A Masterly Murder

Book 6: Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew

by Susanna Gregory

Genres: Historical Fiction; Medieval; Amateur Sleuth; Historical Mysteries; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Historical Thrillers; Medical Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Michaelhouse is in uproar: Kenyngham the saintly but ageing Master has announced his retirement and with unseemly haste Runham arranges his own 'election' as his successor. Within days he has dismissed several members of staff, including the redoubtable laundress Agatha, and is making life so unpleasant for the scholars that even Matthew Bartholomew believes his future as physician and teacher at the college is untenable. But Matthew has many patients to divert his attention and Brother Michael, Proctor of the fledgling university, has some suspicious deaths to investigate, although they cannot help but notice that the new Master has commissioned a flurry of building work. Then Runham himself is murdered and, although mourned by none, Matthew and Michael know they have to solve the mystery before any more damage is done to their beloved Michaelhouse.

Release date: December 2, 2010

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 560

Sample

Cambridge, January 1349

A SILVER MOON SLANTED ITS BRIGHTNESS INTO THE muddy streets of the Fen-edge town. The clear weather had brought a biting cold, so that even huddled inside his thick warm cloak, Master Wilson of Michaelhouse shivered, and his fingers and toes were so chilled that
he could barely feel them. There was a dusting of frost over the rutted filth of the High Street, and the numerous potholes
were glazed with a crust of ice, cunningly concealing the slushy mess of raw sewage and rubbish that waited to ooze around
carelessly placed feet.


Usually, so late in the evening, the town would be still, the silence broken only by the occasional bark of a dog or the footsteps
of the night-watch as they patrolled the town. But, that January, England was in the grip of a terrible disease that had rolled
relentlessly across Europe, killing old and young, rich and poor, and the good citizens with the bad. The agonised gasps of
the dying and the wails of the bereaved shattered the peace, and in many houses lights burned in the chambers where the sick
lay.


Wilson shuddered and drew his cloak more closely around him, stepping quickly over the huddled form of a beggar who lay in the street. Whether the man was merely sleeping or whether he had succumbed to the plague, Wilson could
not tell and was not inclined to find out. He hurried on, leaving the High Street to make his way towards the Barnwell Causeway
and St Radegund’s Priory, where his lover awaited him.


A shriek of despair from the house of Sheriff Tulyet made his blood run cold. So far, the numerous Tulyet clan had been fortunate,
and not one of them had been affected by the foul sickness that turned healthy people to blackened, stinking corpses within
a few hours – or days, if they were unlucky. But the pestilence was showing no signs of weakening its grip on the town, and
Wilson suspected it had been only a matter of time before the Sheriff’s family lost someone to it. He slipped quickly into
the shadows when he saw two people emerging from Tulyet’s house. He recognised them as his Michaelhouse colleagues Matthew
Bartholomew and Brother Michael, one a physician and the other a Benedictine monk. Physicians were all but useless against
the plague, and people gained far more comfort from the ministrations of the clerics, who were at least able to grant them
absolution before they died. Wilson was sure that Brother Michael had been a greater solace to the Tulyets than Bartholomew
and his ineffective remedies could ever hope to be.


He pressed himself back into the blackness of a doorway as the two scholars walked past. By day, Wilson kept to his room,
seeing no one and running the College by yelling through the firmly closed door. No one knew how the plague spread, but Wilson
had heard that people who hid themselves away from the victims were more likely to escape infection than those who walked
freely among them. Wilson did not want Bartholomew and Michael to speak to him: even meeting their eyes might be enough to give him the disease. He also did not want them to know that he left his room each night to meet with the lovely Prioress
of St Radegund’s Convent. Living in isolation was all very well during the day, when his business was with the rough assortment
of men who were Michaelhouse’s scholars and servants, but once night fell, and darkness enveloped the town, Wilson longed
for the warmth of human contact and found he needed the companionship and understanding that only the Prioress could provide.


When the trudging, exhausted footsteps of Bartholomew and Michael had faded away and he was alone again, Wilson left his hiding
place and continued along Bridge Street. From a house in front of him came a sudden shaft of golden light as a door was flung
open. There was no time to duck into the shadows before Adela Tangmer, the vintner’s daughter, dashed out and saw him. Before
he could stop her, she had seized his arm, her ugly, horsy face white with shock and grief.


