A Deadly Brew (21 page)

‘You eat it, then,’ said Michael, pushing it towards Bartholomew after a brief and decisive sniff. ‘It smells rank.’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘No, thank you, Brother. It tastes a good deal worse than it smells. That is why it is produced in such small quantities: like most delicacies, if it were common, no one would eat it. Oswald told me the King has a liking for pickled eels and samphire, and so, of course, it can be found in the houses of most people who consider themselves fashionable.’

Michael offered it to Cynric, who speared a piece of eel with his dagger and put it in his mouth. He spat it out again immediately, and pulled a face of such utter disgust that Michael and Bartholomew began to laugh.

‘That is quite horrible,’ said the Welshman, after he had taken a healthy swig of ale to wash away the flavour. ‘It tastes like bitter medicine! Far from being honoured, I would say the abbey is trying to get rid of us! You can keep your local delicacies, boy. We Welsh know how to cook seaweed better than that.’

‘Seaweed?’ whispered Michael, aghast. ‘They have given us seaweed?’

‘A particular type,’ said Bartholomew, feeling guilty that they were being uncharitable over the nuns’ generous attempt to provide them with extravagant foods. ‘It is not just any old weed picked up from the shores.’

‘That makes no difference, Matt,’ said Michael sagely, placing the dish as far away from him as possible. ‘Seaweed is seaweed and we should not eat it. It is not natural. We are not crabs!’

Bartholomew smiled and went back to poking the fire while the others finished their dinner. Despite Michael’s recovered humour, Bartholomew remained apprehensive about his determination that they stay in Denny for another night. He was certain that whatever it was that made him so insistent had nothing to do with the poisoned wine, or the attempt on their lives. Michael, thought Bartholomew, would not win his much-desired promotion from the Bishop if he indulged in a love affair with the Abbess of Denny!

Bartholomew awoke with a start to find a hand clamped firmly over his mouth. He was about to struggle when he saw Cynric’s profile etched in the faint light from the embers of the fire. He relaxed and the hand was removed. When he had grown bored with sitting by the fire, he had fallen asleep on his bed and the room was now quite dark. He wondered what time it could be: he could hear no sounds coming from the convent and the guesthall was totally silent. He sat up on the bed and watched Cynric buckling his dagger to his belt.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

Cynric edged nearer so that his voice would not carry. ‘Michael has gone.’

‘Gone where?’ Bartholomew stood up and went towards Michael’s bed, a pointless action since Cynric had just informed him that Michael was no longer there. He rubbed his eyes and tried to force himself to be more alert.

‘Shh! I do not know. He went out a few moments ago. Should I follow him?’ He drew his cloak around his shoulders in anticipation.

‘We both will,’ whispered Bartholomew, after a moment of indecision. He could sense Cynric’s disapproval, but the Welshman kept his thoughts to himself. Bartholomew knew Cynric had a low opinion of his abilities to creep around undetected in the dark, but it was only Michael they were following and, if anything, Michael was even worse at stealth than was Bartholomew.

Absently slipping his medicines bag over his shoulder, he followed Cynric through the door.

‘Why are you bringing that?’ hissed Cynric, pulling at it in the dark. ‘It will be in the way.’

Bartholomew shrugged: taking his bag was so instinctive, he had not even realised he had done it. His teacher, Ibn Ibrahim at the University in Paris, had taught him he should never be without it, not even in the bath. Bath! All very well in the civilised countries to the east, but Bartholomew had only ever seen one bath-house in England, and that was in the former villa of a Roman nobleman and had fallen into ruin many centuries before. It was all Bartholomew could do to persuade people to give their hands the most cursory of rinses before eating, despite the fact that he was sure it would prevent a veritable host of intestinal disorders if they did.

He forced his mind away from the perennial problems of medicine and back to Cynric’s silent shadow moving ahead of him. Michael was nowhere to be seen, but Cynric led the way unhesitatingly around the side of the guesthall and into the gardens behind the church. An empty snail shell crunched loudly under Bartholomew’s foot, making Cynric glance back at him with a weary look of warning to take more care.

The temperature had fallen dramatically with the coming of clearer weather, and the ground underfoot was crisp with rime. For the first time in many weeks, the stars could be seen glittering between the occasional drifting cloud and Bartholomew paused to gaze upwards before an impatient tug on his sleeve set him following Cynric through the fruit trees and rows of kitchen vegetables. Bartholomew shivered in the cold, and wished he had brought his cloak.

