A Wicked Deed

Chapter 12

Eltisley scratched his blistered face – still smeared with Stoate’s paste of crushed snails and mint in cat grease – with his free hand, and jabbed his sword into the small of Bartholomew’s back to make him walk faster. It was still not fully light, and Eltisley and three friends – those Bartholomew had seen hunched sullenly over their ale in the Half Moon – had directed Bartholomew and Cynric away from the village on a path that led west. Cynric had been stripped of his arsenal, and Bartholomew had no weapons anyway, not even the surgical knives that he carried in his medicine bag, which was now lying in the bushes on the Ipswich road. Eltisley bragged to his men about how he had the foresight to damage Cynric’s bow with one of his potions.

‘Do you have any of your medicine for blisters?’ he queried, scrubbing vigorously at a cheek that was red and running. ‘That remedy Stoate suggested does not seem to be working.’

‘You can ask him for another,’ said Bartholomew, ‘when you meet your partner in crime later.’

‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ said Eltisley. ‘I have no partner – and if I did, I would not choose a physician. Whatever caused Stoate to flee the village has nothing to do with me.’

‘He killed Unwin,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He opened a vein and allowed him to bleed to death.’

‘That was careless,’ said Eltisley. ‘So Norys did not kill the friar, as everyone believes? It was Stoate? Well, I never! But do you have any of your lotion or not? My burns are itching and driving me to distraction.’

‘No, but I imagined you would have a remedy of your own,’ Bartholomew said, hoping that Eltisley would use one of his evil concoctions and make himself ill.

‘All my potions were destroyed with the Half Moon. It is a dreadful loss to the village.’

‘How did you manage to blow up your tavern without killing yourself?’ asked Bartholomew, stumbling as Eltisley poked him again. ‘Lay a trail of inflammable powder on the ground, so that you could light it from a safe distance?’

‘I experimented with that the other night, but it did not work. So, I invented another way – I soaked a piece of twine in saltpetre and lit it. Saltpetre is one of the ingredients I used to create my little bang – along with charcoal and sulphur, as you surmised. It was all rather more dramatic than I intended, however. I did not mean it to destroy my entire tavern.’

‘Just poor Alcote on the upper floor?’ asked Bartholomew coldly.

‘Now that was a waste. If I had to lose my tavern, I would have preferred that all you Michaelhouse scholars had gone with it, not just one. You were beginning to make nuisances of yourselves, with your near-completed advowsons and your meddling in village affairs. Still, I have you now.’

‘What is this all about?’ demanded Bartholomew, stopping and turning to face him. ‘I do not see why we should make killing us easier for you by walking somewhere conveniently secluded.’

‘At the moment, I am prepared to allow that dreadful friar to go free – he is not intelligent enough to pose a threat to me and my affairs. But if you make life difficult, I shall change my mind. The choice is yours.’

Bartholomew turned and began to trudge along the path again, Cynric following. He was thankful he had sent Deynman and Horsey away to safety, and only wished he had done the same for the others.

It was a dismal morning, with low, grey clouds and a wetness in the air that made everything foggy and dull. Bartholomew tried to piece together the mess of facts that had accumulated to make sense out of his present predicament. Although he had always suspected that Eltisley was not all he seemed, to be captured by him and his henchmen at arrow-point so soon after the encounter with Stoate was still a shock, and he could not imagine what he and his colleagues had done to warrant Eltisley’s determination to kill them all.

‘What will you do now that you have lost your tavern and your workshop?’ he asked, initiating a conversation to see what he might learn. ‘Where will you perform your experiments?’

‘Another tavern will be provided,’ Eltisley said confidently. ‘I am too valuable to lose.’

‘Provided by whom?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham? Hamon? Or is it one of the other lords of the manor, such as Bardolf or Grosnold?’

Eltisley smiled gloatingly. ‘You do not have the wits to work it out, despite the fact that you have all the information at your fingertips.’

‘Such as what?’ asked Bartholomew, racking his brains. Eltisley, however, declined to answer and they trudged along in silence. Once they turned down a little-used trackway that cut north, Bartholomew knew exactly where Eltisley was taking them, and it did not surprise him in the least.

‘Barchester,’ he muttered to Cynric. ‘We are going to Barchester.’

Cynric faltered, and Eltisley gave him an encouraging poke with a dagger. Cynric spun round fast and had ripped it from Eltisley’s hands before the taverner realised what was happening. His men, however, were not so easily taken unawares, and had their bows raised and their arrows pointed at Cynric before the Welshman could take a single step toward the trees that would mask his escape.

Eltisley snatched the dagger back, and pushed Cynric forward again. ‘That is exactly the kind of behaviour I recommend you avoid if you do not want William sent back to Cambridge in a wooden box. And your students – I will track them down and kill them, too. Now move, and no talking.’

Cynric began to walk again, his face expressionless, although Bartholomew knew he was seething with rage. One of the men, who carried a sword at his side, sported a painful-looking bruise on one cheekbone. It looked to Bartholomew exactly the kind of injury that might have been caused by a hurled heavy metal ring, and Bartholomew could only assume that it had been Eltisley and his henchmen who had been burying Norys in Unwin’s gave. But why? The pardoner was already dead, and had been dumped in the woods by Stoate.

‘If there is another chance, run,’ he muttered to Cynric, when Eltisley fell back to say something to his friends. ‘Get the others, and take them as far away from this place as you can.’

Cynric said nothing.

‘Please, Cynric,’ pleaded Bartholomew in a desperate whisper, when he realised Cynric had no intention of leaving him. ‘Eltisley intends to kill us anyway. This nonsense about letting William go free is just a ploy to gain our co-operation.’

‘No talking.’ Eltisley jabbed at Bartholomew with his dagger. Cynric spun round, his face dark with anger, but Bartholomew pulled him on, knowing that it would take very little for the unstable Eltisley to order his companions to shoot, and they looked like the kind of men to do it.

Eventually the tattered roofs of Barchester came into view, sticking forlornly through their veil of trees. In the grey light of the overcast morning, with low, dirty clouds overhead, the deserted village looked even more miserable than usual with its broken doors, unstable walls and ruined thatches. Bartholomew walked cautiously, alert for the sinister growls and unearthly screeches that would precede the old woman and her mad dog hurtling out of the undergrowth to attack them. The woods, however, were as silent and as still as the fog that swathed them.

‘You are looking for Padfoot,’ said Eltisley, watching him. ‘You need not fear – he is not here today. Even spectres have business of their own to attend.’

‘What nonsense are you speaking?’ said Bartholomew, irritated that the man should take him for a fool. ‘Padfoot is no more spectre than you are. It is the crone’s tame dog. Do you pay her to stay here and frighten travellers so that they will not linger?’ He snapped his fingers as realisation dawned. ‘Of course you do! I found a bright new penny in one of the huts when we first came here.’

‘Mad Megin likes shiny things,’ said Eltisley. ‘Especially coins.’

Bartholomew continued, as certain things became clear. ‘When we first arrived, Tuddenham told us that it was you who discovered Mad Megin’s drowned body in the river last winter, and you who buried her in the churchyard. I see now that she is not buried at all.’

Eltisley smiled. ‘But I did find her drowned in the river. I brought her back to life, and now she is my servant.’

‘You did what?’ asked Bartholomew, startled despite himself.

Eltisley made an impatient sound. ‘I brought her back to life. I took her out of the river, pressed the water from her lungs, and gave her a few drops of one of my potions. Within moments, she was gasping for breath, and her life-beat was strong and sure.’

‘Then she was probably not dead in the first place,’ said Bartholomew.

‘She was dead,’ said Eltisley with absolute conviction. ‘She was not breathing when I first found her. And her experience changed her. She is not the same woman now as she was before she died – she does not even remember her name.’

‘You damaged her, then,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I have heard of cases where people have been dragged back from the brink of death and unless it is done immediately, the mind is impaired. It would have been kinder to let her die.’

‘You believe death is better than life?’ asked Eltisley, astonished. ‘But all my work has been devoted to prolonging life – creating potions to cure diseases, making wines that repel the evil miasmas that bring summer agues, concocting remedies to prevent shaking fevers and palsies. Life is always better than death.’

‘And how well did these potions work against the plague?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Two in three survived thanks to my mixtures,’ said Eltisley. ‘Almost everyone who took Stoate’s red arsenic and lead died, but my boiled-snake and primrose water was far more successful.’

‘A third was about what most villages and towns lost,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Your potion made no difference at all.’

‘That is not true,’ said Eltisley, nettled. ‘Many villages were completely wiped out, like Barchester, and most religious communities lost more than a third of their number. That Grundisburgh only lost a hundred souls to the Death was entirely due to me.’

‘Is that the essence of your experiments, then?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To combat diseases?’

‘Not entirely. I am searching for the element that will raise the dead from their graves.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

Eltisley smiled at him as though he were a wayward and not particularly intelligent child. ‘I am going to find a cure for death.’

‘And did you succeed with that poor animal you had in your workshop the other night?’ asked Bartholomew, once he had recovered from his shock, recalling Eltisley with the dead dog the night Cynric stole the beef.

Eltisley frowned absently. ‘No, but I have made some adjustments, and I believe the balance of elements is correct now. Of course, I realise that a dog is different from a human – it is always better to experiment on humans. I was successful with Mad Megin, and I intend to continue my work until I have all the people in Grundisburgh churchyard walking among us.’

Bartholomew shuddered at the image. ‘But most of them will be nothing but bones. Will your potion restore their flesh, too?’

‘I can apply my mind to that little problem later,’ said Eltisley dismissively.

‘But do you want Grundisburgh to be full of people like Megin?’ asked Bartholomew, repelled.

‘Megin has served me well,’ said Eltisley carelessly. ‘If Padfoot does not succeed in chasing away intruders, she does it for me. Or my friends here. They go out at night wearing masks, and rob people on the Old Road – there is nothing like rumours of outlaws to deter unwanted visitors.’

‘They do more than deter,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘They kill. Alcote came across a group of travellers who had been attacked the day we arrived in Grundisburgh, and one of them was dying. He paid Alcote to say masses for his soul at St Edmundsbury.’

Eltisley sniggered nastily. ‘Alcote should have said them for himself. But there is no problem with the occasional traveller being dispatched on the Old Road – it merely means that the danger is taken more seriously. They attacked you, I understand, when you first came here.’

‘And I shot one in the arm,’ said Cynric with satisfaction. ‘They fled into the bushes like frightened deer when they encountered a real fighting man.’

‘I know why you are keen to prevent people coming here,’ said Bartholomew quickly, before Cynric could incite the surly men to anger. ‘Barchester is where you conduct your experiments on the dead. Although I looked in the houses, and saw nothing unusual, I did not look in the church.’

‘Well, now is your chance,’ said Eltisley, gesturing that they should ascend the incline on which the church stood.

There was no sign of Mad Megin or her white dog as they walked up the rise. The building stood as still and silent as ever, with ivy darkening its walls and weaving through the broken tiles of its roof. Eltisley made his way to the small door Bartholomew had been about to enter when Megin had made her appearance, and pushed it open. It creaked on unsteady leather hinges, and sagged against the wall. He stood back, and indicated that Bartholomew and Cynric were to enter.

