A Wicked Deed

Chapter 6

Before daybreak the following morning, Bartholomew and Michael were waiting on the path that led from the village to the fields, hoping to speak to the people who were away from the village each day from dawn to dusk working the land. As the sky began to lighten, men, women and even children trudged wearily towards them, hoes and spades over their shoulders, their footsteps slow and unwilling. Although all seemed well-fed and healthy enough, it was a hard and dull life, and most were delighted to stop and talk to the Michaelhouse scholars, to break the monotony of toiling among Tuddenham’s ripening crops.

Many seemed to be exhausted before they even started, and yawned and stretched as they answered Michael’s patient questions. Bartholomew wondered whether the celebrations for the Pentecost Fair had extended longer than Tuddenham knew.

No one had anything of value to add regarding Unwin’s death. Most had spotted him at the Fair – they had been interested to see him because he was to have been their priest – but none had noticed him enter the church, or observed him speaking to anyone in particular before he died. They seemed genuinely appalled that a friar had been murdered in their village, but all declared that it was only to be expected once Unwin had set eyes on Padfoot. Michael tried in vain to convince them that Unwin had seen only a stray dog, but, although they listened politely, it was obvious they did not concur.

By noon, Michael and Bartholomew had spoken to dozens of people, but had learned nothing. Disgusted, Michael led the way back to Grundisburgh to interview the pardoner, leaving the neat strips of yellow and their dusty guardians behind. The village was peaceful. Those not in the fields were tending the sheep on the hills or minding the cows that grazed on the common land near the church. Two children laughed as they shepherded a flock of white geese along The Street, and somewhere a baby cried as a mother tried to sing it to sleep. Smoke seeped through the roofs of one or two huts where those too old or too ill to work had been left to do the cooking, but most homes were still and silent, and would be so until their owners returned after sunset that day.

As they passed the Dog tavern they saw Hamon inside, drinking deeply from a huge jug. He spotted them through the window and beckoned them over, wiping his lips on his sleeve as he set the empty vessel on the table.

‘I spoke with the Sheriffs deputy this morning,’ he said without preamble. ‘He said he was happy that my uncle is doing all in his power to trace Unwin’s killer, and has placed the matter officially in his hands.’

‘You mean the deputy has been and gone?’ asked Michael in horror. ‘He did not even bother to pay his respects to me – the Bishop’s agent and his representative in canon law?’

‘You only represent the Bishop of Ely. This is the See of the Bishop of Norwich so, as far as the Sheriff is concerned, you have no authority here. We do not think that, of course,’ Hamon added quickly, when he saw the monk’s face darken.

Bartholomew was disgusted. ‘So the Sheriff does not care that a priest has been murdered in his shire?’

Hamon shrugged. ‘He is a busy man, and is more concerned with catching the outlaws who operate along the Old Road, than in wasting valuable time in duplicating the work my uncle is doing.’

‘Investigating the murder of a priest is a waste of no one’s time,’ snapped Michael. He sat next to Hamon. ‘This has made me quite weak at the knees. Landlord! Bring the some wine. And perhaps also a chicken, if you have one to hand.’

Hamon grinned, openly amused by Michael’s transparent greed, and then stood. ‘I must go. Since the Death, the village has been desperately short of labourers, and I have been forced to hire those sullen men who are staying at the Half Moon. If I do not supervise them constantly, they do not work.’

‘They sound like my students,’ muttered Michael. He nodded with approval as the food arrived, and Bartholomew sat next to him, tired after the long, fruitless morning.

‘Damn that Sheriff!’ said Michael, as he tore a leg from a chicken. ‘Dick Tulyet would never delegate the murder of a friar to some local landowner. It is not right!’

‘I do not like it,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham is now under considerable obligation to solve Unwin’s murder. I hope he does not manipulate the truth, and end up with a scapegoat rather than the real culprit.’

Michael sighed. ‘You are far too suspicious and untrusting these days. You were not like this five years ago. Even I accept that people occasionally tell the truth and have motives that are honourable. But we should hurry. I want to catch that pardoner before he slinks off to ply his foul trade in Ipswich again.’

On their way to Norys’s house, Bartholomew and Michael passed the latrine, where Eltisley the landlord was engaged in something that entailed a good deal of muttering and the frenzied use of heavy tools. The latrine was a splendid affair – as such structures went – and Eltisley had spent some time over dinner the previous evening explaining how he had built it, announcing proudly that it served most of the village. It comprised a low shed built over a trench that, as far as Bartholomew could tell, then drained straight through the soil into the river at precisely the point where most people collected their drinking water. It had three stalls, each with a separate door to ensure privacy – a feature seldom seen outside monasteries or palaces.

Eltisley had a hefty awl in his hand, and was busily hacking a hole the size of a plum in one of the doors, muttering to himself as he did so.

‘What is he doing?’ asked Michael curiously, pausing to look.

‘Do not ask,’ said Bartholomew, taking his arm and trying to walk past the landlord without becoming engaged in a lengthy conversation. ‘As I have already told you, I do not think Eltisley is quite in control of his faculties. And that is my professional medical opinion.’

‘He is probably going to sit there and look for that ghostly dog of yours through the hole he is making,’ said Michael with an unpleasant snigger.

‘What do you think of this?’ called Eltisley, just as Bartholomew thought they had escaped. ‘Come and see.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ groaned Bartholomew. ‘Now we shall be here all day listening to some peculiar theory about latrine architecture.’

‘You do not like him very much, do you?’ said Michael, as they walked towards Eltisley.

‘I do not like him at all,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He is dangerous. He told me last night he has a cure for palsies that involves drowning a patient, and then reviving him. He is planning to try it on some poor child in Otley. I told Stoate about it, and hope to God he manages to intervene in time.’

‘No physician likes a patient who knows more medicine than he does,’ observed Michael complacently, beaming at the landlord as they reached the latrines.

Bartholomew ignored him, and looked to where Eltisley was gesturing with barely concealed excitement. For some reason he had chopped holes in each of the three doors, and was waving some kind of device at them with evident pride.

‘It is a latch I have designed myself,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘It will mean that the door can be locked from the inside and, as the bar drops, its weight will turn a mechanism so that the metal facing the outside will turn to this part that has been painted red.’

‘Ingenious,’ said Michael, bemused. ‘But what is it for? If you are inside operating the lock, you will not be able to see whether the metal outside is red or not.’

‘It is to warn people outside that the stall is temporarily unavailable,’ said Eltisley primly. ‘Then no one will be in the terrible position of being inside, while someone on the outside is frantically pulling on the handle to get in.’

‘Well, that is a relief,’ said Michael, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘I shall rest easier in my bed knowing that.’

‘The only problem is that I cannot get the device to stay in the doors without falling out,’ said Eltisley, scratching his head. ‘So, I suppose I will have to rethink the design.’

He began to walk away, taking his mechanism with him.

‘All is not lost,’ Bartholomew called to his retreating back. ‘No one will need to rattle the handles now that you have placed these convenient holes in the doors – we can just look through them and immediately see whether someone is inside or not. No one will ever be embarrassed by unwanted rattling again.’

Michael roared with laughter, leaving Eltisley looking from his device to the doors in some confusion. Bartholomew shook his head in disgust.

‘See what I mean? He has damaged three perfectly good doors in order to try out some unworkable mechanism, thus leaving everything in a worse state than it was in before. I am surprised that latrine is still standing, given that he built it.’

‘Ah, but he did not,’ said Michael. ‘I admit I was impressed when I first saw it, and I mentioned it to Tuddenham. Apparently, Wauncy designed it, Hamon supervised the building of it, and all Eltisley did was to select the site.’

‘So that explains why it drains into the river just where the people collect their drinking water,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The man is a liability.’

‘It is unlike you to take such an irrational dislike to someone,’ said Michael, laughing at the physician’s vehemence. ‘Poor Eltisley! He is not that bad.’

‘Here he comes again!’ hissed Bartholomew in alarm, gripping Michael’s arm as the landlord stopped, turned and began to walk back towards them. ‘Quick, Michael, run!’

He took the monk’s arm and hauled him away before the eccentric landlord could catch them, Michael gasping and puffing as laughter made it difficult for him to move at the pace Bartholomew was forcing. Fortunately, it was not far to the small wattle-and-daub house with the reed roof that belonged to the tanner. He sat in his garden with a workbench between his knees, scraping at a hide with a piece of pumice stone.

The smell from his workshop was overpowering, just as Mother Goodman had warned – a combination of the urine and polish used to tan the leather, and a thick stench of rotting as newly prepared pelts were stretched to dry in the sun. He looked up as they approached, and gave a grin. Bartholomew was startled to see the Tuddenham teeth – long, yellow and not very functional. Some lord of the manor, perhaps even Sir Thomas himself, although he would have been very young, had evidently been active among the village maidens.

‘New soles?’ asked the tanner hopefully. ‘Broken straps? Uncomfortable saddle that needs softening?’

‘All saddles are uncomfortable,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But we came to speak to your nephew, Will Norys. Is he in?’

The tanner looked disappointed. ‘He is preparing himself for Ipswich market. Walter Wauncy has forbidden him to sell his pardons here, so he travels to the city to work most days.’

‘He is leaving rather late, is he not?’ asked Michael. ‘The market will be almost over by the time he arrives.’

The tanner grinned. ‘He came home very late last night.’

He tapped the side of his nose and winked conspiratorially.

‘He was enjoying the company of young Mistress Freeman.’

‘Can we go in?’ asked Michael, pushing open the garden gate and making his way to the door of the house. He was inside before the startled tanner had nodded his assent. Bartholomew followed quickly, afraid that Michael might lose his temper at the mere sight of a man who dealt in the trade that Michael despised with all his heart.

The tanner’s cottage was dark, and smelled strongly of cats. The window shutters appeared to have been painted closed, so it was difficult to see. After a moment, Bartholomew’s eyes grew used to the gloom and he made out a sturdy table standing on one side of the room, and two straw mattresses on the other. The beds were heaped with blankets, and both were alive with cats. There were also cats on the table and up in the rafters, while more rubbed themselves round his legs and tripped him as he followed Michael inside.

‘Perhaps this is what your white dog wants,’ the monk muttered. ‘It is a hound’s paradise in here.’ He sneezed three times in quick succession.

‘A sign of good luck, Brother,’ came a sibilant voice from a dark corner.

‘I beg your pardon?’ demanded Michael nasally.

‘To sneeze three times is a sign of good luck,’ said the voice. ‘It means someone will give you a present. Of course, a cat sneezing three times means that its owner will soon have an ague.’

‘There is a new theory for your treatise on fevers, Matt,’ said Michael, dabbing at his nose with a small piece of linen. He peered into the room. ‘Will Norys? Come out, where I can see you.’

‘Have you come for a pardon?’ A small figure emerged from what Bartholomew had assumed was just another pile of cats.

‘We most certainly have not,’ said Michael indignantly. ‘I can do all the pardoning I need myself, thank you very much.’

‘Of course, Brother,’ hissed the pardoner. ‘If it is new leather you want, my uncle is outside.’

Michael sneezed twice, but Norys said nothing – perhaps two sneezes was not a good omen.

