A Wicked Deed (22 page)

‘But it was Job who was swallowed by a whale,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Precisely,’ said Norys. ‘But, to go back to your original question, it is not easy to come by relics of St Botolph. I have heard of none in these parts for many years. You might do better asking the monks at St Edmundsbury. The Benedictines there are not averse to raiding his hair and teeth on occasion. No offence, Brother.’

‘You have not heard of a few hairs of his beard being available in Grundisburgh recently, then?’ asked Michael casually.

Norys shook his head. ‘But I can ask in Ipswich for you today, although I do not hold out much hope. And, if I am successful, it will be expensive.’ Pointedly he eyed the wooden cross, which Michael prudently wore in the place of his silver one lest someone decided to kill him for it.

‘Try anyway,’ said Michael icily, offended that the pardoner should think he was impoverished. ‘We are staying at the Half Moon.’

‘Are you?’ asked Norys, surprised. ‘You would be better at the Dog. The food is nicer and the landlord is sane. A word of advice: keep your windows open at night, so you will be able to escape if Eltisley sets the place on fire with one of his experiments. It would not be the first time, and his patrons’ luck is bound to run out sooner or later – although I might have a charm I could sell that would protect you against that sort of mishap.’

Bartholomew turned away to hide his amusement, while Michael looked suitably outraged that a man of God should be offered the opportunity to buy such an unashamedly pagan object.

‘No, thank you,’ said the monk stiffly. ‘Were you at the festivities on the green recently?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Norys. ‘I would never miss the Pentecost Fair.’

‘I do not suppose you own such a thing as a long dark cloak, do you?’ asked Michael, while he shoved his piece of linen back in his scrip.

‘Of course I do, Brother. All pardoners wear long dark cloaks. It is part of our traditional costume, so that people recognise us for what we are.’

‘Unfortunately, most people do not,’ said Michael. ‘So, tell me, Master Norys, what it is about this Pentecost Fair that you enjoy, specifically. The food provided by Tuddenham? The drink? The people? Dressing in your finery? Sitting in the church when there is no one else there?’

Norys looked bemused. ‘I am not robust enough to join Tuddenham’s food fight, so I usually bring something from home. Most respectable villagers do, and only the rabble attempt to partake of Tuddenham’s provisions. I saw you try, though, Brother. Very admirable. Were you successful?’

‘Moderately,’ said Michael. ‘But what did you do at the Fair, other than eat your own food?’

‘I spent time with Mistress Freeman. Her husband died recently – he had his throat slit a week ago – and she needs company. In the evening, we took a walk around the churchyard.’

‘That is a curious place for a stroll,’ pounced Michael. ‘The church is scarcely a great distance from the Fair and it is an odd choice of location to inflict on a recent widow. What did you do: dance on Freeman’s grave?’

Norys’s face hardened. ‘What are you implying? That I killed the priest in the church? I can assure you, I had nothing to do with that vile crime. Anyway, because James Freeman was deemed a suicide by Wauncy, he was not buried in the churchyard – we walked nowhere near his grave.’

‘And what
do
you know about Unwin’s death?’ asked Michael with a predatory smile.

‘Really,’ hissed Michael. ‘In that case, Master Norys, perhaps you will be so kind as to tell me who committed so foul a crime against a man of God? If your village is so terrible at keeping secrets, then who killed Unwin?’

‘If I knew, I would tell you,’ said Norys, his eyes glittering with anger, ‘despite your offensive manner. The whole village was shocked by the murder, and we feel it as a personal loss – he was to have been our priest, you know. But I can tell you two things. First, I am sure you will find it was no common villager who killed the priest – you should look elsewhere for your culprit.’

‘I suppose you are thinking of Roland Deblunville?’ said Michael sarcastically. ‘Well, he is newly wed, and I am sure he had other things on his mind that night than killing priests.’

‘Then you do not know him,’ snapped Norys. ‘Ask him where he was when Unwin died. I wager you St Botolph’s teeth it was not in his wedding bed. And you might do well also to look to the other manors near here. Tuddenham may give you the impression he is on good terms with his neighbours, Bardolf and Grosnold, but they might well tell you a different story. Either one of them might dispatch the priest provided by his powerful new Oxford friends—’

‘Cambridge friends,’ interposed Michael. ‘We do not mention that other place.’

‘…just to prove to him that he is not untouchable. And the second thing I can tell you is that while I was in the graveyard I saw someone leave the church in a great hurry. Mistress Freeman and I thought nothing of it at the time, but with hindsight, I see it might have been the killer.’

‘We just saw him run, zigzagging through the graves and jumping over the wall behind the church, to the fields beyond.’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You keep saying “him”.’

Norys frowned. ‘I assumed the killer would be a man.

There is nothing to say it was not a woman, though: it could have been either. The only other thing I can remember is that he was wearing new leather shoes with silver buckles, and a leather belt with silver bosses.’

‘How can you remember a belt and shoes when you do not even know what sex the person was?’ demanded Michael, exasperated. ‘This is ridiculous! How can you expect us to believe all this?’

I do not care whether you do or not,’ said Norys coldly. ‘But before I became a pardoner, my uncle was training me to be a tanner, like him. I happen to know a great deal about leather, and I nearly always notice shoes and belts and suchlike. For example, I only had a glance, but I could tell you exactly what your saddles were like from when you first rode into Grundisburgh.’

