The Killer Of Pilgrims: The Sixteenth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘I know it is,’ said William. He shrugged when everyone looked at him. ‘A few years ago, a Carmelite novice hacked a bit off one of my habits. I have always wondered why. Yesterday I went to the shrine, and compared my damaged robe to that holy scapular. They matched perfectly.’

  ‘You mean pilgrims have been worshipping something of yours?’ asked Thelnetham, regarding the Franciscan’s revolting clothes in stunned disbelief. ‘That is worse than sacrilege!’

  ‘It is not my fault,’ said William stiffly. ‘Clearly, the business started as a prank, but took on a life of its own, as these things are apt to do. To make the “relic” appear genuine, the jokers must have wanted something …’ He waved his hand.

  ‘Old and filthy,’ supplied Langelee. ‘Well, it worked, because it looked real to me. Perhaps we should fabricate something to attract pilgrims ourselves, because we are desperately short of funds.’

  ‘Again?’ sighed Michael wearily. ‘I do not think I can take much more terrible food.’

  ‘It is Bartholomew’s fault,’ said Langelee. ‘He told Walter to feed his peacock grain, rather than wine-soaked bread, and the wretched beast has devoured all the seeds we were going to plant for vegetables this spring.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Michael, brightening. ‘That is good news. I do not care for vegetables.’

  There was a silence as the Fellows pondered their lot.

  ‘Tell me again, Brother,’ said William, a little while later. ‘Who dispatched whom? I did not follow your explanation after the camp-ball game. It was too garbled.’

  Michael obliged. ‘Odelina killed Alice and Drax, so her father and Celia could marry and live happily ever after. Heslarton stabbed Poynton by accident during the camp-ball game, and then knifed Yffi when he tried to blackmail him over it.’

  ‘Odelina killed Gib, too, with her father’s help,’ added Thelnetham, who had not found the monk’s explanation garbled at all. ‘And Welfry suggested they tie a yellow wig on him, to make Michael and the Sheriff think the killer-thief was dead.’

  ‘I see,’ said William. ‘And Welfry stole the signacula and St Simon Stock’s relic because he thought he had leprosy and he needed them to see him through Purgatory.’

  Michael nodded. ‘But before being sentenced to spend his dying days in some remote hospital, he decided to do the University a favour, and rid it of one of its more troublesome elements – Chestre, who were stirring up strife between the hostels and the Colleges.’

  ‘So he needled Kendale with tricks, challenging him to reply in kind,’ continued Thelnetham. ‘He thought this alone would see Chestre suppressed, but it did not. So he elected to see them accused of more serious offences instead, and ordered Heslarton to plant “evidence” as proof.’

  ‘He was an odd man,’ mused Michael. ‘He tried hard to calm the rivalry Kendale was inciting, by inventing clever but gentle tricks and encouraging the hostels to respond with their wits, not their fists. And he certainly saved King’s Hall with his timely riddle. Yet he would have seen members of Chestre punished for crimes of which they were innocent.’

  ‘I cannot find it in my heart to blame him for taking against Chestre,’ said William. ‘They are an obstacle to peace and a burden to our University.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Michael smugly. ‘The fact that Neyll and Ihon almost succeeded in killing people with their camp-ball “bomb” was enough for me to close the place – along with the fact that they and Gib pushed young Jolye in the river and refused to let him out again. Kendale probably was ignorant of both incidents, as he claims, but I told him that was no excuse.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ asked Bartholomew, not liking the notion of such vitriol at large.

  ‘Oxford,’ said Michael with immense satisfaction. ‘And his surviving students with him. He claims he will be more appreciated in our sister University, but he will soon learn otherwise.’

  ‘But he will make trouble there,’ said Bartholomew, appalled.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ agreed Michael smugly. ‘And benefactors will disapprove, and look elsewhere for recipients for their largess. Perhaps we shall not be doomed to poor food for long after all.’

  ‘Never mind Kendale,’ said William, cutting across Bartholomew’s shocked objections. ‘I am more interested in Welfry. Did he have leprosy, Matthew? You examined his body, I understand.’

  Bartholomew dragged his thoughts away from the hapless scholars of Oxford. ‘No – and it is the worst part of this entire business. All his terrors about a lonely death were unfounded. He had a skin condition that I have recently learned how to remedy. Had he let me examine him—’

  ‘You mean a smear of balm might have prevented all this?’ asked William.

