An Unholy Alliance (2 page)

In the main body of the church a few parishioners drifted in, yawning and rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and Michael began the service, his rich baritone filling the church as he chanted. Out of the corner of his eye, Bartholomew saw something fly through the air towards the Michaelhouse students. It landed harmlessly, but a stain on the floor attested that it was a ball of mud.

Bartholomew scanned the congregation, and identified the culprits in the form of the blacksmith’s sons. They stood, hands clasped in front of them, eyes raised to the carved wooden roof, as though nothing had happened.

Bartholomew frowned. The University had a stormy relationship with the town, and, although the University brought prosperity to a number of townsfolk, it also brought gangs of arrogant, noisy students who despised the people of the town and rioted at the least provocation.

Bartholomew saw one of the Physwick students bow his head in laughter at the mud-ball. The University was not even at peace with itself: students from the south loathed scholars from the north and from Scotland; they all hated students from Wales and Ireland; and there was even fierce rivalry between the different religious orders, the mendicant friars and priests at loggerheads with the rich Benedictines and the Austin Canons who ran the Hospital of St John.

Bartholomew turned his attention away from the

blacksmith’s loutish sons, and back to the service.

Michael had finished reading, and the scholars began to chant a Psalm. Bartholomew joined in the singing, relishing how the chanting echoed through the church.

As the Psalm finished, Bartholomew stepped forward to read the designated tract from the Old Testament.

He faltered as the door was flung open, and a man walked quickly down the aisle, gesturing urgently that he wanted to speak to the Master, Thomas Kenyngham.

Kenyngham was a gentle Gilbertine friar whose rule of the College was tolerant to the point of laxity. He smiled benignly and waved the messenger forward. The man whispered in his ear, and Bartholomew saw Roger Alcote surreptitiously lean to one side to try to overhear.

The Master favoured Alcote with a seraphic smile until Alcote had the grace to move away. Out of the corner of his eye, Bartholomew saw that one of the clerk’s frenzied gestures was directed towards him, and wondered which of his patients needed him so urgently that mass could be interrupted.

Kenyngham left his place and walked towards the

altar, laying a hand on Bartholomew’s arm to stop his reading.

‘Gentlemen,’ he began in his soft voice, ‘there

has been an incident in St Mary’s Church. The

Chancellor has requested that Brother Michael and Doctor Bartholomew attend as soon as possible. Father William and I will continue the mass.’ Without further ado, he took up the reading where Bartholomew had stopped, leaving William to scramble to take his own place. Michael dropped his prayerful attitude with a speed that verged on the sacrilegious and made his way down the aisle, eyes gleaming with anticipation. Cynric followed, and Bartholomew went after them, aware of the curious looks from the other scholars. The Master of Physwick plucked at his sleeve as he passed.

“I am the University’s Senior Proctor,’ he said in a low whisper. ‘If there has been an incident in the University church, I should come.’

Bartholomew shrugged, glancing briefly at him as he walked briskly down the aisle. He did not like Richard Harling, who, as the University’s Senior Proctor, patrolled the streets at night looking for scholars who should be safely locked in their College or hostel, and fined them for unseemly or rowdy behaviour.

Bartholomew sometimes needed to be out at night

to see patients, and Harling had already fined him twice without even listening to his reasons. Harling had black hair that was always neatly slicked down with animal grease, and his scholar’s tabard was immaculate.

The messenger was waiting for them outside. It was lighter than in the church, and Bartholomew recognised the neat, bearded features of the Chancellor’s personal clerk, Gilbert.

‘What has happened?’ asked Michael, intrigued. ‘What is so important that it could not wait until after mass?’

‘A dead man has been found in the University chest,’

Gilbert replied. Ignoring their looks of disbelief, he continued, ‘The Chancellor ordered me to fetch Brother Michael, the Bishop’s man, and Matthew Bartholomew, the physician.’

‘Not the plague!’ whispered Bartholomew in horror.

He grabbed Gilbert’s arm. ‘How did this man die?’

Gilbert forced a smile. ‘Not the plague. I do not know what killed him, but it was not the plague.’

