A Wicked Deed (8 page)

‘It is a good deal more than that,’ said Dame Eva. She looked at the Michaelhouse men. ‘This villain – Roland Deblunville – has been invading almost every aspect of our lives recently. When we go to Ipswich, he is there selling his goods at absurdly cheap prices, so that it is difficult for us to trade ours; when sheep go missing from our meadows, they are always last seen near his fields; and he even purchased that lovely length of peach-coloured satin I had been saving to buy for Isilia since Christmas.’

‘I will find her something else,’ said Tuddenham tiredly.

‘What does he want peach satin for anyway?’ said Dame Eva, shaking her head. ‘He must have seen me admiring it, and bought it out of sheer spite.’

Tuddenham’s eyebrows drew together angrily at that notion. ‘Then I shall ensure his satin will pale beside the piece Isilia shall have. He will not win that battle!’

It seemed a petty state of affairs, but Bartholomew knew only too well how quickly little aggravations could escalate into serious quarrels in isolated communities. He had seen men kill and be killed for far less than a length of peach-coloured satin.

‘You must wonder what you have wandered into,’ said Tuddenham, with a strained smile. ‘Please allow me to explain. As I have mentioned, there are two manors in Grundisburgh parish, both of them mine. Deblunville’s manor borders my estates, and he claims that Peche Hall – where my nephew Hamon lives – is on his land.’

‘So?’ asked Michael. ‘Boundary disputes are common all over the country. Take your case to the county assizes at Ipswich, and let the lawyers decide the outcome.’

‘If the case is so clear-cut, then why does Deblunville press his claim?’ asked Michael. It was a reasonable question, but not one that Tuddenham seemed inclined to answer directly.

‘The man is an opportunist. He came into possession of Burgh by marrying a woman twice his age – and she died within a week of the happy event in very suspicious circumstances. So, Deblunville is a young man with a tidy fortune, and a burning ambition to make himself one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the county.’

‘I see,’ said Michael noncommittally. ‘But you have not yet told us what it is that people will say when they hear Deblunville has been hanged.’

‘The gibbet is on my land,’ said Tuddenham flatly. ‘People will say I had him killed.’

‘No!’ cried Isilia, appalled. ‘No one would say such a vile thing.’

‘I agree,’ said Michael. ‘You would hardly string him up on your own gibbet if you intended to dispense with him. Any rational man wanting to commit murder would be a little more circumspect.’

‘But we do not know that murder has been committed,’ Wauncy pointed out. ‘Or even that it is Deblunville who is dead. We know only that the scholars saw a body on the gibbet with a dagger that might or might not belong to him. We should not speculate further until we have the facts.’

Michael frowned. ‘What do you mean by “lost” exactly?’

Tuddenham glanced prudishly at his wife and pursed his lips. ‘Suffice to say that Janelle’s marriage prospects are not what they were.’

‘You mean she is with child?’ asked Michael. ‘And you believe Deblunville to be the father?’

‘I would not have put it so bluntly myself,’ said Tuddenham primly, regarding his wife with such concern that Bartholomew wondered if he might clap his hands over her ears to prevent her from overhearing such ribaldry. ‘Deblunville offered to marry her, but that would make him Bardolf s heir. Bardolf was agreeable to the match at first – he said the damage had already been done, and he needed to make the best of the situation – but Grosnold, Hamon and I reminded him how Deblunville’s first wife had come to a sudden and unexpected end once he had no more use for her, and Bardolf prudently changed his mind.’

‘The sooner we satisfy ourselves that our guests have been mistaken, and that Deblunville is safe in his fortress like a spider in its web, the sooner we can return to enjoy this feast the villagers have provided,’ said Wauncy practically. ‘Come, Sir Thomas. We should leave now.’

‘And if they are not mistaken?’ asked Tuddenham uncertainly. ‘What then?’

‘Then you have two hundred people who will attest that you were at the Fair all day, and not hanging a man at Bond’s Corner,’ said Wauncy soothingly. ‘Including your priest’

Isilia looked uneasy, and Dame Eva took her hand reassuringly. ‘I told you itwas only a matter of days before Deblunville would die after he saw – well, you know what he saw,’ she said, looking at Tuddenham and Wauncy accusingly. ‘You did not believe me, but now who is right?’

‘It is wrong to place your faith in superstitions,’ said Wauncy sternly. ‘I have told you that before.’

‘Maybe he saw the evil of his ways at the Pentecost celebrations, and was so overcome with remorse that he hanged himself,’ suggested Isilia hopefully.

‘That does not sound like Deblunville,’ said the old lady. ‘He is too convinced of his personal worth to take his own life. He is more likely to hang every lord of the manor he can lay his vile hands on, and steal their lands and titles for himself.’

‘What exactly did he see?’ asked Michael, intrigued by the turn the discussion was taking.

‘Nothing,’ said Tuddenham before Isilia or Dame Eva could answer. ‘My mother merely refers to an old country yarn from these parts. There is nothing to it but superstition.’ He looked reprovingly at the women, daring them to contradict him.

‘Oh,’ said Michael, immediately losing interest. He was never particularly keen to hear about local customs and folktales, preferring current intrigues and scandals to ancient ones. ‘Some evil spirit haunts the roads near here, I suppose?’ he added politely, when he saw Dame Eva look disappointed by his response. She seemed kindly enough, and Michael, who approved of old ladies who turned a blind eye to hungry children stealing eggs, did not want to hurt her feelings.

‘If you like fairy tales, I will tell you some this evening,’ said Tuddenham, not altogether pleasantly. ‘But we should not be here chatting while Deblunville might lie dead. Siric! My horse!’

