The Chancellor’s Secret

Chapter 17

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning by the time Bartholomew and William arrived at the castle with their prisoners. Hawick was cowed with fright, but Stasy continued to hiss curses and threats. The fortress was mostly silent, although there were sentries on the gate and Dickon strutted back and forth barking unnecessary orders. Anyone else who had been incarcerated for murder might have been subdued by the experience, but Dickon was aware that the town owed him an apology for assuming the worst of him, and was louder and more confident than ever.

‘Perhaps he is up early because Tulyet is sending him to France today,’ remarked William, once the would-be warlocks were safely locked up. ‘I hope so – he may not have beheaded Lyonnes, but we all believed him capable of it, and the sooner he is gone, the better.’

Bartholomew heard his name called, and turned to see Michael hurrying towards them, having heard the news about Stasy and Hawick from Cynric. The monk looked pale and tired, and Bartholomew saw he remained anxious about whatever he was discussing with the vicars-general.

‘The townsfolk will be outraged to learn that two former scholars gave them all the flux,’ he said worriedly. ‘Let us hope that any reprisals come after the vicars-general have gone, because we cannot afford to let them see us in flames.’

As far as Bartholomew was concerned, creating a bad impression on visitors, no matter how important, was the least of their problems. ‘The good news is that there will be no more sickness. I was right: there was no miasma, just buckets full of nasty ingredients.’

‘Good,’ said Michael. ‘Because term ends in about thirty hours, and we must have the killer before our colleagues disperse for the summer. Forget about medicine and concentrate on that – which is what you should have been doing anyway. Who is left on your list now?’

‘Just Donwich. I am sure he is the author of all this trouble – the “friend” who ordered his henchmen to kill Huntyngdon and Martyn. When we find Gille, he will confirm it.’

‘Of course, it could be someone you have not yet considered,’ warned William.

Bartholomew glared at him, agitation and tiredness turning him testy. ‘Such as whom?’

The friar shrugged. ‘Someone who dislikes scholars. Some drunkard from the taverns perhaps, or a townsman who resents the power we hold and wants us gone.’

Michael looked as daunted by that possibility as Bartholomew felt. ‘I shall order the beadles to listen for rumours in the ale-houses,’ he said tiredly. ‘At least, the ones who have recovered from the flux. Damn Stasy and Hawick! They have done us more harm than they can possibly know by depriving us of our eyes and ears in the town.’

‘We will catch the culprit for you,’ said William reassuringly, although even his natural ebullience was dampened, and Bartholomew saw he did not really believe what he was saying.

At that moment, there was a commotion near the gaol, and they turned to see Tulyet angrily berating some of his guards. One started to make a defiant response, but Dickon surged forward menacingly, hand on the hilt of his sword, and the man backed down. Tulyet saw the scholars and hurried towards them. With one final glare at the soldiers, Dickon turned to scamper after him.

‘How long have you three been standing here?’ Tulyet demanded tightly.

‘A few minutes,’ replied William cautiously. ‘Why?’

‘Because Morys and John have escaped. My fool of a gaoler is not sure when it happened, but it was after midnight – which I know because I visited them then myself.’

‘Escaped?’ echoed Bartholomew in dismay. ‘How?’

‘Bribery, no doubt, although the gaoler denies it and so do the sentries on the gate. But Morys is a wealthy man, and I should have predicted something like this would happen. It–’

He faltered at another rumpus. This time, Cynric was the cause. The book-bearer had been too restless to sleep after the events at the Mill Pond, so had gone to do what he loved best – prowling the dark streets to see who was out and what they were doing. He bulled his way through the gate, shoving away guards as he went.

‘I have just found Mayor Morys,’ he reported tersely when he reached Bartholomew. ‘Dead – by the dye-pits.’

‘What?’ cried Tulyet, while Bartholomew, Michael and William gaped in disbelief. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, yes,’ replied Cynric. ‘His head is hacked clean from his body.’

‘It was not me,’ blurted Dickon at once. ‘I have been here the whole time.’

Tulyet ignored him. ‘And John?’

‘I only saw Morys,’ replied Cynric. ‘But who knows what a search will reveal?’

It was raining hard as Cynric led Tulyet and the scholars down the hill to the High Street, where Beadle Meadowman was guarding the scene of the crime. Lest anyone thought to point accusing fingers at his son again, Tulyet had ordered Dickon to stay in the castle, where he was to help Sergeant Robin find out exactly how the Mayor had contrived to escape.

They crossed the ponticulus, noting that the bridge above was lit with dozens of lamps as work proceeded apace. Builders scampered over the wet, slick scaffolding like monkeys, soaked to the skin and shivering, but unwilling to stop even for an instant. Shardelowe was bawling at an apprentice for making the mortar too wet, ignoring the lad’s stammering response that rain had leaked into it.

