A Wicked Deed

Chapter 7

It was not a pleasant journey through the dripping woods from Grundisburgh to Otley. Bartholomew had assumed that Grosnold would have his astrological consultation at Wergen Hall, but the knight had insisted that all the information Bartholomew would need was at his own manor, and so Bartholomew was obliged to travel home with him. Since Bartholomew had been loath to read Grosnold’s stars in the first place, he bitterly resented riding miles through the rain to do it, especially since what had started as a shower seemed to have settled in for the day, and fine, but drenching, drops pattered on his shoulders and head and trickled down the back of his neck.

Otley was several miles to the north-west, along the valley of the River Lark and across the Old Road where Bartholomew and Cynric had encountered the outlaws the previous week. As they passed the Grundisburgh-Otley boundary, Tuddenham’s scrubby pastureland gave way to Grosnold’s strips of corn and barley, waving brilliant green in the rain. Off to the left were the ruined roofs of the abandoned village of Barchester, and Bartholomew noticed that Grosnold and his steward, Ned, did not follow the path that ran through the centre of it as the scholars had done, but took a newer, well-used one that skirted the settlement at a safe distance. Cynric, riding behind Bartholomew, crossed himself and looked in the opposite direction.

‘Barchester is inhabited by plague dead,’ Grosnold stated matter-of-factly when Bartholomew asked him about it, more to take his mind off his sodden clothes and wet feet than for information. ‘And a great white dog often roams there – any who set eyes on that will be dead within the week.’

‘Unwin saw a white dog,’ said Bartholomew. ‘When we left Otley last week, we took the path that runs through the middle of Barchester by mistake, and Unwin said he spotted a white dog in the trees. No one else saw it.’

‘Well, there you are then,’ said Grosnold, exchanging a knowing glance with his redheaded steward. ‘That explains why he met his end so suddenly.’

‘But you do not believe these tales of haunted villages and spectral hounds,’ said Bartholomew, certain that a proud soldier like Grosnold would not be unnerved by such stories. He saw the intense expression on the black knight’s face. ‘Do you?’ he added uncertainly.

‘Of course I do,’ said Grosnold, with such conviction that Bartholomew wished he had never broached the subject. ‘Barchester has been infested with demons since the pestilence. It drove poor Mad Megin to her death in the river last winter, although how she lived among those tortured souls all those years is beyond me.’

‘She was mad,’ said Ned, the steward, by way of explanation, adding mysteriously, ‘and she did not keep her Good Friday loaf.’

‘Her what?’ asked Bartholomew, nonplussed.

Ned shook his head at this monumental ignorance. ‘Her Good Friday loaf – the loaf of bread cooked on a Good Friday that hangs on a string in the homes of all good Christians.’

‘It prevents the bloody flux,’ explained Grosnold. ‘I thought you would have known that, being a medical man. Megin ate hers, instead of keeping it safe, and look at the terrible end she met.’

Ned jerked his head toward the woods. ‘Padfoot was out and about last night,’ he remarked conversationally. ‘Siric, Sir Thomas’s man, heard it snuffling about near the moat.’

‘Did he see it?’ asked Bartholomew, aware that a good many things snuffled about in the night.

Ned regarded him as though he were insane. ‘Well, of course he did not. If he had set eyes on it, he would die, wouldn’t he?’

‘But if he did not see it, how did he know it was the white dog, and not some other animal?’

‘He knew,’ said Ned. ‘And so would you if you heard it. There is no mistaking Padfoot.’

‘Aye, that is true,’ agreed Grosnold. He changed the subject slightly. ‘I heard Will Norys, the pardoner, is wanted for questioning in relation to Unwin’s murder.’

‘Apparently Brother Michael questioned him, and by the next day he had fled the village,’ said Ned. ‘Such flight is a sure sign of his guilt.’

‘True, true,’ said Grosnold. ‘Poor Norys! He will swing for the murder of the student-priest, even though he was only a tool in the hands of Padfoot. As far as I am concerned, Unwin set eyes on Padfoot, and his fate was sealed. Norys was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Padfoot used him.’

Or was he? Bartholomew was still not certain that Norys was the culprit. He frowned, wondering how to broach the subject of Grosnold’s own mysterious meetings with Unwin – one in the castle bailey at Otley, and the other in the churchyard shortly before Unwin’s death. Grosnold glanced at him, and misunderstood his thoughtful expression.

‘Have no fear, physician. Norys will not get far. Tuddenham will have him under lock and key before you know it.’

And if that happened, Bartholomew was sure the pardoner would be given a token trial with a foregone conclusion, and would end up on the gibbet at Bond’s Corner like the mysterious hanged man. The whole thing would be swift and decisive and, whether Norys was guilty or not, Bartholomew was certain there would be questions that would remain unanswered after his execution.

‘Do you think the evidence is sufficient to convict Norys of Unwin’s murder?’ he asked.

Grosnold seemed surprised. ‘Evidence? What are you talking about? Norys killed the priest for his purse. What other evidence do you need?’

‘That is not evidence, that is conjecture,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Supposing Norys is not guilty? You might be condemning the wrong man.’

‘You think he is innocent?’ asked Grosnold, astonished. ‘But he is a pardoner and an occasional pedlar of relics. He had every reason to kill your friend.’

His logic, if that was what it could be called, would have appealed to Michael. Bartholomew sighed, deciding he would not proceed very far with that line of enquiry. Poor Norys was already perceived as guilty by men like Grosnold, and basically, it was all because Michael did not like pardoners. But, Bartholomew recalled, Norys had suggested that a lord of the manor might be responsible for Unwin’s death. Was that significant? Or was Norys simply trying to cast doubts on the impartiality of the men who might ultimately have the power to hang him? Bartholomew wiped the rain from his eyes, not sure what to think.

He considered Bardolf’s claim that one of the warring noblemen might have killed Unwin, because he might have effected a peace agreement, and tried to see how it might fit with Norys’s accusation – if Norys were telling the truth. Still, by the time Bartholomew had finished Grosnold’s consultation and returned to Grundisburgh, Michael would have spoken to Mistress Freeman, and at least they would know whether Norys had been honest about that part of his story. Mistress Freeman had already told Tuddenham’s steward she had seen the figure running from the church, and so all that remained was to ascertain whether she was with Norys or Stoate.

They rode in silence. The rain had turned the path into a quagmire, and the horses stumbled and skidded in slick mud. But once they had crossed the Old Road it was not long before they reached Grosnold’s manor of Nether Hall, dark and squat inside its wooden palisades. The bailey seemed to be inhabited by nothing but men, all wearing dull brown homespun tunics, so that it appeared a dreary place. Alcote would have approved, thought Bartholomew, looking in vain for some female presence, although the atmosphere was more debauched than monastic.

Grosnold led the way into a hall-house that was gloomy, and stank of kitchen slops and garderobe shafts that had long been due for a rinse. The reeds on the floor crawled with vermin, and a pig rooted happily among them for scraps. Ned herded it to the other end of the room, while Grosnold flung himself into the only chair and yelled for refreshments.

A dirty-faced squire brought greasy goblets and a jug of wine so sour that Bartholomew wondered that Grosnold still had any teeth if he drank it regularly. The physician set it down on the windowsill after a single sip, for some desperate servant to find and drink later.

‘Now,’ he said, keen to start – and therefore to leave – as quickly as possible. He drew a bundle of astronomical tables from his bag – tables that were frayed and battered not from frequent use, but because they were always dropping out when he was searching for something else. ‘Where is this information that you wanted me to have?’

