‘I cannot imagine why he did that,’ said Bartholomew, unsettled.
‘I can,’ said Rougham. ‘You alone of the Cambridge physicians read the kinds of books where such information might be found. You know more about poisons than the rest of us put together.’
‘Take me home, Rougham,’ said Bottisham, when he saw Bartholomew draw breath to take issue. ‘Bateman’s death has distressed me, and I need to lie down.’
Rougham began fussing around his colleague, making loud, confident proclamations about the remedies he prescribed for shocks, while Bottisham turned to Bartholomew and winked. Bartholomew smiled, grateful that he had been spared from wasting more time with a man of narrow vision like Rougham. He was about to leave the church when he saw himself summoned by a peremptory flick of Michael’s fat, white hand. He disliked the way Michael brandished his plump digits and expected people to come scurrying, so he ignored him. He did not get far, however. As he passed the place where the monk conferred with Langelee and Tynkell, a powerful hand shot out and grabbed him. He tried to free himself from Langelee’s vicelike grip, but it was impossible without an undignified struggle. The Master of Michaelhouse was a very strong man.
‘We are talking about Thorpe and Mortimer,’ said Michael, ignoring Bartholomew’s irritation at being manhandled. ‘Chancellor Tynkell made some enquiries in Westminster, regarding why they were pardoned. The official reason is that there was some question about the legality of the evidence that convicted them. That is why they have been declared free men again.’
‘But they both confessed to what they did – murder and theft!’ exclaimed Langelee, outraged. ‘I heard them myself. And Wynewyk, who is an excellent lawyer, said there was no legitimate argument for overturning their convictions.’
‘Apparently, the Mortimers wanted to clear the family name, so decided to appeal against the verdict,’ explained Tynkell. ‘The law-clerks contacted the Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, and asked for more details. Unfortunately, the Sheriff at the time was not Tulyet.’
‘It was Morice,’ snarled Langelee, railing at the combination of circumstances that had led to an injustice. ‘That corrupt vagabond was Sheriff for a brief period last year.’
‘It seems the Mortimers paid Morice to sign a letter urging the clerks to clemency,’ Tynkell went on. ‘Then the clerks cooked up their excuse about the evidence being inadmissible. Rumour has it that gold changed hands there, too. So, the upshot is that Thorpe and Mortimer were able to buy a King’s Pardon. I thought they would stay away – that a sense of shame would prevent them from showing their faces here – but I was wrong.’
‘They may kill again,’ warned Langelee, as if he imagined the others needed to be told.
‘They will not find it easy,’ said Michael. ‘My beadles and Dick Tulyet’s soldiers will be watching their every move. But we will not be able to do so for long.’
‘Why not?’ asked Langelee. ‘Because you need your peace-keepers for other duties?’
‘Because the Mortimers have threatened to sue if we harass their Edward,’ explained Tynkell. ‘We cannot afford to pay huge sums in compensation because his liberty is being curtailed.’
Bartholomew gazed at him. ‘His liberty? What about the liberty of the people who are dead because of him and Thorpe? This is not justice!’
‘No, but it is the law,’ said Tynkell flatly. ‘None of us want that pair in our town, but they have the King’s Pardon, and there is nothing we can do about it.’
‘But this is preposterous!’ exclaimed Langelee furiously. ‘They are criminals!’
Tynkell sighed. ‘You are not listening, Master Langelee. The law is not about who is the criminal and who is the aggrieved. It is about enforcing a set of rules. And those rules have just put Thorpe and Mortimer in the right.’
Bartholomew started to walk home, Tynkell’s words echoing in his mind. He could not believe that self-confessed killers were not only free to wander where they liked, but were enjoying protection by the very laws that should have condemned them. He was grateful his sister and brother-in-law were away, and hoped Mortimer and Thorpe would have tired of their sport and left before they returned.
He had not travelled far when he saw the town’s wealthiest merchant, Thomas Deschalers, riding along the High Street on an expensive-looking horse. Despite his fine, jewel-sewn clothes, the grocer looked ill, and Bartholomew’s professional instincts told him there was something seriously amiss with his health. Oddly, the madwoman who had discovered Bosel’s corpse was trailing behind him. Bartholomew studied her, noting her flat, dead eyes, and wondered what she and Deschalers planned to do together. They were odd bedfellows, to say the least.
Deschalers reeled suddenly, and something slipped from his hand to the ground. He righted himself, then gazed at the thing that had fallen, as though asking himself whether retrieving it was worth the effort. Since the woman did not attempt to help, Bartholomew went to pick it up for him. It was a leather purse, heavy with coins and embossed with the emblem that represented Deschalers’s wares: a pot with the letter D emblazoned across it. This distinctive motif was also engraved in the lintel above the door to his house, and it often appeared on the goods he sold.
‘Thank you,’ said Deschalers, taking the purse gratefully. ‘I would have had to dismount to get that, and I do not know whether I have the strength.’
‘You could have asked her,’ said Bartholomew, indicating the woman, whose dirty hand rested on the grocer’s splendid saddle. She regarded him blankly, and he realised that his earlier sense that he knew her had been wrong. There was something familiar about her face and the colour of her hair, but the familiarity was simply because she reminded him of someone else. However, the woman who looked similar hovered just outside his memory.
‘She is slow in the wits,’ said Deschalers. ‘It would have been just as much trouble to make her understand what I wanted as to collect it myself. I do not have the will for either.’
‘You are unwell?’ asked Bartholomew, since Deschalers seemed to expect such an enquiry.
‘Very,’ said Deschalers. ‘Rougham says I will recover my former vigour, but I know that whatever is rotting inside will soon kill me. I do not think any physician in England can help me now, not even one who flies in the face of convention to affect his cures. But thank you for the offer, anyway.’
‘You are welcome,’ said Bartholomew, who would never have done any such thing. First, he seldom saw eye to eye with the laconic, aloof grocer and suspected Deschalers would be a difficult patient, arguing over every scrap of treatment and advice. Second, Rougham would not appreciate the poaching of his wealthiest patient. And third, Bartholomew knew Deschalers’s self-diagnosis had been correct: he already walked hand in hand with death, and no physician could snatch him back.
Deschalers rode on with the woman in tow, and Bartholomew watched him acknowledge Rougham and Bottisham with a weary wave as he passed. Rougham called something about a new tincture of lavender that he claimed would make the grocer a new man, but Deschalers shot him a bleak look that made him falter into silence. Sickness made Bartholomew think of Isnard, who had been stricken with a mild fever earlier that morning. He recalled his concern, and started to stride towards the Mill Pond.
‘Slow down, Matt!’ came a breathless voice from behind him. He turned to see Paxtone, the Master of Medicine from King’s Hall, hurrying after him. ‘I have been chasing you all along the High Street, shouting your name, and you have ignored me completely.’
Bartholomew smiled. He liked Paxtone, who was merry faced with twinkling grey eyes and rosy cheeks, like russet apples in the autumn. He was a large man, although not as big as Michael, and usually moved slowly when he walked, as if his weight was too much for the joints in his knees and he needed to proceed with care lest they collapse. But he had a sharp mind and was willing to listen to some of Bartholomew’s more exotic medical theories, even if he did not usually agree with them.