The Hand of Justice (52 page)

Paxtone was full of ideas and questions about the text by Lanfrank of Milan he had been reading, which
Bartholomew would normally have relished. But he was tired and worried about what Paxtone might have done, and could not summon
the energy to debate with him. Paxtone sensed his lack of enthusiasm but put it down to fatigue. He insisted on prescribing
a tonic, and nagged until Bartholomew agreed to accompany him to Lavenham the apothecary to collect it. Bartholomew had no
intention of swallowing anything from Paxtone or Lavenham, and determined to throw the cure in the river as soon as neither
was looking.

They walked through the handsome grounds of King’s Hall, and up King’s Childer Lane to Milne Street. The black-robed prophets
of doom were out, railing at anyone who might have petitioned the Hand of Justice and warning them that it would take more
than relics to save them from eternal damnation. Suttone was among them, informing Deschalers’s ex-apprentices that laziness
and sloth were deadly sins and that they needed to find gainful employment before the Devil seized their idle souls. Cheney
and Mayor Morice agreed, pointing out that there were no dried peas to be had now the apprentices had stopped working. The
apprentices retorted bitterly that it was not their fault, and that Edward Mortimer was responsible for the problem.

The two physicians edged around the small crowd that had gathered to listen to the altercation, and had not gone much farther
when they saw a second knot of people standing around someone who lay on the ground. Bartholomew saw Sheriff Tulyet among
the onlookers, as well as Matilde. Quenhyth and Redmeadow stood shoulder to shoulder, while Bernarde and the Lavenhams watched
from a distance, where they would not be obliged to rub elbows with peasants.

When Matilde saw Bartholomew she rushed forward to grab his arm. ‘Come quickly, Matt! Bess has swooned, and
none of us can bring her round. Your students tried to help, but they are too inexperienced to know what to do.’

Bartholomew knelt next to the huddled shape, and saw there was a very good reason why Bess was not responding to the appeals
made by well-meaning passers-by. She was dead. Her face had a peaceful look, as though she had finally been relieved of a
great burden. It seemed Bess’s search was finally over, and in her pale, thin hands, she clasped what had once been a hat.

‘The last time I saw this poor lass,’ said Paxtone, leaning over Bess’s crumpled form with a sad expression, ‘was when Bernarde
the miller led her off to some dark corner. Late last night, when I was returning home after matins and lauds.’

Everyone turned to look at Bernarde, who blushed and began to deny the charge in an angry voice, waving his keys as if they
were a weapon. Isobel giggled in the kind of way that suggested she knew better, and Bernarde’s outrage convinced no one.
Lavenham glanced from one to the other looking baffled, while Tulyet simply shook his head in disgust at them all.

‘I showed her the hat, as Master Kenyngham suggested,’ the Sheriff said to Bartholomew. ‘The man in the snow bank
was
her man – I could see the recognition in her eyes when she took the cap. She wandered off alone, but I did not know learning
the truth would make her ill.’

‘There is nothing I can do,’ said Bartholomew. He gestured towards the doom-mongers, among whom Suttone was still visible.
‘Will you fetch Suttone, Redmeadow? She needs a priest.’

‘A priest?’ echoed Matilde, appalled. ‘But she was talking to me not long ago.’

‘About what?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘The death of her man?’

‘No, she asked whether I had seen him recently,’ said Matilde. She gave Tulyet a weak smile. ‘I suspect she had already forgotten
what you told her about the body in the snowdrift.’

‘How did she seem?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Unwell,’ admitted Matilde. ‘But you know how odd she is, and I did not think anything of it. She said she was hot and that
her mind was spinning – but I think it span most of the time. And she was short of breath, as if she had been running.’

‘Someone should carry her to a church,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Does she have any of her gold left, or perhaps something from Bernarde?
Or will the town bury her?’

‘I did not pay her,’ snapped Bernarde angrily. He reddened again when he realised it sounded as though he had used her and
declined to settle the debt. ‘Well, I gave her a penny, but it was only because I felt sorry for her.’

