‘On a Sunday?’ queried Bartholomew. ‘Does that not seem rather hasty to you, Brother?’
Michael nodded. ‘My thoughts precisely. But you saw Bernard’s – it is tiny with only one chamber other than the kitchen. You would be the first to disapprove of living in the same room as a corpse. Harling heard of Father Yvo’s plight, and gave Bernard’s special dispensation to bury Armel this morning. Apparently, his friends demurred, saying that they wanted more time to pray over the body, but Harling and Yvo cited you as saying corpses carry diseases, and both insisted that Armel be buried immediately in the interests of the students’ health.’
‘I do not recall ever making such a grossly general statement,’ said Bartholomew, startled. ‘In the summer a corpse might be problematic, but Armel’s funeral could have waited until tomorrow. Or perhaps his body might have been moved to lie in the church.’
Michael shook his head. ‘Bernard’s is in the parish of St Botolph’s, and Grene’s corpse is already there. Apparently, there are a number of people who want to pay their last respects – undoubtedly a lot more than if he had died quietly in his sleep, as opposed to horribly and publicly at his rival’s installation feast. The rector of St Botolph’s said he could not take Armel as well, and so it is an act of great kindness on the part of Harling to go to the trouble of granting a dispensation for Armel’s early burial.’
‘I suspect Harling’s motive for granting the dispensation was so that Armel’s corpse could not become the focus of student unrest,’ said Bartholomew, cautiously relinquishing his iron grip on the horse’s reins to wipe away the rain that dripped into his eyes from his sodden hood.
Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘Really, Matt! You have become horribly sceptical of late. But you probably have a point. In which case, Harling is showing a good deal of common sense. I would not like to see the students rioting, as they did last summer, because they believe one of them has been murdered by a townsperson.’
Bartholomew nodded, hastily clutching at the reins again as the horse, detecting a degree of freedom, swung its head round and tried to bite his leg. ‘Damned brute,’ he muttered, ignoring Cynric’s soft laughter behind him.
‘Anyway, there is no suspicion that Armel and his friends were anything other than foolish for buying goods from a man they did not know in a tavern,’ said Michael, leaning across to position Bartholomew’s hands correctly. ‘We do not know for certain that Sacks intended Armel’s death to be a deliberate attack against the University.’
Their conversation was interrupted again, this time by a narrowing of the path. The route between Cambridge and Ely was called a road, but it was, in reality, little more than a trackway. In the summer it was pleasant – grassy and peaceful. In the winter the grass disintegrated into rutted mud and deep puddles and, after periods of extended rain, became a veritable morass. In parts some of the ditches that ran along the roadside were flooded, and water covered the path and surrounding land in an unbroken sheet. They were fortunate to have Jurnet with them, who knew the country well, and seemed to sense where the path went when all Bartholomew could see was bog.
The land on either side of the road comprised dense undergrowth that thrived on the dark, peaty soil, patches of which had been cleared for farming. At points, the road rose above the land, and Bartholomew could see the marshland rolling off in all directions, as flat and featureless as the face of the ocean. Isolated hamlets were dotted here and there, their few houses standing proud on the jungle of Fen that surrounded them.
Gradually, the small clearings grew scarcer, giving way more frequently to expanses of water. Here were the true Fens, an impenetrable tangle of reed and sedge, interspersed with tiny islands bearing alder and willow trees. The ancient track that had been built across them was more causeway than road, and constant repairs were required to prevent it from sinking below sea level. In places the causeway was well maintained, and stood proud of the surrounding bogs. In other areas neglect and the winter’s heavy rains had caused it to collapse, and Bartholomew was certain that, without the expert guidance of Jurnet, they would have wandered off the path and been lost forever in the marshes. Years before, when Bartholomew had been a child living with his sister, Stanmore had told him stories about the Fens to while away the long winter evenings. They were said to be haunted with the souls of men who had strayed from the causeway never to be seen again.
