The Lost Abbot

Chapter 1

Peterborough, August 1358

Everyone was relieved when the towers and pinnacles of the great Benedictine abbey finally came into view. It had not been an easy journey, and misfortune had dogged them every step of the way – lame horses, flooded roads, accidents and a series of raids by robbers. And as none of the party had wanted to leave Cambridge in the first place, the litany of mishaps had done nothing to soothe ragged tempers.

‘At last!’ breathed Ralph de Langelee. ‘I thought we would never arrive.’

‘I told you we should not have come,’ said Father William, an unsavoury Franciscan who wore a filthy habit and whose thick hair sprouted in oily clumps around an untidy tonsure. ‘It is hundreds of miles across dangerous country, and we are lucky to be alive.’

‘It is not hundreds of miles,’ countered Matthew Bartholomew, gripping the reins of his horse with fierce concentration. He was not a good rider, and had fallen off twice since the journey began; he was determined it would not happen again. ‘It is less than forty.’

William only sniffed, declining to acknowledge that he might be wrong. Bartholomew did not blame him for thinking the distance greater than it was, when a journey that should have taken no more than two or three days had extended to almost a fortnight. He glanced at his companions.

Langelee was in charge, not only because he was Master of Michaelhouse, the Cambridge College to which they all belonged, but because he had been a soldier before embarking on an academic career, and so knew what to do in the kinds of crises that had plagued them. Most of the University thought he should have stuck to warfare, because he was patently unsuited to scholarship, and his classes had a tendency to slide off into discussions about camp-ball, his favourite sport. But he was a just and fair leader, and his Fellows were content with his rule. Or they had been before he had decided that some of them should visit Peterborough.

There were seven Fellows in his College, and he had picked three of them to travel with him, while a fourth had been ordered to go by no less a person than the Bishop of Lincoln. As all had hoped to spend the summer recovering from the rigours of an unusually frantic Easter Term, not to mention preparing work for the next academic year, the decision to drag them away had been unpopular, to say the least.

‘I do not see why I had to come to this godforsaken place,’ grumbled William, glaring at the monastery with dislike. ‘I will be unwelcome here – the Black Monks will mock me and make me feel uncomfortable. And they have no right, because everyone knows that the Franciscan Order is the only one God really likes.’

‘Is that so?’ asked Brother Michael coldly. He was a Benedictine himself, tall, generous of girth and whose ‘rough travelling habit’ was cut from the finest cloth. He had lank brown hair that was trimmed carefully around a perfectly round tonsure, and expressive green eyes. Besides teaching theology, he was also the University’s Senior Proctor, and through the years he had manoeuvred himself into a position of considerable authority. He had not found it easy to surrender his hard-won power to his deputy.

Worse yet, one of the King’s favourite ministers was in the process of founding a new College, and Michael was uneasy with the entire venture – the unseemly speed with which matters were being pushed along, the fact that only lawyers would be permitted to enrol there, and the resentment that was brewing in the rest of the University, which felt it was being bulldozed. Michael had promised to write Winwick Hall’s charter himself, to prevent the founder from slipping anything sly into it, but if the return journey took as long as the outward one, he would be too late. The resulting strain did not render him an amiable travelling companion.

‘Yes,’ William flashed back. ‘Benedictines are venal and greedy, and everyone knows it. And if you do not believe me, then look at the size and grandeur of this abbey.’

The Franciscan had a point. It had been four hundred years since the Black Monks had arrived in Peterborough, which had given them ample time to build themselves one of the finest monasteries in the country. Michael was disinclined to admit it, though.

‘You should not have brought him,’ he said testily to Langelee. ‘He has been nothing but trouble the entire way.’

‘How dare you–’ began William hotly.

‘I have already explained why he had to come,’ interrupted Langelee. ‘He upset a lot of people by accusing the Deputy Sheriff of corruption last month, and this jaunt will allow time for tempers to cool.’

‘But I was right,’ objected William, stung. ‘He is corrupt.’

‘Almost certainly,’ agreed Langelee. ‘But you should not have made the point in a public sermon. Your remarks almost caused a riot.’

‘And me?’ asked Clippesby, the last of the four Fellows to be travelling. He was a Dominican, who spoke to animals and claimed they answered back. Most people considered him insane, although Bartholomew often thought that the gentle, compassionate friar was more rational than the rest of the Fellows put together. ‘Why did you drag me all the way out here? I made no slurs against deputy sheriffs.’

‘No,’ agreed Langelee. ‘But Thelnetham will be Acting Master while I am away, and he does not like you – it seemed prudent to eliminate a source of discord. Besides, just think of all the new creatures you will meet. It is an opportunity to expand your social life.’

Clippesby shot him a baleful look. He did not usually let his colleagues’ opinions of his eccentricities perturb him, but even his serene tolerance had been put to the test on the journey. ‘It was inconvenient, Master. I had hoped to complete my theological treatise on rabbits this summer. Now it will remain unfinished until Christmas.’

‘A lunatic discourse, full of the heresy that your Order loves,’ scoffed William. He harboured a passionate aversion to Dominicans, and it was fortunate that Clippesby usually ignored his bigoted eccentricities or blood would have been spilled.

‘Do not waste your time on essays, Clippesby,’ advised Langelee. ‘I never read anything my fellow philosophers write. Their ramblings are either boring or nonsensical. Or both.’

His Fellows exchanged wry glances.

‘And Matt?’ asked Clippesby. ‘Surely it was unnecessary to force him to come? He is needed at home, where he has huge numbers of patients relying on him.’