  ‘I am not so sure,’ said Michael, before Bartholomew could reply. ‘Odelina still would have dispatched two people so her friend could marry her father.’

  ‘Would she?’ asked Clippesby. ‘She confesses to killing Alice, but not Drax.’

  ‘She is lying,’ said William contemptuously. ‘She cannot open her mouth without poison issuing forth, and we should not believe a word she says.’

  ‘Isnard has a lot to answer for, though,’ said Michael. ‘It transpires that he is a smuggler, although Dick Tulyet and I cannot prove it. However, I am dismissing him from my choir.’

  ‘Do not do that, Brother,’ begged Bartholomew, recalling the anguish the bargeman had suffered the last time Michael had expelled him. ‘It would break his heart. And he is generous to the Blaston family, which is a point in his favour. They would starve without him.’

  ‘Well, in that case, perhaps I shall overlook his crimes,’ said Michael. ‘Blaston is a good man, and I should never have included him on my lists of suspects for Drax’s murder.’

  The following afternoon, Bartholomew went to watch Blaston putting the finishing touches to the roof. Langelee had been overly optimistic when he said it had been restored to its original state, because tiles had cracked when they had been removed, and the guttering was now damaged. The roof was likely to be a lot more leaky than it had been, but at least it was not open to the skies.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ asked Blaston. ‘The barge carrying Odelina and Heslarton to exile sank in the Fens, and there are no survivors. Word is that Isnard arranged for it to go down, to make amends for dabbling in the smuggling business.’

  ‘It was not Isnard,’ said Bartholomew, recalling a remark Welfry had made. ‘Welfry said that particular barge was unseaworthy. Obviously, he tampered with it before he died.’

  Blaston stared at him. ‘You may be right. He had a funny sense of justice, and probably would not have liked the notion of Odelina and Heslarton escaping to France after all they had done.’

  Bartholomew was sure of it. ‘I had a bad feeling that we had not heard the last of him.’

  ‘Celia has confessed all, too,’ added Blaston. ‘She admitted that she lied when she claimed she was with Heslarton the night Gib was murdered, reading a psalter. And that she claimed to be illiterate, when she can read very well. It was Drax who had no letters.’

  ‘A lot of people lied. It was why the case was so difficult to solve.’

  Blaston was silent for a moment, then changed the subject to one that was more cheerful. ‘I heard it was you who recommended me for the task of repairing the Gilbertines’ refectory. It is good work – well paid – and will keep me indoors for the rest of the winter. And Prior Leccheworth says I can have kitchen scraps for the children. My financial problems are over for a while.’

  ‘It is a pity for Drax that they were not over sooner,’ said Bartholomew softly.

  Blaston gazed at him, alarm in his eyes. ‘What are you saying? Brother Michael told me I am completely exonerated. Odelina and Heslarton are responsible for Drax’s death.’

  ‘But you and I both know that it would have been impossible for them to bring Drax’s corpse in here without being seen by you – and Heslarton has an alibi for the killing, anyway. You did not
speak out about what you saw for a reason: that reason is that you killed him.’

  ‘No!’ cried Blaston. ‘I would have told you if I had spotted Heslarton and his daughter—’

  ‘You were afraid that if you admitted to seeing them tote a corpse into our yard, awkward questions would have been asked. Such as how did you know Drax was already dead? You were terrified that a clever man like Michael would catch you out.’

  Blaston put his hands over his face, and seemed to shrivel before Bartholomew’s eyes. ‘It was an accident, I swear! I confronted Drax about his outrageous prices in Physwick’s dairy, and he laughed at me. I had a sick baby, and he laughed! Then he drew his dagger, and told me to get out of his way.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I was too angry to slink away like a beaten cur, so I tackled him, and we both fell. We landed hard, and I got up, but he did not. Odelina must have stumbled across him later.’ When Blaston looked at Bartholomew again, his face was whiter than the physician had ever seen it. ‘What will you do? Tell Brother Michael?’

  Bartholomew sighed. ‘What good would that do? And you say it was an accident.’

  ‘It was,’ said Blaston fervently. ‘And I know God does not hold it against me.’

  ‘You do? How?’

  Blaston pulled at something he was wearing around his neck. It was the pilgrim badge Bartholomew had brought Michael from Santiago de Compostela.

  ‘Because I found this in the High Street. God would not have led me to such a beautiful thing if He thought me wicked. I shall wear it for the rest of my life – or until we have another hard winter and I need to feed my family.’

