Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (29 page)

“Where are they?” he roared as he approached his cages and realized they were empty. “Where are they?”

“The women, you mean?” asked Grymbaud, advancing with his sword drawn. “They’re gone, safe now. And you will be coming with me.”

“No, no, I cannot,” cried Eusebius, crossing to the table piled high with parchments and attempting to gather them up. “You don’t understand—my work, my studies—I must continue. The voices will it.”

Grymbaud gave me a speaking look as if to say the man was mad. And indeed he seemed so, ignoring the armed men and scrabbling desperately at his papers, like a rat, I thought. The sound of his voice sent chills down my back.

“I must find new subjects, the feminine essence must be distilled, the secret of immortality . . .”

What the man was saying made no sense to me, or to Grymbaud. He signaled his men to approach and take hold of the Franciscan, and I thought for a moment the man might come quietly. But Eusebius proved me wrong.

As the guards laid hands on him, Eusebius threw his arms up, pushing them away. His lantern overturned and I smelled scorching as the parchments caught, the upset candle licking at them with a hungry tongue of fire. He screamed in anguish, almost as though his own flesh burned and began to hit at the parchments, attempting to smother the flames. The men went after him again, but Grymbaud motioned them to stop.

“You must come with us. You can take these parchments with you, if you must,” he said, speaking as if to a child.

“They will be lost, all lost,” cried Eusebius. “Clarkson tried to stop my work, they all tried but it must continue. I alone have the knowledge, the guidance to do so—the work must not be lost.”

“No, now, it shall not be. They’re here,” said Grymbaud, placatingly. “The most of them. Come quietly now, come with us.”

“But there is too much work yet to do—I cannot leave it undone, I must finish—the voices command it.”

I could see Grymbaud’s dark eyebrows rise as he rolled his eyes at me and I saw one of the men cross himself. Brother Eusebius did not notice, so intent was he on extinguishing the last smoldering flames on the scorched parchments.

“Come, gather them together and let us go,” I said, approaching him. The guards stood back in the dimly lit undercroft.

“But the feminine essence—it is all lost,” cried Eusebius, looking again at the empty cages that stood, broken doors open, in the corner darkness.

“No, now,” I repeated, “it is all safe.” And I thanked God indeed that that was so. “We will take you someplace where you can continue your studies in safety. Come along with us.”

And to my great surprise, Eusebius complied.

“We can take him to the castle temporarily, at least for the night,” Grymbaud muttered to me as we walked Eusebius, now compliant and quiet, through the dark streets, “but when the chancellor gets wind of this there’ll be trouble. The man has benefit of clergy; we can’t hang him for kidnapping, no matter how perverse a bastard he is.”

“The man is mad, I think,” I observed.

“Indeed, possessed by some demon more likely, and how did he gain access to that house?” Grymbaud wondered. “And what was it he said about Clarkson? The assizes are tomorrow, and the old man is to be tried for that murder.”

As if I was not well aware of that fact. “This changes things, does it not? Perhaps we can make some sense from his ravings.”

Grymbaud shrugged grimly in the light from his lantern. “Good luck with that, Muirteach.”

We reached the castle and installed Eusebius in a cell under guard. He only seemed concerned for his parchments and then, like a child, quieted when he had them nearby. Although a light was denied him when we left him, he was holding them close to his face, studying them, as though he could see in the dark, like some cat or wild beast.

I sent word to the widow’s that Eusebius had been captured and thought to send word to Balliol as well, but Grymbaud forestalled me.

“Let us wait on that, Muirteach. As soon as those university men catch wind of this, they’ll be all for releasing the bastard. Wait until we know more.” With that he called for some supper to be served and I found I had an appetite for the first time in days, knowing that my wife was safe at home. I ate with relish, although I found the meat tough and stringy and the bread stale.

After we had eaten I judged it time to speak again with Eusebius. It had grown late but the stairs leading down to the cell were lit with torches, giving off a resinous scent. I took a lantern, and the guard unlocked the iron lock and pushed the cell door open with a creak.

