Michael anxiously, wondering in what murky subterfuge the fat monk was embroiling her brother this time.
Bartholomew put a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Nothing to concern you. The Chancellor and a group of scholars attending the installation were attacked on the Cambridge to Ely road. I have been asked to tend to the injured.’
‘How can you say such a thing does not concern me?’ said Edith, knocking his hand away angrily. ‘If the Chancellor was attacked, how can the Bishop be sure you will be safe?’
‘He has sent an escort,’ said Michael. ‘And Cynric is going with us.’
‘Cynric will look after you,’ said Edith grudgingly. ‘But I am not happy about this. Tell the Bishop you cannot go. Tell him you are needed here. What will your patients do while you are gone – poor Mistress Pike took a turn for the worse last night.’
‘Edith is right,’ said Stanmore when she paused for breath. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘The Bishop’s summons is unreasonable. He has his own physicians at Ely.’ He called to his steward, who lounged against a wall watching two apprentices racing woodlice. ‘Hugh! You travelled the Ely road yesterday. Did you see any signs of trouble?’
Hugh shrugged laconically. ‘A cart had broken down near Stretham, but that was all.’
‘Any signs of outlaws on the roads?’
Hugh shook his head, his eyes not moving from the apprentices’ game. ‘Quiet as the grave. Sinister place, the Fens.’
‘Oh, Matt, please do not go,’ begged Edith. ‘The Sheriff told Oswald at the installation last night that three houses actually inside the town have been attacked by robbers. It is safe nowhere!’
‘If the robbers have turned their attention to the town itself, then I am probably safer away from it,’ said Bartholomew. He raised his hands to quell her angry objections. ‘I cannot refuse a summons from the Bishop – you know that. He has a good deal of influence over the Chancellor and I have no wish to lose my Fellowship.’
‘Take a couple of my men, then,’ said Stanmore. ‘Egil is from the Fens and Jurnet has a wife in Ely. They can go with you.’
‘That is not necessary,’ protested Bartholomew, but Stanmore had already moved away and was shouting instructions to Hugh. He turned to Edith. ‘I might be away a week and Oswald will need them before then.’
‘He will manage,’ she said. ‘And Egil and Jurnet will enjoy a few days away. Now. Why did you come? You know we are usually in Trumpington on Sundays, so you cannot have expected to see us here. Did you need something? To borrow a horse or a better cloak? Those are nice gloves you are wearing. They look new, although I see you have already torn the thumb. How long have you had them?’
Bartholomew smiled at her and evaded her question, not wanting her to know that he had managed to rip them in less than a day. ‘I came to ask about the apprentice that died here a month last Saturday. The one Father Philius was called to attend.’
Edith looked at him blankly. ‘What apprentice?’
‘The one that died a month ago,’ repeated Bartholomew. He wondered whether Stanmore might have kept it from her. He was apt to be over-protective of his family at times, as his insistence that Bartholomew took extra henchmen indicated. But Edith was probably more robust than her husband, and had no need of such coddling.
‘But none of our apprentices has died,’ said Edith, bewildered. She grabbed her husband’s arm as he walked past. ‘Tell him, Oswald.’
‘Philius said he had attended one of your apprentices four weeks ago on a Saturday night,’ explained Bartholomew again, trying to curb his impatience. ‘He arrived too late and the apprentice died.’
‘Not one of mine,’ said Stanmore. ‘They are all alive and kicking, believe me.’
‘Then perhaps Philius was mistaken in thinking it was an apprentice,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But he said he came here to tend a young lad who had been stricken with some kind of seizure.’
‘I repeat,’ said Stanmore, ‘not one of mine. I usually work late on Saturdays and Philius definitely did not come. And why would I call him? If one of my lads were sick, I would call you.’
Bartholomew had wondered about that at the time. Stanmore was well aware that Bartholomew and Philius did not see eye to eye on medical matters, and Bartholomew had been surprised to learn that Philius had been summoned to Stanmore’s house in his place.
‘But Philius seemed certain,’ said Bartholomew. ‘His book-bearer, Isaac, stole a bottle of wine from you – the wine that probably killed the apprentice although Isaac did not know that – and then it nearly killed poor Philius, too. Isaac was murdered last night–’
‘Just a moment!’ protested Stanmore, raising a hand to slow Bartholomew down. ‘What are you involved in this time? I would have thought you had seen enough murder and mayhem to last you a lifetime! Now you say this man Isaac, who was supposed to have stolen from me, was murdered?’
Bartholomew saw the horror in his family’s faces and regretted his decision to try to find out about the apprentice. Now they would worry about him until he returned, and he had learned nothing new from his questions. He knew that Stanmore discouraged drinking among his apprentices and discharged frequent offenders from his service. Perhaps they had kept the incident secret from Stanmore, so as not to incur his wrath. He suggested as much to the merchant, who dismissed the notion disdainfully.
‘How could that be possible? Do you imagine I would not miss an apprentice if he disappeared?’
Bartholomew could think of no answer to the problem and was nonplussed. Philius had no reason to lie about a visit to Stanmore’s house, and his own students – Gray, Bulbeck and Deynman – had said that they had seen one of Stanmore’s apprentices buying the same kind of wine from Sacks in the Brazen George that had killed Armel. But Stanmore had no reason to lie either, and yet they all could not be right.
A nudge from Michael brought his attention back to the present. Time was passing and he had no desire to be out on the road after dark. With two heavily built labourers – clearly delighted by the unexpected excursion – in tow, he made his farewells, and he and Michael made their way back along Milne Street. Michael sighed in exasperation as Katherine Mortimer hurried from her house to waylay them. Behind her were the merchants Cheney and Deschalers, and her son Edward.
‘Doctor!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Edward and I wanted to thank you once again for coming to Constantine yesterday, especially since it meant missing part of Master Bingham’s installation.’
Edward nodded his agreement. He still wore his sober brown tunic, looking like a drab little wren when compared to the colourful spectacle presented by the two older merchants.
‘How is Master Mortimer?’ asked Bartholomew, ignoring Michael’s impatient huffing at his elbow. ‘I hope he is feeling better.’
She smiled. ‘He must be: he is sitting in the solar demanding his breakfast. Masters Cheney and Deschalers came to visit him.’
Bartholomew nodded a greeting to the two merchants and then turned back to Katherine. ‘You must not let him overeat,’ he warned. ‘His stomach will not yet take kindly to the kind of repast your husband seems to enjoy.’
Katherine laughed. ‘That is why I am so grateful to Masters Cheney and Deschalers – they took his mind off his food for a while at least. Constantine is not an easy man to advise – especially in matters concerning his stomach.’
There was a brief silence as Bartholomew, Michael and the merchants reflected that Mortimer was not an easy man in any sense of the word. He was unpleasant when he was fit and well, but being deprived of what seemed to be his main love in life would render him unbearable.
‘We were telling him about that dreadful affair with Grene last night,’ said Cheney, changing the subject and leaning forward conspiratorially. ‘That should be a warning to us all. Grene was so sour and bitter during the celebrations that God struck him down for the deadly sin of envy.’
He looked unpleasantly smug, and Bartholomew was tempted to point out that malice and pride were just as likely to catch God’s attention as envy.
‘There are stories that he died in the service of Valence Marie’s relic,’ said Deschalers, regarding them questioningly. ‘The one that some scholars tried to discredit last year.’
‘That is arrant nonsense!’ said Michael brusquely. ‘Poor Grene’s death had nothing to do with that hand – and I can assure you, Master Deschalers, that those damned bones are no more saintly relics than is that dead dog I can see on the top of that pile of rubbish!’
