An Unholy Alliance (35 page)

“I am just leaving, Master Tulyet,’ Bartholomew

replied politely, not wishing to become embroiled in an argument that might prompt Tulyet to arrest him.

Then leave!’ Tulyet shouted. ‘And do not return here without my permission.’

Bartholomew studied him. Tulyet was younger than Bartholomew, but looked ten years older at that momen t.

His face was sallow and there were dark smears under his eyes. His eyes held a wild look that made Bartholomew wonder whether the man was losing his faculties. Was he the murderer, knowing he would have to commit another crime because he had been so ordered at the ceremony at All Saints’? As a physician, Bartholomew could see signs that the man was losing his sanity and reason.

Without a word, Bartholomew left, Cynric following, When they were out of the Castle, Cynric heaved a sigh of relief.

“I have heard around town that he is losing his mind.

They say it is because he cannot catch Froissart. I thought he might order us locked up for some spurious reason.

He has arrested several others and accused them of being Froissart.’

Bartholomew reflected for a moment. Perhaps they should tell Tulyet that Froissart was dead after all, to save innocent people from being arrested. But then, Bartholomew reasoned, what good would that do? And if Tulyet were the real killer, Bartholomew might be signing his own death warrant by telling him that Froissart was dead.

Engrossed in his thoughts, he jumped when Cynric seized his arm in excitement. He looked around. They were near All Saints’ Church, which stood half-hidden by the tangle of bushes and low trees that were un tended around it.

‘Someone is in the church!’ exclaimed Cynric,

Before Bartholomew could stop him, Cynric had

disappeared into the swathe of green. Bartholomew followed cautiously, making his way to the broken door and peering round it. Cynric was right. A person was there, bending to inspect the dark patches on the floor - a figure in a scholar’s tabard like his own. Bartholomew looked around quickly. The man appeared to be alone, so he slipped through the door and made his way towards him, ducking from pillar to pillar up the aisle.

Was this the high priest, visiting the church to make certain he had left nothing, even after his careful removal of his accoutrements before he departed? He stopped as he trod on a piece of wood that had fallen from the roof, and a sharp crack echoed around the derelict church.

The man looked up, startled at the loud noise.

‘Hesselwell!’ Bartholomew exclaimed.

On hearing his name, Hesselwell turned and fled, without waiting to see who had spoken. Bartholomew raced after him, throwing caution to the wind. Hesselwell reached the altar and stumbled as he reached the steps.

Behind the altar was a large window and Hesselwell grabbed the sill with both hands to haul himself through.

Bartholomew lunged at him as he was about to drop down the other side, and pulled as hard as he could.

Both fell backwards, Hesselwell kicking and struggling like a madman.

Bartholomew gripped the flailing wrists and leaned down with all his weight. Pinned to the floor, Hesselwell was helpless.

‘You!’ he said to Bartholomew, his eyes wide with terror. “It was you!’

Bartholomew was taken aback. Hesselwell began to struggle again, his face white with terror, but stopped when he saw Cynric come to stand over them, and sagged in resignation.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Bartholomew. ‘What was me?’

“I should have guessed!’

‘Guessed what?’ Bartholomew was becoming exasperated.

He released Hesselwell and watched as Cynric

pulled the terrified scholar to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his arm. Hesselwell stood with his shoulders bowed and his tabard covered in dirt and flakes of rotten wood from the floor.

‘What were you doing here?’ asked Bartholomew,

brushing off his own tabard. ‘What were you looking for?’

Hesselwell tried to pull himself together, his eyes flicking over Bartholomew as though assessing whether he was armed. “I wanted to know if the blood was real,’

Hesselwell said. ‘Or if it was dye.’

‘You are a member of the Guild of the Coming?’ asked Bartholomew, Hesselwell’s actions suddenly making sense to him.

Hesselwell looked at him askance. ‘You know I am,’

he said.

‘Why would I know?’ asked Bartholomew, confused

again. His flash of illumination was to be short-lived, it seemed.

‘Because you are the high priest!’ Hesselwell said, taking a deep breath and meeting Bartholomew’s eyes.

“It makes sense to me now. You are always out at night; you dabble with poisons and potions; and your students say you are a heretic. You are the high priest,’ he repeated.

