A Wicked Deed (18 page)

‘It was an interesting colour,’ said Bartholomew evasively. ‘I have never seen anything quite like it.’

Eltisley gave a happy grin, assuming an implicit compliment. ‘I might be persuaded to part with the recipe when you leave, after all. I am not a man who believes in keeping effective remedies to himself. It is not ethical.’

Bartholomew nodded, and turned his attention back to washing.

‘I was very sorry to hear about Unwin,’ said the taverner, continuing to fiddle with the window. ‘Did I tell you that?’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But thank you anyway.’

‘It is a curious thing,’ said Eltisley absently, engrossed with his piece of string, ‘but I am sure I saw him talking to Sir Robert Grosnold – the bald lord of Otley manor – in the churchyard just after the feast started. Of course, that is not possible. I must be going mad.’ He beamed at Bartholomew in a way that made the physician sure he was right.

‘You must be mistaken,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Grosnold rode with us from Wergen Hall, and then set off immediately to return to Otley. He thundered across the village green like a maniac.’

‘I saw him,’ said Eltisley. ‘Worse, he ran me over. Look at my leg.’ Unceremoniously, he hauled down his hose to reveal a semicircular bruise that would doubtless match one of the shoes on Grosnold’s destrier. ‘I will take a purge for it tomorrow.’

‘What good will a purge do a bruise?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

‘It will take away the evil fluids from the wound and reduce
the
swelling. Bruises mean an increase of humours in
the
body, and so vomiting must be induced to balance them again.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, understanding exactly why many physicians so fervently believed the adage that a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing.

Eltisley beamed at him absently. ‘But this business with Grosnold is odd, is it not?’

‘Very,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Are you sure he was not talking to Unwin
before he
trampled you with his horse?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Eltisley. ‘I have been in considerable pain ever since. When I saw Grosnold talking surreptitiously to Unwin a few moments after he trampled me, I considered giving him a piece of my mind. Then I decided I did not want to hang for impudence, so I left it.’

‘What do you mean by “talking surreptitiously”?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘“Surreptitious” means furtive or sly,’ said Eltisley. ‘I thought you would have known the meaning of that word, Doctor, you being from Cambridge. But we all learn, I suppose.’

‘What I meant was what were they doing to make you think they were surreptitious?’

‘Well,’ said Eltisley, touching a finger to the bridge of his nose. ‘Let me see. Grosnold – although it could not have been Grosnold since he had left the village – had Unwin by the arm and was whispering something in his ear.’

‘Is there anyone else it could have been?’ asked Bartholomew, beginning to feel a little irritated by the man’s vagueness. Unwin had been murdered after all, and Eltisley might well have seen the man who had done it. ‘Is there someone you might have mistaken for Grosnold?’

Bartholomew was perplexed. ‘So did you see Grosnold with Unwin or not?’

Eltisley shrugged. ‘My eyes told me yes, my mind tells me no.’

‘Was he wearing a long cloak?’ he asked, thinking of Stoate’s observation. ‘Or was there anything wrong with his eyes?’

‘His eyes?’ queried Eltisley, taken aback. ‘No, not that I could see. They seemed normal enough – beady, just as usual. And he wore his black cotte and hose – he likes to think he looks like the Prince of Wales in them. Foolish man! The Prince is not bald, forty and pig-ugly! Have you ever seen him? The Prince?’

‘Not recently,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But if the man you saw talking to Unwin was wearing these distinctive clothes, then it must have been Grosnold. There cannot be two people in the area with an outfit like that. Perhaps he came back for something.’

‘I suppose he must have done,’ said Eltisley, brightening. ‘And it is certainly true that no one else that I know of possesses clothes like Grosnold’s. Perhaps he forgot something, or realised that he needed to speak to Unwin before he returned to Otley. I am not mad, after all!’

That by no means followed, thought Bartholomew. Could he trust Eltisley’s observation, or had the whole scene come from the jumble of nonsense that passed for his brain? He rubbed a hand through his hair, and flopped heavily on one of the straw mattresses. He was so tired, he did not know what to think.

‘There,’ said Eltisley triumphantly, standing back with his twine in his hand. ‘This little invention of mine will work perfectly. Watch.’

‘Mend it tomorrow,’ pleaded Bartholomew, sensing the taverner was going to spend half the night with it.

It was not easy persuading Eltisley to leave, but at last Bartholomew was alone. He doused the candle, lay on the crackling mattress, and hauled one of the rough blankets over him. Somewhere, a mouse scurried across the floorboards, its feet skittering on the shiny surface, and from the tavern below, the muted voices of his companions were raised in some kind of debate. Still thinking about why Grosnold might want to kill Unwin, he fell into a deep sleep, and knew nothing more until he was awoken by Michael shaking his shoulder some hours later. Candle wax splattered on his bed-covers as the monk leaned over him, his bulk casting monstrous shadows on the wall.

‘I have no idea what the time is, Matt, but it is long past midnight,’ he whispered, trying not to disturb Alcote. He was clutching his stomach, and in the candlelight Bartholomew could see that his face was contorted with pain.

