The book-bearer shook his head. ‘Good boots, boy; I am all right. But it looks as if you were less easily defeated. You have killed one of our attackers. Well done!’
Bartholomew whipped around, and saw that Cynric was pointing at the object he had tripped over. His stomach lurched when he saw it was Richard Spynk.
Chapter 10
It was still quite dark when Bartholomew woke the next day, and he was surprised to find Cynric in the room with him, lying on one of the students’ straw mattresses and staring at the ceiling with his fingers laced behind his head. Then the events of the previous night came rushing back to him. He and Michael had taken Spynk’s body to St Mary the Great, while Cynric had led the beadles in a search for the intruders. The monk had decided it was too late to tell Cecily what had happened, saying there was no point in waking her at such an hour just to dispense bad news. Recalling the way the couple had behaved towards each other, Bartholomew suspected the news might not be perceived as ‘bad’ at all.
‘Carton was stabbed in the back,’ said Cynric softly. ‘By someone tall, you said.’
Bartholomew supposed the book-bearer was reviewing events in his mind. He rolled over to face him. ‘You think Spynk was killed by the same man? By the Sorcerer?’
Cynric nodded slowly. ‘It is possible. Spynk joined a coven the moment he arrived in the town. Perhaps the Sorcerer thought that was a bit keen, and saw him as a potential rival.’
‘Was it the Sorcerer we fought last night, then?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘Did you see his face? There were at least two of them, but I could not tell much else. Everything happened so fast.’
‘You did battle with Beard, and I had the giant. However, I saw a third person, too, dashing for freedom while we fought. Perhaps that was the Sorcerer, and Beard and the giant are his henchmen.’
‘So, one of these three must have killed Spynk. He cannot have been dead for long, because I had just seen him at the coven in All Saints.’
‘Their first priority was escape,’ mused Cynric. ‘Beard and the giant are decent swordsmen, and you were armed only with a dagger. They could easily have bested us, but they preferred to run rather than risk capture by skirmishing.’
Bartholomew sat up, knowing he should examine Spynk’s body as soon as possible. He washed in the bowl of water Cynric left for him each night, which was tepid, smelled brackish and did not leave him feeling as refreshed as it should have done. He donned a clean shirt, his black tabard, and supposed he was ready to face the world. Uneasily, he realised it was already Friday, which meant there were only two days and a night left before the Sorcerer made his move on Trinity Eve. Time was running out fast.
He was glad when Cynric offered to go with him to St Mary the Great, suspecting the prankster was unlikely to bother with his nasty tricks if his victim had company. They left the College just as the sky was beginning to lighten, and walked along St Michael’s Lane. Their footsteps echoed hollowly, and Bartholomew could hear someone coughing in nearby Gonville Hall. When they passed St Michael’s Church, Cynric stopped suddenly and peered into the gloom of its graveyard.
‘Is someone lying on the ground over there?’ he asked.
Bartholomew followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw a pale figure next to what looked like a hole. Piles of earth were scattered around. He swallowed hard as his stomach lurched in horror. ‘Oh no!’ he whispered. ‘It is another exhumation.’
‘It is,’ agreed Cynric unsteadily. ‘And this time I think the victim is Father Thomas.’
‘Christ!’ Bartholomew felt sick. ‘Are you sure?’
Cynric crossed himself, then drew his sword and walked towards the shape. Reluctantly, Bartholomew followed, closing his eyes in despair when he recognised the wiry hair and grey habit of the man whose death he had brought about. By rights, Thomas should have gone in the Franciscans’ cemetery, but St Michael’s had happened to have a ready-dug grave, and Langelee had persuaded Prior Pechem to accept it – the Master hoped the arrangement would encourage the town to think that the Grey Friars harboured no ill-feelings about Thomas meeting his death while under the care of Michaelhouse’s physician.
‘What shall we do?’ asked Cynric uneasily. ‘Will you stay here while I fetch Brother Michael?’
‘We cannot let anyone else see this,’ said Bartholomew, trying to pull himself together. He found his hands were shaking. ‘The last thing we need is another rumour that the Sorcerer has been at work. Help me carry him to the Stanton Chapel. Then I will stay with him while you prepare his grave, and we will rebury him as soon as you are ready.’
Cynric obliged, then took a shovel and went outside again, leaving Bartholomew alone with the body. The physician had just dropped to his knees, supposing he had better say some prayers, when a shadow materialised behind him. He yelled in alarm, which made the shadow howl its own fright.
‘God’s teeth, Brother!’ he exclaimed, feeling his heart hammer furiously as he scrambled to his feet. ‘Was it really necessary to creep up on me like that? What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘I came to recite an early mass.’ Michael leaned heavily against the wall, hand to his chest. ‘You scared the life out of me, shrieking like that – the Sorcerer has us as skittish as a pair of virgins in a brothel. Cynric told me what happened, by the way. You did the right thing by bringing Thomas in here. Will you inspect him while we wait for the grave to be readied?’
Bartholomew gazed at the friar’s face, which was beginning to be unrecognisable after its time in the ground, and was assailed by a wave of guilt. ‘It should not be me,’ he said, trying to control the tremor in his voice. He was unwilling to let even Michael see how much the situation bothered him. ‘Not with him.’
‘You have no choice. Paxtone refuses to touch corpses, and Rougham is still away – not that I would trust him anyway, with his penchant for verdicts of natural causes. I am still haunted by the Hardys.’
‘The Hardys,’ repeated Bartholomew, knowing he was using them as a tactic to delay dealing with Thomas, but unable to help himself. ‘I know what happened to them. I worked it out from comments made by the canons at Barnwell, Cynric and Mother Valeria.’
Michael looked worried. ‘Was I right to think there was something amiss?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘Cynric told me the witches’ handbook contains a spell for predicting the future. Mother Valeria was going to use it last night. It involves a potion that contains powerful herbs, and she said even skilled warlocks have died performing the ritual. She also said people have asked her for it in the past, but she always refused because of the risks involved.’
‘Lord!’ muttered Michael. ‘The fact that she feels the need to resort to it now bodes ill. The Sorcerer has even Cambridge’s most-feared witches uneasy.’
‘One person who asked her to perform was John Hardy; another was Tulyet the Elder. I have a feeling that when she refused, they took matters into their own hands. Henbane and mandrake are potent plants, and they miscalculated how much they could drink. The Hardys died side by side in bed – probably later, after they had tidied away the evidence, since your subsequent search found no sign of it – while Tulyet’s death was so sudden that Dick wanted the services of a Corpse Examiner.’
Michael’s face was white. ‘Not natural causes, then.’
‘No, but these substances are hard to detect, so you cannot blame Rougham for missing them.’
‘An accident?’
‘Yes, they learned the hard way that witchcraft is not a game. It was the plague that drove them away from the Church, though. That disease has a lot to answer for.’