Bartholomew 07 - An Order for Death Read online

  ‘Not as gratifying as it was to seize some of it,’ said the man in charge. ‘And now I propose to put it to good use. It will pay for meetings such as this, so that we will all benefit from it.’

  ‘Get on with it, then,’ said the old man, refilling his cup from the wine jug yet again. ‘I have other business to attend tonight.’

  ‘I brought you here to discuss a murder,’ said the man in charge. He gazed at each one of them, his eyes sombre. ‘The murder of one of the University’s highest officials.’

  Chapter 1

  Cambridge, March 1354

  THE FIRST STONE THAT SMASHED THROUGH THE WINDOW of Oswald Stanmore’s comfortable business premises on Milne Street sprayed Matthew Bartholomew with

  a shower of sharp splinters and narrowly missed his head. He dropped to his knees, ducking instinctively as a loud crack indicated that another missile had made its mark on the merchant’s fine and expensive glass, and tried to concentrate on suturing the ugly wound in the stomach of the Carmelite friar who lay insensible on the bench in front of him.

  Bartholomew’s sister entered the room cautiously, carrying a dish of hot water and some rags ripped into strips for bandages. She gave a startled shriek when a pebble slapped into the wall behind her, and promptly dropped the bowl. Water splashed everywhere, soaking through the sumptuous rugs that covered the floor and splattering the front of her dress.

  ‘Damn!’ she muttered, regarding the mess with annoyance before crouching down and making her way to where Bartholomew worked on the injured man. She winced as another window shattered. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not good,’ replied Bartholomew, who knew there was little he could do for a wound such as had been inflicted on the Carmelite. The knife had slashed through vital organs in the vicious attack, and, even though he had repaired them as well as he could, the physician thought the damage too serious for the friar to recover. Even if the injury did heal, his patient was weakened by blood loss and shock, and was unlikely to survive the infection that invariably followed such piercing wounds.

  ‘Shall I fetch a priest?’ asked Edith, watching her brother struggle to close the end of the gaping cut with a needle and a length of fine thread. ‘He will want a Carmelite – one of his own Order.’

  Bartholomew finished his stitching and peered cautiously out of the window. A sturdy wall surrounded his brother-inlaw’s property, so that it was reasonably safe from invasion. It could still be bombarded with missiles, however, and the Dominican students who had massed outside were dividing their hostile attentions between the Carmelite Friary opposite and Stanmore’s house – where they knew a Carmelite had been given shelter.

  ‘Neither of us will be going anywhere until those Dominicans disperse,’ he said, ducking again as another volley of stones rattled against the wall outside. ‘They have the Carmelite Friary surrounded and I doubt they will be kind enough to allow one of the enemy out, even on an errand of mercy.’

  ‘I will fetch a Franciscan or an Austin canon instead, then,’ said Edith, gathering her skirts as she prepared to leave. ‘This poor boy needs a priest.’

  ‘You cannot go outside,’ said Bartholomew firmly, grabbing her arm. ‘I suspect the Dominican student-friars will attack anyone they see, given the frenzy they have whipped themselves into. It is not safe out there.’

  ‘But I have nothing to do with the University,’ objected Edith indignantly. ‘No Dominican student – or any other scholar – would dare to harm me.’

  ‘Usually, no,’ replied Bartholomew, pushing her to one side as a clod of earth crashed through the nearest window and scattered over a handsome rug imported from the Low Countries. ‘But their blood is up and they are inflamed beyond reason; I doubt they care who they hurt. The Carmelites were insane to have written that proclamation.’

  ‘A proclamation?’ asked Edith warily. ‘All this mayhem is about a proclamation?’

  Bartholomew nodded. ‘They denounced a philosophical belief that the Dominicans follow, and pinned it to the door of St Mary’s Church.’

  Edith regarded him in disbelief. ‘The scholars are killing each other over philosophy? I thought academic arguments were supposed to take place in debating halls, using wits and intellect – not knives and stones.’

  Bartholomew gave her a rueful smile. ‘In an ideal world, perhaps. But factions within the University are always squabbling over something, and this time the religious Orders have ranged themselves on two sides of a debate about whether or not abstracts have a real existence.’

