“Were they ambushed, then?”
Grymbaud shook his head, reminding me of a bear. “That does not seem to have been the way of it. They ran into the townsfolk on High Street and words were exchanged. Phillip Woode was accused by the cordwainer of molesting Jakeson’s daughter, and that set the whole thing off.”
“What a waste. Berwyk’s a good man.”
“And one of my townsfolk is close to being a murderer.”
Just then the door of the chapel creaked open, emitting a ray of light and with it the welcome form of my wife.
“We’re back here,” I called and took a deep breath. Surely Mariota could save the man.
Mariota examined the wound and bound it tightly to stop the bleeding. “He’s lost a great deal of blood and the wound is deep. It will be prone to fester. Is there an infirmary?”
“Best to take him to his college. Unless you could nurse him?” Grymbaud asked Mariota.
“He has a woman,” I put in, “that lives on Pennyfarthing Street. She would want to know of this, and she could nurse him. She is called Torvilda.” Grymbaud sent a messenger off to fetch Mistress Bonefey while Mariota sponged Berwyk’s face and gave him some tincture of poppy as he groaned. Even in the darkness of the chapel I could see how pale he was.
“Fetch a stretcher,” Grymbaud ordered after Torvilda arrived. Her face was nearly as white as her lover’s, after she saw him, but she readily agreed to nurse him at her house. It wasn’t long before she and Mariota departed, along with some of Grymbaud’s men to carry the stretcher and see them to Pennyfarthing Street. Which left me with the undersheriff again.
“We must speak to the other fellows he was with,” I said. “Perhaps one of them saw who knifed him.”
“Yes, and I’ll do some interrogation of my own,” Grymbaud replied, blinking a little as we emerged into the afternoon light. “In the meantime, let us not say how severely the master was injured. Pray God he pulls through. The last thing we need is another excuse for the clerks to attack the townsfolk.”
I agreed wholeheartedly.
The bucket team had dispersed, and Anthony, Crispin and Donald were not to be seen. Things seemed quiet enough in the town now, with the crowds scattered, but I began to see how deceptive this might be.
I tracked the boys down to a tavern where I saw them sitting at a table with Phillip Woode. The tavern keeper glowered at them and the other students that filled the room, but apparently the pennies the students paid outweighed other concerns. I joined Donald and the others and ordered a cider. The smoke of the chapel had left a scratchy roughness in my throat.
The boys pelted me with questions and I answered that Master Berwyk had been slightly injured but was recovering. Then I asked Phillip Woode what had transpired earlier that day. Phillip had a bruise on one cheek but otherwise seemed unharmed.
“We were at the college, looking at some manuscripts, and a messenger came to the door, saying that the Balliol lecture hall on School Street was in flames. So we grabbed our swords and went to see.” He stopped speaking and took a drink from his mug of wine, then shrugged. “When we arrived, there was nothing to be seen out of the ordinary. It was odd.”
“Who brought the message?”
“A young student, Eusebius said. I did not see the lad myself.”
“So you were on School Street,” I prompted.
“Yes, and then we walked back, down High Street. We all thought the matter strange. It was there we saw Master Jakeson and the others. The cordwainer was there and that bookseller, the one we visited. I made the mistake of asking Master Jakeson if he’d heard anything of his daughter.”
“The last I heard, she’d run off with the chapman.”
“That’s what he told me. But then things got ugly, and more townsfolk gathered, and he wanted to know what reason I had to ask after Jonetta. It got out of control quickly. I think Delacey threatened them with the courts and more fines, and none of them liked that. Grymbaud’s men were nowhere in sight and someone threw a rock. There was fighting, but eventually we ran. We were greatly outnumbered.”
“Did you see who knifed Master Berwyk?”
Phillip shook his head. “Let’s get some more wine,” he said, and signaled the tavern girl, who approached with alacrity. She did not seem to share her father’s distrust of students. At least, I assumed the owner was her father, but the lass eavesdropped shamelessly as she took our order for more wine. “No, I did not see,” Phillip answered as the girl delivered a new pitcher of her father’s cheapest vintage. “It was all confusion for a time.”