Inside, wooden benches held more phials, jugs, bottles and pots than Bartholomew could count. They were all around the walls, and more of them stood on the altar that had been dragged from its eastern end to the middle of the nave. Dark streaks up the walls and across the paved floor suggested accidents and miscalculations galore, and the whole church had a metallic, burned smell to it. Bartholomew was certain it could not be healthy.

Eltisley struggled with a ring set in a heavy stone slab in the chancel. With a spray of dirt, it came free, revealing a sinister black hole.

‘Perhaps you would wait in there,’ said Eltisley. ‘It is as secure a place as I know, and no one will hear you shouting for help – except Mad Megin, I suppose, but she will do nothing about it.’

‘What is it?’ asked Bartholomew, glancing down at the pitch darkness with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

‘It is the old crypt, where the lords of Barchester and their families were buried before the plague ended their line,’ said Eltisley cheerfully. ‘They will reward me handsomely when they rise from the dead to reclaim their manor.’

‘Is that why you are doing all this?’ asked Bartholomew, looking around at the phials and bottles that lined the room. ‘You want to be rewarded for your efforts by the dead?’

‘I will be the richest man alive,’ said Eltisley gleefully. ‘And all those who have helped me will also reap the benefits. I can be a very generous man.’

‘And who has helped you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham? Grosnold? Hamon?’

Eltisley smiled. ‘You can work that out while you wait. It will give you something to do.’

‘We cannot go into a tomb with victims of the plague,’ said Bartholomew, aghast. ‘Even opening this vault might cause the disease to spread again. Are you totally insane?’

Eltisley regarded him coldly. ‘I am not in the slightest insane. And no one who died of the plague is down there. Mad Megin buried all of those in a pit in the churchyard. Now, hurry up. Do not be afraid if you hear rustlings and voices, by the way. I have given the corpses several doses of my potions, and I anticipate some of them will show signs of life soon.’

Sceptical though he was about Eltisley’s talents in that area, sitting in a tomb with long-dead corpses that were expected soon to come alive was not the way Bartholomew fancied spending his morning.

‘No,’ he said firmly, folding his arms.

One of the sullen drinkers stepped forward quickly, and gave him a push that knocked him off balance. Eltisley stuck out a foot, and Bartholomew found himself tumbling into the blackness. He opened his mouth to yell, but had landed before he could make a sound, thumping down a set of cold, damp steps into a musty chamber veiled in cobwebs. Cynric followed him moments later, and the trap-door thudded shut. There was a rumbling sound as something was dragged over it so that they could not escape, and then silence. They sat absolutely still in the darkness.

Bartholomew looked around him, straining his eyes in the pitch black to try to make out what kind of place they were in. He could see nothing at all, and could not even hear the voices of Eltisley and his friends in the church above. It was indeed as silent as the grave. He shivered. It was cold, too, and smelled of wet bones, worms and rotting grave-clothes. He heard a faint rustle, and leapt to his feet, banging his head on the roof as he did so.

‘What was that?’ whispered Cynric shakily.

The rustle came again, slightly louder, and then something ran across Bartholomew’s foot. He forced himself not to shout, and scrambled up the steps to where he thought Cynric was sitting.

‘Just a mouse.’ He coughed. ‘We will suffocate in here.’

‘No,’ said Cynric. ‘I can see daylight around the edges of the slab. We will not lack fresh air.’

‘This is horrible,’ said Bartholomew, trying to move further up the stairs, away from the ominous scrabbling that came from the floor of the vault. ‘I am sorry, Cynric. I have dragged you into something dreadful yet again.’

‘You certainly have,’ agreed Cynric. ‘More dreadful than anything I could have imagined. How are we going to escape?’

Bartholomew glanced to the thin rectangle of light that outlined the trap-door. ‘We could open that.’

Cynric tried first, then Bartholomew, then both together, but the slab was heavy, and whatever had been placed over it rendered it totally immovable. Cynric slumped down, and Bartholomew could see his dejected silhouette in the faint light that filtered around the slab.

‘That mad landlord intends to use us for his vile experiments,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He will kill us, and then try to raise us from the dead. I do not know which I fear more.’

Bartholomew could think of nothing to say. He sat quietly, listening to the rustling growing louder, closer and more confident, and once he thought he heard a squeak. He thought about what Eltisley had told him, and tried to make sense of it all. Some details became clearer, but he was certain Eltisley was not the sole power behind the evil dealings at Grundisburgh, and that someone was leading him, encouraging him and providing him with the funds to continue his work.

Although it felt like an age, not much time had passed before there was a rumble from above, and they heard someone struggling to lift the slab once again. Cynric tensed, and flung himself out of the vault the moment the gap was large enough. He was so fast, that he had overpowered Eltisley before the landlord realised what was happening. Bartholomew reached out and seized the foot of one of the henchmen, pulling him off balance, and clambered quickly out of the hole to help Cynric wrestle with another. To one side he heard a yell, and saw Michael struggling between another two of Eltisley’s surly customers.

A crossbow quarrel snapped loudly as it hit the floor, bouncing off to disappear into the blackness of the vault. Bartholomew could hear Eltisley screaming in anger and frustration, and Michael fighting to free himself from his captors. But it was an unequal battle. Eltisley’s men had swords and daggers, and one of them was already rewinding his crossbow for another shot. Cynric was brought up short by a dagger at his throat, while Bartholomew lost his balance and was toppled back down into the vault by one of Eltisley’s wild pushes. Moments later, Cynric was thrust in after him, and then Michael, tumbling in a flurry of flailing arms and legs to land heavily on Bartholomew. The slab fell into place, and there was a rumble as it was secured once more.

‘That was lucky,’ said Michael, sitting up. ‘You broke my fall.’

‘And you broke my legs,’ mumbled Bartholomew, squirming to free himself of the monk’s immense weight. ‘Stand up, Brother. I cannot breathe!’

Cynric darted back to the steps, to sit as far away from the floor of the vault as he could. Michael picked himself up, and peered around him.

‘Now what?’ he asked.

‘We cannot escape,’ said Cynric gloomily from his perch. ‘What you just saw was our only chance. They will not allow us to take them by surprise again. We are doomed.’

‘We are not,’ said Michael firmly. ‘I will not be dispatched by a loathsome maniac like Eltisley. If I am to die because another takes my life, it will be a worthy adversary, and not some madman who believes he can bring people back from the dead.’

‘He told you all that, did he?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘All about the riches he hopes to gain from granting dead people an unexpected new lease of life?’

Michael made a dismissive sound. ‘The man is a fool! The dead do not keep their earthly riches after they die – that is all inherited by the next of kin. What he will have is a lot of paupers, with nothing to give him but the rags in which they were buried.’

‘Did you explain that to him?’ asked Bartholomew. He started backward when he touched Michael’s hand in the darkness. It was cold and clammy, and felt like that of a corpse.

‘I did not bother,’ said Michael loftily. ‘Still, it would make for some intriguing legal precedents about the question of ownership.’

‘We should be thinking about how we can escape, not speculating on points of law,’ said Bartholomew, moving up the steps as the rustling began again.

‘What was that?’ demanded Michael, looking about him wildly. ‘I heard something. Is there someone in here with us? Has Eltisley succeeded in his ambitions, and raised Barchester’s dead?’

‘Do not be ridiculous, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, sitting with Cynric as far as possible up the steps. ‘Eltisley will never make the dead walk again. It is beyond the laws of nature.’

‘That man is beyond the laws of nature.’ Michael suddenly shot up the steps with an impressive spurt of speed for a man of his size. ‘Something touched my foot,’ he explained shakily.

‘Just a mouse,’ said Bartholomew.

‘A rat, boy,’ said Cynric ominously. ‘Rats live in tombs, not mice.’

Michael bowled Bartholomew and Cynric out of the way, and began heaving at the trap-door. It moved very slightly. Encouraged, Bartholomew helped, but although they could raise the slab the width of a finger, whatever was placed over the top of it was simply too heavy to move. Michael sat down, disheartened.

‘Did you manage to tell Tuddenham about Stoate?’ asked Bartholomew, to take his mind off a situation that was growing more alarming by the moment.

‘I met William by the church, and sent him to tell Tuddenham, because I was anxious about you. Then I ran into a couple of those loutish brutes who are always hunched over their ale at the Half Moon, and they brought me here.’

Bartholomew sat on one of the cold, damp steps. ‘Eltisley is threatening to kill William. But he will not get the students – I sent them away yesterday morning.’

‘Thank God!’ said Michael. ‘I wish you had sent William away, too. I suspect Eltisley will kill him, whether we comply with his wishes or not.’

‘So there is no hope of rescue, then?’ asked Cynric, stricken. ‘You sent William to Tuddenham with a message to chase Stoate, but no one knows we are here?’

‘I thought Stoate was all we needed to worry about,’ protested Michael. ‘He confessed to killing Unwin, and I was not anticipating being abducted by another murderer this morning.’

‘Do you have your candle?’ Bartholomew asked Cynric, trying to think of something he could do, other than wait for the mad landlord to kill the rest of the deputation from Michaelhouse. ‘There may be another way out of here.’

Michael chuckled humourlessly in the dark. ‘Church-builders always put an alternative exit in vaults,’ he said. ‘The dead do not like to feel trapped.’

Cynric produced his stub, and fiddled about with a tinder until the wick was alight. Hot wax spilled on to Bartholomew’s fingers as he eased his way down the steps. The ground moved, and Bartholomew saw with horror that there were dozens of rats there, large brown ones with scaly tails and glittering eyes. He hesitated.

‘Go on,’ encouraged Michael. ‘They will not bite you as long as you keep moving.’

‘You go, then,’ said Bartholomew, thrusting the candle at him and climbing back up the steps.

Michael gave a long-suffering sigh and walked down to the floor. The rats inched away, and he began to pick his way to the back of the chamber. It comprised an elongated room with three shelves along each side and a tiny altar at the far end. Four bodies were placed end to end along each shelf, so that there were twelve on the left and twelve on the right. With the rats scurrying about his bare ankles, Michael moved forward, peering at the shrouded figures in their niches.

‘Nothing,’ he said, returning a few moments later. ‘The whole thing is made of solid stone.’

‘What about the altar?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps there is something behind that.’

‘Be my guest,’ said Michael, handing him the stub. ‘Those vermin are beginning to lose their nervousness, and it will not be long before they want to try sinking those sharp yellow teeth into something a little fresher than their usual fare.’

Before he could think too much about what he was doing, Bartholomew strode briskly to the back of the vault, sending furry bodies scattering in alarm. The altar was a simple wooden table, covered with an ancient cloth that was thick with dust. He pulled it off and peered underneath. The floor was solidly paved with slabs of stone sealed with mortar, while the wall behind the altar was made of unevenly hewn lumps of rock. He pushed at a few of them, but they were the foundation stones for the church, and the builders had intended them to last. When the building collapsed, as Bartholomew sensed it would do soon, the vault would remain intact.

