The Sanctuary Murders

Chapter 5

There was a bell rope outside the Spital’s main entrance so that visitors could announce their arrival. Michael gave it a tug, and when nothing happened, pulled harder. Then he exchanged a look of astonishment with Bartholomew and Tulyet when, instead of the usual cheery jangle that characterised such arrangements, a bell of considerable size boomed out. It echoed mournfully around them, stilling the merry chatter of sparrows in the nearby bushes.

‘Goodness!’ murmured Bartholomew, when the deep hum had died away. ‘How very sinister! It feels as though we are about to ask for admittance to the Devil’s lair.’

‘Do not jest about such matters,’ admonished Tulyet uneasily. ‘There is something distinctly odd about this place. Perhaps Margery is right about Satan making it his own – and the thing we just watched shimmer over the wall was one of his familiars.’

‘It was a trick,’ said Michael firmly, ‘even if we did find no evidence to prove it. However, we shall use it to our advantage, because if folk believe this place is infested by evil sprites, they will keep their distance. Then if the lunatics do transpire to be French, they are less likely to be discovered.’

‘Alternatively,’ cautioned Bartholomew, ‘local folk may object to such a place on their doorstep, and will raze it to the ground. Then we shall have dozens of victims, not five.’

They were still debating when the massive Eudo opened the gate. He peered out warily, standing so that his bulk prevented them from seeing inside.

‘You cannot come in,’ he stated in a tone designed to brook no argument.

‘Oh, yes, we can,’ countered Tulyet. ‘People died here yesterday, and it is our duty to investigate. So either let us in now or we shall return with soldiers.’

His stern face convinced Eudo to do as he was told. The moment they were inside, the big man closed the gate and secured it with a thick bar.

‘People do not like lunatics,’ he explained. ‘Ergo, we have to protect ours.’

‘So I see,’ remarked Tulyet, looking to where several men were stationed on the walls, clearly standing guard. They were not armed, but sack-covered mounds revealed where weapons were stashed.

The Spital was a very different place than it had been the previous day. The inmates no longer stood in a frightened cluster, but joined the staff in a variety of humdrum activities – sweeping, gardening, laundry. There was not a child in sight. Two inmates moved as though they were not in complete control of their limbs, while three others jabbered self-consciously.

‘Not even madmen do dirty household chores without aprons to protect their clothes,’ Michael murmured as they followed Eudo to the hall. ‘That bell is not to announce visitors, but to warn the inmates to take up pre-agreed roles and positions. All this quiet industry is an act, although not a very convincing one.’

‘I agree,’ whispered Tulyet. ‘But let us go along with the charade, and see what we can learn before we reveal that we know they are Frenchmen in disguise – wealthy Frenchmen, as hiring an entire hospital cannot be cheap.’

‘I suspect they are middling folk – craftsmen and traders,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The one beating rugs has burns like a blacksmith, while the woman weaving baskets is so dexterous that it must be her profession.’

They turned at a shout, and saw the portly Warden Tangmer waddling towards them, red-faced and breathless in his haste. Eudo’s tiny wife Goda was with him, wearing an elaborately embroidered kirtle that made her look like an exotic doll. Bartholomew wondered if her everyday one had been spoiled fighting the fire.

Tulyet opened his mouth to explain why they were there, but the Warden spoke first.

‘We shall bury our dead behind the chapel,’ he announced. ‘We are digging their graves now, so please leave us to do it in peace.’

‘Not until we have ascertained why a whole family was trapped inside a burning shed,’ said Tulyet sharply.

Tangmer winced. ‘It was an accident. We are bursting at the seams with lunatics, so every building is needed to accommodate them all, even ramshackle ones that go up in flames when candles are knocked over.’

Eudo glared at Michael. ‘Which is your fault for foisting those nuns on us.’

Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘I did it because you told me that all your patients are held in secure accommodation inside the hall, and that the guesthouse was never used for that purpose. If you had been honest with me, I would have billeted my sisters elsewhere.’

