A Wicked Deed

Chapter 1

Suffolk, May 1353

Matthew Bartholomew, Doctor of Medicine and fellow of Michaelhouse at the University of Cambridge, lay on his stomach in the long grass at the side of the road, and waited. The only sounds were the twittering of a lark from high up in the clouds and the muffled voices of the men who lurked in the deep ditch opposite. One of them gave a low laugh, and Bartholomew thought he heard the faint metallic clink of a sword or a dagger that tapped against a stone. Next to him, his book-bearer, Cynric, tensed suddenly and pointed down the trackway to their left. A small cart was creaking towards them, a ramshackle affair on wheels of different sizes, drawn by a listless horse with bony withers.

The men in the ditch had seen it, too, and fell silent as it rumbled closer. With mounting horror, Bartholomew realised what was about to happen. Dried leaves rustled as he eased himself up on to his elbows, preparing to shout a warning to the man who drove the cart. Cynric grabbed a handful of his tabard and jerked him down again, shooting the physician a look of disgust, appalled that he would compromise their own safety to help a stranger who was probably doomed anyway.

The cart was almost on them, wooden wheels protesting in irregular squeaks and groans as they jolted across ruts that had been baked hard by the early summer sun. The driver, a skinny, undersized man wearing a bell-shaped hat of straw and a rough homespun tunic, was taking fruit to be sold at the market in Ipswich, and a sorry offering of wizened apples, carefully hoarded from the previous year’s crop, rolled around in the back with hollow thumps.

With ear-splitting yells, the men exploded from the ditch, and had surrounded the cart before the driver guessed what was happening. The horse pranced in terror at the sudden noise, and the cart tipped, sending its cargo bouncing across the road. The petrified driver did not wait to hear the robbers’ demands, but scrambled off the cart, and began to race back the way he had come. He tore his purse from his belt as he fled, and hurled it behind him, an astute move that distracted the robbers just long enough to allow him to be out of arrow range when they saw he was escaping.

While the thieves argued over the meagre contents of the purse and unharnessed the frightened horse from the cart, Bartholomew and Cynric eased further back into the scrubby undergrowth and watched them. There were five in all, a rough-looking group of men, who wore shabby clothes and whose faces were masked by bandages. Had they not looked so well-fed and healthy, Bartholomew might have supposed they were lepers, hiding their ravaged features from the world with only their eyes showing through the swaths of dirty grey-brown linen. Three sported hose and jerkins that had probably once been of fine quality, suggesting to Bartholomew that the attack on the would-be apple-seller was not their first ambush of travellers along the Old Road that linked the prosperous city of Ipswich to the Suffolk coast

Since the black days of the plague, which had carried away a third of the country’s population, roadside robbers were becoming increasingly common. Some were simply desperate people who had learned that preying on travellers was an easier and quicker way of earning a loaf of bread than toiling in the fields for pitifully low wages. Others, like the five who argued over the apple-seller’s pennies, were more professional, perhaps veterans from King Edward’s army, who believed England owed them more than a life of labouring on the land after their great victory over the French at the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

‘They will have to attack someone else tonight,’ whispered Cynric to Bartholomew, as he watched the squabble become more acrimonious. ‘There will not be enough in the apple-seller’s purse to satisfy them, and that pathetic nag will not fetch much at the market.’

‘Then what shall we do?’ asked Bartholomew in a low voice. ‘We need to use the road, but it will be dark soon, and if they do not hesitate to attack travellers in daylight, I dread to think what they might be like at night.’

Cynric shrugged. ‘They will not stay here in case the apple-seller fetches the Sheriffs men – they will move further down the road. Therefore, we cannot go on or we will walk right into them, and it is too late to return to the last village we passed.’ He grimaced and glanced at the road, an ancient trackway that ran as straight as the path of an arrow for almost as far as the eye could see. ‘The highways of England are no place for honest men after dusk these days.’

‘So, we cannot go on and we cannot go back,’ concluded Bartholomew. ‘What do you suggest we do? Stay here?’ He looked around with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. While he did not mind sleeping under the stars, particularly when the weather was dry and warm, he did not relish the idea of doing so while there was a ruthless band of outlaws prowling nearby.

‘We will take that path that leads north,’ whispered Cynric promptly, pointing to a gap in the trees to the left. ‘The village of Otley should be a mile or two that way, if my memory serves me right.’

Bartholomew climbed to his feet, anxious to be away from the road before darkness fell. The sun had already set, disappearing in a blaze of gold-red, and the first stars were pinpricking the sky. His travelling companions – three other Michaelhouse Fellows and three students – had been left with the horses a short distance away, bundled to safety when Cynric first became uneasy about the deep ditch to one side of the road, and the low mutter of voices that only he had heard.

But Bartholomew’s haste made him careless, and there was a sharp snap as a twig broke under his foot. Cynric cast him a withering look, and quickly tugged him down again as the robbers immediately fell silent. With horror, Bartholomew saw them draw short swords and move toward the undergrowth in which he and Cynric hid. One gestured to the others and they began to fan out, creeping like shadows through the bushes and trees. Cynric poked Bartholomew in the ribs and indicated that he was to move to his right, away from where the other scholars were waiting to be told whether it was safe to continue their journey. When Bartholomew glanced around, the Welshman was nowhere to be seen, having melted away into the foliage as though he had never been there at all.

Trying to tread lightly, Bartholomew threaded his way through the woods, wincing as leaves crackled under his feet. Then, a triumphant yell told him that he had been spotted. He risked a quick glance backward, and saw one of the men racing toward him, sword held high above his head. Abandoning stealth, Bartholomew turned and ran, crashing through twigs and brambles that scratched his face and tangled themselves around his feet as he went. The medicine bag, which he always wore looped over his shoulder, snagged on branches, slowing him down. He did not need to look behind again to know that the robbers were gaining on him.

He ran faster, breath coming in ragged gasps, stumbling as his foot caught on the root of a tree. The undergrowth was becoming more dense, so that it was harder to move in a straight line, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the robbers drew close enough to hack at him with their swords. With a strength born of desperation, he raced on, trying to force a final spurt of speed in the vain hope that his pursuers might give up the chase if he were able to increase, even slightly, the distance between them.

He saw a silvery glint as something dropped into the ferns ahead of him. One of the robbers had thrown a dagger, aiming to bring him down before they wasted more energy in tearing through the scrub. A distant part of Bartholomew’s mind supposed it was the sight of his heavy bag that made them so determined: they were not to know it contained only salves, potions and a few surgical instruments, none of which would be of much value, even to the most destitute of thieves. He plunged into the ferns where the knife had fallen, but they were tangled and thick, and he tripped almost immediately, sprawling forward on to his hands and knees.

