The Mark of a Murderer (55 page)

The elderly scholar’s eyes remained closed, but his prayers became more fervent. Bartholomew was disappointed in his old teacher
– for his lies as much as his dependence on soporifics.

‘Eudo helped, albeit unintentionally, by killing Chesterfelde,’ said Joan. ‘And then, when Spryngheuse learned that a man
was attacked while wearing his cloak, it was the last straw. Justice was served with his death – his and Chesterfelde’s –
because it was their fault that the chaos escalated. I only wanted Gonerby dead.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did he discover you were a woman when you were at Merton?’

‘You are missing a vital piece of information,’ called Polmorva. His eyes showed fear, although his voice was steady. ‘The
Wormynghalles marry well when they can – as Eu said, they are ambitious.’

Bartholomew gazed at Joan, recalling the name of the murdered merchant’s wife. ‘You are Joan
Gonerby
? But it was she who insisted the burgesses came to catch her husband’s killer. Why would you do that, if you were the one
who dispatched him in the first place?’

‘To rid
me
of a man who blocked my election as Mayor, and who damaged my business,’ replied the tanner. ‘And because he interfered with
her
ambition to study, by threatening to expose her.’

‘I see,’ muttered Abergavenny, still keeping Duraunt between him and the bows. ‘Gonerby refused to buy your skins to make
his parchment, did he?’

‘I understand why you accused Matt of Gonerby’s murder,’ said Michael to Wormynghalle. ‘You were trying to confuse me with
wild charges and irrational statements of dislike. It was you who said Gonerby was killed with a sword, rather than teeth,
too. And you, alone of the merchants, did not want me to look for Gonerby’s killer – you were afraid I might find her.’

‘As he lay wounded, Gonerby heard Joan advising someone – probably her brother – that she was going to Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew.
‘And he passed the information to the men who found him dying. Wormynghalle’s presence was no coincidence, of course: he was
there to prevent Gonerby from saying anything incriminating. But why involve Eu and Abergavenny in this hunt?’

‘To lure them to a distant town where they, too, would die,’ said Wormynghalle, pleased with himself. ‘Like Gonerby, they
were going to vote against my election as Mayor, and their removal will see me win.’ He raised his bow, and Bartholomew saw
he was impatient to use it.

‘So, you killed Gonerby to rid yourself of a tiresome husband and an annoying business rival,’ gabbled Michael. ‘Hamecotes
was murdered because he discovered you were a woman, and Spryngheuse because he was unstable. But what about Okehamptone?’

Bartholomew scratched around for the few facts he knew about the scribe’s death. Duraunt’s prayers had petered out, and Polmorva
seemed to have abandoned his delaying tactics. Abergavenny was exhausted from keeping himself
and Duraunt above water, while Michael was trying not to reveal the depth of his own terror. Bartholomew saw he was on his
own in keeping Joan and her brother occupied until he could conceive of a way to best them. He hoped something would occur
to him soon, because he sensed he would not keep them gloating over their successes for much longer.

‘It was you who claimed Okehamptone’s fever came from bad water on the journey from Oxford,’ he said to Wormynghalle. ‘It
was also your liripipe that hid the fatal wound. You said he had borrowed it, and that you did not want it back – not because
it had adorned a corpse, but because it continued to conceal the gash in his throat.’

Wormynghalle addressed his sister. ‘I told you strangling was a better way to kill. They would never have deduced all this
if you had used a more conventional method of execution.’

Joan shrugged.

‘It was you who refused to let Rougham see his friend, too,’ Bartholomew continued. ‘He said the door was answered by someone
with fine clothes and a haughty manner, and we assumed it was Polmorva. But that description applies equally to you.’

‘I turned no one away,’ said Polmorva, sounding surprised.

‘Everyone drank heavily the night Okehamptone died,’ continued Bartholomew, wishing Michael would help, because he could not
talk and devise an escape at the same time. ‘Of wine
you
bought.’

‘I should have noticed that,’ said Polmorva feebly. ‘Every time the tanner provided wine, someone died. But why kill Okehamptone?’

‘He overheard us talking the night he arrived in Cambridge,’ replied Joan. ‘He promised to say nothing, but we killed him
anyway, just to be sure. While I disguised
the wound on his body, my brother gave the meddlesome Rougham a good fright. He fled to Norfolk, I hear.’

