The Mark of a Murderer (46 page)

‘You will find you are wrong,’ warned Agatha. Bartholomew was surprised to see tears glittering in her small, pig-like eyes.
He knew she was protective of all Michaelhouse’s scholars, but he had not appreciated how deeply she cared for the quiet Clippesby.

‘I do not see how,’ said Langelee. ‘There are too many arrows of circumstance pointing in his direction. If it were a case
of one or two, I would be loath to send him away, too, but it is not. Some of our students are little more than children,
Agatha, and we cannot risk their lives just because we want to believe in Clippesby’s innocence. It is our duty to protect
them.’

‘We are lucky Matt has the contacts to arrange this solution,’ added Michael. ‘It is not unknown for Colleges to rid themselves
of unwanted Fellows by murdering them, you know. I have investigated more than one case where a man has been killed because
his colleagues did not like his scholarship, his religious ideas or his personality.’

‘It would be a lot less expensive,’ mused Langelee, looking as if he might consider such an option himself, should the need
arise. Bartholomew was grateful Rougham had ensured it would not.

‘He will die if you lock him away from his animals,’ said Agatha tearfully.

Langelee frowned, and then looked at Michael. ‘She is right. Are you sure there is no other way?’

‘None I can think of, but I am willing to entertain any ideas you have. You need to come up with something quickly, though,
because he leaves first thing tomorrow morning. It is better that way.’

‘Better for whom?’ demanded Agatha. ‘For the Archbishop of Canterbury, so a lunatic will not assail his priestly eyes? For
the University, because we can allow nothing to interfere with our plans to impress Islip, and risk him founding his new College
elsewhere? For Michaelhouse, because we do not want the embarrassment of a Fellow who is unlike the rest of us? It is certainly
not better for poor Clippesby, banished to the barren wastes of a foul and dangerous county.’

‘It is Norfolk, Agatha, not Armageddon,’ said Michael. ‘Norfolk.’

‘That is what I was talking about,’ snapped Agatha. ‘I know what that place is like. It is full of lunatics, lepers and heretics.’

‘Clippesby should feel at home, then,’ said Langelee, ignoring Michael’s indignant splutter. The monk, like many Cambridge
scholars, hailed from Norfolk.

‘We will never know, will we?’ said Agatha in a voice that dripped with hostility. She stood, snatched the oatcakes from Michael,
and took them to the pantry, her large hips swaying purposefully. The monk watched his repast disappear with dismay. Her voice
echoed from the cool room that was used to store perishable foods. ‘After you have exiled him, we will never hear whether
he is happy or sad, alive or dead.’

‘I will make enquiries,’ promised Bartholomew.

‘You had better,’ she said coldly, coming to re-occupy her chair. ‘Because I can make life very uncomfortable for scholars
who do not please me.’ She gazed significantly at a pile of laundry, on the top of which sat Langelee’s cloak.

‘At last!’ the Master exclaimed. ‘I thought you had lost it, you kept it so long.’

‘Perhaps it is ready now, but perhaps it is not,’ retorted Agatha belligerently. She turned on Michael. ‘And do not come here
expecting edible treats, either. There will be
no more of those until you convince me that Clippesby is content and thriving. And I may decline to do the laundry for a while,
too. That will bring you to your senses.’

‘The whole College will stink if no one has clean clothes,’ objected Langelee. ‘Within a month we will all smell like the
Chancellor.’

‘You are lucky to have me,’ said Agatha sullenly. ‘I am the best laundress in Cambridge, and every Michaelhouse scholar clamours
for my services. It is not like that at King’s Hall, where half of them do their own, lest their precious garments are ruined.’

‘They manage their own washing because of cost,’ corrected Michael. ‘The King’s Hall laundress is outrageously expensive.’

‘Dodenho pays Wolf to do his, while Norton prefers to hire me,’ Agatha went on. ‘I charge him princely fees, but he makes
no complaint. Meanwhile, Wormynghalle does his own, down by the wharves. I have seen him. He should not use the river for
cleaning his clothes, though. It will make him reek.’

‘Wormynghalle does not reek,’ said Michael, starting to edge casually towards the pantry.

‘That is because you are used to Chancellor Tynkell,’ said Agatha. ‘
He
makes a cesspool smell like spring flowers.’

