A Wicked Deed

Chapter 11

In the gloom of the church, partly illuminated by five tallow candles, Bartholomew leaned over Norys’s body and began his examination. The parish coffin was already in use for what remained of Alcote, so Norys was relegated to a table borrowed from Walter Wauncy’s kitchen – for a price. Horsey watched in horror as yet another body was laid out in the chancel, and Bartholomew sent him back to Wergen Hall with Cynric, who was also to inform Tuddenham that Norys had been found.

From the state of the corpse, Bartholomew judged that Norys had been dead for days, perhaps even since the Wednesday when he had last been seen. Whether Norys had first travelled to Ipswich, and then returned to visit Mistress Freeman and secure his alibi, was impossible to tell. Norys might have died on the Wednesday, but he might equally well have died a day or two later. The body smelled powerfully of decay, and gas swelled the stomach under the mud-stained clothes.

‘His lips,’ said Michael with a shudder. ‘They are green.’

Bartholomew studied them closely. ‘How curious. Perhaps it is something to do with where the body has been kept hidden all this time.’

‘You mean in Unwin’s grave?’

‘No – he is too clean to have been buried there for long. It looks to me as though he has been stored somewhere, until he could be disposed of permanently.’

‘I expect he killed Unwin and Mistress Freeman, and then dispatched himself in a fit of remorse,’ said Michael, looking down at the remains dispassionately.

‘I expect so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Then he hired those three louts to bury him several days later, in the churchyard on top of one of his victims.’

‘How did he die? Can you tell?’ asked Michael, ignoring Bartholomew’s facetiousness.

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘There is no wound that I can see. He was not hanged, stabbed, strangled or hit over the head.’

‘Poisoned?’ asked Michael. ‘A coward such as Norys might well prefer poison as a painless way to launch himself down to the fires and brimstone of hell.’

‘You sound like William,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And you should not jump to conclusions. Norys may not have killed himself at all – someone else may have done it.’

‘How?’ demanded Michael. ‘You say there are no wounds, and he looks as though he may have died in his sleep.’

Bartholomew prised open Norys’s mouth, and peered inside. ‘Hold the candle closer,’ he instructed. ‘I cannot see.’

Michael looked away in revulsion as Bartholomew leaned towards the dead man’s mouth. When the physician put his fingers inside it and began to feel around, Michael felt sick.

‘Look at this,’ said Bartholomew, sounding interested.

‘No,’ said Michael, studiously staring in the opposite direction. ‘I do not want to see whatever it is. You can just tell me about it.’

‘It is a piece of food that was trapped between his teeth,’ said Bartholomew. Michael looked round in surprise, and saw a fairly large strand of something yellowish between the physician’s fingers. Michael turned away quickly, feeling his gorge rise.

‘So?’ he asked, trying to dispel the image from his mind.

‘I cannot be certain – it is too mangled and decayed – but it looks and smells like shellfish.’

Michael dropped the candle and charged outside. When Bartholomew found him, he was sitting on the wall of the churchyard looking off into the silent night.

‘What is the matter with you? You are not so squeamish when you demand that I examine bodies in Cambridge.’

‘That is not true,’ said Michael unsteadily. ‘I find the whole business repellent wherever we happen to be. But fishing bits of half-eaten food from the mouth of a rotting corpse is an impressively revolting thing to do, even for you.’

‘But you realise what this means?’ asked Bartholomew, holding the fragment of food up in the darkness. ‘If this is indeed shellfish, it implies that Norys enjoyed a meal of mussels with Mistress Freeman before she died – before they died.’

‘That sounds a little far-fetched,’ objected Michael.

‘It isn’t, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, certain facts coming together in his mind. ‘I told you at the time that I thought Mistress Freeman might have died because she ate tainted mussels – I could smell vomit in her mouth, and I suggested that someone came after she was dead and cut her throat. Now we have Will Norys, dead from no obvious cause, but there is a strand of what looks to be mussel in his mouth. And then there was the dead cat in her garden.’

‘I do not see the point you are trying to make,’ said Michael irritably.

‘The point is that Norys and Mistress Freeman ate mussels together, and that Norys had brought one of his cats – or, more likely, the cat followed him there. He gave it some, as owners of much-loved animals are wont to do – and so the cat died, too.’

‘So?’ asked Michael after a moment. ‘This tells us nothing that we had not already considered.’

‘It does,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It tells us that Mistress Freeman probably did not commit suicide, and that Norys probably did not kill her.’

‘How in God’s name do you deduce that?’ asked Michael tiredly.

‘If Mistress Freeman had planned to poison herself with bad shellfish, she would not have given any to Norys. And if Norys had wanted to kill her with them, he would not have eaten any himself or given them to his pet.’

Michael shook his head. ‘He may have brought the shellfish as a means to inveigle his way into her house. He may have planned to kill her after they had eaten – if his transparent attempts to ingratiate himself and force her to lie for him about his alibi failed.’

‘In that case, Mistress Freeman, Norys and the cat ate the mussels unaware that they were tainted, and all three died in or near the house. The only logical conclusion from this is that someone else found them before you ever discovered Mistress Freeman’s body, and tried to make her death appear as murder. This same person must therefore have removed Norys, intending to dispose of him later in a place he would never be found – namely Unwin’s grave. And finally, this person must have put the bloodstained clothes and Unwin’s empty purse on Norys’s roof, knowing that you would find them there and be convinced that it was Norys who killed Unwin.’

‘I see,’ said Michael flatly. ‘And who might this cunning someone be?’

‘It could be Eltisley,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps his murder of Alcote yesterday made him realise that he needed to destroy the evidence of his other crimes, and so forced him to dispose of Norys’s corpse quickly. What better hiding place than in the tomb of the man Norys is accused of killing?’

‘I do not think so, Matt. We have evidence that Norys killed Unwin and Mistress Freeman; we have nothing but your nasty accusations to show that Eltisley has killed anyone. And do not forget what Dame Eva said – Eltisley could not possibly have left his tavern during the Fair to harm Unwin, because there were people demanding ale and he would have been missed instantly. Perhaps the killer is someone we have not yet considered.’

‘I suppose Deblunville might have killed Unwin to embarrass Tuddenham,’ said Bartholomew, reluctantly trying to generate alternatives. ‘The rumour about him killing his first wife seems to have had some truth, so murder was not wholly foreign to him. But Deblunville died yesterday, and so could not have been burying Norys tonight.’

‘Hamon?’ suggested Michael with a shrug. ‘You said that whoever attacked us was proficient with a sword, and he is a lout.’

Bartholomew nodded slowly. ‘He has a motive: the prevailing opinion is that Norys is Unwin’s killer, and as long as Norys remains at large, Michaelhouse will decline to send another of its members to Grundisburgh like a lamb to the slaughter, and Hamon can therefore select his own priest when he inherits the estate from his uncle.’

‘Tuddenham will live for years yet,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘And once Isilia’s child is born, it will inherit the estates, not Hamon.’

But Bartholomew knew very well that Tuddenham would be cold in his grave long before Isilia’s child made its appearance, and that if it were a girl, Hamon would inherit anyway. If it were a boy, Hamon would run the estates until the child was old enough to manage them himself – if he lived that long and if Hamon did not find some way to wrest them away from him in the meantime.

Michael sighed. ‘It could equally well be Bardolf or Grosnold. None of these lords seem to like each other much. And there is the curious fact of Eltisley seeing Grosnold holding Unwin by the arm shortly before he died.’

‘Eltisley says he saw Grosnold with Unwin,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But who is to say he is not lying about that in order to throw us off his own track?’

‘True. But remember what Bardolf said about his fellow lords – that any of them might kill a priest who tried to promote peaceful relations when each has so much to lose. What a muddle!’

Bartholomew stood and stretched, looking at the sliver of mussel he still held. He walked to the stream that trickled across the village green, and bent down to release it into the persistent tug of the current, watching as it was swept away into the darkness.

When he returned, Michael was still sitting on the churchyard wall waiting for someone from Tuddenham’s household to come and view Norys’s body. The monk’s head was tipped back, and he was gazing up at the glitter of stars in the black night sky, and at the wispy silver clouds that floated across the face of the moon.

‘You know, Matt, we should review what we have learned, just to see if we can reason some sense from it.’

‘Must we?’ asked Bartholomew, sitting next to him. ‘I am heartily sick of all this.’

‘So am I,’ said Michael. ‘But we cannot leave later today unless we are certain that we know who killed Unwin. The Master would never forgive me if I had not done all I could to catch whoever killed Michaelhouse’s best student. So, first we had the hanged man at Bond’s Corner, clearly murdered and found half-burned in a shepherd’s hut. We have no idea who he is, or who killed him and why, although we know he was wearing clothes stolen from Deblunville by Janelle.’

