King's Ditch with his throat cut. And I believe the covens are not the ends in all this, but the means. They are aiming towards something bigger and more terrifying than I can imagine.'
Bartholomew was inclined to believe he was right, and that the elaborate hoax of the covens was simply a front for something infinitely more sinister. Some aspects of the affair had been made clearer by Hesselwell's information, and others less so. Bartholomew understood now what had happened on the night that Walter was poisoned:
Hesselwell had merely been following orders, and had not known why the bottle was to be given to Walter.
Bartholomew's reasoning that the poisoning had been carried out by an outsider was, in effect, true, since it had come from the high priest.
Hesselwell glanced up at the sun nervously.
'One last question,' said Bartholomew. 'Why did the high priest give you that phial of medicine?'
'I was nervous about opening the gate to him after Frances de Belem's death. I knew there were Proctors and beadles prowling. I was so nervous that he gave me the phial and said it would calm me and allow me to carry out his instructions. I was to give it back to him the same night, but in all the excitement, I forgot to give it, and he forgot to ask.' He smiled ruefully. 'And he was right to have given it to me, because I would not have had the presence of mind to shoot the fire arrow without its calming effects.'
'Is that all?' asked Bartholomew.
Hesselwell nodded. 'He asked about College gossip, but that is all. May I go?' Bartholomew nodded, and Hesselwell looked so relieved he reeled slightly.
'One more thing,' he said as he followed them out of the church. Bartholomew looked at him. 'When I first came, I heard there were two guilds which were covens. No matter how hard I tried, I have never been able to find out about the Guild of Purification. People told me rumours about it — how it was powerful, and a rival to the Guild of the Coming — but I have never met a member of it, and to be honest, I am uncertain that it exists at all.'
Cynric was disapproving that Bartholomew had allowed Hesselwell to make good his escape, and so was Michael when they told him.
'He might come back and wreak all manner of havoc,' said the monk crossly. 'A self-confessed satanist and you let him go!'
'He was terrified, Brother, and his escape will make no difference. What if he had been right and he was murdered? How would you feel then?'
'He might have been able to tell us more about this high priest,' said Michael. 'He might have known what he was looking for in the orchard!'
'He told us all he knew,' said Bartholomew wearily, scrubbing at his face. 'He was used by the high priest, and told virtually nothing in return.'
'But he left that thing on my bed and you allowed him to go just like that!' said Michael, bristling with the injustice of the situation. 'He tried to murder Walter!'
'He did not know the bottle was poisoned. He was told it contained a sleeping draught,' said Bartholomew.
He held up the phial Hesselwell had given him. 'This is perhaps the most important clue we have. When we know what it is, I will know to which of my patients I gave it, and we will know the high priest.'
Michael eyed it dubiously. 'But what if it is one of those common concoctions you give out to dozens of people, like betony and ginger oil?'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'I use these phials for more powerful potions.' He took out the stopper and sniffed cautiously. He recognised the compound immediately: there was only one patient to whom he had recently prescribed this medicine! Stunned, he turned to Michael.
'Master Buckley!' he exclaimed. 'He needs this strong draught when the hot weather makes his skin condition unbearable!'
'Buckley the high priest?' said Michael, frowning in concentration. 'It is beginning to come together. But it is well past sunset. Go and tell the Master about Hesselwell and his evil doings. Do not give him more time than you have already promised to make good his escape.'
Bartholomew began to walk across the courtyard to the Master's room when a man walked through the gate.
He stopped dead in his tracks as Richard Tulyet the elder strode purposefully towards him. Bartholomew glanced up at the darkening sky as he did so. It seemed Hesselwell was to have more time still.
'Doctor,' said Tulyet quietly. 'Is there somewhere I can talk with you and Brother Michael alone?'
Cynric led the way to the conclave, and lit some candles, stolen from Alcole's personal supply that was secreted behind one of the wall hangings. Tulyet would say nothing until the Welshman had left, closing the door behind him.
'I should have come to see you before now,' said Tulyet, facing Bartholomew and Michael in the flickering light, 'but I did not know whom I could trust.'
Bartholomew knew exactly how he felt, but said nothing.
'You were right when you said I was a member of the Guild of the Coming, and you were right when you said I had been at All Saints' Church two nights ago.'
He shuddered. 'I joined the Guild because the Death took my three daughters and all my grandchildren. The Church said that only those who sinned would die, but I lived and the children died. I realised the Church had lied to me, and I wanted nothing more to do with it. The Guild of the Coming offered answers that made much more sense than the mumblings of drunken priests safe in their pulpits. Sorry, Brother, but that is how it seemed.'
His story was similar to de Belem's, and it seemed that the fears the Bishop had voiced to Bartholomew before the plague were realised: that the people would turn from the Church after the Death struck, and there would be insufficient priests and friars to prevent it.
Tulyet continued.
'All was well at first, and I even introduced my family to the guild. But a month ago things began to change. A new high priest came to us, very different from Nicholas.'
'Nicholas?' said Michael in astonishment. 'Nicholas of York, the clerk at St Mary's?'
Tulyet nodded. 'Only I knew his identity, but he died this last month, and it cannot matter that I tell you now.
After he died, we thought to elect one of our members as our leader, but even as we raised our hands to vote, the new high priest arrived in a puff of thick black smoke.
He said he had been sent by the Devil to lead us.'
Thick black smoke, thought Bartholomew. Smouldering grass mixed with tar, perhaps, and blown around the high priest by bellows operated by his accomplices? 'Then the guild changed. Our ceremonies became frightening, full of blood and evil conjurings. I wanted to take my family away, but I was told that if I did, they would die. The high priest said the murders in the town were the Devil claiming his own. My wife is old, and I sometimes visited a certain young lady. Fritha. She was the second girl to die.'
He put his head in his hands while Michael and Bartholomew exchanged glances.
'The new high priest asked questions, too,' Tulyet continued. 'He wanted to know about town politics, my business as a tailor, and with whom I traded.'
The high priest had questioned Hesselwell too, thought Bartholomew, about Michaelhouse.
'Do you know who the high priest is?' asked Bartholomew gently.
Tulyet raised his head, his eyes haunted. 'No. None of us do. But I have a terrible fear of who it might be.'
'Is that why you have come?' asked Bartholomew. 'To tell us who you think it is?'
Tulyet nodded. 'I do not know who else I can tell, and I must do something. He is going to claim another victim!' He took a deep breath. 'The high priest is Sir Reginald de Belem.'
'De Belem!' exclaimed Michael. 'But that cannot be.
Frances was his daughter. He would not have killed his own daughter!' Or Isobel, the woman who visited him on certain nights, was his clearly unspoken thought.
And de Belem was the high priest of the Guild of Purification anyway, Bartholomew thought, or so he claimed. Hesselwell had said he did not believe the Guild of Purification existed — but it would have been an easy matter to
