‘Stone dead and lying on her face. It must be because Joan argued with me in a holy place.’
‘Lies!’ howled Marion, launching herself at him. Bartholomew stepped between them, catching her flailing hands before she could do herself or her target any harm. ‘He killed her! He slipped up behind her and brained her with the broken bit of St Thomas’s flagstone!’
‘What?’ breathed William, shocked. ‘He did what?’
‘I never did!’ cried Botilbrig. ‘I was out here with you. If Joan has been brained, and Oxforde is not responsible, then St Thomas must have done it.’
‘That is blasphemy!’ shouted William, incensed. ‘And while I saw Joan toss you out, I was not watching you the whole time afterwards. You could easily have slipped back inside again without me noticing.’
Botilbrig turned white. ‘I did not kill Joan! I admit that I did not like her, but I do not want her dead.’
‘Yes, you do,’ wept Marion. ‘You have hated her ever since she refused to marry you years ago. You are a spiteful, wicked villain who–’
Bartholomew did not wait to hear more. He strode inside the chapel, Michael, Clippesby and William at his heels. Joan was lying near the altar, the remaining bedeswomen in a sobbing cluster around her, and it did not take him a moment to see that someone had indeed battered out her brains with the broken fragment of stone from the altar.
‘Is she really dead?’ whispered William, crossing himself.
Bartholomew nodded.
‘Then we had better pray for her soul,’ said Michael softly.
Chapter 2
Everyone was eager to see the body of a woman who had been killed by one of St Thomas’s relics, and pilgrims, bedesmen and passers-by had flowed into the chapel on the scholars’ heels. There was a collective sigh of disappointment when Bartholomew covered Joan with his cloak, followed by much resentful muttering. Michael sent the fittest-looking bedesman to fetch someone in authority from the abbey, but the fellow kept stopping to share the news with people he knew, and it was clear that it would be some time before help arrived.
‘What happened to her, Matt?’ Michael asked in a low voice. ‘Was she murdered?’
As well as being a physician and teacher of medicine, Bartholomew was the University’s Corpse Examiner, the man who gave an official cause of death for any scholar who died. As violence was distressingly frequent in a community that included a lot of feisty young men, he had gained considerable experience in identifying murder victims. However, while Cambridge was used to his grisly work, Peterborough was not, and conducting the necessary examination on Joan was unlikely to be well received. He said so.
‘There is nothing to see here,’ Michael announced, hoping to get rid of the crowd so the physician could work unobserved. ‘You can all go home.’
‘You have no authority to make us leave,’ declared a burly fellow in fine clothes and expensive jewellery. There were several well-armed henchmen at his back. ‘I am Ralph Aurifabro, goldsmith of this town, and I decide where I go and when.’
‘I also determine my own movements,’ added a man with broken teeth and a straggly beard whose clothes were of good quality but food-stained and rumpled. There was an unhealthy redness in his face that made Bartholomew suspect his humours were awry. ‘I am Reginald the cutler, and it is not every day that St Thomas kills sinners with his relics, so I demand to see his handiwork.’
Reginald had tried to imitate the goldsmith’s haughty arrogance, but his slovenly mien worked against him, along with the fact that he did not possess the required gravitas. Bartholomew had heard the cutler mentioned before, but it took a moment to remember where: Botilbrig had described him as the ‘foul villain’ who had a shop under the chapel.
‘You will not demand anything, Reginald.’ A powerful voice made everyone look around. It was another bedeswoman, smaller than Joan, but her bristly chin and fierce eyes indicated that she would be just as redoubtable. ‘None of you will. So go away.’
‘That is Hagar Balfowre,’ murmured Botilbrig to the scholars. ‘Joan’s henchwoman. Not that Joan needed one very often, being an old dragon in her own right.’
‘I most certainly shall not,’ Reginald was declaring angrily. ‘Not until I–’
‘Do as you are told,’ snapped Hagar. She turned to the goldsmith. ‘Put your louts to some use, Aurifabro, and get rid of these oglers. It is not seemly for them to be here.’
Neither Aurifabro nor his men moved to comply, but the threat of forcible eviction by them was enough to cause a concerted surge towards the door. The bedeswomen lingered, careful to stay in the shadows, while Botilbrig took refuge behind a pillar. Aurifabro watched them go, then turned back to the scholars.
‘I suppose you are the Bishop’s Commissioners, come to investigate what happened to that greedy scoundrel Robert. Well, I had nothing to do with his disappearance, and if you claim otherwise, you will be sorry. I am not afraid of corrupt Benedictines.’
Michael inclined his head, unperturbed by the man’s hostility. ‘Your remarks are noted. However, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. I am not easily misled, and I always uncover the truth.’
‘Good,’ said Aurifabro, although his eyes were wary and Bartholomew wished Michael had held his tongue. If something untoward had befallen the Abbot, the culprit would not appreciate a Commissioner who promised to expose him. And the boast would be common knowledge by the end of the day in a small place like Peterborough.
‘The Bishop told me that Robert was visiting a goldsmith when he disappeared,’ Michael went on, all polite affability. ‘Am I to assume it was you?’
Aurifabro’s expression became closed and sullen. ‘Yes, but he never arrived. And I have better things to do than be interrogated by monks. Good day to you.’
He spun on his heel and stalked out. Only when he and his henchmen had gone did Botilbrig and the bedeswomen emerge from their hiding places.
‘Now that Joan is dead, I am head of St Thomas’s Hospital,’ Hagar announced to the other ladies. ‘Because I am next in seniority. You may call me Sister Hagar. Or better yet, Prioress Hagar.’ She grinned. ‘Yes! I like the sound of that.’
Bartholomew exchanged a glance with Michael; both wondered whether she liked the sound of it well enough to dispatch her predecessor.
‘You might wait until Joan is cold before stepping into her shoes,’ said Botilbrig, his voice full of distaste. ‘I had no love for her, but what you are doing is not right.’
‘Of course it is right,’ snapped Hagar. ‘Would you have our hospital without a leader? But of course you would! It would make us weak, and St Leonard’s could take advantage of it. You and your cronies would do anything to see us–’
‘Enough,’ ordered Michael sharply. ‘Tell me about the fellow who just left.’
‘Aurifabro?’ asked Botilbrig, pointedly turning away from Hagar. ‘He is the richest man in Peterborough, and the mortal enemy of Spalling and Abbot Robert – who are enemies themselves, of course. However, no one in the town likes Aurifabro.’
Hagar nodded, although it was clear she disliked having to agree with him. ‘He is loathed for his surly manners – almost as much as that villainous Reginald. I cannot imagine why Abbot Robert deigned to spend time with him. Or with Sir John Lullington, for that matter, because he is not very nice, either. In fact, the only decent friend Robert had was Master Pyk.’
Bartholomew frowned at the contradiction in their diatribes. ‘But if Aurifabro is Robert’s “mortal enemy”, why was Robert visiting him?’