Authors: Susanna Gregory
Tags: #Mystery, #Historical, #blt, #rt, #Cambridge, #England, #Medieval, #Clergy
‘I wish none had come near Unwin’s,’ said Bartholomew
fervently. ‘I suppose his anxiety for his new post made him feel a need to drain away the humours that were making him nervous.’
‘And Stoate killed him outside the church where we found all that blood,’ said Michael, scratching his head.
‘That was why there was so much of it on Unwin’s sleeve. How could I have missed it?’ Bartholomew ran a hand through his hair in agitation. ‘It did not escape William: he asked me why there was blood on Unwin’s arm, and I made a bad assumption – that it had drained out of the stomach when he had been lying in a different position than the one in which we found him.’
‘And now Stoate is busily denying that he practises phlebotomy, lest you associate the small cut on Unwin’s elbow with a physician who dabbles in surgery.’
‘But why did he not deny it from the start?’ asked Bartholomew, rubbing his head. ‘Why claim that night in the tavern – within a very short time of Unwin’s death – that he
did
bleed people?’
‘Two good reasons,’ said Michael, considering. ‘First, Mother Goodman was sitting near enough to hear every word; her position as village midwife means that she knows he bleeds people – and we have seen enough of that lady to guess she would not sit quietly knitting, while a physician she loathes lies about what he does. And second, you were very persistent with your questions, whether you appreciated it or not, and had the poor fellow scrambling to provide you with answers.’
‘I did not!’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You make me sound like William in inquisitor mode.’
‘You can be very intimidating, Matt, particularly to people who do not have your training. And on that subject, I can also say that I very much doubt Stoate has been to Paris and Bologna Universities as he claims. He is too young, and why should someone with those qualifications settle in a remote
village like this? He would be in London or York or Norwich, making his fortune.’
‘He certainly dispenses odd cures,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘Like ground snails for sore eyes. Our eyes are better, but the eyes of everyone who slapped that paste on them are still inflamed.’
‘So, crushed snails is not something that the mighty physicians of Paris recommend, then?’ asked Michael with a smile. ‘Nor do they teach bleeding?’
‘They do not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is heartily denounced as something tradesmen do. But I cannot believe I was so blind about that cut on Unwin’s elbow. After he had bled to death, Stoate must have dragged Unwin back into the church, and then stabbed the body and stole the purse to make it appear as though he had been murdered by an opportunistic thief for his belongings.’
‘And it stands to reason that if Stoate stabbed Unwin’s corpse to make his accidental death seem like murder, he also did the same to Mistress Freeman’s throat. You were right all along, Matt. The killer heard that Norys had been accused of killing Unwin, and Mistress Freeman was desecrated to make us believe that was true.’
‘So, what shall we do?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Stoate is with Tuddenham at Wergen Hall now.’
‘We must confront him,’ said Michael. ‘And the sooner, the better.’
They headed up the path toward Tuddenham’s manor. Since dawn was only just beginning to lighten the sky, most of Wergen Hall’s inhabitants were still in bed, and the house was in darkness. Eventually, Siric answered the door to Bartholomew’s insistent hammering.
‘What now?’ he snapped. ‘Sir Thomas is sleeping, and needs no more leeches tonight.’
‘Is Stoate with him?’ asked Michael.
Siric shook his head. ‘Sir Thomas had a bad night, but
about an hour ago he started to sleep like a baby. I did not want a physician prodding him and disturbing his rest, so I sent Stoate home.’
While Cynric went to rouse William to continue the vigil for the charred remains in the church – feeling, no doubt, that the slippery Alcote needed all the prayers he could get – Bartholomew and Michael took the path back to the village, and made their way to Stoate’s house. His horse, still tailless thanks to Deynman, was saddled, and weighted down with two hefty bags.
‘It looks as though Stoate knows the game is up,’ Michael whispered to Bartholomew. ‘He is about to leave.’
There was a sharp click and both men swung round. Stoate stood behind them holding a loaded crossbow.
‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered sharply. ‘I will use this if I have to.’
For a moment, no one said a word. Bartholomew and Michael gaped at Stoate’s crossbow, while Stoate glared back challengingly. A gleam of desperation in his eyes suggested to Bartholomew that Stoate would indeed use the weapon if necessary – and perhaps even if it were not. Michael stepped forward.
