A Plague on Both Your Houses (47 page)

help than to feign madness? In the church, he would be relatively safe from plague-bearing people, and would

be in a place where his associates could easily drop in to see him. His ramblings around the churches and his

trips for blackberries were merely excuses to go about his business.

Bartholomew was overcome with disgust. He had

liked Colet. What an appalling judge of character he

must be to misjudge Philippa, Stanmore, and Michael,

and not to suspect Colet. There was nothing more to be said, and each became engrossed in his own thoughts.

Although time dragged in the dark room, it did not

seem long before they heard the sound of the trap-door being opened again. Bartholomew heard Michael draw

in his breath sharply, thinking, like himself, that their executioners might be coming. There was a crash

as Michael, backing away, knocked a chest over.

Bartholomew stationed himself near the door. The

bolts were drawn back with agonising slowness, and

Bartholomew felt sweat breaking out at the base of

his neck.

The door swung open slowly, and light slanted into

the room, dazzling him.

‘Stand back,’ said Colet. ‘Master Jocelyn carries his

crossbow and will not hesitate to use it if you attempt anything foolish.’

Slowly Bartholomew backed away, his eyes narrowed

against what seemed like blinding light. He saw Jocelyn standing beyond the door, his crossbow aimed at

Bartholomew’s chest. The Rudde’s porter was there

too, holding a drawn sword. Colet was obviously taking no chances with his two prisoners.

‘What do you want?’ said Bartholomew with more

bravado than he felt.

‘You are an ingrate, Matt,’ said Colet, and

Bartholomew wondered why he had never detected

the unpleasant smoothness in his friend’s voice before.

“I have come to bring you food and wine. I thought you must be hungry by now, and your fat friend is always

ravenous.’

He nodded his head, and the porter slid a tray into

the room with his foot. On it there was bread, wizened apples, and something covered with a cloth. Red wine

sloshed over the rim of the jug as the tray moved.

‘So,’ said Colet. ‘You two must have had quite a

conversation down here.’

When Bartholomew and Michael did not answer,

Colet continued, his voice gloating, goading. ‘So now

you understand everything? What we have been doing,

and why?’

Again, Bartholomew and Michael did not reply, and

Colet’s composure slipped a little. ‘What? No questions?

Surely we have not been so careless as to leave nothing that you have been unable to work out?’

Michael affected a nonchalant pose on the crate he

had knocked over. ‘Doctor Bartholomew lost his taste

for questions when the answers proved so unpleasant,’ he said. ‘But I confess there are two things that puzzle me still. First, how did you kill Aelfrith? We know why and that you used poison. But we remain uncertain as

to how you made him believe it was Wilson.’

‘I do not wish to know,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.

‘That you murdered a good man, and that you used so

low a weapon as poison to do it is more than enough

for me.’

‘Oh, surely not?’ said Colet, laughing. ‘What happened to your spirit of learning and discovery? I never

thought that you, of all people, would refuse to learn after all our debates and experiments together.’

‘We were different men then,’ said Bartholomew,

with undisguised loathing.

‘Perhaps,’ mused Colet. ‘But Brother Michael asked

me a question, and I feel duty-bound to answer it. Aelfrith was coming too close to the truth. I heard from the monks in St Botolph’s that Aelfrith heard Wilson’s confession every Friday. So, I sent Aelfrith a small bottle of mead with a signed message from Wilson saying he appreciated Aelfrith’s understanding, and he should drink the mead to help him relax after his hard work in the town. The message, of course, was written by me, and the mead was poisoned. I retrieved the rest of the bottle the night he died, lest you should find it.’

He smiled absently. “I was almost caught. The poison

was slower-acting than I had imagined, and Aelfrith was still alive and staggering around when I came for the

bottle. You, Brother, tried to take him back to his room, and I only just managed to lock the door before you

came. You took Aelfrith elsewhere to die, but it was a narrow escape for me.’