Grosnold nodded to Ned, who rummaged around in a large chest near the fireplace until he emerged with a sheaf of parchments. He set them on a small table near the window, and provided Bartholomew with a pen and a small bottle of ink. While Bartholomew tried to resurrect the viscous pigment into something serviceable using dribbles of the wine, Grosnold bellowed at his squire to light the fire and bring him something to eat.

What came were bread trenchers that had been used before, and some cold lamb that had fused into a solid mass from the grease that had been cooked into it. There were also some small, sharp apples, a handful of nuts and a rind of sweaty cheese. Bartholomew left the meat and cheese to Grosnold, while he took the nuts and fruit. They ate in silence, punctuated by occasional grunts from the black knight – once when the pig made a nuisance of itself near his feet, and once when he dropped a piece of food in the rushes and could not find it again. Bartholomew silently cursed Michael for suggesting he comply with Grosnold’s demand. He even began to think Alcote’s self-important prattle would be better than the brooding company of the bald soldier.

After the meal, Grosnold picked his teeth with a long knife and Bartholomew sat on the windowsill to look at the documents he had been given. Several were old manorial rolls, giving information regarding who lived where and who owned what cattle. Another was a list of the cost of spices from the Ipswich market in June of 1347. Bartholomew was interested to see how much prices had risen since the plague, but it did not help him to construct Grosnold’s horoscope. Finally, there were two documents proclaiming that Grosnold had paid fourteen shillings for six sheep and a cow, and a crumpled parchment proving his ownership of Nether Hall.

‘I should keep this safe, if I were you,’ said Bartholomew, showing it to him. ‘You might need to produce it in a court of law if your neighbours persist in their squabbles over manor boundaries.’

‘What is it?’ demanded Grosnold, holding it upside down.

‘Proof of purchase of Nether Hall by Hugh Grosnold in 1292,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He was your grandfather?’

‘That is none of your business,’ snapped Grosnold, crumpling up the deed angrily. ‘And it is false. Everyone knows that I was given Nether Hall by the King for my bravery at Crécy.’

Bartholomew did not want to meet the knight’s eyes. He was no authority on deeds to manors, but this one seemed genuine enough to him. Grosnold’s claim that it had been granted by the King was a blatant falsehood. He had probably inherited it from a grandfather who had never bothered to visit it, as was often the case when a man owned several manors, and so Grosnold had found he had been able to invent his own story about how he came by it. So, thought Bartholomew, as he walked back to the window, Grosnold was a liar. What other untruths had he told? And what had been his business with Unwin?

Grosnold continued to glare at Bartholomew. ‘Just get on with the horoscope. That is what I am paying you for, not to pry into my personal affairs.’

‘I need more than this,’ said Bartholomew, gesturing at Grosnold’s household papers.

‘Why?’ demanded Grosnold. ‘They are all Stoate ever uses. If they are good enough for him, they should be good enough for you.’

No wonder Stoate did not mind performing consultations, thought Bartholomew. If he based them on the cost of pepper six years before, and on the breeding records of sheep, then there would be very little arithmetic involved, and Stoate basically could predict what he pleased. Or what he thought might please Grosnold. For a fleeting moment, Bartholomew considered doing the same: Grosnold was an arrogant lout, who could not tell the difference between a shopping list and an incriminating deed of sale and who would not know whether anything Bartholomew calculated was accurate or not. But when he had become a physician Bartholomew had taken an oath he considered sacred, and he was not prepared to break it by cheating Grosnold, tempting though that might be.

‘I will be able to predict your horoscope far more accurately if you can remember certain dates,’ he said. ‘We can start with when you were born.’

‘Winter,’ said Grosnold helpfully. ‘Quite a few years back now.’

It was slow going, and Bartholomew’s head began to ache. In order to relate the celestial calendar to the kind of information Grosnold was giving him, he needed to invent formulae to cope with the degree of error, and it was far more complex than anything he had done before. Cynric was asleep by the hearth, and Grosnold was already thinking about his next meal by the time Bartholomew put down the pen and showed Grosnold his conclusions.

The knight was impressed. He took the scraps of parchment with the tiny figures and equations scribbled all over them, and peered at them from every angle.

‘All these are mine?’ he asked, awed. ‘For my stars?’

Bartholomew nodded and began to tell him what it meant, although he could not imagine that predicting the knight would be vulnerable to rheums in the head when Venus was dominant in three days’ time, or that he should avoid herbs of Saturn while the moon was waxing lest they inflame the liver, could be of remote interest to a hardened warrior like Grosnold. He was wrong. The knight listened intently and then repeated it faithfully to Ned, to be passed on to the cooks in the kitchens, with every intention, apparently, of following it to the letter. When Bartholomew had finished, Grosnold leaned back and smiled.

‘Good,’ he said, clearly relieved. ‘Now I know that I should go to Ipswich next Tuesday, not Wednesday, and that I should decline the invitation from Bardolf to dine with him on Monday. I shall inform him that I will come on Thursday instead. But you took your time with all this, man; Stoate is far quicker at his calculations. Still, I expect you will get better with practice.’

‘I am sure I will,’ said Bartholomew, amused. He stood and stretched. ‘I should leave. It will be dark soon.’

‘You have your servant with you,’ said Grosnold, gesturing to Cynric. ‘He looks like a fellow who knows how to look after himself. Anyway, outlaws will not bother themselves with a physician who is slow with his horoscopes, especially one who is as impoverished as you appear to be.’

Bartholomew was almost out of the door before he realised that he had not attempted to discover what Grosnold had been discussing with Unwin in the bailey, or whether Eltisley really had seen them together in the churchyard before Unwin’s death.

‘I must tell you how much I admire your armour,’ he said as they stood together in the doorway, hoping to appeal to the man’s vanity and start a conversation. ‘It is very splendid.’

‘Modelled after that of the Prince of Wales,’ said Grosnold proudly. ‘He always wears black. I can give you the name of the smith who made it, if you are interested.’

‘I am no fighting man,’ said Bartholomew, wondering what his colleagues would say if he arrived at high table in Michaelhouse wearing a suit of metal. ‘Your destrier is a handsome animal, too.’ Bartholomew actually had no idea whether the stocky beast was a handsome animal or not: he was an abysmal judge of what did or what did not constitute a good horse.

‘He is,’ agreed Grosnold, pleased. ‘He served me well at Crécy. I fought at the side of the young Prince of Wales, you know. Now, there is a fine soldier!’

‘Really?’ said Bartholomew. He began to run out of things to say, since military chit-chat had never been a particular strength of his – especially considering that, in view of his lie about how he had come to own his manor, most of Grosnold’s was probably more wishful thinking than reality. ‘It must take a long time to train a horse like that.’

‘It takes time and patience to train any horse,’ said Grosnold. ‘But you are right: I did take extra care with old Satan.’

‘When you galloped it across Grundisburgh’s green the other day,’ said Bartholomew, choosing his words carefully, ‘were you not afraid that someone might do something to damage it – like lie in its way? I understand those things are expensive.’

‘Good destriers are very expensive. Satan cost me more than you will earn in your lifetime, by the look of you. But I like to give him his head now and then. I raced him right down the banks of the Lark until I reached the Old Road.’

‘Did you go back to Grundisburgh after that?’ asked Bartholomew, knowing it was unsubtle, but not knowing how else to ask.

