The Killer of Pilgrims (13 page)

Leccheworth grimaced. ‘No. And I do not understand it at all.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Jude. ‘But there is something about her that petrifies me. I am a large, strong man with an unshakeable
faith in God, but little Emma de Colvyll turns my knees to water.’

Bartholomew’s last visit of the morning was to Bridge Street, to tend Sheriff Tulyet’s son. Dickon was nine years old, and
large for his age. He terrorised the servants, had no friends because the parents of other children declined to let him anywhere
near their offspring, and even his mother was beginning to be frightened of him. Tulyet was blind to his faults, though, and
Dickon was growing into an extremely nasty individual. Hoping he would emerge unscathed from what was sure to be a trying
encounter, Bartholomew knocked on Tulyet’s door.

‘Thank God you are here, Matthew,’ said Mistress Tulyet in relief. ‘Dickon climbed over the wall into Celia Drax’s garden,
and fell on a hive of bees. He has been dreadfully stung.’

‘Christ!’ muttered Bartholomew, not liking the notion of extracting stings from a boy who was going to fight him every inch
of the way. Then he frowned. ‘But Celia Drax does not live next to you – Meryfeld does. Celia is two doors down.’

‘Well, perhaps he did clamber through the property of more than one neighbour,’ admitted Mistress Tulyet
sheepishly. ‘But you had better hurry. Dickon is not very nice when he is in pain.’

Dickon was not very nice when he was not in pain, either, but Bartholomew managed to follow her to the kitchen without saying
so. The boy was standing in the middle of the room howling, while servants nervously attempted to divest him of his clothes,
to see whether a bee might still be trapped. He held a sword, a gift from his doting father, and stabbed at anyone who came
too close. His eyes were swollen with tears, and his face was flushed, although from temper rather than distress. There was
a rumour that he had been sired by the Devil, and there were times when Bartholomew was prepared to believe the tale: he suspected
this was going to be one of them.

‘No!’ Dickon shrieked when he saw the physician. ‘Go away!’

Bartholomew was tempted to do as he suggested, and then was mildly ashamed of himself. He wondered what it was about the brat
that always brought out the worst in him.

‘Put down the sword,’ he ordered. ‘If you cooperate, this will be over in a moment.’

‘No!’ shouted Dickon again. ‘And if you come near me, I shall run you through. I know how, because my father showed me. I
am to be sent away soon to become a squire in Lord Picot’s household. He is a great knight, who will make me a mighty warrior.’

‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, delighted that someone else would soon have the pleasure of physicking him. ‘Put down the weapon
and tell me about it.’

‘It is not true,’ whispered Mistress Tulyet. ‘We have not told him yet, but Lord Picot declines to accept him. We cannot imagine
why, a fine, strong lad like him.’

Bartholomew turned to the servants. ‘We will rush him. You three approach from behind, and—’

‘No,’ said the steward, backing away. ‘We are not paid enough to tackle Dickon.’

Bartholomew watched in dismay as they all trooped out, Mistress Tulyet among them. He turned back to Dickon, thinking fast.

‘Do you know what happens if bee stings are not removed? All your fingers drop off. You cannot be a soldier with no fingers.’

He did not usually resort to underhand tactics with patients, but Dickon was a special case. The boy regarded him silently.
His eyes glistened, and Bartholomew had the uncomfortable sense that they belonged to a much older person.

‘You lie,’ the boy said eventually.

Bartholomew smiled. ‘Then let us try an experiment. If I am lying, nothing will happen to you. But if I am telling the truth,
you will be fingerless by tomorrow. What do you say?’

Dickon continued to study him. Suddenly, the sword dipped and he proffered an arm. ‘Very well. You may remove it.’

‘It’ was the operative word, because although Dickon claimed to have catapulted himself on top of the hive, he had only been
stung once. Bartholomew wondered if the hapless creatures had been too intimidated to attack. The sting was quickly extracted
with a pair of tweezers, and when the operation was over, both sat back in relief.

‘What were you doing in Drax’s garden?’ Bartholomew felt compelled to ask.

‘She killed her husband,’ declared Dickon with utter conviction. ‘So I decided to visit her – I have never talked to a murderess
before, you see.’

‘What makes you think Celia Drax is a murderess?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

‘Because they were always arguing – they did not love each other. But she dragged me off the hive and let me out of her front
door, so I do not care what she did to him. I like her.’

