The Hand of Justice (15 page)

‘That is a good analogy,’ said Michael. ‘This devotion to the Hand is indeed like an ague that rages out of control and against
all reason.’

They fared no better at Deschalers’s house on Milne Street. Deschalers had been widowed during the plague, and he lived alone,
although there had been rumours of lovers in his past. However, with the exception of Bess the madwoman, whom Bartholomew
had seen trailing after him the day before, it seemed Deschalers had forsaken women. Even Michael, who listened to more town
gossip than he probably should have done, had heard no tales of current sweethearts.

‘There is no one here, either,’ said the monk irritably, thumping on Deschalers’s handsome front door for the third time.

‘Who were you expecting?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He had no family. Well, there is his niece Julianna, but she does not live with
him.’

‘Servants,’ replied Michael. ‘I want to question
them
about his state of mind this evening. Was he anxious or agitated, as a man planning a murder and suicide might be? Did he
mention a secret meeting in the unlikely venue of the King’s Mill? Did he contact Bottisham, or did Bottisham call him? And
I want to know more about their ancient dispute – the one you recall only vaguely.’

‘Someone is in,’ said Bartholomew, watching a shadow pass across one of the upstairs windows with a candle. ‘Knock again.’

Michael hammered a fourth time, hard enough to make the sound reverberate along the street, so that lights began to appear
in the houses of Deschalers’s neighbours. Immediately to the left was Cheney the spicer’s home, and Bartholomew saw him open
a window to see what the noise was about. He was shirtless, but still sported the red hat he had worn when he had been with
the other members of the Millers’ Society earlier. Someone called for him to return to bed, and Bartholomew recognised the
stridently insistent tones of Una the prostitute. The house on Deschalers’s right was owned by Constantine Mortimer – Edward’s
father – but, although lights flickered briefly in one chamber, no one was curious enough about furious bangs to come and
investigate.

Eventually, Michael’s pounding was answered by an elderly, stooped man who carried a candle. He wore the same livery as Deschalers’s
apprentices, a red tunic emblazoned with the grocer’s distinctive motif of a pot with the letter D inside it. He cupped his
ear when Michael asked to be allowed in, then informed the monk that he had no wish to become a student, thank you, because
Michaelhouse had a reputation for serving small portions at mealtimes.

‘What?’ asked Michael, bemused. ‘I have not come here to recruit you, man! I am here to ask you about your master, Thomas
Deschalers.’

‘I am fond of pigeon,’ said the servant. ‘But you have to watch the bones at my age.’

‘I see,’ said Michael, pushing past him to reach the shadowy interior of the merchant’s house. ‘Hand me the candle.’

‘I do not eat dog,’ said the servant indignantly. ‘The hair might get trapped in my throat.’

‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, snatching the lamp and climbing the stairs to the large room on the upper floor that Deschalers
used as an office. ‘Please shoot me, Matt, when I reach the point where I make rambling statements about food all the time.’

‘I shall hire a crossbow for tomorrow, then,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘What are we doing here, Brother? We cannot search Deschalers’s
house in the middle of the night – especially with no credible witnesses. People will say we came here to see what is worth
stealing.’

Michael sighed, looking at the shelves with their neatly stacked piles of documents, and at the table, where more parchments
had been filed by pressing them on to spiked pieces of wood. ‘I do not know what I hoped to find. A suicide letter, perhaps,
or something telling us why he murdered Bottisham, then killed himself.’

‘Cat is something I have never enjoyed,’ burbled the servant. ‘It tastes too much like ferret.’

‘We do not know that is what happened,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘I know you would rather have Deschalers than Bottisham as the
killer, but we cannot draw that conclusion with the evidence we have. But there is no note here, Brother, and we should leave.
I do not know why you expected one, when you know Deschalers could not write.’

‘He hired a clerk,’ said Michael. ‘All the merchants do.’

‘You do not dictate a suicide letter to a clerk,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘He would have to report it to someone, or run
the risk of being charged as an accessory to a crime.’

‘Of course, the finest flavour of all comes from grass-snake,’ continued the old man, following them down the stairs again.
‘But Master Deschalers did not like me bringing them into the house. One escaped once, you see, and frightened his lover.
Then he was hard-pressed to explain to her husband why she had fainted in his bedchamber.’