Harling pursed his lips. ‘This sounds like business for the Proctor.’

Gilbert raised his hands. ‘The Junior Proctor is already there. He said you had been on duty last night, and you should not be disturbed until later.’

He turned, and set a lively pace towards St Mary’s Church, so that the obese Michael was huffing and sweating within a few moments.

Bartholomew nudged the Benedictine monk in

the ribs. ‘ “Brother Michael, the Bishop’s man”,’ he repeated in an undertone. ‘A fine reputation to have, my friend.’

Michael glowered at him. A year and a half before, he had agreed to become an agent of the Bishop of Ely, the churchman who had jurisdiction over the University since Cambridge had no cathedral of its own. Michael was to be alert to the interests of the Church in the town, and especially to the interests of the Benedictines, since Ely was a Benedictine monastery. There was a small hostel for Benedictines studying at the University, but the four monks that lived there were more concerned with their new-found freedom than the interests of their Order.

Bartholomew began to feel uncomfortable. The chest was where all the University’s most important documents were stored, and the series of locks and bolts that protected it in the church tower was rumoured to be formidable. So who had broken through all that security?

What sinister plot had the University embroiled itself in this time? And perhaps more to the point, how could Bartholomew prevent it from sucking him in, too?

The Church of St Mary the Great was an imposing

building of creamy-white stone that dominated the High Street. Next to its delicate window tracery and soaring tower, St Michael’s looked squat and grey. Yet, Bartholomew had heard that there were plans to rebuild the chancel and replace it with something grander and finer still.

Bartholomew had barely caught up with the clerk when they reached St Mary’s. Standing to one side, wringing his hands and throwing fearful glances at the tower was St Mary’s priest, Father Cuthbert, an enormously fat man whom Bartholomew treated for swollen ankles. A small group of clerks huddled around the door talking in low voices. The Chancellor, Richard de Wetherset, stood in the middle of them, a stocky man with iron-grey hair, who exuded an aura of power. He stepped forward as Bartholomew and Michael approached, allowing himself a brief smile at Michael’s breathlessness.

‘Thank you for being prompt, gentlemen.’ He turned to Harling. ‘Master Jonstan is already here, Richard. I was loathe to disturb you when you had been up all night.’

Harling inclined his head. ‘But I am Senior Proctor, and should be present at a matter that sounds

so grave.’

De Wetherset nodded his thanks, and beckoned

Bartholomew, Michael, and Harling out of earshot of the gathered clerks. “I am afraid someone has been murdered in the tower. Doctor, I would like you to tell me a little more about how and when he died, and you, Brother, must report this incident accurately to our Lord the Bishop.’

He began to walk through the churchyard, raising a hand to prevent the gaggle of clerks, and Cynric, from following them. Michael and Harling followed quickly, Father Cuthbert and Bartholomew a little more slowly. Bartholomew felt his stomach churn. At times, the University could be a seething pit of intrigue, and Bartholomew had no wish to become entangled in it. It would demand his time and his energies when he should be concentrating all his efforts on his teaching and his patients. The plague had left Cambridge depleted of physicians, and there was an urgent need to replace those who had died all over the country. Bartholomew considered the training of new physicians the most important duty in his life.

St Mary’s was still dark inside, and the Chancellor took a torch from a sconce on the wall and led the way to the tower door at the back of the building.

They followed him up the winding stairs into a small chamber about half-way up the tower. Bartholomew glanced around quickly, looking for the fabled chest, but the chamber was empty. Michael emerged from

the stair-well, wheezing unhealthily, and Cuthbert’s ponderous footsteps echoed until he too stood sweating and gasping in the chamber.

De Wetherset beckoned them close and shut the small wooden door so that they would not be overheard.

“I do not want the details of this incident to become common knowledge,’ he said, ‘and what I am about to tell you mustremain a secret. You know that the University chest is kept in the tower here. To reach it, you must open three locked and bolted doors, and you must be able to open three locks on the chest itself. These locks were made in Italy and are, I am told, the finest locks in the world. Only I have the keys and either I, or my deputy, are always present when the chest is unlocked.’