‘I did not know you were fishing for beds at the time,’ retorted Eudo sullenly. ‘I thought you wanted assurances that your precious University is in no danger from escaped madmen.’

‘So the nuns’ arrival meant that some patients were moved to the shed?’ asked Tulyet. He waited until Eudo and Tangmer nodded before continuing. ‘You are lying again – yesterday, you told me that it was full of tools and building supplies.’

Tangmer gave a pained smile. ‘It is. However, the Girards elected to use it anyway – like a family house.’

‘There were no windows,’ added Eudo, ‘so you had to use candles or a lamp inside. It was also full of dry timber, so if one of the youngsters knocked one over …’

‘The door was open when the alarm was first raised,’ said Tangmer, his heckling defiance replaced by anguish. ‘I ordered it closed, thinking it was the best way to contain the blaze. There had been plenty of time for anyone inside to get out, so I do not understand how this terrible thing could have happened. Goda said the shed was empty.’

‘I was sure it was empty,’ put in Goda, shaking her head unhappily. ‘I could not believe it when voices …’

‘Did you search it?’ asked Tulyet. ‘Properly?’

Goda grimaced. ‘I went in as far as I dared, but no one was there. All I can think is that they were hiding behind the logs at the very back.’

Tulyet frowned. ‘Why would they hide?’

‘Because we had a visitor, and they were terrified of those,’ explained Goda. ‘I see now that I should have looked harder, but it never occurred to me that they would be more frightened of strangers than a fire.’

‘What visitor?’

‘Sister Alice, who came to see the nuns. I do not know why, as they loathe each other.’

‘Alice did not mention that to us just now,’ muttered Bartholomew. ‘Curious.’

‘She came today as well,’ Goda went on, ‘even though it was early and we were not really ready for …’

She trailed off, chagrined, when she realised she had almost let slip something that was meant to be kept quiet. Eudo blundered to her rescue.

‘Ready for the day’s chores,’ he blustered. ‘Some patients were not even dressed, and we were afraid that Alice would go away thinking we are all as lazy as … as Frenchmen. That race is worthless, and we hate them.’

‘We do,’ agreed Tangmer with a sickly smile. ‘After what happened at Winchelsea, I shall kill any Frenchman on sight. We all would – every last soul among us.’

‘Does that include your wife?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘Or is she exempt?’

‘Amphelisa?’ gulped Tangmer, eyes wide in his panicky face. ‘She is not French!’

Tulyet indicated Bartholomew. ‘I have brought the University’s Corpse Examiner to look at the bodies, because I find it very strange that an entire family would rather roast alive than meet a nun.’

‘Do you?’ Tangmer exchanged an agitated glance with Eudo. ‘Well, I suppose there is no harm in it, but I have a condition – that none of you speak to our patients. They are in a very fragile state after yesterday, and we cannot have them distressed further.’

‘Where are the bodies?’ asked Tulyet briskly. ‘Still in the shed?’

‘We retrieved them and put them in the chapel,’ replied Tangmer. ‘Poor souls.’

The Spital’s chapel was a pretty place adjoining the central hall. There were two ways in – a small priests’ door in the north side and a larger entrance from the hall itself. Tangmer opted to use the former, clearly to prevent his visitors from seeing more of his domain than absolutely necessary. As soon as they were inside, he dismissed Eudo and Goda, obviously afraid one would inadvertently say something else to arouse suspicion.

Inside, the first thing that struck Bartholomew was the smell – not the scent of damp plaster, incense and dead flowers that characterised most places of worship, and not the stench of charred corpses either. Instead, there was a powerful aroma of herbs, so strong that he wondered if it was safe.

‘Amphelisa distils plant oils in here,’ explained Tangmer, seeing his reaction. ‘Under the balcony at the back. Well, why not? It uses space that would be redundant otherwise. Come. Allow me to show you.’