“When you reached the chapel, did Berwyk complain of his wound?”
“Not a word. But soon after that we smelled the smoke, so he must have had other things to occupy his mind, as we all did. We could have been trapped like rats and burnt to death.” He shuddered, drank deeply and set his cup down.
“Apparently the cordwainer’s been arrested for arson,” I observed.
“He’ll face a steep fine, or other punishment. Since the riots twenty years ago, they’ve been strict about these disturbances,” Phillip said. “As they should be.”
“Perhaps it was all a ruse to get you into the town. People are upset about Ivo’s arrest; they might well decide to take it out on Balliol masters.”
Phillip shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Who do you suppose knifed Master Berwyk?”
“Some cursed townsman.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“I don’t know. Ask him. You said he was not sorely injured.” Phillip looked puzzled. “Berwyk is generally well liked.”
“He claimed the bookseller had his copy of the Isagoge—the one Clarkson had stolen and pledged. Berwyk claimed Adam Bookman refused to redeem it to him.”
“That’s no reason for the bookseller to knife him. Rather the opposite. Berwyk told me he was paying the fee to redeem the book. And Bookman wanted a lot for it—what was it Ralph told me, seven shillings? Now Bookman’s lost that money.”
“But he still has the Isagoge. It’s a rare text.”
“Yes, and valuable.”
“Still, no one saw the bookseller near Berwyk.”
“It was chaos, there was a great deal of pushing and jostling. Bookman was in the front of the crowd. I suppose he could have knifed Ralph Berwyk.”
CHAPTER 12
* * *
We left the tavern soon after that and walked back to Northgate together. We met with no trouble on that trip.
When I arrived home Mariota had sent a message. She would stay the night at Torvilda’s to help tend Master Berwyk. He sounded in a bad way and, worried, I set out again in the dusk after eating a hasty supper with Donald. As I left the house, the sound of Donald’s lute drifted out through the shuttered window and made the walk through the darkening streets to Torvilda’s house less onerous in comparison.
I arrived to find Master Berwyk still unconscious. He seemed to be running a fever and Torvilda was sponging him with something while Mariota mixed a draught over the fire. An older woman sat anxiously in the chamber, fingering her beads and murmuring prayers. I guessed her to be Berwyk’s aunt.
The room was lit by a tallow candle, which gave off a somewhat rank odor that mingled with the sharp scent of vinegar from the compresses and wood smoke from Torvilda’s hearth. I recognized yarrow and willow bark among the piles of herbs on the table. The tabby cat and her kittens, their eyes now open, still resided in the box by the hearth. There was no sign of the lodgers Justin and Vortigen, although the door to the other room they rented was closed. Mariota looked up and seemed glad to see me, but Torvilda did not take her eyes from her patient.
“How does he?” I asked.
Mariota shook her head. “The wound went into the abdomen. If it does not fester he might recover, but he is choleric, his humors very unbalanced. We must just wait and see.”
The cat left its kittens mewling, got out of the box and rubbed itself around Mariota’s ankles.
“There, there, Puss,” Mariota said to the cat as she put the draught down on the table. She bent and picked up one of the kittens, which immediately began mewing loudly. The cat made a chirping noise and Mariota set the kitten back down in the box, where the mother joined it. The kittens started to nurse again hungrily.
“Thank you for coming, Muirteach,” my wife said to me as she picked up the potion and took it to Master Berwyk’s bedside. “But it was not necessary.”
“Donald was playing that damned lute,” I replied. “I thought to escape the noise.”
Mariota smiled a half-smile at my jest and then turned to concentrate on getting her patient to swallow some of the medicine. Torvilda turned to my wife and asked how she thought Master Berwyk fared. Mariota responded that he was in God’s hands, not the most reassuring answer. At length Torvilda said something to my wife, then burst into tears, caught up her mantle, and left the house.
