Mystery in the Minster (36 page)

‘And Fournays, who is leaving you his house?’ asked Michael sceptically. ‘Is
he
a debtor or a thief?’

‘He is someone who has bribed us to ignore the fact that his goats constantly escape into our grounds and do a lot of damage,’ explained Penterel. ‘And his ploy has worked, because all we do now is return them with a smile. Not to mention the obits we shall say for him when he is dead.’

He knelt to pray, and Michael and his friars joined him. When they had finished, Michael and Bartholomew left them to their grief and walked outside. There they saw the water had risen a little higher.

‘Well?’ asked Michael. ‘Were there clues to tell you who killed Harold?’

‘Yes,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘A Carmelite.’

Michael gaped at him in surprise. ‘How do you know?’

Bartholomew showed him what he had pulled from
Harold’s fingernails. ‘Because these are threads from a Carmelite habit. He was knifed by someone he knew.’

‘Wy?’ asked Michael. ‘His friend?’

‘Not if he is prostrate with grief. However, he and Harold were Penterel’s particular favourites – they accompanied him everywhere. Perhaps the others decided it was time for a change.’

‘Lord!’ breathed Michael. ‘I hope we are not charged to investigate this matter, too, or we will never reach Cambridge before the beginning of term.’

Bartholomew and Michael arrived at the minster to find it more hectic than ever. It stank, too, despite the incense that smouldered at strategic intervals. The reason was the ever-increasing number of refugees – most had waded through filthy water to reach the city, and some had brought animals. Stockades had been built outside, but the goats, pigs, chickens, and even occasional cow, represented all some folk had managed to salvage, so they were understandably reluctant to be parted from them. In the interests of compassion, Thoresby had capitulated, and the great church rang with bleats, lows, grunts and clucks.

‘There is Alice,’ said Michael, pointing. ‘Lord! She looks different!’

Bartholomew stared in surprise: the Prioress was wearing the garb of her Order, and there was not a scrap of jewellery in sight. Her hair was swept decorously under her wimple, and her habit was plain and unadorned. The only sign of her former self was that she had chosen to pray at the Altar of Mary Magdalene, the one favoured by prostitutes.

‘It is time to make amends,’ she explained, heaving herself up from her knees as the scholars passed. ‘York is on the verge of a catastrophe, and we must do all we can to avert it. I realised today, after Isabella postponed
The Conversion of the Harlot
, that she was right and I was wrong.’

‘Wrong about what?’ asked Michael, looking to where
the novice was kneeling, her face a mask of intense concentration as she put every fibre of her being into her petitions.

‘York,’ replied Alice. ‘Its high-ranking clerics
are
too wealthy, its merchants
are
shamelessly avaricious, and our Mayor
is
rarely sober. I have a bad feeling that God is telling us something with all this rain, so I have decided to mend my wicked ways before we are all drowned.’

Bartholomew regarded her closely, looking for some hint that she was enjoying a joke at Isabella’s expense, but could read nothing in the florid, dissipated features. Thus he was not sure how to respond, and was glad he was spared from having to do so by Helen, who arrived shaking rain from her hat. Frost was a brooding, hulking figure at her side. She touched Bartholomew’s hand in a friendly gesture of greeting. His skin tingled, and Frost’s jealous, resentful glare said he knew exactly what effect his fiancée’s greeting had had.

‘Here,’ Helen said, passing a heavy purse to Alice. ‘It is all the money I have, plus some from John Gisbyrn. It should be enough to buy bread for those poor souls who come to you for shelter.’

‘I donated ten shillings,’ interjected Frost. He sounded hurt that she might have forgotten.

Helen smiled briefly at him. ‘Yes, and it was generous.’ She turned back to the Prioress. ‘You must hurry. The Ouse Bridge may close soon, and our money will not help anyone if you are trapped on the wrong side of the river.’

Alice nodded briskly, but took a moment to murmur another prayer before the altar first. Jafford was there, but although a dozen women were clamouring at him to say petitions on their behalf, he found time to rest a hand on her head in blessing. When she had gone, Helen went to kneel next to Isabella. Frost started to follow, but then
thought better of it, and contented himself with leaning against a pillar and gazing at her instead.