‘Was she stung, too?’ Bartholomew supposed he had better go to see whether she needed help.

Dickon nodded. ‘A lot more than me.’

Bartholomew stood, eager to be away. He was just congratulating himself on escaping without harm to either of them when Dickon
snatched up the sword and lunged. Bartholomew felt a sharp pain in his side, and Dickon danced away, eyes flashing with malice.

‘It hurt when you pulled out the sting, and my father said bullies are not to be tolerated,’ he declared, as Bartholomew regarded
him in disbelief. ‘Now we are even.’

‘My husband
did
say bullies are not to be tolerated,’ acknowledged Mistress Tulyet, when Bartholomew reported that her son had stabbed him;
fortunately, in a fit of common sense, Tulyet had filed off the weapon’s point. ‘But Dickon is the bully. Unfortunately, he
has developed a habit of interpreting our reprimands in ways that suit him.’

Bartholomew saw the unease in her eyes and knew she was beginning to see the child for the tyrant he was, even if Tulyet remained
obstinately blind. There was no more to be said, so he left and headed for Celia Drax’s home, rubbing his bruised side.

As Bartholomew knocked on the door to Celia’s house, it occurred to him that it would be a good opportunity to quiz her about
her husband. Determined to make the most of the occasion, he followed a servant into an enormous hall-like room with polished
wooden floors and painted walls. At the far end was a shelf containing books, a considerable
luxury, given that they were so expensive. Celia was sitting on a bench with a pair of tweezers.

‘It is good of you to come,’ she said reluctantly as he perched next to her and began to remove stings from her hands and
arms. ‘Did Dickon tell you what happened? From an upstairs window, I saw him invade my garden, and was on my way to box his
ears, when he fell on the hive. Naturally, the bees objected. I dragged him away as quickly as I could, and shoved him out
of my front door. Hateful brat! But never mind him. Has Brother Michael recovered my pilgrim badge yet? Such items are valuable,
and I would like it back.’

Bartholomew saw she was still wearing the gold medallion she had retrieved from her husband’s corpse. It made him shudder.
‘Not yet.’

When she coyly left the room to look for other stings that might require his attention, he wandered towards her little library.
There was a psalter, two texts by Aristotle, and a rather lurid tome of contemporary romantic poetry, which he assumed belonged
to Odelina. There was also a large, brown volume that looked rather more well thumbed than the others. He took it down, and
saw it was a pharmacopoeia. He frowned. Why would a taverner and his wife own such a thing? Glancing uneasily towards the
door, he leafed through it until he found the entry for wolfsbane.

The page was grimy, but so were all the others, and he could not decide whether it had been marked in any particular way.
At the bottom was a section about antidotes, describing how to swallow the plant without harm. He knew the claims were false,
because gulping down a dose of quicksilver was likely to bring its own set of problems, while milk would have no effect one
way or the other. He turned to the entry for mandrake, and read with disbelief that no
one would die from taking it, if they first lined their stomachs with a paste of dried earthworms.

‘Found anything interesting?’ Celia’s voice so close behind him made him jump.

‘Not really,’ he replied, turning to face her. ‘Are you interested in herbs?’

‘No, and I cannot read, anyway. John could, though, and he was always pawing through that book, and it made me rather nervous,
to tell you the truth. Perhaps he intended to poison me, but God struck him down first.’

‘God did not kill your husband,’ said Bartholomew quietly. ‘Do you have any idea who—’

‘No,’ interrupted Celia curtly. ‘As I told you before, no one would want to kill John. He was not a saint, but he was not
a villain, either. He was just a man, with a man’s failings. He was not generous to those who patronised his taverns, but
he was honest. And while he drove a hard bargain with the scholars who rent Chestre Hostel, they never had to wait long for
repairs.’

‘I have heard you and he quarrelled, and—’

‘Of course we quarrelled: we were married! But you will not understand that, living away from the society of women. You will
know nothing of the ups and downs of marital life.’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew sadly. ‘What about his friends? You are close to Odelina, but he—’

‘He was not a man for forming close relationships. You may go now. Thank you for coming.’

It was hardly a profitable interview, and Bartholomew felt as though he had squandered an opportunity as he returned to the
College. When Michael arrived, he told him about the encounter, along with Dickon’s claim that the couple had argued. The
monk listened thoughtfully.

‘You think one of their spats turned violent, and she
stabbed him? And then she carried him to Michaelhouse, although there is no sensible reason for her to do so, and left him
behind the tiles?’