‘There are two reasons why he could not be left,’ replied Langelee crisply. ‘Julitta Holm and Gonville Hall.’

Bartholomew felt himself blush. He had believed his affection for Julitta was secret, and had been mortified to learn that half the town knew how he felt. He would have to be more discreet in future, because her friendship meant a lot to him, and he was unwilling to give it up. She was wife to Surgeon Holm, a selfish, arrogant man with a negligible grasp of medicine who was unworthy of her in every way.

‘Julitta,’ mused William. ‘Her husband might prefer the company of men, but he still objects to being cuckolded. And matrimony is a sacred–’

‘Gonville Hall is the greater crime,’ Langelee cut in disapprovingly. He scowled at Bartholomew. ‘You did not have to fail all its medical students at their final disputations last month.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Bartholomew shortly. ‘They could not answer any of my questions. Would you want to be treated by them, if you were ill or injured?’

‘I am rarely ill, and only poor warriors are injured,’ countered Langelee, missing the point.

‘Besides, if you had wanted me out of Cambridge, why could I not have gone to Clare instead?’ Bartholomew went on. ‘I have heard many good things about the place, and I had intended to visit it this summer.’

‘It is overrated,’ declared Michael briskly. ‘You will enjoy yourself far more in Peterborough, and I was right to encourage the Master to bring you.’ He kicked his horse into a canter before Bartholomew could inform him that he had disliked his plans being hijacked. ‘If we hurry, we shall be in time for dinner, and I am famished.’

‘He is always famished,’ muttered Cynric. The Welsh book-bearer was the sixth and last member of the party. ‘And it is hardly natural.’

Cynric was more friend than servant to Bartholomew, but although he was usually eager for adventure, he had not wanted to go to Peterborough either. He had carved a pleasant life for himself in Cambridge, with an agreeable wife, a job that entailed little real work, and like-minded cronies with whom to set the world to rights over jugs of ale of an evening. It was only loyalty to the Fellows that had induced him to make the journey, afraid that unless he was there, they might come to harm. And given the number of attacks they had fended off, his concern had been justified.

Bartholomew was glad to talk about something other than Julitta and his conflict with Gonville Hall. ‘There will be scant time for feasting once we arrive in Peterborough. Michael will have to carry out his orders.’

These ‘orders’ were the real reason they were there: to find out what happened to Abbot Robert, who left his monastery a month before, and had not been seen or heard of since.

The little town of Peterborough was dominated by its abbey. Within its precincts, the church, chapter house and cloisters were the largest structures, but it also boasted a number of other buildings that turned it into a self-contained village – refectory, dormitory, almonry, sacristy, kitchens, bakery, brewery, pantries, stables and lodgings for guests and servants.

Bartholomew had attended the monastery school, and as they rode through the town’s outskirts he found some parts reassuringly familiar. Others, he was sure he had never seen before, but that was to be expected; he had been twelve when he had left, which had been more years ago than he cared to remember.

‘If Brother Michael had not accepted the honour of being made a canon of Lincoln Cathedral two years ago,’ Cynric muttered resentfully in Bartholomew’s ear, ‘we would not be in this position now. And I do not like Peterborough.’

Bartholomew laughed. Despite his reluctance to leave, the journey had been good for him. The nagging fatigue that had dogged him all term had gone, and while he missed Julitta and worried about his patients, he was fitter and more relaxed than he had been in months.

‘You cannot say you do not like it. We have only just arrived.’

Cynric gave him a meaningful look, and clutched one of the amulets he wore around his neck. ‘It is a feeling, boy, and I have learned not to ignore those. I sense wickedness here, and there will be evil spirits involved. You can be sure of that.’

There had been a time when Bartholomew would have tried to convince the book-bearer that such a notion was ridiculous, but Cynric had grown more superstitious and opinionated with age, and the physician now knew better than to try.

‘Brother Michael’s canonisation means that Bishop Gynewell has a hold over him,’ Cynric went on sourly. ‘He should have held out for one in Ely instead, because then we would not have been sent here to hunt for mysteriously vanished Abbots.’

‘Michael is a long way from sainthood yet,’ said Bartholomew, although he could see from Cynric’s glare that the book-bearer did not want a lecture on ecclesiastical terminology.

‘Once the Bishop named him as Commissioner, he had no choice but to come to Peterborough,’ Cynric grumbled on. ‘But that should not have meant that half of Michaelhouse is forced to travel with him. It is unfair.’

Bartholomew made no reply. He had been regaled with Cynric’s displeasure over the venture ever since they had left, and he was tired of discussing it.

‘I understand why most of us are here,’ the book-bearer continued. ‘Brother Michael was ordered to come by the Bishop; you and Father William had to escape awkward situations; Clippesby could not be left with mean old Thelnetham; and I am here to look after you. But what about the Master? I do not believe he is here to see old friends.’

As it happened, Cynric was right to be suspicious of Langelee’s motives. Bartholomew was not the only one who disobeyed the University’s strictures against women, and the Master’s latest conquest was the Deputy Sheriff’s wife. The man had discovered the affair the same day that William had accused him of dishonesty, and rather than risk having war declared on Michaelhouse, Langelee had opted for a tactical withdrawal. Bartholomew was the only Fellow entrusted with this information, on the grounds that Langelee did not think the others – all clerics in holy orders – would understand.

‘He does have a friend here,’ Bartholomew replied, although Langelee had confessed that he had only met Master Spalling once, and the expansive invitation to ‘visit any time’ had been issued after a night of heavy drinking. In truth, Langelee did not know whether Spalling would remember him, let alone agree to a house guest.