At first, he thought Cynric’s instincts must have been wrong and that Michael had traipsed off elsewhere in the darkness. But then he saw a movement and there was Michael, all but invisible in his black habit. He appeared to be waiting for someone, because he paced back and forth with an agitation Bartholomew had seldom seen in the sardonic monk. Bartholomew began to have serious misgivings over spying on his friend, for it was apparent from his demeanour that Michael was not meeting just anybody: he was anxious and tense and Bartholomew had attended enough nocturnal meetings with Michael to know he was not easily unsettled from his habitual complacency.

‘Come on,’ said the physician softly, pulling at Cynric’s sleeve. ‘This is not right. We should not be spying on Michael and his lady-love.’

Wordlessly, Cynric led the way out of the garden and back towards the guesthall. When he stopped, it was so sudden that Bartholomew bumped into him from behind. Cynric raised his hand to warn him not to speak, but Bartholomew had already seen the dark shadow flitting along the side of the guesthall. The nun looked around carefully, before moving soundlessly through the fruit trees to where Michael waited. Cynric drew Bartholomew into the shadows until she had passed, and then led the way back to the guesthall door. He fiddled with the handle.

‘Hurry up!’ said Bartholomew, shivering. ‘It is cold out here. It is all very well for you – you have your cloak, but I do not.’

‘It is locked,’ muttered Cynric. He stood back and studied the handle, perplexed.

‘It cannot be,’ whispered Bartholomew impatiently. ‘Let me try.’

He fumbled around with the handle, and pushed and pulled at the door, but Cynric was right: someone had locked it.

‘How very odd,’ he said, looking at Cynric’s silhouette in the darkness. ‘Do you think someone broke in to search our belongings?’

‘If it were me, I would not lock the door while I was inside,’ answered Cynric softly. ‘It might interfere with a hasty escape.’

Puzzled, Bartholomew followed Cynric around to the side of the building to assess the chances of climbing through a window – they could hardly knock on the abbey door in the depths of night and say they had locked themselves out.

Cynric froze suddenly, motioning for Bartholomew not to move. There were two people kneeling at the foot of the wall below the window in the guesthall. Bartholomew peered into the darkness, trying to see what they were doing, but all he could see was their bent backs and something dark on the floor. Then there was a blaze of light and the two figures leapt to their feet. Both held a flaring torch in each hand. Bewildered, Bartholomew watched as one stood back and hurled the flaming missile upwards and towards the window. Leaving a trail of light behind it, the torch dipped and disappeared with a tinkle of breaking glass. The first torch was followed by a second and then a third. The fourth missed, and had to be retrieved and thrown again.

Cynric eased Bartholomew further back into the shadows as the two figures darted towards them, and watched them run out of the nunnery grounds through the gate next to the vegetable garden. Bartholomew was unable to take his eyes from the flames licking up inside the guesthall.

‘Damn!’ he whispered. ‘My cloak is in there, and so are my new gloves. Just when I was beginning to like them!’

‘I have your gloves here,’ said Cynric, pushing them into Bartholomew’s hand. ‘I borrowed them yesterday when I went to look for Egil.’

Numbly, Bartholomew put them on. He jumped and ducked as one of the windows blew out suddenly in a roar of flames, sending glass showering onto the ground below.

‘We are meant to be in there,’ Cynric whispered, stating the obvious. ‘That door was locked so that we could not get out.’

‘But we could still have jumped through the windows,’ said Bartholomew.

Cynric shook his head, squinting up and assessing their size, vividly outlined by the flames behind. ‘The mullions are too close together. I might have made it, but you would not and neither would Brother Michael.’

‘Michael!’ exclaimed Bartholomew loudly, suddenly afraid for the fat monk’s safety. He turned and raced to the vegetable garden with Cynric at his heels.

Michael stood under the trees, talking softly to the nun who had passed them earlier. They stood closely together in an intimate fashion, and Bartholomew wondered how Michael would react at being caught red-handed at his dalliance. The Benedictine looked up as he heard their footsteps coming towards him, his expression unreadable. As Bartholomew came nearer, the nun turned around and he was brought up short.