The chapel comprised a nave and a chancel. The balcony was suspended over the back half of the nave, reached by a flight of steps with a lockable door at the top. A knee-high wall ran across the front of the balcony, topped by a wooden trellis screen that reached the roof.

‘We installed that so lepers can watch the holy offices without infecting the priest,’ explained Tangmer, as Bartholomew, Michael and Tulyet stopped to stare up at it.

‘But lepers are rare these days,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘So why bother with something that is never likely to be used?’

Tangmer looked pained. ‘We had no idea they were scarce here until after we opened our doors, because there are plenty of them in Fra–’ He stopped abruptly, alarm in his eyes.

‘In France?’ finished Bartholomew. ‘You may be right.’

‘In Framlingham, where Amphelisa comes from,’ blurted Tangmer unconvincingly, and hastened on before anyone could press him on the matter. ‘So it was a shock to find our charitable efforts might be wasted. Then Amphelisa suggested taking lunatics instead, on the grounds that they are also shunned by society through no fault of their own.’

The area below the balcony was low and dark. The left side was stacked with unseasoned firewood, while the remainder served as Amphelisa’s workshop – two long benches loaded with equipment, and shelves for her raw ingredients. She was there when they arrived, bent over a cauldron, wearing another burgundy-coloured robe. Bartholomew recalled the reek of powerful herbs around her the previous day, strong enough to mask the reek of burning shed.

‘As we have no lepers, we use the balcony to store her finished oils,’ gabbled Tangmer, obviously aiming to distract his visitors in the hope of preventing them from asking more awkward questions. ‘It locks, which is helpful, as most are expensive to produce. And some are toxic. Would you like to see them?’

He indicated that Amphelisa was to lead the way before they could decline. She nodded briskly and hurried up the steps to unlock the door with a key she kept around her neck, calling for them to follow. Bartholomew was willing, although Michael and Tulyet were less enthusiastic, neither liking the aroma of the highly concentrated oils.

The balcony was a large, plain room, lit only by the light that filtered through the screen at the front. Peering through the trellis afforded a fine view down the nave and into the chancel beyond. Opposite the screen was a stack of crates. Amphelisa opened the nearest to reveal a mass of tiny pots, each one carefully labelled – Bartholomew read lavender, rosewood, pine and yarrow before she closed it again.

‘We send them to London,’ she said. ‘And as we spent nearly all our money on building this Spital, every extra penny is welcome. Would you like a free pot of cedar-wood oil, Doctor? There is nothing quite like it for killing fleas and other pestilential creatures.’

‘I might try some on my students then,’ drawled Michael, while Bartholomew wished she had offered him some pine oil instead, as it was useful for skin diseases.

‘This is not the best place for a distillery,’ he said, pocketing the phial before following her back down the stairs. ‘It is poorly ventilated and the fumes may be toxic. Moreover, you work with naked flames and there is firewood nearby. It is asking for trouble.’

Amphelisa waved a hand in a gesture that was unmistakably Gallic. ‘The wood is still damp – it will smoke, but will take an age to ignite. But you are not here to discuss oil with me – you want to see the dead. They are in the chancel. Follow me.’

‘And then you can leave,’ said Tangmer, although with more hope than conviction.

The bodies had been placed in front of the altar. Two men knelt beside them. One was the dark-featured ‘lunatic’ who had said his name was Delacroix. The other was an elderly man with a shock of white hair, who was praying aloud in Latin – Latin that had the distinctive inflection of northern France. Both men leapt up when they realised they were not alone.

‘Go, go!’ cried Tangmer in English, flapping his hands at them. ‘This is no place for madmen. Amphelisa – take them out. They cannot be in here unsupervised.’

‘No, wait,’ countered Michael in French. The two men stopped dead in their tracks, causing Tangmer and Amphelisa to exchange an agitated glance. ‘Are you priests?’

Tangmer frantically shook his head, warning them against engaging in conversation. The pair edged towards the door, clearly aiming to bolt, but Tulyet barred their way. The two inmates regarded each other uncertainly.

