A Bone Of Contention Part 27

'You ordered more oleander from Jonas the Poisoner before your stars became so sadly aligned,' said Gray helpfully-'It came yesterday while you were out. I could not lock it in the storeroom because you were out with the key, so I put it on the shelf in your chamber so it would not be lying around too obviously. But it was powerful stuff, this oleander - much more so than the stuff you usually use. It seems to me that this friar died more quickly than he would have done had he been killed with your normal-strength powder.'

At his words, Bartholomew's stomach started to churn with a sudden, vile realisation. He sat down abruptly and looked up at Michael with horrified eyes. 'The Tyler family!' he said in a whisper. 'They are related to Jonas's wife!'

'So? Are you saying that the Tyler women are trying to poison you?' asked Michael, astounded.

They may have sent me some kind of oleander concentrate, instead of the diluted powder I usually order from Jonas. It would be easy enough to do, given that they would look the same.'

Michael thought for a moment and then sighed, raising his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. 'It is possible, I suppose. They are involved in all this business somehow, through Joanna. Maybe they felt you were coming too close to the truth about her and wanted you out of the way.'

'But I take great care with powerful medicines,' said Bartholomew, thinking uncomfortably of how Eleanor had tried to dissuade him from looking any further into Joanna's death. 'I am unlikely to be poisoned by them." 'Perhaps they did not want to kill you at all,' said Gray.

He stiffened suddenly as a thought occurred to him. 'Not me, either! I swear to you that I did not lay a finger on her! Well, perhaps a little kiss, but she was willing enough for that.'

'What is this?' asked Michael, bewildered.

'Sam escorted Eleanor home after the Founder's Feast,' said Bartholomew. 'Are you sure you did nothing to anger her? Or her mother?'

'Nothing!' cried Gray. 'Honestly! I thought she had set her sights on you but you had put her off somehow during the Feast. I was singing your praises and she told me, rather sharply, to keep them to myself. That's when I decided to make a move. Well, just a kiss. Perhaps they i wanted you to dispatch one of your patients for them.

That would make sense.'

'But I only use oleander for treating leprosy,' objected Bartholomew. 'And all the lepers I attend are poor, pathetic creatures who have long since ceased to deal with affairs outside their own community.'

'Why should the Tylers know what you use oleander for?' said Michael. 'None of them are physicians or even apothecaries.'

Bartholomew spread his hands. 'We may be wronging them terribly,' he said. He thought back to the events of the previous night. 'Did Edred say anything to you after he was stricken?' he asked, recalling Michael kneeling next to the friar as Bartholomew attended to Cynric, before Michael realised that Edred's sudden collapse was more serious than a jar breaking in his face.

Michael rubbed his cheeks with his hands. 'Nothing,' he said softly. 'Not so much as a whisper.'

Gray stood to pour him a cup of watered wine from the supply on the window ledge. As he flopped back on the bed again, he winced as he sat on something hard. He pulled it from underneath him and shot Bartholomew a guilty glance.

'Master Radbeche's Galen,' said Bartholomew, recognising the rough leather binding. 'I must return that today.'

'I saw it yesterday afternoon when I put the package from Jonas in your room,' said Gray, defensively. 'I thought I might borrow it since you were out. I brought it here to read last night, but I fell asleep,' he finished lamely.

'You should ask before you take things,' said Bartholomew mildly, pleased that Gray was prepared to undertake voluntary reading, but concerned that he should borrow David's Hostel's precious tome without permission.

'It is an interesting text,' said Gray, detecting that Bartholomew's admonition held an underlying note of approval and keen to turn it to his advantage. 'Although I must say that the last chapter was the most interesting of all. And not by Galen,' he said with a laugh.

'How do you know it is not by Galen?' asked Bartholomew.

Although Gray was a quick student, he rarely used his intellectual talents to the full and was far too lazy to instigate a debate that would mean some hard thinking. 'Are you so familiar with his style and knowledge of medicine that you are able to detect mere imitation from the master himself?'

'Oh, no! ' said Gray hastily, knowing that he would never be able to take on Bartholomew in a debate about the authenticity of Galen. 'But the last chapter is not about medicine at all. Have you not read it? It is a collection of local stories - like a history of the town.'

Michael made a sound of irritation at this irrelevance and drained the wine from his cup. 'So what? Parchment is expensive and scribes often use spare pages at the end of books to record something else so as to avoid waste. If you are surprised by that, Sam Gray, then you are revealing that you have read far fewer books than you should have done at this point in your academic career.'