“She has gone to church to light some candles for him and pray to the Virgin for his safe recovery,” Mariota told me. “We’ve done what we can here and must wait and see.”
“Must you stay the night?” I asked.
“She is distraught and needs company. The lads that lodge here are asleep. And I do not mind staying. I must watch him, for he could easily turn worse. Sometimes there is bleeding in the organs. If we can get him to take the willow bark and his wound does not fester he might do well enough. The next few hours should tell.”
Although I am not generally a praying man, I was sorely tempted to join Torvilda at the chapel. What had happened to Master Berwyk was a sad thing, and I was not sure that the townsfolk were to blame for it. But instead of going to the church I stayed with my wife while she ministered to her patient. It seemed a short time before Torvilda returned, her face somewhat more composed.
“How does he?” she asked.
“About the same,” Mariota replied. “You should sleep. I’ll watch.”
Torvilda shook her head no and sat down on a stool by the bed. She took out her wooden beads and began to say the Rosary. The candle flickered and smoked and I began to nod off from where I sat in the room’s only chair with a back. Eventually I drifted into an unsteady doze.
A noise roused me. The candle had gone out and the chamber was dimly lit from the coals of the fire, but I saw Mariota bending over Master Berwyk. His aunt stood close by. Torvilda slept on a pallet by the bed.
“Is he awake?” I asked, standing up and stiffly walking to the bedside.
Mariota nodded. Master Berwyk’s face was flushed and his eyes glassy. His body seemed to give off heat. He groaned and tossed, then groaned again in pain.
“Is he conscious? Perhaps he knows who did this to him.”
“Speak softly, Muirteach. The poor lass is exhausted and just fell asleep.”
“Master Berwyk, can you hear me?” I spoke close to his ear.
Berwyk stopped groaning a moment and gave an imperceptible nod.
“Who did this to you? One of the townsfolk?”
He shook his head from side to side, whether to answer my question or just out of pain I could not tell.
“Can you speak? Tell us? Who did this?”
“Behind. Couldn’t see.”
“Were you in the chapel? Or was it on the street?”
Berwyk closed his eyes and swallowed. “Thirsty—”
“Now, Muirteach, you’ve bothered him enough.” Mariota brought a mug to the bedside. “Let him rest. And we must get this fever down,” she whispered, reaching again for the basin and cloths that sat on the small table nearby to sponge down the patient. “He’s burning hot.”
Torvilda startled awake, saw her lover and sat upright. “He’s awake?”
“Yes.”
“Ralph, it’s Torvilda.”
“Sweeting.”
“You must get well, Ralph.”
Master Berwyk smiled a little.
“You must.”
“Aye, sweeting.” He groaned again as Mariota sponged his body with the vinegar and water.
“Here, let me,” Torvilda remonstrated and took the sponge from Mariota.
Mariota left her and approached me with a whisper. “Muirteach, I think you should fetch the priest. I’m not liking the look of this.”
I nodded. “Where?”
“Master Berwyk’s aunt could go with you. To Saint Ebbe’s. She says it is close by.”
We lit a lantern and Berwyk’s aunt and I walked through the darkness to the nearby church, where we roused the priest from his slumber. He came readily enough, and administered the last rites while Torvilda and the older woman wept by Berwyk’s bedside.
I left them and returned to the chair, watching the coals and listening. After awhile all was silent, the priest left and I surmised Berwyk had drifted again into unconsciousness. The cat and kittens purred by the fireside and I too slept for a time.
I awoke to light shining in from the opened shutters. I glanced at the bed and my heart sank. Berwyk lay unnaturally still, dead, while Torvilda and his aunt washed his body. Torvilda’s eyes were red and tears streaked down her face as the older woman tried to offer some comfort, although her own cheeks were wet. Mariota, grim-faced, was gathering her supplies together in her pouch. She saw me and shook her head.
“When did he die?”
“Soon after the priest left. He lapsed into unconsciousness and died shortly after.”
“So now there are two murderers to find.”
