Bartholomew 06 - A Masterly Murder

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘How tedious,’ murmured Michael. ‘I certainly would not have inflicted that upon the good men of Michaelhouse.’

  ‘Perhaps Runham was not such a bad choice after all,’ said William, nodding approvingly.

  ‘I cannot wait until after meals, if I am summoned by a patient,’ said Bartholomew, appalled. ‘The person might be dead by the time we are finished.’

  ‘Then you will have to reconsider your vocation,’ said Runham harshly. ‘Your choice is clear: you either live here and abide by my rules or become a town physician. You cannot do both.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Enough!’ snapped Runham. ‘From now on, I will have no debates at high table and no one will question my decisions. What I say is final. You have a week to make up your mind whether you will choose College or your external interests – and the same choice is available to anyone else who does not like the way I plan to rule Michaelhouse.’

  ‘But Matthew’s treatment of the poor is good for relations with the town,’ Kenyngham pointed out. ‘That is why I have allowed him to continue. The townsfolk appreciate the fact that we can help them in this way, and are more inclined to view the University in a positive light.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Runham dismissively. ‘The town rabble hate and envy us, and Bartholomew’s sordid obsession with their diseases makes no difference one way or the other.’

  ‘That is not true!’ cried Father Paul, as angry as Bartholomew had ever seen him. ‘And in these times of need following the Death, we must do all we can to help the poor, not deprive them of the one man who provides them with free treatment for their ailments.’

  ‘Then he should follow his conscience and leave Michaelhouse,’ snapped Runham. ‘At least then he will be able to pursue all the town whores who take his fancy without fear of recrimination.’

  ‘That is unfair,’ argued Paul, his expressive face dark with fury. ‘Matthew has been—’

  ‘Since you see fit to question me within moments of my appointment, perhaps you might care to resign your Fellowship now, rather than wait until the end of term,’ said Runham icily. ‘I will have your personal effects sent to the Franciscan Friary first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Now just a moment—’ began William, outraged that a fellow Franciscan was under attack.

  ‘And that goes for you, too,’ said Runham, rounding on him. ‘You are a stupid, belligerent fanatic, who has no place in a University.’

  ‘Even as Master, you have no authority to deprive people of their Fellowships,’ said Michael quietly. ‘It is against the statutes, because Fellows are elected in perpetuity.’

  But he could make their lives so unpleasant that they would not want to stay, thought Bartholomew, eyeing the new Master with dislike.

  ‘I have no wish to remain in Michaelhouse, if its new Master wishes us to ignore the town’s poor and selfishly concentrate on ourselves,’ said Paul coldly. ‘I will leave tonight.’

  His chair scraped on the floor as he stood and made his way towards the staircase; the other Fellows and students watched him aghast. The hall had never been so silent; even the customary rustle of rushes around the scholars’ feet was stilled. Bartholomew started to rise to protest, but Michael seized his arm and dragged him back down. The movement did not escape the attention of Runham, who glared at them with his heavily lidded eyes. Bartholomew clenched his fists. He was not normally a man moved to violence, but the sight of the smug expression on Runham’s amply jowled face made his blood boil, and he felt an almost irresistible urge to leap across the table and wrap his hands around the man’s throat.

  ‘What did my beadle want?’ asked Michael of Cynric in the tense silence that followed. He glanced up at Runham challengingly. ‘I assume you do not object if urgent University business occasionally encroaches on a College meal? Or shall I inform the University’s Chancellor and the Bishop of Ely that I have been forbidden to fulfil my obligations to them as long as you are eating?’

  Runham glowered at him with undisguised loathing, and made no reply. While he could bully some of his Fellows, he was scarcely in a position to take on one with the backing of such powerful men as the Chancellor and the Bishop – at least, not yet.

  ‘The beadle has come from Mayor Horwoode’s house,’ said Cynric in a whisper, intimidated by the fact that everyone in the hall was listening to what he had to say. ‘Apparently, Horwoode has found the body of a scholar from Bene’t College in his garden.’

  ‘A student?’ asked Michael.