‘I am Father Julien,’ replied the old one eventually. He had a sallow, lined face, although wary grey eyes suggested that his mind was sharp. ‘I am ill. I came here to recover.’

‘We aim to find out what happened to your friends,’ said Michael, aware that the clipped English sentences were designed to give nothing of the speaker’s origins away. ‘So Matt will look at their bodies, to see how they died.’

‘Why bother?’ snarled Delacroix in French. He was in shirtsleeves that day, which revealed his neck; a scar around it that suggested someone had once tried to hang him. ‘No one wants us here, and now you have five less to worry about. But we are not–’

‘Hush, Delacroix!’ barked Tangmer, while Amphelisa and Julien paled in horror. ‘Do not use that heathen language in this holy place. You know what we agreed.’

‘Enough of this charade,’ said Tulyet, tiring of the game they were playing. ‘We are not fools. We know there are no lunatics here – just Frenchmen in hiding.’

There was a brief, appalled silence. Then Amphelisa opened her mouth to deny it, but Tangmer forestalled her by slumping on a bench with a groan of defeat.

‘How did you guess?’ he asked in a strangled whisper.

Amphelisa stood next to him, one hand on his shoulder and her face as white as snow. Julien’s expression was resigned, but Delacroix scowled in a way that suggested he was more angry than dismayed at being found out.

‘Tell us your story,’ ordered Tulyet. ‘If your presence here is innocent, you will come to no harm.’

‘No harm?’ sneered Delacroix. ‘I walked through your town yesterday, and I heard what was being said about France on the streets. You hate us all, regardless of whether or not we support the Dauphin and his army.’

‘Yes,’ acknowledged Michael, ‘there is much anti-French sentiment, and had you been caught there, you might well have been lynched. But we are not all ignorant bigots. We will hear what you have to say before passing judgement.’

‘I had to do it,’ whispered Tangmer, head in his hands. ‘They came to me – a host of bewildered, frightened people, including children. How could I turn them away?’

‘We paid you,’ spat Delacroix. ‘That is what convinced you to hide us, not compassion.’

‘The money was a consideration,’ conceded Tangmer stiffly, ‘but our chief motive was pity. These people are not soldiers, but families driven from their homes by war. We call them our peregrini, which is Latin for strangers.’

‘Why choose here?’ asked Tulyet, before Michael could say that he did not need Tangmer to teach him a language he used on a daily basis. ‘Cambridge is hardly on the beaten track.’

‘Because Julien is my uncle,’ explained Amphelisa. Her French was perfect, and was the language used for the rest of the conversation.

‘So he is your uncle and every member of the Spital’s staff is a Tangmer,’ said Tulyet drily. ‘You are fortunate to boast such a large family.’

‘My husband has a large family,’ said Amphelisa with quiet dignity. ‘I only have Julien, as all the rest were killed in France two years ago. After their deaths, Julien brought the surviving villagers to England, where they lived peacefully until the raid on Winchelsea …’

‘Winchelsea was where we settled, you see,’ explained Julien. ‘But it was attacked twice, and each time, the Mayor accused us of instigating the carnage – that we told the Dauphin when best to come.’

‘Why would the Mayor do that?’ asked Tulyet sceptically.

‘Because he should have defended his town,’ replied Julien, ‘but instead, he hid until it was safe to come out. He needed a way to deflect attention from his cowardice, so he found some scapegoats – us.’

‘We fought for Winchelsea,’ said Delacroix bitterly. ‘My brothers and I tried to repel the raiders at the pier, and both of them died doing it. The town should have been grateful, but instead, they turned on us.’

‘We had to abandon the lives we had built among folk we believed to be friends,’ said Julien. ‘Our situation looked hopeless, but then I remembered Amphelisa’s new Spital …’

‘But why stay in England?’ pressed Tulyet. ‘Why not go home?’