‘Well, I am glad he came,’ conceded Cynric, albeit reluctantly. ‘You and I could not have beaten off those robbers alone – we would have been slaughtered.’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew, wincing when he recalled the delight with which the Master had greeted the opportunity to hone his martial skills. Bartholomew’s own talents in that direction were modest, as befitted a man whose profession was healing. Bad timing had put him in Poitiers when a small force led by the Prince of Wales had encountered the French army – which had taught him how to hold his own; but he disliked fighting and avoided it when he could.

‘Do you think we will survive the return journey?’ asked Cynric uneasily. ‘Or shall we be doomed to spend the rest of our lives in this infernal place? My wife will not like that.’

‘Neither will my students,’ said Bartholomew.

‘You had better dismount, Matt,’ called Michael, as scattered houses gave way to proper streets. ‘We do not want anyone trampled. The resulting fuss might make us late for dinner.’

With Bartholomew, horses sensed who was master and immediately exercised their ascendancy by bucking, prancing or heading off to enjoy the grass. The docile nag he had taken from College had been shot during an ambush, leaving him with a fierce stallion that had a tendency to bolt. He did as Michael suggested and passed him the reins, feeling that the beast needed to be in responsible hands if there were people about.

It was not long before their precautions paid off. The road, which had been wide, narrowed abruptly, and an elderly man stepped in front of them. The stallion reared in shock, and even Michael’s superior abilities were tested as he struggled to control it. Bartholomew would have stood no chance, and blood would certainly have been spilled.

‘You are not allowed to bring dangerous animals in here,’ screeched the man, cringing away as hoofs flailed. He was an ancient specimen, with bandy legs, no teeth and wispy grey hair; he wore the robes of a Benedictine lay brother. ‘It is forbidden.’

‘I imagine it is forbidden to race out in front of travellers and frighten their mounts, too,’ retorted Michael.

‘Are you the Bishop’s Commissioner?’ asked the old man, peering up at him.

‘Yes, he is,’ said William before the monk could reply for himself. ‘And so are we.’

‘What, all of you?’ asked the old man, startled. He was not the only one to be surprised: it was also news to Michael, Langelee, Clippesby, Bartholomew and Cynric. ‘Why so many?’

‘Because the Bishop thought Brother Michael might need us,’ replied William loftily.

‘I see,’ said the old man with a philosophical shrug, as if the workings of a prelate’s mind were beyond his ken. ‘We expected you ages ago because the Bishop asked you to come at once, but you have taken weeks. Why? Do you not consider our predicament pressing?’

‘And who are you, pray?’ asked Michael coolly.

‘Roger Botilbrig, bedesman of St Leonard’s Hospital. That means I have served the abbey all my life – I was their best brewer – and I now live in retirement at abbey expense.’

‘I know what a bedesman is,’ said Michael, disliking the assumption that he was a fool.

Botilbrig went on as if the monk had not spoken. ‘My duties are mostly praying for the hospital’s founders, but that is a bit tedious, so I offered to wait for you instead, to escort you to the abbey. Of course, I did not expect to be kept hanging around this long.’

‘My apologies,’ said Michael dryly. ‘However, our journey has been fraught with–’

‘Apology accepted.’ Botilbrig gave a sudden toothless grin. ‘Bishop Gynewell told us to expect a very large monk, and he was not exaggerating. You are a princely specimen.’

William sniggered, Langelee and Cynric smothered smiles, and Bartholomew waited for an explosion. Clippesby began murmuring to the wasp that had landed on his sleeve.

‘I am not fat,’ declared Michael tightly. ‘I have big bones. Matt here will confirm it, because he is my personal physician.’

Bartholomew blinked, astonished to learn that he had been awarded such a title.

‘A physician?’ asked Botilbrig, brightening. ‘Good! We do not have one of our own any more, not since Master Pyk disappeared at the same time as Abbot Robert. Most of us have ailments that need tending, so it is thoughtful of you to bring us one. I have a sore–’

‘He will be helping me,’ interrupted Michael. ‘He will not have time for patients. However, the fact that more than one man is adrift is news to us. Gynewell said it was just the Abbot.’

‘The Abbot and Pyk,’ stated Botilbrig. ‘They disappeared a month ago, on St Swithin’s Day, and have not been seen since. It will not be easy to find them after all this time, but the Bishop says you are good at solving mysteries, so we are all expecting a speedy solution.’

‘So no pressure then,’ murmured Langelee to Michael.

Botilbrig hobbled along the road, gabbling non-stop as he pointed out features of interest. The physician was the only one who listened. William had turned resentful again, claiming that he should be persecuting heretics in Cambridge, not sent to distant outposts just because he had made a few perfectly justifiable remarks about a devious official. Cynric was nodding agreement; Langelee was trying to recall where Spalling had said he lived; Michael was reflecting unhappily on the task he had been set; and Clippesby had been stung by the wasp.

Eventually, they arrived at the town centre, which comprised a marketplace bordered by handsome houses on three sides and abbey buildings on the fourth. The square was alive with activity. Wooden stalls with colourful roofs stood in neat rows, selling goods that ranged from cakes and candles to bread and baskets. Bartholomew braced himself, expecting it to smell like the one in Cambridge – a brutal combination of dung, urine, stagnant water and rotting offal – so he was pleasantly surprised when all he could detect was fresh straw and baking bread.

‘Here is the Abbey Gate,’ said Botilbrig, stopping outside a handsome edifice. With a somewhat proprietary air, he addressed the gaggle of people who had stopped to stare at the newcomers. ‘These are the Bishop’s Commissioners, and I am showing them what’s what.’

