An Order for Death (23 page)

‘It probably would not have been easy for two,’ said Michael, staring thoughtfully at the Lombard slices before reaching out
and taking one. He stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.

‘Perhaps someone who lives near the Dominican Friary heard Walcote shouting for help,’ suggested Bartholomew.

‘Beadle Meadowman has already investigated that possibility,’ said Michael, taking another pastry and treating it to the same
fate as the first. ‘He reported to me late last night, when you were in bed. No one heard anything or saw anything.’

‘I suppose people’s window shutters would be fastened,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It was cold, wet and windy that night. Shutters
not only stop you from seeing out, but they muffle sounds.’

‘That tale Lincolne just told us about Kenyngham and Tysilia was revealing,’ said Michael. ‘Kenyngham is no longer a young
man, and he seldom ventures further than Michaelhouse or his own Priory of Gilbertines on Trumpington Way. So, how did he
come to meet her? The answer is that he went to St Radegund’s, just as Eve Wasteneys and Matilde told us.’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘And for Lincolne to have witnessed this exchange means that
he
must have been at St Radegund’s, too. Again, just as Eve and Matilde told us.’

‘I wonder how Walcote induced all those men to go to a place like St Radegund’s in the dead of night. It makes no sense. And
why did he not tell
me
what he was doing?’

‘You really have no idea?’

‘None at all,’ said Michael bitterly. ‘I trusted Walcote, and often told him my secret plans. I am hurt that he did not see
fit to reciprocate.’

‘Did you tell him everything?’ asked Bartholomew.

Michael regarded him as though he were insane. ‘Of course not. I do not even tell you everything. But I did confide a great
deal to Walcote. I am astonished that he had business with important men like Lincolne, Pechem and Kenyngham, and yet said
nothing to me.’

‘Perhaps he was planning to surprise you with something,’ suggested Bartholomew.

‘Such as what? I do not like surprises – especially ones that involve secret meetings in a place like St Radegund’s. It sounds
more like a plot than a surprise.’ He punched Bartholomew on the shoulder, his previous low spirits revived by the ale and
his determination to discover what his Junior Proctor had been doing without his knowledge. ‘But we will find out whatever
is afoot and we will solve these two murders.’

Bartholomew reached for the rest of his pastry to find it had gone. ‘I thought you had lost your appetite,’ he said as the
monk swung his cloak around his shoulders. ‘I was the one who was hungry.’

‘How can you be thinking about food when we have a murderer to catch?’ demanded Michael accusingly. ‘Come on. Faricius’s requiem
will be over now. We should talk to Prior Lincolne.’

Bartholomew refused to return to the Carmelite Friary until they had fulfilled their promise to visit Matilde at the Convent
of St Radegund’s. The monk complained bitterly about the brisk walk along the Barnwell Causeway, but it was too cold to travel
at the ambling pace he usually favoured. When they arrived at the convent, and had made their way through the dripping vegetation
to the front gate, Michael was puffing and panting like a pair of bellows, although it had still not been fast enough to drive
the chill from Bartholomew’s bones. Shivering, and with a sense of foreboding, he knocked on the door.

The grille snapped open, and the bright black eyes of Tysilia peered out at them. Before he could announce their business,
the door had been opened, and Michael pushed his way across the threshold, still grumbling about the speed of the walk.

‘Do come in, Brother,’ said Tysilia to Michael’s back, as the monk headed towards the solar. Bartholomew glanced at her sharply,
but could not tell whether she was being facetious, or merely reciting the words of welcome she had been trained to say.

‘We would like to speak to Dame Martyn,’ he said, feeling obliged to make at least some effort to explain their presence.
‘Is she in her quarters?’

‘Everyone is in the refectory,’ replied Tysilia, as she closed the door behind him. ‘We are having breakfast.’

‘Breakfast?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. Michael overheard and veered away from the direction of the solar to aim for a substantial
building to his left. ‘But it is almost midday.’

Tysilia seemed surprised. ‘It is only midday if you rise at dawn. None of us do, I am pleased to say, and so for us it is
breakfast time.’

‘But what about matins, prime and terce?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘How do you keep those offices, if you wake so late?’