‘Perhaps we should stand outside,’ said Bartholomew after Michael’s sixth sneeze. Norys shrugged, and followed them into the garden. He had a round face and vivid green eyes. Unlike his uncle, he had tiny, rather pointed teeth, which he had a habit of running his tongue over in a furtive flicking movement. Bartholomew was sure he was not the first person to note the similarity between Norys and his feline friends.

‘Do you sell relics, by any chance?’ asked Michael, dabbing his nose fastidiously with his linen. ‘Only we would like to purchase a souvenir from our visit to Suffolk for the Master of our College, and I thought something of St Botolph’s might be suitable.’

‘I do have some relics,’ said Norys, moving towards the monk as he sensed a sale, ‘but nothing from St Botolph. He is popular around here, given his history. I can do you a fingernail of St Cuthbert, and I have a piece of the bowl in which Pontius Pilate washed his hands.’

‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘Why would anyone want to buy something belonging to Pontius Pilate? He was scarcely on the side of the good and the just.’

‘People will buy just about anything these days,’ said Norys confidentially. ‘I heard of a man in Norwich who paid ten marks for a rib-bone of the whale that ate Elijah.’

‘But it was Job who was swallowed by a whale,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Precisely,’ said Norys. ‘But, to go back to your original question, it is not easy to come by relics of St Botolph. I have heard of none in these parts for many years. You might do better asking the monks at St Edmundsbury. The Benedictines there are not averse to raiding his hair and teeth on occasion. No offence, Brother.’

‘You have not heard of a few hairs of his beard being available in Grundisburgh recently, then?’ asked Michael casually.

Norys shook his head. ‘But I can ask in Ipswich for you today, although I do not hold out much hope. And, if I am successful, it will be expensive.’ Pointedly he eyed the wooden cross, which Michael prudently wore in the place of his silver one lest someone decided to kill him for it.

‘Try anyway,’ said Michael icily, offended that the pardoner should think he was impoverished. ‘We are staying at the Half Moon.’

‘Are you?’ asked Norys, surprised. ‘You would be better at the Dog. The food is nicer and the landlord is sane. A word of advice: keep your windows open at night, so you will be able to escape if Eltisley sets the place on fire with one of his experiments. It would not be the first time, and his patrons’ luck is bound to run out sooner or later – although I might have a charm I could sell that would protect you against that sort of mishap.’

Bartholomew turned away to hide his amusement, while Michael looked suitably outraged that a man of God should be offered the opportunity to buy such an unashamedly pagan object.

‘No, thank you,’ said the monk stiffly. ‘Were you at the festivities on the green recently?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Norys. ‘I would never miss the Pentecost Fair.’

‘I do not suppose you own such a thing as a long dark cloak, do you?’ asked Michael, while he shoved his piece of linen back in his scrip.

‘Of course I do, Brother. All pardoners wear long dark cloaks. It is part of our traditional costume, so that people recognise us for what we are.’

‘Unfortunately, most people do not,’ said Michael. ‘So, tell me, Master Norys, what it is about this Pentecost Fair that you enjoy, specifically. The food provided by Tuddenham? The drink? The people? Dressing in your finery? Sitting in the church when there is no one else there?’

Norys looked bemused. ‘I am not robust enough to join Tuddenham’s food fight, so I usually bring something from home. Most respectable villagers do, and only the rabble attempt to partake of Tuddenham’s provisions. I saw you try, though, Brother. Very admirable. Were you successful?’

‘Moderately,’ said Michael. ‘But what did you do at the Fair, other than eat your own food?’

‘I spent time with Mistress Freeman. Her husband died recently – he had his throat slit a week ago – and she needs company. In the evening, we took a walk around the churchyard.’

‘That is a curious place for a stroll,’ pounced Michael. ‘The church is scarcely a great distance from the Fair and it is an odd choice of location to inflict on a recent widow. What did you do: dance on Freeman’s grave?’

Norys’s face hardened. ‘What are you implying? That I killed the priest in the church? I can assure you, I had nothing to do with that vile crime. Anyway, because James Freeman was deemed a suicide by Wauncy, he was not buried in the churchyard – we walked nowhere near his grave.’

‘And what do you know about Unwin’s death?’ asked Michael with a predatory smile.

‘There is not a man, woman or child in the village who does not know every detail about that, and has done since the crime was first discovered,’ said Norys. ‘This is the country, Brother; things do not stay secret for long.’

‘Really,’ hissed Michael. ‘In that case, Master Norys, perhaps you will be so kind as to tell me who committed so foul a crime against a man of God? If your village is so terrible at keeping secrets, then who killed Unwin?’

‘If I knew, I would tell you,’ said Norys, his eyes glittering with anger, ‘despite your offensive manner. The whole village was shocked by the murder, and we feel it as a personal loss – he was to have been our priest, you know. But I can tell you two things. First, I am sure you will find it was no common villager who killed the priest – you should look elsewhere for your culprit.’

‘I suppose you are thinking of Roland Deblunville?’ said Michael sarcastically. ‘Well, he is newly wed, and I am sure he had other things on his mind that night than killing priests.’

‘Then you do not know him,’ snapped Norys. ‘Ask him where he was when Unwin died. I wager you St Botolph’s teeth it was not in his wedding bed. And you might do well also to look to the other manors near here. Tuddenham may give you the impression he is on good terms with his neighbours, Bardolf and Grosnold, but they might well tell you a different story. Either one of them might dispatch the priest provided by his powerful new Oxford friends–’

‘Cambridge friends,’ interposed Michael. ‘We do not mention that other place.’

‘…just to prove to him that he is not untouchable. And the second thing I can tell you is that while I was in the graveyard I saw someone leave the church in a great hurry. Mistress Freeman and I thought nothing of it at the time, but with hindsight, I see it might have been the killer.’

‘It might,’ said Bartholomew, glancing at Michael to warn him to silence. Norys was trying to be co-operative, but Bartholomew sensed he would not tolerate much more of Michael’s rudeness. The fact that Michael did not like pardoners was no reason to lose what might prove to be a valuable witness to the murder of their colleague. ‘What did he look like? Did you recognise him?’

‘We just saw him run, zigzagging through the graves and jumping over the wall behind the church, to the fields beyond.’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You keep saying “him”.’

Norys frowned. ‘I assumed the killer would be a man. There is nothing to say it was not a woman, though: it could have been either. The only other thing I can remember is that he was wearing new leather shoes with silver buckles, and a leather belt with silver bosses.’

‘How can you remember a belt and shoes when you do not even know what sex the person was?’ demanded Michael, exasperated. ‘This is ridiculous! How can you expect us to believe all this?’

‘I do not care whether you do or not,’ said Norys coldly. ‘But before I became a pardoner, my uncle was training me to be a tanner, like him. I happen to know a great deal about leather, and I nearly always notice shoes and belts and suchlike. For example, I only had a glance, but I could tell you exactly what your saddles were like from when you first rode into Grundisburgh.’

‘This belt,’ said Bartholomew, feeling in his bag for the stud he had found after the body of the hanged man had disappeared from Bond’s Corner. ‘Were the silver decorations like this?’

He handed Norys the boss, and the pardoner inspected it minutely, spitting on it and scrubbing it on his sleeve to see it better. In the end, he handed it back with a shrug. ‘It might be. It would be about the right size, but I cannot be certain because he – or she – was too far away. The same goes for the buckles on the shoes, although they were clearly too small for him – his feet did not fit in them, and they slopped.’

‘I do not suppose you noticed whether this person was wearing a blue doublet sewn with silver thread, and whether he carried an ornate dagger, did you?’ asked Michael heavily, watching Bartholomew put the stud back inside his bag.

Norys shook his head. ‘Whoever it was wore a short cloak that hid his upper clothes – and before you ask, I saw the belt because the cloak caught on one of the trees, and I saw the studs sparkle in the sun as this person tried to free it.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I almost went to help, but he wrenched free when he saw me watching. It was just as well I did not offer to assist him, or I might have gone the same way as the priest.’

‘Yes, that was lucky,’ said Michael nastily. ‘So, it looks as if the person you saw could well have been the killer – running in such haste from the church that he became entangled on a branch. Very convenient!’

‘What are you insinuating?’ demanded Norys.

‘He means no offence…’ began Bartholomew.

‘Yes, I do,’ interrupted Michael. He pushed his face close to that of the pardoner. ‘I do not like men who prey on the weaknesses of others, and I find your occupation odious in the extreme. Someone killed my colleague and, as far as I am concerned, a man like you might well be the culprit.’

Norys’s eyes widened, but he did not flinch at Michael’s menacing hiss. ‘You have no evidence to connect me to that. I was with Mistress Freeman when Unwin was killed. Ask her!’

‘Oh?’ asked Michael smoothly. ‘And when was Unwin killed precisely?’

‘Just after the feast,’ replied Norys. ‘The whole village knows that, so do not think my knowing it proves anything.’

‘Thank you for your help, Master Norys,’ said Bartholomew, tugging at Michael’s habit to try to make him leave before he irreparably damaged the chances of prising further information from the pardoner in the future. ‘We appreciate your help.’

‘We most certainly do,’ said Michael, finally allowing Bartholomew to pull him away from his confrontation.

‘I was with Mistress Freeman all afternoon,’ Norys repeated firmly. ‘Just ask her.’

‘Oh, we will,’ said Michael threateningly.

‘Come on,’ said Bartholomew, dragging the monk out of the garden past the tanner, who watched in confusion. ‘That is enough, Brother!’

‘We will be back to see you again, Master Pardoner,’ Michael yelled as Bartholomew opened the gate. ‘Besides being a trusted ally of the Bishop of Ely, I am an agent of the Bishop of Norwich in whose see you live, so do not even think of angering him by absconding to Ipswich.’

‘You are not an agent of the Bishop of Norwich,’ said Bartholomew under his breath. He shot the monk an uncertain look. ‘Are you?’

‘So, just watch your step!’ Michael howled as Bartholomew bundled him out of the gate. The physician shoved the monk away with both hands, then glanced back at the pardoner, concerned that Michael’s outburst might have given an innocent man cause to complain to Tuddenham. He did not want Michaelhouse’s grand deputation sent back to Cambridge in disgrace because Michael was unable to keep his temper under control while in the presence of pardoners. It was not the first time Bartholomew had been forced to rescue one of them from the monk’s irrational fury.

‘Thank you,’ he shouted politely to Norys. ‘You have been very helpful.’

‘My pleasure,’ called Norys with a pleasant smile, apparently oblivious to Michael’s spitting hatred. ‘And I will see what I can do about a relic of St Botolph for you by next week.’

‘We must consider this debate tonight,’ said Father William the following morning as he, Michael and Bartholomew sat in the Half Moon. ‘We must put on our best performance.’

Bartholomew sighed heavily, reluctant to indulge Tuddenham in his whim when he knew the villagers would not be in the slightest bit interested in listening to an academic debate of the kind held daily in the Universities. Alcote had been keen to take part, but Tuddenham had taken very seriously Michael’s suggestion that this might delay the completion of the advowson, and the fussy scholar was virtually a prisoner in Wergen Hall, only allowed out when it was so late that everyone else had gone to bed.

