A Bone of Contention

CHAPTER 12

Michael claimed the stench of burning in the hostel had made him thirsty and, reluctantly, Bartholomew went with him to the secluded garden at the Brazen George. The landlord obligingly told three indignant bakers that they had to leave so that Michael and Bartholomew could talk in private, then brought them a large platter of roast lamb smothered in a greenish, oily gravy. Michael scraped the sauce away with Bartholomew’s surgical knife, muttering in disgust when he discovered a piece of cabbage lurking in it.

‘People who eat things that grow in the dirt will die young, Matt,’ he pronounced firmly. ‘And there is always the danger that there might be a worm or a slug served up with them.’

‘Time is running short. We need to try to sort out some of this mess before it is too late.’

‘Very well,’ said Michael, his mouth full. ‘We had just deduced that the kindly Father Andrew is none other than the villainous martyr Simon d’Ambrey himself. Sit down and eat something, Matt. You will wear yourself out with all that pacing.’

Bartholomew sat next to him and toyed with his food, trying to make some sense out of the mass of fact and theories. Michael carefully trimmed the fat from a piece of meat and ate it, pushing the lean part to one side.

‘All right, then. Let me start. Father Andrew is too old to be your Norbert, but Father William has exposed him as a fraud, and there is clearly something untoward about the man: John of Stirling told us that Father Andrew had some kind of hold over the rioters last night, and there were all your suspicions that he was not all he seemed the way he splattered ink when he wrote, the fact that you think you heard him while you were sneaking around: the Chesterton tower-house, and so on. He is clearly up to, no good. Meanwhile, we learn from Lydgate that he once roasted a martyr in the barn but, conveniently, no body is ever recovered. With one of those leaps of logic of which you are so fond, it is clear that Simon d’Ambrey escaped the fire in Trumpington, was never shot at the King’s Ditch, and now he has returned to take his revenge on the town that so wronged him.’

He leaned back against the wall, pleased with what he had reasoned. Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair as his mind still grappled with the complexities of the evidence they had acquired.

‘Who can blame him?’ Michael added, gnawing on a bone. ‘You all behaved abominably. I told you days ago that I thought the town had abused him.’

Bartholomew watched him. ‘If all this is true, then d’Ambrey has succeeded in his revenge. The King, whose spy Heppel is probably here because of the growing unrest, will see the town as a hotbed of insurrection and he will clamp down on it hard. He will raise taxes, send more soldiers and shorten trading hours, so that Cambridge will be unable to compete with other market towns. Gradually, her wealth and influence will decline. Perhaps the University might even flounder, and take away another source of income, resented by the town though it may be. And as Cambridge sinks further into poverty – the poverty that d’Ambrey once fought so hard to reduce – he will have had his vengeance on the town.’

‘Now this is beginning to come together,’ said Michael with satisfaction, scrubbing the grease from his face with the sleeve of his habit. ‘Although I cannot yet see where Norbert fits into all this – unless he and d’Ambrey are in it together.’

‘They may be,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully. ‘But something else became clear to me when the charming Lydgates were baring their souls. I think I now know what the two acts were that Matilde’s client told her about.’

‘From something the Lydgates said?’ asked Michael, frowning. ‘I cannot see what.’

‘The riots were instigated to mask two acts,’ said Bartholomew slowly. ‘We thought at first that these acts might be burglaries, such as the one at the house next to Oswald, or perhaps the destruction of the Market Square. But now I think these were just coincidental. The two acts were matters much closer to d’Ambrey’s heart: the first was his daughter Dominica’s supposed death, and the second involved Will finding a suitable hand to use as a relic.’

‘You reasoned this from something the Lydgates said?’ asked Michael, unconvinced.

‘Only the first one – Dominica’s supposed death,’

Bartholomew admitted. ‘We need to review what we know and it involves Joanna.’

Michael raised his eyes heavenwards.

‘No, listen to me, Michael! It will make sense if you listen! A short while ago, Joanna, a prostitute from Ely and Agnes Tyler’s niece, came to Cambridge. Mistress Tyler was not happy with her guest, because Joanna started some unofficial business from her home, putting her good name at risk – we had that from Jonas the Poisoner’s wife and from the old river men. Obviously, Mistress Tyler would not want Joanna’s clients calling at her house with three daughters to protect. Meanwhile, Dominica wanted to escape from the Lydgates, and what better way than to pretend she was dead? And Joanna had long, fair hair, like Dominica.’

‘Now, just a moment,’ said Michael, sufficiently startled to pause in his repast. ‘Are you saying that Mistress Tyler plotted to have Joanna’s body mistaken for Dominica’s?’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew earnestly. ‘Either she plotted with Dominica herself, or with d’Ambrey, who might well want his daughter back from the man who almost killed him in the tithe barn fire.’

‘Why?’ demanded Michael. ‘Why should a perfectly law-abiding, honest woman like Mistress Tyler plot with a fallen martyr and his murderous daughter to have her niece killed and her body given the identity of another?’

‘I have no idea what her motive might be,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But we know that the Tyler family are involved in something sufficiently sinister to force Eleanor to try to stop me from asking too many questions – and I am sure that something involves Joanna. Eleanor has virtually ordered me to stop investigating Joanna’s death twice once in the High Street and once at the Feast – and even the apothecary’s wife suspects their sudden flight had something to do with Joanna.’

‘All right,’ said Michael grudgingly. ‘We will ignore the motive for now – for your convenience – and concentrate on what we know. Continue.’ He picked up Bartholomew’s knife and began to prod the bones to see if there was any more meat to be salvaged.

‘This plan would allow Dominica to be free of the Lydgates and her life at Godwinsson. She could help d’Ambrey in the last stages of his revenge against the town, along with his other faithful friends – Master Bigod, Saul Potter, Huw, Ivo, and so on, the ones whose names were recorded in the hidden documents in the Galen. And afterwards, she could go wherever d’Ambrey might take her.’

‘I see,’ said Michael. ‘So, the plan was to kill Joanna and leave her for Lydgate to find. You told me that her face was battered, which would make her difficult to recognise. Dominica knew her father’s eyesight was failing and he would be easy to fool. He was not a man given to reason anyway, particularly when enraged. He would storm off into the night searching for Dominica, see a blur of golden hair and assume his daughter was dead.’ He shook his head. ‘Unpleasant though it may seem, I suppose it is a just revenge on a man who had tried to kill d’Ambrey twenty-five years ago, and deprived him of seeing his daughter grow up.’

Bartholomew took up the tale. ‘Edred must have been in on the deception – he tried to steal the Galen with Norbert’s documents in it, so we can assume he was in their pay. Edred was the one who told Lydgate that he had seen Dominica in the streets of Cambridge. Naturally, Lydgate raced out to bring her back, while Edred and Cecily followed. Dominica knew the places Lydgate was most likely to look, so Joanna was killed at one of them by Godwinsson’s Frenchmen, who first raped her.’

‘No,’ said Michael, stopping him. ‘She was killed in Mistress Tyler’s house – we saw the bloodstains – and then dumped at a place Lydgate would be likely to look. That was why Mistress Tyler would not allow you to try to oust the looters from her house, and why she – a woman who knows how to look after herself and her property chose to abandon her house and spend the night with Jonas and his wife.’

Bartholomew nodded. It was beginning to make sense.

‘Meanwhile, Cecily took the opportunity to run away from her husband, while Edred, after he had helped her, sneaked back and ransacked her room. Lydgate told us he had stolen a crucifix.’

‘So, we have reasoned out Matilde’s “first act”,’ said Michael. ‘Ah, here comes the landlord with a pie. Apple! Excellent! Carry on, Matt. What of the second act – this relic business?’

‘The answers to that have been staring us in the face all the time. Think about where the first riot started at Master Burney’s tannery. Everyone knows that the Austin Canons own the room underneath, and that they use it as a mortuary, thinking the smell of the tannery will eliminate any dangerous miasmas that might come from the corpses.’

‘Mistress Starre’s son!’ exclaimed Michael in sudden realisation, his pie forgotten. ‘That feeble-minded boy who was a giant and whom you put into the Canons’ care when he was implicated in all that business with the saffron trade a while ago. We saw his body in the wreckage of Master Burney’s tannery!’

Bartholomew recalled the tangle of limbs in the rubble after the tannery had collapsed, and remembered that he had even told Michael that Starre was one of the dead.

‘There was too much else to be done with caring for the injured for the Canons to have been concerned with a missing hand, although I am sure d’Ambrey and his accomplices ensured that the body was carefully arranged so that the damage looked accidental.’

Michael shook his head in grudging admiration. ‘These people are clever. They selected Starre’s hand so that there would be no question that it belonged to a man because he was so big.’

