‘I see.’ Bartholomew was unimpressed to learn that Richard could not even be trusted to incinerate a box properly. Doubtless, he had been too keen to return to his drunken friends.
‘I tried to take it from her,’ Richard went on. ‘But all that did was give her the idea that there was something in it of interest.’
Bartholomew was thoughtful. ‘In Weasenham’s shop the other day, you said you knew what you were doing. I thought you meant with the stationer’s wife, but you meant something else entirely. But you don’t know, Richard. You have everything wrong.’
‘Yes and no,’ said Richard tightly. ‘I might have been unaware of the way my father conducted his affairs – I am not interested in cloth, so we never discussed it. But I do know it was not his choice to break the law. Evil people corrupted him, and when he tried to extricate himself from their vile clutches, they poisoned him. A friend in London told me all about it.’
‘Oswald was not poisoned,’ said Bartholomew, and outlined everything that Meryfeld had told him, concluding with, ‘So your friend was lying.’
‘In other words, your vengeance on the town you think led Oswald astray is woefully misplaced,’ said Michael. ‘I cannot imagine how you, an experienced lawyer, can have been so scandalously credulous.’
Richard gazed at them. ‘So he was not murdered?’ he asked in a voice that had lost its arrogance. ‘And he was more likely to have defrauded others than been cheated himself?’
Michael gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘The person has not been born who could deceive Oswald Stanmore. He was the most astute businessman the town has ever seen, and it is common knowledge that he was ruthless, calculating and devious.’
‘Not all the time, of course,’ added Bartholomew kindly. ‘And he never preyed on the weak, the poor or the vulnerable.’
‘Who was the friend who spun you this yarn?’ asked Michael. ‘Uyten?’
Richard nodded and looked away. ‘So he took advantage of my grief? That was a low trick.’
‘If you want him brought to justice, you had better tell us exactly what he told you to do,’ said Michael briskly. ‘Come on, man. Time is passing, and we cannot afford to waste it.’
Richard’s face was white. ‘To recruit as many men as possible, and bring them here to create a rumpus. It was easy: London is full of lads who are game for fun. I brought about twenty, but they invited their own companions, so there are probably in excess of fifty of us here now, plus a lot more who heard about Winwick through us, and came of their own volition to try their luck in winning a place.’
‘Who funded all this mischief?’ demanded Michael.
‘I did.’ Richard’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘That is to say I paid for a lot of them to get here. I was told that they would be given places at Winwick when they arrived, but Illesy will only accept wealthy applicants, so there are a lot of disappointed paupers wandering around…’
‘Where did you find all this money?’
‘My inheritance – avenging Father seemed a good way to use it.’ Richard’s shock slowly turned to anger. ‘Damn Uyten! I will make him pay for this.’
‘No, you will not,’ said Michael firmly. ‘You have done enough harm. Leave him to me.’
‘You?’ Richard had regained his composure and the hubris was back. ‘He has outwitted you at every turn, and there is no reason to assume that anything will change. But I am a patient man, Brother. Cambridge will not hold Uyten for ever, and when he slithers back to London I shall be waiting for him.’
‘London?’ pounced Michael. ‘You are leaving?’
‘There is nothing for me here now. I shall go today.’
‘What about your Fellowship at Winwick Hall?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘One has been offered, but for more money than I am willing to pay. It proves what I have suspected from the start – that the Provost and his Fellows do not want me, they want my fortune. But they will not have it. I can think of a hundred better ways to spend it.’
‘Then let us hope that they do not all involve drink and fickle friends,’ muttered Michael, watching him stalk away.
Chapter 16
The streets were more uneasy than ever as Bartholomew and Michael resumed their journey to Winwick Hall. The groups of students, matriculands and townsmen were larger and more heavily armed, and Michael’s beadles had given up ordering scholars home: instead they were concentrating on trying to keep the factions apart. The wind did not help. It gusted fiercely, sending leaves, twigs and rubbish cartwheeling along the road, and people were obliged to shout to make themselves heard. Yells were misinterpreted as threats or insults, and offence was quickly taken.
‘It is like trying to control the sea,’ muttered Michael in despair. ‘Too many folk want mischief, and my beadles are too few to stop it. Perhaps Marjory Starre’s prediction about wind and death was right, Matt, and I shall be the great man for whom it blows.’
He pointed to where another surly band was preparing to advance. Head pounding with tension, Bartholomew tugged out his childbirth forceps again, although it was the appearance of members of the Michaelhouse Choir that encouraged their would-be assailants to retreat, not the sight of his weapon.
‘What will happen to Richard?’ he asked in a low voice, as they began walking again.
‘We shall let him disappear to London,’ replied Michael, ‘but if he ever shows his face here again, the University will hold him to account for what he has done.’
‘I will warn him to stay away,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Poor Edith.’
‘She will–’ Michael stopped speaking as the Chancellor hurried up.
‘I have just had a message from John Winwick,’ Tynkell gasped. ‘He will arrive at noon.’
‘Then ride out and intercept him!’ cried Michael, horrified. ‘He cannot be here. If he sees us in such turmoil … well, suffice to say it will do us no good.’
‘I will try,’ gulped Tynkell. ‘But he is a determined man, and I am not sure I shall manage.’
‘Nor am I,’ muttered Michael, as Tynkell hurried away. ‘And for once I wish we had a Chancellor with more backbone.’ He narrowed his eyes against the wind as he squinted up the High Street. ‘Is that de Stannell? I thought he planned to spend the day cowering inside his castle. I wonder what has drawn him out.’
‘The gale has damaged the guildhall’s new roof,’ explained the deputy. ‘And I am needed to hire a ladder. Potmoor is terribly upset, as he paid for those tiles himself.’
‘Hire a ladder?’ echoed Michael in disbelief. ‘Surely you have more important matters to attend – like preventing riots in your town?’
‘The guildhall is important,’ snapped de Stannell, annoyed by the censure. ‘And the Sheriff of Cambridge-shire and Huntingdonshire knows his duty.’
‘You are not Sheriff! Dick Tulyet still holds that post, thank God.’
‘No, he does not.’ De Stannell’s smile was gloating. ‘If you had wanted him to remain in office, Brother, you should have exerted more control over your colleagues. I am Sheriff now, and I shall never let the University rule my town like he did.’
‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Michael irritably.
‘He was beheaded last night in the Tower of London.’ De Stannell’s monkey-face blazed with gleeful spite. ‘As a punishment for allowing Michaelhouse to write treasonous words about the Keeper of the Privy Seal. I heard it in Weasenham’s shop not an hour ago.’
‘And you believe it?’ Bartholomew regarded him wonderingly, amazed that a royal official should have been taken in by so far-fetched a rumour.
‘Why should I not? I warned Tulyet that his fondness for scholars would end in trouble, and I was right. He should have crushed your University, not allowed it to flourish. I shall not make the same mistake.’