body.
'What for?' asked de Wetherset, perturbed. 'They look clean enough to me. Wipe them off on your tabard.'
Bartholomew gave him a bemused glance. He knew his insistence on washing his hands after seeing every patient was regarded with amusement in the town, but surely, even someone as adverse to washing as the Chancellor could see that hands needed to be cleaned after touching corpses! He hoped the Chancellor's standards of hygiene did not extend to the Physwick Hostel kitchens.
They walked outside into the sunshine, and Bartholomew saw the Chancellor glance to where Nicholas of York's grave had been. As they walked past, de Wetherset stopped and peered at something.
'What is that?' he muttered, inching closer.
'My bag!' exclaimed Bartholomew in delight. 'The one that was stolen in the alley the other day.'
He picked it up and looked inside. It appeared to be exactly as it had been before it had been stolen. His tabard was there, rolled up and stuffed on top of his medicines and instruments. His notebooks were there too, containing records of patients he had seen and what dosages of various potions he had given them. Nervously, he looked in the side pouch where the strong medicines were, and heaved a sigh of relief that they appeared unmolested.
'You know what this means?' said de Wetherset in a low whisper, his face solemn. 'It means that whoever stole your bag also knows that something went on at this grave this morning. Why else would they leave it here to be found?'
Bartholomew's elation at getting his precious bag back evaporated at the implications of de Wetherset's comments. He was probably right.Janetta of Lincoln must be involved in all this. She was linked to Froissart, and she was present when Bartholomew's bag had been stolen.
Did she watch them exhume the grave that morning from her secret path? There was too much coincidence for it to be mere chance.
'I would discard any potions in that bag,' said de Wetherset, eyeing it suspiciously. 'Who knows what they might have been exchanged for? You might end up killing one of your patients. Are there any locks on it that may now have poisoned devices?' he asked.
Bartholomew turned the bag over in his hands. It looked the same, and he was pleased to have it back.
The one Father Aidan had lent him did not have the same feel to it, and Bartholomew could never find what he wanted. Nevertheless, de Wetherset was right, and he decided not only to discard the medicines, but to test some of them too.
He and de Wetherset strolled the short distance to Physwick Hostel, a small, half-timbered building opposite Michaelhouse. Bartholomew saw Alcote watching him enter, but assumed the Senior Fellow could not object to Bartholomew accepting an invitation from the University's Chancellor, even if he were from another College.
Bartholomew's insistence on washing his hands was met with some amusement by de Wetherset's colleagues, which Bartholomew accepted with weary resignation. He knew most of the men of Physwick from standing opposite them in church. Richard Harling nodded coolly towards him, and continued a debate on canon law with another lawyer. Alricjonstan was there, and greeted Bartholomew warmly. He seemed to have recovered from his morning excursion, although he was pale and his eyes seemed red and tired.
The ale at Physwick was far superior to that at Michaelhouse, and was clear and fresh. The bread, however, was the same: grainy and made with inferior flour. There was some cheese too, but that had been left in the sun and was hard and dry, and sat in a rancid yellow puddle.
They discussed the advantages and failings of the Cambridge examination system for a while, and then Jonstan began to chat to Bartholomew about his duties as junior Proctor. Next to him, de Wetherset and Harling talked about a guild meeting that was to be held the following day. Bartholomew listened to them while appearing to be paying close attention to Jonstan's some what tedious account of the Proctor's statutory responsibilities. They were discussing a proposed meeting of the Guild of the Purification, and from what Hailing was telling de Wetherset, trouble was expected.
'You recall what happened last time,' he said. 'The following day, St John Zachary's Church was full of spent torches and someone had drawn a sign on the altar in what looked to be blood.'
Bartholomew listened intently, strands of the mystery twining together in his mind. The goat mask on the woman in Nicholas's grave was clearly a demonic device, which might mean that the murders of the other women were also connected to witchcraft. The large man in the orchard who had bitten him had worn a red mask, obviously a satanic trapping.
Was this the clue he needed to tie it all together?
Perhaps he would see whether Stanmore had learned anything else. Then they needed to find Froissart's family and Janetta of Lincoln. The reappearance of his bag told him that Janetta was most definitely in Cambridge, despite the claims of de Wetherset's clerks that they could not trace her. Should he try to seek for her himself? But she would know Bartholomew wanted to see her, and if she did not want to see him, nothing would be served by him risking his safety to go in search of her.
Of course, another thing he could do would be to talk to some of the friends of the women who had been killed. Some of them might have some indication of who the killer might be. Perhaps they were unwilling to talk to Tulyet, whose men were, after all, the ones who arrested them if they were caught touting for business on the town's streets. He decided he would ask Sybilla.
She was the only prostitute he was aware he knew, and Sybilla had been the one to find Isobel.
And there was another thing: Frances de Belem had been killed in Michaelhouse grounds, but Physwick Hostel was a mere stone's throw away. He looked around at the men sitting with him at High Table de Wetherset, Harling, and Jonstan. All high-ranking and well-respected University men, but was one of them the lover of Frances de Belem? Bartholomew reconsidered them: de Wetherset, stocky with pig-like features; Harling with his greased black hair and bad complexion; Jonstan with his odd tonsure and long teeth. Could she have fallen for any of these men?
He would not have thought so, but Edith, his sister, frequently told him he did not understand women, and misjudged their likes and dislikes.
He became aware that Jonstan had asked him a question and was awaiting an answer, beaming affably, his large blue eyes curious. Bartholomew was embarrassed and reluctant to reveal to the pleasant Jonstan that he had not been listening to a word he had said.
'Oh, yes,' he said, smiling and hoping it was the expected response.
Jonstan looked puzzled, but shrugged. 'That is what my mother always told me,' he said, 'but I have never yet met a physician who agreed with her until now. I must encourage her to eat more of them.'
Oh lord! thought Bartholomew. I hope whatever it is does not make her sick!
After leaving Physwick Hostel, Bartholomew, on the Chancellor's orders, went to the Castle to talk to Richard Tulyet about discovering another victim of the killer. De Wetherset could not conceal two bodies from the Sheriff, and reluctantly conceded that he was obliged to tell him that the killer had claimed another.
De Wetherset repeated his previous instruction that the — death of Froissart should not be made known to the Sheriff, lest it should somehow lead the killer to strike again.
Bartholomew was shown into the same office in the keep that Michael had visited the previous day. At first, Tulyet refused to speak to Bartholomew, shouting angrily that he had better things to do than gossip with idle scholars. Bartholomew asked the sergeant to inform him that another victim had been found, and was escorted begrudgingly into Tulyet's office.
Bartholomew could tell in an instant that Michael had antagonised Tulyet, and he was irritated with his friend.
If the killer were to be tracked down, they would work a lot more efficiently by co-operating, than by bickering and playing power games.
He tried to begin the interview on a positive note by asking Tulyet about his wife and baby. When Tulyet's baby was born, it was a strange yellow colour. The midwife sniffed imperiously and announced that it suffered from an excess of yellow bile and should be bled to relieve it of a dangerous imbalance of humours. Bleeding was usually the province of barber-surgeons, but, since the plague, there was only the unsavoury Robin of Grantchester, and Bartholomew had been called in his place.
Bartholomew had declined to bleed the baby, and had prescribed a wet nurse and a mild concoction of