‘You gave me this,’ he said, holding up a small glass phial.

‘And even then I did not guess.’

Speechless, Bartholomew tore his gaze away from

Hesselwell to look at the phial. It was, without question, one of the ones he used to dispense medicines, and it even had a small scrap of parchment wrapped around it with instructions for its use in his handwriting. Trying to bring his whirling thoughts into order, he reached out for the bottle.

Hesselwell misunderstood Bartholomew’s expression of bewilderment for one of indecision, and the hand with the phial whipped behind his back. “I could be of help to you,’ he said slyly. ‘No one else need know of this. After all, I have served you well, why should I not continue?’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Bartholomew, his skin beginning to crawl. If Hesselwell thought he was the high priest, did others too? Hesselwell leaned towards him and lowered his voice.

“I was successful in my warning of Brother Michael,’

he said.

Bartholomew circled the altar to try to give himself time to bring his thoughts into order. So Hesselwell had put the goat’s head on Michael’s bed: it had been a Michaelhouse scholar all along. It explained how the intruder had known which room Michael slept in, and how he had known when the monk had returned from Ely. Michael was usually a light sleeper, but his long ride had probably tired him, which was why he had not woken when Hesselwell had entered his room.

He continued to edge around the altar as he tried to recall Hesselwell’s reaction to Walter’s poisoning. He had been standing with Father Aidan, and Bartholomew distinctly remembered their shocked faces. Unless he was possessed of an outstanding talent for deception, Hesselwell had been as horrified by Walter’s brush with death as had the other Fellows.

‘You almost killed the porter,’ said Bartholomew carefully, watching him.

That was not my fault,’ said Hesselwell, his eyes desperate in his pale face. ‘You left me the bottle of wine with instructions to give it to Walter without drawing suspicion to myself. You did not tell me it contained a virulent poison, only that it would make Walter sleep.’

“I am no high priest,’ Bartholomew said to Hesselwell wearily. ‘Your reasoning is flawed, Master Hesselwell. I am out at night usually because I am seeing patients; I dabble with poisons and potions because I am a physician and they are the tools of my trade; and some of my students think I am a heretic because they do not understand what I teach them. Not only that, but I know Walter sleeps on duty, and would have had no need to send him into a drugged slumber.’

Hesselwell gazed at him, nonplussed. ‘Well, what are you then? Are you from the Guild of Purification?’

Bartholomew shook his head and Hesselwell sagged in Gynric’s grip.

‘What are you going to do? Who will you tell?’ His eyes were pleading.

“I will tell the Master about your unholy alliance, and it will be up to him to decide what to do,’ said Bartholomew.

‘They will kill me!’ cried Hesselwell. ‘Please! You do not know their strength!’ He looked so frightened that Bartholomew almost felt sorry for him. ‘Will you tell him after sunset?’ Hesselwell pleaded, wringing his hands together. Bartholomew squinted at the sky.

Sunset was perhaps two hours away. “It will give me a chance to collect my belongings, and hire a fast horse.’

He looked desperately from Bartholomew to Cynric.

Bartholomew recalled the scholar’s fright when he had first been apprehended in the church, and judged that he probably had very real grounds for his fear.

Bartholomew nodded after a moment’s thought. ‘But you must tell me all you know.’

Hesselwell looked wretched. ‘They will kill me if I do.’

‘They will kill you if I tell,’ said Bartholomew. The choice is yours.’

Hesselwell glanced around him with furtive movements of his eyes. ‘All right then,’ he conceded wearily.

‘But you will give me until sunset?’

Bartholomew nodded.

‘How do I know I can trust you?’ asked Hesselwell.

‘You do not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But you are not in a position to bargain.’

Hesselwell thought again, and then started to speak.

“I joined the Guild of the Coming when I first arrived in Cambridge. I was in a similar organisation in London because it brought me business - members of guilds tend to use the services of other members. I made enquiries, and was invited to join the Guild of the Coming.’

So that explained the lawyer’s rich clothes, thought Bartholomew, when everyone else’s gowns were either cheap, torn, old, or all three.