‘And, of course, there were signs that the hand had been boiled and there was a pin to hold two of the bones together. The hand had not simply been discovered in the King’s Ditch – it had been carefully prepared. On top of all this, there was the ring it wore. John of Stirling took the ring Dominica gave to Kenzie at Father Andrew’s – d’Ambrey’s – request. D’Ambrey must have had an imitation made, which John then gave back to Kenzie, later to be stolen by Edred, thrown into the shed, and found by me. The real ring d’Ambrey must have given to Will of Valence Marie, with which to adorn the skeleton’s hand. Cecily said the pair of lovers’ rings were hers perhaps they were a gift from d’Ambrey if he were her paramour.’

‘And d’Ambrey could not simply use the one Cecily still had because it was too small to fit over the big hand they had prepared – she had the woman’s ring, and they needed the man’s. Dominica’s generosity to James Kenzie brought about his death.’

‘But it could not have done, Michael. Kenzie had the false ring, remember? And he clearly was unable to tell the difference and did not know the rings had been exchanged, or he would not have gone to Werbergh and Edred in his desperation to have it back.’

Michael sighed. ‘Regardless, we had better apprehend this Simon d’Ambrey before he does any more damage. But what about Werbergh’s murder? How does that fit into this foul web of retaliation?’

‘We will have to work that out as we go,’ said Bartholomew, reaching out a hand and hauling Michael to his feet. ‘We have wasted enough time already. If we are correct in our deductions, then d’Ambrey’s work is almost done here and he will soon be gone.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To Valence Marie. That is where this relic purporting to be d’Ambrey’s hand is, and that, I am certain, is where d’Ambrey will go sooner or later.’

They left a message with the sergeant to tell Tulyet of their suspicions – neither Bartholomew nor Michael felt there was much point in entrusting the information to the feeble Guy Heppel. Tulyet, Bartholomew knew, would not stop to question their message; he would hasten to Valence Marie and leave explanations until later. The sun was high as they hurried along the High Street, but it was already beginning to cloud over with the promise of rain. As Michael raised his hand to knock on the great gate, Bartholomew pushed it away. The memory of Radbeche’s murder at David’s was clear in his mind. He and Michael had been incautious to walk so blithely into David’s – Radbeche’s killer could easily have been lurking still at the scene of his crime. He wished Cynric were with them, since he would know exactly how to proceed.

Bartholomew pushed open the door and peered round it. There was no porter at the lodge. He drew a surgical knife from his bag, while Michael found a sturdy piece of wood he could use as a cudgel. Bartholomew pushed the door open a little further, and stepped inside. Like the last time they had visited Valence Marie, it was eerily quiet.

Bartholomew took a deep breath and began to make his way around the edge of the yard, Michael following.

The hall door was ajar. Standing well back, Bartholomew pushed it open with the tip of his knife and looked inside. It was deserted. Puzzled, he lowered the knife and walked in. It looked as though it had been the scene of a violent struggle. Cups and plates lay scattered on the floor and two of the long tables that ran down the sides of the hall had been overturned. Several tapestries hung askew, wine had pooled on the polished floor. Michael pushed past him, whistling at the mess.

Without warning, something heavy fell on Bartholomew from above. With a cry, he dropped to his hands and knees, the knife sent skittering across the stone floor.

The minstrels’ gallery! Valence Marie had a small gallery for musicians that was just above the main door; it was from here that someone had dropped down on to him.

Michael spun round with his cudgel, but was knocked backwards by a tremendous punch swung by Master Thorpe himself. Valence Marie scholars poured down the stairs where they had been hiding with howls of fury.

Bartholomew attempted to regain his feet but someone leapt on to his back, forcing him to the ground. He tried to scramble forwards to reach his knife but one of the Fellows saw what he was doing, and kicked the blade away so hard that it disappeared under a bench on the opposite side of the hall.

Michael lay on his back, his stomach protruding into the air like an enormous fish, while Thorpe stood over him wringing his fist. Bartholomew began to squirm and struggle with all his might. He felt the man clinging to his back begin to lose his grip. Others came to help but Bartholomew had managed to rise to his knees. As one scholar raced towards him, Bartholomew lowered his head and caught him hard in the middle. He heard a groan as the student dropped to the floor clutching his stomach.

But it was an unequal contest and, despite valiant efforts, Bartholomew found himself in the firm grip of several of Valence Marie’s strongest students. Realising that further struggling would merely serve to sap his strength, Bartholomew relented. He glanced nervously at Michael, still lying on the floor.

‘What do you mean by entering my hall armed with a knife?’ asked Thorpe coldly. ‘We saw you sneak into our yard like a thief, without knocking or calling out to announce yourself.’ He gave a superior smile. ‘So the scholars of Valence Marie decided to give you a welcome you did not anticipate.’

As several students jeered triumphantly, Bartholomew wondered how to explain. He tried to see the faces of the men who held him, to see if Father Andrew were there but he could not move. He tried to think of an answer that Thorpe would accept, but the Master of Valence Marie did not give him the chance to reply before firing another question at him.

‘What have you done with our relic?’

‘Your relic?’ repeated Bartholomew stupidly. ‘The skeleton’s hand? Has it gone?’

Thorpe looked hard at a small upended box that lay on the floor next to a piece of fine white satin and then back at Bartholomew, pursing his lips. ‘I have no doubt that you have taken it. The Chancellor has already instructed me to get rid of it, but who am I to deny the people of Cambridge their heritage? I refused. One of the students thought he might have found more sacred bones, but while we were out to investigate his discovery, our hand was stolen. Then, even as we searched for it, you enter my College, without permission and armed.’

Bartholomew could see why Thorpe was suspicious of him. ‘But if we had taken your relic, Master Thorpe, we would not still be here. We would go to hide it.’

Thorpe gestured to his scholars and Bartholomew and Michael were thoroughly searched. Bartholomew’s bag was torn from his shoulder and emptied unceremoniously on the floor. Phials and bandages rolled everywhere, and the damaged copy of Galen shaken vigorously, as if it might produce a stolen hand. Bartholomew looked around him quickly. One of the men who held him was the burly Henry, who had been present when the hand was found in the Ditch. Standing to one side was another servant, his arm in an untidy splint. Next to him, not taking a part in restraining Bartholomew, but favouring him with a gaze that was far more frightening than the scholars’ rough hands, was Will.

As Bartholomew looked into Will’s glittering eyes, cold and unblinking, he knew he was in trouble indeed. Seeing Bartholomew was observing him, the diminutive servant moved his tunic slightly to reveal the long, wicked-looking dagger in his belt. The hand that rested on its hilt had a semicircular mark that Bartholomew immediately recognised as a bite. Michael had bitten one of the men who had attacked them on the High Street the previous week, while Bartholomew knew he had broken the arm of another: Will and the servant who stood next to him.

‘Well, you might not have our relic with you,’ said Thorpe, oblivious to Will’s implicit threat, ‘but I know that you, or another of the Chancellor’s men, have taken it away. We found this precious thing. It came to us in the knowledge that it would be revered and honoured at Valence Marie.’

To say nothing of its use to amass wealth, thought Bartholomew. ‘I really have no idea where it is,’ he said. ‘And I cannot imagine that the Chancellor would arrange to have it taken by stealth. You do Master de Wetherset an injustice, sir.’

Thorpe clenched his fist again, and Bartholomew thought he was going to strike him. But Thorpe’s hand had already been bruised by punching Michael, and he was loath to risk harming himself a second time.

‘We will see,’ he said. He turned to Will. ‘Make sure they cannot escape. Lock them in, and we will go to discuss this with the Chancellor.’

He turned on his heel and stalked out. Bartholomew’s arms were pulled behind him and tied securely. Will still regarded him with his curious glittering eyes.

‘You go with the Master,’ he said to the students, nodding at Thorpe’s retreating back. ‘Henry, Jacob and I will remain here and guard these two.’

Bartholomew struggled to stand. He thought quickly, knowing that if he were left alone with Will and his cronies, he and Michael would not live to tell how they knew that the hand of Valence Marie did not belong to Simon d’Ambrey.

‘Can your Master not manage his affairs without the entire College at his heels?’ he shouted, trying to shame some of the retreating scholars into staying behind. ‘Do you find it necessary to follow him around like faithful dogs?’

Father Eligius, one of Bartholomew’s patients, hesitated.

‘This is an important matter, Matthew. If all Valence Marie’s Fellows are present and in complete agreement, it will add weight to our case that this sacred relic belongs here.’

‘But there is no sacred relic,’ said Bartholomew desperately. ‘It is the hand of a recently dead corpse planted in the Ditch by Will and his associates. It belonged to Mistress Starre’s son.’

Eligius looked startled, while the other Fellows laughed in derision.

‘Will has been a faithful servant since the College was founded,’ said Eligius reproachfully. ‘Such an accusation does you discredit, Matthew.’