Wauncy had returned from Ipswich the day before with copies of the documents Alcote had said he needed, but it had not taken Bartholomew long to sort through them and see that they were mostly irrelevant. Alcote did not seem overly surprised, leaving Bartholomew to wonder whether he had dispatched Wauncy to Ipswich and suggested that Bartholomew and Michael investigate Unwin’s death purely so that he could work on the advowson alone. If that were true, then Bartholomew suspected Alcote’s motives had nothing to do with finding Unwin’s killer, and a good deal to do with what he could gain personally from rummaging unsupervised through Tuddenham’s business transactions.

The previous evening, Alcote had become even more smug and self-important than usual – a remarkable feat in itself – and Bartholomew had felt his suspicions were justified. In the darkness of the bedchamber, the Senior Fellow had talked deep into the night about how only a man of his intellectual calibre could unravel the confused chaos of Tuddenham’s personal affairs, and the physician had been relieved to escape to take his turn at the vigil for Unwin in the church.

‘Right then,’ said Michael rubbing his hands enthusiastically and beaming at Bartholomew and William. ‘I shall preside over the debate, and you two can present the opposing arguments. The question we shall consider will be “Let us enquire whether the Earth rotates”.’

Bartholomew groaned. ‘Not again! We have debated that at least six times this year already. What about something more interesting, such as whether the cosmos is created of concentric spheres as Aristotle suggests in his Physica and De Caelo, or eccentric and epicyclic ones such as are described in Ptolemy’s Almagest?

Michael and William exchanged weary looks. ‘This is supposed to be an entertaining and edifying experience for all concerned, Matt, not something to be endured,’ said Michael. ‘Hearing you tie everyone else up in logical knots over issues of geometry that the rest of us never knew existed is not most people’s idea of fun.’

‘And especially not mine,’ growled William. ‘We should use this occasion to enlighten the audience, and should therefore consider a religious question. What about “Let us enquire whether God created the heavens or the Earth first”?’

‘How about “Let us enquire whether God is able to create more than one world”?’ asked Bartholomew innocently, knowing it would send the Franciscan into a frenzy of moral outrage. He was not mistaken.

‘That is a heretical notion, Matthew! Article 35 of the Condemnation of 1277 sought to eradicate discussion of such vile notions as the limitations of God’s power.’

‘You mean Article 34, and it was nullified thirty years ago,’ corrected Bartholomew. ‘It is no longer considered heresy. Article 35, of course, says that God cannot have created man from nothing. We could debate that if you prefer, Father? Either would make for a lively discussion.’

‘It might be a little too lively,’ said Michael hastily, intervening before the affronted friar put to use on his friend some of the skills he had learned with the Inquisition. ‘We do not want the good people of Grundisburgh thinking University scholars are a crowd of belligerent fanatics.’

‘Why not?’ muttered Bartholomew. ‘It is not so far from the truth.’

‘I am the presiding master, and I will decide what we will discuss,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘And I have decided we will debate the issue of whether the Earth rotates.’

‘I should be the presiding master,’ said William, turning on him. ‘I am more senior than you.’

‘You are better at arguing a case than at mediating and summing up,’ said Michael soothingly. ‘We should use our skills to their best advantage, so that we can impress the audience with our dazzling logic and verbal acrobatics.’

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ asked Bartholomew uncertainly. ‘I think the villagers would rather spend the night in a tavern, or watch Cynric give a display of archery.’

‘What people want is not always what is best for their souls,’ said William in a superior manner. ‘They will learn a great deal from hearing our intellectual sparring.’

‘All they will learn is that they would have enjoyed themselves better elsewhere,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They will be bored to tears.’

‘Father William can argue that the Earth does not rotate, and you can argue that it does,’ said Michael, ignoring the physician’s grumbling.

‘Why do I always have to argue the absurd positions?’ protested Bartholomew. ‘Of course the Earth does not rotate!’

‘Consider the story of Joshua,’ said Michael. ‘God made the sun and the moon stand still at the battle of Gibeon, so that the Amorites could be defeated. But it would have been a lot easier to halt the Earth than to halt every other celestial body in the sky, and so it must be concluded that it was the rotating Earth God stopped in order to lengthen the day of the battle, not the heavens.’

‘It is easier to jump off the church tower than to walk down the stairs,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But easier does not mean better. And anyway, it says God ordered the sun and the moon to stand still, not the Earth. If He had ordered the Earth to stop rotating, the story would have said so.’

‘Are you questioning the veracity of our Holy Scriptures?’ demanded William looking from one to the other, sensing heresy, but not quite sure where, or how, or from whom.

‘Of course not,’ said Michael. ‘But it must have been the Earth God halted at the battle of Gibeon. Can you imagine how fast the sun and the moon would be moving if they are revolving around us? It defies imagination, and they would be very difficult to stop.’

‘I do not think economy of effort is something the Creator of the Universe needs to take into consideration when He is intervening in human affairs, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, making Michael smile with his imitation of William’s dour voice. ‘And so that is not a valid argument.’

‘It is odd that Matthew is presenting a traditional viewpoint, while you are extolling the virtues of a subversive one, Brother,’ said William, oblivious to the fact that he had been parodied. ‘It is normally the other way around, and it is he who favours the absurd and the heretical.’

‘That is untrue,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘Many of my beliefs are very traditional – especially in relation to geometry.’

‘That is because there is very little that is controversial concerning geometry,’ said William disdainfully. ‘And if there were, only men who favour the sciences like you would understand it. I am talking about your beliefs in medicine and theology, which have caused people to question whether you are in league with the Devil.’

‘Like using all the knowledge and skills at my disposal to try to save a patient’s life, you mean?’ asked Bartholomew archly.

‘That among other things,’ said William, unaware of the irony in Bartholomew’s voice. ‘It is not always God’s will that a person should be saved, Matthew. Sometimes, God – or the Devil – has called a person to his side, and you should not attempt to prevent that person from going.’

‘So, if my patients are being called by the Devil, are you suggesting I bend to his will and let him take them?’

‘No,’ said William stiffly. ‘If they are being called by the Devil you should attempt to snatch them back.’

‘And how am I supposed to know whether they are being called by God or snatched by the Devil?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘It is not usually possible to tell.’

‘You could ask,’ said William coldly.

‘Ask the Devil?’ queried Bartholomew, raising his eyebrows in mock horror. ‘Are you instructing me to commune with the Devil, Father?’

‘Of course not!’ temporised William. ‘But there are ways to deal with such situations.’

‘Such as what?’ persisted Bartholomew.

‘Enough, Matt,’ said Michael, trying to hide his amusement. ‘We can save all this for the debate tonight. But now, we should at least offer to help Alcote.’

Alcote, however, did not want their help. He was seated at the large table in Wergen Hall, surrounded by Tuddenham’s scrolls and writs. A large dish of raisins stood near his elbow, and, judging from the frequency with which his fingers reached for them, Bartholomew saw he might well be in need of another cure for stomach ache that night.

Tuddenham, taking a respite from the villagers he had been questioning about the death of Unwin, stood behind him and peered over his shoulder until, exasperated, Alcote dismissed them all from his presence, promising to recall them should the impossible happen and he should need their advice. Relieved, Bartholomew and Michael left, quickly slipping away while William’s attention was elsewhere lest the Franciscan should decide to spend the rest of the day trying to impress Michael with his interrogatory skills.

To one side of Wergen Hall was a pleasant bower and Isilia, who was sitting there with Dame Eva, beckoned them over. It was a pretty place, surrounded by a tall hazel-weave fence to keep animals out. Inside was a tiny herb garden and an orchard of gnarled apple and pear trees. In the shade of one tree, a long turf bench had been built, and here the ladies sat, sewing and chatting in air that was rich with the aroma of basil, sage, thyme, rosemary and lavender.

‘How is my husband’s advowson proceeding?’ asked Isilia, as they approached. She gestured that they were to sit next to her.

‘Well enough, I think,’ said Michael, leaning back on the bench and stretching his long, fat legs in front of him. ‘Master Alcote is working on it, while Matt and I are trying to discover who killed Unwin. You should ask Alcote if you want to know exactly how the deed is progressing.’

‘I did,’ said Isilia, with a grimace. ‘But he could not bring himself even to look at me, let alone answer my question. He does not like me, although I cannot think what I have done to offend him.’

‘It is nothing personal,’ said Michael. ‘Roger is uncomfortable in the presence of women, and avoids them whenever he can.’

‘Why?’ asked Dame Eva curiously.

Michael shrugged. ‘He is just a peculiar man. Take no notice of him.’

‘But you do not object to the company of women, do you?’ asked Isilia of Barthololomew, eyes glinting with merriment as she saw him blush. ‘I hear you and that young Deynman are the only men in Michaelhouse’s deputation who have not sworn vows of chastity.’

‘Well,’ began Bartholomew, uncertain how to form a reply – although Isilia was clearly expecting one.

‘He is quite free to enjoy a woman’s charms,’ said Michael. ‘And enjoy them he certainly does. Why, in Cambridge–’

‘Here comes Siric,’ said Bartholomew quickly, pointing out Tuddenham’s steward walking toward them. ‘Perhaps he has news of Unwin’s killer.’

But the steward shook his head as he leaned wearily against one of the apple trees. ‘It is almost as if the friar never existed,’ he said despondently. ‘No one knows anything. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. All we have is Eltisley saying he spotted Sir Robert Grosnold talking to Unwin before he died – but it is never wise to believe anything that lunatic claims – and Master Stoate’s observation of a cloaked figure running from the church. It is almost certain the man Stoate saw was the killer, but he is the only one with the courage to admit to what he saw. Everyone else is too afraid.’

‘Afraid of what?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Padfoot,’ said Siric. ‘There is a belief among the villagers that Padfoot will claim them if they help us uncover the person he used as his instrument to take Unwin.’

‘So, they are afraid of ghosts,’ said Michael in disgust.

‘Who is not?’ asked Dame Eva. ‘They are not things people can defend themselves against.’

‘True,’ agreed Siric. ‘But Sir Thomas will have this killer, whether the villagers help us or not. You will see.’

‘Good,’ said Isilia. ‘I will suggest that Wauncy gives a sermon on the subject saying that failing to pass you information that will catch a priest-slayer will mean damnation for certain.’

Siric nodded, although his expression implied he did not believe a sermon by Wauncy would do much good. ‘Eltisley is looking for you,’ he said to Bartholomew. ‘He has brewed a substance that he says will cure warts, and he wants you to taste it. He is coming this way, carrying it in a bucket.’

Isilia smiled mischievously. ‘I will tell you the back way to the village so that you can avoid him. Eltisley’s cures for warts are infamous, and many villagers use them as weed-killers and to clear blocked drains. They also cure warts, but I would not recommend that you taste them.’

Bartholomew and Michael left immediately. Following her directions they walked along a pathway that led through pleasant groves of birch and elder, where birds sang sweetly and bees buzzed loudly in the still, warm air.

Michael chuckled. ‘By going this way we have managed to lose William, too. I do not like him breathing down my neck while I am asking people questions. So, when we reach Grundisburgh, I shall visit the Dog – named, would you believe, after your spectral hound – and conduct my enquiries from there. That wretched Franciscan is unlikely to look for me in a tavern.’