‘
The Conversion of the Harlot
,’ mused Michael, as he and Bartholomew moved away. ‘It seems we have a living example in our Prioress.’

‘Only because she is frightened. She will revert to her old ways once the waters recede and she finds herself unharmed. And that includes making pagan charms for the likes of Cynric.’

Michael was thoughtful. ‘Or perhaps her remorse has another motive – namely that she is a French spy, and she knows they are about to strike. So she is manoeuvring herself into a position where she can deny any involvement by claiming she was busy with a religious epiphany.’

They reached the library to find Langelee there. He was standing on a stool to reach one of the higher shelves, rifling along it with barely concealed exasperation.

‘At last,’ he snapped. ‘I was beginning to think you had deserted me. Where have you been? Have you learned anything to help our investigations? Because when the rivers flood, our cause will be hopeless – no one will have time to answer our questions.’

‘We have learned that Harold was murdered by a fellow Carmelite,’ began Bartholomew. He went to the carrel Talerand had identified earlier and picked up a handful of documents, dismayed at how many were piled there.

‘Not our concern,’ snapped Langelee. ‘I hope you have more to report than that.’

‘Christopher discovered that the chantry fund had evaporated before Talerand did, but denied being in the treasury, weeping over the empty box,’ said Michael, knowing Zouche’s chapel would snag Langelee’s interest. ‘Or perhaps it is Talerand who is lying …’

‘And?’ demanded Langelee eagerly. ‘What is the significance of that?’

Rather than admit that he did not know, Michael moved to other subjects. ‘Cotyngham has escaped, and Matt is suspicious of the circumstances. Meanwhile, Sir William has rallied and is directing the relief effort.’ He saw these snippets had failed to appease, so went on the offensive. ‘Well, what have
you
learned?’

‘That Helen prefers you to me,’ said Langelee, regarding the physician so coldly that Bartholomew could only suppose this was the real cause of his surly temper. ‘She virtually said as much when I offered her my company last night.’

‘No surprise there,’ declared Michael, automatically assuming the remark was directed at him. ‘I thought from the start that she was a woman of discerning taste.’

‘So I went to visit Alice instead,’ Langelee went on. ‘She always has a place for an old friend, and we watched a rehearsal for that play about the whore, although it was deadly dull. And now it is cancelled, and she seems to have suffered some sort of pious conversion. I hope
I
am not the cause, because I would not like it said that my company drives women to religion.’

‘Where did that box come from?’ asked Michael suddenly, pointing to a chest that was the length of his forearm, and about half as wide. It was a beautiful thing, with a lid that was inlaid with rosewoods of different colours. ‘I do not recall seeing it before.’

‘It belonged to Zouche,’ replied Langelee. ‘The Queen gave it to him, and he kept his chantry fund in it. Talerand must have brought it here – there would have been no point leaving it in the treasury once it was empty. I found it underneath that desk a few moments ago.’

‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, when Langelee pointed at the carrel where he was working. ‘It was not here earlier.’

‘It must have been,’ said Langelee impatiently. ‘You just overlooked it.’

But Bartholomew knew he would have noticed something the size of Zouche’s box. He turned to Michael in mystification. ‘Did Talerand put it here after we left to tackle Dalfeld, because he wanted us to find it and we said we would be back? Or did someone else—’

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Langelee. ‘There is nothing in it that is relevant to us – I looked. It only contains a lot of letters to Myton about his obits.’

‘Have you read them all?’ Bartholomew opened the box to find it full of documents. He selected a bundle at random, and began to sort through it.

Langelee shrugged. ‘No, why would I? They are nothing to do with us.’

He was right: they were deeds confirming gifts of land to the minster, which paid rents that would be used to pay for Myton’s masses. Most pre-dated the plague, when Zouche had still been alive, and many bore his signature. They were repetitious, but Bartholomew ploughed through them anyway, determined that if one contained a clue to their mysteries, then he would not overlook it by being impatient or careless.