  Cynric shook his head. ‘It is said to be a Fellow by the name of John Wymundham.’

  The golden aura of the beadle’s lamp formed a hazy halo as Bartholomew, Michael and Paul followed it up St Michael’s Lane and turned left along the High Street. Mayor Horwoode lived near Sheriff Tulyet, and his home was a large, stone-built house set attractively between the Round Church – built to resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – and the Franciscan Friary.

  Michael strode next to his beadle, scratching his stung arm in silent agitation as he considered the events of the evening. Bartholomew walked behind, with Father Paul clinging to him; a bundle of the friar’s belongings swung over his shoulder. Normally, Cynric would have been with them, too, scouting behind in the shadows of the night and enjoying the nocturnal foray. But Cynric was now a married man with other commitments, and he had returned to his own home on Milne Street as soon as his duties at the feast were over. Bartholomew felt vulnerable without the book-bearer’s comforting presence.

  Shadows flickered at the edge of his vision. At least part of it was due to the strong wine but some was the speculative scrutiny of petty thieves and vagabonds, and Bartholomew was glad of the presence of the beadle and his sword. He sensed that at least one would-be robber had melted away into the shadows when he saw the glint of unsheathed metal.

  Bartholomew stumbled over one of the many potholes that pitted the street, almost dragging Paul down with him. Somewhere in the silence a dog howled mournfully, answered by another in the distance. The night was cold, and a dank mist had rolled in from the Fens, filling the town with a dirty whiteness that carried in it the scent of the sea and the rich, rotting odour of the marshes.

  ‘You do not have to leave Michaelhouse,’ said Bartholomew to Paul. He knew his words were slightly slurred from the wine. ‘Runham does not have the authority to force you to go before you are ready.’

  Paul pursed his lips. ‘I want no place in a College run by a man like Runham. To be frank, I knew that if he won the election, I would not want to remain at Michaelhouse. That was why I said I would resign before we voted – so as not to look churlish.’

  ‘But William might have won.’

  ‘He might,’ said Paul. ‘But William is not the kind of man who would rule the College with wisdom and understanding, either. The least of the three evils was Langelee – at least he can be manipulated.’

  ‘He can?’ asked Bartholomew uncertainly.

  Paul nodded. ‘All you need to do is to make sure he believes that any suggestions you put forward originated with him – if he feels something is his own idea, he will be more than happy to see it through. But Runham is too clever for such tactics. He is vicious, arrogant and mean-spirited, and life is too short for me to want to spend any of it in his company.’

  Bartholomew was surprised. He did not like Runham, but was astonished that a gentle man like Father Paul had taken against him so strongly.

  ‘Thank you for speaking up for me,’ he said. ‘I am sorry it ended the way it did.’

  ‘I am not,’ said Paul. ‘I do not want to see the College I love disintegrating under the filthy claws of that lawyer. I will be happier in the Friary.’

  ‘We are here,’ said Bartholomew, gazing up at the substantial walls that kept the Franciscan friars in and the town – and the Dominicans – out.

  Paul hammered on the gate and then turned his milky eyes towards Bartholomew. ‘You will visit me here? You will continue
to ease the pain in my eyes with that lotion you devised for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Assuming the Emperor lets me out, that is.’

  ‘In a week, that might be immaterial,’ said Paul. ‘You might not be a member of Michaelhouse by then. But you must not let him force you to do something you do not want, Matthew. Fight him.’

  A grey-robed lay-brother answered the door and ushered Paul inside. When the gate had closed behind them, the rage at Runham’s cavalier behaviour towards the old Franciscan began to boil inside Bartholomew again. Michael touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Will you come with me to Mayor Horwoode’s house to see about this body he found? Then I will walk back to Michaelhouse with you. There have been outlaws in the town again, and it is not safe for a man to be alone.’

  ‘Master Runham only gave me permission to see Paul to the Friary,’ said Bartholomew bitterly. ‘What will he say if he learns I have disobeyed his order to return to the College immediately?’

  ‘He can say what he likes,’ said Michael indignantly. ‘But he will not know unless you tell him.’