'I was not surprised by it,' said Gray hotly. 'I was just pointing out to you that the last chapter was considerably more interesting than boring old Galen.'

He scrambled to his feet and brought the book over to Bartholomew. 'Your marker is here,' he said, indicating a point about three-quarters of the way through, where Bartholomew had reached. 'And the interesting chapter is here.'

He opened the book to the last few pages. The text was in the same undisciplined scrawl that characterised the rest of the book, complete with spelling errors, crossings out and ink blots. Gray was right about the content: there was nothing medical about the subject of the last chapter and parts were ill.u.s.trated with thumb-sized sketches. The drawings were good, and Bartholomew suspected that the anonymous scribe derived a good deal more pleasure from his ill.u.s.trations than his writing.

'See?' said Gray. 'Here is a bit about how William the Conqueror came in 1068 and ordered that twenty-seven houses should be demolished so that the Castle could be built. And here is a description of the fire that almost destroyed St Mary's Church. My uncle remembers that very wel1-'

'Does he?' asked Bartholomew, startled. The fire in St Mary's, he knew, had been in 1290, and Gray's uncle was certainly no more than forty years old.

'Oh, yes,' said Gray. 'He often tells the story about how he dashed through the flames to save the golden candlesticks that stood on the altar.'

'So, it runs in the family,' muttered Michael, also aware of the date of the fire. 'That explains a lot.'

'What do you mean?' demanded Gray. 'My uncle is a very brave man.'

'What else is in this history?' asked Bartholomew quickly, before tempers could fray. While Michael's sharp, sardonic wit might best Gray in an immediate argument, Michael would then be considered fair game for all manner of Gray's practical jokes, not all of them pleasant or amusing.

'There is a bit about the hero Hereward the Wake, who fought against William the Conqueror in the Fens,' continued Gray, giving Michael an evil look. 'And a paragraph about Simon d'Ambrey who was shot in the King's Ditch twenty-five years ago and whose hand is in Valence Marie. The whole thing ends with a tale about some Chancellor called Richard de Badew who funded Clare College before the Countess came along and endowed it with lots of money in the 1330s.'

Intrigued, now that the University and not the town was the subject of the text, Michael came to sit next to them, peering at the book as it lay open on Bartholomew's lap.

'The rest of the book is undoubtedly Galen,' said Bartholomew, flicking through it. 'I have read it before, although this is by far the worst copy I have ever seen.'

'It was the book!' exclaimed Gray suddenly, grabbing Bartholomew's arm. 'The attack in the street, your room searched. It was the book they wanted!'

'Whatever for?' asked Bartholomew, unconvinced. 'It is a poor copy of Galen at best and certainly not worth killing for.'

'Not for the Galen. For the bit at the end,' insisted Gray, eyes glittering with enthusiasm. 'Perhaps it contains information about the town that no one knows.'

'Perhaps Hereward the Wake is alive and well and wants to read it,' said Michael, laughing. 'Or maybe this long-dead Chancellor, de Badew.'

'It was no apparition that brained me in the High Street,' said Bartholomew firmly. That was Will, Huw, Saul Potter and BiG.o.d. And it was Edred who searched my room.'

He leaned back against the wall and began to study the book with renewed interest. Were the local stories significant, or was the copyist merely using up leftover paper at the end of his book, as Michael suggested?

The leather covers of the tome were thick and crude, and inside, an attempt had been made to improve their appearance by pasting coloured parchment over them.

Bartholomew ran his fingers down them and then looked closer. He was wrong - the parchment had not been placed there to make the inside cover look neater, but to hide something. He picked at it, uncertain. Michael watched silently. Both were scholars with a love of learning and of the books that contained it. Damaging one of these precious items was an act alien to both of them.

Gray took it from him, and with a decisive movement of his hand, ripped the parchment away. Bartholomew and Michael, as one, winced at the sound of tearing, but looked with interest at what spilled out into Gray's hands.

While Gray performed a similar operation with the front cover, Bartholomew and Michael read the doc.u.ments that had fallen from the back.

Bartholomew felt sick. 'These are copies of letters sent by Norbert to me after he fled to Dover,' he said in a low voice. 'They date from a few weeks after he left, to the last message I had about fifteen years ago and are signed with the name of his sister, Celinia.'

