Michael rubbed his hands approvingly as the landlord brought the victuals. The ale was sweet and clear, and the pork succulent. It made Bartholomew realise yet again how much he had missed decent food since Wynewyk’s tampering with the accounts had forced them to tighten their belts.
When they were settled, and were working their way through a platter of meat that would have fed half the King’s army, Michael regaled Agnys with a truncated and not very accurate account of why they had travelled to Suffolk. Bartholomew tried to listen, but most of his mind was on what Cynric had told him. What if the body in the grave did transpire to be Kelyng’s? How could there be an innocent explanation for Wynewyk taking a student on a journey from which he never returned?
‘… Neubold,’ Michael was saying. ‘What do you think happened to him?’
‘I do not believe he took his own life,’ replied Agnys. Bartholomew forced himself to pay closer attention. The sooner he and Michael had answers to their questions, the sooner they could leave – and he was unsettled and wary in Suffolk, and desperately wanted to go home. ‘First, he had no reason to do so – my grandson admits to paying him handsomely to steal Luneday’s pig, and no man kills himself while he has a fortune to enjoy. And second, he was happy with his lot.’
‘The Withersfield villagers chased him for miles when he was caught thieving,’ said Michael. ‘I think he was genuinely afraid of them.’
‘He had a slippery tongue and an inflated sense of his own cleverness,’ argued Agnys. ‘He may have been given a fright at first, but he would have assumed he could talk himself out of any trouble.’
‘I wonder if he was dispatched in Withersfield,’ mused Michael. ‘There was evidence of a struggle in the barn, although no blood that I could see.’
‘There was a cut on his head, though,’ said Agnys. ‘So perhaps we must conclude that he was killed elsewhere. The chapel, for example.’
Bartholomew started to say that the barn was a big building, and the wound on Neubold’s head had not been serious – it would need more than a passing glance to detect any drops of blood that might have been shed there. But he stopped, although he could not have said why. Were his feelings of unease leading him to question the probity of everyone in Suffolk, even those who seemed to be on their side? He rubbed a hand through his hair, troubled and tense.
‘We were attacked last night,’ said Michael, sopping the grease from the platter with a piece of bread. He tore the fat-drenched morsel in two and offered half to Agnys, who accepted it appreciatively. ‘Perhaps Neubold was murdered, then the culprit decided to kill us, too, lest we had witnessed anything. After all, the barn and the hall are not very far apart.’
‘Or perhaps your assailant heard only that you are scholars from Cambridge, and jumped to the not unreasonable conclusion that you hail from King’s Hall,’ suggested Agnys. ‘And King’s Hall is not popular around here. Alternatively, it is possible that your attacker wanted Luneday dead, because he had dared to incarcerate a Haverhill man in his barn – you were not the intended victims at all.’
Both theories had one obvious suspect: d’Audley. Bartholomew studied Agnys as he thought about it. D’Audley certainly had a motive for harming representatives from King’s Hall, given that they intended to claim property he considered to be his own, while his obvious hatred for Withersfield might well lead him to mount an attack on Luneday. But was he a murderer? Or did it just suit Agnys to have him considered as one?
‘Who do you think killed Neubold, My Lady?’ asked Michael, sitting back and folding his hands across his paunch, finally replete. ‘It must be someone from this area, because strangers would have been noticed – as we were.’
Agnys raised her hands in a shrug. ‘I barely know where to start. Luneday and his people despised Neubold for a whole host of reasons. D’Audley claims to have admired Neubold’s talent, but he is a devious fellow, and who knows what he really thinks? Gatekeeper Folyat was always quarrelling with Neubold over petty matters. And do not forget that Neubold was recently in Cambridge.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ asked Michael.
‘It is where Joan died. Perhaps he knew something about her passing, and was killed to ensure his silence. He claimed he left Cambridge before she became ill, which is why he failed to tend her on her deathbed, but he may have been lying. He was not an honest man.’
‘Did he say why he abandoned his master’s heavily pregnant wife in a strange town?’ asked Michael. ‘It is hardly a responsible thing to have done.’
‘He told me he wanted to inform Henry about his successful negotiations with King’s Hall as soon as possible,’ replied Agnys. ‘He thought Joan would be safe with Edith, and planned to collect her later, when she had finished shopping. Or so he said. Perhaps he was telling the truth, perhaps he was not.’
‘Are you sure he went to discuss coal?’ asked Michael. ‘His real intention was not to tell King’s Hall how they might strengthen their claim on Elyan Manor?’
Agnys blew out her cheeks in a sigh. ‘With Neubold, anything was possible. It would not surprise me to learn that he offered to destroy documents or change others – for a price. He was not loyal to us.’
‘It is a pity we did not know all this sooner,’ said Michael. ‘He has taken his secrets to the grave so we can no longer ask him about them.’
‘I questioned him at length about Joan, but my efforts to catch him out were wasted. Perhaps he was telling the truth – I tended to disbelieve anything he said, but maybe I do him an injustice.’
‘You say Joan became troubled about something in the last few weeks,’ said Bartholomew, changing the subject back to his sister’s hapless friend. ‘But you do not know what.’
A cloud passed over Agnys’s face. ‘I wish now that I had made more of an effort to find out – there is a fine line between anxious concern and the interference of a husband’s grandmother, and I thought I was doing the right thing by recognising her right to privacy. But…’
‘Your grandson can always remarry,’ Michael pointed out. ‘Joan’s death does not necessarily mean Elyan Manor will go to one of these claimants.’
Agnys winced. ‘It took him twenty years to impregnate Joan, by which time we had all but given up hope. And to be honest, I suspect she reverted to other measures in the end.’
‘Other measures,’ queried Michael innocently. ‘You mean the child was not his?’
‘I doubt it, although I shall deny ever saying so, should anyone ask.’
Bartholomew regarded Agnys thoughtfully, wondering why she had confided such a suspicion to strangers. She professed to be fond of Joan, so why tell tales that implied she was wanton?
‘Is your grandson the kind of man to avenge himself on an unfaithful wife?’ he asked.
Agnys was silent for a long time before she replied. ‘No, I do not think so.’
But she did not sound convinced by her answer, and neither was Bartholomew.
‘Lord, Matt,’ breathed Michael, as they took their leave to walk through the marketplace. They were going to visit the Upper Church, where Bartholomew hoped to examine Neubold’s body, preferably without an audience. ‘I wonder whether we are wise to become embroiled in all this.’
‘In all what, specifically?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Neubold’s murder?’
‘The various deaths that have occurred since Wynewyk decided to cheat Michaelhouse – his own curious demise, Joan’s poisoning, Carbo’s stabbing and now Neubold’s hanging. I am sure they are all connected somehow.’
‘And Kelyng,’ said Bartholomew unhappily, and told him what his book-bearer had learned.