He saw the dagger on the ground, and snatched it up as he struggled to his feet to face his pursuers. There were three of them. They slowed when they saw he was run to ground, and began to spread out, making it difficult for him to watch them all at the same time. One of them feinted to his left, while another darted behind him. Even through their bandaged faces, Bartholomew could sense they were grinning, confident that they would make short work of him and make off with the contents of the intriguing leather bag that bulged at his side.

Suddenly, one of them dropped to his knees, clutching his upper arm. An arrow protruded from it, and for an instant all three robbers and Bartholomew did nothing but stare at it in surprise. Then the stricken outlaw gave a tremendous shriek of pain and fear that almost, but not quite, drowned out the hiss of a second quiver that thudded into the ground at the feet of one of his companions. Leaving the injured man to fend for himself, the other two promptly fled, smashing through the scrubby vegetation every bit as blindly as Bartholomew had done. The wounded man staggered to his feet and followed, leaving Bartholomew alone.

‘Never run into a place you cannot escape from, boy,’ said Cynric admonishingly, as he stepped out from behind a tree, still holding his bow. ‘I have told you that before.’

‘It was not intentional,’ said Bartholomew, rubbing a shaking hand through his hair. ‘What, happened to the other two thieves?’

‘Run off down the Old Road like a pair of frightened rabbits,’ said Cynric, fingering his bow as he glanced around him. ‘We should leave here before they regroup and come after us again.’

On unsteady legs, Bartholomew followed Cynric through the woods to the small clearing where they had left their Michaelhouse colleagues. The Franciscan friar, Father William, sat with his two students – Unwin and John de Horsey – under a spreading oak, reading from a psalter in an unnecessarily loud voice. The third student, Rob Deynman, was minding the horses, while the Cluniac, Roger Alcote, who as Senior Fellow considered himself to be in charge of the deputation, paced impatiently in the centre of the glade. Lastly, Brother Michael lounged comfortably with his back against a sturdy tree-trunk, his jaws working rhythmically and the front of his black Benedictine habit sprinkled with crumbs.

With the exception of Michael and Cynric, none of the Michaelhouse scholars were travelling companions Bartholomew would willingly have chosen. In fact, he had not wanted to make the journey at all, preferring to remain in Cambridge with his patients and students. But the Master of the College had been adamant, and Bartholomew had been given no choice but to join his colleagues for the long trek to the village of Grundisburgh in east Suffolk, to the home of Sir Thomas Tuddenham. This knight had generously offered to give Michaelhouse the living of his village church, and the scholarly deputation was to draw up the deed that would make the transfer legal.

The gift of the living of a church – especially one in a wealthy village like Grundisburgh – was something greatly valued by institutions like Michaelhouse. Not only would it provide employment for their scholars – because owning the living meant that they could appoint whomever they liked as village priest – but if it chose Michaelhouse could pay that priest a pittance to act as vicar, while pocketing for itself the lion’s share of the tithes paid to the church each year. Such gifts were therefore taken seriously, and the large deputation from the College was not only to pay tribute to Tuddenham’s generosity, it was also to ensure that the transfer was completed so meticulously that no future Tuddenham could ever try to claim it back.

‘Well?’ asked Michael, looking up from the crust of a pie he had been devouring. ‘Was Cynric right? Were there outlaws on the road waiting to rob us of our meagre belongings? Or have we been lurking in this miserable hole all evening for nothing?’

Bartholomew flopped on to the grass next to him, and rubbed his face with hands that still shook. ‘You know Cynric is always right about such things, Brother. He thinks we should stay in Otley tonight, rather than continue along the Old Road.’

‘But I wanted to be in Grundisburgh by this evening,’ objected Roger Alcote, with a petulant scowl. ‘Tuddenham was expecting us to arrive there three days ago. He has been most generous in giving Michaelhouse the living of his village church, and it is ungracious of us to arrive so much later than we promised.’

‘He will understand,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘It is a long way from Cambridge to Grundisburgh, and the roads are dangerous these days.’

Alcote was not in a mood to be placated. ‘Cynric said the journey would take five days at the most, and we have been travelling nine already,’ he complained.

‘That was because we spent so long in that disgracefully luxurious Benedictine abbey at St Edmundsbury,’ said Father William, favouring Michael with a disapproving glower. The austere Franciscan claimed to despise anything vain or worldly, although Bartholomew had noticed that he had declined none of the Benedictines’ generous hospitality, despite roundly condemning them for their wealth and comfort.

‘“Disgracefully luxurious”,’ mused Michael, his green eyes glittering with amusement as he tossed the remains of the pie crust over his shoulder into the bushes. ‘I found it rather primitive, personally. Particularly when compared to my own abbey at Ely.’

‘We can travel the last few miles to Grundisburgh at first light tomorrow,’ said Bartholomew quickly, before Michael could goad the humourless Franciscan into an argument. He glanced up at the sky. ‘But we should leave here now if we want to reach Otley before it is completely dark.’

‘Well, do not just sit there, then,’ snapped Alcote impatiently, thrusting the reins of Bartholomew’s horse at him. He put his head on one side in the way that always reminded the physician of a bad-tempered hen, and fixed him with his sharp, pale eyes. ‘We would have been in Grundisburgh by now if your servant had not been so nervous. We have been loitering in this wretched place for hours waiting for the two of you to come back.’

‘Lead on, Cynric,’ said Michael, as he swung himself up into his saddle with surprising ease for a man of his immense girth. ‘Let Matt and Roger stay here and argue about outlaws if they will, but take me to a decent inn where I can enjoy a good meal and a soft bed.’

‘You have not stopped eating since we left Cambridge,’ remarked Father William critically, looking around for his donkey. The brawny friar refused to ride anything except a donkey, loftily maintaining that to mount a horse, like the others, would be succumbing to earthly vanity. The animal that had been provided, however, was one of the smallest Bartholomew had ever seen, and the friar’s feet touched the ground on either side as he rode.

‘Enough,’ said Bartholomew, as he saw Michael’s eyes narrow, a sure sign that the monk was assessing which of several pithy replies that doubtless came to his quick mind would most antagonise the sanctimonious friar. ‘There are five outlaws at large, and we should not be here when they pull themselves together and come back seeking revenge.’

Cynric nodded fervent agreement, and began to lead the way through the undergrowth toward the Old Road. The others followed, while Bartholomew, still uneasy that the robbers might yet be skulking in the deepening shadows, brought up the rear. He rummaged in his medicine bag for the small knife that was part of his surgical equipment, and kept twisting around in his saddle so that he could see behind him. Cynric crossed the Old Road, before heading up the path that wound through the darkening woods to the north.

The evening air was still, and smelled of grass mixed with the richer scent of sun-baked earth. The scholars had been lucky on their travels – the ground had been hard and dry, and there had been none of the struggling through morasses masquerading as roads that Bartholomew had encountered on other journeys. Even so, he was tired. It had been several years since he had ventured so far outside Cambridge, and he had forgotten quite how exhausting travelling could be.

