The Hand of Justice (51 page)

‘Nothing in a phial. We argued about it, actually, because I said Deschalers needed something more than barley water.’

‘Rougham prescribed
barley
for a debilitating and painful disease?’ asked Bartholomew, shocked. ‘But that is tantamount to giving him nothing at all!
Deschalers would have needed a powerful pain-reliever. In fact, he must have been getting one from somewhere, or he would
not have been able to leave his house, let alone ride about the streets of Cambridge.’

‘
I
did not prescribe him one,’ said Paxtone. ‘But Lynton may have done. He was also appalled by Rougham’s refusal to give Deschalers
what we felt he needed.’

‘But why did Rougham do such a thing? Was it revenge for the time when he withdrew the funds offered for Gonville’s chapel?’

‘He said Deschalers’s ailment was incurable,’ said Paxtone with some disgust. ‘And he believes there is no point in giving
medicine to a man who cannot be made well again. He says such practices are a criminal waste of the patient’s money.’

‘He said that? Did he imagine Deschalers would want to save his treasure for the future, then?’

‘I would have recommended henbane seeped in hot mud, had Deschalers asked for my advice,’ said Paxtone. ‘Not taken internally,
of course, because henbane causes warts, but applied as a plaister to the skin of the stomach.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, thinking Deschalers had had a narrow escape from Paxtone’s ministrations, too. He only hoped Lynton
had had the sense to give the poor grocer a sense-dulling potion, since the other two physicians had failed him.

‘Was there henbane in the phial you found in the King’s Mill?’ asked Paxtone. ‘As well as the one that did away with Master
Warde?’

‘It was empty, so I could not tell. But, if it did, then I do not think Deschalers could have killed Bottisham. The henbane
would have made that impossible.’

‘Then perhaps it did not include any such thing,’ suggested Paxtone. ‘Perhaps it just contained some strong decoction of poppy,
which is what Lynton – and you, no doubt – would have recommended for Deschalers. If that were the case, then Deschalers might
have swallowed it to dull the ache in his innards before he killed Bottisham. I
knew
Bottisham was no killer.’ He gave a grim smile of satisfaction.

Bartholomew supposed it was possible – just. But, even without the agonising pain of his sickness to contend with, he was
not sure whether Deschalers could have mustered the strength to overpower Bottisham with nails. Paxtone seemed eager for Deschalers
to bear the blame. Was it because he, like Bartholomew himself, had been fond of the gentle Bottisham? Was it because the
town would have no excuse to attack the University if it was found that a townsman had killed a scholar and not the other
way around? Or did he have his own reasons for wanting such a solution accepted?

‘But do not look to me for answers about Deschalers, Matt,’ Paxtone went on, when the physician did not reply. ‘I do not interfere
with Rougham’s patients, no matter how wrong I think his treatments are. Have you considered the possibility that Deschalers
stole
the phial from him, in desperation?’

‘Or perhaps Rougham misled you, and he did prescribe something strong.’ Bartholomew sighed; every fact he uncovered seemed
to raise more questions than ever.

‘Bishop Bateman was poisoned, too,’ observed Paxtone philosophically. ‘At Avignon. That papal court sounds a dangerous and
disagreeable place – full of Frenchmen. But speaking of disagreeable, I attended a stabbing today. A debate spiralled out
of control at Gonville, and knives were drawn.’

‘Gonville? Then why was Rougham not called? It is his College.’

‘He could not be found, and they needed someone quickly. Ufford came looking for you or me. He found me first.’

‘I assume Thorpe was the culprit?’

Paxtone nodded. ‘He had inflicted a shallow wound that bled a lot and frightened everyone.’

‘Who did he stab?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Not Rougham if he was away, more is the pity.’

‘The priest, Thompson. By all accounts, Thompson was trying to prevent the fight, and received a blade in the arm for his
pains. Young Despenser was the real object of Thorpe’s ire. They were quarrelling over the Hand of Justice, apparently.’

‘Oh, that,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.

‘It is gaining in popularity. I know what you think about it, but you are in a dwindling minority. I petitioned it myself
recently, and confess I felt better afterwards. God invests power in unusual things, so who is to say the hand of your pauper
cannot inspire miracles?’

‘There have been no miracles. Isnard’s severed leg did not regrow. Una is still suffering from bile in the stomach. Old Master
Lenne is still dead.’