‘No, Brother. First came Alice Quy and James Freemen, both dead in odd circumstances after claiming to have seen Padfoot. Second, we have the hanged man. Third, we have Unwin, stabbed – and his purse stolen, only to appear on Norys’s roof minus its relic.’

‘And we have two different descriptions of someone fleeing the church after his murder, and we have Grosnold seen talking surreptitiously with him just before his death. I remain certain Norys is responsible; you cannot see reason and are inclined to think the culprit was someone else.’

Bartholomew sighed. ‘Fourth, we have Mistress Freeman, dying in her home because she ate tainted mussels – perhaps alone, but probably with Norys and his cat – and then the throat of her corpse slit because someone wanted her death to appear like murder. We do not know why, although it seems to me that someone wants us to believe that Norys murdered her because she declined to provide him with an alibi for Unwin’s death.’

‘Deblunville was fifth,’ said Michael. ‘He died of a wound to his head, which may or may not have been inflicted when he slipped on wet grass. But if someone did kill him, I doubt we will ever know who, given that you say half the county was out that night, looking for golden calves.’

‘Alcote was sixth,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Killed by the explosion that destroyed Eltisley’s tavern. I think it was deliberate; you believe it was an accident. And now seventh, we have Norys. Still, at least we know he did not kill Deblunville or Alcote – he was already dead by then.’

‘What about his green lips?’ asked Michael. ‘Could they be a sign of poison?’

‘They might, I suppose, although there is no blistering or burning. Perhaps the colour has something to do with the bad mussels.’

‘But Mistress Freeman did not have green lips.’

‘True, but Mistress Freeman did not remain out of her grave for a week. The real question is whether these seven deaths are related or isolated. I am sure that Alice Quy, James Freeman and the hanged man are connected, because of Padfoot. Unwin’s murder may be a case of simple theft, although he saw Padfoot, too. Norys’s and Mistress Freeman’s are probably related to each other – if they both ate the same tainted mussels – and although neither was murdered, someone came and tampered with their corpses to make us believe that Norys killed Unwin.’

‘And Alcote?’ mused Michael thoughtfully. ‘How does he fit into all this? He never saw Padfoot, as far as I know, and he is unlikely to be connected to Unwin’s death, although I would not put theft past the man – he may have coveted Unwin’s relic.’

Bartholomew shook his head in exasperation. ‘I can see no pattern in all this. I am inclined to think Eltisley is the root of all evil, and you believe it is Norys. I do not like charlatans who dabble in medicine; you do not like pardoners. We are scarcely thinking like rational men, are we?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Michael. ‘But I have a plan to see whether you are right and Alcote’s death was no accident. We will see whether it works before we leave for Cambridge.’

‘What is it?’ asked Bartholomew nervously.

Michael assumed the infuriatingly secretive expression that he knew always antagonised the physician. ‘You will have to wait and see. You did not confide in me over Mother Goodman’s charm, and so I am not obliged to reveal my professional secrets to you.’ He glanced up. ‘Here comes Cynric with Tuddenham and his retinue – his mother, his wife, his nephew, his priest and his servants. I wonder he has not brought his hounds and his horses and his hawks.’

‘I did not expect him to come himself,’ said Bartholomew, worried about Tuddenham’s failing health. ‘He should have sent Hamon or Siric.’

‘He probably does not trust them with something like this,’ said Michael, standing to meet them.

Left alone, Bartholomew walked back to the river, listening to its faint gurgle and the hiss of the breeze through the nearby willows. Bats flitted in and out of the branches, hunting down insects that lived near the water, and somewhere an owl hooted, to be answered by another in the distance.

‘Death seems to follow you around, Bartholomew.’ Bartholomew jumped at the proximity of Hamon’s voice. ‘It is a curious trait for one who claims to heal the sick.’

Bartholomew studied him hard, trying to ascertain whether he was injured or sore from a recent tussle over Unwin’s grave. Or whether he had a bruise on his face from the violently hurled coffin ring. But it was too dark to tell, and Hamon’s step appeared steady enough. He seemed about to add something else, but Tuddenham called him, and the younger knight strode away to add his contribution to the indignant clamour of voices in the churchyard, as Michael explained where Norys had been found. After a while, Michael escaped and came to sit next to Bartholomew on the river bank.

‘Your support would have been nice,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Tuddenham and his clan asked questions that made me wonder whether they suspect me of killing Norys and burying him in Unwin’s grave.’

‘Well, you have always been somewhat fanatical about the fact that Norys was Unwin’s killer,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘What do you expect them to think?’

‘But I am not a killer myself,’ Michael pointed out indignantly. ‘I am a man of God, who has taken a vow to forswear violence wherever possible.’

‘“Wherever possible”?’ echoed Bartholomew, laughing softly. ‘Do the Benedictines put such convenient clauses in their vows, then? Have you sworn to avoid physical relations with women “unless the occasion arises”, or live a life free of material possessions “unless they happen to be available”?’

Michael gave him an unpleasant look in the darkness. ‘My sacred vows are not something for you to mock,’ he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where raised voices still issued from the church. ‘Just listen to them! Quarrelling like a pack of dogs over what happened to Norys.’

‘What are they saying?’

‘Tuddenham and Wauncy believe that someone killed Norys to prevent him from revealing who really murdered Unwin; Isilia and Dame Eva think Norys committed suicide and hired the three louts to bury him over his victim because of some peculiar satanic ritual; and Hamon and Siric are convinced Deblunville’s household is responsible, as some sort of revenge for their lord’s death.’

They sat in silence for a while and eventually the voices died away. The church door was opened once and then closed, and then opened a second time a little later. Shadowy figures moved around the churchyard as Unwin’s grave was inspected. Michael clambered inelegantly to his feet and went toward them while Bartholomew remained sitting on the river bank, disinclined to speak to Tuddenham or his family while suspicion and accusation seemed to be the order of the day.

Michael’s sudden yell split the air like a crack of lightning. Bartholomew almost leapt out of his skin, and his feet skidded on the damp grass in his haste to run to Michael’s rescue. By the time he arrived, the monk was sitting on the ground with his fat legs splayed in front of him and his habit rucked up to his thighs, looking more outraged than Bartholomew had ever seen him. Dame Eva and Isilia stood uncertainly together, while Hamon and Siric tried to help the monk to his feet. Tuddenham and Wauncy hurried from the thick yew trees at the rear of the churchyard.

‘What happened?’ asked Bartholomew, offering Michael his hand. Michael took it, brushing Hamon and Siric aside, and almost hauling Bartholomew on top of him as he proved more heavy than the physician had anticipated.

‘Someone searched me!’ said Michael, barely able to speak from the extent of his indignation. ‘Someone ran their hands all over my body! Me! A man of the cloth!’

Bartholomew bent to brush leaves from the monk’s habit to hide his amusement. ‘Why did you do nothing to prevent this affront to your dignity, Brother?’ he asked.

‘Because whoever did it knocked me from my feet first,’ spat Michael. ‘While I lay helpless with my arms pinned underneath me, someone searched my person.’

‘Searched you for what?’ asked Bartholomew. He supposed he should not find the situation amusing, given that someone might well have plans to kill each and every one of the scholars from Michaelhouse.

‘I do not know,’ said Michael stiffly. ‘My purse, I suppose. But, being a poor monk with no earthly vices, I do not carry one.’

He most certainly did carry one, and it was heavier than any purse Bartholomew had ever owned. But Michael was not foolish enough to wear it where it could be seen: it was tucked out of sight among the voluminous folds of his habit, and the equally voluminous folds of his body.

‘It was someone here,’ said Michael, glaring accusingly at the assembled members of Tuddenham’s household. ‘It could not have been a passing vagrant, because he would not have been so rash as to attack a man of God while the churchyard was full of people.’

‘But neither would we,’ said Hamon, a smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. ‘And I can assure you, Brother, that none of us would have derived any pleasure from running our hands over you, if that is what you are suggesting.’

‘Well, one of you did,’ snapped Michael. ‘You were all very quick to reach me as soon as I was able to yell.’

‘That is because we were all nearby,’ protested Isilia. ‘Dame Eva and I were examining Unwin’s desecrated grave over there. Of course we came running as soon as we heard you shout.’

‘I heard you from the church,’ said Hamon. ‘I was there looking at Norys’s body with Siric.’

Siric nodded vigorously.

‘Well, that just leaves me and Wauncy,’ said Tuddenham. ‘And we were inspecting the place where this swordsman is supposed to have attacked you, to see whether he had dropped anything that might identify him.’

‘Then you would have seen your mother and your wife at Unwin’s grave?’ asked Bartholomew, wanting to be certain that everyone was telling the truth.

Tuddenham shrugged. ‘I did not notice what they were doing. It is dark and shadowy, and difficult to see anything at all.’

‘Then did you see your husband?’ asked Bartholomew of Isilia.

