The Mark of a Murderer (54 page)

He glanced inside the cistern, and saw water lapping not far from the top. Abergavenny was struggling to hold Duraunt high
enough for him to breathe, while Eu and Polmorva were gasping and retching. It was an ugly way to go, and he knew Polmorva
was right: they could shout and scream all they liked, but no one would hear them, particularly on the day of the Visitation,
where every soul was watching the ecclesiastical pageant and cheering at the top of his voice.

Michael edged towards the hatch, and threw Bartholomew an agonised glance. The monk swallowed hard, and Bartholomew saw he
was shaking as he sat slowly on the well’s low wall.

‘Where is Wormynghalle?’ the monk asked, lifting one leg so it trailed in the water. He could not prevent a shudder as wetness
lapped across his foot. ‘Has he escaped? If so, then he will raise the alarm. Give yourself up, before any more damage is
done.’

‘Wormynghalle is fetching horses,’ said Polmorva, shivering partly from the cold, but mostly from fear. He also saw the advantage
of talking, to keep the hatch open for as long as possible. ‘For their escape. They are in this together.’

‘Wormynghalle and
her
?’ asked Michael in surprise.

Eu spat water from his mouth. ‘The tanner is too recently rich to be trustworthy. I should never have agreed to travel with
such a man – such a
killer.
’

‘I do not understand,’ said Michael, making no move to jump. ‘Are you saying
Wormynghalle
murdered Gonerby, Okehamptone and Hamecotes?’

‘I witnessed Gonerby’s death,’ said Polmorva, coughing as Abergavenny tried to find a better way to hold Duraunt, and the
water was churned into waves that slopped into his face. ‘The killer was not Wormynghalle, because I would have recognised
his shape. But it could have been that witch. The villain wore a cloak with a hood, but he was the right size and height to
have been her.’

‘Then it is good you will not live to tell anyone about it,’ she said coldly. ‘But you knew little to put us at risk. My brother
and I never had anything to fear from you.’

‘Your brother?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘You are Wormynghalle’s sister? But he is too fat and pig-like to be related to you.’

‘Insult me again and I shall shoot you myself,’ came another voice from the path. The woman did not look around, but moved
to one side as Wormynghalle came to stand by her side. They exchanged a brief glance, and Bartholomew saw with a sinking heart
that the tanner also held a bow.

‘I might have known your motives were sinister,’ said Eu in disgust. ‘An upstart family like yours can know no honour. You
are two of a kind – ambitious, greedy and cowardly.’

Wormynghalle raised his bow, his face flushed with fury, but his sister poked him with her elbow, and indicated he was to
lower his weapon. Bartholomew was astonished that an aggressive, confident man like Wormynghalle should take orders from a
woman, but she was most definitely the one in charge. The tanner hesitated for a moment, then trained the bow on Michael.
His sister’s, meanwhile, had never wavered from Bartholomew.

‘We leave today,’ she said. ‘I can do no more in Cambridge, and it is time to go home. Now, for the last time, get in the
cistern.’

Michael lifted his other leg over the wall. ‘I cannot swim.’

‘Then you will die quickly,’ she replied.

The water was now very near the top of the well, and Eu, appalled by the grim death that awaited him, decided to take matters
into his own hands. Claiming that only Wormynghalles should die like rats, he grabbed the edge of the hatch and started to
heave himself out, legs flailing as he fought to gain purchase. Michael scrambled out of the way as both Wormynghalle and
his sister brought their bows to bear on the escaping merchant.

‘Cover Bartholomew,’ she snapped, when the physician, taking advantage of the diversion, ran several steps forward, intending
to disarm at least one of them. Wormynghalle obeyed and Bartholomew stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the determined
expression on the tanner’s face.

‘You will not kill me,’ said Eu, continuing to climb. ‘And I am weary of this charade. When I return to Oxford and report
this matter to the burgesses, none of your ignoble clan will ever—’

There was a hiss and a thud. Eu gasped as the arrow struck him in the chest. He gazed down at it in disbelief, then looked
up at Wormynghalle before toppling backwards. There was a splash as he hit the water and sank out of sight. Neither Abergavenny
nor Polmorva made any
attempt to retrieve the body, while Duraunt began to pray in a frail, weak voice. Meanwhile, Eu’s executioner snatched another
missile from her quiver and set it in the bow before anyone could do more than stare in horror.

