‘I was horrified when I heard the news,’ said Stanmore. ‘Such an arrangement would have been no good to me at all. What could a clothier gain from an alliance to a vintner? And Henry Tangmer is master of the Guild of Corpus Christi – a band of greedy misers, if ever there were one!’
‘I was not horrified, but hurt,’ said Edith. ‘Since you and I had discussed marriage only last week, I was upset that you should have selected a wife without bothering to talk to me about it first.’
‘You should know me better than that,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And I thought you did not like Adela, anyway.’
‘I do not!’ said Edith vehemently. ‘She is a terrible woman – all teeth and hips, and her idea of genteel conversation revolves around breeding horses. Did you know that she challenged that knife-thrower we watched in the Market Square to a competition? Her behaviour is wholly inappropriate for a merchant’s daughter.’
‘Who won?’ asked Bartholomew mildly.
Edith pursed her lips. ‘She did, actually. But being able to hurl a knife better than an entertainer is not something that would endear her to a prospective husband – or a prospective sister-in-law.’
Bartholomew laughed, and reached out to touch her hand affectionately. ‘I promise you, if I ever decide to marry Adela, you will be the first to know.’
‘Good,’ muttered Stanmore with great feeling. ‘Then we can lock you up until you regain your wits, and save you from yourself.’
‘After our discussion last week, I have been to considerable trouble to line up some suitable candidates for you,’ said Edith. ‘Then I heard about your betrothal, and was obliged to cancel them all. It was dreadfully embarrassing.’
‘How many did you arrange?’ asked Bartholomew nervously. ‘I can only marry one.’
‘Oh, about six,’ said Edith carelessly. ‘And Matilde is furious with you, of course. She heard it this evening from Yolande de Blaston, who was told by Mayor Horwoode, and Horwoode had it from Adela’s delighted father.’
So that explained Matilde’s curious behaviour, thought Bartholomew. She must have learned the news while he was at Bene’t College.
‘What was Yolande doing with Mayor Horwoode?’ he asked, puzzled by the curious chain of informants who had provided Matilde with the piece of gossip in the first place.
Edith and her husband exchanged an amused glance. ‘Well, she is a prostitute, Matt,’ said Stanmore dryly. ‘So, I expect they were talking about needlework.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Bartholomew, slightly embarrassed by his slowness, and recalling that Friday was the day when Yolande claimed to have a long-standing arrangement with the Mayor. ‘I can visit Matilde and tell her it was all a misunderstanding. Then we can go back to being friends again.’
‘Not if you plan to leave for Paris,’ said Edith. ‘What brought you to this decision?’
Bartholomew took a deep breath and told them all that had happened since Runham had come to power. And for good measure, he talked about the deaths at Bene’t and Ovyng, too.
Bartholomew stopped speaking when he saw that Stanmore was white-faced with anger. ‘Now what?’ he asked, sensing he had committed another inadvertent misdemeanour.
‘Runham,’ said Stanmore tightly. ‘I gave him five marks.’
‘Five marks?’ echoed Edith. ‘But that is a fortune, Oswald! Why would you give that kind of money to the wretched man, especially given what he has done to Matt?’
‘But that is precisely why I did give it to him,’ said Stanmore. ‘Runham intimated that life would be more pleasant for Matt if I made a donation to the College’s building fund. He chose his words carefully, but I have had enough dealings with artful men to understand his meaning perfectly.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘That Runham threatened you into making a donation to Michaelhouse?’
‘He threatened you,’ said Stanmore. ‘He was as circumspect as it is possible to be, and nothing he said could be construed as directly intimidating, but the upshot of the discussion was that if I did not make a donation to Michaelhouse, your days there would be numbered. And now I hear he has forced you into a position where you feel obliged to resign – and if you resign, I am powerless to accuse him of dismissing you. Damn the man for his cunning!’
‘Ask for the five marks back,’ said Edith. ‘Runham reneged on the deal you made.’
Stanmore poked the fire with unnecessary force. ‘It was a gentlemen’s agreement: I gave him five marks, and he agreed to leave you alone. Nothing was written down, and I will never be able to prove that I gave him the money only to protect Matt. That snake!’
‘You really gave Runham five marks for my benefit?’ asked Bartholomew, touched.
Stanmore nodded. ‘Of course, this was before I learned about your betrothal to Adela Tangmer. I am not sure I would have been so generous had I known who you were about to inflict on me as a sister-in-law.’
‘Especially since such a marriage would have meant me leaving Michaelhouse anyway,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Fellows cannot marry.’
‘I do not like the sound of this business at Bene’t,’ said Edith, bored with Michaelhouse and its machinations. ‘Their scholars are always at each other’s throats. It would not be wise to become embroiled in their evil quarrels.’
‘That is good advice, Matt,’ said Stanmore. ‘You should take it. The Bene’t men are an unwholesome crowd. Heltisle is a power-monger, who cares only for his own ambition. Caumpes is fiercely loyal to Bene’t, but he has a liking for boats, which is odd for a scholar, and he dabbles in the black market.’
‘In what way?’ asked Bartholomew curiously. ‘The black market, I mean.’
‘He often has things to sell,’ said Stanmore. ‘There is no evidence that the items he peddles are stolen, it is true, but most scholars keep away from the buying and selling business – thankfully.’
‘And the Duke of Lancaster’s man, Simekyn Simeon, is no more a scholar than I am,’ said Edith in disdain. ‘He is a court popinjay who knows more about clothes than he does about learning.’
‘Really?’ asked Stanmore, suddenly interested. ‘I wonder if I might persuade him to look at a bale of silk I have just imported …’
‘Well, what would you expect from a man with a name like Simekyn Simeon?’ asked Edith, not to be side-tracked into a discussion about cloth. ‘Meanwhile, Henry de Walton is pathetic and spends all his time worrying about his health. Agatha the laundress told me that there is not a scholar in Bene’t who does not despise him for his weak and selfish ways. And the two who died – Wymundham and Raysoun – were no better.’
‘Lovers,’ said Stanmore with grim satisfaction. ‘And Wymundham was especially reprehensible, according to my informant. He deliberately started rumours that would lead to strife among the others, and collected items of gossip like children collect berries on a summer’s day.’
‘Unlike you,’ said Bartholomew, seeing no difference between Wymundham’s alleged love of stories and Stanmore’s network of informants who were paid to do the same thing.
Stanmore fixed him with an unpleasant look. ‘It is entirely different, Matt. I collect information because I need to know what is happening in the town to help my trade. Wymundham loved rumours for their own sake, and if there were none that suited him, he was not averse to inventing a few. I would not be surprised if someone did away with him.’
‘The Bene’t Fellows are a horrible crowd,’ reiterated Edith. ‘You should not allow Michael to involve you with them, Matt, especially now you have no Cynric to protect you.’
‘It was good of you to take him after Runham dismissed so many of our staff,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Of course, it would have been nicer if you had discussed the matter with me first.’