‘I did not anticipate Dodenho stumbling on him quite so soon,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I had plenty of time to bury him, and planned to let folk assume he had been killed by robbers on the Oxford road. I wash my clothes regularly at the end of the garden, and I have never seen Dodenho using that shed before, despite what I said to you later. It was a shock when he came screeching about his discovery.’
‘You forged letters from Hamecotes, claiming he had gone to Oxford,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He had been there for books before, so no one was surprised when he did it again. But I should have seen something sinister in that explanation long ago – especially after Duraunt told me that Merton never parts with its books.’
‘There was no need for you to hide Hamecotes from Tulyet,’ said Michael, trying to help Bartholomew occupy her with questions and observations. ‘We had already established a link between Gonerby and a Cambridge murder: Okehamptone’s. But you did not know that when you dragged a rotting corpse from here to King’s Hall; if you had, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble. So, why did you pick our poor town? Do you intend to set it alight with riots, and ensure our University’s suppression?’
‘Of course not,’ cried Joan, appalled. ‘It is not in my interests to see a school flounder, and I do not care whether the Archbishop builds his new College here or in Oxford. I know you think there is a plot to deprive both universities of his beneficence, but you are mistaken. The disturbances on St Scholastica’s Day had nothing to do with Islip and his money.’
Michael nodded. ‘I imagine you started those because you wanted to kill Gonerby, and a riot provided the perfect diversion.’
‘His business was located near the Swindlestock Tavern, and a little civil disorder was a good way to disguise his murder,’ acknowledged Joan. Her brother made an impatient sound; he was becoming restless and wanted to be away.
‘How did you do it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Pay Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde to start a fight?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘No, it was the Benedictine! Spryngheuse did not imagine him after all. He was you – another of your disguises. It makes sense now. You needed a screen to conceal Gonerby’s murder, and you knew Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde could be goaded into violence.’
‘I did not anticipate it would flare up quite so hotly,’ said Joan. ‘The town was like a tinderbox, and the affray was quickly out of control. I did not intend sixty scholars to die, but it is done and there is no going back. Chesterfelde was no problem, because he was a sanguine sort of man who pushed the whole matter from his mind, but Spryngheuse became obsessed by his Black Monk.’
‘So, you decided to hound him to suicide,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘Your brother helped you appear at times when the others would not see you, and you literally haunted him to death.’ He turned to Wormynghalle. ‘And the day he died, it was you who suggested Spryngheuse went for a walk in these gardens, knowing Joan would be waiting for him.’
‘He took little convincing to hang himself,’ said Joan, as if it did not matter. ‘I am good with logic and I told him he had no choice.’
Wormynghalle looked uneasy, and Bartholomew recalled his curious behaviour during the requiem mass, when Eu had declared the spluttering candle to be a portent of doom. Wormynghalle, like many men, was superstitious. Bartholomew wondered whether he could use the tanner’s fears to his advantage.
‘Spryngheuse was an insignificant worm,’ called Polmorva, doing his part to prolong the discussion when Bartholomew and Michael fell silent. ‘Even Duraunt tired of him when he became too big a drain on his poppy juice. It is easy to procure enough for one man’s needs, but not two. Eh, Duraunt?’
The elderly scholar’s eyes remained closed, but his prayers became more fervent. Bartholomew was disappointed in his old teacher – for his lies as much as his dependence on soporifics.
‘Eudo helped, albeit unintentionally, by killing Chesterfelde,’ said Joan. ‘And then, when Spryngheuse learned that a man was attacked while wearing his cloak, it was the last straw. Justice was served with his death – his and Chesterfelde’s – because it was their fault that the chaos escalated. I only wanted Gonerby dead.’
‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did he discover you were a woman when you were at Merton?’
‘You are missing a vital piece of information,’ called Polmorva. His eyes showed fear, although his voice was steady. ‘The Wormynghalles marry well when they can – as Eu said, they are ambitious.’
Bartholomew gazed at Joan, recalling the name of the murdered merchant’s wife. ‘You are Joan Gonerby? But it was she who insisted the burgesses came to catch her husband’s killer. Why would you do that, if you were the one who dispatched him in the first place?’
‘To rid me of a man who blocked my election as Mayor, and who damaged my business,’ replied the tanner. ‘And because he interfered with her ambition to study, by threatening to expose her.’
‘I see,’ muttered Abergavenny, still keeping Duraunt between him and the bows. ‘Gonerby refused to buy your skins to make his parchment, did he?’
‘I understand why you accused Matt of Gonerby’s murder,’ said Michael to Wormynghalle. ‘You were trying to confuse me with wild charges and irrational statements of dislike. It was you who said Gonerby was killed with a sword, rather than teeth, too. And you, alone of the merchants, did not want me to look for Gonerby’s killer – you were afraid I might find her.’
‘As he lay wounded, Gonerby heard Joan advising someone – probably her brother – that she was going to Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he passed the information to the men who found him dying. Wormynghalle’s presence was no coincidence, of course: he was there to prevent Gonerby from saying anything incriminating. But why involve Eu and Abergavenny in this hunt?’
‘To lure them to a distant town where they, too, would die,’ said Wormynghalle, pleased with himself. ‘Like Gonerby, they were going to vote against my election as Mayor, and their removal will see me win.’ He raised his bow, and Bartholomew saw he was impatient to use it.
‘So, you killed Gonerby to rid yourself of a tiresome husband and an annoying business rival,’ gabbled Michael. ‘Hamecotes was murdered because he discovered you were a woman, and Spryngheuse because he was unstable. But what about Okehamptone?’
Bartholomew scratched around for the few facts he knew about the scribe’s death. Duraunt’s prayers had petered out, and Polmorva seemed to have abandoned his delaying tactics. Abergavenny was exhausted from keeping himself and Duraunt above water, while Michael was trying not to reveal the depth of his own terror. Bartholomew saw he was on his own in keeping Joan and her brother occupied until he could conceive of a way to best them. He hoped something would occur to him soon, because he sensed he would not keep them gloating over their successes for much longer.
‘It was you who claimed Okehamptone’s fever came from bad water on the journey from Oxford,’ he said to Wormynghalle. ‘It was also your liripipe that hid the fatal wound. You said he had borrowed it, and that you did not want it back – not because it had adorned a corpse, but because it continued to conceal the gash in his throat.’
Wormynghalle addressed his sister. ‘I told you strangling was a better way to kill. They would never have deduced all this if you had used a more conventional method of execution.’
Joan shrugged.
‘It was you who refused to let Rougham see his friend, too,’ Bartholomew continued. ‘He said the door was answered by someone with fine clothes and a haughty manner, and we assumed it was Polmorva. But that description applies equally to you.’
‘I turned no one away,’ said Polmorva, sounding surprised.
‘Everyone drank heavily the night Okehamptone died,’ continued Bartholomew, wishing Michael would help, because he could not talk and devise an escape at the same time. ‘Of wine you bought.’