The Hand of Justice (62 page)

‘Then why do your patients live when you conduct surgery? And how do you heal old women and peasants, who are in poor health
to start with?’

‘By using all the means at my disposal – the techniques my Arab master taught me, as well as those learned from books. There
is no magic.’

‘Then what about Bishop Bateman?’ demanded Rougham, still on the offensive. ‘The Chancellor said you poisoned him.’

‘What?’ gasped Michael, astonished. ‘But Matt was not in Avignon when Bateman died.’

Bartholomew thought back to the discussion in St Mary the Great on the day of the
Disputatio de quodlibet
, when Tynkell had asked odd questions about poisons and Rougham had been present. He recalled the shocked expression on Rougham’s
face and cursed the Chancellor for his insensitivity.

‘You do not need to be
with
your victim when he dies of poison,’ said Rougham sulkily.

‘Tynkell does
not
think Matt killed Bishop Bateman,’ said Michael firmly. ‘I have never heard a more ludicrous suggestion. The Chancellor has
griping stomach pains – you tend them yourself on occasion – and it crossed his mind that poison might be the cause. But it
was not.’

‘No one would bother to poison Tynkell,’ said Pulham to Rougham with calm reason. ‘It would be a waste of time, because he
has so little real authority. And, although there are rumours that Bateman died from foul means, there is no proof of that,
either. These tales are inevitable when important men die in foreign places. You are wrong to accuse Bartholomew.’

‘And
this
is why you have been so hostile lately?’ asked Bartholomew, unsure whether to be angry or amused. ‘You believe I dabble in
sorcery, and think I am capable of poisoning bishops hundreds of miles distant?’

‘You did nothing to dissuade me from my beliefs,’ said Rougham coldly. ‘It is
your
fault our rivalry grew so bitter.’

Bartholomew did not bother to point out that he could hardly correct Rougham’s misapprehensions when he did not know what
they were. He only wanted to ask his questions about the murders and leave, hoping that the next time they met, Rougham would
at least be civil to him.

Rougham was still seething with resentment when a servant arrived with platters of breakfast food. There were eggs, salted
herrings, fresh bread and pickled walnuts to eat,
and Bartholomew thought it was not surprising that the College was running short of funds if its Fellows regularly devoured
such sumptuous victuals. He ate little, because it was hard to raise an appetite with Rougham scowling so furiously at him,
although Michael did not seem to notice and attacked the meal with gusto.

‘You bought four phials of Water of Snails from Lavenham,’ said Bartholomew, wanting the uncomfortable meal to end, so he
could leave. ‘You used one for Warde. Where are the others?’

Rougham shook his head in exasperation. ‘I did
not
give Water of Snails to Warde! How many more times must I tell you that? I gave one each to Ufford, Despenser and Thompson.’
He reached into his scrip and produced a familiar little pot. ‘And I have the fourth here. I doctored them, but it did not
work.’

‘Doctored?’ asked Bartholomew warily, laying down his knife. ‘In what way?’

‘I added laudanum,’ snapped Rougham. ‘It is said to make people more amenable.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, disgusted. ‘You hoped this potion would make your three colleagues see the “wisdom” of your plans
to have Thorpe and the Hand of Justice at Gonville.’

‘You dosed them with strong physic in an attempt to make them stay?’ asked Pulham, aghast.

Rougham rounded on him. ‘We
need
Thorpe and we
need
the Hand. And we need Ufford, Despenser and Thompson, too, if we are ever to finish our chapel. Once we have the Hand, we
can claim the bones of the sainted Bateman, too. He was poisoned and is therefore a martyr. Then we shall have plenty of relics
to attract pilgrims, and our College will prosper.’

‘So, that is it,’ said Michael. ‘You want to establish Gonville as a shrine. But Bateman was not a saint – he was
a good man, but not a holy one – and murder is not necessarily grounds for a beatification anyway. Which is just as well,
considering how many we have around here.’

‘We could never claim Bateman’s bones regardless,’ said Pulham, addressing his colleague and looking as though he was seeing
him for the first time. ‘Dame Pelagia told me he asked to be buried before the High Altar at Avignon.’

‘Lies!’ cried Rougham. ‘He wanted to be here, with his friends.’

‘Not if he thought we intended to profit from his death,’ said Pulham firmly. ‘He was not that kind of man, and no one here
will allow you to defile his memory in so despicable a manner.’