She shook her head. ‘As he said, it is dark, and, since I was not expecting to be asked to provide him with an alibi to prove he did not molest a monk under the elm trees, I did not watch what he and Wauncy were doing – or Hamon and Siric.’

‘I did not notice, either,’ said Dame Eva. ‘I was concentrating on poor Unwin’s grave.’

‘I am afraid Siric’s and my only witnesses are Norys and Master Alcote,’ said Hamon in a serious voice, although Siric was forced to turn away to hide the humour that glinted in his eyes. ‘And I fear they will not be quick to prove we were with them while someone manhandled Brother Michael.’

Seeing Michael was unharmed, and more amused than alarmed by the incident, they began to drift away. Cynric slipped up behind Bartholomew to mutter that he had seen no one else enter or leave the churchyard.

‘So, unless your molester escaped across the fields behind the church, we must assume it is one of the six people here,’ said Bartholomew, still smiling at the vision of Michael helpless on the ground while someone groped him, despite his best attempts to keep a straight face. ‘Would you rather imagine yourself searched by Dame Eva or Walter Wauncy?’

‘What would you say if I told you that whoever robbed me got what they wanted?’ asked Michael coldly.

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘A chance to see whether all that fat underneath your habit is actually real?’

‘No,’ said Michael shortly. ‘The final draft of the advowson.’

Bartholomew gazed at Michael with a churning stomach, his amusement gone in a flash. Was it the advowson that lay at the heart of the matter after all? Was that why Alcote had been killed – to prevent it from being completed? His mind worked rapidly. Everyone in Tuddenham’s household had been present at Wergen Hall when Michael had announced he could salvage Alcote’s work: Tuddenham, Hamon, Dame Eva, Isilia, Wauncy and Siric. Any one of them could have given Michael a shove in the back to send him flying and then stolen the deed from him.

‘So, it has gone?’ he asked with a sinking heart. ‘We will have to start all over again?’

‘It has gone,’ confirmed Michael. He gave a sudden smile in the darkness, revealing small yellow teeth. ‘But it will do them little good, eh, Cynric?’

Cynric grinned back, while Bartholomew looked from one to the other in confusion. Michael’s demeanour had changed from outrage to the smug complacency he always oozed when he thought he had done something clever.

‘I hid the spare copy, just as you told me,’ Cynric said to Michael. ‘It is in a place where no one will think to look – not even you.’

So that was what Michael had been arranging with Cynric as they had left Wergen Hall to relieve Horsey’s vigil, Bartholomew thought. Meanwhile, Michael looked intrigued. ‘We will see about that, Cynric. This might prove an interesting diversion for my powers of deduction. Do not tell me where you hid it, I will guess.’

‘You will not,’ said Cynric with equal conviction.

‘Matt’s medicine bag?’ asked Michael immediately.

Cynric shook his head.

‘You were expecting something like this to happen,’ Bartholomew said slowly. ‘You made a point of mentioning that the deed could be completed in front of the whole Tuddenham household, specifically to pre-empt an attack on you, so that you would have a chance to ascertain whether Alcote was killed for the advowson or killed by accident. That was what you meant when you said you had a plan to solve the mystery.’

‘More or less,’ said Michael, pleased with himself.

‘That was a dangerous thing to do. Whoever it is might have slipped a knife in between your ribs to get the deed, not just pushed you to the ground. Alcote was not simply searched, was he?’

Michael sighed softly. ‘Actually, I mentioned it in front of the whole household because I imagined everyone would be glad to see the back of us and our deed tomorrow. It only occurred to me later that someone might attack me for it – hence I gave a spare copy to Cynric. Initially, I was sceptical about your claim that Alcote was murdered, but the more I worked on Tuddenham’s documents last night, the more I realised there might have been some truth in what you suggested.’

‘You mean because Tuddenham’s affairs are so murky?’

Michael shook his head. ‘Quite the contrary. We have allowed Alcote to mislead us. He told us that Tuddenham’s affairs seethe with inconsistencies and dishonesties. Well, I found from my work last night that, although there is some question as to whether the Peche Hall land is his, there is virtually nothing in Tuddenham’s business that is sinister or illegal.’

‘Of course not. Alcote said he burned the deeds that proved that.’

‘But Alcote was lying, to make us think he was working hard for the College. The priest, Wauncy, had made an inventory of all Tuddenham’s documents before we arrived, and none of them is missing. If Alcote had burned anything, it was nothing important.’

‘But why should Alcote lie?’ asked Bartholomew, bewildered.

‘Simple, Matt. He was pretending the deed was immensely difficult to write, so that when we return to Michaelhouse he could claim that his role was more important than it was. In reality, the whole business is so straightforward that even you could draft an advowson from it.’

‘And that was why he refused our help?’ said Bartholomew, ignoring the barb. ‘Because if we had been allowed to see the documents we would have seen that he was lying about how complex the advowson was to write?’

Michael nodded, ‘Precisely. But there was also something else. I found out that he was building a case to wrest a place called Gull Farm from Tuddenham’s neighbour, John Bardolf, and hand it back to Tuddenham – for a commission, of course.’

‘Gull Farm?’ mused Bartholomew. ‘At Unwin’s funeral, Bardolf told me that his father had stolen that from the Tuddenhams thirty years ago. He openly acknowledged that it really belonged to Tuddenham, and just as openly said he was going to keep it because he was fond of it.’

‘I see. Well, doubtless Tuddenham would have been delighted to have it back, although it seems to me that Alcote’s case was based more on documents he had written himself than on ones that are genuine – showing us that Alcote was not an honest man. He was a liar and a cheat, and he played a game that was more dangerous than he realised: he told everyone that he was the only man who could write the advowson, and he died for his deception.’

‘How could Alcote have been so stupid?’ cried Bartholomew, suddenly angry at the Senior Fellow’s selfish machinations. ‘It has been clear from the start that things are not all they seem here. How could he risk his life for something so pointless?’

‘And our lives,’ said Michael. ‘We would have left days ago, had he not kept us all waiting while he worked out how he could turn the situation to his own advantage. But to go back to yesterday, he was probably killed so that the deed – which he announced, quite openly, would be completed today – would never be finished.’

‘So, you think the fire was aimed at Alcote alone?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Probably, although had we been incinerated, too, it could only have helped the killer’s cause. Michaelhouse does not have an inexhaustible supply of scholars to sacrifice, even for something as attractive as an advowson.’

‘It all seems rather desperate,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The living of the church might mean a lot to our College, but it is only a small part of Tuddenham’s estates. I do not understand why anyone should go to such lengths to keep it from us.’

‘And that is precisely where our theory comes to a standstill,’ said Michael. ‘Who would gain from keeping the living in Tuddenham hands? Hamon, who would lose the right to appoint his own priest? Tuddenham himself? Wauncy will be the poorer when a Michaelhouse man comes to share the money he makes from saying masses for the plague-dead, while Dame Eva seems to dislike the notion of her husband’s estates being less than they were in his time. Or was Norys right, and do we need to look outside the village – to Grosnold or Bardolf? Or perhaps the person behind all this is someone we have never met, directing events from afar.’

‘You mean like the Bishop of Norwich or the Despenser family, who are overlords here?

‘Why not? The Bishop of Norwich might not approve of Tuddenham giving the living of a church in his see to an institution where the Bishop of Ely holds power. Or perhaps the Despensers want the deed for themselves – a family like that does not rise to such infamy by allowing lucrative advowsons to slip through their fingers.’

They sat in silence on an ancient tomb, trying to think of a reason why someone should have taken against their College.

‘William’s psalter?’ Michael asked the hovering Cynric suddenly, his mind returning to where the book-bearer might have hidden the document for safe keeping. ‘He seldom bothers to look at it when he prays, and a slender piece of parchment could remain undetected there for weeks.’

Cynric shook his head. ‘Do you think we are safe here?’ he asked, looking around him. ‘Will the person behind all this murder and mayhem try to attack us again tonight? Should we be inside the church with Tuddenham and his retinue, rather than relaxing here like sitting ducks?’

Michael shook his head. ‘Now that the killer has what he believes to be the only copy, I believe we will experience no further problems until we present the other one later today. And I intend to do that with as many witnesses present as possible.’

‘We would never leave Suffolk alive,’ said Cynric. ‘Keep it hidden until we reach St Edmundsbury Abbey, and then give it to the monks. Tuddenham can come to sign it at his leisure, and it can be forwarded to us later.’

Michael nodded approvingly. ‘That is a good plan. It puts no one at risk and, if Tuddenham is behind all this, we will know when he fails to set his seal to the deed that will make the living ours. But at least we now have the answers to some of our questions: we know for certain that Alcote was murdered, and we know that his death relates to the advowson.’

‘Do you think Alcote destroyed the tavern in an attempt to fake his own death?’ asked Cynric.