Memories of his days as a graduate student at the University of Paris came flooding back to him, when he had traipsed miles through France, Italy and Castile with the Arab physician with whom he had chosen to study. While his fellow students learned their medicine in dimly lit halls, Ibn Ibrahim had taken Bartholomew with him as he rode far and wide to tend interesting cases. But Bartholomew had been younger then, and Ibn Ibrahim’s enthusiastic discourses on healing had taken his mind off the miseries of the journey. Not surprisingly, Alcote’s complaining and William’s dogmatism had done nothing to alleviate the boredom and discomfort as the scholars had ridden eastward into Suffolk.

Bartholomew stifled a yawn, looking from side to side into the now impenetrably black bushes that flanked the path. Something rustled and he tensed, anticipating another attack, but it was only a blackbird rooting about in the dried leaves for grubs. It fixed him with a bright yellow glare before flapping away, twittering in alarm.

Ahead of him, he could hear Alcote and William arguing about something, their voices growing louder and louder as each tried to put forward his own point of view without listening to the other. Michael rode behind them, and Bartholomew could see his plump shoulders shaking with mirth as he listened. Knowing Alcote’s mean-mindedness and William’s uncompromising opinions, Bartholomew could well imagine why Michael was finding their ill-tempered exchange amusing, but he was still too shaken by his encounter with the robbers to feel much like being entertained by his colleagues’ bigotry.

Horsey and Deynman began to sing ‘Sumer is icumen in’, and Michael, never averse to a little impromptu music, switched his attention to providing a bass part. He tried to persuade the third student to join in, but Unwin declined and fell back to ride next to Bartholomew.

‘Did you sleep easier last night?’ Bartholomew asked him, still peering behind at the darkened track. He thought he saw something move, and was on the verge of shouting for Cynric when a pair of amber eyes blinked at him, and he realised it was only a fox.

The Franciscan student-friar gave a strained smile. ‘A little. The draught you gave me helped, but I will only be better once we reach Grundisburgh and I know what is expected of me.’

‘Grundisburgh already has a parish priest, and it might be years before he dies or retires and you have to take over his duties,’ said Bartholomew, not for the first time since the Master of Michaelhouse had announced that he had chosen the studious Unwin to become Grundisburgh’s next vicar.

In order to express to Tuddenham that his gift was truly appreciated, the Master had appointed Michaelhouse’s most brilliant student to the post of priest-elect of Grundisburgh. He reasoned that not only would Unwin learn the parish’s ways before taking up office permanently, but the villagers would be assured that Michaelhouse intended to take its obligations seriously, and would provide them with the best the College could offer. Bartholomew had been surprised when Kenyngham had selected Unwin to serve as Grundisburgh’s vicar-elect: an excellent student he might be, and there were few who could best him in a theological debate, but he was far too timid and unworldly to make a good priest for a large rural parish.

‘I know I shall have time to learn from the present incumbent,’ said Unwin, shoving a thumb that had already been gnawed raw into his mouth. ‘But supposing I am not what Grundisburgh expects? What if they want a more…?’ He faltered, chewing on his thumb in agitation. ‘… A more charismatic priest?’

Then they would be disappointed, thought Bartholomew. The diffident, bookish Unwin was one of the last people who could be considered charismatic. He did not even look inspiring. Although barely twenty, his fair hair was already thinning, and his pale blue eyes were weak and watery from reading in bad light. He stooped, too, and had a peculiar habit of looking over people’s shoulders when addressing them, instead of meeting their eyes. Although Bartholomew knew this resulted from shyness, those who knew him less well invariably considered him shifty. And shiftiness was not a character generally sought after in a parish priest.

He smiled encouragingly. ‘You can always confine yourself to saying masses for the plague-dead until you feel confident enough to take on other duties.’

Unwin brightened. ‘I had not considered that.’ He pulled his thumb from his mouth, and smiled thoughtfully. ‘I will not have to hear confessions that will shock me, or deal with adulterers, thieves and sinners if I am praying for the souls of the dead, will I?’

He lapsed into silence, leaving Bartholomew more certain than ever that a less scholarly and more practical student might have better served Grundisburgh’s pastoral interests.

It was not long before the acrid smell of wood-fires added their pungent aroma to the scent of late evening, and Cynric called out that they were nearing Otley. Dominating the village was a castle, comprising a compact bailey ringed by a palisade of sharpened posts, a stone house with a reed-thatched roof, and a grassy motte topped with a wooden watchtower. The bailey gates stood open, and a flurry of activity indicated that the owner had recently returned from a hunt. Dogs milled around the legs of the stable boys who rubbed down the sweating horses, and scullions spirited away a dead stag for butchering.

A heavy-set guard, with a bushy beard and one of the filthiest boiled-leather jerkins Bartholomew had ever seen, had stopped Cynric and was asking his business in Otley. Impatiently, Alcote jostled the Welshman to one side, and began to berate the guard for daring to question the representatives of the University of Cambridge in so abrupt a manner, adding darkly that the villagers of Otley should consider the state of their immortal souls for hunting on a Holy Day.

‘Hunting is no more wicked on the Feast Day of St John the Evangelist than is travelling,’ retorted the guard immediately, eyeing Alcote with dislike. ‘You are sinning just as much as we are.’

Alcote’s head tipped to one side. ‘But we are on God’s sacred business,’ he announced, wholly untruthfully, given that the journey was being undertaken solely because Michaelhouse wanted the living of Grundisburgh church. ‘You only seek to gratify your greedy appetites with fresh venison.’

Bartholomew saw Brother Michael raise his eyes heavenward, and then hurry to intervene before Alcote’s arrogant self-importance could have them escorted out of the village and thrown back on the perils of the Old Road for the night.

When Bartholomew looked behind him for Unwin, he was alarmed that the student-friar was nowhere to be seen. Leaving Michael to negotiate with the guard, he turned his horse and rode back the way he had come, straining his eyes in the darkness to try to see whether the Franciscan was still loitering on the track. There was no sign of him. Perplexed, he returned to the others, wondering whether the terrifying notion of becoming a parish priest had finally caused Unwin to flee once and for all.

With some relief, he eventually spotted Unwin emerging from one of the outbuildings in the castle bailey. He was closely followed by a knight dressed entirely in black, whose bald head gleamed whitely in the gloom. The knight suddenly reached out and grabbed Unwin’s arm, so fiercely that the friar all but lost his balance, and whispered something in his ear to which the friar nodded. Bartholomew frowned, puzzled by the exchange. What was Unwin doing in the bailey talking to a knight? As far as he was aware, Unwin had never been to Suffolk before, and knew no one in the area – and he was certainly not the kind of man to go exploring alone.

‘What was that about?’ he asked curiously, as Unwin rejoined him.

Unwin shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered, glancing behind him in a way that could only be described as furtive. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Explaining to the guard who we are,’ said Bartholomew, regarding the friar doubtfully, perplexed by his odd behaviour.

