A Vein Of Deceit: The Fifteenth Chronicle Of Matthew Bartholomew (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew) Read online

  Life is unsettled in Cambridge in the autumn of 1357, and both Michaelhouse and its physician, Matthew Bartholomew, seem to have more than their fair share of misfortune. The College is unexpectedly short of funds, its Master is attacked, its prized possession, a pair of beautiful silver chalices known as the Stanton Cups, have been stolen, and after a woman dies in premature labour Bartholomew discovers that some medicinal potions have disappeared from his store, including pennyroyal, a drug known for inducing miscarriage.

  It is to the College finances that Bartholomew first turns his attention, and he discovers that the treasurer, Wynewyk, has been fiddling the books, particularly in regard to goods purchased from some tradesmen in Suffolk. Bartholomew, who looks upon Wynewyk as an honourable friend, is appalled, but before he can confront him with the evidence of fraud, Wynewyk dies in bizarre and unexplained circumstances.

  Brother Michael and Bartholomew, instructed to reclaim the missing funds, discover that the money has become entangled in a legal wrangle over property rights, and that one of the merchants is the husband of the woman who died in labour, along with her unborn child whose birth would have substantially altered the outcome of the dispute. In horror, Bartholomew recognises her death was most likely murder and that his missing preparation of pennyroyal was to blame.

  Who stole it? Who in the college has connections to the disputed land in Suffolk? And if Wynewyk proves to be a rogue, who can Bartholomew trust within what he had assumed was the security of Michaelhouse?

  Also by Susanna Gregory

  The Matthew Bartholomew Series

  A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

  AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE

  A BONE OF CONTENTION

  A DEADLY BREW

  A WICKED DEED

  A MASTERLY MURDER

  AN ORDER FOR DEATH

  A SUMMER OF DISCONTENT

  A KILLER IN WINTER

  THE HAND OF JUSTICE

  THE MARK OF A MURDERER

  THE TARNISHED CHALICE

  TO KILL OR CURE

  THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLES

  The Thomas Chaloner Series

  A CONSPIRACY OF VIOLENCE

  BLOOD ON THE STRAND

  THE BUTCHER OF SMITHFIELD

  THE WESTMINSTER POISONER

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-748-12436-7

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 Susanna Gregory

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Susanna Gregory

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  For Liz and Edmund Betts

  PROLOGUE

  August 1357, Haverhill, Suffolk

  It was a glorious summer afternoon, with fluffy white clouds flecking an impossibly blue sky, trees whispering softly in a gentle breeze, and the lazy sound of bees humming among the hedgerows. Cows lowed contentedly in the distance, and the air was rich with the scent of ripe corn and scythed grass.

  There had been a fierce heatwave earlier in the year, followed by torrential rains that had devastated farmland all over the country. Fortune had smiled on the parish of Haverhill, though: its crops had survived the treacherous weather, and the harvest was expected to be excellent – its villagers would not go short of bread that winter, and the fat sheep dotting the surrounding hills indicated they would not be short of meat, either.

  But the three men who stood around the little tongue of exposed rock in the middle of the wood saw none of this plenty: their minds were on another matter entirely.

  In the centre of the trio was Henry Elyan, lord of the larger of Haverhill’s two manors. He was a slim, elegant man who took considerable pride in his appearance – he loved clothes, and spent a lot of money ensuring he was never anything less than perfectly attired, from his fashionable hat to his stylishly pointed shoes. His weakness for finery exasperated his wife, who was always reminding him that while Elyan Manor was not poor, it was not exactly wealthy, either, and they had a duty to their tenants to use their profits more wisely than frittering them away on extravagancies.

  ‘Are you sure, Carbo?’ he asked of the man on his left. ‘You cannot be mistaken?’

  Carbo gave one of his peculiar smiles, the kind that made Elyan wonder whether it was wise to place so much trust in the man – it was common knowledge that he was insane. Of course, Carbo had not always been out of his wits. He had been a highly respected steward for many years, and his descent into madness had been fairly recent. No one knew why he had so suddenly lost his mind, although Elyan did not accept the widely held belief that grief for a dead mother had tipped him over the edge. He was sure there was another explanation, although he could not imagine what it might be.

  ‘I am not mistaken,’ Carbo said in an oddly singsong voice. ‘It was God who brought me to this place and told me what lies beneath. And God is never wrong.’

  The last of the three men was Elyan’s neighbour, who owned Haverhill’s second, smaller manor. Hugh d’Audley was thin, dark and pinched, and everything about him suggested meanness and spite. Elyan had never liked him, but money would be needed to exploit Carbo’s astonishing find, and d’Audley was the only man in the area who might be in a position to lend some. So Elyan had set aside his natural antipathy towards the fellow and was trying his damnedest to be pleasant.

  D’Audley, however, was sighing impatiently, making no attempt to hide the fact that he thought his time was being wasted. ‘Of course Carbo is mistaken! He is deranged, and you are a fool to set stock by anything he says.’