‘But it is true!’ pressed Bartholomew. ‘Think about it! Why should a sacred relic have a pin to hold the bones together? Because it was carefully prepared by Will! And why was it wearing a ring recently stolen from the David’s student murdered just outside your walls? And why did Will just happen to have a fine casket lined with satin to use as a reliquary for it?’

‘This is nonsense,’ said a burly, angry-looking man, whom Bartholomew recognised as Master Dittone, as he ushered the students from the hall. ‘I am surprised at you, Bartholomew. I always thought you were a man of integrity. Now I learn that you steal, prowl around other colleges with weapons and make vile accusations against lowly servants who are not in a position to answer back.’

‘Do not be too harsh on him,’ said Eligius kindly. ‘Doctor Bartholomew suffered a grievous wound to the head recently, and his stars are poorly aligned.’

Bartholomew’s spirits sank. Would there be no end to the repercussions of Gray’s impetuous diagnosis? ‘The relic is a fake!’ he insisted to the last of the retreating scholars. Dittone shot him a vicious look and, for a moment, appeared as though he would like to silence Bartholomew permanently, there and then. He was edged firmly to the door by Eligius, who then paused.

‘Take good care of them, Will,’ he said. ‘Remember the doctor is unwell and needs to be treated with sympathy. It is not his fault that he was driven to steal the relic but the fault of the devils that possess him.’

‘Eligius!’ cried Bartholomew as the Dominican friar closed the door behind him. ‘Stay with us!’

The door shut with a clank and Bartholomew’s words echoed around the silent hall. Will exchanged glances with his friends. Bartholomew began to back away down the hall, while Will, ensuring that the door was locked, drew his dagger and followed.

Bartholomew saw Henry draw his own dagger and lean over Michael, who still lay flat on his back. The students had not tied the monk’s hands, but he was insensible.

Bartholomew looked around him desperately for some kind of weapon but realised that even a broadsword would be useless to him with his hands bound. He saw Henry hold Michael’s head back as he prepared to cut his throat. Henry then watched Will, waiting for an order.

‘That hand, Will,’ said Bartholomew, hoping to distract them long enough to give him a chance to think of some way to escape. ‘It was Starre’s, was it not? You took it the night of the first riot.’

Will grinned, but did not stop his relentless advance.

‘The first riot gave us plenty of time to acquire the limb of a recently dead pauper, and we did the body no harm. We could not risk you claiming the hand belonged to a woman because it was overly small.’

‘But it broke as you boiled it. You had to mend it with a pin.’

Will pulled an unpleasant face. ‘I might have known it was you who told the Chancellor that. Fortunately, Master Thorpe was not deterred by so minor a point and it did nothing to diminish his belief in the relic’s sanctity.’

‘And then, a couple of days later, with the hand suitably prepared, you pretended to find it in the Ditch. By then, it was wearing the ring that Father Andrew – Simon d’Ambrey, should I say – had given to you.’

Will began to gain on Bartholomew, who continued to speak as he backed down the hall.

‘You had even made a fine box for it in advance, lined with satin for it to lie on.’

‘What if I did?’ asked Will with a shrug. ‘But there is nothing you can do about it now and we cannot have you running all over the town claiming that our saintly relic is a fake.’

‘But it is a fake,’ Bartholomew pointed out.

‘Did you take it?’ asked Will, still advancing. He fingered his dagger. Jacob, the man with the broken arm, picked up a piece of broken pot in his good hand, and prepared to follow.

‘I do not think he did, Will,’ he said, ‘or he would not have come back.’

‘True, I suppose,’ said Will grudgingly. ‘But he has the book by Galen that Master d’Ambrey so badly wanted back. He will be pleased when I give it to him.’

‘We know it was you who attacked us that night,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You three, with Master Bigod, Huw, Saul Potter, and Ivo from David’s Hostel. Jacob’s arm was broken then, and you were bitten. And it was probably you who searched my room the first two times.’

‘We should have finished you then, in the street, along with that meddlesome monk. But Master Bigod was too squeamish, damn him, especially when he saw I was about to kill a man of God. Everything was going to plan until you two started to poke about.’

Jacob hurled his piece of broken pot. Bartholomew ducked as it sailed over his head to crash against the wall in a shower of shards. Undeterred, the servant looked about for something else to throw.

‘And it was you who burgled those houses,’ said Bartholomew, ducking a second time as a pewter jug narrowly missed him. ‘Because you knew exactly where and when the riots would break out, you were able to use the opportunity to select the houses of certain rich merchants and steal from them.’

‘So what?’ said Jacob, leaning down to grab another his jug to throw. ‘Is it fair that fat merchants should have more wealth than they know what to do with, while the rest of us are starving?’

‘You are not starving,’ Bartholomew pointed out.

Will gave an unpleasant smile. ‘Not now, perhaps, but we have to think of the future, and a man like Simon d’Ambrey always needs funds.’

‘I bet he does,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Funds for paying people to incite riots, funds to have corpses desecrated, funds to assassinate people he does not like.’

Will came nearer, flanked by Jacob. ‘I have had enough of this! ‘

He turned to nod to Henry to dispatch Michael. Seeing him momentarily distracted, Bartholomew propelled himself forward with an almighty yell, crashing into him and knocking him off balance. Will fell into Jacob, who dropped to his knees with a shriek as he cradled his injured arm. Michael’s hands suddenly shot out, one grasping Henry’s throat, the other the arm that held the dagger. As Henry began to choke with a series of unpleasant gurgles, Bartholomew turned his attention back to Will. Will lunged with his knife and Bartholomew jumped away.

‘What is in all this for you, Will?’ asked Bartholomew, flinching backwards as Will lunged a second time. ‘Why should you risk your livelihood for d’Ambrey?’

‘He once paid a surgeon to set my broken leg,’ said Will, circling Bartholomew like a dog. ‘I have always deeply regretted that I did nothing to help him when he was accused all those years ago. It is a second chance, and I will go with him when he leaves tonight. I will no longer be a mere servant, taken for granted and given the most menial of tasks to perform, but a member of a respectable household, the head of which will be the saintly Master d’Ambrey.’

‘But the man has changed!’ said Bartholomew, his feet crunching on broken pottery as he ducked away from Will’s dagger. ‘Saints do not kill and order the desecration of the dead!’

‘Shut up!’ hissed Will. He darted forward and caught hold of Bartholomew’s tabard to hold him still.

‘D’Ambrey must be held to blame for all the deaths that occurred in the riots he inspired,’ persisted Bartholomew breathlessly, tearing away from Will’s grip as a swipe of the dagger ripped his shirt. ‘Including that of your brother. He died in the first riot, I understand.’

He jerked backwards to avoid another furious hacking blow and stumbled over a broken chair. Will was now incensed and his eyes flashed with loathing. Instead of distracting the man, Bartholomew had succeeded in enraging him to the point where any chance of escape seemed hopeless. Off-balance, Bartholomew crashed to the floor, while Will’s arm flicked down and under in a swift, efficient movement aimed at the physician’s unprotected stomach.

Even as the knife flashed towards him, there was a loud thump, and Will’s head jolted forward. Will looked as surprised as Bartholomew, before crumpling into a heap on the floor. Jacob still sat hunched over his injured arm while Henry lay massaging his bruised neck.

Across the hall, Michael sank down on to a bench and closed his eyes. Shakily, Bartholomew climbed to his feet and joined him.

‘Thank the Lord you like reading heavy books,’ said Michael, pointing to where the Galen lay next to Will.

Michael had hurled it in the nick of time.

As Bartholomew approached the door to leave Valence Marie’s hall, he froze, and edged back into the shadows.

There were voices – Thorpe’s and d’Ambrey’s, complete with the lilting Scottish accent of Father Andrew. Bartholomew opened the door slightly so he could hear what was being said.

‘I am most distressed that the relic has disappeared,’ d’Ambrey was saying, wringing his hands and appearing every inch the benevolent old friar. ‘Most distressed indeed. I wanted to see it again before I left.’

‘You are leaving Cambridge, Father?’ asked Thorpe politely, but without interest. He had other things to worry about than an elderly friar who had missed his opportunity to view the relic. But the friar’s concern was insistent – as well it might be.

‘Do you have an idea of where it might be?’ he said. ‘Can I help you look for it?’

‘You are most kind, Father,’ said Thorpe. ‘But we will manage. We have already turned the College upside-down in our quest to locate it – you should see the state of our poor hall! I am now on my way to discuss the matter with the Chancellor.’

‘I know you will guard that relic and see that it is awarded the honour it deserves,’ continued d’Ambrey.

Thorpe looked at him sharply. D’Ambrey was overplaying his role, enjoying too much the opportunity to promote himself as the object of reverence.