‘They took their time,’ muttered one woman. ‘We expected them weeks ago.’

‘We came as fast as we could,’ said William indignantly.

‘There is a chapel by the gate; we should go there first, to give thanks for our safe arrival,’ said Clippesby, earning himself a murmur of approval from the onlookers for his piety, although that had not been his intention.

‘Of course,’ said William, unwilling to be seen as less devout than a Dominican. Then he frowned as he peered at it. ‘Are there shops in its undercroft? There are! Blasphemy!’

‘That is St Thomas’s Hospital, and there are shops below it because it is run by greedy bedeswomen,’ explained Botilbrig. ‘The workshop on the corner is owned by Reginald the cutler, who is as foul a villain as ever walked the Earth. He is quite rich, though, so Abbot Robert never minded spending time in his company.’

‘Clippesby is right: we should say a prayer,’ said Michael, raising mystified eyebrows at Botilbrig’s peculiar medley of revelations. ‘It has been a difficult journey, after all.’

‘Why?’ asked Botilbrig. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Amongst other calamities, we were attacked five times by robbers,’ replied William. ‘Ones who spoke French – I heard them quite distinctly. They must live in this town, as they only became a serious nuisance during the last few miles.’

‘I see,’ said Botilbrig. ‘Then you should indeed give thanks, but do not do it at St Thomas’s. That place pays homage to executed felons and is full of false relics. Come to the Hospital of St Leonard instead.’

‘Peterborough has two hospitals?’ said William, impressed, although Bartholomew had already told him as much. Clearly the friar had not trusted his colleague’s memory.

‘They were founded for lepers,’ explained Botilbrig. ‘Although St Leonard’s is now used to house bedesmen, like me. St Thomas’s still takes lepers, though, which should make you think twice about stepping inside its chapel.’

‘There has not been a case of leprosy in this country for years,’ countered Bartholomew. ‘These unfortunates will have contracted another skin disease, such as–’

‘Where is St Leonard’s?’ asked William, before they could be regaled with a list. The physician was difficult to stop once he started to hold forth about medicine, and not all his discourses made for pleasant listening.

‘A short walk west of the town,’ replied Botilbrig proudly. ‘We have a holy well, too, along with a man who is a hundred and forty-three years old. We will let you touch him if you put a few coins in the oblations box.’

‘Is that possible, Matthew?’ asked William. ‘Do people really live to such a great age? I know they did in the Bible, but those were different times.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew, although the doubt was clear in his voice.

Botilbrig regarded him coolly. ‘Of course it is possible. Now come along. It is not far – just straight through the town, out the other side and along a–’

‘We are not leaving now we have arrived at last,’ interrupted Langelee firmly. ‘So my clerics will pray in this chapel. They can visit St Leonard’s another time.’

‘They will be sorry,’ warned Botilbrig. ‘It is a dark and gloomy place, not like pretty St Leonard’s. I was saying to Master Spalling only last night that–’

‘Spalling?’ pounced Langelee. ‘Where does he live?’

‘In the large house out by the parish church,’ replied Botilbrig, regarding him curiously. ‘Why? Do you know him? If so, you had better not tell the monks.’

‘Why not?’ asked Michael.

‘Because they hate him.’ Botilbrig spoke as if this were something he should know.

‘And why do they hate him?’ pressed Michael, struggling for patience.

‘Because he says it is wrong for abbeys, nobles and merchants to have lots of money when ordinary folk have none,’ explained Botilbrig. ‘I am loyal to the abbey, of course, but it is difficult to dislike Spalling. He is very popular in the town.’

‘Perhaps I will join you at his home, Master,’ said Cynric to Langelee. The book-bearer had radical views on social justice, and Spalling sounded like his kind of man.

‘And perhaps I will stay in the abbey,’ countered Langelee. ‘I do not recall Spalling harbouring controversial opinions when I met him in York.’

‘You are in luck,’ said Botilbrig with a grin. ‘Because here he comes now. I shall be able to introduce you.’

The scholars turned to see a man striding towards them. He had an impressive mane of long yellow hair, while his beard was full, bushy and gold. His enormous size, along with the fact that he was wearing a simple tunic in the kind of brown homespun favoured by working men, made him an arresting figure. He was trailed by a host of people, and when he stopped walking, so did they, shuffling to a standstill at his heels.

‘Another greedy monk, come to devour the fruits of our labour,’ he spat, blue eyes blazing as he glared at Michael. ‘I thought our troubles had eased when the Death reduced their number from sixty-four to thirty-two, but they have been increasing since, and will soon be back to their former strength.’

‘They lost half their number to plague?’ asked Bartholomew with quiet compassion. The disease that had ravaged the country, eliminating entire communities and striking indiscriminately at old, young, rich and poor had been a terrible experience. He could still recall the helplessness that had gripped him when all his remedies and treatments failed, and he had been forced to watch much-loved patients die one after another.

‘Yes, and it is a pity it was not more,’ declared Spalling uncompromisingly. ‘They deserve to rot in Hell for the crimes they commit against the common man.’

Behind him, there was a murmur of approval, although Botilbrig looked uncomfortable, caught between his admiration for a man with attractive opinions and his loyalty to the place that housed and fed him.

‘And this is your friend, Master?’ asked Michael of Langelee, all frosty hauteur. ‘Your taste in companions has always been dubious, but you have excelled yourself this time.’

Spalling frowned at Langelee. ‘You are an acquaintance of mine? I do not recognise you.’

