greetings of people he knew but not stopping to talk to them. He passed St Bene't's Church, where he and Michael had been attacked, and reached St Botolph's. Glancing across the churchyard to where Joanna and the other riot victims were buried, he saw a figure emerge from where it had been standing behind some bushes. Curious, and with nothing else to do, Bartholomew climbed over the low wall and walked towards the back of the church. He peered out round the buttresses and saw that as he had thought, the person cloaked and hooded, even in the hot sun — was standing by Joanna's grave.

  Bartholomew abandoned stealth and approached the mourner openly. The figure turned to see who was coming and then looked away, ft was a man of Bartholomew's height, taller even. Bartholomew drew level and was about to address him, when the man spun round and shoved Bartholomew so hard that he fell back against the wall of the church. Then he raced off along the path back towards the High Street. Bartholomew's feet skidded on wet grass as he fought to regain his balance.

  But as th
e man ran his hood fell away from his face and Bartholomew, for the briefest of moments, was able to recognise him.

  Bartholomew tore after him but on reaching the High Street saw that the man had disappeared into the mass of people walking home from the market. As he looked up and down the road in silent frustration, he saw that Cynric had materialised next to him.

  'Did you see him?' Bartholomew gasped. 'It was Thomas Lydgate, standing at Joanna's graveside.'

  Cynric looked at him perplexed. 'You are still addled, lad,' he said gently. 'There was no one here other than you.'

  CHAPTER 7

  Bartholomew was growing exasperated, while Michael and Cynric listened to him with a sympathetic patience that only served to make him feel worse. He rubbed his head and flopped down into the large chair next to the kitchen hearth from which Agatha oversaw the domestic side of the College.

  'So, you say you saw Lydgate at Joanna's grave,' said Michael. 'And that Lydgate is her father.'

  'Not quite,' said Bartholomew tiredly. 'I think Joanna must be Dominica and it is she who lies in the grave.'

  'But Joanna is a prostitute,' said Michael. 'How can she be Dominica?'

  Was Michael trying to force him to give up his theory by being deliberately obtuse? Bartholomew wondered.

  Michael was not usually so slow to grasp the essence of his ideas. He rubbed the back of his head again, tiying to ease the nagging ache there, and tried again.

  'Joanna is not a prostitute known to Matilde,' he said.

  'Ergo, I believe Joanna was not a prostitute at all. I think someone deliberately misled Tulyet with a false name, and that [oanna's real identity is Dominica, whom no one has seen since she was sent to these mysterious relatives in Chesterton.'

  'But she was sent to them before the riots, to keep her away from her lover — be/are you think she was killed,' said Michael. 'She is probably still there with them. In Chesterton.'