The Hand of Justice

It was a note from a London merchant to his Cambridge kinsman, informing him of an imminent visit and detailing a plan to relieve a mutual enemy of some money. Kenyngham folded the parchment and put it in his scrip, intending to hand it to the Senior Proctor later. But first, there was a man’s soul to pray for, and Kenyngham soon lost himself as he appealed to Heaven on behalf of a man he had never met.

Two weeks later, Kenyngham met Bosel the beggar, who made his customary plea for spare coins. The elderly friar emptied his scrip in search of farthings, and did not notice the forgotten parchment flutter to the ground. Bosel saw it, however, and snatched it up as soon as Kenyngham had gone. He peered at it this way and that, but since he could not read, the obscure squiggles and lines meant nothing to him. He sold it to the town’s surgeon, Robin of Grantchester, for a penny.

Robin suffered from poor eyesight, and in dim light could not make out the words, either. He did not care what it said anyway, because parchment was parchment, and too valuable not to be reused. He scraped it clean with his knife, then rubbed it with chalk, and sold it for three pennies to Godric, the young Franciscan Principal of Ovyng Hostel. Robin went to spend his windfall on spiced ale at the King’s Head; Godric walked home and spent the afternoon composing a moving and eloquent prayer, which he wrote carefully on the parchment.

Shortly before midnight, Godric rose and rang a small handbell to wake his students, then led them in a solemn, shivering procession through the streets to St Michael’s Church, where he recited matins and lauds. When the office had been completed, he went to the mound in the churchyard that marked the place where his predecessor had been laid to rest a few weeks before. He scraped a shallow hole and laid the prayer inside, before bowing his head and walking away.

Bosel watched intently from the shadows thrown by a buttress. When Godric had gone, he moved forward, alert to the fact that Cambridge was a dangerous place at night and that beggars were not the only ones who lurked unseen in the darkness. He reached the grave and crouched next to it, hoping the Franciscan had buried something valuable — something that could be sold to raise a few coins for ale or a good meal. He was disappointed to discover parchment, and swore softly as he reburied it. He considered taking it to Robin, but only briefly. For all Bosel knew, the jumble of letters might comprise a curse, and only the foolish meddled with those sorts of things. He patted the earth back into place and wondered where he might find richer pickings that night.

As he pondered, he became aware that he was not the only one in the churchyard. He could hear voices as two people argued with each other. Knowing that conversations held among graves at the witching hour were unlikely to be innocent, and that witnesses might well be dispatched, Bosel shot back into the shadows, hoping he had not been seen. He waited, his body held so tensely that every muscle ached with the effort. When no cries of pursuit followed, he began to relax. Then he grew curious, wanting to know what business pulled folk from warm beds on such a damp and chilly night. He eased around the buttress carefully and silently, until he could see them.

He recognised both immediately. One was Thomas Deschalers the grocer, who was the wealthiest merchant in the town. He was also the meanest, although in the last couple of weeks he had deigned to toss Bosel a few coins, and had even taken to having bread and old clothes dispensed from his back door of a morning. The other was a popular Carmelite scholar called Nicholas Bottisham. Bosel liked Bottisham: he was generous, and never too busy to bless beggars if they called out to him. Bosel could not help but wonder what the gentle friar and the arrogant merchant could have to say to each other.

‘I do not know about this,’ Bottisham was saying uneasily. ‘Even you must appreciate that it is an odd thing to ask me to do.’

‘I know.’ Deschalers sounded tired. ‘But I thought-’

He stopped speaking abruptly when the night’s stillness was broken by the sound of marching feet, the clink of armour and the creak of old leather.

‘It is the night watch!’ exclaimed Bottisham in an alarmed whisper. ‘I do not want them to find me here with you, when I should be at my prayers inside. The answer to your question is no.’

Deschalers released what sounded like a groan. ‘But I assure you, with all my heart-’

Bottisham cut across his entreaties. ‘No — and that is the end of the matter. But I must go, or my colleagues will wonder what I have been doing.’