September 1352
'What, again?' asked Matthew Bartholomew incredulously, watching Brother Michael for some sign of a practical joke.
Michael rubbed his fat, white hands together with a cheery grin. 'I am afraid so, Doctor. The Chancellor requests that you come to examine the bones that were found in the King's Ditch by the Hall of Valence Marie this morning. He wants you to make an official statement that they do not belong to Simon d'Ambrey.'
Bartholomew sighed heavily, picked up his medical bag from the table and followed Michael into the bright September sunshine. It was mid-morning and term was due to start in three days. Students were pouring into the small town of Cambridge, trying to secure lodgings that were not too expensive or shabby, and conducting noisy reunions in the streets. Although Bartholomew did not yet have classes to teach, there was much to be done by way of preparation, and he did not relish being dragged from his cool room at Michaelhouse, into the sweltering heat, on some wild-goose chase for the third time that week.
As he and Brother Michael emerged from the College, Bartholomew wrinkled his nose in disgust at the powerful aroma wafted on the breeze from the direction of the river. Cambridge was near the Fens, and lay on flat, low lard that was criss-crossed by a myriad of waterways. To the people who lived there these were convenient places to dispose of rubbish, and many of the smaller ditches were continually blocked because of it.
The summer had been long, hot and dry, and the waterways had been reduced to trickles. People had made no attempt to find other places to rid themselves of their rubbish, and huge blockages had occurred, growing worse as summer had progressed. The first autumn rains had seen the choked waterways bursting their banks, flooding houses and farms with filthy, evil-smelling water.
The situation could not continue, and, for once, the town and the University had joined forces, and a major ditch-clearing operation was underway. The University was responsible for dredging the part of the King's Ditch that ran alongside the recently founded Hall of Valence Marie.
Michael headed for the shady side of the road, and began to walk slowly towards Valence Marie. The High Street was busy that Saturday, with traders hurrying to and from the Market Square with their wares. A ponderous brewery cart was stuck in one of the deep ruts that was gouged into the bone-dry street, and chaos ensued when other carts tried to squeeze past it. A juggler sat in the stocks outside St Mary's Church, and entertained a crowd of children with tricks involving three wizened apples and a hard, green turnip. His display came to an abrupt end when a one-eyed, yellow dog made off with the turnip between its drooling jaws.
'Have you seen these bones that have been dredged up?' Bartholomew asked, striding next to the Benedictine monk.
Michael nodded, plucking at Bartholomew's tabard to make him slow down. Bartholomew glanced at him.
Already there were small beads of perspiration on the large monk's pallid face, and he pulled uncomfortably at his heavy habit.
'Yes. I am no physician, Matt, but I am certain they are not human.'
Bartholomew slowed his pace to match Michael's ambling shuffle. 'So why bother me?' he asked, a little testily. 'I am trying to finish a treatise on fevers before the beginning of term, and there is a constant stream of students wanting me to teach them.'
Michael patted his arm consolingly. 'We are all busy, Matt — myself included with these new duties as Senior Proctor. But you know how the townspeople are. The Chancellor insisted that you come and pronounce that these wretched bones are from an animal to quell any rumours that they belong to Simon d'Ambrey.'
'Those rumours are already abroad, Brother,' said Bartholomew, impatiently. 'If the townspeople are to be believed, d'Ambrey's bones have been uncovered in at least six different locations.' He laughed suddenly, his ill-temper at being disturbed evaporating as he considered the ludicrous nature of their mission. 'As a physician, I can tell you that d'Ambrey had about twenty legs, variously shaped like those of sheep and cows; four heads, one of which sprouted horns; and a ribcage that would put Goliath to shame!'
Michael laughed with him. 'Well, his leg-count is likely to go up again today,' he said. 'You may even find he had a tail!'
They walked in companionable silence until Michael stopped to buy a pastry from a baker who balanced a tray of wares on his head. Bartholomew was dissuaded by the sight of the dead flies that formed a dark crust around the edge of the tray, trapped in the little rivers of syrup that had leaked from the cakes.
Voices raised in anger and indignation attracted their attention away from the baker to a group of young men standing outside St Bene't's Church. The youths wore brightly coloured clothes under their dark students' tabards, and in the midst of them were two black-garbed friars who were being pushed and jostled.
'Stop that!'
Before Bartholomew could advise caution, or at least the summoning of the University beadles — the law- keepers who were under the orders of Brother Michael as Proctor — the monk had surged forward, and seized one of the young men by the scruff of his neck. Michael gave him a shake, as a terrier would a rat.
Immediately, there was a collective scraping sound as daggers were drawn and waved menacingly. Passersby stopped to watch, and, with a groan, Bartholomew went to the aid of his friend, rummaging surreptitiously in his medicine bag for the sharp surgical knife he always kept there. Two scholars had already been killed in street brawls over the last month, and it would take very little to spark off a similar incident. Bartholomew, although he abhorred violence, had no intention of being summarily dispatched by unruly students over some silly dispute, the cause of which was probably already forgotten.
His fingers closed over the knife, and he drew it out, careful to keep it concealed in the long sleeve of his scholar's gown.
'Put those away! ' Michael ordered imperiously, looking in disdain at the students' arsenal of naked steel. He gestured at the growing crowd. 'It would be most unwise to attack the University's Senior Proctor within sight of half the town. What hostel are you from?'
The young men, realising that while student friars might be an easy target for their boisterous teasing, a proctor was not, shuffled their feet uneasily, favouring each other with covert glances. Michael gave the man he held another shake, and Bartholomew heard him mutter that they were from David's Hostel.
'And what were you doing?' Michael demanded, still gripping the young man's collar.
The student glowered venomously at the two friars and said nothing. One of his friends, a burly youth with skin that bore recent scars from adolescent spots, spoke up.
'They called us cattle thieves!' he said, blood rising to his face at the mere thought of that injustice.
Bartholomew suppressed a smile, hearing the thick accent which told that its owner was a Scot. He glanced at the friars, standing together, and looking smug at their timely rescue.
'Cattle thieves?' queried Michael, nonplussed. 'Why?
Have you been stealing cows?'
The burly student bristled, incensed further by an unpleasant snigger from one of the friars. Michael silenced the friar with a glare, but although his laughter stopped, Michael's admonition did little to quell the superior arrogance that oozed from the man.
'It is a term the English use to describe the Scots,' muttered the student that Michael held. 'It is intended to be offensive and spoken to provoke.'
