‘She was murdered in St Thomas’s Chapel,’ he said to Michael. ‘Where you had gone to give thanks for our safe arrival. It was bright that day, and every time we went from the sunshine into the gloom we were forced to wait for our eyes to adjust.’
‘Are you saying he mistook her for me?’ Michael regarded him in disbelief.
‘Yes – she was tall, fat and wore a billowing robe. And Appletre was sun-blinded as he crept in through the back door.’
‘And I suppose we must remember what Clippesby told us,’ added Michael, for once overlooking the reference to his girth. ‘That she did not usually guard the relics, and had done so that day to impress the Bishop’s Commissioners.’
‘The stupid woman,’ spat Appletre. ‘She should not have been there.’
‘So it was her fault, was it?’ asked Bartholomew coldly. ‘Not yours?’
Appletre surged forward angrily, and Bartholomew braced himself for a punch, but the precentor stopped abruptly. ‘No. I am not a violent man.’
‘You are a fool, Appletre,’ said Michael in disdain, while Bartholomew assessed the archers, weighing up his chances of besting them. They were tense and watchful, and he knew he would be shot before he could stand. ‘If you kill me, Gynewell will appoint another agent.’
‘Not so. His conscience will never permit him to order a second man to his death, and he cannot come himself, because he is having trouble with his Mint.’
‘His Mint!’ exclaimed Bartholomew in understanding. ‘Now I know what Reginald was doing! He was a cutler, skilled in working with metal. But he was not making knives – he was producing counterfeit coins. I found some that had fallen on his floor.’
‘You did what?’ asked Appletre dangerously. ‘I gave orders to keep everyone out.’
‘It was you who sent that instruction to Henry, was it?’ pounced Bartholomew. ‘With a defensor who then rode away to Lincoln? But we did not need to see the money to understand what Reginald was doing – we heard him hammering as he worked with the coining dies.’
He gestured to the table, where the one he had found in Reginald’s workshop – the one he had dismissed as an idle curiosity – lay among the other oddments that had been collected and brought to the abbey for ‘safe-keeping’.
‘And why should Reginald forge money?’ sneered Appletre.
‘To be taken to Lincoln, which is the reason why Gynewell is not in a position to visit Peterborough.’ Bartholomew glanced out of the window again: the smoke was thicker and blacker. Hope surged: someone from the town would see it and raise the alarm. He pressed on with his deductions. ‘The Mint is his responsibility, and the King considers counterfeiting a more serious matter than the disappearance of an abbot.’
‘We have been told that Nonton and Welbyrn regularly visited Lincoln.’ Michael took up the tale. ‘One of them must have laid hold of a die and brought it back to Peterborough.’
‘Counterfeiting is a capital crime,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘And Reginald would not have done it willingly. But he was coerced, perhaps on pain of being charged with killing his wife. The strain of his predicament almost certainly contributed to his death.’
‘It takes skill to manufacture coins,’ added Michael. ‘But one man was on hand to explain how it was done – Nonton, who was seconded to work in the Archbishop of York’s court for a year. Langelee saw him there.’
‘At the Mint,’ added Bartholomew. ‘York has one, as well as Lincoln. He–’
He broke off as Appletre snatched a knife from one of the archers and advanced with murder in his eyes.
There was little Bartholomew could do to defend himself when he was on the floor with two bows pointed at him. The archers smirked in anticipation of blood.
‘Do not do this, Appletre!’ cried Michael. ‘Think of your immortal soul.’
Appletre stopped abruptly. ‘True. I have heard there is not much singing in Hell.’
He dropped the blade and backed away, leaving both scholars and the archers gazing at him in astonishment. And Welbyrn thought he had been losing his mind, thought Bartholomew, deftly reaching out to snag the dagger when the archers’ bemused attention was on the precentor.
‘The granary is smouldering,’ Bartholomew said, glancing out of the window yet again. ‘You must sound the alarm. It could ignite at any moment, and if a spark lands on the hospital, Peterborough will lose its monks, bedesfolk and servants in a single stroke.’
Horror speared through him when he saw the unconcern on the precentor’s face.
‘Appletre!’ cried Michael. ‘You cannot risk the abbey for whatever wild scheme–’
‘It is not wild,’ shouted Appletre. ‘Nonton knows what he is doing. Besides, we shall be sent more monks if these die, and I am not averse to having some new basses. It–’
‘You are insane!’ cried Bartholomew, shocked. ‘You–’
‘I am not!’ screamed Appletre, fists clenching. Then he stepped backwards suddenly, and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. ‘I will not let you aggravate me. As I said, I am not a violent man.’
Bartholomew was far from sure about that, and knew that he and Michael would not be allowed to leave Peterborough alive. With nothing to lose he decided he would have answers, even if getting them did goad the precentor to rage.
‘You killed Welbyrn.’ Again, it was a guess, but the guilty flash in Appletre’s eyes told him he was right. ‘He had started to brood about his father, wondering if he might go mad, too. You followed him to St Leonard’s and pushed him in the well, leaving him to drown–’
‘Stop!’ snarled Appletre, while Michael regarded Bartholomew uneasily.
‘But it is you who are mad,’ Bartholomew pressed on. ‘There was no need to harm–’
‘There was every need – he kept questioning our decisions, and he wanted to recruit Ramseye, which would have been a disaster. Our almoner may be a sly rogue, but he would never agree to what we intend. And then Welbyrn threatened to tell you everything in exchange for a cure for his creeping insanity.’
‘He was not–’ began Bartholomew.
‘But he thought you would refuse to treat him.’ Appletre cut across what the physician started to say. ‘So he tried to make friends first. He sent you Lombard slices, but when you were poisoned, he became more unpredictable than ever – the dismay of losing his chance of a remedy was too much for his fragile mind. I had no choice but to kill him.’
‘You are despicable,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.
‘Shoot him,’ ordered Appletre, turning to the bowmen.
Bartholomew struggled to his feet as the archers took aim, reluctant to die lying down. He gripped the knife behind his back, but despite his rage against the plump-cheeked little man who danced from foot to foot in front of him, he could not bring himself to lob it. He was a physician, not a killer, and he did not want his last act on Earth to be the taking of a life.
‘No!’ came an urgent shout from the doorway. ‘It will make a mess on my rugs.’
‘Robert!’ exclaimed Michael, as the Abbot stepped into the solar, resplendent in a clean habit. ‘Thank God! I came to talk to you, but this lunatic has been holding me captive and–’
‘Do not clamour at me,’ snapped the Abbot irritably. ‘Well, Appletre? Did you trick them into revealing all they have learned?’
‘I believe so,’ replied Appletre, smiling smugly at Bartholomew, who saw in that moment that the precentor was not deranged at all, but a cunning manipulator who had deceived him with ease. ‘They know about the Mint, so they will have to be eliminated.’