Bartholomew remembered Michael telling him that

Aelfrith’s door had been locked, and recalled assuming Aelfrith’s room-mates had shut it because they did not want a plague victim in the chamber with them. But

Colet had been hiding there, with the murder weapon

in his hands.

‘So you kill by stealth,’ said Bartholomew bitterly.

‘As I am sure you did with Sir John, for you would never have overpowered him in a fair fight.’

‘True enough,’ said Colet, ‘and I most certainly was

not prepared to try. I had help that night. Masters Yaxley and Burwell accompanied me.’

‘Why did you go to so much trouble for the seal?’

asked Michael. ‘It would have been no use to you at all after the death of Sir John.’

‘You are right, the seal is nothing,’ said Colet. ‘Once it was known by the King’s spies that Sir John was dead, there would have been no value in his seal, and it could never have been used for the same purpose again. But

it suited our plans to make believe that there were men desperate to retrieve the seal. If people thought the seal was important enough to kill for, they would also think that the information Sir John received from his spy our messages - was of great significance.’

‘Was it you or Swynford that tried to burn poor, sick

Augustus in the middle of the night?’ asked Michael.

‘Neither, actually. We did not want to set Augustus’s

room on fire or burn him in his bed. That would have

drawn attention to the room we were trying to search. Our notion was to make the fire smoke to asphyxiate him.’

“I see,’ said Bartholomew sarcastically. ‘And how

could you possibly have made such a mess of this simple operation?’

Colet eyed Bartholomew malevolently for a moment.

‘Jocelyn thought the fire was taking too long, and lit another under the bed to speed the process along.

Instead of smoke, there were flames and the old man

woke.’ He looked in disgust at Jocelyn, who curled his lip in disdain at Colet. ‘Fortunately he was too confused to identify Jocelyn, who managed to put out the fire and escape by the trap-door before you two came and broke

down the door. When I returned to make amends for his

bungling the night of the feast, I was careful to remove all evidence that there was ever a fire.’

Bartholomew recalled the cinders that had clung to

his gown when he lay on the floor to retrieve the lid of the bottle Michael dropped. When he had looked for

them the morning after, they had gone.

‘You disgust me, Colet,’ said Bartholomew softly.

‘You are a physician, sworn to heal. Even if you did not use a weapon, it is still murder to frighten an old man to death.’

‘You almost caught me, actually,’ said Colet, and

Bartholomew could see that the entire affair was little more than an intellectual game for him. “I let myself out of the other trap-door and hid in Swynford’s room, since I was uncertain whether you would know about the one

in Augustus’s room, and you might have come looking

for me in the attic. But you did not and so I climbed

back into the attic ready to continue my search.’

Bartholomew had a sudden, sharp memory of the

shadow flitting across the door as he walked down the

stairs after he had examined Augustus’s body. If only he had looked harder, this whole thing may have ended

there and then.

Colet smiled. ‘It was no simple matter lifting a body

through the trap-door. But even so, I had an easier time of it than when that fat slug Wilson tried to heave his bulk into the attic. You must have rattled him when

you found him prising up Augustus’s floorboards, Matt, because had he been himself, he would certainly have

spotted the blood on the floor and one of Augustus’s

legs sticking out of the passageway. But he did not, and we both escaped.’

‘Not only did you break your oath to heal, but you desecrated the dead too,’ Bartholomew said accusingly.

‘That was most disagreeable,’ Colet agreed, ‘but it

had to be done. I was never as adept at surgery as you, Matt, and I am afraid I made rather a poor job of it. I told you I saw Augustus swallow something. What else

could it have been but the seal? After I had completed my inspection of his innards, I wrapped him up and hid him in the blocked-off passageway.’

“I take it you found nothing,’ said Bartholomew.

‘On the contrary,’ said Colet. “I found this.’ He held up an object for Bartholomew to see. There, glittering in the light from the candle was Colet’s golden lion.