“Has he been quiet?” I asked.

“He’s raving.” The door slammed shut behind me and I faced the man who had abducted my wife.

I wanted to take his head and slam it against the rock walls of the cell until his face was nothing but a bloody pulp. But I managed to hold back, thinking of Ivo and even Adam Bookman. I told myself that I’d find out what I could before giving myself the pleasure of such actions.

I looked at my adversary. He did not look so dangerous now. Eusebius sat on the dirty straw surrounded by his piles of parchments. He stared up at me with those strangely protuberant blue eyes.

“You see, it’s of such import,” he said, all in a rush of agitation. “This is divinely inspired. Clarkson didn’t believe me, when he found my work—he swore it to be heresy. But it is not, the voices tell me what to write and how to write it. It is the tongue of the angels. I must have ink, though. The knowledge will be lost; I must get it down. They speak so quickly, you see. You must help me, get me ink, and a quill.”

“Perhaps later. I need some information first from you.”

Eusebius smiled. “You comprehend, then. Information, you see, that is what this is all about. You understand, do you not?

The knowledge, the divine intelligence that speaks to me; it gives such vast quantities of information and none of it must be lost.”

“How did you gain access to the house?”

“The angels willed it. My uncle owned it, but he died, you see. In the plague. I inherited the key. The angels willed that he leave me the house, wanting to help in my work.”

“And what of the women? My wife, whom you abducted? And the other, the tavern maid?”

“I was upset at first,” Eusebius admitted with disarming frankness. “After they were discovered. But now I understand. They are of little import. I had hoped to prove the divinely inspired intelligence, the theory—you do understand, do you not?” he repeated. “It is the angels speaking directly to me. And I was wrong to doubt it, to think it needed proof. Ergo, the women were freed. They were not necessary—but I must have ink and paper.”

“And Clarkson? Was he not necessary?”

“He thought all of this heresy. But it is not, you see.”

“Indeed.”

“He found my parchments and took them, sullied my work and wrote upon them. Saying that they were ravings only, and heretical. That they should be destroyed. That they were the work of a madman. I am not mad, the writing not heresy. They are not ravings—it is so very clear, divinely inspired. Inspired by my voices—the voices of the angels.”

“And so you struck Clarkson, in his chambers.”

“He’d have betrayed me. It was needful. The voices spoke to me of it, they said it was no sin.”

I sighed in relief. At least Ivo would not hang on the morrow.

“You comprehend, do you not?” Eusebius repeated. “Ah yes, I can see that you do. For you have brought me light, so that I can continue my work. But where is the ink?”

“I’ve brought no ink. What of Berwyk? Did you slay him as well?”

“He had my parchment, and showed it as a novelty. A novelty! He did not understand its import. And would have shown it to all, as a curiosity. It is far too sacred for that, it must be kept in secret until mankind is ready.”

“Thus the code?”

“I told you, it is the angels’ own speech. And they told me how to slay Berwyk. I had to be crafty, sly. I led us into the town, for there was no messenger—or was it an angel at the door? And the melee, a divine opportunity, don’t you see?”

“So you knifed him in the church?”

“The angels ordained that I followed behind him, when we ran to safety. And divine assistance made it easy. You see,” he lowered his voice, “this work will not be tampered with, it will not be stopped.”

“You broke into the Widow Tanner’s and stole the parchments.”

“Once I learned where Berwyk’s sheet came from, I had to reclaim them.”

“And attacked the lad as well. Anthony.”

“He is but a puling youth. His eyes should not see such holy information; he has not the wisdom for that. You see, these parchments contain the secret of the eternal union with the divine.” Eusebius paused, with a listening look on his face.

“Hurry, you must help me, get me parchment, and ink—they are giving me more to write, I cannot remember all of it, I must write. Quick man, where is the ink? You have brought ink; did you not say you would bring me ink? And quill—no matter, I can use the straw for quills, but ink I will have. Ink I must have.”

