A Bone of Contention

by Susanna GREGORY

  'When Brother Michael asked Edred where he had been the night James Kenzie — the Scot from David's Hostel — was murdered, you did not contradict him when you knew he was lying,' he said after a few moments. 'You knew Edred did not return to Godwinsson with Werbergh because Werbergh accompanied you. Why did you not expose him?'

  Cecily wiped her nose again. 'When Huw, our steward, said you wanted to see us, Thomas told me to say nothing, even if I heard things I knew were not true. He said you and the Benedictine wanted to destroy our hostel and that unguarded words might help you to do it.'

  Bartholomew supposed her answer made sense. 'Who knows you are here, besides Master Bigod?' he asked.

  'No one,' said Cecily, surprised by the question. 'It would be too risky to trust anyone else.'

  'Then who was Bigod speaking with just now? He mentioned that there would be a riot on Thursday.'

  'There was no one here except Thomas Bigod and me,' she said, genuinely bewildered. 'You must have imagined it, or perhaps he was speaking to a servant. None of them know I am hiding here.'

  Bartholomew knew he had imagined nothing of the sort, but then recalled that the voice he had half- recognised had joined the conversation after he had heard Cecily return to her bottle-dungeon. He looked down at the knife in his hand.

  'So, what do we do now?' he wondered aloud. 'If I leave you here alive, you will raise the alarm and Bigod will come after me. If I bind and gag you. you will tell them I was here when they release you, and they will have little problem in hunting me down in the town.'

  Her eyes flew open, wide with terror. 'No! I will help you escape! I will create a diversion that will allow you to slip away, and I will tell them nothing!'

  Bartholomew raised his eyebrows at this unlikely proposition-'Did you love your daughter, Mistress?' he asked.

  She blinked, confused by the sudden change in direction.

  'More than she believed,' she answered simply.

  'Would you like to see her killer brought to justice?'

  Her eyes glittered. 'More than you can possibly imagine.'

  'Then you must trust me, and I must trust you. I do not think your husband killed Dominica.' He quelled her stream of objections with a steady gaze. 'I do not doubt what you saw but I examined what I believe was Dominica's body and there was no knife wound on it. She was killed by a blow to the head. Whoever's blood was dripping from your husband's knife, it was not Dominica's. I suspect Dominica was already dead when Lydgate found her. Perhaps the blood came from the body of the man you said was next to her. Last night, I saw Lydgate at what I think is Dominica's grave 'She is buried then? Where?'

  'St Botolph's Church. I will show you where when this is over. Officially, she is recorded as a woman called Joanna and no one wants to investigate why she died lest it spark another riot. But I will try to find her killer, Mistress.'

  Her face was chalky white as she tried to come to terms with the new information. 'Why?' she asked eventually.

  'Wrhat makes you want to avenge my Dominica?'

  Bartholomew was unable to find an answer. He could hardly say her hair reminded him of Philippa's. In truth, he did not know why finding her killer had become important to him. Perhaps it was merely because he had been told not to. He shrugged.

  Oddly, this unpleasant, vindictive woman seemed to accept that his motives were genuine without further explanation. She nodded, and came to perch next to him on the chest. Bartholomew let the knife clatter to the floor. An understanding had been reached. They sat silently for a while, until Cecily spoke.

  'Since I have been here, I have asked myself again and again why Thomas should have killed Dominica. She was the only person he has ever truly loved — we both did. If it had not been for her, I suspect Thomas and I would have embarked upon separate lives many years ago. Although I saw him standing over her with the knife, a part of me has always been reluctant to accept that Thomas would destroy the most important thing in his life, and this is why I am prepared to accept your reasoning. Perhaps it was not Dominica's blood I saw on the weapon, but that of her lover laying next to her. I am sure Thomas would have no compunction in slaying him.'

  'Perhaps,' said Bartholomew carefully.

  'But even if Thomas is innocent of Dominica's death, I fear him still,' said Cecily, her expression a curious mixture of defiance and unease. 'How can I be sure that you will not tell Thomas where 1 am?'

