‘But murder, Eudo!’ whispered Boltone. ‘And the Proctor is a monk, a man of God.’
‘We have no choice. If you let them live, you will hang. Do you want to die just because you are too frightened to loose a judicious arrow against men who put us in this situation in the first place?’
Boltone was obviously unhappy, but the increasing clamour in the street and its sense of urgency was beginning to rob him of his common sense. He nodded reluctant agreement.
‘Good,’ said Eudo, flexing his fingers around his bow. ‘Then we must hurry, because we are running out of time. You shoot Bartholomew and I will kill the monk. Then we will reload and dispatch Weasenham and Rougham, who are weaker and less likely to stop us. Ready?’
As one, he and Boltone raised their weapons and pointed them at the scholars.
‘Now!’ shouted Michael, flinging himself backwards as hard as he could. Bartholomew did likewise, at the same instant that Boltone released his quarrel. The physician heard a snap and something hit his chest before he fell. For a moment, he felt nothing, then there was a dull throb. When he glanced down, his clothes were stained red, and he realised he had been hit.
Meanwhile, his and Michael’s combined weight had been more than the shelves could support. With a tearing groan, they came away from their moorings and toppled, sending their contents skittering across the room. Bottles smashed, pens tapped on the wooden floor, and parchments soared from their neat piles like birds, covering the shop with a carpet of cream. Eudo began to reload, regarding first Michael and then Bartholomew with an expression of hatred, while Boltone was momentarily stunned by a box that had struck his head.
‘Michael!’ Bartholomew gasped, knowing the monk could disarm Eudo if he moved fast enough. It took a moment or two to wind a crossbow.
But Michael wallowed with agonising helplessness among the inkwells and scrolls, and seemed unable to climb to his feet. Bartholomew was sharply reminded of Brother Thomas’s prediction that the monk’s obesity would bring about his friend’s death, and was appalled it should come true quite so soon. He saw Boltone shake his head to clear it, then scramble towards the weapon he had dropped. The physician managed to reach it first, struggling to keep hold of it while the bailiff tried to snatch it back.
‘Michael!’ he yelled again, watching Eudo load his weapon with all the time in the world. But Michael only rolled this way and that, like a landed fish among the sea of parchment.
Weasenham dived under a table with a petrified squeak, and it was left to Rougham to pick up a stone inkwell and lob it with his failing strength. It hit Eudo square in the face, and felled him as cleanly as any arrow. Boltone gazed at his fallen colleague in horrified disbelief, then abandoned his skirmish with Bartholomew to dart across the room, wrench open the door and flee as fast as his legs could carry him. Weasenham emerged from under the table to grab Eudo’s weapon, but the man was deeply insensible, and posed no further threat. Rougham appealed to Bartholomew.
‘I am feeling most unwell. Will you mix me a physic?’
‘Never mind you!’ shouted Michael furiously, finally upright. ‘What about Matt? He has been shot and is drenched in blood.’
‘Ink,’ said Rougham dismissively. ‘Weasenham threw it. He was actually aiming at Eudo and, since he missed his intended target, I was obliged to hurl a pot myself. I always say that if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself, and this is just a case in point.’
‘But I saw the bolt fly loose,’ said Michael, while Bartholomew regarded the mess on his best tabard in dismay. He doubted it could be washed out.
‘It is lodged in the ceiling,’ said Weasenham, pointing with an unsteady finger. ‘Eudo is no better a marksman than I am, it seems.’
‘Tend me, please, Bartholomew,’ begged Rougham. ‘Before Weasenham really does have a corpse in his shop.’
The stationer, relieved and grateful that he had escaped with his life, offered his own bed to the invalid, which was accepted with poor grace – Rougham claimed he did not want to return to Gonville a few houses at a time. But he slept readily enough, and Bartholomew thought he should be able to complete his journey the following day. Meanwhile, Michael went to summon beadles to collect Eudo before the tenant regained his senses. He found Tulyet first, and they returned within moments. The Sheriff, clad in his finest clothes, stepped carefully through the rainbow spillages that adorned Weasenham’s once-pristine floor.
‘So,’ he said, watching his men haul Eudo away. ‘You deliver me a pair of thieves, but no killer.’
‘A pair of thieves?’ asked Michael. ‘You caught Boltone?’
‘He ran right into my arms. He was covered in blood – just like you, Matt. Are you hurt?’
‘My best red ink,’ said Weasenham sadly, gazing at Bartholomew’s tabard as though he was contemplating wringing it out to see what he could salvage. ‘What a waste! You will not get it off, either, and Agatha will be furious. Do not tell her it happened in my shop. I do not want her storming in and waving her sword at my throat.’
‘How do you know she has a sword?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘I have seen it. She thinks she can slip past my house unseen when she goes to her lover, but she cannot. I know the way she walks, even when she wears Langelee’s cloak.’
‘My cloak?’ came a familiar voice from the doorway. It was Michaelhouse’s Master, and Alyce Weasenham was behind him. ‘Why would Agatha wear my cloak?’
‘Where have you been?’ Weasenham demanded of Alyce. ‘You said you would only be gone an hour, and you have been away all night.’
Langelee had the grace to blush, but Alyce began a convoluted tale about being caught in a spring shower, taking shelter in a church, and then waking to find herself locked in.
‘I have only just been released,’ she concluded defiantly, while Tulyet raised laconic eyebrows and Michael sniggered.
‘It is true,’ said Langelee, gallantly stepping in to defend her virtue. ‘We did indeed pass the . . .’ He trailed off as Alyce shot him a withering glance.
‘We?’ asked Weasenham immediately. ‘You mean you were with her?’
‘Fortunately, yes,’ said Langelee, brazening it out. ‘I was able to reassure her that she would be reunited with you at first light, or she may have become hysterical.’
Alyce did not look like the kind of person who would lose her wits about being shut in a church, but no one said anything, and there was a short, uncomfortable silence. Then Langelee muttered something about being wanted at Michaelhouse, and escaped while he was still able.
‘I needed you last night, Alyce,’ said Weasenham reproachfully. ‘I have been held hostage for hours, and I kept expecting you to come and rescue me. In the end Michael, Bartholomew and Rougham obliged, although they made a dreadful mess as they did so.’
Alyce gazed around her. ‘This will not impress the Archbishop, and the word is that he is less than a mile outside the town. He will be here at any moment.’
‘That is true,’ said Tulyet, moving towards the door. ‘And we still have a great deal to do. The Visitation will have to take place with this killer on the loose, because I do not think Eudo and Boltone are our culprits. They are not clever enough.’
‘No,’ agreed Michael. ‘They were with Chesterfelde when he died, and tried to have the Oxford men blamed for it, but they did not kill Hamecotes, Gonerby or Okehamptone, and nor did they frighten Spryngheuse into taking his own life. Our list of suspects is growing shorter.’
‘Who is still on it?’ asked Tulyet.
‘Polmorva, Duraunt and the merchants,’ said Michael. ‘And some of the Fellows from King’s Hall – Norton, Wolf and Dodenho, whose silver astrolabe ended up in Eudo’s hoard.’
‘I have no idea what happened to that,’ mused Weasenham. ‘It was a pretty thing, so I put it in my chest upstairs, but . . .’ He realised what he had just admitted in front of the Sheriff and the Senior Proctor, and the colour drained from his face yet again. Bartholomew felt sorry for him: he was not having a good morning.