‘I am Master of Michaelhouse now,’ explained Langelee, also struggling to see something familiar in Spalling, and thus indicating that the evening they had enjoyed together had been wilder than he had led his colleagues to believe. ‘But we met when I was working for the Archbishop of York.’

‘That wily old scoundrel!’ snorted Spalling. ‘You did the right thing by abandoning him and opting for the life of a poor scholar. You are welcome in my house, sir.’

Langelee regarded him coolly; he had admired and respected his Archbishop. ‘Thank you, but I think I must remain with my Fellows. They will only get themselves into trouble without me to supervise them.’

‘I approve of the two friars and the pauper.’ Spalling flapped a hand towards William, Clippesby and Bartholomew, who looked down at his clothes and supposed he could do with some new ones. ‘But not the fat Benedictine. I despise that Order with a passion. Ask anyone in Peterborough.’

‘Brother Michael is our College’s finest theologian,’ said Langelee stiffly. ‘And–’

‘Other than me,’ put in William.

‘And he also runs the University. Do not let his ample girth deceive you. He eats very little, and his weight is entirely due to his unusually heavy bones. Here is his personal physician, who will support what I say.’

‘Very heavy,’ obliged Bartholomew, aware that the only reason Langelee considered Michael’s appetite modest was because he possessed a gargantuan one of his own. Michael was glowering at him, so he added, ‘Lead has nothing on them.’

‘Well, in that case, perhaps I shall make an exception,’ said Spalling graciously. ‘The plump devils in this abbey do nothing but eat, and it is the poor who labour to keep them in bread. Do not glare at me, Botilbrig. You know I am right. They almost worked you into an early grave before I intervened and ordered them to make you a bedesman.’

‘They would have let me retire anyway,’ objected Botilbrig. ‘It was just a question of time. And not all the monks are fat. Brother Henry is skin and bone, while–’

‘You will stay with me,’ said Spalling to Langelee, although it was more order than invitation, and judging from the Master’s face, not one he was keen to follow. ‘I want to hear more about this University of yours. The physician can come, too, because his clothes reveal him to be impoverished, and the needy are always welcome in my home.’

‘The physician will stay with me in the abbey,’ stated Michael. ‘You can take the Franciscan, though. He is poor, as you can see from his habit.’

‘His habit denotes filth, not destitution,’ countered Spalling with commendable astuteness. ‘But I cannot stand here arguing all day. I am a busy man – I have a wealthy merchant to berate for his miserliness before dinner, and I aim to shame him into donating enough money for a handsome meal for my faithful followers. So come along, those who wish to see me in action.’

Langelee considered for a moment, then turned to his Fellows. ‘I think I will go with him. Michaelhouse’s coffers are always empty, and if he really can persuade rich men to part with their gold I should like to learn his secret. Come with me, Cynric. Your sword will not be needed in the monastery, but it may be useful at Spalling’s house.’

Cynric looked pleased with the opportunity to spend more time with a man who harboured radical opinions, and he and Langelee joined the straggling line of disciples who followed their golden-headed leader. Michael watched them go.

‘I wonder the abbey lets him roam about, spouting that sort of nonsense to visitors.’

‘The monks are not happy, and even excommunicated him at one point,’ explained Botilbrig. ‘But Bishop Gynewell overturned their verdict, on the grounds that it was too harsh.’

‘We had better make ourselves known to whoever is in charge before we miss dinner,’ said Michael, pushing Spalling from his mind as he turned towards the Abbey Gate. ‘Langelee is right: I eat very little, but I feel the need for a morsel now. That man upset me.’

‘Ignore him, Brother,’ advised Bartholomew. ‘He may dress like a peasant, but he does not work like one. His hands were as soft as a lady’s, and he had spilled egg custard down his tunic – hardly paupers’ fare. I sense a good deal of the hypocrite in Spalling.’

‘We shall visit the abbey as soon as we have said our prayers,’ said Clippesby, indicating the hospital. ‘And if we miss dinner, then so be it.’

Michael looked set to argue, but William and Clippesby were striding towards the door, so he had no choice but to do likewise, unless he wanted to be seen as the cleric who put victuals before his devotions. And after Spalling’s remarks he was disinclined to do that.

The hospital chapel was a small, neat building, with a frieze in a panel above the gate depicting the murder of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. It had narrow windows with pointed tops and a thatched roof. Inside, it was dark, especially after the brilliance of the sunlight, and its walls were painted in sombre greens and blues, rendering it gloomy. Bedesman Botilbrig pointedly declined to follow, and confined himself to standing in the porch, muttering disparaging comments about the women who ran it.

For a modestly sized place, it was amply provided with doors – the large one that opened on to the market square, a smaller one that gave access to the abbey, and two tiny ones in the north wall. The first of these led to the adjoining hospital, while the other led to a graveyard – a necessity when inmates were likely to be ailing or elderly.

Bartholomew said a few quick prayers and then prowled, leaving his colleagues to manage the serious devotions. He could not recall being in St Thomas’s before, and supposed it had not featured in his youthful explorations. It was surprisingly busy, with one clot of pilgrims at the altar, where Michael, William and Clippesby were obliged to jostle for a place, and a second cluster bustling in and out of the cemetery door.

Curious as to why a graveyard should be so popular, Bartholomew eased his way through the penitents until he emerged in a pretty walled garden with gravelled paths. There were perhaps forty mounds, some recent, but most marked with wooden crosses that were grey and cracked with age. People were congregating around one near the wall, which was all but invisible under a heap of flowers. Supervising the operation was a vast lady in the robes of a lay sister. She saw him hovering and came to greet him.