Bartholomew watched the friars. The arrogant one stared back at him through hooded lids, although his companion blushed and began to contemplate his sandalled feet so he would not have to meet Bartholomew's eyes.
Michael sighed, and released the Scot. 'Give your names to my colleague,' he said peremptorily, waving a meaty hand towards Bartholomew. He scowled at the friars. 'You two, come with me.'
Bartholomew narrowed his eyes at Michael's retreating back. Being Fellows of the same college did not give Michael the right to commandeer him into service as some kind of deputy proctor. He had no wish to interfere in the petty quarrels that broke out daily among University members between northerners and southerners; friars and secular scholars; Welsh, Scots, Irish and English; and innumerable other combinations.
The Scots gathered around him, subdued but clearly resentful. Bartholomew gestured for them to put away their daggers, although he kept his own to hand, still concealed in his sleeve. He waited until all signs of glittering steel had gone, and raised his eyebrows at the burly student to give his name.
'Stuart Grahame,' said the student in a low voice. He gestured to a smaller youth next to him. 'This is my cousin, Davy Grahame.'
'My name is Malcolm Fyvie,' said the student Michael had grabbed, a dark-haired man with a scar running in a thin, white line down one cheek. 'And these two are Alistair Ruthven and James Kenzie. We are all from David's Hostel. That is on Shoemaker Row, one of the poorer sections of the town. You would not want Scotsmen in Cambridge's more affluent areas, would you?'
Ruthven shot Fyvie an agonised glance, and hastened to make amends for his friend's rudeness.
'He means no offence,' he said, his eyes still fixed on the resentful Fyvie. 'David's is a very comfortable house compared to many. We are very pleased to be there.'
He looked hard at Fyvie, compelling him not to speak again. Bartholomew regarded the students more closely.
Their clothes and tabards were made of cheap cloth, and had been darned and patched. Ruthven knew that antagonising the Proctor and his colleagues would only serve to increase the fine they would doubtless have to pay for their rowdy behaviour that afternoon. They were probably already being charged a greatly inflated price for their lodgings, and did not look as though they would be able to afford to have the fine doubled for being offensive to the University's law-keepers. Ruthven's desire to be conciliatory was clearly pragmatic, as well as an attempt to present himself and his fellows as scholars grateful for the opportunity to study.
Ts David's a new hostel?' asked Bartholomew, choosing to ignore Fyvie's outburst. There were many hostels in Cambridge, and, because the renting of a house suitable for use as a hall of residence was largely dependent on the goodwill of a landlord, they tended to come and go with bewildering rapidity. New ones sprung up like mushrooms as townspeople saw an opportunity to make money out of the University — a bitterly resented presence in the small Fen-edge town. Many of the hostels did not survive for more than a term — some buildings were reclaimed by landlords who found they were unable to control their tenants, while others were so decrepit that they, quite literally, tumbled down around their occupants' ears.
'It was founded last year,' said Ruthven helpfully, seizing on the opening in the conversation to try to curry favour. 'There are ten students, all from Scotland.
The five of us came last September to study, and we hope to stay another year.'
'Then you should avoid street brawls, or you will not stay another week,' said Bartholomew tartly.
'We will,' said young Davy Grahame with feeling. His cousin gave him a shove one way and James Kenzie the other, and Bartholomew immediately saw which of the five were in Cambridge to study and which were hoping to enjoy the other attractions the town had to offer: brawling, for instance.
'Have you arranged masters and lectures?' asked Bartholomew.
Ruthven and Davy Grahame nodded vigorously, while the others looked away.
'Is there anything you wish me to tell the Proctor?'
Bartholomew asked, knowing who would answer.
Ruthven nodded, his freckled face serious, 'Please tell him that it was not us who started the brawl. It was those friars. They think that their habits will protect them from any insults they care to hurl.'
'But it takes two parties to create a brawl,' said Bartholomew reasonably. 'If you had not responded, there would have been no incident.'
Ruthven opened his mouth to answer, but none came.
'We don't have to listen to such insults from those half-men!' said Kenzie with quiet intensity.
'You do if you want to remain in Cambridge,' said Bartholomew. 'Look, if you have complaints about other students, take them to your hostel principal; if he cannot help, see the proctors; if they cannot assist you, there are the Chancellor and the Bishop. But if you fight in the streets, no matter who started it, you will be sent home.'
'No!' exclaimed Kenzie loudly. The others regarded him uncomfortably. He glanced round at them before continuing in more moderate tones. 'It would not be fair. We did not start it — they did.'
'People in this town do not like the Scots,' agreed Fyvie vigorously. 'Is it our fault that they choose to fight us?'
'Oh, come now,' said Bartholomew wearily. 'The Scots are not singled out for any special ill-treatment. That honour probably falls to the French at the moment, with the Irish not far behind. Go back to David's and study. After all, that is the reason you are here.'
Before Fyvie could respond, Ruthven gave Bartholomew a hasty bow, and bundled his friends away towards Shoemaker Row. Bartholomew watched them walk back along the High Street, hearing Ruthven's calming tones over Kenzie's protestations of innocence, and Fyvie's angry voice. Ruthven would have his work cut out to keep those fiery lads out of trouble, Bartholomew reflected.
He rubbed a hand across his forehead, and felt trickles of sweat course down his back. The sun was fierce, and he felt as though he were being cooked under his dark scholar's gown.
On the opposite side of the street, Michael dismissed the student friars with a contemptuous flick of his fingers, and sauntered over to join Bartholomew. The friars, apparently subdued by whatever Michael had said to them, slunk off towards St Bene't's Church. The plague, four years before, had claimed many friars and monks among its tens of thousands of victims in England, and the University was working hard to train new clerics to replace them. The would-be brawlers were merely two of many such priests passing through Cambridge for their education before going about their vocations in the community.
The large number of clerics — especially friars — at the University was a continuing source of antagonism between scholars and townspeople. Much of the antipathy stemmed from the fact that clerics — whether monks and friars in major orders like Brother Michael, or those in minor orders like Bartholomew — came under canon law, which was notably more lenient than secular law.
Only a month before, two apprentices had been hanged by the Sheriff for killing a student in a brawl; less than a day later three scholars had been fined ten marks each by the Bishop for murdering a baker. Such disparity in justice did not go unremarked in a community already seething with resentment at the arrogant, superior attitudes of many scholars towards the people of the town.