‘Deynman thinks so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He cannot believe that we will never see him again. I know how he feels. Roger Alcote has been a part of Michaelhouse for so long that I cannot imagine the place without him.’

Michael sighed. ‘Alcote is… was… a clever man, and all we have to prove that the corpse in the Half Moon was his is a melted cross. It would not surprise me in the slightest if he later appeared unharmed, having left us to deal with this dangerous business without him.’ He was about to add more when there was a stricken cry from the church. It was Hamon’s voice. Moments later, Siric raced out, looking for Bartholomew.

‘Sir Thomas is took sick,’ he gasped. ‘Go to him, and I will fetch Master Stoate.’

Sir Thomas was indeed ‘took sick’. He sat doubled over on one of the benches in the chancel, and clutched at his stomach, while Hamon knelt next to him anxiously and Isilia patted one of his hands. Dame Eva stood behind him, murmuring soothing words in his ear, although Wauncy was chanting the words of the mass for the dying, and was probably already calculating how many fourpences he would be able to claim from the bereaved family over the next few years.

‘That will not be necessary,’ said Bartholomew sharply, to the priest’s clear disappointment. ‘Sir Thomas is not going to die quite yet.’

‘Leave us,’ groaned Tuddenham to his family. ‘All of you. Arrange for a litter to take me home. You go, too, Brother. I want only Bartholomew with me.’

When the door had thumped shut behind them, Tuddenham looked up at the physician with pain-filled eyes. ‘Were you lying to my family as Stoate would have done?’ he asked in a feeble voice. ‘Am I to die now?’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I told you to rest, and this is what happens when you ignore good advice. You are not fit enough to pore over desecrated graves in the middle of the night.’

Tuddenham gave a wan smile. ‘I would just as soon be in my bed. But did you keep your word? Have you told my household about my weakness?’

‘Of course not,’ said Bartholomew, offended that he should ask. ‘But if you are taken ill like this again, your family will guess you are not as healthy as you would have them believe.’

‘I will keep it from them a little longer,’ said Tuddenham weakly. ‘What excuse will you make for my sickness tonight? Stoate said he would claim I had an excess of bile in the innards if I was ill before I made the state of my health known – unpleasant, painful, frightening, but not fatal.’

Lying was not something Bartholomew did well, and he was sure he would be unable to convince a horde of anxious relatives that there was nothing wrong with Tuddenham, while knowing he would soon die – especially the astute Dame Eva. She would home in on his falsehood like an owl on a mouse, and she would know instantly that there was something he was not telling her.

‘Stoate can tell them, then,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He is here now.’

Stoate raced up the nave. Dawn was still some way off, and the church was in total darkness except for the candles that stood around Alcote’s coffin. In his haste to be at his patient’s side, Stoate tripped up the chancel steps, and went sprawling. Bartholomew went to help him up.

‘How clumsy,’ said Stoate, embarrassed as he nodded his thanks to Bartholomew. He had dropped his medicine bag, and phials and charts rolled across the floor. Bartholomew collected them, replaced them in the bag, and handed it back to Stoate, who gave him a brief smile.

Wincing at a bruised knee, Stoate knelt next to Tuddenham, who had watched the physician’s dramatic arrival with a weary expression. Bartholomew appreciated how he must feel: it was not a comforting thought that the man who was to nurse you through your final illness was unable to run through a church without falling over.

‘The litter is coming,’ said Stoate. He glanced at Bartholomew. ‘Excess bile in the innards?’

‘Apparently,’ said Bartholomew, preparing a strong painkiller. ‘He should be taken back to bed, so he can rest. It is not advisable to allow him to be disturbed in the middle of the night.’

‘Fortunately, we do not usually have guests in the village who dig up corpses at the witching hour,’ said Stoate, not entirely pleasantly. ‘I doubt this kind of thing will happen once you leave.’

‘I hope not, for Sir Thomas’s sake,’ said Bartholomew, crouching to help Tuddenham sip the potion he had made.

‘Will you bleed him?’ asked Stoate. ‘The evil humours in his body should be released.’

‘They should not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He should drink this, then rest.’

‘He must be bled,’ insisted Stoate. ‘You dabble in surgery; you must bleed him.’

‘I do not practise phlebotomy,’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘And I think that in Sir Thomas’s case, bleeding will simply cause him unnecessary discomfort.’

‘But you must! The bad humours will build up in his body, and he will never be well.’

‘You do it, then, if you deem it so vital,’ said Bartholomew, watching Tuddenham drain the last few drops of the potion. ‘I will not.’

Stoate shook his head. ‘I do not let blood, either.’

‘You do,’ said Bartholomew, surprised at this assertion. ‘Several people have told me that you prescribe blood-letting three times a year. Including yourself.’

‘You must have misunderstood,’ said Stoate. ‘I do recommend blood-letting thrice yearly, but I do not offer to provide the service myself.’

‘And which one of you am I supposed to believe?’ asked Tuddenham, in a low voice heavy with irony. ‘One says I should be bled, the other says I should not.’

‘You should,’ insisted Stoate.

‘It is your decision,’ said Bartholomew, refusing to argue any further. ‘It will not kill you, but it will not make you better.’

‘Well,’ said Tuddenham with a faint smile, ‘if it makes no difference, I think I will forgo the pleasure. But I am sure you bled my wife, Stoate, when she was first with child? She said you did.’

‘I recommended that she be bled,’ corrected Stoate. ‘I did not do it myself. Mother Goodman probably did it. She has some skill in those matters.’

Bartholomew went to summon the litter-bearers, and saw Sir Thomas carried out of the church and back to Wergen Hall. The knight was already beginning to drowse from the strong potion Bartholomew had given him, and his face had regained some of its colour. Stoate went with him, holding Tuddenham’s wrist as he made a show of testing the strength of his life-beat, although how he could do it with the litter bouncing up and down, Bartholomew could not begin to imagine.

‘This has been quite a night,’ said Michael, walking slowly into the church. ‘We have been attacked by men wielding swords, found the body of a murder suspect, been searched most intimately for the advowson, and seen Tuddenham taken ill in his church. What was wrong with him? Guilty conscience for ordering the death of Alcote?’

‘The night is not over yet, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, crouching down to retrieve something from under the trestle table on which Norys lay. ‘Here is Unwin’s stolen relic.’

The morning was well advanced, with bright sunshine streaming in through the windows, when Bartholomew awoke in the church. He rubbed his eyes and stretched, realising that he had fallen asleep over his prayers. Michael had not, and was kneeling at the altar, although his preoccupied frown suggested that his mind was not on masses for Alcote’s soul, but on the confusion of facts and theories they had amassed the previous night. There was a clank as the door was opened, and Bartholomew hastened to join him, so that William would not guess he had spent much of what remained of the night in an exhausted slumber rather than praying for the charcoaled mess that graced the parish coffin.

The Franciscan flopped on to his knees and glowered. ‘May the Lord have mercy on the iniquitous soul of Robert Deynman and his evil ways,’ he thundered.

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. Even half asleep, he realised the prayer was intended for his ears, and not the Almighty’s.

‘He refused to recite prime with me. He said he would rather go for a walk, and he insisted Horsey went with him. That boy will come to a bad end one day.’

But not, Bartholomew was relieved to hear, in Grundisburgh. William continued to grumble about how the two students had slunk down the Ipswich road, and that he strongly suspected they were up to no good. Hoping their journey would be uneventful, and that he would collect them safe and sound later that day, Bartholomew accompanied Michael to Wergen Hall, where the monk planned to correct one or two details on the deed before leaving Grundisburgh and its superstitions and secrets, never to return.

Tuddenham was sleeping, his face drawn and pale and his breathing shallow. He was beginning to look like a man with one foot in the grave, and Bartholomew knew that the astute Dame Eva sensed all was not as it should be. He was sorry for her, understanding that parents are seldom braced for the death of a child who has reached adulthood. She sat next to her son and held his hand, and it was not easy to persuade her to leave him to rest. Isilia was as bad, and it took some effort to dissuade her from delivering a large and carefully prepared breakfast to her ailing husband.

Eventually, Bartholomew prised them from the sickroom. They went slowly, as though they imagined Tuddenham might take a turn for the worse even as they walked to the door. Bartholomew instructed Siric to allow no one to disturb him, and then went to look for Michael.

Michael waved him away as he approached, working hard to complete what needed to be done before someone from Tuddenham’s household guessed what he was doing. Bored and unsettled, Bartholomew went to wander aimlessly in the gardens, poking around in the stables, and looking with uninterest at the great destriers that were tethered there. Cynric had managed to obtain some bread and nuts, although Bartholomew hoped the episode with the beef had not given him a taste for the theft of food, and they ate them in Isilia’s pretty herbal arbour.