‘This is where Lawrence de Oxforde is buried,’ she announced. ‘Have you come to see if he will work a miracle for you? He has performed many since his death forty-five years ago.’

Bartholomew was bemused as memories flooded back. ‘I remember some folk claiming that wishes had been granted at his grave, but I thought his cult had been suppressed, on the grounds that the Church dislikes executed felons being venerated.’

‘It was suppressed, but Abbot Robert turns a blind eye,’ confided the woman. ‘Of course, I understand why the Church disapproves – Oxforde was a violent thief. Yet miracles do occur here, and it is not for the likes of you and me to question the mysterious workings of God.’

‘I suppose not,’ conceded Bartholomew cautiously, recalling what he had been told about the infamous Oxforde when he had been a schoolboy. The man had been a ruthless criminal with an inflated sense of his own worth, who had died astonished that the King had not granted him a pardon. He had murdered at least twenty people, including children, and had burgled himself a fortune, although none of it had ever been recovered.

‘Kneel at his grave and ask for anything you like,’ invited the woman. ‘Being a felon himself, he is very broad-minded. And when you have finished, you may leave your donation with me – Joan Sylle.’

‘I have nothing to ask, Sister,’ said Bartholomew, backing away.

‘Oh, come,’ coaxed Joan. ‘Surely you yearn for something? Perhaps there is a woman you would like to fall into your arms? That is exactly the kind of favour Oxforde grants.’

Bartholomew’s retreat stopped abruptly when two faces flashed into his mind. One was Julitta’s and the other belonged to Matilde. It had been more than three years since Matilde had left Cambridge, disappearing so completely that not even months of determined searching had tracked her down. He would not mind either of them falling into his arms.

‘I have just learned that this chapel owns some genuine relics, Matthew,’ came William’s excited voice from behind him. Bartholomew supposed he should be grateful for the timely interruption, sure his colleagues would not approve of him petitioning an executed criminal to help with his unsatisfactory love life.

‘Of course we do,’ said Joan, flashing large teeth in a grin that verged on the predatory. ‘Would you like a private viewing? I know you are the Bishop’s Commissioners, so I am more than happy to clear the chapel to accommodate you.’

‘That would be kind,’ said William eagerly. ‘What do you have?’

Joan swelled with pride. ‘The flagstone where St Thomas Becket was standing when he was murdered, the green tunic he was wearing, and two enormous flasks of his blood.’

Bartholomew was sceptical, knowing that if every drop of ‘Becket Blood’ was genuine, the man would have had enough to fill a lake. Moreover, he was sure the saint would not have been wearing a green tunic when he was cut down.

‘Impressive,’ murmured William, pressing a coin into her hand.

‘You shall see them at once. Nothing is too much fuss for the Bishop’s Commissioners.’

‘Good,’ said William. ‘Because I am very interested in lucrative … I mean saintly relics. So is Matthew. He is a physician, who knows the healing value of such objects.’

‘A physician?’ asked Joan keenly. ‘Good! My poor knees have not been the same since Master Pyk disappeared, so you can treat them now he is gone.’

Before Bartholomew could inform her that he would not be in Peterborough long enough to see patients, she began to shoo the pilgrims out of the chapel and the graveyard, driving them before her like sheep. They were dismayed, but she ignored their objections, and it was not long until they were ousted. She was careful to leave Michael and Clippesby alone, though; they continued to kneel quietly, side by side.

‘There is the blood,’ said Joan, nodding proudly at two ornate vases that stood on the altar. Then she pointed to the reliquary that had been placed in an alcove beneath them. ‘And his tunic is in that nice box.’

‘Where is the flagstone?’ asked William keenly.

‘In front of the altar. The lump you see next to the candle is a bit that broke off when we dropped it. If you look carefully, you can see blood on it. It is the martyr’s.’

Bartholomew doubted that blood would still be in evidence after almost two hundred years. Fortunately, Joan did not notice his scepticism, because William enthused enough over her treasures for both of them.

‘May I touch the tunic?’ the friar begged. ‘Please?’

Joan gazed pointedly at his grimy hands, but her disapproval dissipated with the appearance of another coin. ‘On one condition: that your physician tends one of our inmates. She is in terrible pain, and I do not like to see such suffering.’

‘He will oblige you at once,’ said William, grabbing the tunic, and lifting it to his lips.

Bartholomew was not happy with William for volunteering his services in so cavalier a manner, but he could not refuse help to someone in need, so he followed Joan through one of the small doors in the north wall. William trailed at his heels, still gushing his delight at being allowed to touch the sainted Becket’s clothing. Beyond the door was a short passage, which emerged into a large, bright room that was flooded with sunlight. All three blinked: it was dazzling after the shadowy chapel.

‘This is our hall,’ explained Joan. ‘Where we eat and hold meetings. We keep the sick and elderly bedeswomen in the adjoining chamber.’

There were six beds in the second room. The residents brightened when Joan told them that she had found a physician, and clamoured their ailments at Bartholomew as he passed. Joan grabbed his arm and hauled him on, declaring that Lady Lullington must come first.

‘Yes, tend her, poor soul,’ called one crone. ‘It is unfair that she should endure such torments while her pig of a husband struts around enjoying himself with Abbot Robert. Or he did, before Robert vanished.’

‘Lullington does not even visit her,’ added another. ‘Despite her giving him six children.’

‘Shame on him,’ declared William, who rarely waited to hear the whole story before passing judgement. ‘Where is this hapless woman?’

‘Upstairs,’ replied Joan. ‘In a separate room, on account of her being a lady.’