‘Sheriff!’ called Bernarde as they hurried past. ‘What are you doing about Lyonnes’ killer now your boy is proved innocent?’

Gradually, the frantic hammering and knocking faded to silence as men stopped working to listen to the reply. Soon, all that could be heard was the hiss and patter of rain.

‘Everything possible,’ replied Tulyet shortly. ‘But first, I have other duties to attend.’

‘Morys has been killed by the same lunatic who beheaded your friend,’ put in William, who did not know when it was better to keep his opinions to himself, especially as an official cause of death had not yet been declared.

Shardelowe’s jaw dropped in such abject shock that Bartholomew immediately knew that he had had nothing to do with Morys’s demise. His workmen were similarly stunned.

‘Morys is dead?’ breathed Bernarde, the first to recover his voice.

‘But what about our money?’ gulped someone else. ‘Will the town still pay us?’

‘It must,’ said Shardelowe, although his voice was anxious. ‘I will speak to the burgesses first thing in the morning. But who killed Morys, Sheriff? Someone who objected to the way he tried to cheat us?’

‘That is an interesting point,’ pounced Michael. ‘So where have you been all night?’

‘Here,’ replied Shardelowe. ‘I cannot afford to let anyone wander off, if we are to finish the day after tomorrow. None of us left, not even for a moment. We have food brought to us, we sleep in shifts under a tarpaulin, and we use the river as a latrine.’

His people clamoured to say that he was telling the truth, and it was obvious that anyone slinking away would quickly be missed by his fellows. Ergo, none of them had been responsible for whatever had happened to the Mayor.

‘You all must have seen him though,’ said Tulyet. ‘He left the castle after midnight, and he is now at the dye-pits. He almost certainly used this ponticulus to get there.’

‘There were two friars, cloaked and hooded against the rain,’ recalled Bernarde. ‘We called out for their blessing, but they ignored us. Do not tell me one of those was him?’

Tulyet grimaced. ‘Him and John, I imagine.’

‘Now we have even more reason to finish this bridge quickly,’ Shardelowe told his men. ‘No one is safe in this dangerous little town. As soon as the last cobble is laid and we get our money, we are off. And I hope none of us ever have cause to set foot here again.’

There was a rumble of agreement from his people, after which they returned to work with even greater urgency, taking what Bartholomew considered to be stupidly reckless risks in the process. He glanced over the side of the ponticulus, and saw the river flowing smooth, fast and black below, swollen by rain. If one of them fell in, he would drown, because he would be swept away long before he could be rescued.

‘I hope the river runs in full spate soon,’ muttered Tulyet, as he and the others hurried on their way. ‘I want the bridge to suffer a good battering before we let Shardelowe go.’

‘That will not happen unless all the sluices are opened,’ said William. ‘But now Morys is dead, he cannot tell us how to unlock them, and the water will back up until it submerges everything to the south – Peterhouse, the Gilbertine Priory, St Mary the Less, the Hall of Valence Marie …’

‘He cannot have done anything too complex,’ said Bartholomew, tired of hearing about it. ‘And I doubt he did it himself, anyway, so someone else will know how to–’

‘But what he did is complex,’ snapped William, exasperated. ‘I have tried to open them several times, but they are stuck fast.’

‘We will sort it out,’ promised Tulyet to mollify him, ‘just as soon as we have ascertained what has happened to Morys.’

‘Assuming it will not be too late by then,’ muttered William darkly.

The Mayor was at the bottom of the fourth and largest dye-pit, looking oddly elongated with a gap between his head and the rest of him. Bartholomew climbed down to examine the body, sincerely hoping he would be able to clamber out again, and a donkey would not have to be hired to haul him up, as had happened with Narboro. Above, he heard Tulyet begin directing the hunt for John, first searching among the graves, and then detailing patrols to look further afield. As several beadles had been attracted by the commotion, Michael told them to help.

Morys had been killed the same way as Lyonnes – decapitated with a shocking degree of clumsiness. Bartholomew imagined it would have taken the culprit an age to do. Fortunately, a cracked skull proved the victim had not been conscious when it had happened.

‘Do we now have two killers at large?’ asked Tulyet worriedly, when both parts of the Mayor had been lifted from the dye-pit and were lying on a bier. ‘Morys and Lyonnes suffered frenzied attacks by a lunatic with a blunt blade, while Aynton and Baldok were shoved off the bridge. We need not include Huntyngdon and Martyn, given that we know Elsham and Gille were responsible for them.’