  Edith’s expression of incomprehension intensified. ‘You are teasing me, Matt! People do not fight over something like that.’

  ‘Scholars do, apparently,’ replied Bartholomew, laying his fingers on the life pulse in the Carmelite’s neck. It was weak and irregular, and he began to fear that the lad would not survive until the Dominican students grew tired of throwing stones at windows, and would die without the benefit of a final absolution.

  Edith shook her head in disgust, and began to wipe the student’s face with a damp cloth. Bartholomew understood exactly how she felt. For years, the various religious Orders that gathered in the University had bickered and quarrelled, and one of them was always attacking the views and ideas expounded by the others. On occasion, emotions ran strongly enough to precipitate an actual riot – like the one currently under way between the Black Friars and the White Friars in the street below – and it was not unknown for students to be killed or injured during them. It was nearing the end of Lent, and the students, especially the friars and monks, were tired and bored with the restrictions imposed on them. They were ripe for a fight, and Bartholomew supposed that if it had not been a philosophical issue, then they would have found something else about which to argue.

  He eased backward as another hail of missiles was launched, and cracks and tinkling indicated that more of Stanmore’s windows were paying the price for Bartholomew’s act of mercy in rescuing the Carmelite. The physician realised he had made a grave error of judgement, and saw that he should have carried the friar to Michaelhouse, his own College, and not involved his family in the University’s troubles. He hoped the Dominicans’ fury at losing their quarry would fade when the heat of the moment was past, and that they would not decide to take revenge on the Stanmores later.

  ‘You should all be ashamed of yourselves,’ said Edith, taking another cloth and trying without much success to wipe the blood from the friar’s limp hands.

  ‘I know,’ said Bartholomew with a sigh. He felt the life-beat again, half expecting to find it had fluttered away to nothing. ‘The current debate between the nominalists and the realists is a complicated one, and I doubt half the lads throwing stones at us really believe that nominalism is the ultimate in philosophical theories: they just want to beat the Carmelites.’

  Edith continued to tend the unconscious man. Bartholomew had administered a powerful sense-dulling potion before he had started the messy operation of repairing the slippery organs that had been damaged by the knife, and did not expect the Carmelite to wake very soon – if at all. He laid the back of his hand against the friar’s forehead, not surprised to find that it was cold and unhealthily clammy. So he was surprised when the friar stirred weakly, opened his eyes and began to grope with unsteady fingers at the cord he wore around his waist.

  ‘My scrip,’ he whispered, his voice barely audible. ‘Where is my scrip?’

  Edith looked around her, supposing that the leather pouch friars often carried at their side had fallen to the floor. ‘Where is it, Matt?’

  Bartholomew pointed to a short string that had evidently been used to attach the scrip to the friar’s waist-cord. It was dark with dirt, indicating that it had served its purpose for some time, but the ends were bright and clean. It did not take a genius to deduce that it had been cut very recently. Bartholomew could only assume that whoever had stabbed the friar had also taken his pouch, probably using the same knife. Bartholomew had found the injured friar huddled in a doo
rway surrounded by Dominicans; the scrip must have been stolen by one of them.

  ‘Easy now,’ he said gently, trying to calm his patient as the search became more frantic. ‘You are safe here.’

  ‘My scrip,’ insisted the friar, more strongly. ‘Where is it? It is vital I have it!’

  ‘We will find it,’ said Bartholomew comfortingly, although he suspected that if the friar’s pouch had contained something valuable, then the chances of retrieving it were remote.

  ‘You must find it,’ breathed the friar, gripping Bartholomew’s arm surprisingly tightly for a man so close to death. ‘You must.’

  ‘Who did this to you?’ asked Bartholomew, reaching for his bag. His patient’s agitated movements were threatening to pull the stitches apart, and the physician wanted to calm him with laudanum. He eased the friar’s head into the crook of his arm and gave him as large a dose as he dared. ‘Do you know the names of the men who attacked you?’

  ‘Please,’ whispered the friar desperately. ‘My scrip contains something very important to me. You must find it. And when you do, you must pass it to Father Paul at the Franciscan Friary.’