‘No,’ said Grosnold suspiciously. ‘I did not go back. Why do you ask? Do you imagine you saw the talking to that priest, Unwin, or something?’

‘Of course not,’ said Bartholomew, wholly confused. He could not decide whether Grosnold was a complete buffoon and had just confessed that he had indeed returned to Grundisburgh and spoken to Unwin, or whether his words were a simple, truthful denial, and that he had mentioned Unwin because he knew Unwin’s death was the reason why Bartholomew was asking.

He smiled at the knight in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. ‘I just asked because I thought a fine animal like yours might need more exercise than a mere trot to the Old Road.’

‘Did you?’ asked Grosnold, harshly. ‘Well, after I left Grundisburgh I came home. I sat by the hearth all night with Ned, cleaning my nails. Look.’

His nails were reasonably clean, although thin red crescents under most of them suggested that he should not have used such a sharp knife. There was nothing more to be learned: Grosnold was now on his guard, and had said all he was going to. The physician bowed his farewell and walked over to Cynric who was holding his horse in the rain. He was almost out of the bailey when Grosnold stopped him with a tremendous yell.

Because of the drizzle and the lateness of the day, most of the men Bartholomew had seen earlier were in the outbuildings, with the doors and shutters closed against the evening chill. White smoke from cooking fires seeped from thatched roofs and through windows that had been poorly blocked. Bartholomew could glimpse men inside sitting in the flickering yellow of flames. A range of smells drifted out – stews of peas and beans, baked bread and boiling meat, all mingled with the acrid, comforting aroma of burning wood. At Grosnold’s shout, shutters and doors were eased open as the curious inhabitants came to see what was happening.

‘I did not pay you,’ Grosnold hollered, waving his purse in the air. ‘Here is gold for your troubles. I am pleased with that horoscope. I might have you come back and do me another.’

Not, thought Bartholomew, if it could be avoided. Ned ran across the muddy yard, brandishing the coin aloft like a talisman until he reached Bartholomew and handed it over.

‘I never met a physician who forgot his money before,’ he said with a disbelieving grin. ‘Master Stoate would not.’

Bartholomew thanked him, and turned towards Grundisburgh. The rain had brought an early dusk, and the daylight was fading fast. It was cold, too, and Bartholomew’s cloak, dried in front of the fire at Grosnold’s manor, was soon drenched again. The thick scent of wetness pervaded everything, and the downpour hissed gently among the trees. By the time they reached the Old Road it was gloomy, and Bartholomew would have taken the wrong path had Cynric not been with him. They rode in silence, travelling faster than Bartholomew felt was safe. He kept expecting his horse to stumble and deposit him in the thick, sucking mud through which they squelched.

‘It will be dark before we are back,’ said Cynric, glancing up at the sky. ‘I did not realise it was so late, or I would have hurried you.’

‘We must have taken the wrong turning at that sheep pen, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, peering ahead through the trees. ‘There is Barchester in front of us. We are on the road that runs through it, rather than the one that passes around the outside.’

‘I suppose it does not matter,’ said Cynric, eyeing the hamlet nervously. ‘They both lead to Grundisburgh, after all.’

‘Is that a light?’ asked Bartholomew, straining his eyes in the gloom. ‘It looks as if someone has lit a lamp in one of the houses.’

‘Let’s find the other path,’ said Cynric abruptly, hauling his horse’s head round. ‘I want to see no ghostly gatherings in haunted hovels, thank you very much.’

He had spurred his pony back the way they had come before Bartholomew could suggest that the light probably belonged to a traveller, using one of the houses as shelter for the night. With a sigh, realising that the detour would mean they would be out in the foul weather for longer than ever, he was about to follow Cynric when something launched itself at him with a tremendous screech that hurt his ears and turned the blood in his veins to ice.

Bartholomew caught the merest glimpse of a shadowy figure coming at him from the trees before it thumped into his horse so hard that the animal reared and screamed in terror. He fought to control it, but something was clawing at the medicine bag that was looped around his shoulder, snatching at it to try to pull him from his saddle. Bartholomew kicked out blindly, hearing a grunt of pain as his leg made contact with something soft. His horse continued to prance, and Bartholomew felt his foot seized and hauled on. Immediately, he began to lose his balance. The horse bucked violently, and Bartholomew fell, landing in an undignified tangle in the wet grass.

For a moment all he could hear was the sound of his horse’s hooves thundering back toward Otley. He looked around him wildly, trying to see his attacker in the darkness. The next assault came from behind. With another deathly howl, he was knocked forward so that he fell on his face. Mud splattered into his eyes, nose and mouth, so that he could not see or breathe. He struggled furiously, trying to free himself from the suffocating weight that pressed him into a soupy puddle.

He succeeded in raising his head, and took a great gasp of air before it was forced down again. Hot breath gusted on to the back of his neck, and his ears were full of roars and grunts. He reached backward, trying to pull whatever it was off him. His fingers encountered something soggy and covered in wiry hair. Another howl split the air, and he twisted sideways, partly dislodging the thing from his back.

The air around him was rank with the stench of animal. He could smell wet fur and warm, carnivorous breath. He squirmed and kicked with all his might, clawing at the ground in his desperation to escape. There was a rumbling growl that seemed to vibrate the very ground on which he lay, ending in a series of guttural grunts. He struggled more frantically when another snarl ended with the drip of hot saliva on his cheek. Revolted, he turned his face away.

And then, suddenly, it was gone. He rolled on to his back and sat up, coughing and wiping the mud from his eyes with his sleeve. The village was deserted. The light in the house had been doused, and the squat black shapes of the huts stood immovable, like stones in the darkness. Rain pattered gently in the trees, all but drowned out by the sound of his rasping breathing and the thump of his heart.

‘Did you see it?’ came Cynric’s terrified voice at his ear. Bartholomew started backward at the sound of something so close, and tried to scramble to his feet. Cynric helped him.

‘No,’ said Bartholomew shakily. ‘Whatever it was attacked me from behind. I saw nothing other than a shadow. What was it? A wolf?’

But Cynric was not of a mind to stand chatting in the forlorn village. ‘Come on, boy,’ he said, his voice uncharacteristically unsteady as he hauled on Bartholomew’s arm. ‘It might come back at any minute. The horses have fled, so we will have to run. Can you manage?’

The notion of a second encounter with the smelly beast was enough to spur Bartholomew into action, and even his trembling legs could not prevent him from racing away from Barchester as fast as he could. Without waiting to see if Cynric followed, he took to his heels, tearing blindly past trees and scrub, through the river and across fields, and only stopping when he failed to see a ditch and went flying head over heels into someone’s lovingly tended barley. Cynric was right behind him.

‘That should be far enough,’ the Welshman panted, doubling over to rest his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. ‘Did the beast bite you?’

Bartholomew shook his head, looking around him wildly in anticipation of another attack. ‘It just sat on me and drooled. Did you see it? It felt like a bull with a wolfs breath!’

‘It was the white dog,’ said Cynric, swallowing hard. ‘I saw it. It was a big white dog.’

‘It was certainly big,’ gasped Bartholomew, drawing his knees up to his chest to ease the burning stitch in his side. ‘Can you see it now? Has it followed us?’

Cynric shook his head, scanning the dark fields. ‘Maybe it does not stray far from the haunted village. Maybe it lives there, feeding on the souls of the people who died in the plague.’

