A Wicked Deed (43 page)

‘We need to look through the rubble for Alcote,’ said Michael hoarsely, coming to stand next to Bartholomew. He walked stiffly, unused to so much exercise, and water and dust had made his habit appear as if it were smeared all over with mud.

Bartholomew joined Hamon, Stoate, William and Deynman, who were prising away some of the charred wood and plaster to begin the search. Eltisley lay on his back in the wet grass with his hands over his face, and Bartholomew saw that he was weeping. His wife, her white apron black with soot, sat near Dame Eva and Isilia, who seemed to be sharing a skin of wine with her. But Dame Eva was a practical, as well as a sympathetic, woman and Bartholomew saw that Mistress Eltisley already wore a cloak he knew belonged to the old lady, and her shaking hands clasped a small silver cross that he had seen Dame Eva wear.

Watched by the silent villagers, Bartholomew and the others levered and hauled at the hot embers. After a while, Deynman gave a cry and started backward, dropping the stick he had been using, as his hands flew to his mouth. Bartholomew scrambled toward him, and pulled away sooty plaster to reveal a body underneath.

‘Is it him?’ asked Deynman, looking everywhere but at the charred form Bartholomew exposed.

‘Alcote’s cross,’ whispered Michael, leaning down to pick it up and dropping it immediately when he found it was too hot to hold. ‘He always wore a gold cross.’

‘Is that all there is?’ asked Hamon, gazing down at the body. ‘Where is the rest of him?’

‘Burned away,’ said Bartholomew, taking the blanket proffered by Stoate to cover the body. He did not want to move it while it was still so hot: it would be better to wait until it had cooled a little.

‘That is not him,’ said Deynman with sudden certainty. ‘It cannot be. Master Alcote is in Wergen Hall, or in the church praying. I will find him.’

Bartholomew caught his arm as he made to run away. ‘If Master Alcote were alive, he would have come to see what was happening here,’ he said gently. ‘You will not find him elsewhere.’

Deynman started to cry, perhaps the only one who would ever do so, since Alcote had not been popular with his colleagues or the Michaelhouse students. While he stood awkwardly, with Deynman sobbing on his shoulder, Bartholomew called to Eltisley to ask if there had been anyone other than Alcote in the tavern when it had ignited.

Eltisley shook his head slowly, his eyes dull, answering that the tavern had been empty except for the scholars in the upper chamber.

‘Thank God the rest of us were out,’ said William, crossing himself vigorously.

‘Norys warned us about this,’ said Michael softly. ‘He advised us to sleep with the windows open, in case Eltisley set the tavern alight with some mad experiment. It seems he was right.’

Bartholomew looked over to where Eltisley stood, and was seized with a sudden rage. Jostling Deynman out of the way, he jumped off the rubble and grabbed the landlord by the front of his apron, shaking him as hard as he could.

‘You did this!’ he shouted furiously. ‘There were no gasses! You were playing around with one of your dangerous concoctions and now Alcote is dead.’

‘I swear to you it was not me!’ shrieked Eltisley in terror, as he struggled to free himself from the physician’s powerful grip. ‘I was in the kitchen cooking your meal.’

‘Then you left something burning in your workshop,’ accused Bartholomew, not relinquishing his hold on the landlord’s apron. ‘You ignited the tavern because you were careless.’

‘Matt, let him go,’ said Michael tiredly, trying to prise the physician’s fingers loose. ‘Eltisley has just lost his home, his livelihood and all his possessions. Have some compassion.’

‘And Alcote has just lost his life!’ Bartholomew yelled. He thrust Eltisley against the garden wall, further enraged by the landlord’s pathetic fear of him. ‘You are so arrogant, you think you can meddle with whatever you like, and you care nothing for the safety and well-being of others.’

‘You are strangling him,’ protested Stoate, joining in Michael’s attempts to make Bartholomew release the terrified landlord.

Seeing their patron in trouble, some of Eltisley’s surly customers uncoiled themselves from the grass near the stream, and advanced menacingly. Cynric unsheathed a wicked little sword from its scabbard and tensed, ready to act should they threaten Bartholomew.

‘Matthew!’ snapped William, sensing an unseemly brawl was in the making. ‘Is it not enough that poor Alcote lies dead without compounding the tragedy by slaying the landlord? It was an accident, man!’

Eltisley’s customers eyed Cynric uncertainly, not convinced that they could best the man who wielded his sword with such practised ease. Hamon stepped forward, trying to place himself between Cynric and the surly men, while Isilia, seeing her kinsman place himself in such dire danger simply to prevent a fight, gave a shrill shriek that brought her husband running from where he had been talking to Wauncy.

Bartholomew gave Eltisley another shake. ‘How did you do it? What dangerous potions were you playing with in that workshop of yours? Saltpetre, sulphur and powdered charcoal?’

Eltisley gaped at him. ‘How do you know of such things? You are just a physician!’

Bartholomew’s temper finally snapped. He thumped Eltisley up against the wall again, intending to smash the superior, arrogant face to a pulp with his fists. He did not have the chance: Tuddenham had arrived. Eltisley’s sullen customers slunk away to sit on the grass again, Cynric sheathed his sword, and William and Michael dragged Bartholomew away from Eltisley before the physician could land more than two ill-placed punches that did little harm.

‘You are insane!’ howled Bartholomew, as he struggled in the powerful grip of his colleagues, aware, even in the heat of his anger, that most of the village was probably thinking the same about him. ‘You play with potions and substances about which you understand nothing! You are a feeble-minded lunatic, who should be locked away before you kill anyone else with your stupid, half-considered theories. You are a heretic!’