‘I suppose you feel ill,’ he said unsympathetically.

Michael nodded. ‘It must have been the green stuff that was all over the hare I ate. I scraped most of it off, but there must have been enough left to make me sick.’

Bartholomew reached out and touched the monk’s face in the darkness. It was hot, but not feverish. ‘I ate the vegetables, and I am all right’

‘But you have an unnatural constitution, Matt. I keep telling you that green things are bad for me, but you will not listen. Now I am proven correct. Again.’

‘Take this,’ said Bartholomew, groping in his bag for the remedy for over-indulgence and indigestion he frequently dispensed to Michael. ‘And then go back to sleep.’

‘Matthew,’ came Alcote’s tremulous voice in the darkness. ‘I am ill. Help me!’

‘Summon Master Eltisley, then,’ said Bartholomew, unmoved. ‘He can give you some of his goat urine and cloves to drink.’

Alcote retched suddenly, so Bartholomew went to his aid, holding his head while the goat’s urine made its reappearance, along with the rest of Alcote’s dinner.

‘I feel dreadful,’ he wept, clutching Bartholomew’s hand. He raised fearful eyes to Michael. ‘You will have to grant me absolution, for I shall not live to see the light of day. Help me, Matthew!’

‘But you have no faith in my medicine,’ said Bartholomew, feeling vindictive. ‘You said so at dinner, while you were eating the hare that was swimming in grease.’

Alcote retched again, and when he had finished, Bartholomew helped him to lie back with a water-soaked bandage across his forehead.

‘We have been poisoned by vegetables,’ said Michael, still holding his stomach.

‘You have been poisoned by greed, and Roger has been poisoned by Eltisley’s foul concoction,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That will teach him to drink something prepared by a man who does not know what he is doing.’

But it was not a lesson Alcote would remember for long. It was not the first time Bartholomew had been summoned to tend Alcote in the dead of night because he had swallowed some potion that promised miraculous results, and it would probably not be the last. He mixed poppy juice and chalk in a little water, and handed it to the Senior Fellow to drink.

‘Thank you,’ said Alcote, pathetically grateful with tears glittering in his eyes. ‘I shall never take medicines from anyone except you ever again.’

‘You should go,’ said Michael. ‘It feels later than midnight to me. William should know better than to trust you to wake up on time. You sleep the sleep of the dead, even when you are not tired.’

‘Go to sleep,’ Bartholomew whispered. He pushed Michael on to his back, sorted out the tangle of blankets, and pulled them up under the monk’s chin.

He dressed in the darkness, crept out of the bedchamber, tiptoed down stairs that seemed to creak louder the more quietly he tried to walk, and let himself out of the front door. A breeze that smelled of the sea whispered in the trees, and somewhere a dog barked once and then was silent. He glanced up at the sky. The moon was a thin sliver, and the only other light was from the mass of stars that glittered above, dancing in and out of clouds that drifted westward.

He groped his way down the lane, past still, dark cottages. When he stumbled in a pothole, he realised how familiar he was with Cambridge’s uneven streets. The raucous call of a nightjar close by made him jump, and he tripped again, wishing he had borrowed a candle to light his way.

Eventually, he arrived at the green and walked across the grass to one of the fords. He leapt across it, landing with a splash in the shallows on the far side, and aimed for the church. It was in darkness, and Bartholomew saw that someone, probably Cynric, had closed all the window shutters. He was raising his hand to the latch when a voice at his elbow almost made him leap out of his skin.

‘Easy, boy!’ said Cynric softly. ‘I just wanted you to know that I am here.’

‘I wish you would not do that,’ said Bartholomew, clutching his chest. ‘Is William inside?’

‘Touched is a good word for him,’ mumbled Bartholomew.

‘Are you coming in, or do you want to stay here?’

‘I think I will stay outside,’ said Cynric. ‘I like to see the stars. They remind me of home.’

‘Wales?’ asked Bartholomew, feeling sympathy for a man who was homesick.

‘Cambridge,’ said Cynric, sounding surprised. ‘It is where I live, boy. And where that Rachel Atkin lives – your brother-in-law’s seamstress. Do you think I should wed her?’

It was a question that caught Bartholomew off guard. ‘If it will make you both happy,’ he said carefully. ‘Have you asked her yet?’

‘She asked me,’ said Cynric. ‘I said I would let her know.’

‘I hope you sounded a bit more enthusiastic than that. I am no expert with women, as you well know, but you should not regard an offer of marriage in the same way that you would consider some kind of business deal.’

‘Why not?’ asked Cynric. ‘That is what marriage is, is it not? A business deal? Anyway, you should be going inside, or Father William will be after your blood.’

Father William, however, was sleeping. He sat with his back against one of the smooth white pillars, and snored loudly with his mouth open. Bartholomew did not blame him. It had been a long day, Bartholomew had been late in coming to relieve him, and it was always difficult to remain wakeful in a silent church. The physician knelt next to the parish coffin, bent his head and began to recite the offices for the dead.