Ulf reeled suddenly. ‘I feel funny … Have you …’
‘I know you will betray me the moment we part company,’ said Dickon coldly. ‘So I have taught you what happens to traitors, too.’
With a howl of rage, Ulf leapt at him. Ulf was smaller, but he had a knife and he knew how to use it. The blade slipped easily between Dickon’s ribs. Dickon gasped in disbelief before toppling into the pit. Ulf fell, too, landing beside him. It did not take long for either boy to breathe his last.
The two men who had witnessed the encounter gaped their shock at the speed with which it had turned fatal. Isnard and Chaumbre had been in the shadows to one side, discussing the last dye-pit. It was an odd hour for such a conversation, but Chaumbre was so busy with his charitable works that it was the only time he could manage.
When Dickon had first appeared, Isnard wanted to race forward and lay hold of him, but Chaumbre held him back. Ever since Dickon had escaped, Chaumbre had been painfully aware that the boy posed a serious danger to his brother-in-law – and if anything happened to Matthew, it would break Edith’s heart. Thus he was not about to risk losing the brat by chasing him with a one-legged bargeman. However, he had certainly not expected to hear Dickon’s confession, and the boy’s ruthless malevolence had chilled him to the bone.
‘We should have grabbed him when he first appeared,’ whispered Isnard accusingly, once he had recovered his voice. ‘Like I told you.’
‘I was afraid he would escape,’ breathed Chaumbre, still stunned. ‘He is younger and faster than us. I would never have delayed if I had thought … Lord! And Ulf, too! I should have known they were in it together when he began sporting that new hat …’
Isnard frowned. ‘His hat? Why? It is just a black one, like any other.’
‘Not to a dyer,’ explained Chaumbre. ‘There is a hint of red that makes it distinctive to the trained eye. I thought it was familiar when I saw him wearing it on the day that Elsham died. I remember why now – it was Dickon’s. Ulf must have demanded it as payment for causing a diversion on the bridge.’
Isnard inched towards the dye-pit, and Chaumbre followed, both afraid of what they would see. Ulf was sprawled just below them, while Dickon lay at right angles to him. The eyes of both boys stared upwards sightlessly.
Chaumbre crossed himself. ‘They were children, Isnard,’ he whispered. ‘And they discussed murder as if it were something they did every day. Children!’
‘Not very nice children,’ said Isnard with a sniff.
‘Dickon wanted to poison Matthew,’ Chaumbre went on, shaking his head at the horror of it all.
‘And Brother Michael,’ said Isnard. ‘The man who leads the Marian Singers and supplies free bread and ale to half the town. Dickon really was the Devil’s spawn, to set his sights on them. Did you hear that Sheriff Tulyet found the Chancellor’s letter among the brat’s belongings, by the way?’
‘The one Aynton gave Huntyngdon to deliver?’
Isnard nodded. ‘Which proves beyond all doubt that Dickon was indeed the one who ordered Gille and Elsham to kill the messengers.’
Chaumbre shuddered, but then frowned as he continued to peer into the pit. ‘Is that a finger I see poking through the dirt next to Ulf? Is someone else down there? Yet another victim of Tulyet’s hellion son?’
‘Probably just an old glove,’ said Isnard, disinclined to look more closely.
‘Poor Tulyet,’ said Chaumbre. ‘Now he and his wife will have to bear the news that, on top of all his other crimes, Dickon poisoned another child.’
Isnard was silent for a while. ‘Perhaps we should spare them that knowledge,’ he whispered eventually. ‘Dickon has caused them enough pain, so why let him inflict more? What do you say?’
Their eyes met and plans were made. Within an hour, they were back with a cart of hard-core rubble and two spades. Wordlessly, they began to fill in the pit.
‘I shall plant a garden on top of them,’ said Chaumbre when they had finished. ‘One with fragrant herbs and a bench for people to sit on. It will be a place of peace and tranquillity.’
‘And if these bodies are ever discovered,’ said Isnard, ‘you and I will be long dead. No one will ever know the sorry tale of how they came to be there.’
‘A mystery,’ whispered Chaumbre. ‘For future folk to ponder.’
Historical Note
During excavations by Craig Cessford of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit in 2010, a pit containing four skeletons was discovered. The pit was one of four wood-lined structures, located on the edge of the area used as a cemetery by the medieval Hospital of St John. The precise purpose of these pits has been obscured by time.
The skeletons were those of an adult male, an older woman, a youth of eleven to thirteen years, and a child of six to eight. Carbon-14 dating suggests a burial date of between 1300 and 1415. The woman’s teeth were in poor condition – decayed, some missing, worn and with abscesses. She was buried face-down, as if she had been thrown in. All four individuals show signs of a hasty burial, although it is impossible to be sure why. Details of this incredible and fascinating excavation can be found in Craig’s freely downloadable report on the Archaeology Data Service website:
Most of the people in The Chancellor’s Secret were real. John Stasy and John Hawick – although they were scholars of Oxford, not Cambridge – were accused of dealing in the dark arts. Hawick lived in the 1380s, and seems to have been acquitted, but Stasy, who lived a century later, was not so fortunate and was executed in 1477, despite his protestations of innocence. Two other Oxford scholars were Richard Gille, who murdered John Martyn in 1389, and John Elsham, who killed William Huntyngdon in 1369, apparently in self-defence. In Cambridge at the same time, there was a Huntyngdon who was an illegitimate son of Guichard d’Angle, the Earl of Huntingdon.
Michaelhouse deeds record that funds were left to the College by one Edith Chaumbre, a widow. College Fellows in the 1360s included Michael (de Causton), William (Gotham) and John Clippesby. Later members were William Zoone, John Aungel, John Islaye and Thomas Mallett. The collegiate church was St Michael’s, which still stands on Trinity Street (once called the High Street) and was united with the parish of Great St Mary’s in 1908. It was refurbished a century later, and is now the Michaelhouse Centre. It serves as a community hub and art gallery and has a lovely cafe – well worth a visit.
A Peterhouse scholar named Richard Narboro was betrothed to Lucy Brampton in the 1400s, but he spent ten years abroad before returning to Cambridge and deciding he did not want her. The fact that the hapless Lucy had been out of the marriage market for a decade, and was likely now too old to win another suitor, was not the main cause of concern to her kin. What mattered more was that Narboro had left them with the bill for housing her all the time he was away. The case went to court and Narboro was compelled to cough up. There is no record of what became of Lucy. There was a King’s Hall Fellow named Thomas Brampton in 1388, but he was probably no relation.
Gerard de Hoo was an early, if not the first, Master of Peterhouse. Other Peterhouse Fellows in the 1360s were William Stantone and John Gayton. King’s Hall had a scholar named Geoffrey Dodenho, and its Warden in 1361 was John de Shropham.
Clare Hall, originally known as University Hall, was the fourth College to be founded in Cambridge. It is now known as Clare College, and a new Clare Hall was founded in 1966. Three of University Hall’s early Fellows were John Donwich, Peter March and John Pulham.