He began to walk back toward the steps, breaking into a run when he trod on one of the rats and made it scream. He felt its sharp teeth dig into his boot, and was grateful he was not wearing sandals like Michael. When he reached the stairs again, his hand was shaking. He dropped the light, and the chamber was plunged into darkness.

‘I do not have another candle,’ said Cynric in the dark vault. Michael simply sighed. After a moment, their eyes grew used to the gloom again.

‘We will have to try to overpower Eltisley when he comes,’ said Bartholomew, trying to think positively.

‘With what?’ asked Cynric. ‘We have no weapons, and you do not even have your bag with you to take a swing at them with.’

‘We have that crossbow quarrel,’ said Bartholomew. ‘During our last struggle, one of the men fired a crossbow bolt at us, and I saw it fall down here.’

‘Go and fetch it, then,’ said Michael. ‘And retrieve the candle while you are at it.’

That idea did not much appeal to Bartholomew while rats milled about on the floor. He tried to think of a better idea, but failed. ‘All right, then. But if we all go, you two can drive them off while I feel around on the floor.’

It was not a plan that filled anyone with much enthusiasm, but in the absence of an alternative, they inched down the stairs and stepped gingerly on the floor. Feeling that caution was the wrong approach, Michael suddenly began stamping his feet and spinning around like some crazed Oriental dancer. While Cynric did likewise, Bartholomew dropped to his hands and knees and began groping around for the quarrel, trying to ignore the cold, wet patches and mysterious lumps that his fingers encountered.

Michael’s breath came in laboured gasps from the vigour of his exercise, and Cynric was already edging toward the steps. Bartholomew knew they would not maintain their rat-scaring act for much longer, and his search became more erratic. Just when he thought he would have to think of something else, he found the bolt. He snatched it up with a triumphant yell, and vied with the others to be first up the stairs.

‘Give it to me,’ said Cynric, feeling for it in the darkness. He nodded. ‘It will do. Did you find the candle?’

There was a disappointed silence when Bartholomew did not reply.

‘We should try to think out answers to all this,’ said Michael, after a moment. ‘It might give us some kind of bargaining power, if Cynric’s attempt to free us fails.’

‘Eltisley said we have all the facts,’ said Bartholomew. ‘So we should be able to work out at least part of it. I have been thinking hard, and I think I know the identity of the hanged man.’

‘Then who is it?’ asked Michael.

‘James Freeman.’

‘You mean the husband of the poor woman Stoate poisoned with his neighbourly dish of mussels? The man who died of a slit throat two weeks before we arrived in the village? How in God’s name did you come up with that?’

‘Mother Goodman told me that one of the first people at the scene of James Freeman’s death was Eltisley, and Eltisley later bragged about that fact himself – he went into some detail about the box he had designed to carry Freeman to his grave. But no one saw the body except Eltisley, not even Mother Goodman, who usually lays out the dead. All anyone saw were bloodstained clothes.’

‘But Dame Eva found the body. Obviously she saw it.’

‘I doubt she stayed long and studied it,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Anyway, she is old and frail. She probably glimpsed someone lying there all covered in blood – probably one of Eltisley’s henchmen playing dead – and made the assumption that it was Freeman, because he was in Freeman’s home.’

Michael scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Eltisley did make a good deal of fuss about the coffin he produced – telling us how he designed it specially for the occasion.’

‘Quite,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he designed it so that it would leak blood, and that would be what everyone would remember. No one would ask to look inside the coffin with that stuff dribbling out all over the place. And there is another thing: corpses do not bleed. So, Freeman’s body should not have been bleeding at all, gaping throat wound or no.’

‘But why should Freeman be the hanged man, as opposed to some lone traveller who stumbled on Eltisley’s evil empire by mistake?’

‘Eltisley believes he can raise the dead. By faking Freeman’s death, I imagine he saw an opportunity to avail himself of a living human subject. Then, he could add credence to the legend that anyone who sees Padfoot will die a violent death – thus keeping people away from Barchester where he conducts his experiments – and procure someone to kill at his own convenience and then try to bring back to life.’

‘So, you are saying that there was never a body with a slit throat, and that the blood dripping from Eltisley’s box had nothing to do with a corpse?’ asked Michael. Bartholomew nodded, but the monk was not convinced. ‘But why was the hanged man – Freeman – wearing Deblunville’s clothes?’ He kicked out at a rat, braver than the rest, that was edging upwards.

‘Oh, that is easy. Janelle said she stole them from Deblunville for her father. She left them near the Grundisburgh parish boundary, but someone else found them before they could be collected. Since Freeman’s clothes had been soaked in blood to convince everyone he had died a gruesome death, Eltisley would have needed another set. Doubtless he or one of his henchmen found Janelle’s bundle, and gave them to Freeman to wear while they kept him prisoner.’

‘But Norys told us that whoever ran from the church was wearing Deblunville’s clothes,’ Michael pointed out. ‘How do you explain that?’

Bartholomew scratched his head. ‘I do not know, but the dagger we saw on the hanged man was the same as the one under the smouldering corpse in the shepherd’s hut.’

‘God’s blood, Matt!’ said Michael. ‘These rats are climbing the stairs.’

Bartholomew swallowed. ‘They will become bolder the longer we stay here. Kick them away.’

Michael gripped Bartholomew’s arm and flailed about with his legs. ‘There,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘That should make them think twice about tangling with me.’

‘They will be back,’ said Cynric.

‘Think of something else,’ said Bartholomew. ‘James Freeman had to die because he claimed he had seen Padfoot – no one lives who has set eyes on Padfoot. It was the same with Alice Quy, dead of childbirth fever six months after having her last child. I will wager you anything you like that both had been out on one of Hamon’s nocturnal expeditions, looking for the golden calf. Either by design or by chance, they ended up at Barchester and encountered Mad Megin and her dog, who were guarding the village for Eltisley.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘You are right. And we were foolish, you know. We allowed ourselves to be misled by Deblunville’s false assumptions – that it was Tuddenham who was promoting the Padfoot legend to provide an excuse for his people trespassing on his neighbours’ land while searching for buried treasure.’

Bartholomew nodded slowly. ‘But, of course, had we really drought about that, we would have seen it made no sense: the only two people to have availed themselves of this excuse – James Freeman and Alice Quy – were killed almost immediately. Why go to all the trouble of inventing an excuse if you plan to kill anyone who uses it? Eltisley, not Tuddenham, killed the two villagers.’

‘Mother Goodman told you that Eltisley had sent Alice Quy a harmless potion because she could not pay Master Stoate’s inflated prices for medicine.’ Michael tried to ease higher up the stairs.

‘It was supposed to contain feverfew and honeyed wine,’ said Bartholomew, ‘an appropriate remedy for such disorders. But, of course, all that was wrong with her was fear, because she had set eyes on this so-called phantom. By the time she had taken a few draughts of Eltisley’s potion, her fate was sealed. Her death proved to the villagers that no one sets eyes on Padfoot and lives.’

‘And then there was Deblunville,’ said Michael. ‘He, too, was supposed to have seen Padfoot – although he claimed it was a wolf. Eltisley must have bashed him over the head in the woods. We know he was experimenting with how he was going to kill us that night – you saw flames shooting out of his workshop – and then he went to Barchester to continue because he had been unsuccessful at home. He must have come across Deblunville, conveniently separated from his archers, and decided it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘Grosnold’s man told me that Padfoot had been heard sniffing around Wergen Hall, but that people were too afraid to open the window to look. It was probably a fox, but you can see how Eltisley has the whole village terrified over this Padfoot nonsense.’

‘And it has worked brilliantly. You said that even Grosnold took the path that leads around the edge of the village, not through the middle, and he is a knight.’

‘We walked through it the first time,’ said Cynric. ‘Nothing happened to us then – except for Unwin seeing the white dog.’

‘Eltisley must have been delighted with the story that Unwin saw that thing,’ said Michael bitterly. ‘Stoate unwittingly gave credence to the lie that all who see Padfoot die.’

‘And to the same end, Eltisley made a flagrant attack on Cynric when he felt he was under the same curse,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He tried to give him dog mercury.’

Cynric said nothing, but made a stabbing motion with the crossbow quarrel, and there was a sharp squeal. He shook it in disgust, and they heard the soft thump of a body as it landed somewhere on the floor. There was an immediate and ominous scurry.

‘Occasional travellers through Barchester present no problem because they leave,’ continued Bartholomew, trying not to imagine the rats chasing after the corpse of one of their own. ‘What Eltisley does not want is people from the village seeing him here, and wanting to know what he is doing. He needs privacy. There is no one in Barchester except Mad Megin, who serves to keep visitors away with her white dog. It was no ghost you saw, Cynric: it is a gigantic hoax, perpetrated by Eltisley to keep people so frightened that they will not interfere with him.’

‘Maybe,’ said Cynric cautiously, in such a way that Bartholomew was sure the Welshman remained convinced that Padfoot was real.

‘We saw a light the night we were attacked,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘I thought it was a traveller seeking shelter, but no traveller would ever stay – be allowed to stay – in Barchester. That was Eltisley working over his potions.’

Michael sighed. ‘Eltisley might believe he is a veritable genius, and that he has intellectual powers to rival the likes of Roger Bacon, but he is sadly mistaken. Someone else is involved in all this – someone who has enough money to buy Eltisley all he needs for his experiments, and someone who does not want us to have our advowson.’

‘Somehow, the deed seems to pale into insignificance when all this is considered,’ said Bartholomew, jerking backward as something nosed at his hand.

‘But someone stole it from me in the churchyard. It is important. It must be something to do with the fact that someone in Tuddenham’s family does not want a representative from Michaelhouse to be the executor of his will.’

‘I forgot about the will,’ said Bartholomew, not very interested, but wanting to keep Michael talking so that they would not be sitting in silence in the tomb with only the rustle of rats for company. ‘That was one of the terms Alcote agreed with Tuddenham, was it not?’

‘It was the one Tuddenham was most insistent upon,’ said Michael. ‘It is a good decision: he will have an executor who is completely independent, should there be any unpleasantness, and his heirs will save a good deal on legal fees.’

‘Why should there be unpleasantness?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘The line of inheritance is clear: if Isilia’s child is a boy, he will inherit; if it is a girl, Hamon will inherit.’

‘There will only be difficulties if Tuddenham dies before the child is born,’ said Michael, ‘because his will stipulates that no child born after his death can inherit. But this is all irrelevant since Tuddenham is in good health.’

Bartholomew gazed at him in the darkness. He considered keeping his silence, but the promise had been to keep the knight’s illness from his family, not from Michael. ‘But Tuddenham has a mortal illness, and will not live to see himself a father again.’

Michael let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Why did you not mention this before? Now it begins to make sense. Now I understand why Tuddenham is so desperate to have the advowson signed and sealed before we go. He wants Hamon to inherit, not his unborn child.’

‘But he could stipulate that in his will anyway,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He does not need Michaelhouse’s help to do that.’