‘I can well imagine,’ said Michael wryly. ‘I would find it a challenge myself.’

‘It was Katherine Mortimer,’ said the servant, his wrinkled face creasing into a fond, toothless smile. ‘She was the best
of them all, and he loved her the most. She was fond of stewed horse, in—’

‘Katherine Mortimer?’ interrupted Bartholomew, startled. ‘Constantine the baker’s wife, who died two years ago?’

The old man nodded. ‘She was the mother of that murderous Edward, who struts around the town so proud of his evil deeds. The
King should never have pardoned him. It is not right.’

‘It is not,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But when did Deschalers have this affair with Katherine?’

‘More than a year before her death,’ replied the servant. ‘He was heartbroken when she decided their liaison was too risky
and told him it was over. I could see her point: her husband lives next door and, while it was convenient to have her close
by, there was always the risk that they would be caught.’

‘
I
caught them,’ said Bartholomew, frowning as a memory surfaced all of a sudden. ‘I saw him entering her house in the middle
of the night sometimes, when I was called out to tend patients. It was always when Constantine was away. I assumed Deschalers
was being neighbourly – making sure she was all right on her own.’

Michael gazed at him. ‘Did you? That was naïve, even by your standards!’

The servant cut across Bartholomew’s defensive reply. ‘My poor master was never the same after she threw him over. When she
died, he grieved far more deeply than her husband did. He—’

‘What was that?’ asked Bartholomew, as an odd rattle sounded in the chamber above, followed by a heavy thump. ‘There is someone
else in here!’

He darted back up the stairs and looked into the office, but it was empty. Then he saw that the window in the adjoining bedchamber
was wide open. He ran across to it and leaned out, just in time to see a figure drop to the ground and make his escape down
the narrow alley that led to the river. Without thinking, Bartholomew started to follow, but his cloak caught on a jagged
part of the shutter and he lost his balance trying to free it. His stomach lurched when he saw he was about to fall – and
it was a long way to the ground. He flailed frantically, but there was nothing to grab. With infinite slowness, he felt himself
begin to drop.

He did not go far. With almost violent abruptness, a hand shot out of the window above his head and hauled him roughly towards
the sill, which he seized with relief. For a moment, he did nothing more than cling there, aware of a slight dizziness washing
over him at his narrow escape. While the fall would probably not have killed him, it certainly would have resulted in broken
bones.

‘Thank you, Brother,’ he said unsteadily. ‘There is no point giving chase now. Whoever it was will have reached the river,
and there are too many places for him to hide. Give me your hand.’

‘Crow pie is one of my favourites,’ said the servant, reaching out to help the physician clamber through the window again.
The monk was not there, and Bartholomew was surprised that the elderly man had possessed the strength to save him; he was
obviously less frail than he looked. ‘Is that what you were doing out there? Looking for crows? You should be careful. You
might have fallen.’

Bartholomew tumbled over the sill and climbed to his feet, leaning against the wall while he caught his breath and tried to
regain his composure. He smiled wan thanks at the retainer, then followed him down the stairs to where Michael was talking
to an old woman in the room where Deschalers received his guests – a pleasantly large chamber with comfortable
chairs and dishes of dried fruits set out for those who were hungry.

‘Did you see anyone?’ the monk asked of his friend.

Bartholomew nodded. ‘But he escaped through the window. I tried to follow, but it was not a good idea.’ He smiled his thanks
at the old man a second time.

‘Crows,’ said the servant to the old woman. ‘He was after the crows that roost on the chimney.’

‘Did you get one?’ she asked keenly. ‘Crow pie is delicious, especially if you add cabbage.’

‘I do not eat cabbage,’ said Michael superiorly. ‘How can any right-thinking man enjoy something that is popular with snails?’

‘I wonder who it was,’ said Bartholomew, still thinking about the intruder. ‘It was not someone with a legitimate purpose,
or he would not have been skulking around in the dark. It was probably the same shadow I saw when you first started knocking,
too.’