‘Wormynghalle probably does not want to hurt the laundress’s feelings by employing another washer-woman,’ Bartholomew said,
in an attempt to explain the scholar’s odd behaviour in a way the others would understand, and so prevent rumours circulating
about her. ‘He rinses his clothes somewhere that is not overlooked, so she will not see him and be offended.’

Agatha regarded him beadily. ‘You had better not be getting ideas.
I
am the laundress around here, and
I
wash the clothes. I do a good job, and I will not have you
demanding to do your own. It would not be proper, and I would not stand for it.’

‘Quite right, too,’ said Michael ingratiatingly, taking another step towards the pantry. ‘I would never consider managing
my own clothes – you always do it so splendidly.’

Agatha looked pleased. ‘I do,’ she agreed immodestly. ‘I
am
the finest laundress in Cambridge.’

‘In England,’ gushed Michael. ‘In the world, even. But my innards ache with hunger, so I shall retire to my bed and pass a
miserable night. Unless, of course, there are oatcakes available …?’

‘There might be,’ said Agatha imperiously. ‘Are you saying I am better even than the laundresses in the King’s household?’

‘There is no comparison,’ said Michael desperately.

Agatha smiled in smug satisfaction. ‘Then perhaps one of you will write to the King on my behalf, and tell him I am willing
to be of service – subject to him bringing his Court to Cambridge, of course. I would not like to move away.’

‘The oatcakes?’ whined Michael piteously.

‘They are for someone else,’ replied Agatha maliciously. ‘Matthew will collect them tomorrow morning and take them to Clippesby,
to sustain the poor man on his journey to Hell.’

When Bartholomew went to bed, he was restless and unsettled, and found sleep would not come. He tossed and turned for what
felt like hours before he finally dropped into a doze, but his dreams teemed with uncomfortable images of Clippesby. Deciding
he would rather be doing something better than exhausting himself with nightmares, he rose, donned the hated yellow liripipe
and left. Matilde would be asleep, and Rougham no longer needed his ministrations, but a patient called
Isnard was happy for company at any hour. He had recently lost a leg, and enforced physical inactivity meant he slept little
and was always grateful when visitors relieved his boredom. Intending to leave Michaelhouse through the back door and use
the towpath, Bartholomew aimed for the orchard.

He had not gone far when he became aware that he was not the only person out in the darkness. He glanced up at the sky, and
gauged it was probably long past midnight: not a time when law-abiding scholars should be wandering around. He wondered whether
it was a student, off to meet his paramour, and hoped it was not one of his own class. He had more than enough to worry about,
without being concerned for errant students.

The figure making his way through the fruit trees was large and burly. The only one of Bartholomew’s students with such a
build was Falmeresham, and Bartholomew strained his eyes, trying to assess whether it was him. But it was too dark, and the
person had taken the precaution of wrapping himself in a cloak with a hood that hid everything except his size. Bartholomew
reflected. William and Langelee were also big men who owned long cloaks, and so was Michael. But the figure in the orchard
was not quite vast enough to be Michael, and nor did it waddle.

When the man reached the gate he removed the bar and laid it gently in the grass. He opened the door, and looked carefully
in both directions before letting himself out. Bartholomew followed, and watched him reach the High Street, then turn left.
The physician trotted after him, hoping it was late enough for Tulyet’s guards and Michael’s beadles to have eased their patrols,
and that neither of them would be caught. The scholar ahead of him did not seem to be suffering from any such qualms, and
his progress along the High Street towards the Jewry could best be described as brazen.

As the figure passed King’s Hall, the moon came out from behind a cloud and illuminated him, and Bartholomew recognised the
cloak with its rabbit-fur collar. It was Langelee, wearing the garment he had retrieved from Agatha earlier that evening.
Now he could see the mantle, Bartholomew thought the figure was unmistakably the Master’s, with its barrel-shaped body and
confident swagger; it was also very like Langelee not to care who saw him as he flouted University rules by striding around
after the curfew. Bartholomew had kept to the shadows as he stalked his prey, but Langelee had not once glanced behind him.

Bartholomew immediately assumed that Langelee was going to meet Alyce Weasenham, and was staggered to think the Master would
risk cavorting with her while her husband slumbered in the same house. Langelee reached the stationer’s shop and eased himself
into a doorway opposite. From this vantage point, he proceeded to stare at the silent building for some time. Then, abruptly,
he darted out and shot towards the Jewry. Before he disappeared down one of its narrow lanes he paused and looked back, as
if to ensure no one was watching. Bartholomew could only suppose he was making sure Alyce did not spot him as he embarked
on a tryst with another woman.