He leapt almost as violently as his horse, as a flock of ducks flapped noisily into the air, startled by the proximity of the riders. Then it was quiet again, soundless except for the squish of the horses’ hooves in the mud and the occasional clink of metal. Bartholomew began to shiver, despite his exertions to keep his horse under control. The silence of the Fens was total: no birds sang, there were no cracks or rustles in the undergrowth to betray the presence of animals, and not even the wind disturbed the bare twigs of stunted trees. Bartholomew stole a glance behind him, unnerved at the quiet and isolation, and recalled Stanmore’s man calling the Fens ‘sinister’.
The sound of Jurnet arguing with Alan came as a welcome respite to the stillness.
‘It is safer to keep to the main path,’ Jurnet was saying.
‘Not when only yesterday three men were killed on it,’ insisted Alan. ‘If you do not like it, you can go home.’
‘What is the problem?’ asked Michael, edging his horse forward.
‘I propose we avoid the section of the road on which the Chancellor’s party was attacked yesterday,’ said Alan. ‘We kept away from it on our outward journey.’
‘But it is dangerous to leave the causeway,’ protested Jurnet. ‘Other men have taken such routes and have never been seen again. I have lived in the Fens all my life, and I tell you it is not safe to leave the main road.’
‘But I know this other route,’ said Alan angrily. ‘And I knew the men who were killed trying to defend the Chancellor. Believe me, we are safer cutting to the east.’
Egil and Jurnet exchanged pained glances, but offered no further protest. They followed Alan wordlessly off the main path and along a smaller track. Bartholomew was next, with the mercenaries behind, and Michael and Cynric bringing up the rear.
At first, the track seemed no different from the main road, and cut through the Fens in a reasonably straight line. Then Alan began to lead them in a series of twists and turns that had Bartholomew totally disoriented. The path became so narrow that the shrubs brushed past him on either side, showering his already saturated cloak with droplets of water from their leafless branches. Bartholomew’s horse was unnerved at the proximity of the trees, and began cavorting again, so that he was forced to concentrate all his attention on preventing the animal from rearing and thrashing around with its forelegs.
The track then widened, but degenerated into a morass. The riders could do little more than guide the mounts around the edge of it, and hope that the sloppy mud was not deeper than it appeared. One of Stanmore’s stories had been about bogs that could swallow a man and his horse without trace, and Bartholomew had often heard Fenland farmers complaining that they had lost sheep, goats and even cattle to the black, suffocating mud of the marshes. He began to doubt the sagacity of Alan’s decision to cut east.
Once round the morass, they were faced with a brackish waterway that was too wide to jump, and looked too deep to wade across. Bartholomew leaned forward in his saddle, and saw the swathe of water disappear as far as he could see in either direction. It was fringed with reeds, and was as still as glass.
‘You are lost!’ said Jurnet accusingly. ‘I told you–’
What happened next was a blur. Jurnet toppled from his saddle, and Bartholomew saw the tip of Alan’s sword stained red. The injured man gave a high-pitched screech that rent the air like a whistle. Alan ignored it, and spurred his mount towards Bartholomew. Bartholomew’s horse, however, startled by the sudden howl of pain and terror, went wild. Bartholomew hauled desperately at the reins in an attempt to control it, but, with a piercing scream of its own, it was off, bolting wildly and blindly through the undergrowth to the left of the track. Bartholomew caught a glimpse of glittering steel, and saw Cynric engaged in a furious battle with one of the mercenaries, and that was all.
‘After him!’ came Alan’s enraged yell.
But Bartholomew had no time to assess what was happening behind him as the flailing branches ripped and tore at his face. He pulled on the reins as hard as he could, but the horse seemed oblivious to him. He could hear nothing except the thud of its hooves and the sound of branches cracking and tearing as it smashed through them. He imagined that at least one of the mercenaries was following him, an easy task given the trail of destruction the animal must have been leaving behind it.
Then the undergrowth gave way to another span of water, similar to the one that had caused Jurnet to accuse Alan of being lost. Bartholomew closed his eyes as the horse decided it could jump to the other side, but at the last moment realised it could not and faltered. The result was that horse and rider landed squarely in the
