An Order For Death

Book 7: Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew

by Susanna Gregory

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

Synopsis

Believers in the theory of nominalism have set some Cambridge colleges at the throats of those who believe them to be heretics and Michael, the Senior Proctor, has his work cut out to keep the peace. When a nominalist is murdered during a riot Michael is certain he will easily find the killer amongst the Dominicans, but before he can get any sense out of them his junior proctor, Walcote, is found hanged and he discovers that his trusted ally had arranged secret meetings at the St Ragelund Convent between men who would not normally be seen together - and the nuns of St Ragelund are renowned for behaviour entirely inappropriate to their calling. Meanwhile Matthew Bartholomew learns that Michael, his lifelong friend, is in all probability the thief who relieved one of the anti-nominalist colleges of some of their most precious papers. If that charge were proved it would put paid to Michael's long term plans to become Master of Michaelhouse - but would he kill to protect himself? Unable to believe his colleague would be capable of such acts, Bartholomew knows the only way he can quiet his own conscience is to solve the murders himself.

Release date: December 2, 2010

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 480

Sample

Cambridge, Christmas Eve 1353

YULETIDE WAS ALWAYS A MAGICAL TIME OF YEAR FOR Beadle Meadowman. He liked the crisp chill of winter evenings and the sharp scent of burning logs and of rich stews bubbling
over fires in a hundred hearths. He loved the atmosphere of anticipation and excitement as the townsfolk streamed from their
houses to attend the high mass in St Mary’s Church at midnight, and he adored the candlelit naves and the heady smell of incense
as it drifted from the chancel in a white, smoky pall.


He was in a happy mood as he strolled along Milne Street, holding his night lamp high so that he would not stumble in a pothole
or trip over the mounds of rubbish that had been dumped by the people whose houses lined the road. A distant part of his mind
registered that the gutters were blocked again, and that an evil yellow-brown gout of muck formed a fetid barrier that stretched
from one side of the street to the other. He jumped across it, his mind fixed on the festivities that would begin when the
bells chimed to announce that it was midnight.


He barely noticed the stench of rotting vegetable parings that were slippery with mould, or the odorous tang of animal dung
and rotting straw that clogged the air. Instead, he heard the voices of excited children and saw lights gleaming from under
the doors of homes that would usually be in darkness, and longed for his evening patrol to finish, so that he could join his
family for the Christmas night celebrations. His sister had made a huge plum cake, which would be eaten with slices of the
creamy yellow cheese he had bought earlier that day, and there would be spiced wine to wash it down. And then there would be games – perhaps even a little
dicing if the parish priest turned a blind eye – and the singing of ancient songs around the fire.


He reached the high walls of the Carmelite Friary and gave the handle on the gate a good rattle to ensure it was locked. Satisfied
that all was in order, he walked to where Milne Street ended at Small Bridges Street and watched the glassy black waters of
the King’s Ditch for a moment. Only a few weeks before, a student-friar called Brother Andrew had thrown himself into the
King’s Ditch in a fit of depression, and Meadowman seldom passed the spot where the body had been found without thinking about
him.


In the bushes at one side of the road, a man in a dark cloak waited until Meadowman had gone, and then emerged to walk purposefully
towards the friary. He tapped softly on the gate, and was admitted at once by someone who owed him a favour. The same person
had also been persuaded to leave inner doors unlocked and had arranged for the porter to be enjoying an illicit cup of Christmas
ale in the kitchen. Without wasting time on pleasantries, the man in the dark cloak pushed past his unwilling accomplice and
headed across the courtyard towards the chapel. Inside, a flight of steps led to a comfortable chamber on the upper floor,
and at the far end of this was a tiny room with a heavily barred door and no windows. With a set of keys taken from the Chancellor’s
office in St Mary’s Church earlier that day, the intruder opened the door and slipped inside.


Not many people knew that the University kept copies of its most valuable documents and deeds, and fewer still knew that these
were stored in the large iron-bound box that stood in the locked room at the Carmelite Friary. Three years before, someone
had broken into St Mary’s Church and ransacked the University’s main chest, which held its original deeds; since then the
Chancellor and his clerks had been even more careful to ensure that the Carmelites received duplicates of everything. Aware
that the bulging chest in St Mary’s was an obvious target for thieves, the Chancellor had even taken to storing the odd silver plate and handful
of gold at the friary, too. His proctors approved wholeheartedly of his precautions.


The man in the dark cloak knelt next to the chest in the Carmelite strong-room and lit a candle. The locks were the best that
money could buy and would have been difficult to force, but he had the Chancellor’s keys, and the well-oiled metal clasps
snapped open instantly. Inside were neatly stacked rolls of parchment, bundles of letters tied with twine, and several priceless
books. He sorted through them quickly, taking what he wanted and discarding the rest. Underneath the deeds and scrolls was
a small box, the inside of which lit with the bright gleam of gold and silver when it was opened. The intruder glanced briefly
at it, then flipped the lid closed and began packing his acquisitions into a small sack; he had not come for the University’s
treasure, but for something with a far greater value than mere coins.


