Susanna GREGORY - Murder by the Book

‘It is too late,’ said Langelee, looking away. ‘The fire will never be extinguished now. Walkelate was a fool to think he could control a blaze with all that oily wood around. And he dared call himself an alchemist!’

‘The castle,’ said Bartholomew urgently. ‘The mercenaries intend to attack it–’

‘I guessed they might try,’ said Tulyet, ‘so I counter-attacked at dawn. The leaders are in my dungeons, and Helbye is rounding up the rest as we speak.’

‘Did Holm tell you to come here?’ asked Bartholomew, sagging in relief.

The Sheriff frowned his bemusement at the question. ‘No. Dame Pelagia chose a better place to eavesdrop than you – one where she would not be taken prisoner by the men she was trying to thwart. She sent word with a fleet-footed beadle.’

‘There will be no fire-arrows now,’ she said, patting Bartholomew’s arm kindly. ‘The good people of Cambridge can enjoy their pageant and never know how close they came to losing their castle.’

‘Thank God!’ breathed Michael. ‘Although our scholars are going to be disappointed when they see what has happened to their library.’

‘Only half of them,’ said Langelee. ‘The rest of us will be glad to see it gone.’

Bartholomew stood for a long time after the others had left, watching the flames consume the building that should have been one of the University’s finest achievements. He wondered whether anyone would ever be brave enough to found another.

Two weeks later

It rained when Julitta married Holm in St Mary the Great. For the first time in more than two weeks, the sky was heavy with clouds, and the scent of dampness was in the air. It was cold too, and a chill breeze sliced in from the east.

‘I suppose that is summer over,’ said Michael, as he and Bartholomew waited for the ceremony to begin. ‘Two weeks of sunshine followed by three months of wind and drizzle.’

The gloomy weather suited Bartholomew’s mood. Julitta was beautiful in her wedding gown, and his heart sank when he thought of how unhappy her new husband was going to make her.

‘Holm failed to tell Dick about Walkelate, you know,’ he said, watching the surgeon with bitter dislike. ‘It was your grandmother’s message that brought him to our rescue. So why did you not make good on your threat, and regale Julitta with the truth about him?’

‘Because it was not Holm’s fault that he failed,’ replied Michael. ‘He really did run straight to the castle, but Dick’s low opinion of him meant the guards refused to let him in.’

‘Did Holm tell you this tale?’ Bartholomew was disinclined to believe it.

‘No, Dick did.’ The monk shrugged. ‘So, as Holm did not renege on our agreement, I had no just cause to tattle to Julitta.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew flatly.

‘Still, at least you are five marks richer,’ said Michael, to cheer him up. ‘Dick gave a written statement saying that Isnard and the rivermen are model citizens. Julitta will ensure you have your money.’

‘I do not want it. As it turns out, Isnard and his friends have been smuggling. They were lying when they said they had not, and Holm was right to call them criminals.’

‘Take the five marks and spend it on medicine for the poor,’ advised Michael. ‘If you do not, Holm will use it to buy yet more new clothes for himself.’

Bartholomew glanced at the surgeon at the altar. Holm was wearing a fabulously embroidered gipon that must have cost a fortune, while his boots and gloves were the finest money could buy. He had adopted a casually arrogant posture, one hand on his hip, specifically to show off the silken lining of his cloak.

‘Your grandmother was clever, not racing into a situation she could not handle,’ Bartholomew said, turning away and taking refuge in discussing what had happened in Newe Inn. ‘I thought she was falling behind us because she was old, but she was just exercising caution.’

‘Well, she has had many years of experience at that sort of thing,’ said Michael. ‘The King was right to ask her to foil Bonabes, Sire de Rougé et de Derval, or whatever he called himself.’

‘I cannot imagine how he escaped from the inferno. Still, I suppose if anyone can track him down and return him to the Tower of London, it is her. I am sorry she will have to do it without Ayera. He was a decent man.’

‘He made an error of judgement when he recruited Langelee to help, though,’ said Michael, still hurt that he had not been taken into Pelagia’s confidence. ‘He would have done better with you and me. We would not have let the plot go as far as it did.’

‘I assumed Pelagia was lying when she said she was here to hunt a French spy, but it was true – she was tracking Bonabes, escaped from prison. I thought she would never tell us her real agenda, because …’ Bartholomew waved his hand, not sure how to say that he had never met a more artful woman than Michael’s grandam.

‘It has been difficult to separate truth from lies,’ sighed Michael. ‘A number of people used false rumours to achieve their objectives, and they muddied the waters. Walkelate and Dunning spread tales that the raiders would not attack at Corpus Christi; Browne said libraries were dangerous places; Tulyet said the King’s taxes were hidden in the University–’

‘He is sorry for that,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How much longer will you hold it against him?’

‘Until I need a favour,’ said Michael comfortably. He continued with his list. ‘And my grandmother circulated tales that an attack would take place at Corpus Christi, as she hoped the festivities would be cancelled, and everyone would concentrate on laying hold of the invaders.’

‘Prior Etone was telling the truth when he said Dunning had promised him Newe Inn, though,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Julitta found documents to say so. She has taken to reading like a duck to water, and is already skilled enough to trawl through her father’s affairs.’

Michael saw Bartholomew’s expression darken when his eyes were drawn back to the couple at the altar, and changed the subject.

‘We might have solved these mysteries much sooner had we realised that there were two completely separate conspiracies. First, Browne killing Rolee, Teversham and Kente to put scholars off libraries, and murdering Coslaye because he had failed to dispatch him at the Convocation. And second, Bonabes arriving in Cambridge and recruiting scholars to build him a weapon – Walkelate, Northwood, Vale, the London brothers and Jorz.’

‘And recruiting mercenaries to raid the town,’ added Bartholomew. ‘Aided by Dunning and Frevill. And by Coslaye, too – Agatha’s nephew did see him, as he claimed.’

‘Dick said yesterday that he has caught the last of the mercenaries. Several told him that it was Frevill who murdered Adam, so justice was served when Ayera killed him outside King’s Hall.’

They were silent for a while, Bartholomew watching the priest talking to Julitta and Holm, and Michael thinking about the plots they had exposed. Julitta was listening intently, but Holm looked bored, as if he wished the rite were over so that he could do something more interesting instead. Then the priest began to chant the sacred words that would bind the couple together for the rest of their lives, and Bartholomew wondered what it was about love that made people so blind. He turned away, directing his mind back to their mysteries so as to block it out.

‘Browne must have been insane to think that a few peculiar deaths would keep us from books,’ he said. ‘This is a University, and we are scholars. Deaths in libraries will not stop us from reading.’

Michael laughed softly. ‘Some of us are scholars. Langelee is not, or he would have refrained from writing obscenities in Apollodorus’s Poliorcetica . Apparently, he was trying to research wildfire for Ayera, and grew frustrated when his reading did not tell him what he wanted to know. But let us think of happier things. Your students’ disputations, for example.’