William and Bartholomew followed her up a spiral staircase and were shown into another pleasant chamber, this one with pale green walls. It was a soothing, quiet place, although the woman who lay on the bed was grey and shrunken with pain. A priest knelt at her side, his face wet with tears. He was a young man with a mop of unruly brown curls, and his priestly robe was frayed and thin.

‘Gentle Trentham,’ the sick woman was whispering, forcing a smile as she touched his hand. ‘Do not grieve so. You know I am not afraid to die.’

The priest nodded without much conviction. He scrambled to his feet as Joan ushered in the visitors, and gripped Bartholomew’s arm roughly when informed that here was a medicus.

‘Please help her,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It is not fair …’ He turned and stumbled from the room, choking back another sob.

‘He is too soft for his own good, blubbering every time one of us prepares to meet her Maker,’ said Joan with a sigh. ‘Yet he is a kindly soul, who takes his duties as chaplain seriously. I would not change him for one with a harder heart.’

‘Nor would I,’ whispered Lady Lullington softly.

The patient had probably not been large when she had been healthy, but illness had turned her skeletal. The hands that lay on the covers were almost translucent, and when she raised one to beckon Bartholomew towards her, he could see it was an effort.

‘Master Pyk told me that I would recover, but I am not inclined to believe him. What do you say? Am I dying?’

Bartholomew was all too familiar with the appearance of approaching death, and he could see it in Lady Lullington. ‘Yes. I am sorry.’

She smiled, although Joan inhaled sharply at his bluntness. ‘Thank you for your honesty. But I have been in agony for weeks now, and I am weary of it. Can you give me something to help, even if only for a little while?’

‘I will try. Tell me where it hurts.’

‘Everywhere. Please do not ask for details – I do not have the strength to tell you. Just give me the most powerful remedy you own.’

Bartholomew’s professional curiosity was piqued but he did not press her. Instead, he measured out a potent pain-dulling potion, using a dose he would never have given a patient who was likely to live. As it was, he wondered whether it might ease her into a sleep from which she would never wake. She took a sip, and evidently knew it too, for she looked at him with eyes that were full of silent gratitude.

‘Shall we fetch your husband, Lady Lullington?’ asked Joan, when the cup was empty.

The dying woman shook her head. ‘He has no place here,’ she said rather enigmatically. ‘But I would like young Trentham to come back. His presence soothes me.’

When she fell asleep, Bartholomew left, sorry that the lines of suffering in her face had not lessened. William followed him down the stairs, where the other inmates watched them pass in silence. Joan stopped to give a falsely cheerful report of the lady’s condition, but it was obvious that none of them believed her.

‘Did you have to be so free with the truth?’ admonished William, once they were in the chapel again. ‘She was a dignified soul, and you should have been kinder.’

Bartholomew had never been very good at misleading patients. ‘I doubt she would have thanked me for lying.’

‘I disagree, and your bleak prognosis might send her into a fatal decline.’

‘I am not sure what is wrong with her, but I do know she will not recover. It is clear that her vital organs have started to fail and–’

‘Have you never heard of miracles?’ demanded William archly. ‘She lies above a chapel that contains holy relics. You should not have been so heartless with her.’

Bartholomew winced. Such cases were never easy, and he wished Michael had been with him instead: the monk never questioned his medical judgement. He was about to explain further when there was a sudden clatter at the back of the chapel. It was Botilbrig, come to find out why his charges were taking so long.

‘Cow!’ he screeched, making the scholars jump. ‘Thieving whore! These visitors are mine, and if they give any donations for the shrines, then they are mine, too!’

The Michaelhouse scholars gaped their astonishment at such remarks bawled in a holy place, while Botilbrig stared with undisguised loathing at Joan. The expression was returned in kind, and her meaty fists clenched at her sides.

‘You are not welcome here,’ she said coldly. ‘Leave, before the saint takes umbrage at your evil presence and sends a bolt of lightning to dispatch you.’

‘I shall go when it pleases me,’ bellowed Botilbrig. ‘It is not for a harlot to direct my movements. Besides, St Thomas does not go around striking down innocents.’

‘No, but Oxforde might,’ flashed Joan. ‘Especially after all the rude remarks you have made about him in the past. He is certainly offended.’

‘He was no more holy than you are,’ snapped Botilbrig. ‘How can you take money from desperate pilgrims, pretending that he will answer their prayers? You are a wicked–’

‘Please,’ interrupted Clippesby quietly. ‘It is inappropriate to bandy words here. The spiders do not like it – they have just said so.’

‘Spiders?’ echoed Botilbrig, startled.

‘The friar is right,’ said Joan. ‘So go away, you horrible little man.’ She turned her back on Botilbrig, deliberately provocative.

‘You two are not married, are you?’ asked William. ‘Because you sound like my parents.’

‘No, we are not,’ spluttered Botilbrig, outraged. ‘I might have set my sights on her once, but that was before she grew fat and shrewish. Now I would not look twice at her.’

‘He is jealous, because we have Thomas Becket’s relics and Oxforde’s grave,’ said Joan, scowling at him. ‘Whereas St Leonard’s has nothing but a smelly well and an old man who should have died years ago.’

‘Our spring does not smell,’ objected Botilbrig. ‘And Kirwell is holy with his great age – a saint in the making. When he dies, he will do much better miracles than Oxforde.’

‘We should go,’ said Michael to his colleagues, as the quarrel escalated. ‘The sooner we complete our business here, the sooner we can leave. And I must be home by Saturday week, or Winwick Hall’s charter will be drawn up without me, and there will be a riot.’