‘Well, someone did,’ said Bartholomew tartly. ‘And she was married to Drax, and she frequents the house where Alice was poisoned.’

Michael sighed. ‘True. But your suspicions are not enough to let us arrest her. We need solid evidence. So I suppose I had
better visit Drax’s taverns, and ask his patrons what they thought of the pair of them. If I have time, I shall ask for Fen’s
alibi for Drax’s murder, too, although I shall be home for a little something to eat by mid-afternoon, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ said Bartholomew.

While Michael embarked on his trawl of Drax’s taverns, Bartholomew dedicated himself to teaching. As a result, his pupils
found themselves subjected to one of his vigorous questioning sessions, and by the time the bell rang to announce that the
next meal was ready, their heads were spinning. Bartholomew was despondent, disappointed by their performance. He ignored
both their indignant objections that he had quizzed them on texts they had not yet studied, and their grumbles that he had
no right to push them as hard as he pushed himself.

‘Emma de Colvyll sang your praises today,’ said Michael, as they stood at their places at the high table, waiting for Langelee
to say grace. ‘You made a friend when you saved Odelina.’

‘I thought you planned to spend your day in alehouses.’

‘I did, but it was tedious and unprofitable, so I visited Emma instead, to see whether I could winkle out more information
about this yellow-headed thief.’

‘And did you?’

Michael shook his head. ‘No, although I hope to God we catch him before she does – she will have him torn limb from limb and
dumped in the marshes. Heslarton is conducting a thorough and sensible search, which surprises me. I thought him a brainless
lout, but he is showing intelligence over this manhunt, and I am afraid he might succeed.’

‘Perhaps the intelligence is Emma’s,’ suggested
Bartholomew. ‘He would not be averse to taking instructions from her. They respect each other.’

‘They do. Perhaps Heslarton
is
a brainless lout, then, although he is by far the most likeable member of that family. Alice was spiteful and cruel, Odelina
is a spoiled brat, and Emma … well, the less said about Emma the better.’

‘Do you have any new suspects for poisoning Alice or stabbing Drax?’

‘Yes, unfortunately. There are a
lot
of people who would like to see Emma’s entire household poisoned,
and
who are delighted that Drax is dead. These same folk may also be inclined to steal pilgrim badges in the hope that they will
save them from Purgatory.’

‘Who are they?’

‘People who object to the ruthless business practices of Drax and Emma. Especially Emma – I have not met anyone yet who likes
her. Then there is Edmund House. She bought it from the Gilbertines in a very sly manner, and now she flaunts the incident
by letting the place fall into disrepair under their very noses. They must find it galling.’

‘You think the Gilbertines are killers and thieves?’

‘Hush!’ Michael glanced uneasily at Thelnetham, but the canon was talking to Langelee, and had not heard. ‘No, of course not,
but the Gilbertines are popular in the town, because they give charity. Perhaps someone has taken offence on their behalf.’

Bartholomew supposed it was possible. ‘Who else?’

‘The pilgrims, especially Fen.’

‘Fen cannot be the culprit, because he did not dash in from the street and grab Poynton’s badge – he was standing next to
Poynton at the time. Moreover, he does not have yellow hair.’

Michael ignored him. ‘And do not forget that Prior Etone
showed him our College the morning Drax was murdered – Blaston saw them. Doubtless he thought then that Michaelhouse was
a good place to dispose of a body.’

Bartholomew saw the monk was not in the mood for a logical discussion, so changed the subject. ‘Did you speak to Emma about
Yffi leaving holes in the roof while he fiddles with the windows?’

‘I did, but she said it is not her place to interfere.’ Michael looked disgusted. ‘She interferes when she feels like it,
and is a hypocrite. But here is Langelee at last. Good! I am famished.’

Langelee intoned grace, and indicated that the servants were to bring the food. It was uninspiring fare, and although meals
at Michaelhouse were supposed to be taken in silence, it was not long before the Fellows – always the worst culprits for breaking
this particular rule – began talking.

‘Pea soup
again
,’ grumbled Michael, digging his horn spoon into the bowl that was set for him and Clippesby to share. ‘And there is no meat
in it.’

‘There is bread, though,’ said William, taking the largest piece from the basket that was being passed around. ‘If you soak
it in the soup, it becomes soft enough to eat.’

Bartholomew picked listlessly at the unappealing offerings, still full from the handsome breakfast William had provided.