He paused for a moment, and opened the door

quickly to listen intently. He closed it again with a sigh and continued. ‘You may consider all these precautions rather excessive to protect indentures and accounts, but the truth is that one of my best clerks, Nicholas of York, was writing a history of the University. He was quite frank, and recorded everything he uncovered, some of which could prove embarrassing if revealed in certain quarters.

This book, you understand, will not be randomly distributed, but is intended to be a reliable, factual report of our doings and dealings. One day, people may be

interested to know these things.’

He looked hard first at Michael and then at

Bartholomew. ‘The events of last year, when members of the University committed murder to make their fortunes, are recorded, along with your roles in the affair. And there are other incidents too, which need not concern you. The point is, a month ago Nicholas died of a fever, quite unexpectedly. I was uneasy at the suddenness of his death, and in the light of what has been discovered this morning, I am even more concerned.’

‘What exactly has happened this morning?’ asked

Michael. Bartholomew began to feel increasingly uncomfortable as the Chancellor’s revelations sank in.

“I came at first light this morning, as usual, to collect the documents from the chest I would need for the day’s business. I was accompanied by my personal clerk, Gilbert. That group of scribes and secretaries you saw outside waited in the church below. Even in the half-light, we could see there was something wrong.

The locks on the chest were askew and the lid was not closed properly. Gilbert opened the chest and inside was the body of a man.’

‘Gilbert has already told us as much,’ said Bartholomew.

‘But how did the body come to be in

the chest?’

The Chancellor gave the grimmest of smiles. ‘That, gentlemen, is why I have asked you to come. I cannot imagine how anyone could have entered the tower, let alone open the locks on the chest. And I certainly have no idea how the corpse of a man could appear there.’

‘Where is the chest?’ asked Michael. ‘Not up more stairs I hope.’

The Chancellor looked Michael up and down scathingly, and left the room. They heard his footsteps echoing further up the stairs, and Michael groaned.

The room on the next floor was more comfortable

than the first. A table covered with writing equipment stood in the window, and several benches with cushions lined the walls. In the middle of the floor, standing on a once-splendid, but now shabby, woollen rug, was the University chest. It was a long box made of ancient black oak and strengthened with iron bands, darkened with age. It reminded Bartholomew of the elaborate coffin he had seen the Bishop of Peterborough buried in years before. Guarding the chest and the room was the Junior Proctor, Alric Jonstan, standing with his sword drawn and his saucer-like blue eyes round with horror. Bartholomew smiled at him as they waited for the others. Jonstan was far more popular than Harling, and was seemingly a kinder man who, although he took his duties seriously, did not enforce them with the same kind of inflexible rigour as did Harling.

De Wetherset stood to one side as Michael and Cuthbert finally arrived, and then indicated that Bartholomew should approach the chest. Bartholomew bent to inspect the wool rug, but there was nothing there, no blood or other marks. He walked around the chest looking for signs of tampering, but the stout leather hinges were pristine and well-oiled, and there was no indication that the lid had been prised open.

Taking a deep, but silent, breath, he lifted the lid. He looked down at the body of a man in a Dominican habit, lying face down on the University’s precious documents and scrolls. Jonstan took a hissing breath and crossed himself.

‘Poor man!’ he muttered. ‘It is a friar. Poor man!’

‘Have you touched him?’ asked Bartholomew of the Chancellor.

De Wetherset shook his head. ‘We opened the chest, as I told you, but, when I saw what was inside, I lowered the lid and sent Gilbert to fetch you.’

Bartholomew knelt and put his hand on the man’s

neck. There was no life beat, and it was cold. He took the body by the shoulders while Michael grabbed the feet. Carefully, they lifted it out and laid it on the rug next to the chest. The Chancellor came to peer in at the documents. He heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Well, at least they are not all covered in blood,’ he announced fervently. He began searching among the papers and held up a sheaf triumphantly. ‘The history!

I think it is all here, although I will check, of course.’

He began to rifle through the ream of parchments at the table in the window, muttering to himself.