‘A band?’ asked Bartholomew. Tuddenham told me there were only two of them.’
‘So there were last night,’ said Michael. ‘Their number, like their weapons, seem to have grown in the telling.’
Alcote regarded him coldly. ‘Are you accusing me of lying?’
‘I am merely curious to know how an unarmed cleric bested a band of determined, sword-wielding villains,’ said Michael, unruffled by Alcote’s indignation.
‘I was protected by God. He knows I am doing His work with this advowson.’ Alcote rubbed his stomach. ‘This place disagrees with me. I have not felt well since we arrived.’
‘That is because you are eating enough raisins to feed half of Suffolk,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They are not good for the digestion in such vast quantities.’
‘How is the advowson going?’ asked Michael, as Alcote glowered at the physician. ‘Tuddenham is afraid that the attack on you may delay matters.’
‘Fortunately, it will not,’ said Alcote, ‘although I must stress that writing this deed has been extremely difficult, because of the complexities of the arrangements made by Sir Thomas’s grandfather. It has taken me a long time to ensure that the advowson is his to give.’
‘I checked all that in the abbey at St Edmundsbury,’ said Michael. ‘It is his.’
‘But I had to ensure he had the documents to prove it.’ Alcote leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘However, there were one or two items that muddied the waters, which therefore needed to be consigned to the fire.’
‘You burned Tuddenham’s writs because you did not like their contents?’ asked Bartholomew, aghast.
‘You make it sound so underhand,’ grumbled Alcote, flinging down his pen, and scrubbing tiredly at his thin hair.
‘Well, so it is,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham trusts you with these documents, and what you have done is worse than underhand: it is dishonest and illegal!’
‘Believe me, I am only doing what is best for the College. You would not want Michaelhouse associated with some of the shady dealings I have uncovered since we arrived here.’
‘What kind of shady dealings?’ asked Bartholomew nervously. ‘If you suspect this advowson is tainted, then we must not accept it at all.’
‘Do not be so finicky, Matthew. I have destroyed what I do not want people to see, and so it is all perfectly above board. Anyway, a few more hours should see the whole thing completed, and we can be on our way.’
‘Then we can leave tomorrow?’ asked Bartholomew with relief. ‘Thank God!’
‘For once we are in complete agreement,’ sniffed Alcote. ‘I do not like this place, and I want to be away from it before we all follow Unwin to his grave. I will have this thing written today.’
Bartholomew had wondered whether Alcote had been dragging his heels over the advowson, making the whole thing seem more complex than it was. His sudden announcement that he was in a position to complete the document within hours made Bartholomew realise his suspicions had been well founded, and that it had taken a physical attack on Alcote to frighten him into finishing it.
‘Why were you ambushed, do you think?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘For your gold cross?’
‘Or because you consigned Tuddenham’s documents to the fire?’ asked Michael, amused.
‘Or because the villagers resent our presence here?’ asked William. He glanced around him and shuddered. ‘Hanged men wearing stolen clothes, who disappear only to be found half burned in some shepherd’s hovel; ghostly dogs that terrify people in the night; friars murdered by pardoners for their paltry possessions; women with their throats slit in their own homes; and scholars attacked viciously and without provocation. You are right, Roger! The sooner we are away from this place, the better.’
‘Will you join me for something to eat?’ enquired Michael of no one in particular.
‘I will not leave this chamber until I am on my way home,’ announced Alcote firmly. ‘Arrange for my meals to be served here, Michael — and not by that woman, if you please. Eltisley can do it.’
‘I will pray for Unwin’s soul,’ said William, his voice holding a note of censure that they should be considering food when there was praying to be done. ‘I shall forgo the pleasures of the flesh in order to shorten his time in Purgatory with a mass.’
‘I heard that Eltisley was cooking fish-giblet stew today,’ said Michael wickedly. ‘Shall I tell him you do not want any?’
There was little the Franciscan enjoyed more than the rank flavour of fish-giblet stew, and he hesitated, deeply tempted.