'I suppose the friars said the Scots started it,' said Bartholomew with a grin at Michael, as they resumed their walk up the High Street.
Michael nodded and smiled back. 'Of course. Unruly savages trying to start a fight, while our poor Dominicans were simply trying to go to mass.' He pointed a finger at the friars as they disappeared into the church. 'Remember their names, Matt. Brothers Werbergh and Edred.
An unholy pair if ever I saw one, especially Edred. I am surprised the Dominican Order supports such blatant displays of condescension and aggression.'
'Well, perhaps they will make fine bishops one day,' remarked Bartholomew dryly.
Michael chuckled. 'I will go to David's Hostel later today,' he said, 'and see their Principal about those rowdy Scots. Then I will complain to the Principal of Godwinsson Hostel about those inflammatory friars.'
Bartholomew nodded absently, walking briskly so that Michael had to slow him down again, so that they — or rather the overweight Michael — would not arrive too sweat-soaked at the Hall of Valence Marie.
As they approached the forbidding walls of the new College, Michael turned to Bartholomew and grimaced at the sudden stench from where the King's Ditch was being dredged. Years of silt, sewage, kitchen compost, offal, and an unwholesome range of other items hauled from the dank depths of the Ditch lay in steaming grey-black piles along the banks. The smell had attracted a host of cats and dogs, which rifled through the parts not already claimed by farmers to enrich their soil. Among them, spiteful-eyed gulls squabbled and cawed over blackened strips of decaying offal and the small fish that flapped helplessly in the dredged mud.
Bartholomew and Michael turned left off the High Street, and made their way along an uneven path that wound between the towering banks of the King's Ditch and the high wall that surrounded Valence Marie. Because Cambridge lay at the edge of the low-lying Fens, the level of the water in the Ditch was occasionally higher than the surrounding land; to prevent flooding, the Ditch's banks were levied, and rose above the ground to the height of a man's head.
Away from the High Street, the noise of the town faded, and, were it not for the stench and the incessant buzz of flies around his head, Bartholomew would have enjoyed walking across the strip of scrubby pastureland, pleasantly shaded by a line of mature oak trees.
'You have been a long time, Brother,' said Robert Thorpe, Master of the Hall of Valence Marie, as he stood up from where he had been sitting under a tree.
There was a hint of censure in his tone, and Bartholomew sensed Thorpe was a man whose authority as head of a powerful young college was too recently acquired for it to sit easily on his shoulders. 'I expected you sooner than this.'
'The beginnings of a street brawl claimed my attention,' said Michael, making no attempt to apologise.
'Scots versus the friars this time.'
Thorpe raised dark grey eyebrows. 'The friars again?
I do not understand what is happening, Brother. We have always had problems with warring factions and nationalities in the University, but seldom so frequent and with such intensity as over the last two or three weeks.'
'Perhaps it is the heat,' suggested Bartholomew. 'It is known that tempers are higher and more frayed when the weather is hot. The Sheriff told me that there has been more fighting among the townspeople this last month, too.'
'Perhaps so,' said Thorpe, looking coolly at Bartholomew in his threadbare gown and dusty shoes. As a physician, Bartholomew could have made a rich living from attending wealthy patients. Instead, he chose to teach at the University, and to treat an ever-growing number of the town's poor, preferring to invest his energies in combating genuine diseases rather than in dispensing placebos and calculating astrological charts for the healthy. His superiors at the University tolerated this peculiar behaviour, because having a scholar prepared to provide such a service to the poor made for good relations between the town and its scholars. Bartholomew was popular with his patients, especially when his absent-mindedness led him to forget to charge them.
But tolerance by the University did not mean acceptance by its members, and Bartholomew was regarded as something of an oddity by his colleagues. Many scholars disapproved of his dealings with the townspeople, and some of the friars and monks believed that his teaching verged on heresy because it was unorthodox.
Bartholomew had been taught medicine by an Arab physician at the University of Paris, but even his higher success rate with many illnesses and injuries did not protect him from accusations that his methods were anathema.
Thorpe turned to the obese Benedictine. 'What word is there from the Chancellor about our discovery?' he asked.
'Master de Wetherset wants Doctor Bartholomew to inspect the bones you have found to ensure their authenticity,' said Michael carefully. What the Chancellor had actually said was that he wanted Bartholomew to use his medical expertise to crush, once and for all, the rumours that the bones of a local martyr had been discovered.
He did not want the University to become a venue for relic-sellers and idle gawpers, especially since term was about to start and the students were restless. Gatherings of townspeople near University property might well lead to a fight. The Sheriff, for once, was in complete agreement: relics that might prove contentious must not be found. Both, however, suspected that this might be easier said than done.
The Hall of Valence Marie had been founded five years previously — by Marie de Valence, the Countess of Pembroke — and the Chancellor and Sheriff were only too aware of the desire of its Master to make the young Hall famous. The bones of a local martyr would be perfect for such a purpose: pilgrims would flock to pray at the shrine Thorpe would build, and would not only spread word of the miraculous find at Valence Marie across the country, but also shower the College with gifts.
The Chancellor had charged Michael to handle Thorpe with care.
Thorpe inclined his silver head to Bartholomew, to acknowledge the role foisted on him by the Chancellor, and walked to where a piece of rough sacking lay on the ground. With a flourish, Thorpe removed it to reveal a pile of muddy bones that had been laid reverently on the grass.
Bartholomew knelt next to them, inspecting each one carefully, although he knew from a glance what they were. Michael, too, had devoured enough roasts at high table in Michaelhouse to know sheep bones when he saw them. But Bartholomew did not want to give the appearance of being flippant, and was meticulous in his examination.
'I believe these to be the leg bones of a sheep,' he said, standing again and addressing Thorpe. 'They are too short to be human.'
'But the martyr Simon d'Ambrey is said to have been short,' countered Thorpe.
Michael intervened smoothly. 'D'Ambrey was not that small, Master Thorpe,' he said. He turned to Bartholomew.
'Am I right? You must remember him since you lived in Cambridge when he was active.'
'You?' asked Thorpe, looking Bartholomew up and down dubiously. 'You are not old enough. He died a quarter of a century ago.'
'I am old enough to remember him quite vividly, actually,' said Bartholomew. He smiled apologetically at Thorpe. 'He was of average height — and certainly not short. These bones cannot be his.'