‘Never underestimate the Inquisition, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And anyway, you might be better off having him where you can see him.’

Later, when the fields were bathed in bright gold light, Warin de Stoate came to invite Bartholomew to ride with him to a nearby leper hospital. Bartholomew accepted readily, and spent a happy afternoon discussing medicine with a man who, even if he did not understand or agree with all that was said, was at least interested. Rashly believing that such an opportunity might be beneficial to Deynman’s medical studies, Stoate extended the invitation to the student, dismissing Bartholomew’s words of caution with a magnanimity he was later to regret.

While Stoate and Bartholomew reviewed the lepers’ symptoms with the friar who ran the hospital, Deynman slipped away and decided to experiment with a theory of his own: namely that leprosy could be cured with a poultice made from garlic, nettles and the hair of a stallion. By the time the unpleasant aroma had drifted to where Stoate and Bartholomew sat talking with Father Peter, Stoate’s horse had been relieved of its tail (Bartholomew’s and Deynman’s mounts were exempted on the grounds that they were mares). Fortunately, none of the lepers had been foolish enough to allow Deynman to try his stew on their skin, and Father Peter managed to knot a bunch of grass around what remained of the stallion’s tail, thus enabling the bereft animal to flick away the flies that plagued it. Stoate, however, was not amused, and did not appreciate his horse being the object of mirth from the people they passed on the road.

By the time Bartholomew had placated Stoate by listening with rapt attention to his odd theories on the bloody flux, he was hot, tired and irritable, and certainly not in the mood to participate in a debate that evening. Sensing that a quick disappearance might be prudent, Deynman slunk off to seek out Horsey as soon as they arrived in Grundisburgh, while Stoate went to visit Eltisley, to see if a replacement tail for the stallion could be devised that would look less like the handful of grass that had been fastened to it. Bartholomew went to find Michael.

The monk was still in the Dog. Feeling magnanimous after several cups of strong claret, he had invited William to accompany him to speak again to the people who lived opposite the church about Unwin’s death, hoping that one of them might have remembered something new. It was not long before Michael appreciated more than ever Bartholomew’s easy and intelligent companionship, and he had almost came to blows with William regarding the degree of coercion that could and could not be applied when questioning innocent bystanders. After half a dozen such encounters, he threw up his hands in despair and left William to his own devices. The rest of his day was spent in the peaceful garden of the Dog enjoying the far more congenial company of the landlord, who had won the monk’s heart by requesting his expert opinion on various pastries.

‘The apple is superior to the raisin,’ he announced authoritatively, wiping greasy fingers on his small piece of linen. The linen had evidently seen a good deal of use that day, and was looking grubby and rumpled. Almost as if he sensed Bartholomew’s observation, the landlord presented Michael with a new piece, embroidered around the edges and made of finest quality white cloth. It was also much larger than the old one, and therefore a more suitable size for a glutton like Michael.

‘A gift to show my gratitude for your advice on my recipes,’ said the landlord solemnly.

Michael inclined his head graciously, and accepted it, dabbing delicately at his sticky lips.

‘Norys predicted that someone would give you a present,’ said Bartholomew, sitting next to him and taking a slice of something containing dates, which Michael had somehow missed.

Michael’s face creased in annoyance. ‘I was perfectly happy until you mentioned that vile name. Can we not talk of more pleasant things? Like boiled cream custard – a delicious combination of thick cream, egg yolks and butter, flavoured with sugar and saffron, presented to me by my good friend the innkeeper here. Try some. Oh! There seems to be none left’

‘We have not really discussed the man Norys saw running from the church the afternoon Unwin died,’ said Bartholomew, taking a long draught from Michael’s pot of ale. He was grateful to sit in the shade for a while, before the debate started. Obligingly, the landlord brought more food – chicken in almonds, and some buttered cabbage that Michael regarded as though it were poisonous.

‘I have been thinking about nothing else,’ said Michael untruthfully, regarding the number of empty platters that surrounded him. ‘Norys did it. That weaselly pardoner killed poor Unwin just as surely as you are sitting there.’

‘I do not think so, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. ‘What evidence do you have, other than the fact that you do not like pardoners?’

‘He has gone to Ipswich and will not be returning,’ said Michael. ‘That is a sign of his guilt.’

Bartholomew opened his eyes quickly. ‘Really? How do you know he will not come back?’

Michael sniffed. ‘No one can find him. He is not in the village.’

Bartholomew sighed and closed his eyes again. ‘That does not mean he has gone permanently. His uncle said he often stays in Ipswich for several days at a time.’

‘But I told him not to go. I believe his sudden absence is too coincidental, given that I hinted I thought he might be involved in Unwin’s murder. The man has fled, I tell you.’

‘He would have fled a lot earlier if he had been guilty. You are on thin ice with this, Brother.’

‘He knew I suspected him of the murder, and so what did he do but invent a fictitious figure running out of the church in great haste. No one else saw this person – I have been tramping all over the village with William this afternoon, and no one saw a thing.’

‘But Stoate also saw someone leaving the church.’

Michael glared at him for interrupting. ‘And Norys expects me to believe that he noticed this person’s belt and shoes, but not his face, or even whether it was a man or a woman!’

‘But that happens,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘And to prove it, I did a similar thing with the lepers I visited this afternoon.’ Michael edged away from him. ‘I could tell you in great detail what stages the disease was at, and what symptoms the leper was suffering, but I am not sure I could tell you how many men and how many women I saw.’

‘But that is completely different,’ said Michael. ‘It is not easy to tell a man from a woman when the face is swathed in bandages.’

‘But women wear dresses and men wear hose, just as they do anywhere else,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I did not pay attention to that while there were more interesting things to see.’

‘You enjoyed yourself, then?’ asked Michael dryly. ‘Did Deynman?’

Bartholomew laughed. ‘I should say. He had the tail off Stoate’s horse, and cooked it with garlic as a cure for leprosy. But Norys is right – we often only notice the things that interest us. I saw a fascinating case of leprosy of the mouth today, but I could not tell you what that person wore, or what was the colour of his – or her – hair.’

‘Do you know, Matt, if someone had told me ten years ago that my closest friend would be a man whose chief sources of pleasure in life are poking about with leprous sores and telling people about sewage in drinking water, I would never have accepted the Fellowship at Michaelhouse.’

‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, intrigued. ‘What would you have done instead? I should have thought nothing could suit you as well as all the subterfuge and intrigue at the University, not to mention the enjoyment you get from working as the Bishop of Ely’s spy.’

‘True,’ admitted Michael. ‘Politics and affairs of state pale by comparison.’

They sat in comfortable silence, listening to the agitated twitter of a wren as a cat slunk past its territory, and the hypnotic coo of a dove in the churchyard elms. As the sun sank lower in the sky, people began to return from the fields, their tools carried over their shoulders, and their clothes caked in dust. They looked bone weary, all of them with sweat-stained faces and skin that was burned a deep red-brown. A few stopped at the Dog for ale to wash away the grit that stuck in their throats, but most went home to where smoke issued from the roofs of their houses, indicating that something was cooking on the hearth. Why they would then want to walk a mile to Wergen Hall to hear a debate about the rotation of the Earth was beyond Bartholomew.

‘Father Peter, who cares for the lepers, keeps a diary of his observations,’ he said conversationally, turning his mind from the tired labourers to his visit to the hospital.

‘A diary of leprosy! That must make fascinating reading,’ said Michael caustically. ‘In fact, it probably equals the preliminary draft of the advowson Alcote wrote today.’

‘These long-term observations have made a number of things clear to me about the progress of the disease,’ began Bartholomew. ‘First, when the lesions appear initially–’

‘Perhaps you can tell me about leprous sores when I have finished eating,’ said Michael, quickly snatching up a piece of chicken. Once the physician started to discuss some aspect of medicine that interested him, he was difficult to stop, and Michael was not in the mood to be regaled with lurid descriptions of nasty diseases.

‘Hurry up, then,’ said Bartholomew, looking at the mountain of food that still waited to be packed away inside the monk’s ample girth. ‘Or we will be late for the debate.’

‘As I was saying, before you so cunningly changed the subject, that pardoner is as guilty as sin. Did you see his face when I pointed out how he would be unable to see a person’s belt if he wore a cloak? That trapped the little weasel!’

‘Actually, I think he raised that point himself,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You have no reason to accuse him of anything.’

‘Your midwife thinks he is guilty. She suggested we interrogate him.’

‘She suggested we ask him whether anyone had tried to sell the stolen relic,’ said Bartholomew patiently. ‘She was not presenting him as a suspect, but as someone who might be able to help us solve the crime. And Norys did not have to tell us what he saw; he did so because he wants the killer caught as much as we do.’

‘Rubbish!’ snapped Michael. ‘He made all that up. What better way to divert suspicion from himself – and he only admitted he was in the churchyard because he knows someone probably saw him there, and he does not want to be caught out in a lie – than to invent some mysterious character running from the church at the precise time that the murder was committed? It is brilliant! It is like something I would have thought up myself.’

‘But Stoate also saw a person running from the church,’ Bartholomew pointed out again. ‘Or is he lying, too?’

‘Of course not, but Norys and Stoate have not given us the same description. The man Stoate saw wore a long dark cloak, which led him to think that a prank was being played and made him concerned that the wearer would faint from overheating. Of course, our esteemed pardoner owns a long cloak, as do all vermin of his trade, so the cloak Norys’s man wore is short, and conveniently caught on a tree to reveal his studded belt. Stoate mentions no studded belt or over-small shoes…’

‘But Norys explained why he noticed those: because he was trained as a tanner, and so tends to observe leather. Similarly, Stoate noticed the person rubbed his eyes, because he is a physician.’

‘But Norys did not mention the rubbed eyes, did he? Something as obvious as that, and he did not mention it. Did you look at his eyes, Matt? Did they look as though they had been rubbed?’

‘Something as obvious as that, and you did not notice it?’ asked Bartholomew in a very plausible imitation of Michael. The monk narrowed his eyes, not amused. ‘But you see my point, Brother? You do not recall whether Norys’s eyes were sore, and neither, necessarily, would anyone else, unless they happened to have a special reason for doing so.’

‘So were his eyes red or not?’ snapped Michael irritably.

‘They were not. Mind you, that is not to say that they were not red when Unwin died.’

‘Aha!’ pounced Michael. ‘You think he is guilty, too.’

‘God’s teeth, Brother!’ cried Bartholomew in exasperation. ‘You are like the Inquisition, twisting words in a way that Father William could only dream of! What is the matter with you? Will you allow a mere pardoner to ruffle your immaculate composure in a way that crooked merchants, cunning murderers and deceitful academics can never do?’

Michael leaned back against the wall and eyed him narrowly, breathing heavily as he fought to bring his temper under control. Eventually, he gave a wan smile.

‘Forgive me, Matt. You are right. I will never prove this pardoner’s guilt if I allow him to make me too angry to see reason.’

‘And you will not see reason if you are too fixed on this man’s guilt,’ said Bartholomew.