‘Do you think John is dead, too?’ asked Bartholomew, glancing around uneasily. ‘Or did he kill Morys – a falling-out among thieves?’

‘Soldiers know how to make a clean kill, and John was among the best,’ replied Tulyet. ‘So he is not the culprit. But who is? Someone enraged by Morys’s attempt to steal funds that many folk struggled to raise?’

‘If so, you will have a whole town to interrogate,’ muttered Michael. ‘However, I doubt anyone was surprised when he was exposed as a felon. His corruption was an open secret.’

‘There is a big difference between bribery and grand larceny,’ argued Tulyet. ‘And if Morys’s plan had succeeded, everyone would have had to pay the bridge tax a second time.’

‘A third time,’ corrected William. ‘Baldok stole the first lot, did he not?’

‘Some of it,’ acknowledged Tulyet. ‘But a mere fraction compared to what Morys aimed to make off with.’

Michael’s face was pale in the light of Tulyet’s lantern. ‘We cannot help you with Morys and Lyonnes, Dick. It will be dawn soon, which means Matt, William and I only have one more full day to find whoever dispatched Aynton and Elsham, and ordered the murders of Huntyngdon and Martyn.’

‘It must be Donwich,’ said Bartholomew wearily, aware that he had let Michael down. ‘So we will tackle him again today. Of course, we still have no solid evidence …’

‘I think we should redouble our efforts to locate Gille,’ countered William. ‘If he is not in the town, we shall conclude that he is the culprit, and Michael can announce the news tomorrow. Everyone will go home happy in the knowledge that the case is solved.’

Bartholomew blinked. ‘But it would be untrue! Gille was on the ferry when the stone was pushed, and if he did not kill Elsham …’

‘But he did stab Martyn, so it is not as if we accuse an innocent man,’ argued William. ‘And we cannot let our colleagues disperse carrying the news that our Chancellor was murdered and we failed to win him justice.’

‘I will not do it,’ said Michael firmly. ‘I want the truth, not a scapegoat.’

‘You may not have a choice,’ said William soberly. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘I suggest we visit Clare Hall first, and question the servants. Perhaps they are more familiar with Gille’s habits than his colleagues seem to be.’

The four men parted company, each with the sense that there was simply not enough time left to find the answers they so desperately needed.

It was still dark when Bartholomew and William reached Clare Hall, although there was a faint glimmer of light in the eastern sky. Bartholomew’s head throbbed with tension and fatigue, and his stomach felt like acid. Even the usually ebullient William was subdued, and Bartholomew sensed he also knew they were unlikely to catch the killer in the allotted time.

The rain was coming down so hard that it drummed on Bartholomew’s hat and leapt up in lively splashes as it hit the ground. It sluiced down roofs and walls, and splattered noisily into puddles, before flowing into the ditches that ran down the sides of the road. The drains were full and running fast, carrying away weeks of accumulated filth. Whatever else happened that day, thought Bartholomew, at least they would be left with a cleaner town.

The Clare Hall porter pulled a sour face when they asked to speak to the staff, and they soon learned why. In a brazen flouting of University rules, Donwich had ordered his Fellows to leave early for the summer recess. None had wanted to go, but he had threatened to dock their stipends if they stayed. The only ones left were Pulham and March, who had nowhere else to go. With only three scholars in residence, a large staff was redundant, so Donwich had dismissed them, too, retaining only the porter as a general factotum.

‘He ousted them in case the vicars-general order another election,’ the man explained bitterly. ‘He knows they would all vote for Brother Michael, see.’

Bartholomew’s headache intensified. He had not really expected answers from the staff, because the beadles had already questioned them thoroughly, but he felt as though he was trying to swim against a flood that was carrying him and William further from the truth with every passing moment. Everything seemed to be conspiring against them.

Equally fraught, William interrogated the porter until the man was close to tears, but learned nothing new about Gille’s private life. Then Donwich appeared, Pulham and March in tow. Bartholomew braced himself for another unpleasant confrontation, but the Master’s mind was on other matters.

‘My spies in St Mary the Great have just sent me a message,’ he declared smugly. ‘The vicars-general will announce their decision within the hour. When they declare in my favour, I shall set about rewarding all those who supported me, and punishing those who did not.’

Bartholomew was desperate enough to launch one last, frantic assault on him. ‘No murderer will ever be Chancellor,’ he declared hotly. ‘We know you killed Aynton, and that you ordered your henchmen to dispatch Huntyngdon and Martyn.’

‘Donwich did not kill Aynton,’ said March wearily, before his Master could react to the bald accusation. ‘I told you that when you first spoke to us.’

‘Saying something does not make it true,’ retorted Bartholomew.