With nothing better to do, Bartholomew followed him again, and for one agonising moment thought Langelee was going to knock
at Matilde’s door. But the Master did not give it so much as a glance as he strode past. Emerging from the tangle of alleys
between the Round Church and the Franciscan Friary, he began to move purposefully along the marshy road known as the Barnwell
Causeway. He paused at the small bridge that spanned the filthy waters of the King’s Ditch, and Bartholomew saw a guard emerge
from his hut to challenge him. The murmur of soft voices drifted on the still night air, and Bartholomew supposed
coins were changing hands. When the transaction was completed, Langelee began walking again, and the soldier ducked back inside
his shelter.

Bartholomew hesitated. He had no money to bribe guards, and nor did he want them gossiping about how Michaelhouse Fellows
shadowed their masters at odd hours of the night. If he wanted to learn what Langelee was doing, there was only one course
open to him: to bypass the sentry and try to sneak across the bridge without being seen. He was not especially talented at
stealth, and it occurred to him to mind his own business and go home, but Langelee’s odd mission had piqued his interest,
and he wanted to know where the philosopher was going.

He walked as close to the shelter as he dared, then scrambled off the causeway to the lower ground surrounding it. He tiptoed
clumsily through rutted fields until he reached the stinking black ooze of the King’s Ditch. The bridge was just above his
head, so he climbed up the bank and listened hard. The soldier was singing to himself, and he concluded the man would not
be doing that if he thought someone was trying to creep past him. As quickly as he could, Bartholomew darted across the bridge
and dropped down the bank on the other side. He waited, breathing hard, and pondering what explanation he would give if he
was caught. But the guard continued to warble, and Bartholomew felt fortunate that the fellow was so pleased with the money
Langelee had given him that he had relaxed his vigilance.

After a moment, Bartholomew began to move forward again, creeping through the fields until he deemed it was safe to climb
back on to the causeway. In the faint moonlight, he saw that Langelee had made good headway, and was obliged to run hard to
catch up. Despite the noise he was sure he was making, Langelee still did not look around.

The causeway skirted St Radegund’s Priory, where the
Benedictine nuns were known to entertain men on occasion, and Bartholomew supposed Langelee had secured himself an appointment.
But the Master stalked past the convent with its untidy scattering of outbuildings and headed for the Fens. And for Stourbridge,
Bartholomew thought grimly, at last understanding what was happening: Langelee was going to visit Clippesby.

Bartholomew hung back, not sure what to do. Was Langelee planning to warn Clippesby that he was about to be spirited away
to a remote institution from which he would never escape? But Langelee had thought that an acceptable option the previous
evening, and Bartholomew did not see why he should change his mind. Was he going to say his farewells? Langelee was an odd
man, bluff and thoughtless one moment, considerate the next. Perhaps he had a soft spot for Clippesby, and wanted to wish
him well before he began his exile. But what really concerned Bartholomew was a darker, more sinister option: murder. No Master
wanted it said that his College had lunatic Fellows locked away in distant parts of the countryside, and Bartholomew had a
sick feeling that Langelee intended to resolve the Clippesby problem once and for all.

He followed the Master to the outskirts of the hospital, and watched as he opened a gate and headed for the house that had
become Clippesby’s prison. Bartholomew followed, thinking no further ahead than his intention to protect Clippesby, but bitterly
aware that he would need the element of surprise if he wanted to win the confrontation. Langelee was an experienced and able
brawler, and Bartholomew doubted he could best him in a fair fight. He took one of the surgical knives from his medical bag,
and hoped that would even the odds – at least for long enough to allow Clippesby to escape.

Langelee crept up the stairs, and Bartholomew heard
the key being taken from the wall. He winced when the wooden steps creaked under his own feet as he climbed in stealthy pursuit.
He watched Langelee remove the heavy bar, then open the door to Clippesby’s chamber. He realised he would have to make his
move immediately, since he did not think the Master would engage in pleasant conversation before he executed his troublesome
Fellow. As quickly and as softly as he could, he sped along the corridor and burst into the room, wrapping one arm around
Langelee’s throat and pressing his knife against it firmly enough to ensure Langelee would understand he meant business.