‘Please help me. My mother is dying and she needs a priest.’

Wilson tugged his arm away quickly and took several steps back, trying to distance himself from her. ‘I am sorry, but I cannot
help you. I am not a friar.’


‘But as a scholar of the University you have taken holy orders and can therefore grant absolution to the dying. My father
told me that you absolved Mayor Horwoode’s wife only last night. Please! My mother does not have many moments left to her.’


‘I am sorry,’ said Wilson, trying to edge around her without coming too close. ‘But Mistress Horwoode’s was a special case.’

‘My mother’s is a special case,’ pleaded Adela. ‘She once committed adultery, and she needs to confess before she dies or
she will spend eternity in Purgatory. Only you can help her.’


‘No,’ said Wilson firmly, starting to walk away. ‘I am in a hurry.’

‘I will pay you any amount you ask,’ called Adela desperately, as he began to stride up the street.

Abruptly, Wilson stopped and turned to face her, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Do you think I would risk my life for money?
It would not be much use to me if I were to catch the contagion and die.’


‘I have a pomander filled with special spices that you can place over your nose and mouth,’ said Adela immediately. ‘And I
will lend you my charm – it has been dipped in the holy well at Walsingham and if you wear it, you will be quite safe.’


Wilson hesitated, so Adela quickly unfastened a healthily heavy purse from her belt and handed it to him. He weighed it in
his hand, and then nodded reluctant agreement. He passed from the cracking cold of the January night into the mellow warmth
of the house, and then followed Adela into the fearsome hell of a plague victim’s death chamber.


Late September 1353

The autumn sun drenched the fields of ripe corn and barley near the river in a haze of scarlet and gold. Beyond the dusty
yellow of the crops were the water meadows, great swaths of marshy grass lined with trees that were tinged amber and orange
as their summer foliage began to turn. Across the river were the towers and the thatched and tiled roofs of the University’s
Colleges – Michaelhouse, Trinity Hall, Gonville, Peterhouse and Clare.


The sounds of a fine day were in the air. The exuberant shrieks of children who played in the river’s murky shallows mingled
with the bleat of grazing sheep and the distant jangle of bells announcing the office of terce. The air was rich with the scent of freshly mown hay, the crops
that still awaited harvesting, and the ever-present sulphurous odour of the River Cam. A lark twittered in the pale blue sky
high above, while nearer to the ground, a pair of pigeons cooed contentedly in the ancient oak trees that stood sentinel near
the old mill.


Two men strolled along the winding path that ran past the mill and then on to the little village of Newnham Croft beyond.
One wore the distinctive blue tabard that marked him as a Fellow of Bene’t College, while the other wore the grey habit of
a Franciscan friar. They walked slowly, enjoying the peace of a Sunday afternoon away from their various duties and obligations.


‘What has been happening at Bene’t this week?’ asked the friar, leaning down to pick a grass stem on which to chew. ‘Does
it still seethe with arguments and plots?’


‘Of course,’ said the scholar. ‘And work on the new accommodation range progresses so slowly that I wonder whether we will
be long in our graves before it is completed. If I had known I would be living in an unfinished building for three years,
I am not sure I would have accepted a Fellowship at Bene’t.’


The friar smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, and there was more malice than friendship in it. ‘I heard a story about one
of your Bene’t colleagues the other day. He sold several bracelets to Harold of Haslingfield, the goldsmith.’


‘And?’ asked the scholar when the friar paused. ‘What of it? Were they stolen property?’

The friar raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘Stolen property? What kind of men do you admit as Fellows of Bene’t College,
if you can so blithely ask me that sort of question?’


The scholar sighed irritably. ‘You know very well what kind of men are at Bene’t. Tell me about this jewellery.’


‘You are not the only one to question its origins. Harold the goldsmith was offered such an attractive price for these trinkets
that he took them to his fellow guild members and to the Sheriff, to see whether anyone might recognise them as the proceeds
of crime.’


‘Well?’ snapped the scholar, when the friar paused again. ‘Were they?’

