The mill was a different place from the night Bottisham and Deschalers had died in it. Light streamed through its open windows, and the engine chamber was a flurry of activity. The miller’s boy stood sentinel by the hopper, monitoring the fall of the grain, while Bernarde himself flitted here and there as he gauged the running of this cog or that gear, making mental notes for later repairs or minute adjustments. Apprentices were everywhere, shouting orders or questions, and using expressions that were unfamiliar to Bartholomew, almost like a foreign language.
Bernarde saw his visitors and waved that he would be a moment, before turning his attention to a pinion with a wobble. The physician looked around him while they waited, and saw that the large pile of sacks, on which Michael had sat while he himself had inspected the corpses, had been dramatically reduced. Only three or four remained. An apprentice grinned cheerfully at him, as he squeezed around Michael to take one up in his burly arms.
‘Another three and Peterhouse will be done,’ he shouted over the racket.
Bartholomew watched him empty the sack into the hopper and come back for another. If he had not glanced down at the dust-covered floor as the man hefted the sack over his shoulder he would not have seen the object rolling from underneath it, heading towards a crack between the floorboards. He moved quickly, and managed to block the hole with his foot before the item disappeared.
‘What is it?’ yelled Michael.
‘A medicine phial,’ Bartholomew shouted back, leaning down to pick it up. ‘I wonder whether it has anything to do with Bottisham and Deschalers, or whether it has been here for ages and has nothing to do with anything.’
‘Is it empty?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘And the stopper is missing, so it is full of dust. I will never be able to tell you what it contained. However, I can tell you it was something powerful.’
‘How?’
‘Because apothecaries do not dispense weak or diluted potions in small pots like this. I wonder if it contained medicine prescribed by Rougham to help Deschalers with the pain of his illness.’
‘Keep it,’ Michael suggested. ‘We can ask him later.’
‘We cannot talk in here!’ yelled Bernarde, brushing dust from his hands by rubbing them on a tunic that was so deeply ingrained with the stuff that its original colour was impossible to guess. ‘And we are too busy to stop, even for a short while. It is unfortunate, because I am plagued with a sore head today, and even Lavenham’s strongest medicine has not made it better.’
‘What did he give you?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking about the phial in his bag.
Bernarde shrugged carelessly. ‘Something pink. I swallowed two doses of the stuff diluted in wine, but my head still aches. I should not have had so much ale in the King’s Head last night.’
But the phial Bartholomew had found was dry and dust-filled, and had not contained medicine consumed that morning. It had been empty and discarded for longer than that – days or weeks, rather than hours. He and Michael followed the miller outside, where the swish and creak of the waterwheel was a welcome relief after the deafening rattle and clank of the building’s inner workings. Bernarde led them a short distance upstream, stopping at a place where Mortimer’s Mill was in clear view, its wheel hoisted out of the water while people moved over it with hammers and nails.
‘A couple of their scoops broke this morning,’ he said casually. ‘Mortimer has been unable to work all day. I suppose they were damaged during that rain last night.’
‘Were they, indeed?’ mused Michael, his eyes glittering in amusement. ‘I had no idea such sturdy structures could be harmed by the odd downpour.’
‘Do most Colleges come to you with their grain?’ asked Bartholomew, who had no idea where Michaelhouse’s was milled. He tended to leave such matters to Langelee, who was paid to deal with them, or to Wynewyk, who enjoyed organising the everyday minutiae of College life.
‘Yes,’ said Bernarde. ‘Not Gonville, though. And Valence Marie informed me today that they will purchase ready-ground flour from the market until the dispute with Mortimer is resolved.’
‘Master Thorpe wants to be impartial,’ surmised Bartholomew. ‘That is wise. He is one of the King’s Commissioners, so he should withdraw custom from both mills until this is over.’
‘He should not be so moralistic,’ countered Bernarde. ‘I am not.’
‘Really?’ asked Michael silkily. ‘In what way?’
‘I do not allow mere scruples to shake me from a position I know is just. Both mills worked perfectly well together until Mortimer decided to convert to fulling. We might have resolved the problem amicably if it had not been for Edward. It was his idea to take our dispute to the King. I was all set to fire the …’ His words trailed off, and he regarded the scholars uneasily, waiting to see whether they had noticed his careless slip.
‘I see,’ said Michael. ‘You planned to burn Mortimer’s Mill as an easy way to dispense with an unwanted rival. Were the other members of the Millers’ Society happy with this solution?’
‘Deschalers was not,’ said Bernarde bitterly, not bothering to deny the charge. ‘But the rest saw reason, and agreed that a fire would be best for all concerned.’
‘Not for the Mortimers,’ said Michael. ‘But this is interesting. Deschalers’s was the only dissenting voice?’
‘He said he did not want to commit such a grave sin when he was dying, but he would have come round to our way of thinking in time. Of course, Bottisham made an end of him before he could be persuaded.’
Michael shot Bartholomew a meaningful glance. Here was another motive for Deschalers’s murder: he had balked at arson. And since Bernarde had not been honest about that sooner, what else had he concealed? Was it really true that no one had left the mill after he claimed he heard bodies hitting the wooden engines? Was he protecting the murderer? Or was he the culprit himself, and had concocted the story about the wheel’s change in tempo, to throw them off the scent?
‘Do you think Deschalers told anyone else about the plan to burn Mortimer’s Mill?’ asked Bartholomew. One of the Millers’ Society – even Bernarde himself – might have murdered the grocer for revealing trade secrets.
‘He told Edward Mortimer,’ replied Bernard. He spat into the river. ‘His new nephew by marriage.’
‘You said it was Edward’s idea to take the dispute to the King,’ said Michael. ‘Did he do that because you cannot burn his uncle’s property if the King knows there is a quarrel between you? Obviously, you cannot fire your rival’s mill now, without awkward questions being asked.’
Bernarde’s expression was resentful. ‘If that was his intention, then it has worked very well.’
‘Was Deschalers reluctant to burn Mortimer’s Mill because it belonged to his new family-by-marriage?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘I doubt Deschalers would have been swayed by something as foolish as in-law loyalty,’ said Bernarde. ‘But I must go. I have to finish grinding Peterhouse’s flour.’ Abruptly, he hurried away, and Bartholomew saw puffs of dust rising from his hair and clothes as he trotted along the path.
‘That was revealing,’ mused Michael. ‘We can no longer take Bernarde’s word that there was no third party in the mill now we know he is not a straightforward man. But I can tell you one thing for certain: his name has just been added to my list of suspects.’
‘Mine, too,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Along with the other members of the Millers’ Society – Cheney, Morice and the Lavenhams. And Edward’s has been underlined.’
Bartholomew and Michael were silent as they took the river path back towards Michaelhouse, each engrossed in his own thoughts about the murders at the mill. The more Bartholomew considered the facts, the more likely it seemed that the Mortimers were somehow involved. Thomas had killed Lenne and maimed Isnard without remorse – and had probably had Bosel poisoned – while murder came naturally to Edward. Either one might have killed Bottisham and Deschalers.