‘Tell him to keep some for me,’ he said after a brief internal struggle between duty and greed, from which greed emerged the victor. ‘I will have it later to fortify my frail body for more prayers.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Michael, looking down at his own ample girth.
Downstairs again, Michael shouted for Eltisley to bring them food. He regarded Bartholomew’s muddy clothes disapprovingly, and complained that he smelled of burning. Bartholomew was not the only one: there was a strong odour of burning when Eltisley brought the meal.
‘Problem with one of your theories?’ Bartholomew asked, noting the blisters on Eltisley’s hands and his singed clothes. ‘I saw you almost destroy your workshop last night.’
‘None of your business,’ snapped the landlord shiftily. ‘When one works on things no other man can comprehend, one must anticipate a degree of error and miscalculation.’
He slapped a dish down with such vigour that it broke in two, sending gravy dribbling through the cracks in the table into Michael’s lap. The monk gave him a withering look, and began to dab it off.
‘I will fetch you another dish,’ said Eltisley, not sounding particularly repentant. ‘Although it will take me a while to prepare. You can change while I cook it.’
‘Perhaps we will dine at the Dog,’ said Michael, peering resentfully at the stain in his lap as Eltisley left. ‘I prefer my food to make its way to my stomach by going through my mouth first, not my habit, and I have had enough of Eltisley’s peculiarities for one day. I am always afraid he will bring me fried earwigs, or a plate of grass, just to see what would happen if I ate them.’
He left before Eltisley could return, beckoning Bartholomew to follow. The monk set an uncharacteristically rapid pace up The Street, a clear indication that Eltisley’s clumsiness had needled him. Since it was raining, they found a table inside the Dog near the roaring fire, where Michael continued to swab at the gravy stains on his habit. The landlord brought them a spiced leek and onion tart, and a stew of pigeon cooked in garlic, with hunks of coarse-grained bread to soak up the sauce. Contemptuously, Michael thrust the tart at Bartholomew, and took the stew for himself, using the bread to scrape off a few offending carrots that had the audacity to adhere to the meat.
‘Eltisley should not be permitted to run a tavern,’ he muttered. ‘I would order him to clean my habit, but I am afraid it might come back grey, because he has used some stain-removing concoction of his own invention. And then I might be mistaken for a Franciscan.’ He shuddered dramatically.
Bartholomew smiled. ‘I do not think so, Brother. You are far too fat to be anything but a Benedictine.’
Michael thrust a large piece of bread into his mouth, gagging slightly on the crumbs. ‘Do not witter, Matt. Tell me again about your foray to Barchester last night.’
‘It seems to me that some old madwoman has taken it for her home, and she and her dog do not like visitors,’ said Bartholomew, rubbing his eyes.
‘Tuddenham will drive her out.’
‘I hope not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Where would she go? The village is deserted anyway, so why not let her live there if she likes.’
‘Because she ambushes travellers,’ said Michael promptly. ‘She has attacked you twice now, and her dog has people from miles around too terrified to go anywhere near the place.’
‘Not from what I saw last night,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I am sure there were mo
re Grundisburgh folk out in the woods than there were at home.’
‘Looking for the golden calf,’ said the landlord of the Dog in a soft voice behind them, making them jump. ‘The reward for finding it and giving it to Sir Thomas is ten marks — two years’ pay for most people. But ten marks would not induce me to go out at night to hunt for the thing.’
‘And why is that?’ asked Michael.
The landlord crossed himself. ‘Because of Padfoot. Ten marks is no good to a dead man, and that is what anyone who sees the beast will be. I heard Deblunville died last night. I always said it was only a matter of time before he was laid in his grave after seeing Padfoot.’
Having made his point, he left them to their meal, talking in a low voice about the inevitability of Deblunville’s demise to the man with the pig who had been so vociferous at the debate.
‘The Barchester woman had badly infected eyes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Stoate said the person he saw running from the church was rubbing his eyes.’
‘I see,’ said Michael, taking a large gulp of wine. ‘It was this crone who donned a cloak and killed Unwin in the church last week, was it? How silly of me not to have thought of that before!’