‘But Thomas Mortimer claims the Hand has absolved him of responsibility in that death – and folk believe him. The furious
whispers against him have abated.’

‘Lenne’s son’s have not, and neither did his wife’s.’

‘Two dissenting voices in a host of believers,’ said Paxtone. ‘
I
prayed that Michaelhouse’s cock would desist from waking me with its crowing in the middle of the night. That was answered.’

‘Quenhyth killed Bird,’ said Bartholomew, thinking it an unkind petition to have made. ‘Damn! If folk believe the Hand can
achieve that sort of thing, there will be no end to the trouble it will cause. As you said, there are already quarrels in
Gonville about it.’

‘Thorpe offered to ask the King if Gonville can have the Hand – to raise funds for their chapel,’ Paxtone went on. ‘But Despenser
told him they have no right to it, and is afraid it will lead to Gonville being attacked by jealous townsfolk. That is why
they fought. Acting Master Pulham told Thorpe that if he tries to win an argument with knives again he will be expelled –
Hand or no. Of course, Pulham’s heart was not really in the reprimand.’

‘Of course,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That would mean the loss of the Hand, as well as a student.’

Stanmore had taken pity on his brother-in-law’s starving colleagues, and had asked Kenyngham, Clippesby and Langelee to dine
with him that evening, as well as Michael and Bartholomew. Wynewyk, William and Suttone were pointedly excluded from the gathering,
on the grounds that the merchant did not like William’s fanaticism, Suttone’s obsession with the Death, or Wynewyk’s habit
of diving in and out of seedy alleys. Dame Pelagia was also present, although, judging by Stanmore’s stammering surprise when
she was shown in, the merchant had evidently not expected her. The food was excellent, the fires burned warmly in the hearth,
and plenty of wine flowed, but it was a gloomy party nonetheless.

The scholars were weighed down by their concerns regarding the possibility of a riot over whether Bottisham had killed Deschalers
– except Clippesby, who was more worried that the continued cold weather might make life difficult for hibernating dormice
– while the clothier fretted about the state of commerce in the Fen-edge town. He railed to the uninterested Fellows that
Edward Mortimer had encouraged his uncle to raise fulling prices to a ridiculous level, and had already all but destroyed
Deschalers’s empire. The repercussions were expected to be enormous, and the burgesses had suspended their payments for the
repair of the Great Bridge until the matter was resolved. The last statement grabbed their attention, and all five scholars
regarded him uneasily.

‘But the carpenters have dismantled parts of it,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘It cannot be left as it is. It is dangerous –
and people are still using it.’

‘It will remain that way until we know where we are with our finances,’ replied Stanmore firmly. ‘But, hopefully, the King’s
Commission will find against the Mortimers, and business will return to normal. Once we are comfortable with the situation
again, the repairs can be restarted.’

‘But there are broken spars and bits of half-built scaffolding everywhere,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘Sergeant Orwelle bruised
his ankle there yesterday, and one of Yolande de Blaston’s children suffered a badly cut hand on a carelessly placed nail.
It cannot stay as it is.’

‘The cat from the Hospital of St John said the same,’ agreed Clippesby. ‘A duck was killed by falling masonry, and Robin of
Grantchester’s pig had a splinter in her tail. She is very angry about it.’

‘A duck is dead?’ asked the gentle Kenyngham, reaching out to touch the Dominican’s hand in a gesture of sympathy. Clippesby’s
eyes filled with tears, and he looked away.

Michael looked down at his platter uneasily. ‘Is this duck?’

‘Cockerel,’ replied Stanmore.

Clippesby jumped up in horror. ‘Not Bird!’

‘No,’ said Langelee. ‘We are having him tomorrow – if we have not been burned in our beds by angry townsmen by then. Dame
Pelagia, do you think we should write to the King, and ask whether he will rescind the pardons granted to Thorpe and Edward?
I am sure most of our problems would evaporate if they left our town.’

‘I would not try it, unless you intend to accompany the letter with a handsome sum of money,’ advised Dame
Pelagia. ‘King’s Pardons tend to be the last word in such cases, and it costs a good deal to have them overturned.’

‘What about the compensation we are ordered to pay?’ asked Stanmore. ‘What if we offered these corrupt clerks
that
money, instead of giving it to Thorpe and Mortimer?’

‘It would not be nearly enough,’ replied Dame Pelagia. ‘Royal justice does not come cheap, you know. I am not surprised Constantine
Mortimer wants Deschalers’s house to help defray the original costs of the pardons. If it were not for the additional money
earned from his brother’s fulling mill, he could never have afforded to buy his son’s release.’