‘It is suspicious,’ agreed Michael. ‘Particularly given what happened to Deschalers tonight. I would be inclined to say it
might have been his killer, but Bernarde’s evidence tells us that is not possible. Deschalers’s murderer was either Deschalers
himself or Bottisham.’

‘Deschalers was a merchant,’ Bartholomew pointed out soberly. ‘Who knows what secrets he harboured or marginal business he
conducted? The burglar may have nothing to do with his death.’

‘Minced fox has an unusual flavour,’ declared the old man with considerable authority. ‘But it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste
in the mouth.’

‘So does your master’s untimely death,’ murmured Michael softly.

The tinny little bell in the Carmelite Friary was chiming for the night office of nocturn by the time Bartholomew
and Michael returned to Michaelhouse. The College was silent, and most scholars had been asleep in bed for at least four hours.
Two lights still burned. One gleamed in the chamber Deynman shared with two Franciscan novices called Ulfrid and Zebedee,
who were notorious for enjoying the night hours and emerging heavy-eyed for the obligatory masses at dawn. The second was
in the conclave, where Bartholomew imagined Langelee and Wynewyk would be going over College accounts, or perhaps Suttone
or Clippesby was preparing lectures for the following day. The physician was exhausted, but since he knew his teeming thoughts
would not allow him to sleep, he accepted Michael’s offer of a cup of wine while they discussed the events of the night.

Michael’s room-mates were a pair of sober Benedictine theologians, but they were keeping a vigil in St Michael’s Church for
Lenne, so Michael had the chamber to himself that night. The monk had done no more than present his guest with the smaller
of his two goblets, when Walter poked his head around the door.

‘The Sheriff is here to see you,’ said the porter, trying to keep his cockerel from entering by blocking its path with his
foot. ‘Should I let him in?’

‘Of course you should let him in!’ exclaimed Michael, horrified at the notion of influential townsmen being kept waiting on
the doorstep. ‘We can hardly discuss our work in the street.’

Walter was unmoved. ‘Father William says we should not allow seculars in, so I am only doing what he says. But as long as
you are certain the Sheriff is welcome here, then I shall admit him.’

He closed the door and they heard his footsteps echo in the yard as he walked to the gate. The hinges squeaked, then came
the sound of voices kept low out of consideration for those sleeping. A dog barked far in the distance.
Suddenly, Walter’s cockerel gave a brassy and prolonged trill. There was a chorus of weary groans as scholars awoke. Bartholomew
heard Deynman shouting at it, and Walter howling something threatening in reply.

There was a tap on Michael’s door, and Tulyet was ushered inside. He looked tired: keeping peace in the violent Fen-edge town
was not easy. The town hated the University for its arrogance and superiority, and scholars despised merchants and landlords
for trying to cheat them at every turn. It was an uneasy and volatile mix, and Michael and Tulyet worked hard to keep it under
control. Both men knew the deaths of Bottisham and Deschalers might well tip the balance, and lead to fighting and riots as
both sides accused each other of the crime. Tulyet listened in grim silence as Bartholomew summarised his findings.

‘So, what do you think happened?’ he asked, flopping on to the stool near the hearth and helping himself to Michael’s wine.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise at its quality. Michael was a man of impeccable and expensive tastes when it came to selecting
clarets for his own consumption.

‘Deschalers and Bottisham were killed by nails through the palate,’ replied the monk bluntly.

‘I am impressed you spotted that; I had eyes only for their mangled limbs,’ said Tulyet. ‘I have just come from the King’s
Mill, and Bernarde is having great difficulty cleaning his millstones. I shall have to tell my wife to buy flour elsewhere
for the next few days. I do not want bits of Bottisham and Deschalers in my daily bread.’

Michael shuddered involuntarily. ‘Those poor men! God only knows what happened tonight. At first, we thought a third party
had killed them both, but that seems impossible in the light of Bernarde’s testimony. The only logical conclusion is Matt’s:
that one killed the other and then himself – although it is an odd means of suicide, to say the least.’

‘Very odd,’ agreed Tulyet. ‘Is it even possible?’

‘Just,’ said Bartholomew. ‘By a desperate man. I can only assume he put the nail into position and then hurled himself into
the moving engines to ensure it was driven home.’