He left the way he had entered, watchful for beadles or the Sheriff’s soldiers, who would be suspicious of someone carrying
a heavy bag around the town at the witching hour. But it was almost Christmas Day, and, for that night at least, most of the
patrols were more interested in finishing their duties than in scouring the town for law-breakers.


Meanwhile, Beadle Meadowman had continued his rounds, and had passed through the Trumpington Gate in order to check the Hall
of Valence Marie. Opposite was the dark mass of Peterhouse, while further up the road were the Priory of St Gilbert of Sempringham
and the gleaming lights of the King’s Head tavern. Meadowman had been called to the King’s Head earlier that night, when a
fellow beadle named Rob Smyth, full of the spirit of approaching Christmas, had drunk more than was wise. Smyth had picked
a fight with a surly blacksmith, and Meadowman had been obliged to calm his colleague down and resettle him in a corner with
another jug of ale.


Meadowman cocked his head and listened, but although drunken voices could be heard on the still night air, the patrons of
the King’s Head sounded more celebratory than antagonistic, and he saw no need to ensure that Smyth was behaving himself.
He turned to cross the street. Ditches ran along each side of the Trumpington road, intended to prevent it from flooding,
although in reality, the Gilbertine friars and the scholars of Valence Marie and Peterhouse tended to block them by filling
them with rubbish, and they were really just a series of fetid, stagnant puddles. Storms sometimes washed them clean, but
it had been a long time since there had been a serious downpour, and they were more choked than usual.


A dark shadow on the ground outside Peterhouse caught Meadowman’s eye. He went to inspect it, and was vaguely amused to see
a man lying full length on his front, arms flung out above his head, as though he had caught his foot in a pothole and had
fallen flat on his face. As he knelt, Meadowman was not at all surprised to detect the powerful, warm scent of ale. One of
the patrons of the King’s Head had apparently had too much to drink, stumbled on the uneven road surface, and then gone to
sleep where he had dropped. Meadowman recognised the greasy brown hood of Rob Smyth and, shaking his head in tolerant resignation,
he turned his colleague over.


Water dripped from Smyth’s face, drenching the fringe of fair hair that poked from under his hood and trickling down the sides
of his face. Meadowman gazed at the blue features and dead staring eyes in sudden shock. Then he slowly reached out a hand
to the puddle in which Smyth had been lying. It was shallow, no deeper than the length of his little finger. Meadowman realised
that Smyth had drowned because he had been too drunk to lift his face away from the suffocating water when he had stumbled.


At Smyth’s side was a pouch containing a letter. Meadowman frowned in puzzlement, wondering why his colleague should be carrying
a document when he, like Meadowman, could not read. It was written on new parchment, not on old stuff that had been scraped clean and then treated
with chalk, so Meadowman supposed it was important. He pushed it in his own scrip to hand to the proctors later, then covered
Smyth’s body with his cloak. He stood, and began to walk back to the town, where he would fetch more beadles to carry the
corpse to the nearest church, and where he would break the shocking news to Smyth’s family. As he went, he reflected grimly
that some people would not be celebrating a joyous Christmas that night.


The fields east of Cambridge, a few days later

A sharp wind gusted across the flat land that surrounded the Benedictine convent of St Radegund, rustling the dead leaves
on the trees and hissing through the long reeds that grew near the river. The friar shivered, and glanced up at the sky. It
was an indescribably deep black, and was splattered with thousands of tiny lights. The more the friar gazed at them, the more
stars he could see, glittering and flickering and remote. He pulled his cloak tightly around him. Clear skies were very pretty,
but they heralded a cold night, and already he could feel a frost beginning to form on the ground underfoot.


Against the chilly darkness of the night, the lights from St Radegund’s Convent formed a welcoming glow. The friar could smell
wood-smoke from the fires that warmed the solar and dormitory, and could hear the distant voices of the nuns on the breeze
as they finished reciting the office of compline and readied themselves for bed.


And then the others began to arrive. They came singly and in pairs, glancing around them nervously, although the friar could
not tell whether their unease came from the fact that robbers frequented the roads outside Cambridge, or whether they knew
that it was not seemly to be seen lurking outside a convent of Benedictine nuns at that hour of the night. He watched them knock softly on the gate, which opened almost immediately to let them inside, and then went to join
them when he was sure they were all present.


The Prioress had made her own chamber available to the powerful men who had left their cosy firesides to attend the nocturnal
meeting. It was a pleasant room, filled with golden light from a generous fire, and its white walls and flagstone floors were
tastefully decorated with tapestries and rugs. The friar was not the only man to appreciate the heat from the hearth or to
welcome the warmth of a goblet of mulled wine in his cold hands.


The nuns saw their guests comfortably settled, and then started to withdraw, leaving the men to their business. The Prioress
and her Sacristan were commendably discreet, not looking too hard or too long at any of the men, and giving the comforting
impression that no one would ever learn about the meeting from them. However, a young novice, whom the friar knew was called
Tysilia, was a different matter. Her dark eyes took in the scene with undisguised curiosity, and she settled herself on one
of the benches that ran along the wall, as if she imagined she would be allowed to remain to witness what was about to take
place.