‘You might hit one of us,’ he said calmly, ‘but you will not have the time to reload before the other attacks. Michaelhouse men do not approve of charlatan physicians who kill with their ignorance and greed – you would not stand a chance.’
‘Greed?’ asked Stoate, startled.
‘Yes, greed,’ said Michael. ‘Making a few extra pennies by bleeding poor villagers who do not know that you are no more a physician than I am.’
Stoate’s finger tightened on the trigger of his crossbow. ‘I studied in Paris and Bologna,’ he said angrily. ‘Ask anyone around here.’
‘How would they know?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘They, like
us, only have your word for it.’ He began to move away from Michael, making it impossible for Stoate to point his weapon at both of them at the same time.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Stoate, understanding what he was doing immediately. He waved the weapon at his house, and glanced up at the sky. ‘Go inside and close the door.’
‘Which do you want us to do?’ asked Michael, deliberately aggravating. ‘Stay where we are, or enter your charming home?’
‘Move!’ snapped Stoate. He glanced anxiously at the sky again. Rutted roads and recent rain meant that riding fast while it was still dark would be tantamount to suicide, yet he knew he needed to be away before people awoke and clogged the paths as they walked to the fields. Bartholomew took several steps and then hesitated, wondering how he might delay Stoate’s departure until either he was prevented from making a speedy escape by the labourers on the roads, or Cynric realised that something was amiss and came to look for them.
‘Do not try my patience, Bartholomew,’ hissed Stoate. ‘It will not be you I shoot, it will be your fat friend. I know you would never leave him while he is mortally wounded, and that will allow me to make a clean escape. Or you can move into my house, and no one need be hurt.’
Michael pushed open the door, and Bartholomew followed him inside. Stoate stood in the entrance, watching them minutely, his finger never leaving the trigger of his weapon.
‘Now sit against that wall, and put your legs out in front of you.’
It was a position that would make any sudden lunge at Stoate virtually impossible – unless the lunger had no objection to being impaled by a crossbow quarrel. Stoate looked at the sky again.
‘All this started with Unwin, did it not?’ said Michael, trying to make himself comfortable on the floor. ‘You bled him – at
his request, probably – but you were careless, and he bled to death.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Stoate harshly. ‘These things happen in medicine. I suppose I should not have left him once I had made the incision, but I had not wanted to attend him in the first place. Grosnold had found Unwin sick and shaking, and was concerned. He ordered me to bleed him, and Grosnold is not a man easily refused.’
‘You made an incision in Unwin, and then left him unattended?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘What were you thinking of? That is one of the grossest cases of negligence I have ever heard!’
‘He said he would be all right,’ protested Stoate uneasily. ‘When I came back – only moments later – he was stone dead and there was blood all over the ground. What else could I do but try to disguise his death? I moved him into the church – fortunately for me, most of the blood in his body had already leaked out, and so it was not as messy as it could have been-and made his death appear to be a murder by stabbing him and taking his purse.’
‘Grosnold ordered you to bleed Unwin?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘What was he doing back in Grundisburgh after his spectacular departure across the village green?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Stoate, casting yet another anxious glance at the sky. ‘I try not to become involved in the sinister affairs of the lords of the manor around here. They are not men to be trusted.’
‘Unlike the physicians,’ muttered Michael. He shook his head in wonderment. ‘So, Eltisley really did see Grosnold with Unwin in the churchyard. But he was not holding Unwin’s arm in a threatening manner as we all assumed; he was being solicitous, because Unwin’s nervousness was making him unwell. Grosnold even sent for a physician to bleed him, and was doubtless “surreptitious” because Unwin told him Matt would not approve of phlebotomy.’
Stoate nodded. ‘I was summoned because Unwin told him that Bartholomew would refuse. If only I had refused, too! Then none of this would have happened.’
‘But why did Grosnold deny speaking to Unwin if he had nothing to hide?’ asked Bartholomew.
Stoate shrugged. ‘All I know is that he instructed me to say nothing about his meeting with Unwin. He gave me five marks for my silence. It seemed a good deal: I would say nothing about his role, therefore he would say nothing about mine.’
