The Hand of Justice (30 page)

‘How nicely?’ asked Michael suspiciously.

William looked smug. ‘Well, just yesterday I had three pennies from Rougham, a groat from Lavenham the apothecary, and a skin
of wine from Warde of Valence Marie. And you enjoyed some of that wine yourself last night, Brother, so do not tell me I should
not have accepted it.’

‘But you should not,’ exclaimed Michael. ‘God’s teeth, man! Do you not see how dangerous this might become?
You cannot accept bribes and bring them to Michaelhouse. This must stop!’

‘But I have secured six pounds over the last few weeks!’ cried William, horrified that his foray into commerce might be about
to meet an abrupt end. ‘And every penny has gone into the University Chest – I keep a record, if you want to see it. And what
shall I say to the folk who come? That the University has decided no one is allowed access? Do you not see that would be equally
dangerous?’

‘He has a point,’ said Bartholomew to Michael. ‘Now this has started, it may be difficult to stop.’

‘Damn it, William,’ muttered Michael. ‘You have unleashed a monster.’

‘It was a monster
you
should have destroyed a long time ago,’ said Bartholomew, thinking the monk should bear some responsibility for the situation.
It had been
his
decision to keep the Hand, and
he
had promoted William to Keeper of the University Chest, knowing the Hand was in it. It did not take a genius to predict what
William was sure to do with it.

‘You would not believe the things I have heard folk tell the Hand,’ said William, hoping to convince Michael that the relic
had its uses. ‘Deschalers came, before he died. He was one of the first merchants to visit.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Bartholomew, grateful that William had added the caveat ‘before he died’. He did not like to imagine
the Hand petitioned by the dead, as well as the living.

‘He prayed for forgiveness,’ said William. ‘I am bound by the seal of confession, so cannot give you too many details. But
he prayed for Bottisham, and he asked for a cure for his own ailment. He told the Hand it was his last hope, and said he hoped
his plan would work.’

‘I am glad you did not reveal
too many
details,’ muttered Bartholomew; William had been rather free with what had,
after all, been a genuine confession and should have been kept confidential.

‘Did he pray for Bottisham in the kind of way that indicated his victim would soon die?’ asked Michael keenly, constrained
by no such moral dilemmas. ‘And exactly what was this plan?’

‘He prayed for lots of people, but for Bottisham in particular. I do not recall him saying he
planned
murder obviously, or I would have stopped him. But he did not say he was
not
.’ William pursed his lips, as though Deschalers not mentioning a crime was as damning as an admission.

‘And the plan?’ asked Michael.

The friar shrugged. ‘I am sorry, Brother. I did not hear that bit. He spoke too softly.’

‘Let us see this Hand, William,’ said Michael wearily. ‘And then we will leave you in peace.’

‘It is in its reliquary,’ said William, indicating a hand some box that stood on the table in the centre of the room. It was
a beautiful thing, covered in precious stones and delicately carved.

‘That box contains a piece of the True Cross,’ cried Michael, shocked. ‘Have you shoved Peterkin Starre’s severed limb on
top of what is a genuine relic?’

‘The box was empty when I did an inventory of the University Chest’s contents,’ said William, unperturbed by Michael’s horror.
‘Since it has not been opened in years, I am inclined to believe that the True Cross was never there in the first place –
or it was stolen so long ago that the thief is long since burning in Hell. It seemed a shame to have a glorious reliquary
with no relic, so I put the Hand in it instead. I
could
show you the Hand, but I usually keep it locked away. It does not do to allow the peasantry to become too familiar with sacred
objects. It might send them insane.’

‘I am not a peasant,’ said Michael indignantly. ‘Nor will
I start baying at the moon because I set eyes on a few dead fingers.’

William cast him the kind of glance that indicated he was not so sure, but bent over the box and, with great reverence, removed
a satin parcel that held the yellow-white bones. They were exactly as Bartholomew remembered, with sinews cleverly left to
hold the hand together – except for one place where they had broken and were mended with a cunningly concealed pin. The bones
were huge, and belonged, without question, to the simpleton whose gigantic corpse had provided a convenient source of material
for men who had thought Cambridge needed a relic of its own. The little blue-green ring it wore was still there, too – a cheap
thing, but pretty enough.