Michael gnawed on his lip. ‘I do not know why I listen to you telling me how unreasonable I am in my dislikes, when you have developed an irrational hatred of our poor landlord, Eltisley.’ He took a gulp of wine and sighed. ‘And you can say what you like, but there are inconsistencies in the tale Norys told us, and the one Stoate did. Mistress Freeman, for a start.’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew, considering. ‘Norys maintains he was with her all afternoon, until after Unwin was killed, while Stoate says he was talking to her when this mysterious person came running from the church.’

‘We will ask her about it first thing tomorrow,’ said Michael, picking listlessly at his chicken. He flung down his knife in disgust. ‘That odious pardoner has made me lose my appetite!’

‘You are not hungry because you have not stopped eating all day,’ said Bartholomew, laughing.

‘I do not suppose Master Stoate furnished you with any more details about the man he saw running from the church?’ asked Michael, ignoring the comment.

‘No,’ said Bartholomew, ‘although we twice went over what he saw as we rode to the leper hospital. I thought if he told the story more than once he might add a detail that he had previously forgotten, but he had nothing new to say.’

‘And the cloak he saw this person wearing was definitely a long one?’ asked Michael.

‘Yes, down to the ankles. I asked whether it might have concealed a suit of black clothes, but he said no. He thinks the person he saw was not big enough to be Grosnold.’

‘Well, that is something,’ said Michael. ‘Can we eliminate the bald lord from Otley, then?’

‘Not yet,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He has plenty of retainers. He may have had this odd conversation with Unwin that Eltisley saw in the churchyard, then dispatched someone else to kill him in the church later.’

‘He would have to act quickly, though,’ said Michael, frowning. ‘Think about the chain of events: just before the feast, Grosnold thunders out of the village, trampling half the residents, and then doubles back to waylay Unwin in the churchyard. Immediately after the feast – and we saw how little time that took – Norys takes Mistress Freeman for a stroll around her late husband’s grave (or Mistress Freeman stands talking with Master Stoate by the ford, depending on who you believe), and out comes this mysterious figure in the cloak.’

Bartholomew took up the tale. ‘Within moments, Horsey goes in search of his friend, and finds his body. We know Unwin had not been dead long, because he was still warm and I thought I might be able to bring him back to life.’

‘So, three people saw this figure running from the church: Norys, Stoate and Mistress Freeman. Siric, Tuddenham’s steward, said he spoke to Mistress Freeman, and she confirmed she saw someone run from the church just after the feast, but she was unable to provide a description of him.’

‘Did Siric ask whether she was with Norys or Stoate when this took place?’

Michael shook his head. ‘He had only been instructed to ask her what she had seen, not who she was with. But we can ask her ourselves tomorrow. And I will catch her out if she lies to me.’

‘Why should she lie to you?’

‘It seems to the Norys is more fond of this widow-of-a-few-days than is entirely appropriate. She may have claimed to have seen this person running from the church because Norys told her to.’

Bartholomew sighed, and thought about Norys’s story. ‘What about the shoes and silver-studded belt that Norys described? They sound remarkably similar to the garments worn by the man we found hanging at Bond’s Corner. I do not see how Norys could have known about that, and so I am inclined to believe him.’

‘He would have known about them if he were also the man who did the hanging in the first place,’ pounced Michael. ‘It is simple. Norys kills some poor peasant, who happened to have stolen Deblunville’s clothes, and hid the body after we almost caught him at it. He then pretends to have seen someone wearing these same clothes running from the scene of Unwin’s murder – or perhaps he even wore them himself. In order to confuse us further, he suggests Deblunville, or another of Suffolk’s quarrelling knights, is responsible, and not one of the villagers. He is muddying the waters, but he cannot stir up the filth enough to fool me.’

‘Then why, when I showed him the stud I recovered, did he not use it to his own advantage?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He could have assured us that it definitely belonged to the belt worn by the hanged man. Instead, he said he was uncertain.’

‘He might have been uncertain. For all he knew, you might have just pulled it off your own belt, and then he would have been caught out in an untruth.’

‘For someone you consider dull-witted, you are accrediting Norys with a good deal of intelligence,’ said Bartholomew doubtfully.

‘Not intelligence, Matt. Raw cunning. Like one of those damned cats he has creeping about the house. Did you notice how much he looked like one?’

‘Of course,’ said Bartholomew, standing and stretching. ‘But we cannot do anything more tonight because of this debate. After we bury Unwin tomorrow morning, you and I will visit Mistress Freeman, and then we will know who is lying and who is telling the truth.’

‘Where is William?’ hissed Michael anxiously to Bartholomew as the light faded from the sky behind Wergen Hall.

Bartholomew shrugged, wondering whether he should go to look for the absent friar. The debate was due to start at any moment, and it would be a very short one if only one side of the argument were presented. Michael fretted, pacing up and down in the dusty courtyard outside Tuddenham’s manorial home, as the villagers filed past him to take their seats in the main chamber. Bartholomew felt almost guilty when he saw the keen anticipation on their weary faces, certain that they were in for a tedious evening.

He was on the verge of leaving to hunt William down, when the friar appeared, hurrying along the path from the village. His grey robe flapped round his ankles, and his face was red with effort and agitation.

‘Where have you been?’ demanded Michael. ‘We are almost ready to begin, and I wanted to go through a couple of your arguments with you beforehand, to…’ He hesitated.

‘To make sure Matthew does not savage the too brutally in the debating chamber?’ finished William. Unaccustomed to such self-effacement from the friar, Michael was, for once, at a loss for words. ‘Well, you need not concern yourself, Brother. I have had more than enough time since you left me to hone and refine my own contentions.’ He scowled unpleasantly.

‘Why, what have you been doing?’ asked Bartholomew, puzzled.

‘I have been locked inside that damned latrine for the best part of the afternoon,’ snapped William angrily. ‘Some lunatic put a device on the door that can only be operated from the outside. Once you are in and the door is closed, the only way to get out is if someone opens it for you.’

‘Eltisley!’ said Bartholomew, trying not to laugh. ‘He was meddling with the doors yesterday, trying to fit some mechanism that would prevent desperate people from rattling the handles of occupied stalls. It was probably that which caused you problems.’

‘It was a red metal thing,’ said William. ‘In the end, I had to unscrew the hinge and remove the whole door, or I would still be there now, since no one answered my calls for help. Eltisley intended that lock to mean business!’

‘Come on,’ said Michael, taking his arm and leading him inside the manor house. ‘Or the people of Grundisburgh will be thinking we are afraid to show them our talents.’

‘Or perhaps they do not want to see them – hence William’s imprisonment,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I cannot imagine that no one walked past the latrines all afternoon. Perhaps it is their way of telling us they would rather be elsewhere.’

‘Nonsense,’ said William grimly. ‘These peasants will have an excellent time this evening.’

‘Will you tell them that, or shall I?’ asked Michael, grinning behind the friar’s back.

He walked up the stairs, entered the main hall and sat in a large wooden chair that had been placed in the middle of the room, while Bartholomew and William stood on either side of him. The hall was full and overly warm, with some people leaning up against the walls at the back and others sitting on the floor near the front, as well as those perched on benches in the middle. Somewhere a goat bleated, and there was an atmosphere of tense expectation. The window shutters stood open, but the air was too still to admit a breeze, and the room smelled of sweat, stale rushes and cut grass. Michael cleared his throat and an instant silence fell over the crowd.

‘We are here to discuss a question,’ the monk began grandly. ‘And the answer to that question lies at the very heart of our understanding of the universe. The ideas and theories you will hear expounded today come from some of the greatest minds the world has ever known – ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, and respected authorities from our own time, such as John Buridan.’

He paused for dramatic effect, and Bartholomew saw that one or two people were already beginning to shift restlessly, while a group of small children at his feet was far more interested in racing some insects through the rushes than in anything Michael had to say.

‘The only way to learn and to understand complex philosophical, theological and scientific issues is through disputation,’ continued Michael pompously. ‘If any one of you wishes to state a theory or to ask a question, you are welcome to do so at any time.’

‘How long is this going to last?’ called a burly man from the back, who held a piglet in his arms. ‘Only I need to get back to the sow.’

‘I will bear that in mind,’ said Michael. ‘But I prefer that any questions asked relate to the issue we are debating, namely: “Let us consider whether the Earth rotates”.’

‘Rotates? You mean spins round?’ asked the man with the pig.

‘Precisely,’ said Michael. ‘On the one hand, we can consider that the Earth is at the centre of the universe and is immobile; on the other, we can assume that it rotates on a daily basis, which accounts for the rising and setting of the celestial bodies. Father William will argue that the Earth is motionless; Doctor Bartholomew will argue that it is not.’

‘He is wrong, then,’ said Dame Eva with conviction. ‘I have never heard such rubbish.’

‘Which is wrong, madam?’ asked Michael. ‘That the Earth rotates or that it is motionless?’

‘She means that it rotates,’ said Tuddenham. ‘Of course it does not rotate. It is not a maypole!’

‘I am quite capable of answering for myself,’ said Dame Eva. She turned a bright, somewhat hostile, eye on Bartholomew. ‘Well, go on, then. Explain yourself. Explain how you have dreamt up such a gross flight of fancy.’

‘Not so gross,’ said Eltisley thoughtfully. ‘A rotation of the Earth would explain why we have winter and summer.’

‘It would?’ asked Bartholomew uncertainly.

Eltisley nodded, scratching his chin. ‘The Earth rotates toward the sun in summer, making the weather warm, but rotates away from it in the winter, bringing snow and cold winds.’

‘The notion is that the Earth rotates on a daily basis,’ said Bartholomew, ‘not on a yearly one. A daily rotation explains why the sun rises and sets, and why the stars move, but not why the seasons change.’

‘Well, what does explain the advent of winter and summer, then?’ demanded Eltisley. ‘I defy you to come up with a better explanation than the one I have suggested.’

Expectant eyes turned towards Bartholomew.

‘And then you can tell us how to control it,’ said the man with the pig, looking around him for the support of his friends. ‘Summer was too late in coming this year. And it would be better if we could miss winter altogether, and just go from autumn to spring each year.’

There was not a person in the room who was not nodding enthusiastically. Bartholomew glanced at Michael, struggling to keep a straight face.

‘It is outside the topic of our discussion today,’ said Michael quickly, before William could start accusing people of heresy because they wanted to take control of the seasons out of the hands of God. ‘Perhaps we could debate that question on another occasion. But Father William, perhaps you would begin, and state the arguments against the rotation of the Earth?’

William opened his mouth to speak, but Isilia was there before him, shaking her head admonishingly. ‘Of course it does not spin. We would all feel dizzy if it did.’

‘And sick,’ added Mother Goodman. ‘And there would be no end to the potions I would need to make for queasy stomachs.’ She shook her scarfed head firmly. ‘No. The Earth does not spin. The Franciscan is right.’

‘One point to you,’ said Michael, glancing up at William and trying not to smile. ‘Do you have anything else to add, before you rest your case?’

‘Aristotle, Ptolemy and the Bible all state that the Earth lies immobile at the centre of the universe,’ said William drawing himself up to his full height, and looking around at the assembled audience. ‘I cannot see the need to cite any more potent authorities to prove my argument.’

