Tangmer took a deep breath to pull himself together. ‘First, Verious the ditcher came to clear a blocked drain, after which the miller delivered flour. Then there were your two new knights, Sheriff, who arrived with tax invoices for me to sign.’
‘Do not forget the nuns,’ said Delacroix tightly. ‘Twenty from Lyminster, plus the one who was deposed for whoring – Sister Alice.’
‘I hardly think nuns poison children and burn the bodies,’ said Michael coolly. ‘Especially ones from my Order.’
Delacroix regarded him with open hatred. ‘You would not say that if you had been in France two years ago. The Benedictines were as rabid as anyone in their desire for vengeance against those who baulked at paying crippling taxes to greedy landowners.’
‘Do the nuns know your “lunatics” are Jacques, Tangmer?’ asked Tulyet before Michael could respond.
‘No, because we have taken care to keep them in the dark,’ replied Amphelisa. ‘Although it has not been easy. Fortunately, they spend most of their day at the conloquium, and only come here to sleep.’
‘The soporific fed to Hélène must have been uncommonly strong,’ mused Bartholomew, examining the child. ‘She did not finish her milk, but she is still drowsy. Do you keep such compounds here?’
Amphelisa regarded him warily, knowing what was coming next. ‘This is a hospital for people with serious diseases. Of course we have powerful medicines to hand.’
‘How easy is it to steal them?’
‘They are stored in the balcony, which you have already seen is secure. I keep the only key on a string around my neck.’
‘Then can you tell if anything is missing?’ asked Michael.
‘I could try, although it would entail examining every pot in every crate, and there are dozens of them. It would take a long time.’
‘Do not bother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The culprit may not have taken a whole jar, just helped himself to what he needed, then disguised the fact by topping it up with water. I doubt you will find answers that way.’
He glanced at Michael and Tulyet, glad it was not his responsibility to solve the crime. He did not envy them their task one bit.
It was a grim procession that trudged from the chapel to the remains of the shed. Tangmer was sobbing brokenly, although it was impossible to know whether his distress was for the victims or because their deaths reflected badly on the place he had founded. Amphelisa walked at his side with the sleeping Hélène, her face like stone. Tiny Goda and massive Eudo followed, hand in hand, with the peregrini in a tight cluster behind them. Bartholomew, Michael and Tulyet brought up the rear, but hung well back, so they could talk without being overheard.
‘I think the Girards were killed by a fellow peregrinus,’ whispered Tulyet. ‘None are strangers to bloodshed and some are Jacques – violent revolutionaries.’
But Bartholomew was uncertain. ‘They are alone in the middle of a hostile country. I should think they know better than to fight among themselves.’
‘There were thirty of them – now twenty-five – which makes for a sizeable party,’ argued Tulyet. ‘Differences of opinion will be inevitable. Moreover, living in constant fear of exposure will test even the mildest of tempers, as all will know that the wrong decision may cost the lives of their loved ones. I would certainly kill to protect my wife and son.’
‘Would you?’ asked Bartholomew, rather startled by the confidence.
Tulyet reflected. ‘Well, to protect my wife. Dickon can look after himself these days.’ He smiled fondly. ‘He is in Huntingdon at the moment, delivering dispatches for me. Did I tell you that he is going to France soon? Lady Hereford wrote to say that her knights “can teach him no more”. Those were her exact words.’
He swelled with pride, although Bartholomew struggled not to smirk. Lady Hereford had offered to help Dickon make something of himself, but the little hellion had defeated even that redoubtable personage, because Bartholomew was sure her carefully chosen phrase did not mean that Dickon had learned all there was to know. The lad was a lost cause, and Bartholomew was always astonished that Tulyet, usually so shrewd, was blind when it came to his horrible son.
‘The strain on these people must be intolerable,’ said Michael, prudently changing the subject. ‘Delacroix is on a knife-edge, and it would take very little for him to snap.’
‘Yet this does not feel like a crime where someone has snapped,’ mused Bartholomew. ‘It was carefully planned, almost certainly by someone who knew the Girards’ liking for a flammable building.’
‘I agree,’ said Tulyet. ‘We should also remember that four people were stabbed and none fought back, which suggests the culprit knew how to disable multiple victims at once. Delacroix and his cronies were active in the violence that was the Jacquerie …’
‘They certainly top my list of suspects,’ said Michael. ‘But here we are at the shed, so we shall discuss it later. We do not want them to know what we are thinking quite yet.’
The shed was barely recognisable. It had collapsed in on itself, and comprised nothing but a heap of blackened timber and charred thatch. Amphelisa pointed out the spot where the bodies had been found.
‘There were stacks of wood between them and the door,’ she explained. ‘So the only way Goda could have seen them was if she had gone to the very back of the building and peered behind the pile. That is beyond what could reasonably be expected of her.’
‘The place was thick with smoke,’ added Goda. ‘It was hard to see anything at all.’
Tulyet, Michael and Bartholomew were meticulous, but there was nothing to explain why anyone should have stabbed four people and left them with their sleeping children to burn. Tulyet was thoughtful.
‘This reminds me of the first Winchelsea raid,’ he said, ‘where other families were shut inside a burning building and left to die. It was in a church, and became known as the St Giles’ Massacre.’
‘But those victims were not stabbed and poisoned first,’ Michael pointed out. ‘At least here, no one was burned alive.’
‘Hélène’s mother was,’ countered Bartholomew soberly.
Feeling they had done all they could at the Spital, they turned to leave, but as Bartholomew picked his way off the rubble, a charred timber cracked under his foot. He stumbled to one knee, and it was then that he saw something they had missed.
‘Here is the weapon that killed the Girards,’ he said. ‘The blade is distinctive, because it is abnormally wide and thick. Shall we test it against the wounds, to be certain?’
‘We believe you,’ said Michael hastily, keen to be spared the ordeal.
Bartholomew hesitated. ‘There is something else, although I cannot be sure …’
‘Just tell us,’ ordered Tulyet impatiently.
‘Bonet the spicer,’ said Bartholomew. ‘His wounds were unusually wide, too.’
‘You think this weapon killed him as well?’ asked Tulyet sceptically.
‘The only way to be sure is to measure his injury against the blade,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘I can do that, if you like.’
‘Bonet was buried today, and we are not digging him up,’ said Tulyet firmly. ‘But what about the scholar who was stabbed – Paris? Could this blade have killed him as well?’
‘No,’ replied Michael, before Bartholomew could speak, ‘because I have that in St Mary the Great. I shall show it to you tomorrow.’
Tulyet turned the dagger over in his hands. ‘This is an unusual piece – I have never seen anything quite like it. However, I can tell you that it would have been costly to buy. The hilt is studded with semi-precious stones and the blade is tempered steel.’