The news that the man Bess had longed to find might be dead cast an even darker shadow of gloom over Stanmore and his guests, and they were all grateful when Langelee declared that his scholars had an early start and suggested they all return to Michaelhouse.
Bartholomew slept poorly until the early hours, when he was summoned to tend a patient near the Castle. He did not finish the consultation until dawn, when he walked slowly along the High Street towards Michaelhouse. He met Paxtone, who guessed from his weary and dishevelled appearance that he had been up for a good part of the night, and invited him to breakfast in King’s Hall. For the second time in less than twelve hours, Bartholomew ate a large and sumptuous meal.
Paxtone was full of ideas and questions about the text by Lanfrank of Milan he had been reading, which Bartholomew would normally have relished. But he was tired and worried about what Paxtone might have done, and could not summon the energy to debate with him. Paxtone sensed his lack of enthusiasm but put it down to fatigue. He insisted on prescribing a tonic, and nagged until Bartholomew agreed to accompany him to Lavenham the apothecary to collect it. Bartholomew had no intention of swallowing anything from Paxtone or Lavenham, and determined to throw the cure in the river as soon as neither was looking.
They walked through the handsome grounds of King’s Hall, and up King’s Childer Lane to Milne Street. The black-robed prophets of doom were out, railing at anyone who might have petitioned the Hand of Justice and warning them that it would take more than relics to save them from eternal damnation. Suttone was among them, informing Deschalers’s ex-apprentices that laziness and sloth were deadly sins and that they needed to find gainful employment before the Devil seized their idle souls. Cheney and Mayor Morice agreed, pointing out that there were no dried peas to be had now the apprentices had stopped working. The apprentices retorted bitterly that it was not their fault, and that Edward Mortimer was responsible for the problem.
The two physicians edged around the small crowd that had gathered to listen to the altercation, and had not gone much farther when they saw a second knot of people standing around someone who lay on the ground. Bartholomew saw Sheriff Tulyet among the onlookers, as well as Matilde. Quenhyth and Redmeadow stood shoulder to shoulder, while Bernarde and the Lavenhams watched from a distance, where they would not be obliged to rub elbows with peasants.
When Matilde saw Bartholomew she rushed forward to grab his arm. ‘Come quickly, Matt! Bess has swooned, and none of us can bring her round. Your students tried to help, but they are too inexperienced to know what to do.’
Bartholomew knelt next to the huddled shape, and saw there was a very good reason why Bess was not responding to the appeals made by well-meaning passers-by. She was dead. Her face had a peaceful look, as though she had finally been relieved of a great burden. It seemed Bess’s search was finally over, and in her pale, thin hands, she clasped what had once been a hat.
‘The last time I saw this poor lass,’ said Paxtone, leaning over Bess’s crumpled form with a sad expression, ‘was when Bernarde the miller led her off to some dark corner. Late last night, when I was returning home after matins and lauds.’
Everyone turned to look at Bernarde, who blushed and began to deny the charge in an angry voice, waving his keys as if they were a weapon. Isobel giggled in the kind of way that suggested she knew better, and Bernarde’s outrage convinced no one. Lavenham glanced from one to the other looking baffled, while Tulyet simply shook his head in disgust at them all.
‘I showed her the hat, as Master Kenyngham suggested,’ the Sheriff said to Bartholomew. ‘The man in the snow bank was her man – I could see the recognition in her eyes when she took the cap. She wandered off alone, but I did not know learning the truth would make her ill.’
‘There is nothing I can do,’ said Bartholomew. He gestured towards the doom-mongers, among whom Suttone was still visible. ‘Will you fetch Suttone, Redmeadow? She needs a priest.’
‘A priest?’ echoed Matilde, appalled. ‘But she was talking to me not long ago.’
‘About what?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘The death of her man?’
‘No, she asked whether I had seen him recently,’ said Matilde. She gave Tulyet a weak smile. ‘I suspect she had already forgotten what you told her about the body in the snowdrift.’
‘How did she seem?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘Unwell,’ admitted Matilde. ‘But you know how odd she is, and I did not think anything of it. She said she was hot and that her mind was spinning – but I think it span most of the time. And she was short of breath, as if she had been running.’
‘Someone should carry her to a church,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Does she have any of her gold left, or perhaps something from Bernarde? Or will the town bury her?’
‘I did not pay her,’ snapped Bernarde angrily. He reddened again when he realised it sounded as though he had used her and declined to settle the debt. ‘Well, I gave her a penny, but it was only because I felt sorry for her.’
‘Well, she does not have a penny now,’ said Tulyet, deftly searching the woman’s rags. ‘An informant told me Rob Thorpe offered her information about her man a few days ago, but said it would cost. The poor woman handed over her coins, only to receive a lot of lies in return. I imagine the penny went the same way this morning. She was incapable of learning from her mistakes and would do anything for news of her lover, no matter how unreliable the source.’
‘I might have known it was Thorpe,’ said Matilde bitterly. ‘How can you let him get away with this?’
‘Because my informant is too frightened to give evidence against him publicly,’ replied Tulyet. ‘And now Bess is dead we have no case – no complainant.’
‘Then the law is wrong!’ declared Matilde coldly. ‘If it cannot protect the weak and the gullible from such low tricks, then there is something seriously amiss with it. You must do something.’
‘My hands are tied. If I charge him with cheating a woman who is now dead – and who could never have brought her case in person, anyway – Thorpe will tell the King that we are harassing him. We cannot afford to pay more royal fines. We are struggling to pay this compensation as it is.’
‘Your laws have nothing to do with justice,’ said Matilde, tears of outrage sparkling in her eyes. ‘They protect criminals, but leave the innocent to fend for themselves. It is a wicked system!’
Bartholomew agreed, but the street was not the right place for a debate with the Sheriff on the King’s Peace. Tulyet tried to apply the law fairly, and it was not his fault that Westminster clerks did not do likewise.
‘The loss of her gold makes no difference to Bess now,’ he said. ‘She is finally at peace.’
‘With her man,’ said Tulyet softly. ‘Although she never did tell me his name.’
Once the excitement was over, and the swooning woman had become just another corpse, people began to wander towards the plague prophets, who were engaged in a strident argument with Father William about the Devil’s role in the Death. Bernarde was among the first to slink away, unwilling to admit to what had transpired between him and Bess the previous night. The Lavenhams were next, heading for the Market Square. Bartholomew saw Rougham skirt around the edge of the crowd, his eyes darting here and there in an attempt to see what was happening without becoming involved. Tulyet left to fetch stretcher-bearers, and asked Bartholomew to wait with Bess until he returned, while Matilde went to see why Redmeadow was taking so long to bring Suttone. Eventually, Bartholomew and Paxtone were alone. Paxtone began to cover the dead woman with her cloak, but stopped when something fell out of it. It was a phial.
Bartholomew picked it up, noting it was like the one that had contained Warde’s Water of Snails and the one he had found at the King’s Mill. He studied it carefully, but Lavenham probably had dozens of identical containers for potions that were powerful or that were required in small amounts. Its similarity to the others meant nothing. He removed the stopper and squinted down the neck to assess its contents. Inside, the mixture was a murky red-white, and looked uncannily like the substance that had killed Bird.