He realised the danger, and bowed to Thorpe before taking his leave. He was shown out of the main gate by one of the students and Bartholomew saw him glancing this way and that as he walked, as though the hand might appear suddenly in the mud and refuse that lay ankle-deep in the yard. Thorpe dallied, his students milling about him restlessly.

‘Has de Wetherset stolen the hand?’ whispered Bartholomew to Michael as he watched them. ‘Or Heppel?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Possibly. What is Thorpe doing? Why does he not leave? We should follow d’Ambrey before he escapes us completely, but we cannot do so with Thorpe prowling around outside. His students are vengeful – they would hang us in an instant if Thorpe gave them his blessing, and even Father Eligius’s claims that you are mentally deficient will not save us.’

Bartholomew regarded him sharply. ‘Exactly when was it that you recovered your senses from Thorpe’s blow?’ he asked.

Michael looked uncomfortable. ‘I am not sure. But I had to wait for the right moment before I acted.’

‘You cut it very fine, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, regarding the monk uneasily.

‘The truth was that you were doing such a fine job of wringing a confession from Will that I decided to wait a while. He would never have been so verbose had I leapt to my feet and overpowered Henry. He was bragging to you simply because he thought he was going to kill you, and that you would never be in a position to reveal anything he had said.’

‘He almost killed me several times during his confession!’ said Bartholomew, aghast. ‘How could you put Will’s paltry revelations over my life?’

‘Come now, Matt!’ said Michael impatiently. ‘Do not be so melodramatic! I knew what I was doing. I saved your life, did I not? And together we overwhelmed that unwholesome trio there.’

He glanced over his shoulder to where Will, Henry and Jacob sat with their backs to the serving screen, secured there with ropes that had been used to suspend the tapestries from the walls. Henry and Jacob were subdued, but Will was livid. He struggled and heaved against his bonds, making guttural sounds through the bandages with which Bartholomew had gagged him.

Bartholomew turned his attention back to the yard, and gave a start of horror as he saw Thorpe begin to walk towards the hall. His heart lurched in anticipation of being discovered free, and he was momentarily frozen with fear. Sensing his alarm, Will’s struggles increased, and Michael grabbed Will’s abandoned dagger, racing across to the serving screen to wave it menacingly at the gagged servant before Thorpe heard the noise.

Thorpe drew closer, and Bartholomew looked around in panic, wondering how they might escape. There was no other way out. Bartholomew knew instinctively that if Thorpe discovered they had overpowered his servants, he would give them into the custody of his vengeful students, and that would be their death warrant. As Thorpe’s hand reached out to push open the hall door, a scholar emerged from the Master’s quarters, carrying a bundle of cloth. Thorpe’s hand dropped from the door and he began to walk away. Bartholomew was so relieved, his legs turned to jelly, and he had to lean against the wall for support. Next to Will, Michael dropped the dagger in revulsion.

Bartholomew gave the monk a weak smile. ‘Master Thorpe does not want to confront the Chancellor improperly attired,’ he explained shakily. ‘He was waiting for a student to fetch him his best robe.’

Michael gnawed at his finger-nails. ‘We will lose d’Ambrey if Thorpe does not leave soon!’

While they waited for Thorpe to be satisfied with the way his gown fell, Bartholomew crammed bandages and salves back in his medical bag and tucked the Galen into one of the side pockets. Michael fretted at the door.

By the time Bartholomew had finished, Thorpe and his entourage had gone and Michael was already across the courtyard and out of the main gates. As they emerged into the High Street, they caught a glimpse of d’Ambrey’s grey habit disappearing up the Trumpington Road.

They set off after him, pausing briefly to tell the guards on the gate that there were three felons secured in Valence Marie, and that Tulyet should follow as soon as possible. After a moment’s hesitation, Michael tossed a small child a penny and sent her with a message to the Chancellor and Heppel.

‘Wicked waste of a penny,’ muttered Michael. ‘De Wetherset will be in a business meeting and his clerks will be too frightened to disturb him on our behalf, while Heppel’s presence while we apprehend a killer will be more hindrance than help.’

While they had been in Valence Marie the clouds had thickened, and a light, misty rain was falling. It should have been a welcome relief after the heat of the morning, but it served only to increase the humidity.

Michael complained that he could not catch his breath; even Bartholomew began to feel uncomfortable. But the rain afforded some advantage, for it provided a haziness in the air that meant that Bartholomew and Michael were able to follow d’Ambrey with less chance of being seen.

They walked quickly and without speaking, alert for any sound that would warn them that d’Ambrey had stopped.

One or twice they glimpsed him ahead and, as they went further from the town, Bartholomew began to wonder how far d’Ambrey was going to go. They reached the small manor owned by Sir Robert de Panton, where the land had been cleared for farming, affording uninterrupted views down the road for some distance. D’Ambrey was nowhere to be seen. Michael sagged in defeat.

As they dithered, wondering where d’Ambrey might have turned, they met Sir Robert himself, who told them that he had seen an elderly friar pass along the Trumpington Road just a few moments before. Encouraged, Bartholomew and Michael hurried on.

They continued in silence, the only sounds being Michael’s heavy breathing, and their feet on the muddy road. As they began to despair that they might have lost him a second time, a thought occurred to Bartholomew.

They were near Trumpington village, where d’Ambrey had almost been incinerated in the tithe barn fire. The new barn had been built closer to the village, so it could be better protected, and the charred timbers of the old one had been allowed to decay. Now nothing remained apart from one or two ivy-covered stumps and a clearing in the trees where it had once stood.

Wordlessly, Bartholomew led Michael off the main path to the site of the old barn. He was beginning to think he must have miscalculated, when he heard voices. One was d’Ambrey, speaking with no hint of a Scottish accent. Peering through the trees, Bartholomew saw an unwholesome creature wrapped in filthy rags, but standing straight and tall and speaking in a firm, clear voice. The murderous Dominica. D’Ambrey said something, and there were growls of agreement from others: Huw from Godwinsson, Ivo from David’s, and Cecily, who looked sullen. As Bartholomew’ turned to indicate to Michael that they should withdraw and wait for Tulyet, he heard the unmistakeable click of a crossbow bolt being loaded. He spun round.

‘Ruthven!’

Ruthven smiled, and indicated with a small flick of his crossbow that they should precede him into the midst of Simon d’Ambrey’s meeting.

D’Ambrey scowled when he saw Ruthven’s captives. ‘Where did you find these gentlemen?’

‘Listening to you from the bushes over there,’ said Ruthven with a toss of his head. He poked at Bartholomew with his weapon and indicated that he and Michael should sit on the grass.

‘Well, we can do nothing until nightfall, anyway,’ said d’Ambrey with a shrug. ‘I would like Huw to return to Valence Marie and find out from Will what is happening about my hand.’ He turned to Bartholomew and Michael, and smiled. ‘Given long enough, I might be made a saint, do you think? Perhaps a fine abbey built around my shrine?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Michael. ‘Although people do seem to worship the oddest things.’ He smiled guilelessly back at d’Ambrey, ignoring Bartholomew’s warning kick.

D’Ambrey saw Bartholomew’s reaction, however. ‘I see you seek to caution your friend, lest he moves me to anger, Doctor,’ he said. ‘You have doubtless seen many forms of madness since you have become a physician. Well, you have no need to look for any such signs in me. I am as sane as you. Angry, perhaps. Betrayed, certainly. And vengeful. But most assuredly not mad.’

He smiled in a way that made Bartholomew seriously doubt it. The only hope for him and Michael, he realised, was that one of the messages that they had left for Tulyet would reach him, especially the one with the guards at the gate. He prayed that the Sheriff would not be waylaid into helping Thorpe search for the missing relic.

D’Ambrey sat on a tree stump and smiled beatifically.

Even with his accent and friar-like demeanour gone, Bartholomew felt the man still had a peculiarly saintly air about him.

‘You are wondering what made me change,’ he said, looking from one to the other of his captives. ‘I was loved by the people. My brother and sister adored me. And then my brother betrayed me. He stole the treasure I had collected for the poor and flaunted it by wearing it around the town. People thought I had given it to him and turned against me. I ran to the woman I had always liked best for sanctuary. But she betrayed me too. She told her betrothed where I was and he came to kill me.’

‘No!’ Cecily rose from where she had been sitting, uncomfortable and bedraggled, on the grass. ‘You know I did not betray you! I saw smoke coming from the barn and ran back to warn you, but it was already too late. I thought it was a terrible accident, not murder!’

‘But you did not try to look for me after the blaze,’ said d’Ambrey, with quiet reason. ‘You were quick to assume I was dead.’

‘But the barn was an inferno! ‘ wailed Cecily desperately, moving towards him, arms outstretched. ‘No one could have survived! Even the nails melted from the heat!’