I showed him my empty hands. “I have no ink.”

Eusebius listened again, but not to me. “Yes, yes, I understand.” He stood, approaching me. “Ah, but you have brought me ink—it is your own blood that you have brought me, and I can write with that very well.”

I stepped back, but the lunatic lunged at me and grabbed my wrist, trying to bite at it. I yelled for the guard while Eusebius reached for my dagger, but in that he was unsuccessful and I satisfied my urge to slam the man’s head against the wall. The guard came just in time.

“You are right, he’s raving,” I told the guard. “But he’s confessed to two murders.”

As I ascended the steps to the main floor of the castle I could still hear Eusebius screaming for ink in the darkness of his cell.

The next morning I was back at the castle for the assizes. Mariota, looking much better, also wished to attend, although her evidence was not required in these cases. The trials were short, as both men’s innocence was proved by my own testimony. Eusebius was not in any shape to speak. He had been found that morning, having bitten at his own wrist for blood, writing busily on the walls of the cell with his finger in that strange cipher of his. The daylight revealed the stonework covered with coded gibberish and strange diagrams, and Eusebius himself, although weak from loss of blood, was not yet dead when he was discovered.

Delacey had been summoned, and the situation explained to him. Pompous as ever, he conferred with the university chancellors and they quickly made arrangements for Eusebius to be transported under guard and cared for in a secluded monastery far to the north—Yorkshire, I think it was.

“Benefit of clergy, bah,” Grymbaud swore, as the rolls from the assizes were completed and Ivo and Bookman released. I spied Mistress Bookman embracing her husband in the crowd, as well as Avice with her father, and was thankful that they at least were not mourning their kin that day. “That lunatic should hang for what he did.”

I tended to agree with the undersheriff. But perhaps Eusebius lived in his own hell now, before going on to that of Our Lord at his death.

Mariota and I remained in Oxford through the winter, although my wife refrained from attending more lectures dressed in men’s garb. She seemed subdued by her ordeal and I feared she would once again panic and grow ill, but she spent her time reading medical texts and Rudolf of Salerno agreed to tutor her privately. I escorted her and slept through their discussions. Ivo joined Avice in service at Widow Tanner’s, for neither felt inclined to return to Balliol.

Delacey, not surprisingly, won election as the next master of Balliol and Phillip Woode at length passed his dissertation. So Phillip proved not fated to teach eight-year-olds their letters in the parish school, but could remain in Oxford, completing his studies and flirting with Jonetta. Although from what I observed on my visits to The Green Man, their relations might soon surpass mere flirting and move on to more serious courtship.

Donald actually made some progress in his studies that winter. Perhaps the excitement of the first portion of the term allowed him to settle later into a somewhat more studious bent, although neither his lute nor the taverns were altogether neglected, to my regret. And finally, much to my relief, the Lord of the Isles felt his son well enough established in the south that he called me and my wife back home, and sent a groom and another manservant down to keep watch over his son.

So it was that on a raw March day, Mariota and I, along with one half-grown tabby cat shut up in a wicker basket and a small reddish-brown dog, a final gift of Widow Tanner’s, thankfully left the gates of Oxford behind us and started our journey back to the Isles along the north road. As for what it was that His Lordship wanted of me, and his reasons for calling us home, that is another tale.

Susan McDuffie
has been a fan of historical fiction and mysteries since childhood, spending such vast amounts of time reading historical fiction that she wondered if she was mistakenly born in the wrong century.

A Mass for the Dead
, Susan’s first historical mystery novel, introduced Muirteach MacPhee, the bastard son of a medieval prior. Muirteach continues his adventures in
The Faerie Hills
(awarded the New Mexico Book Awards “Best Historical Novel 2011”) and now in
The Study of Murder
.

Susan has lived in New Mexico since 1982 and shares her life with a Cochiti Pueblo artist and four rambunctious cats. She is currently working on Muirteach’s next case. Susan loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at
[email protected]
or via her website at
www.SusanMcDuffie.net
.