  ‘I do not think I will be much use to you tonight,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I have had too much of that strong red wine.’

  ‘So have I,’ admitted Michael, although he did not appear to Bartholomew to be drunk. ‘But I never let that interfere with business. Come on.’

  ‘How could Runham do that to Paul?’ blurted Bartholomew angrily. ‘Paul has been a loyal College member for years.’

  ‘I will think of some appropriate way to repay him,’ vowed Michael. ‘He will not get away with this.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘I am working on it,’ said Michael vaguely. ‘I need to think of a way to avenge myself on Langelee first. But when I turn my attentions on Runham, I will hit him where it hurts – his reputation and possibly his pocket. So, keep your fists to yourself until I have had time to devise a plan. I do not want him applying to the Chancellor to have your Fellowship annulled because you have deprived him of his teeth or broken his nose – much as he might deserve it.’

  ‘Runham may be right, you know,’ said Bartholomew as they walked. ‘It might be better if I resigned my Fellowship and concentrated on being a physician.’

  ‘That is arrant nonsense,’ said Michael brusquely, again scratching his bad arm. ‘You would never survive without your Fellow’s stipend. The few patients who pay you cannot subsidise the rest of your practice, and I cannot see you abandoning the poor to do horoscopes for the wealthy. And what about your teaching? You have always said it is important to train new physicians to replace the ones who died during the pestilence.’

  ‘If you keep aggravating your arm like that, you will end up with an infection,’ said Bartholomew, watching as the monk’s scratching became more and more furious. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael, pulling his arm away impatiently. ‘Here we are: Horwoode’s house.’

  Horwoode’s home was one of the finest buildings in the town, with a red-tiled roof and a near-perfect plaster-wash of saffron yellow. It was surrounded by a large walled garden, the far end of which was bordered by the King’s Ditch. The walls were almost twice as high as Bartholomew stood tall, and he imagined it would not be an easy matter to climb over them.

  ‘This is a terrible shock,’ said Mayor Horwoode, as they waited for a servant to kindle a lamp. His mammoth wife, Gerta, was with him, and she put one of her substantial arms around his shoulders to warm him as he shivered in the chill of the night.

  He was a man in early middle years, whose prematurely balding head was fringed with a circlet of bushy grey hair. As Mayor, he was reasonably successful, because he had a talent for delaying decisions for so long that they no longer needed to be made. But while people were grateful that plans to extend the Castle at the town’s expense had been shelved, they were concerned about delayed repairs to the Great Bridge and the postponement of dredging the festering open sewers in the High Street.

  ‘First Raysoun and now Wymundham,’ said Horwoode. ‘I still cannot believe it.’

  ‘You know them?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised that the town’s Mayor should stoop to a friendship with mere scholars.

  ‘We were acquainted,’ corrected Horwoode. ‘Besides being Mayor, I am also master of the Guild of St Mary, one of the two societies that founded Bene’t College. Raysoun and Wymundham were Fellows of Bene’t.’

  ‘How did Wymundham come to be in your garden?’ asked Michael. ‘Did you invite him there?’

  ‘I most certainly did not,’ said Horwoode indignantly. ‘I do not want scholars in my home. They are a slovenly, dirty brood – it must be from reading all those books.’

  His wife cleared her throat meaningfully, and Horwoode seemed to realise that he was addressing two of the ‘slovenly, dirty brood’. He smiled, revealing a set of small white teeth, and did not seem to be in the slightest discomfited by his gaffe.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said cheerfully, as his servant finally managed to ignite the pitch on the torch. ‘Now I can show you Wymundham’s body.’

  He took the light, and began to lead the way along narrow stone paths that wound between vegetable plots. At the beginning of winter they were mostly empty, with the exception of a few scraggly cabbages. The herb garden was full, though, brimming with sage, rosemary and mint, their rich scents mingling with the earthy aroma of a nearby compost heap.