Bartholomew knew the answer to that, because the marks on Delacroix’s neck were indicative of a failed lynching, plus there was the fact that these peregrini had fled France two years ago …

‘You are Jacques,’ he surmised. ‘Men who rebelled against their aristocratic overlords, and who were outlawed when that rebellion failed.’

This particular revolt, known as the Jacquerie, had been watched with alarm in England, as there had been fears that it might spread – French peasants were not the only ones tired of being oppressed by a wealthy elite. The Jacques had voiced a number of grievances, but first and foremost was the fact that they were taxed so that nobles could repair their war-damaged castles, on the understanding that the nobles would then protect the peasants from marauding Englishmen. The nobles did not keep their end of the bargain, and village after village was looted and burned. Crops were destroyed, too, and the people starved.

The Jacquerie foundered when its leader was executed, after which the nobles retaliated with sickening brutality. Thousands of peasants were slaughtered, many of whom had had nothing to do with the uprising. Those who could run away had done so, although most of them had nowhere else to go.

‘Only six men from our village dabbled in rebellion,’ said Julien quietly. ‘The remaining two hundred souls did not, but they were murdered anyway. Thirty of us escaped, mostly old men, women and children. I led them, along with the six Jacques, to Winchelsea, thinking it would be safe.’

‘Were the Girards among the six?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Only the two men,’ replied Julien, then nodded at Delacroix. ‘He is another, along with three of his friends.’

Delacroix went pale with fury. ‘You damned fool! Now we will have to leave. We cannot stay here if the truth is out.’

‘Where will you go?’ asked Tulyet, obviously hoping it would be soon.

Bartholomew understood why the Sheriff wanted them gone. First, he had his hands full keeping the peace between University and town, and did not have the time or the resources to protect strangers as well. But second and more importantly, there was a radical minority – Cynric among them – who thought the Jacquerie had been a very good idea, and who would love to hear what Delacroix had to say about social justice and insurrection.

‘Delacroix is right,’ said Michael gently, when there was no reply to Tulyet’s question. ‘You cannot stay here – it is too dangerous.’

‘You have been dissuading folk from visiting this place with rumours of hauntings and pagan sacrifices,’ put in Bartholomew, ‘and the “ghostly manifestation” you staged for us was clever, too. But it will not work for much longer. Curiosity will win out over fear, and people will come to see these things for themselves.’

‘Especially if Margery Starre sells them protective charms,’ added Michael. ‘And they feel themselves to be invulnerable.’

Meanwhile, Tulyet was regarding Delacroix appraisingly. ‘The Girard men sold themselves as proxies when our King issued his call to arms. Why? It was a needless risk.’

Delacroix shrugged. ‘We needed the money – we are running out, and we cannot expect Tangmer to feed us all for nothing.’

‘No,’ agreed Tangmer fervently; Amphelisa shot him a reproachful glance.

‘But they would never have gone to the butts,’ continued Delacroix. ‘It would have been suicide. They were going to get Tangmer to declare them too mad to venture out.’

Michael drew Bartholomew aside while Tulyet continued to question the two peregrini. ‘Perhaps you were right – de Wetherset and Heltisle did guess that the Girards aimed to cheat them, and killed them for revenge.’

But Bartholomew was no longer sure. ‘I do not see the Chancellor and his deputy scrambling over walls with a tinderbox. Also, de Wetherset told us to give the money to Hélène. If he had been angry enough to kill her kin, he would have demanded it back.’

‘Maybe he was salving his guilty conscience,’ shrugged Michael. ‘He is not entirely without scruples, although I cannot say the same about Heltisle. I say we put them both on our list. Of course, Delacroix is an angry man, so perhaps these murders can be laid at his feet. Look at the bodies now, Matt, and see what they can tell you.’

Unwilling to perform in front of an audience, Bartholomew ordered everyone out. They went reluctantly and stood by the side door, where Tulyet demanded to know what had prompted Delacroix to join the Jacquerie, and Delacroix snarled answers that did nothing to secure his removal from a list of murder suspects.