  ‘Do not worry,’ said Bartholomew softly, disengaging himself from the agitated Carmelite and easing him back on to the bench. ‘We will look for it as soon as we can.’

  He continued to speak in the same low voice, sensing that the sound of it was soothing the student. It was not long before the Carmelite began to sleep again. Bartholomew inspected the damage the struggle had done to the fragile stitching, and was relieved to see that it was not as bad as he had feared. Still, he realised it would make little difference eventually: the friar was dying. His life was slowly ebbing away, and there was nothing Bartholomew could do to prevent it.

  Outside in the street, the Dominicans continued to lay siege to the Carmelite Friary opposite, although their voices sounded less furious and the missiles were hurled with less intensity and frequency. Bartholomew risked a quick glance out of the window, and saw that the beadles – the law enforcers employed by the University – had started to arrive, and that small groups of Dominicans were already slinking away before they were caught. There was only so long they could sustain their lust for blood when the Carmelites were safely out of sight inside their property, and common sense was beginning to get the better of hot tempers.

  ‘It will not be long now,’ said Bartholomew, moving away from the window and kneeling next to his patient again, where his sister still sponged the pale face. ‘The Dominicans are going home. We may yet be able to secure a Carmelite confessor to give this man last rites.’

  ‘He will die?’ asked Edith in a low whisper. ‘There is nothing you can do to save him?’

  Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I have done all I can.’

  Edith gazed in mute compassion at the friar’s face. Bartholomew did not know what to say, and was frustrated that for all his years of training at Oxford and then in Paris, his medical knowledge still could not prevent a young man from dying.

  ‘Richard is right,’ said Edith bitterly. ‘We always summon physicians when we are ill, but they make little difference to whether we live or not.’

  ‘Richard has changed,’ said Bartholomew, thinking about Edith and Oswald’s only son. ‘He is not the same lad who left for Oxford after the plague five years ago.’

  ‘It is good to have him home again,’ said Edith, declining to admit that her son had returned home lacking a good deal of his former charm. ‘He plans to remain here for a while, to assess the opportunities Cambridge has to offer. He says he may have to go to London, because he is a good lawyer and he wants to work on expensive land disputes and become very rich.’

  ‘He said that?’ asked Bartholomew, startled by the young man’s blunt materialism. He felt for the friar’s life-beat again. ‘I do not know why he wants to stay here anyway; he has done nothing but criticise everything about Cambridge ever since he returned.’

  Edith did not reply, but Bartholomew sensed that she was as unimpressed by her son’s behaviour as was Bartholomew. Richard had gone to the University of Oxford to study medicine, but had returned with a degree in law instead, claiming that a legal training would provide him with the means to make more money than a medical one. Although he disapproved of Richard’s motives, Bartholomew knew the young man was right. Since the plague, there was work aplenty for those who were able to unravel the complexities of contested wills and property disputes arising from the high number of sudden deaths.

  His lessons in legal affairs had done nothing to improve Richard’s character, however. Although he could hardly say so to Edith, Bartholomew had preferred the cheerful, ebullient seventeen-year-old who had set off determined to learn how to heal the sick, than the greedy twenty-two-year-old who had returned.

  ‘The streets are almost clear,’ he said, glancing out of the window and then resting his hand on the Carmelite’s forehead. ‘I will leave in a few moments to fetch a confessor. Will you stay with him?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Edith immediately. ‘This poor boy can remain here as long as necessary. Oswald will not mind.’

  ‘He will,’ said Bartholomew, imagining his brother-in-law’s disapproval. ‘He will not be pleased to return from his business meeting to learn that I endangered his wife by bringing an injured Carmelite to her, or to see that his panes have been smashed by vengeful Dominicans.’

  He edged nearer the window, so that he could see into the muddy road below. There were definitely fewer dark-robed Dominicans in Milne Street now, and he wished the remainder would hurry up and return to their own quarters on Hadstock Way.

  ‘Look at him, Matt,’ said Edith softly, sponging the hands of the injured Carmelite. ‘He is about the same age as Richard.’