‘Well, she does not have a penny now,’ said Tulyet, deftly searching the woman’s rags. ‘An informant told me Rob Thorpe offered
her information about her man a few days ago, but said it would cost. The poor woman handed over her coins, only to receive
a lot of lies in return. I imagine the penny went the same way this morning. She was incapable of learning from her mistakes
and would do anything for news of her lover, no matter how unreliable the source.’

‘I might have known it was Thorpe,’ said Matilde bitterly. ‘How can you let him get away with this?’

‘Because my informant is too frightened to give evidence against him publicly,’ replied Tulyet. ‘And now Bess is dead we have
no case – no complainant.’

‘Then the law is wrong!’ declared Matilde coldly. ‘If it cannot protect the weak and the gullible from such low tricks, then
there is something seriously amiss with it. You
must
do something.’

‘My hands are tied. If I charge him with cheating a woman
who is now dead – and who could never have brought her case in person, anyway – Thorpe will tell the King that we are harassing
him. We cannot afford to pay more royal fines. We are struggling to pay this compensation as it is.’

‘Your laws have nothing to do with justice,’ said Matilde, tears of outrage sparkling in her eyes. ‘They protect criminals,
but leave the innocent to fend for themselves. It is a wicked system!’

Bartholomew agreed, but the street was not the right place for a debate with the Sheriff on the King’s Peace. Tulyet tried
to apply the law fairly, and it was not his fault that Westminster clerks did not do likewise.

‘The loss of her gold makes no difference to Bess now,’ he said. ‘She is finally at peace.’

‘With her man,’ said Tulyet softly. ‘Although she never did tell me his name.’

Once the excitement was over, and the swooning woman had become just another corpse, people began to wander towards the plague
prophets, who were engaged in a strident argument with Father William about the Devil’s role in the Death. Bernarde was among
the first to slink away, unwilling to admit to what had transpired between him and Bess the previous night. The Lavenhams
were next, heading for the Market Square. Bartholomew saw Rougham skirt around the edge of the crowd, his eyes darting here
and there in an attempt to see what was happening without becoming involved. Tulyet left to fetch stretcher-bearers, and asked
Bartholomew to wait with Bess until he returned, while Matilde went to see why Redmeadow was taking so long to bring Suttone.
Eventually, Bartholomew and Paxtone were alone. Paxtone began to cover the dead woman with her cloak, but stopped when something
fell out of it. It was a phial.

Bartholomew picked it up, noting it was like the one that had contained Warde’s Water of Snails and the one he had
found at the King’s Mill. He studied it carefully, but Lavenham probably had dozens of identical containers for potions that
were powerful or that were required in small amounts. Its similarity to the others meant nothing. He removed the stopper and
squinted down the neck to assess its contents. Inside, the mixture was a murky red-white, and looked uncannily like the substance
that had killed Bird.

‘Be careful,’ warned Paxtone, watching. ‘Those little pots usually contain something to be treated with caution – and it is
not always medicine. I have purchased viper venom in one of them before now.’

‘What did you want that for?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

‘Another time,’ replied Paxtone enigmatically, in a way that made Bartholomew’s senses jangle all manner of warnings. ‘What
is in it? Can you tell?’

Bartholomew sniffed its contents gingerly. He shook his head. ‘It smells the same as the
Aqua Limacum Magistralis
that killed Warde. I can detect coltsfoot quite strongly, but no liquorice. And there is something bitter and nasty underlying
its other scents.’

Paxtone took it. ‘You are right. But if there is no liquorice, then perhaps it is not Water of Snails. Liquorice is one of
its essential components.’

‘Lavenham omits expensive ingredients from his recipes, if he feels he can get away with it.’

‘Does he indeed?’ asked Paxtone, round eyed. He turned his attention back to the phial. ‘This dirty scent is familiar. It
smells rank.’

‘Could it be henbane, do you think?’ suggested Bartholomew casually, watching him intently.

‘It could,’ said Paxtone, nodding vigorously. ‘But I have never heard of it used in a medicine to be swallowed before. I only
ever add it to plaisters for
external
use.’

‘Unfortunately, since Quenhyth destroyed Warde’s
mixture in a misguided effort to be helpful, we have no way of knowing whether Bess’s phial and Warde’s pot contained the
same things.’