‘Is that why you attacked me at Stourbridge?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To make sure I did not reveal your secret, even though I
gave you my word that I would not?’

‘Men break oaths all the time,’ said Joan. ‘Eu and Abergavenny swore to avenge my husband’s death, but were happy to forget
their pledge once he was dead. None of you can be trusted.’

‘These teeth,’ said Bartholomew, removing them from his bag. ‘How did you come by them?’

‘I gave them to my predecessor at Merton,’ said Duraunt, barely audible. ‘He used them for years, but he died recently. Then
I kept them in my room, but one of my students stole them.’

‘You,’ said Bartholomew to Joan. ‘You studied in Merton –
you
took them.’

‘They fascinate me,’ admitted Joan. ‘And I knew no one would guess
I
had killed my husband if I used the fangs to dispatch him. But they disappeared from my chamber this morning, and I wondered
where they had gone. It was you, was it?’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew, wondering how Clippesby had managed to do it without being seen.

‘Well, give them back,’ ordered Joan. ‘Be careful when you toss them over. I keep them very sharp.’

Bartholomew pulled back his arm and hurled them into the trees as hard as he could. Joan pursed her lips in annoyance.

‘It does not matter,’ said Wormynghalle. ‘We have completed our business here, and it is time to return to a more civilised
city. Now, jump in the water, monk.’

Michael began to slide with infinite slowness into the cistern. His face was as white as snow, but he refused to submit to
the indignity of begging for his life. When he
had gone, Bartholomew looked from Joan to her brother in despair. He suspected he could overpower the tanner, who was overly
confident, but Joan was a different proposition. She had approached the problem of loose ends with the same precision she
applied to her studies, and would never risk her safety by exercising mercy.

‘Eudo,’ he blurted, desperately trying to think of some way to delay the inevitable. ‘You told him what to write in his proclamation.
You chose carefully, so something in it would be certain to incite unrest.’

Joan gave a tight smile. ‘I only want the beadles and the Sheriff distracted until we have left. We probably do not need a
diversion with the Visitation, but there is no point in being careless.’

‘Joan,’ Bartholomew began. ‘I—’

‘No more talk,’ said Wormynghalle, pulling back his arm as he aimed his arrow.

Bartholomew willed himself to keep his eyes open and fixed on the man who would kill him. Neither Wormynghalle nor Joan showed
remorse or distaste for what they were about to do, and he supposed it was such coldblooded ruthlessness that had allowed
their family to prosper so abruptly.

‘Spryngheuse’s soul will never let you rest,’ he shouted, resorting to desperate tactics. ‘He is there, in the trees, watching
you sell your soul to the Devil.’

Joan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Wormynghalle paled, and his bow wavered. Then there was a loud crack, and he toppled
backwards. Without waiting to see how or why, Bartholomew launched himself at Joan, wrenching the weapon from her hands while
she watched her brother stagger. She saw instantly that Bartholomew would overpower her with his superior strength, so she
abandoned her attempts to retrieve the bow, and grabbed a knife from
her belt. She stabbed wildly, and the physician leapt away. With a gasp of horror, he lost his balance and toppled into the
cistern, bowling over Michael, who was halfway out.

For a moment, Bartholomew’s eyes and ears were full of water. Then he surfaced, gagging and choking. He looked around, anticipating
that the lid would be slammed down and he and the others would drown. The level of water was now so high that the heads of
anyone inside would be forced under as soon as it dropped, and he braced himself for a final ducking as Joan completed her
work. But the hatch remained open, and he was aware of someone thrusting him roughly out of the way to reach the rectangle
of light that represented air and life. It was Polmorva, kicking and punching others in his determination to escape.

As Polmorva hauled himself out, Bartholomew expected him to be shot, but nothing happened, so he grabbed Michael, who was
floundering nearby, and shoved him to where he could reach the hatch. The monk was strong, despite his lard, and his powerful
arms propelled him upward as though he were on fire. Bartholomew saw him glance around quickly before leaning into the cistern
to help the others. Duraunt went first, followed by Abergavenny, and Bartholomew last.

Of Joan, there was no sign, and Polmorva had also gone. While Michael hunted for them among the trees, Bartholomew knelt
next to Duraunt, who was shivering in a crumpled heap on the ground.