They left the chapel, blinking as they emerged into the sunlight. Immediately, the ousted pilgrims surged forward, demanding to know when they could resume their petitions. They jerked back when Joan propelled Botilbrig out with an unnecessary degree of force; he would have fallen if Bartholomew had not caught him. She raised a large hand for silence, before announcing haughtily that the shrines would reopen after she had counted the day’s takings. She was clearly anticipating a generous donation from the Bishop’s Commissioners, although she was going to be disappointed – Bartholomew’s had had been modest because he never had much money; Michael considered himself exempt from such obligations; and Clippesby had forgotten. The pilgrims cried their dismay, but Joan’s only response was to close the door with a firmly final thump.

‘Look,’ said William, pointing. ‘A fellow Grey Friar browsing among the market stalls. Yet my Order has no convent here.’

His curiosity piqued, he hurried off to interrogate the priest about his business. Disinclined to abandon him in a strange place, Michael sat on a low wall to wait for him, tilting his plump face towards the sun. Bartholomew and Clippesby perched by his side, both grateful for the opportunity to relax before presenting themselves at the abbey.

‘I hope finding out what happened to Abbot Robert will not take long,’ remarked the monk worriedly. ‘Gynewell is unfair to expect me to investigate so long after it happened. And he did not furnish me with much in the way of details, either.’

‘What did he tell you exactly?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You were so angry at being forced to leave Cambridge that you barely spoke a word all the way here.’

‘I would have done, but it was impossible,’ said Michael irritably. ‘Either we were listening out for robbers, or I was worried that distracting you might make you fall off your horse again. But to answer your question, Gynewell told me virtually nothing – just that the Abbot set out to visit a goldsmith one day and no one has heard from him since. He did not even say whether the case has been investigated by the monks.’

‘It must have been, Brother. You do not lose your Abbot and wait for someone else to look into the matter. I wonder why the Bishop did not come in person. The disappearance of Peterborough’s most senior monk is a serious matter.’

‘His Lincoln Mint has been producing counterfeit coins, and the King is incandescent with rage – no monarch wants his currency debased, as it could destabilise the entire economy. Gynewell has been charged to catch the forger as a matter of urgency.’

‘Money,’ said Clippesby, shaking his head disapprovingly. ‘It seems to take precedence over everything.’

‘It certainly seems important here,’ said Michael wryly. ‘Joan is taking an age to count her takings, and it seems that the two bedeshouses compete as to which can raise the most.’

They sat in companionable silence for a while, until William returned to say that his fellow Grey Friar had come to find out why Robert had failed to reply to his convent’s letters.

‘The Abbot did not leave anyone with the authority to answer them, apparently,’ he said, all smug disdain. ‘It is unprofessional, and would never happen in a Franciscan foundation.’

Michael grimaced at the claim, but it was pleasant in the sunshine and he didn’t want to quarrel. Absently, he watched a gaggle of bedeswomen enter the chapel; the pilgrims had ignored Joan’s injunction to wait, and must have either sneaked in or gone away, because there were far fewer of them than there had been. Botilbrig, loitering by the door, had been joined by several men whose robes identified them as cronies from the same foundation. They called challenging remarks after the women, then hooted derisively when there was no response.

‘Lord!’ muttered William. ‘They are old enough to know better.’

The others nodded agreement, but then a man walked past with a pig on a lead, and the animal, scenting something it did not like about the place where it was being taken, made a sudden bid for freedom. An abrupt right-angled turn saw the rope whipped from its master’s hand, and it was off. Pandemonium reigned as it raced among the market stalls, leaving chaos in its wake. It was still running amok when there was a shriek from the chapel. It was followed by a lot of shouting, and one of the bedeswomen hobbled out, wailing in distress. The scholars were torn between watching folk cluster around her and the pig’s efforts to lay hold of an apple while simultaneously eluding the hands that endeavoured to grab it.

‘Marion says that Joan is dead,’ reported Botilbrig, evidently deciding that someone should inform the Bishop’s Commissioners what the bedeswoman was howling about. ‘In front of the altar.’

The four scholars exchanged bemused glances, and went to join the growing throng outside the chapel door. Marion’s sobbing jabber was difficult to understand, so Botilbrig took it upon himself to interpret.

‘Stone dead and lying on her face. It must be because Joan argued with me in a holy place.’

‘Lies!’ howled Marion, launching herself at him. Bartholomew stepped between them, catching her flailing hands before she could do herself or her target any harm. ‘He killed her! He slipped up behind her and brained her with the broken bit of St Thomas’s flagstone!’

‘What?’ breathed William, shocked. ‘He did what?’

‘I never did!’ cried Botilbrig. ‘I was out here with you. If Joan has been brained, and Oxforde is not responsible, then St Thomas must have done it.’

‘That is blasphemy!’ shouted William, incensed. ‘And while I saw Joan toss you out, I was not watching you the whole time afterwards. You could easily have slipped back inside again without me noticing.’

Botilbrig turned white. ‘I did not kill Joan! I admit that I did not like her, but I do not want her dead.’

‘Yes, you do,’ wept Marion. ‘You have hated her ever since she refused to marry you years ago. You are a spiteful, wicked villain who–’

Bartholomew did not wait to hear more. He strode inside the chapel, Michael, Clippesby and William at his heels. Joan was lying near the altar, the remaining bedeswomen in a sobbing cluster around her, and it did not take him a moment to see that someone had indeed battered out her brains with the broken fragment of stone from the altar.

‘Is she really dead?’ whispered William, crossing himself.

Bartholomew nodded.

‘Then we had better pray for her soul,’ said Michael softly.