'Have you rounded up any more of de Belem's followers?' asked Michael.
'Oh, yes,' said Tulyet. 'My men started the moment we arrived. Primrose Alley had been used to garrison de Belem's mercenaries, and we discovered Gilbert's clothes and beard and a spare wig in one of the houses.
There were red masks, too, and more black cloaks than you would believe. We also found him.' They looked to where he pointed. Against the wall of a house, an enormous man sat smiling up at the sun with a vacant grin, guarded by one of Tulyet's soldiers. He saw a black cat slink past and gurgled at it. Bartholomew went over to him and knelt down. The man beamed at him with an open mouth of poorly-formed teeth and then began to prod at a spot of mud on Bartholomew's tabard.
'What's your name?' he asked.
The man continued to prod at Bartholomew's tabard.
'Be careful,' Tulyet warned. 'He is dangerous.'
Bartholomew snapped his fingers near the man's ear, but there was no reaction. He put a hand under his chin and gently tipped his head back so he could look at his face. It was flat, and his tongue was too large for his mouth and lolled out. Bartholomew looked at the faint marks still on his hand from when he had been bitten in the orchard, and saw that they matched the man's asymmetrical teeth. He had unquestionably found his attacker. The man gurgled in panic, and Bartholomew let him go.
'I think he is deaf, and I doubt he can speak. The poor man has the mind of a child. He was at Michaelhouse the night the gate burned, but I do not think he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Give him to the Austin Canons at the hospital, Master Tulyet. Perhaps they can find some simple tasks for him to do until he becomes too weak.'
'Weak?' said Tulyet. 'He is as strong as an ox, as my men can attest!'
'He is dying,' said Bartholomew. 'Listen to his breathing.
I have seen this before in these people. Their chests do not develop normally and they are prone to infections.
Perhaps he will recover this time, but I doubt he will the next. Let him go: he is a child.'
Tulyet grimaced, but gave a curt order to the guard to escort the man to St John's Hospital. 'When we found him, he was tethered to a door frame with a simple knot that any five-year-old could have untied. You are doubtless right in that he was unaware of what he was doing. But I hope he is not dangerous.'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'If he was violent to your men it was probably because they frightened him.
Mistress Starre had such a son, but I assumed he had died when she did during the plague. He was probably cared for in Primrose Alley by neighbours, until de Belem and Gilbert came and used him for their own purposes.'
'Who was the victim?' asked Michael, nodding at the sheeted figure being loaded onto a cart.
'Sybilla, the ditcher's daughter,' said Tulyet. 'She was identified by that woman over there.'
Bartholomew stared in disbelief, and felt the blood pound in his head. He looked to where Matilde sat on the grass at the side of the road with her back to him.
He walked over to her, feeling his legs turn weak from the shock, and sank down on the grass.
'Why?' he asked.
She turned a tear-stained face. 'She saw you ride off after de Belem and Janetta last night and heard Master Buckley telling the Sheriffs men that de Belem was the high priest. She thought she was safe. She said she was going to the Sheriffs house to tell him what she had seen so that she could be a witness for him. She was killed on her way there.'
Bartholomew rubbed a hand across his face and stared at the cart containing Sybilla's body. She had jumped to the same conclusions that he had done, but for her they had proved fatal. He suddenly felt sick, as the exertions of the previous night's activities caught up with him.
Matilde rested a hand on his arm. 'There was nothing you could do, Doctor. You were kind to her and I will never forget that.'
As he looked from Sybilla's body to Matilde's grieving face, Bartholomew's despair began to turn to anger. He stood slowly.
'Do you know which house belongs to Master Jonstan, the Proctor?' he asked softly.
Matilde stood with him. 'Yes. It is a two-storey house with a green door on Shoemaker Row. Why do you want to see him? He will not help you for our sakes. He was always calling us whores and bawds. Each morning, he would prop his bed-ridden mother near the window so that she could yell abuse at us as we walked past her house.'
'They did not like prostitutes?' asked Bartholomew.
He thought of when they had drunk ale with Jonstan at the Fair and he had told them his belief that the plague would return if people did not amend their sinful ways.
'Few people do,' said Matilde. 'At least not openly.
But Master Jonstan is perhaps one of our most hostile opponents.'
Bartholomew waited to hear no more. Leaving Matilde staring after him, startled, he raced across the road and made for Shoemaker Row. He ignored the shouts of Michael and Tulyet behind him and ran harder, almost falling as he collided with a cart carrying vegetables to the Fair. He leapt over the fence surrounding Holy Trinity Church and tore across the churchyard, bounding over tombstones and knocking over a pardoner selling his wares on the church steps. When he emerged in Shoemaker Row, he pulled up, shaking off the angry hands of the pardoner who had followed him.
Then he saw the house, near the lower end of the street. He set off again at a run and pounded on the door of Jonstan's house. There was no answer and the shutters were firmly closed. Bartholomew grabbed one and shook it as hard as he could, drawing the attention of several passers-by, who stopped to watch what he was doing.
'Try the back door, love,' said an elderly woman kindly. 'He never uses the front door now his mother has gone.'
Bartholomew muttered his thanks and shot around the side of the house to where a wooden gate led into a small yard. Finding the gate locked, Bartholomew stood back and gave it a solid kick that almost took it off its hinges. He heard shouting in the lane and guessed that Michael and Tulyet had followed him.
The yard was deserted so Bartholomew went to the door at the back of the house. He grabbed the handle and pushed hard with his shoulder, expecting that to be locked too, and was surprised to find himself hurtle through it into Jonstan's kitchen. The Proctor was there, sitting at the table eating some oatmeal, his injured foot propped in front of him. He looked taken aback at Bartholomew's sudden entry, his blue eyes even more saueer-like than usual.
Behind Bartholomew, Michael elbowed his way in, his large face red with exertion and his breath coming in great gasps.
'Matt has come to see to your foot,' he said, his chest heaving.
'I have not!' retorted Bartholomew. He was across the kitchen in a single stride. 'So, you could not walk to the High Street last night!' he said, seizing the front of Jonstan's tabard and wrenching him from the chair. 'And you had to kill Sybilla here, where it was not so far for you to go. You were lucky, were you not, Jonstan? Most of the prostitutes have been off the streets for the past two days, but then Sybilla appeared.' 'I have no idea what you are talking about,' said Jonstan. He appealed to Michael with Tulyet behind him. 'He has gone insane!'
Bartholomew dropped Jonstan back into his chair.
'Where are your bloodstained clothes, Jonstan?' he said. He began to look around the kitchen. 'I have seen the bodies of your victims. You must have been covered in blood when you came home. What were you wearing?' He grabbed a bucket and upended its contents onto the floor, and then began to open the doors to the cupboards.
Jonstan rose unsteadily to his feet, favouring his injured ankle. 'Stop him!' he said to Tulyet. 'He cannot barge into my home and start going through my possessions!
Arrest him! Brother, he is your friend. Stop him before I decide to press charges!'
Tulyet took hold of Bartholomew's shoulder, but was shaken off angrily. Michael made a half-hearted attempt to stop his friend as he went towards the small scullery.
Jonstan limped across the floor after Bartholomew.
'Stop!' he almost screamed. 'You have no right!'