Mariota shrugged. She had dark circles around her lovely eyes and I guessed she had not slept. “There’s nothing more to do here. Torvilda and Berwyk’s aunt are together, they’ll not be alone.”
“We must inform the college. No doubt he has other family to notify as well. Has his aunt sent a message?”
Mariota nodded, then sighed deeply. “I could not save him.”
“He was sore wounded, mo chridhe. That was an ugly cut.”
“If I’d known more, perhaps I could have done more.”
I took her in my arms and held her a moment. Then she pulled away.
“You’re exhausted, mo chridhe. I doubt anyone could have saved him. Come, you need to rest.”
We left the sad house on Pennyfarthing Street and slowly walked up to the college. It was early still, the town just stirring into life. I smelled the smoke of morning fires, and a stronger burned smell still lingered as we passed the chapel where the Balliol masters had been besieged and Ralph Berwyk had been fatally stabbed. The chapel was in ruins, a stinking mass of blackened thatching and fallen timbers where the roof had once stood. Mariota stood silent, exhausted, while I looked at the ruins again.
Who had killed Berwyk? And why? Had the master been a random casualty of a senseless riot, or had his murder been more intentional?
The bookseller immediately came to mind. He had Berwyk’s book; it was valuable and they had argued about it.
I kicked idly at a charred timber still lying in the gutter, turning it over. Underneath, in the mud of the street, I saw a knife. I picked it up. It was a small knife, the type most everyone had for eating and cutting meat. Someone had lost it in the street. But underneath the mud and ashes that covered it, I could see blood on the blade.
“Look, Mariota. This knife could be the one used to stab Berwyk.”
My wife examined the knife with me.
“Yes,” she agreed. “The blade is stained with blood, as though it was thrust deep.” She sighed and looked close to tears. “This could well be the weapon that killed the poor man.”
We passed through Northgate and I realized we would have to inform the authorities as well as the college of Berwyk’s death. But first I wanted to get my wife home.
I left Mariota with Widow Tanner, who fussed over her and helped her to bed. Donald still slept in his chamber. I drank a glass of small ale and then left the house again to seek out the undersheriff.
I found him in his quarters at the castle. He was breaking his fast on some bread and ale but he p
ut the loaf down and stopped eating when he saw me enter the room.
“Berwyk’s dead,” I said flatly.
“That’s not good news. I’ll let Houkyn know. He’ll call the inquest, for tomorrow morn most likely. Have you told the other fellows?”
“Not yet.”
“Did Berwyk say anything before he died?”
“He said he was stabbed from behind. He didn’t see who did it.”
“Do you think he was knifed on the street or in the chapel?”
I told him of Berwyk’s quarrel with the bookseller and showed him the knife I had found. Grymbaud nodded.
“I’ll take the man into custody on suspicion of murder. He can join his friend the cordwainer in the cells. Then we’ll see if he’ll confess.”
“How is Ivo?”
Grymbaud shrugged. “He’s safe, and well enough. Not lynched by those clerks, at any rate. He asks for his daughter.”
“I’ll tell her. Can she visit?”
The undersheriff nodded. “But don’t send the waif down here alone. What about the other fellows?”
“I thought to tell you first, then the college. It was a bad wound.” I left the rest of my thought unsaid, but the sheriff grasped my point quickly enough.
“You mean, a wound too bad to travel far? You think someone in the chapel did it?”
“What reason would they have? It makes no sense.”
“None of this damned business makes sense,” growled Grymbaud. “It’s worse than their damned disputations.”
“And then there was that message, summoning the masters into town.”
“Yes, that’s also odd. It could be that the townsmen lured them in with a false message. That would make a little sense, at least.” Grymbaud turned to me. “Try and find out who the messenger was, and who sent him. You don’t think any of his fellow scholars knifed him?”
“For what reason? Phillip Woode said he was well liked.”
Grymbaud shrugged. “Jealousy?”
“The only one with motive is the bookseller.”
Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) Page 13