Bartholomew was considering taking Michael something to eat, when he glimpsed Hamon slinking out of Wergen Hall in a manner that could only be described as furtive. With nothing better to do, and with Cynric back to normal and ready to engage in a little daytime stalking, they followed him along the path that wound down the hill, and then along a trackway that cut off to the east. Bartholomew was curious. Hamon was not a man who walked – knights rode, even short distances – and Bartholomew could not imagine what could be sufficiently important to make him resort to using his feet.

Every so often, Hamon would stop and look around to see whether he was being followed, but he was no match for Cynric; the Welshman knew exactly how close he could come without being seen and when to melt back into the shadows to avoid detection. At last they reached the river at a point where it flowed deep and swift before widening into a shallow pool fringed by willows. A set of irregular stepping stones stretched across it, and Hamon leapt inelegantly from one to another – falling in water to his knees when he misjudged one – and clambered up the bank on the other side. Cynric and Bartholomew followed a good deal more gracefully.

They were now on land that had been Deblunville’s, and Bartholomew began to feel anxious, afraid that some nasty plot was in progress. Eventually, in a pretty, secluded grove well away from any houses or fields, Hamon stopped and paced impatiently, apparently waiting for someone to arrive. Bartholomew tried to imagine who. Someone from Burgh, who was helping Hamon plot against Tuddenham and the advowson? An accomplice, who had helped him kill Deblunville with a stone in the woods near Barchester? Or was it Bardolf, who seemed intelligent enough to persuade others to do what he did not want to do himself?

Before he had time to speculate further, Cynric tensed, and pointed to someone walking through the trees. Hamon, who had been gazing in that direction for a while, also stiffened.

‘Janelle!’ breathed Bartholomew, as the pretty woman stepped into the glade.

She regarded Hamon uncertainly, as if not quite sure what to do. He hesitated for a moment, then held out his hands, and with dainty steps she walked towards him and took them in hers. Bartholomew was confused. Surely Janelle could not be the mastermind behind all this evil, using Hamon as her instrument? He watched uncomfortably as Hamon kissed her gently on the lips.

‘Come on,’ he whispered to Cynric. ‘We have seen enough.’

He turned to leave, but as he did so his bag caught on a twig that snapped sharply. Hamon moved faster than Bartholomew would have thought possible, and had the tip of his sword at the physician’s throat before Bartholomew was able to take more than a few steps. Cynric had melted into the shadows, but Bartholomew knew one of the Welshman’s daggers would be embedded in Hamon’s body the instant Cynric considered his friend to be seriously at risk. Nevertheless, he did not much like the sensation of cold steel so near his neck, and hoped Cynric knew what he was doing. Hamon, however, seemed more dismayed than threatening when he recognised his uncle’s guest.

‘So, now you know,’ he said, lowering his sword slightly.

‘Know what?’ asked Bartholomew in confusion, feeling he knew nothing at all.

‘He saw only a brotherly kiss,’ said Janelle quickly. ‘What harm is there in that?’

‘It was not brotherly!’ proclaimed Hamon hotly. ‘You know it was not.’

Janelle sighed in exasperation. ‘Where are your wits, Hamon? We might have convinced him you were simply here to offer me your condolences for the tragic demise of my husband. Now, after your outburst, he would have to be an imbecile not to see that there is more to our relationship.’

‘I have never hidden the fact that I adore you,’ claimed Hamon vehemently. ‘It would be like… like denying that the Earth rotates!’

Janelle’s irritation gave way to wry humour. ‘I was always taught that it did not. Walter Wauncy argues most convincingly against such a mad notion.’

‘Then he is wrong,’ said Hamon loftily. ‘I attended the debate at Wergen Hall, where it was proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Earth spins most of the time.’ He licked a finger and held it up. ‘It is still now, of course, because there is no wind.’

Janelle looked from Hamon to Bartholomew in amused disbelief. ‘Is that so? But academic disputes, however fascinating, will not help us decide what to do about Doctor Bartholomew, who, thanks to your indiscretion, now knows that we are… close.’

‘I will marry you,’ declared Hamon, his attention fully on Janelle, as he let the sword drop to his side. ‘No man will steal you from me a second time.’

‘No man stole me the first time,’ said Janelle practically. ‘It was my decision to marry Roland Deblunville, and mine alone. I know now that I made a terrible mistake – one that might have proved fatal for me – but up until our wedding day I thought he was the innocent victim of a hateful plan initiated by Tuddenham to spread lies about him. Foolishly, I believed that monster when he said there was nothing sinister about Pernel’s death, but he was lying. He had smashed her head against the stone windowsill, and killed her.’

‘It may have been an accident,’ said Bartholomew cautiously.

‘It was not,’ said Janelle, with utter conviction. ‘She was old enough to be his grandmother, and he pushed her, knowing she would fall. He married her for her land, and when Burgh was his, he killed her so he could marry me and have Clopton, too. I have no doubt that in time I would also have had an “accident” – he was already flirting with Lady Ann from Hasketon: he ogled her all through our wedding feast, although I am sure it was her dairy farm that he really wanted.’

‘I told you that Deblunville killed old Pernel,’ said Hamon, sheathing his sword. ‘But you did not listen to me.’

‘Deblunville was more persuasive than you, Hamon,’ said Janelle, rather bitterly. She turned to Bartholomew for support. ‘Who did you believe – the dashing and personable Deblunville, or the oafish, inarticulate man who hates him because his uncle tells him to?’

Bartholomew did not like to answer. He felt he did not know Hamon or Deblunville well enough to tell who was the more truthful of the pair, and was not inclined to come down on the side of Deblunville anyway, with Hamon glowering at having been described as oafish.

‘And Deblunville was obsessed with the search for the golden calf,’ Janelle continued, when no reply was forthcoming. ‘He was out every night, despite my attempts to keep him with me. He believed Hamon was close to discovering it, and wanted to get to it first.’

‘I am close to finding it,’ protested Hamon.

‘How?’ asked Bartholomew curiously. ‘Have you discovered a clue, such as the foundations of the old chapel near which the calf is said to be buried?’

‘Well, no,’ admitted Hamon. ‘Not yet. But I will.’ He looked fondly at Janelle. ‘And then I will be richer than Deblunville. I will have my uncle’s estates, and you will have Clopton and Burgh. Together, we will be a powerful force in the county.’

‘But Isilia’s child will inherit your uncle’s manors,’ said Bartholomew, unable to stop himself.

Hamon regarded him coldly. ‘We will see about that.’ He turned back to Janelle. ‘Marry me! Wait a week or two, until it is seemly, and then marry me. Our alliance will make us rich and powerful, and I think we are a couple who could get along nicely together.’

‘That is true,’ she said, considering. ‘My brains and your strength will make us a formidable force. We could rule the whole of the Lark Valley.’

Hamon’s eyes glittered with excitement, and he took her into his arms. Disconcerted by the display of naked ambition and craving for wealth, Bartholomew backed away.

‘You will not tell my uncle about my betrothal to Janelle,’ ordered Hamon over his shoulder, more interested in his woman than in the retreating physician. ‘I would rather tell him myself. I will kill you if you mention it before I am ready.’

‘To start the rule of your kingdom as you mean to continue?’ asked Bartholomew, who had reached the trees at the edge of the glade, and was sufficiently disgusted to feel like being rash.

Hamon ignored him, his attention wholly on Janelle. Janelle, however, was less sanguine.

‘Can he be trusted?’ she asked, regarding Bartholomew uncertainly. ‘How do we know he will not go straight to your uncle and tell him of our plans?’

‘He has an advowson to write,’ said Hamon. ‘Now Alcote is dead, the Michaelhouse men have to rewrite the whole thing. He will be far too busy to meddle in our affairs.’

‘But he was not too busy to follow you here,’ Janelle pointed out.

Hamon sighed, and turned to face Bartholomew. ‘If you tell my uncle about me and Janelle, I will tell William that you stole Eltisley’s beef and buried it under an oak tree at midnight to effect a charm against Padfoot. He will have you dismissed from your College for practising witchcraft.’

‘How do you know about that?’ asked Bartholomew, aghast that the jaunt he had sought so carefully to conceal was apparently common knowledge.

‘This is the country, Doctor. There are few secrets here. I know that Deblunville’s men encountered you in the woods near Barchester, that a piece of beef was stolen from Eltisley, that Brother Michael’s new linen disappeared, and that your servant is suddenly cured of his malady. I am not stupid, you know. You used Mother Goodman’s charm to break Padfoot’s hold.’

Bartholomew gazed at him. It was certainly true that William would react immediately and uncompromisingly on hearing Bartholomew’s role in effecting Cynric’s recovery. And the fanatical friar might do much worse than having Bartholomew dismissed from Michaelhouse – he would call in his Franciscan inquisitors and have him tried as a warlock. Janelle was unfair when she intimated that she had all the brains: Hamon’s method of ensuring Bartholomew’s silence was a brilliant one, given William’s outspoken views on the subject of heresy.

