‘Did she mention the Spital fire to you?’ asked Michael hopefully. ‘I know she went there the morning it happened.’
‘In the last forty-eight hours, she has uttered less than a dozen words to me,’ replied Isabel tartly, ‘none of which should have come from the mouth of a lady. She is so eaten up with bitterness that she is barely sane.’
Bartholomew and Michael went to Alice’s room, and found her sitting at a table. She scrabbled to hide what she was doing when she saw them at the door, but Michael swooped forward and discovered that she had made a reasonable imitation of the Bishop’s seal and was busily forging letters from him. She was more angry than chagrined at being caught, and began to scratch her shoulder.
‘So tell the Bishop about it,’ she challenged. ‘He has already stripped me of my post and treated me with callous contempt. What more can he do?’
Michael read one of the counterfeit messages and started to laugh. ‘Abbess Isabel is unlikely to believe that he wants her to walk naked from the castle to St Mary the Great. Or that she is then to stand in the market square and pray for the French.’
Alice scowled. ‘It is not–’
‘Just as the Sheriff did not believe that she wants to kill the King,’ Michael went on. ‘You make a fool of yourself with these ridiculous plots. It is time to stop.’
Alice regarded him sullenly. ‘Why should I? I am the victim here and–’
‘Speaking of victims, we have witnesses who say you were in the Spital when five people died. What do you have to say about that?’
‘That I had nothing to do with it. I tried to pay my respects to Magistra Katherine and Prioress Joan, but they were too busy to receive me, so I left – before the blaze began. Next, I went to practise my lecture in an empty church, and I arrived at the conloquium later that afternoon. I told you all this yesterday.’
‘No, you did not,’ countered Michael. ‘You failed to mention the Spital at all.’
Alice regarded him with dislike. ‘It slipped my mind. So what?’
‘Can you prove you left before the fire started?’ asked Michael, keeping his temper with difficulty. ‘Because you were seen arriving at the Spital, but no one mentioned you leaving.’
‘Is it my fault that your so-called witnesses are unobservant asses? However, if you want a culprit, look to Magistra Katherine. I imagine she claims she was reading, and thus has no alibi. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ acknowledged Michael. ‘But–’
‘I saw her sneaking around in a very furtive manner,’ interrupted Alice. ‘So was that hulking Joan, who is too stupid to be a prioress. She is more interested in horses than her convent, and delegates nearly all her own duties to her nuns.’
Bartholomew went to the window, well away from her, partly because her scratching was making him itch, but mostly because he was repelled by her malevolence. Moreover, one of Vice-Chancellor Heltisle’s patented metal pens lay on the table, and it was very sharp – he felt Alice was deranged enough to snatch it up and stab him with it.
‘Explain why you stole her comb.’ Michael raised a hand when Alice started to deny it. ‘You were seen.’
Alice struggled to look nonchalant. ‘Perhaps I did pick it up, but only to look at – I never took it away. Joan is careless with her things, and probably mislaid it since.’
‘Even if that is true, there is no excuse for poking about among other nuns’ belongings.’
‘I was looking for a nose-cloth, if you must know. Joan always keeps a good supply in her bag.’ Alice smiled slyly. ‘If you do not believe me about the comb, then search this room right now. You will not find it.’
The offer told them that she had hidden it somewhere they were unlikely to look, so they did not waste their time. Michael continued to bombard her with questions, but she stuck to her story: that she had visited the Spital the previous morning, but left when the nuns declined to receive her. She had seen or heard nothing suspicious near the shed, and was well away before the fire started.
‘Your culprit will be Magistra Katherine, Prioress Joan, one of their sanctimonious nuns, or a lunatic,’ she finished firmly. ‘Not one of them can be trusted. I, however, am entirely innocent.’
They reached the Trumpington Gate, where Cynric was waiting to say that Bartholomew had a long list of patients waiting to see him. Bartholomew was pleased, as most lived some distance from the High Street, so he would not be forced to listen to the Marian Singers massacre Michael’s beautiful compositions. He visited a potter near the Small Bridges, and was amazed when he could still hear the racket emanating from St Mary the Great.
He took the long way around to his next patients – two elderly Breton scholars from Tyled Hostel, who were more interested in informing him that they had not voted for de Wetherset as Chancellor than explaining why they needed his services. Eventually, it transpired that they were suffering from a plethora of nervous complaints, all resulting from fear that they might be attacked for being French.
His next call took him past the butts. This was bordered by the Franciscan Priory to the north, the Barnwell Gate in the south, the main road to the west and the filthy King’s Ditch to the east. It comprised a long, flat field with a mound, like an inverted ditch, at the far end. The mound was the height of a man and was topped with targets – circular boards with coloured rings. A line in the grass marked where the archers stood to shoot.
It was Wednesday, so it was the University’s turn to use the ground, and as darkness had fallen, it was lit with torches. Night was not the best time for such an activity, but the daylight hours were too precious – to working men and University teachers – to lose to warfare, so practices had to be held each evening.
The University’s sessions were meant to be supervised by the Junior Proctor, but Theophilis had left Beadle Meadowman to write the attendees’ names in a ledger and ensure an orderly queue, while he joined the Michaelhouse men at the line. The students were trying to listen to Cynric, but Theophilis kept interrupting, and when they stepped up to the mark, most of their arrows flew wide. Cynric turned and stamped away in disgust.
‘That stupid Theophilis!’ he hissed as he passed Bartholomew. ‘He keeps interfering, and now our boys are worse than when we started. He has undone all my good work.’
‘Come and shoot, Matthew,’ Theophilis called, his hissing voice distinctly unsettling in the gloom. ‘Or you will be marked as absent.’
‘I have patients,’ Bartholomew called back, pleased to have an excuse.
‘And I have documents to read, teaching to prepare, and lecture schedules to organise,’ retorted Theophilis. ‘But the King issued an edict, and I am not so arrogant as to ignore it.’
Inwardly fuming – both at the wasted time and the public rebuke – Bartholomew marched up to the line, grabbed a bow and sent ten arrows flying towards the targets. As he did not aim properly, most went wide, although four hit the mark, showing that he had not forgotten everything he had learned at Poitiers. He handed the weapon back without a word and went on his way, pausing only to ensure that his name was in the register.
He visited two customers near the castle, and was just crossing the Great Bridge on his way home when he met Tulyet hurrying in the opposite direction.
‘I have been looking everywhere for you, Matt! Poor old Wyse is dead. Will you look at him? It seems he fell in a ditch and drowned. As it is a Wednesday, he was probably drunk.’
Will Wyse was a familiar figure in Cambridge. He eked a meagre living from selling firewood, and would have starved but for the generosity of the Franciscans, who gave him alms every Wednesday. He always celebrated his weekly windfall by spending exactly one quarter of it on ale in the Griffin tavern.