  Horwoode walked deeper into his domain, until Bartholomew began to wonder whether they were going to meet the King’s Ditch – the filthy, stinking canal that swung around the eastern side of the town in a great arc and formed part of its defences. No sooner had the thought passed through his mind when something loomed up out of the darkness in front of them. It was the great bank of the Ditch itself, heavily leveed to prevent flooding.

  ‘Here,’ said Horwoode, stopping at a shape on the ground. ‘This is him – John Wymundham.’

  Bartholomew knelt beside the limp form, and saw that it was indeed the scholar who had been so distressed at the death of his colleague two days before. The body was damp from the evening dew, and the eyes were open and glassy. The mouth was agape, the tongue slightly swollen and dark, and a slight cut on one lip showed where a tooth had been broken. There was no other wound that Bartholomew could see – no stab marks or crushed skull or signs that Wymundham had been strangled – and he was not wet enough to have drowned.

  ‘How did you come to find him?’ asked Michael of Horwoode, while Bartholomew examined the body. ‘He is a long way from your house, and no rational man chooses to wander about in gardens after dark.’

  Horwoode regarded him oddly. ‘Well, I do, as a matter of fact. I like the peace of these grounds and the solitude they offer – no step-children whining at my heels or townsmen wanting favours. I met Henry Tangmer, the Guildmaster of Corpus Christi, earlier today. He is refusing to donate more funds for Bene’t’s buildings, and it was not a congenial encounter. I walked down here after he had left, to let the peace of the garden soothe my ragged temper.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Perhaps an hour ago,’ said Horwoode. ‘I sent for your beadles immediately. Wymundham is a scholar and so his death is the concern of the proctors, rather than the Sheriff. It gave me quite a fright stumbling over a corpse in the dark, I can tell you!’

  ‘When was the last time you came to the bottom of the garden?’ enquired Michael. ‘I ask only so I can ascertain how long the body has been lying here.’

  ‘About three days ago,’ said Horwoode. ‘No one else in my household uses the garden in the winter, so questioning them is unlikely to help you, although you are welcome to try.’

  There was something puzzling about the body in front of him, and Bartholomew struggled to control his wine-befuddled wits to concentrate. He was sure Wymundham had died because he had been unable to breathe – the blueness of his face and the swollen tongue attested to that. The physician climbed unsteadily
to the top of the bank and looked around. There was no evidence of a struggle, and there was nothing there that Wymundham could have used to suffocate himself.

  ‘So, you are saying that Wymundham’s body might have been here for as long as three days,’ Michael was asking, as Bartholomew skidded down again.

  ‘No,’ said Horwoode impatiently. ‘He could not have been here before Raysoun’s death, because I hear he was present when Raysoun fell. His colleagues were concerned when he did not appear for the meal that night – the Duke of Lancaster was guest of honour, you see.’

  ‘I do not see,’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘What does that have to do with it?’

  ‘No Fellow wanting advancement in the University fails to capitalise on an opportunity to mingle with royalty,’ explained Horwoode, clearly surprised that Bartholomew did not know this. ‘The Fellows had been looking forward to the visit, and that Wymundham missed it did not bode well for his safety.’

  ‘But he had just seen his friend die,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Not everyone feels like attending a feast after a shock like that.’

  ‘I do not see why that should have prevented him from making the most of the occasion,’ said Horwoode. ‘Indeed, the incident might have worked in his favour, because he would have had an interesting tale to attract the Duke’s attention.’

  ‘How did Wymundham’s body get here, do you think?’ Michael asked, seeing Bartholomew about to argue. Just because the physician might have balked at a good night out after the sudden death of a colleague, did not mean that others would have done the same – especially given that the event in question was an opportunity to meet the Duke of Lancaster.

  Horwoode shrugged. ‘I really have no idea. Since he lies near the Ditch, I assume he came via the water. My walls are high and difficult to scale. I suppose he was on the bank, and he lost his balance and fell.’

  ‘What makes you think he fell?’ asked Bartholomew, looking up from the body. His head swam at the sudden movement, and he felt himself topple slightly.

  Horwoode regarded his lurch with disapproval. ‘I am only offering a suggestion.’