The friar shrugged, knowing he was infuriating his companion with his trickle of information, but enjoying the sensation of
power it brought. The scholar wanted to know what was being said about his College and since the University was so unpopular
with the citizens of Cambridge, listening to the friar’s idle chatter would be the scholar’s only opportunity to learn what
the town thought of Bene’t.


‘No one could say,’ the Franciscan replied carelessly. ‘The Sheriff and the honourable members of the Goldsmiths’ Guild said
no such items had been reported as stolen, and that was the end of the matter.’


‘So why are you telling me this?’ demanded the scholar irritably. ‘That one of my colleagues sold a goldsmith jewellery that
was not stolen is hardly an intriguing topic of conversation.’


The friar gave his secretive smile, unperturbed by the scholar’s prickliness. ‘I am informing you that a Fellow of Bene’t
is dabbling in the gold market. I assumed you would be interested.’


Suddenly, from across the river drifted a mournful, mysterious noise that made both men gaze at each other in alarm. It was
a discordant, grating, chilling sound, like dozens of tomcats on a moonlit night, and it stilled the laughing voices of the
playing children as abruptly as if a bucket of cold water had been dashed over them. Even the pigeons were momentarily startled into silence.


‘What in God’s name is that?’ breathed the friar, looking around him uneasily.

‘Nothing – in God’s name,’ said the scholar, beginning to laugh, his bad temper at the friar’s piecemeal revelations forgotten.
‘Those inharmonious tones come from the Michaelhouse choir. They practise on Sunday afternoons.’


‘Well, that must keep the congregation’s numbers down,’ said the friar, crossing himself hurriedly. ‘I am surprised they are
allowed to disturb the peace like that on the Sabbath.’


‘Michaelhouse probably bribes the Sheriff to turn a deaf ear. But never mind those caterwaulers. Did you hear about the Bursar
of Ovyng Hostel? He has been drunk in the Brazen George three times this week!’


‘No!’ said the friar in scandalised glee. ‘Has he really?’

The scholar nodded. ‘And the word is that Ovyng’s philosophy teacher
is so poorly sighted these days that he cannot even make out the titles on the books he uses in his classes. The Master pretends
not to notice, because the philosopher is an old friend, but is it fair of him to take the fees of students and then abandon
them to the care of a man who can no longer read?’


The friar shook his head disapprovingly, although his eyes gleamed with spite. ‘I should say not. It is disgraceful!’

‘And one of our porters told me that an Ovyng student stole – stole – a plum cake from the baker in Bridge Street yesterday. What kind of men enrol in the University these days? Thieves, frauds
and drunkards!’


‘Especially the so-called scholars at Ovyng and Bene’t,’ said the friar, and both men laughed.

Their voices clattered on, malicious and vindictive, as they continued to walk towards Newnham. Concealed behind the clump of oak trees near the path, two more men wearing the blue
tabards of Bene’t College regarded each other sombrely.


‘You see?’ asked one of the other bitterly. ‘He does not care who he chatters to, or what he says about our College. He is
a wicked gossip, and, if he is allowed to continue unchecked, he will do Bene’t all manner of harm.’


His colleague nodded slowly. ‘Then we will have to ensure that does not happen,’ he said softly, fingering the dagger at his
side.


Cambridge, November 1353

‘IF YOU DO NOT KEEP STILL, HOW CAN I PULL THE sting out?’ asked Matthew Bartholomew of Brother Michael in exasperation.


‘You are hurting me!’ howled Michael, struggling as the physician bent over him again with a small pair of tweezers. ‘You
are jabbing about with those things like a woodpecker on a tree. Have you no compassion?’


‘It is only a bee sting, Brother,’ Bartholomew pointed out, bemused by the fuss the Benedictine was making. ‘And if you sit
still for just a moment I can remove it, and all your terrible suffering will be over.’


Michael regarded him suspiciously. ‘I have heard of bee stings proving fatal to some people. Are you trying to tell me something
in your discreet, physicianly way?’


Startled, Bartholomew laughed aloud. ‘It would take more than a mere bee to make an end of Brother Michael, the University’s
Senior Proctor and valued agent of the Bishop of Ely – although I have never witnessed such drama in all my life. Even children
do not squall and shriek like you do.’