'Who is Norbert?' asked Gray, intrigued.

Bartholomew sighed. 'He was accused of burning the t.i.the barn at Trumpington when we were children. I helped him escape.'

'And this,' said Michael, waving another doc.u.ment in the air, 'is a list of times and dates suggesting meetings, along with names and addresses. They include Mistress Tyler, Thomas BiG.o.d, Will of Valence Marie, Cecily Lydgate, and the G.o.dwinsson servants Saul Potter and Huw, to name but a few. You were right, Matt. It was BiG.o.d, Will, Potter and Huw who attacked us - for these parchments.'

'Do you think they are involved in starting the riots, then?' asked Gray, his eyes alight with excitement.

Bartholomew turned the letters over in his hands. 'That seems something of a leap in logic, but does not mean that you are wrong. The only thing finding these doc.u.ments has made clear to me is that Norbert may have returned to the area. Why else would his letters be here?'

Mistress Tyler's house was silent and still. Tulyet's sergeant kicked at the door until it gave way and forced his way in, shouldering aside the splintered wood to stand in the small chamber on the ground floor. Bartholomew peered in. The room was bare except for a heavy chest, a table and some shelves. Tulyet pushed past him and began to climb the ladder that led to the upper chamber where the women had slept. He shook his head in disgust as he descended.

'Gone,' he called. 'And swept so clean that a spider could not hide.'

'This will confound your plans for the Festival of St Michael and All Angels on Sunday,' remarked Michael to Bartholomew leeringly. 'Whom will you ask to escort you now Hedwise Tyler has fled? I doubt you will get away with Matilde a second time. You might be reduced to taking Agatha given that you are so intent on being surrounded by women!'

Bartholomew pretended to ignore him, wondering how such things could occur to the fat monk when the situation was so grave.

'Why clean a house you are abandoning for ever?' he mused, looking around him.

'I will never understand women,' agreed Tulyet. 'What a waste of time!'

'Perhaps not,' said Bartholomew, frowning. Watched by the others, he began a careful examination of the room.

Finally, he stopped and pointed to some faint brownish s stains on one of the walls. When he moved some cracked] bowls and pots that had been left, there was a larger stain on the wooden floor.

'Cooking accident?' asked Michael, nonplussed.

'Hardly, Brother,' said Bartholomew. 'Only people who do not mind their houses going up in flames cook so close to the walls. This stain is blood. It splattered on the wall and then pooled on the floor.'

'Whose blood?' asked Tulyet, staring at it. 'ThisJoanna's?'

'Probably,' said Bartholomew, thinking again of Mistress Tyler leading him away from her house the night of the riot. 'There is enough of it to suggest that a serious, if not fatal, wound was inflicted and there was simply too much blood to be cleaned away.'

Michael puffed out his cheeks, and prodded halfheartedly at the stone jars and bowls that had been left. Bartholomew leaned against the door frame and thought. He had been hoping that there had been some mistake, and that they would discover the Tylers' part in the affair was coincidental, or innocent. But how could he hold to that belief now? They had fled the town, taking everything that was moveable with them. He wondered if Eleanor had been given the idea by Father William while at the Feast, since he had regaled her with stories of how he had run away laden with monastic treasures.

Hope flared within him suddenly. Perhaps they had been taken by force; abducted and taken away against their will. The hope faded as quickly as it had come. What abductor would take the furniture with him and sweep the upstairs chamber before making away with his prizes? Not only that, but Bartholomew very much doubted that the Tyler women could be abducted anywhere they did not want to go.

Michael bent to one of the bowls and Bartholomew saw him run his finger around its rim. He held it up lightly coated with a gritty, white powder and raised the finger to his lips to sniff at it. With a bound, Bartholomew leapt at him, knocking Tulyet sideways before slapping Michael's hand away from his face and wiping the powder from his finger with his s.h.i.+rtsleeve.

Michael looked puzzled. 'How will we know what this is unless we smell it?' he said. 'I have watched Jonas the Poisoner smell and taste his medicines often enough.'

'Then Jonas is a fool,' snapped Bartholomew. 'If, as you believe, that powder is the same kind that killed Edred, it is in a highly concentrated form.'

'But you told me last night that the poison might have worked more quickly on Edred because it entered a wound or because he inhaled it in. A small amount on my hand will not harm me.'