Tysilia waved a dismissive hand. ‘We leave those for the friars and monks to say. We are doing God a favour, actually. Can
you imagine what it must be like to have all those voices clamouring at you at certain times of the day? I am sure He is grateful
to us for our conflagration. Or do I mean for our condescension? All these long words sound the same to me.’

‘I imagine you mean “consideration”,’ said Bartholomew, eyeing her warily. He tried to read some expression in her dark eyes,
but although they sparkled, they did so with a brilliance that was only superficially shiny, like a pair of Richard’s buttons.
He could not tell whether a clever mind was thoroughly enjoying itself by presenting a false image to the world, or whether
what he saw was all there was.

‘Have you caught your killer?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you are here again?’

Bartholomew glanced at her a second time, wondering whether her question was more than idle curiosity. He thought he glimpsed
a flicker of something in her face, but then wondered if it were merely a trick of the light. He did not know what to think.

‘No,’ he replied shortly, not wanting to give away details to someone who might have more than a passing interest in the matter.

‘We have a fat woman staying with us,’ Tysilia chirped conversationally, as they walked towards the refectory. She did not
seem to find his curt reply to her question worthy of comment. ‘She is paying five groats a day to escape from her demanding
husband.’ Her pretty features creased into a moue of disgust. ‘I hope my uncle will not foist one of those on
me
. I am happier changing my lovers each week.’

‘Each week?’ asked Bartholomew, trying to keep the surprise from his voice at her unusual choice of topics. He wondered whether
she was trying to shock him, and he did
not want to give her the satisfaction of seeing he was embarrassed. ‘Do you not keep them longer than that?’

‘No,’ she said airily. ‘You see, the first few times a lover meets you, he is affectionate and only wants physical favours.
But after about a week, he wants more than a romp between the covers, and likes to talk and ask questions. I cannot be bothered
with all that.’

‘You mean you disapprove of conversation and discussion?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘I do not know about that, but I dislike talking,’ replied Tysilia, opening the door to the refectory and ushering her guests
inside. ‘I talk and listen all day with the nuns. I do not want to do it during the night, as well. I am sure you know what
I mean.’

She gave him a hefty nudge with her elbow that all but winded him, but he was spared from the obligation of supplying her
with an answer by Eve Wasteneys, who came forward to greet them.

The refectory was warm and comfortable, and the hum of voices and laughter indicated that Dame Martyn did not insist upon
silence or Bible-reading at meals. Breakfast comprised baked eggs in addition to bread and oatmeal, and Bartholomew was certain
he saw Dame Martyn slide a large piece of ham out of sight under her trencher. Ham was not an item that should have been on
the breakfast table during Lent, and so she was wise to hide it from the sight of her unexpected visitors. The Prioress smiled
a greeting at Bartholomew and Michael, and then raised a large cup of breakfast ale to her lips, drinking long and deep, as
if she imagined she might need the fortification it provided.

‘Where is my ham?’ demanded Tysilia petulantly, as she sat down at her place. ‘It was here when I went to answer the door.
Who took it?’

Dame Martyn and Eve exchanged a weary glance, and Bartholomew saw the plump, wrinkled woman who sat to one side raise her
napkin to her lips so that no one would spot her smiling. Bartholomew was relieved to see her,
knowing that if Matilde was sitting at the breakfast table and was amused by Tysilia’s antics, then she was not yet in any
danger.

‘We do not eat ham during Lent, Tysilia,’ said Dame Martyn meaningfully. ‘You know that.’

Tysilia gazed blankly at her. ‘But it is not Lent. We were eating ham this morning, so Lent must have ended.’ Her eyes narrowed,
and she pointed an accusing finger at Matilde. ‘I bet
she
took it. She is so fat that she ate my ham, as well as her own. I will tell my uncle about this!’

‘Have mine,’ said Dame Martyn tiredly, seeing that placating the woman was the only way to shut her up and prevent her from
further insulting their paying guest. She retrieved the meat from under her trencher and passed it to Tysilia, who began to
gnaw at it like a peasant, pausing only to wipe her greasy fingers on the tablecloth.

‘We start working on table manners tomorrow,’ said Eve Wasteneys flatly, watching Tysilia’s display of gluttony with disapproval.
‘One thing at a time. But what can we do for you, Brother? Have you caught Will Walcote’s killer?’