‘Maybe someone set it on us,’ said Bartholomew more practically. ‘Someone who knew we would be travelling that way.’

‘Spirits have a way of knowing such things,’ muttered Cynric, crossing himself vigorously. He hesitated, continuing in a low whisper. ‘Will I die now that I have set eyes on it? Unwin did, and so did those two villagers – die suicide and the woman who died of childbirth fever.’

‘That was no ghost, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew with a shudder. ‘It slathered all over me. Spirits do not slather. Nor do they stink.’

‘They do so!’ said Cynric, with absolute conviction. ‘My mother always smelled almonds before my grandfather’s spirit appeared to her, and the next morning the floor was always wet where he had stood.’

There was little Bartholomew could think of to say in answer to that. ‘Where are we?’ he asked eventually. ‘I am completely lost.’

‘So am I,’ admitted Cynric, something Bartholomew had never before known to happen, suggesting that their encounter with the white dog had unnerved Cynric more than the physician had appreciated. ‘It does not matter anyway,’ the book-bearer added gloomily, ‘since I am soon to lie in my grave next to Unwin.’

‘You are not going to die,’ said Bartholomew firmly. He grabbed the Welshman by the arm, and looked him in the eye. ‘That was not a ghost, Cynric, it was real. You saw all those men looking out of their houses as Ned ran across the bailey waving that gold coin in the air. One of them followed us with his dog, intending to steal it. Or perhaps it was Grosnold himself, because of my clumsy questioning of him about Unwin – or even because I know that he inherited his manor from his grandfather, and that the King and the Prince of Wales have probably never set eyes on the man.’

‘But it was horrible, lad,’ said Cynric, his dark eyes wide with fear. ‘It was huge – bigger than any earthly dog I have ever seen; more like a pony, with a thick white coat to protect it from the fires of hell. When I saw it crouching over you and making all those dreadful noises, I thought it was trying to suck the soul from your body!’

‘Did you see anyone with it? I am sure it was human hands that pulled me from my saddle – the dog came later.’

Again Cynric crossed himself vigorously in the darkness. ‘No, thank the good Lord! All I saw was the beast. I fired an arrow at it, and it fled back to its lair in that ghostly village.’

‘Well, there you are, then,’ said Bartholomew reasonably. ‘A spectre would not run away from an arrow. It was a real dog and someone owns it.’

‘Then why did you run away?’ demanded Cynric. ‘It was a fiend from hell and you know it.’

With hindsight, Bartholomew was rather ashamed of the blind panic that had prompted him to rush away from the village as fast as his legs could carry him, but the fact was that an earthly hound drooling in his ears was just as frightening as a spectral one would have been.

‘We can walk back to Otley and see which of those villagers has a white dog,’ he said, deftly side-stepping Cynric’s question.

‘No!’ exclaimed Cynric with a look of abject horror. ‘I never want to set eyes on the likes of that thing again. Although I will not have long to see anything now. I can feel it in my bones.’

‘It was just an ordinary dog,’ said Bartholomew, becoming exasperated in his battle against Cynric’s superstition. ‘Nothing is going to happen to you.’

‘No?’ said Cynric warily. ‘Then perhaps you should explain that to them.’

Bartholomew spun round to see where Cynric was pointing. From the fields around them, men had materialised, some of them carrying bows with arrows already nocked, and others with swords that glittered dully in the darkness.

‘Who are you?’ one of them called. ‘Why are you trespassing here?’

‘They are the dead souls of Barchester, protecting their fields,’ groaned Cynric, clutching at Bartholomew’s arm. ‘They have come for us!’

‘For God’s sake, Cynric!’ snapped Bartholomew, the shock of his experience with the dog making him unusually irritable with his book-bearer. ‘Pull yourself together! We are probably on Bardolf’s or Deblunville’s land, and these are their men wondering why we were racing across their crops in the middle of the night all covered in mud.’

An arrow thumped into the ground nearby. Cynric closed his eyes and began to mutter incantations against the Devil.

‘I asked who you were!’ shouted the voice.

‘We are from Cambridge,’ Bartholomew called back. ‘We were returning to Grundisburgh from Grosnold’s manor, but we are lost.’

‘You are lost,’ agreed the man. ‘This is not the way from Otley to Grundisburgh. I suppose you were sent here to spy. Who paid you? Grosnold or Tuddenham? Or has that weakling Hamon finally become a man, and come out from behind his uncle’s skirts?’

‘Someone tried to rob us,’ said Bartholomew, lowering his voice as the man with the bow came closer. ‘Our horses ran away.’

The archer gave a sneering laugh. ‘Is that so? Next you will be trying to tell us that these robbers had a big white dog.’

‘They did, actually,’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘How did you know?’

‘Everyone claims to have seen Padfoot these days,’ said the archer with affected weariness. ‘They think fleeing from him is a good excuse to come sneaking on to our land. Come on. Master Deblunville will be wanting a word with you.’

The archer refused to listen to anything more. He nodded to his friends, and Cynric and Bartholomew were searched roughly: Bartholomew lost his medicine bag, and Cynric was relieved of enough metal to start his own forge. Bartholomew was astonished: he knew the Welshman never went unarmed, but the number of knives, blades and even sharp nails that were removed from every available place in Cynric’s clothing was staggering.

The archer jabbed Bartholomew with one of Cynric’s weapons, to indicate that they were to start walking. It was a miserable journey. Bartholomew’s body ached from his encounter with the dog, and he was wet and cold. Cynric seemed to have given up altogether, and trailed listlessly at Bartholomew’s side, more morose and apathetic than the physician had ever seen him. It seemed that, as far as Cynric was concerned, he was already a dead man.

At last the bumps and ridges of Deblunville’s enclosure could be seen against the night sky, and Bartholomew and Cynric were prodded inside. They were directed through both sets of embankments and led into the inner bailey, where they were ordered to wait while someone went to fetch Deblunville. The wooden keep was in darkness, suggesting that Deblunville and his household had already retired to bed. It was some time before the door opened and Deblunville appeared; his wife, Janelle, and her father, John Bardolf, were behind him. Janelle walked slowly and her eyes were red-rimmed and sad, a far cry from the confident defiance she had displayed a few days before, when she had announced her marriage to Tuddenham and his cronies.

‘You disappoint me, physician,’ said Deblunville, walking towards him, holding a flaring torch. He was wearing baggy hose and a shirt that dangled almost to his knees. ‘You seemed above all this subterfuge and trickery when we met the other day. I even gave you one of my cramp rings as an act of good faith.’

‘I am sorry we trespassed on your land,’ said Bartholomew. ‘We were attacked as we were riding through Barchester from Otley, and we ran the wrong way when we escaped.’

‘That is my land,’ interposed Bardolf coldly. ‘Barchester lies on my land – despite what Grosnold and Tuddenham might claim.’

‘Attacked?’ asked Deblunville, ignoring his father-in-law. He looked Bartholomew up and down. ‘What was stolen? Not my cramp ring, I hope.’

‘Nothing was stolen,’ said Bartholomew, although he would not have been dismayed to lose the funeral jewellery Deblunville had given him. ‘Cynric drove the robbers away with an arrow.’

‘He claims Padfoot ambushed him,’ said the archer with a grin. ‘It is strange how Padfoot always seems to chase people from Grundisburgh on to our land.’