'We have found more of him!' came a breathless exclamation from Bartholomew's elbow. The physician glanced down, and saw a scruffy college servant standing there, his clothes and hands deeply grimed with mud from the Ditch. He smelt like the Ditch too, thought Bartholomew, moving away. The servant's beady eyes glittered fanatically, and Bartholomew saw that Master Thorpe was not the only person at Valence Marie desperate to provide it with a relic.
Tell us, Will,' said Thorpe, hope lighting up his face before he mastered himself and made his expression impassive. 'What have you found this time?'
They followed Will across the swathe of poorly kept pasture to the Ditch beyond. A swarm of flies hovered around its mud-encrusted sides, and even Bartholomew, used to unpleasant smells, was forced to cover his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his gown. The servant slithered down the bank to the trickle of water at the bottom, and prodded about.
'Here!' he called out triumphantly.
'Bring it out, Will,' commanded Thorpe, putting a huge pomander over his lower face.
Will hauled at something, which yielded itself reluctantly from the mud with a slurping plop. Holding it carefully in his arms, he carried it back up the bank and laid it at Thorpe's feet. His somewhat unpleasant, fawning manner reminded Bartholomew of a dog he had once owned, which had persisted in presenting him with partially eaten rats as a means to ingratiate itself.
Holding his sleeve over his nose, Bartholomew knelt and peered closely at Will's bundle.
'Still too small?' asked Michael hopefully.
'Too small to belong to a man,' said Bartholomew, stretching out a hand to turn the bones over. He glanced up at Thorpe and Michael, squinting up into the bright sun. 'But it is human.'
Bartholomew and Michael sat side by side on the ancient trunk of an apple tree that had fallen against the orchard wall behind Michaelhouse. The intense heat of the day had faded, and the evening shade, away from the failing sunlight, was almost chilly. Bats flitted silently through the gnarled branches of the fruit trees, feasting on the vast number of insects that always inhabited Cambridge in the summer, attracted by the dank and smelly waters of the river. That night, however, the sulphurous odours of the river were masked by the sweeter smell of rotting apples, many of which lay in the long, damp grass to be plundered by wasps.
Bartholomew rubbed tiredly at his eyes, feeling them gritty and sore under his fingers. Michael watched him.
'Have you not been sleeping well?' he asked, noting the dark smudges under the physician's eyes.
'My room is hot at night,' Bartholomew answered.
'Even with the shutters open, it is like an oven.'
'Then you should try sleeping on the upper floor,' said Michael unsympathetically. 'The heat is stifling, and my room-mates sincerely believe that night air will give them summer ague. Our shutters remain firmly closed, regardless of how hot it is outside. At least you have a flagstone floor on which to lie. We have a wooden floor, which is no use for cooling us down at all.'
He stretched his long, fat legs out in front of him, and settled more comfortably on the tree trunk. 'It will soon be too cold to sit here,' he added hastily, seeing Bartholomew's interest quicken at the prospect of a discussion about the relationship between summer ague and night air. Fresh air and cleanliness were subjects dear to his friend's heart, and Michael did not want to spend the remainder of the evening listening to his latest theories on contagion. 'The nights are drawing in now that the leaves are beginning to turn.'
Bartholomew flapped at an insistent insect that buzzed around his head. 'We could try an experiment with your room-mates' notion about night air,' he said, oblivious to Michael's uninterest. 'You keep your shutters closed, and I will keep mine open-'
'Strange business today,' Michael interrupted. He laughed softly. 'I felt almost sorry for that greedy dog Thorpe when you told him his precious bones could not belong to that martyr he seems so intent on finding. He looked like a child who had been cheated of a visit to the fair: disappointed, angry, bitter and resentful, all at the same time.'
Bartholomew sighed, regretful, but not surprised, that Michael was declining the opportunity to engage in what promised to be an intriguing medical debate. 'I suppose Thorpe wants to make money from d'Ambrey's bones as saintly relics,' he said.
Michael nodded. 'There is money aplenty to be made from pilgrims these days. People are so afraid that the Death will return and claim everyone who escaped the first time, that they cling to anything that offers hope of deliverance. The pardoners' and relic-sellers' businesses are blossoming, and shrines and holy places all over Europe have never been so busy.'
Bartholomew made an impatient sound. 'People are fools! Relics and shrines did not save them the last time.
Why should they save them in the future?'
Michael eyed his friend in monkish disapproval. 'No wonder you are said to be a heretic, Matt!' he admonished, half-joking, half-serious. 'You should be careful to whom you make such wild assertions. Our beloved colleague Father William, for example, would have you hauled away to be burned as a warlock in an instant if he thought you harboured such irreligious notions.'
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, stood abruptly, and began to pace. 'I have reviewed my notes again and again,' he said, experiencing the familiar feeling of frustration each time he thought of the plague.
'Until the pestilence, I believed there were patterns to when and whom a disease struck. But now I am uncertain. The plague took rich and poor, priests and criminals, good and bad. Sometimes it killed the young and healthy, but left the weak and old. Some people say it burst from ancient graves during an earthquake in the Orient, and was carried westwards on the wind. But even if that is true, it does not explain why some were taken and some were spared. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense.'
'Then do not think about it, Matt,' said Michael complacently, squinting to where the last rays of the sun glinted red and gold through the trees. 'There are some things to which we will never know the answers.
Perhaps this is one of them.'
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. 'It is encouraging to see that Michaelhouse supports a tradition of enquiring minds,' he remarked dryly. 'Just because an answer is not immediately obvious does not mean to say that we should not look for it.'
'And sometimes, looking too hard hides the very truth that you seek,' said Michael, equally firmly. 'I can even cite you an example. My Junior Proctor, Guy Heppel, lost the keys to our prison cells yesterday.
I spent the entire period between prime and terce helping him search for them — a task rendered somewhat more urgent by the fact that Heppel, rather rashly, had arrested the Master of Maud's Hostel for being drunk and disorderly.'
'You mean Thomas Bigod?' asked Bartholomew, between shock and amusement. 'I am not surprised you were so keen to find the keys! I cannot see that a man like Bigod would take kindly to being locked up with a crowd of recalcitrant students.'
'You are right — he was almost beside himself with fury once he awoke and discovered where he was. But we digress. I searched high and low for these wretched keys, and even went down on my hands and knees to look for them in the rushes — no mean feat for a man of my girth — and do you know where they were?'
'Round his neck, I should imagine,' said Bartholomew.
'That is where he usually keeps them, tied on a thong of catgut or some such thing.'