‘And then you married the man who brought about my death,’ continued d’Ambrey relentlessly. ‘And you allowed him to bring up my daughter as his own child. You did not even keep the rings I gave you. Somehow one of them ended up on a shabby little student at my own hostel and I had to go to all manner of contortions to get it back to adorn my relic at Valence Marie.’

‘Dominica gave it to him,’ protested Cecily. ‘I kept both rings close to my heart for twenty-five years. I only gave one to Bartholomew recently because I thought he might be able to use it to catch Dominica’s killer.’

‘I did no such thing, father,’ said Dominica disdainfully. ‘She and Thomas Lydgate were far too mean to give me jewellery to dispense with as I pleased. She is lying!’

‘I think you did give it to Jamie, Dominica,’ said Ruthven uncertainly. ‘He said you did.’

‘My Dominica has no cause to lie,’ said d’Ambrey, somewhat rashly, since it was clear to everyone in the clearing that she had every reason to stretch the truth.

Cecily gazed at her daughter in mute appeal, and Bartholomew found he could not watch.

‘Those rings belonged to my parents,’ said d’Ambrey sternly. ‘My father had them made to match my mother’s blue-green eyes. They are not baubles to be dispensed to any snotty-nosed scholar who wanted one, especially a lad like James Kenzie, who was so careless. First he let John steal it and then he lost the false one I replaced it with while he was brawling on the High Street.’

‘But I kept them safe!’ shrieked Cecily. ‘I did! Dominica stole them from me to give to her paramour!’

D’Ambrey turned from her and made a quick gesture to Ruthven. There was a swish and a thump. Ruthven was reloading his crossbow with a new quarrel before the shocked Bartholomew could act. Cecily looked at d’Ambrey in horror, her hands clawing at the bolt that protruded from her chest. Her bulbous eyes popped out even further as she sank on to the grass.

Bartholomew made to go towards her.

‘Leave her!’ d’Ambrey snapped, his gentle tones vanished. ‘She deserves to die.’

Bartholomew looked at him in revulsion. ‘Why?’

‘She has served her purpose,’ said d’Ambrey with a shrug. ‘I only brought her into the plot at the last minute because she had hidden away her family jewels so well that neither Edred nor Dominica could find them. She kindly brought them – Dominica’s inheritance – a few moments ago, although they are a little fire-damaged. But I do not want her slowing us down when we leave tonight. We will need to move fast if we want to escape.’

‘I can give her something to ease the pain,’ said Bartholomew, reaching for his bag and flipping it open.

‘You will leave her alone,’ d’Ambrey repeated, looking inside the bag with interest. ‘You have my Galen, I see. A little late, perhaps, but I am pleased to have it back.’

Before Bartholomew could reply, d’Ambrey had plucked the tome from the bag, and was sitting with it on his knees.

He saw immediately where Gray had torn the covers away and shook his head slowly, fingering the damage with sadness in his face.

‘Is this the way scholars treat their books? Would you do this, eh, Ruthven?’

Ruthven came to peer over d’Ambrey’s shoulder, looking at the torn cover. ‘Was this where the documents were hidden?’ he asked.

D’Ambrey nodded. ‘I tried several times to get this back,’ he said to Bartholomew. ‘But if I sent someone to search your room, you would have it in your bag, and when I waylaid you on the High Street, you had left it in your room. And then, when I simply asked you for it, you offered to return it immediately!’

‘My father wrote that book,’ said Ruthven with pride.

‘What was his name?’ asked Michael.

‘No one you would know, Brother,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘Just a scholar I helped many years ago. You should empathise, Doctor, for he was a man whose revolutionary medical ideas gave rise to an accusation of heresy. I gave him money to flee to Scotland to safety. He remembered me, unlike so many, and told his son, already a student here, to help me in my revenge against the town.’

‘It seems you have engineered quite a plot against the town, Master d’Ambrey,’ said Michael, knowing that as soon as d’Ambrey grew tired of them, he and Bartholomew would go the same way as Cecily. They had to try to keep him talking until Tulyet arrived. ‘Perhaps you would care to entertain us with the details.’

D’Ambrey looked pleased. ‘Shall I start at the beginning, then?’ he asked sweetly. At Michael’s nod, he settled himself comfortably and beamed around at his audience. ‘Well, to take you back twenty-five years, I fled the burning barn and sought safety near the river. I was not the only abandoned soul that night. A lad named Norbert was also fleeing that horrible little village. We joined forces and lived rough for several days. He told me what you had done for him and it did much to cheer me, Bartholomew. We exchanged our plans of revenge me on the town, him on the village – and he confided his plans to become an archer at Dover Castle.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Bartholomew suddenly, an uneasy feeling uncoiling in his stomach. ‘It was you! You killed Norbert! It was his skeleton we found in the Ditch after all!’

He gazed, horrified, at d’Ambrey, who smiled back at him, unperturbed by his distress. ‘I am afraid you are right. But it was all a dreadful mistake. You see, one night, Norbert disappeared, and I assumed that he had gone to fetch soldiers. I was desperate to stop him and caught him near the Ditch where my brother had died. I slipped up behind him and stoved in his skull with a stone. He had just enough breath, before he died, to tell me that he was going to burgle a house to steal me a new cloak for our journey south together. I have been sorry about Norbert ever since,’ he finished, looking wistfully at the crushed grass at his feet.

Bartholomew felt sick. The messages he had received had been forged by d’Ambrey, and the copies in the back of the book kept so he would not forget the lies told.

Bartholomew had released Norbert from Trumpington, only for him to fall into the hands of a murderer.

D’Ambrey’s eyes were guilelessly wide. ‘I sent Bartholomew letters – signed with the name of Norbert’s sister so as not to get him into trouble with his family so that he would not fret about the welfare of his young friend. It was a simple act of kindness.’

Bartholomew gazed at him with renewed awe. Such dishonesty surely could not be considered kindness? He wondered afresh at d’Ambrey’s sanity. The man sat, still dressed in his friar’s habit, smiling benevolently down at them like a beloved old grandfather. Yet he had ordered Cecily’s brutal murder without a moment’s hesitation.

‘And you needed somewhere to hide these letters,’ said Michael. ‘Where better than the Galen? The book was never used by David’s students because none of them were studying medicine. It would have been difficult to hide them otherwise – hostels are notorious for their lack of privacy.’

D’Ambrey nodded. ‘You have it, Brother. Scholars are naturally curious and I did not want them poking about in my belongings and finding the letters. The Galen was a perfect hiding place until Radbeche lent it to you! But we digress.’ He gave a huge sigh, and continued.

‘It was my intention that Norbert’s skeleton should be dredged from the Ditch and revered as mine at Valence Marie, assuming it had not washed away. But, ironically, it was you who prevented that, Doctor, by saying it was too small.’

‘How could you know your brother’s skeleton would not be dredged up?’ asked Michael. ‘Or his and Norbert’s?’

‘The Ditch was in flood the night my brother died,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘His body was washed a long way downstream. When I killed Norbert, the Ditch was low. The water did not cover him, and so I buried him in the mud at the bottom.’

‘And then you went to Dover,’ said Bartholomew, unsteadily.

‘I did indeed,’ said d’Ambrey, ‘I went in pursuit of my fleeing household – as did the three burgesses from the town. It was easy to follow them, and I disguised myself as a travelling priest.’

Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair. ‘And I suppose it was you who started the fire in which all those people died, your household included.’

D’Ambrey smiled. ‘It was nothing,’ he said modestly. ‘An oven left burning in a baker’s shop when it should have been doused for the night; a specially prepared pie that would ensure my household slept through any alarms that might have been raised before the fire was underway.’

‘Dozens of innocent people died in that blaze,’ said Bartholomew, appalled, ‘not just members of your household.’

‘It could not be helped,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘And I am sure you will understand my need for revenge after what had happened to me.’

‘But how did you manage to make the burgesses believe that your brother was among the casualties?’ asked Michael. ‘His body was never recovered.’

‘Never recovered?’ queried d’Ambrey. ‘On what grounds do you base such an assumption? Believe me, my brother’s body lies in the grave that is marked with his name. I could not allow it to be found when all believed it was me who had died in the Ditch that day. Norbert helped me search for it and, when I assumed my disguise as a priest, I hid it in the portable altar I carried on my cart.’

‘And then you left his body for the burgesses to find after the fire,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Exactly. I had to disguise the wound in his throat, but that was easy enough with all that falling timber. The whole affair was expertly brought to a satisfactory conclusion. I even heard later that the worthy burgesses were suspected of starting the fire themselves,’ he added with a chuckle.

‘But how could you know that the Ditch would be dredged at such an opportune time?’ asked Michael, shifting uncomfortably on the sodden ground.

