‘Well, that is one way of solving the problem, I suppose,’ said Michael, round eyed. ‘Although I would prefer a solution that does not involve arson and large numbers of rioters.’
‘It is better than the alternative,’ said Tulyet shortly. ‘Namely that we have battles on and off the playing field, as hostels and Colleges attack each other, and my town joins in. And the Chestre men are certainly my first choice of suspects for the killer-thief, anyway.’
‘They are not mine,’ said Michael. ‘I prefer Fen and his nuns. And I have not forgotten the fact that Yffi is conveniently missing, either. Or that Matt’s medical colleagues are a sinister rabble, who might think a few signacula will make them better healers.’
‘They are not–’ began Bartholomew.
‘Thelnetham has been acting oddly of late, too,’ said Tulyet, overriding him. ‘He is not the outrageously cheerful man he was a month ago, and I have come to distrust him intensely.’
‘Nonsense!’ declared Michael. ‘Our College does not harbour killers.’
Bartholomew said nothing, but his mind ranged back to the past, when he had learned the bitter lesson that not everyone who enrolled at Michaelhouse was a good man.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they reached the Guildhall, Bartholomew studied the war machine for a long time, working out angles, distances and measurements in his mind. It did not take him long to understand why Tulyet’s engineers had failed: the device needed to be dismantled in a specific order, or the pieces were never going to fit through the door. Tulyet soon grew impatient with him.
‘How much longer are you going to stare at the damned thing?’ he demanded. ‘We need it disassembled now if we are to help Cynric, not next week.’
‘I think I see how they did it,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Do you have six strong soldiers, who can help with the lifting?’
Tulyet nodded, then lowered his voice. ‘But give me a few moments to make a fuss while I assemble them – we must ensure that Chestre hears what we intend to do, or Cynric will find himself invading their domain while they are still in it.’
Bartholomew followed him outside, where a large number of people were walking home after Celia’s celebration. Among them were Rougham, Gyseburne and Meryfeld, evidently having returned to the festivities after the incident in the garden. Meryfeld and Rougham were still reeling from the wine they had imbibed, but Gyseburne appeared to be sober. In fact, he seemed to have recovered so completely that Bartholomew wondered whether he had been drunk in the first place.
‘The trebuchet will be gone tonight,’ Tulyet was announcing in a ringing voice to a group of men from the Guild of Corpus Christi. ‘Do not worry – you shall have your meeting in here tomorrow.’
A number of people stopped to listen, and Bartholomew was pleased when he saw Kendale and Neyll were among them. It would save adopting more creative measures to ensure they had heard.
‘We will not convene before the game, though,’ said one of the Guild. He was Burgess Frevill, a thickset, loutish fellow who was one of the killer-thief’s victims. ‘I am looking forward to that.’
‘Are you?’ asked Tulyet in distaste. ‘Why? There may be violence and bloodshed.’
‘Quite,’ said Frevill gleefully. ‘It will be great sport to see the University tear itself to pieces. And I may join in – I have heard a scholar is responsible for murdering Drax and stealing pilgrim badges – including the one I bought from the time I went to Hereford. I dislike a large number of those snivelling academics, and one might confess if I give him a taste of my fists.’
‘I would not recommend taking matters into your own hands,’ said Tulyet, his voice deceptively mild. ‘I shall not be pleased if you make my task tomorrow any harder than it needs to be.’
Frevill backed away with his hands in the air: only fools crossed the Sheriff. But Bartholomew had a bad feeling that the burgess’s words reflected the views of others, and suspected it would be a miracle if Kendale’s game passed without incident. The Chestre men had heard the exchange, too, and exchanged smug grins at the notion that the Sheriff was anticipating serious trouble. Unable to look at them, Bartholomew went to speak to his medical colleagues.
‘We might be wise to abandon our experiments,’ he said, thinking he could at least put an end to one area of mischief. ‘The Sheriff was unimpressed, and we do not want any more explosions.’
‘As you wish,’ said Meryfeld. He sounded pleased, and Bartholomew found himself wondering whether he planned to continue the tests on his own, so he would not be obliged to share any profits that might accrue from the invention. ‘I have plenty of other business to occupy me.’
‘What other business?’ asked Gyseburne immediately.
‘Nothing to concern you,’ said Meryfeld, rubbing his hands together. ‘And now I must bid you goodnight. Oh, dear! I seem to have walked rather a long way past my front door. You should not have distracted me, Gyseburne.’
‘He is an odd fellow,’ said Gyseburne, watching Meryfeld totter back the way he had come. ‘But it is late and I am tired, so I shall bid you goodnight, too. Take care in your dealings this evening, Bartholomew. Whatever they might be.’
‘That was a peculiar thing to say,’ said Michael, narrowing his eyes as Gyseburne strode away, Rougham at his side. ‘What did he mean by it? It sounded uncannily like a warning.’
Uneasily, Bartholomew was forced to admit that it did
He walked back inside the Guildhall, and went to work with Tulyet’s engineers and a team of burly soldiers. The door was ‘accidentally’ left open, to encourage folk to stay and watch.
‘All the Chestre men are among the crowd outside, and I am ready,’ muttered Cynric in Bartholomew’s ear, making him jump. He had not heard the book-bearer approach.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘They have not left a guard? I would have done, if I were Kendale. They have attracted a lot of ill feeling.’
‘It is all of their own making,’ replied Cynric. He grinned. ‘I am pleased to be invading them. It will serve them right for stealing our gates. Did I tell you I found them, by the way?’
Bartholomew gaped at him. ‘No! Where were they?’
‘Master Clippesby had a tip from a ferret, so I followed up on it and learned that Neyll and Gib were not as clever as they thought they were, because the riverfolk saw everything.’
‘The riverfolk,’ mused Bartholomew, thinking of the poverty-stricken men and women who inhabited the hovels by the waterside, and who never admitted to seeing or hearing anything; it was safer for them that way. They liked Cynric, though, because his sense of social justice often entailed purloining items from Michaelhouse’s kitchen for distribution among those who were poorer still.
‘Neyll was the ringleader,’ Cynric went on. ‘Kendale was not involved – it was too crude a trick for him. They hid the gates in the Carmelite Priory, under the rubble that Yffi has excavated for the foundations of St Simon Stock’s new shrine.’
‘Why there?’ asked Bartholomew. He had assumed they were at the bottom of the river and would be found in the summer when the water level dropped.
Cynric raised his hands in a shrug. ‘A gate is an enormous thing, when you think about it – there are not many places you can hide them.’
‘Did you tell Langelee?’
‘Yes, as soon as I found them. They are being retrieved as I speak.’
Bartholomew was grateful that Michaelhouse would soon be secure again, but his relief did not last long. Now the time had come, he hated the notion of sending Cynric into the lair of what might be some very ruthless villains, and wished he had not suggested it. Cynric waved away his concerns, then slipped silently through the rear door, clearly relishing the opportunity to practise the kind of skills his master wished he did not have.