Michael gazed at him in surprise. 'How did you know that?'
Bartholomew smiled. 'He had me going through the same process last week when he came to see me about his cough.'
'Is it genuine, then, this cough of his? I thought he was malingering. The man seems to have a different ache or pain almost every day — some of them in places I would have imagined impossible.'
'The cough is real enough, although the other ailments he lists — and, as you say, it is quite a list — are more imagined than real. Anyway, when I told him he must have lost his keys in the High Street, and not in my room, he almost fainted away from shock. He had to lie down to calm himself, and when I loosened his clothes, there were the keys around his neck. I was surprised when he was appointed your junior. He is not the kind of man the University usually employs as a proctor.'
'All brawn and no brain you mean?' asked Michael archly, knowing very well how most scholars regarded those men who undertook the arduous and unpopular duties as keepers of law and order in the University.
'Present company excepted, of course. But poor Guy Heppel has neither brawn nor brain as far as I can see.'
'Why was he appointed then?' asked Bartholomew. 'I cannot see how he could defend himself in a tavern fight, let alone prevent scholars from killing each other.'
'I agree,' said Michael, picking idly at a spot of spilled food on his habit. 'He was a strange choice, especially given that our Michaelhouse colleague, Father William, wanted the appointment-he has more brawn than most of the University put together, although I remain silent on the issue of brain.'
'That cough of Heppel's,' said Bartholomew, frowning as he changed the conversation to matters medical. 'It reminds me of the chest infection some of the plague victims contracted. It-'
Michael leapt to his feet in sudden horror, startling a blackbird that had been exploring the long grass under a nearby plum tree. It flapped away quickly, wings slapping at the undergrowth. 'Not the Death, Matt! Not again!
Not so soon!'
Bartholomew shook his head quickly, motioning for his friend to relax. 'Of course not! Do you think I would be sitting here chatting with you if I thought the plague had returned? No, Brother, I was just remarking that Heppel's chest complaint is similar to one of the symptoms some plague victims suffered — a hacking, dry cough that resists all attempts to soothe it. I suppose I could try an infusion of angelica…"
As Bartholomew pondered the herbs that he might use to ease his patient's complaint, Michael flopped back down on the tree trunk clutching at his chest.
'Even after four years the memory of those evil days haunts me. God forbid we should ever see the like of that again.'
Bartholomew regarded him sombrely. 'And if it does, we physicians will be no better prepared to deal with it than we were the first time. We discovered early on that incising the buboes only worked in certain cases, and we never learned how to cure victims who contracted the disease in the lungs.'
'What was he like, this martyr, Simon d'Ambrey?' interrupted Michael abruptly, not wanting to engage in a lengthy discussion about the plague so close to bedtime. Firmly, he forced from his mind the harrowing recollections of himself and Bartholomew trailing around the town to watch people die, knowing that if he dwelt on it too long, he would dream about it. Bartholomew was not the only one who had been shocked and frustrated by his inability to do anything to combat the wave of death that had rolled slowly through the town. The monk flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles with nasty popping sounds, and settled himself back on the tree trunk. 'I have heard a lot about Simon d'Ambrey, but I cannot tell what is truth and what is legend.'
Bartholomew considered for a moment, reluctantly forcing medical thoughts from his mind, and heartily wishing that there was another physician in Cambridge with whom he could discuss his cases — the unsavoury Robin of Grantchester was more butcher than surgeon, while the other two University physicians regarded Bartholomew's practices and opinions with as much distrust and scepticism with which he viewed theirs.
'Simon d'Ambrey was a kindly man, and helped the poor by providing food and fuel,' he said. 'The stories that he was able to cure disease by his touch are not true — as far as I can remember these stories surfaced after his death. He was not a rich man himself, but he was possessed of a remarkable talent for persuading the wealthy to part with money to finance his good works.'
Michael nodded in the gathering dusk. 'I heard that members of his household were seen wearing jewellery that had been donated to use for the poor. Personally, I cannot see the harm in rewarding his helpers. Working with the poor is often most unpalatable.'
Bartholomew laughed. 'Spoken like a true Benedictine!
Collect from the rich to help the poor, but keep the best for the abbey.'
'Now, now,' said Michael, unruffled. 'My point was merely that d'Ambrey's fall from grace seems to have been an over-reaction on the part of the town. He made one mistake, and years of charity were instantly forgotten.
No wonder the townspeople believe him to be a saint! It is to ease their guilty consciences!'
'There may be something in that,' said Bartholomew.
He paused, trying to recall events that had occurred twenty-five years before. 'On the day that he died, rumours had been circulating that he had stolen from the poor fund, and then, at sunset, he came tearing into town chased by soldiers. He always wore a green cloak with a gold cross on the back and he had bright copper-coloured hair, so everyone knew him at once.
As the soldiers gained on him, he drew a dagger and turned to face them. I saw an archer shoot an arrow, and d'Ambrey fell backwards into the Ditch.'
'It is very convenient for Thorpe that his body was never found,' observed Michael.
Bartholomew nodded. 'A search was made, of course, but the Ditch was in full flood and was flowing dangerously fast. There were stories that he did not die, and that he was later seen around the town. But I have seen similar throat wounds since then on battlefields in France, and every one proved fatal.'
'I still feel the town treated d'Ambrey shamefully,' mused Michael. 'Even if he were less than honest, the poor still received a lot more than they would have done without him.'
'I agree,' said Bartholomew, with a shrug. 'And, as far as I know, it was never proven that he was responsible for the thefts. Just because his relatives and servants stole from the poor fund did not mean that d'Ambrey condoned it, or even that he knew. After his death, his whole household fled — brother, sister, servants and all — although not before they had stripped the house of everything moveable.'
'Well, there you are then!' said Michael triumphantly.
'His family and servants fled taking everything saleable with them. Surely that is a sign of their guilt?
Perhaps d'Ambrey was innocent after all. Who can say?'
Bartholomew shrugged again, poking at a rotten apple with a twig. 'The mood of the townspeople that night was ugly. D'Ambrey's family would have been foolish to have stayed to face them. Even if they had managed to avoid being torn apart by a mob, the merchants and landowners who had parted with money to finance d'Ambrey's good works were demanding vengeance.
D'Ambrey's household would have been forced to compensate them for the thefts regardless of whether they were guilty or not.'