‘There!’ breathed Michael. ‘The bones that caused us so much trouble when wicked men used them for their own vile and selfish
purposes. They look just as they did two years ago, when they brought about so much unhappiness and tragedy.’

‘They are causing us problems now, too,’ said Bartholomew, somewhat accusingly. ‘The University should not be taking money
from folk to visit them. It is not right.’

‘If you stop now, you will learn the true meaning of trouble,’ warned William. ‘People like the Hand. They believe it has
the power to answer their prayers, and will not take kindly to you saying they can no longer use it. They would storm the
church and snatch it away.’

‘You are probably right,’ said Michael. ‘We shall have to devise another way to put an end to this madness. But I have seen
enough. It is almost time for our evening meal.’

‘If you are hungry, then do not go to Michaelhouse,’ advised Redmeadow. ‘We are so short of funds that Agatha is serving stale
bread and pea pottage tonight.
We
are going to visit Deynman’s brother at Maud’s Hostel, where there will be roasted goose.’

‘And I am dining at the Franciscan Friary,’ said William. ‘A man who has been working hard all day deserves more than mouldy
bread and green paste. I intend to partake of fish soup and turnips.’

‘I want meat,’ said Michael, who did not feel he had eaten unless half a sheep was involved. He glanced down at the table.
‘But nothing with bones in it.’

‘I shall say a prayer for Chancellor Tynkell, and then I shall be finished here,’ said Deynman, kneeling down. He looked up
at William. ‘He is a herbivore, you know.’

William’s eyebrows went up, and he looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps that explains his peculiar aroma. A man who eats grass must
surely smell differently from the rest of us.’

It was Deynman’s turn to look bemused, but he put his hands together, closed his eyes and the conversation was mercifully
at an end. William began to lock the Hand away while the two students prayed, and Bartholomew and Michael took the opportunity
to leave.

‘Lord!’ said Michael, beginning to laugh as they walked into the evening sunlight. ‘Deynman is a kindly boy, but he has the
sense of a gnat! Tynkell is a herbivore indeed! Is that why he was asking after his health earlier? He believes the Chancellor
has the digestive system of a cow?’

‘He thinks Tynkell is a hermaphrodite, but could not remember the correct word. I will spare you the contorted logic he went
through to reach this momentous conclusion.’

‘His logic may be contorted,’ said Michael, his laughter dissipating. ‘But his conclusions are not. Tynkell is indeed a hermaphrodite,
although I would rather keep this between ourselves. I do not want men like William claiming that a woman cannot hold the
post of Chancellor. Tynkell is malleable, and does what I ask. I do not want him expelled, just because of an accident of
birth.’

Bartholomew gaped at him. ‘I do not believe you.’

‘Have you not noticed that he never removes his clothes?’ asked Michael. ‘Or wondered why he refuses to let anyone see his
body? Even
you
have not seen it, and you were his physician. Also, you must be aware that he does not bathe. That is because he cannot risk
anyone intruding and viewing what he has sought to hide all these years.’

‘No!’ said Bartholomew in disbelief. ‘You cannot be right!’

Michael shrugged. ‘It is your prerogative to be sceptical. But look more closely at his shape when you next have the opportunity.
You will notice swellings in the chest. And in the latrines—’

‘But the condition is so rare,’ interrupted Bartholomew, trying to recall what he had learned about a physiology he never
thought he would see. ‘I read about it, but I have never seen it manifest itself.’

‘I imagine folk so afflicted do not make themselves available for general viewing. Most hide it, as Tynkell has done. It is
safer, considering we live in a world populated by the intolerant and fanatical.’

‘So Deynman’s diagnosis was right?’ Bartholomew narrowed his eyes. ‘You are jesting with me!’

‘Yes,’ said Michael, convulsing with laughter.

‘We are left with a mystery, Matt,’ said Michael the next morning, as he and Bartholomew walked to St Michael’s Church. Father
William, ahead of them in the line of scholars that filed along the lane, turned to mutter about them setting a poor example
to students by talking in the procession.

