A Bone Of Contention Part 33

'Nothing much,' said Michael. 'As soon as Father Andrew took John off to buy bread, thus leaving the students without a nursemaid for the first time in days, they took advantage of it. All were out of the hostel before Father Andrew had scarce turned the corner, although Ruthven remained behind to study.'

'Ruthven and Davy Grahame are the two who seem most interested in learning,' said Bartholomew. 'The others would rather be away cattle-rustling.'

'You have been reading too much of the rantings of this English astrologer who casts national horoscopes,' said Michael admonishingly. 'Such a bigoted comment is unworthy of you. As I was saying, Father Andrew was barely out of Shoemaker Row when the David's lads were away, looking to enjoy themselves for a night on the town. Shortly afterwards, the riot broke out. Ruthven heard a mob gathering and objects were hurled at the windows. Terrified, he fled upstairs and hid under the pile of mattresses. He is not sure how long he remained there, but he only emerged when all was quiet. He found Radbeche dead and John mortally wounded. He sat with John until he.died, and was too frightened to move until we arrived.'

'We should tell him John is not dead,' said Bartholomew.

'He just fainted at the sight of his own blood. Many people are affected in that way, although John's aversion is unusually powerful.'

'Did John tell you anything we did not already know?'

Bartholomew summarised what John had said as they waited for Guy Heppel to arrive and take charge of Radbeche's body. Heppel was, as usual, white-faced and wheezing.

'This is a dreadful business,' he gasped. 'Murders and mayhem. No wonder G.o.d sent the plague to punish us if the rest of England is like Cambridge!'

'Are you ill?' asked Bartholomew, concerned by the man's pallor.

'I feel quite dreadful,' replied Heppel, raising a hand to his head. 'I must have that consultation with you as soon as possible. I should not have gone to that Founder's Feast of yours without it, because I have not been myself ever since.'

'Did you eat any fish giblets at Michaelhouse?' asked Bartholomew suspiciously.

Heppel gripped his stomach and flashed him a guilty glance. 'I have always been rather partial to fish livers and you did not tell me why I should avoid them, specifically.

You said Saturn was ascendant and that I should take more of the medicine you gave me, but that had nothing to do with fish livers.'

'I told you to avoid them because I knew they were bad.'

'Not because of Saturn?' asked Heppel. 'And not because Jupiter will be dominant later in the week?'

'Jupiter will not be dominant this week,' said Bartholomew, thinking to comfort him. 'Mars will.'

'Mars! ' breathed Heppel, sagging against a wall weakly.

'Worse still! Once I see this corpse to the church, I shall return to my room and lie down before I take a serious sickness.'

'See?' demanded Bartholomew of Michael as they set off back towards the High Street, leaving Heppel and two beadles to take Radbeche's corpse to nearby Holy Trinity Church. 'Astrology is nothing but hocus pocus! Heppel imagined himself to be far worse when he thought Mars was dominant. And the truth of the matter is that Mars will be nothing of the sort. I made it up thinking it would make him feel better.'

'You should know better than to mess with Heppel's stars,' said Michael. 'And you don't lie! What has got into you? Have you been taking lessons from Gray?'

'Heppel is an odd fellow,' said Bartholomew, glancing back to where the Junior Proctor had his mouth covered with his pomander as he supervised the removal of Radbeche's body. 'Sometimes I wonder whether he is all he seems.'

'Who is in this town? We have old men pretending to be friars, rabble-rousers pretending to be scullions, and Princ.i.p.al's daughters pretending to be boys - not to mention the extremes to which prost.i.tutes will go to slip into colleges.' He cast a sidelong glance at Bartholomew.

'The only people I am sure about are you and me. And even you have been revealing a different aspect of your character over these last few days with your indecent obsessions with all these harlots. You have become like a Mohammedan with his harem.'

Bartholomew sighed heavily. 'I have decided to have done with all that. One, or possibly two, members of my harem, as you put it, tried to kill me, while the other can only talk to me without causing a scandal if she dresses as an old lady.'

'Yes, you have shown an appalling lack of judgement in your choices,' said Michael bluntly. 'But you should not despair. Perhaps I can arrange one or two ladies 'Here comes Heppel again,' said Bartholomew. 'Now what? I wonder what caused him to leave Radbeche.'