Michael sighed under his breath. ‘Come on, Father. These people want more than flat assertions. This will be a very short debate, or a very tedious one, unless you make more effort.’

‘Aristarchus of Samos said the Earth rotates on its axis,’ said Bartholomew, trying to enter the spirit of the occasion, ‘and it is this daily rotation that makes it seem as though the celestial bodies move, when they are actually still.’

‘No one believes him any more,’ said William dismissively. He folded his arms, and exchanged a victorious smile with the man who held the pig.

‘But Buridan, in his commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo, states that the problem with understanding the rotation of the Earth lies in relative motion,’ said Bartholomew. ‘So, if you are at sea in a ship, and you see another ship passing you, it is not possible to determine from observation alone whether it is the other ship moving or your own.’

‘Only if you are drunk,’ shouted Hamon, drawing a murmur of agreement and vigorously nodded heads from his friends. ‘I always know whether I am moving or not when I sail down the river to Woodbridge.’

‘I said on the sea,’ said Bartholomew, trying to be patient. It was like having a debate with a room full of Deynmans. ‘On a river you would have points of reference to tell you whether you are moving or still. On the sea there is no point of reference, except the other boat – hence you cannot tell whether it is your vessel or the other that is moving.’

‘I need none of these “points of reference” to tell me whether I am still or not,’ said Hamon firmly. ‘I just know.’

A chorus of cheers rose around the room, drowning out Bartholomew’s attempt to explain further what he had meant.

‘Two points to William,’ muttered Michael, amused. ‘This is far more entertaining than a debate at the University.’

Bartholomew sighed, wishing he had never agreed to comply with Tuddenham’s request in the first place. William, in the rare position of winning a debate against Bartholomew, was beginning to enjoy himself. His booming voice cut through the hum of conversation that had erupted.

‘Buridan says that if the Earth rotates, and if I threw a stone straight up into the sky, it would not land at the place from where I had thrown it – the Earth would have moved, and it would land somewhere else.’ He looked around at the audience, and spread his hands in an expansive shrug. ‘And we all know that is not the case. A stone thrown directly upwards, lands directly underneath where it was thrown from.’

‘Like this?’ asked Eltisley, grabbing a heavy pewter goblet from one of his surly customers and hurling it, contents and all, up at the ceiling. Ale splattered over the audience, and the cup clanged deafeningly against a rafter before clattering down at Michael’s feet.

‘It did not come down under the place from which it was thrown,’ said Hamon, regarding it in awe. ‘It came down to one side. Perhaps the Earth does rotate after all.’ There was a rumble of agreement, and some sagely exchanged nods. Hamon looked at Bartholomew for confirmation.

‘That was not a straight throw,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It did not come down on Master Eltisley’s head because he hurled it at an angle.’

‘You have just scored a point in favour of rotation, Matt,’ said Michael, his green eyes glittering with mischief. ‘Do not dismiss it so lightly. You are unlikely to win another if you persist with all this theoretical nonsense.’

‘No, no, no,’ said Tuddenham, shaking his head. ‘The Earth cannot be rotating: if it were, we would feel the wind of it on our faces.’

‘But we do,’ said Hamon fervently. ‘There is nearly always a wind at Peche Hall, whispering in the trees and rippling the water on the moat.’

‘But the wind does not always comes from the same direction,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘If the Earth was moving from west to east, then the wind would always come from the east – and we all know it does not.’

‘Perhaps that is because the Earth does not always rotate in the same direction,’ reasoned Hamon. Several of his friends voiced their agreement.

‘But it must always rotate in the same direction,’ said Bartholomew, regarding him askance. ‘Otherwise the moon would not always rise after the sun sets.’

‘But it does not,’ said Eltisley. ‘We have all seen the moon in the sky while the sun is still up, and sometimes we cannot see whether it has risen at all because of clouds.’

‘But it is still there,’ said Bartholomew, startled. ‘Even if we cannot see it.’

‘Prove it,’ challenged Eltisley. Several villagers began to shout encouragement, some to Bartholomew, others to Eltisley. ‘You do not know what is above the clouds.’

‘Only God knows that,’ put in William loudly.

‘But this rotation of the Earth would explain the wind,’ said Hamon thoughtfully, once the racket had died down. ‘And when it is very windy, it means the Earth is rotating faster than usual.’

‘No, it does not,’ said Bartholomew, feeling as though the points raised were becoming steadily more outrageous. ‘The wind is independent of rotation. As the Earth moves, everything – the earth, the air and all sublunar matter – moves with it in a circular motion, the wind included.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Dame Eva in a surprisingly strong voice for a woman of her years. ‘And, despite Eltisley’s experiment, I have tossed things in the air that have returned directly to me, not landed half a league down the road.’

‘There are two types of motion associated with an object thrown into the air,’ said Bartholomew, remembering a lecture he had heard by the young scholar Nicole Oresme. ‘The first is an upward motion, and the second is west to east, following the circular motion of the Earth. Therefore, an object thrown into the air that returns to the place where it originated, does not prove or disprove that the Earth rotates.’

‘But we can only see one motion,’ argued William. ‘The vertical one.’

‘That is because we are part of the Earth’s circular motion, too,’ said Bartholomew.

‘We cannot see the circular motion because we are part of it?’ asked Tuddenham, eyeing Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘I cannot imagine where you scholars find the time to concoct all these peculiar ideas.’

‘Let us conclude,’ said Michael, sensing the whole affair might become acrimonious if allowed to drag on. He rubbed at a flabby chin. ‘It has been argued that the Earth does not rotate, because we would feel dizzy and we would all be after Mother Goodman for remedies for sick stomachs. It has also been argued that we do not need points of reference to know whether we are moving or not, because we just know.’

‘Right.’ Hamon nodded vigorously. ‘That makes sound sense. We just know.’

‘On the other hand, Master Eltisley demonstrated that an object thrown in the air does not fall to the Earth at the point from which it originated, thus proving that the Earth is spinning in a west-to-east direction.’

‘And it explains the seasons,’ added Eltisley, reluctant to let that one pass.

‘And the wind we feel is because the Earth is spinning,’ added Hamon. ‘Any changes in wind direction means that the Earth is spinning a different way.’

Bartholomew sighed in exasperation.

‘Quite,’ said Michael. ‘Argued most intelligently, Sir Hamon.’ Hamon exchanged a smile of pride with his uncle, and Michael continued. ‘And so, weighing up both sides of the argument, as is my duty as presiding master, I can only conclude that the evidence is insufficient on either side to answer the question satisfactorily.’

There was silence in the room, and a number of mystified looks exchanged.

‘Now, just a minute,’ said Tuddenham indignantly. ‘There was plenty of evidence presented here for you to make up your mind. You are just trying to please everyone by calling it a draw.’

‘The point of a debate, Sir Thomas,’ said Michael, ‘is not to discover the definitive answer to a question, but to present the evidence, such as it is, and examine it logically, demonstrating the human ability to think and process information.’

‘You what?’ demanded the man with the pig. ‘Does the Earth spin or not? That is what we all want to know, not whether you can examine evidence loquaciously.’

There was a cheer from the audience at his eloquence, and he enjoyed the adulation of the people who stood around him.

‘Did I say “loquaciously” instead of “logically”?’ asked Michael of Bartholomew, as the audience clapped and banged their feet on the floor. ‘I may have done, you know. I have seldom been less in control at a disputation than at this one. At least scholars generally keep to the rules.’

When the racket showed no sign of abating, he stood and raised his hands to quieten the excited villagers. ‘We will decide this democratically, by asking the audience which theory it thinks is correct,’ he yelled.

‘No!’ said Hamon, leaping to his feet and looking around at the assembled villagers. ‘We will not decide democratically. We will have a vote!’

‘I should have let you be presiding master, after all,’ muttered Michael to William, his words barely audible over the thunder of applause that met Hamon’s suggestion, while Bartholomew sat in Michael’s chair and laughed. ‘This is all quite beyond me.’

‘All those who think the Earth rotates, raise one hand,’ bellowed William, the only one with a voice that could be projected over the babble. Immediately, nearly all the hands in the room were waved at him. ‘I said raise one hand!’ thundered William. He made a sound of exasperation as most of them went back down again. ‘I meant one hand each, not one hand between all of you!’

‘Come on!’ cried Hamon, prowling around the room and grabbing the arms of those who were not voting. ‘What is wrong with you? All of you have felt the wind on your faces as the Earth moves. Think about that storm we had last autumn – that was the Earth speeding up.’

‘Now, all those who believe that the Earth is motionless, raise one hand,’ said William, once he had made a quick count. Bartholomew started to laugh again when he saw an equal number of hands raised, most of them from the people who had already voted the other way. Hamon leapt around the room slapping them down until he was certain his side had the majority, and grinned at Dame Eva triumphantly.

‘The Earth does spin,’ he announced. ‘You are wrong in thinking that it does not.’

She gave him a weary look, and hobbled from the room. Hamon led his supporters in a chorus of loud cheers, which quickly petered out when Tuddenham fixed them with an admonishing glare. As people began to disperse, Tuddenham sought out Michael.

‘So, that is how debates are held at the universities,’ he said. ‘Most intriguing, although I am a little surprised at its brutality of reason. I expected something a little more probing and subtle, not all this yelling and hurling of objects up to the ceiling.’

‘They vary,’ said Michael vaguely. ‘It really depends on the participants. Come to visit us in Michaelhouse, and I will take you to a real one.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ said Tuddenham, a little wistfully. ‘But thank you, Brother. I have not enjoyed an event as much since last year’s muck-spreading competition.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Michael.

Bartholomew awoke the following morning to a dawn that gleamed dully with a silver mist that lay in uneven strips across the fields and along the river. Gradually, as the sun rose above the tree-ridged hill, it bathed the mist in red and then gold, before burning it away altogether. He stood with his arms resting on the windowsill, listening to Eltisley’s cockerel crowing in thee yard below, and watching two of the surly men heave barrels of ale from a cart into the cellar. Eltisley saw him, and waved cheerfully. Absently, Bartholomew waved back, thinking of the colleague whose funeral was that day.

He walked down the stairs, and found Eltisley laying out bread and ale for breakfast. The innkeeper smiled at Bartholomew and indicated that he should sit, but Bartholomew was not hungry and did not feel much like eating when he was about to bury Unwin. Alcote was already there, pale faced and heavy eyed from a night rendered restless by too many raisins.

‘That potion you gave me did not work,’ he complained to Bartholomew. ‘I still feel dreadful.’

Bartholomew felt Alcote’s forehead. It was cold and clammy, but Alcote was a cold and clammy person, and Bartholomew was not overly concerned. He imagined that the chief cause of Alcote’s continued ill health was because he was anxious about the advowson, and was working too hard to ingratiate himself with Tuddenham.

‘We have had more than our share of funerals this month,’ said Eltisley conversationally, as they waited for the others to arrive. The physician did not feel the landlord’s jovial tone was appropriate for such a discussion, particularly bearing in mind they were about to attend another.

‘So I understand,’ he said shortly, wishing Eltisley would go away.