‘But Michaelhouse will see his wishes fulfilled in a way that few other executors will be able to do. We have no vested interest in who inherits and who does not – the living of the church is ours whatever happens – and we have the power of the Church behind us, not to mention some of the best legal minds in the country. The real issue is that there are ancient laws that might override Tuddenham’s choice of heirs – a son is a son. Even Henry the Second was obliged to leave his kingdom to his hated oldest son, and not his favourite younger child. Hamon will need our expertise if he is to inherit Tuddenham’s estates.’

‘But what does Tuddenham have against his unborn child?’ asked Bartholomew, kicking out and feeling something soft fly away from his foot. ‘He seems happy with Isilia. Unless…’ He trailed off, thinking.

‘Unless what, Matt?’ asked Michael. ‘I beg you, if you have any more information, please do not keep it to yourself. Small things that seem unimportant to you might make a great deal of difference to the law.’

Bartholomew took a deep breath. ‘It is probably not his child that Isilia is carrying.’

Bartholomew could imagine the expression on the monk’s sardonic face. ‘And how are you party to that intimate little detail?’

‘The disease he has tends to take away the ability to father children. I was surprised by the fact that Isilia was pregnant when I first learned of his illness, but he probably knows Isilia’s child is not his. Do you think that would give him cause enough to insist so vehemently that we finish our business here, and leave with the documents that will allow Hamon to inherit?’

‘I do indeed,’ said Michael. ‘And it would give Hamon good reason for wanting the advowson signed quickly, too. But who would oppose it?’

‘Isilia, for one,’ said Bartholomew. He drew his hand up with a sharp intake of breath, when something grazed it with what felt like teeth. He continued, somewhat unsteadily, rubbing his wrist. ‘Also, Dame Eva does not seem to like Hamon very much, while Wauncy might not approve of Hamon inheriting over Isilia’s offspring.’

‘But we have no evidence to connect Eltisley with any of these people,’ said Michael. ‘And I am wearing sandals, and I can feel fur and scrabbling claws all over my feet!’

‘The person behind all this must be Isilia,’ said Bartholomew, not wanting to think about scaly rat feet climbing on Michael’s bare toes. ‘No one else would know the child was not Tuddenham’s. All her caring attentions towards him must be an act – he knows this and he does not want her to see he is ill until the deed appointing Michaelhouse as his executor is safely in Cambridge.’

‘You are right,’ said Michael, trying to sit with his feet in the air. ‘Well, she had the fooled, too, with her lovely, innocent face and her touching concern for the husband old enough to be her father. She probably did not want to marry him in the first place. And who can blame her? He is like a horse, with all those long teeth.’

‘But there is also the father of the child,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He would have an interest in it inheriting over Hamon, and might try to prevent the advowson from being completed.’

‘Do you know who that might be?’ asked Michael. ‘It cannot be Hamon, or none of this would be an issue. Is it Grosnold, do you think? Or Wauncy?’

‘Or Eltisley?’ asked Bartholomew in distaste.

‘Eltisley has killed four times,’ said Cynric. ‘Alice Quy, James Freeman, Deblunville and Alcote. He will not hesitate to do so again.’

‘I suspect, with hindsight, that he also tried to poison us with that brown sludge the first night we stayed at the Half Moon, given how insistent he was that we finish the bottle,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He was pleased when he saw the bottle was empty, not knowing that Deynman had spilled it on the floor. Alcote drank a little, and was quite ill.’

‘And then, once it became clear that Alcote was the man writing the deed and that the rest of us were mere onlookers, attempts were made on Alcote alone,’ said Michael. ‘He was unwell most of the time he was here, suggesting that some insidious poison was in the food he ate – or in the copious amounts of raisins he devoured – and then there was the attack on him the night before he died.’

Cynric leapt to his feet and began kicking out furiously. There were several squeals, and something soft thumped into Bartholomew, who thrust it away from him with a shudder.

‘Eltisley thinks he is beyond the law,’ said Michael. ‘Sit down, Cynric! You keep kicking these things into my lap. Why Isilia should consider forming an alliance with Eltisley is beyond me. He is likely to kill her, to see if she can be resurrected.’

‘I do not see how they are connected, though,’ said Cynric. ‘Isilia and Eltisley. She is sweet and kind, and he is a maniac.’

‘Do not let appearances deceive you, Cynric,’ said Michael sagely. ‘Behind that lovely face lies a mind as strong and cunning as a rat trap – which I would give a good deal to have one of right now. She must have paid him to destroy his tavern with Alcote in it, and snatched the copy of the will from me in the churchyard.’

‘What if–?’ began Bartholomew. He stopped as a screech from above heralded the opening of the trap-door. There was a flood of light, and the rats slunk away into the shadows.

Bartholomew saw Cynric braced to pounce and tensed himself, waiting for an opportunity to launch a bid for escape. It never came. More wary this time, one of the surly men immediately kicked out at Cynric’s hands, and the crossbow quarrel went skittering down the steps to the floor below. Michael let out a cry of dismay, while Cynric only gazed at it in horror.

‘All is ready,’ said Eltisley pleasantly. ‘I would like you to come out, Brother. I have an elixir I would like you to taste. And that Welshman, too. The monk might prove too fat for what I have in mind, but the servant should do nicely. I will save Bartholomew to help me later – I might be forced to call upon his expertise, if this does not work.’

‘What would you say if I told you to try your elixir on yourself?’ asked Michael, as he stepped out of the vault. The landlord seemed surprised by Michael’s hostility.

‘I would say that your students and the friar will test it in your stead. At the moment, I am still prepared to let them return to Michaelhouse.’

‘You do not have them,’ shouted Bartholomew desperately. ‘They have gone away.’

‘To the leper hospital,’ said Eltisley. He beamed at Bartholomew’s shock. ‘I overheard that slow-witted student of yours telling the handsome one where they were headed, as they fled along the Ipswich road yesterday. It was clever of you to try to spirit them away.’

Bartholomew’s heart sank.

‘Well, where are they, then?’ asked Michael.

Eltisley hesitated. ‘They have not arrived at the leper hospital yet.’ He shrugged absently. ‘Perhaps they have been waylaid. Or lost. That stupid student is capable of getting lost on a straight road, I am sure.’

Bartholomew was uncertain whether to be relieved they had escaped Eltisley’s clutches, or concerned that they might have fallen into someone else’s. He could only hope that Horsey had realised the danger they were in, and had come up with an alternative plan.

‘And we will catch that friar, too,’ said Eltisley. ‘He will not be able to hide from me for long.’

Bartholomew was confused. Was William hiding from Eltisley? He did not know that he should, and would be under the impression that Stoate, hastily riding towards Ipswich, was the villain of the piece. So where was William, and what was he doing so that Eltisley could not find him? Bartholomew’s heart sank further when he realised that William, headstrong and keen to prove himself, might have decided to tackle Stoate alone. Perhaps he was even now pursuing the killer physician on horseback, or had confronted him and was lying in some roadside bush with a crossbow quarrel in him.

Eltisley’s attention was on Michael. ‘I have been working on a rather clever idea that you will test for me. You see, not everyone likes the time in which they live, so I have invented a potion that kills temporarily. Then, at a later date, my other elixir – the one that raises people from the dead – can be taken, and the person can be restored to life at a time of his choosing.’

‘But that is monstrous!’ exclaimed Michael. ‘The time in which we live is the one granted to us by God, and it is not natural to decide you do not like it, and exchange it for another.’

‘People will pay handsomely to do it, monstrous or not,’ said Eltisley, oblivious to Michael’s revulsion. ‘You would be surprised how many men would like to lie low for a few years.’

‘Murderers, thieves, rapists, arsonists and a whole host of other felons, I should imagine,’ said Michael scathingly. ‘You have invented an elixir to allow criminals to evade justice.’

Eltisley’s face hardened. ‘You will take my potion, and you are not a criminal.’

The slab was slammed shut, almost landing on Bartholomew’s head. On reflection, as the physician crouched in the darkness listening to the rustles as the rats began to move again, he decided that having his brains dashed out might be a better way to die than being eaten alive by rodents, or downing one of Eltisley’s hideous concoctions. Michael’s voice echoed down to him, and he strained to hear what was being said.

‘My colleague believes that you killed James Freeman,’ came Michael’s voice conversationally. ‘He thinks you hanged him, so that you could test your potion, and that he was wearing clothes from a bundle you found near the Grundisburgh parish boundary.’

‘He is right,’ said Eltisley. ‘Someone had abandoned those clothes – I found them when I was walking and thinking up new theories as we philosophers are wont to do. Since I needed some for James Freeman – to replace the ones I had bloodied to convince people of his death – I gave them to him, and he wore them when I hanged him at Bond’s Corner. Unfortunately, you chose that moment to cut him down.’

‘My apologies,’ said Michael.

Eltisley made an irritable sound. ‘You have no idea how frustrating it was to watch Bartholomew’s attempts to revive him, when I knew a few drops of my potion would work! But I thought that if I made my appearance from the bushes, you would assume I had hanged him.’

‘You had,’ Michael pointed out.

Bartholomew kicked away a rat that was clawing its way up his leg. It landed with a soggy thump on the floor below.

‘But not with any intention to kill,’ protested Eltisley. ‘He would have been alive today, had you not come by and interfered. Then I was left with a body to dispose of.’

‘Why did you not test your elixir on him after we had gone?’ asked Michael.

Eltisley sighed. ‘I did, but that particular elixir was designed to raise people who had only just died, and the delay caused by your meddling meant it did not work.’

Bartholomew knew students who always had an excuse as to why they had not completed some task he had set them, or why an experiment he had asked them to undertake was unsuccessful. It was never their fault; someone else was always to blame. Eltisley was just like them.

‘Then what did you do?’ asked Michael.

‘I could not have James Freeman’s body discovered, or people would be asking me who I had buried in his specially constructed coffin. It was quite a problem for me. Have you ever tried to dispose of a corpse?’

‘Not lately,’ replied Michael.

‘It is no mean task, I can assure you. I tried to burn it, but it smouldered for days and I was still left with a sizeable chunk. I had to chop it into small pieces, and leave it out for Padfoot – although he did not seem to be very interested.’

‘Probably prefers his human corpses raw,’ suggested Michael.

Eltisley continued. ‘Anyway, after he died, I took the clothes off Freeman, donned them along with some potions to disguise my face and went into Grundisburgh church, intending to have a conversation with Walter Wauncy. My ingenious plan was that Wauncy would say he had seen the hanged man alive and well, and your story would be dismissed as fantasy – drunken scholars reeling from a night in the taverns, claiming to find a dead man who was later seen in a church by our priest. Who would question the word of a priest?’

‘But instead of Wauncy, you found Unwin, who was dead,’ said Michael, ‘so you ran away.’

‘I tried to give him some of my potion, but in my excitement at finding a subject so unexpectedly, I spilled it. Vapours wafted into my eyes, and I could barely see what I was doing. I decided to abandon the experiment before someone accused me of a murder I did not commit. I ran away across the fields behind the church, although the shoes were too small: they slopped, and made haste difficult.’