‘Who will be next?’ she asked, backing away, so she would have plenty of time to notch another arrow, if necessary. ‘Abergavenny?’

The Welshman said nothing, but clutched harder at Duraunt. Bartholomew had assumed it was to keep the old man’s head above
the water, but now he realised Duraunt was being used as a shield. Duraunt, already resigned to his fate, looked as if he
did not care.

‘Now move,’ said Wormynghalle to Michael. ‘Hurry, or I shall shoot you where you stand, and you will have no chance of life
at all.’

‘We have none anyway,’ said Polmorva piteously, as Michael sat, very slowly, on the cistern wall and lifted the first of his
large legs over it again. ‘The Archbishop’s parade will go on for hours, and every man, woman and child will be watching it.
Even if someone does walk along the towpath, he will not hear us, because of the trumpets and shouting.’

Wormynghalle shrugged. ‘A small chance is better than none.’

‘You said you could do no more in Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew, looking at the cold eyes glittering over the veil. He felt
sick when the last piece of the puzzle fell into place: he had finally recognised them. ‘But you are not talking about murder.
You are talking about your scholarly work.’

‘Shut up,’ she snapped.

‘Joan,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘You are not Alyce Weasenham. You are Joan Wormynghalle.’

‘You know her?’ asked Michael, astounded, moving his leg across the wall as slowly as he could.

‘It does not matter,’ she said, scowling at Bartholomew.

‘She is King’s Hall’s best scholar,’ said Bartholomew, hoping to draw her into conversation and give them more time, although
he was not sure what he could do with it. ‘She will make a name for herself at the greatest universities in the world.’

‘She is a scholar?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘But she is a woman!’

‘Exactly!’ snapped Joan, rounding on the monk and leaving her brother to cover Bartholomew. ‘You think that because I am a
woman I am incapable of rational thought? Well, I am not, and some of my mathematical theories have been very well received
by my peers.’

‘Then why do this?’ asked Bartholomew reasonably. ‘You are as good as a man – better than most – and your prospects are endless.
Why jeopardise them?’

‘I am jeopardising nothing. You are the only one who knows my secret, and you will not live to tell it. I shall return to
Oxford today, and secure myself a Fellowship at a new College – Balliol this time, I think – and later I shall move to Salerno.
As I told you before, as long as I am transient, and do not allow anyone to know me too well, I can continue this life indefinitely.’

‘It is all she has ever wanted,’ said her brother. ‘And I like to see her happy. She tried a term at Oxford last year, to
see if she could carry it off, and was so successful that she decided to come here. As you saw for yourself, she is very convincing.’

‘I am confused,’ said Michael. ‘Is this John Wormynghalle of King’s Hall, wearing a kirtle to disguise himself as a woman?
Or does Joan Wormynghalle dress like a man?’ He frowned. ‘And perhaps more importantly, have we just deduced that he . . .
she is our killer?’

‘I should have guessed you two were related,’ said Bartholomew, angry with himself for not seeing something
so transparently obvious. ‘I should not have fallen for your tale of choosing the name of a wealthy Oxford merchant who you
thought would never visit Cambridge. You simply changed your Christian name – John for Joan.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Joan coldly. She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘But how did you recognise me? I thought my disguises
were good.’

‘Your eyelashes,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘And I am a physician, well able to tell the difference.’

Joan sneered at him. ‘Hardly! It took a grab before you were able to work it out.’

‘It could only happen in King’s Hall,’ muttered Michael, poised over the water but not making the final jump. ‘They accept
anyone with money, and now it transpires that they even take females.’

‘Norton admired your skill as an archer,’ recalled Bartholomew, thinking of another reason why he should have guessed her
identity – there were not many bow-wielding females in Cambridge.

‘I am an excellent shot.’ She turned to Bartholomew, and seemed to soften slightly. ‘I am sorry, Matt. You were kind to me,
not revealing my secret to men who would have seen me burned as a witch. But I have no choice but to dispatch you – if I want
to continue my career, that is.’