  'Why would I? I do not like him.'

  'You do not like me either.'

  That was certainly true. 'But if I informed your husband of your whereabouts, you could have your own revenge by telling Bigod that I overheard part of his conversation.'

  She nodded, appreciating his point. 'So, we have a bargain, she said. 'I allow you to leave unmolested and keep from Master Bigod that you were hiding here, while you do not tell anyone where I am, and will investigate the death of my daughter. It seems evenly balanced, would you not saw?'

  Bartholomew agreed cautiously. 'Evenly enough. But when I return to Michaelhouse, I will write a letter to Thomas Lydgate telling him of our conversation and of your whereabouts. I will seal it, and leave it with a trusted friend with orders that in the event of my unexplained death or disappearance, it is to be given to him.'

  Anger glittered in her eyes for a moment and then was gone. She nodded, begrudgingly accepting his wariness.

  'Then be careful, Doctor Bartholomew. Do not disappear or die in your investigations. Although I am well hidden here, there is only one way out, and I do not relish the idea of being trapped in this dungeon if Thomas were to discover my whereabouts.'

  'Nor would I,' said Bartholomew with a shudder. 'What an unpleasant place. Could Bigod not have found you somewhere more conducive?'

  Cecily looked away, and Bartholomew detected an unsteadiness in her voice when she spoke. 'I wondered whether he might allow me to share the chamber he has on the upper floor but he insists this one is safer for me.

  I am grateful for his help but I sense I am more of a hindrance to him than a welcome guest. I am not sure I would have fled to him had I known he would recommend I stay here. It reminds me too much of Dominica.'

  Personally, Bartholomew would have asked Bigod to lend him some money and left the area for good had he been in Cecily's position, but he imagined she was probably afraid to stray too far from the place where she had lived all her life. Bartholomew was unusual in that he had travelled quite extensively: most people did not if they could help it, considering it an unnecessary risk.

  Cecily looked at the open trapdoor in the floor and gave a short, bitter laugh. 'This place was never intended to be a prison, you know. Before this house came into the possession of the Bigod family, it was owned by Jewish merchants. They built this secret chamber during the events that led to their expulsion in 1290, intending it to be a refuge if they were ever attacked. But it has become a prison now. First for Dominica and now for me. And both, ultimately, because of Thomas.'

  One part of Bartholomew's mind had been listening for sounds from the hall above. It had been silent for some time now. Cecily saw him glance up at the trapdoor, and nodded.

  'On Sundays, the old lady likes a tour of her manor.

  The entire household is obliged to be in attendance and the whole affair might take several hours. Go now, ‹ Bartholomew. To the north of the house, behind the stable, you will find a path that leads to the river without passing through the village. Wait! Take this!'

  She held out her hand. A silver ring lay there, with a blue-green stone. He looked at her bewildered. How many of these things were there? 'There were two,' she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  'Lover's rings and identical, except for the size.' She gave a wry smile. 'I am not a fool, Bartholomew. I know why Dominica claimed she lost one ring and clung so dearly to the other. And you mentioned that Master Bigod may have been looking for a ring — perhaps Thomas asked him to look for the one Dominica says she lost.' She dropped the ring in Bartholomew's palm. 'I
took that from her the night I sent her here. I have worn it since her murder.

  Take it. It might help you find the foul beast who killed her — perhaps this lover of hers that she went to such extremes to conceal from us. Who knows? Perhaps he may be foolish enough to wear her ring still, and now you will be able to recognise it from its fellow.'

  Bartholomew put the ring into one of the pouches in his medicine bag. fie climbed the ladder, and opened the trapdoor a crack. Cecily waited below. She was right: the hall was abandoned. He clambered out, and helped her lo follow. In the gloom, he glimpsed her face, white and shiny with tears. She looked away, embarrassed. He left her behind the service screen and slipped stealthily across the hall towards the door.

  'Hey!'

