Michael stared at him, eyes narrowed, and pulled absently at a stray strand of hair. 'Jonstan told Cuthbert the murder was the same as the others, but how would he know?' he began slowly. He shook Bartholomew's hand from his robe impatiently. 'It does not fit, Matt!
Jonstan lives near the Barnwell Gate and probably heard the alarm when the body was found and went to see. As Proctor, he probably saw the other victims.'
'His mother!' exclaimed Bartholomew suddenly.
'When Jonstan sprained his ankle, he said his mother would look after him. Cuthbert just said she was bed-ridden.'
'He probably said that so you would not worry about him,' said Michael.
'Father?' yelled Bartholomew, running after the fat priest. 'When did Master Jonstan's mother die?'
Cuthbert turned, surprised at Bartholomew's tense face and the question out of the blue. He scratched one of his chins and thought. 'Mistress Jonstan passed away… four, perhaps five weeks ago Bartholomew sped back to Michael. 'Come on!' he cried.
Michael lunged at him. 'His mother died four weeks ago? So what?'
Bartholomew struggled to free his tabard from Michael's grip. 'He was talking about her as if she were still alive last week. The man is unhinged.'
'Grief does things to people other than make them into murderers,' said Michael, gently maintaining his hold on his friend's clothes. 'Matt, you cannot go charging into Jonstan's home and accuse him of committing these foul crimes with the evidence you have. It is all circumstantial.'
'Think!' said Bartholomew, exasperated. 'Tulyet'smen patrolled the streets and so did the Proctors and their beadles. Jonstan was out in the dark quite legitimately about University business. He would become familiar with others who regularly stole around in the night- the prostitutes, over whom he had no jurisdiction because they are not members of the University. I am willing to wager anything that the murders were committed on days when it was Jonstan's turn to do night patrol.
For heaven's sake, Michael!' he yelled, 'Sybilla saw the Proctor and his men the night of Isobel's murder.'
Michael began to waver. 'But what about the Guild of the Holy Trinity…?'
Bartholomew shook his head dismissively. 'That is irrelevant. All the other murders were committed in churchyards of the High Street, and now this one is committed at the Barnwell Gate, near Jonstan's home, from which he cannot move because he has a sprained ankle.'
Michael relinquished his hold of Bartholomew's gown with a flourish. 'Have it your way. I remain sceptical. We will visit Master Jonstan. You can say you came to look at his foot, and that way, if we find you are wrong, we will at least have an excuse for being there.'
They walked the short distance to the Barnwell Gate.
Tulyet was still there, looking exhausted. He indicated a sheeted body in despair.
"I thought we had it all worked out,' he said. 'And now this. Is there no bottom to this pit of wickedness?'
'Have you rounded up any more of de Belem's followers?' asked Michael.
'Oh, yes,' said Tulyet. 'My men started the moment we arrived. Primrose Alley had been used to garrison de Belem's mercenaries, and we discovered Gilbert's clothes and beard and a spare wig in one of the houses.
There were red masks, too, and more black cloaks than you would believe. We also found him.' They looked to where he pointed. Against the wall of a house, an enormous man sat smiling up at the sun with a vacant grin, guarded by one of Tulyet's soldiers. He saw a black cat slink past and gurgled at it. Bartholomew went over to him and knelt down. The man beamed at him with an open mouth of poorly-formed teeth and then began to prod at a spot of mud on Bartholomew's tabard.
'What's your name?' he asked.
The man continued to prod at Bartholomew's tabard.
'Be careful,' Tulyet warned. 'He is dangerous.'
Bartholomew snapped his fingers near the man's ear, but there was no reaction. He put a hand under his chin and gently tipped his head back so he could look at his face. It was flat, and his tongue was too large for his mouth and lolled out. Bartholomew looked at the faint marks still on his hand from when he had been bitten in the orchard, and saw that they matched the man's asymmetrical teeth. He had unquestionably found his attacker. The man gurgled in panic, and Bartholomew let him go.
"I think he is deaf, and I doubt he can speak. The poor man has the mind of a child. He was at Michaelhouse the night the gate burned, but I do not think he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Give him to the Austin Canons at the hospital, Master Tulyet. Perhaps they can find some simple tasks for him to do until he becomes too weak.'
'Weak?' said Tulyet. 'He is as strong as an ox, as my men can attest!'
'He is dying,' said Bartholomew. 'Listen to his breathing.
I have seen this before in these people. Their chests do not develop normally and they are prone to infections.
Perhaps he will recover this time, but I doubt he will the next. Let him go: he is a child.'
Tulyet grimaced, but gave a curt order to the guard to escort the man to St John's Hospital. 'When we found him, he was tethered to a door frame with a simple knot that any five-year-old could have untied. You are doubtless right in that he was unaware of what he was doing. But I hope he is not dangerous.'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'If he was violent to your men it was probably because they frightened him.
Mistress Starre had such a son, but I assumed he had died when she did during the plague. He was probably cared for in Primrose Alley by neighbours, until de Belem and Gilbert came and used him for their own purposes.'
'Who was the victim?' asked Michael, nodding at the sheeted figure being loaded onto a cart.
'Sybilla, the ditcher's daughter,' said Tulyet. 'She was identified by that woman over there.'
Bartholomew stared in disbelief, and felt the blood pound in his head. He looked to where Matilde sat on the grass at the side of the road with her back to him.
He walked over to her, feeling his legs turn weak from the shock, and sank down on the grass.
'Why?' he asked.
She turned a tear-stained face. 'She saw you ride off after de Belem and Janetta last night and heard Master Buckley telling the Sheriffs men that de Belem was the high priest. She thought she was safe. She said she was going to the Sheriffs house to tell him what she had seen so that she could be a witness for him. She was killed on her way there.'
Bartholomew rubbed a hand across his face and stared at the cart containing Sybilla's body. She had jumped to the same conclusions that he had done, but for her they had proved fatal. He suddenly felt sick, as the exertions of the previous night's activities caught up with him.
Matilde rested a hand on his arm. 'There was nothing you could do, Doctor. You were kind to her and I will never forget that.'
As he looked from Sybilla's body to Matilde's grieving face, Bartholomew's despair began to turn to anger. He stood slowly.
'Do you know which house belongs to Master Jonstan, the Proctor?' he asked softly.
Matilde stood with him. 'Yes. It is a two-storey house with a green door on Shoemaker Row. Why do you want to see him? He will not help you for our sakes. He was always calling us whores and bawds. Each morning, he would prop his bed-ridden mother near the window so that she could yell abuse at us as we walked past her house.'
'They did not like prostitutes?' asked Bartholomew.
He thought of when they had drunk ale with Jonstan at the Fair and he had told them his belief that the plague would return if people did not amend their sinful ways.
'Few people do,' said Matilde. 'At least not openly.
But Master Jonstan is perhaps one of our most hostile opponents.'
Bartholomew waited to hear no more. Leaving Matilde staring after him, startled, he raced across the road and made for Shoemaker Row. He ignored the shouts of Michael and Tulyet behind him and ran harder, almost falling as he collided with a cart carrying vegetables to the Fair. He leapt over the fence surrounding Holy Trinity Church and tore across the churchyard, bounding over tombstones and knocking over a pardoner selling his wares on the church steps. When he emerged in Shoemaker Row, he pulled up, shaking off the angry hands of the pardoner who had followed him.