‘Not yet,’ said Michael. ‘We came to ask whether you recall any more details about these meetings. I am sure they are significant,
so anything you can tell us might help.’

‘We told you all we knew yesterday,’ said Eve. ‘And we also told you that it was dark and late, and that we could not be certain
about the identities of the men who came.’

‘Perhaps Tysilia can help,’ suggested Michael. ‘She is the gatekeeper, after all. She must have admitted these men to the
convent when they attended these meetings.’

‘What meetings?’ asked Tysilia, speaking without closing her mouth, so that the scholars were treated to the sight of a half-chewed
slab of ham. ‘I do not know about any meetings. We all went to bed early last night, because it was raining – the men tend
not to come here when it is wet.’

‘I see,’ said Michael. Bartholomew saw that Matilde was having a difficult time controlling her mirth at Tysilia’s brazen
revelations, and at the embarrassment of the two
senior nuns as their secrets were so mercilessly exposed. ‘But I was referring to meetings that took place further back than
yesterday – some of them before Christmas.’

‘I remember Christmas,’ said Tysilia brightly. ‘Dame Wasteneys took her bow and shot some duck for us to eat.’

‘Poaching on the Bishop’s land, were you?’ said Michael, raising his eyebrows in amused surprise, while Eve closed her eyes
in weary resignation. ‘But never mind that. Do you recall letting any men into the convent at about that time?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tysilia casually. ‘Lots of them, all dressed in dark cloaks and hoods, so that no one could see their faces.’

‘But did
you
see their faces?’ asked Michael. Bartholomew heard the sudden hope in his voice.

Tysilia nodded. ‘I could not see to their needs while they wore their hoods, could I? There was Sergeant Orwelle from the
Castle; there was that silly Brother Andrew from the Carmelites, who made a nuisance of himself until he fell in the King’s
Ditch and drowned – good riddance, I said; then there was Mayor Horwoode, who comes when his whore Yolande de Blaston is unavailable
…’

‘That is enough!’ snapped Eve sharply, apparently deciding to act before Tysilia destroyed the reputation of every man in
the town. Dame Martyn had her nose in the breakfast ale again, and seemed too horrified to intervene. Eve turned to Michael
apologetically. ‘These are not the men who came to the meetings Walcote arranged.’

‘But how do you know?’ asked Michael. ‘You said they were at pains to conceal their identities from you. How can you be sure
that the Mayor and Sergeant Orwelle were not among those Walcote invited to his gatherings?’

‘Because the folk Tysilia mentioned are regular attendees here, and I know who they are no matter how far they draw their
hoods over their faces. But the ones who came with Walcote were not the same.’

‘Walcote’s meetings certainly did not involve that rough
Sergeant Orwelle,’ offered Dame Martyn. ‘He was not the kind of person with whom Walcote had business.’

‘Believe me, you would be wise not to trust anything Tysilia dredges up from that muddy nether-world she calls her memory,’
said Eve in an undertone, regarding the novice disparagingly. ‘Her memories of yesterday are hazy, let alone from four months
ago.’

‘Are you gentlemen returning to the town?’ asked Matilde in a slow, croaking voice, fiddling with the ring on her finger to
indicate that she wanted to speak to them. ‘If so, I have a message to send to my kinsman. Would you be so kind as to deliver
it for me?’

‘I suppose so,’ sighed Michael ungraciously. ‘Hurry up, if you want to write it. We have a great deal to do today and we cannot
wait for long.’

‘I do not write,’ said Matilde, in the tone of voice that suggested she considered literacy akin to some disgusting vice.
‘I will whisper my message and you can deliver it personally.’

‘I will do no such thing,’ replied Michael haughtily, playing his part well. ‘You can mutter any message you have into the
ear of my friend here. He is a physician, and much more used to the ramblings of old women than I am. He will carry your message.’

‘And God bless you, too, Brother,’ retorted Matilde as she eased herself off the bench with a great show of making it look
like a painful and laborious business.

Tysilia watched her with open curiosity. ‘She is fat,’ she declared uncompromisingly. ‘Fat women are ugly, and the Death should
have taken them all.’

‘Tysilia!’ exclaimed Dame Martyn, genuinely aghast. ‘You really must keep such hostile thoughts to yourself. It is not becoming.’