  Bartholomew froze in horror as a group of men entered the hall. He ducked under one of the trestle-tables, but it was an inadequate hiding place at best, and his heart pounded against his ribs in anticipation of being dragged out. The men were not servants, but mercenaries, probably the ones who, according to Cecily, had been looking for him earlier.

  'Just stop that!' came the voice again, loud in indignation as a conical helmet bounced on the floor. The speaker stooped to retrieve it, so close that Bartholomew was treated to a strong waft of his bad breath. It was all over now! It had to be!

  A piercing scream tore through the air, and all eyes were drawn to the screen at the end of the hall. Bartholomew rubbed ran a hand through his hair wearily.

  It had not taken Mistress Lydgate long to renege on their agreement. But what else could he have done? He could not have killed her in cold blood, and locking her in the underground chamber would only have given him a few hours at most until Bigod came to seek him out. Perhaps he should have done just that and fled Cambridge for London or York. Now he was about to be dispatched by Cecily instead — not by her own hand it was true, but the outcome would be the same.

  The screamed petered out. 'A rat! A rat!' came a wavery voice.

  The soldiers looked at each other and grinned or grimaced, depending on their tolerance.

  'A rat!' muttered the one whose helmet had been knocked from his head. 'Blasted woman.'

  'There it goes! After it!' Cecily screeched. 'Oafs! Catch it!'

  With rebellious mutterings, the men shuffled in the direction she was pointing up the spiral stair, until the hall was empty. Bartholomew emerged, still shaking, from his hiding place and slipped out of the door. As he left, he raised his hand in a silent salute of thanks to Cecily, who gave him a weak smile, and followed the men up the stairs.

  Outside, the yard was empty; Bartholomew easily found the path Cecily had told him to take. He forced his stiff legs into a trot, continuing to run until he reached the river. He splashed across it, his haste making him careless, so that he missed his footing on one of the slippery rocks in the river bed and fell. Coughing and choking, he regained his feet and continued across, grateful he did not have the copy of Galen in his bag as he had done for the past few days. The water was very cold and the path had led him to a deeper part of the river than where he had crossed that morning.

  He scrambled up the opposite bank, and crashed through the undergrowth until he reached the path that led to Cambridge. He began to race along it, hoping that the vigorous movement would restore some warmth to his body, but then slowed. He should be more careful.

  Bigod was also likely to use this path if he intended to return to town. Perhaps he was already on it, and Bartholomew had no wish to run into him. He stopped ' and listened intently, but heard nothing except for the dripping of leaves from the morning's rain, and the sott gurgle of the river. Cautiously, he began to move forward again, stopping every few steps to listen. Voices carried on the still air forced him to hide in the dripping undergrowth twice, but the only travellers on the path on a wet Sunday afternoon were three boys returning from a fishing trip, and a small party of friars bound for a retreat in the woods.

  The light was beginning to fade when the high walls of Michaelhouse came into view. He tried the small back door that led into the orchard, but it was firmly barred.

  The Master, wisely, was taking no chances of unwanted visitors in his grounds while the town was in such a ferment of unrest. Bartholomew knocked on the front gates to be allowed in, ignoring the interested attention of the day porters as he squelched across the yard to his room.

  'Matt! Where have you been?' demanded Michael, standing up from where he had been reading at Bartholomew's table. 'What a state you are in! What have you been doing?'

  'What are you doing here?' Bartholomew responded with a question of his own, slinging down his bag and beginning to remove his wet clothes.

  'Waiting for you! What does it look like? Where were you?'

  'Out walking,' said Bartholomew non-committally. He had not yet considered how he would tell Michael what he had discovered without breaking his promise to Cecily to keep her whereabouts a secret.

  'Out swimming more like!' retorted Michael, looking at Bartholomew's sopping clothes and dripping hair. 'What have you been doing?'

  Bartholomew swung round to face him, irritated by the monk's persistent prying. 'Do you think the Proctor should know the comings and goings of all?'

  Michael looked taken aback by his outburst, but then became angry himself. 'Walter said you left before dawn to go walking in the rain with no cloak. What do you expect me to think? We know about your badly aligned stars. I was worried.'