Hesselwell continued. ‘All was well at first. There were occasional ceremonies and midnight meetings. Then, a month ago, our high priest disappeared, and another came to take his place. Things changed. There were more ceremonies, and they became frightening.’

‘What can you tell me about this new high priest?’

Hesselwell shrugged. ‘He, or one of his assistants, instructed me to perform certain duties for him, but I never saw his face. On one occasion, the smaller of his assistants told me to rub some mixture on the back gate of Michaelhouse so that it would burn. Another time, the high priest himself ordered me to keep watch for him while he went into our College the night after the de Belem girl died.’

He hit his head suddenly with an open palm. ‘Of

course you could not be the high priest. It was you he fought in the orchard, and who almost unmasked him!

He told us not to intervene, no matter what happened, but when I saw he was about to be unmasked, I shot one of the fire arrows at the gate to allow him to escape. If he were unmasked, I felt certain he would betray me, and so it was imperative I helped him, regardless of his order.’

‘Who was the other?’ asked Cynric. ‘The Devil?’

Hesselwell shrugged again. “I have never seen him or any of the high priest’s assistants - without a mask, and I do not know who any of them are, or where they come from.’

‘What else?’ asked Bartholomew as Hesselwell lapsed into silence.

‘I almost killed Walter, and it was me who left the goat’s head on Michael’s bed.’

‘Why did he ask you to do that?’ asked Cynric.

‘I do not know. He merely gave orders, and I followed without question. He terrifies me. And I do not know what he had in mind with the back gate either, and that black sticky solution. I wish to God I had not become embroiled in all this evil!’

‘What else did you do?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Just two things,’ said Hesselwell. ‘He wanted me to prowl the streets at night to look for the whore killer.

I thought the high priest was the killer because he predicted their deaths: I can only assume he was taking precautions to protect himself, so that he could say he was not the killer by virtue of the fact that he sent members of the coven to look for the real murderer.’

‘And the second thing?’ asked Bartholomew, recalling vividly how Hesselwell had almost fallen asleep in the church. He was not surprised Hesselwell was sleepy, if he were teaching all day, and out in the streets at night.

‘With one of his assistants, I hid in the roof of the church and helped throw birds and bats down at the congregation. I had begun to be suspicious of some of the devices, and I think he decided to take me into his trust. He would know that once I was involved, I could never tell, for this makes me as guilty of the crimes as he is. And if I became a risk, he would simply kill me.’

‘But why do you go along with all this if you know it is a hoax?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Because I am afraid,’ said Hesselwell. ‘One member did question him, and was found a week later in the King’s Ditch with his throat cut. And I believe the covens are not the ends in all this, but the means. They are aiming towards something bigger and more terrifying than I can imagine.’

Bartholomew was inclined to believe he was right, and that the elaborate hoax of the covens was simply a front for something infinitely more sinister. Some aspects of the affair had been made clearer by Hesselwell’s information, and others less so. Bartholomew understood now what had happened on the night that Walter was poisoned: Hesselwell had merely been following orders, and had not known why the bottle was to be given to Walter.

Bartholomew’s reasoning that the poisoning had been carried out by an outsider was, in effect, true, since it had come from the high priest.

Hesselwell glanced up at the sun nervously.

‘One last question,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Why did the high priest give you that phial of medicine?’

‘I was nervous about opening the gate to him after Frances de Belem’s death. I knew there were Proctors and beadles prowling. I was so nervous that he gave me the phial and said it would calm me and allow me to carry out his instructions. I was to give it back to him the same night, but in all the excitement, I forgot to give it, and he forgot to ask.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘And he was right to have given it to me, because I would not have had the presence of mind to shoot the fire arrow without its calming effects.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Bartholomew.

Hesselwell nodded. ‘He asked about College gossip, but that is all. May I go?’ Bartholomew nodded, and Hesselwell looked so relieved he reeled slightly.

‘One more thing,’ he said as he followed them out of the church. Bartholomew looked at him. ‘When I first came, I heard there were two guilds which were covens. No matter how hard I tried, I have never been able to find out about the Guild of Purification. People told me rumours about it - how it was powerful, and a rival to the Guild of the Coming - but I have never met a member of it, and to be honest, I am uncertain that it exists at all.’