‘First there was poor Alice Quy and then there was James Freeman,’ Eltisley continued happily, clattering about with his pewter plates. ‘I had to invent a special box for him, because otherwise all that blood would have damaged the parish coffin, and leaked over the church.’

‘Mother Goodman said yours leaked, too,’ said Bartholomew unkindly.

Eltisley looked crestfallen. ‘Well, I did my best. I was sent inferior wood, and even though I sealed all the joints, the blood simply seeped out. It took me a whole day to make that box – even with some of my customers helping me.’ He nodded at the surly men who were labouring with the barrels in the yard. ‘They are casual labourers, hired by Hamon to help with the crop weeding.’

‘What happened to Alice Quy?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Mother Goodman says you gave her a potion for her childbirth fever. What was in it?’

‘Ah,’ said Eltisley, regarding Bartholomew with a hurt expression. ‘You think my potion hastened her end. I can assure you, Doctor, I gave her nothing that would cause her harm. It was a mild mixture of feverfew mixed with honeyed wine. Surely there can be nothing noxious in that?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Bartholomew.

‘And what was in that one you gave me on Monday night?’ demanded Alcote, holding his stomach for dramatic effect. ‘I am still suffering.’

‘I have already told you,’ said Eltisley, offended. ‘It was not my potion that made you ill – Tuddenham’s cook told me that you ate raisins all day, and too many of those are very bad for you. Anyway, my wife and I take a dose of my black potion nightly, and we are both well.’

Bartholomew could not imagine how.

‘James Freeman’s death was a shock to us all so soon after Alice Quy,’ continued Eltisley, shaking his head. ‘Poor Dame Eva found him when she went to collect Wergen Hall’s pork, and I heard her cries of shock. She is a sensible lady, but even she was shaken by what she saw – the butcher’s neck hacked with one of those great knives he used for chopping up animal carcasses. It was her suggestion that I build a special coffin because of all the blood. Next time, I will line the thing with pitch. Pitch is used to render boats watertight, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I do know, although I hope there will not be a next time.’

Most of the villagers were waiting at the church to pay their last respects to Unwin. Bartholomew wondered whether they were there on Tuddenham’s orders, or whether they were as genuinely shocked by the murder as they claimed. Father William rattled through the requiem mass at a speed that had most of the villagers nodding appreciatively and Walter Wauncy’s eyes hard with envy. William was renowned for his fast masses in Cambridge, although he usually made up for them with excessively long sermons, during which he railed about heresy, making frequent reference to the lurid wall paintings in St Michael’s Church. There were no Judgement Day paintings in Grundisburgh, and William found little inspiration in the restful mural depicting St Margaret, whose timeless gaze watched over the assembly with a curiously sad smile.

As the requiem proceeded, Bartholomew, standing with his Michaelhouse colleagues in a line next to the coffin, looked at the villagers in the body of the church. Warin de Stoate was with some of his young friends at the back, gazing down at the floor and poking the earth with the toe of his boot. Eltisley was regarding the roof speculatively, and Bartholomew saw him raise an arm and measure something by squinting at his thumb with one eye. Wauncy would need to be on his guard if Eltisley had designs on improving what was already a perfectly functional ceiling.

Tuddenham and his family had wooden benches in the chancel. Dame Eva sat with her back against one of the walls, gazing at the painted rood loft, a small gallery that ran across the church between the nave and the choir. Isilia sat next to her, shifting uncomfortably on the hard wood, one hand resting on her stomach, where her unborn child kicked. She caught Bartholomew’s eye and gave him a small smile of sympathy. Next to her was Tuddenham himself, his eyes fixed on the shrouded figure in the coffin, his expression unreadable. Hamon stood behind him, kicking the wall with a spurred heel, hands pushed deep inside his leather jerkin.

Opposite the Tuddenhams were some specially invited guests. Grosnold sat in the best chair, his jet armour exchanged for a black cotte, hose and cloak. Next to him was a small man with a crooked spine and shabby clothes, who fidgeted throughout the mass as though sitting still was painful for him. Wauncy, his robes swinging about his skeletal form and his white face more than usually gaunt, looked like the Angel of Death in the gloom. He joined in the singing of a psalm with a voice so deep and resonant that it sent an unpleasant chill down Bartholomew’s spine. The physician sang louder so that he would not have to hear it, drawing curious glances from Michael and Alcote.

By the time the mass was over, the sky had clouded to a menacing grey. Bartholomew and Cynric lifted Unwin’s shrouded body from the parish coffin and lowered it gently into the gaping rectangular hole under the yew tree that had been prepared the day before. By the time they had finished, rain was beginning to fall in a misty pall. Drops pattered lightly on the now-empty coffin, making a dismal accompaniment to the drone of William’s prayers.

Eventually, it was over and the villagers began to drift away. There was work to be done in the fields and woods, and there were animals to be fed and turned out to graze. Stoate touched Bartholomew lightly on the elbow and offered his condolences again, following up with a shy invitation to visit an infirmary at Ipswich, which had something of a reputation for dealing with diseases of the lungs. Bartholomew thanked him, but even the prospect of learning new medicine could not rouse him from his sadness at the futility of Unwin’s death.

He stood with Michael while Cynric shovelled dirt on top of the white bundle that lay in its sandy grave. Alcote and William accepted the sympathies of the departing parishioners, while Deynman had his arm around Horsey, who was sobbing uncontrollably.

The man with the crooked spine, whom Bartholomew had noticed in the church, was talking to Tuddenham and Grosnold. The rain was now coming down hard, making Grosnold’s pate gleam even more than usual, and people were scurrying for cover.

‘John Bardolf,’ said Tuddenham briskly, introducing the small man to Bartholomew. ‘My neighbour from Clopton, whose daughter disobeyed me and married that scoundrel Deblunville.’

Bardolf came to stand next to Bartholomew, who was still watching Cynric methodically shovelling, neither hurried nor impeded by the sheeting rain.

‘I was sorry to hear about this,’ said Bardolf, nodding down at the grave. ‘I had hoped that young man might heal the rifts that are widening between our manors.’

‘Between yours and Tuddenham’s?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Yes. And between Deblunville’s and Hamon’s, and Deblunville’s and Grosnold’s, and Grosnold’s and mine. And so on.’

‘I had the impression that everyone was united against Deblunville,’ said Bartholomew.

‘At the moment,’ said Bardolf, ‘although that will change if Grosnold dams his stream again this summer, or sparks from my wheat stubble ignite Tuddenham’s ripening crops. And the parish priests are just as bad: they fight with just as much viciousness as we do.’

‘The marriage of your daughter to Roland Deblunville should reduce some of the conflict,’ said Bartholomew.

Bardolf shrugged. ‘Between Clopton and Burgh, certainly. But it seems to have aggravated matters between me, and Grundisburgh and Otley. Tuddenham is talking about applying for an annulment of the marriage, would you believe! But Unwin could have made peace among the priests – they could then have worked for unity among the lords.’

‘Do you think that is why he was killed?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily. ‘To prevent him from acting as peacemaker?’ He thought about what Eltisley had claimed to see. Had Grosnold returned after his spectacular and very obvious exit to see where Unwin stood on the notion of harmony between the manors? Unwin would almost certainly have told him he would strive for an armistice, and thus provided Grosnold with the motive to kill him.

But then what about the cloaked figure? Was that one of Grosnold’s henchmen fleeing from killing Unwin as he prayed at the altar? Or did Grosnold stab Unwin himself, so that there would be no other witness to the crime? He gazed down at the half-filled grave, wishing yet again that he had been able to do something to save the student-friar.

Bardolf squinted up at him. ‘Yes, I would say that Grosnold would kill a priest, if he thought that priest might negotiate for an end to the fighting that would leave him the poorer – he would have to give up the toll he has imposed on Clopton and Burgh folk to use the road through his manor for a start. But then both Tuddenham and Hamon would kill if they thought they might lose the land on which Peche Hall stands; Deblunville might kill if peace meant an annulment of his marriage to Janelle; I might kill if Tuddenham tried to claim Gull Farm – my father stole it from his, but I have grown fond of it over the last thirty years.’

Bartholomew regarded him in amazement. ‘How can you live with all this uncertainty?’

‘It keeps us on our toes, and adds a spice to our lives that has been missing since Crécy. But I am growing too old for such things, and my bones throb from the cold and the damp. If I am attacked while I am stricken with this damned backache, I will lose everything anyway.’

‘So, you want a truce because you think your neighbours might wait until you are ill, and then pounce?’ asked Bartholomew.

Bardolf moved his head from side to side in a curious motion. ‘Essentially. If I do not press for conciliation while I am still strong, I will lose everything when I am weak. I suppose you do not have a cure for me, do you? Stoate is worse than useless. I take his damned purges every Sunday, and all they do is make me feel like death for an hour.’

‘There are poultices you can try,’ said Bartholomew, not wanting to poach what was probably one of Stoate’s most lucrative sources of income. ‘Ask Stoate about them.’

‘He does not prescribe poultices. He bleeds, and he purges, and he gives astrological consultations,’ said Bardolf. ‘I have tried all those things and my back still pains me. I want a cure.’

‘Did you find anything in all that earth?’ asked Tuddenham casually, coming up behind them and addressing Cynric. He gazed speculatively at the pile of soil the book-bearer was shovelling.

‘Such as what?’ asked Cynric, puzzled by the question.

‘Objects?’ said Tuddenham vaguely. ‘Bits and pieces. Things.’ He became aggressive. ‘This is my land. Anything dug up here belongs to me, and no one had better forget it.’

‘Cynric is not a thief,’ said Bartholomew coldly, immediately understanding the reason behind Tuddenham’s enquiry. ‘If he had found Grundisburgh’s lost golden calf, he would return it to you.’

Bardolf gave a sharp laugh. ‘These scholars are too quick for you, Thomas! You should keep an eye on them, or they will be going back to Cambridge with more than your golden calf!’

Sir John Bardolf turned his back on Bartholomew, and began to hobble to where a servant held the reins of his horse. Tuddenham poked Unwin’s grave with his toe, but apparently decided the pile was too small to hide a golden calf and went to join Hamon and Siric in the shelter of one of the churchyard yews. It was now raining hard, and Bartholomew was soaked through. He waited until Cynric was patting down the soil in a muddy mound, and then started to return to the Half Moon with him.

A shout of alarm from Deynman made him turn back. Horsey was sitting in the grass, his face as white as snow. Kneeling, Bartholomew rested his hand on the student’s head. He was shivering, but Bartholomew thought his illness no more serious than the chill of the rain and a sudden spell of dizziness induced by grief. He instructed Deynman to take him back to the tavern and put him to bed, making it clear that he should ensure that Horsey changed into a dry robe first. It was something that would have been obvious to most people, but Bartholomew had learned from bitter experience that nothing should be left to Deynman’s common sense.

‘I want my astrological consultation today,’ said Grosnold to Bartholomew, as the physician prepared to accompany the students to the Half Moon.

‘Ask Stoate,’ said Bartholomew, none too politely. There was something about the belligerence and insensitivity of the Suffolk lords that he found unusually provoking.