  Bartholomew stared at it for a moment, then smiled reluctantly. ‘In that case, you had better keep it safe. And never show it to Michael.’

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  On 28 December 1349, the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a letter to the Bishop of London ordering him to ensure that God was suitably thanked for rescuing the country from the ‘amazing pestilence which lately attacked these parts and which took from us the best and worthiest men’. The people were urged to ‘break forth in praises and devout expressions of gratitude’. It is almost impossible to imagine the impact of the plague on those who survived it, but some would certainly have thought that mere prayers were inadequate to express their relief, and would have undertaken pilgrimages.

  Pilgrimage was thus big business in the fourteenth century, and like the tourist honeypots today, places that attracted large numbers of visitors were considered lucrative propositions. Not only was there accommodation and food to be supplied, but shrines also did a roaring trade in souvenirs – from simple scallop shells to elegant creations in gold and precious jewels. Many were in the form of badges, which the pilgrim could wear to let everyone know what he had done. Indulgences and signacula were highly prized, and the unscrupulous almost certainly scrambled to profit from them.

  Besides the great official pilgrimage sites, such as Canterbury, Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem, there were many local ones, such as Hereford and Walsingham. There were also unofficial cults, like the one surrounding John Schorne of North Marston in Buckinghamshire. Schorne was a rector who was said to have conjured the Devil into a boot, and whose spring was thought to cure gout. He died in 1315, but pilgrims continued to visit his shrine right up until the Reformation.

  Another popular medieval pastime was camp-ball, a game that was still played well into the twentieth century. It could be extremely violent, and although there were rules, they tended not to be ones that protected the players. Sometimes, the teams comprised a limited number of competitors in a field of a specified size, but at other times an entire settlement might be considered the ‘ground’, and participants could number in the hundreds. Injuries were commonplace, and deaths not infrequent. Savage-camp was an even rougher version of the game.

  Real people in The Killer of Pilgrims include John Gyseburne, who was a Cambridge physician in the mid-fourteenth century, and his colleague John Meryfeld, who later went to work in St Bartholomew’s Priory in London, and became a famous medicus in his own right. Thomas Kendale, from the York Diocese, studied at Cambridge in the late fourteenth century, and so did John Jolye.

  Michaelhouse’s Master in 1357 was Ralph de Langelee, and Fellows included Michael de Causton, William de Gotham, Thomas Suttone, John Clippesby, William Thelnetham and Simon Hemmysby. Thomas Ayera and John Valence were members much later, and Ayera donated property to the College. Michaelhouse, along with neighbouring King’s Hall and several hostels, became Trinity College in 1546. Michaelhouse’s name survives in St Michael’s Church, which has been lovingly restored, and is now a community centre, art gallery and a popular coffee shop. For more information, visit www.michaelhouse.co.uk.

  Michaelhouse, like all early foundations, relied heavily on charitable donations for its survival. In return, its priests would pray for the souls of the benefactors. An early document belonging to Michaelhouse lists a number of such people. They include Emma de Colvyll and her daughter Alice, Alice’s husband Thomas Heslarton and their daughter. John Drax and his wife, John Poynton and Hugh Fen are others whose souls were to be remembered, as were Agnes and Margaret, the two wives of Hugh Neel.

  The Gilbertine convent was called the Priory of St Edmunds, and was located more or less where Old Addenbrooke’s Hospital is today, on Trumpington Street. Its Prior after 1355 was John de Leccheworth. The Dominican Friary was where Emmanuel College now stands, and its head in the 1350s was Prior Morden. He had a friar named Griffin Welfry.

  Any remnants of the Carmelite Friary now lie under Queens’ College. Its Prior by 1362 was William Etone. John de Horneby later went on to be one of the Order’s greatest thinkers, taking part in a highly publicised debate in 1374, in which he took on the Dominican Order and won. The convent here, like the one in Oxford, was said to have been founded by St Simon Stock, probably some time after 1249. Simon, about whom much is written but little is actually known, was probably one of the Order’s early Prior-Generals.

  Legend has it that on 16 July 1251 the Virgin Mary appeared to Simon in a dream, and handed him the scapular that has been part of the Carmelite habit ever since. Because Simon was thought to have been in Cambridge between 1249 and 1251, it has been claimed that the dream occurred there. There is a dearth of contemporary evidence, both about Simon Stock himself and about the scapular vision, and theologians have reached little consensus about either.