So, Stoate had been telling the truth, thought Bartholomew. He had seen a man running from the church rubbing his eyes. And Norys had seen him wearing Freeman’s shoes and belt – recently stolen from Deblunville by Janelle. Deblunville’s shoes had not fitted Eltisley, and they had slopped, something peculiar enough to lodge in Norys’s mind.

‘Norys saw you,’ said Michael. ‘He described the belt and shoes – but not the dagger, because you left that with James Freeman’s body.’

‘I was impressed by Norys’s observing powers,’ said Eltisley. ‘Although I was relieved that he did not recognise anything else. For a dreadful moment, I thought he was going to come to help disentangle my cloak from the tree it snagged on. I ripped it pulling myself free.’

‘And how did you manage to take the afternoon away from your tavern to conduct your experiments during the Fair?’ asked Michael. ‘Did people not demand to know where you were?’

‘I have a wife,’ said Eltisley loftily. ‘I have better things to do with my time than selling ale to peasants. But later I was arrested for the priest’s murder anyway, because of that bloody knife.’

‘I suppose the knife was the one you used to kill an animal – to provide the blood you needed to make Freeman’s “death” appear convincing.’

‘Exactly,’ said Eltisley. ‘Ironic, do you not think? But you were kind enough to come to my rescue, and provide evidence that Norys was the culprit, not me, so I was free to continue my work.’

Bartholomew rested his head against the cool stone and felt sick. He did not stay still for long. Something furry bumped up against his leg, forcing him to push it away. How much longer could he repel the things? Would they get him first, or would Eltisley?

‘And who is it who is financing these great experiments of yours?’ asked Michael. ‘Isilia?’

Bartholomew heard Eltisley clap his hands in delight. ‘At last you have reasoned it out! Mistress Isilia does not want that loutish Hamon to inherit Tuddenham’s estates over her brat, as is likely to be stipulated in Tuddenham’s will. She asked me to relieve her of your presence so that the will cannot be written, and since I was running a little low on funds, I agreed.’

‘And is there anyone else who pays you?’ asked Michael. ‘You seem to possess a great deal of equipment and supplies, and Isilia cannot give you that much money – Tuddenham would be suspicious of her spending too much.’

‘Many people are interested in my work,’ said Eltisley blithely. ‘Everyone has a loved one they would like to see again. I have even been paid by priests, who want me to raise a saint for them.’

‘There is not much left of most saints to raise,’ said Michael. ‘Bones, hair, teeth, nails, fingers and beard have been scattered all over the country as relics.’

‘That will be dealt with when the time comes,’ said Eltisley grandly.

Their voices faded away into silence. In a brief moment of hope, Bartholomew thought they had forgotten to replace the chest that held down the slab, but there was a rumble and a thump, and that was that. He sat with his head resting on his knees, wondering how he had ever become embroiled in the whole mess, and fervently wishing that he had never left Cambridge in the first place. He thought of Unwin, dead because he had been foolish enough to let Stoate bleed him, and Alcote, dead because Isilia did not want Hamon to inherit Tuddenham’s estates. And then he thought about Michael, Cynric, Horsey, Deynman and William – who would go the same way. He was angry enough to beat his fists uselessly on the stone slab to vent his frustration.

It was not long before the rats intruded into his thoughts. One of them started to scramble up his back, while a scaly tail slid across his arm. He stood and shook them off, hearing them tumble down the stairs. Then it occurred to him that the rats could not possibly have squeezed themselves through the tiny gap around the edges of the trap-door, and that he must have been right in his original assumption, scoffed at by Michael, that there was another way in – and out.

But he was in almost complete darkness and surrounded by rats. How was he to find it? He groped around on the step, and found Cynric’s tinder. Now all he needed to do was to locate the stub of candle he had dropped when he had stepped on his first rat – assuming they had not already eaten it. It took all his courage and self-control to make his way down the steps in the gloom and feel about among the milling rats on the floor.

Immediately, he found the crossbow quarrel that Eltisley’s henchman had kicked from Cynric’s hand, and used it to stab randomly while he searched with his other hand for the stub. Expecting to be bitten at any moment, he forced himself to feel around until his cold fingers finally encountered it. It had been chewed, but was still functional. With unsteady hands, he scraped the tinder until it caught, and watched leaping shadows fill the vault. Some of the rats slunk away. But not all of them.

Hoping that the stub would not sputter into nothing as it burned down, he began his search, watching the rats to see if he could tell whether they were coming or going in any particular direction. The rats, however, seemed as interested in him as he was in them, and their beady eyes were fixed unswervingly on his feet. His first exploration of the vault told him nothing, other than it was solidly built – something he already knew. He poked at every stone near the altar, then paced the floor to see if there were rings in the paving slabs that might lead to another chamber. There was nothing.

Trying to hold the candle still, he next concentrated his attention on the shelves and their sombre contents. As gently as he could, he moved the shrouded shapes to peer at the wall behind, looking for hidden doors. He coughed as the mouldering bodies began to crumble. The ones on the upper shelves released clouds of dust, while those on the lower ones broke apart because they were damp. They smelled of ancient bone and rotting material, and Bartholomew felt himself becoming nauseous from the lack of clean air.

Just as he was about to give up, the final stack of bodies revealed what he had been looking for. The lords of Barchester had apparently been running out of space for their dead, and the most recent additions to the vault had been placed on shelves that were newer than the rest – and that rested against a blocked door. A rat eased through the rotting wood at the bottom of it even as he watched. He leaned down and grabbed at one of the broken timbers, relieved to feel it break off in his hand as he pulled. But there were three ancient corpses in the way.

With distaste, he eased the first one out of its niche and laid it on the floor. It was lighter than he had expected and smaller, suggesting it had probably been a child. He reached for another, revolted by the way a skeletal hand dangled out to touch him, some of the little bones clattering to the floor in a puff of dust. Coughing, he laid it next to the first, and reached for the last one. This was large and dense and, as he pulled, its shroud caught fast on the corner of the shelf. He tugged harder, struggling to support its weight. Nothing happened. With growing urgency, he hauled as hard as he could and, with a ripping sound, it tore out of its shroud and landed on top of him, so that its grinning head was no more than the width of his hand away from his face. He gave a yell and tried to thrust it away from him, but it was too heavy. Horrified, Bartholomew saw the mouth opening wider and wider until the jaw dropped clean from the skull.

Revulsion gave him the strength he needed, and with an almighty thrust he sent the thing flying away from him, so that it landed with a sickening smash against the wall near the altar. For a few moments he was able to do nothing but stand in the gloom, and try to control his trembling. But time was of the essence if he wanted to help Cynric and Michael, and he thrust his disgust to the back of his mind and began to prise the wooden shelves away from the door. When it was clear, he hacked at the door itself. The rotten wood yielded quickly, and he soon had it open. With lurching disappointment, he saw that the passageway beyond was blocked by a pile of rubble.

Bartholomew closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, almost oblivious to the rats that swirled around his legs and gnawed inquisitively at his boots. All he could think of was that he had failed. He opened his eyes, and saw a rat clamber over the top of the pile of masonry, and make its way into the vault. He frowned and scrambled up it, to try to peer through the gap between rubble and roof. Gingerly, he thrust the candle through it, and saw that the fall was not a large one, and that there was a flight of stairs beyond. Scarcely daring to hope, he began to claw away the rubble, until there was a space large enough for him to squeeze through.

Ignoring the way his clothes snagged on the sharp edges of stones, he squirmed over until he was on the far side, heart thumping in panic when he thought at one point that he might have misjudged, and trapped himself between the rubble and the roof. Then he was through, and skidding down the other side. His candle fizzled and went out.

There was nothing he could do but grope his way forward in the darkness, tripping and stumbling up the uneven steps, and flinching when his hands encountered something furry and warm rather than damp and smooth. Eventually, he reached another door. He felt it blindly, trying to locate the handle. Rats clawed at his boots as he grasped the metal and turned. Nothing happened. It was locked from the outside.

He forced himself to run his hands over the wood methodically to see if he could find the lock. What he found was a latch. Lifting it he pulled again, but the door remained firmly closed. About to give up in despair, it occurred to him to lift the latch and turn the handle at the same time. With a sudden creak, the door began to open. With profound relief, he stepped out into the church.

He was in the chancel, having emerged through a small door that stood to one side of the altar. He could hear the voices of Eltisley and his henchmen further down the building, and hoped that did not mean that Michael and Cynric had swallowed whatever potion Eltisley had given them, and were already dead. Clutching the crossbow quarrel, he inched toward the screen that divided the nave from the chancel, and peered round it.

Eltisley was standing at one of his benches with Isilia by his side, while Michael and Cynric, white faced and nervous, were sitting together on stools. Eltisley’s friends – five of them – were ranged behind them, three with their swords drawn, lest Cynric should try to escape.

‘And who is the father of your brat, madam?’ Michael was saying. ‘Some village lad? Or do your tastes run to lords of the manor? Grosnold, perhaps, or Deblunville?’

‘That is none of your affair,’ said Isilia, shocked. ‘Hurry up, Eltisley. Sir Thomas will wonder where I am if I am here much longer, and I wish to ensure that these meddlesome scholars are dispatched once and for all. I do not want them writing the deed that will give Hamon the estates that rightly belong to my children – I have not lived three years with that old man to end up with nothing.’

‘Science takes time, my lady,’ said Eltisley, busily mixing something that smoked with something green. ‘I am working as quickly as I can, but this will not be rushed.’

The potion was green! And Norys’s lips had been green! Had Eltisley tried his brew on the pardoner, too? Bartholomew tried to think rationally. Stoate had found Norys and Mistress Freeman dead from eating bad mussels, and had dumped Norys in some trees near Barchester. Someone had later moved him. Since few people, other than Eltisley, frequented Barchester, it stood to reason that the landlord had found the body, and stained its lips green in an attempt to test his elixir. Having experienced problems with burning and chopping up Freeman’s body, Eltisley had decided to bury Norys in the churchyard – and what more secure place than in the grave of the man Norys was accused of killing?

Eltisley was almost ready, and, judging from the thick gloves the landlord wore to protect his hands, once they had swallowed his concoction there would be very little Bartholomew could do for Cynric or Michael. He had to think quickly. He glanced around him. He was evidently in that part of the church where Eltisley kept his more volatile compounds. Large pots, crudely labelled, stood well apart from each other.

‘Do not pester him, Isilia,’ came another voice from the shadows of the nave. ‘Let him work in peace.’

Bartholomew froze as he recognised it. He heard Michael’s gasp of shock. ‘Dame Eva?’

The church was silent as Michael and Cynric gazed at the old lady in horror. In the chancel, Bartholomew’s mind whirled with unanswered questions and disconnected fragments of information. Eventually, Dame Eva spoke, amused by the monk’s shock at seeing her.

‘Of course it is me. Do you think Isilia could have managed this alone?’

‘But Eltisley…’

‘Eltisley does as I tell him. How do you think he finances his experiments? By selling ale to the local peasantry?’

‘I see,’ said Michael slowly. ‘That is why you ordered his release so quickly after Tuddenham arrested him for Unwin’s murder. You let him out so that he could continue to work for you.’

