Susanna Gregory - An Unholy Alliance

He ambled off, and Bartholomew leaned back wearily.

Now that the excitement had worn off, he felt tired and sick. He wondered whether everything fitted together the dead friar, the poisoned lock, the disappearing lay brother and Vice-Chancellor, the murdered women, and the sinister alley — or whether they were all independent incidents that just happened to have involved him. He felt more than a little angry at the Chancellor. He wanted to teach and to practise medicine, not to become involved in some nasty plot where women and friars were killed, and that forced him to exhume dead clerks.

He squinted up and watched the leaves blowing in the breeze, making changing pools of light over the tombstones in the graveyard. He could hear the distant racket from the market-place, while in the church some friars were chanting Terce.

'What are you thinking of, getting into all this trouble without me?' came a familiar voice. Bartholomew opened his eyes and smiled at the Welshman with Michael behind him. Cynric took a strange delight in the kind of cloak-and-dagger activity that Bartholomew deplored.

He was more friend than servant, and had been with Bartholomew since he had been appointed to teach in Cambridge. As Bartholomew explained what had happened, Cynric made no attempt to conceal his disdain for Bartholomew's ineptitude in handling the situation.

While Bartholomew donned his tabard to hide his damaged clothes and Michael sat on the tree stump, Cynric went to see if he could find the path. After a few minutes, he came back to sit next to Michael, eyes narrowed against the sun.

'The path is there sure enough,' said Cynric. 'Small twigs are broken and the grass is bruised. Someone must have come up the alley and arranged the bushes so that the path is hidden. I will come back later and explore it.'

'No, you will not,' said Bartholomew firmly. 'Whoever hid it did so for a reason, and I am not sure I want to know why. I have a feeling the lay-brother made a grave error in using that path and I was probably lucky not to have been killed for following him. Let it be, Cynric.'

Cynric looked disappointed, but nodded his agreement.

'But next time you go out, boy, make sure I go with you. Old Cynric is far better at these things than you are.'

It would not be too difficult to be better at 'these things' than he was, Bartholomew thought wryly, but Cynric was right. He would never have blundered blindly into the alley as Bartholomew had done.

Michael stood and rubbed his hands together. 'We have had a difficult day,' he announced. "I propose we go and enjoy ourselves at the Fair.'

Barnwell Causeway, the road that led from the town to the fields in which the Fair was held, was thronged with people. Men with huge trays of pastries and pies competed with each other for trade, while water-sellers left damp patches on the road as the river-water they carried in their buckets slopped over the sides. Beggars lined the route, sitting at the sides of the road and displaying sores and wounds to any who would look.

Some were soldiers from the wars in France, once England's heroes, now quietly ignored. The Sheriffs men elbowed their way through the crowd, asking if anyone had witnessed the murder of a potter the night before.

Michael shook his head to the sergeant's enquiry.

'The roads are becoming more and more dangerous after dark,' he remarked, as the sergeant repeated his enquiry to a group of noisy apprentices walking behind them. 'Safe enough now with all these folk, but deadly to any foolish enough to wander at night'

Cynric made a darting movement, and there was a yowl of pain from a scruffy man wearing a brown cloak.

'Not even safe in daylight,' said Cynric, handing Michael's purse back to him, and watching the pickpocket scamper away down the road clutching his arm.

Michael grimaced, and tucked the purse down the front of his habit. He brightened as the colourful canopies of the Fair booths came into sight, and stopped to look.

War-horses pounded up and down a narrow strip near the river as their owners showed off their equestrian skills. Huge fires with whole pigs and sheep roasting over them sent delicious smells to mingle with the scent of manure and sweaty bodies. And everywhere there was noise: animals bleated and bellowed, vendors yelled about their wares, children shrieked and laughed, and musicians added their part to the general cacophony.

Bartholomew followed Michael and Cynric into the melee, shaking off an insistent baker who was trying to sell him apple pastries crawling with flies. Bartholomew smiled at the people he knew — rich merchants in their finery, black-garbed scholars, and the poorest of his patients who eyed the wealth around them with jealous eyes. He saw the Junior Proctor, Alric Jonstan, and two of his beadles talking together near a stall displaying neatly-stacked fruit.

Jonstan hailed him pleasantly, and sent his beadles to disperse a rowdy group of scholars who were watching a mystery play nearby. He rubbed a hand across his face, and beckoned Bartholomew and Michael behind the fruit stall to a quieter part of the Fair. He sat on a wooden bench, and summoned a brewer to bring them some ale.

'This is the finest ale in England,' he said, closing his eyes and taking a long draught with obvious pleasure.

The brewer smiled, gratified, and set the remaining tankards on the table.

Jonstan held up his hand. 'As a Proctor, I should not be setting the example of sitting in an ale tent, but I have been working since I left St Mary's this morning, and even the most dedicated of men needs sustenance.'

'Excellent ale,' said Michael appraisingly, raising his empty tankard to be refilled, and wiping foam from his mouth. 'And we are all well-enough hidden here, I think.'

'Master Hading would not think so,' said Jonstan with awry smile. Bartholomew could well-believe it of the dour Physwick Hostel scholar. 'But what didyou discover about this friar?'

Michael set his tankard down, and rubbed his sleeve across his mouth. 'Nothing other than what we told you this morning. But if you have been here all day, perhaps you do not know that Master Buckley seems to have disappeared.'

'Disappeared?' echoed Jonstan, stunned. 'But he is coming to dine with me and my mother this evening.' "I doubt he will come,' said Michael. 'But if he does, you might mention that the Chancellor would like to see him, and the Warden of King's Hall would like his tables back.'

Jonstan stared at him and shook his head slowly as Michael described Buckley's empty room.

'Where will you start to sort out this mess?' he asked, looking from Michael to Bartholomew.

"I would rather not start at all,' said Bartholomew fervently. "I would sooner teach.'

Jonstan pulled a sympathetic face. "I can understand that,' he said. "I taught law before I became a Proctor, but have done no teaching since. I moved out of Physwick Hostel and bought a house in Shoemaker Row, so that my mother could keep house for me to allow more time for my duties. I wish Harling and I could help you with this business, but I think we will be too busy with the Fair. Hot weather, cheap ale, and gangs of students are a lethal combination, and we will be hard-pressed to keep the peace as it is.'

He stood suddenly as a student reeled towards him, arm-in-arm with a golden-haired woman from one of the taverns. The student saw the Proctor, released the woman and fled, all signs of drunkenness disappearing as quickly as if Jonstan had dashed a bucket of cold water over him. The woman looked around, bewildered, and Jonstan sat again with a smile.

"I wish all my duties were as easy as that,' he said.

'There was another prostitute murder,' said Bartholomew.

"I heard about that,' said Jonstan. He frowned. 'Does it seem to you that there are more prostitutes now than before the Death?'