The lovers’ voices drifted back to Bartholomew as he made his escape.

‘And if Grosnold dies without an heir, we could persuade him to name my child his successor,’ schemed Janelle.

‘You mean the child Deblunville fathered?’ asked Hamon, sounding startled.

As he glanced back, surprised at the suggestion himself, Bartholomew glimpsed Janelle’s unreadable smile.

‘I am not carrying Deblunville’s child,’ she said enigmatically. ‘Despite what you may have heard, and what I may have allowed people to believe.’

‘You see?’ said Michael, looking at Unwin’s relic – the twist of parchment with the cluster of ancient hairs inside it – that Bartholomew had found beneath Norys’s body the night before. ‘I was right all along. Norys did kill Unwin to steal his relic.’

They were sitting in the church together, in the small hours of the following night, and Michael was taking a rest from his labours with the deed to hear Bartholomew’s story about Hamon. The monk had been overly optimistic about what he could achieve that day. Exhaustion had claimed him and he had slept all afternoon and much of the evening, too, and had decided to work through the night: not at Wergen Hall, but in the church where he could claim he was praying for Alcote’s singed remains.

Bartholomew, who also had slept much of the previous day, was keeping him company, while Cynric and William were at Wergen Hall, carefully packing the few belongings that had survived the fire in the Half Moon, so that they would be ready to leave the instant the deed was completed.

As far as Bartholomew was concerned, Hamon’s rash infatuation with Janelle made him a stronger suspect for killing Alcote. Janelle was very interested in material possessions, and Hamon might well see preventing Michaelhouse from owning the living of the church as something that would persuade her of his devotion. Michael was more interested in discussing the murder of Unwin, remaining convinced that Norys somehow lay at the centre of that mystery.

‘We know that whoever killed Unwin probably also stole his purse. The purse – minus the relic – was then found with the bloody clothes on Norys’s roof. Now, just when Norys’s body reappears, the relic falls from his clothing on to the floor beneath his body, to be found by you.’

‘The relic was not in his clothing,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I looked for it there. And it was not under the table before Tuddenham and his retinue arrived.’

‘How can you be sure?’ demanded Michael. ‘It is dark in here. I can barely see you, and you are standing right next to me.’

‘I am sure because I looked very carefully before the Tuddenhams arrived. I wanted to make certain that nothing had dropped from Norys’s clothes, so I checked. I am absolutely positive it was not there before Tuddenham and his household came.’

‘Then any one of them might have dropped the relic, or left it there for us to find,’ said Michael, closing his eyes tiredly. ‘Tuddenham, Hamon, Dame Eva, Isilia, Wauncy, Siric. Damn!’ He slammed his clenched fist on the windowsill in frustration. ‘If only we had been more observant!’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew ruefully. ‘Because we know that the only way someone could be in possession of the relic would be if he had killed Unwin, or had some knowledge of his death. Therefore, whoever put the relic under Norys’s body is the murderer.’

‘I suppose this killer wanted us to think exactly what we did,’ said Michael, disappointed to learn, yet again, that absolute evidence of Norys’s guilt was lacking. ‘That the relic fell from Norys’s clothing, and is therefore confirmation of his guilt.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Bartholomew suddenly, his voice loud in the silent church. ‘That is not what happened. It is not even what we are supposed to think, because it is not meant to be there at all. Stoate dropped it!’

‘What?’ asked Michael dubiously. ‘How have you arrived at that conclusion?’

Bartholomew straightened from where he been leaning against the wall, and began to pace as he reasoned it out. ‘Stoate was in such a hurry to reach the side of his most affluent patient that he tripped up the chancel steps in his haste. His bag came open and some of its contents spilled out. The relic must have fallen with them.’

‘Stoate killed Unwin?’ asked Michael in disbelief. ‘But why? This makes no sense, Matt!’

‘Oh, no!’ groaned Bartholomew, putting his hands to his head as the whole affair became crystal clear in his mind. All the disjointed scraps of evidence suddenly snapped together to form a picture that was so obvious, he was appalled he had not seen it before. ‘I see what happened. How could I have been so stupid?’

‘You tell me,’ said Michael.

‘The night Unwin died, Stoate introduced himself in the tavern. We had a lengthy conversation about various aspects of medicine.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael, remembering. ‘All of them highly unpleasant.’

‘I am sure Stoate told me he practised surgery – mainly bleeding, from the sound of it.’

‘Yes, he did,’ said Michael. ‘You were inappropriately delighted about the whole business.’

‘He denied yesterday that he ever said so,’ said Bartholomew. He flopped on to the bench next to Michael, and closed his eyes. ‘He said that Mother Goodman does it if it is needed, but Mother Goodman has told me that he did it on at least two occasions, including once when she was present. She interrupted our conversation in the Half Moon the first night we stayed there, to tell us the prices Stoate charged for opening vessels in different parts of the body, and he did not contradict her.’

Michael nodded. ‘I remember that. So, Stoate is a liar. However, that does not also make him a murderer or a thief. I do not see where all this is leading, Matt.’

‘Unwin’s body had an injury on the arm, near the elbow, and one sleeve was drenched in blood. I see exactly what happened. Unwin went to Stoate to be bled, and Stoate bled him to death!’

Michael gazed at him for a moment, and then gave a short laugh of disbelief. ‘The fatal wound was the cut to the elbow and not the stab in the stomach?’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is more easily done than you might think. If the incision made for phlebotomy is too deep, or the wrong vein is cut, a person can bleed to death very quickly if the surgeon does not know how to stop it. Stoate is not a surgeon, and has not been trained to practise phlebotomy. He killed Unwin with his ignorance and arrogance!’

‘So you are not exaggerating when you say bleeding is bad for the health?’ said Michael. ‘You had me convinced long before all this happened, but now I can promise you that no barber with his bloody knives will ever come near my veins.’

‘I wish none had come near Unwin’s,’ said Bartholomew fervently. ‘I suppose his anxiety for his new post made him feel a need to drain away the humours that were making him nervous.’

‘And Stoate killed him outside the church where we found all that blood,’ said Michael, scratching his head.

‘That was why there was so much of it on Unwin’s sleeve. How could I have missed it?’ Bartholomew ran a hand through his hair in agitation. ‘It did not escape William: he asked me why there was blood on Unwin’s arm, and I made a bad assumption – that it had drained out of the stomach when he had been lying in a different position than the one in which we found him.’

‘And now Stoate is busily denying that he practises phlebotomy, lest you associate the small cut on Unwin’s elbow with a physician who dabbles in surgery.’

‘But why did he not deny it from the start?’ asked Bartholomew, rubbing his head. ‘Why claim that night in the tavern – within a very short time of Unwin’s death – that he did bleed people?’

‘Two good reasons,’ said Michael, considering. ‘First, Mother Goodman was sitting near enough to hear every word; her position as village midwife means that she knows he bleeds people – and we have seen enough of that lady to guess she would not sit quietly knitting, while a physician she loathes lies about what he does. And second, you were very persistent with your questions, whether you appreciated it or not, and had the poor fellow scrambling to provide you with answers.’

‘I did not!’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You make me sound like William in inquisitor mode.’

‘You can be very intimidating, Matt, particularly to people who do not have your training. And on that subject, I can also say that I very much doubt Stoate has been to Paris and Bologna Universities as he claims. He is too young, and why should someone with those qualifications settle in a remote village like this? He would be in London or York or Norwich, making his fortune.’

‘He certainly dispenses odd cures,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘Like ground snails for sore eyes. Our eyes are better, but the eyes of everyone who slapped that paste on them are still inflamed.’

‘So, crushed snails is not something that the mighty physicians of Paris recommend, then?’ asked Michael with a smile. ‘Nor do they teach bleeding?’

‘They do not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is heartily denounced as something tradesmen do. But I cannot believe I was so blind about that cut on Unwin’s elbow. After he had bled to death, Stoate must have dragged Unwin back into the church, and then stabbed the body and stole the purse to make it appear as though he had been murdered by an opportunistic thief for his belongings.’

‘And it stands to reason that if Stoate stabbed Unwin’s corpse to make his accidental death seem like murder, he also did the same to Mistress Freeman’s throat. You were right all along, Matt. The killer heard that Norys had been accused of killing Unwin, and Mistress Freeman was desecrated to make us believe that was true.’

‘So, what shall we do?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Stoate is with Tuddenham at Wergen Hall now.’

‘We must confront him,’ said Michael. ‘And the sooner, the better.’

They headed up the path toward Tuddenham’s manor. Since dawn was only just beginning to lighten the sky, most of Wergen Hall’s inhabitants were still in bed, and the house was in darkness. Eventually, Siric answered the door to Bartholomew’s insistent hammering.