It was a pretty day, with a pale blue sky flecked by wispy clouds. The scent of spring was in the air, and bluebells and tiny
white violets lined the grassy banks along the edge of the alley. Scruffy children were already gathering them to sell in
the streets and at church doors. If they were lucky,
they might earn enough to exchange for bread or an onion.

Despite the early hour, the town was busy. Traders gathered in the Market Square to sell their wares, and beggars were out
in force, displaying sores and wounds, and raising piteous voices in an appeal for spare coins. Many gathered around the High
Street churches, hoping to catch scholars in a pious frame of mind as they left their morning prayers.

‘We still have no idea whether Deschalers killed Bottisham, then committed suicide, or the other way around,’ Michael went
on. ‘Nor do we know why. We have established that Deschalers and Bottisham knew each other, and that they had quarrelled in
the past. Warde told you Bottisham’s antagonism had long since evaporated, but who knows whether that was really true? And,
regarding the ancient dispute about the field, it is difficult to decide which of the two men was in the right.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised. ‘Deschalers should not have been angry with Bottisham because he declined
to break the law. I would say Bottisham was in the right.’

‘And I would say Deschalers was. If Bottisham was squeamish about what needed to be done for his client, then he should not
have agreed to represent him in the first place. But it does not matter what we think. What is important is what
they
thought. By all reports Deschalers was barely civil to Bottisham, so what led them to meet each other in such a curious place
the night they died?’

‘They must have agreed to go there,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The King’s Mill is not somewhere you would happen upon by accident.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael, ignoring William’s black scowl.

‘I might have suggested that Deschalers visited the mill to inspect the property he had invested in, and Bottisham spotted
lights in a building usually locked at that time of
night and went to investigate. But that is not possible: no one passes the mill by chance, because it is on a path that leads
nowhere.’

‘True. Then what about the possibility that one caught the other committing suicide, and ended up dead when he tried to stop
him?’ Michael shook his head and answered his own question. ‘No. Neither was the kind to kill himself.’

‘We know Deschalers intended to go to the mill, because he had the key with him,’ mused Bartholomew. ‘But why
he
was there is not really the question we need answered: we need to know why Bottisham was there with him.’

‘We must come up with a solution soon, or people are going to start accusing the University of covering up a murder. It is
one thing when someone lowly is killed by a scholar, but there will be a furious outcry about Bottisham killing a rich man
like Deschalers.’

‘It may have happened the other way around. In fact, if I were to wager on the outcome, that would be my choice: Deschalers
was ruthless and inclined to be vicious, whereas Bottisham was more likely to wound with his tongue.’

‘We will never prove either theory with the information we have now. I think—’

‘If you must persist with this unseemly chattering, then leave the procession,’ boomed William, finally driven to anger. Several
students smirked at the sound of discord among the Fellows. ‘I know you have murders to solve, but there is a time and a place
for everything, and your investigations do not belong here.’

‘He is jealous,’ whispered Michael to Bartholomew, as William moved on. ‘Now he is no longer my Junior Proctor, he feels left
out when I am on a case.’

‘Who will replace him? Do you have someone in mind?’

‘I do not want a replacement.’

Bartholomew looked at him sharply. ‘You did not use
the Junior Proctor’s honorarium to pay for a Corpse Examiner, did you? I am effectively your subordinate, but with a different
title?’

‘Well, why not?’ asked Michael, not bothering to deny that he had manipulated the situation. ‘I know where I am with you.
And better the devil …’

‘And you certainly should not discuss the Devil while you process to mass!’ screeched William. ‘I am Keeper of the University
Chest, and I will not stand by and see College rules shamelessly flaunted by Fellows who should know better.’

‘And I am Senior Proctor, and outrank you,’ snapped Michael.

‘I am an important man,’ argued William, although his voice dropped to a more reasonable level. He knew Michael was right.
‘Particularly now the Hand of Valence Marie is in my care.’

Michael regarded him with cool, green eyes. ‘And you must see how badly
that
will end. You have drawn attention to the fact that the University holds a relic that was discovered in the town’s ditches.
Note I say
town’s
ditches, Father. It is only a matter of time before the burgesses claim we have taken something that is rightfully theirs.’