The Hand of Justice

‘And you have to combat Rougham,’ added the landlord. ‘He was vocal in his denunciation of Doctor Bartholomew again this morning, and accused him of killing Warde with angelica. My wife uses angelica for cooking, and she has never poisoned anyone. I told Rougham to take his wicked tongue elsewhere. But I have just been told that he was the one who poisoned Warde all along!’

‘Told by whom?’ asked Bartholomew warily.

The landlord scratched his head. ‘I cannot recall where I first heard it, but the news is circulating the town like a fire in a hayloft.’

He went to fetch Michael’s monstrous meal, leaving Bartholomew uneasy that lies and rumours seemed to spread with such ease. Although he was not particularly worried about what folk thought of Rougham, he was concerned about what they might think of him. He had very few wealthy patients left, and could not afford to lose the last of them because of Rougham’s slanderous lies. And what of his less wealthy patients, who might be so alarmed by Rougham’s claims that they did not summon him when they should? How many people would die before the spat ran its course?

‘I did not think my grandmother would listen to Rougham’s yarns without striking back,’ said Michael comfortably, guessing the source of the tales about the Gonville physician. ‘She likes you.’

‘Which part of the case shall we discuss first?’ Bartholomew asked, suspecting that the old lady’s ploy had not made the situation any better. All she had done was add fuel to an already raging fire. He eyed with some trepidation the food that was beginning to pile up on the table. ‘God’s teeth, Brother! How much meat do you think we can eat? We are not wolves, you know.’

‘Meat is better for you than vegetables,’ declared Michael authoritatively. ‘I owe my sleek and healthy appearance to the amount of meat in my diet. If I confined myself to women’s foods, like cabbages, I would not be the same person at all.’

‘Women’s foods?’ asked Bartholomew, who had never heard vegetables so described before.

‘They are green, and so increase the phlegm in the spleen. They are something all women should eat because they make them more phlegmatic — less excitable. Men, on the other hand, should eat red foods — meat — which increase the blood and make them choleric. It is obvious.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ asked Bartholomew, startled that the normally sharp-witted monk should invent such outlandish notions. But then, Michael was not a rational man where food was concerned.

The monk ripped the leg off a chicken. ‘Those peas are all yours, by the way. Peas are a waste of stomach space.’

‘We should discuss these murders,’ said Bartholomew, watching Michael feed with weary resignation. The monk’s restricted diet had lasted a mere two days. ‘Where shall we start?’

‘At the beginning: with Deschalers and Bottisham.’ Michael took a knife from his scrip and began to hack chunks of pork from a bone. ‘They did not die naturally, but we do not know whether we have two murders, or a suicide and a murder. If the latter is true, we do not know which of the pair killed the other or why. We know they disliked each other, and we know Deschalers played cruel tricks on Bottisham. Each had a motive to kill.’

‘Deschalers may have used the last of his strength to stab Bottisham, but I am not convinced. I still think he was too ill.’

‘In which case we have Bottisham killing Deschalers, then himself. If he slew Deschalers by accident — although it is hard to imagine how he “accidentally” slipped a nail into his rival’s palate — then I suppose he may have decided that suicide was the only way to escape from his predicament without shaming his College. Still I find it hard to imagine anyone killing himself by driving a nail into his mouth. It cannot have been easy.’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully. ‘Neither man had been dead long before the bodies were discovered, and Bottisham was not the kind of man to make such a momentous decision without careful consideration. Besides, I still cannot believe that Bottisham would kill anyone, even an ancient enemy like Deschalers. I liked him, Brother. He was a good man.’

‘I know,’ said Michael, his mouth full of meat. ‘But we cannot afford to let sympathy cloud our judgement. However, do not forget the phial you found at the King’s Mill. It is possible there was something in that which lent Deschalers the strength to commit murder — or something that turned gentle Bottisham into a killer.’

‘Perhaps,’ acknowledged Bartholomew.

‘Bernarde,’ mused Michael. ‘What about him as the culprit?’

‘I can see him dispatching Bottisham, who was due to argue against him in the mill dispute. But not Deschalers, who was on his side.’

‘But Deschalers was not on his side,’ said Michael, spearing a slab of beef. ‘He refused to burn Mortimer’s Mill when the rest of Millers’ Society thought it was a good idea. And do not forget that he had recently become Edward Mortimer’s kin by marriage.’