‘What is this?’ he asked, pulling an odd scrap of parchment from between two packets. It did not comprise words, but a series of neatly recorded numbers.

Irritably, Langelee took it from him, but then his jaw dropped and he peered at it eagerly. ‘It is our secret code!’ he exclaimed. ‘Zouche, Myton and I used this when we wanted to communicate with each other but did not want anyone else to know what we were saying.’

‘Not the codicil, then,’ said Michael, uninterested. ‘Zouche would not have composed that in a form only his henchmen could read.’

‘It is a “substitution code”,’ elaborated Langelee. ‘Where you exchange letters for numbers. It is very simple once you know how. Zouche’s clerk penned this – I recognise his writing.’

Once Langelee had explained the principle, Bartholomew was able to translate the message in his head. ‘It is a list of names. The first is Jean de Cho … Chozaico.’

‘Yes,’ acknowledged Langelee, piqued that the physician should have mastered it so quickly. ‘The next is John Vu … no, Wu …’

‘John Wy. Then come Richard de Chicole, Odo Friquet, Oliver Bages—’

‘Those are monks at Holy Trinity,’ said Langelee in confusion. He struggled through the rest of the entries. ‘Yes! Holy Trinity has about twelve Benedictines, and every one of them is here. There is no monk called Wy, though – the only person I know of that name is with the Carmelites.’

‘Currently grieving for his murdered friend,’ put in Michael. ‘But why would Myton keep a list of Benedictines among his personal correspondence?’

On the back of the list was a letter, written in a different hand. It was in English, not code, and had been scrawled with such a lack of care that it was almost impossible to decipher.

‘Myton’s writing,’ said Langelee. ‘Zouche often complained about it, although Myton did not usually sink this low. It looks as though he was hurrying.’

Bartholomew scanned through it, then read it a second time, to be sure. When he had finished, he looked up slowly.

‘It is a letter to Gisbyrn. Myton says the list is one that Zouche compiled shortly before he died, and he has taken the time to decipher it for Gisbyrn, because he says that
the men named on it should be arrested without delay. He claims they are French spies.’

There was a brief silence after Bartholomew made his announcement, then Langelee ripped the missive from Bartholomew’s hand with such vigour that he all but tore it in two.

‘French spies?’ he echoed in alarm. ‘At Holy Trinity all along,’ nodded Bartholomew. ‘Myton says that the intelligent, liberal people who argued that Chozaico would never do such a thing were wrong, and the mob was right – he has unequivocal proof. And he gives directions to specific shelves in the library, where he hid the evidence.’

‘No,’ stated Michael firmly. ‘Members of my Order do not dabble in espionage. It is a piece of malicious mischief, and we should ignore it.’

But Langelee was not listening. ‘I do not understand! Myton hunted these spies for years, with me and later on his own. If his claim is true, then why did he not act on it?’

Bartholomew tapped the letter. ‘He explains what happened here. It—’

Langelee strained to read it himself. ‘Because the clerk who tore … no, who
took
Zouche’s dictator …
dictation
…’ It was painful, and Bartholomew grabbed it back from him.

‘The clerk was probably never informed of the list’s significance, due to the sensitive nature of its contents,’ he précised. ‘So he neglected to see it delivered to Mayor Longton in the upheaval following Zouche’s death. It languished until Zouche’s papers were transferred to the library by Thoresby, where Myton discovered it by accident eight months later.’

‘Eight months?’ mused Michael. ‘That cannot have been long before he died himself.’

Langelee gazed at them, his face a mask of bafflement. ‘So why did Myton not arrest these traitors? Why write to Gisbyrn?’

‘According to the final sentence, because he was about to take his own life,’ said Bartholomew soberly. ‘Gisbyrn had broken him, and he could not live with the shame of his failure – along with the guilt of a “terrible sin”, which he does not specify. Gisbyrn is charged to see the spies arrested, because Myton did not have the will to do it himself.’