Deblunville nodded thougtfully and addressed Bartholomew. ‘Two people claim to have been chased on to my land by Padfoot within the last month: both are now dead, although I assure you that it had nothing to do with me. I personally believe that they were spies in the employ of one of my neighbours, who then executed them for getting caught – a cut throat and a childbirth fever were the official causes of death, I understand.’

‘We are telling you the truth,’ insisted Bartholomew. ‘Why should I want to spy on you?’

‘Look.’ The archer held up the gold coin Grosnold had given Bartholomew, discovered when he had searched Bartholomew’s bag. ‘If they were robbed, why did the outlaws leave them this?’

‘Who paid you to spy?’ demanded Bardolf of Bartholomew, pushing forward to stand next to his son-in-law.

‘Grosnold paid me for–’

‘There!’ exclaimed Bardolf triumphantly, interrupting Bartholomew and turning to Deblunville. ‘A confession! I knew these scholars would soon start to meddle in our affairs. Tuddenham summoned them from Cambridge, so that he could set their cunning minds to undermining our rightful claims to this land. You know how lawyers are with words, twisting and turning them, so that they can be made to mean the opposite of what was intended.’

Janelle stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. ‘All these accusations will get us nowhere, father,’ she said in a low voice. ‘The scholars are not unreasonable men, and if we explain to them why we do not want spies on our manors they will understand.’

‘You are ill,’ said Bartholomew, noting the tremble in her voice and the unhealthy pallor of her skin. ‘Is it the child?’

She nodded, and then shook her head. Tears sprouted from her eyes, and Deblunville thrust the torch into Bardolf’s hands, so that he could put his arm around her.

‘There is no child,’ he said bitterly. ‘Not any more. Master Stoate has killed it.’

Bartholomew was bewildered. ‘Killed it how?’

Deblunville sighed. ‘I sent a man to Ipswich for the cumin you said Janelle should have, but he has not yet returned. When Janelle was sick again this morning, we used Stoate’s old remedy, since there was nothing else. Then she had griping pains and a flux of bleeding. The child has gone.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Bartholomew gently. ‘But she should not be out here; she should be resting.’

‘Will you give her something to help her sleep?’ asked Deblunville. ‘I do not want to ask Stoate to come. I might feel obliged to wring his neck.’

‘Just a moment!’ cried Bardolf, grabbing Deblunville’s arm and swinging him round. ‘These scholars have been caught red-handed spying on your land. Will you now let them give potions to Janelle, potions that might kill her? Physicians are not to be trusted at any time, but especially not ones who are in the pay of Tuddenham, and who have already lied to you.’

‘What would he gain from hurting Janelle?’ said Deblunville, pulling away angrily. ‘And anyway, I believe him when he says he was attacked by Padfoot.’

‘What?’ Bardolf was almost screaming in disbelief. ‘Padfoot is a story invented by Tuddenham to allow his spies to come and go at will.’

‘But Tuddenham does not believe in Padfoot,’ protested Bartholomew. ‘He told us it was superstitious nonsense.’

Deblunville ignored him, but snatched the torch to thrust it so close that the physician winced, certain that he would have caught fire had his clothes not been so wet. ‘Look at his cloak, Bardolf. It is covered in white hairs!’

Bartholomew sat on the edge of the bed in Janelle’s chamber, and replaced the covers carefully. She smiled up at him, her face so lovely in the candlelight that it made him feel suddenly lonely. He wondered what Matilde was doing back in Cambridge, and whether he, like Michael, was destined to spend the rest of his life without the joy of a female companion.

‘Are you really sure?’ she asked yet again.

Bartholomew nodded. ‘I am certain. There was no child in the flux of blood, and everything suggests to me that you are still carrying it. The potions I have given you will help, but you must rest for the next few days – weeks, even – and no more betony and pennyroyal, no matter what Stoate tells you.’

‘You have been kind to me, despite the fact that we have been less than hospitable to you twice now.’ She looked at the flames in the health, her tiny fingers fiddling restlessly with the bed-covers. ‘In return, there is something I know that you might be interested to hear.’

‘About the murder of Unwin?’ he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. ‘I am sorry, but no one seems to know anything about that. Usually, if a crime is committed, someone knows the culprit, and it does not take long for the truth to come out. But whoever killed Unwin has been very clever in hiding his tracks. I think you should not look to the common villagers for your killer; you should look higher.’

‘That has been suggested before,’ said Bartholomew, thinking about what Norys had told him. And then there was Eltisley’s claim to have seen Grosnold with Unwin in the churchyard shortly before the friar’s death, plus her father’s belief that Unwin might have been killed because of the strife among the lords of the manor and their priests, ‘Is that what you wanted to tell me?’

‘No, something else. About my husband’s clothes – the ones that you saw on the hanged man at Bond’s Corner.’ She paused again, and looked at the fire, its lights flickering in her eyes.

‘You know who took them?’ asked Bartholomew, gently prompting.

‘Yes.’ She looked up at him, and there was some of the grim determination in her face that he had seen when they first met. ‘But you must not reveal that I told you this, or use the information against my father.’

‘Your father?’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘How is he involved?’

‘I gave him those clothes,’ said Janelle reluctantly. She shrugged at him. ‘I am the thief. I stole from the man who was going to be my husband.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, not seeing at all.

‘Roland never wore those clothes; they sat in a chest all year round, gathering dust and slowly being eaten by moths. They were too big for him, and he did not like them. My father is not as wealthy as he would have you believe – his manor is small, and any spare money he has is spent on winter fodder for the cattle and extra grain for the village, not on clothes. He would be furious if I told you this, but he is so poor he does not even pay taxes.’

That meant he was poor indeed, for there were few who escaped the greedy hands of the King and his tax collectors. Before an exemption was granted, all accounts were inspected rigorously by men who were neither generous nor sympathetic to hardship. Janelle continued.

‘So, a week or so ago, I took the clothes and the dagger, and I left them for him in a bundle near the Clopton – Grundisburgh parish boundary. Roland would not have been keen for me to give them to my father had I asked, but he would not have demanded them back once they had gone. I wanted my father to wear them at our wedding, you see, so that he would not look shabby and old.’

‘And did your father ever receive these clothes?’ asked Bartholomew.

She shook her head. ‘I had instructed one of his men to meet me there, but he was late. I did not want to waste the whole day waiting for a servant, so I left the bundle under a tree and went about my own business. By the time the servant arrived, the clothes had gone.’

‘So, someone else found them?’

She nodded. ‘It could not have been a villager from Clopton, because the finder would have announced his luck, and then someone would have told him that the bundle was intended for my father. It must have been someone from Grundisburgh.’

‘So, someone from Grundisburgh found a bundle containing some clothes and a dagger, donned them and ended up hanged,’ said Bartholomew, trying to make sense of it.

She nodded again. ‘So you see, whoever hanged the man you found probably did not believe he was hanging Roland, as you seem to think. The man you found must have been hanged because he found the bundle and was dishonest enough to keep it.’

‘But that makes no sense, either,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The man to judge that sort of crime would be Tuddenham, and he seemed to know nothing about anyone being hanged for theft.’

‘Perhaps he did not want to cast a pall of gloom over the Pentecost Fair, and so kept it quiet,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You should not believe everything he tells you.’