  Bartholomew relented. 'I am sorry. I did not mean to cause trouble. But there is no need for all this concern, from you or anyone else. You are constantly demanding my expertise as the University's senior physician, so listen to me now — there is nothing wrong with me. Gray has never yet made the correct calculations for an astrological consultation — quite aside from the fact that he does not have the necessary information about me even to begin such a task. And you know I doubt the validity of astrological consultations, anyway. I cannot imagine why you are so ready to believe Gray over me.' He went to the water jug, but it had not been refilled that day. 'Where is Cynric?'

  'Looking for you,' Michael said waspishly. 'And keep your voice down if you must hold such unorthodox views, or Father William will hear you, and then you will be in trouble.' He sat down again. 'Have you been looking into the death of that prostitute? I thought you may have gone to see Lady Matilde, but she said she has not seen you since yesterday, while the Tyler women complain bitterly that they have not set eyes on you since the night you were attacked. What have you been doing? You have certainly been up to more than a walk. Will you tell me?'

  Bartholomew shook his head impatiently. He was tired and needed to think first, to work some sense into the jumble of information he had gathered before passing it to Michael. Such as the identity of the man whose voice was familiar, who had decreed that there will be a riot on Thursday.

  'Then go to bed, Matt!' said Michael, throwing up his hands in exasperation. 'We will talk again in the morning.'

  He left, and Bartholomew slipped his hand into his medicine bag, withdrawing the ring that Cecily Lydgate had given him. He looked at it for a moment, before feeling in the sleeve of his gown for the broken ring he had found at Godwinsson. He put them together. They were almost identical, except for the missing stone and the size. What did that tell him? That the light-fingered friar Edred had stolen Kenzie's ring and ground it under his heel in anger when he realised it belonged to his Principal's wife? That Kenzie had lost it while he waited in Godwinsson's shed like a moonstruck calf, hoping for a glimpse of his lover through the windows of her house?

  That Kenzie had somehow found his ring, only to have it stolen again after his death, and placed on the skeletal hand at Valence Marie? But Werbergh had said that Kenzie had come to him and Edred to ask if they had it. Werbergh believed Edred had taken it, and the fact that Kenzie was prepared to risk a confrontation with the friars to ask for it led Bartholomew to deduce that he could not have been wearing it when he died.

 
; Bartholomew rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and the time spent crouching in the chest had taken a greater toll on him than he realised. He washed away the smell of the river as best he could in the drop of water left from the morning, and lay down on the bed, huddling under the blankets. He was on the edge of sleep when he remembered he had left the rings on the table.

  Reluctantly, he climbed out of bed, and dropped them both back into the sleeve of his gown. It was not an original hiding place but one that would have to do until he found a better one.

  He was asleep within moments. Michael waited until his breathing became regular then stole back into the room. He smiled when he saw Bartholomew's gown had been moved slightly, and slipped his hand down inside the sleeve. It would not be the first time that his friend had used the wide sleeves of his scholar's gown to hide things. He froze as Bartholomew muttered something and stirred in his sleep, although Michael was not seriously worried about waking him. There were few who slept as heavily as the physician, even when he was not exhausted from a day's mysterious labours.

  The rings glinted dimly silver in Michael's palm. He stopped himself from whistling. The broken one he had seen already and had dismissed as something of little importance. But it was important now, with a second, virtually identical, ring beside it. He looked to where Bartholomew slept and wondered how he had come to have it. He shrugged mentally letting the rings fall back inside Bartholomew's sleeve. He would ask him tomorrow, when he told him that there had been more trouble at Godwinsson Hostel that day, and that Brother Werbergh lay dead in St Andrew's Church.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the parish church of St.Andrew, Werbergh lay on a trestle-table behind the altar. A tallow candle spluttered near his head, adding its own odour to the overpowering scent of cheap incense and death. Michael had been told that Werbergh's colleagues had agreed to undertake a vigil for him until his funeral the following day, but the church was deserted.