‘I am worried about Mistress Lenne,’ said Tulyet, pouring Bartholomew some wine. ‘She was ailing anyway, but her husband’s death under Mortimer’s cart has hastened her journey to the grave.’
‘Her son will be here soon,’ said Bartholomew, thinking about what Bottisham had told him – before he had met his own grisly end. He also recalled that Bottisham had been visiting both Isnard and the old woman, helping them with small, practical donations of money and food. He hoped someone else would take up where he had left off, and realised yet again what a good man the lawyer had been.
‘It is not right,’ said Tulyet bitterly. ‘Mortimer was clearly drunk, yet I am powerless to bring him to justice. Bosel was a poor witness, but at least he was something. Without him I have no case.’
‘Orwelle thinks no one will ever be charged with Bosel’s murder, either.’
‘It looks that way. If Mortimer had not been at that town meeting, I would have arrested him immediately. But I saw him with my own eyes – and what better alibi can he claim than me?’
‘I told you: he may have given Bosel the poison earlier in the day. Bosel drank it in the evening, but Mortimer may have passed it to him much sooner.’
Tulyet disagreed. ‘We are talking about Bosel here, Matt. He would not have waited before consuming a gift of wine. First, he would not have had the self-control, and second, he would have been afraid that someone would take it from him, if he did not swallow it immediately.’
Bartholomew knew this was true. Bosel was not the only beggar in Cambridge, and if any of them had seen him with wine they would have demanded a share – or would have taken it by force.
‘Still,’ mused Tulyet, ‘perhaps Thomas will lose his lawsuit against the King’s Mill. That would hurt him far more than a mere charge of murder.’
‘How will the King investigate the mill dispute?’ asked Bartholomew, wanting to talk about something other than murderers who might go unpunished.
‘Four men will be appointed as commissioners, and they will reach a verdict based on an impartial assessment of the facts. Whatever they decide will be law in the King’s name.’
‘Will these men be the same ones who pardoned Thorpe and Edward? Because if so, then justice will have nothing to do with their decision. Whoever offers the largest bribe will.’
‘Now, now, Matt,’ admonished Tulyet mildly. ‘Watch what you are saying. I do not want my son’s physician hanged for treason. But how is Michael faring with the other business – Deschalers and that scholar … what was his name?’
‘Bottisham,’ said Bartholomew, displeased that the Sheriff had forgotten. ‘Nicholas Bottisham. And Michael is not faring at all. He has learned nothing to help him unravel the mystery.’
‘Then I hope he has better luck tomorrow. There are already rumours in the town that Deschalers was murdered by a scholar, and ill-feeling is beginning to fester. Cambridge will be in flames if he does not have a culprit soon.’
Bartholomew and Quenhyth took their leave of the Tulyets with grateful thanks ringing in their ears. Quenhyth hummed happily, and Bartholomew saw the student was pleased with himself – because of the Tulyets’ adulation as well as the much-needed donation of funds. Bartholomew congratulated him on his performance, and was surprised to see him blush as he admitted a talent for dealing with children. Bartholomew decided he would take Quenhyth with him the next time he was summoned to tend Dickon. Perhaps he could eventually relinquish him as a patient, since Dickon’s ailments were never anything a student could not handle. The future began to look brighter.
They parted company at the Jewry, where Bartholomew tried to guess the identity of the visitor to whom Matilde had alluded, hoping he would not be obliged to exchange pleasantries with one of her former lovers. He dragged his feet a little as he made his way to her home, apprehension mounting as he drew closer. She owned a handsome, albeit small, house that stood near the crumbling church of All Saints in the Jewry. He knocked on her door with some trepidation, and was ushered in by Matilde herself, who smiled her pleasure at his arrival. She gestured that he was to precede her into the comfortable ground-floor chamber where she entertained her guests.
The room was crammed full of people, with children perched on every knee, lap and available scrap of floor, and several adults sitting on the cushioned benches that ran around the walls. Michael was squashed uncomfortably between Yolande and her husband. He had a goblet of wine in one hand and Yolande’s smallest baby in the other. He was clearly nervous of the tiny scrap of humanity – not that his large hands might damage it or make it cry, but that something might leak through its swaddling clothes and leave a stain on his habit. He held it at arm’s length, like a man showing off a prize vegetable. The child surveyed the room from its unusual vantage point with startled eyes.
At first, Bartholomew could not detect any unexpected visitor in the sea of faces that greeted him. Then he realised that every single person, regardless of age or sex, was facing in one direction, towards a figure who sat in the seat of honour next to the blazing hearth. It was almost as though no one else existed; even the baby’s great blue orbs were drawn that way.
An old lady sat there, small, slight and almost swallowed up by an array of cushions and blankets. Yet she was upright and spry, and exuded the sense that here was a woman of great strength and determination. Her emerald eyes were unreadable, but unmistakably intelligent, and she had a large hooked nose. Bartholomew recognised her immediately and a sense of foreboding flowed through him. Matilde gestured to the old woman with an elegant hand.
‘You remember Dame Pelagia, I am sure, Matthew,’ she said. ‘She is Michael’s grandmother, and the King’s best and most famous agent.’
‘Lord!’ breathed Bartholomew, as he fought to remember his manners and make a bow that was suitably low and deferential. It would not do to offend a woman like Dame Pelagia with inadequate shows of obsequiousness, even inadvertently. ‘Now the corpses will start piling up.’
Dame Pelagia’s elderly appearance was deceptive, and her hearing was just as sharp as it had been when she was a comely young maiden some sixty years before. Her smile was enigmatic and impossible to interpret.
‘Do not complain, Matthew,’ she replied, her green eyes, so like Michael’s, gleaming with mischief. ‘My grandson tells me you need all the fourpenny fees you can get.’
CHAPTER 5
The following morning, Bartholomew visited the small house on Shoemaker Row, near the Market Square, where Lenne’s widow lived. Michael went with him, on the understanding that the physician would then accompany him to interview the Fellows at Gonville Hall.
The Market Square was noisy and colourful that day. Apprentices were everywhere, carrying goods in barrels, sacks, crates and buckets, clad in liveries to advertise their masters’ businesses. Customers weaved among them – haughty retainers from wealthy households, friars and monks from religious houses and the University, and wide-eyed peasants from the surrounding villages. The air rang with sound, and Bartholomew and Michael had to shout to make themselves heard above the yelling of traders, the clatter of hoofs, the squealing of pigs headed for Butchery Row, and the furious barking of a dog. The acid stench of old urine from the tanneries and the rank, sickening aroma of decaying offal from the slaughterhouses was especially pungent that morning, making Bartholomew’s eyes water so that he could barely see where he was walking.
Shoemaker Row was a narrow, congested lane that was inhabited mostly, but not exclusively, by cobblers. Its largest building was Ely Hall, rented by a contingent of Benedictine monks from nearby Ely Abbey, while the Lenne home was one of the smallest, comprising a single ground-floor room with a lean-to kitchen at the back.