‘I will bear it in mind,’ he said with a smile. He was not surprised that she had kept the business of the stolen clothes to herself; the most obvious people who would avenge an act of finders-keepers would be either her father – an impecunious man who needed his daughter to steal him new clothes for her wedding – or her husband, perhaps startled to meet a man parading around in the finery he thought was safely packed away in a chest at home. Bartholomew frowned. Or was the real killer Tuddenham, the man whom Deblunville and Bardolf thought had been spreading tales of the mysterious white dog? ‘Padfoot’ was, after all, the word uttered by the dying man.

He left Janelle in the care of her maidservant. Deblunville was waiting for him in the lower chamber, huddled near the fire, while Bardolf paced back and forth angrily. Cynric was folded into a corner with an untouched cup of ale at his side, staring morosely into the rushes.

‘Thank you,’ said Deblunville, standing to greet him. ‘This child means a great deal to her. She was afraid she might be too old to have children.’

‘You should find her a midwife in Ipswich,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Or better still, try to persuade Mother Goodman to come. She seems a competent woman.’

‘She is,’ said Deblunville. ‘But she is also loyal to Tuddenham. She will never attend Janelle.’

‘What are you going to do with him?’ demanded Bardolf of his son-in-law. ‘All this talk of midwives and infants is becoming tedious.’

Deblunville turned on him angrily. ‘I will talk about midwives and infants from dawn until dusk in my own home if it so suits me.’

He offered Bartholomew a stool near the fire. The physician sat gratefully, weary from his efforts to save Janelle‘s child, which had lasted through most of the night. Despite his tiredness, he felt more cheerful than he had done since they had arrived at Grundisburgh. He might have lost two battles with death – the hanged man and Unwin – but he was fairly sure he had won the third, and that Janelle would bear a healthy child if she followed his advice.

‘So,’ said Deblunville, passing him a goblet of wine. ‘A dog from Barchester attacked you, your servant drove it off, and you ran away as fast as you could to end up on our land.’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘I felt a person’s hand grabbing my foot, although I did not see him. Cynric saw only the dog.’

‘And you think the motive was theft?’ pressed Deblunville.

Bartholomew shrugged, sipping the wine. ‘Half the men in Otley saw Grosnold give me that gold coin, and any one of them could have slipped out and followed us.’

However, since no attempt had been made to search him for it, Bartholomew was far from certain that the purpose of the ambush had been to steal. He thought it far more likely that Grosnold or Ned had followed them, seeking to silence him over the matter of the knight’s meeting with Unwin just before his murder, or perhaps to ensure he did not expose Grosnold’s lies about the acquisition of his manor. But he kept his suspicions to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be drawn deeper into the murky affairs of the squabbling Suffolk manors.

‘But no Otley villager owns a big white dog,’ said Deblunville, reaching out to pluck one of the pale hairs from Bartholomew’s cloak, set to dry by the fire. ‘All theirs are small, yellow mongrels with bad eyesight. Grosnold is bitterly envious of my fine hunting hounds, and would do anything to acquire one of the pups that has just been born.’

‘Perhaps it was a stray,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Unwin claimed to have seen a big white dog in Barchester, two days before he died.’

‘So I understand.’ Deblunville smiled at Bartholomew’s surprise. ‘This is the country. Rumours and stories spread faster here than rats through a granary.’

‘Then you should know there is also a rumour that you set eyes on the thing.’

Deblunville shook his head, amused. ‘I saw a wolf that scurried off when I tried to shoot it. I expect one of my archers mentioned the episode to some kinsmen in Grundisburgh – for all our bickering and fighting, nearly all Burgh folk have relatives there – and the story was put out that I had encountered Padfoot.’

‘So, you do not believe Padfoot exists?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘I believe someone has resurrected a silly tale that dates back to pagan times, and that Tuddenham and Grosnold have capitalised on it to provide an excuse for their spies being found on my land. I also believe that the two Grundisburgh villagers, who died after supposedly seeing Padfoot, were killed by Tuddenham as a punishment, because they were caught red-handed by me trespassing on my manor. And I believe that someone in his cups heard I saw a wolf, and started the rumour that what I really saw was Padfoot.’

‘Do you honestly think that James Freeman and Alice Quy were sent to spy on you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘A butcher and a woman with a new baby?’

‘I know they were,’ said Deblunville firmly.

‘Well, at least you have not completely taken leave of your senses,’ grumbled Bardolf, flopping down next to them. Bartholomew inspected the older man’s clothes covertly, and saw that they were almost as shabby and old as were his own. ‘I thought maybe you would accept that these scholars were on your land to pick wild flowers, or to watch the stars, or some other such nonsense.’

‘You are irritable today,’ said Deblunville mildly. ‘Take some wine to soothe your temper.’

‘Take some laudanum to soothe your back,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Do you have some?’ asked Bardolf eagerly. ‘Give it to me!’

Bartholomew mixed some of the powder with the wine in his goblet and handed it to Bardolf, who almost snatched it in his desperation.

‘If this kills me, I will kill you,’ he warned.

‘Drink it slowly,’ instructed Bartholomew, ignoring the odd logic. ‘Or it will make you dizzy.’

‘Dizziness would be a blessing,’ muttered Bardolf. ‘I have no relief from this pain. My father was the same and his father before him. Stoate bleeds me each full moon, but it makes no difference.’

Bartholomew could well believe it. ‘So, why are you so sure that Tuddenham wants to spy on you?’ he asked, still not certain that he understood all the twisted facts and reasoning behind the Padfoot legend.

‘Well, I suppose it is not really spying,’ said Deblunville, watching Bardolf sip Bartholomew’s potion with exaggerated care. ‘It is really searching.’

‘Searching for what?’ asked Bartholomew. He sat back, and gave a sudden laugh of disbelief, recalling Tuddenham’s unpleasant questioning of Cynric at Unwin’s graveside. ‘The golden calf! He is looking for the golden calf! Is that what Janelle said you should tell us earlier tonight, so that we would understand why you do not want spies on your land?’

It was Deblunville’s turn to look surprised. ‘Tuddenham told you about the calf?’

‘Of course he did,’ spat Bardolf. ‘That is what they were doing on our land – looking for it.’

‘I read about it at St Edmundsbury,’ said Bartholomew, ignoring the old man. ‘But it is a myth, a legend that is entertaining but that has no base in fact.’

‘That is not what Tuddenham believes,’ said Deblunville. ‘The lords of Grundisburgh have been hunting for the golden calf for as long as anyone can remember. They think it was hidden when the monks stole the bones of St Botolph, and that all they need to do is to dig until it is found.’

‘But no one knows where this chapel was supposed to be,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How can Tuddenham hope to find it by random digging?’

‘You are a scholar; your mind is too logical,’ said Deblunville. ‘Each time a tree is felled, Tuddenham or Hamon goes to pore over the roots; when a grave is dug, they sift through the soil; when foundations for a new building are laid, they pay men to dig a little deeper.’

‘But Tuddenham has decided that the chapel might not have been on his land after all,’ said Bardolf, drowsy from the laudanum. ‘So he is widening his search to Burgh, Clopton and Otley.’

‘Virtually every night, people from Grundisburgh slip out to poke around on their neighbours’ land to see what they can find,’ said Deblunville. ‘Grosnold does not object – he knows Tuddenham will share the profits with him if it is found on his manor – but Bardolf and I do not want our precious crops damaged by futile treasure-hunting.’

‘Sheep, man, sheep,’ said Bardolf. ‘You have crops, but I have sheep. I do not want my poor animals terrified in the middle of the night because some greed-crazed lunatics are digging in my pens. Nor do I want my beasts worried by the mongrels that always accompany them.’