And that, thought Bartholomew, was why Dame Eva had been so solicitous toward the landlord’s wife after the tavern had ignited. It had not been simple compassion that had prompted the old lady to give Mistress Eltisley her cloak and cross; it had been remuneration for damage done in her service.

Bartholomew crouched near the screen, and saw the old lady standing in front of Michael. A steely flint in her eye suggested that Eltisley would not be allowed to fail her by letting the Michaelhouse scholars escape a second time. Bartholomew needed to act fast if he wanted his friends to live. He moved back, and began reading the labels on Eltisley’s powders and potions.

‘So, it was you,’ said Michael to Dame Eva. ‘You stole the draft of the advowson from me in the churchyard; you ordered Alcote murdered; you told Eltisley to tamper with Cynric’s bow; you arranged for Mad Megin and her dog to live here, and frighten the living daylights out of any passers-by; you told Eltisley to kill Alice Quy with one of his potions, and stage Freeman’s death to strengthen the villagers’ fear of the Padfoot legend; and you killed Deblunville.’

‘I did not touch Deblunville. That was Eltisley acting on his own initiative.’

Eltisley gave his peculiar beaming smile. ‘I took a stone and replaced it carefully after I had brained him, so that it would appear that he had fallen and hit his head. You see, setting eyes on Padfoot does not mean people are murdered, it means they die in mysterious accidents.’

‘Deblunville did not think he saw Padfoot,’ said Michael. ‘He thought he saw a wolf.’

‘It did not matter what he thought he saw,’ said Dame Eva. ‘It mattered what other people thought he saw, and that he was seen to die because of it.’

‘Then it was you who attacked Alcote the night before the tavern exploded?’ asked Michael. ‘It could not have been Eltisley, because he was out killing Deblunville.’

‘Isilia and I tried to rid the world of the vile little man together. But one elderly woman and one pregnant one are not ideally suited for ambushing, and Alcote was stronger than he looked. We had intended to stab him, but Isilia dropped her knife, and I could not get a clear hit. In short, we made a mess of the whole business. My husband always said it was better to employ someone to do that sort of thing for you, and now I understand what he meant.’

Expecting to be discovered at any moment, Bartholomew found an empty barrel and dumped all the yellow powder into it that was in a smallish pot labelled salfar, hoping it really was sulphur, and not just something Eltisley had created. He looked around for charcoal, his mind refusing to face the possibility that anything he might do to harm Dame Eva and her cabal might also harm Michael and Cynric.

‘I told Eltisley to kill Freeman, not keep him alive to test his theories on,’ said Dame Eva giving Eltisley a reproving stare. ‘That was a mistake which might have proved costly. Fortunately, it turned out well in the end.’

‘But why?’ asked Michael, shaking his head. ‘What can you hope to gain from all this? What does it matter to you who inherits your son’s estates?’

Bartholomew found the charcoal powder, and poured it on the sulphur. He was about to stir it with a pewter spoon when he realised that the metal might produce sparks as it encountered the volatile mixture, so he looked around for something else to use. All he could find was a reed that had fallen from the roof. Immediately it snapped, and he froze with horror, expecting Eltisley’s men to come rushing in and catch him. But nothing happened, and the old lady continued to regale Michael with a list of her reasons for causing such chaos and misery in the village she called her home.

‘Hamon does not have the intelligence to run a large estate like this,’ she said. ‘He cannot even manage Peche Hall properly, and that is tiny. If he had any sense at all, he would have killed Deblunville to prevent him from making a claim on our land in the courts.’

‘Is that why you consider Hamon inadequate?’ asked Michael. ‘Because he would not murder Deblunville for land?’

The old lady’s eyes became gimlet hard. ‘Is that not reason enough? How does he hope to keep his inheritance if he will not fight for it? And he is dallying with that manipulative Janelle again, now Deblunville is dead. Fool!’

‘He will keep his inheritance by using the law,’ said Michael. ‘That is why it is there.’

‘But he might lose his case.’

‘He might have lost his life, if he had tried to murder Deblunville. And then an estate would have been neither here nor there to him.’

The old lady made a sound of exasperation, and flounced towards the screen. Bartholomew, about to add saltpetre to his mixture, ducked back though the door to the vault, hoping his sudden movement had not been seen. The old lady walked into the chancel, and looked around her.

‘I told you not to tamper with these powders again,’ she said, seeing Bartholomew’s barrel in the middle of the chancel floor. ‘Last time, you destroyed the tavern – the tavern my husband had built – when it would have been easier and cheaper to slip some poison into the scholars’ food.’

‘I have not been tampering with them,’ said Eltisley sulkily.

‘Then get rid of them,’ she snapped. She kicked at Bartholomew’s barrel with her foot. ‘Or you will have us all gone the same way as that despicable Alcote. Did I tell you I caught him burning some of Thomas’s documents? Not important ones, true, but that is beside the point.’

‘I need those powders,’ protested Eltisley. ‘I will not bring back the dead with crushed flowers and honey, you know. To combat a powerful force like death requires potent compounds.’

‘You said you would have that potion before the beginning of the summer,’ said Dame Eva, moving out of the chancel and heading back towards Eltisley in the nave. ‘You promised.’

‘I am almost there,’ said Eltisley eagerly. ‘In fact, I am about to perform an experiment on the fat monk and his servant. This elixir will temporarily deprive them of life, and then I will bring them back again with another potion.’

At that point, two more of Eltisley’s surly customers entered the church, looking nervous. It was clear they had failed to do something they had been ordered to do. Dame Eva’s eyes narrowed.

‘Where is he?’ she demanded. ‘You said you could find him.’

‘The friar has disappeared,’ said one of them, swallowing hard. ‘We looked everywhere, but he is no longer in the village. He must have fled.’

‘Damn!’ muttered Eltisley. ‘He would have made a good subject. What about the students?’

The man shook his head. ‘They never reached the leper hospital. We cannot find them, either.’

Dame Eva sighed impatiently. ‘I am surrounded by incompetents! Still, I suppose it does not matter – the friar is far too fixed on seeing heresy in the god-fearing to make sense of what he has learned here, and the students do not have the intelligence. I do not see that an institution like your University will survive long, given the kind of person it attracts. And I hear Oxford is worse.’

Bartholomew wondered where William and the students could possibly be, but there was no time for speculation. He eased out of the doorway, and located the saltpetre, an evil-smelling whitish substance that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Closing his eyes, and expecting to be blown sky high at any moment, he dumped it on top of the charcoal and sulphur, giving it a very cautious stir with his reed and fervently hoping he had remembered his alchemy lessons correctly, and had the proportions right – three parts saltpetre to one part charcoal and sulphur. In the nave, Eltisley was heading toward Michael.

‘And who is it that you would like brought back from the dead?’ asked the monk of Dame Eva, in a futile attempt to delay the process. ‘A loved child? Your husband? A lover?’

‘I never needed any lover!’ the old lady spat. ‘My husband was all I ever wanted.’

Bartholomew scratched his head as he considered how he could ignite his concoction without blowing up Michael and Cynric, as well as Eltisley and his cronies. He had to put it somewhere it would cause sufficient damage to allow him to help his friends, but not enough to bring down the already fragile church roof. The powder needed to be placed in a confined space, where the explosion would give him a few moments to act – perhaps to grab a sword and create havoc. But where? He was beginning to despair, when his eye fell on the piscina in the chancel. Piscinas were sinks with drains that allowed holy water to be poured away into the foundations, mainly so that unscrupulous people could not steal it to sell.

He found a wooden bowl, and began to scoop the powder down the hole. Sweat broke out on his forehead when the bowl bumped against the stone sill of the piscina, making the conversation in the nave falter for a moment, until Michael restarted it with yet another question. As the level of powder in the barrel fell with agonising slowness, Bartholomew saw a length of carefully coiled twine on one of Eltisley’s benches. It was white and crusted, and Bartholomew supposed that it was one of the pieces that Eltisley had soaked in saltpetre and used as a slow-burning fuse to ignite the tavern in the blast that had killed Alcote. He picked it up carefully, and inspected it. He was right. He hefted up the barrel, now less than half full, and continued to empty its volatile contents into the drain.

‘Do you think this half-mad landlord will bring you your husband back?’ Michael was asking Dame Eva incredulously. ‘Is that what all this is about?’

Hands shaking, Bartholomew began to unravel Eltisley’s twine, hoping it, unlike most of the landlord’s devices, would work properly. One of the men who leaned against the wall ambled toward the screen, and began to pick idly at the peeling paint. Bartholomew ducked back into the chancel door, willing the man to go away. He could not light the fuse with him there – it would hiss and splutter and attract his attention, at which point Eltisley could extinguish it by stepping on it. Bored, the man blew out his cheeks in a sigh, and gazed at the patches of yellow-grey powder on the chancel floor that Bartholomew had accidentally spilled.

‘Eltisley will succeed,’ said Dame Eva, as though failure was not an option. ‘And then all will be as it was when we were lord and lady of the manor. Hamon and my son will be dispatched to the wars in France, and our heir will be the child Isilia carries.’

‘But you do not know who the father of that child is,’ Michael pointed out, jerking his head away as Eltisley made a grab for him. He tried to stand, but two of the men stepped forward, and held him down. Cynric was similarly secured. There was nothing for the man near the chancel to do, so he stayed where he was, watching the scene without interest, still picking at the peeling paint, while Bartholomew fretted.

‘You are lying to worm your way out of this,’ said Dame Eva. Isilia carries Thomas’s child.’

Isilia looked distinctly uneasy, although Dame Eva did not seem to notice. She continued.

‘And he will be better than Thomas or Hamon with their squeamish principles, and their silly notion of giving lucrative livings away to greedy men in distant Colleges.’

‘Thomas believes Michaelhouse will pay for a mass-priest to pray for his soul,’ said Isilia scornfully, glad to change the subject from that of the father of her child.

‘He thinks their clever minds will prevent my grandson from inheriting what he wants Hamon to have,’ said the old lady. ‘The deed Alcote wrote had a clause saying that a Michaelhouse Fellow was to be the executor of his will. Thomas expects you to outwit any lawyers we can hire to act on behalf of the child. He is probably right. And I have recently come to think that he is not so healthy as he would have us believe. Since his will stipulates that no child of Isilia’s born after his death will inherit, I cannot allow it to be written.’

‘But there will be no advowson now,’ said Isilia with satisfaction. ‘Michaelhouse will take nothing from the village that killed every last member of its scholarly deputation.’

‘You are wrong there, madam,’ said Michael, struggling furiously. ‘Michaelhouse will take anything it can get its hands on.’

The man near the screen finally moved away, and went to help his friends hold Michael. Bartholomew darted out from his doorway, and finished uncoiling the twine. Now what? he thought. How could he distract everyone from the hissing long enough to allow the powder in the piscina to ignite? He had deliberately cut a short fuse, but it would still take several moments to burn.

Meanwhile, Eltisley had succeeded in pinning Michael down, and was tipping the green potion toward his mouth.