Bartholomew felt sick. Colet must be an ill man indeed to have ripped out a man’s entrails and to have kept a pathetic ornament he had discovered there.

‘And this brings me to the second point I do not

understand,’ said Michael. ‘How did you know about

the trap-doors? They were meant to be a secret passed

from Master to Master.’

‘Poor, sick Augustus told Swynford about them.

Augustus was Master of Michaelhouse once, if you

remember,’ said Colet. ‘They made things easier, but

we would have managed without them. We would have

just planned differently.’ He took the golden lion from his pocket and began to twist it through his fingers. He started suddenly as voices could be heard down the

hallway. Swynford. Bartholomew recalled his disapproval of Colet speaking to him before, and was not surprised when Colet left abruptly.

In the darkness, Bartholomew heard Michael move

towards the food that Colet had brought. “I wonder what poison they have used,’ he mused, smiling grimly as he heard Michael drop the plate.

‘Damn you, Matt,’ Michael grumbled. ‘Do we starve

here or die of poison?’

‘The choice is probably yours, Brother,’ replied

Bartholomew.

Once again, time began to drag. Bartholomew and

Michael talked more about what Colet had told them,

but he had revealed little they did not already know,

merely answering how Aelfrith had come to believe

Wilson had killed him, and how Swynford had known

about the trap-door in Augustus’s room. Bartholomew

presumed that Stanmore’s underground rooms were

used for secret meetings only at night, when Oswald

Stanmore went home to Trumpington, and Stephen

had the premises to himself.

When he heard the scratching noise outside the door, he first assumed it was his imagination, or Michael fidgeting in the darkness. But the sound persisted, and Bartholomew thought he could see the merest glimmer

of light under the door. So, this is it, he thought. Swynford had conceived another diabolical plan, and he and

Michael would be murdered just like the others who

had threatened his objectives. He shook Michael awake, cautioning him to silence with a hand over his mouth.

The door swung open very slowly, and two figures

slipped in, one shielding the light from the stub of a candle with his hand. The other closed the door behind them and they stood peering into the gloom.

‘Michael! Matt!’ came an urgent whisper.

Bartholomew was bracing himself to jump at one of

the figures to see if he could overpower him when the

candle flared and he found himself looking at Abigny,

his youthful face tense and anxious.

‘Thank God! You are unharmed!’ he whispered,

breaking into a smile, and clapping Bartholomew on

the back.

‘Giles!’ exclaimed Bartholomew in amazement.

‘How …?’

‘Questions later,’ said the philosopher. ‘Come.’

The other figure at the door gestured urgently, and

Abigny led the way out of the chamber and along the

passageway. They quickly climbed the wooden stairs and Abignyclosedthetrap-doorcarefully,coveringitwithstraw.

The other person snuffed out the candle, leaving them in darkness and together they set off for the door at the far end of the stables.

They froze at the sound of someone in the yard.

Hastily, Abigny bundled them into a stall with an ancient piebald nag, hoping that it would not give them away.

Bartholomew saw Stephen come into the stable with

a lamp, while outside, they could hear some of the

men who worked for him chattering and laughing.

Stephen set the lamp down, and went to a splendid

black gelding, which he patted and caressed lovingly.

Oswald had bought Stephen the horse to compensate

for the one Abigny had stolen.

Bartholomew’s legs were like jelly and, judging from

Michael’s shaking next to him, the fat monk felt the same.

To his horror, Michael give a muffled sneeze. The straw!

Michael frequently complained that straw made him

cough. Bartholomew pinched Michael’s nose to stop

him from sneezing again. Stephen ceased crooning to

the horse, and looked up.

‘Who is there?’ he asked. He picked up the lamp

and shone it down the building. Next to them, the

piebald horse stirred restlessly, its hooves rustling in the dry straw. Stephen tutted as he heard it, and went back to the black horse. He gave it one last pat on the nose, and left, carefully shutting the stable door behind him. Bartholomew heard the voices of Stephen and his

men recede as they crossed the yard to the house.