‘Come, Tysilia,’ ordered the Prioress, pausing at the door when she saw what her charge had done. ‘What is discussed here
tonight has nothing to do with us.’


Tysilia regarded her superior with innocent surprise. ‘But these good gentlemen came here to visit us, Reverend Mother. It
would be rude to abandon them.’


The friar saw the Prioress stifle a sigh of annoyance. ‘We will tend to them later, if they have need of our company. But
for the time being, they wish to be left alone.’


‘With each other?’ asked Tysilia doubtfully. Looking around at the eccentric collection of scholars and clerics, the friar
could see her point. ‘Why?’


‘That is none of our affair,’ said the Prioress sharply. She strode across the room to take the awkward novice by the arm.
‘And it is time we were in our beds.’


She bundled Tysilia from the room, while the Sacristan gave the assembled scholars an apologetic smile. It did little to alleviate
the uneasy atmosphere.


‘I hope she can be trusted not to tell anyone what she has seen tonight,’ said the man who had called the meeting, anxiety
written clear on his pallid face. ‘You promised me absolute discretion.’


The Sacristan nodded reassuringly. ‘Do not worry about Tysilia. She will mention this meeting to no one.’

‘Tysilia,’ mused one of the others thoughtfully. ‘That is the name of the novice who is said to have driven that Carmelite
student-friar – Brother Andrew – to his death.’


‘That is hardly what happened,’ said the Sacristan brusquely. ‘It is not our fault that your students fall in love with us,
then cast themselves into the King’s Ditch when they realise that they cannot have what they crave.’


‘It seemed to me that Tysilia knew exactly what she was doing,’ said the friar, entering the conversation. He disliked Tysilia
intensely, and felt, like many University masters, that pretty nuns should be kept well away from the hot-blooded young men
who flocked to the town to study. ‘Her sly seduction of him was quite deliberate.’


‘You are wrong,’ said the Sacristan firmly. ‘Poor Tysilia is cursed with a slow mind. She does not have the wits to do anything
sly.’


‘I do not like the sound of this,’ said a scholar who was wearing a thick grey cloak. ‘If she is so simple, then how do we
know she can be trusted not to tell people what she saw here tonight?’


‘Her memory is poor,’ said the Sacristan, attempting to curb her irritation at the accusations and sound reassuring. ‘By tomorrow,
she will have forgotten all about you.’


‘That is probably true,’ said the man who had called the meeting. ‘She certainly barely recalls me from one visit to the next.’
He nodded a dismissal to the Sacristan, who favoured him with a curt bow of the head and left, closing the door behind her.


‘We did not come here to talk about weak-witted novices,’ said the grey-cloaked scholar. ‘We came to discuss other matters.’

Despite the warmth of the room, several men had kept their faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods, as if they imagined
they might conceal their identities. The friar shook his head in wry amusement: Cambridge was small, and men of influence
and standing in the University could not fail to know each other; they could no more make themselves anonymous in the Prioress’s
small room than they could anywhere else in the town. The friar knew all their names, the religious Order to which they belonged,
and in some cases, even their family histories and details of their private lives.


The man who had called the meeting cleared his throat nervously. ‘Thank you for coming, gentlemen. I am sorry to draw you
from your friaries, Colleges and hostels at such an hour, but I think we all agree that it is better no one sees us gathering
together if we are to be effective.’


There was a rumble of agreement. ‘There is altogether too much plotting and treachery in the University these days,’ said
the grey-cloaked scholar disapprovingly. ‘God forbid that anyone should accuse us of it.’


The friar forced himself not to smile. What did the man imagine he was doing? Secret meetings with the heads of other religious
Orders, to discuss the kind of issues they all had in mind when most honest folk were in bed, sounded like plotting to the
friar.


An elderly man finished his wine and went to pour himself more, glancing around him as he did so. ‘I do not imagine Prioress
Martyn has allowed us the use of this chamber out of the goodness of her heart. Who is paying for her hospitality?’


The man in charge grinned, and held a gold coin between his finger and thumb, so that everyone could see it. ‘I happened to
be in the Market Square a few weeks ago,’ he said enigmatically.


The others nodded their understanding, some exchanging smiles of genuine amusement as they recalled the incident when half
the town had profited from an unexpected spillage of treasure in the stinking mud near the fish stalls.


‘I saw it all,’ said the old man bitterly. ‘But I was not nimble enough on my feet to take advantage of the situation.’

The scholar in grey laughed from the depths of his hood. ‘I wish I had been there! It is not that I have any special desire
to take part in undignified mêlées and grab myself a handful of gold – although I confess I would not have declined the opportunity
had it arisen – but I would like to have seen the effigy of Master Wilson of Michaelhouse dropped in the Market Square muck
by irate peasants.’


‘Wilson was an odious fellow,’ agreed the old man. ‘And his cousin Runham was no better. It was satisfying to see Wilson’s
effigy and Runham’s corpse so roughly manhandled by the townsfolk. And it was even more gratifying to see the wealth that
pair had accumulated through their dishonest dealings pour into the filth of the town’s streets.’


‘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.’


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-in-law’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 doorway 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 h