  ‘Coal is God’s most special gift to the world,’ chanted Carbo, kneeling to rest a reverent hand on the narrow thread of dark rock he had found on his seemingly aimless wanderings. If he was offended by d’Audley’s curt words, he gave no sign. ‘He calls it black gold. Black gold.’

  D’Audley rolled his eyes, and Elyan despised him for his stubborn inability to look past Carbo’s lunacy and see what might lie beyond. He felt like grabbing the man and shaking some sense into him. Did he not know that coal seams were unheard of in Suffolk, so finding one in Haverhill was a fabulous piece of luck? And Elyan knew, with every fibre of his being, that it was going to make him rich – that he would never again have to listen to his wife carping on about the price of fine linen, or begrudging him the cost of his soft calfskin shoes. The prospect of such unbridled luxury made him giddy, and it was only with difficulty that he brought his attention back to the present.

  ‘How do you know about coal and mining so suddenly?’ d’Audley was demanding of Carbo. ‘You have lived in Haverhill all your life, so ho
w can you possibly claim expertise about minerals?’

  ‘God told me,’ replied Carbo distantly. ‘He explained about the black gold.’

  ‘You see?’ said d’Audley, turning rather triumphantly to Elyan. ‘The man is addled!’

  Elyan did not reply. The copse in which Carbo had found the lode was dense with brambles and alder, and no one had bothered to forge a path through the prickly tangle before. There had to be some reason why Carbo had done it, so perhaps God had guided him there. Or was d’Audley right, and grubbing around in the undergrowth was just something madmen did?

  ‘It is very fine,’ crooned Carbo, ignoring d’Audley as he stroked the rock. ‘The best black gold.’

  ‘Actually, it is not,’ countered d’Audley. ‘I used the bucketful you gave me last night, and it smoked and spat like an old kettle. Good coal burns quietly and cleanly, but this stuff is rubbish.’

  ‘Perhaps it was just wet,’ suggested Elyan, refusing to let d’Audley’s sour humour spoil his burgeoning hopes. ‘But regardless, it will make us wealthy – assuming you want to be part of it, of course? I shall need money to excavate, and if you invest, you will share the profits.’

  ‘But I am not convinced there will be profits,’ said d’Audley, looking disparagingly at the thin line of crumbling black rock.

  Elyan shrugged, feigning indifference to his neighbour’s scepticism. Unfortunately though, mining was expensive, and he could not finance such a venture alone; he needed d’Audley’s help.

  ‘It is your decision,’ he said with studied carelessness. ‘I asked you first because you are my friend, and I wanted you to share my good fortune. But if you are not interested, I shall approach Luneday instead – he knows a good opportunity when he sees one.’

  He would do nothing of the kind, of course – the lord of neighbouring Withersfield Manor was only interested in pigs, and was unlikely to spend money on anything else. But d’Audley hated Luneday with a cold, deadly passion, and was blind to reason where he was concerned.

  ‘Wait,’ snapped d’Audley, as Elyan started to walk away.

  Elyan smothered a smirk before he turned; just as he had predicted, d’Audley was appalled by the notion that Luneday might benefit from a venture he himself had rejected. ‘Wait for what?’

  ‘Wait for me to mull it over,’ replied d’Audley sullenly. ‘I cannot make such a decision on the spur of the moment. I need time to think about it.’

  ‘Then do not take too long,’ warned Elyan. ‘I want to begin operations as soon as possible.’

  They both turned when Carbo started to sing. The ex-steward was lying on top of the seam, treating it to a popular ballad about love and devotion. D’Audley’s eyebrows shot up, and Elyan took his arm and pulled him away before Carbo’s antics lost him an investor.

  ‘My wife is well,’ he said pleasantly, flailing around for a subject with which to distract d’Audley. ‘After twenty years of marriage, Joan and I had all but given up hope of an heir, yet our baby will be born in December.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said d’Audley flatly, and Elyan realised, too late, that this was not the subject to win d’Audley’s good graces. If he, Elyan, were to die childless, then d’Audley was one of three parties who stood to inherit his estates. A child would change all that and, unsurprisingly, d’Audley had not greeted the news of Joan’s pregnancy with any great delight.

  ‘Yet who knows what the future might bring,’ Elyan gabbled on, cursing himself for his thoughtless tongue as he struggled to make amends. ‘Joan is old to be having a first child, and the midwife says it will be a miracle if she delivers a healthy son.’

  But d’Audley was not listening. He was staring at a nearby holly bush, eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a foot I see poking out from under those leaves?’

  Elyan looked to where he pointed, then strode forward for a better view. Carbo began muttering to himself, rocking back and forth on his heels as he watched the two Suffolk lordlings with eyes that were too big in his pale, thin face. Elyan reached the bush and gingerly pulled back the branches, careful not to snag his beautiful russet-coloured tunic. A body lay beneath, half buried in leaf litter. It was that of a young man, who wore a black tabard over his shirt and hose. A reddish-brown stain on his chest indicated he had been stabbed or shot with an arrow.