'So d'Ambrey paid the ultimate price, but his partners in crime went free,' said Michael. 'A most unfair, but not in the least surprising, conclusion to this miserable tale.
Poor d'Ambrey!'
'No one went free,' said Bartholomew, sitting and leaning backwards against the wall. 'The town nominated three of its most respected burgesses to pursue d'Ambrey's family and bring them back for trial.
Although the d'Ambreys had gone to some trouble to conceal the route they had taken, they were forced to sell pieces of jewellery to pay their way. These were identified by the burgesses, who traced the family to a house in Dover. But the evening before the burgesses planned their confrontation with the fugitives, there was a fire in that part of the town, and everyone died in it.'
'Really?' asked Michael, fascinated. 'What a remarkable coincidence! And none of the fugitives survived, I am sure?'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'The town erupted into an inferno by all accounts, and dozens of people died in the blaze.'
'And I suppose the bodies were too badly charred for identification,' said Michael with heavy sarcasm. 'But the requisite number were found in the d'Ambrey lodgings, and the burgesses simply assumed that the culprits were all dead. D'Ambrey's family must have laughed for years about how they tricked these "most respected burgesses"!'
'Oh no, Brother,' said Bartholomew earnestly. 'On the contrary. D'Ambrey's household died of asphyxiation and not burning. None of the bodies were burned at all as I recall. D'Ambrey's brother and sister had wounds consistent with crushing as the house collapsed from the heat, but none of their faces were damaged. The bodies were brought back to Cambridge, and displayed in the Market Square. No member of d'Ambrey's household escaped the fire, and there was no question regarding the identities of any of them.'
'I see,' said Michael, puzzled. 'This body-displaying is an addendum to the tale that is not usually forthcoming from the worthy citizens of Cambridge. Do you not consider these deaths something of a coincidence? All die most conveniently in a fire, thus achieving the twofold objective of punishing the guilty parties most horribly, and of sparing the town the bother and cost of a trial.'
Bartholomew flapped impatiently at the insects that sang their high-pitched hum in his ears. 'That was a question raised at the time,' he said, 'although certainly not openly. I eavesdropped on meetings held at my brother-in-law's house, and it seemed that none of the burgesses had unshakeable alibis on the night of the fire.'
'What a dreadful story,' said Michael in disgust. 'Did any of these burgesses ever admit to starting the fire?'
'Not that I know of,' said Bartholomew, standing abruptly in a futile attempt to try to rid himself of the insects. 'They all died years ago — none were young men when they became burgesses — but I have never heard that any of them claimed responsibility for the fire.'
'So, dozens of Dover's citizens died just to repay a few light-fingered philanthropists for making fools of the town's rich,' said Michael, shaking his head. 'How unpleasant people can be on occasions.'
'We do not know the burgesses started the fire,' said Bartholomew reasonably. 'Nothing was ever proven. It might have been exactly what they claimed — a fortuitous accident, or an act of God against wrongdoers.'
'You do not believe that, Matt!' snorted Michael in amused disbelief. 'I know you better than that! You suspect the burgesses were to blame.'
'Perhaps they were,' said Bartholomew. 'But it hardly matters now. It was a long time ago, and everyone who played any role in the affair died years ago.' He sat again, fiddling restlessly with the laces on his shirt. 'But all this is not helping with our skeleton. Did you have any luck with the Sheriff this afternoon, regarding to whom these bones might belong?'
'Do bones belong to someone, or are they someone?' mused Michael, rubbing at his flabby chins. 'We should debate that question sometime, Matt. The answer to your question is no, unfortunately. There are no missing persons that fit with your findings. Are you sure about the identification you made? The age of the skeleton?'
Bartholomew nodded slowly. 'After you had gone to the Chancellor, I helped Will dredge up the rest of the bones and the skull. I am certain, from the development of the teeth and the size and shape of other bones, that the skeleton is that of a child of perhaps twelve or fourteen years. I cannot say whether it was a boy or a girl — I do not have that sort of expertise. There were no clothes left, but tendrils of cloth suggest that the child was clothed when it was put, or fell, into the Ditch.'
'Could you tell how long it had been there?' said Michael. 'How long dead?'
Bartholomew spread his hands. 'I told you, I do not have the expertise to judge such things. At least five years, although, between ourselves, I would guess a good deal longer. But you should not tell anyone else, because the evidence is doubtful.'
'Then why do you suggest it?' asked Michael. He leaned forward to select an apple on the ground that was not infested with wasps, and began to chew on it, grimacing at its sourness.
The blackbird he had startled earlier swooped across the grass in front of them, twittering furiously. Bartholomew reflected for a moment, trying to remember what his Arab master had taught him about the decomposition of bodies. He had not been particularly interested in the lesson, preferring to concentrate his energies on the living than learning about cases far beyond any help he could give.
'All bones do not degenerate in the same way once they are in the ground, or in the case of this child, in mud. Much depends on the type of material that surrounds them, and the amount of water present.
These bones had been immersed in the thick, clay-like mud at the bottom of the Ditch, and so are in a better condition than if they had been in peat, which tends to preserve skin, but rot bone. But despite this, the bones are fragile and crumbly, and deeply stained. I would not be surprised if they had been lying in the Ditch for twenty or thirty years.'
'So, we might be looking for a child of fourteen who died thirty years ago?' asked Michael in astonishment.
'Lord, Matt! Had he lived, that would make him older than us!'
'I could be wrong,' said Bartholomew. He stood and stretched, giving such a huge yawn that Michael was compelled to join him.
Michael tossed his apple core into the grass. 'Simon d'Ambrey died twenty-five years ago,' he said thoughtfully.
'Perhaps even at the same time as this child. Can you tell how this child met its death?'
'Again, I cannot be certain,' said Bartholomew, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 'But there is a deep dent on the back of the skull that would have compressed the brain underneath. Had the child been alive when that wound was delivered, it would have killed him — or her — without doubt. However, if the body has lain in the King's Ditch for thirty years, the damage may have been done at any time since by something falling on it. So, this child may have been knocked on the head and disposed of in the Ditch; he may have fallen and hit his head; or he may have died of some disease and his body disposed of in the Ditch and the skull damaged later.'
Michael disagreed. 'Not the latter. Why would anyone need to hide a corpse of someone who had died in a legitimate manner? And surely someone would miss a child if it had had an accident and fallen in the river?
The only likely solution, I am sorry to say, is the first one.
That the poor thing was killed and the body hidden in the Ditch.'