‘So, what happened to Mistress Freeman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘She did not die of a slit throat; she died from eating the mussels that were scattered all over her floor. As did Norys.’
‘The mussels killed her?’ asked Stoate in astonishment. ‘They were tainted?’
‘Were they a gift from you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To ensure she was at home when you came to kill her, and make it appear as though Norys had done it?’
Stoate gave a humourless laugh. ‘Yes, they were a gift from me, and yes, they were to ensure she was home when I called. The plan was to share them with her, and then to convince her that it had been Norys we had seen together, running from the church.’
‘But you saw no one running from the church,’ said Michael. ‘The cloaked figure was you.’
‘I did see someone,’ said Stoate earnestly. ‘Everything I have told you is the truth, except the length of the cloak. I
did
speak to Mistress Freeman by the ford – Norys was not with her, and she told me that he had gone to fetch her shawl, because the evening was turning chilly – and we
did
see someone running out of the church. And whoever it was
was
rubbing his eyes.’
‘Why lie about the length of the cloak?’
^Because the one I wore that night was short, very like that which I saw on the person running from the church. I
realised that I needed to create confusion, if I did not want other witnesses to say the short-cloaked figure was me. So, I said he wore a long one.’
‘So the cloaked figure you saw with Mistress Freeman was just someone who had innocently stumbled on the body you had deposited in the church, and who had fled lest he be accused of a murder he did not commit?’ asked Michael. ‘Two people ran from the church that day wearing cloaks – you and this other person?’
‘So it would appear. But neither of us fled unnoticed: several people saw us – as your colleague Father William discovered when he practised his nasty Inquisition techniques on the village – and some may well have seen me, not the other person.’
He was right, thought Bartholomew. Some of the villagers William had browbeaten
had
claimed to have seen a man in a short cloak, not a long one: they had seen Stoate, the real killer of Unwin.
‘But why were you wearing a cloak at all?’ he asked, still puzzled. ‘It was hot that day.’
‘When one wears yellow hose, one does not sit on grass,’ said Stoate impatiently. ‘I took my cloak with me to spread on the ground, so that the village boys would not jeer at a green-stained seat. Little did I know how useful it would be: it also allowed me to carry Unwin back to the church without traces of blood seeping on to my best clothes.’
Michael shook his head unhappily. ‘How do we know we can believe you? You have lied about everything else.’
‘I have lied about nothing, except the length of the cloak,’ said Stoate, most of his attention on the slowly brightening sky again. ‘You never asked me whether I killed Unwin, and you have never questioned me about Mistress Freeman.’
‘What about your medical qualifications, then?’ demanded Michael. ‘They are false.’
‘They are not. My father took me to Paris when I was
fifteen, where I sat in a library and read Galen’s
Tegni
. Two years later we went to Bologna, where I found another library and read it again. So, you see, I have not lied to you about that either. I told you I studied medicine in Paris and Bologna, and I have.’
‘But that claim is grossly misleading,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘You know perfectly well that people will assume you mean you have studied properly, not just read a book that you could not have understood without also reading all the commentaries that go with it.’
‘I do extremely well as a physician,’ said Stoate smugly.
‘By giving foxglove to treat Tuddenham’s stomach disease?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘By dispensing a foul ointment of cat grease and crushed snails for burns? By prescribing a potion containing betony and pennyroyal to the pregnant Janelle without cautioning her how to use it?’
Stoate wiped a bead of sweat from his face with his forefinger. He slapped his hand back on to the weapon again as Bartholomew tensed, weighing up the chances of reaching Stoate before he could fire. Michael gave him an agonised look, sensing that Stoate’s nervousness might well lead him into shooting if Bartholomew gave the impression he was about to attack at any moment.
‘I lose very few patients,’ said Stoate coldly. ‘Which is more than can be said of you, from what you have told me about your practice in Cambridge.’
‘You will miss having a rich patient like Tuddenham,’ said Michael, worried that Bartholomew might start an argument that would goad the nervous physician into shooting at them.
‘I will not have him for much longer anyway,’ said Stoate. ‘Now is a good time to leave.’ He peered at the ground, trying to ascertain whether the dawn was sufficiently advanced for riding.