‘Ask the Warden why he is so eager to own Elyan Manor,’ crowed Tesdale, seeing the King’s Hall physician’s distress. ‘And question him about his relationship with Osa Gosse.’
‘I really do not care,’ said Michael coldly. ‘At the moment, I am only interested in locking you away, you poisonous little rat.’
‘Then I will tell everyone about Wynewyk’s crimes,’ declared Tesdale, eyes flashing with malice. ‘And Michaelhouse will be disgraced. But if you let me go, I will start a practice in some distant city and we need never see each other again.’
‘We will take our chances,’ said Michael. ‘Come.’
Tesdale hesitated, then sagged in defeat. Michael lowered the dagger, but before Bartholomew could yell a warning, Tesdale had shoved past the monk and dived towards the window.
‘Go to Hell!’ the student yelled, as he clambered on to the sill. He stood and reached up, intending to scramble across the roof and make his escape. He moved so confidently that Bartholomew was sure he had done it before. Or was it poppy juice that gave him a sense of wild recklessness?
Unfortunately for Tesdale, he had reckoned without the constant rain of the past few weeks. The tiles were slick, and he immediately lost his balance. Bartholomew darted forward and managed to grab a corner of his tabard, arresting the young man’s fall with such a violent jolt that it almost pulled him out, too. Tesdale hung three floors up, with only Bartholomew’s fingers between him and oblivion. Then the material began to slide out of the physician’s hand.
‘Help me!’ Tesdale screamed, struggling frantically as he tried to gain purchase on the smooth stones of the wall. Bartholomew fought to retain his grip, feeling the muscles in his arm burn from the effort.
‘Do not squirm,’ ordered Michael urgently, leaning out of the window as far as he could, and straining to reach the terrified student. ‘I am almost–’
But more of the cloth tore through Bartholomew’s fingers. He tried to lift the dead weight, so Michael could catch Tesdale’s desperately flailing hand, but it was a manoeuvre beyond his strength. The last fragment of tabard ripped free, and Tesdale dropped with an ear-splitting scream.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Michael, deliberately not looking at the shattered figure on the ground below.
Bartholomew could only nod.
Chapter 12
Michael wasted no time in summoning some of his beadles to remove the bodies from King’s Hall. Junior Proctor Cleydon was with them, and was instructed to return to St Mary the Great and discreetly invite Powys to walk outside for some air. The monk needed to talk to the King’s Hall Warden urgently, but did not want to do it in such a way that several hundred scholars would wonder what was going on. Fortunately, the debate had started, so he hoped attention would be on the disputants, not on what was happening in the audience; the last thing he needed was a contingent of outraged King’s Hall students rallying to their Warden’s side.
‘I was looking forward to today,’ he said bitterly. ‘I was going to dazzle everyone with my incisive analyses, to remind men of influence that I would make a good bishop. Instead, I am forced to explore Tesdale’s sordid accusations against King’s Hall. And when that is done, I am obliged to help Langelee resolve the dispute surrounding Elyan Manor. Sometimes I hate being a proctor!’
‘You need to arrest Gosse and Idoma, too,’ added Bartholomew, who felt missing an academic discussion was the least of their worries. ‘They are killers, and we must thwart whatever they are planning to do during the debate.’
‘Then we had better not waste any more time,’ said Michael, beginning to stride to where Paxtone, white-faced and tearful, was sitting on a bench in King’s Hall’s well-appointed yard.
Bartholomew grabbed the monk’s arm and held him back. ‘He was protecting his College, Brother. Do not tell me you have never recruited spies to combat a threat to your home?’
‘You are too willing to see the good in people,’ said Michael, freeing himself impatiently. ‘I saw Paxtone myself, laughing and joking with Wynewyk, pretending to be his friend. At best he is duplicitous, and at worst … It does not bear thinking about.’
‘Paxtone did not harm Wynewyk, though,’ Bartholomew pointed out reasonably. ‘Tesdale confessed to that – along with Wynewyk’s own efforts to kill himself.’
‘Then what about Agatha’s claim – that Paxtone is in league with Gosse?’ demanded Michael. ‘Or Tesdale’s similar allegation against Powys? And do not forget the diamonds.’
‘Diamonds?’ Bartholomew was not sure how they fitted into anything.
Michael made an exasperated face. ‘Wynewyk carried an uncut gem in his purse, and had others hidden under the floorboards in his room – and Clippesby found letters in which he had offered them to wealthy nobles. Meanwhile, what does Paxtone have in his cupboard, that he snatched away from you when you happened across them? Uncut diamonds! Do not tell me that is coincidence.’
‘No,’ agreed Bartholomew cautiously. ‘But I still cannot see the significance.’
‘Has it occurred to you that Paxtone may not have been spying on us to protect King’s Hall, but because Wynewyk had something King’s Hall wanted? He made Wynewyk the villain, but who is to say he is telling the truth?’
Bartholomew was confused. ‘But Tesdale told us that Wynewyk and Paxtone discussed and wrote about stones together – he did not mention any antagonism between them. They were more likely to have been working jointly to–’
‘No. King’s Hall is not the sort of foundation to share that sort of thing, and neither, frankly, was Wynewyk. They may have maintained a veneer of co-operation, but the intentions of each of them would have been to best the other.’
‘Really, Brother,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘Not everyone is base, greedy and corrupt.’
‘I think you will find they are,’ countered Michael. ‘Especially where lots of money is concerned. But let us take a moment and review what we know of these diamonds.’
‘They came from Neubold,’ obliged Bartholomew. ‘Yolande de Blaston told me Neubold gave Paxtone these stones because they can help women in childbirth. She stole one from him.’
‘Paxtone lied to her.’ Michael took up the tale. ‘He fabricated a tale, so a prostitute would not spread the story that King’s Hall owns a lot of uncut diamonds. I imagine Wynewyk’s stones came from Neubold, too. But why would a Dominican priest be dispensing such things?’
‘He dispensed them to men who were going to invest in Elyan’s coal seam,’ said Bartholomew.
Michael gaped at the implications. ‘You think Elyan’s colliery is actually a diamond mine?’
‘Of course not, but that is not the point – which is what other people believe. Precious stones discovered on Elyan land explain a lot of things. For example why Wynewyk made his secret journey to Suffolk in the summer. Why King’s Hall, d’Audley and Luneday are so eager to inherit Elyan Manor. And why Elyan pays vigilant guards.’
Michael was thoughtful. ‘It also explains why Wynewyk sent Kelyng to watch the place: he wanted to know if the tale was true.’
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, as various clues snapped together in his mind. ‘Margery said the mine held a secret. This must be what she meant. But Elyan said his mine is not producing what was expected. We thought he referred to coal, but he must have meant diamonds.’
‘Which were numerous to begin with – hence the free samples to investors – but which quickly petered out,’ finished Michael. ‘Wynewyk probably intended to repay Michaelhouse without us being any the wiser, and keep the fabulous profits for himself – profits earned by selling these uncut diamonds to wealthy nobles.’