‘Donwich did not kill Aynton,’ repeated March, so vehemently that everyone looked at him in astonishment. ‘I had hoped to avoid this conversation, as it is hardly commensurate with my standing as Clare Hall’s Senior Fellow …’

‘What have you done?’ asked Pulham in alarm, while Donwich’s eyes narrowed.

March winced and looked at his feet. ‘Aynton was not the only one to follow our Master to Lucy Brampton’s house that night. So did I.’

Donwich gaped at him, while Bartholomew recalled that March had already admitted that he had not been with the other Fellows – he had claimed to be in the chapel, praying for Donwich to revert to the man he had been before he was Master.

‘How dare you!’ cried Donwich, when he found his voice. ‘You have no–’

‘I did it for Clare Hall,’ interrupted March, angry in his turn. ‘My only home. You have been behaving like an ass, and Aynton was no better – climbing up walls to peer through windows at his age! Anyway, we all heard your quarrel with Lucy, when she spurned your advances that evening.’

‘So you eavesdropped, too?’ Donwich was outraged and shocked in equal measure.

‘“We all”?’ pounced Bartholomew at the same time. ‘Who else was there?’

‘We did not need to eavesdrop – you were yelling like a fishmonger,’ March informed Donwich coldly, then turned to Bartholomew. ‘I lied about being in the chapel, but not about the company I was in. Our two chaplains went with me to Brampton’s house. Speak to them – they will confirm what I say.’

‘We will speak to them,’ put in William warningly. ‘And if you are lying again …’

‘When Lucy repelled him, Donwich stormed out and virtually collided with Aynton.’ March ignored William and continued to address Bartholomew. ‘Then they quarrelled, after which Donwich stalked home. The chaplains and I followed him at a discreet distance.’ He winced. ‘If one of us had stayed with Aynton, he might still be alive.’

‘So why did you leave Aynton?’ demanded Bartholomew, struggling to mask his exasperation. True, the tale showed March in a less than edifying light, but this was a murder enquiry, and the man should not have put his dignity above catching a killer.

‘Because he would have been mortified to know that he had been spotted scrambling up the outside of the Senior Proctor’s house,’ explained March wretchedly. ‘We aimed to spare his blushes by allowing him to make his way home alone.’

‘And what about my blushes?’ demanded Donwich indignantly.

‘Yours we did not care about,’ flashed March. ‘Aynton was acting for the good of the College. You were satisfying your carnal desires.’

William exploded. ‘We have been trying to catch a murderer, and your half-truths and omissions may have allowed him to escape. You should have mentioned this days ago!’

‘But I told Bartholomew that Donwich was not the culprit,’ argued March. ‘I assumed he had taken my word for it. How was I to know that he considered me a liar?’

‘But you are a liar,’ snarled William.

‘You must have realised that I still had reservations,’ said Bartholomew angrily. ‘Why else would I have kept coming back to ask Donwich questions?’

‘I assumed it was to learn more about Elsham and Gille,’ replied March, although he had the grace to look sheepish. ‘And as I said, the chaplains and I are not proud of what we did that night. I cannot tell you how much we wish we had not tried to play the spy.’

‘So did you see or hear anything that might lead us to Aynton’s killer?’ demanded Bartholomew, fighting down an almost irresistible urge to punch him.

March shook his head. ‘If we had, I swear we would have informed you at once, even if it had meant exposing ourselves to ridicule.’

‘So there you are, Bartholomew,’ said Donwich nastily. ‘I am exonerated, and you are exposed as an incompetent fool who failed to see that March was leading you astray. I am glad you will leave the University tomorrow, because it will save me the trouble of expelling you.’

‘I hardly think–’ began March.

‘And do not think you will escape unscathed either,’ snarled Donwich, fixing him with an icy glare. ‘I shall expect your resignation as a Fellow of Clare Hall the moment the vicars-general find in my favour.’

March went so white that Pulham hurried forward to take his arm, although Bartholomew was hard-pressed to feel sorry for the man. He turned to leave, unable to look at the gloating expression on Donwich’s face any longer. The gate opened before he and William reached it, and Beadle Meadowman hurried through.

‘The vicars-general will announce their verdict in less than an hour,’ he said in a low voice, and waved a sealed letter. ‘I am sent to deliver this to Donwich, so he will have warning before they make their public statement in St Mary the Great. You two might want to be there, because I have a bad feeling that Brother Michael may need you.’

‘You do?’ asked William in alarm. ‘Why?’

‘Because I have never seen a man look more utterly devastated,’ replied Meadowman grimly. ‘He fought with all he had, but his bloodshot eyes and trembling hands tell me that it may not have been enough.’