‘I will not drink that,’ gasped Michael defiantly, through clenched teeth. ‘I do not allow things that are green to pass my lips.’

‘You have no choice,’ said Eltisley, swearing under his breath as some of the liquid spilled on to his own tunic. Smoke appeared as the stuff burned through the fabric.

It was too late for caution. Bartholomew crouched down and struck Cynric’s tinder over a small pile of dried leaves and reeds from the roof.

‘What was that?’ demanded Dame Eva sharply, glancing towards the chancel.

Bartholomew struck the tinder again, but it was damp and refused to ignite. Sweat broke out on his forehead in oily beads.

‘Someone else is in here,’ said Dame Eva, pointing at the screen. ‘Eltisley!’

‘No!’ yelled Michael, as Eltisley tipped his flask towards his face. Green liquid slopped from it.

Bartholomew’s tinder finally struck, and the spark ignited the pile of grass. He blew on it, and hurled the burning handful on to Eltisley’s twine. There was a hiss like a furious cat, and nothing happened. Dame Eva glared in the direction of the chancel, and began to walk purposefully toward it herself. In desperation, Bartholomew grabbed a pot and hurled it as hard as he could at the fragile ceiling. It smacked into the rotting thatch, and fell to the ground in a shower of reeds and dust, landing just behind Eltisley, and making the landlord jump in alarm. Dame Eva changed direction, peering toward the back of the church.

‘I tell you, there is someone in here!’ she shouted. ‘Do not just stand there. Go and look.’

Bartholomew lit the fuse a second time, filling the chancel with a sharp hissing and the stench of burning. And then it went out again. Bartholomew gazed at it in dismay, cursing Eltisley for his dismal inventions. Dame Eva swung back toward it, eyes narrowed.

‘No, not there,’ she yelled at Eltisley’s men, who were busily searching the back of the church. ‘In the chancel!’

She began to hobble towards it, moving faster than Bartholomew would have thought possible for someone who had always seemed so frail.

‘Bartholomew!’ she exclaimed, seeing him kneeling on the ground.

Behind her, two men stepped forward to seize him.

Bartholomew gazed at the fuse in resigned disgust, realising that he had come very close to foiling the women’s attempts to kill him and his friends. But, with two of Eltisley’s sullen customers already pushing their way past Dame Eva to get at him, he saw that his feeble rebellion was finally over.

Suddenly, the twine fizzed into life again. Startled, Bartholomew scrambled to his feet, and flung himself into the passage that led down to the vault. There was an insane whistling sound, and then the loudest bang Bartholomew had ever heard as the powder sought to expand in the confined hollow in the wall. One moment he was on his feet, the next he was flat on his back, surrounded by swirling smoke. Dust and pieces of plaster crashed down from the ceiling, and he sensed the whole thing was about to fall. He picked himself up, and raced into what remained of the chancel. Dame Eva and the two men were nowhere to be seen. The screen had gone completely, and where there had been a roof of sorts, was now grey sky. The remains of the rotten thatch in the chancel had caught fire, and were burning furiously.

‘Michael!’ he yelled, clambering over the rubble into the nave. A cold fear gripped him. Had he used too much of the powder when Michael and Cynric were sitting so close? Had he done exactly what he had accused Eltisley of doing with Alcote, and used a mallet to crush a snail?

The nave roof had collapsed, and he could see nothing moving. Frantically, he began to tear the smouldering thatch away, trying to remember exactly where it was that his friends had been seated. He saw a leg in the rubble, and hauled it free, half-relieved and half-disappointed to see it was not Michael. It was Eltisley, his eyes wide and sightless, and a piece of wood piercing him clean through. He looked surprised, as if death was not something he imagined would ever happen to him. Beside him was one of his surly cronies, also dead, while to one side lay the severed foot of another.

‘Matt!’ A flabby white hand waved at him from further back. Weak with relief, Bartholomew grasped it, and hauled the monk from the wreckage. Michael was covered in fragments of reed and white dust from the plaster, but he was basically unscathed.

‘Eltisley was standing in front of me, and I think he saved my life,’ said Michael, looking around him wildly. ‘He is as dead as I would have been, had he not protected me from the blast. Where is Cynric?’

‘Here, boy,’ said Cynric, emerging from under a large piece of thatch, his face black with soot. ‘I realised what you were doing, and threw myself backward just in time.’ He glanced up, and grabbed Michael’s arm. ‘Come on! This old church will not stand a shock like this.’

As if to prove the truth of his words, there was a groan, and what had once been a fine wooden gallery at the back of the building collapsed, sending a puff of dust and smoke rolling down the nave. The fire in what remained of the roof burned ever more fiercely, dropping pieces of blazing thatch all around them. Cynric led the way out, leaping over piles of rubble and hauling Michael behind him. Bartholomew followed, but then stopped as the south wall of the church began to teeter inward.

‘No!’ he yelled to Cynric. ‘That is going to topple. Come this way.’

Cynric glanced up, and wrenched Michael back as the top part of the wall tumbled slowly, depositing great slabs of stone in the nave to smash the tiles. Bartholomew scrambled back the way they had come, heading for a window in the north wall that was less choked with weeds than the others. Cynric pushed him on, slapping a piece of burning thatch away as it landed on his shoulder.

With a rending groan, the south wall eased further inward, sending Eltisley’s potions and bottles crashing to the ground. More stones fell, landing with ear-splitting crashes, so close behind him that Bartholomew could feel their draught on the back of his neck. He reached the window and stopped to help Michael, heaving and shoving at the monk’s heavy body for all he was worth. It was taking far too long. More masonry fell, closer this time, and the south wall tipped further.

Finally, Michael was through, and Cynric was after him like a rabbit into a bolt-hole. Bartholomew glanced at the south wall. It was now falling in earnest, moving slowly at first, then picking up speed as the whole thing toppled toward him. He saw Michael’s hands reaching in through the window, and jumped toward them, his toes scrabbling against the peeling plaster as he fought to gain a foothold. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought he would not make it, and he felt something strike the sole of his foot as it fell. And then he was through, hauled unceremoniously across the sill and out into the long grass and bushes behind.

Gasping for breath, he scrambled to his feet and followed the others through the bushes, aiming to get as far away from the collapsing church as possible. There was an agonised screech of tearing timbers, and the south wall finally fell, smashing forward to land heavily on the north wall opposite. That, too, began to collapse. Hindered by the dense bushes, Bartholomew began to fight his way to safety, feeling as though he was moving far too slowly. He glanced up and saw that he was still in the wall’s shadow, and that it was already falling.

At last he was out of the undergrowth, and into the area of long grass that formed the churchyard. He was about to run across it, when there was an ominous growl. Cynric had stopped dead and Bartholomew barrelled into the back of him.

‘Padfoot!’ gasped Cynric in horror, gazing at the great white shape that blocked his path.

The choice between being savaged by Padfoot or crushed by masonry was not one Bartholomew had anticipated. But the wall gave another sinister rumble, and the animal looked old, mangy and rather pathetic in the cold light of day. Shoving Cynric out of the way, he snatched up a piece of stick and raced toward it. The animal opened its mouth in a toothless roar of surprise, and gave a half-hearted swipe as he ran past, its pink eyes watering in the glare from the fire. A sharp snap from the flames startled it and it cowered backward, sniffing at the air with a snout that was battered and balding. It looked more bewildered than frightening.

‘Come on!’ Bartholomew howled to the others.

Seeing him unharmed, Cynric followed with Michael at his heels. There was another tearing groan and the north wall finally gave way, landing in the bushes with a thunder of falling stones, ancient mortar and blackened timber. The shabby beast that had been Padfoot was enveloped in a cloud of swirling dust from which it did not emerge.

‘What in God’s name was that?’ panted Michael, snatching at Bartholomew’s arm to make him stop. Together they looked back at the column of smoke that was pouring from the building and the pall of white dust that splattered the trees as if it were snowing.

‘It was a bear,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Just an ancient bear with no teeth and no claws. If I had ever managed to get a good look at it, I would have seen it for what it was – a poor, harmless thing.’

‘Bears are not white,’ gasped Michael. ‘They are black or brown.’

‘Some can be born white with pink eyes, just like cats, dogs or people. It probably escaped from a band of entertainers during the plague.’

‘It did.’ Tuddenham’s voice so close behind them made them all spin around, and Cynric flourished a knife he had somehow managed to grab from one of the men who had been holding him. With Tuddenham were Grosnold, Walter Wauncy and Father William. Hamon was there, too, with the pregnant Janelle grabbing possessively at his arm. The young knight looked proud and pleased, and almost handsome. Bartholomew hoped he knew what he was letting himself in for with Janelle.

Tuddenham continued. ‘It was a dancing bear that belonged to a troupe of actors who sometimes passed this way. One of them came to ask if we had seen it a few months ago, but I did not connect the missing white bear to the legends of Padfoot, until now.’

‘Your mother did,’ said Bartholomew shakily. ‘She used it to ensure your villagers stayed away from where Eltisley was conducting his vile experiments.’

‘I know,’ said Tuddenham. His face was white and one hand gripped his stomach. He nodded at the burning rubble that had been the church. ‘I heard everything that was said in there.’

‘But what are you doing here?’ Michael demanded. ‘How did you know where we were?’ He looked at William. ‘The last I saw of you was when you went to tell Tuddenham about Stoate.’

‘Hamon summoned us here,’ said William. ‘He was taking a predawn stroll nearby – accompanied by half a dozen men, for some unaccountable reason – and he saw lights burning in the church. When he saw Eltisley arrive with you and Cynric at arrow-point, he returned to Grundisburgh to fetch help.’

‘I would have mounted a rescue there and then,’ said Hamon apologetically, ‘but none of us were armed with more than our spades, and it seemed more prudent to fetch reinforcements than to attempt something that stood a good chance of failing.’

Dame Eva and Janelle had been wrong about Hamon, Bartholomew thought. He was not as simple as everyone seemed to believe.

‘Have you seen Deynman and Horsey?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I sent them to the leper hospital for safety, but when Eltisley’s men went to collect them, they had not arrived.’

‘A leper hospital?’ queried William distastefully. ‘Hardly to be recommended as a place of safety, Matthew. They may have escaped Eltisley, but what if they catch the disease?’

‘It is not that easy to catch leprosy,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But it is irrelevant anyway, considering that they are not there. Do you think they were attacked on the Old Road and robbed?’

‘I think they have probably found some tavern,’ said Michael, ‘and are happily dicing together, oblivious to the fact that the likes of Eltisley have been scouring the countryside looking for them.’ He turned to William. ‘So, how did you escape Eltisley’s men all morning?’

William looked furtive. ‘I was here and there,’ he said evasively. ‘Doing what I could.’

Hamon gave a snort of laughter. ‘He was in the latrine,’ he said, relishing the friar’s embarrassment. ‘Ever since dawn, just after he delivered your message about Stoate to my uncle.’

‘Are you ill?’ asked Bartholomew. Latrines, even splendid ones with doors like those in Grundisburgh, were not places where the sane liked to linger.