‘That is probably because they do not understand what you are about to do,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘Well, come on, then;
get it over with.’

Imperiously, he thrust a flabby arm at Bartholomew and turned his head away, eyes tightly closed. Once he had deigned to
be co-operative, it was a simple task for the physician to pluck out the offending sting and then daub the afflicted area
with a salve of goose grease and juniper berries, although the monk accompanied the operation with an unremitting monologue
of complaint.


They were in Bartholomew’s medicine store at Michaelhouse, the College at the University of Cambridge where they held their
Fellowships. It was a small, dimly lit chamber, more cupboard than room, that was always filled with the bitter-sour aroma
of various potions and salves. Every available scrap of wall space was covered by overloaded shelves, and the workbench under
the window was stained and burned where ingredients had spilled as they had been mixed.


It was a damp, gloomy November day, and clouds sagged in a lumpy grey sheet across the small town and the marshy expanse of
the Fens beyond. University term was well under way, and Bartholomew could hear the stentorian tones of his colleague Father
William, who was teaching in the hall across the courtyard. Bartholomew was impressed. The previous year a generous benefactor
had paid for the windows in the hall and the adjoining conclave to be glazed, and for the Franciscan friar’s voice to carry
through the glass to the other side of the College indicated an impressive degree of volume. Bartholomew wondered how the
other masters could make themselves heard above it.


‘Right,’ he said, as he finished tending Michael’s arm. ‘That should heal nicely, if you do not scratch it.’

‘But it itches,’ protested Michael immediately. ‘It is driving me to distraction.’

‘It will itch even more if you keep fiddling with it,’ said Bartholomew unsympathetically. ‘How did you come to be stung by a bee anyway? It is the wrong time of year for bees.’


‘Apparently not for this one,’ said Michael stiffly. ‘I bought a cake from a baker in the Market Square, and the thing decided
to share it with me. No amount of flapping and running seemed to deter it, and so I was reduced to swatting it when it landed.
Then it had the audacity to sting me.’


‘If the bee was crushed, you had the better end of the bargain. But we have been away from our students long enough. I want
mine to learn about how Galen developed the Hippocratic theory of the four humours, not about how the Devil founded the Dominican
Order, which is what Father William seems to be bawling to his students – and to the world in general – this morning.’


‘Is he really?’ asked Michael, half startled and half amused. ‘I have been in such agonies with this sting that I have not
even heard our Franciscan fanatic today – and that should tell you something of the suffering I have endured.’


Bartholomew frowned. ‘William should be more discreet about his dislike of Dominicans. Master Kenyngham told me last night
that one of our two new Fellows – due to arrive today – is a Dominican.’


‘I expect Kenyngham told William, too – hence this morning’s bit of bigotry. You know the Franciscans and the Dominicans in
Cambridge loathe each other, Matt. They are always quarrelling about something they consider desperately important – usually
something the rest of us neither understand nor care about.’


‘I hope William and this new Dominican will not turn Michaelhouse into a battleground,’ said Bartholomew with feeling. ‘We
have managed to remain pleasantly free of squabbles between religious Orders so far, and I would like it to remain that way.’


‘It might spice things up a little,’ said Michael, green eyes gleaming as he contemplated the intrigues of such a situation.

‘It would not,’ said Bartholomew firmly, replacing the jar of salve in his bag and washing his hands. ‘William does not have
the intellect to embark on the kind of clever plotting you enjoy – he is more of a fists man.’


Michael laughed. ‘You are right. But you have missed your chance to enthral your students with lurid descriptions of bile,
phlegm and blood this morning, Matt, because the porter will ring the bell for the midday meal soon. Hurry up, or there will
be nothing left.’


He had shot from the storeroom and was crossing the courtyard to be first at the table, before Bartholomew could reply. The
physician smiled at the fat monk’s greed, finished tidying his chamber, and followed at a more sedate pace. He shivered as
he walked across the yard to the hall. A bitter north wind blew, bringing with it the promise of yet more rain, and perhaps
even snow. He had just reached the porch when Cynric, his book-bearer, came hurrying towards him, shouting to catch his attention.