'He has probably found out you have lied to him about Mars, and is coming to accuse you of heresy.'

Heppel's pale face was glistening under its habitual sheen of sweat. 'Master Lydgate is dying,' he gasped. 'A soldier has just informed me that he is at G.o.dwinsson and recommends that you go there immediately before it is too late.'

'Oh, Lord, Matt!' groaned Michael, turning away from the Junior Proctor to hurry towards G.o.dwinsson. 'It is all beginning to come together. Someone's master plan has been set in motion, and it is playing itself out.'

'But we still do not know what this master plan is,'

Bartholomew pointed out, keeping pace with the monk.

'And, as has been true all along with this wretched affair, the more information we gather, the less clear matters become. How did Lydgate allow himself to be drawn into it after our discussion last night? It was obvious there was some kind of danger.'

Michael raised his eyebrows. 'As we know, Master Lydgate is not overly endowed with powers of reasoning.

Come on. We should not dally if the man is dying.'

Bartholomew glanced behind him to where Heppel was almost bent double, trying to catch his breath, fanning himself with his hand. All Bartholomew's doubts about him bubbled to the forefront of his mind yet again.

'That man is far too unhealthy for proctorial duties,' he commented. 'I still cannot imagine what possessed the Chancellor to make such a choice.'

'Since you ask, Matt, I made inquiries about Guy Heppel while I was at Peterhouse last night. He is one of the King's spies, planted here to see whether anything subversive is underway.'

'Really?' asked Bartholomew, not surprised to learn that Heppel had another role, but astonished that it was one of such importance.

'After everyone else had gone to bed, I seized the opportunity to glance at one or two doc.u.ments in the Peterhouse muniments chest - the Chancellor often stores some of his sensitive papers there in order to keep them from certain members of his staff.'

'Such as you?' asked Bartholomew.

'Of course; not such as me!' said Michael, offended. 'I am one of his most trusted advisers.'

'Then why did he not tell you about Heppel?'

'I imagine he knew I would find out anyway,' said Michael airily. 'Perhaps he thought it might provide me with an intellectual challenge.'

Bartholomew gave him a sidelong glance, wondering whether he would ever understand the peculiarities of the University administration.

Michael continued. 'It was all there in black and white.

Heppel is here as an agent of the King and his mission is to detect why the town is so uneasy this year.'

'I would have credited the King with more common sense than to plant a spy who stands out like a diseased limb,' said Bartholomew. 'Heppel wears his cowardice like a banner - hardly a trait to make him a suitable Junior Proctor.'

'It is not your place to question the King, Matthew,' said Michael firmly. 'Again, I tell you, watch your words or you will be accused of treason as well as heresy. Ah!

Here we are.'

G.o.dwinsson's once-fine building had been reduced to little more than a sh.e.l.l. Its strong timbers were blackened and charred and fire had blown the expensive gla.s.s out of the windows. It littered the street below, causing considerable risk to those who walked barefoot. One of Tulyet's sergeants waited for them and directed them to the solar.

Inside the hostel the fine tapestries had gone - those not burned had been ripped from the walls by looters.

Chests lay overturned, and anything not considered worth taking had been left strewn across the floor. Even the woollen rugs had been stolen so that Bartholomew's footsteps echoed eerily in the room where sound had once been m.u.f.fled by the richness of its furnishings.

Lydgate was sprawled on the floor. One arm was draped across his stomach and a thin trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. Bartholomew grabbed a partly burned rug and eased it under the man's head, trying to straighten his limbs to make him more comfortable.

Michael began to drone prayers for the dying, his alert eyes darting around the room suggesting that he was more concerned with clues to find Lydgate's killer than with his eternal rest.

Lydgate started to speak, and Michael leaned towards him, expecting a confession. Bartholomew, respecting his privacy, moved away and went to fetch a jug of water with which he might moisten the man's parched lips.

When he returned, Michael was kneeling on the floor.

'Master Lydgate maintains he has been poisoned,' he said.

Bartholomew stared at him. 'How? By whom?'