‘Giving folk potions to make them open to your ideas is hardly ethical, either,’ said Bartholomew, more concerned with the
way Rougham practised medicine than with his penchant for relics. ‘You might have harmed someone.’

‘Well, I did not,’ snapped Rougham. ‘Ufford, Despenser and Thompson swallowed their potions – which I told them would cleanse
their bowels and make them better able to learn – but they were not rendered pliable at all.’ He appealed to Pulham. ‘You
must see I did it for our chapel! I cannot allow it to remain foundations in the grass for the next hundred years.’

‘Then we will
pray
for help,’ said Pulham sternly. ‘We will not resort to using illicit medicines on our friends – or demanding the bones of
our founders when they want to be left in peace.’

‘Water of Snails was not all you bought from Lavenham recently,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He says you also purchased a large amount
of henbane.’

‘You did not … Warde … ?’ stammered Pulham, eyeing Rougham uneasily.

‘No! I did not poison anyone. I did buy henbane, but it was for Deschalers.’

‘You poisoned Deschalers?’ Pulham was appalled.

‘Of course not!’ cried Rougham, becoming agitated. ‘He did not want it for himself.’

‘Paxtone said you refused to prescribe strong medicine for Deschalers’s sickness,’ said Bartholomew, wondering whether the
grocer had believed the toxin might help him with his pain. ‘You argued about it with him and Lynton.’

‘Deschalers was beyond any potion I could give him,’ said Rougham. ‘So I decided not to waste his money on “cures” that would
not work. But I did not purchase the henbane for his sickness. He asked me to make him a poison for the rats in his house.
He paid me sixpence for it.’

‘Rats?’ asked Bartholomew. Perhaps Deschalers’s role in the murders needed further assessment after all, he thought. ‘Do you
mean human ones?’

‘Do not be ridiculous,’ snapped Rougham. ‘I mean rodents. Being a grocer, with plenty of food on his premises, he had problems
with them. He showed me one he had caught – and it was the size of a cat. I made him a poison that would be fatal to any rat
coming within an arm’s length of it.’

‘How?’ asked Bartholomew sceptically.

‘I mixed the henbane with hog grease and cat urine to ensure it stank. One sniff will kill the most robust of pests. Deschalers
contacted me a day later and said it was working.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, not sure Deschalers had been entirely honest with Rougham. Had the grocer murdered Bottisham after
all, then killed himself to hide the fact? ‘We should go,’ he said, heading abruptly for the door. He was aware of the others’
startled faces, but he did not stop. ‘Thank you for your time.’

‘Is that it?’ hissed Michael, trying to slow the physician’s rapid progress across Gonville’s yard. ‘Rougham has just confessed
to buying and dispensing poisons. Who knows what more he might have said had we probed deeper?’

‘He would have said nothing,’ said Bartholomew, ‘because he is not our killer. I was wrong. I have been wrong about a number
of things. We initially assumed Deschalers and Bottisham died in an identical manner, because of the nails. But that is not
what happened. Bottisham probably died from being stabbed in the palate, but I think Deschalers was poisoned first.’

‘Wait,’ said Michael, grabbing his arm. He steered the physician into the cemetery surrounding St Michael’s Church, where
he sat on a tomb with his arms folded, waiting for an explanation. ‘Well?’

‘Rougham does not know how to use henbane,’ said Bartholomew, pacing back and forth.

‘How do you know that?’ Michael was unconvinced.

‘Because he thinks the smell alone will kill rats. It will not – it needs to be ingested.’

‘But our only other suspect for the henbane killings is Paxtone,’ said Michael unhappily.

‘He is not guilty, either. Paxtone and I also discussed henbane, and he has no more idea about how to use it effectively than
does Rougham. In fact, he had to send a student to a library to look up the symptoms of henbane poisoning after Bess died.’

‘Then what about the Water of Snails?’ asked Michael. ‘We know the phials Rougham gave Ufford, Despenser and Thompson contained
no henbane – or they would be dead – but the ones swallowed by Bess and Warde did.’

‘Rougham had four phials and they are all accounted for – we can ask Ufford, Despenser and Thompson, but I am sure they will
confirm his story. He was telling the truth.’

‘Then we must look at the three men who bought the other six between them: Morice, Cheney and Bernarde. You have always been
suspicious of them.’