‘Think!’ said d’Ambrey with chiding patience. ‘It was mainly Thorpe who set the scheme in motion in the first place: Will mentioned the money that might be made if the relics of Simon d’Ambrey were to be found by Valence Marie. Thorpe needed little encouragement once that seed was sown. I wonder what happened to that hand…’

He thought for a moment before resuming. ‘I returned here two months ago and secured myself a place at David’s. Ruthven’s father sent a letter of recommendation, along with the name of a friar – recently deceased – whose identity I could assume. It was an excellent idea. After all, who would suspect an elderly Scottish friar? Any lapses in my theological knowledge would merely be put down to my nationality.’

Ruthven looked at him sharply and fingered his crossbow.

But d’Ambrey was oblivious to Ruthven’s patriotic ire and continued with his tale.

‘I had settled in nicely by the time term had started; I had secured the help of people who owed me favours: Will, Henry and Jacob, who now work at Valence Marie, Huw and Saul Potter of Godwinsson, even Master Bigod of Maud’s owes me a small favour – you see, I once loaned him the money to pay a hag to rid one of his mistresses of an unwanted child. Bigod was always one for the women, as Cecily will attest.’

He flung a disparaging glance at the writhing woman on the ground.

‘You were right, Matt!’ whispered Michael, as d’Ambrey stood to peer through the trees for signs of Huw returning with news of the lost relic. ‘Cecily and Bigod were lovers! I do not know which one I feel more sorry for!’

So Bigod, like Lydgate, was being blackmailed, thought Bartholomew, watching d’Ambrey resettle himself on the tree stump with his Galen. That Bigod spoke of Dominica’s death in the Chesterton basement, however, suggested that he was not party to that part of the plot.

‘I sent Master Lydgate little notes,’ continued d’Ambrey, ‘reminding him that he had fired the tithe barn and hinting about my death. He was meant to be terrified that I had returned from the dead to haunt him. But he, foolish man, did not have sufficient imagination, and settled for a more practical explanation. He thought you were sending them, Doctor. How he justified belief in such a sudden and uncharacteristic move on your part, I cannot imagine. But Lydgate was not a man to allow reason to interfere with his prejudices.’

He fell silent, and the only sounds were the slight swish of wind in the trees, the drip of rain on leaves.

Ruthven cocked his crossbow at Michael who was trying to make himself comfortable on the ground, while Dominica, bored by the narration, moved away to talk to Ivo. Horribly aware that as soon as they failed to keep d’Ambrey amused, Ruthven would be ordered to kill them, Bartholomew desperately searched for something to say.

‘We know about your two acts,’ he said. ‘Faking the death of Dominica and producing a hand for the relic.’

‘So, Matilde did betray me,’ he said sadly. ‘That cannot go unpunished.’

Bartholomew’s stomach churned and he was furious at himself. Putting Matilde in danger was not what he had intended! ‘She told us nothing! We reasoned it all out for ourselves!’

‘I do not think so, Doctor. You simply do not have the cunning and clarity of mind to best me. No one does.’

He frowned down at the soggy Galen. ‘So, Eleanor Tyler was right after all about that harlot. She told me she was not to be trusted.’

‘Where is Eleanor?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Far away by now, I should think. Dominica needed to escape and what better way than by using Mistress Tyler’s harlot niece?’

‘Why did Mistress Tyler allow herself to become involved in this mess of lies and spite?’ asked Bartholomew, not sure that he really wanted to know the answer.

‘I was told you had a liking for her daughters, although you would have been kinder to have concentrated your efforts on just one of them rather than two. But Mistress Tyler helped me because she has a dark secret that I concealed for her many years ago.’

‘What dark secret?’ asked Michael, interested.

‘Mistress Tyler killed her first husband,’ said d’Ambrey casually. ‘It was an accident, you understand. The cooking pot simply fell from her hand on to his head. But it was after months of abuse, and the man was a brute. I hired a physician to say that he died of a fever. So she is indebted to me. Her second husband was a good man and the father of her three girls. He died quite naturally during the plague I understand – no cooking pots involved there.’

‘Did you help Mistress Tyler because you felt her crime had a just cause, or so that you could blackmail her later?’ asked Bartholomew coldly.

D’Ambrey’s smile faded and his eyes became hard. ‘You are arrogant, Doctor, just as Lydgate said you were. For your information, I knew Mistress Tyler and her first husband and I judged for myself which was the victim.’

‘That is arrogant!’ exclaimed Bartholomew. ‘On what authority do you presume to act as judge over your fellow men?’

There was a tense silence, and even Cecily desisted with her soft moans. Bartholomew thought he had gone too far and had tipped this unstable man across the thin boundary from sanity. He caught Michael’s agonised look from the corner of his eye.

D’Ambrey’s smile returned, and there was an almost audible sigh of relief from all in the clearing. From the tension of d’Ambrey’s associates, Bartholomew judged that displays of temper were probably not unknown from this seemingly gentle man.

‘I instructed Mistress Tyler to ensure Joanna remained indoors after the riot had started. She was simply to take her daughters and spend the night with her relatives. It was foolish of those French boys to have attacked Eleanor first, but it was even more foolish of the Tylers to have embarked on a friendship with you, given that you were obsessed with Joanna’s death.’

‘Did they know what you planned to do to Joanna?’ asked Michael.

D’Ambrey shook his head. ‘I simply told them to slip Joanna a little something from Uncle Jonas’s store to make her sleep, and that she would be removed from their house never to bother them again. Of course, they were unsettled by the idea, but they soon saw sense when I pointed out that the alternative would be Mistress Tyler hanged for her husband’s murder, and her daughters left unprotected.’

‘Did you tell them to leave the town?’ asked Bartholomew shakily.

‘I did not, although what else could they have done, especially after foolish Eleanor sought to solve matters by trying to poison you? Silly child! Had she succeeded, Brother Michael would never have let the matter rest until he had discovered the truth and that, of course, would have been dangerous to me. I was relieved when they fled.’

Bartholomew took a deep breath, feeling the sweat prick at his back despite the chill of the rain. ‘The second: riot was different from the first,’ he said, changing the subject with some relief. Despite the fact that he had already guessed that Eleanor had sent him the poison, he did not want to dwell on the matter.

‘Godwinsson was to be destroyed,’ said Michael, seizing on the opportunity to launch d’Ambrey into explaining another part of his plan, and thus buy them more time.

‘And Michaelhouse attacked so that the Sheriff will be forced to take serious measures against the town. You incited both riots. You started rumours in the Market Square, Valence Marie and Godwinsson and they spread like wildfire. Experienced rabble-rousers, like Saul Potter, fanned them to see that they did not die out.’

‘Right,’ said d’Ambrey, nodding appreciatively. ‘You have reasoned all this out very well. The complaints of the University that it has been attacked will be sure to evoke a response from the King. Extra troops will be called in and crippling taxes imposed. That was my plan all along. After last night’s riots the Sheriff will be ordered to clamp down so hard on the townspeople – the townspeople that were so quick to believe ill of me after I had dedicated my life to helping them – that the town will be unable to function as a viable trading centre. Gradually, it will decline and the people will sink deeper and deeper into poverty.’

Bartholomew wondered whether d’Ambrey really believed that the people he was so keen to punish were the same ones that had failed to rally to his defence twenty-five years before. Few, if any, of the scholars were the same, since the University was a transient place, and so many of the townspeople had died of the plague that d’Ambrey was lucky to be remembered by anyone at all. Seeing d’Ambrey begin to fidget, Bartholomew continued quickly before he lost interest altogether and ordered them shot.

‘Cecily told us that Dominica killed Radbeche. Is that true?’

Dominica smiled at him, distracted from her conversation with Ivo by the mention of her name.

‘Yes,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘I had arranged for Radbeche to be away for the night, but he heard rumours that there might be a riot, abandoned his trip, and hurried home. Meanwhile, those silly Scots escaped as soon as I left the hostel – as I knew they would.’ He paused and looked down at the book on his knees. The rain was making the ink run but he seemed oblivious to the damage.

‘Unfortunately, when Radbeche came bursting into the hostel crying out that there would be murder and mayhem that night, he saw Dominica – not as Norbert the scullion, but as a woman with long, fair hair. She could not have him telling everyone about that, so she ensured his silence. Scarcely had she wiped the blood from her blade when John walked in.’

‘Dominica ran him through, too,’ said Ruthven, eager to tell his part in the story. ‘But her aim was false in the dark, and I could not bring myself to finish him off, so I stayed with him until he died. My part was finished anyway. All I had to do was to explain to the proctors that the mob had killed Radbeche and John and then ask the Chancellor’s permission to return to Scotland to recover from my terrible experience. I was convincing, was I not?’

Bartholomew hoped Michael would not reveal that John was still alive, or d’Ambrey was certain to order his death. But the monk was far too self-composed to make such an error. He assessed d’Ambrey coldly.

‘Yesterday afternoon, when you went out with John, Father William left you in no doubt that he would uncover you as a fraud. Your work, therefore, had to be finished today, or you would risk being reviled by the townspeople a second time.’