‘Damn them all!’ muttered Stanmore venomously. ‘I went to the Hand of Justice yesterday, and asked it to do something about
the situation. Since I do not believe in the sanctity of the thing, and since I know perfectly well that it came from poor
Peterkin Starre, you can see the depths to which I am prepared to sink to rid my town of these louts.’

‘I am not one of its followers, either,’ said Langelee. ‘But I must admit that William’s treatment of it is very clever. He
has it in a splendid reliquary – which always impresses the poor – and he makes sure that pretty blue-green ring can always
be seen when he gets it out.’

‘A tawdry bauble,’ said Dame Pelagia dismissively. ‘But unusual enough to catch the eye and draw the penitent’s attention
away from the pins that hold the thing together. You should not have allowed this cult to gain such momentum, Michael. It
is dangerous, and will certainly end in trouble.’

Michael flushed at the reprimand, and Bartholomew did not think he had ever seen the monk so discomfited.

‘Sheriff Tulyet still has not discovered the identity of that poor corpse,’ said Kenyngham in the silence that followed. ‘It
is a shame, because I like a name when I pray for a soul.’

‘The duck’s name was Clement,’ said Clippesby in a small voice. ‘He hailed from Chesterton.’

‘Actually, I meant the man in the snow bank outside Bene’t,’ said Kenyngham. ‘I found him a few weeks ago if you recal.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Langelee, not very interested. ‘Bartholomew had a look at his body, but there were no wounds, and it was concluded
that he had been standing under the roof when the snow sloughed off it. It was a case of a fellow being in the wrong place
at the wrong time.’

‘But the Sheriff wants to find out who he was, nonetheless,’ said Kenyngham. ‘His clothes were decent, so he was not a beggar.
He was not from the town or the nearby villages, and we think he was probably a messenger.’

‘A messenger?’ asked Dame Pelagia curiously. ‘What makes you draw that conclusion?’

‘Because he carried a letter from a London merchant to a Cambridge friar. The Sheriff said it was professionally written,
and that this man’s boots were worn in a way that suggested he spent a lot of time travelling. Unfortunately, the friar to
whom the missive was addressed – Godric of Ovyng Hostel’s predecessor – is dead, so we cannot ask him about it.’

Michael stared crossly at him. ‘And where is this message now?’

Kenyngham raised apologetic hands. ‘I lost it.’

Michael was unimpressed. ‘You should have given it to me. First, it might have helped us identify this messenger, and second,
it may have contained information important to one of my investigations.’

‘It did not,’ replied Kenyngham. ‘I cannot recall exactly what it said, but it was only something about a visit by a man to
his kin – a visit that probably did not happen, given that all the roads were blocked by snow back then. I meant to pass it
to you but I forgot, and then I lost it.
But it contained nothing important, I am sure of that.’

Bartholomew sat forward and stared into the wine in his cup. ‘There is someone in Cambridge who has been desperately hunting
a man who went missing in the winter snows.’

‘Bess?’ asked Langelee. He looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose this corpse might have been her beau.’

Bartholomew tried not to be angry with Kenyngham. ‘You say the message he carried was from a London merchant? Bess told Quenhyth
she
was from London.’

Kenyngham smiled beatifically. ‘Then she will know his name. What was it?’

‘She has not told anyone,’ snapped Michael, still peeved at the elderly friar’s incompetence.

‘Poor Bess,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘What shall we do? The only way to know for certain is to show her his body, but he
has been in the ground too long now.’

‘Tulyet kept the hat he wore,’ said Kenyngham. ‘I shall ask him to take her that – first thing tomorrow morning. It would
be unkind to leave it any longer.’

The news that the man Bess had longed to find might be dead cast an even darker shadow of gloom over Stanmore and his guests,
and they were all grateful when Langelee declared that his scholars had an early start and suggested they all return to Michaelhouse.

Bartholomew slept poorly until the early hours, when he was summoned to tend a patient near the Castle. He did not finish
the consultation until dawn, when he walked slowly along the High Street towards Michaelhouse. He met Paxtone, who guessed
from his weary and dishevelled appearance that he had been up for a good part of the night, and invited him to breakfast in
King’s Hall. For the second time in less than twelve hours, Bartholomew ate a large and sumptuous meal.