‘You had better come with me, boy,’ said Cynric breathlessly. ‘I have just found Justus dead near Dame Nichol’s Hythe, on
the river.’


‘You mean the Justus who is John Runham’s book-bearer?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. Justus had served dinner at high table
only the previous evening. ‘How did he die? Did he drown?’


Cynric looked uncomfortable. ‘It is not for me to say – you are the physician. But come quickly before the poor man’s corpse
attracts a crowd of gawking onlookers.’


Bartholomew followed him out of the College and down the lane to the ramshackle line of jetties that lined the river bank.
They turned right along the towpath, and headed for the last pier in the row, known as Dame Nichol’s Hythe. Dame Nichol was long since dead, and the sturdy wharf
she had financed was now in a sorry state. Its timber pillars were rotting and unsafe, and huge gaps in its planking threatened
to deposit anyone standing on it into the sluggish brown waters of the River Cam below. The bank behind was little more than
a midden, cluttered with discarded crates, broken barrels and scraps of unwanted clothing, and the fetid mud was impregnated
with human and animal waste. The whole area stank of decaying, wet wood and sewage.


In the summer, the wharves – even Dame Nichol’s – were hives of activity, with barges from France and the Low Countries arriving
daily, loaded with all manner of exotic goods, as well as the more mundane wool, grain and stone for building. In the winter,
however, the colourful bustle of the tiny docks all but ceased, and that day only a few shabbily dressed bargemen laboured
in the chill wind, slowly and listlessly removing peat faggots from a leaking flat-bottomed skiff. Two gulls watched Bartholomew
and Cynric with sharp yellow eyes, waiting for them to be gone so that they could resume their scavenging for the discarded
fish entrails and eel heads that lay festering and rank in the sticky muck of the towpath.


Cynric’s fears that Justus’s body would attract hordes of intrigued townsfolk were unfounded: the toiling bargemen – and
even the birds – were not interested in it. Life was hard for many people following the Great Pestilence that had swept across
the country, and it was not uncommon for desperate souls to end it all in the murky depths of the river. Justus lay disregarded
and uncared for amid the scrubby weeds and filth, no more popular or remarkable in death than he had been in life.


Justus had been the servant of a Michaelhouse Fellow called John Runham, although Bartholomew had always been under the impression that they did not like each other. He could
understand why: Runham was smug, condescending and arrogant; Justus was self-absorbed and dismal.


‘I found him when I came to buy peat for the College fires,’ explained Cynric. ‘I noticed a stray dog sniffing around, and
when I came to see what it had discovered, I saw Justus. At least, I assume it is Justus. He is wearing that horrible tunic
Justus always donned when he was not working.’


Cynric had a point about the corpse’s identity. The bizarrely patterned garment of which Justus had been so fond was all that
could be immediately identified, because a thick leather wineskin had been pulled over the body’s head and then tied tight
under the chin with twine. Bartholomew crouched down and undid it, noting it had been knotted at the front in the imperfect,
haphazard way he would expect from a suicide. He drew it off, hearing Cynric’s soft intake of breath as he saw the dark, swollen
features of the dead book-bearer.


‘Well, it is Justus right enough,’ said Cynric grimly. ‘I would recognise those big yellow teeth anywhere. Did he kill himself?’

‘It looks that way,’ said Bartholomew, inspecting the wineskin. It was a coarse, watertight sack, designed to hold cheap brews
for those not able to afford the better wines that came in casks. Because the bag had been sealed with resin to make it leak-proof,
it was also air-proof, and once the rope had been tightened around the neck, it had suffocated the wearer.


‘Justus was never a contented man,’ said Cynric, regarding his fellow book-bearer pityingly. ‘He was always complaining about
something. And he envied me my happiness with Rachel.’ He gave a sudden and inappropriate grin. ‘Married life is a fine thing, boy. You should try it.’


‘Perhaps I will one day,’ said Bartholomew vaguely, unwilling to indulge in such a discussion when one of the College servants
lay dead at his feet. ‘But first, I want to be certain that Justus killed himself, and that no one gave him a helping hand
into the next world.’