Bartholomew shook his head, smiling, and slapped his friend on the shoulders. 'You have become far too involved in murder these last few years,' he said. 'Now you look for it where there may be none. How do you know the child was not an orphan, or that his parents simply did not report him missing? You know very well that a death in a large, poor family is sometimes seen as more of a relief than a cause for grief, in that it is one less mouth to feed — especially with girls. Or perhaps he was one of a group of travellers, who had passed out of Cambridge before he was missed? Or perhaps he was a runaway from-'
'All right, all right,' grumbled Michael good-humouredly.
'Point taken. But you were in Cambridge as a child. Did any of your playmates go missing with no explanation?'
Bartholomew leaned down to pick up his medicine bag. 'Not that I recall. It was a long time ago.'
'Oh, come now, Matt!' exclaimed Michael. 'You are not an old man yet! If you are right in your hunch about the time of this child's death, he may well have been a playmate of yours. Older than you, perhaps, but you would have been children together.'
Bartholomew yawned again. 'I can think of none, and I did not play with girls, anyway, which means I only have knowledge of half of the juvenile population. You should ask someone else. And now it is late, and so I will wish you good night.'
He turned to walk back through the orchard to the College, leaving Michael to his musing. He cut through the kitchens, his leather-soled shoes skidding on the grease that formed an ever-present film over the stone-flagged floor. The great cooking fires were banked for the night, and the kitchens were deserted.
A door, concealed behind a painted wooden screen, led from the kitchen to the porch where Michaelhouse's guests were received before being ushered to the hall and conclave above. Bartholomew walked through the porch, and across the beaten earth of the courtyard to his room in the north wing.
The last rays of the sun were fading, and the honey-coloured stone of Michaelhouse's walls was a dark amber.
Bartholomew paused, and glanced around at the College, admiring, as he always did, the delicate tracery on the windows of the north and south wings where the scholars slept. The dying sunlight still caught the bright colours of the College founder's coat of arms over the porch, a cacophony of reds, blues and golds. He yawned yet again, and gave up the notion of reading for an hour by the light of a candle before he slept — all that would happen would be that he would fall asleep at the table and candles were far too expensive a commodity to waste, not to mention the possibility that an unattended candle might fall and set the whole College alight.
His mind wandered back to the grisly display of asphyxiated corpses in the Market Square some twenty- five years ago, the result of another careless candle if the burgesses were to be believed. Then, he pushed thoughts of murder and mayhem to the back of his mind, opening the door to his small, neat room. He lay on the bed, intending to rest for a few moments before rising again to wash and fold his clothes, but he was almost immediately asleep, oblivious even to the sharp squeal of a mouse that the College cat killed under his bed.
Alone in the orchard, Michael chewed his lip thoughtfully.
Bartholomew had a sister who lived nearby, whose husband was one of the richest and most influential merchants in the town. Edith was some years older than her brother. She had married young, and Bartholomew had lived with her and her new husband until he went to the school at the Benedictine Abbey in the city of Peterborough to the north. Perhaps Edith, or her husband, Sir Oswald Stanmore, might remember something about a missing child.
Michael saw the Stanmores the following day on his way back from church. It was a fine Sunday afternoon, and the streets thronged with people. Gangs of black-gowned students sang and shouted, eyed disapprovingly by the merchants and tradesmen dressed in their Sunday finery.
Edith and her husband looked happy and prosperous, walking arm-in-arm down Milne Street to the large house where Stanmore had his business premises. Although Stanmore worked in Cambridge, he preferred to live at his manor in Trumpington, a tiny village two miles south of the town. It was unusual to see him and his wife in Cambridge on a Sunday, and Michael strongly suspected that the merchant had been conducting some covert business arrangement when he should have been paying attention to the words of the priest at mass. Edith, a lively soul who enjoyed the occasional excursion into the town from the village, would not have noticed what her husband was doing, and would have been more interested in catching up with the local gossip from the other merchants' wives.
Edith had the same distinctive black hair and pale complexion of her brother, a stark contrast to Stanmore's slate-grey hair and beard. She wore a dress of deep crimson, and she carried a blue cloak over one arm, one corner of it trailing unheeded along the dusty road. With a smile, the monk recognised that she apparently had the same careless disregard for clothes as her brother, whose shirts and hose were always patched and frayed.
He headed towards her, dodging past a procession of Carmelite friars heading towards St Mary's Church, and jostling aside a pardoner with unnecessary force. Michael did not like pardoners.
Edith hugged Michael affectionately, making the usually sardonic, and occasionally lecherous, monk blush. Oswald Stanmore admonished her for her undignified behaviour in the street, but his words lacked conviction, and they all knew she would do exactly the same when she next met Brother Michael.
Stanmore, ever aware of the latest happenings in the town from his extensive network of informants, asked Michael about the skeleton that had been found.
Michael told them briefly, and asked whether they were aware of any missing children during the last twenty or thirty years.
Thirty years!' exclaimed Edith. 'Has this body lain in the Ditch so long?'
Michael shrugged indifferently. 'No, no. I am just keen to ensure we do not confine ourselves to looking recently, when the child may have died much earlier.'
Stanmore scratched his chin as he wracked his brains.
'There was old Mistress Wilkins' daughter,' he said uncertainly.
Edith shook her head. 'Reliable witnesses saw her alive and married to a farm lad over in Haslingfield village a few weeks after she disappeared. What about the tinker's boy? The one who was said to have drowned near the King's Mill?'
Now Stanmore shook his head. 'His body was found a year later. And anyway, he was too young — four or five years old. There was that dirty lad whom Matt befriended, who told us he was a travelling musician, and led the local boys astray for a few weeks.' He turned to Edith. 'It may well be him; he would have been about twelve. He set the tithe barn alight and then ran away. What was his name?'
'Norbert,' said Edith, promptly and rather primly, her mouth turning down at the corners in disapproval.
'I remember him well. We had only just arrived in Trumpington, and Matt immediately struck up a friendship with that horrible boy. It hardly created a good impression with my new neighbours.'
Stanmore gave her hand an affectionate squeeze, and spoke to Michael. 'After the barn fire, we locked this Norbert in our house, so that the Sheriff could talk to him about it the next day. But somehow he escaped during the night.'
'Poor Norbert!' said Bartholomew, coming up silently behind them, making them all jump. 'Still blamed for burning the tithe barn, even though he had nothing to do with it.'