‘Dame Pelagia!’ he exclaimed.

The elderly nun acknowledged Bartholomew’s unexpected presence in the orchard with a curt inclination of her head, but Bartholomew was in utter confusion. Surely Dame Pelagia could not have been the object of Michael’s amorous attentions? How could she be the reason Michael had insisted on remaining at the abbey? The monk regarded him coldly, clearly unamused at being interrupted.

‘Someone has set light to the guesthall, thinking us to be inside,’ explained Cynric, when he realised Bartholomew had been startled into silence.

Michael exchanged an enigmatic glance with the old lady.

‘I wondered what that crash was,’ she said. ‘One of the windows blowing out?’

Bartholomew nodded, surprised that she should know about such things.

‘I suggest we leave here right now and let these people think they have done their job this time,’ said Cynric urgently, ‘or else we shall never be free of their attentions.’

His plan made sense to Bartholomew, but Michael was uncertain. ‘What are you suggesting? That we head to Cambridge now? In the dark?’

‘Why not?’ asked Cynric. ‘I can scout ahead and make certain it is safe.’

‘No,’ said Michael. ‘We will leave at first light.’

‘And what do we do in the meantime?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused by Michael’s attitude. ‘Go back to the abbey and wait for the killers to try again?’

‘We need to collect our belongings,’ said Michael, clearly temporising.

‘The guesthall is on fire,’ said Bartholomew. As he spoke, the abbey bell began to sound the alarm, and excited voices began to clamour in the silence. ‘Everything will have been destroyed, including my only cloak and even the pickled eels and samphire.’

‘Pickled eels and samphire?’ asked Dame Pelagia sharply. ‘I did not know the abbey possessed any of that. It is a favourite of mine.’

Michael patted her arm. ‘I will buy you some when we reach Cambridge,’ he said absently.

Bartholomew looked from one to the other. ‘Forgive me, Brother,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But are you suggesting that Dame Pelagia will be travelling to Cambridge with us?’

Michael nodded. ‘She will. We will leave as soon as it is light.’

‘It is better we go now, boy,’ said Cynric urgently, ‘while all this confusion is on. When the fire is out, they will soon see there are no bodies and we will have lost the advantage. Then we might never get home.’

Michael hesitated in an agony of indecision.

‘Leave me here, Michael,’ said Dame Pelagia. ‘Come back when you are better equipped.’

‘No,’ said Michael shortly. ‘You will not be safe and leaving you is out of the question.’

‘But I could slow you down,’ she said gently. ‘And it is imperative you return to Cambridge and send word to the Bishop in Ely that I have information for him or, better yet, inform Sheriff Tulyet what has been happening so that he can act before it is too late.’

‘Information about what?’ asked Bartholomew, his confusion growing by the moment.

‘If I leave, you leave,’ said Michael, ignoring him and speaking firmly to the nun, his tone brooking no argument.

The old lady sighed. ‘Then we should go now, as your friend suggests.’

Michael put his hands over his face and scrubbed hard at his cheeks. ‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘Fetch what you need and meet us here. But hurry. And take care!’

‘Will you bring Julianna?’ asked Bartholomew as she began to move away. She stopped and stared at him mystified. ‘When you come back, bring Julianna with you,’ he said again, thinking she had misheard. Wordlessly, she moved away, her progress through the trees stately, but sure-footed.

‘What is this?’ said Cynric, bewildered. ‘Do we each get to choose a nun to take home with us?’

Michael turned to him. ‘Can you follow her? Make sure she returns unmolested?’

Cynric’s face registered confusion, but he slipped away soundlessly through the trees after the old lady.

‘Explain yourself,’ said Michael to Bartholomew peremptorily. ‘What do you mean by imposing that young woman on us? She is a harlot!’

Bartholomew gazed at Michael in disbelief. ‘Michael!’ he chided gently. ‘What is the matter with you? You know why she must come – she warned us that an attempt might be made on our lives tonight and she was right. And she said she believed she was in danger, so now we are under a moral obligation to try to protect her. But more to the point, why are you insisting that we bring Dame Pelagia? She is an old lady, and will not find such a journey easy, especially in the dark.’

‘I know!’ said Michael fiercely. ‘That is why I wanted to leave in the morning.’