'It might,' said Bartholomew. 'Can you feel your finger now?'

Michael rubbed his finger cautiously. 'It is numb. I cannot feel it,' he added with a slight rise in pitch, and his eyes widening with horror.

Bartholomew pursed his lips. 'Go and rinse it off,' he said. 'The feeling will return eventually.'

Tulyet crouched next to the bowl, poking at it with his dagger. 'Is it the same concentrated powder that killed the friar in your room?' he asked, glancing at Bartholomew as Michael hurried from the house in search of water.

'It would seem so,' said Bartholomew. 'Even a small amount has taken the feeling from Michael's fingertip.'

Tulyet stood. 'I will send men after Mistress Tyler and her devious daughters to see what she has to say for herself.' He looked down at the bowls again. 'Although, all we can prove is that she had the same powerful poison in her house that Jonas sent to you.'

'I will go to see if Jonas knows where she might have gone,' said Bartholomew. If he has any ideas I will send you a message.'

Wringing and flexing his afflicted finger, Michael followed Bartholomew to the apothecary's shop, while Tulyet went to organise men to search for the Tyler family, although they all knew that they would be long gone.

Jonas's shop was empty of customers, and the apothecary was mixing potions on a wide shelf that ran along one side of the room. He was humming to himself, his bald head glistening with tiny beads of sweat as he applied himself to pounding something into a paste with considerable vigour. His two apprentices were hanging bunches of herbs to dry in the rafters of an adjoining room.

'You sent me a powerful poison, Jonas,' said Bartholomew without preamble, watching the apothecary jump at the nearness of the voice behind him. Colour drained from Jonas's usually pink-cheeked face. He cast a nervous glance at his apprentices and closed the door so that they should not hear.

'Please, Doctor,' he said. 'That matter was finished with a long time ago and I paid dearly for my mistake. Do not jest with me about poisons!'

'I am not jesting about the events of years ago,' said Bartholomew. 'I am talking about the events of yesterday.

You sent me oleander so concentrated that Brother Michael's finger is numb from touching a few grains of it.'

Michael held up his finger, an even more unhealthy white than the rest of him. Jonas's eyes almost popped from their sockets. Cautiously, like a bird accepting a much desired crumb, Jonas inched forward to examine Michael's finger. He put out a tentative hand and touched the pallid, puckered skin.

As though he had been burned, he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back again.

'Oleander without a doubt,' he said. 'But why were you touching it?'

'That was caused by the same oleander you sent to me for the physic I use for leprosy,' said Bartholomew.

Jonas backed up against the wall, as though faced with a physical threat. 'Not me, Matthew,' he said. 'You know I am careful with such poisons. Have I ever made a mistake in the measurements and doses I send to you? Everything) that leaves this shop, even down to the mildest salve, is checked. First by me, then by my apprentices and then i by my wife.'

'But nevertheless, this powerful oleander was sent to me,' said Bartholomew persistently. 'Yesterday afternoon.'

Jonas's confusion increased. He pointed to a package on one of the wall shelves. 'There is your order of oleander, Matthew. It is ready but, as I said, all potions leaving my shop are checked. Your order has not yet been checked by my wife, which is why it is waiting. '

Now it was Bartholomew's turn to be confused. 'But you sent my order yesterday.'

Jonas bristled. 'I did no such thing. You can look in my record book if you doubt me.'

Bartholomew exchanged a puzzled look with Michael.

'Were Eleanor or Hedwise Tyler here yesterday?' he asked.

Jonas smiled suddenly. 'Both were here. Eleanor has been most helpful these last few weeks. The outbreak of] summer ague has meant that we have been busier than usual and she has been a valuable a.s.sistant. She helped A to prepare some of the orders yesterday, and even offered to deliver them, so that my apprentices would not have to leave their work.'

The smile slowly faded and he swallowed hard. 'Oh no!' he said, backing away from them. 'You are not going to tell me that Eleanor sent the poison?'

'Does she have access to your poisons?' asked Bartholomew.

'Not access as such,' said Jonas, his small hands fluttering like birds about the front of his ap.r.o.n in his agitation. 'But she was interested in my work and I showed her what was where.'

'I a.s.sume you store your oleander in its concentrated form and sell it diluted for medicines?' asked Bartholomew.

It was standard practice among apothecaries and there was nothing untoward in it. Jonas nodded. 'Did Eleanor know this?'