‘There is no need for that,’ came a booming voice, so close behind them that it made Unwin start backward and frighten his horse. It was the knight in black. ‘Use your wits, Ned: here are monks, friars and men in scholars’ tabards. It is obvious that these are the scholars from Cambridge – Sir Thomas Tuddenham has been expecting them over at Grundisburgh for the last three days.’

The guard acknowledged him with a sloppy salute, and gestured that the scholars were to pass into the village.

‘I am Sir Robert Grosnold, lord of Otley Manor,’ said the black knight grandly. He was powerfully built, with dark beady eyes and no neck, and his black leather armour gave him a rather sinister appearance, accentuating the whiteness of his hairless pate. He gestured to the stone house in the bailey. ‘This is Nether Hall, granted to me by the King himself in recognition of my bravery at the Battle of Crécy in ‘forty-six.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, uncertain what else he could say.

‘Great day for England, that,’ continued Grosnold with unconcealed pride. ‘And I was there.’

Bartholomew nodded politely, still wondering what had induced Unwin to slip away from his companions to the outhouse in the bailey with the boastful lord of Otley Manor.

‘You should not have been travelling this late,’ Grosnold went on, when Bartholomew did not seem inclined to indulge in military small talk. ‘We have had wolvesheads on the Old Road recently.’

‘We saw them,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They chased us into the woods near the Otley path, but ran away when my book-bearer injured one of them with an arrow.’

Grosnold was startled. ‘It seems you University men are not the gentle priests Tuddenham is expecting. Archery is an unusual skill for a scholar’s servant to possess, is it not?’

‘Cynric was a soldier once,’ explained Bartholomew.

‘Like me, then,’ said Grosnold, deftly seizing the opportunity to turn the subject back to fighting matters. He looked Bartholomew up and down disparagingly, taking in his darned and patched clothes, neatly trimmed black hair and clean hands. ‘But you are no warrior, I see.’

‘I am a physician,’ said Bartholomew.

Grosnold was unimpressed. ‘You are tall and strong: you should not have wasted such a fine physique by sitting around in dark rooms with dusty scrolls and ancient monks with no teeth.’

Was that how the people of rural Suffolk saw scholarship? Bartholomew wondered, not sure how to reply. He need not have worried: Grosnold had already lost interest in the conversation and was hailing his guard, ordering him to escort the scholars to the village inn.

‘I will need my stars read in a few days,’ Grosnold announced, as Bartholomew and Unwin began to walk away. ‘I might summon you to do it, if you are lucky, physician.’

‘I do not give astrological consultations,’ said Bartholomew, trying not to be irritated by the man’s presumption. He might have added that he did not believe that the stars made the slightest difference to a person’s health, and that he considered studying them a complete waste of his time, but he had learned that few people agreed with him, and that some even regarded his opinions as anathema. It was nearly always prudent to keep his views to himself.

‘Rubbish,’ said Grosnold. ‘All physicians read their patients’ stars. I shall send for you when I am ready.’

‘He can send for the all he likes,’ muttered Bartholomew to Unwin, as they walked toward the inn. ‘But I am not messing around with pointless astrological consultations.’

‘Perhaps he will forget,’ said Unwin, casting a nervous glance to where the black knight stood at the gate of his manor, yelling orders to scurrying servants at a volume sufficient to wake the dead.

‘Have you met him before?’ asked Bartholomew, still intrigued by the fact that Unwin had been in the bailey with Grosnold. ‘What were you doing in his house?’

Unwin shook his head in the darkness. ‘Nothing. We have never met before.’

Bartholomew let the matter drop. He was tired and aching from a long day in the saddle, and wanted nothing more than a straw mattress in a quiet room. Welcoming lights shone gold from the village inn, and, with relief, he handed the reins of his horse to Cynric and went inside.

The following day dawned clear and cool, and dew was thick on the ground. Bartholomew woke early, feeling refreshed, and joined Father William and two elderly local women in celebrating prime in the small, dark church. After a breakfast of watered ale and cold oatmeal, he sat on a bench in the pale light of the rising sun and talked to the taverner while he waited for the others. Eventually, they were ready, and he led the way out of Otley, following the landlord’s directions to the village of Grundisburgh. They passed Grosnold’s fortified manor house, but the gates were closed, and the guard, the top of whose metal helmet could be seen glinting above the palisade, was sound asleep.

The sun shone through the leaves of the trees, making dappled patterns on the grassy path. To one side, bluebells and buttercups added a splash of colour to the sludge of brown, rotting leaves from the year before, and to the other, a stream sparkled silver as it meandered south. The only sounds, other than birdsong, were the occasional clink of a harness and the gentle thud of horses’ hooves on the turf. A butterfly danced across the path and then was gone, while a group of rabbits, probably escapees from some nobleman’s warren, darted down a sandy hole with flicks of their white tails as the horsemen approached. Bartholomew took a deep breath, laden with the scent of warm, damp earth. He closed his eyes, relishing the feel of the sun on his face and the peace of the countryside.

‘Suffolk is a godforsaken place,’ grumbled Michael, riding next to him and glancing around disparagingly. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat to shade his face from the sun, and his skin was alabaster white against his dark Benedictine habit. Strands of lank brown hair dangled limply from under the hat, already wet with sweat, despite the cool, early-morning air. ‘I have never been anywhere so dismal.’

‘I suppose you miss the stench of the King’s Ditch in Cambridge?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Or the pleasure of strolling along the High Street, with its piles of offal, sewage and dead animals?’

Michael shot him an unpleasant look. ‘At least it is good town filth,’ he said. ‘Not like this vile, endless scrub, and these miserable, tree-infested pathways that stink of grass. But look at Roger Alcote! He sits in his saddle like a ploughboy!’

‘You have pointed that out already – several times,’ said Bartholomew mildly. He was not in a position to comment on Alcote’s equestrian abilities since, according to Michael, he rode even less elegantly than did the Senior Fellow, and even their long friendship had not protected him from Michael’s scathing criticism about it over the last few days.

‘And that Franciscan is just as bad,’ Michael continued contemptuously, shifting his disdain from Alcote to William on his long-suffering donkey. ‘He looks like a peasant astride a pig!’

Since there was some truth in Michael’s observation, Bartholomew was unable to suppress a smile. ‘You are in a fine mood today. Are you ill? Did you overeat again last night?’

‘No, I did not overeat!’ snapped Michael. ‘I am just weary of this interminable journey. Do you know, the only one other than me who has the slightest grace is that Rob Deynman.’ He looked over his shoulder to where Deynman and his two fellow students dawdled behind them. Seeing the obese monk glance backward, Deynman quickly slipped something out of sight and assumed a guileless expression. Michael’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

‘Coming from such a wealthy family, Deynman could probably ride before he could walk,’ said Bartholomew to distract him. Like Michael, the students were bored by the long journey, and Bartholomew had been impressed, but not particularly surprised, when they had devised a way of playing illicit games of dice as they rode.