‘But why would anyone do that?’ asked Cynric, surprised. ‘He had nothing worth stealing, because he spent all he earned on
wine or ale. None of his clothes are missing as far as I can see, and here is his dagger – not a very valuable item, but one
that would have been stolen had he been murdered for his possessions.’


Bartholomew inspected the dead man in more detail, checking for signs that Justus might have been involved in a struggle.
He examined the man’s hands, but they were unmarked and the fingernails showed no evidence that he had clawed at an assailant.
Ignoring an exclamation of disgust from Cynric, Bartholomew sniffed cautiously at Justus’s mouth, and detected the pungently
sweet odour of alcohol – far stronger than he would have expected had the smell come simply from Justus having a wineskin
over his head for a few hours.


The front-tied knot on the bag, plus the fact that Justus had probably been in his cups when he had died, suggested to Bartholomew
that the servant had drunk himself into a state of gloom and had chosen suffocation with the wineskin as a reasonably easy
death. Justus was seldom without wine to hand, so it was not inconceivable that he should choose such a method to dispatch
himself. And, as Cynric had pointed out, Justus was a naturally miserable man who was given to moods of black despair.


Poor Justus, he thought, sitting back on his heels and gazing down at the contorted features that lay in the mud in front of him. Life as book-bearer to a demanding and ill-tempered master like John Runham could not have been especially
pleasant, but Bartholomew had not imagined it was bad enough to drive a man to suicide. He wondered what aspect of Justus’s
existence had caused him to end his life in such a pathetic way and to select as unsavoury and grimy a spot as Dame Nichol’s
Hythe in which to do it.


While Cynric went to summon porters to carry Justus’s body to St Michael’s Church, and to report what had happened to Brother
Michael, who as Senior Proctor would need to give a verdict on the sudden death of a University servant, Bartholomew waited,
gazing down at the body that lay in front of him.


It was damp from dew, and stiff, suggesting that it had been there for some hours. Bartholomew supposed that serving dinner
at Michaelhouse the evening before had been one of the last things Justus had done. He racked his brains, trying to recall
whether Justus had seemed more morose than usual, but the book-bearer was so habitually sullen that Bartholomew was not sure
whether he would have noticed anyway.


It was not long before Michael arrived, bustling importantly along the river bank, and more breathless than he should have
been from the short walk from his College.


‘Suicide?’ he panted, scratching his bad arm. ‘I am not surprised. Justus was a morose beggar, and was always moaning about
something. I have never met a more gloom-ridden man – and that includes all the Franciscans in my acquaintance! Well? When
did he do it?’


‘I cannot tell specifically, but probably last night.’

‘He served us dinner last night,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘And shortly
after that I saw him leave Michaelhouse with a full wineskin dangling from one hand. Could I have been the last person to see him alive?’


‘Possibly,’ replied Bartholomew, sorry that he had not been aware of the extent of Justus’s misery before it had led to such
irreversible measures. The community of scholars and servants at Michaelhouse was not large, and someone should have noticed
Justus’s sufferings and tried to help.


Michael glanced around at the insalubrious surroundings of Dame Nichol’s Hythe and gave a fastidious shudder. ‘He could have
picked a better spot than this to spend his last moments on Earth.’


‘I imagine the quality of the scenery was not uppermost in his mind,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He probably saw this only as somewhere
he would not be disturbed.’


Michael nodded. ‘Few people wander here after dark. Well, it is obvious what happened: Justus came here alone last night intending
to drink himself into oblivion, became overly despondent – as he often did when he was in his cups – and decided to do away
with himself.’


Bartholomew could see no reason to disagree with him. ‘The cord was fairly taut around his neck, but not so tight as to leave
a mark. He must have knotted it there, and then slowly slipped into unconsciousness from lack of air. There is no damage to
his hands, so he did not fight against it.’


‘And he is still in possession of his clothes and dagger, which suggests to me that he lay undisturbed until Cynric found
him this morning,’ concluded Michael. ‘Poor man.’


Cynric arrived with two porters and a stretcher, and Bartholomew and Michael began to walk back to Michaelhouse while the
servants followed with the body. Bartholomew no