Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘I visited her for a remedy – my woman will not lie with me as long as she has female pains; I gave Alyce the cure, but she still only has eyes for Ralph de Langelee – but I stole nothing from Matilde.’

Michael glanced at Weasenham, who sat scratching out his proclamations and weeping softly. ‘Go,’ the monk said to Eudo and Boltone, pointing to the door. ‘Leave Cambridge while you can.’

‘I will not, and I will kill anyone who tries to make me,’ Eudo shouted, brandishing the crossbow in a way that made his prisoners flinch in alarm. ‘No one saw you coming here – I watched you sneaking down the lane myself – and no one saw us, either. Therefore, no one will know it was us who killed you.’ He looked pleased with his logic.

‘Weasenham will know,’ Michael pointed out. He rested a heavy forearm on one of the shelves and gave it a nudge to test its stability. Bartholomew saw what he intended to do, and started to edge slowly along the bench towards him.

‘He will die, too,’ said Eudo coldly. ‘He has almost finished what he is writing, and we have no further need of his services.’

‘No!’ shrieked Weasenham. ‘You said I would live if I did what you asked. You promised!’

‘That was before they arrived,’ snapped Eudo. ‘I cannot release a witness to their deaths.’

‘I can keep secrets!’ howled Weasenham. ‘I have kept the one about Bartholomew visiting Matilde. Ask Brother Michael. I have not breathed a word about that to anyone.’

‘Finish that document, and let us bring an end to this,’ said Eudo, unbarring the door to glance outside. Bartholomew saw the streets were becoming busy, as people flocked towards the Market Square, and there was an atmosphere of excitement in the rattle of many footsteps. He eased closer towards the shelves, gradually slipping down the slick surface of the bench, and trying not to let Eudo see what he was doing. ‘We have one of those proclamations for every scholar, priest and clerk in the town, and a copy is sure to reach the Archbishop. He will recognise the truth and will take our case before the King.’

‘He will not,’ said Michael scornfully. ‘And it will be obvious who killed Weasenham, since this parchment – covered in his writing – is to be distributed throughout the town. It is a ludicrous plan.’

‘You see?’ demanded Boltone of Eudo. ‘I told you it would not work.’

‘It would have done, if these scholars had not spoiled it,’ snarled Eudo. A thought occurred to him, and a wicked smile crossed his face. ‘We will shoot them first, then set the shop alight. All anyone will find is charred corpses, and no one will ever know what really happened.’

‘But murder, Eudo!’ whispered Boltone. ‘And the Proctor is a monk, a man of God.’

‘We have no choice. If you let them live, you will hang. Do you want to die just because you are too frightened to loose a judicious arrow against men who put us in this situation in the first place?’

Boltone was obviously unhappy, but the increasing clamour in the street and its sense of urgency was beginning to rob him of his common sense. He nodded reluctant agreement.

‘Good,’ said Eudo, flexing his fingers around his bow. ‘Then we must hurry, because we are running out of time. You shoot Bartholomew and I will kill the monk. Then we will reload and dispatch Weasenham and Rougham, who are weaker and less likely to stop us. Ready?’

As one, he and Boltone raised their weapons and pointed them at the scholars.

‘Now!’ shouted Michael, flinging himself backwards as hard as he could. Bartholomew did likewise, at the same instant that Boltone released his quarrel. The physician heard a snap and something hit his chest before he fell. For a moment, he felt nothing, then there was a dull throb. When he glanced down, his clothes were stained red, and he realised he had been hit.

Meanwhile, his and Michael’s combined weight had been more than the shelves could support. With a tearing groan, they came away from their moorings and toppled, sending their contents skittering across the room. Bottles smashed, pens tapped on the wooden floor, and parchments soared from their neat piles like birds, covering the shop with a carpet of cream. Eudo began to reload, regarding first Michael and then Bartholomew with an expression of hatred, while Boltone was momentarily stunned by a box that had struck his head.

‘Michael!’ Bartholomew gasped, knowing the monk could disarm Eudo if he moved fast enough. It took a moment or two to wind a crossbow.

But Michael wallowed with agonising helplessness among the inkwells and scrolls, and seemed unable to climb to his feet. Bartholomew was sharply reminded of Brother Thomas’s prediction that the monk’s obesity would bring about his friend’s death, and was appalled it should come true quite so soon. He saw Boltone shake his head to clear it, then scramble towards the weapon he had dropped. The physician managed to reach it first, struggling to keep hold of it while the bailiff tried to snatch it back.

‘Michael!’ he yelled again, watching Eudo load his weapon with all the time in the world. But Michael only rolled this way and that, like a landed fish among the sea of parchment.

Weasenham dived under a table with a petrified squeak, and it was left to Rougham to pick up a stone inkwell and lob it with his failing strength. It hit Eudo square in the face, and felled him as cleanly as any arrow. Boltone gazed at his fallen colleague in horrified disbelief, then abandoned his skirmish with Bartholomew to dart across the room, wrench open the door and flee as fast as his legs could carry him. Weasenham emerged from under the table to grab Eudo’s weapon, but the man was deeply insensible, and posed no further threat. Rougham appealed to Bartholomew.

‘I am feeling most unwell. Will you mix me a physic?’

‘Never mind you!’ shouted Michael furiously, finally upright. ‘What about Matt? He has been shot and is drenched in blood.’

‘Ink,’ said Rougham dismissively. ‘Weasenham threw it. He was actually aiming at Eudo and, since he missed his intended target, I was obliged to hurl a pot myself. I always say that if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself, and this is just a case in point.’

‘But I saw the bolt fly loose,’ said Michael, while Bartholomew regarded the mess on his best tabard in dismay. He doubted it could be washed out.

‘It is lodged in the ceiling,’ said Weasenham, pointing with an unsteady finger. ‘Eudo is no better a marksman than I am, it seems.’

‘Tend me, please, Bartholomew,’ begged Rougham. ‘Before Weasenham really does have a corpse in his shop.’

The stationer, relieved and grateful that he had escaped with his life, offered his own bed to the invalid, which was accepted with poor grace – Rougham claimed he did not want to return to Gonville a few houses at a time. But he slept readily enough, and Bartholomew thought he should be able to complete his journey the following day. Meanwhile, Michael went to summon beadles to collect Eudo before the tenant regained his senses. He found Tulyet first, and they returned within moments. The Sheriff, clad in his finest clothes, stepped carefully through the rainbow spillages that adorned Weasenham’s once-pristine floor.

‘So,’ he said, watching his men haul Eudo away. ‘You deliver me a pair of thieves, but no killer.’

‘A pair of thieves?’ asked Michael. ‘You caught Boltone?’

‘He ran right into my arms. He was covered in blood – just like you, Matt. Are you hurt?’

‘My best red ink,’ said Weasenham sadly, gazing at Bartholomew’s tabard as though he was contemplating wringing it out to see what he could salvage. ‘What a waste! You will not get it off, either, and Agatha will be furious. Do not tell her it happened in my shop. I do not want her storming in and waving her sword at my throat.’