‘For Hélène.’ Bartholomew spoke absently, because he was removing the arrowhead from Foxlee’s leg, and it was perilously close to an artery. ‘To help her sleep.’
Amphelisa shot him a startled look. ‘Hélène will have camomile and honey. I am not in the habit of dosing small children with henbane and mandrake.’
Bartholomew glanced up at her. ‘Then why did Eudo and Goda tell me–’
‘I cannot control what they say when I am not there to correct them,’ she interrupted shortly. ‘Goda is a fey soul who probably misheard, while Eudo is slow in the wits.’
‘He is not too stupid to convince the town’s favourite witch that he was Satan.’
Amphelisa scowled. ‘That was your fault! Until then, we had kept the curious away by jigging bits of gauze around on twine. But did you run away screaming? Oh, no! You had to poke about in the bushes for evidence of trickery. We had to devise another ruse, and claiming that Satan had moved in was the best we could manage in a hurry.’
‘What will you do now that Margery is telling everyone the truth? Ask for your money back? I understand that “Satan” paid a handsome fee to ensure her cooperation.’
‘It no longer matters, because the peregrini have gone,’ said Amphelisa. ‘Someone started a rumour about French spies, so they decided to leave at once.’
‘All of them? Delacroix was ill the last I heard.’
‘I gave him nettle root to stop his bowels, and he was first through the gate.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘Then I started a tale of my own – that our patients went to London for specialist treatment. London is south, but the peregrini went north, so if anyone gives chase …’
‘So the Spital no longer has “inmates”?’
‘None, and anyone may come to check our hall. Indeed, I hope they do. Then they will see it is a good place, and will give us some real lunatics to look after.’
‘And you need fee-paying patients,’ said Bartholomew, dropping the arrowhead into a basin, and pressing a clean cloth to the wound.
‘How do you …’ She trailed off, then shook her head in disgust. ‘Mallett! I thought I saw him sneaking about with one of the nuns, and he is your pupil. He told you!’
Bartholomew glanced to where Mallett was arguing with two tailors over payment for services rendered. He had no doubt that the student would win. He turned back to his own patient. Foxlee barely flinched as he began to sew, which was testament to Amphelisa’s skill – she had administered enough medicine to blunt the pain, but not enough to send their patient into too deep a sleep.
‘If Eudo and your husband were pretending to be denizens of Hell when the Girards were murdered, we can cross them off our list of suspects,’ said Bartholomew, his eyes on his stitching. ‘While the rest of the staff have alibis in each other …’
‘But I was alone,’ finished Amphelisa, guessing exactly where he was heading. ‘I am not your culprit, though. I was the one who offered them sanctuary.’
Tulyet had said the same, Bartholomew recalled, and had claimed that she would not have taken such loving care of Hélène if she had murdered the girl’s family. He said nothing, and Amphelisa grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her.
‘Henry and I founded the Spital – a place of comfort and healing – because we wanted to do some good, as well as to make amends for the wrongs of the past. Do you really think we would undo all that by committing murder?’
It was a good point, but hardly the time to discuss it. Bartholomew left her to bandage Foxlee’s leg and moved to his next patient, who had suffered a serious gash across the chest. After that there were more wounds to clean and sew shut, so many that he began to wonder if anyone had escaped the mêlée unscathed. He finished eventually and slumped on a bench, flexing shoulders that were cramped from bending. By then, all his helpmeets had gone except two of his senior students.
‘Go home now,’ he told them tiredly. ‘You did well tonight.’
‘No, you go home sir,’ said Mallett, whose purse looked a lot fuller than it had been before the skirmish. ‘It will be light in a couple of hours, at which point you will have to examine this lot again. So snatch a bit of sleep, while Islaye and I mind things here.’
‘Everyone is resting peacefully now anyway,’ put in Islaye, who had wept every time a patient had died, and had been unable to look at some of the wounds Bartholomew had been obliged to repair. ‘Except Norbert, who is in too much pain.’
‘Serves him right,’ muttered Mallett, who had not uttered a word of comfort to anyone. ‘He called me a Frenchman yesterday.’
Bartholomew was too exhausted to point out that such an ‘insult’ hardly warranted being fatally stabbed through the bowels. He went to tend Norbert himself, thinking that neither student was suitable company for a man on the verge of death. The knight opened pain-filled eyes as Bartholomew knelt next to his pallet.
‘Give me medicine to ease the agony,’ he whispered. ‘And stay with me awhile.’
Bartholomew set about preparing a potion so strong that Norbert would be unlikely to wake once he had swallowed it. It would not kill him – the wound would – but Norbert would sleep until he breathed his last. He cradled the dark, greasy head in his arm, and helped him drink until every drop was gone. Norbert lay back, his face sheened in sweat.
‘And now I shall confess my crimes.’
‘Not to me,’ said Bartholomew, beginning to rise. ‘You need a priest.’
Norbert gripped his arm. ‘I said crimes, not sins. The Franciscans have already given me absolution, so I do not fear for my soul. But I want to tell you what happened tonight, because it was me who called the order to ready bows. However, I did not call the order to shoot.’
Bartholomew reflected on what he could remember of the sequence of events. ‘Yes – the voice of whoever shouted the first order was different from whoever bellowed the second. But both came from the town’s side of the butts.’
‘It was someone behind me. I looked around, but it was too dark to see, and there were so many people … It was some fool mouthing off without considering the consequences.’
‘Even fools know that if you shoot at people you might hit them.’
Norbert winced. ‘I wanted to give those arrogant King’s Hall bastards a fright by making them think they were about to be shot. I never meant for it to actually happen.’
‘Close your eyes,’ said Bartholomew, not sure what to think. ‘Sleep is not far off now.’
‘I have not finished. You should also be aware that the Spital’s secret is out. By morning, everyone will know the place is full of Frenchmen. A nun told me last Monday.’
Bartholomew frowned. ‘Which nun?’
‘She spoke through a half-closed door, so I never saw her face. She said it was an abomination that French scum were hiding in our town, and she wanted me to kill them.’
Bartholomew struggled to understand the implications of what he was being told. ‘If this nun spoke to you on Monday, it means that you knew there were Frenchmen in the Spital when the fire broke out on Wednesday.’
‘Yes, I did. Leger and I were pleased that some were roasted, but we did not do it. I swear on my immortal soul that neither of us went anywhere near the Spital that morning.’
‘Why did you not tell Dick all this?’
‘Because Leger wants to be Sheriff, so it is in our interests to see Tulyet’s investigation fail. But now my end is near … well, his ambitions are less important than my conscience.’