‘I have. But I do not think their Water of Snails was the culprit, either. When we visited Bernarde at his mill once, he confessed
to being plagued with a sore head and told us two doses of Lavenham’s strong medicine had not eased his pain. I suspect he
took what he bought himself. Meanwhile, Cheney and Morice said much the same. They claimed to have aching heads and backs
induced by worry over Edward Mortimer’s foray into commerce, and they also said they took Lavenham’s medicine to cure themselves.’

‘Then we are out of suspects – unless the Water of Snails is irrelevant, and has led us astray.’

Bartholomew gazed up at the sky, and thought about all they had learned. Whoever killed Bess and Warde had probably used the
remaining phials from Lavenham’s batch of thirteen. But because the apothecary’s shop was a pile of smouldering rubble, they
would never be able to prove the last three phials were missing – stolen from the cupboard the man was careless about locking.
He thought about people who might know about henbane and its effects. The killer was not only someone with a knowledge of
herbs and cures, but someone who was ambitious and greedy. Then he wondered whether that ambition and greed had led him to
steal the Hand, too.

He started to think about the stuffed glove, which the thief had wrapped in satin in the hope that William would not notice
the real one was missing. The item had been stuffed with fur. Bartholomew recalled Dickon’s fur-covered rat, and smiled at
the memory of the boy’s outrage when it had been destroyed. Then his amusement faded. The skills used to fashion a toy from
an old cloak and sticks, and to make a glove look like a relic, were very similar.

‘We are not out of suspects,’ he said in a low, quiet voice. ‘We have just overlooked him.’

‘Who?’ asked Michael, who could think of no one.

‘Quenhyth. He is our killer.’

‘Quenhyth?’ asked Michael in astonishment, gazing at the physician in disbelief. ‘How did he come to be in your equations?’

‘It is falling into place,’ said Bartholomew as he paced back and forth. ‘I see it now. Quenhyth knows about poisons like
henbane, because I have taught him about them.’

‘But you teach all your students the same things,’ objected Michael. ‘It could be any of them – Deynman, Redmeadow, and any
of the thirty or so others. Poor Quenhyth. He is not a killer.’

‘I talked about henbane with Quenhyth, but no one else,’ said Bartholomew, remembering the discussion the two of them had
had on their way to Isnard’s house the previous week while Redmeadow and Deynman lagged behind. ‘It was also Quenhyth who
“helped” me test Warde’s Water of Snails – and he destroyed it all in the process. I see now that was no accident or carelessness.
He poisoned Warde, and then he destroyed the evidence that might have led back to him.’

‘No,’ said Michael with calm reason. ‘He had no reason to kill Warde.’

‘He wanted Rougham blamed for a suspicious death,’ said Bartholomew, rubbing a hand through his hair as more became clear
to him. ‘The day after Warde’s death, he suggested that we should examine the medicine Rougham prescribed. He did not overtly
tell me to analyse it – he is not stupid, and that might have led to awkward questions – but he certainly put the idea into
my mind. And Matilde’s. He told her his “suspicions” too.’

‘And he knows you listen to her,’ mused Michael. ‘Clever.’

‘Quenhyth hates Rougham because Rougham humiliated him in the High Street over blackcurrants. He is a proud young man, and
does not take such things in his stride. It will have festered. He wrote a note purporting to be from Rougham and sent it
with the poisoned phial to Warde. He writes beautifully, and mimicking Rougham’s script would not be difficult for him. You
said yourself there were differences between the note Warde received and Rougham’s own hand.’

‘But this still does not make sense, Matt,’ warned Michael. ‘If he wanted Rougham blamed for Warde’s murder, then why did
he destroy the potion he pretended Rougham had sent? Why not keep the phial and its contents, to let you prove beyond the
shadow of a doubt that it was poison?’

‘Because he used
henbane
, and he was afraid I might remember that he had asked me about it. He was just being cautious, hoping that I would not care
which poison was used – just that the medicine was toxic. He basically said as much after he had destroyed it.’

‘All right,’ said Michael. ‘I accept that Quenhyth killed Warde in order to have Rougham discredited, but what about the others?
If he killed Warde, then he must also have killed Bess.’

‘The answers to some of our questions lie with Deschalers’s chest,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘Quenhyth knew it was going to be
bequeathed to him – and indeed it was. It is in my room as we speak. But that was only true of the will Deschalers made
a month
ago. He made a later one, in which there were two beneficiaries – Julianna and Bottisham. No mention was made of a scribe
inheriting a chest in the later document. We know this, because we have read it.’