‘I want you,’ said Grosnold uncompromisingly. ‘Now. I take it you have no objection?’ The last question was directed towards Tuddenham, not Bartholomew.

‘Master Alcote is drafting my advowson, so you will not be inconveniencing me by taking him,’ replied Tuddenham, with an indifferent shrug.

‘Right, come on, then,’ said Grosnold, snapping his fingers at Bartholomew.

‘Sir Thomas is not my master to say where I can and cannot go,’ said Bartholomew stiffly. ‘And I do not conduct astrological consultations.’

‘I do,’ offered Deynman, who had been listening. ‘And I am much less expensive than him.’

‘You are also unqualified,’ said Alcote in alarm, hurrying over from where he had been talking to Walter Wauncy. It did not take a genius to know that letting Deynman loose on Grosnold would prove disastrous for all concerned, but especially for Grosnold. ‘Doctor Bartholomew will be delighted to do your consultation,’ he added, smiling ingratiatingly at the black knight.

Bartholomew rounded on him angrily. ‘You are not my master, either. I am not doing it. Horsey is ill, and I want to stay with him.’

‘Horsey has only fainted like some fragile maiden,’ hissed Alcote unsympathetically. ‘You will do as Master Tuddenham desires, so long as we are his guests. Everyone in Grundisburgh has been good to us, and we will not offend them by behaving churlishly.’

‘Someone in Grundisburgh murdered Unwin,’ retorted Bartholomew, goaded to imprudence by Alcote’s bossiness.

Tuddenham pursed his lips, angry at the implied criticism. ‘I can assure you that I am doing all I can to locate Unwin’s killer.’

‘Of course he is,’ gushed Alcote, glowering furiously at Bartholomew. He took the physician by the arm, and hauled him out of earshot. ‘For God’s sake, show some grace, man! I worked hard to persuade Tuddenham to give us this advowson. I do not want it all ruined because you are an unmannerly lout!’

‘And how did you “persuade” Tuddenham to give it to us?’ demanded Bartholomew furiously, pulling his arm away. He was almost angry enough to accuse anyone of compliance in Unwin’s murder, even Alcote, whose negotiations with Tuddenham had resulted in Unwin being appointed as Grundisburgh’s parish priest. ‘Do you know some dreadful secret about him, which you threatened to tell unless he gave Michaelhouse the deeds to the church?’

Alcote glared at him. ‘That is a foul thing to say. What do you think I am? And, for your information, I arranged the transaction with Tuddenham through one of my business connections in Ipswich. Tuddenham was going to donate the church living to one of the merchant guilds there, but I was able to convince him that a Cambridge college would be a better option for him. I mentioned that we have lawyers who will act as his executors when he dies, and who will ensure his will is carried out exactly as he wants it to be – not to mention the fact that his heirs will save a good deal on legal fees when the time comes.’

‘So, why is Tuddenham so desperate to have it completed quickly?’ asked Bartholomew, strongly suspecting that Alcote was being less than honest with him. ‘He has not stopped pestering you about finishing it since you arrived. There is something odd going on, and I think you know what it is.’

Alcote looked smug. ‘I know a great many things that you do not, my boy. But you should not vex your little mind with them. Just trust me. I know what I am doing.’

‘I would sooner trust a viper,’ snorted Bartholomew, disgusted. ‘And if I find out that you know some dreadful secret about the Tuddenhams, and you accept this advowson and bring Michaelhouse into disrepute, I will see you never interfere in College affairs again.’

Alcote gave a sneer. ‘And how will you do that? You are only interested in chopping off people’s legs and inspecting their urine. Tuddenham is insisting that the advowson is written quickly because he is an impatient man. He knows that I am the only one who can do it, and that the rest of you are next to useless. He wants you all gone, so that he does not have to pay Eltisley to keep you.’

‘Thomas has always been impatient,’ said Dame Eva, the closeness of her voice making them jump. ‘It is just his way. But do not let him bully you into working quicker than you should, Master Alcote. He would have you labouring all night if you let him.’

Alcote eyed her with some hostility, before hurrying off to placate Grosnold. The old lady watched him depart with her sharp eyes, while Bartholomew fervently wished he would trip over his flagrantly expensive robe and break his scrawny neck. Considering that he had just been berating Bartholomew for his rudeness to Grosnold, Alcote’s behaviour towards Dame Eva was inexcusable. Predictably, however, the old lady was slow to take offence. She smiled at Bartholomew and took his arm, patting it sympathetically when she sensed the tension and anger in him.

‘Isilia was right – that man fears women more than he fears the Devil himself.’

Bartholomew looked down at her. She was wearing her yellowed wimple and an over-large cloak that looked as if it might belong to her son. But, unfashionable and inelegant though she might appear, she was the only member of Tuddenham’s household who was not wet and shivering. Once again, Bartholomew admired her for putting her personal comfort before appearances.

‘Poor Rosella,’ said Isilia, coming to join them, and following their eyes to Alcote, who scurried fawningly at Grosnold’s heels. ‘She had high hopes that a handsome young student would step past her pea on the lintel, but instead it was Alcote – a man who prefers men to women.’

‘He does not particularly like men, either,’ said Bartholomew, trying to force his irritation with Alcote to the back of his mind. ‘He just sees them as a lesser evil.’

Isilia laughed, and he noticed, yet again, how lovely she was with her pale pink cheeks and fine green eyes. ‘I have tried hard to make him feel welcome at Wergen Hall – my husband expects too much of him sometimes, with all those piles of writs – but I think I only succeed in making him more nervous than ever. He would rather starve than have me bring him his food.’

‘I see young Horsey is unwell,’ said Dame Eva, pointing to where Deynman was helping the student-friar to the tavern. ‘Poor boy – it must be the shock. I will send some eggs for him from Wergen Hall, and some beans. I do not like to see him so wan.’

‘That would be kind,’ said Bartholomew, touched that someone as grand as the lord of the manor’s mother should notice a mere student, and consider his needs.

‘We are so sorry about this,’ said Isilia, gesturing towards Unwin’s grave. ‘We would do anything to bring him back.’

‘Isilia and I have already given Walter Wauncy ten shillings, so that a mass for Unwin’s soul can be said each morning for the next thirty days,’ said Dame Eva. ‘If he thinks more masses are needed after that, we will pay him to continue.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bartholomew.

The old lady gazed across at the far corner of the churchyard for a moment, and then took Bartholomew’s arm and led him toward a group of ancient yews that stood over a jumble of coffin-shaped tombs.

‘This is my husband’s,’ she said, stopping at the only one that was well tended and that had fresh flowers on the top. ‘He was a good and honourable man, and would be so saddened to see the day when a poor young priest was slain in the church he loved.’

‘How long since he died?’ asked Bartholomew gently, seeing tears gather at the corners of her wrinkled eyes and trickle down her cheeks.

‘Twenty years,’ said Isilia, when the old lady could not answer. She looked sympathetically at Dame Eva, and took a frail hand in her young, smooth ones. ‘Come, mother. We should not stand here in the rain for you to take a chill. I will sing to you this afternoon – one of the songs your husband wrote, if it would please you.’

Dame Eva nodded gratefully, and clung to Bartholomew’s arm as he escorted her back to Tuddenham, who was waiting for her with a litter. She stopped suddenly, and gripped Bartholomew so fiercely that he winced.

‘You are a kind young man, and I would not like to see you come to harm. You must promise me you will go nowhere near Barchester. It is one of the gateways to hell, and no place for the god-fearing. If Unwin had not gone to Barchester, he would not have seen Padfoot and we would not be attending his requiem mass today.’

Bartholomew nodded, feeling sure he would have no cause to visit the deserted village anyway. ‘I will avoid Barchester, if I can.’

‘You must never set foot in the place,’ declared Isilia with huge eyes. ‘It seethes with evil and is Padfoot’s domain!’

‘Padfoot!’ spat Hamon in disgust, coming to help them into the litter. ‘What nonsense have you been spouting, Isilia?’

‘It is not nonsense,’ said the old lady, a spark of anger flashing in her eyes. ‘It is simple truth, and only a fool would choose to ignore it.’

‘Hamon is a fool,’ said Isilia, eyeing him coldly. ‘He is an insensitive oaf, who is only interested in hunting and dogs and smelly horses.’

Hamon gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Better that than wasting my time on frightening gullible physicians with tales of ghostly dogs.’

He gave Dame Eva a hefty shove that accelerated her into the cart faster than was necessary. Bartholomew stepped forward in alarm, afraid that the rough push might have damaged the old woman’s brittle bones, but she waved him back with a resigned flap of her hand. Eyes flashing furiously, Isilia thrust Hamon away and climbed in unaided. Then Dame Eva saw the ugly nag that had been coupled to the litter that would bear her home, and she and Hamon began a spirited argument about that, while Bartholomew looked around desperately for Michael, seeking a way to escape before he was dragged into it.

‘Are you ready for this consultation with Grosnold?’ asked the monk, bowing politely to the ladies before seizing Bartholomew’s arm and bearing him off.

‘I am not doing it,’ said Bartholomew firmly.

Michael shook him gently by the arm. ‘Alcote is right. You cannot refuse your services to one of our prospective benefactor’s friends, just because you feel like it. That kind of behaviour might lose us the advowson in itself.’

‘I do not care about the advowson. I have had enough of this place. It has killed Unwin, and now we are ordered about like servants. As soon as Horsey is well, I am leaving.’

‘Fine, Matt. You can go tomorrow, if you like. I may even come with you, if I have tracked down Unwin’s killer. We can leave Alcote here to complete this business, and we can wait for him at St Edmundsbury. But you should go with Grosnold now.’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Think, Matt,’ said Michael urgently. ‘This is an opportunity for you to discover whether Grosnold doubled back on himself and returned to Grundisburgh to speak to Unwin as Eltisley claims. We might not have another chance like this. Go, and take Cynric with you.’

Bartholomew sighed and rubbed a hand through his wet hair, reluctant to capitulate, but knowing that Michael was right – it might well prove to be the only opportunity to wheedle information from the black knight of Otley. ‘Very well. But please make sure Deynman looks after Horsey. We do not want him catching a fever that will keep us here for days.’

Michael nodded. ‘I will see him to the tavern myself. Then I will locate Mistress Freeman to ask her about this cloaked figure she saw. She has been out every time I have called at her house so far, but, if she is away today, I will wait there until she returns.’

He leaned back against the church wall, where rain slicked down his fine brown locks to make his head seem pear-shaped. Suddenly, his sandalled foot shot out from underneath him, toppling him to the ground. His first reaction was shock, his second amused embarrassment.

‘Wet grass,’ he explained as Bartholomew and Cynric helped him up. ‘Leather-soled sandals are useless in the rain, and this is not the first time this has happened to me. I only hope it does not occur when I am in the midst of some solemn proctorial ceremony. What is the matter, Matt?’

Bartholomew was staring at the ground where Michael had slipped. It was stained a reddish brown.

‘Is it blood?’ asked Cynric, peering over his shoulder. ‘There is masses of it!’

Bartholomew nodded, pointing to where more of it turned the white heads of daisies dark. He looked at Michael.

‘I think you have just found the place where Unwin was killed.’