  ‘That is academic garb,’ said d’Audley, stepping back smartly, and covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. The weather was hot, and the corpse was far from fresh. ‘He must belong to one of the Cambridge Colleges – a student, perhaps. What is he doing here?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Elyan was horrified. ‘He cannot have come to spy on my coal, because the only people I have told about it are my wife, my clerk, my grandmother, Gatekeeper Folyat …’

  He trailed off, uncomfortably aware that this was a considerable list – and Folyat was a notorious gossip. Unfortunately, the gatekeeper had caught him crawling about in Haverhill’s bramble-infested woods and Elyan had felt compelled to offer him some explanation; he did not want his villagers thinking he was as mad as Carbo.

  ‘Have you told any scholars about the seam?’ asked d’Audley.

  ‘No.’ Elyan hesitated. ‘However, my clerk went to Cambridge last week. Perhaps he—’

  But d’Audley was not interested in what Elyan’s clerk might have done. ‘This lad has been murdered,’ he declared, glancing around him uneasily. ‘Stabbed or shot. We had better hide the body before anyone sees it.’

  Elyan gaped at him. ‘What? But surely, we should contact the Sheriff, and—’

  ‘No!’ D’Audley’s voice was loud and harsh. ‘The last time a Sheriff visited Haverhill, he liked it so much that he declined to leave, and we were obliged to feed him and his retinue for nigh on a month. I am not squandering money like that again, so we shall shove this boy in the ground and forget we ever set eyes on him.’

  ‘I will fetch a spade,’ said Elyan, after a moment of silent deliberation. His inclination had been to argue – to do what the law expected of him – but d’Audley had a point: entertaining Suffolk’s greedy Sheriff had been expensive, and he would rather they spent their resources on excavating what the mine had to offer.

  ‘And then we had better deal with Carbo,’ said d’Audley, gesturing to where the madman was humming to himself, eyes closed. ‘It is obvious that he is the killer, and he should be locked away before he turns on one of us. We should summon his brother, and—’

  ‘It is not obvious at all,’ interrupted Elyan, startled. ‘He may be a lunatic, but there is no harm in him. However, that sinister Osa Gosse has taken to haunting our parish of late, and he will commit any crime for the right price. It is far more likely that he killed this young man.’

  D’Audley regarded him with an unreadable expression. ‘Perhaps this corpse is a sign – a warning that I should be wary of joining your venture. So you can bury it: this is your land, so it is your problem, not mine. Watch the mud on your fine clothes, though. It stains.’

  And with that, he turned on his heel and stalked away. Elyan watched him go with an expression that verged on the murderous.

  CHAPTER 1

  October 1357, Cambridge

  The scream echoed along Milne Street a second time. Doors were opening, lights flickered under window shutters, and voices murmured as neighbours were startled awake. Matthew Bartholomew, physician and Doctor of Medicine at the College of Michaelhouse, broke into a run. Folk were beginning to emerge from their houses, asking each other why Edith Stanmore was making such an unholy racket in the middle of the night. The noise was coming from her house, was it not?

  It was cold for the time of year, and Bartholomew could see his breath pluming in front of him as he sprinted along the road; it was illuminated by the faint gleam of the lamp his book-bearer, Cynric, was holding. There was rain in the air, too, spiteful little droplets carried in a bitter wind that stung where they hit. He glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge the hour. Other than the disturbance caused by the howls, the t
own was silent, and the velvety blackness indicated it was the darkest part of the night, perhaps one or two o’clock.

  ‘What is happening?’ called one of Milne Street’s residents, peering out of his door. It was Robert de Blaston the carpenter; his wife Yolande was behind him. ‘Who is making that awful noise? Is it your sister? I can see from here that her lamps are lit.’

  Bartholomew sincerely hoped it was not Edith howling in such agony. She was his older sister, who had raised him after the early death of their parents, and he loved her dearly. Stomach churning, he forced himself to slow down as he negotiated his way past Blaston’s home. The recent addition of twins to the carpenter’s ever-expanding brood meant they had been forced to move to a larger property, and he was in the process of renovating it; the road outside was littered with scaffolding, wood and discarded pieces of rope. Bartholomew’s instinct was to ignore the hazard and race as fast as he could to Edith’s house, but common sense prevailed – he would be no use to her if he tripped and knocked himself senseless.

  ‘It is not Edith – it is a woman in labour,’ said Yolande, seeing his stricken expression and hastening to reassure him. Bartholomew supposed she knew what she was talking about: the twins brought her number of offspring to fourteen. ‘Edith must have taken in a Frail Sister.’

  Bartholomew faltered. A lady named Matilde had coined that particular phrase, as a sympathetic way of referring to Cambridge’s prostitutes. He had been on the verge of asking Matilde to marry him, but had dallied too long, and she had left the town more than two years before without ever knowing his intentions. It had been one of the worst days of his life, and even the expression ‘Frail Sisters’ was enough to make him reflect on all that his hesitancy had caused him to lose. But he came to his senses sharply when he blundered into some of Blaston’s building paraphernalia and became hopelessly entangled.

  ‘There are more Frail Sisters than usual,’ Yolande went on, watching her husband try to free him – a task not made any easier by the physician’s agitated struggles. ‘Summer came too early and spoiled the crops, so a lot of women are forced to earn money any way they can.’