Bartholomew took a deep breath and began. Four victims were burned beyond recognition, although one was relatively undamaged. He began with him, and immediately made a startling discovery. He considered calling Tulyet and Michael at once, but decided to spare them the sight of what needed to be done next. He worked quickly, and when he had finished, put everything back as he had found it.

He went outside to wash his hands. Even after a vigorous scrub, they still stank of charred flesh, so he splashed them with some of Amphelisa’s cedarwood oil. Then he went to where Michael and Tulyet were waiting for him.

‘The fire did not kill them,’ he began. ‘Or rather, it did not kill the adults – the lad died from inhaling smoke. The other four were stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’ echoed Michael, startled.

‘Death was caused by one or more wounds from a double-edged blade, inflicted from behind,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘A dagger. If you find the weapon, I may be able to match it to the wounds.’

‘But the boy died from the smoke?’ asked Tulyet. ‘How do you know?’ His expression was one of dismay and disgust. ‘Please do not tell me that you looked inside him!’

‘It was the only way to be sure,’ said Bartholomew defensively.

He had long believed that dissection would be a godsend in cases such as this, where answers would otherwise remain elusive, and for years he had itched to put his skills to the test. But now he had formal permission from the University to do it, he found it made him acutely uncomfortable. He was nearly always assailed by the notion that the dead knew what he was doing in the name of justice and did not like it.

‘So you found smoke in his innards,’ surmised Michael, speaking quickly before Tulyet could further express his disquiet. He was not keen on the dark art of anatomy either, but he certainly appreciated the answers it provided.

Bartholomew nodded. ‘There are no other marks on him, so I suspect he was dosed with a soporific – that he went to sleep and never woke up. The same must have happened to Hélène, who is also wound-free. There was smoke in the lungs of one of the women, too – almost certainly the one who passed Hélène to safety.’

‘So her injury was superficial?’ asked Tulyet.

‘No, it was fatal – it punctured her lung. It just did not kill her instantly.’

‘Probably Hélène’s mother,’ mused Tulyet, ‘using her dying strength to save her child. It is a pity you failed to rescue her – she could have told us who did this terrible thing before she breathed her last.’

‘Does Hélène know?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Has anyone spoken to her?’

‘I did, and so did Amphelisa, but with no success. I have asked Amphelisa to persist, but do not expect answers – if you are right about the soporific, Hélène may have slept through the entire thing.’

‘Matt’s findings explain a good deal,’ said Michael. ‘Such as why the family did not leave when the shed began to burn. They were either dead, wounded or asleep. The killer must have left the bodies where they would not be spotted by the casual observer.’

At that point, the Spital folk began to edge towards them, keen to learn what had been discovered. Amphelisa was holding Hélène, who drowsed against her shoulder, making Bartholomew suspect that whatever she had been fed the previous day was still working. It meant the dose had been very powerful.

Delacroix’s face darkened in anger when Tulyet told them what Bartholomew had found, while Father Julien’s hands flew to his mouth in horror. Amphelisa held Hélène a little more tightly, and Tangmer closed his eyes, swaying, so that Eudo and Goda hastened to take his arms lest he swooned.

‘Hélène refused to drink her milk today,’ whispered Amphelisa, stroking the child’s hair, ‘because she said yesterday’s was sour. So she was right – someone put something in it that changed the taste.’

‘Did she say anything else?’ asked Tulyet keenly.

‘That she did not finish it, so her brother had it instead.’ Amphelisa looked away. ‘All I hope is that it rendered him unconscious before …’

‘Does she remember who gave it to her?’

‘She collected it from the kitchen, which is never locked, so anyone could have sneaked in to …’ Tangmer was ashen-faced. ‘How could anyone … to poison a child’s milk!’

‘Hélène had a daily routine,’ said Julien wretchedly. ‘After church, she fetched the milk from the kitchen for herself and her brother, which she took to the shed to drink. Her family liked that shed. They called it their house and treated it as such.’

‘Who else knew all this?’ asked Michael.

