While Mother Goodman stripped the bloody habit from Unwin’s body and washed him, Bartholomew knelt again and tried to say another requiem. But Father William had been right: it was difficult to concentrate through the sound of heavy breathing and splashing water, not to mention the pithy curses when Unwin’s stiffening limbs proved difficult to handle. Finally, Bartholomew gave up, and sat on the chancel steps to watch her.
She was a large woman, whose powerful arms and competent red hands suggested she had performed such duties many times before. Her ample hips swayed as she worked, swinging her rough brown skirts this way and that. She wore a faded scarf around her head with her hair tucked inside it, although a wisp of grey had escaped on one side. Bartholomew supposed she was about fifty, although her skin was remarkably free of wrinkles and blemishes.
‘You are the midwife, I understand,’ he said. ‘Janelle at Burgh mentioned you.’
‘So?’ she said, pausing in her scrubbing, and giving him a belligerent glower. ‘What of it?’
‘Nothing,’ said Bartholomew, sorry he had spoken. He looked at Unwin’s body as Mother Goodman began to wrap it in the shroud. It was pale from a life of studying indoors, and the stomach wound was dark and red. Impatiently, the midwife elbowed Bartholomew out of the way, and he went to sit on the chancel steps again, trying once more to recollect whether any of the celebrating villagers had paid Unwin and his purse particular attention. No matter how hard he thought, he could recall no one who had seemed to be acting suspiciously, even with hindsight.
And what about the people Stoate and Eltisley had seen? Had Grosnold returned unexpectedly to converse with Unwin? But why? With sudden clarity, Bartholomew remembered Unwin and Grosnold talking together at Otley the night before the scholars had arrived in Grundisburgh. Bartholomew had been surprised to see Unwin actually inside the bailey and even more surprised to see him talking to the lord of the manor. And then Unwin had declined to tell him about it.
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair. Was that the answer? Had Grosnold been trying to lure Unwin into some future plot against his neighbour Tuddenham – or even Deblunville – and then killed him when he declined to become involved in a local squabble? Or did their acquaintance stretch back further than a few days? And what of Stoate’s mysterious figure, with the heavy cloak and sore eyes? Was he the killer? Bartholomew put his hands over his face and scrubbed at his cheeks. It was some moments before he realised he was being watched.
‘If I wanted a consultation with you, how much would you charge?’ Mother Goodman demanded, hands on her hips.
‘It depends on what was wrong with you,’ said Bartholomew. He stood hastily as she marched towards him purposefully, feeling somewhat intimidated.
‘I want to increase my milk,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘It is drying up.’
‘You have had no child recently,’ said Bartholomew, recovering from his surprise quickly and thinking that she would have had no children for a good number of years. ‘Do you want to know a cure so that you can pass it on to one of your patients?’
She regarded him coldly. ‘So, you will not tell me?’
‘I did not say that,’ he said. ‘But you should not be dishonest with me, if you want me to help you. What I might recommend for a person of your years and… size, might be very different from what I would suggest for a younger, smaller woman.’
She glared at him angrily, her eyes glittering coals of hazel deep inside her puffy face, and he thought she was going to end the conversation there and then. If she did, it was none of his affair, and he was more concerned with thinking about who might have killed Unwin than with dispensing remedies to someone else’s patients.
‘Very well, then,’ she said after a moment. ‘She is sixteen summers, and this is her first infant.’
‘Is it just a case of no milk?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything else wrong with her?’
She considered. ‘She is always tired, but that is to be expected of a new mother.’
‘You can try fennel boiled in barley water,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Use common fennel, because the wild variety will be too strong. If that does not work, you can give her a small amount of viper’s bugloss steeped in milk. For the tiredness tell her to eat beans cooked in sugar, and eggs and cabbage, if she has them.’
‘Do you suggest fennel because it is a herb of Saturn?’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew shortly. ‘I suggest fennel because I have had considerable success with it for this complaint in women in the past. And anyway, it is a herb of Mercury, not Saturn.’
‘Are you sure? Master Stoate told me it was Saturn.’
‘I am quite sure. Master Stoate is mistaken.’
She gave him a sudden grin. ‘I am glad to hear it. Master Stoate believes he is never mistaken. Now, how much will this consultation cost me? You have a choice: I will mend that rip in your shirt and sew a new patch on your tabard where it is beginning to fray; you can have a bottle of the wine I make from cabbage stems; or I can read your palm and tell your future.’
‘None of that is necessary,’ said Bartholomew, thinking the choices were at least an improvement on a ring made from a coffin, ‘but if this woman’s condition does not improve in two or three days, you should tell her to come to see me. She may require something stronger. Is there a wet-nurse for the child in the meantime?’
‘Yes, but she is overly fond of garlic, and I do not consider that healthy for a baby.’
‘Why not?’ asked Bartholomew, interested. ‘Do you think it causes colic?’
‘I believe so,’ she said. ‘But a good cure for colic in babies is ground cumin with a little anise. Have you tried that?’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How is it prepared?’
‘Equal parts soaked in wine for three days, then left on a board to dry for nine days, then ground into a powder over the fire.’
‘I will remember that,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully. ‘I have never used cumin for infants, but it is a gentle herb.’
‘You are an odd sort of physician,’ she said, regarding him curiously. ‘Master Stoate never asks me for my cures.’
‘Perhaps he has no need, if you can dispense them. But there is a shortage of good midwives in Cambridge. Master Stoate does not know how lucky he is to have one in his village.’
‘That is certainly true! I have cured more people than he has, and killed a lot fewer! He practises surgery, you know. He bleeds people, and even stitches wounds on rare occasions.’
Bartholomew also stitched wounds, but, from the disapproving tone of her voice, he did not consider now an opportune time to mention it. He watched as she turned her attention back to Unwin’s body, scattering fragrant herbs into the coffin so that their heady scent mingled with the all-pervasive odour of incense and the earthier smell of blood.
‘The killer stole his purse, then,’ said Mother Goodman, picking up the stained habit from where she had thrown it. ‘Much in it?’
‘Nothing of any value to a thief,’ said Bartholomew. ‘A phial of chrism and a piece of parchment containing some of St Botolph’s beard.’
She stared at him. ‘A relic? Someone stole a relic?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘Why? Do you know someone who wants one?’
‘Not one that has been stolen – it is more likely to bring a curse than a blessing. And anyway, I think poor St Botolph’s remains have been treated badly enough in Grundisburgh already.’
‘I read about that – some monks stole them from a chapel near here.’
She smiled suddenly. ‘I would have expected you to say the monks “rescued” them, or “removed them to a safer place” –that fat Benedictine certainly would say so. But you are right. “Stole” is what those men did with our saint’s relics. And now you say someone took his beard from this friar’s purse? From here, inside the church?’