‘This belt,’ said Bartholomew, feeling in his bag for the stud he had found after the body of the hanged man had disappeared from Bond’s Corner. ‘Were the silver decorations like this?’

‘I do not suppose you noticed whether this person was wearing a blue doublet sewn with silver thread, and whether he carried an ornate dagger, did you?’ asked Michael heavily, watching Bartholomew put the stud back inside his bag.

Norys shook his head. ‘Whoever it was wore a short cloak that hid his upper clothes – and before you ask, I saw the belt because the cloak caught on one of the trees, and I saw the studs sparkle in the sun as this person tried to free it.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I almost went to help, but he wrenched free when he saw me watching. It was just as well I did not offer to assist him, or I might have gone the same way as the priest.’

‘Yes, that was lucky,’ said Michael nastily. ‘So, it looks as if the person you saw could well have been the killer – running in such haste from the church that he became entangled on a branch. Very convenient!’

‘What are you insinuating?’ demanded Norys.

‘He means no offence …’ began Bartholomew.

‘Yes, I do,’ interrupted Michael. He pushed his face close to that of the pardoner. ‘I do not like men who prey on the weaknesses of others, and I find your occupation odious in the extreme. Someone killed my colleague and, as far as I am concerned, a man like you might well be the culprit.’

Norys’s eyes widened, but he did not flinch at Michael’s menacing hiss. ‘You have no evidence to connect me to that. I was with Mistress Freeman when Unwin was killed. Ask her!’

‘Oh?’ asked Michael smoothly. ‘And when was Unwin killed precisely?’

‘Just after the feast,’ replied Norys. ‘The whole village knows that, so do not think my knowing it proves anything.’

‘We most certainly do,’ said Michael, finally allowing Bartholomew to pull him away from his confrontation.

‘I was with Mistress Freeman all afternoon,’ Norys repeated firmly. ‘Just ask her.’

‘Oh, we will,’ said Michael threateningly.

‘Come on,’ said Bartholomew, dragging the monk out of the garden past the tanner, who watched in confusion. ‘That is enough, Brother!’

‘We will be back to see you again, Master Pardoner,’ Michael yelled as Bartholomew opened the gate. ‘Besides being a trusted ally of the Bishop of Ely, I am an agent of the Bishop of Norwich in whose see you live, so do not even think of angering him by absconding to Ipswich.’

‘You are not an agent of the Bishop of Norwich,’ said Bartholomew under his breath. He shot the monk an uncertain look. ‘Are you?’

‘So, just watch your step!’ Michael howled as Bartholomew bundled him out of the gate. The physician shoved the monk away with both hands, then glanced back at the pardoner, concerned that Michael’s outburst might have given an innocent man cause to complain to Tuddenham. He did not want Michaelhouse’s grand deputation sent back to Cambridge in disgrace because Michael was unable to keep his temper under control while in the presence of pardoners. It was not the first time Bartholomew had been forced to rescue one of them from the monk’s irrational fury.

‘Thank you,’ he shouted politely to Norys. ‘You have been very helpful.’

‘We must consider this debate tonight,’ said Father William the following morning as he, Michael and Bartholomew sat in the Half Moon. ‘We must put on our best performance.’

Bartholomew sighed heavily, reluctant to indulge Tuddenham in his whim when he knew the villagers would not be in the slightest bit interested in listening to an academic debate of the kind held daily in the Universities. Alcote had been keen to take part, but Tuddenham had taken very seriously Michael’s suggestion that this might delay the completion of the advowson, and the fussy scholar was virtually a prisoner in Wergen Hall, only allowed out when it was so late that everyone else had gone to bed.

Wauncy had returned from Ipswich the day before with copies of the documents Alcote had said he needed, but it had not taken Bartholomew long to sort through them and see that they were mostly irrelevant. Alcote did not seem overly surprised, leaving Bartholomew to wonder whether he had dispatched Wauncy to Ipswich and suggested that Bartholomew and Michael investigate Unwin’s death purely so that he could work on the advowson alone. If that were true, then Bartholomew suspected Alcote’s motives had nothing to do with finding Unwin’s killer, and a good deal to do with what he could gain personally from rummaging unsupervised through Tuddenham’s business transactions.

‘Right then,’ said Michael rubbing his hands enthusiastically and beaming at Bartholomew and William. ‘I shall preside over the debate, and you two can present the opposing arguments. The question we shall consider will be “Let us enquire whether the Earth rotates”.’

Bartholomew groaned. ‘Not again! We have debated that at least six times this year already. What about something more interesting, such as whether the cosmos is created of concentric spheres as Aristotle suggests in his
Physica
and
De Caelo
, or eccentric and epicyclic ones such as are described in Ptolemy’s
Almagest?

Michael and William exchanged weary looks. ‘This is supposed to be an entertaining and edifying experience for all concerned, Matt, not something to be endured,’ said Michael. ‘Hearing you tie everyone else up in logical knots over issues of geometry that the rest of us never knew existed is not most people’s idea of fun.’

‘And especially not mine,’ growled William. ‘We should use this occasion to enlighten the audience, and should therefore consider a religious question. What about “Let us enquire whether God created the heavens or the Earth first”?’

‘How about “Let us enquire whether God is able to create more than one world”?’ asked Bartholomew innocently, knowing it would send the Franciscan into a frenzy of moral outrage. He was not mistaken.

‘That is a heretical notion, Matthew! Article 35 of the Condemnation of 1277 sought to eradicate discussion of such vile notions as the limitations of God’s power.’