‘Deynman will never make a physician, Matt,’ said Michael, fixing the uneasy student with a stony glower. ‘I cannot imagine why you persist in trying to teach him.’

‘You know very well why I continue to teach him, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, ‘since it was you who made the arrangements. The extortionate fees his father pays for his tuition keep Michaelhouse in bread and ale for at least half the year.’

‘Rock-hard bread and sour ale,’ spat Michael, forgetting Deynman’s suspicious behaviour as he found something else to grumble about. ‘And this journey had better be worth all this hardship and discomfort. If I find I have travelled sixty miles on a scrawny nag, just so that the College can own the living of a pig-pit of a parish, I shall have serious words with the Master.’

‘This has nothing to do with the Master,’ said Alcote, overhearing and reining back so that he could join in the conversation. ‘It was my doing that Sir Thomas Tuddenham offered us the living of Grundisburgh’s church. I hope you will remember that, Brother.’

‘I certainly will,’ muttered Michael bitterly. ‘And all I can say is that if this living does not swell the College coffers beyond my wildest dreams, there will be hell to pay.’

‘Grundisburgh is a very wealthy parish,’ said Alcote. ‘It has about two hundred occupants, most of whom pay annual tithes to the church. These will provide Unwin with a respectable stipend, and there will be enough left over for the College to make even the greediest Fellow happy.’ He treated Michael to a nasty smile, head on one side in his bird-like way.

‘I do not see why we had to come here at all,’ Michael continued. ‘If Tuddenham feels as much admiration for Michaelhouse as you claim, then he should have travelled to Cambridge to prepare the deed, not had us traipsing over the country after him. We are still in the middle of term, and I have teaching to do.’

‘Then you should not have volunteered to come, Brother,’ said Alcote coldly. ‘None of you should. It is for me, as Senior Fellow, to oversee the writing of this deed – the advowson, as it is called – and it has nothing to do with anyone else.’

‘It has a lot to do with Unwin,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Once Tuddenham signs the advowson giving Michaelhouse the church, we will go home, but he will have to stay.’

‘This is a superb opportunity for Unwin,’ argued Alcote. ‘He will train to be the vicar of a wealthy parish that will be his one day. What more can a young man ask?’

‘I expect he would ask to stay in Michaelhouse and study,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He does not want to be a village priest.’

‘Has he told you that?’ asked Michael, surprised.

‘He does not need to,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Have you not noticed how he has grown steadily more terrified the farther we have come from Cambridge?’ He saw Alcote frowning, and hurried on. ‘He will try his best – he is too obedient a friar to do otherwise – but the thought of being a parish priest does not appeal to him.’

‘Then that is just too bad,’ declared Alcote. ‘He is our most promising student, and Tuddenham must be rewarded for his generosity by being given the best Michaelhouse can offer.’ He glanced disdainfully at his companions, particularly at Bartholomew’s frayed cuffs and threadbare tabard, and brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his own expensive robe.

Alcote had taken orders with the Cluniacs, once he had realised that life as a monk in the University could be comfortably lucrative. Previously, there had been a brief and unsatisfactory allegiance with the Carmelites. But it had been the Cluniacs who had best satisfied Alcote’s requirements: they were an Order strong enough to promote him in University circles, but one that would leave him to his own devices as long as regular donations to the Mother House continued to swell its coffers.

‘What will Tuddenham think when he sees the shambolic deputation the Master of Michaelhouse has dispatched?’ Alcote went on. ‘A fat Benedictine, an eccentric physician, a huge Franciscan on a tiny mule, a servant who is more soldier than book-bearer, and three disreputable students, one of whom is destined to be his parish priest, but who would rather be doing something else. What was the Master thinking of?’

‘I suspect he was thinking of the peace he would have, once rid of a few troublemakers,’ shot back Michael. ‘He is weary of your constant criticism. Meanwhile, William is becoming so obsessed with being the University’s next Junior Proctor that he is beginning to make a serious nuisance of himself with the Chancellor; young John de Horsey is here to ensure his friend Unwin does not flee his duties; Rob Deynman is still in disgrace over that nasty business regarding Agatha the laundress’s teeth; and Matt’s dalliance with the town’s most beautiful prostitute means that the Master had a very good reason for wanting him out of Cambridge!’

Just a minute,’ began Bartholomew, horrified. ‘I have never–’

‘I heard about that,’ said Father William smugly, his timely entry into the conversation indicating that he had been listening all along. ‘Disgraceful! If I were Master, I would insist you took major orders, and become a friar or a monk, like the rest of us, Matthew. That would put an end to unseemly lechery with harlots. And I am not obsessed with becoming Junior Proctor, by the way. I have just made it clear in certain quarters that I would accept such a post if it were offered to me.’

‘And you are here to keep us all in order, I suppose,’ said Alcote, sneering at Michael. ‘You can spy for the Master, just as you spy for the Chancellor and the Bishop.’

‘The Master wanted me here to make sure the College was not cheated,’ said William, before Michael could reply to Alcote’s accusation, which was just as well, given that there was more than a grain of truth in it. Michael was not only the University’s Senior Proctor and a valued member of the Chancellor’s staff, he was also a trusted agent of the Bishop of Ely.

‘God sent a terrible plague to warn us against the deadly sin of greed,’ William ranted on, ‘yet every monk in the country still hankers after power and wealth. Michaelhouse’s interests would not be secure with only monks to watch over them.’

Monks and friars were invariably at loggerheads – friars denounced the contemplative lives of monks as selfish and cosseted, and monks objected to friars working in the community and involving themselves in human affairs. William despised the avaricious Alcote, and did not approve of Michael’s growing influence in the University; in turn, Alcote was repelled by William’s grimy, unkempt appearance, and Michael had no time at all for the friar’s bigotry.

‘God did not send the plague,’ said Bartholomew, to avert a row. ‘It just happened.’

There was a shocked silence, during which Bartholomew received a sharp kick from Michael. With a sinking heart, the physician realised that, far from preventing an argument, he had just managed to precipitate one. William drew himself up to his full height, almost losing the donkey from underneath him as he did so.

‘Are you suggesting that God is not all-powerful?’ he demanded hotly. ‘Do you propose that other agents are equally able to cause such devastation in the world?’

‘It seems to me that is exactly what he is suggesting,’ said Alcote, as keen to promote dissent as Bartholomew was to stop it. ‘He is a heretic!’

‘He is nothing of the kind,’ said Michael before Bartholomew could say anything in his own defence and make matters worse. ‘And now is not the time for theological debate: we have arrived.’

