Templar. Now it was in the hands of a community of Franciscan nuns, endowed by the wealthy Countess of Pembroke, who had also founded the Hall of Valence Marie. Bartholomew had vague memories of being given hot broth and shedding his wet clothes, but was asleep as soon as he lay on the bed provided for him in the guesthall.
He sat up and peered into the darkness. The shutters were drawn and the room was unlit except for the flickering fire. It was night, and he had evidently slept away the entire day. A gust of wind hurled splatters of rain against the windows, and Bartholomew hauled the blanket round his shoulders gratefully as he recalled the bitter chill of the previous day in the Fens. On the bed next to him was the unmistakable bulk of Michael, stomach rising majestically ceilingward. Cynric slept near the door, fully clothed, and with his long Welsh hunting dagger unsheathed near his hand.
The guesthall was a long, spacious room on the upper floor over what had been the Templars’ church. There was a garde-robe set in the thickness of the wall at one end, and a great fireplace at the other. A table stood under one of the windows, laden with blankets, a bowl of water and some bread covered with a cloth, while a pile of straw mattresses lay heaped in a corner in readiness for more visitors. Bartholomew was impressed at the degree of luxury for a foundation located in the inhospitable Fens, but recalled that the Countess of Pembroke was said to spend a considerable amount of time in the convent, and had even had her own set of apartments built. When she came, her household would also need to be accommodated, hence the sumptuous guesthall.
Bartholomew’s throat was dry and he needed a drink. As he eased himself out of bed, Michael woke immediately and sat up.
‘What is wrong?’ he demanded loudly. ‘Where are you going?’
On the other side of the room, Cynric’s eyes glittered in the firelight as he watched.
‘Thirsty,’ said Bartholomew. He padded across the hall in his bare feet to the water jug, filled a cup and took it back to bed with him. As he sipped it, he looked at the fat monk. ‘Tell me again what happened to you,’ he said.
‘What now?’ asked Michael irritably. ‘It is the middle of the night; Cynric and I have already told you all there is to tell.’
‘I cannot remember what you said,’ replied Bartholomew sheepishly. He took another sip of the water. It tasted peaty and brackish, like the stuff in the lode in which he had almost drowned, and he put it aside with distaste.
‘You have not told us your story yet,’ said Michael. ‘Cynric heard the mercenaries tell Alan they had seen you drown. How did you come to rise from the dead?’
Briefly Bartholomew told them, sparing much of the detail, not because he thought they would not be interested, but because it was a memory that would need to fade before he would feel comfortable recounting it for others. ‘What about you?’ he asked when he had finished.
Cynric left his bed and came to sit near the fire. His face took on a dreamy expression, and Bartholomew was reminded of the times that Cynric had entertained him by reciting ancient tales of Welsh heroes and great battles when he had been an undergraduate at Oxford – before he had gone to Paris to study with the Arab Ibn Ibrahim – and Cynric had first become his book-bearer.
‘I was riding last in the line, and the path was narrow,’ Cynric began. ‘I had my suspicions about the expedition from the start – there were things that did not seem right, but mainly the timing. If the Chancellor had been attacked on Saturday on his way to the installation, then there would not have been time for the news to have been carried back to the Bishop and the Bishop to dispatch messengers to arrive in Cambridge so early on Sunday morning. And others used the Cambridge to Ely road to attend the installation, but none reported the attack on the Chancellor.’
‘Why did that not occur to me?’ asked Michael, putting his large arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. ‘It is obvious now that you mention it.’
‘When I heard Jurnet scream,’ continued Cynric, ‘I guessed exactly what was happening. Fortunately, I was able to engage one man in a fight, which blocked the way for the others.’
‘Cynric is too modest to tell you, so I will,’ interrupted Michael. ‘He knew I was unarmed, and so he engaged this soldier long enough to allow me to escape. He saved my life.’
Cynric flushed with embarrassment and resumed his tale. ‘When I thought I had allowed Michael sufficient time to flee, I killed the mercenary and ran away myself. There were another five soldiers and Alan, and I knew I would not be able to fight them all. I set my horse to lay a false trail and doubled back to see what I could do for you. That was when I heard the northerner tell Alan you had drowned. It was a terrible moment, boy,’ he added, falling silent.
‘For me too,’ said Bartholomew, his eyes straying to the peaty water in the cup.
‘By the time I judged it safe to stop running, I was hopelessly lost,’ said Michael, taking up the story. ‘I took the saddle off the poor horse and discovered that someone had put burrs under it. Yours was probably the same, which accounts for their unruly behaviour. It was probably a ploy intended to exhaust us so that we would be less able to fight them when the time came. Anyway, I wandered aimlessly for the rest of the day until Cynric found me just before dusk. He brought us to the causeway and I suggested we claim sanctuary here at Denny. I knew the nuns would not refuse a monk in distress, even though they are usually wary of accepting unknown men inside their walls.’
‘At first light yesterday, I set off to look for Egil,’ continued Cynric. ‘I have no idea what happened to him. I was searching for clues when I found you.’
‘You were lucky, Matt,’ said Michael, stating the obvious. ‘You would not have survived much longer out there.’ He shuddered and drew the blankets up under his chin. ‘The Fens are a foul place to be in the winter. It is the one thing about my abbey at Ely that I do not miss.’
‘I wondered why Alan was so averse to having Cynric, Egil and Jurnet accompany us,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He knew it would be more difficult to murder five people than the two he had originally envisaged.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘Yet even so, I would have expected experienced mercenaries to have put up a better show. It was seven against five. I was unarmed, you are useless in armed combat, yet they allowed three to escape.’
‘Two – they thought they saw him drown,’ said Cynric, indicating Bartholomew. ‘And I am sure they believed you and I would go the same way, lost and alone in the marshes.’
‘That is beside the point,’ said Michael. ‘The soldiers Oswald Stanmore employs to guard his cloth carts would not have been so incompetent.’
Cynric mused for a moment and then nodded slowly. ‘You are right – they were poor fighters. Perhaps they were not soldiers at all.’
‘I wonder if they were the outlaws the Sheriff has been chasing this winter,’ suggested Michael. ‘They could be, you know. He told me they use the Fens like a stronghold, disappearing down little-known pathways when his men close in on them. And Alan did seem to know his way around when he took that short cut.’
‘Perhaps they are, but what do we do now?’ asked Bartholomew, standing and beginning to pace as he did when he was restless.
Michael watched him. ‘Nothing. It is late, and while you may have slept all day, we did not. I have been hearing the nuns’ confessions – and that was an eye-opener I can tell you; I should come here more often! – and Cynric has been searching for Egil. Go to sleep, Matt. We will talk again in the morning.’
He heaved his bulk onto its side and huddled down under the blankets as the wind rattled the shutters. Cynric did likewise, while Bartholomew lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He wondered what had happened to Egil, and dreaded telling Stanmore that his two men had been lost. Edith said that Egil was a Fenman. If by some remote chance he had not been killed by the mercenaries, he was one of the few people who might escape the treacherous marshes alive. There was thus a glimmer of hope, although Bartholomew suspected it was not a realistic one.
He listened to the patter of rain against the windows, watched the firelight flickering on the walls and felt a chill settle in his stomach. Stanmore’s men were murdered, Grene and Armel were dead from poisoned wine, Isaac was hanged and someone had been to some trouble to ensure he, Michael and Cynric died in the marshes. What vile plot was being hatched this time?
By the following day, the rain had abated and there were patches of blue sky among the grey clouds. Bartholomew rose at dawn, woken by the sound of the nuns’ chanting in the church. Michael opened a bleary eye,
