‘We should turn back,’ whispered Michael. ‘It is not safe out here. Tyrington can wait.’
More missiles flew, and Bartholomew covered his head with his hands. When he glanced up, the potters were racing towards them en masse. ‘Run, Michael! Now!’
Michael did not need to be told a second time. He set off at a furious waddle. ‘Run where?’
‘St John Zachary,’ yelled Bartholomew. The monk would never make it to Michaelhouse, and the church was the closest available building. ‘It should be open, and they will not attack us if we claim sanctuary.’
The potters were gaining. Bartholomew grabbed Michael’s arm and hauled him along at a speed that threatened to have them both over, but the monk made no complaint. He did his best to move at the pace Bartholomew was dictating, but he was too fat and too slow. Bartholomew saw they were going to be caught. He increased his efforts, muscles burning with the strain.
When they reached the chapel, he took his childbirth forceps and brandished them, to give Michael time to stumble through the graveyard. The monk flung open the door, and Bartholomew turned and dashed inside. He had only just slammed it closed when the potters crashed against it, trying to shove it open with the weight of their bodies. Michael snatched up a heavy wooden bar and rammed it into two slots on either side of the doorframe. Then he collapsed in a breathless heap on the floor.
‘So much for sanctuary,’ muttered Bartholomew, as the church echoed with the sound of angrily pounding fists and kicking feet.
‘Check the windows,’ gasped Michael. ‘Hurry! Make sure they are all barred, or these louts will be inside in a trice. God help us, Matt, but they mean business!’
‘… Senior Proctor and his physician,’ Bartholomew heard someone holler. ‘We have them trapped.’
‘Storm the gaol!’ cried someone else. ‘Let Arderne out.’
Bartholomew dashed down the south aisle, but the windows in the dilapidated little church had long-since rotted away and had been replaced by solid boards. All seemed secure, so he ran to the north aisle, which was in a better state of repair, because it formed part of Clare’s boundary wall. None of the shutters could be opened from the inside, and the single opening in the Lady Chapel was locked shut.
‘Damn,’ muttered Bartholomew, although he was not surprised. Cynric had once told him it was impossible to go from church to Clare once the windows were closed. ‘I was hoping we could take refuge with Kardington.’
Michael’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His face was scarlet, and Bartholomew hoped he would not have a seizure. ‘Can you see anything? What are the potters doing?’ he gasped.
Bartholomew peered through a crack in the wood. ‘There must be a dozen of them. They seem intent on–’ He jerked back as something heavy was hurled at the window through which he had been looking. Fragments of plaster showered down from the wall.
‘The two most hated men in Cambridge,’ said Michael ruefully. ‘The physician who helped arrest Arderne, and the University proctor who crushed the alliance of the landlords. We are not good company for each other today – too tempting a target.’
There was a colossal thump on the door.
‘Kardington used the window in the Lady Chapel as a door into Clare,’ said Bartholomew, darting towards it. ‘We must open it somehow – we cannot stay here, because those potters mean to break in. They are using a cart as a battering ram.’
There was a sudden crack on the window in question. Bartholomew peered through a gap at the bottom of it, and saw a score of students milling outside. They were piling old wood against the shutter, and one was standing by with a lighted torch. The physician turned to Michael in bewilderment.
‘It looks as though we shall all die together,’ came a soft voice from the chancel.
‘Tyrington!’ exclaimed Michael. ‘What are you doing here?’
A distant part of Bartholomew’s mind registered how odd it was that the little church should be so still inside, when there was such a commotion outside. To the south, the potters were pounding the door with their cart, screaming their fury at the men trapped within. To the north, the students of Clare and their Peterhouse guests were busily piling firewood against the Lady Chapel window with the clear intent of setting it alight. They, too, were yelling.
‘One of two things is going to happen,’ said Tyrington in a low whisper. ‘Either the townsmen will break in and we shall be torn to pieces – there will be no reasoning with them. Or the Clare boys will set the church alight and we shall die of smoke and flames.’
‘Why would they destroy their own chapel?’ demanded Michael, not believing him.
‘Because he is in here,’ said Bartholomew, pointing at Tyrington. ‘And the Peterhouse students know he killed Lynton, because we told their Master – their Clare friends are just enjoying a spot of mischief. Besides, who will miss this old building? It is on the verge of collapse anyway.’
‘It was rash to blab about me to anyone who happened to be listening,’ said Tyrington. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘The Peterhouse lads saw me walking along Milne Street after they left Clare, and I only just managed to reach this church before they caught me. I was about to bar the door when the potters arrived, and the students fled back to Clare. I decided to wait it out – to stay here until the streets became calm. But then you two came along, and now we are all trapped, like fish in a barrel.’
‘I am not going to die,’ declared Michael firmly. ‘Not after surviving that run.’
‘The students nailed the Lady Chapel window closed, to make sure I cannot escape, and they know that if I leave any other way the townsmen will have me. I am doomed, and you will share my fate. It serves you right – you are my colleagues, but you betrayed me by telling Peterhouse what I had done.’
Michael hammered on the window until his hands hurt, but no amount of shouting distracted the students from their bonfire. They assumed it was Tyrington making the racket, and ignored it. Then came the smell of burning. The lad with the torch had touched it to the wood, and it was already alight.
‘You see?’ asked Tyrington. ‘Is it hopeless.’
‘I should have known you were not the kind of man we wanted in Michaelhouse,’ shouted the monk furiously, while Bartholomew prowled the church in search of another exit. It was not looking promising, and the bar keeping the door closed was beginning to buckle under the potters’ battering.
‘And why is that?’ asked Tyrington, maddeningly calm.
‘Because of something Kenyngham said before he died,’ replied Bartholomew, looking at the ruins of the spiral stairway that led to the roof. There had been another fall since his last visit, and it was now almost completely blocked with large stones. ‘He must have guessed you would apply for his post, because he told me to beware of crocodiles who made timely appearances. We needed a theologian, and there you were. Crocodiles and shooting stars. You and Arderne. Dear, wise old Kenyngham.’
‘He was a fool,’ said Tyrington in disgust. ‘And he should have died years ago, so better, more able men could take his place. I wish he had been poisoned, because it might have encouraged other useless ancients to resign and make way for new blood.’
‘Lynton was not the first man you killed in the hope of earning yourself a Fellowship, was he?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You shot Wenden, too.’
Tyrington shrugged. ‘It was easy to convince everyone that a drowned and drunken tinker was responsible – all it took was Wenden’s purse planted among his belongings. After all, I did not want anyone turning suspicious eyes on the man who stepped into the dead man’s shoes. My plan worked perfectly – or would have done, had Clare bothered to appoint Wenden’s successor.’