So engrossed had they been in bickering that they had entered the village before realising they had done so. It was tiny, comprising no more than two parallel rows of shacks bordering the path. Behind the houses was the village church, a small, low building that squatted on its rise almost malevolently. Its glassless windows were dark slits in grey walls, and there was ivy growing up the tower. The village was as silent and as unsettling as the grave.

‘This must be Barchester, not Grundisburgh,’ said Bartholomew, looking around at the lonely houses and overgrown gardens. ‘The taverner told me about Barchester this morning. Apparently, only one of its inhabitants survived the plague, but she drowned herself in the river last winter. It has been abandoned ever since.’

‘Is that her?’ asked Deynman in an unsteady voice. Bartholomew looked to the house where the student was pointing and saw an expanse of skirt with a shoe at the end of it, just visible under the cracked piece of leather that served as a door. The physician dismounted and took a step forward.

‘No!’ cried Michael suddenly, his voice shockingly loud in the silent village. He grabbed Bartholomew’s shoulder. ‘The Death may still lurk in this place, Matt. Leave her! If she drowned herself last winter, you can do nothing to help her now.’

‘It cannot be the woman who drowned,’ said Bartholomew reasonably. ‘How could she have moved here from the river, if she were dead?’

His colleagues, to a man, crossed themselves vigorously.

‘I have heard of these places,’ said Cynric, looking around him uneasily. ‘The spirits of those not granted absolution haunt them, and their screams of torment ring out each midnight.’

‘That is superstitious nonsense, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew firmly, refusing to allow his book-bearer’s vivid imagination to unnerve him.

‘It is truth, boy,’ said Cynric with conviction. ‘If you were to come here at the witching hour, you would hear them.’

‘Well, that is no tormented spirit,’ said Bartholomew, nodding at the bundle of clothing in the doorway. ‘But it may be someone needing help.’

‘I do not like this at all,’ said Alcote, looking around him as though he expected to see the plague-dead rising up and rushing out of their houses to lay ghostly hands on him. ‘It is sinister!’

Bartholomew handed the reins of his horse to Cynric, and walked through the nettles and weeds to the house where the skirt and shoe lay.

Aware that Michael was right, and that the house might still contain the decomposing bodies of unburied plague victims, Bartholomew picked up a stick, and used it to ease back the piece of leather that hung in the doorway. He gave a sigh of relief when he saw the skirt and shoe were nothing more than that – discarded clothes that had fallen in such a way as to appear as though someone was inside them.

As the daylight filtered into the house’s single room, Bartholomew noticed it was surprisingly intact for a place that had been abandoned four years before. But, he thought, as he looked around, perhaps it had belonged to the woman who had killed herself, and had therefore only been left to decay for a few months. There was a table in the centre of the room with some carrots on it, black and shrivelled and with a knife lying next to them, as if their owner had been preparing a meal before she left, never to return. Cold, dead ashes lay in the hearth, stirring slightly in the draught from the doorway, and a rusting metal pot nestled among them.

Something glittered on the ground near the threshold, and Bartholomew crouched to look at it. It was a shiny new penny, still copper-bright from the mint, and not the dull brown of most of the coins of the realm. He turned it over in his fingers, and saw the date was that of the current year – 1353.

Bartholomew was puzzled. Coins did not remain clean for long, and he could only suppose that someone had dropped it recently. He turned his attention to the skirt and shoe. Both were free of dust and leaves, and the skirt was relatively clean. Neither could have been there for more than a few days at the most. He stood up. Doubtless some passer-by had dumped the old clothes there, and dropped the penny at the same time. Regardless, it was nothing to warrant him wasting any more of his time, and certainly no one needed his medical skills.

He made his way back to where his colleagues waited for him. Alcote moved away as he approached, holding a large pomander to his nose. It was not the first time the pomander had made its appearance on the journey: Alcote was terrified of the plague returning, and he invariably had the thing clasped to his face the moment they entered a village or a town. It was stuffed with cloves, bayleaves, wormwood and – if the students were to be believed – a little gold dust mixed with dried grasshoppers. Alcote had used it during the pestilence, and attributed his survival to its efficacy, although Bartholomew suspected that him locking himself away in his room had more to do with his escaping the sickness than the mysterious assortment of ingredients in the now-filthy pomander.

‘There was nothing there,’ he said in answer to his colleagues’ anxious looks.

‘Was the hovel full of skeletons?’ whispered Deynman fearfully. ‘Victims of the plague?’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘No, just some old clothes.’

Michael looked at the skirt and shuddered, memories of the plague in Cambridge surging back to him. There were villages all over England like Barchester, where the plague had struck particularly hard, either killing every inhabitant or driving the few survivors away to seek homes elsewhere. To Michael, the deserted settlements were eerie, haunted places where, as Cynric had suggested, he imagined he might hear the cries of the dead echoing from their hastily dug graves if he listened long enough.

‘What was that?’ Unwin exclaimed suddenly.

‘What?’ asked Deynman, twisting in his saddle to look around. ‘I saw nothing.’

‘Something white,’ said Unwin, pointing off into the trees. ‘A massive white dog.’

‘Probably a stray,’ said Bartholomew, mounting his horse with an inelegance that made Michael wince. ‘There have been lots of strays since the plague.’

‘Strays do not live in deserted settlements,’ said William knowledgeably. ‘They live near villages and towns where there is rubbish to scavenge.’

‘Perhaps it buried a bone here,’ said Bartholomew without thinking.

The others regarded him, aghast. ‘That is an unpleasant suggestion, Matt,’ said Michael eventually. ‘I thought you said there were no skeletons here. Do you really think that dead villagers were left here to rot, and to be eaten by the wild beasts of the forest?’

‘Come on,’ said Alcote, spurring his horse forward decisively. ‘This place has an evil air about it, and whatever secrets are here should be left well alone. The wild dog Unwin saw has gone now, and we should leave before it comes back and tries to savage us all.’

‘It was a horrible thing,’ said Unwin with a shudder. ‘Huge, and with a dirty white coat.’

‘Perhaps it was a wolf,’ said Deynman, easing his horse after Alcote. ‘My brother told me that there are wolves in this part of the country.’

‘Listen,’ said Michael softly, as the others rode away. ‘It is completely silent here. The birds are not singing, and even the wind has dropped, so that the trees are as still as stones. It is almost as if the souls of the dead are walking here, inhabiting these houses and drifting along these paths.’

No one heard him, and Michael found himself alone in the main street. Not wanting to be left too far behind, he urged his horse into a trot, so that he could ride next to Bartholomew.

‘Are you ill?’ Bartholomew asked, noting the monk’s pale face in concern.

Michael shook his head. ‘These eerie Death villages unnerve me, Matt. This is the fourth we have seen since we left Cambridge.’

‘You sound like Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, surprised by the monk’s uncharacteristic sensitivity. ‘When you consider how many people died of the plague, it is no wonder that there are so many abandoned settlements. But that is no reason to give your imagination free rein.’