‘What now?’ he snapped. ‘Sir Thomas is sleeping, and needs no more leeches tonight.’

‘Is Stoate with him?’ asked Michael.

Siric shook his head. ‘Sir Thomas had a bad night, but about an hour ago he started to sleep like a baby. I did not want a physician prodding him and disturbing his rest, so I sent Stoate home.’

While Cynric went to rouse William to continue the vigil for the charred remains in the church – feeling, no doubt, that the slippery Alcote needed all the prayers he could get – Bartholomew and Michael took the path back to the village, and made their way to Stoate’s house. His horse, still tailless thanks to Deynman, was saddled, and weighted down with two hefty bags.

‘It looks as though Stoate knows the game is up,’ Michael whispered to Bartholomew. ‘He is about to leave.’

There was a sharp click and both men swung round. Stoate stood behind them holding a loaded crossbow.

‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered sharply. ‘I will use this if I have to.’

For a moment, no one said a word. Bartholomew and Michael gaped at Stoate’s crossbow, while Stoate glared back challengingly. A gleam of desperation in his eyes suggested to Bartholomew that Stoate would indeed use the weapon if necessary – and perhaps even if it were not. Michael stepped forward.

‘You might hit one of us,’ he said calmly, ‘but you will not have the time to reload before the other attacks. Michaelhouse men do not approve of charlatan physicians who kill with their ignorance and greed – you would not stand a chance.’

‘Greed?’ asked Stoate, startled.

‘Yes, greed,’ said Michael. ‘Making a few extra pennies by bleeding poor villagers who do not know that you are no more a physician than I am.’

Stoate’s finger tightened on the trigger of his crossbow. ‘I studied in Paris and Bologna,’ he said angrily. ‘Ask anyone around here.’

‘How would they know?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘They, like us, only have your word for it.’ He began to move away from Michael, making it impossible for Stoate to point his weapon at both of them at the same time.

‘Stay where you are,’ said Stoate, understanding what he was doing immediately. He waved the weapon at his house, and glanced up at the sky. ‘Go inside and close the door.’

‘Which do you want us to do?’ asked Michael, deliberately aggravating. ‘Stay where we are, or enter your charming home?’

‘Move!’ snapped Stoate. He glanced anxiously at the sky again. Rutted roads and recent rain meant that riding fast while it was still dark would be tantamount to suicide, yet he knew he needed to be away before people awoke and clogged the paths as they walked to the fields. Bartholomew took several steps and then hesitated, wondering how he might delay Stoate’s departure until either he was prevented from making a speedy escape by the labourers on the roads, or Cynric realised that something was amiss and came to look for them.

‘Do not try my patience, Bartholomew,’ hissed Stoate. ‘It will not be you I shoot, it will be your fat friend. I know you would never leave him while he is mortally wounded, and that will allow me to make a clean escape. Or you can move into my house, and no one need be hurt.’

Michael pushed open the door, and Bartholomew followed him inside. Stoate stood in the entrance, watching them minutely, his finger never leaving the trigger of his weapon.

‘Now sit against that wall, and put your legs out in front of you.’

It was a position that would make any sudden lunge at Stoate virtually impossible – unless the lunger had no objection to being impaled by a crossbow quarrel. Stoate looked at the sky again.

‘All this started with Unwin, did it not?’ said Michael, trying to make himself comfortable on the floor. ‘You bled him – at his request, probably – but you were careless, and he bled to death.’

‘It was an accident,’ said Stoate harshly. ‘These things happen in medicine. I suppose I should not have left him once I had made the incision, but I had not wanted to attend him in the first place. Grosnold had found Unwin sick and shaking, and was concerned. He ordered me to bleed him, and Grosnold is not a man easily refused.’

‘You made an incision in Unwin, and then left him unattended?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘What were you thinking of? That is one of the grossest cases of negligence I have ever heard!’

‘He said he would be all right,’ protested Stoate uneasily. ‘When I came back – only moments later – he was stone dead and there was blood all over the ground. What else could I do but try to disguise his death? I moved him into the church – fortunately for me, most of the blood in his body had already leaked out, and so it was not as messy as it could have been – and made his death appear to be a murder by stabbing him and taking his purse.’

‘Grosnold ordered you to bleed Unwin?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘What was he doing back in Grundisburgh after his spectacular departure across the village green?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Stoate, casting yet another anxious glance at the sky. ‘I try not to become involved in the sinister affairs of the lords of the manor around here. They are not men to be trusted.’

‘Unlike the physicians,’ muttered Michael. He shook his head in wonderment. ‘So, Eltisley really did see Grosnold with Unwin in the churchyard. But he was not holding Unwin’s arm in a threatening manner as we all assumed; he was being solicitous, because Unwin’s nervousness was making him unwell. Grosnold even sent for a physician to bleed him, and was doubtless “surreptitious” because Unwin told him Matt would not approve of phlebotomy.’

Stoate nodded. ‘I was summoned because Unwin told him that Bartholomew would refuse. If only I had refused, too! Then none of this would have happened.’

‘But why did Grosnold deny speaking to Unwin if he had nothing to hide?’ asked Bartholomew.

Stoate shrugged. ‘All I know is that he instructed me to say nothing about his meeting with Unwin. He gave me five marks for my silence. It seemed a good deal: I would say nothing about his role, therefore he would say nothing about mine.’

‘So, what happened to Mistress Freeman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘She did not die of a slit throat; she died from eating the mussels that were scattered all over her floor. As did Norys.’

‘The mussels killed her?’ asked Stoate in astonishment. ‘They were tainted?’

‘Were they a gift from you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To ensure she was at home when you came to kill her, and make it appear as though Norys had done it?’

Stoate gave a humourless laugh. ‘Yes, they were a gift from me, and yes, they were to ensure she was home when I called. The plan was to share them with her, and then to convince her that it had been Norys we had seen together, running from the church.’

‘But you saw no one running from the church,’ said Michael. ‘The cloaked figure was you.’

‘I did see someone,’ said Stoate earnestly. ‘Everything I have told you is the truth, except the length of the cloak. I did speak to Mistress Freeman by the ford – Norys was not with her, and she told me that he had gone to fetch her shawl, because the evening was turning chilly – and we did see someone running out of the church. And whoever it was was rubbing his eyes.’

‘Why lie about the length of the cloak?’

‘Because the one I wore that night was short, very like that which I saw on the person running from the church. I realised that I needed to create confusion, if I did not want other witnesses to say the short-cloaked figure was me. So, I said he wore a long one.’

‘So the cloaked figure you saw with Mistress Freeman was just someone who had innocently stumbled on the body you had deposited in the church, and who had fled lest he be accused of a murder he did not commit?’ asked Michael. ‘Two people ran from the church that day wearing cloaks – you and this other person?’

‘So it would appear. But neither of us fled unnoticed: several people saw us – as your colleague Father William discovered when he practised his nasty Inquisition techniques on the village – and some may well have seen me, not the other person.’

He was right, thought Bartholomew. Some of the villagers William had browbeaten had claimed to have seen a man in a short cloak, not a long one: they had seen Stoate, the real killer of Unwin.

‘But why were you wearing a cloak at all?’ he asked, still puzzled. ‘It was hot that day.’

‘When one wears yellow hose, one does not sit on grass,’ said Stoate impatiently. ‘I took my cloak with me to spread on the ground, so that the village boys would not jeer at a green-stained seat. Little did I know how useful it would be: it also allowed me to carry Unwin back to the church without traces of blood seeping on to my best clothes.’

Michael shook his head unhappily. ‘How do we know we can believe you? You have lied about everything else.’

‘I have lied about nothing, except the length of the cloak,’ said Stoate, most of his attention on the slowly brightening sky again. ‘You never asked me whether I killed Unwin, and you have never questioned me about Mistress Freeman.’

‘What about your medical qualifications, then?’ demanded Michael. ‘They are false.’

‘They are not. My father took me to Paris when I was fifteen, where I sat in a library and read Galen’s Tegni. Two years later we went to Bologna, where I found another library and read it again. So, you see, I have not lied to you about that either. I told you I studied medicine in Paris and Bologna, and I have.’

‘But that claim is grossly misleading,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘You know perfectly well that people will assume you mean you have studied properly, not just read a book that you could not have understood without also reading all the commentaries that go with it.’

‘I do extremely well as a physician,’ said Stoate smugly.

‘By giving foxglove to treat Tuddenham’s stomach disease?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘By dispensing a foul ointment of cat grease and crushed snails for burns? By prescribing a potion containing betony and pennyroyal to the pregnant Janelle without cautioning her how to use it?’

Stoate wiped a bead of sweat from his face with his forefinger. He slapped his hand back on to the weapon again as Bartholomew tensed, weighing up the chances of reaching Stoate before he could fire. Michael gave him an agonised look, sensing that Stoate’s nervousness might well lead him into shooting if Bartholomew gave the impression he was about to attack at any moment.