‘I visited Celia today, too,’ Michael was saying to the table in general. ‘She was sorting through her husband’s belongings,
making piles for the poor.’

‘That is laudable,’ said Suttone. ‘They need charity in this bitter weather. Of course, Drax only died two days ago, and it
seems rather soon to be disposing of his possessions.’

‘Just because she is not drowning in sorrow does not
mean she did not care about him,’ said Langelee. ‘She may just be practical. Like me. I would not wallow in grief if any
of
you
were stabbed and left behind a stack of tiles.’

‘Your compassion overwhelms me, Master,’ said Thelnetham dryly. He turned to Michael. ‘Did you know that Drax went on a pilgrimage
to Walsingham? He always wore a badge under his hat. He showed it to me recently, and said he had travelled to Norfolk.’

‘His wife told
me
he had bought that token to save himself the journey,’ said Michael, puzzled. ‘I wonder which of them was telling the truth.’

‘Celia is,’ said Clippesby, who was feeding soup to the piglet he held in his lap. Bartholomew was amused to note it was the
only creature in the hall that was enjoying its victuals.

‘How do you know?’ asked Thelnetham curiously. Then he held up his hand. ‘On reflection, do not tell me. It will be some lunatic
tale about a bird or a hedgehog.’

Clippesby had a disturbing habit of finding quiet places and then sitting very still as he communed with nature. It meant
he often witnessed events not meant for his eyes, although he tended to make people wary of accepting his testimony by claiming
it came from various furred or feathered friends. Of all the Michaelhouse Fellows, Thelnetham was the one who struggled hardest
to come to terms with the Dominican’s idiosyncrasies.

‘On the contrary,’ said Clippesby mildly. ‘I know because I saw Drax make the purchase myself. And if you do not believe me,
then ask the King’s Head geese, because they were there, too.’

‘Hah!’ Thelnetham grimaced. ‘I knew there would be an animal involved somewhere. Ignore him, Brother. The man is moon-touched.’

‘Unfortunately, none of us could see the seller,’ Clippesby
went on. ‘But we can tell you that the transaction took place outside the Gilbertine Priory last Friday night.’

Thelnetham started. ‘Last Friday? Then
I
saw the transaction, too!
And
I saw the geese, although I did not notice you. However, I wondered what had set them a-honking. I watched Drax approach
a man who gave him something. It was that burly lout – Emma’s son-in-law.’

‘Heslarton?’ asked Michael. ‘Why would he be selling pilgrim badges? And why outside a convent, when Drax’s wife is a regular
visitor to his home, and he could have given it to her?’

‘Perhaps he did not want his fearsome mother-in-law to know what he was doing,’ suggested Thelnetham. He shuddered. ‘
I
would certainly not enjoy having the likes of her breathing down my neck at every turn. However, I did hear Heslarton tell
Drax that what he was about to purchase – which I now learn was a
signaculum
– was solid gold, and that it came with a special dispensation for pardoning all sins.’

Clippesby pulled a face. ‘Personally, I do not think God is very impressed by indulgences.’

‘That is heresy,’ said William, who always had opinions about such matters. ‘The Church has been selling indulgences for years,
and it is sacrilege to say they are worthless.’

‘You both misunderstand the meaning of indulgences,’ snapped Thelnetham testily. ‘They are not pardons, to secure the buyer’s
salvation, and they cannot release the soul from Purgatory.’

‘Thelnetham is right,’ agreed Michael. ‘It is the extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment due, in God’s justice,
to a sin that has been forgiven—’

‘Rubbish,’ interrupted Suttone. ‘Some writs of indulgence specifically state
indulgentia a culpa et a poena
, which means release from guilt and from punishment.’

‘That is
not
what it means,’ declared Thelnetham. Bartholomew felt his eyes begin to close, as they often did when his colleagues embarked
on theological debates. ‘Such a notion runs contrary to all the teachings of the Church. What it means is—’

‘It means the rich can buy their way into Heaven,’ said William. ‘It is unfair, but it is not for us to question these things.
And anyone who disagrees with me is a fool.’

They were still arguing about the nature of pardons and indulgences when they adjourned to the conclave – the small, comfortable
room next to the hall – for a few moments of respite before the rest of the day’s teaching. Thelnetham announced that he had
been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, where he had bought a
signaculum
– in this case, an ampoule containing a piece of cloth soaked in St Thomas Becket’s blood. He had given it to his Mother
House at Sempringham.