‘People are fickle,’ mused d’Ambrey sadly. ‘The scholars at David’s were fond of me but I do not doubt for an instant that they would denounce me had Father William uncovered my disguise. You are right. I had to finish all my business today.’

Bartholomew wondered how he could have been so misled. The people at Godwinsson – Lydgate, Cecily, Edred and Werbergh – were an unsavoury crowd, but Bartholomew found them easier to understand than the smiling villains at David’s. He glanced behind him into the trees, wondering how much longer they would be able to keep d’Ambrey entertained.

‘But who killed Kenzie and Werbergh?’ asked Michael.

His thin hair was plastered to his head, giving it a pointed appearance, and he, like Bartholomew, was shivering partly from sitting still in the rain, but mostly from the almost unbearable tension of wondering whether Tulyet would arrive in time to save them.

‘I imagine Ruthven killed Kenzie,’ said Bartholomew, looking hard at the Scot. ‘Kenzie had lost his ring – or the fake – and was broken-hearted. Master d’Ambrey decided it was time to rid himself once and for all of the youngster who was not only careless with his belongings, but who had the audacity to fall in love with his daughter Dominica. So, Ruthven went with Kenzie to help him look for his ring, then hit him on the head when he, trustingly, went first along the top of the Ditch in the dark. Correct?’

Ruthven’s eyes were fixed guiltily on Dominica.

‘James Kenzie was entirely the wrong choice for my Dominica,’ said d’Ambrey before the Scot could reply. ‘Ruthven agreed to solve the problem before it became overly serious.’

Dominica did not appear to be impressed at this example of paternal care. ‘You introduced me to him,’ she said accusingly. ‘Anyway, I was not planning to marry him. He was just fun to be with and he was imaginative in fooling my parents.’

‘Well, Ruthven hit him on the head with the pommel of his dagger,’ said d’Ambrey unremorsefully. ‘And then poor Radbeche and I had to keep all our students in so that the University would think we were serious about discipline. It worked brilliantly. You never suspected any of us. ‘

‘Actually, we did,’ said Michael.

Dominica shook her head slowly at Ruthven, ignoring d’Ambrey’s mild outrage at Michael’s claim. ‘But Jamie was your friend!’

Ruthven declined to answer and stared at the wet grass, fiddling dangerously with the winding mechanism on the crossbow.

‘Very clever,’ said Michael, turning back to d’Ambrey. ‘Ruthven’s alibi for the time of the murder was the man who ordered the murder in the first place.’

Bartholomew wondered whether Dominica might launch herself at Ruthven in her fury, and tensed himself to take advantage of the situation while Ruthven battled with her.

He was unprepared for her sudden, dazzling smile. His spirits sank.

‘Such loving care! My parents never managed to prevent me from seeing the men of my choice but you two have!’

‘Then?’ asked d’Ambrey suspiciously. ‘There were others?’

‘And what of Werbergh?’ asked Michael, uninterested in Dominica’s romantic entanglements. ‘Why was he killed and his death made to look like an accident?’

‘Ah yes, Werbergh,’ said d’Ambrey, still looking uncertainly at Dominica. ‘Werbergh was employed by me as a spy to keep an eye on Lydgate’s movements, but he was next to worthless. He was so nervous that it must have been obvious to a child what he was doing. I began to distrust his discretion, so I had Ruthven slip out and kill him as he came back drunk from the celebrations at Valence Marie. Will hid the body near the Ditch, until Saul Potter and Huw were able to make his death look like an accident.’

So that explained why the body had been wet and there were pieces of river weed on it, thought Bartholomew. It also explained why Werbergh had died so long before his accident in the shed, and why Saul Potter and Huw were the ones who said that he had been going to fetch some wood.

‘But I do not know what happened to Edred,’ said d’Ambrey. ‘I sent him to spin a few tales to confuse you and to have a good look for my book, but he never returned. He was playing a double game, passing information to Lydgate as well as to me. He could not be trusted either.’

Bartholomew understood why Edred’s fear had been genuine: it was a dangerous game indeed that he had been playing.

D’Ambrey stood. He held the book, now beginning to warp from the rain. ‘It is unfortunate you took my letters, but there are few who will understand their importance should they fall into the wrong hands. Now. It is getting dark, and it is time to leave.’

He gave Ruthven a cursory nod, and began to gather his belongings together. Ruthven swung his crossbow up and pointed it at Bartholomew.

‘But why wait twenty-five years?’ asked Michael, his voice sounding panicky to Bartholomew’s ears. ‘Why not strike sooner, when those that wronged you were still alive?’

‘Oh, I had other things to do,’ said d’Ambrey carelessly. ‘I travelled a good deal and used my considerable talent for fund-raising to my own advantage. And anyway, I wanted to wait until the time was right. People would have recognised me had I returned too soon, and Dominica would not have been old enough. But that is none of your concern. Ruthven, make an end to this infernal questioning.’

Bartholomew forced himself to meet Ruthven’s eyes as the student checked the winding mechanism on his crossbow, and pointed it at him.

The little clearing was totally silent. Even the birds seemed dispirited by the rain, while the group of horses tethered to one side hung their heads miserably.

‘Hurry it up,’ ordered d’Ambrey. ‘We have a long way to go tonight.’

Ruthven took aim.

‘Drop it, Ruthven!’ came Tulyet’s voice, loud and strong from one side of the clearing. Bartholomew’s relief was short lived, as Ruthven, after lowering the weapon for an instant, brought it back up again to aim at Bartholomew’s chest. There was a whirring sound, and Ruthven keeled over, his loosed crossbow quarrel zinging harmlessly into the ground at Bartholomew’s feet. Bartholomew forced his cold legs to move and scrambled upright. Tulyet’s men were suddenly everywhere, advancing on the clearing with their clanking weapons. Huw was with them, held between two men-at-arms, and gagged securely. Hovering at the rear, away from any potential danger, was Heppel, swathed in a huge cloak against the rain.

D’Ambrey looked at them in disbelief. ‘What is this?’ he cried. ‘Where have you come from? You should not be here!’

‘So it would seem,’ said Tulyet dryly, helping the stiff Michael to his feet. ‘I have been listening to you for quite some time now, Father Andrew. Or do you prefer Master d’Ambrey? What you have said, in front of my men, will be more than enough to interest the King.’

‘Are you accusing me of treason?’ asked d’Ambrey, his voice high with indignation.

‘I would consider inciting riots and killing His Majesty’s loyal subjects a treasonable offence, yes,’ said Tulyet. He motioned to his men and they began to round up d’Ambrey’s band of followers. D’Ambrey watched aghast.

‘Not again!’ he said. ‘I have been betrayed again!’

‘This time,’ said Tulyet, ‘you have betrayed yourself.’

D’Ambrey bent slowly to retrieve something from the ground. His action was so careful and deliberate that it seemed innocent. But then he straightened with frightening speed, a knife glinting in his hand. He tore towards Tulyet who had turned to supervise his men. Bartholomew hurled himself forward. He crashed into d’Ambrey, his weight bearing them both to the ground. D’Ambrey began to fight like a madman and, despite his superior size and strength, Bartholomew felt himself loosing ground.

Tulyet and his men rushed to help, but it took several of them to drag the spitting, struggling man away, and to secure him in a cart.

‘He would have killed me!’ exclaimed Tulyet in horror. ‘The man is possessed! Is he mad, do you think?’

Bartholomew shivered and not only from the cold. ‘It would be convenient to think so,’ he said ambiguously.

Tulyet looked uneasily at where d’Ambrey glowered at him. ‘Well, I will only be happy when we have him well secured in the Castle prison.’

‘Me too!’ said Heppel with feeling. ‘That man is extremely dangerous and so are his associates!’

‘Be careful,’ Bartholomew warned Tulyet. ‘There are people who consider d’Ambrey a martyr. If it becomes known that you have him in your prison cart, you might well have a riot to free him.’

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Tulyet with a shudder. ‘I hope we have rounded up all the ringleaders of these riots now. With them gone the people will grow peaceful again in time. I plan to send the prisoners to London for trial. We need no more local martyrs here.’

He turned his attention back to his captives, while Bartholomew went to Cecily. She was past anything he could do, and her breath was little more than a thready whisper.

Thinking to make her more comfortable, Bartholomew loosened the tight bodice of her dress, recoiling in shock at what tumbled out into his hands.

There, still with the blue-green ring on its little finger was the hand from Valence Marie. It was warm from being in Cecily’s gown and sticky with blood. Bartholomew flung it from him in disgust.

‘So, it was you who took it from Valence Marie,’ he said softly. ‘You slipped into the College when that greedy Thorpe and his scholars were off hoping to find more relics.’