‘I do not understand,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Polmorva says you killed Gonerby, which means you also killed Hamecotes and Okehamptone,
since they died in an identical manner. I see why you killed Hamecotes: he was your room-mate and, although you said he was
not observant, he would have had to be singularly dense not to have noticed he was sharing his chamber with a woman.’

‘He was not as nice about it as you were,’ said Joan. ‘He threatened to tell the Warden.’

‘Why did you take his body to King’s Hall after it had been in the cistern?’ asked Michael.

‘Because Hamecotes was killed with metal teeth,’ replied Bartholomew, when it looked as if Joan would bring an end to the
discussion by forcing the monk into the water. It was conjecture, but he hoped that even if he were wrong, she would correct
him and delay their deaths until he could think of an argument that might reprieve them. ‘She did not want us to associate
Hamecotes’s murder with Gonerby’s, because that would reveal an Oxford connection – and a possible link to her and her brother.’

‘I did not anticipate Dodenho stumbling on him quite so soon,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I had plenty of time to bury him,
and planned to let folk assume he had been killed by robbers on the Oxford road. I wash my clothes regularly at the end of
the garden, and I have never seen Dodenho using that shed before, despite what I said to you later. It was a shock when he
came screeching about his discovery.’

‘You forged letters from Hamecotes, claiming he had gone to Oxford,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He had been there for books before,
so no one was surprised when he did it again. But I should have seen something sinister in that explanation long ago – especially
after Duraunt told me that Merton never parts with its books.’

‘There was no need for you to hide Hamecotes from Tulyet,’ said Michael, trying to help Bartholomew occupy her with questions
and observations. ‘We had already established a link between Gonerby and a Cambridge murder: Okehamptone’s. But you did not
know that when you dragged a rotting corpse from here to King’s Hall; if you had, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.
So, why did you pick our poor town? Do you intend to set it alight with riots, and ensure our University’s suppression?’

‘Of course not,’ cried Joan, appalled. ‘It is not in my interests to see a school flounder, and I do not care whether
the Archbishop builds his new College here or in Oxford. I know you think there is a plot to deprive both universities of
his beneficence, but you are mistaken. The disturbances on St Scholastica’s Day had nothing to do with Islip and his money.’

Michael nodded. ‘I imagine you started those because you wanted to kill Gonerby, and a riot provided the perfect diversion.’

‘His business was located near the Swindlestock Tavern, and a little civil disorder was a good way to disguise his murder,’
acknowledged Joan. Her brother made an impatient sound; he was becoming restless and wanted to be away.

‘How did you do it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Pay Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde to start a fight?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘No,
it was the Benedictine! Spryngheuse did not imagine him after all. He was you – another of your disguises. It makes sense
now. You needed a screen to conceal Gonerby’s murder, and you knew Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde could be goaded into violence.’

‘I did not anticipate it would flare up quite so hotly,’ said Joan. ‘The town was like a tinderbox, and the affray was quickly
out of control. I did not intend sixty scholars to die, but it is done and there is no going back. Chesterfelde was no problem,
because he was a sanguine sort of man who pushed the whole matter from his mind, but Spryngheuse became obsessed by his Black
Monk.’

‘So, you decided to hound him to suicide,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘Your brother helped you appear at times when the
others would not see you, and you literally haunted him to death.’ He turned to Wormynghalle. ‘And the day he died, it was
you
who suggested Spryngheuse went for a walk in these gardens, knowing Joan would be waiting for him.’

‘He took little convincing to hang himself,’ said Joan,
as if it did not matter. ‘I am good with logic and I told him he had no choice.’

Wormynghalle looked uneasy, and Bartholomew recalled his curious behaviour during the requiem mass, when Eu had declared the
spluttering candle to be a portent of doom. Wormynghalle, like many men, was superstitious. Bartholomew wondered whether he
could use the tanner’s fears to his advantage.

‘Spryngheuse was an insignificant worm,’ called Polmorva, doing his part to prolong the discussion when Bartholomew and Michael
fell silent. ‘Even Duraunt tired of him when he became too big a drain on his poppy juice. It is easy to procure enough for
one man’s needs, but not two. Eh, Duraunt?’