Amphelisa raised her hands in a Gallic shrug. ‘Everyone here. However, none of us is responsible for this terrible deed. The staff are all Henry’s kin, while the peregrini would never hurt each other.’

‘There were visitors yesterday,’ said Delacroix in a strained voice. His fists were clenched at his sides and he looked dangerous. ‘Tell them, Tangmer.’

Tangmer took a deep breath to pull himself together. ‘First, Verious the ditcher came to clear a blocked drain, after which the miller delivered flour. Then there were your two new knights, Sheriff, who arrived with tax invoices for me to sign.’

‘Do not forget the nuns,’ said Delacroix tightly. ‘Twenty from Lyminster, plus the one who was deposed for whoring – Sister Alice.’

‘I hardly think nuns poison children and burn the bodies,’ said Michael coolly. ‘Especially ones from my Order.’

Delacroix regarded him with open hatred. ‘You would not say that if you had been in France two years ago. The Benedictines were as rabid as anyone in their desire for vengeance against those who baulked at paying crippling taxes to greedy landowners.’

‘Do the nuns know your “lunatics” are Jacques, Tangmer?’ asked Tulyet before Michael could respond.

‘No, because we have taken care to keep them in the dark,’ replied Amphelisa. ‘Although it has not been easy. Fortunately, they spend most of their day at the conloquium, and only come here to sleep.’

‘The soporific fed to Hélène must have been uncommonly strong,’ mused Bartholomew, examining the child. ‘She did not finish her milk, but she is still drowsy. Do you keep such compounds here?’

Amphelisa regarded him warily, knowing what was coming next. ‘This is a hospital for people with serious diseases. Of course we have powerful medicines to hand.’

‘How easy is it to steal them?’

‘They are stored in the balcony, which you have already seen is secure. I keep the only key on a string around my neck.’

‘Then can you tell if anything is missing?’ asked Michael.

‘I could try, although it would entail examining every pot in every crate, and there are dozens of them. It would take a long time.’

‘Do not bother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The culprit may not have taken a whole jar, just helped himself to what he needed, then disguised the fact by topping it up with water. I doubt you will find answers that way.’

He glanced at Michael and Tulyet, glad it was not his responsibility to solve the crime. He did not envy them their task one bit.

It was a grim procession that trudged from the chapel to the remains of the shed. Tangmer was sobbing brokenly, although it was impossible to know whether his distress was for the victims or because their deaths reflected badly on the place he had founded. Amphelisa walked at his side with the sleeping Hélène, her face like stone. Tiny Goda and massive Eudo followed, hand in hand, with the peregrini in a tight cluster behind them. Bartholomew, Michael and Tulyet brought up the rear, but hung well back, so they could talk without being overheard.

‘I think the Girards were killed by a fellow peregrinus,’ whispered Tulyet. ‘None are strangers to bloodshed and some are Jacques – violent revolutionaries.’

But Bartholomew was uncertain. ‘They are alone in the middle of a hostile country. I should think they know better than to fight among themselves.’

‘There were thirty of them – now twenty-five – which makes for a sizeable party,’ argued Tulyet. ‘Differences of opinion will be inevitable. Moreover, living in constant fear of exposure will test even the mildest of tempers, as all will know that the wrong decision may cost the lives of their loved ones. I would certainly kill to protect my wife and son.’

‘Would you?’ asked Bartholomew, rather startled by the confidence.

Tulyet reflected. ‘Well, to protect my wife. Dickon can look after himself these days.’ He smiled fondly. ‘He is in Huntingdon at the moment, delivering dispatches for me. Did I tell you that he is going to France soon? Lady Hereford wrote to say that her knights “can teach him no more”. Those were her exact words.’

He swelled with pride, although Bartholomew struggled not to smirk. Lady Hereford had offered to help Dickon make something of himself, but the little hellion had defeated even that redoubtable personage, because Bartholomew was sure her carefully chosen phrase did not mean that Dickon had learned all there was to know. The lad was a lost cause, and Bartholomew was always astonished that Tulyet, usually so shrewd, was blind when it came to his horrible son.