‘It might have been her,’ said Bartholomew, unruffled by Michael’s sarcasm. ‘Stoate and Norys both said they were unsure whether it was a man or a woman. Although she was very small and somewhat crooked — you would think one of them would have noticed that.’
‘And can you see this woman having the guile to wear a cloak — long, according to Stoate, but short according to Norys — to hide her wretched rags? She does not sound to me as though she has enough of her sanity left to take care of herself, let alone effect a crafty murder that has confounded the University of Cambridge’s Senior Proctor.’
‘Well, that proves it was not her, then,’ said Bartholomew dryly. ‘Far be it for old women to get the better of the University of Cambridge’s Senior Proctor. But at least we now know who owns the abandoned skirt and shoe we found there.’
He was eating a slice of tart when there was a deafening roar that shook the building to its foundations. Fragments of plaster drifted down from the ceiling, and the cat that had been stalking mice in the rushes flattened its ears with a yowl and tore from the room. Bartholomew and Michael looked at each other in confusion.
‘What was that?’ asked Michael, picking a flake of wood out of his stew and flicking it on to the floor. ‘It sounded as though one of the bells has fallen out of the church tower.’
Wiping his hands on his apron, the landlord went to find out, accompanied by the man with the pig. Excited shouts and running footsteps suggested that others were curious, too, but Bartholomew could see nothing through the window to warrant abandoning his meal. He had barely sat down again when Cynric burst into the room.
‘The Half Moon!’ he cried, reaching out to haul Bartholomew from his seat. ‘It has gone!’
‘Gone where?’ asked Michael, not pleased at being interrupted while he was feeding.
‘Gone!’ yelled Cynric frantically. ‘Gone completely!’
With trepidation, Bartholomew followed him out of the tavern and down The Street. Cynric was right. The Half Moon was nothing but a vast pile of burning rubble and teetering walls. A thick pall of black smoke poured from the twisted beams, and timbers and pieces of glass crunched under the feet of the milling spectators. The thatch was ablaze with flames that licked this way and that, sending showers of sparks high into the sky and, even as Bartholomew watched, one precarious wall collapsed with a tearing scream in a cloud of dust.
The villagers gasped in horror and started back as sharp snaps heralded pieces of plaster and burning timber being catapulted across the ground toward them. One man shrieked as his cotte began to smoulder. With great presence of mind, Stoate bundled him to the stream and pushed him in before the flames could take hold. But Bartholomew saw only the burning building.
‘Alcote!’ he whispered in shock. ‘Roger Alcote was in there.’
Eltisley was surrounded by sympathetic customers, his face as white as snow as he gazed at the inferno that had been his tavern. Tuddenham leaned heavily on Hamon’s arm as he surveyed the mess with a stunned expression, while Hamon’s glazed eyes showed that he had not even begun to comprehend what had happened to Grundisburgh’s largest and most prestigious tavern. Isilia stood next to them, as numbed by the spectacle as were her menfolk, while Dame Eva had both frail arms wrapped around the weeping Mistress Eltisley. As Bartholomew shouldered his way through the crowd, the landlord gaped at him and his eyes filled with tears.
‘Thank God!’ he said shakily. ‘I thought you were inside changing your clothes.’
‘Where is Alcote?’ asked Bartholomew urgently.
‘I do not know,’ said Eltisley in a whisper. ‘I was in the kitchen cooking your meal when this happened. I only escaped because the force of the blast blew me outside.’
‘You mean the tavern exploded?’ asked Hamon in bewilderment. He came toward them, dragging his shocked uncle with him. ‘How can that have happened?’
‘Gasses,’ announced Walter Wauncy, in his sepulchral voice. ‘I have heard of this happening in other places. Malignant gasses build up and then give vent to their fury — like volcanoes.’
‘It was him,’ said William, pointing an accusing finger at Eltisley. ‘This is the result of one of his vile experiments, not any gasses!’