‘There speaks the man of science,’ said Michael. ‘Always with a practical explanation to offer.’

‘Better a practical explanation than believing all that rubbish about tormented souls,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But the plague has gone now, and we should look forward not back.’

‘But it has not gone, Matt!’ said Michael with sudden vehemence. ‘There are abandoned hamlets everywhere; there is livestock still unattended and roaming wild; there are disused churches wherever you look, because even if there are congregations, there are too few priests alive to serve them. And people talk about it all the time – either as we are doing now, or just as a reference point – “before the Death” or “after the Death”. It is here with us now, just as much as when it was killing us with its deadly fingers.’

Bartholomew could think of nothing to say, suspecting the monk was right, but unwilling to admit that the most devastating and terrifying episode in their lives still had the power to affect them so deeply. They rode in silence. Michael’s bad temper had become gloom, while Bartholomew thought about the friends and colleagues he had lost to the Death. Then he recalled the people he had met since, particularly the beautiful prostitute, Matilde. He glanced behind him to make sure the students could not hear.

‘The Master did not really send me to Suffolk because of Matilde, did he? I can assure you he had no cause.’

Michael chuckled softly, grateful to be thinking of something other than the pestilence. ‘I can assure you he did. Ever since your fiancee abandoned you for a wealthy merchant a couple of years ago, you have done nothing but make a nuisance of yourself among the town’s women.’

‘I have not!’ objected Bartholomew, startled by the accusation. ‘I–’

‘Do not try to deceive me, Matt. I have known you too long, and I have seen the way you look whenever Matilde speaks to you. Then there was that Julianna.’

‘That Julianna set her sights on Ralph de Langelee, as well you know,’ said Bartholomew tartly. ‘And she and I have never had the slightest liking for each other.’

‘I wonder what Langelee is doing now that Michaelhouse’s four most senior Fellows are away,’ mused Michael, changing the subject abruptly. ‘It would not surprise me if he took advantage of our absence somehow. Perhaps we will find that we have a new Master by the time we return.’

‘I wish Julianna had persuaded him to marry her,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Since Fellows of Colleges are not permitted to marry, it would have been an excellent way to rid ourselves of him without the need for violence.’

‘Funny you should mention that,’ said Michael. I heard a rumour that a certain ceremony involving those two took place recently in Grantchester Church. So far, I have been unable to verify it, but I can assure you I will look into the matter most carefully when we return. We do not want that belligerent lout as our next Master.’

They had not travelled far before they reached a crossroads, where the others waited for directions to Grundisburgh. Bartholomew’s attention, however, was on something else.

Gibbets were commonplace at crossroads, and the one near Grundisburgh was a stark wooden silhouette against the sky, comprising a central post with two arms, one of which had a corpse dangling from it. But it was not the sight of a hanged criminal that caught Bartholomew’s eye – he had lost count of the number of felons he had seen along the way, who had been executed and whose remains had been displayed to serve as a deterrent for anyone else considering breaking the law – there was something unusual about the body that made him want to take a closer look. First, the hands were not bound as was usual, but hung loosely at the sides; and second, the corpse was fully clothed. Ignoring William’s gusty sigh of irritation, and Alcote’s vocal revulsion at the physician’s unseemly interest, he dismounted and made his way to the foot of the gibbet.

It was high, and the hanged man’s feet swung near Bartholomew’s shoulders. The shoes were of good-quality leather, with strong, almost-new soles, and a pair of gleaming silver-coloured buckles. The hose were made of soft-woven red wool, and the shirt was of fine linen, although the cuffs were beginning to fray. A handsome blue doublet embroidered with silver thread, and a thick belt, from which dangled a bejewelled dagger, completed the outfit. There was plenty of wear left in the garments, while the dagger would have fetched a good price, so why had no one relieved the corpse of them? Such items were usually considered the perks of the hangman’s trade, and to find clothes so casually abandoned in these times of acute need was curious to say the least.

As Bartholomew looked upward, a flicker of movement caught his eye. At first he thought he had imagined it, but when he looked harder he saw it again. The hanged man’s mouth had moved: he was still alive!

‘He is still breathing!’ Bartholomew yelled, making his colleagues jump. He grabbed the hanged man’s legs, trying to lift him to relieve the pressure around the throat. ‘Help me, Michael!’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Alcote, watching him in horror. ‘Leave him alone, Matthew, and come away before you land us all in trouble.’

‘He is alive!’ Bartholomew shouted, struggling to bear the man’s weight ‘Cynric, cut the rope! Quickly!’

Cynric hesitated, but then moved forward. Before he could act, Michael intervened, raising an imperious hand that stopped the Welshman dead in his tracks.

‘He is a convicted felon, Matt,’ said the monk firmly. ‘You cannot go cutting down criminals whenever you feel like it. You are likely to end up swinging next to him.’

‘He is not a criminal,’ Bartholomew gasped, desperately trying to support the body. ‘Or, at least, he has not been lawfully executed. The hangmen would have taken his clothes had they been legally employed to kill him, and they have not.’

‘Perhaps the nature of his crime was too heinous,’ said Alcote with a shudder. ‘Come away from him, before someone sees what you are trying to do.’

‘Cynric!’ pleaded Bartholomew.

The Welshman glanced uneasily at Michael, but then stepped towards the gibbet. He climbed up it before anyone could stop him, and sawed quickly through the rope. Bartholomew staggered as the body was suddenly freed and its weight dropped on to him. He laid the man down in the grass and loosened the noose, peering into the face for any signs of life. With a raw, rasping sound, the man drew breath.

‘This is outrageous!’ exclaimed Alcote, watching Bartholomew work. ‘I am not staying here to be charged with helping a felon evade justice!’

He grabbed the reins of his horse and waved them, expecting the animal to know which way he wanted to turn. When nothing happened, he gave it a sharp slap on the hindquarters that made it trot down the right-hand track in agitation. Michael motioned for the students to go with him – it was not safe for a man to travel alone – and dismounted with a sigh.

‘You will be the death of me,’ he mumbled to Bartholomew under his breath. ‘I very much doubt whether the Bishop of Ely’s authority will carry much weight here. We are likely to be hanged for tampering with the King’s justice first, and questions asked after.’

William watched Alcote disappearing down the road with the students at his heels, and it seemed as if he would follow. Instead he raised one leg to let the exhausted donkey go free, and went to stand next to Michael, breathing heavily to signify his disapproval of what Bartholomew had done.

‘You have endangered us all by interfering with the course of justice,’ he said angrily to the physician. ‘This is not Cambridge, you know. There is no friendly Sheriff Tulyet here to look the other way while you break the law.’ He paused in his tirade. ‘Well? Will he live?’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I think his neck is broken.’

