shores.’
‘That makes no difference, Matt,’ said Michael sagely, placing the dish as far away from him as possible. ‘Seaweed is seaweed and we should not eat it. It is not natural. We are not crabs!’
Bartholomew smiled and went back to poking the fire while the others finished their dinner. Despite Michael’s recovered humour, Bartholomew remained apprehensive about his determination that they stay in Denny for another night. He was certain that whatever it was that made him so insistent had nothing to do with the poisoned wine, or the attempt on their lives. Michael, thought Bartholomew, would not win his much-desired promotion from the Bishop if he indulged in a love affair with the Abbess of Denny!
Bartholomew awoke with a start to find a hand clamped firmly over his mouth. He was about to struggle when he saw Cynric’s profile etched in the faint light from the embers of the fire. He relaxed and the hand was removed. When he had grown bored with sitting by the fire, he had fallen asleep on his bed and the room was now quite dark. He wondered what time it could be: he could hear no sounds coming from the convent and the guesthall was totally silent. He sat up on the bed and watched Cynric buckling his dagger to his belt.
‘What is it?’ he whispered.
Cynric edged nearer so that his voice would not carry. ‘Michael has gone.’
‘Gone where?’ Bartholomew stood up and went towards Michael’s bed, a pointless action since Cynric had just informed him that Michael was no longer there. He rubbed his eyes and tried to force himself to be more alert.
‘Shh! I do not know. He went out a few moments ago. Should I follow him?’ He drew his cloak around his shoulders in anticipation.
‘We both will,’ whispered Bartholomew, after a moment of indecision. He could sense Cynric’s disapproval, but the Welshman kept his thoughts to himself. Bartholomew knew Cynric had a low opinion of his abilities to creep around undetected in the dark, but it was only Michael they were following and, if anything, Michael was even worse at stealth than was Bartholomew.
Absently slipping his medicines bag over his shoulder, he followed Cynric through the door.
‘Why are you bringing that?’ hissed Cynric, pulling at it in the dark. ‘It will be in the way.’
Bartholomew shrugged: taking his bag was so instinctive, he had not even realised he had done it. His teacher, Ibn Ibrahim at the University in Paris, had taught him he should never be without it, not even in the bath. Bath! All very well in the civilised countries to the east, but Bartholomew had only ever seen one bath-house in England, and that was in the former villa of a Roman nobleman and had fallen into ruin many centuries before. It was all Bartholomew could do to persuade people to give their hands the most cursory of rinses before eating, despite the fact that he was sure it would prevent a veritable host of intestinal disorders if they did.
He forced his mind away from the perennial problems of medicine and back to Cynric’s silent shadow moving ahead of him. Michael was nowhere to be seen, but Cynric led the way unhesitatingly around the side of the guesthall and into the gardens behind the church. An empty snail shell crunched loudly under Bartholomew’s foot, making Cynric glance back at him with a weary look of warning to take more care.
The temperature had fallen dramatically with the coming of clearer weather, and the ground underfoot was crisp with rime. For the first time in many weeks, the stars could be seen glittering between the occasional drifting cloud and Bartholomew paused to gaze upwards before an impatient tug on his sleeve set him following Cynric through the fruit trees and rows of kitchen vegetables. Bartholomew shivered in the cold, and wished he had brought his cloak.
At first, he thought Cynric’s instincts must have been wrong and that Michael had traipsed off elsewhere in the darkness. But then he saw a movement and there was Michael, all but invisible in his black habit. He appeared to be waiting for someone, because he paced back and forth with an agitation Bartholomew had seldom seen in the sardonic monk. Bartholomew began to have serious misgivings over spying on his friend, for it was apparent from his demeanour that Michael was not meeting just anybody: he was anxious and tense and Bartholomew had attended enough nocturnal meetings with Michael to know he was not easily unsettled from his habitual complacency.
‘Come on,’ said the physician softly, pulling at Cynric’s sleeve. ‘This is not right. We should not be spying on Michael and his lady-love.’
Wordlessly, Cynric led the way out of the garden and back towards the guesthall. When he stopped, it was so sudden that Bartholomew bumped into him from behind. Cynric raised his hand to warn him not to speak, but Bartholomew had already seen the dark shadow flitting along the side of the guesthall. The nun looked around carefully, before moving soundlessly through the fruit trees to where Michael waited. Cynric drew Bartholomew into the shadows until she had passed, and then led the way back to the guesthall door. He fiddled with the handle.
‘Hurry up!’ said Bartholomew, shivering. ‘It is cold out here. It is all very well for you – you have your cloak, but I do not.’
‘It is locked,’ muttered Cynric. He stood back and studied the handle, perplexed.
‘It cannot be,’ whispered Bartholomew impatiently. ‘Let me try.’
He fumbled around with the handle, and pushed and pulled at the door, but Cynric was right: someone had locked it.
‘How very odd,’ he said, looking at Cynric’s silhouette in the darkness. ‘Do you think someone broke in to search our belongings?’
‘If it were me, I would not lock the door while I was inside,’ answered Cynric softly. ‘It might interfere with a hasty escape.’
Puzzled, Bartholomew followed Cynric around to the side of the building to assess the chances of climbing through a window – they could hardly knock on the abbey door in the depths of night and say they had locked themselves out.
Cynric froze suddenly, motioning for Bartholomew not to move. There were two people kneeling at the foot of the wall below the window in the guesthall. Bartholomew peered into the darkness, trying to see what they were doing, but all he could see was their bent backs and something dark on the floor. Then there was a blaze of light and the two figures leapt to their feet. Both held a flaring torch in each hand. Bewildered, Bartholomew watched as one stood back and hurled the flaming missile upwards and towards the window. Leaving a trail of light behind it, the torch dipped and disappeared with a tinkle of breaking glass. The first torch was followed by a second and then a third. The fourth missed, and had to be retrieved and thrown again.
Cynric eased Bartholomew further back into the shadows as the two figures darted towards them, and watched them run out of the nunnery grounds through the gate next to the vegetable garden. Bartholomew was unable to take his eyes from the flames licking up inside the guesthall.
‘Damn!’ he whispered. ‘My cloak is in there, and so are my new gloves. Just when I was beginning to like them!’
‘I have your gloves here,’ said Cynric, pushing them into Bartholomew’s hand. ‘I borrowed them yesterday when I went to look for Egil.’
Numbly, Bartholomew put them on. He jumped and ducked as one of the windows blew out suddenly in a roar of flames, sending glass showering onto the ground below.
‘We are meant to be in there,’ Cynric whispered, stating the obvious. ‘That door was locked so that we could not get out.’
‘But we could still have jumped through the windows,’ said Bartholomew.
Cynric shook his head, squinting up and assessing their size, vividly outlined by the flames behind. ‘The mullions are too close together. I might have made it, but you would not and neither would Brother Michael.’
‘Michael!’ exclaimed Bartholomew loudly, suddenly afraid for the fat monk’s safety. He turned and raced to the vegetable garden with Cynric at his heels.
Michael stood under the trees, talking softly to the nun who had passed them earlier. They stood closely together in an intimate fashion, and Bartholomew wondered how Michael would react at being caught red-handed at his dalliance. The Benedictine looked up as he heard their footsteps coming towards him, his expression unreadable. As Bartholomew came nearer, the nun turned around and he was brought up short.
‘Dame Pelagia!’ he exclaimed.
The elderly nun acknowledged Bartholomew’s unexpected presence in the orchard with a curt inclination of