William pursed his lips, but confessed. ‘It was that wretched device of Eltisley’s again. It jammed on me a second time, and I could not free myself for love nor money. I was locked in until Master Wauncy answered my cries for help.’

Michael gave a humourless smile. ‘It seems the failure of one of Eltisley’s inventions actually saved your life. Had that lock not prevented you from leaving, you might well have found yourself with a mouthful of his green elixir.’

‘So I gathered,’ said William. ‘As Sir Thomas said, we overheard much of what was said in the church.’

‘Then why did you not come to our rescue?’ demanded Michael. ‘That madman almost had me drinking a brew that would have killed me “temporarily”.’

‘We were coming,’ said William indignantly. ‘Have patience, Brother! Hamon was halfway in through the window with his sword drawn, and I was behind him with a cudgel, when that terrible explosion occurred. It blew Hamon right over me and out into the bushes.’ He shook his head disapprovingly. ‘That Eltisley was an agent of the Devil, and the Devil rose up from hell and snatched him away. What we saw was a glimpse into the fiery depths.’

‘What we saw was Matt using Eltisley’s powders to save us,’ said Michael tartly. He turned to Tuddenham. ‘You really heard it all?’

Tuddenham nodded, and Hamon came to stand at his side, a hand on his shoulder in a gruff expression of sympathy and support. ‘I heard that my wife and mother were plotting against me, and that it was not my child that Isilia was carrying. I suspected all that, of course, and I knew that they might try to prevent the deed being signed.’

‘You might have mentioned it to us,’ said Michael accusingly. ‘Then we could have been on our guard, and Alcote need not have died.’

‘But then you might have decided not to draw up the advowson, and Isilia’s brat would have inherited my estate over Hamon.’

‘It could have been your child,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is unlikely, but not impossible.’

Tuddenham shook his head. ‘I always knew it was not mine.’

‘So, who was the father, then?’ asked Michael, intrigued.

‘That is not the kind of question a gentleman should ask of a dead lady,’ said Tuddenham softly. ‘But I do know, and her secret will die with me.’

‘And did you know what Eltisley was doing on your manor?’ asked Bartholomew, angry that the knight might have turned a blind eye to such practices.

Tuddenham gave a brief nod. ‘I knew that my mother was supporting Eltisley in some ridiculous experiment, because she was desperate to have my father back, but, like you, I did not take seriously Eltisley’s claim that he could raise the dead. And I cannot think why my mother wanted to resurrect my father anyway – the man was a brute, and a poor manager of our estates. He let Bardolf's father steal Gull Farm from him without even attempting to wrest it back. After his death, she lavished more and more praise on him, accrediting him with a goodness that he never expressed in life. She, like Eltisley, was not entirely sane in her own way.’

‘And all this is about who will inherit your estates?’ asked Michael. ‘You did not want Isilia’s child as heir, because he is not yours?’

‘Essentially,’ said Tuddenham. ‘But I never imagined Isilia, or my mother, would sink to such depths of evil to accomplish what they wanted.’

‘She seemed so angelic,’ said Bartholomew, almost to himself, thinking of the lovely Isilia and her green eyes and fresh skin. ‘How could such treachery come from such loveliness?’

Tuddenham glanced sharply at him.

‘You suspected it, though,’ said Michael quickly, before the knight could infer too much from Bartholomew’s words. ‘That was why you tried to keep your illness a secret – so that we would be safely back in Cambridge before they realised you were dying and that they would need to destroy the advowson if they wanted your estates for themselves.’

‘I knew my mother was employing delaying tactics – trying to make more work for you, to slow the process down,’ said Tuddenham tiredly. ‘For example, last week she produced that huge chest of irrelevant household accounts, knowing you would have to read them, and that to do so would waste your time. I just thought she was trying to wear you down, not that she was biding her time for murder.’

‘Really,’ said William, folding his arms, clearly unconvinced.

‘Yes, really!’ snapped Tuddenham. ‘But my mother is a cautious woman, and it seems she did not want to chance my having an accident before the birth of Isilia’s child – you may have noticed how solicitous they both were of my health – so, she must have decided that the deed should not be completed at any cost.’

‘She almost succeeded,’ said Michael. ‘She tried several times to have Alcote poisoned – once with Eltisley’s digestive tonic, and again with raisins – and she even attempted to stab him before Eltisley took matters in hand.’

‘Did any of them escape?’ asked Cynric, gesturing to the burning church. ‘You would not want the likes of those ladies and that Eltisley roaming the country with revenge in their hearts.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Tuddenham. He nodded toward Siric, who was guarding three of Eltisley’s surly drinkers, all sitting on the grass and covered in white plaster. Next to them lay a row of unmoving figures, their faces covered with a hastily gathered assortment of garments. From under Tuddenham’s russet cloak poked the hem of Isilia’s velvet dress, while Hamon’s boiled-leather hauberk hid most of Dame Eva from view. Eltisley lay next to her, identifiable by his green-stained apron.

‘You will check, when the fire dies down?’ asked Michael. ‘Look in the vault, too, in case one of them managed to crawl to safety.’

‘We will,’ said Hamon quietly. He gazed at Eltisley’s body with revulsion. ‘That madman will stay this way, I hope. Do you think he had taken some concoction that will allow him to rise from the grave, and come to haunt us?’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Sir Thomas was right. There was no chance of Eltisley’s potions working to raise the dead. It is against the basic laws of nature.’ He gestured to the black knight, who had come to stand with Tuddenham and Hamon. ‘And is Sir Robert Grosnold also aware of what has happened here?’

‘He is a good friend and a loyal ally,’ said Tuddenham, smiling wanly at his neighbour. ‘He slipped back to the village to warn me that my mother and wife were plotting against you the day Unwin died.’

‘I overheard Dame Eva and Isilia talking to Eltisley just before the feast started,’ said Grosnold. ‘You see, I rode my destrier too hard across the village green and he damaged a leg. I was forced to stop and attend to it: it was then that I heard the three of them plotting. I walked back to inform Tuddenham, and was about to go home when I saw that poor friar, Unwin, all weak and shaking. I dispatched the physician Stoate to bleed him, but it seems it did him no good.’

‘No good at all,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But why did you not tell us you were with Unwin just before he died? We thought you had a hand in his death when you denied meeting him.’

Grosnold did not look pleased. ‘I am a knight. I do not slay priests unless absolutely necessary.’

‘Quite so. But why did you say you did not return to Grundisburgh, when you had?’ pressed Michael.

‘Because I did not want half the village to know I had returned to warn Tuddenham about treachery in his own household,’ snapped Grosnold. ‘I had no idea whether I could trust you to be discreet, as I could Stoate and Unwin. And regrettable though Unwin’s death was, it was over and done with, while the matter of Dame Eva and Isilia was still very much alive. So, like a good soldier, I considered my priorities. And there were appearances to be taken into account: I did not want the villagers seeing that I had driven my destrier lame in my demonstration of equestrian skills, either.’

‘Anyway, he had no reason to suspect Stoate played a part in Unwin’s death,’ said Tuddenham. ‘As far as he was concerned, Stoate had bled Unwin to improve the balance of his humours, and then Unwin had been murdered in the church for his purse.’

‘But it was not the first time you had spoken secretly to Unwin,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You met him before we ever arrived in Grundisburgh. I saw you talking to him in your bailey.’

‘True,’ said Grosnold. ‘I asked for his blessing because I had been hunting on a feast day, and needed absolution. He gave it to me.’

So that was it, thought Bartholomew, recalling the student emerging from Grosnold’s bailey that night. And because Grosnold had made a confession, Unwin could not break his silence to tell Bartholomew what had transpired. It was all purely innocent after all.

‘I know you suspected me of ambushing you here after you did my astrological consultation,’ Grosnold continued. ‘You thought I wanted to ensure your silence regarding the deed you found about who gave me my manor…’

‘What deed is this?’ asked Hamon, interested.

‘A deed that is none of your affair,’ said Tuddenham softly. He exchanged a look with Grosnold that told Bartholomew that it was a secret that he had known for many years, and that it would be a secret kept.

‘… or that I had something to hide regarding Unwin’s death,’ Grosnold finished.

‘Well, you did,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You denied meeting him, and confused us with lies.’

‘But not with malicious intent,’ said Tuddenham defensively. ‘Grosnold sought only to protect me.’ He smiled at his neighbour. ‘And if Alcote had possessed a friend half as loyal he might be here now, not lying in his coffin in the church.’

‘Just a moment,’ began Michael indignantly. ‘We have–’

Tuddenham held up a hand. ‘You did not like him, Brother. None of you did. You did not grieve for him, as that nice young Horsey did for Unwin. You were angry and indignant at his murder, but none of you will miss him much.’

‘Do you really think he is dead?’ asked Bartholomew, remembering the fussy little scholar. ‘I keep expecting him to walk up to us, and announce that there has been some dreadful mistake.’

‘Yes, it would not surprise me to learn that he had persuaded some other unfortunate to take his place in Eltisley’s inferno,’ said Michael. ‘It would be the kind of thing he would do.’

‘Or perhaps he did die, but his angry spirit will not let his body rest,’ whispered Hamon, looking at the forlorn hovels of the deserted village. ‘Perhaps he will join the plague-dead here, in Barchester, and wander through the houses wailing and gnashing his teeth.’

It was not a pleasant image, and Bartholomew found himself glancing behind him, in the direction in which Hamon was gazing so fearfully. He pulled himself together irritably, refusing to be drawn into yet more superstitious tales and pagan beliefs. Padfoot, which had held the village in such terror, was nothing but a toothless performing bear, and the happenings at Barchester were sinister enough, but there was nothing supernatural about them.

‘Alcote’s time had come, and he was called,’ said William in the tone of voice he usually reserved for preaching to people he considered heretics. ‘Although called by whom, I should not like to guess.’

‘It is the will of God that he is gone,’ said Wauncy. His eyes, glittering in his skull-like face, took on a predatory gleam. ‘But if you are genuinely concerned for the state of his soul, you might consider making a donation for a few masses to reduce his time in Purgatory. Unfortunately, owing to the sudden increase in demand for my services, I have been forced to raise my prices: sixpence a mass.’

‘God’s blood!’ spat Michael, outraged. ‘Your taverner murders our colleagues, and you charge us extra for requiem masses?’

‘Master Wauncy will say a mass free of charge every day for a month, for Master Alcote and for Unwin,’ said Tuddenham, ignoring the gasp of fiscal indignation from his cadaverous priest. ‘I am sorry for all the wrong that has been perpetrated against Michaelhouse on my manor, and will make amends. I not only propose to give the living of the church to your College, but will build the new vicar – the replacement sent for Unwin – a fine new house. If you are still willing to accept the advowson, that is.’

‘We are,’ said Michael, before anyone could decline. ‘It is what Alcote would have wanted.’

Bartholomew looked at the forlorn row of corpses that lay in the long grass, his gaze lingering on Eltisley’s green apron. ‘Well, at least now poor Alcote is avenged.’

Michael shivered suddenly as a chill breeze hissed through the dead village and made the flames on the burning church dance and flicker. ‘Then let us hope he is also at rest,’ he whispered.