  Bartholomew glanced down at his patient and saw that she was right. He had barely noticed the man’s face. When he had first caught sight of the wounded student, clutching his stomach in a spreading stain of blood, all Bartholomew’s attention had been taken with brandishing a hefty pair of childbirth forceps at the surrounding Dominicans and dragging the injured friar to the nearest safe haven. Then, once they had reached Stanmore’s property, Bartholomew had concentrated on tending the wound and ducking the splinters of glass.

  For the first time, he studied the friar. He had a pleasant face, with a mouth that turned up at the corners, although already it had the waxy sheen of death about it. His fingers were deeply ink-stained, suggesting that he spent at least some of his time studying or scribing, rather than wandering the town with his classmates looking for Dominicans or Franciscans to taunt or attack. His hair was light brown and smelled clean, and his habit, although blood-soaked and marked with the signs of a scuffle, was neat and showed evidence of recent brushing. Here was no lout, but a man who took care over his personal appearance. The only unusual thing about him was the pale yellow sticky residue on one of his hands. It looked like some kind of glue, although Bartholomew had never seen anything quite like it before. He supposed it was some new import from Spain or France. Such items were becoming common again now that people were recovering from the impact of the plague and trade was resuming.

  ‘I wonder what was in his scrip that was so important to him,’ mused Edith. The sound of her voice pulled the physician from his reverie. ‘Whatever it was, he considered it more vital than telling you the names of the men who stabbed him.’

  ‘Perhaps he did not know them,’ said Bartholomew. He glanced out of the window again. ‘If I leave my Michaelhouse tabard here and borrow that cloak of Oswald’s, I should reach the Carmelite Friary unmolested—’

  ‘Matt!’ whispered Edith urgently, jumping away from the Carmelite in alarm. ‘Something is wrong with him!’

  Bartholomew saw the friar’s eyes roll back in his head as he began to convulse, thrashing about with his arms and legs and pulling open the sutured wound. With Edith exhorting him to do something, Bartholomew attempted to control the fit with more of his sense-dulling potions, but to no av
ail. Gradually, the uncontrolled twitching and shuddering grew weaker, along with the friar’s heartbeat. The student was still for a few moments, gasping raggedly while the opened wound pumped his life blood into the rugs that covered the bench. And then he simply ceased to breathe. Edith took his hand and called out to him, but the Carmelite was dead.

  ‘They killed him,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Unlike her brother, she was unused to the presence of sudden death and it distressed her. ‘Those Dominicans murdered him.’

  ‘They did,’ agreed Bartholomew softly. He stood, feeling defeated. ‘I will fetch one of the Carmelites to see to him.’

  ‘Fetch Brother Michael first,’ said Edith unsteadily. ‘He is the Senior Proctor, and it is his responsibility to investigate University deaths. I want to see those murdering Dominicans brought to justice.’

  ‘So will the Carmelites,’ said Bartholomew grimly. ‘I just hope they will not decide to do it themselves.’

  * * *

  Brother Michael, Senior Proctor of the University, Fellow of Michaelhouse and trusted agent of the Bishop of Ely, puffed across the yard of Stanmore’s business premises with his Junior Proctor and a group of his beadles marching untidily behind him.

  With one or two exceptions, the University’s law-keepers were a rough, ill-kempt breed. They all sported coarse woollen tunics with scarlet belts that marked them as University officers, but underneath they wore a bizarre assortment of garments that gave most of them a very eccentric appearance. Some had donned the boiled leather leggings that suggested they had fought for King Edward in France before the plague had forced a truce, while others possessed an eclectic collection of articles passed to them as bribes from students they caught breaking the University’s rules. A quick glance revealed a courtier’s scarlet hose, a Dominican’s cloak, a grey shirt that had probably been a Franciscan’s undergarment, and a pair of wooden clogs that had doubtless belonged to a scholar from the north.

  The Junior Proctor was a different matter. Will Walcote was dressed in the sober black habit of an Austin canon, and over it was an ankle-length cloak. His calf-high boots were of good quality leather, and although they were mud-stained from walking along the High Street, they had been carefully polished. He was of average height, had thick brown hair that was cut short above the ears, and had a thin, intelligent face. He was popular in the University, more so than his intrigue-loving superior, and already it was rumoured that he would be Michael’s successor as Senior Proctor, although Bartholomew knew Michael had doubts about Walcote’s suitability.