Susanna Gregory - An Unholy Alliance

'We have never practised witchcraft,' said de Belem.

'Everything we did had a rational explanation, and was only harmless fun. A joke. It is not my fault that people were afraid. We have killed no one, and all my property came to me perfectly legally. My lawyer, Piers Hesselwell, will attest to that. You have no proof, just a series of unfounded suppositions. I have powerful friends in the town and in Court. You will not hang me.'

Bartholomew had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that de Belem might well be right. They had strong evidence — Tulyet's baby in de Belem's house, Buckley's kidnapping, and Stanmore's stolen cloth but it was so complex that he imagined a good lawyer could easily find alternative explanations that de Belem's powerful friends would choose to believe as the truth.

He walked away, finding de Belem's confident gloating unbearable. He ached all over from his hard ride, and his head was beginning to throb from the hours of tension.

A small stream trickled behind one of the rows of houses, and he crouched at the edge of it to scoop handfuls of water over his face. He heard a sound behind him and spun round, thinking it might be one of de Belem's men still lurking free, but relaxed when he saw it was only Michael.

'Father Lucius has some potage for us,' he said. 'Come.

We need something warm inside us if we are to face the rest of the day.'

Bartholomew followed him to the small priest's house next to the church. It was little more than a single room with a lean-to shack at the back for animals. But the rushes on the floor were clean and the crude wooden table in the middle of the room had been scrubbed almost white. Bartholomew sat on a bench with Michael next to him. Stanmore was already there, sipping broth from a blue-glazed bowl. Lucius set other bowls on the table, and Bartholomew closed his cold fingers around one, grateful for the warmth after the chill of the stream.

'De Belem is right, you know,' he said to the others.

'A good lawyer will be able to overturn the evidence we have, especially if the court is full of his powerful friends.'

Stanmore shook his head. 'There is no lawyer that good,' he said. 'And I too will hire one. It was my cloth he stole, and my man he murdered for it. For Will's sake, I will see he does not go free.'

'But we cannot prove he killed the prostitutes,' said Bartholomew. 'De Belem will claim he would not kill his own daughter, nor his woman.'

'But we know they killed Janetta,' said Michael. 'And all the women died of wounds to the throat, like she did. It is too much coincidence not to be true.'

'But the others had that circle on their feet, and we cannot show Janetta had one,' said Bartholomew. 'And we cannot really prove they killed Janetta. We have no witness, no firm, undeniable proof.' "I am still confused by much of this,' said Stanmore.

'Pieces fit together, but I have a problem with the whole.'

'We should clarify it,' said Michael. 'We have deduced so much that has been proven wrong over the last week, that we need to see whether we agree now.'

Bartholomew grimaced. He was tired, and, like Stanmore, the complete picture still eluded him. There were pieces that still did not fit together, and he was not sure whether his mind was sharp enough to analyse them properly. He took a sip of the potage and almost choked as Michael slapped him encouragingly on the back.

'Let us begin at the beginning,' he said heartily, and Bartholomew wondered where the fat monk's energy came from. 'We need to go back a long way, before all this business started, to Lincoln from whence Gilbert and his kin hail. In Lincoln there was a judge who punished petty criminals by disfiguring their faces. Gilbert must have been punished, rightly or wrongly, for some crime while visiting his family.'

He paused, and Bartholomew recalled what Buckley had said to him as they sat in de Belem's yard waiting for Stanmore to come with the horses. 'Buckley remembered Gilbert's returning from Lincoln with the beard, because he wondered whether he might be able to grow one to hide the sores on his face. Buckley grew a beard, but was impressed that Gilbert's was so much fuller, while his own remained straggly. But Gilbert's scarred face could never sprout such luxurious growth, and the beard was false. He has worn it ever since, to hide the scars that betray him as a criminal.'

'Well, no one would suspect he and Janetta were one and the same, as long as Gilbert wore a beard,' said Stanmore.

'Then we come to the book,' said Michael, holding out his bowl to Lucius for more potage. 'Nicholas had been employed by the Chancellor to write a history of events concerning the University, so that there would be a record for future scholars. As the Chancellor told us, it contained information that could prove embarrassing in some quarters. It not only involved members of the University, but people from the town with whom scholars had had dealings. Nicholas appeared to have taken his task seriously. He joined the Guild of the Coming in order to see what he could learn, and was even elected their leader.'

Bartholomew took up the tale. 'When de Belem learned from Gilbert that Nicholas was writing the book, he became nervous. Gilbert's sister was drafted in from Lincoln to worm her way into his affections to discover what he had learned.'

'But Cuthbert thought that Janetta and Nicholas seemed happy together,' said Michael. 'She failed to tell de Belem and Gilbert what they wanted to know, and possibly even gave Nicholas information about them.

And now we are stuck. What happened next?'

Bartholomew pondered, smiling up at Lucius as he filled his bowl again. Stanmore looked from one to the other in anticipation.

'Well, what do we know?' said Bartholomew. 'Cuthbert said that Nicholas felt he was in fear of his life, so he feigned his death. De Belem must have threatened him in some way. Nicholas, apparently, felt the only way he could be safe was if he were presumed dead. If he and Janetta were as fond of each other as Cuthbert believes, then the chances are that she helped him execute the plan.'

'And of course we know how!' exclaimed Michael suddenly. 'Gilbert was able to switch Nicholas's body for Janetta's in the crypt yesterday because he is the only one with the keys. Janetta, who doubtless shared Gilbert's house, must have stolen his keys when Nicholas was sealed in his coffin and locked in the church for the night, and gone to let him out. How else would he have escaped the church and still kept secret the fact that he was alive?'

'Gilbert must have suspected, or perhaps he woke to see the keys gone,' mused Bartholomew. 'He followed her to the church and saw Nicholas alive.'

'But then what?' said Stanmore. 'A small man like Gilbert could not hope to overpower two people.'

'He must have fetched de Belem,' said Michael.

'Nicholas and Janetta had to make the coffin look as though there were still a body inside, and that would take a while. Gilbert would have had time. Then there must have been a skirmish in which Janetta was killed and Nicholas escaped.'

'And why the mask?' asked Stanmore. 'Why would Gilbert bury his sister with that?'

'Perhaps she had worn it to hide her face when she went to release Nicholas,' said Michael.

'No,' said Bartholomew slowly. "I think de Belem probably wore it to frighten Nicholas when Gilbert fetched him. He probably meant to terrify Nicholas into revealing what was in the book before they killed him. The mask was huge, and perhaps dawn was coming by the time Janetta was killed and Nicholas had escaped.

It was probably placed on Janetta merely to get rid of it so that de Belem would not have to carry it home through the streets, and Gilbert would not have to hide it in the church.'

Michael nodded. 'And de Belem must have gained some information from Nicholas before he fled, because he knew there was something important in the book. De Belem then hired a professional thief to come to steal it for him. Gilbert could not steal it, because he had the keys to the church but not to the chest. And we know what happened to the friar.' "I see,' said Stanmore. 'But why bother with poor old Buckley?'