Michael flapped a hand towards a cup that lay on the floor. Bartholomew picked it up and inspected it carefully.

It had held wine, but there was a bitter smell to it and a grittiness in the dregs. He would need to test it, but Bartholomew thought it was probably henbane. The cup was sticky, which meant that there had been enough time since Lydgate had drunk the wine for it to dry, leaving the tacky residue. Therefore, it was not the same powerful poison that had killed Edred, or Lydgate would never have finished his wine without beginning to feel ill.

'I have things I must say,' Lydgate whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

'Before I die. I must reveal my killer, bitter though that might be, and I must set certain things straight.'

'Can you give him an antidote?' asked Michael, sensing that Lydgate had a good deal to say, and afraid the man might die before he finished.

Bartholomew shook his head. 'There is nothing I can do. It is too late and there is no antidote that I know.'

'Poisons aren't your strong point, are they?' said Michael, somewhat maliciously.

Bartholomew winced, thinking of Edred. 'Do you know who did this to you?' he asked Lydgate, slipping off his tabard to cover the dying man. 'Was it Norbert?'

'I wish it had been,' breathed Lydgate. 'I wish to G.o.d it had been. But, for my sins, it was Dominica.'

'Dominica?' exclaimed Michael. 'I thought she was supposed to be the decent member of the family! Now we find out that she is a poisoner?'

Bartholomew thought quickly. Dominica was certainly alive - John's story proved that - and, if she had been driven to living in the hostel of her dead lover disguised as a servant, then she may very well feel bitter towards the father whose domineering nature had forced her there in the first place. But was she bitter enough to kill him? 'Dominica,' said Lydgate softly. He waved away the potion Bartholomew had made for him to ease his discomfort.

'I feel no pain, only a coldness and a tingling in my limbs. I must make my confession now, before this poison takes my voice. Stay, Bartholomew. You might as well listen, too. My only problem is that I do not know where to start.'

'Try the beginning,' said Michael. He sensed he was in for a lengthy session with the dying Princ.i.p.al, and glanced anxiously out of the window at the sky. He had a great deal to do and knew he should not spend too much time listening to the ramblings of the mortally ill - especially since Lydgate had already named his killer. Bartholomew also had patients waiting who had been injured during the night's upheavals, and he needed to be with people he could help, not those with one foot and four toes already in the grave.

'Shall I start at the very beginning?' asked Lydgate huskily.

'Well, start at the onset of events that led to your..."

Michael paused, uncertain which word to use.

'Then I must take you back twenty-five years,' said Lydgate. Michael stifled a sigh, reluctant to sit through another tedious dive into local history, but obliged to do so since the man was making his final confession.

Oblivious or uncaring, Lydgate continued. 'I was not entirely honest with you last night. You see, I did not burn the t.i.the barn, Simon d'Ambrey did.'

Bartholomew had thought he was beyond being surprised by Lydgate, but this latest statement truly confounded him. He wondered whether Lydgate was still in command of all his faculties, that perhaps the henbane had affected his mind.

'But half the town witnessed Simon d'Ambrey's death the day before the barn burned,' he protested. 'Myself included.'

'Then half the town, yourself included, was mistaken,' said Lydgate, a waspish edge to his voice. 'I also witnessed what I thought to be d'Ambrey's death, but we were all wrong. It was not Simon d'Ambrey who died that night at the hands of the King's soldiers, but his brother - the cause of d'Ambrey's downfall. D'Ambrey dedicated his life to preventing injustice, but his brother proved to be dishonest and stole the money intended for the poor.

D'Ambrey himself was accused of the thefts and the townspeople were quick to believe the accusations. But it was d'Ambrey's brother who died in the King's Ditch.'

This news will put a different slant on Thorpe's relic business,' said Michael, inappropriately gleeful given he was hearing a death-bed confession. 'He has the thieving hand of d'Ambrey's brother, a pretty criminal!'

'D'Ambrey went from being adored by the townspeople, to being despised as a thief within a few hours,'

Lydgate continued softly. 'But he was clever. He led the soldiers to his house and told his brother - the root of all his problems - that the soldiers were coming not for him, but for his brother, and that he should run. He lent him his own cloak as a disguise and then sent him off.