‘This Deblunville sounds quite a character,’ remarked Michael in an undertone to Bartholomew. ‘It is a pity he is dead – I would have liked to meet him.’

‘Whenever someone is described to me as “quite a character”, it usually means that he has some offensive or unappealing quality about him that is being passed off as entertaining,’ replied Bartholomew, watching Siric bridle Tuddenham’s horse. ‘Experience has taught me that I nearly always do not like him. Will you go with Tuddenham to the gibbet?’

‘We both will,’ said Michael. ‘And it will be as much to ensure that we have not unwittingly left some clue regarding our role in all this, as to see justice done.’

Once Tuddenham had made the decision to ride to Bond’s Corner, there was a flurry of activity. Cynric saddled Bartholomew’s horse, and then started to prepare his own mount, which was munching the buttercups that grew among the grass by the churchyard. Bartholomew stopped him.

‘There is no need for you to come, Cynric. Stay here and keep an eye on William. He has been drinking wine too fast for his own good, and you know what he can be like if he becomes intoxicated. We do not want him regaling Lady Isilia with tales of the Inquisition.’

‘She would probably prefer them to tales of childbirth, boy,’ said Cynric, smiling. He looped the reins of his pony over the church gate. ‘Are you sure you do not need me? These are dangerous roads to travel, and it will be dark soon.’

‘That is probably because he knows a lot more about this place than you do,’ said Cynric. ‘And all the more reason for me to come.’

‘It is probably just for show,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Anyway, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.’

Cynric’s snort of derision was drowned by Michael’s exclamation of disgust as he watched Bartholomew climb on the low wall that surrounded the churchyard, and leap on to his horse’s back in a way that made the animal rear and kick in shock. The monk himself swung into his saddle with the ease of a born horseman.

‘This affair has an unsavoury feel to it,’ said Bartholomew, following him as he rode across the green. ‘It seems village life is not so different from the University – all petty feuds and enmity.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael gleefully. ‘I thought I was going to be bored in this rural desert, but matters are definitely looking up: we have three lords of the manor united against the fourth, who is an opportunist and who did away with his elderly wife; we have some curious folktale that the ladies believe has some relevance to this Deblunville’s demise –assuming it was Deblunville we found; and we have suspects galore as to who wants him dead.’

‘Just a moment, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, alarmed. ‘This is not Cambridge, and you have no legal authority to start probing around in all this. If one of these lords really has dispensed with a hated rival, you would be well advised to stay clear of the whole business.’

‘Where is your spirit of enquiry and thirst for the truth?’ asked Michael playfully. ‘Come on, Matt! This might prove interesting.’

Tuddenham is a nobleman,’ said Michael. ‘He will not renege on his promise to give us his church simply because we are curious.’

‘He might consider doing exactly that if you start investigating a murder he may have committed, or that involves his neighbours or his nephew.’

‘So you believe we should start to draw up the deed tonight, then?’ said Michael, nodding thoughtfully. ‘That is prudent thinking, Matt. Once we have it, we can do what we like.’

‘That was not what I meant at all,’ sighed Bartholomew. ‘Anyway, if Grundisburgh is as seething with intrigue and murder as you seem to hope, then Michaelhouse should decline anything Tuddenham offers. We do not want the good name of the College besmirched by tainted gifts.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Michael. ‘Most gifts to the University are tainted in some way or another. No one gives out of the goodness of his heart, you know. There is always some catch.’

‘The advowson of Barrington church is ours, and that does not have any unpleasant catches,’ said Bartholomew.

Michael gave a short bark of laughter. ‘In that case, why do you think it took four years for Michaelhouse to get the grant executed once the licence had been issued? Negotiations, Matt! Surely you must have noticed that all the priests we have appointed have been personal friends of the Bishop of Ely, who just happened to decree its appropriation? Or did you consider that pure coincidence?’

Bartholomew
had
considered it pure coincidence, and the thought that some nepotistic mechanism was at work behind the scenes had never crossed his mind. ‘Well, the advowson of Cheadle, then,’ he said, thinking of the second of Michaelhouse’s four properties. ‘No friends of the Bishop have been appointed there.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Michael. ‘But some of the income generated by that transaction is “donated” to the Guild of Weavers, the leader of which pressed the lord of Cheadle manor to grant it to us in the first place.’

‘And Tittleshall?’ asked Bartholomew weakly. ‘Was that not a simple act of generosity made by a grateful student to his former College, as we are always informed on Founder’s Day?’

‘Of course not,’ said Michael scornfully. ‘That was given to us because the said student, now a powerful lawyer in Westminster, tampered with one of the nuns at St Radegund’s Priory while he should have been reading his
Corpus Juris Civilis
. It was the price he had to pay the then Master of Michaelhouse not to make his misdeeds public.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, disgusted and disillusioned, as he often was when he talked to Michael about the affairs of the University and its Colleges.

‘The only one of our four advowsons that is straightforward is the one that grants us St Michael’s Church in Cambridge, given to us by our founder. But even that is not entirely without strings – we are obliged to say a set number of masses for his immortal soul each year, and you know what a nuisance that can be when we are busy.’

‘So why do you think Tuddenham is granting us Grundisburgh?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘Do you believe it is to ensure the health of Isilia’s unborn child, as you asked him, or is there another reason – such as to atone for an incestuous relationship with his mother, or in anticipation of his murder of Deblunville?’

‘You have a nasty imagination, Matt,’ said Michael, giving him a sidelong glance. ‘But this advowson is important to us. It will make us the third richest College in Cambridge, with only King’s Hall and Clare above us. Would you sacrifice such power on mere principle?’