‘I recognised her,’ the old man said in a whisper. ‘As soon as she started talking about her crimes, I recognised her as my
brilliant young student who disappeared after a term. She looked different here – her hair is longer and darker. But it was
she who stole the teeth from me.’

‘Damn those things!’ said Bartholomew. ‘They have caused problems from the moment they were made.’

‘My predecessor had twenty years of pleasure from them,’ objected Duraunt. ‘Do not be so quick to condemn new ideas, Matthew.
One day, many ancients may own devices like those, to make their final years more enjoyable.’

‘Never,’ vowed Bartholomew. ‘No one will want foreign objects in his mouth while he eats.’

‘It is a case of what you are used to,’ said Duraunt. ‘Your fat friend will not decline a set when he wears out his own and
he wants to continue to devour good red meat.’

‘What happened to the tanner?’ asked Bartholomew, suspecting they could argue all day and not agree. He was angry with Duraunt
for keeping something that should have been destroyed, and for lying to him about the poppy juice. He felt betrayed, but told
himself that Duraunt was just a man, not a saint, and that men had human failings.

‘There,’ said Abergavenny, pointing.

Bartholomew scrambled towards him, but could see Wormynghalle was dead. There was a graze on the side of his head, where something
had struck his temple. It was not a fatal wound, though: the tanner had died because the chain of his sheep’s-head pendant
had caught on the cistern’s pulley and was tight around his neck. He had been stunned, then had hung unconscious while his
jewellery deprived him of air. Bartholomew recalled the sharp crack before he had fallen, and glanced around uneasily, wondering
whether his words about Spryngheuse’s soul had been prophetic. He was not normally given to superstition, but whatever had
happened to Wormynghalle had been uncannily timed. He looked up as someone knelt next to him. It was Clippesby, with Michael
looming behind him.

‘You threw me the teeth as I watched what was happening from the trees,’ Clippesby explained. ‘I knew exactly what you wanted
me to do. Unfortunately, I missed
Joan and hit her brother instead. You probably did not intend me to throw them quite so hard, and I am sorry I killed him.’

‘Well, I am not,’ said Michael fervently. He clapped Clippesby on the shoulder. ‘You and Matt saved us with your quick thinking.’

‘Not me,’ said Bartholomew, realising he should have guessed Clippesby was somewhere close by, doing what he did best as he
listened to a conversation undetected.

‘Do not be modest,’ said Clippesby. ‘I would not have known what to do without your prompt. I was beginning to think I might
have to watch you die, because I have no idea how to confront people with loaded weapons. Such folk are beyond my understanding.’

‘Well, they are not beyond mine,’ said Michael grimly. ‘And I have a feeling Joan is not finished with us yet. She will not
be pleased that you killed her brother, and she knows her life as a scholar is over now. I think she will do something dreadful,
to ensure she leaves academia with a flourish.’

‘What can she do?’ asked Abergavenny reasonably. ‘If she has any sense, she will jump on one of her brother’s horses and leave
while she can.’

‘Polmorva took them all,’ said Clippesby. ‘I saw him tearing along Merton Lane as if the hounds of Hell were after him. He
is not a brave man, and his only thoughts were for his own safety once he was free. But it means Joan cannot go anywhere,
because she has no transport.’

‘Why did Polmorva run?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He is not in league with Wormynghalle, is he?’

‘Probably because he saw at first hand the trouble murders can bring,’ replied Duraunt enigmatically.

Michael frowned. ‘What are you saying? That he has it in mind to commit one of his own?’

‘I suspect he has been put off by the chaos they cause,’
replied Duraunt, still annoyingly obtuse. He relented when he saw Michael’s stern expression, realising the time for prevarication
was over. ‘You are not the only one with whom he has a feud, Matthew. I am fairly sure he had planned to put an end to the
Master of Queen’s, so he could be elected in his place.’

‘Is that why you brought him here?’ asked Michael. ‘Not because you had developed a friendship with the man, but because you
were hoping to prevent a crime?’

‘It worked,’ said Duraunt with a tired smile. ‘I think he will be so grateful to reach home unscathed after this escapade
that he will count his blessings, and think of less permanent ways to rid himself of rivals.’