‘We also do not know if she drank it or that it killed her,’ Paxtone pointed out reasonably. ‘She may have found an abandoned
bottle and picked it up because it was pretty – but did not sample the contents. Do not forget she was not in her right mind.
And is henbane really that deadly when swallowed? I have never come across a case of ingestion before.’

Bartholomew pointed. ‘There is a pink trail on her chin, where it dribbled from her mouth, and, like Warde, she died feverish,
dizzy and gasping for breath. These are all symptoms of henbane poisoning, and mean that she
did
swallow the stuff.’

Paxtone shook the phial gently. ‘You are more knowledgeable than me, Matt. I did not know how to recognise the signs of henbane
ingestion. I think I shall take this pot to King’s Hall and perform a few experiments. You do not want Quenhyth “helping”
you a second time. He may use your College cat now the cockerel is unavailable, and I like that animal.’

Bartholomew did not think it was a good idea to allow Paxtone to make off with the potion, when his own role in the grisly
business was far from clear, but did not know how to stop him – at least, not without showing that he did not trust him. He
watched Paxtone tuck the phial away and wondered whether he would ever see it again – or whether it would make its next appearance
when another victim was claimed.

‘What do you think this means?’ he asked, trying to hide his misgivings. ‘That Bess purchased poison intending to take her
own life? Or did someone give it to her?’

‘I do not see why anyone would want to kill her. She had lost her wits.’

‘Perhaps someone was afraid she might regain them.’ Bartholomew regarded Bess’s body thoughtfully. ‘Deschalers gave her a
purse of gold. He was not a generous man, so he must have had some reason for providing her with such a large sum. Perhaps
there are others who felt obliged to pay her, but they decided to kill her instead, in a bid to save their money.’

‘You make everything so complex,’ said Paxtone accusingly. ‘You have been too long in the company of Brother Michael, and
you see plots and connivance wherever you look. Bess was a poor wench, who either intended to die or who mistook poison for
something pleasant. She could not have blackmailed Deschalers, because she did not have the wits. And remember he was dying,
Matt. Dying men are apt to be charitable. He gave Bosel new clothes, too.’

‘So he did,’ said Bartholomew, recalling that Bess had said as much to Redmeadow. ‘That means two recipients of his uncharacteristic
generosity are now dead.’

Paxtone sighed in exasperation. ‘And a good many others are doubtless still living. It is dangerous to be poor in Cambridge,
you know that. Beggars are often killed by those who think it is good sport to attack the defenceless. Bess’s death has nothing
to do with your other cases.’

Bartholomew was not so sure. He considered the people he had recognised in the crowd that had gathered to watch her die, and
who were connected to the other deaths. There was Rougham, hovering in the background – Bartholomew’s prime suspect in the
poisoning of Warde. There was Bernarde, whose stories about discovering the bodies of Bottisham and Deschalers made no sense,
and who had frolicked with Bess hours before her death. There were the Lavenhams, who dispensed Water of Snails from their
shop, and who admitted to varying their recipes. Two other members of the Millers’ Society were close by: Cheney and Morice,
who bought Water of Snails from Lavenham,
and might know what an added dash of henbane would do. Bartholomew suspected Thorpe and Edward Mortimer would not be too far
away, either. And, of course, there was Paxtone himself.

‘She had just learned about the death of her lover,’ said Paxtone, seeing his colleague was not convinced. ‘She was distraught
– just look at the way she clings to his hat, even in death.’

‘But she had forgotten what Tulyet had told her by the time she met Matilde. She did not take her own life. In fact, I am
willing to wager a jug of ale in the Brazen George that when we discover the truth behind her death, we will also know more
about these other murders.’

‘I do not drink in taverns,’ said Paxtone primly, standing up and moving away as Suttone arrived. ‘But you can bring it to
me in my quarters. It is a long time since I won a wager of ale – and I
will
win, because what you are suggesting is nonsense. The demise of a beggar-woman will not be connected to the death of rich
merchants and respected scholars.’

‘We shall see,’ replied Bartholomew stubbornly.

When Tulyet eventually arrived with the stretcher-bearers, Bartholomew told him what he had reasoned about Bess’s sudden death.
The Sheriff rubbed his nose between thumb and forefinger, and asked how many more murders would be committed before they had
worked out what was happening.