‘I lose very few patients,’ said Stoate coldly. ‘Which is more than can be said of you, from what you have told me about your practice in Cambridge.’

‘You will miss having a rich patient like Tuddenham,’ said Michael, worried that Bartholomew might start an argument that would goad the nervous physician into shooting at them.

‘I will not have him for much longer anyway,’ said Stoate. ‘Now is a good time to leave.’ He peered at the ground, trying to ascertain whether the dawn was sufficiently advanced for riding.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael, realising they were running out of time. Stoate would not spend a moment longer than necessary before he made his escape, and Michael sensed that Stoate intended to shoot him anyway, just so that he would not be followed. ‘Or have you left him a purge that will expel his soul from his body as well as his evil humours?’

Stoate pulled an unpleasant face at him, and declined to answer. He finished checking the ground and then squinted up at the sky, abruptly turning his attention to Michael when the monk raised a hand to scratch his head.

‘So what happened in Mistress Freeman’s house?’ asked Michael, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he tried to think of something to say to delay what he knew was inevitable. ‘You presented her with mussels. Then what?’

‘I thought she could cook them for us to eat together, while I worked to convince her that it was Norys who killed Unwin – just as you believed.’

‘And when you arrived you found that she had shared her mussels with Norys instead,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You were lucky. You would have died, too, had you eaten them.’

Stoate shook his head, his eyes distant. ‘I had no idea what had happened – I will have a few strong words with that fishmonger when I next see him. There was no answer from her door, so I looked through the window, and there they were – Mistress Freeman and Norys, dead in each other’s arms. I was afraid I would be blamed, since people know I call on her from time to time, so I slashed her throat. I knew you would assume Norys did it.’

Seeing him distracted by his memories, Bartholomew slipped his hand in his medicine bag, groping for one of his surgical knives. He eased it up his sleeve, and quickly withdrew his hand.

‘But there was no blood, was there?’ he said. ‘Corpses do not bleed.’

‘I had forgotten that. I knew that someone like you would be suspicious of a slit throat with no blood, so I fetched some from the slaughterhouse. Everyone knew a pig had been killed there for Hamon, so I guessed there would be blood in the vat.’

‘But you used far too much of it,’ said Bartholomew.

‘I had to make it look convincing,’ said Stoate. ‘Then I took some old clothes, dipped them in the blood, wrapped them in a long cloak that I found in my attic – along with Unwin’s purse – and flung the whole lot on Norys’s roof, where I knew someone would see them.’

‘But you kept the relic,’ said Michael, removing it from his scrip and waving it at Stoate. ‘That was what told us who had really killed Unwin. It fell out of your bag when you tripped up the chancel steps in the dark, rushing to help Tuddenham when he was ill.’

In a lightning-quick movement, Stoate darted across the room and snatched it from Michael’s hand. He had the crossbow pointed at the monk again before Bartholomew could do more than let the knife slip from his sleeve into the palm of his hand.

‘I will sell this when I reach somewhere it will not be recognised,’ said Stoate, pleased. ‘What is it exactly? A lock of the Virgin’s hair?’

‘It is St Botolph’s beard,’ said Michael, shocked. ‘What kind of hair did you think our Blessed Virgin had, man?’

Stoate looked quickly at the sky, then glanced along the road. Bartholomew’s fingers tightened on the knife, trying not to think about what might happen if he missed, and if Stoate were startled or angered into firing the crossbow. Stoate, however, was no fool.

‘Sit still,’ he ordered sharply. ‘And put your hands in front of you, where I can see them.’

While Michael sighed and puffed at the indignity, Bartholomew shoved the knife under his leg, and rested his empty hands in his lap, cursing himself for hesitating when he should have hurled the weapon.

‘And what did you do with Norys’s body?’ asked Michael. ‘Pay three louts to bury it in Unwin’s grave for you?’

‘No,’ said Stoate, still watching Bartholomew for hints of trickery. ‘That had nothing to do with me. I left his body in the woods near Barchester, and I have no idea how he managed to arrive in Unwin’s tomb. I do not desecrate graves.’

‘Just the corpses that lie in them,’ said Bartholomew, seeing Stoate glance up at the sky once more. It was now quite pale, and Bartholomew could make out individual leaves on the trees. A good horseman would be able to make reasonable time, if he were careful. Stoate took a deep breath and tightened his finger on the trigger, while Bartholomew let one of his hands drop to the floor, easing it toward the knife that pressed into his leg.

‘But I killed no one,’ insisted Stoate. ‘Unwin, Mistress Freeman and Norys were accidents – as it seems to me you had already reasoned anyway.’

‘But what about the man hanging at Bond’s Corner?’ asked Michael, desperately playing for time. ‘Did you kill him? And what about Alcote, or was that an accident too?’

‘I know nothing about Alcote or any hanged men,’ said Stoate, glancing up at the sky for the last time. ‘Now, gentlemen, pleasant though your company has been, it is time for me to be on my way.’

Before Bartholomew could grab the knife, Stoate had pulled the trigger on the crossbow, aiming at Michael. There was a click that sounded sickeningly loud. With a sharp intake of breath, Bartholomew gazed at Michael in horror. Michael stared at Stoate, then gave a bellow of anger, struggling to stand while Stoate looked stupidly at the jammed mechanism on his weapon. Bartholomew snatched up his knife and hurled it before Stoate could recover his wits. The wicked little blade sliced cleanly through one of Stoate’s flowing sleeves, and impaled itself in the door jamb, vibrating with the force of the throw.

Startled into action, Stoate heaved the crossbow at Michael. There was a whir and a snap as the mechanism unfouled, and the bolt was loosed. Michael dropped to the floor with a howl of pain. Seeing the monk fall, Stoate darted out of the door, and Bartholomew heard something thump against it as it was blocked from the outside. Stomach churning, Bartholomew scrambled to Michael, who lay clutching his chest.

‘I am hit, Matt!’ he groaned. ‘Murdered by a physician!’

‘Where?’ shouted Bartholomew, searching frantically for a wound, but finding none. He heard a clatter of hooves outside as Stoate mounted his horse.

Michael’s hand fluttered weakly over his side, but Bartholomew could still see nothing, not even a tear in his habit where the quarrel had sliced through it. Then his shaking hands encountered something hard, and Michael gave a gasp. He pushed his hand down the front of Michael’s gown, anticipating some dreadful injury, but then saw the crossbow bolt embedded in the wall above his head. With a sigh of relief, he sat back on his heels, and rubbed a trembling hand through his hair. Michael regarded him with frightened eyes.

‘Is it a mortal wound?’ he whispered.

‘You fell on your purse,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The quarrel missed you altogether. You are only bruised. That will teach you to carry so much gold.’

Michael sat up and prodded himself carefully. ‘Stoate is escaping!’ he exclaimed, when a quick examination convinced him he was unharmed.

He scrambled to his feet and joined Bartholomew at the barred door, jostling the physician out of the way to hit it with a tremendous crash that ripped the entire frame from the wall. Bartholomew raced out into the road to see Stoate disappearing round the corner in a thunder of hooves.

‘You will never catch him!’ yelled Michael as Bartholomew began to give chase. I am going to Tuddenham.’

In the distance Michael spotted Cynric, who had been searching for them. He shouted for the Welshman to follow Bartholomew, while he ran in the opposite direction to fetch help.

Bartholomew tore down the path Stoate had taken, running as hard as he could. As he rounded the corner, he could see the horse in front of him, galloping down the narrow track with its saddle bags bouncing behind it, and Stoate clinging on for dear life. Bartholomew ran harder, feeling the blood pound in his head and his lungs pump as though they would burst. Stoate turned another bend, and Bartholomew shot after him, hurling his medicine bag away when it threatened to slow him down. When he rounded the next corner, Stoate was out of sight. It was hopeless – he could never catch a horse on foot. Gradually, he stopped, breath sobbing in his chest as he fought for air.

‘He is long gone,’ said Cynric, appearing beside him, panting hard. ‘He will be in Ipswich before we can organise a chase, and then he will be on a ship bound for France or the Low Countries.’ He kicked at the ground furiously. ‘That damned Eltisley! Stoate would not have escaped if he had not damaged my bow.’

‘What has Stoate done to warrant shooting him down in cold blood?’ came Eltisley’s smooth voice from behind them. Bartholomew and Cynric spun round, and saw the landlord standing there with a bow of his own, flanked by three of his sullen customers, who looked a good deal more proficient with their weapons than he did.

‘You will not catch him on foot,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that Eltisley meant to help arrest a killer and a desecrator of corpses.

‘I have no intention of catching him at all,’ said Eltisley softly. ‘It is you I want.’