But she was past confirming or denying him. He stared up at the leafy branches of trees that swayed and dripped above his head. When he looked again she was dead, a grimace fixed on her face and her eyes turning glassy.

Tulyet’s men came to take her away, while Michael retrieved the hand from the grass. ‘I expect the Chancellor would like this,’ he said, turning it over in his hand.

‘Each to his own,’ said Bartholomew, climbing to his feet. He handed Michael the rings from his sleeve.

‘Give him these, too. I imagine he will destroy them all together.’

‘I cannot think why he would keep them,’ said Michael. ‘Simon d’Ambrey returning from the dead twenty-five years after half the town saw him die is enough to make him a martyr all over again. The Chancellor will not want bits of him around the town acting as a focus for gatherings.’

‘Make sure Thorpe understands that,’ said Bartholomew.

‘I had news from the King this morning,’ said Heppel, pulling his cloak more closely around his neck. ‘Thorpe, although he does not know it yet, is going to be offered a position as master of a grammar school in York.’

‘A grammar school?’ echoed Bartholomew. ‘That is something of a step down from Master of Valence Marie. Will he accept?’

‘Oh, he will accept,’ said Heppel. ‘One does not decline an offer from the King, you know. Thorpe is too unsubtle to be Master of a College.’ He exchanged a knowing glance with Michael, and moved away to talk to Tulyet.

‘Is he saying that if Thorpe had managed the matter of the hand with more tact and less zeal, he might still be in office?’ asked Bartholomew.

Michael laughed at his shocked expression. ‘Undoubtedly,’ he said airily. ‘And do not look surprised, my friend. You have listened to a most appalling tale over the last hour. You cannot raise your eyebrows at the King or the Chancellor for that matter – when you have just heard the confessions of the Devil Incarnate.’ He began to laugh, and draped an arm over Bartholomew’s shoulders. Bartholomew shrugged it off quickly when he saw that it was the one that held the hand.

‘What a revolting affair,’ he said, moving away from the monk. ‘D’Ambrey was supposed to have been saintly, and look how many people have died because of him – Kenzie, Werbergh, Edred, Lydgate, Cecily, Radbeche, Joanna, the riot-dead, not to mention his entire household and a good part of the population of Dover twenty-five years ago.’

‘I always said Cambridge used d’Ambrey badly,’ said Michael. ‘It is a shame he decided to use violence to avenge himself. Had he elected to resume his charitable acts, I think many people might have flocked to him, perhaps even me. He could have been a saint had he chosen to be.’

‘I do not think so, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Saints do not harbour murderous intentions for twenty-five years, help wives conceal the killings of their husbands, or assist scholars to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies.’

Michael yawned. ‘So you have solved the mystery surrounding Joanna – she was killed to allow Dominica to be free of her parents. But it seems your Tyler women did not know what d’Ambrey intended – at least, not before it happened. They guessed afterwards because they must have found all that blood in their house.’

‘I hope they are well away by now,’ said Bartholomew.

‘But by killing her first husband, Mistress Tyler is as much a murderer as is d’Ambrey!’

‘I know, but Mistress Tyler is a good woman. She could have left me to the Frenchmen on the night of the riot, but she chose to stay and help, risking her life and the lives of her daughters. She also invited us in when we were attacked on the High Street without even knowing who we were. It was an act of selfless charity. I hope she reaches London safely and starts a new life.’

But what of Eleanor? he thought. Would her escape from justice encourage her to use murderous means the next time someone did something of which she did not approve? That she had gone so abruptly from being friendly to attempting to kill him left him oddly disoriented. The more he thought about it, the more he hoped their paths would never cross again, and realised that Matilde had definitely been correct when she had accused him of knowing nothing of women. He decided that he would most definitely not embark on any more friendships with them until he had devoted more time to understanding them. Had he done as much years ago, he would not have been jilted by Philippa, and would not have allowed himself to become embroiled in the uncomfortable business at the Feast. Michael’s vast yawn interrupted his morose thoughts.

‘We were right about the riots,’ said Michael, yawning again. ‘We thought there was more to them than random violence and we were correct.’

‘All the clues that we uncovered piecemeal now fit together,’ said Bartholomew, smothering a yawn of his own, brought on by watching Michael. ‘I did not think they would ever match up.’

‘If you are honest, some do not,’ said Michael. ‘It was pure chance that Norbert and Kenzie were both killed by wounds to the back of the head, and we saw a connection where there was none. Well, not a direct one anyway. We also thought Bigod was at the centre of the whole business, since you heard him when we were attacked on the High Street. And you heard him discussing the second riot at Chesterton. But he was just following orders.’

They began to walk back through the dripping trees towards Cambridge. Ahead of them was Tulyet’s convoy with its prisoners, the wheels of the carts groaning and creaking and the low voices of Tulyet’s men drifting on the breeze as they talked among themselves.

‘What will happen to d’Ambrey and his associates?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Tulyet will send them to London for trial,’ said Michael with a shrug, ‘but no one will be in any hurry for the facts to emerge. Years will pass, people will die, and one day there will be no records that any such prisoners ever arrived.’

‘And the legends of d’Ambrey?’

‘Oh, they will fade away in time,’ said Michael. ‘Have you considered that it may have been people like Will, Dominica and Huw that kept them alive all these years? Now they have gone the stories, too, will melt away to nothing. This incident will not be recorded in the University history and in fifty years or so no one will know the name of Simon d’Ambrey.’

‘Talking to you is sometimes most disheartening,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Everything is to be forgotten, buried in the mists of time, covered up. Unwanted people are sent to places where they will never be heard of again. Events of which the University does not approve do not get written in the University history. What will people think of us in the future when they come to read this great history? That there was no crime, no underhand dealings, no deceits?’

‘Not unless human nature undergoes a radical change,’ said Michael blithely. ‘They will have their own crimes, underhand dealings and deceits, and they will understand that the silence and blanks in our history say as much as the words.’

‘That is not particularly encouraging,’ said Bartholomew.

He remembered Wilson’s tomb and compared it to the vanishing pile of earth that marked Norbert’s small grave. ‘What will people think when they see Wilson’s black monstrosity? Will they think that here lies a man that Michaelhouse loved and revered? Or will they know he paid for his own memorial? That vile man will be remembered long after poor Norbert is forgotten. It does not seem fair.’

Michael did not reply, and screwed up his eyes as the wind blew needles of rain into his face. ‘Summer is on its way out,’ he said. ‘I complained about the heat and now I can complain about the cold.’

Bartholomew smiled reluctantly, but then froze as he heard shouting from ahead. A figure darted from one of the carts and disappeared into the thick undergrowth at the side of the road.

‘That was d’Ambrey,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Escaped!’

Tulyet’s men tore after him but Bartholomew knew that their chances of finding him were slim. There were so many ditches and dense bushes in which to hide, that all d’Ambrey needed to do was to wait until dark and slip away. Even dogs could not follow a scent through the myriad of waterways at the edge of the Fens.

A ragged cheer rose from d’Ambrey’s supporters and Dominica made as if to follow while the soldiers’ attention was engaged. She slithered out of the cart and began to run after him. She slumped suddenly and the howls of encouragement from her friends petered away.

‘Good shot,’ said Michael admiringly to Heppel. The Junior Proctor looked at the small pebbles in his hands in astonishment. Luck, not skill, had guided the missile that had felled Simon d’Ambrey’s daughter.

Heppel grasped at Michael for support. ‘Oh, Lord! I have just damaged my shoulder with that throw! I should not have tried to embark on heroics.’

‘It is a pity you could not have struck d’Ambrey down too,’ said Michael, unsympathetic. ‘Now this business might end very messily.’

‘Especially for Dominica and her associates,’ said Bartholomew, looking to where she was being helped back into the cart. She saw Heppel and her eyes glittered with hatred.

‘I grabbed these pebbles to hurl at d’Ambrey if he tried to harm me,’ said Heppel shakily. ‘I can assure you, I had no intention of trying to do the Sheriffs job for him. I was just carried away with the excitement of the moment when I aimed them at Dominica. It most certainly will not happen again. I shall suffer agonies from this shoulder injury for weeks and all because the Sheriff hires poorly trained guards! The King shall hear of this!’

Tulyet had ordered half his men to escort the remaining prisoners to the castle and the other half to search for d’Ambrey. His face was dark with anger and his temper was not improved by Heppel’s accusations of incompetence.

‘That gentle nature of d’Ambrey’s beguiled my men,’ he said in a voice that was tight with fury. ‘He looks and acts like a friar and he made them feel as though they were escorting their grandfather! He fooled them into relaxing their guard and was gone in an instant!’

‘I doubt that you will get him back,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is not the first time he has escaped from the jaws of death in this area. History repeats itself.’

‘He will be old indeed if he tries again in another twenty-five years,’ said Michael.

‘But, if there is a next time, he will not fail,’ said Bartholomew.