‘The strain on these people must be intolerable,’ said Michael, prudently changing the subject. ‘Delacroix is on a knife-edge, and it would take very little for him to snap.’

‘Yet this does not feel like a crime where someone has snapped,’ mused Bartholomew. ‘It was carefully planned, almost certainly by someone who knew the Girards’ liking for a flammable building.’

‘I agree,’ said Tulyet. ‘We should also remember that four people were stabbed and none fought back, which suggests the culprit knew how to disable multiple victims at once. Delacroix and his cronies were active in the violence that was the Jacquerie …’

‘They certainly top my list of suspects,’ said Michael. ‘But here we are at the shed, so we shall discuss it later. We do not want them to know what we are thinking quite yet.’

The shed was barely recognisable. It had collapsed in on itself, and comprised nothing but a heap of blackened timber and charred thatch. Amphelisa pointed out the spot where the bodies had been found.

‘There were stacks of wood between them and the door,’ she explained. ‘So the only way Goda could have seen them was if she had gone to the very back of the building and peered behind the pile. That is beyond what could reasonably be expected of her.’

‘The place was thick with smoke,’ added Goda. ‘It was hard to see anything at all.’

Tulyet, Michael and Bartholomew were meticulous, but there was nothing to explain why anyone should have stabbed four people and left them with their sleeping children to burn. Tulyet was thoughtful.

‘This reminds me of the first Winchelsea raid,’ he said, ‘where other families were shut inside a burning building and left to die. It was in a church, and became known as the St Giles’ Massacre.’

‘But those victims were not stabbed and poisoned first,’ Michael pointed out. ‘At least here, no one was burned alive.’

‘Hélène’s mother was,’ countered Bartholomew soberly.

Feeling they had done all they could at the Spital, they turned to leave, but as Bartholomew picked his way off the rubble, a charred timber cracked under his foot. He stumbled to one knee, and it was then that he saw something they had missed.

‘Here is the weapon that killed the Girards,’ he said. ‘The blade is distinctive, because it is abnormally wide and thick. Shall we test it against the wounds, to be certain?’

‘We believe you,’ said Michael hastily, keen to be spared the ordeal.

Bartholomew hesitated. ‘There is something else, although I cannot be sure …’

‘Just tell us,’ ordered Tulyet impatiently.

‘Bonet the spicer,’ said Bartholomew. ‘His wounds were unusually wide, too.’

‘You think this weapon killed him as well?’ asked Tulyet sceptically.

‘The only way to be sure is to measure his injury against the blade,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘I can do that, if you like.’

‘Bonet was buried today, and we are not digging him up,’ said Tulyet firmly. ‘But what about the scholar who was stabbed – Paris? Could this blade have killed him as well?’

‘No,’ replied Michael, before Bartholomew could speak, ‘because I have that in St Mary the Great. I shall show it to you tomorrow.’

Tulyet turned the dagger over in his hands. ‘This is an unusual piece – I have never seen anything quite like it. However, I can tell you that it would have been costly to buy. The hilt is studded with semi-precious stones and the blade is tempered steel.’

He took it to where the Spital’s people – staff and peregrini – were milling around restlessly. They all craned forward to look, then shook their heads to say none of them had seen it before.

‘Ask in the town,’ suggested Delacroix tightly. ‘Or at the castle – your two new knights are rich enough to afford quality weapons, and they hate the French, too.’

‘They do,’ acknowledged Tulyet. ‘But they are also blissfully ignorant about who is hiding here.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Bartholomew in a low voice. ‘Tangmer mentioned them coming to deliver tax documents. Perhaps they saw something to raise their suspicions then.’

‘They will be questioned,’ said Tulyet firmly. ‘Along with the miller, Verious and the nuns. It seems our killer has claimed seven French victims, so we must do all in our power to stop him taking an eighth.’