Meanwhile, Eltisley regarded Bartholomew with loathing, rubbing the red marks on his neck where he had almost been throttled. ‘I merely want to understand more of the nature of the world in which we live,’ he said coldly. ‘I pray for guidance every morning, and I do nothing contrary to God’s will.’

‘Do you think murdering Alcote is God’s will?’ yelled Bartholomew, still trying to free himself from William’s restraining grip.

‘Murdering Alcote?’ asked Tuddenham, horrified. ‘You believe Alcote was murdered?’

‘Matt,’ warned Michael under his breath. ‘That is enough. Eltisley was cooking in the kitchen when the building ignited, and he did not cause this tragedy intentionally.’

Eltisley’s intentions were irrelevant to Bartholomew, and doubtless to Alcote, too. The only fact that mattered to him was that Eltisley had been tampering with a combination of powders and ingredients that he clearly knew caused explosions. Whether he had ignited them deliberately, or whether they had somehow come together by mistake in his workshop was of no consequence. Eltisley’s selfish desire to learn had brought about Alcote’s death.

‘What will happen to my advowson now?’ asked Tuddenham dispiritedly. ‘All Alcote’s efforts will have been for nothing. We will have to start over again.’

‘I do not believe so,’ said Michael soothingly. ‘Alcote is not the only one who can draft legal documents, you know. I, myself, have no small talent in that area, although Alcote was a master at it. I will come to Wergen Hall this evening, and we will see what still needs to be done.’

‘There is no need for you to come quite so soon, Brother,’ said Dame Eva reasonably. ‘We are all tired after our exertions, and my son looks unwell. I would rather he rested, and that you worked on the thing together tomorrow.’

Tuddenham did indeed look ill. Bartholomew exchanged a concerned glance with Stoate, who whispered that he would visit the knight later to prescribe something to make him more comfortable.

‘I would rather know where my advowson stands tonight,’ said Tuddenham stubbornly. ‘I am a little weary, but will be well enough after a short rest.’

‘You are terribly pale,’ said Isilia anxiously. ‘Rest this evening. I will sing, and Master Wauncy can play his drum. You can pore over deeds tomorrow.’

‘Tonight,’ repeated Tuddenham, in a tone that indicated the discussion was over. ‘Meanwhile, offer the villagers free ale, Hamon.’

Hamon raised his voice so that the villagers could hear. ‘My uncle would like to show his appreciation to all of you who helped stop the fire from destroying our village. There will be free ale at the Dog. Spare no expense, landlord. You can present us with the bill tomorrow.’

The immediate, single-minded scramble reminded Bartholomew of the feast after the Pentecost Fair, and he was startled to see that, all of a sudden, none of the villagers seemed to be tired, and all were able to partake in the vicious pushing and shoving. William went with them, relinquishing his grip on Bartholomew’s arm in his desire to slake his thirst with Tuddenham’s ale, and Eltisley took advantage of the diversion to slink away to somewhere he hoped Bartholomew would not find him. Within moments, no one remained by the ruined tavern but Bartholomew, Cynric and Michael.

‘Poor Alcote,’ said Michael softly, watching the last of the villagers race toward the Dog. ‘He was a nasty little man, but he did not deserve this.’

*

Bartholomew sat on a stool in Wergen Hall, and thrust his hands into the sides of his tabard to stop himself from rubbing eyes that itched from the after-effects of the smoke. His discomfort was not eased by the blaze in the hearth that spat and hissed as flames devoured wet wood, and added its own choking fumes to the already stuffy hall.

Sitting opposite him, Michael had coughed until his throat was sore, necessitating the swallowing of large amounts of soothing wine to remedy the matter. This example was grimly followed by William, who decided his throat hurt, too. The wine made him uncharacteristically amiable, and resulted in Tuddenham’s startled household being entertained with a few colourfully embellished tales from his days with the Inquisition, after which the friar retired to the floor, where he sprawled with his mouth open and snored.

Hamon had been burned, and his hands were smothered with Bartholomew’s ointment of chalk and burdock. Stoate had disagreed with this treatment, and had recommended to his patients a poultice of ground snails and mint mixed with cat grease. There was not a snail, and scarcely a cat, to be seen in Grundisburgh. Later, Bartholomew had been alarmed to learn that Stoate was advising that his poultice could also heal smoke-inflamed eyes, if applied thickly enough. Wrinkling his nose in disgust at the notion of rubbing squashed snails in his face, Tuddenham compelled Bartholomew to sell him all his chalk and burdock to be used for his own household.

‘I understand Master Alcote was paid two shillings to say masses for a man he found dying on the Old Road,’ said Walter Wauncy conversationally, raising his skull-like head from the book he had been perusing.

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew, startled by the question. ‘When he took the wrong road to Grundisburgh after we found the hanged man at Bond’s Corner, he came across a party of travellers who had been attacked, and one of them had been fatally wounded. How did you know?’

‘He told me,’ said Wauncy. ‘He was to say these masses at St Botolph’s shrine at St Edmundsbury, but obviously he is not in a position to fulfil these obligations. Give me the two shillings, and I will say the masses instead.’

Bartholomew gazed at him in disbelief. ‘You want us to give you Alcote’s money?’

‘Not his money,’ corrected Wauncy reproachfully. ‘Funds to rescue this unfortunate’s soul from Purgatory. It is not fair to keep it for yourselves.’

Bartholomew made a disgusted sound, and declined to discuss the matter further. Not only had all Alcote’s possessions been destroyed in the fire, but he was unimpressed that Wauncy should already be trying to earn a profit from Alcote’s death.

‘Is Horsey keeping vigil over poor Master Alcote?’ whispered Isilia, looking up from her drowsing husband as Wauncy drew breath to argue.