'So you insisted at the time. But he fled the scene of the crime, and that was tantamount to admitting his guilt,' said Stanmore, recovering his composure quickly.
'He fled because he knew that no one would believe his innocence,' said Bartholomew. 'And because I let him go.'
There was a short silence as his words sank in. Michael smothered a grin, and folded his arms to watch what promised to be an entertaining scene.
'Matt!' exclaimed Edith, shocked. 'What dreadful secrets have you been harbouring all this time?'
Bartholomew did not reply immediately, frowning slightly as he tried to recall events from years before.
'I had all but forgotten Norbert's alleged crime.'
'Alleged?' spluttered Stanmore. 'The boy was as guilty as sin!'
'That was what everyone was quick to assume,' said Bartholomew. 'No one bothered to ask his side of the story and then make a balanced judgement. That was why I helped him to escape.'
'But we locked the priest with him in the solar!' said Stanmore, regarding Bartholomew with patent disbelief.
He turned to Michael, who quickly assumed an air of gravity to hide his amusement. 'Norbert was only a child, and even though he had committed a grave crime, we did not want to frighten him out of his wits. We also thought the priest might wring a confession from him.'
He swung back to Bartholomew, still uncertain whether to believe his brother-in-law's claim. 'How could you let him out without the priest seeing you?'
'The priest was drunk,' said Bartholomew, smiling. 'So much so, that the cracked bells of Trumpington Church and their unholy din could not have roused him. I waited until everyone was asleep, took the solar key from the shelf outside, and let Norbert out. After, I relocked the door, and Norbert disappeared into the night to go to his sister, who was a kitchen maid at Dover Castle.'
'But this is outrageous!' said Stanmore, aghast. 'How could you do such a thing? You abused my trust in you!
And those bells are not cracked, I can assure you. They just need tuning.'
Edith suddenly roared with laughter, and some of the outrage went out of her husband. 'All these years and you kept your secret!' she said. She reached up and ruffled her brother's hair as she had done when he was young. 'Whatever possessed you to risk making my husband look foolish in front of his neighbours?'
Bartholomew looked at Stanmore thoughtfully for a moment before answering. 'I am not the only one who knows Norbert was innocent. I suppose I still should not tell, but it was such a long time ago that it cannot matter any more. It was not Norbert who fired the tithe barn: it was Thomas Lydgate.'
'Thomas Lydgate? The Principal of Godwinsson Hostel?' said Michael, halfway between merriment and horror.
Bartholomew nodded, smiling at the monk's reaction.
'I suspect he did not set the building alight deliberately, but you know how fast dry wood burns. I suppose he had no wish to own up to a crime that might make him a marked man for the rest of his life, and Norbert was an ideal candidate to take the blame, since he was an outsider, and had no one to speak for him.'
'But how do you know this?' asked Stanmore, still indignant about the wrong that had been perpetrated against him in his own house. 'Why are you so certain that Norbert did not commit the crime and Lydgate did?'
'Because Norbert and I saw Lydgate enter the barn when we were swimming nearby; we saw smoke billowing from it a few moments later and someone came tearing out. Naturally curious, we crept through the trees to see who it was. We came across Lydgate, complete with singed shirt, breathing heavily after his run, and looking as though he had seen the Devil himself. If you recall, it was Lydgate who raised the alarm, and Lydgate who first blamed Norbert.'
'But what if Lydgate followed Norbert and killed him to ensure he would never tell what he had seen?' mused Michael, suddenly serious. 'It is perfectly possible that the bones in the Ditch belong to your Norbert. From what you say, he was the right age, and all this appears to have happened about twenty-five years ago.'
'Impossible!' said Bartholomew. 'I received letters from Norbert in Dover a few weeks later to tell me that he had joined his sister, and he wrote to me several times after that, until I went to study in Paris. He has made a success of his life, which is more than could be said had the Trumpington witch-hunters laid their vindictive hands on him.'
'And how could you receive letters without my knowledge?' demanded Stanmore imperiously. 'This is nonsense! How could you have paid whoever brought these messages, and how is it that my steward never mentioned mysterious missives from Dover? Not much slips past his eagle eyes!'
Edith shuffled her feet, and looked uncomfortable.
'Letters from Dover, you say?' she asked. 'From someone called Celinia?'
Stanmore rounded on her. 'Edith! Do not tell me you were a party to all this trickery, too!'
'Not exactly,' said Edith guiltily, looking from her husband to her brother.
'Not at all,' said Bartholomew firmly. 'Norbert's sister was called Celinia. I imagine she wrote the letters, since Norbert was illiterate, and she signed her own name so that no one would know the letters were from him.
Celinia is an unusual name, and Norbert knew I would guess that the letters were from him if she signed them.
Edith simply assumed I had found myself a young lady.
She did not ask me about it, so I did not tell her.'
'Extraordinary!' said Michael gleefully. 'All this subterfuge in such a respectable household!'
'Really!' said Stanmore, still annoyed. 'And in my own house! The villagers were not pleased that Norbert had evaded justice while in my safekeeping, and neither was the Sheriff when he found he had made the journey for nothing. Thank God Norbert was not caught later to reveal your part in his escape, Matt! '
'Well I never!' drawled Michael facetiously, nudging Bartholomew in the ribs. 'You interfering with the course of justice, and Lydgate an arsonist! Did you confront him with what you had seen?'
'Are you serious?' queried Bartholomew. 'Since Lydgate was not above allowing a child to take the blame for his crime — for which Norbert might well have been hanged — it would have been extremely foolish for me to have let him know that I had witnessed his guilty act. No, Brother. I have carried Lydgate's secret for twenty-five years and none have known it until now except Norbert.'
'I still cannot believe you took the law into your own hands in my house in such a way,' said Stanmore, eyeing his brother-in-law dubiously. 'What else have you done that will shock me?'
Bartholomew laughed. 'Nothing, Oswald. It was the only serious misdemeanour I committed while under your roof… that I can remember.'
Stanmore regarded Bartholomew with such rank suspicion that the physician laughed again. He was about to tease Stanmore further, when he saw the Junior Proctor, Guy Heppel, hurrying along the street towards them, his weasel-like face creased with concern.
When Heppel reached them, he was breathless, and there was an unhealthy sheen of sweat on his face.
He rubbed his hands down the sides of his gown nervously.
'There is another,' he gasped. 'Another body has been found in the King's Ditch next to Valence Marie!'