Everyone knew d'Ambrey's green and gold cloak and the soldiers spotted it in an instant. They chased after his brother like a pack of dogs. You know the rest of the story. He reached the Ditch, an arrow took him in the throat and he drowned. His body was never found.'

He stopped speaking, and Michael began to fidget restlessly, casting anxious glances at the sun and keen to be about his business.

'Butwhat of Simon?' asked Bartholomew. He wondered how much of Lydgate's story could be true. He, with so many others, had seen Simon d'Ambrey on the bank of the King's Ditch, his cloak billowing around him. He recalled vividly the copper hair whipping around his face as he looked back at his pursuers. Bartholomew thought again. The copper hair was what he remembered, along with the green cloak with its crusader's cross on the back. He had not actually seen the man's face, and he had been a fair distance away watching in poor light, even with a child's sharp eyes. If Simon and his brother looked anything alike, it would have been possible to mistake one for the other in the fading daylight.

Lydgate coughed, and Bartholomew helped him sip some water. After a moment, the Princ.i.p.al of G.o.dwinsson nodded that he was able to continue.

'Simon took the opportunity to escape. He was expecting his brother to be recognised, and a search sent out for him, but that did not happen - his ruse had worked more perfectly than he could have dared hope. Rather than set out immediately in pursuit of his fleeing household, and run the risk of meeting the three burgesses who were charged with hunting them down, d'Ambrey hid for a night or two in Trumpington.'

He paused, and Michael cleared his throat noisily. 'An interesting conjecture, Master Lydgate, but we must think about your absolution. Time is short. Do you repent of your sins?'

Lydgate looked at him, some of his old belligerence returning. 'You will allow a dying man the courtesy of completing his tale in his own time, Brother,' he whispered harshly. He coughed again, then continued, his voice growing weaker, so that Bartholomew and Michael had to strain to hear.

'At the time, I was betrothed to Cecily. It was not my choice, and hers neither. But the contract was sealed and we were bound by it. The day after d'Ambrey's supposed death, I saw Cecily enter the t.i.the barn and leave some time later. I went into the barn myself, hoping she might have a lover there. If that were the case, I mightyet escape the marriage contract that I did not want. D'Ambrey was there, leaning back in the straw like a contented cat. It was quite clear what they had been doing and, even though it was in my interests to be glad he was Cecily's lover, I was moved to anger by his gloating. He told me how he had escaped, and I knew he would not allow me to leave the barn alive. We fought, but a lamp was knocked over and the barn began to burn. Then he hit his head against a post and I could not rouse him. I panicked and fled.'

Raised voices from outside distracted him momentarily, but they died away, and the house was silent once more.

Lydgate continued with his tale, sweat beading on his face. Bartholomew wiped it away.

'I told my father everything. He said the marriage contract would stand anyway, and that I should conceal Cecily's indiscretions unless I wanted to be branded a cuckold. He suggested we accuse Norbert of starting the fire, since using him as a scapegoat, rather than someone else, would precipitate no feuds or ill-feelings among the villagers.'

'Most n.o.ble,' retorted Bartholomew, unable to stop himself. 'So Norbert was blamed so that you would not be seen to have an unfaithful wife, and Cecily would not be labelled a wh.o.r.e?' He stood abruptly and paced. 'He was a child, Lydgate! They were going to hang him!'

Lydgate shrugged painfully. 'You saved him.'

'What a dire tale,' said Michael unsympathetically.

'No wonder Norbert has returned to wreak havoc on the town.'

'But no body was found in the barn,' said Bartholomew, trying to rationalise Lydgate's story. The whole event, now he knew the truth of it, had an unsavoury feel, and he did not like the notion that he had protected the ident.i.ty of a murderer for the last twenty-five years.

'The fire caused such an inferno that metal nails and bolts melted in the heat,' breathed Lydgate, swallowing hard. 'A body would never have been identified from that mess.'

'So, you were responsible for the death of Simon d'Ambrey?' asked Michael. 'Is that the essence of this lengthy tale? I take it you confessed to burning the t.i.the barn yesterday because you knew that was the crime of which Matt believed you were guilty?'