‘His people are edging ever nearer my manor house,’ said Deblunville. ‘He invented the tale of Padfoot so that any of his villagers who are caught on our land will have an excuse for being there – they can say they were being chased by this ghostly hound.’

‘Perhaps Tuddenham owns a white dog,’ said Bardolf, yawning. ‘Perhaps he lets it loose at night to frighten people, so that they will not go out. And then no one will see his diggers at work.’

‘That is possible,’ said Deblunville, nodding. ‘The animal is definitely real. Ghosts do not leave hairs behind them, and there are enough hairs on the doctor’s cloak to stuff a mattress.’

‘So, all this is about a mythical golden idol,’ mused Bartholomew, almost to himself. ‘I suppose poor Unwin was killed because of it, too.’

‘How?’ asked Deblunville. ‘He was stabbed in the church, not on someone else’s land, and anyway, he had not been in the village long enough to have been recruited for gold-digging.’

Bartholomew did not care to speculate, although the obvious answer was that Grosnold had told Unwin about it, and then killed him when he declined to have anything to do with it. And Unwin was not killed in the church, but outside it, where his blood still stained the grass and grey stones of the buttress. He stood, and prepared to take his leave.

‘All I know is that I would like this wretched deed signed and sealed as soon as possible, so that we can leave this treasure-hunting and intrigue for those that enjoy it. I will come back tomorrow to see your wife, if you like, although I am certain she will recover, if you let her rest.’

‘You can come back to see me, too,’ said Bardolf comfortably. ‘That laudanum is powerful stuff. I can feel my aches draining away.’

‘Good,’ said Deblunville. ‘Perhaps it will improve your temper.’

‘Cheeky whelp!’ muttered Bardolf, shooting his son-in-law a genuinely venomous glower. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘I am only here to ensure he does not do away with Janelle in the first two weeks of his marriage, as he did the poor old widow, Pernel.’

Deblunville laughed carelessly, although Bartholomew was not entirely certain that Bardolf had been jesting. The physician went to help Cynric to his feet, alarmed by the lack-lustre look in his book-bearer’s eyes, and took his leave of Deblunville and Bardolf. As they walked the short distance to Grundisburgh in the pale light that lit the land before dawn, Bartholomew did all he could to convince Cynric that the dog was as mortal as any other animal, but Cynric refused to accept that Padfoot was anything other than a hound from hell, sent to snatch him away in the prime of his life.

‘I should have married before I left Cambridge,’ he mumbled. ‘Then I would have died happy.’

‘So, you have decided then?’ asked Bartholomew encouragingly, to try to take Cynric’s mind off his impending doom. ‘You sounded uncertain whether the married life was for you when we last spoke about this, and now you say it will make you happy?’

Cynric did not answer but pointed down the road. ‘Someone is there,’ he said flatly. ‘Waiting for us in the bushes.’

‘You mean lying in ambush?’ asked Bartholomew, alarmed. ‘Again?’

‘We do not seem to be particularly welcome around here,’ said Cynric morosely.

‘Is your bow ready?’ asked Bartholomew, peering down the still-dark lane to where Cynric had pointed. He could see nothing, but his book-bearer’s intuition in such matters was infallible. ‘We might frighten him off.’

Lethargically, Cynric took his bow from his shoulder and stood with it held loosely in his hands.

‘An arrow might help,’ suggested Bartholomew nervously. ‘Waving an empty bow is not very menacing. Come on, Cynric! You do not need me to be telling you all this. Do you want us attacked and killed?’

‘You will survive it well enough,’ said Cynric gloomily. ‘You did not see the white dog.’

Bartholomew sighed. ‘Stay here, then, and keep watch. I will cut round behind him and see if I can flush him out.’

Cynric nodded careless acquiescence, and Bartholomew ducked off the path and began to make his way to the back of a thicket, where he assumed the ambusher was hiding. He was concerned, aware that the Welshman would never have allowed him to undertake such a task had he been himself. Wincing as he trod on sticks that cracked loudly, and rustling through leaves like a rampaging boar, he crept steadily forward, wishing he had paid more attention to Cynric’s past advice on stealth.

The would-be attacker knelt behind a bush, peering up the path. In the half-light of early dawn, Bartholomew could see nothing more than a shadow muffled in a cloak. As far as he could tell, the man was alone; no accomplices lurked in the undergrowth. With a yell that made the figure leap to his feet in shock, Bartholomew dashed toward the bush and hurled himself at him. There was a brief struggle, during which Bartholomew shouted to Cynric not to fire, and fists and feet flew wildly on both sides, but neither with any precision. It was not long before Bartholomew, taller and stronger, had the man pinned down on the ground by both wrists.

‘Stoate!’

Bartholomew gazed at Grundisburgh’s physician in confusion, while Warin de Stoate stared back, his eyes huge in the gloom.

‘Bartholomew! What in God’s name are you doing? Let me up!’

Bartholomew hesitated, but then released him, watching as Stoate stood and brushed himself down. Cynric remained where Bartholomew had left him, his bow dangling from his hands. He showed no reaction at all when he saw it had been Stoate waiting in the bushes, and trailed miserably toward them with his feet scuffing the litter on the woodland path.

‘What were you doing?’ Bartholomew demanded of Stoate. ‘Men with nothing to hide do not skulk around in the bushes first thing in the morning.’

‘I did not want to be seen,’ said Stoate enigmatically, still picking leaves and grass from his cloak. ‘I was going to wait until you passed, and then be on my way.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Cynric thought you were going to ambush us.’

‘Why should I do that?’ asked Stoate, genuinely puzzled. ‘You have nothing I want – no offence intended. And I am not the kind of man to commit robbery on the roads – I am a respected member of the community, and people look up to me.’

‘I wanted a word with you, anyway,’ said Bartholomew, still not certain that he believed him. ‘I have just come from Janelle Deblunville. She became ill after drinking a potion you prescribed her, containing betony and pennyroyal.’

Stoate’s jaw dropped. ‘She drank it? She drank my potion?’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew coldly. ‘That is what you instructed her to do, is it not?’

Stoate drew himself up to his full height. ‘I can assure you it was not! She is with child – betony and pennyroyal are abortive agents. The potion I gave her was to be added to vinegar and inhaled as a cure for dizziness – as the great Pliny suggests. She was most certainly not supposed to drink it. Is she all right?’

Bartholomew nodded slowly. Pliny’s Historia Naturalis did indeed recommend the inhalation of pennyroyal and mint infused in vinegar as a remedy for fainting. His anger towards Stoate dissipated to a certain extent; he had prescribed ointments and salves himself, and patients had later complained that they tasted unpleasant or had made them sick. However, he had learned from his experiences, and never left people with potentially dangerous medicines until he was certain they understood what they were to do with them. And Stoate, Bartholomew thought, should have done the same with Janelle. But Stoate’s casual attitude towards dangerous herbs did not explain why he was skulking in the woods so early in the morning.

‘What were you doing here anyway?’ he asked. ‘A man of your station should not be grubbing around in trees in the dark.’

‘Unlike you, you mean?’ retorted Stoate. He relented suddenly, and smiled. ‘I suppose it does look odd, but I can assure you I was doing nothing untoward. I am just going to visit Tuddenham.’

‘At this time of day? And why the secrecy?’

‘He does not want anyone to know,’ said Stoate mysteriously.

‘Know what?’ Bartholomew was tired from his eventful night, and his patience was beginning to wear thin.