‘But they sold it to a merchant for a lot of money,’ he concluded with a grimace. ‘And I learned the lesson that only idiots
are generous. It probably ended up with a man like Drax – a sinner who lied about doing the pilgrimage himself. Perhaps it
is divine justice that he came to such an end.’

Bartholomew looked at him sharply, thinking it was not a remark most clerics would have made. He also recalled that Thelnetham
had not been teaching in the hall when the accident had occurred, although the Gilbertine had joined the Fellows in watching
Drax excavated afterwards. He shook himself angrily, and wondered whether he had helped Michael solve too many crimes, because
it was hardly kind to think such unpleasant thoughts about his colleagues.

‘Some
signacula
are very beautiful,’ mused Michael
wistfully. ‘I have always wanted to examine one closely. Perhaps even to hold it, and admire its craftsmanship.’

‘I bought you one,’ said Bartholomew, suddenly remembering something he had done a long time ago, and that he had all but
forgotten. ‘Although I cannot recall if it was especially beautiful.’

Michael regarded him askance. ‘You never did!’

‘It must still be in the chest in my room. I keep meaning to unpack it, but there is never enough time. I bought it two years
ago, when I was looking for … when I was travelling.’

Bartholomew had been going to say when he had been looking for Matilde, but was disinclined to raise a subject that was still
painful for him.

‘Where from, exactly?’ asked Michael keenly. ‘I know you went to Walsingham and Lourdes.’

‘From Santiago de Compostela.’

Michael gaped at him. ‘But that is one of the three holiest pilgrim sites in the world, on a par with Jerusalem and Rome!
Are you saying you brought me a gift from a sacred shrine, then simply forgot to hand it over, even though you have been home
for nigh on eighteen months?’

Bartholomew supposed he was, but Michael was glaring, and it did not seem prudent to say so. He flailed around for a pretext
to excuse his carelessness, but nothing credible came to mind.

‘Do you still have it?’ asked Suttone eagerly. ‘I have never seen a pilgrim token from Compostela. Did you touch it against
the shrine? Wash it in holy water, and do all the other things that make these items sacred?’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘And the Bishop blessed it for me.’

‘I had no idea you visited Compostela,’ said Ayera, eyeing
him curiously. ‘Why have you never mentioned it? I was under the impression you spent all your time in foreign universities,
watching necromancers perform anatomies on hapless corpses.’

‘Not
all
my time,’ muttered Bartholomew.

Langelee stood. ‘Then let us find this token. Michael and Suttone are not alone in never seeing one from Compostela, although
I have handled plenty from Walsingham, Canterbury and so forth.’

‘And Cambridge,’ added Suttone. ‘Cambridge is a place of pilgrimage, too, because it is where St Simon Stock had his vision.
At the Carmelite Priory.’

‘You want me to look
now
?’ asked Bartholomew, startled when all the Fellows followed Langelee’s lead and surged to their feet. ‘But I may not be
able to find it, and teaching starts soon.’

‘The students will not mind a delay,’ predicted Langelee. ‘And if they do, I will tell Deynman to read to them. That will
shut them up, because his Latin is all but incomprehensible.’

‘Why may you not be able to find it?’ demanded Michael, ignoring the fact that the Master was hardly in a position to criticise
someone else’s grasp of the language, given that his own was rudimentary, to say the least.

‘I
think
it is in that box, but it has been a long time since I have looked in it, and—’

‘Matt!’ cried Michael, dismayed. ‘Are you saying you might have
lost
it?’

Bartholomew regarded him guiltily. ‘Very possibly, yes.’

With the Fellows at his heels, Bartholomew led the way to his room, wondering why he had forgotten the badge until now. He
had been to some trouble to acquire it – cheap
signacula
were sold by the dozen to pilgrims, but he had
wanted something rather better for Michael, who was a man of discerning tastes. He had purchased the best one he could find,
then ensured it spent a night on top of the shrine, paid a bishop to bless it, and dipped it in holy water from Jerusalem.
And after all that, he had shoved it in a travelling box and neglected to unpack it.

Valence was sitting at the desk in the window, scribbling furiously as he struggled to complete an exercise that should have
been finished the previous evening. He looked up in surprise when the Fellows crammed into the chamber. Bartholomew stood
with his hands on his hips, desperately trying to remember where he had put the chest in question.