‘I do not experiment with exploding compounds,’ protested Eltisley in a high squeak. ‘My mission in life is to repair and heal things, not destroy them. I have no need to explore the nature of such diabolical powders. But maybe it was him,’ he said, turning suddenly on Bartholomew. ‘He went out last night picking strange plants in the dark. Perhaps they did this.’
‘Do not be ridiculous,’ said Michael coldly. ‘But we should discuss this later. Now, I am more concerned about Alcote. Has anyone seen him?’
‘Alcote was in there?’ whispered Tuddenham in horror. ‘With my advowson?’
‘Damn the advowson!’ shouted Bartholomew furiously. ‘What about my colleague?’ He appealed to the crowd, desperation cracking his voice. ‘Have any of you seen him?’
There were shaken heads, and fearful glances toward the fire.
Eltisley followed their gazes, and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘My tavern! My home! My workshop! All gone!’ he groaned.
‘But Alcote!’ yelled Bartholomew, grabbing the shocked landlord by the front of his shirt. ‘He must still be in there. We have to put out the fire.’
‘If he was in there when it went up, he will be beyond any medicine we can give him,’ said Stoate gently, prising him away from Eltisley.
‘No!’ shouted Bartholomew, refusing to believe that the fussy little scholar should die in such a horrific manner. ‘He might be buried and still alive. We have to help him.’
‘We should douse the fire anyway,’ said Hamon practically, ‘or we might lose the entire village to it.’
Tuddenham dragged himself out of his state of shock, sensing the need for quick and effective action if the fire were not to spread to the thatched roofs of the neighbouring houses. ‘Fetch water holders,’ he ordered the gaping bystanders. ‘Anything will do: buckets, pots, pans. And form a line from the ford to pass them along. Well, do not just stand there like frightened rabbits! Move!’
The villagers raced off in every direction, appearing moments later with all manner of containers with which to scoop water from the river. Eltisley watched the scene distantly, as though it were a bad dream and he would wake up to find it had not happened. The man with the pig and the landlord of the Dog put their arms around his shoulders, and led him to sit on the grass away from the inferno. Nearby, Dame Eva was holding a cup of water to Mistress Eltisley’s bloodless lips, comforting her in a low, kindly voice.
Bartholomew watched the villagers’ feeble attempts to douse the towering flames that licked all over the rubble. Hot timbers hissed and spat as bucket upon bucket of water w
as hurled at them, but their labours were having little effect. Exasperated, and knowing that every passing moment was a lost chance to save Alcote’s life, he ran toward the burning inn, shielding his face with his arm as the heat hit him like a physical blow. He tried to move closer, feeling his clothes start to smoulder and the flames sear his skin. Cynric darted after him, grasping his arm in an attempt to haul him away.
‘It is unstable, boy. That wall will collapse at any moment!’
Three of the Half Moon’s four walls had already toppled, while the last leaned outward at an angle that defied all natural laws, and with flames pouring from its blackened windows.
Bartholomew thrust Cynric away and moved still closer, scanning the burning plaster, wood and thatch for any sign of Alcote. His eyes smarted, and the heat was so intense that the rubble wavered and swam in front of him. He thought he glimpsed something white, and he inched further forward, bent almost double as the heat blasted out like that from a blacksmith’s furnace. Unable to see properly, he stumbled over a piece of timber and fell flat on his face. At the same instant there was an ominous rumble, and the precarious wall began to teeter. He was helpless, lying full length on the ground at exactly the point where the wall would crash down. He felt himself hauled backward as it fell, and closed his eyes, lifting one hand in a futile effort to protect his head.
With a tremendous crash, the wall smashed to the ground. Pieces of plaster pattered over him, and he found himself completely enveloped in a dense cloud of choking dust. Someone grabbed his tabard again and the whiteness thinned, so that he found he was able to suck in great mouthfuls of clean air. When he could see, Michael was kneeling next to him, his black habit pale with plaster and both hands pressed to his chest as he hacked and wheezed.
Bartholomew sat up, eyes watering as he coughed the smoke from his lungs. The Half Moon was now completely unrecognisable as a building. All was engulfed in flames, and nothing surviving remotely resembled a door, or a window, or a piece of furniture.
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