‘Come with me, and I will show you.’

Bartholomew hesitated, not wanting to be party to any more secrets – particularly ones that necessitated hiding in bushes before sunrise – but Stoate was insistent, piquing Bartholomew’s interest by hinting it was a medical matter. With Cynric trailing behind like a mourner at a funeral, Stoate led the way along a little-used path that ran behind the village, and up the hill to Wergen Hall. It was in darkness, but Stoate tapped three times, very softly, on one of the window shutters, and within moments the door was opened. Siric, Tuddenham’s faithful steward, stood there.

‘You are late,’ he mumbled to Stoate. His eyes narrowed when he saw Bartholomew and Cynric. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘I brought them,’ whispered Stoate. ‘It would be good to have Doctor Bartholomew’s opinion.’

‘Are you mad?’ hissed Siric furiously. ‘Sir Thomas will never allow it!’

‘He would be a fool to refuse,’ Stoate snapped back.

He elbowed his way past Siric, and beckoned for Bartholomew to follow, while Cynric waited by the embers of the fire in the hall. Stoate made his way stealthily up the spiral stairs and headed for the upper chambers. He listened carefully, before opening a door and slipping inside, pulling Bartholomew after him. Siric remained outside, evidently keeping watch. Their movements were so practised that Bartholomew could only suppose that they had been going through the same routine for weeks, if not longer.

‘What is he doing here?’ demanded Tuddenham hoarsely from the large bed that almost filled the room. ‘For God’s sake, Stoate! What are you thinking of?’

Stoate raised an imperious hand. ‘I met Bartholomew on my way here, and it occurred to me that it might be wise for you to draw on his expertise as well as my own.’

‘But if news of this seeps out…’

‘Physicians are known for their discretion,’ interrupted Stoate smoothly. ‘You can trust Bartholomew, as you can trust me.’

‘But I cannot trust you, it seems! You promised me you would never tell a living soul about this, and now you bring one of the Michaelhouse scholars to see me. It could ruin everything!’

Bartholomew looked from one to the other in confusion. ‘Master Stoate has told me nothing,’ he said. ‘And if you do not want me to be here, I will leave.’

‘Stay,’ said Tuddenham, leaning back against the pillows wearily. ‘Speculation about what you have seen will do far more damage than hearing the truth. Well, come on then, man, examine me. I imagine that Stoate brought you here so that you can tell me what he dares not utter himself. You are a damned coward, Stoate, with your false cheer.’

Thus admonished, Stoate busied himself by inspecting the flask of urine that Tuddenham had provided, studiously avoiding the knight’s eyes. Bewildered, Bartholomew went to sit on the bed, taking Tuddenham’s hands in his to feel their temperature. He was surprised he had not noticed before, but there seemed to be a tautness about the skin of the face and a dullness about the hair that did not signify good health. Hoping his own hands were not too cold, he began his examination. There was a hard lump the size of an apple under the skin of Tuddenham’s stomach.

‘How long have you had this?’ he asked, pulling the night-shirt down and sitting back.

‘I noticed it at Christmas. It has been growing steadily larger and more painful ever since. Stoate tells me I will live to be an old man yet. What do you say, Bartholomew?’

Bartholomew glanced at Stoate, who was still holding the urine up to the light and refusing to look at anyone. Tuddenham gave a sharp laugh.

‘Are you afraid to contradict the opinion of a colleague? Or are you afraid to tell the truth?’

‘Neither,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Despite Master Stoate’s attempts to cheer you, you seem to know the truth anyway.’

‘I did not want him to give up,’ said Stoate, lowering the flask and looking at Bartholomew defiantly. ‘In my experience, telling a patient he will die simply hastens his end – he loses the will to live and gives up on life.’

There was more than a grain of truth in Stoate’s reasoning. Bartholomew had seen many patients give up the ghost when they might have lived longer: it was certainly true of Cynric, sitting shrouded in gloom in the hall downstairs. But it made no sense to use such tactics on Tuddenham, who had already guessed the seriousness of his condition. He looked back to the knight, who was still waiting for his answer.

‘A few months,’ he said. ‘No longer.’

‘Will I live to be a father? The child should be born in November.’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew.

Tuddenham stared at him for a moment, and then took a deep breath. After a moment he smiled sadly. ‘What a pair you two make! One too frightened to tell me I am ill; the other so brutal in his honesty. Somewhere in between might have been more pleasant.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But you are lucky to be expecting a child, Sir Thomas. This disease often brings infertility.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tuddenham bitterly. ‘I am lucky indeed! I would have been luckier still if I could have had my first sons with me now, but the Death took them. I survived that, only to die of this insidious disease that is rotting my flesh, even as I live and breathe.’

Bartholomew turned to Stoate. ‘What are you doing for him?’

‘A potion of three grains of foxglove, mixed with wine and honey. I bring it each morning, so that Sir Thomas can pass the day without too much pain, and without anyone knowing of his condition.’ He shrugged. ‘I was considering sending him to Ipswich for surgery.’

‘It is too late for surgery,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There is very little you can do now. I would recommend you use poppy seeds, rather than foxglove, but you will need to increase the dose as time passes.’ He looked at Tuddenham. ‘And your family do not know?’

‘No one knows,’ said Tuddenham. ‘Just Stoate, Siric and now you. Even Wauncy does not know.’ He gave a soft laugh, a rustle at the back of his throat. ‘It is ironic – Wauncy looks like a walking corpse, yet it is I who am mortally sick.’

‘They will find out,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You will not be able to hide it from them for much longer.’

‘I will keep it from them as long as I can,’ said Tuddenham. ‘I do not want to worry Isilia yet, and it will only give Hamon and Dame Eva something else to argue about. You will not tell them, will you?’ He gripped Bartholomew’s hand hard.

‘Of course not.’

Tuddenham relaxed. ‘Good. You see, Bartholomew, one of the things I am bargaining for with that crafty Alcote is the provision of a mass priest to pray for my soul when I am dead. His stipend will be paid for out of the money Michaelhouse will make from the living of the church. Alcote may not agree to that condition if he thinks Michaelhouse will have to start paying at the end of the summer, and not in twenty years’ time.’

Bartholomew smiled. ‘He will not discover any of this from me. And anyway, our rates for masses are not quite so high as those of Master Wauncy.’

Tuddenham smiled faintly. ‘Thank you. Now, give me my medicine, Stoate. And tomorrow I will have poppy, not foxglove.’

Bartholomew collected Cynric from the hall, and headed for the Half Moon, relieved to be away from a consultation for once. There were aspects of his trade that he did not enjoy, and breaking that kind of news to a patient was one of them. With Cynric trailing listlessly behind him, he walked down the path to the village.

‘Matt!’ cried Michael, running down The Street as fast as his plump legs would carry him. ‘Where have you been? You are covered in mud! And what is wrong with Cynric? He looks as though he has seen a ghost.’

Cynric groaned and put his hands over his face, while Bartholomew told the monk what had happened. Michael took a deep, unsteady breath.

‘I am sorry, Matt. This is all my fault! I urged you to go with Grosnold when I should have seen it was not safe, even with Cynric. And things are not much better here. Tuddenham has arrested Eltisley for the killing of Unwin, and has him locked in the cellar at Wergen Hall. And I went to see Mistress Freeman yesterday, as I told you I would, only someone had been to see her first, and she lies dead in the church with her throat cut, just like her husband!’