While William dropped to his knees and began intoning prayers for the dying in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, Bartholomew put his ear to the stricken man’s mouth, listening to the faint rustle of breath that whispered there. Whether he was conscious of what was happening to him, Bartholomew could not tell. His eyes were half open, but were dull and glazed. There were blood clots around his lips, and his face was a deep red, suggesting that his death was as much due to strangulation as to the damaged vertebrae.

‘Padfoot.’

Bartholomew looked sharply at him, but his breathing had faltered into nothing. He was left wondering whether he had imagined the man uttering a word with his dying breath, or whether the barely audible syllables were simply involuntary contractions of the tongue as the life went out of him. With William bellowing at his side, it had been difficult to hear much anyway. He sat back on his heels, puzzled.

‘Now what?’ asked William, finishing his prayers, and looking at the dead man in concern. ‘Do we put him back as we found him?’

‘I hardly think so!’ said Michael, raising his eyebrows in horror. ‘What if someone sees us?’

‘It cannot be any worse than someone seeing us now, having cut him down,’ retorted the friar. He sighed irritably, sketching the sign of the cross on the dead man’s forehead, mouth, chest and hands. ‘There, I have finished. Now we should follow Alcote’s example, and leave while we still can. I do not want to be granting absolution to anyone else today, particularly if it is one of us.’

‘This is all very odd,’ said Bartholomew, still kneeling in the grass next to the dead man. ‘His neck seems broken, yet his purple face suggests he died of strangulation.’

‘Your interest in this sort of thing is most unnatural,’ said Michael with a shudder. He reached out and plucked at Bartholomew’s tabard, urging him to stand up.

‘And whose fault is that?’ demanded Bartholomew, shaking him off. ‘Who is it who has dragged me into all sorts of unsavoury investigations for the University, and forced me to learn about murder and suicide?’

‘Murder?’ echoed Michael, gazing down at the dead man in dismay.

‘Suicide?’ asked William, equally shocked. ‘I sincerely hope you are wrong, Matthew! I have just granted this man absolution, which suicides are not entitled to have.’

‘This man has not been murdered,’ said Michael firmly, recovering quickly from his shock. ‘And he has not committed suicide, either. He has been executed perfectly lawfully for some crime.’

‘Then why have his executioners not remained here to ensure he died?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘Why did they not take his belongings? Why did they not tie his hands and feet, as is common practice among hangmen? And look at the clothes he is wearing. This is no common thief, but a man of some wealth.’

‘Men of wealth are just as liable to be punished under secular law as are common thieves,’ said Michael pompously.

‘It looks to me as though someone strung him up and he started to choke,’ said Bartholomew, his attention still fixed on the corpse that lay in front of him. ‘Look at how his fingernails have been broken as he struggled to tear the noose away from his throat, and how the blood has clotted around his lips. Then, I imagine, his killer tugged on his feet to snap his neck.’

‘I have seen people doing that,’ said William, nodding. ‘When I was with the Inquisition in France, we had occasion to dispense with a number of heretics. If the drop did not kill them instantly – and it seldom did – their friends would jump on their legs to put them out of their misery.’

Bartholomew and Michael stared at him. ‘For a man of God, you have some nasty tales to tell, Father,’ said Bartholomew.

William regarded him coolly. ‘Hardly worse than you enthusing over whether a man has died from a broken neck or suffocation, Doctor. Now, I suggest we leave this poor sinner where he is, and head for Grundisburgh before Alcote tells anyone what we have been doing.’

‘You mean, just leave him here?’ asked Cynric, appalled. ‘We are not heathens to leave our dead for the carrion birds.’

‘Someone will be back for him,’ said William. He started to walk toward his donkey, which saw what was coming and began to back away. ‘It will just look as though the rope has snapped naturally, and deposited him on the ground.’

He captured his mount, and they began circling each other in a curious dance-like motion, showing that William was as determined to sit on the beast’s back as the donkey was to avoid it. Meanwhile, Michael took Bartholomew’s arm and pulled him to his feet with surprising strength for a man so fat and unhealthy. He brushed dead leaves from the physician’s black tabard, and slapped the reins of his horse into his hand, glancing nervously up and down the trackway as though he expected a vengeful throng from the local Sheriff to bear down on them at any moment.

‘Just lead the thing,’ he snapped to William, still embroiled in the war of wills with his donkey. ‘The poor animal is exhausted; you are far too large for it.’

Deciding it was less undignified to yield to the donkey’s wishes than to continue chasing it in ever-faster circles, William began to walk toward the path Alcote had taken.

‘Not that way,’ said Cynric, watching Bartholomew hop with one foot in the stirrup as he struggled to mount a horse that was every bit as mobile as William’s donkey. ‘The right-hand turn leads to Ipswich; we need to carry straight on.’

William gave a wolfish grin, revealing large, strong brown teeth. ‘It was kind of you to share that information with Alcote, Cynric. He has taken the wrong path.’

‘Will he be safe?’ asked Michael anxiously. ‘He has all our money.’

‘There is another village three miles down the Ipswich road,’ said Cynric, displaying remarkable memory for a man who had travelled to Suffolk only once, some twenty years before. ‘He can ask for directions there. The diversion will not take him too far out of his way.’

‘And it will be pleasant to escape his company, even if only for a little while,’ said William, smiling with glee. He hauled his donkey toward the Grundisburgh path, but the animal did not want to be led by the friar, either, and there began an angry duet of brays and curses.

‘God’s teeth!’ exploded Michael, as he watched Bartholomew continue to do battle with his horse. ‘Am I completely surrounded by imbeciles? Hold the reins near the bit, man! Cynric, help him, or we shall be here all day.’

He wheeled his own horse around and headed for the track Cynric had indicated, leaving the others to follow.

‘You should not have interfered,’ said Cynric, as he trotted next to Bartholomew.

‘But it is bad enough seeing people die because my medicine cannot help them, without seeing them die because someone else has decided they should not live.’

‘It is no good theologising with me, boy,’ said Cynric primly. ‘I am just a simple soldier who follows the law as well as he can. And the law does not look kindly on travellers rescuing criminals.’

‘I know,’ admitted Bartholomew wearily.

‘And soldiers try not to leave bodies lying around without a decent burial,’ continued Cynric, turning to give William a look of disapproval. ‘So neither should scholars. It is not proper.’

‘I agree,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But someone will be back for him soon – to collect his fine clothes and dagger, if nothing else.’

‘I was looking forward to arriving in Grundisburgh,’ said Cynric gloomily. ‘I have heard that they celebrate a three-day Fair, and it will be starting today. But there is nothing like a dying man to turn gaiety into ashes.’

‘Fairs are heathen occasions,’ gasped William breathlessly, as he bolted past them on the donkey he had finally managed to mount, and that was repaying him by galloping furiously along the track, grimly resisting his attempts to restrain it. ‘They are events celebrated by heretics!’

‘Nothing like a fanatical Franciscan to turn gaiety into ashes, either,’ said Bartholomew, as the friar and his donkey disappeared around a bend ahead of them.